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Chapter 1
Washington, D.C.
Dying alone, in the basement of a secretive bunker in a foreign country far from home had never been on Ostap Isayev’s bucket list. As the finality of darkness overtook his senses and he let the pain ferry him away, he sensed the figure standing over him move back. He couldn’t remember who the figure was, why he was there or anything at all, really. Nothing except the swirling void mattered as the last breath of life passed out from between his lips.
Scooping up the mask he had ripped from Ostap’s face only a moment prior, Rick slipped it on and tightened the straps. The smell of the bunker had come rushing back at him after hearing Ostap’s final words. Don’t you want to know where your precious Dr. Evans is at?
Jane’s death was a fresh wound, but the words spoken by Ostap pointed to an even darker possibility. If Dr. Evans was dead, as the Spetsnaz officer seemed to imply, Rick wasn’t sure what the next step in putting a halt to Damocles could be. He cast a glance over to Jane’s blood-soaked body, hoping for a brief second that she might start moving again. She was still gone, though, and as Rick picked up Ostap’s rifle, he took hold of the pain and anger that was building within him and held firm to it. It, like the rifle in his hands, was a weapon, and a potent one at that.
With a final look at Jane, Rick turned and trotted down the hall, heading in the direction that Ostap had come from a few moments prior. The basement levels of the building that had housed the staff responsible for Damocles went on at least one more floor down, and it was from there that Ostap had come. As Rick got to the end of the hall and saw a doorway leading to another staircase to his left, he suddenly questioned what he was doing. Ostap and Carl—the two Spetsnaz officers and the most direct threats to him, Jane and Dr. Evans, were gone. The only Russians left alive in the building were the technicians, and unless Rick had missed something big with one of them…
Don’t you want to know where your precious Dr. Evans is at?
Ostap’s last words echoed through Rick’s mind as he slowly walked down the stairs, holding the rifle loosely in both hands. The door at the bottom of the stairwell was ajar, held in place by an office chair that someone had jammed in between the door and the wall. Rick pushed the chair out of the way as he eased the door open, then swung the chair back into place with his left foot.
The sound of his own breathing was loud in Rick’s ears as he peered down the hall with his rifle light, looking for Dr. Evans, the technicians and any potential threats. Unlike the floors above that were now dark since no one was on them, the very bottom floor had a glow at the far end that did not come from Rick. As he moved toward the glow he passed more offices, glass-walled conference rooms and an increasing number of server racks stacked high in the corner of each room.
The room with the glow was large, with glass walls like the others, but instead of being devoted mostly to space for individuals to work, it had obviously been designated as the server room for the project. A single, small table and pair of chairs sat at the far back wall while the rest of the room was filled from floor to ceiling with rows of dark racks of servers. Cables from the servers twisted and wound their way into the low ceiling where a mesh cage kept the wires contained and out of the way.
A pair of lanterns and a couple of flashlights were balanced on the table and the edges of a couple of server racks, all of them angled to offer the most illumination of the table and chairs at the back of the room. A pair of figures sat in the chairs, Dr. Evans and Oles, their backs facing the hall where Rick stood. He watched them as they pointed at an obscured screen in front of them, Oles tapping away on a keyboard while Dr. Evans gestured and spoke in a voice that Rick couldn’t hear from out in the hall.
After watching the pair for a moment, Rick stepped through the broken door into the room, his shoes crunching broken glass. Dr. Evans stiffened in his seat but didn’t turn around, though Oles managed a half turn of his head before straightening back up.
“Dr. Evans?” Rick felt his stomach tighten, the feeling of impending doom growing, though he still didn’t know why.
“Drop the gun, Rick.” Rick froze, the voice full of nervousness and trepidation coming from behind him. His fingers played across the trigger guard of the rifle as he tried to pinpoint exactly where the voice came from. “Don’t do it. Just drop the gun. Now!” The last word was spoken harshly, with a bark.
“What the hell are you doing, Jacob?” Rick slowly lowered the rifle to the ground with his right hand, dropping it the last few inches and wincing as it clattered against the glass on the floor.
“Raise your hands and walk forward. Slowly.” Jacob sounded even more nervous after being called out. Rick sighed and did as he was told, stepping across the last of the glass and toward the desk where Dr. Evans and Oles were seated. Dr. Evans stole a look back at Rick, his eyes wide and full of fear.
“What’s going on?” Rick whispered to Dr. Evans, but a sharp jab on his back made him close his mouth.
“Keep quiet. No questions. Get the chair from over there, to your right. Sit down, face the wall next to the others and stay still.” Jacob’s voice was audibly shaking and he nearly stuttered a few times. Weighing his options, Rick chose to turn instead of
obeying the instructions, though he kept his hands in the air. As he turned, he saw Jacob standing between a pair of server racks, a pistol grasped so tightly in his shaking hands that his knuckles had turned white.
“Jacob.” Rick shook his head. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t make me shoot you, Rick.” Jacob swallowed hard. “I don’t want to, but I will! I swear!”
A grunt of pain came from the other side of the room and Rick turned to see Dr. Evans slumped over, hand on his shoulder. “Did you shoot Dr. Evans, Jacob?”
“He wouldn’t listen to me! I told him to listen but he wouldn’t. He’s fine, though!”
“No he’s not, you idiot!” Oles turned in his seat, his face covered in worry and stress. “He’s losing a lot of blood!”
“Shut up!” Jacob screamed at Oles, waving the pistol around with one hand. Rick winced at the action, nearly ducking down, but stood firm.
“Jacob, just tell me what’s going on. I can help you, I promise.”
“No you can’t. Only the decryption codes will help me right now.”
“The codes?” Rick’s eyes narrowed and confusion clouded his expression. He swiveled his head to look over at Oles and Dr. Evans. “Can one of you three please tell me what’s going on down here? There’s a pair of dead Spetsnaz upstairs, Jane’s dead too and it looks like Dr. Evans is going to bleed out!”
“Jane is… dead?” Jacob’s eyes widened and his weapon-laden arms dropped slightly. Rick nearly made a move on him, but Jacob noticed Rick’s tensing muscles and pulled the weapon back up. His hands were still shaking, even more so than before, that he inadvertently squeezed the trigger in the process. Even though Rick’s ears were still ringing from the gunfire mere moments ago, the shot still sounded deafeningly loud in the confines of the small room. He winced, expecting to feel a lance of searing pain pass through his chest.
Instead, there was a scream from behind as Oles dropped from his chair and rolled on the ground, clutching his arm in pain. “Ublyudok! Why?!”
Rick swiveled his head back around to see Jacob’s arms drop yet again, a look of shock crossing his face as he realized that he had inadvertently shot his friend. Taking advantage of the distraction, Rick wasted no more time. He charged at Jacob, colliding with him in a full-body tackle that brought both men to the floor and sent Jacob’s pistol skittering off into the darkness.
Chapter 2
Outside Ellisville, VA
“Tina!” The scream was shrill, hoarse and raw, filled with agony and desperation, with an unspoken plea for the word to somehow affect reality and change what had already transpired. The gunshots from Mark and Jason’s rifles were distant thumps as Dianne knelt down, scooping Tina’s body into her arms and pulling the older woman back into the community center.
Tina had been shot for no more than a few seconds, but her form already seemed incredibly small and frail to Dianne as she lay Tina down on a pallet inside the door. Tina’s groans and cries of pain continued even as Dianne began tearing at her shirt, pulling it off and away to get a clear picture of where the shot had landed.
“You’ll be okay, Tina! I promise!” She turned to Sarah, who had followed her inside. “We need bandages and compresses; something to stop this bleeding!”
“I’ll check their supplies.” Sarah fought the panic in her voice as she stood and ran to a pile of boxes and duffle bags stacked on a wall inside the center.
“Tina, stay with me, okay?” Dianne finally cleared away Tina’s jacket and shirt, revealing a mess of blood that was steadily pouring from a large wound in the upper right quadrant of her chest. “Sweet mercy,” Dianne whispered, her hands frozen over the wound as her eyes danced back and forth.
“It’s bad.” Tina whispered through the pain, groaning out the words. “Isn’t it?”
“Don’t talk, okay? Just stay awake.”
“Gauze, and lots of it!” Sarah fell to her knees, dumping a large pile of individually-wrapped packets of gauze rolls onto the ground.
“Lung.” Tina gasped, her eyes rolling back from the pain. “Hole. Chest. Have to… seal it. Fast. Got to get… air out…cavity…”
“What’s she talking about?” Sarah furiously unwrapped the gauze and passed it to Dianne, who used it to clean the blood from around the wound before pressing layers of it down in an attempt to stop the flow of blood.
“No!” Tina gasped again, putting her hand on Dianne’s arm. Her grip was furiously strong and her nails dug into Dianne’s flesh. “Seal it. Quickly. Air getting in.” Dianne glanced down to Tina’s chest, seeing bubbles in the blood as Tina gasped again, and felt a wave of recognition wash over her. Her first responder class had been so long ago, but one of the few things that had stuck in her brain was bubbles in the blood—a sure sign of a sucking chest wound.
“I need tape!” Dianne looked at Sarah.
