But Danko was alive. And Severin was going to keep him that way.
21
Kang couldn’t believe his eyes. What had happened? He looked accusingly at Lung, who looked back with equal surprise.
‘It was right on his chest!’ Lung exclaimed defensively.
Kang considered matters. His controller had assured him that there would be no equipment malfunctions; everything was state-of-the-art and had been fully tested. But the reasons were of no consequence now — his mission parameters specifically stipulated that success could only be achieved with the death of Danko. And the rewards promised to him and his team would only be forthcoming if the mission was a success.
As security personnel started to regain their senses and rush to the scene of the explosion, whilst others ran from the Riksdagshuset to protect Danko, and still others continued to reel in confusion, Kang managed to regain his own composure.
He turned to his men. ‘Go!’ he shouted, with an authority that they could not defy.
22
As soon as the missiles had been fired, Chang ordered the yacht’s pilot to fully engage the 1200 horsepower engines and head down the Lilla Värtan at full speed.
Within two minutes they had left the three patrol boats trailing in their wake, speeding through the icy waterway towards their emergency rendezvous.
Chang looked from the stern at the Navy vessels left behind and allowed himself a moment’s relaxation. But as he looked towards the bow, his heart began to race violently once again.
The Shevin with which they had been threatened began to emerge from the white gloom ahead, turning port-side on to block their path through the narrow inlet, its 55mm guns tracking towards the yacht.
A booming command from the captain of the ship telling them to surrender gave Chang only momentary pause. Chang could not surrender. The mission called for no such action.
‘Increase speed,’ he ordered the pilot.
The man behind the wheel looked at his commander incredulously. ‘But’ — a raise of Chang’s hand cut him off immediately.
‘Your family will be looked after. That is all that matters.’
The yacht’s pilot nodded his head in resignation, his hand pulling back on the throttles to engage full power.
Willie Larsson and his crew saw the explosion from over a kilometre away. Looking though his binoculars, he could see the smouldering wreckage of the small yacht, blown apart by the huge guns of the destroyer just a hundred metres before its suicide run would have resulted in a fatal collision.
As he surveyed the ruins, Larsson reflected that it was unfortunate they had lost such a valuable source of intelligence; dead men could not be questioned.
23
Severin watched the five men of Beijing News leap the press barricade on the opposite side of Bankkajen with disbelief.
They discarded their equipment as they sprinted across the road, semi-automatic pistols appearing in their hands like some sort of magician’s parlour trick. Severin pressed Danko down further into the ice and snow, as half a dozen Riksdagshuset security men opened fire at the approaching Chinese team.
Lung was hit straight away and went down only yards from the barricade. The remaining four men started to get closer to the limousine, operating in two-man fire teams and covering the open space in bounds; one pair kneeling to provide covering fire as the other pair advanced a few more yards before themselves kneeling to give covering fire of their own.
The effective tactic kept Severin and the others pinned down, and the smoke from the missile impact that still lingered over the area ensured that the rooftop snipers were rendered completely ineffective.
One of the security men made a lucky shot, catching one of the advancing pair in the chest, but four of his team were down. When he and the other remaining agent started dragging their downed team mates to safety, Severin was left momentarily alone with Danko, the wrecked limousine the only thing separating them from the remaining three assassins.
The odds were improved moments later as the smoke cleared briefly, giving two of the snipers a clear shot at one of the men. The 1000-grain .50in bullets from the massive Barrett rifles arrived simultaneously from two different angles, exploding the Chinese soldier’s head in a vivid scarlet spray. But then the smoke moved across the devastated scene once again, leaving the snipers powerless; and the remaining two Chinese agents continued to close in on the car in a pincer movement, one to each side.
Severin watched them approach from his position under the car, seeing the two pairs of legs getting steadily closer. He knew the snipers were helpless, and the situation too confused and chaotic to expect help from the other security personnel in the scant seconds left before the killers were on top of them.
Knowing instinctively the truism that action always beats reaction, Severin decided to take the initiative.
‘Keep down until I say, then run directly for the entrance,’ he whispered in Danko’s ear. The Russian President simply nodded.
Severin then immediately aimed his pistol underneath the car, firing four times at the legs of the man near the front of the limousine.
Kang cried out in pain as blood spurted from his broken tibias, and the fresh snow was crushed beneath him as he fell. Straining through the pain, he saw Danko sheltered on the ground on the opposite side of the heavy vehicle, and started to raise his pistol shakily towards the target.
Wasting no time after his first volley, Severin sprang up from the floor and aimed directly over the roof of the car. The two rounds he let loose struck the last agent directly in the forehead, a lethal ‘double tap’ that killed the man instantly.
‘Go!’ Severin shouted, and Danko was instantly up on his feet, sprinting for the door just as Kang started to squeeze his trigger.
Snow kicked up behind Danko’s feet as Kang’s bullets barely missed his hard-pumping legs. At the same time, Severin leapt at the limousine, diving across the roof and falling hard off the other side directly onto the prone body of Kang, the barrel of his pistol firm against the assassin’s head, their faces just inches apart.
As Severin felt Kang’s gun-arm twitch, he squeezed his own trigger, blowing the back of Kang’s head out onto the soft white snow in a crimson cloud.
24
It took over an hour until the scene at the Riksdagshuset was finally under some sort of control, although by this time Abrams had been spirited away with Rutherford to a secure location by their Secret Service detail. Danko and Vorstetin were being similarly protected, and the Treaty signing had been regrettably aborted.
But changes to the fragile balance of global security had been made, and it would not be long before the afternoon’s events would cause the entire world to spin frighteningly out of control.
PART TWO
1
Mark Cole closed his eyes and concentrated on controlling his heart rate. The shark was close now.
There had been a group of four of them swimming near the coral wall; there always were at this time of day. They were Caribbean reef sharks, and the species had been known to attack humans only rarely, with no attack proving fatal. They were large though, eight feet in length with powerful bodies.