Night's Reckoning Read online

  Except, perhaps, for Grozny. He preferred to keep himself to himself, staying for the most part in his private cell. Like all the others in the facility, it had its own toilet and shower. With the satellite TV, radio and personal computer, he need barely move outside—except to make phone calls, as he had no private phone or internet access. He also used the gym and library, but shunned the rooms used for the varying religious denominations. He had no time for them.

  He had long since lost faith in any God, and preferred to put his fate in his own hands. What he had been doing for fifteen long years before his capture was still a mystery, and his actions gave no clue. Any life he had made during that time had been expunged, and these days his life was solely himself and his defense counsel. He was self-contained to a point where it unnerved even the hardened men with whom he shared the facility.

  He was focused, and the reason for this was about to become apparent, though not to Boer, who made his farewells and left the building, wrapped up in his own thoughts. As he left the compound, he did not notice the unmarked gray Ford truck parked in a side street. Nor did he notice the two cars—a Saab and a Volvo—that sat in adjacent streets, forming a crescent around the front of the building.

  He did notice the distant sound of helicopters, approaching at speed. But he paid it little attention as thoughts of the following day filled his head.

  Inside the building, seated in his cell, Grozny also heard the distant beating of the rotor blades, and spared himself the smallest of smiles.

  * * *

  “WHO IS THAT LOSER?” Milo asked, eyes following Boer as he crossed the street.

  The man next to him in the Saab shrugged. “Does it matter?”

  “Maybe,” Milo murmured as he hit speed dial on his cell. It was answered on the second ring.

  “Why are you breaking silence? And don’t look over here,” the harsh voice added. Milo tore his eyes away from the gray van. “Better,” the voice intoned. “Make it quick.”

  “The guy just leaving...passed you a few seconds back...”

  “What about him?”

  “Familiar. Trouble?”

  “If he was trouble I wouldn’t have let him pass,” the voice replied. “Name’s Boer, junior prosecution grunt. Excited about his big day and wanted to see the Big Bad Wolf. Nothing for you to concern yourself over. You just stick to the plan, yes?”

  “Okay...just wanted to make sure it went smoothly.”

  “No one likes a smart-ass, Milo. Just carry out orders. They’re gaining.”

  The line went dead, and Milo looked up through the windshield at the skies. The two choppers were in view. They looked to be standard police vehicles, even down to the markings.

  They weren’t.

  Milo could see that the man next to him was smirking. He shot him a look.

  “Hey, don’t take it out on me. You just stay frosty on what we’re about to do now...” His Flemish was heavily accented, as was that of most of the men on this mission. The difference was that this man’s accent was American, whereas the others were either from the old East Germany or were Serbs, and were accented accordingly. Milo had never warmed to him in training—a mercenary did not share your beliefs, and so was unlikely to fight with the same fire when it came to the crunch. Despite that, he was the one who had found the weak link, and who had plotted the battle plan.

  As he spoke, the American took a Glock 23 semiautomatic pistol from the fast-draw armpit sling in which he kept it. He ejected, checked and rammed back in the thirteen-round magazine that fired 165 grain Speer Gold Dot JHP slugs. There were other magazines attached to a belt that was slung across his shoulder under his lightweight windcheater, easily accessible for combat.

  “Gentlemen, I suggest you do the same. It’s time to go,” he said quietly but firmly as he gunned the engine of the Saab.

  The choppers were directly overhead, and as they started to move apart into a circular holding pattern that would take them around the PIH, they began to attract attention from the guards on the roof space, who could be seen gesturing and signaling as they used their comms.

  Milo checked his H&K G3A4, another Uzi clone but less inclined to jam on continuous fire, and so was more reliable. His heart was pounding and his mouth was dry. He could feel his temple throb as the adrenaline raced through his system. This was what he signed up for, but now it had come he was terrified and exhilarated at the same time.

  The Saab, Volvo and the gray van converged at the front of the PIH. The guards outside of the building were moving toward them, their own machine pistols held downward. Confused looks were writ large as they received panic and little information in their earpieces.

  “They’re still not sure,” the American purred. “When the choppers start, then we hit hard. Our man inside will know to move.”

  Milo could almost feel the tension, smell the sweat and fear from the men seated behind him. For all of them, they had trained hard, but had seen little real action. Planting a few bombs and long-distance sniping were not anything like the up-close firefight they were about to start.

  * * *

  KOEMANS SWITCHED BACK to the CCTV monitor on

  Grozny’s cell. Bad Santa, as he couldn’t help thinking of him, was calmly closing his books, putting them to one side and then taking the furniture in the room and stacking it against the door. Normally, this would be a cue for Koemans—or whoever was on duty—to raise an alarm.

  Not on this day—presently Koemans could only marvel at the calm of the man.

  He switched to CCTV from the roof. He could see the choppers swoop over the roof, and hear the confused reports of the men stationed there. They were trying to raise the choppers, verify their identity.

  Not a chance. He smiled to himself. They were asking him what was going on down there, and why he wasn’t responding to their requests.

  He finished unscrewing the access port to the comms circuitry, and traced a ribbon cable with his finger to its junction with a server box. He pulled at it savagely, tugging it loose. Three of the monitors died. He traced with his fingers to a group of wires welded into a plate. A bit more leverage, and they detached. The voices from the roof went dead instantly.

  First part of what he had been paid for complete, he left the monitor room to undertake the next stage.

  * * *

  “WHY ISN’T THAT dipshit answering?” Heerdven yelled over the sound of the choppers as they swept across the roof, coming lower with each pass.

  “I don’t know, but then no one’s answering us, especially those fuckers,” his companion replied, unable to keep the tremor of fear from his voice as he scanned the air above them. Van Der Linden was an experienced guard, and knew that police choppers always responded—more important, they didn’t make passes like this. Whoever it was up there, they weren’t Koninklijke Marechausee, which is what their registration suggested. They could be high-handed at times, but they wouldn’t act like this and not bother responding.

  Van Der Linden raised his weapon, ready to fire a warning shot across the bow of the first chopper to pass. Heerdven looked at him, jaw dropped in amazement.

  The older guard never got the chance to fire off a burst: his action precipitated the attack, as a rain of fire from the two passing choppers burst across the roof space, making guards scatter and dive for cover. Except for Van Der Linden—his action had made him the focal point of the first burst, and he was stitched across the middle of the torso, nearly cut in half by the heavy-duty 20 mm machine guns the choppers wielded.

  Smoke grenades dropped onto the roof, laying down a covering fog that choked the guards and made it impossible for them to see what was going on.

  Ropes fell from each chopper as they steadied and hovered, three men dropping from each, wearing gas masks and holding Spectre SMGs. The unique four-column magazines on each gun
held fifty rounds of

  9 mm Parabellum cartridges. It was unlikely that between them the men would be forced to reload more than once, possibly not even that. The Spectre would allow them to save precious time otherwise spent in reload.

  The six men stalked across the roof space, sparingly firing at the guards as they attempted to return fire through the choking mist and tear-filled vision. It took only a short while to clear their threat. The six men knew where access to the interior lay, and made straight for it. The access was unguarded and unlocked, and in next to no time they were inside the building.

  * * *

  “GO,” THE AMERICAN said simply as the first bursts of fire were heard from above. He was out of the Saab before the echo had died away. Milo followed, pulling a ski mask over his face. Most of the CCTV would be out, but caution was still essential. Behind him, he heard the doors as the two men in back of the car joined them.

  Casting a quick glance over his shoulder, he saw the occupants of the Volvo also exit their vehicle. In front of them, the guards at the gates were calling warnings. They were obliged by their laws and by their codes of conduct to do this. Even as they did, they leveled their machine pistols in order to open fire.

  They were not quite quick enough. Before they could squeeze off an opening volley they had been stitched by a hail of fire coming from eight men. It would have been wasteful under other circumstances, but necessary to get them out of the way so that the front of the PIH could be opened up. For while they had been clearing the way, the three men in the gray van had been calmly unloading from the rear doors two Hawk MM-1 semiautomatic grenade launchers. While one of the men—the owner of the harsh voice and mission commander—closed the doors and took up position with a short-range walkie-talkie headset and BXP-10, the other two walked calmly toward the front of the PHI and took up an anchoring stance before unleashing a barrage of HE at the front of the building.

  The entrance was well armored, but even so it could only withstand so much. It was open enough to admit the men, and the blast had been sufficient to drive back any opposition on the other side, at least far enough for the invading force to gain egress.

  “Gas masks. Lay down smoke. We’ve gained the roof and are inside up top,” Milo heard in his earpiece. Like three of the men striding down the corridors of the PIH, he reached into the pouches that were slung under his windjammer and pulled out a smoke grenade, which he rolled along the floor. Lightweight gas masks were in the pockets of the windcheater, and were in place before the smoke had started to spread.

  So far so good. They had made rapid progress, and apart from the guards on the exterior of the building, they had needed to fire only short bursts, and those to take out the CCTV cameras as they saw them. Most of them would be dead, if the inside man had been thorough—

  it would, however, do no harm to make sure, and would deflect suspicion.

  Alarms were blaring, and the lights within the building had switched to red and were flashing. It was designed to make concentration difficult, but if the rest of the men felt as Milo did, then they were too focused to take any notice. There was only the objective.

  The prisoners would be in lockdown. That was fine. All it did was keep them in one place, and made it easier to find their man. Not that he ever ventured far, if their intel was correct.

  He would be waiting for them.

  They made rapid and easy progress. The locks on all the interior doors were centrally controlled. The inside man had made sure that they had been disabled, and so they were able to move from section to section, level to level with ease. The blanket of smoke the team had laid down at each turn, along with the speed that the unlocking had given them, meant that the guards were taken by surprise and were unable to respond with the speed that they—and their masters—would have liked. Led by the American mercenary, the raiding party showed that their training had paid off—they ripped through the opposition as though they weren’t there.

  Speed was of the essence—the Koninklijke Marechausee would be on the scene as soon as they could mobilize. The PIH came under their remit, and although the regional force was competent, an attack like this was way beyond their competencies. They would have been alerted almost immediately to the choppers hovering overhead, and even with the inside man working for them, it was unlikely that no alarm had yet been raised, directly or indirectly.

  As they reached the right level for their target, Milo found himself leveling his weapon at one of his own men: they had made it down from the roof with the same speed as his contingent had ascended. He grinned under his gas mask, wondered if the man facing him was doing the same and continued on his path, the other falling in behind him.

  The PIH was a maze of wings and cell blocks, but they had rehearsed and walked through their route enough times to be able to do it even if there were no lights, and nothing but the blanket of smoke.

  Then they were at their destination.

  The American stopped outside Grozny’s cell and gestured to his men. Milo and one other came forward and pushed at the door. It was secured by piled furniture. Why?

  The pile yielded easily under their weight, and it struck Milo that it was too easy—the furniture had been placed for show. If CCTV was still working here, and if the evidence left behind was studied after, it would look as if Grozny had not been expectant or even willing. The old bastard was covering every angle he could think of, in case things went wrong.

  They entered the room. Milo saw Grozny sitting on the floor in the far corner, impassive apart from the smoke-induced tears that streaked his face. Milo produced another gas mask from within his jacket, and as he bent toward Grozny he made to force it over his head. The old warlord raised his hands as if to ward him off, but slyly helped him to slip it on. As Milo and his compatriot grabbed the warlord under the arms, he seemed to resist, but once again Milo could feel the power from his thighs as he thrust himself upward, his actions belying the impression he would leave.

  Stumbling—this time for real as he was still finding it hard to see, despite the gas mask—Grozny allowed them to lead him out of the cell and down the corridor. He passed the communal rooms that he had barely used, and felt relief. At last he would be out and back in a world where he felt he had unfinished business.

  Their part of the mission almost finished, the men from the choppers parted from the main group and ascended rapidly to the roof. As they went, one of them tore off his gas mask to reveal tumbling gray locks and a thick gray beard. He ripped off his Kevlar vest—worn by all of them—and handed it to a compatriot who stowed it under their own. In a plain white T-shirt, he could easily have been taken from a distance as Grozny.

  As they exited onto the roof he started to mock struggle with his compatriots. Two of them appeared to overpower and bind his arms as they neared the ropes from the still-hovering choppers. Tying him to one line, a tug signaled for it to be winched up, the fake Grozny still appearing to struggle against the line as it ascended.

  The other five scaled the rope from the second chopper as it was winched up and the craft joined its companion in abandoning its hovering pattern and circling to fly to the west.

  As the pilot of each had expected, four choppers were heading toward them from the east. Each pilot had been nervously scanning the skies as the raid took place. They had one objective—to outrun the opposition.

  But not without making sure that the fake Grozny could be seen by their pursuers as he was winched into the chopper from which he was still dangling....

  * * *

  FORMING A PHALANX around the warlord, the American mercenary led his men back through the maze of corridors, keeping point. They seemed to have wiped out all the guards on their way in, but you could never be too sure....

  * * *

  KOEMANS HAD BEEN keeping well out of the way. He had been well paid by the Hague official who had approached
him. He had no idea who these people were, or why they should want to take the old warlord. He was well past his sell-by date, if you asked Koemans. But he had his own concerns—there were men holding a gambling tab that had been only too happy to receive the payment on his behalf.

  The last thing he had expected was for these maniacs to come through here ripping a new hole in everything that crossed their path. The whole idea of making it easy for them to gain access was so that they would be quick and clean—that was what he had been told. Pity no one had thought to tell them, then. Koemans realized that if everyone else was dead or wounded, it was going to look pretty suspicious if he wasn’t.

  Koemans had the stupidest idea running through his head. He had to cover his own back somehow, and if everyone else had been shot at some point...

  He made his way toward the entrance of the PIH. He knew that they would have to be headed this way, and he also knew that all the CCTV was out, so there would be no incriminating eye on him. All he had to do was to catch them and get their attention. Without, obviously, getting shot....

  He could hear them as they made their way through the eerily quiet corridors, their footsteps echoing as they ran. He drew his own weapon and held it with the barrel up, resting loosely in his hand and in an obvious noncombat stance. If he was right, then he should be able to intersect with them just before they reached the exit.