“Down!” I bark. “On your face. Hands behind your head.”
He complies. Grisha zip-ties him in seconds and shoves a knee into his back.
“East floor, two neutralized,” I report. “One wounded, one surrendered.”
“Copy,” Boris replies. “North team is inside. Marat reports four hostiles in the loading area. Heavy resistance at the office block upstairs.”
I leave Grisha with the prisoners and advance toward the staircase on the far wall. Everything above us belongs to me.
The metal steps ring under my boots as I take them two at a time. Upstairs, a long hallway leads to a series of offices with frosted glass windows. One is shattered, and spent casings litter the floor outside the door. Somebody fired in a hurry and didn’t stick around to finish the job.
Marat’s voice punches through comms. “Loading dock secure. Three in custody, one ran toward the upper level. Headed your way, Pyotr.”
I flatten my back to the wall and wait.
Footsteps, fast and clumsy. A man rounds the corner ten meters ahead. He sees me and raises a pistol, but his hands are trembling so badly that the first shot buries itself in the ceiling from the recoil. I close the distance in four strides, grab his wrist, twist, and strip the weapon from his grip. One palm strike to the sternum puts him on the floor, and I pin him with my boot across his chest.
“Stay down.”
He wheezes and nods.
I kick his pistol down the hallway and continue toward the offices. The second door on the left is closed, and the handle doesn’t budge when I test it.
“Boris, I’m at the upstairs offices. One door locked. Could be our target.”
“Stand by. Eduard is coming up behind you.”
Eduard appears at the top of the stairs thirty seconds later with two of his men. We stack on either side of the door, and he counts down on his fingers. Three. Two. One.
He kicks the door open, and we flood in.
Empty.
Documents cover every inch of the desk. A laptop sits open, an ashtray is overflowing with cigarette butts, and a half-finishedglass of something amber sits beside it. The chair is pushed back at an angle, and a coat hanger beside it is empty.
Bogdan is nowhere in sight.
I eye the room and spot it behind the desk, partially hidden by a filing cabinet. A service hatch in the floor sits wide open. The smell of damp concrete and rust drifts up from the darkness.
“He’s gone.” I slam my palm against the desk. “He’s got a service tunnel under the floor. The bastard’s out.”
Boris’ response is too calm. “I’ve got a runner on the east perimeter. Black coat, male, moving north on foot with two others. They exited through a drainage access point behind the building.”
The unanswered phone call, the empty office, the hatch already open… Bogdan didn’t run when he heard us breach. He was already gone.
I sprint back down the hallway, vault the staircase railing, and drop to the ground floor. Pain jolts up through my ankles, but I push through it and hit the east door at a full run.
The predawn sky is gunmetal gray. Fifty meters ahead, three figures are climbing into a dark sedan parked on the service road. One of them is Bogdan. I’d know that hunched, cowardly silhouette anywhere.
I raise my Makarov and fire twice. The first round punches through the sedan’s rear quarter panel. Glass erupts from the back window as the second round connects. But the car is already moving, its tires screeching against wet asphalt as it fishtails onto the main road and accelerates north.
I lower the weapon and watch the taillights disappear.
“Target is mobile,” I report through gritted teeth. “Black sedan, heading north. Three occupants.”
“Acknowledged,” Boris replies. “I’m pulling up the traffic cameras now. Tony, are you tracking?”
Tony’s voice joins the channel from wherever he’s monitoring. “Already on it. I’ve got the plate. Give me five minutes.”
