Last Snow - Eric van Lustbader [87]
It couldn’t be, but there it was in front of him in black and white. “EX” meant that General Brandt had put out a sanction—an immediate death sentence—on the subjects. The “X” prefix meant “use all available methods at your disposal.”
“KIRILENKO MUST have been with the team that surrounded us at Rochev’s dacha,” Annika said.
“What a joke,” Alli said. “He must think we killed Rochev’s mistress. That’s why he’s coming after us.”
Jack and Annika stared at her. “It’s no joke,” they both said, more or less at once.
They were still in the mouth of the corridor leading to Airport Services. Jack was looking around for security personnel who were sure to be patrolling the area, while Annika kept an eye on the door to the CCTV control room through which Kirilenko had disappeared not five minutes ago.
“There’s no doubt he’s looking for us,” Annika said. “And, as Alli pointed out, now we’re suspects in three murders.” She shook her head. “There’s no help for it, we’re going to have to terminate him.”
“What?” Jack spun around. “Are you crazy? We can’t attack an FSB officer.”
“I didn’t say attack.” Annika’s carnelian eyes never looked harder. “I said terminate.”
“As in kill?” Alli said.
“Yes, dear. We have to kill him in order to save ourselves.”
“I won’t hear of it,” Jack said.
“Then we’re doomed.” Annika indicated the door with her chin. “Unless we put him six feet under, I promise you this sonuvabitch won’t stop until he’s either killed us or dragged us back to Moscow in manacles.”
A look of pure terror distorted Alli’s face. “Jack—”
“If not for us, then for the safety of the girl,” Annika pressed her point. “For so many reasons, we can’t allow anything to happen to her.”
Jack shook his head. He knew she was right, but he wasn’t willing to give in just yet. “There’s got to be another way.”
“I’m telling you there isn’t, we’ve got to do it now while we have the chance,” Annika said urgently.
As if to underscore her anxiety, the door to the CCTV control room opened. They shrank back into the shadows as Kirilenko emerged, his face marred by a smug look that told Annika everything she needed to know.
Without another word to either of her companions, she sprinted from the shadows and, while he drew out his cell phone, she delivered a vicious blow to his kidneys, wrapped her crooked arm across his throat, and with astonishing power, jerked him backward off his feet.
GENERAL ATCHESON Brandt was the last person Dennis Paull had suspected of treachery—so much so, in fact, that in nine hours of eye-watering work he hadn’t yet gotten around to shining his investigatory spotlight on Brandt or his life.
Paull had finally quit his room, reeking of human sweat and the peculiar odor of heated electronics. It was two thirty in the morning and he was walking down the hallway of the Residence Inn, looking for the cigarette vending machine he’d noticed when he’d checked in. In these days of universal smoking bans, cigarettes were hard to find, never mind an old-fashioned vending machine that sold them. Nevertheless, there was one here, crouching on a brown carpet whose pattern failed to hide stains even steam cleaning couldn’t get out.
He hadn’t smoked in twenty years, but the pressurized developments of the last half hour had caused his old craving to reassert itself. He’d tried to fight it, but it was no use. Like most vices, once it lodged in your mind it couldn’t be denied.
Slitting open the pack, he tore the filter head off a cigarette, then lit it with a match from a pack thoughtfully provided with his purchase. He used the key card to his room to open the side door to the parking lot, went out into the chilly night. It had rained sometime while he’d been working and the concrete walkway was slick and wet; cars gleamed in the security lights. The hum of traffic from the highway was reduced to the inconstant