One
The scene was still, despite all the violence.
A breeze blew up from the valley. A raven soared over the treetops. A hot piece of metal ticked as it cooled in the freshly fallen snow.
Jake Keller opened his eyes.
Debris was scattered across the mountainside. Wisps of smoke rose into the air. Jake wiped the blood from his face and lifted himself to one knee. Everything hurt.
The air smelled of charred plastic, burnt jet fuel, and death.
Jake rose to his feet and staggered through the wreckage: past twisted metal and torn leather, around bundles of scorched wires, through a graveyard of personal possessions. Off to his left, a piece of the landing gear stuck out of the snow: a smoldering rubber tire attached to a sheared-off metal strut. To his right, at the base of a thick pine tree, was the lifeless body of the man who'd been sitting by the right wing. He'd been launched headfirst from the fuselage when it had broken in two.
Jake stumbled to what had been the nose of the aircraft. The pilots had done a commendable job, guiding the plane down onto a relatively flat section of the Alps, but they'd been given an impossible task. The crash had driven the engine, and what was left of the bent and broken propeller, back through the cockpit and into the passenger compartment. Both pilots had suffered massive trauma, as had the English couple sitting behind them.
Jake was the only survivor.
He looked to the east, across the Three Valleys. The light was fading quickly, but the warm glow of the setting sun reflected off a distant object floating above the horizon. The faint whir of a helicopter echoed through the mountains, growing louder as it flew toward the crash site.
Jake glanced downhill. There was something in the snow-something man-made. Though there were many man-made objects scattered amid the wreckage, Jake knew this one was significant, though he knew not why. He looked at the helicopter, looked at the object, and realized he could not reach it before the helo arrived. He headed uphill instead-by instinct driven into the woods-and used a downed evergreen bough to brush away his footprints. The hasty deception wouldn't survive careful scrutiny, but time was just another item on the list of things Jake Keller needed but did not have. He crawled into a pit at the base of a towering pine tree and hid.
The helicopter arrived. It was a black twin-engine Airbus, large and powerful and very much at home in the French Alps. It orbited the wreckage a hundred feet off the ground, with its lights off and its side doors locked open, generating its own blizzard as the downwash from its rotor simultaneously blew snow down from the trees and up from the ground.
The helicopter slowed to a hover over the crash site and a thick rope fell from its open door. Two men slid down swiftly amid the cloud of blowing snow. They wore cold-weather hiking boots and insulated parkas, and each carried a small backpack with snowshoes, climbing ropes, and an ice axe strapped to the outside.
Serious mountain gear.
Twenty seconds after it had arrived, the helicopter flew away.
The site was still once again. The two men made their way to the forward end of the fuselage and worked their way aft, past the victims. The plane's tail section had settled on its side and one of the men used a flashlight to illuminate the interior-the exact place where Jake had been seated. The man spoke into a radio, but Jake was too far away to hear what was said or even what language had been spoken.
As the sun fell below the distant peaks, the men switched on red-lensed headlamps and began an organized search. Starting at the center of the crash site, they repeatedly walked north, east, south, and west-methodically extending each leg of the pattern by a few paces. They'd been searching for just three minutes when one of them squatted in the snow to examine something he'd found.
Footprints.
Jake's footprints.
The man reached inside his jacket and removed a pistol with a sound suppressor screwed onto the end. His partner pulled a folding rifle from his pack and put it to his shoulder. The men moved uphill cautiously-their heads swiveling in every direction-like predators tracking dangerous prey.
Which of course, they were.
Jake Keller had been with the Central Intelligence Agency for seven years and part of its elite Special Activities Center for the last two. He'd traveled the world, fighting America's enemies wherever he was needed. From warmongering theocrats in Iran and rogue politicians across Asia and the Middle East, to sadistic warlords in Africa, the mission to protect his homeland and its citizens had driven Jake to some of the most dangerous places on earth. It had never been quick, it had never been easy, but he was tenacious, tough, and a lethal threat to any and all who wished harm to America.
But today's battle was one he could not win.
Routine passenger screening for the short commercial flight had seen to it that he was unarmed, and he was too battered to run. The best he could do was hide.
The searchers were fifty yards distant, sweeping their headlamps across the increasingly dark mountainside, when Jake used his bare hands to burrow into the snow. The cold stung his skin, but frostbite and hypothermia could be treated-certainly more so than the alternative.
The men were twenty yards away when Jake brushed snow on top of himself, hoping that darkness and a miracle might let him see another sunrise.
But the men kept coming, the snow crunching underfoot with each step. Darkness and a healthy fear of the unknown slowed their advance. They'd closed to within ten yards when something froze them in their tracks. It was the muted thrum of another helicopter, resonating through the winding valley. The men doused their lights, looked and listened. Aircraft were common in the area, but not after sunset, when the mountainside Altiport closed for the night.
The second helicopter roared over the nearest peak and began a wide, arcing turn back toward the crash site. The two men bolted, running downhill through the deep snow to stay outside the intense beam of the helicopter's xenon searchlight. In just a few seconds, they'd vanished into the darkness.
Jake watched the helicopter descend amid the trees and settle into a hover a foot over the ground. It was a large aircraft, more powerful than the first; painted blue with a white stripe. Two men jumped out. The helicopter climbed back into the night sky and began to orbit the crash site with its searchlight illuminating the mountainside.
Jake rose to his feet. He was delirious, stumbling, and shivering, but inexplicably drawn toward the brilliant cone of light. He staggered a few more steps, light-headed and in pain, and searched for the object he'd seen stuck in the snow.
He was in a whiteout when he came to.
The helicopter was a hundred feet overhead and descending steadily, its powerful main rotor slicing through the air seven times a second. A man stared down at Jake from inside the aircraft, apparently unconcerned that the heavy machine would soon crush Jake beneath its skids. It drew closer, whipping snow into the air and stinging Jake's face and eyes. His heart beat furiously and his lungs gasped for air. He tried to run but his legs wouldn't move. His arms were frozen at his sides.
He felt paralyzed.
Two
Keller is alive."
Misha was standing in the steam room, still kitted out in his mountain gear-everything except the boots. While weapons, drugs, and more prostitutes than a man could shake his stick at were routinely kept inside the chalet, shoes were not.
Ever.
Nikolai Kozlov was a man of absolutes.
The room was laid out like an amphitheater, with three rows of seating to accommodate the owner and his frequent guests. The walls were mosaics of smooth stone and glass that had been polished to look as if eons of waves had tumbled over them on some deserted beach in the South Pacific. Purple, green, and yellow LED lights embedded in the walls and ceiling changed colors in tune with the electronic dance music that was piped into every room in the house.
It felt like a cross between a primordial cave and a 1970s discotheque.
"How is this possible?" said Kozlov.
"He survived the crash," said Misha. "We found his footprints, but a rescue helo showed up before we could locate him."
"Were you seen?"
"Nyet."
Kozlov stood, naked, and walked across the teak floor. Fifty-five years of age, he kept himself in peak physical condition, refusing to concede anything to the advancement of time. He opened a stainless steel freezer recessed in the wall, removed a bottle of Leon Verres vodka that cost as much as a nice house, and took a long pull.
"He must not find what he is searching for."
"The only thing he's going to find is a shallow grave," Misha said.
Kozlov took another drink and sat on his towel. "I need you focused on London."
"I'm focused," said Misha. "The advance team is there now, scouting routes and locations. I'll do preliminary recon as soon as Keller is in the ground and out of the picture."
Kozlov took another drink of vodka and lay down on the bench. Misha rolled his eyes. It might have been 115 degrees in the steam room, but he'd spent fifteen years in an elite military special operations unit where he'd routinely deployed to either the coldest place on earth or the hottest. Wearing his heavy mountain gear inside the steam room was like a fucking holiday.
"It must look like an accident," Kozlov declared just before the door to the steam room opened.
Misha turned to see a woman enter wearing a bikini made from what appeared to be a few pieces of string and three postage stamps. The tall Slavic beauty was young enough to be Kozlov's daughter but most certainly wasn't. She was part of a group of "massage therapists" who stayed in a nearby hotel for the month encompassing Orthodox Christmas and Russian New Year.
"Nadia," acknowledged Misha.
She ran her hand inside his jacket and over his equally impressive chest.
"You're hot," she said.
She walked over to Kozlov and lay down with her head in his lap.
Misha took that as his cue to leave.
He took the elevator upstairs. The chalet was twelve thousand square feet of wood beams and locally sourced stone. Kozlov had built it three years earlier. He'd chosen Courchevel because of the French mountain town's natural beauty, expansive ski terrain, and large Russian expat population. Koslov counted himself among the group, having lived and conducted his business affairs abroad for eleven years, two months, and six days.
It was an easy date to remember, for it was the day the Russian president had taken power.
The president and Kozlov had been classmates at the prestigious Moscow State School 57. Both had been star students in math and science and fierce competitors on the school's elite chess team. They'd gone their separate ways during college but upon graduation each had been recruited to GRU, the nation's military intelligence directorate and external security service. The president had joined Second Directorate, focusing on intelligence analysis, while Kozlov had found his calling as an operations planner for the Main Directorate of the General Staff. Though their careers rarely intersected, the two men had rekindled their schoolboy friendship and become close. When the president departed GRU to run for local and then regional office, Kozlov had been an ardent supporter. Upon his ascension to the Kremlin, the president pulled Kozlov from GRU and put him in charge of a steel mill.
Though Kozlov was a chess grand master and a certified genius, all he knew of the steel industry was that the mill had been seized three months earlier by the Russian tax authorities. Yet, within a year, the once-failing mill became enormously profitable as inflated government contracts flowed in.
Kozlov channeled the initial profits back into the business. Other mills were acquired. More contracts were obtained. Competitors found themselves with legal trouble, labor problems, or supplier disruptions. A monopoly emerged. Kozlov funneled the profits through a Swiss bank with murky rules and ever-murkier ownership. For every ruble that was deposited, 25 percent went to a management company owned by Kozlov, 25 percent went to an investment portfolio owned by Kozlov.
And 50 percent went to the Russian president.
Three
Is the line secure?"
"It's your equipment," said Misha.
"Don't be a wiseass. There's too much as stake."
"It's secure, but Kozlov isn't. He's worried about Keller."
"Put him on."
"He's . . . indisposed."
"I don't think you're taking this seriously enough."
"I just took down a commercial airliner-how much more serious do I need to be?"
Shadow said nothing.
"You're being paranoid," added Misha. "How much of a threat is Keller really?"
"He's barely thirty years old and he's already the best paramilitary officer I've ever seen."
"Except for me."
"It'd be a fair fight."
"Not if I'm involved."
"Don't be so goddamned cocky. Keller may be a Boy Scout, but every time we throw him in the deep end-Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia-he manages to thread the needle between doing what he thinks is 'right' and what the Agency actually needs. Once he gets his claws into something, he doesn't let go. I don't know what alerted him to you and Kozlov, but we can't have him poking around this close to the London operation."
"He's one guy."
"So is the president."
"And if Keller lives?"
"So does the president."
Misha snorted. "How is the golden boy now? He was in a plane crash. It's not a stretch to think that London might be over before he gets out of the hospital."
"He's alive. We don't have details."
"I thought CIA was in the intelligence business."
"Keller is on a leave of absence."
"I'm thinking I need to finish this on my end."
"Wait."
"Kozlov said the same thing. What's your problem?"
"What are you going to do, give Keller a little pillow therapy in the hospital? We took extraordinary measures to make this look like an accident. The Agency will put on a full-court press if he dies mysteriously after the crash."
"Fine, but I'm warning you. You know how Kozlov gets. He wants it to look like an accident but he also wants Keller dead. If we don't wrap it up soon, he'll call his GRU contacts, Keller will not-so-mysteriously die of polonium poisoning, and Russian fingerprints will be all over it."
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Copyright © 2024 All Rights Reserved
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
