Primakov was sent back to Russia, but he made his way back into the UK on a new, improved set of forged papers, claiming his name to be Roger Fox, a subject of the United Kingdom. Unlike his last visit to the UK, when he posed as a Russian immigrant, now his English was flawless and spoken in the common multicultural London dialect.

And Jon Hines became his bodyguard, a permanent fixture at his side.

* * *

• • •

Visser’s nose snapped with a crack during Hines’s next hit. This time the big Brit used a closed fist and, although it wasn’t a very hard punch, it was perfectly placed and an exceedingly efficient application of force.

The banker’s head went down, and he continued mumbling something about his innocence in all this, but Fox was not listening. Instead he looked to Hines. “Put him in the helicopter. Mars can decide what to do with him.”

“Yes, sir,” Hines replied, and then he hoisted the man up and onto his shoulder, carrying him like a sack of flour.

* * *

• • •

Court remained on the filthy floor, his eyes just past the door frame into the hallway so he could observe the men he’d been listening to. He remained confident they wouldn’t be able to see him in the darkness some hundred feet away, not with the tiny profile he’d given them.

He watched as several men stepped out of the doorway next to Kent and his three subordinates. In the middle of the group was a huge figure—Court thought the man must have been at least six-six—and he carried a smaller man who was clearly either dead or unconscious over his shoulder.

Court assumed him to be the prisoner he’d last seen on the Gulfstream a few hours earlier.

There were nearly a dozen men plus the prisoner at the other end of the hall, but the group immediately turned to the left, away from Court, and they began walking towards a doorway that Court assumed led to the western side of the property.

The four who’d been in the hallway turned to follow them.

The sound of the helicopter spinning up again filled Court’s earplugs, forcing him to shut them off.

Court decided to get a look at the tail number of the helo. To do so he could either pursue the men or find a window on the southwestern side of the building that would give him a vantage point to the area outside the west wing. This meant crossing the hall, and he knew he couldn’t wait for the group to leave to do it, because if he couldn’t get eyes on the helo from here, he’d have to take the time to find another vantage point.

He quickly glanced across the hall, still listening to the sounds of the men walking away off to his right. He looked to the left for any flashlight beam that would alert him to a sentry, but it was too dark to see into the stairwell across and to his left.

The hallway floor between Court and the room on the other side looked clean of obstructions, so he began moving slowly and silently.

On his third step across the hall he heard a sudden noise to his left. The echo of footsteps on the tile at the bottom of the stairs was unmistakable.

And the footsteps were quickly followed by a voice.

“Bloody torch is dead. We pullin’ out now?”

Court turned to see the silhouette of a man approaching through the dimness, a rifle held low in his arms.

Quickly the sentry’s gun began to rise, so Court swung his suppressed pistol up and fired twice. The Ruger made a quiet but easily audible thump, thump sound, and the ejecting brass from the weapon clinked along the floor, echoing down the length of the hallway.

The sentry fell back in a heap on the stairs.

One hundred feet behind Court, eleven men turned in the direction of the echoes. A flashlight’s beam shone on him even before he began moving again for the room across the hall.

He took off in a sprint, then dove into the room and crashed into an upturned desk just as a pair of gunshots pounded the thick air behind him.

CHAPTER 13

   Kent had fired one of the two rounds, but he was certain both he and Davy had missed the target moving through the dusty dim. “Get him!”

Two of Kent’s men began running up the hall, flashlights in one hand and pistols in the other, but Fox shouted at Kent as he and his group hustled in the other direction. “All of you go after him! He cannot leave here alive!”

Kent turned away and followed the rest of his men up the hall, staying far to the back of the pack. “Everyone move to the south side, ground floor, east of the entry. One subject. Take him out but watch your crossfire!”

Kent didn’t want to get shot by his own men any more than he wanted to get shot by the hostile.

* * *

• • •

Court’s grand scheme to learn something about the helo went up in smoke as his opposition began getting word from their leader that an interloper was inside the wire. He knew men would be collapsing on him now from all over this massive old hospital, so he raced back to the east through doorways that connected the administration office to a long narrow room lined with broken file cabinets.

His goal was to get back down to the tunnel, but basement access was on the far side of the east wing, and he had a lot of ground to cover.

He pumped the air with his arms as he sprinted, his SIG pistol in his right hand and his red headlamp shining on his forehead so he could see his way forward even though it could be seen easily by others in the darkness.

He heard the helicopter behind him lifting into the sky, but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about the captured banker.

Instead he just kept running for his life.

He sprinted to a doorway, raising his handgun when he heard the squawk of a radio on the other side. Court knew that with the light on his head and the noise generated on the flooring by his frantic pace, he wasn’t likely any stealthier than whoever was in the next room with a walkie-talkie blaring, and the man there would hear his footsteps even if he did not yet know if Court was friend or foe.

Court moved to the wall, dropped to his knees, and quickly spun into the doorway, mindful of the sound of others approaching from behind him. Just feet away he saw a man with a bloody dressing on his thigh, and the man saw him at the same time.

The gunman lifted his submachine gun and pointed it in Court’s direction.

Court fired, dropping the man onto his back with two rounds to the chest.

Up and running again, he had not made it far at all before he heard more gunfire, close and on his left. The wall next to him began to pock with bullet holes, fired from the other side by an automatic weapon. Plaster and paint sprayed across the glow of his red headlamp’s light.

This forced Court down into a crouch as he ran. He returned fire blindly into the wall, then felt a powerful tug, nearly toppling him. He was certain he’d been hit at first, but quickly realized his backpack had taken a bullet instead of his body.