Mission Critical
“How is security?” he asked.
“Just fair, to be honest. The troops outside are the bulk of the protection of this place. Since the meetings in here are all classified, they are minimizing the number of security personnel inside the castle. The UK relies more on gates and cameras than it does on guns, anyway. I’ve seen maybe twenty armed guards inside the keep itself, but that’s about it.”
Suzanne Brewer burst out of the ballroom with Matt Hanley, followed by Jenner and Lorenzi. They walked at a fast pace, and Court and Zack fell into step with them when Hanley motioned to them.
As he walked Hanley said, “Zakharov turned himself in at the front gate.”
Court said, “Why the hell would he go and do a thing like that?”
Brewer answered, “We have no idea. He’s being brought into a makeshift interrogation room on the third floor. I need you two there guarding him, at least till we know what his play is.”
* * *
• • •
Ten minutes later, Zoya Zakharova pulled her Nissan up to the guard shack. A woman in a Scottish military uniform nodded at her curtly. “Your credentials, ma’am?”
Zoya spoke in her American English accent. “I am here to see Suzanne Brewer.”
The woman’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know who that is, ma’am, but you’re not getting in without proper credentials.”
Zoya had seen the entire takedown of her father through her binos from two hundred meters away. She noted one of the men who, just ten minutes earlier, had a boot in her father’s back.
“Sir,” she said, and the man in the suit looked her way. “David Mars. You just met him?”
He stepped over, immediately wary. “Aye.”
Zoya shrugged. “The thing is . . . he’s my dad.”
Unsure, the man reached over and put his hand on the female soldier’s shoulder without looking away from the woman behind the wheel. “Take out your weapon, sergeant.”
The woman drew her pistol, and Zoya raised her hands.
* * *
• • •
Feodor Zakharov had been placed in a small room off the third-floor library and relieved of his suit coat, tie, and shirt, along with his belt, watch, and shoes. Hightower had frisked the man from head to toe, leaving nothing untouched in the process. Through it all the former head of GRU had not spoken a word.
Hanley, along with Lorenzi and Jenner, had gone to the security office on the second floor to meet with officials there to warn them to be wary, and to look at the feeds from the myriad cameras around the castle for any sort of threat.
Now the former Russian general sat in his undershirt and dress pants, hands uncuffed, fingers interlocked and resting on the table. Hightower stood behind him, close enough to take him down if he had to.
Suzanne Brewer entered the room, out of her ball gown and now dressed in business attire. Zakharov smiled charmingly at her, and he spoke with an English accent. “Ah, Ms. Brewer, I presume. Lovely to meet you. I’ve heard a lot of interesting things. I believe you and I have a mutual acquaintance.”
“I assume you are talking about your daughter.”
“No, I am talking about Martin Wheeler. He told me about you, about Poison Apple. I told myself you were just the person I needed to speak to here, straightaway.”
Brewer was about to reply, about to sit down, but the door opened behind her. Turning to it, she saw Jason.
She followed him back out the door without a word to Zakharov. In the third-floor library, Violator stood with Travers, both men waiting for orders. Brewer gave them both a look of anger for allowing this junior officer to interrupt her interrogation.
“What the hell is it?” she asked Jason.
“Ma’am, it’s Anthem. She’s out at the front gate. She wants to see you.”
She looked at Violator and then back to Jason. “What the hell is going on around here?” When no one answered her she said, “Take security with you, go down, and bring her up here. But only under guard. We don’t know whose side she’s on.”
Court wanted to protest, but he didn’t know what the hell Zoya’s game was, either. Instead he said, “I’ll go with him.”
Brewer shook her head. “No. You stay right here, Violator. Jason can take Travers.”
Brewer went back into the parlor off the library being used as an interrogation facility to continue her interrogation of Zakharov.
* * *
• • •
Ten minutes later Zoya Zakharova entered the library, followed by Jason and Chris Travers. Travers had been exceedingly polite during the long walk through the main entry hall, up the stairs, and down the narrow third-floor hallway, but he’d stayed close enough to her to give her the indication that he was something more than just an escort.
Once she entered the library, she looked around for Brewer and her father and instead saw Court standing there alone. This surprised her. She didn’t expect to find a black ops contract agent like him inside the Five Eyes conference.
She gave him a nervous look, followed by a little smile. “Are you okay?”
Court replied with, “Your dad’s in the next room. This is as close as you get.”
She said, “I understand. Brewer is with him?”
“Yes. I guess your plan to kill him went about as well as our plan to hit the church this morning.”
Zoya said, “Maybe I didn’t kill him, yet, but I bet I’ve killed more bad guys than you did today.”
“In my defense,” Court said, “I slept in.”
Zoya frowned. “I am really sorry about that. I just—”
“I know. You needed some alone time to kill your dad.”
Zoya nodded. “I did.”
Court shook his head in disbelief. “If you think anybody is going to let you in there to talk to him, you are out of your mind. Not even me.”
Zoya said, “He isn’t here to surrender. Something’s happening.”
Court nodded. “We’re all saying the same thing. There is some other game here, isn’t there?”
“His men have scuba gear, that much I know.”
Jason immediately took off for the war room to let the men there know this new information.
Court said, “But that will just get them to the shore at the bottom of the cliff. If they climb it they’ll walk right into a company of Royal Scots Dragoon Guards waiting for them. They have Jackal armored vehicles with machine guns and grenade launchers. Those Russian paras would get chewed up in ten seconds.”