Northport, Maine
The last light of the day made the walls of the house glow like an old sepia postcard. The house was a modest 1930s’ two-bedroom cottage on Atlantic Highway between the towns of Northport and Belfast. What wasn’t modest, however, was the twenty-acre oceanfront grounds. Mature trees, enough to be considered a private wood, lined the property on three sides affording total privacy for retired general Richard Leavesley and his wife. In high summer it was a verdant idyll and, according to photographs taken by the couple’s daughter and helpfully posted on Facebook, became a myriad of reds and oranges in the autumn and a stark, sharp, Christmas card winter landscape when the snows came.
Akulov much preferred this place over the soulless timber monstrosity designed by the banker from Boston and Piper’s mansion. But the Russian was not in the US to meet interesting people and discuss architecture with them; he was in the US to kill them. The old soldier was the last on his list of targets in Maine.
For this hit he would again use the Blaser. It had worked well thus far and he saw no reason to change his choice of weapon in an attempt to conceal the pattern of kills. The targets were on the list for various reasons but fundamentally, each man had wronged his employer and each was to be eliminated. But none of this mattered much to Akulov – soon the US would not have the capacity to investigate.
Even without the hasty change of schedule, this was the most challenging of his three hits. Not because, like him, the target was former military but for the simple fact that Akulov had a greater risk of exposure. During his initial reconnaissance trip he had parked in the only available place to him, the car park of the Hideaway Diner a five-minute walk directly along the Atlantic Highway. Among the tourists, he’d taken a while to eat and assess the possibilities of using the parking lot again but found the family running the establishment to be too attentive. His long and intensive training meant that he could sound and look American whenever he spoke English. What he could not do, however, was materialise and dematerialise at will.
Again the internet, and America’s reliance on it, came to his aid. He’d run an untraceable “real estate” search on his encrypted phone. A property less than a mile away, on the same stretch of road, was advertised for sale. The listing, including full photography, confirmed that it was masked from the highway by a tree-lined meandering driveway, set back in the trees, and most importantly that it was available immediately. Real estate agency code for “empty”. Akulov paid for his meal, left a tip not because he wanted to – he wasn’t a fan of fatty American fare – but because if he didn’t, he’d be remembered.
Coming to a halt in the turning circle he casually stepped out of his black Tahoe, advanced towards the front door of the vacant house and rang the bell. From within the whitewashed, timber-clad walls came a cheap, electronic chime that was at odds with the not insubstantial price being asked for the property. But apart from the bell, the rustling of the leaves in the breeze and the distant hum of the highway, no other sounds reached his tactically trained ears. Still playing the part of a potential buyer, Akulov walked the perimeter of the house, peering in windows and gently pressing the back door. Finally he placed his left ear against a glass pane and listened. Nothing. No hum of life. He straightened up and using the bottom of his dark blue polo shirt rubbed away any oils or imprint from his ear on the glass. Ears were almost as unique as fingerprints and he was certainly not going to leave any trace he had been here.
Five minutes later, after repositioning the Tahoe so that it faced back up the driveway and was hidden in the lea of the house, he used a set of lock picks on the back door. Once inside he’d scouted the house to confirm that it was empty.
Akulov never failed to prepare but the timescale in which he had to undertake this chain of assassinations was challenging. His preferred approach would have been to watch each target exclusively, establishing a hide – an observation post – and then once the best time had been assessed he’d take the shot. A single shot, any more would risk the origin of the round being identified. That is how he had worked in Grozny, that is how he had worked in eastern Ukraine and that is how most recently he had taken out a leading ISIL commander in Syria. But three targets in three consecutive days had now, on the whim of his employer, become three targets in two days. It was a totally unacceptable and rash request to any operator on the private circuit. But his employer knew he was the best, and so did he. As such he saw it as a challenge to his ability, and he had accepted.
He’d had to create three hides and use them simultaneously. The hides overlooking both targets number one and two had been less problematic. Rolling hills with thick vegetation had afforded the cover and well-used parking lots had camouflaged the SUV. He had come and gone in turn dressed as a hiker and then casually as a tourist – jeans and a dark polo shirt. He had also favoured a dark green, cotton balaclava in place of camo face paint. One moment it was on and the next it was off, as was his thick woodland camo smock. His Blaser remained safely stowed, broken down, in a customised case and compartment in the trunk of the Tahoe, until the final time he needed to use the hide.
Having found a route that took him painfully slowly through woodland and then grounds of the adjoining property, with its own extensive woods and an orchard, Akulov had observed and recorded his target’s schedule. The general and his wife enjoyed having their evening meal at a steel garden set on the sloping lawn. They would then either go inside or remain sitting, drinking, chatting and reading until it was time to watch the summer sunset. It was very romantic, Akulov imagined. Sometime afterwards, the general’s wife would retire inside, leaving her husband to sit in the warm night air. And that was when Akulov would end the old soldier’s campaign.
A day earlier than planned and with the dappled light of the high-summer evening starting to fade, Akulov lay among the trees watching. Having switched his smock for a ghillie suit, a coverall adorned with loose strips of burlap chosen to match the hues of the foliage in the surrounding wood, and customised by interlacing long grasses, leaves and stems from the area into the garment’s loose-weave fabric, he was invisible. As close to invisible, that was, as a human can be if they are immobile. Certainly he would stick out like the red star atop the Kremlin’s Spasskaya Tower if looked at with an infrared scope, but he took the chance that a retired general, enjoying a pleasant evening in his own garden, would not happen to have one by his side. And even so Akulov would take his chances that he could get his shot in first before the target raised the alarm.
Akulov watched the general’s wife, a handsome woman whose auburn hair seemed a shade too vivid to be natural, touch her husband on the shoulder before she sauntered back to the house. His target was alone. It was time to complete this part of his mission and move on. Again he would not kill the partner. The woman had willingly married a soldier and had known that at any time during his deployment her husband could be snatched away from her. He was a target and it was not up to him to decide when he ceased to be so. No. That decision had been made by the man’s enemies. And one such enemy had ordered Akulov to end the man’s life.
Akulov steadied his breathing and let his finger take first pressure on the Blaser’s trigger. He started to squeeze but then a faint sound stopped him. His finger froze. A bark. A dog. Somewhere. Remaining immobile, senses on full alert, he listened. It barked again. He analysed the tone, the pitch. He cast his mind back. The house that lay between his target’s property and the empty house, where he’d hid the Tahoe, was animal-free. No pet dogs, no children. As far as he could tell adults only. He heard the bark again, but now it was less audible, fainter, further away. Meanwhile Akulov’s target, retired general Richard Leavesley, was still in his chair, still facing the ocean, still alive. And then he wasn’t.
Akulov exhaled, squeezed the sturdy metal trigger, the .338 Lapua Magnum round entered Leavesley’s left temple and exited through the right taking with it most of the retired general’s brain, skull and face. The body was hurled sideways by the impact and the chair fell. The retort of the shot, lessened by the bulbous suppressor and deadened by the surrounding thick foliage, nevertheless flared as a firework in Akulov’s ears. The Russian term for a firework display was a “salute” and this had been his salute to the target, the retired soldier had died a soldier’s death.
Akulov did not move for several minutes. His eyes scanned the scene ahead, and his ears hunted for sounds of approaching feet. The dead general’s wife had seemingly not heard the shot that had ended her husband’s life. Akulov slowly crawled backwards far enough until he found the ejected shell case, which had landed just past his right elbow. Palming this he continued to crawl until he was behind a large tree and only then risked rolling over onto his back and sitting up. He pocketed the shell case, slowly got to his feet and holding the long rifle casually across his body stealthily retraced his route back to the safety of his SUV.
He reached the border of the first neighbouring property and paused before pulling away the loose boards in the all-but-hidden green-painted wooden fence marking the boundary. He listened. No sounds. The boards came away easily, affixed by nails that were now wobbling in holes purposely made too big. Akulov stepped over through the fence and replaced the boards. He crouched. His exfiltration route took him through more trees until he was forced to squeeze in the narrow gap between a garage and an exterior wall and then cross the second fence into the woodland that reached up to the property line of the empty house.
On his haunches he edged forward and then he froze, immobile, made of stone. The dog barked again. And it was nearer. Much nearer. He could hear movement up ahead in the garden, and muffled voices and then an excited bark. Akulov swung the ungainly rifle up as quickly as he could, both the length of the barrel and the suppressor slowing its travel. The foliage in front of him quivered as a dark, round object flew towards him. Grenade! a voice inside his head yelled … but that made no sense here. The object hit him in the chest and he realised it was a dark coloured rubber ball. And then the foliage exploded and the large, panting face of a golden retriever appeared.
The dog came to a sudden halt, cocked its head to one side and let out a quizzical bark. Akulov smiled, a gesture unseen under his balaclava. He dared not make a sound and he couldn’t move his hands without moving the rifle. He willed the dog to get bored and retreat. It didn’t. The dog edged forward, sniffing, and now its tail started to wag. Its nose nudged the webbing of his suit as it inspected the foliage attached to it and then it pushed its head down between Akulov’s feet, opened its mouth and grabbed the ball with its teeth before it bounded away.
Akulov let out his breath slowly. He had three options: go back, stay where he was or move forward. He decided to stay put, for now. Noise attracted attention but more often than not it was movement that gave away position. Minutes passed and he heard the dog jumping around on the grass on the other side of the shrubs and the voices of a young boy and an older man calling the dog, and then a car door slammed and the noises stopped.
Akulov waited until he was sure that the garden was deserted before he moved once more. He exited the trees and squeezed along the three-foot-wide gap between the garage and the wall and then paused a beat, listened again before he made for the fence, removed yet more loose boards and escaped into the woods beyond. He checked his watch as he reached the far side of the woods. It was eight forty-five and the fading light filtering through the trees now made it difficult for him to see, but also harder for him to be seen. Pulling back the chain-link fence he had strategically cut to make entry, Akulov appeared in the garden of the empty property. But this time it wasn’t empty. Akulov went prone in the grass.
Down the incline of the driveway and hidden from its entrance were two vehicles. One was his black Tahoe, and the other was a larger, dull red Ford pick-up truck. He didn’t want to kill the occupants of the truck unless he had to. The truck had reversed in. It was facing him. Its lights were off. He could see that the back door of the house was open. A dim light at a first-floor window caught his attention. It was bouncing erratically, a torch. An empty house, visited at night by someone entering via the back and using a torch? Akulov sighed. He had planned his mission down to the minutest detail but what he had not, could not have imagined was that the very same empty property that had appealed to him had also attracted intruders, thieves. And thieves were untrained and unpredictable.
The sight on the Blaser was stock. It was permanently affixed to the barrel so that when broken down and reassembled the rifle remained aligned, highly accurate, and that was the reason he had chosen that very model. But the scope was not set up for extreme low light levels. He had a dedicated NVG scope and barrel combination for that, but that was in a case, and the case was in the Tahoe and the vehicle was sixty feet in front of him.
Lights flared in a second room. Two distinct lights now were moving at the same time, a team of two? Unless he was running a solo operation, Akulov would have put at least one man as a sentry. He trained his scope on the Ford. It was the double-cab version with seating for five. The driver’s window was open to the evening air and the seat was empty, but the passenger seat was not. Camouflaged almost as well as himself, a figure sat stock-still. His clothes were dark and blended into the interior gloom of the cab. So was this a three-man team? A useful number, perhaps harder to detect, but surely a four-man team could lift more from the house.
And then the fourth man appeared from behind the Tahoe. He walked around the whole length of the vehicle and then passed in front of the pick-up before he opened the driver’s door. Akulov noted that they had disabled the interior light, which was a precaution he too would have taken; perhaps they had some training or, failing that, innate awareness.
Two men appeared from the back door of the house. They both carried a large sports bag in each hand and from the way they were walking, the bags looked to be heavy. The bagmen placed the haul on the truck bed before going back inside. Akulov cast his mind back to when he’d searched the house. He had a mental inventory of its contents. The house was sparsely furnished. It was decorated to sell, the old and expensive pieces of furniture – he imagined – having been taken by the current owners. As such it felt like a show home, a stage set. So what were the men removing from the house in bags? He’d wait for them to leave. He didn’t care … but then he did.
The two bagmen reappeared with two more bags each, heaved them onto the truck bed, and paused for a moment before pulling a cover tight across the space. The truck started up, a rumble of throaty thunder in the quiet night air. Not a vehicle he would have chosen for its stealth capabilities but perhaps it was the load-carrying capacity it had been selected for? The two bagmen got in the back of the cab. The Ford pulled forward. Its lights were off and then it stopped. The driver clambered down. He took a step away from the truck. The passenger got out too and joined him. As did the bagmen. There was a conversation. It was quiet but appeared heated as the driver was gesticulating towards the Tahoe.
Eventually one of the bagmen shrugged, put his hand in his pocket, brandished something too small for Akulov to identify and approached the driver’s door of the Tahoe. He inserted it into the lock. Anger and regret surged through Akulov. They could not take his ride, and they must not gain access to what was inside. He had made a mistake leaving his kit there. His anger increased, but now with himself. They had become a threat he had to liquidate.
The bagman made short work of the Tahoe’s lock. The door swung open and the interior light came on. All four men were either looking at or moving to the large, black SUV. Akulov had no choice. The Blaser’s clip held five rounds. He had four left, and four targets, but the rifle was a straight-pull bolt action, which was faster to reload than a standard bolt action rifle but agonisingly slow compared to even a semiautomatic. The question was, how many could he get before they moved? He had more rounds in the SUV and a compact Glock 19 on a leg holster, but this was an unsilenced backup weapon. The men were moving; he had no choice. Speed and aggression were needed.
He lined the driver up in his sights, aimed squarely between the man’s shoulder blades and squeezed the trigger. Sounding like a heavy car door slamming, the supressed round took milliseconds to reach its target. The driver was propelled forward and landed face first on the grass. The passenger saw him go down, swung around, puzzled, shocked. Akulov had already ratcheted another round into the chamber and this hit the man in the chest. The passenger was lifted back and off his feet. He landed, sprawled against the Tahoe’s front grille like roadkill.
The second bagman’s right hand started to move towards his pocket, his eyes wide and whiter than his face in the failing light as he searched for the source of the gunfire. Akulov fired again. The man’s head exploded and the round carried on to hit the wooden-clad house behind. Meanwhile, the first bagman had dropped behind the open door of the Tahoe. Akulov fired his last round. It hit the middle of the door … and didn’t go through. He swore in his native Russian. A handgun appeared over the top of the door and two loud, unsuppressed shots were fired blindly in his general direction. The Kevlar panels insisted upon by Akulov’s employer to be fitted to all of the vehicles used to safeguard the operation may now be exactly what compromised his part of it.
Akulov rolled away from the rifle, then crawled to his left and retrieved his Glock from its holster. He had a full fifteen-round clip, which was more than enough to defeat the target but every round fired either by him or the bagman was another scream of help in the night. But then the night became silent. The bagman was behind the car door and Akulov knew he’d be panicking, assessing his options.
The obvious play was to climb in the SUV, shut the door and drive away, but attempting to bypass the electronic ignition would take time. The second option would be to get back inside the house, and then that gave him more options: hide, find a vantage point to attack, find an exit route. The third option was the fastest way to end it all, and the most foolhardy, but would the bagman really charge Akulov’s position? That left the fourth option: surrender. But surrender took more courage than fighting or running as the bagman would be putting his life in his attacker’s hands.
Akulov gave the bagman no choice. He trained his Glock on the space under the open door and fired a volley of four quick shots. He then got to his feet and sprinted to the left again, to flank the target. He dropped to his haunches to minimise his profile and aimed the Glock. There was no movement from the bagman. The air was silent save for the ringing in Akulov’s ears. The firefight had lasted less than two minutes.
He rose to his feet and approached the SUV. He kept his Glock trained on the crumpled body behind the door, but let his eyes dart to the other fallen men. None of them moved; none of them made a sound. He kicked the bagman with his foot. The bagman’s head was resting on the doorjamb and his gun arm was inside. A Glock 17, standard police issue, had fallen into the footwell. He used his boot again and pushed the body out of the cabin. This time the bagman groaned as his head hit the ground and Akulov put a round through his forehead. Akulov went to each body in turn. There was no need for a close inspection; he could tell from the entry wounds and the lack of a head – in the second bagman’s case – that all the men were dead. He didn’t search any of the bodies for ID, or even look at their faces.
Akulov checked his watch and knew that he had only minutes before neighbours and law enforcement arrived on the scene. The unsuppressed gunfire, he imagined, had also brought the general’s wife into the garden to make her own discovery. And that would create one hell of a show. There was no way he wanted to drive back past her place. He retrieved his rifle, didn’t break it down, just stowed it in the trunk. He stepped over to the pick-up, unlatched the cover, pulled the corner back and inspected the truck bed. It revealed one of the bags. He tugged down the zip.
It was packed with bricks of one-hundred-dollar bills. Each brick was held tight by a Federal Reserve $10,000 strap. He felt his pulse rise, higher than it had during the firefight. He carried out a hurried mental calculation. It was a life-changing amount, for most people. American dollars were a global currency, but how much would they be worth after the attack? But the cash was free, the spoils of war.
Akulov quickly grabbed the nearest bag but as he hefted it up from the truck bed he heard a sound, and then voices. He smiled ruefully; he’d run out of time. He slung the single bag into the back of the Tahoe and closed the boot. Quickly and quietly, he clambered into the driver’s seat. The Tahoe rumbled on start-up – nothing he could do about that – and drove slowly up the drive. He rounded the trees just as figures with flashlights appeared on the highway at the entrance to the property. He flicked his lights on to full beam to dazzle them and pushed the gas pedal flat.
The Tahoe’s V8 growled, the tyres bit as they made the transition from gravel to tarmac and then the heavy SUV catapulted itself north, away from the carnage, away from the dead and towards his extraction point.