“So what’s your plan?” Dempsey asked Hawke.
“We need to get out of here or we’re fish in a barrel. We’ll go around the back of the hangar through the office door over there and attack from two fronts. When we get there you take out the Bell and we’ll use the Kamov as our escape route, leaving Vetrov with no way out of this blizzard.”
“The office door is locked,” Dempsey said. “I tried to blast through with this but it was no good.” He showed Hawke the only weapon he had left — a small pistol.
“No fucking problem at all,” Hawke growled, and cocked the pump-action Remington with one hand. He was still thinking about Lea almost dying back at the library.
“Here we go again…” Lea said.
Hawke aimed the Remington at the door and fired three Hatton breaching rounds into the heavy, locked door in just four seconds — top hinge, handle lock, bottom hinge, and booted the door out of the way. An old technique he’d learned back in his Special Boat Service days. Any locked door on the floor in seconds.
Leaving Ryan and Alex behind, they ran into the blast of icy air and were outside again, where they split into two teams, Hawke and Lea on one side and Dempsey on the other, each approaching the choppers from opposite ends of the hangar.
The fire-fight was short. Not expecting assaults from two different directions, Vetrov and his men retreated to the dacha to regroup and re-arm. Seizing the moment, Dempsey fired a burst of submachine gun fire into the Bell’s fuel tanks and sent it up in a massive fireball. The smoke poured out of the wreckage and gave them a few seconds of cover.
“Now!” Hawke screamed. “Everyone into the other chopper!”
They climbed in the helicopter and fired her up. Hawke looked over the instrument panel display and made a quick check while Lea and Ryan helped Alex into the back seat. Dempsey started firing at the main entrance to the house while Hawke hovered the Kamov a few feet above the icy tarmac.
“Now, Dempsey! We have to go!”
“Those bastards took out two of my men!” screamed the American as he sprayed a vicious volley of submachine gun fire at Vetrov’s grand entrance, taking out several of his men. He turned to climb into the helicopter when Vetrov carefully aimed a pistol at him and shot him through the throat.
Hawke watched in horror as Dempsey’s eyes widened and then blinked maniacally as he took in what had happened to him. He raised his hands to clasp at the blood pouring from his throat, but it spilled out onto the snow, unstoppable. Hawke leaned over to grab his hand, but a second shot from Vetrov ripped through the former Green Beret’s chest and blew his heart out. He collapsed into the snow like a matchstick man.
Now the smoke began to clear, and Vetrov screamed orders at his men to move forward and retake the remaining helicopter. With no time to think, Hawke lifted the collective, raising the Russian military chopper into the air amidst a barrage of machine gun fire from Vetrov and his men.
They gained altitude fast and a second later they were out of sight, flying up into the swirling snowstorm.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Eden’s Gulfstream touched down at Venice Marco Polo Airport and trundled to a private gate on the southern apron. They took a taxi to the hotel that Eden had arranged for them in advance, racing through Triestina before crossing the Ponta della Libertà — the Freedom Bridge that separated Venice from the Italian mainland.
They rode most of the way in silence, the terrible image of Dempsey’s brutal murder still fresh in their memories, not to mention what had happened to his two men. Alex took it particularly hard — all of this was, after all, part of a mission to rescue her.
They emerged from the car into a bright, cool Venice day and moments later they were climbing into a gondola and giving the driver instructions to take them to the Gritti Palace, where Eden had booked some rooms to serve as a temporary headquarters during the mission to save Mazzarro. Hawke and Ryan carried Alex, and laid her down on the rear seat while Lea told the gondola driver where they needed to go.
Less than half an hour later the gondolier was gently cruising toward the mooring area outside the luxury hotel and for the briefest of moments Hawke almost relaxed, turning his face to the warm Italian sun and grateful to be out of the Russian winter at last.
“One of these days,” he said, staring at the impressive façade of the eighteenth century building ahead of them, “someone’s going to tell me where Eden gets all his cash, because this isn’t the kind of place Her Majesty’s Government hires out for its lackeys.”
Lea smiled, but said nothing. Moments later and with the help of the hotel staff, they were inside the hotel and swiping the card in the door of their room.
Inside, Sir Richard Eden rose from his chair by the window and offered a solemn nod as a greeting. He didn’t look happy.
“You’re late,” he said, but offered a belated smile. He kissed Lea on the cheek and nodded at Hawke and Ryan before turning to Alex. “And you must be the infamous Agent Nightingale?”
“Please, call me Alex.”
“Welcome, Alex,” Eden said. “And I took the liberty of arranging this wheelchair for you,” he pulled it from the bathroom and unfolded it. “It was all the hotel could rustle up in so short a time.”
“That’ll work just fine,” she said. “Thank you. Thanks for everything.”
“Not at all.”
Hawke and Ryan lowered her gently into the chair. As she made herself comfortable the balcony door opened and Lexi Zhang and Bradley Karlsson stepped into the room. Behind them Hawke saw the unmistakable figure of Scarlet Sloane smoking a cigarette. She was just about as sociable as he expected her to be.
He ignored the others and approached Lexi.
“Joe, I’m sorry about what happened, but…”
Hawke stared at her wordlessly for a long time before speaking. “You’re not lying to me, are you, Lexi?”
She shook her head.
“I mean, Sorokin really was holding your parents hostage?”
She nodded.
“And was going to kill them?”
Another nod.
“I need to hear you say it, Lexi.”
“It’s the truth, Joe — I swear. I was acting under coercion. I had no choice.”
Hawke frowned. “You could have told me — us — and we would have worked a way around it. Sent a team over to get your parents.”
“It seems easy to say that now, but Sorokin was very clear about my not involving anyone else. I thought I could take him out before handing over the map, but I should have spoken to you about it. I’m sorry, Joe.”
Hawke was unsure how to react, but unlike Scarlet Sloane he was inclined to believe her story, even if he harboured a shadow of a doubt at the same time. Either way, there was no time for recriminations now. The bottom line was she had contacted Eden and handed the map over to Scarlet and Karlsson in Berlin. That alone showed him her heart was in the right place and that she was telling him the truth, if not the whole truth.
“All right,” he said at last. “I’ll accept your word, but you’d better not be bullshitting me, Lexi.”
“I’m not, I swear…”
“So where are we?” Lea asked, changing the subject. “It really feels like we’ve been put through the wringer this time.”
Eden frowned. “The situation is critical. As you can see, Scarlet and Brad here got Agent Dragonfly out of Berlin after a little trouble in the zoo.”
“In a zoo?” Alex asked.
Eden opened his mouth to reply, but Lea cut him off.
“Forget about it,” she said. “That’s just the sort of thing that happens around here.”