She was seriously doubting herself for ever letting Marcus Ryker design this plan and run this operation. She didn’t care if he was the only link to the Raven. He wasn’t the CIA’s top dog in Russia. He wasn’t responsible for managing more than 120 officers and some three dozen Russian agents they’d recruited throughout the military, Duma, and executive branch. Yet somehow she’d let him dictate exactly what was going to happen and how. She hadn’t even put up a fight. He spoke with a humility and yet an air of authority unlike any other civilian she’d come across. And given the amount of time they’d had, his plan was probably the best anyone could come up with. But it was risky. It was bad enough when they had to contend with four bodyguards, but twelve?
If this went badly, it was going to go very badly.
Marcus heard the vehicles pull up out front.
He turned his night vision goggles back on and glanced out the small attic window. He could see two large bodyguards emerging from the lead SUV. They were dressed in suits and raincoats and held submachine guns at the ready. One moved cautiously through the darkness around to the backyard; the other moved toward the front door. The rest of the detail remained dry and warm in their SUVs, which now turned around and parked facing the main gate and the road beyond it.
They had made their first mistake, Marcus realized. With a dozen men on the team, at least eight of them should have jumped out to set up a secure perimeter and thoroughly search the house—regardless of the weather—leaving behind only the two drivers keeping their engines running and two body men staying close to their principal, Oleg Stefanovich Kraskin.
“Keyhole to Razor,” Jenny Morris whispered in his headset.
“What?” Marcus asked, annoyed by the sudden break of radio silence.
“Did you reset the alarm system? Over.”
“Affirmative. Hold your position and wait for my command.”
In theory, they were in an ideal tactical position. Morris had suggested that they could cut down the Russian security force with breathtaking speed, assuming that Marcus wasn’t found by the lone agent sweeping the house. Once the “all clear” signal was radioed back to the head of the detail, the agents would prepare to whisk Oleg inside. As soon as the doors of both SUVs opened and all the agents—aside from the drivers—began to exit, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel. Marcus had the high ground from a fixed yet hidden position. He could open fire and likely take out four or five of the Russians before they even realized where the rounds were coming from. Simultaneously, he could give the order to Morris to begin firing from the woods at the agents emerging from the other side of the vehicles. If she was as proficient a marksman as she claimed, she could likely take out all or most of the Russians on her side in a matter of seconds.
But the windows of both SUVs were tinted. That meant neither Marcus nor Jenny knew which vehicle their subject was in. And they couldn’t afford the possibility of Oleg being hit in the cross fire. It wasn’t just the thumb drive Marcus needed. He needed Oleg alive to execute the next phase of the plan.
81
Don’t die, and don’t get arrested.
His mother’s words rang in his ears as Marcus heard the front door open. He heard someone enter the code to disarm the security system. It seemed to take forever, but eventually he heard someone coming up the stairs from the first floor to the second. This was it. There was no turning back now.
He gripped the Russian-made pistol as he listened to doors opening and closing. Marcus could visualize every step the agent was taking. He’d cleared homes like this a thousand times and every time had forced himself to resist the temptation to believe everything was fine and the location was safe.
Marcus knew exactly what this agent was thinking. Oleg had announced the decision to come to his parents’ home less than an hour before. He’d made the decision in the middle of the night. The agent would certainly have been told that the Kraskins had left the country earlier in the evening and would not be home. They had no servants or staff, no pets, nobody house-sitting, only a housekeeping crew that came on Monday mornings. Thus the agent believed no one could possibly have known that Oleg was going to be there that night. This—more than the rotten weather, which after all was a staple of a Russian bodyguard’s existence—was the single most important reason the entire detail wasn’t on highest alert. They simply could not foresee a realistic, immediate threat. Still, Marcus knew the agent was a professional. He would at least be looking for hidden weapons, explosives, listening devices, surveillance cameras, or anything that seemed odd or out of place.
The door handle to the attic rattled. The agent was checking to make sure it was locked. But rather than move on, as Marcus had fully hoped and expected he would, the agent slipped a key into the lock. Marcus froze as he heard the door open. He instinctively held his breath as a beam from the agent’s flashlight shone up the stairs and swept from side to side, stopping finally on the small window. Marcus, hidden in a crawl space around the corner from the stairwell, was not immediately visible. But he was now grateful he hadn’t removed any of the glass panes. That would have been a dead giveaway.
Marcus silently prayed the agent would be satisfied with a quick glance up the stairs and go on to finish his check of the rest of the house. But suddenly he heard the steps creaking. This guy was doing his job. He was doing it more thoroughly than Marcus had anticipated, and this radically changed the calculus.
Marcus quietly turned off his night vision goggles. He steadied the pistol in one hand. In his other he held the remote switch to the explosive charge in the basement. But he couldn’t take out the power now. It would destroy his most important advantage: the element of surprise.
Marcus watched as the man’s shadow came up the stairs, cast by the light from the second-floor hallway. He was moving slowly, too slowly, as if he suspected something. But how could he? Marcus had been careful to leave no trace of his presence. His backpack was at his feet, deep inside the crawl space. The sniper rifle was at his side. He hadn’t left a flashlight or anything else on the stairs or at the base of the window. What was wrong? Why was the man moving so slowly?
Now why had he stopped?
Then Marcus saw what the agent saw. On the wall below the small window were smudges of dust. Marcus realized he must have made them when he was trying to maneuver in the cramped quarters. The man’s flashlight was fixated on them. Surely he was evaluating whether they were fresh or had been left there by the owners or a workman or even Oleg in the past. Again he began making his way up the stairs. Time seemed to stand still. Marcus knew he couldn’t shoot the man. To do so could blow his cover. Oleg was not yet out of the vehicle and in the house. If Marcus fired at this man and his whisper mic was on, he could alert a dozen Russian agents who could storm the house or speed off with Oleg and the computer files.
But if the agent found Marcus, he would likely shoot first and ask questions later. Either way the plan was blown.
Marcus had to make a decision. So he pulled the trigger four times in less than a second, firing blind through the crawl space wall. All four bullets pierced the drywall. Three hit their mark. The Russian collapsed and slid down the stairs.
Marcus bolted from the crawl space. He pivoted around the corner and saw the agent sprawled on the floor. It was possible he was already dead, but there was no margin for error. He fired two more shots, one into the man’s heart, the other into his head. He knew he wasn’t wrong about all the consequences that could unfold from his decision to take this guy out, but in the end the calculation had come down to one decision: kill or be killed.