The Midnight Caller (Jack Widow Book 6) Page 19

  The others all stood around, setting their weapons down. They stood around not knowing what to do. At least, that’s what they wanted their buddy to think. Even though he knew the truth. The truth was that they had a procedure to follow if one of them received a life-threatening wound in the field. The procedure was simple. Let the man die. If there was nothing that they could do for him on their own, without a hospital, then he was as good as dead. That did not mean that they did not care about each other. They were all friends. But that was the cost of doing business. They were involved in a highly illegal operation. There were nukes in play. They could not take him to the hospital.

  By this point the man was bleeding out, profusely.

  He knew he was going to die. He did not cover his wound as he bled out, which was difficult for about thirty seconds, but after he lost a few pints of blood, facing death became much easier.

  Within minutes, their friend was dead.

  The man in black never took his eyes or the barrel of the P220 off Eva.

  Finally, he asked once more, “Where is he?”

  CHAPTER 46

  GUNSHOTS ECHOED ABOVE him as he rode the elevator up. This time, Widow was certain it was not car backfire. Not unless someone had parked a forty-year-old muscle car on the sixth floor.

  He did not have his guns anymore and had no time to get them, not if Eva’s life was in danger. He could not make the elevator go back down to the lobby anyway, not until after the doors opened on six.

  He was sure that he had heard two distinct handguns being fired. He was not sure about the make or models, but they sounded close to being simultaneous, which was only possible with two weapons. And one of them was louder than the other. It sounded like a forty-five ACP, maybe. The second one was a nine-millimeter, no doubt about it.

  Widow had had enough experience to know that it was never a good idea to walk into a potential gun battle, unarmed and completely cold. At the same time, he had to help Eva. That took priority over his fears.

  Instead of riding up to six, he hit the fifth-floor button just in time as the elevator passed the fourth.

  The elevator registered the adjustment in the journey and stopped abruptly on the fifth floor. The doors shot open and Widow stepped off.

  He looked left. Looked right. Prepared himself to dodge and roll back onto the open elevator if there had been danger on that floor as well, but there were no signs of life.

  Widow searched the signs above the doors in the hall until he saw the fire exit stairwell. He charged at the door and ripped it open in one heaving motion that would have torn a cheap door off its hinges. He took the stairs up, two at a time and darted up two flights. He rounded the corner and stayed alert for sounds. There was nothing but the loud hum of the elevator, moving on to six without him.

  He stopped outside the door to six and hugged the inside wall. His heart was racing. His blood was pumping, hard. He stayed still and concentrated on his breathing. He breathed in and breathed out. He watched as his chest heaved up and then down. He waited, tried to slow his breathing and thus, his heart rate. He needed to slow it all down so he could be as quiet as possible. He needed to recon the situation before making a move.

  After a few moments went by, he knew that the elevator was stopped because the humming had stopped.

  He paused one last time and then he turned and faced the door, crouched down and pushed the door open. He pressed the open bar slowly and then followed that with the door just as slowly. He cracked it open and looked down the hall. The elevator was behind him. But that was okay because what he was looking for he saw a second later.

  The door to Putin’s office opened up wide and there was Eva. She was alive, but she was bound. Her hand was out front, zip tied together at the wrists. The look on her face was shock and terror all at once. She was being forced forward by four men, three of which, Widow recognized from The Plaza Hotel. The fourth he did not.

  The fourth man wore all black and seemed to be the leader. He was the only one who looked from side to side like he was checking the doors, checking the corners.

  Widow heard him bark an order to the others.

  He said, “Elevator!”

  Widow slipped back and pulled the door with him, making sure not to click it shut. He did not want to the door to register a loud sound, like most fire doors do when they are closed all the way.

  He left it with a hair crack, just enough to make it look closed. He pushed his back to the wall and listened.

  He heard footsteps, quick. The men were checking the open elevator. He waited until they had all passed. He heard Eva’s footsteps and then those of the man in black. He knew Eva’s because they were the lightest and sporadic, like she was being half pushed forward.

  Widow heard them pass and stop near the elevator.

  The man in black asked, “No one there?”

  One of the others said, “No. Nothing.”

  Silence for a long moment. Widow backed away and went up the stairs to the seventh floor. He stepped three at a time this time and tried to keep his footsteps silent.

  He went up and not down because if they were going to check the fire stairs, most people looked down. Not up. It was stupid for an attacker to go up. Up was the roof.

  Widow stopped two flights up at the seventh floor and crouched down out of sight and listened.

  He heard nothing and he waited longer. Then he heard the sixth-floor door jolt open in one violent swing. He heard the clicking sound of a submachine gun being aimed around haphazardly.

  He peered down with one eye over the edge of the cement. He got a glimpse of one of The Plaza Hotel guys, staring over the railing, looking downward.

  Widow saw the back of the guy’s head and then he saw the MP5SD in his hand.

  Widow slipped back slowly, in case the guy checked upward.

  He paused and waited. The guy was not all that bad. He stayed there for a long minute until he gave up.

  Widow heard him say, “There’s no one here.”

  The words trailed off as the guy from the Plaza Hotel walked back through the fire door.

  Widow waited until he heard the fire door shut. He descended back down the two flights until he was back at that door. He paused another beat, listening until he heard the elevator engine crank back to life and the cables humming somewhere behind the wall. They were on the move back down.

  Widow charged through the fire door and checked the hall, fast. He swung right toward Putin’s office and then he swung left toward the elevator. It was indeed closed and moving down.

  Widow ran back down the hall to check the office. He had not seen Putin leave with them, causing him to presume that she had been the recipient of one of the bullets he had heard fired.

  The office door was open. Widow snapped in and snapped back out in case someone shot at him. But there was no one there to shoot him, not alive anyway.

  The first thing he saw was a dead guy on the floor. Blood still oozed out of a neck wound. The wound was so dark and covered with blood that Widow could not even see where the hole was.

  He passed over the guy and saw the blood splatter on the window and the blinds. He saw Putin. She was definitely dead. There was a hole in her forehead and Widow could see brain fragments on the window.

  Shit, he thought.

  He did not wait. There was nothing else to see. He went over to the desk and saw that Putin had fired a Glock 17. He scooped it up, did not need to test fire it. It looked like it fired just fine.

  Then he turned around, but stopped because he saw the dead guy on the floor was blinking.

  Widow set the Glock down on the carpet, away from the pool of blood, and shoved his hand over the guy’s neck, tried to stop the bleeding.

  He asked, “Can you talk?”

  The guy blinked.

  Widow’s hand found the hole in his neck and he pushed hard.

  “Speak!”

  The guy said, “Don’t wanna die.”

  His voice was wea
k and his skin was cold, growing colder by the second. Widow was certain that his voice was not speaking with its normal tone because the bullet had scraped his voice box. It had to have because of the location. Widow was surprised he could even utter a recognizable word.

  “Where did they take her?”

  The guy said nothing. He just blinked.

  “Where?!”

  “Strike.”

  “What?”

  The next word sent cold chills down Widow’s spine.

  The guy said, “Nuclear.”

  Widow heard “nuclear strike.” He changed course and asked, “When?”

  “Today. The anniversary.”

  Anniversary, he thought.

  The guy was dying faster and faster by the second.

  “Where?”

  The guy said something inaudible, Widow did not understand. The guy’s eyes started to roll back in his head. Widow only had seconds left with him.

  “Where did they take Eva?”

  The guy coughed up blood. It splattered onto Widow’s clothes and face. Then it trickled down the guy’s cheek and mouth.

  “Where is she?”

  “Moreau.”

  Then he was gone.

  Where the hell was Moreau? Widow wondered. But there was no time for that.

  He picked up the Glock 17 and ran after them. Widow pressed the elevator button and watched for a second to see what floor it was coming up from. The second elevator answered the call. It was coming from the lobby, slowly.

  He gave up on that and turned to the stairwell again. He ripped the door open just as hard as before and he leapt from the flight of stairs down to the next landing. On the way down, he barely touched a stair. He was going as fast as he could. He knew that they had not taken her back through the lobby. They had come from the parking garage below.

  Widow went as fast as he could. But it had not been fast enough.

  He burst through the door to the garage and caught the taillights of a white panel van traversing up the ramp to the street.

  CHAPTER 47

  FARMER STARED AT KARPOV, who stood upright, mostly, with his hands behind his back. He was being held tightly by one of the men who’d come onboard with Farmer. The redheaded leader was standing behind Farmer.

  Farmer held a roll of quarters in one hand. He stared at Karpov’s bloody face and said, “Captain, I can keep hitting you, but we both know you’re going to give me that passcode.”

  The Listener had made it clear that the operation was going to go according to plan no matter what. He did not need to say it. Farmer knew well enough.

  Without Karpov’s daughter, threatening him to give up a passcode was proving impossible.

  The Russians had gotten smarter. Like the rest of the nuclear club with submarines, they equipped their nukes with not only two required turn keys, but also a failsafe passcode. It was a word that was required to arm the nuke. The missile could be fired without it, but the nuke wouldn’t be armed without it. And a nuclear missile without the “nuclear” part is about as dangerous as dropping a Buick from the sky. Sure, someone could get hurt, but the damage was reduced to almost nothing compared to a nuclear blast.

  Farmer had brought the roll of quarters just in case. One of the oldest tricks in the book. Can’t afford brass knuckles? Use a roll of coins.

  He stared down at his hand, which was turning red.

  They had already tried to threaten the captain by shooting his men. That proved useless because they had shot one in front of him and nothing happened. He did not give up a thing.

  Farmer had suspected that much. Submariners swear an oath, just like any sailor. They’re not going to give up such a dangerous thing as a nuclear passcode to the enemy. Not even for the lives of their fellow sailors. They had all sworn an oath too.

  They were prepared to die.

  Farmer turned back to the redheaded leader and whispered, “This is getting us nowhere.”

  The redheaded leader nodded.

  “We need to surface again. Call the Listener. We need his daughter. It’s the only threat that seems to faze him.”

  Farmer left and the redheaded leader followed, but stopped to instruct the other guy to bring Karpov.

  They returned to the bridge.

  Farmer went over to his submariner and said, “Bring us to the surface.”

  The guy said, “Are you sure?”

  “Do it.”

  “But we are likely to be seen? At least on sonar.”

  “Do it. I gotta call him.”

  The submariner did as he was told and started to bark orders at the crew in Russian. They followed his commands all while the redheaded leader and one of his guys swept behind them, pointing and poking the backs of their heads with their MP5s.

  CHAPTER 48

  WIDOW WALKED UP THE RAMP to the street, pausing for a moment because he saw a dead security guard. He was sure the guy was dead because he could see the bullet hole in his head. It looked to be similar to the one in Putin’s head. Probably was. Probably the same gun. Probably from the man in black.

  Widow continued out onto the surface street. Continued walking briskly in the direction that he had seen the van turn and away from the building. He was just in time to hear police sirens in the distance. Screeching. Blaring. And growing louder.

  He figured that the guard at the desk must have called the police.

  The white panel van was a far speck on the horizon and then it was lost to sight.

  Widow stopped dead on the sidewalk.

  Pedestrians stared at him, avoiding him. Most moved to the other side of the street or they turned around and walked away.

  That was when he realized he still had the Glock out. He stuffed it into his waistband and then realized there was blood on his shirt and face. His shirt was black, but his face was white. Therefore, the pedestrians were not staring at his shirt.

  He turned away from the street and faced the buildings. He walked toward one, stared at a sign out front. It was one of those “You are here” maps of the office park. He waited for the sirens to pass.

  A moment later he looked over his shoulder and saw three NYPD spec cruisers pull up and stop dead on the street in front of Putin’s building.

  Widow saw himself faintly in the reflection of the glass that encased the map. He pulled his shirt up and licked the tip of it and wiped his face.

  Then he turned and walked casually, but hurriedly away.

  CHAPTER 49

  BREACHING THE SURFACE took a lot longer than Farmer and his men had thought because they found out that there was a battle group nearby. Not on top of them, but within radar and sonar distance for sure. It looked to be a US destroyer, along with an aircraft carrier and a couple of cruisers. They had also picked up a submarine coming toward the group from the south.

  Farmer was not worried about it, like his men were. But the reason he was not worried was because they were a part of the plan. He had known about the ships long before.

  Still, they were not ready to expose themselves just yet. So, he ordered them to move slowly away and out of range enough to surface.

  The submarine was coming up and the engines slowed. The waves broke over the bow.

  “Let’s go,” Farmer said to Karpov.

  The redheaded leader gripped Karpov by the elbow and hauled him onto his feet and over to the ladder and up it, staying behind Farmer, who climbed first.

  On the deck of the boat, water sprayed in white and gray snarling waves. Karpov was not told where they were, but he knew just by listening to Farmer’s commands and by the color of the water and the temperature. He knew that they were nearly to the legal point of invasion into US waters. If he had to guess a more precise location, he would say that they were in striking distance of the major US targets, including New York City and Washington DC. The first target would certainly mean all-out war with the US. But the second target would mean the crippling of the United States’ centrally based federal system and, therefore, th
e nation’s response time to the attack.

  A nuclear strike on the US would most certainly mean a return strike on Russia. Probably from NATO, which meant a very, very fast attack. Which would mean the end of Karpov’s friends who mostly lived in Moscow.

  Karpov swallowed as he stared up into the blinding daylight above him.

  Farmer was dialing a satellite phone and holding onto the guardrail near the hatch they had emerged from.

  They had come up to use the sat phone once before and they had kept him on standby, like he was to take an important call.

  Farmer and his guys had already gotten the two turn keys from him and the political officer, who held the other one. That part was easy. The political officer had not done much to hold out from volunteering it.

  Karpov knew that they needed the passcode, which was not widely publicized information. A secret code word that is entered into a separate keypad on the bridge’s computer. It had to be issued before the launch in order to arm the nuke.

  There was no way Karpov was going to give up that code. But then he thought about why he was meeting Farmer in the first place. His daughter.

  They had her. That’s how they were going to get that code from him. The only person that he would give it up for was her.

  He squeezed his eyes tight as he looked at the sky. It was time to take away their upper hand.

  In a fast spin, he turned and started to run for the side of the boat. If he could make it to the edge, he could jump off. He could drown. He could save thousands of lives, maybe even millions. They might kill Eva, but at least it would not have been him who had given up to the threat.

  He shoved Farmer out of the way and ran to the edge of the boat.

  The blinding light from the sun grayed a bit from the fast-moving cloud cover, making it almost impossible for Karpov to distinguish the exact edge of the submarine’s bow, which was slightly curved anyway and painted to blend in with the ocean.

  He neared it and ran at full speed. He did not need to jump. He only needed to keep running. Eventually, he would fall right in.