David Wellington
The Hydra Protocol
For those who served, and those who still do
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book would not have been possible without Russ Galen, my agent, and Diana Gill, my editor. I’ve thanked them both often enough that I hope they’re getting the point by now. I would also like to thank the people at HarperCollins who made the last year so much fun, in marketing, in publicity, in library outreach (though we seriously need to release that blooper reel), in getting me to the conventions and public appearances and arranging for me to meet my readers (who definitely deserve some gratitude as well). Specifically I’d like to thank Danielle Bartlett, who worked tirelessly on my behalf even though she’d just had a baby and was a bit busy with other things. It was a great summer — I got to go to San Diego Comic-Con for the first time, among many other highlights — and it wouldn’t have happened without Danielle. I am truly grateful.
PART I
Dust motes hung in the early light streaming down through the archive’s overgrown windows, twisting slowly in the dead air. A card catalog cabinet lay overturned on the cracked linoleum, its contents gutted and spilled onto the floor so the fine handwriting on the cards was bleached to sepia by years of sun exposure. One wall of the main room was lined with stacks of periodicals held together by fraying twine — old party literature from discredited regimes, outdated factbooks and bound analyses from long-dead KGB agents, all marked STATE SECRET, all still forbidden long after the Cold War had ended.
She stooped down in the dust and picked up a photograph of Brezhnev that had been filed in with the rest. It was just a standard portrait, the kind that might have hung in every office building in Russia forty years ago. Still it had been stamped as secret, with a warning indicating the penalties for unauthorized access. Most likely the librarians here had gotten in the habit of stamping everything that came across their desks.
The Soviet Union had never had time to come to trust computers. Right up until the end hard copy had been the rule — all secret information must be printed, bound, and filed, even if by 1991 no one wanted it anymore. What she was looking for had to be here, in this old archive building on an uninhabited island on the wrong side of Russia. For years she had tracked down the information, the last piece she needed to complete her mission. Her life’s work, she thought, with a little grim humor.
So much had been lost when the coup failed and Yeltsin took the reins of the country. In the first flush of liberty the country had gone mad, like a dog chewing at its own paw. KGB installations across the country had been ransacked and set aflame, people who knew vital things had been taken away and quietly killed before they could be debriefed, computers had been smashed, archives razed. Of the seven KGB libraries in Russia that had once housed the information she needed, six had been pulled down and their records burned. This one had survived only because no one remembered it was here. Even the librarians who once worked here had disappeared, some crawling into bottles to drink themselves to death — the traditional suicide method for ex-KGB — some emigrating to breakaway republics or even nearby Japan.
Here was the last repository of the records the KGB had kept on dissidents, on foreign spies, on people who simply could not be trusted. Here was the institutional memory of a police state.
Here—
Here it was.
One of the twine-bound stacks held theater asset reports, dry technical papers listing every rifle, tank, and canteen the army possessed in a given region. Hidden among them was one marked with the sigil of the Strategic Rocket Forces. It was not only marked secret but sealed with a red band and actual wax. One glance at the title and she knew she’d found it:
STROGO SEKRETNO/OSOVAR PAPKA
SYSTEMA PERIMETR PROJEKT 1991
After so long she could hardly believe she held the report in her hands. The last copy on Earth, and the only piece of paper that could make the world safe again. She placed it inside her coat, close to her heart, and then pulled up her zipper to keep it in place.
Hurrying to the door she almost missed the sound. A crackling, the sound of someone stepping on broken glass outside. She stopped in the doorway and tried not to breathe. She heard a man speaking, though she could not make out the words. Then someone else laughed in response. It was not a kindly sounding laugh.
She didn’t know what to do. She’d known they would follow her, that they would chase her to the ends of the world. She’d accepted the risk. But here, in this lonely place where only seabirds lived now, she’d thought she would be safe.
Evidently not.
“Will you make us come in, little friend?” someone called out, in Russian. “There is no other exit. You must come this way eventually. And we will not wait for long.”
She closed her eyes, trying to get an idea of where the voice came from. To the left of the door, she believed. But there were two of them. If they’d been trained by the KGB, one would stand directly before the doorway, the other to the side. If they were Spetsnaz — much worse — they would flank both sides, because they would expect her to come out shooting.
She was unarmed. She had not even thought to bring a gun to the island. After all, there were no people on it.
There was no solution except to march forward, into the sunny doorway. Outside, the larch trees that covered most of the island fell away to form what looked like a natural clearing, just large enough for them to land their helicopter. She saw it first, a small late Soviet model that could not be hiding too many men. At least there was that.
Next she saw the man who had called out to her. He was in front of her and a little to the left. He wore a turtleneck under a well-tailored blazer and had the dead fish eyes of a man who had killed before. He had a knife in his hand, the kind one might use to pry open an oyster. His much larger partner, who wore a denim jacket, was off to the right a little ways, watching her. His hands were in his pockets. Perhaps he wanted her to think he had a gun, but if he did, he would have already shot her.
Just knives, then.
Konyechno, she thought. Okay.
The man in the blazer came toward her, his knife held low by his thigh. He spoke softly, as if he wanted to persuade her to come quietly, though she knew his orders were to make sure she never left the island. “Did you find it?” he asked. “The thing you came to steal? It will not—”
He didn’t get to finish his sentence. She moved in fast, sweeping her leg across the back of his calf to bring him off balance. She brought her right arm across her body, protecting her torso while delivering a strong blow to his forearm. It was not enough to knock the knife out of his hand, but it left him unable to strike, his knife arm stretched out to his side. He tried to recover by shifting his footing, but her foot was already behind his leg and she kept him balancing on the other foot. With his free hand he tried to grab for her throat but she twisted away, shooting out her left hand to grab his wrist. She dug her thumb deep into the tendons there and his hand released, dropping the knife.
He had been trained in fighting, she could tell. He did not panic or try to break free — he knew she had locked his leg. Instead he brought his hands up to punch at her face and her throat. He had the advantage of mass and arm strength and one good blow to her trachea could put her down, but she was faster and managed to take his strike on the side of her head. Her ear burned with pain but she ignored it. She had too much to do, yet.
She threw her arms around his waist and pushed her head under his armpit. He was already off balance so she threw her own weight backward, letting herself fall onto her posterior. His own weight carried him over her back, head first, and she both heard and felt the moment when his skull struck the ground behind her.