The Persona Protocol - By Andy McDermott Page 0,111
backed up to the tree line. The conifers’ drooping branches, laden with snow, provided good cover. He looked east, seeing the buildings through the trees. Still watching the driver, he headed towards them.
‘Adam!’ Kyle, urgent. He ducked behind a trunk and froze. ‘I just saw movement on the infrared camera, other side of the tracks. I think it’s Bianca.’
‘I told her to stay still,’ he muttered, peering across the cutting. The Vityaz obstructed his view.
‘I guess she got cold.’
‘I don’t see her. Where is she?’
‘Two o’clock from the ATV, looking north. About thirty yards from the edge of the trees. I think she’s following your tracks.’
He couldn’t see her. ‘Damn it! We should have given her a headset.’
‘Hindsight’s always twenty-twenty, brah. Oh, wait – she’s stopped. She’s about twenty yards from the cutting. Hold on, I’ll zoom in . . . yeah, she’s hunkered down. Doesn’t look like she’s planning to get any closer.’
That was a relief, but she was far from out of danger. There was no way he could tell her to retreat without exposing his own presence to the conspirators. ‘Okay. Warn me if she moves.’
He set off again. Through the trees he saw the RTG’s porters gingerly bringing it along the jetty. While the wooden structure had been built to carry heavy loads of minerals to waiting boats, many harsh winters had passed since it was last maintained, and nobody appeared fully convinced that it would take the weight of the generator – to say nothing of the men themselves.
Before long he reached the largest building. He quickly made his way to the rear. A door hung off its hinges. He drew his gun and stepped inside.
The former headquarters of the mining operation had been ravaged by weather and looters. Anything of value had been stripped from its interior, only trash remaining. He moved carefully through the derelict structure to a front window.
It gave him an excellent view of the jetty. He got his first proper look at the Beriev. It was a big aircraft, its high wings over a hundred feet in span and the fuselage very nearly as long. The hatch in its flank was still open, a bored young man sitting in it smoking a cigarette. Lights in the cockpit revealed the pilot watching the ponderous advance of his cargo.
Adam looked back to the shore. Sevnik, Zykov and al-Rais were less than fifty feet from him.
His hand tightened on the gun’s grip. One shot, and Muqaddim al-Rais would be dead . . .
But the threat his organisation posed would not. Somebody else would take over. Unless al-Rais was captured alive, and the PERSONA used to extract all his secrets. Patience.
‘And so, we are done,’ Sevnik proclaimed loudly. ‘I suppose you want your share now, Ruslan Pavelovich.’
Zykov gave him a sarcastic smile. ‘It would be nice to have it before you leave for your tropical paradise, yes.’
Sevnik did not appreciate the joke, but nevertheless he crouched and opened one of the cases. He took out and unfolded a nylon holdall, then started tossing bundles of banknotes into it. Zykov counted them off. ‘Two million,’ he said before long. He zipped up the bag and lifted it. Two million dollars in tightly packed hundreds required surprisingly little effort to carry. ‘Good doing business with you, Kirill Makarovich.’ Sevnik grunted in response, closing the case and standing to watch the men on the jetty.
‘Tony’s just over a mile out,’ Holly Jo told Adam through a crackle of static. ‘Coming from the south-west. They’ll be there in about eight minutes.’
‘Okay.’ But did he have eight minutes? Despite their concern about the state of the jetty, the men had still managed to get the RTG to the plane. The man with the cigarette flicked it into the water and disappeared inside the cabin. The porters eased their heavy burden through the hatch. The Be-200 listed, the float beneath the end of its starboard wing dipping lower into the icy water.
The terrorists climbed into the aircraft to secure the RTG. The Russian soldiers and Zykov’s bodyguards, meanwhile, decided that their part in the heavy lifting was done. They returned to the shore. ‘All right!’ said Sevnik. ‘Let’s go!’ Hefting the cases, he set off back through the cutting. The soldiers followed, one taking out a walkie-talkie and issuing a curt instruction. A few seconds later, Adam heard a muffled whine through the trees. The Hind had started its engines.
That was good: with the Russian troops and their gunship gone,