Mars just looked on while a Bratva foot soldier, part of his protection detail, stepped up to one of the men as he unslung his rifle and propped it against the wall.
The Bratva man said, “Nice rifle. Who are you guys with?”
The big gunman in the body armor did not look his way. “Fuck off.”
The mafia gunman sniffed and turned away. Mars heard him mumbling. “Fucking Spetsnaz. Think they’re such hot shit.”
* * *
• • •
The thirty men who arrived at the dilapidated church were not, in fact, Spetsnaz, Russian special forces. But they all had been. These were former GRU, military Spetsnaz, as opposed to foreign or domestic intelligence special forces. They worked for the same organization that General Feodor Zakharov once ran, but they had no clue they were working for him now.
Mars surveyed many of the former special forces men as they assembled, but soon they dispersed. Some moved to the higher church windows or out in the terrain around the castle, performing 360-degree security for the others while they readied equipment and prepared their living space.
Mars had definite reservations about using former Russian military in his attack, but his reverence for the skills of these men outweighed his misgivings.
This event could not, in any way, lead back to the Kremlin. But the UK was full of Russians, and more specifically Russian mafia, so Mars had decided that infiltrating non-mafia mercenaries with advanced training would be an acceptable risk, especially if he ensured that the hiring of these troops was done carefully.
First, even though they were mercenaries, Mars knew these men would not leave a fallen comrade behind. There would be no evidence of Russian “Little Green Men” operating in Scotland on the day of the attack.
And second, he’d had Terry Cassidy set up a shell corporation, and one of Belyakov’s bankers in Cyprus set up a numbered account that was attached to the firm. The lawyer, following Mars’s instructions, left a few misleading bread crumbs in the paperwork of the shell corporation, should it ever fall under scrutiny. A company that had been sanctioned for doing business in the past in North Korea was tangentially linked to the shell via joint holdings in the shipping industry, and this allowed Mars to breathe a little easier.
His highly skilled mercs weren’t just here to bolster his attack on the conference, an attack that was initially designed as a feint while the real danger fell from above. They were here to bolster the false-flag operation that would keep Zakharov’s precious Rodina safe from retribution when American and British spies started dropping dead from lung conditions all around the world at the same time.
Some men took positions outside, around the church; a few of them moved out into the cemetery and found a place to hide themselves in tall grasses around the tombstones there. They set up their weapons to defend the location. A sniper climbed the bell turret and broke out a section of stained-glass window so he could see the approach from the little road.
Mars’s real force was here now. He knew they’d all been taking a specific regimen of antibiotics for days, rendering them virtually immune to the Yersinia pestis they would deliver into the belly of the meeting of Western intelligence officials. They’d continue taking the Cefalexin during and after the operation, as well.
With these men here and in place, Mars began thinking of the next stage. Janice Won was still needed, but not for her scientific expertise. No, she had one more night to live. Only in death would she truly serve her final purpose.
* * *
• • •
Zack Hightower had spent much of the morning in the back of a U.S. Army UH-60 helicopter that was being flown up to Inverness, Scotland, to assist with security for the Five Eyes conference. With him was the young, red-bearded case officer named Jason, who looked nervously out the open door of the helo for much of the flight, while Zack, in contrast, lay on the hard deck and slept with his head on his backpack.
The UH-60 wasn’t taking the two CIA men all the way to the Scottish Highlands; instead it was to drop them in Edinburgh before getting back in the air and again heading north.
Brewer wanted Romantic there in case Gentry found himself in need of support while tracking Zakharov and Primakov, and she wanted the case officer loaned out to her to work to establish the safe house and assist the assets with driving and anything else they needed.
The helo dropped the two of them off just behind a secluded farmhouse run by the CIA, then departed while the two Americans approached the building. It was a ranch-style property with a large, detached garage and an empty barn. Before going inside, Zack checked the garage and found two Land Rovers waiting there. They were dusty but appeared to be well maintained.
Inside, the safe house was simple, but expansive, with a large living area and five bedrooms off a hall towards the back.
Zack had only been in the house for twenty minutes when Brewer called him. “We have an in extremis situation there in Edinburgh and need your help.”
“Where and what?”
“Violator is outside a building on Lauriston Place, in the city proper. I need you there to assist in case he needs to make entry. Take Jason with you to drive. Violator might be able to wait on a team from Ground Branch, but if he suspects the occupants are planning on moving, his orders are to penetrate the building to capture Zakharov.”
“Who the hell is Zakharov?”
Brewer realized Hightower knew nothing about what was going on in the UK. She filled him in quickly, telling him that the entire Five Eyes conference seemed to be imperiled by this former GRU general and his scheme. She ended with, “Hurry, because if you don’t get there in the next few minutes, Violator might have to make entry on the opposition location without any backup.”
“No sweat. I’ve saved his ass before, I can do it again.”
Zack went into a back bedroom and opened a safe in the closet there, using a code Jason gave him. From it he pulled a suppressed HK VP9 pistol with a silencer and a collapsed-stock SIG MPX submachine gun. Ammunition had been preloaded, so he took a fistful of magazines for the subgun and two extra for the pistol and headed for the garage of the safe house.
Jason grabbed a Glock 17 and an extra magazine, and Zack warned him not to point it at anything he didn’t intend to destroy.
As Jason slipped it into his waistband he said, “I’ve been through the Farm.”
“Big fuckin’ deal, kiddo. Watch your trigger and muzzle discipline, or I’ll shoot you myself.”
Jason said nothing.
When Jason launched one of the Range Rovers out of the dusty garage at speed, Zack, in the front passenger seat, connected again to Brewer, who was now flying over northern England. “I’m moving,” he said. “I have one unsuppressed submachine gun and one suppressed pistol. Jason has a sidearm. I sure as hell hope Sierra Six has his own weapon, because I ain’t sharing.”