The Persona Protocol - By Andy McDermott Page 0,113

‘You are finished here?’

‘Yes.’ Al-Rais glanced round as the gunship took flight, the pounding thrum of its rotors fading as it wheeled about and headed west over the hills. But a new noise rose to replace it – the Beriev’s engines starting up.

‘If you need any more weapons,’ Zykov said to al-Rais, ‘you know how to reach me. But for now, we go our separate ways, eh?’ He looked up the cutting to see how work on the Vityaz was progressing. ‘Hey, Ogurtsov! Where are you?’

‘Over here,’ came a reply from the trees.

‘What are you doing there? Is the Vityaz fixed?’

Al-Rais had no interest in Zykov’s transportation issues. He spoke briefly to Qasid, then the pair started down the jetty. Adam tensed, bringing up his gun. Time was rapidly running out.

‘There’s something weird,’ the driver called. ‘I found some footprints.’

On the dock, al-Rais stopped abruptly. ‘What footprints?’

Adam took aim—

Bianca had no idea what the driver was saying, but he was getting closer. She hunched up more tightly, shivering. Maybe he wouldn’t see her, maybe Zykov would call him back, maybe . . .

She heard a muffled metallic clack.

A gun!

Ogurtsov drew a revolver and cocked it as he advanced on Bianca’s hiding place. ‘There’s someone here!’

Al-Rais whirled, yelling to the men in the plane. ‘It’s an ambush! Get your guns, get out of the—’

Adam fired.

Not at the terrorist leader, but at the driver. The Russian crumpled to the ground less than ten feet from Bianca, blood spraying over his coat from a head wound.

Adam brought his gun back towards al-Rais, but his target was already moving, drawing a weapon of his own as he and his companion raced back to the shore. They dived behind a snow-covered pile of rusted machinery. The American’s second shot clanked off the corroded metal a fraction of a second later.

‘Find them, kill them!’ al-Rais screamed. His men started to scramble from the Beriev, AKs at the ready.

Zykov and his bodyguards had also hurried into cover behind a mound of rubble. ‘They’re in the buildings!’ he shouted.

Al-Rais glared at him. ‘You set us up!’ he snarled, raising his gun. Qasid rolled on to his front and aimed his Kalashnikov at the Russians.

Zykov’s eyes widened. ‘No, I swear—’

Al-Rais fired, four bloody holes bursting open in the arms dealer’s head and chest. Qasid opened up with his AK on full auto, spraying the bodyguards with lead. Their bullet-riddled corpses flopped to the ground beside Zykov.

The last of the terrorists jumped from the plane, following his comrades down the jetty—

Shots tore into them, sending three men spinning into the icy water amid spouting trails of gore. A fourth was hit in the arm. He staggered, screaming – only to take another shot to the throat and collapse dead on the dock. The last two men managed to hurl themselves behind the ice-encrusted scrap on the shore.

Adam had been as surprised as the terrorists by the onslaught – but he knew where it had come from.

Tony, Baxter and his men had joined the battle.

He could tell from the sound of the gunfire that they were still some distance away, using their rifles’ scopes to engage from extreme range. ‘Holly Jo! Where are they?’

‘They’re coming along the shore to the south,’ she replied. ‘About five hundred metres from you.’

It only took him a moment to visualise the relative positions of all the combatants – and to realise that if the terrorists moved a short distance further from the lake, the American team’s sight lines would be blocked by the buildings.

Al-Rais had come to the same conclusion. ‘Cover me!’ he shouted. Adam briefly saw him gesturing towards a single-storey building on the cutting’s north side, but wasn’t able to line up a clear shot. ‘Get into there!’

The whine of the Beriev’s engines rose sharply. The young co-pilot reached from the open hatch to unfasten the mooring rope as the seaplane shifted, ice churning and bobbing around its belly—

A hole suddenly exploded in the windscreen, the pilot’s head snapping back out of Adam’s sight as a gunshot echoed along the shore. Not the dry mechanical rattle of the G36s, but the enormous boom of Rossovich’s XM500 sniper rifle. Five hundred metres was nothing for the Barrett; the weapon was designed to hit targets well over a mile away. The co-pilot shrieked and ducked back inside. The Beriev jerked to a stop, held by the line.

Al-Rais made a break for the building. Adam took aim – but forced himself not to fire. The mission