Matthew Dunn - Slingshot

“They did it quickly, but didn’t look like they were panicked.”

Will nodded. “I think this road trip was planned in advance, and they’re driving at speeds that will avoid the attention of the cops but still get them to their destination on time.”

“Looks like it.”

They drove onward for ten minutes before Adam said, “Okay, I’ve got a visual of you.” They were exiting the city and entering countryside. “We’re taking over point.”

Mark answered, “Got it.”

Roger and Mark’s vehicle slowed, switched lanes, and moved behind another vehicle.

Adam drove past them and kept his SUV behind two other vehicles. Beyond them were the Russian cars. “Suggest we switch over every ten minutes. Nothing else we can do now except follow them.”

Suzy saw that she’d received a message from Patrick telling her to call Alistair. Retrieving another cell phone, one of ten in her possession, she pressed the keyboard. Alistair answered on the fourth ring.

“You’ve got something for me?”

The senior MI6 officer answered, “Kurt Schreiber’s name has been flagged by Interpol because any information relating to the man needs to be forwarded to the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.”

Located in The Hague, the court’s remit was to investigate and prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

“What did Interpol say?”

“They’ve got no idea why the prosecutor’s interested in Schreiber, though they did say that it’s directly connected to a high-value witness.”

“Who’s the witness?”

“Interpol doesn’t have a name, but does know the witness approached the court six months ago and ever since has been held in protective custody in Holland.”

“He must be intending to give evidence on something Schreiber’s done.”

“That’s my take.”

“Have you spoken to the court?”

“I tried to speak to the chief prosecutor to find out what his interest was in Kurt Schreiber. He told me that I was to only liaise on this matter with Interpol, that if I tried to call him again, he’d complain to the president of the court and the UN Secretary-General that British Intelligence was attempting to pervert the course of justice.”

Suzy huffed. “That was a bit strong.”

“Clearly, he doesn’t want our kind sniffing around him. Have you managed to get anything on Schreiber?”

“Nothing beyond his former status in the Stasi. Since then, the guy’s vanished.”

Two hours later, Will and his team were twenty miles outside of Hanover, driving in darkness on the main E30 highway.

Roger said, “Targets are pulling off the road, into a gas station.”

Urgently, Will asked, “Any chance they’ve got either of our number plates?”

“Impossible in this light. Plus, we’ve always kept behind other vehicles, so their line of sight has been blocked.”

“Okay. Roger, Mark: follow them in. We’ll stop on the hard shoulder.”

Three minutes later, Mark said, “They’ve fueled their vehicles, have moved them to parking bays, and are drinking coffee and eating. Hold.” The line went quiet. “One man gets out of his vehicle; second gets out of the other. They move to the back of their cars. Withdraw large bags. Return to the passenger doors. Enter with the bags.”

Roger spoke. “All are focused on what’s in the bags.”

Will asked, “What’s happening?”

The CIA officer answered, “My guess is they’re tooling up for direct action.”

Mikhail Salkov drove his SUV across Lower Saxony’s Luneburg Heath. It was nearly 3:00 A.M., pitch dark, but he’d taken this route enough times to do it without the aid of maps or daylight. As ever, since being in Germany, he was dressed in jeans, boots, and a Windbreaker, clothes that would enable him to fight if need be. Tonight there would be a fight. He’d given instructions that at 5:00 A.M. the fifteen men on the perimeter of Kurt Schreiber’s farmstead would be reinforced with the fifteen men on rest, and the combined force would assault Kurt’s property. It was his last resort: he knew the farmstead was heavily defended, but time was now his enemy, as Kurt wouldn’t tolerate being trapped in the complex for much longer.

He’d felt uneasy giving the task to the men who were watching the place. Most of them were eastern European assets, excellent at surveillance and other tradecraft drills, but less than half of them had any prior military training. Only Mikhail was ex-Special Forces, having spent five grueling years in Spetsnaz Vympel before transferring to the SVR, and he’d used his expertise to devise an assault plan to ensure that each man knew exactly what to do. Nevertheless, his men were amateurs. Last night he’d told his assets that there would be no shame if any one of them decided not to take part in the offensive. None of them had stepped down.

Over the last twenty-four hours, he’d considered many times whether he should move his four men to the farmstead perimeter. They were professionals, all Special Forces, and their presence here would easily be worth that of another thirty untrained but brave assets. But if anything went wrong tonight and Kurt escaped, he needed them to be ahead of Kurt, ready to block off his route to the Black Forest. For that reason, four hours ago he’d ordered them to leave their Berlin hotel, travel west, and wait on the outskirts of Hanover.

His thoughts turned to his family. His wife, Diana, had called him a day ago and told him that she’d been threatened by men representing the person he was seeking, that he was to send a messenger into the property he was watching with a note to say he was completely withdrawing from the place. His stomach had wrenched as he heard her speak, and when the call had ended he’d spent hours trying to decide what to do. Finally, he’d called her back and said that he was sending three trusted former police officers to their Moscow home. They would take her and their two daughters-Tatyana and Yana-somewhere safe. What he didn’t tell her was that he’d arranged for a further four ex-FSB men to watch the safe place. He knew Kurt’s men would follow his family and no doubt try to kill them when he realized Mikhail wasn’t going to back down. If they did that, they’d be confronted by an unexpected force.

But the threat to his family had significantly enhanced Mikhail’s desire to get his hands on Kurt Schreiber’s throat. He wanted that just as much as he wanted to retrieve the paper. In just over two hours, he hoped to be holding a gun to Kurt’s temple and a cell phone to his mouth, telling him to order his men to back away from his family. If the former Stasi officer didn’t, Mikhail would have no hesitation in pulling the trigger.

He slowed the vehicle and turned off its headlights as he drew nearer to the place he always stopped to examine the perimeter and the farmstead before proceeding onward on foot. Driving the SUV off the road, he brought it to a halt and exited the car. During daylight, visible over the two thousand yards between this position and the farmstead would be undulated land containing heather, blueberry heath, streams, isolated trees, and the occasional herd of moorland sheep. Three hundred yards around the farmstead, the land was flatter and featureless. The perimeter where the SVR assets were stationed was close to the outskirts of that flatland.

Turning on his ISS T-iV HD Thermal Imaging Binoculars, he waited three seconds for the military-grade equipment to power up, then held it to his eyes. Though he was nearly one mile away, he could see the white images of four men, all positioned exactly where they should be. Moving the binoculars a few millimeters, he spotted three more of his men, all stationary and spread apart. The rest of his men were out of range and sight, beyond the farmstead’s buildings. Checking that his powerful MK23.45-caliber SOCOM handgun was secure under his jacket, he jogged forward.