Peter Kirsanow - Second Strike

“Toward Iran?”

“Toward Iran,” Olivia confirmed.

“But they were just helping Iran’s nuclear program,” Garin said, thinking out loud. “But really, unbeknownst to Iran, the Russians were using them to hit us with an EMP. The mother of all false-flag operations.”

“And now they’re about to invade their ostensible ally,” Olivia continued. “An ally whose military defenses have been utterly devastated by weeks of massive bombing.”

“So we’ve essentially prepared the ground for Mikhailov.” Garin whistled slowly. “He causes us to bomb Iran into oblivion and then he waltzes in and controls their oil reserves.”

“Not to mention the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz,” Olivia added, speaking rapidly again. “Fifteen million barrels of oil pass through the strait every day. Combined with their own reserves, the Russians would control more than a third of all the oil on the planet.”

“Holy—”

“Nothing holy about it, Michael. He’s gambling that this doesn’t result in a world war. This is sheer insanity—”

“Maybe not,” Garin interrupted. “If Bor hits the sites, the probability of war is certain, but war with jihadists and their state sponsors. It will look like they’re the ones who hit us, not Russia. On top of everything, it will look like Russia’s doing our dirty work for us by invading Iran—the world’s greatest state sponsor of terrorism.”

Garin tapped the brakes. He’d gradually sped up during the exchange with Olivia. He drifted back another fifty or so yards.

“Still a big risk,” Olivia insisted.

“We can debate that all day, but it’s happening. The suicide bombers are proof.”

“What do you need from me, Michael?”

“Tell Congo to stand down and allow the medical personnel to treat you,” Garin said. “And call Brandt. Give him the flight numbers. The president will order them grounded.”

“What about Bor?”

A dull wave of pain pulsed from his right ear to the other side of his head, clouding his vision. The sharp, piercing sensations, though less frequent than immediately after his encounter with the Butcher, remained just as intense. He focused on Bor’s cab.

“I’ll take care of him. Go.” Garin disconnected. Several cars ahead of him he caught a glimpse of Bor riding in the back of the Red Top cab. Garin knew that the threat wouldn’t be eliminated with a simple order from the president grounding flights identified on the list he’d taken from the man in the safe house. For all he knew, the list itself was a fraud, a decoy. If there was anything Garin had learned from Bor’s operations, it was that even his backup plans had backups. And nothing was ever as it seemed.

Bor caught another fleeting glimpse of the black Explorer in the rearview mirror of his cab. It appeared Garin had just terminated a call.

Bor had been aware of Garin’s presence mere seconds after leaving the consulate. Despite Garin having thwarted the EMP operation, Mikhailov, Stetchkin, and the rest still didn’t fully comprehend the nature of the man they were dealing with.

Bor placed a call on his cell. When it was answered he spoke briefly in Russian before disconnecting. Seconds after that, two gray Jeep Grand Cherokees trailing Garin’s SUV by several car lengths peeled off onto a side street to the right.

Bor leaned forward. “How much longer until we get there?”

“In this traffic, not long. Ten minutes. Fifteen tops.”

Bor leaned back and counted the seconds subconsciously. They were approaching another intersection approximately a quarter mile ahead. If his timing was correct, it should happen there.

Thirty seconds later Bor’s cab cleared the intersection. He saw Garin’s Explorer in the right side-view mirror as it entered the same intersection.

Garin caught a flash of gray out of the corner of his eye less than a second before one of the Grand Cherokees slammed into the right side of his Explorer, driving it across the street and into a car parked against the opposite curb.

Garin’s head ricocheted off the driver’s-side window, rendering him momentarily dazed. Garin instinctively reached for his SIG. The doors of his car were sandwiched between the car on the curb to his left and the Grand Cherokee to his right, trapping him in the vehicle.

Garin shook his head to regain his senses, swiftly raised his pistol toward the front of the Grand Cherokee, and squeezed off six shots—left to right—across the SUV’s windshield. Four of the rounds—two apiece—struck the two Zaslon operators in the front seats, killing both. Almost simultaneously, the third Zaslon operator sprang from the right rear door of the SUV, an MP5 submachine gun trained at the Explorer. Garin dove to the floor as a three-round burst ripped across the rear of the Explorer. Garin popped back up and returned fire with two rounds to the Zaslon operator’s face, dropping him in the street.

Garin’s eyes searched the interior of the Grand Cherokee for any additional targets. Seeing none, he swiveled to the rear, emptied his magazine into the back window of his SUV, and dove through the shattered remains, rolling onto the hatch before falling to the street.

A cacophony of screaming, sobbing, and whimpering pedestrians and squealing car tires swirled about him as he scrambled to his feet and the second Grand Cherokee screeched to a halt thirty feet behind the first. In one fluid motion Garin ejected the spent magazine, seated a fresh one, and fired seven rounds into the darkened windshield of the second SUV.

Garin swung behind the Explorer, using it as a shield, and paused for a moment, the only sounds the tinkling of broken glass and approaching sirens. He discerned no movement in the passenger compartment of the second Grand Cherokee. He saw no bodies, dead or alive.

Two Arlington patrol cars approaching from Garin’s right skidded to an abrupt halt twenty feet from the second SUV. Two officers leapt from each of the vehicles with weapons drawn, shouting unintelligible commands in the directions of both the second SUV and Garin. A single Zaslon operator materialized from the rear door of the vehicle and with astonishing speed and precision shot each of the four officers with an MP5 before any of them was able to squeeze off even a single shot. Almost simultaneously, Garin fired five times at the Zaslon operator, hitting him three times in the torso and once in the throat.

The Russian was dead before he fell to the ground. When he did so, Garin saw a pedestrian lying on the ground on the opposite side of the street, Garin’s fifth round having struck his upper left thigh.

Garin cursed, rose from his crouch behind the cab, and cautiously approached the second Grand Cherokee. The bodies of two Zaslon operators lay slumped in the front, dead. No one else was in the vehicle.

Garin sprinted across the street, and the wounded civilian’s expression morphed from one of pain to one of terror as Garin neared. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” Garin shouted. “I’m a good guy. Good guy.”

Garin knelt to examine the man’s wound. Although his left pant leg was bloodstained, the wound, though painful, was relatively minor. The bullet had merely grazed the man’s thigh.

“You’re going to be all right,” Garin assured him. “More cops will be here any second. They’ll get you to a hospital.” Garin seized the frightened man’s arm, tore a strip of cloth from his shirt, and wrapped it around the wound. “You’ll be fine. Hang tough.”

Garin rose and sprinted toward the closer of the idling police cruisers, the wail of approaching sirens in the distance. He climbed in, shifted into drive, and sped in the direction Bor’s cab had gone.