Page 82 of Denied Access (Mitch Rapp #24)
R APP crossed the distance to the Russian in four easy strides. “We exit this building with everyone. Then I go one way, and you go another. Or I shoot you now and take my chances. Which is it going to be?”
For a long moment Rapp thought Zhikin might just call his bluff. Then the SVR officer slowly backed out of the office, allowing Rapp space to follow him. Once in the common room, the Russian’s lips twisted into a feral smile. “Which way?”
Rapp didn’t understand what Zhikin was asking at first. Then he got it. To the right lay the bank of elevators and safety. To the left, a final office.
Petrov’s office.
The Klaxon continued to sound, and the desk once manned by the receptionist was now empty.
He had the time and the opportunity. A quick stroll followed by three equally quick trigger pulls and it would be done.
The man who had torn out Greta’s heart would be dead and the fifty-year battle he’d waged against America over.
Rapp’s gun hand trembled beneath his jacket with the need to see Petrov’s brains splattered across the office’s floor-to-ceiling windows.
He’d never in his life wanted to kill someone so badly.
“Elevators,” Rapp said. “Let’s go.”
The Russian’s smile faded, replaced by a look of confusion. He lingered for a moment as if he were the devil offering a wavering soul a final temptation. Rapp prodded Zhikin in the ribs with the pistol’s suppressor. “Move.”
With a shake of his head, the Russian started toward the elevators.
Rapp’s skin crawled at the notion of leaving Petrov alive, but he still followed Zhikin into the elevator’s open doors.
He’d been on the verge of entering Petrov’s office when his intuition had stopped him.
As if he’d been standing on a lacrosse field watching a play develop, he’d seen what would transpire if he gave into his bloodlust.
His job was to finish wars.
Not start new ones.
The elevator doors hissed shut.
“Where to?” Zhikin said.
“Lobby. We walk out of this building together. Then we part company.”
“You know that’s not going to happen, right?”
Rapp sighed and gestured toward a patch of discolored carpeting on the elevator’s floor. “See that?”
The Russian looked where he was pointing and frowned. “Yes?”
“That was from the last man who underestimated me.”
Zhikin swallowed.
The remainder of the elevator ride passed in silence.
Thirty seconds later, the doors hissed open to a much busier lobby.
The Klaxon had stopped ringing, but the Lubyanka’s occupants were still evacuating the building in twos and threes.
Rapp nodded for the Russian to lead the way toward the door.
Once again, the FSK officer paused as if assessing his odds.
Rapp nonchalantly scratched an itch behind his ear with his gunless hand, revealing the bloody section of shirt stretched across his ribs.
Zhikin started for the door.
Six strides later, Rapp was out of the building.
The biting Moscow wind had never felt so good.
He tilted his head left and Zhikin obliged, leading them away from the crowd.
Zhikin turned a corner, stopped, and then muttered something in Russian.
He’d ushered them to a loading dock tucked away from the main pedestrian areas.
A deserted loading dock.
“You killed a Russian intelligence officer inside the FSK’s headquarters. You just started a war.”
“Wrong,” Rapp said. “I just prevented one. I killed a German thief. No one else. The actions the FSK chooses to take to address a rogue lieutenant general who actively facilitated this thief’s work by paying Vympel operatives to mount a false-flag operation in Lativa do not concern me.
” Rapp paused, allowing what he’d said to sink in.
“In fact, without his banker, I’m willing to bet the lieutenant general in question will have a hard time accessing the funds he stole.
Which means his Vympel units won’t be paid for their work. ”
“Which means they’ll be willing to talk,” Zhikin said slowly.
Rapp nodded. “I’m sure the FSK’s crack forensic accountants will get to the bottom of the lieutenant general’s undoubtedly unsanctioned operation once they’ve completed a proper audit of the financial records stored on the German’s computer.”
Zhikin stared at him for a beat. “You may be right, but that doesn’t help me. Letting a jihadi murderer walk away won’t be good for my career. Not to mention my life.”
“I’ve got you covered,” Rapp said, taking a step closer and dropping his coat.
Raising the pistol, he aimed it at the Russian’s shoulder.
Zhikin turned his head to track the stubby suppressor, and Rapp fired a right cross at the FSK officer’s jaw.
His knuckles crunched into Zhikin’s chin exactly where the purple bruising began.
The Russian collapsed.
Picking up his coat, Rapp jogged away from the fallen intelligence officer, turned another corner, and followed a narrow alley that dumped into the street. Since the majority of the building’s occupants were still clustered around the entrance, Rapp turned right, away from the crowd.
The enormity of his situation set in.
Hurley was supposed to have retrieved him after the job and arranged their exfil.
Despite what he’d said to Zhikin, he knew the FSK wasn’t going to just sweep an assassination that had occurred in their headquarters building under the rug.
As soon as Zhikin recovered, he’d put the full weight and power of the Russian counterintelligence service into finding the rogue Hezbollah shooter.
And since Zhikin’s cover story depended on Rapp’s silence, the FSK operatives would undoubtedly be issued instructions to shoot him on sight.
He was in trouble.
Rapp came to a crosswalk and was preparing to dart across when a well-used Lada sedan slid up to the curb next to him. The driver, a woman wearing a hijab, leaned across the seats and shouted through the open window, “Get in!”
While the offer seemed tempting and the woman was speaking American-accented English, Rapp worried this fell into the “too good to be true” category. He could see a hint of brown hair and the woman’s pretty face, but nothing else.
“Shit,” the woman said, “I forgot the first part. Stan Hurley said to ask if you needed a ride.”
Which was word for word what Hurley had said to him on the streets of Paris after the Cooke debacle.
Rapp opened the door and piled inside.
The woman accelerated away from the curb accompanied by blaring horns from angry motorists.
She hung a quick right followed by an immediate left, fleeing the scene of the crime at an impressive pace.
“My name is Elysia and I’m with Moscow Station.
There’s a bag of clothes in the back seat. You need to change. Now.”
Rapp grabbed the bag and began shucking his shirt and disassembling what was left of his disguise. “What’s the rush?”
“You have a plane to catch.”