Ekaterinburg, Russia
June 2011
As the days passed, Vasiliy’s condition steadily worsened. He had a high fever, and bouts of alternating chills and night sweats left him exhausted each morning. Rawness on his wrists and ankles from the iron cuffs had developed into deep, infected wounds, and red streaks ran up his right arm and both legs. Occasionally, the fear that he would lose an arm or leg crossed his mind. The emotion was always short-lived, though, and even in his pain, he realized the ludicrousness of such concerns. That would take time, and time was a commodity in very short supply.
The interrogations had stopped, but their diet had not improved. Nikolay Suslov continued to make his surreptitious visits in the middle of the night to supplement their meager fare, but both prisoners had lost a lot of weight over the last ten days. Vasiliy wondered why they were bothering to keep him and George W alive at all. Probably just waiting on word from Putin.
In his delirium, Vasilily had become obsessed with thoughts of the execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his family, something which had taken place 93 years before in Ekaterinburg1, where he now found himself imprisoned. The Ipatiev House, scene of those grisly murders, had been demolished in 1977 by his own great-uncle on orders from the Politburo. The thought was constantly on Vasiliy’s mind, and the irony of his own impending execution at the hands of the heirs to that same brutal regime, in the same city, unnerved him.
Each night in a recurring dream, Vasiliy woke up with his heart pounding at the sound of deafening gunfire erupting in the basement of the Ipatiev House as the Tsar’s firing squad mercilessly eliminated the symbol of the Russian monarchy. Tonight at first appeared to be no different than previous nights. Shortly after midnight, Vasiliy woke up with a start as shots rang out. He sat up with beads of sweat dripping from his brow and tried to clear the sleep from his head. The gunfire, however, inexplicably continued. Loud explosions and machine gun fire could be heard outside the building. The walls of the cells shuddered from the explosions. Shaking his head sleepily, Vasiliy realized that he wasn’t dreaming. There was a large-scale fire fight going on somewhere nearby, and he thought he recognized the sound of helicopter rotors amid the hollow bursts of automatic weapons fire.
Vasiliy looked across the bay and in the darkness saw the outline of another figure. George W. Bush was standing at the door to his cell. “What’s going on, Vasiliy?” he asked with apprehension.
Although he could barely raise himself to a sitting position, Vasiliy managed a weak smile, invisible though it was in the darkness. He remembered an American expression that his father had always used and said, “George, I think the cavalry just arrived!”
Three Russian-made MI-24 Hind-F attack helicopters circled the Institute of Applied Genetics in the darkness. Twin-mounted 30mm cannons on each aircraft fired on the ad-hoc military defenses Zad Litzo and his men had improvised over the last two weeks, and door-mounted 50-calibre machines guns raked the compound. In sixty seconds, Litzo’s hastily-erected defense installations were destroyed or rendered ineffectual, and most of the Russian soldiers assigned to defend the compound and its two VIP prisoners lay riddled with bullets on the manicured lawns of the institute. The rest had fled in terror and confusion into the surrounding countryside. This hadn’t been part of the conscripts’ job description, and Litzo had not prepared for a full-blown airborne assault.
Fortunately for himself, Litzo had chosen to stay overnight at a hotel in downtown Ekaterinburg with an inexpensive prostitute the local Federal Security Service chief had procured. Litzo was more than a little surprised when he received an urgent phone call on his encrypted line in the middle of a vigorous tryst with the obliging hooker. The caller relayed the news that the institute was under attack. Litzo was astonished. He knew who had to be behind the attack, but he hadn’t expected the Americans to have the stomach for it. In addition, they had responded far more quickly and with much greater force than he could have imagined. As he rushed to put on his clothes, Litzo made several hurried phone calls to local military commanders. It was a 45-minute drive to the institute, but he didn’t dare head that way without a military escort. No telling how long they would take to mobilize. He hoped he wouldn’t be too late.
The three MI-24 assault helicopters landed in quick succession. The cargo compartment of the first helicopter slid open and Major Tahir Akhmedov hit the ground closely followed by his five-man team of seasoned Afghan fighters. He turned and signaled to Mako Sloane, who had already leapt to the ground from the second helicopter with his team of former CIA operatives and one very nervous journalist. Tupelo McSweeney, weighted down with explosives, clambered to the ground from the last helicopter with yet another five-man team of Afghans.
When Tahir received Mako Sloane’s cryptic message, he had mobilized his tribesmen without hesitation. He was eager to help the man who had saved his life on multiple occasions, and there had been no shortage of willing fighters. They all remembered Sloane and were proud to be a part of any mission he led.
In the years that followed the initial defeat of the Taliban in 2002, Tahir had joined the newly constituted Afghan army. With his combat experience, tribal ties, and knowledge of English, he had risen rapidly through the ranks and was now a trusted favorite among his NATO colleagues.
Tahir’s tribal connections and a few strategically placed bribes had enabled Sloane’s small army to travel freely through Uzbekistan into northern Kazakhstan where three days of intense negotiations and several wire transfers to Swiss banks secured the use of the helicopters. Drake Herrin showed no compunction over spending a small portion of his family fortune to ensure the success of their mission. The thirst for revenge has a flexible budget.
Besides firepower, the most important consideration had been the range of the helicopters. From the Kazakh border, the Institute of Applied Genetics on the outskirts of Ekaterinburg was well within the range of the MI-24’s, but without refueling in Russia, they would not be able to make the return trip. Fortunately, an obliging Kazakh army general with a taste for the better things in life was able to provide an MI-8 transport helicopter with extra fuel pods, giving the aircraft the capability of making the return trip without the necessity of refueling.
With the assault force on the ground, the deafening suppressing fire of the helicopters’ machine guns and 30mm cannons ceased. Tahir and his men, plus the Afghan veterans from the second Hind helicopter under the command of Tupelo McSweeney, fanned out to form a defensive perimeter around the main building of the institute where the clone laboratory was located. As Tupelo began to wire the assault helicopters with explosives, the MI-8 transport helicopter was already beginning its descent.
Hardly any of the Afghan fighters were under 45 years old. Most were Mujahedeen veterans of the Soviet occupation, and they prayed for the opportunity to do battle again with the hated Russians. They took their assigned positions according to the satellite photographs they had studied prior to the mission.
It had been a few years since Mako had visited the institute, but little had changed. His team followed as Sloane ran full speed toward the main entrance. The door was not locked, and they barged through without slowing down, racing down the hallway toward the infamous laboratory. They halted in front of Nikolay Suslov’s office. While the rest of the team covered either end of the hall, Quindarius kicked in the door, and both he and Mako went in low with their handguns at the ready. Their precautions were superfluous. Nikolay Suslov was cowering under his desk with a bag of warm priozhki held tightly to his chest. He had been about to make his nightly humanitarian visit to the prisoners. Quindarius grabbed the director by the back of his shirt collar and yanked him to his feet. A large wet area in front of the director’s ill-fitting trousers spread slowly down both legs. Suslov did not react well to stress.
When Nikolay recognized Mako Sloane, he caught his breath and tried to speak. “Misha, it wasn’t me,” he stuttered in Russian.
“Where are they, Nikolay?” Mako asked, grabbing the director by the front of his shirt and lifting him several inches off the floor.
“In the large room in back of the laboratory where we kept Saddam. You remember…come on, I’ll show you,” Suslov responded, still trembling. Sloane didn’t say another word, pushing Suslov along at a steady jog down the hallway. Barely five minutes had elapsed since the helicopters had landed.
As they strode through the laboratory that had housed the embryonic clones in the program’s heyday, Sloane looked around briefly. Broken glass was everywhere, and furniture was stacked up, ready to be moved. Cardboard boxes filled with voluminous piles of documents stood ready for the incinerator. Photographs, presumably of clones and the original subjects, were strewn across the floor. Sloane wished he had time to go through the boxes. He was almost afraid of what he might find. Still on the move, he decided in a flash that he would take something with him even more valuable: the director himself.
Suslov’s hands were shaking so much that he was unable to insert a large skeleton key into the enormous padlock that hung from the latch on the iron door in back of the laboratory.
Mako took the key roughly from Suslov, inserted it in the lock, and jerked open the door. He whispered hoarsely to the director in Russian, “Turn on the lights…now!”
Suslov groped in the dark for the light switch and threw the main breaker. The rectangular bay with four cells on either side was instantaneously illuminated by the stark overhead lighting. The American team entered the room using classic combat techniques they had learned a quarter of a century before, clearing their assigned zones and establishing sectors of fire. Max followed the cues of his battle-experienced colleagues. They found nothing except two bedraggled, filthy prisoners in opposite cells. A grinning George W. asked disbelievingly, “Are you boys really the cavalry?”
“You bet your ass, Mr. President,” said Mako Sloane as he looked around to the opposite cell.
It had been ten years, but Vasiliy recognized his father immediately. Sloane was wearing nondescript military-style fatigues and had dark camouflage paint on his face, but Vasiliy would have known his confident, athletic gait anywhere.
“I thought you’d never get, here,” said Vasiliy with a smile through his broken teeth.
“Suslov, open these cells,” Sloane commanded. “Vasiliy, are you alright?”
“Nothing some antibiotics and time won’t heal,” replied Vasiliy.
“They took away my key, Misha,” Suslov said in a timid, apologetic voice, hoping that Sloane would believe him. “Only Litzo and his soldiers can open the cells.”
“Tiger, use the plastique and blow the locks. Mr. President, Vasiliy…get away from the door.”
Vasiliy crawled painfully to the back of the cell and lay on the floor covering his head with his hands. George W, unable to wipe a grin off his face, followed Vasiliy’s example. A few minutes later the entire team took cover and two, almost simultaneous, small explosions broke open the two cell doors.
“Quindarius, take the president…Laura, Tiger, Max…help Vasiliy,” Mako said, clearly in charge. “Tahir,” Mako said softly into his headset.
“Slushayu,” came the immediate answer.
“Has the MI-8 arrived?”
“Tak tochno, tovarishch komandir!” reported Tahir as he had done so often ten years ago in battle with the Taliban.
“Let’s move to the LZ…quickly now,” Mako instructed his team.
“Who are you, and where are we going?” asked an animated George W. Bush. Life was beginning to have a purpose for the first time in a decade, and he felt his spirits soaring. He sensed his ordeal was coming to an end.
“Plenty of time for talk later, Mr. President. Let’s just say you’re going home.” Sloane was back on the radio with Tahir and Tupelo. They reported no resistance and no sign of a counterattack. They had deployed two of the Afghan fighters with SA-7 Strela shoulder-held surface-to-air missiles as a precaution. Sloane had calculated that they should be able to finish their mission and load everyone in the one MI-8 helicopter before the local army garrison had time to respond. The only thing he had no control over and no defense against was the outside chance that Litzo could scramble Soviet fighter jets to intercept them in the race to the Kazakh border. Sloane would have to leave that to chance and the chaotic inefficiency of the Soviet military. They had come in undetected at tree-top level, and that’s how they would try to depart.
As Sloane hustled everyone down the hallway toward the exit, Suslov suddenly ran in front of Mako to get his attention.
Misha, I need something out of my office…please.”
“No time, Nikolay…we’ve got to hurry.”
“You won’t be sorry. Without it, we’ve got nothing on Putin. This could be our only tool for revenge. And if you don’t want revenge, I sure do!”
“Quindarius, take everybody and load them in the MI-8. Make sure Tupelo wired the Hinds to blow.” He turned to Suslov. “Nikolay, this had better be good. Let’s go.”
Suslov ran as fast as he could, his heart pounding. He didn’t know who scared him more. Sloane and this enormous black man, or the thought of Vlad Litzo coming back and finding the prisoners gone. He directed Sloane into his office and opened the bottom right drawer of his desk. Sloane retrieved a thick, padded envelope and looked at Suslov incredulously.
“This is what we’re delaying our getaway for?” he asked, with his voice rising in anger.
“Open it!” pleaded Suslov.
Sloane angrily ripped open the envelope, revealing a second smaller package on the inside. He read the stick-on label, looked up at Suslov, and smiled broadly. “Nikolay, you are an evil genius.”