Vital Force (26 page)

“You boys still with us?” It was the pilot, Major Cox, on the headset.

There was heavy breathing in his ear. “Get me the hell outta here,” Fisher said, almost out of breath.

“Maybe a little valium next time,” Jake said. “How long?”

“Two minutes ‘till the drop. Oh, one more thing.”

“Not a surprise,” Fisher yelled.

“Once you drop,” the pilot continued, “you'll feel a stream of air into the case. That's normal. You won't be on oxygen anymore, so we had to have a way to give ya some air. It's awfully thin up here.”

“What about the cold?” Jake asked.

“Yeah, you'll get cold for a while. But that's why we gave you those clothes.”

Jake guessed the two minutes were almost up. “Anything else?”

“Enjoy the ride.”

“Right,” Fisher said. “That's gonna happen.”

Suddenly, the sound of hydraulics moving echoed through the bomb bay, along with the gush of air. Then it happened. That sensation of floating was replaced by Jake's feet pointing downward, and he was lunging through the air in the position of an Olympic luger.

Seconds later, Jake heard a protracted scream and he imagined Fisher was also on his way.

Air immediately streamed in, cold and biting his only exposed skin along the outside of his goggles and mask.

Jake tried to remember the briefing. Dropped from twenty thousand feet. Rate of descent and terminal velocity, based on weight and gravitational force. Drag coefficient and resistance. Force equals mass times acceleration; Newton's second law of motion. Shit. Just hang on and enjoy the damn ride. Hope like hell the first altimeter releases the drogue and slows the descent before the second altimeter releases the parachute.

He didn't have to wait long. With a sudden lurch, he was seemingly pulled at his shoulders, like a giant hand grabbed him from the air and shook him before letting him go again. Seconds later there was another pull on him, and Jake guessed the chute had deployed properly. The air that had been rushing in was now a slow stream, barely noticeable.

Remember the briefing, Jake. What next? Then he heard it in his headset. The beeping came slow, seconds apart. Then the beeps increased. A second apart.

Just as the beeps became a solid, high-pitched sound, his legs collapsed, taking his breath away for a second.

The pod shattered into thousands of pieces. Jake found himself rolling around in a foot of snow, the parachute attached to his shoulders, pulling him slightly. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs, his eyes spinning around his new environment. It was as if he had just come from the womb into a cold new world.

He hurried to wrap his parachute around his arms, rolling it into a ball. Then he dug a hole in the snow and buried it.

Wandering back to the spot he had hit, he looked around at what was left of the pod. There wasn't much. It had been like dropping a light bulb.

His eyes started to adjust to his new surroundings. He was in a snowy field no more than a kilometer long by a half a kilometer wide. Damn nice drop, he thought. How in the hell had they done that?

Jake took off his helmet, returned the headset to his disheveled hair, and covered that with a wool hat from his pocket.

“Fisher. You there?” Jake whispered into the mic.

There was a slight grunt and then, “Yeah. I think I'm alive.”

“Where the hell are ya?”

“I don't know. A field of snow.”

Jake turned around, scanning the entire field in the darkness. “Can you flash your penlight once?”

There. About two hundred meters to the north, alongside the pine forest. He had missed the trees by only a few meters. “Got ya. Be there in a second.”

Jake trudged through the foot-deep snow, lifting his feet high as he hurried toward Fisher's location. When he got there, he found Fisher laying in the snow among the remains of the pod.

“You all right?” Jake asked him.

Fisher turned on his light for a second, revealing his ankle.

“Is it broken?”

“Don't think so. Just a bad sprain.”

Jake looked around and settled his eyes on the black cloth that had lined the container. He ripped that into long strips and then wrapped it around the Agency man's ankle and foot. Then Jake helped him to his feet.

“Give that a try.”

Fisher stood and put pressure on his ankle. “Hey, you do good work.”

Jake helped him bury his chute and helmet. They were about to start walking when Jake sensed that something wasn't right. Maybe he saw a flash of movement. Perhaps there was a slight sound, like a crack of a twig.

Fisher started to walk, but Jake stopped him with his hand to his chest.

Then came the familiar sound of a pistol sliding a bullet into a chamber, echoing through the night air. That was followed by a dancing red dot bouncing about Jake's chest.

Jake thought about going for his gun, but he knew the shooter could pull the trigger before his right hand reached inside his coat.

“Jake Adams?” came a voice from the darkness.

Damn. Jake rushed toward the woods, Fisher hobbling up from behind.

“What the hell are you doin' here, Turner?” Jake asked.

“What the hell ya think? Just like last time, pulling your ass out of the frigid Russian snow. That agent Fisher?”

“Yeah. He hurt his ankle in the drop.” Jake introduced Agency external ops officer, Lance Turner to Fisher.

“You out of Vladivostok?” Fisher asked.

“Yeah, but we need to get our asses in gear. Shit could be goin' down right now. The car's up the woods about half a click.”

The three of them moved off into the woods following Turner's tracks back toward the car. They got to the isolated road, barely a one-lane track between the tall pines, where Turner's car sat against a snow bank.

“A taxi?” Jake said. “That's a step up from that crappy Volga you were driving.”

Turning the key to enter, Turner said, “It's a loaner I found at the train station.”

They piled in, Turner driving, Jake in the front passenger side, and Fisher in the back. The car jumped to life and they waited for a moment before slowly driving off down the road.

“How in the hell'd you find us?” Fisher asked.

Turner raised a small device. “I set the DZ by G.P.S. I was briefed you'd be dropping by. They didn't tell me how you did it, though. Didn't even hear a plane. Heard this weird crash. Twice. Never heard anything like it.”

“I take it they had you follow the Asian women,” Jake said. “Where'd they go?”

Turner's face was uncertain. “I found Chang Li in Vladivostok flying in from Seoul. She went directly from the airport to the train station-took the Trans-Siberian all the way to Khabarovsk. Had the pork and potatoes for dinner. No wine. I don't trust anyone who doesn't drink wine.”

“What about the other woman?” Jake asked. “Chang Su.”

“They related?”

Jake hesitated and then nodded. “Sisters.”

“They in it together?”

Jake explained how Chang Su had helped him in China, and how she had been working as an Agency agent. Then Fisher told him about how he had been tracking Chang Li from California.

Turner listened carefully before saying, “That Li is the one who jumped you in Khabarovsk, Jake. Her and her boss. I have nothing on that guy, though. No intel. I saw both women on the train. They weren't traveling together. Li was in first class and Su was in third class, among the derelicts.”

“Where are they now?” Jake asked.

“A couple miles down the road. A dacha on a small lake. Very isolated.”

“What the hell they doing there?”

“No clue. Now, hang on a moment. I said they weren't traveling together. When Li got off the train in Khabarovsk, the other woman stopped her. She looked pissed. That's when the bald guy showed up.”

“The guy who nabbed me,” Jake said.

“I'm guessing so,” Turner said. “Strangest thing, though. “The bald guy kept yelling at Li. Something about an album. Where the fuck was his album. You forgot my fuckin' album. Strange shit.”

“Can't help you there,” Jake said. “So you followed them up into the country. How you know they haven't moved?”

Turner thought about that. “I was told to leave them there and pick up the two of you.”

Fisher stirred in the back seat, leaning forward against the front seat. “You know the two women have satellite tracking?”

Looking in the rearview mirror, Turner said, “Yeah, that's why I'm pretty sure they haven't gone anywhere. Bailey in Osan said he'd call me if they started to move. Hell, it's after midnight. They're probably crashing. It's just up ahead.”

The car slowed and Turner pulled over to the side of the road, cutting the lights.

Clouds slid from the moon, lighting the entire area. Something about this place seemed familiar to Jake. “I know this sounds stupid, but this looks familiar.”

“It should,” Turner said. “I picked you up just a half a mile up the road last week.”

“Shit.”

Turner pointed across the road at a narrow lane that cut through an opening in the pines. “They went up that skunk trail. I drove along the entrance, crossing their tracks in the snow. Doesn't look like they've come out. According to Bailey, the road curves around and stops at a dacha overlooking a lake. About a half a mile walk.”

“One way in and one way out,” Fisher said.

“My thought also,” Jake said. “Let's pull in and block their exit. There's no way in hell they could get around us.”

Without saying a word, Turner cranked over the taxi and, without lights, pulled the car into the long driveway, lodging it behind a couple of trees.

“There,” Turner said. “Now they can't even push it with their car. Heard they gave you guys weapons. So, let's rock and roll.”

Before getting out, they discussed their plan. Without any knowledge of the dacha, though, their plan would have to remain flexible.

The three of them got out and silently closed their doors. Even though they were quite a distance from the dacha, sound traveled a long ways in the evening.

Then they slowly walked down the narrow road toward the cabin, the only noise coming from their feet squeaking on the packed snow.

There was a light on in the small cabin on the lake, they could all see that much. To cut down on crossfire, should it come to that, they spread out to the west of the dacha. Fisher moved around to the far side toward the lake. Turner was in the middle and would approach the small wooden structure at the side. Jake would move lateral behind the cover of small pines toward the front door. They had done it that way because Jake and Fisher could be under audio contact at all times, and Turner, with the night vision goggles, would be able to see each of them.

Jake crept forward through the deep snow and was the first to spot the problem. Two men came out the front door, weapons over their shoulders, and lit cigarettes. What was even more disturbing, was their Russian military uniforms. He relayed that information to Fisher over the mic and used hand signals to Turner, who was now almost to the side of the dacha. But Jake was stuck. He had at least thirty feet of open space between his position and the front door. He'd have to wait for them to finish and go back inside. No, that wouldn't work. What were the soldiers doing there? Whatever the reason, they were in his way.

The moon was visible now, but Jake looked up and could see that the clouds would soon cover it again.

“Fisher,” Jake whispered. “Once the clouds cover the moon, I need a distraction around the northeast side of the building.”

“Gotcha.”

Now, they waited. He didn't want the soldiers to go back inside. Better to take them out and deal with the others without the extra guns.

They didn't have to wait long. A band of clouds swirled in front of the moon, bringing darkness.

Jake slid his CZ-75 out from its holster and quietly slid a round into the chamber.

Then it happened. It sounded like a stick smacking a pine trunk. The guards immediately threw their cigarettes into the snow and turned to the right side of the structure.

“They're moving toward you, Fisher.”

The two soldiers hurried around the side of the building and Jake rushed the front door, his gun leading the way. Through the corner of his eye, he saw Turner pull up alongside the west end of the dacha.

Jake slid up to the rough cut structure and peered through the edge of a small window by the door.

Then, the unthinkable happened. The moon came out again. Shortly, bursts of gunfire broke out from two AK-47s. More shots. But these were familiar 9mm rounds.

“Fisher. You all right?” Jake asked softly.

Nothing.

There was movement inside the dacha. Jake was stuck. They could fly out the door right into him.

He looked behind him and saw Turner at the corner of the building. Jake motioned for him to go around the side to see what had happened.

As Jake turned back around, one of the soldiers appeared at the far corner. Surprised. He started to raise his gun.

Crouching down, Jake shot once without thinking, catching the man in the throat. The soldier collapsed immediately into the snow.

There was more gunfire out back. First the AK-47 and then a 9mm.

Now came a haunting silence. Jake was shaking, unsure how to proceed. He had heard nothing from Fisher, and now Turner was gone as well.

Suddenly, the door burst open, followed by a shot. Having only a second to react, Jake took the bullet on the top of his left shoulder, twirling him around and back into the snow bank. He rolled to his side and tried to move his gun up into a firing position, when his eyes focused on the door once again.

Standing there, gun in hand, was Colonel Yuri Pushkina, his old friend and associate from the Russian Missile Forces.