Chapter 14

14

May 11, 10:17 P . M . MSK

Moscow, Russian Federation

Seichan crouched on a landing in the apartment building's stairwell. Moments ago, through a narrow window, she had spied the smoky passage of a rocket-propelled grenade. She hadn't seen it strike, but she had heard its blast.

She grimaced.

I'm too late...

The echo of gunfire reached her, too, muffled by the cement-block walls of the building.

She stared up the steps.

I had hoped for more time.

Earlier, while in the security nest at the Apostolic Nunciature, she had kept a continual watch on the CCTV cameras that surrounded the embassy. Nothing out in the streets had rankled her suspicions. All had seemed quiet.

Then the low static that had filled her left ear for hours suddenly went silent.

The noise had come from a radio transmitter that she had planted in the lobby of the neighboring apartment building. She had secured it shortly after arriving at the embassy. She had also hidden a camera there, but its signal had failed to penetrate the electronic buffer that protected the embassy. Still, the radio proved powerful enough to transmit to her earpiece.

She hadn't told anyone what she had done, not even Gray. When the two had reached the embassy, they had found Monk's group already inside—along with a bishop and a nun from the Russian Orthodox Church. Gray may have been willing to hear them out, but she couldn't stomach the sight of them.

Not after what happened at the monastery.

Furious, she had left the conference room and commandeered the embassy's security office. Before that, though, she had snuck off to the apartment building and planted her devices. She was certain, if there was an attack on the embassy, it would come from that site. The building towered over the squat Nunciature. Its windows offered hundreds of potential roosts for snipers.

To help monitor the building, Seichan had chosen the lobby to serve as her canary in a coalmine because if Valya attempted a siege, she would surely jam local communications to delay any response from the Russian authorities.

So, when Seichan's radio went silent, she knew something had gone wrong. She had immediately snuck off to investigate, to confirm the threat. With all the surrounding CCTV cameras still showing nothing, she couldn't be certain the sudden silence from the radio wasn't just a malfunction.

Even when she had reached the building's lobby, she had spotted nothing unusual. A few people had been watching a television in the corner, smoking cigarettes and cigars. A bored deskman worked on a sudoku puzzle.

She had discreetly recovered her radio and found that it was still operating, confirming that its signal was being jammed. She considered trying to contact Gray, but such efforts would also be blocked by the interference.

Even if it wasn't, she might not have alerted him.

If Valya had found their group, that meant someone in the embassy had alerted her to their presence. It was why Seichan had gone off on her own to investigate, not even alerting Kowalski. She feared the open radio would reach Yuri Severin, whom she didn't fully trust. Above all else, she couldn't risk forewarning Valya. Seichan's best chance of eliminating the threat was to act quickly and get a jump on the woman.

Plus, there was another reason she had come alone. This battle was a personal one. It always had been. Valya carried a grudge against her, for Seichan's betrayal of the Guild, for the death of her brother. Likewise, Seichan had her own reasons to hunt the woman down. Valya had kidnapped her in the past, tortured her, and threatened her unborn child. And then there was the woman's latest attack: bombing the Smithsonian Castle. Seichan took this personally, too. If Sigma were disbanded, it would strip her of her home, her future, all that she had painstakingly built.

But worst of all, just hours ago, Valya had come close to killing Gray, which would have left Jack fatherless.

Seichan slipped two knives into her hands, from the bracers of blades sheathed around her wrists and ankles.

And no one threatens my son.

Trusting Gray and the others to deal with the siege, she continued up the stairwell with one goal in mind.

Someone needs to cut the head off this snake .

By now, Seichan had reached the building's fifth floor. She had checked each level, still finding nothing out of the ordinary.

But now with the attack underway...

The door banged open above her. It was followed by a rush of boots down the steps. It could have been a panicked apartment dweller, fleeing the nearby firefight.

But she knew it was not.

She recognized the determined cadence in those steps. She stopped halfway up the next flight of stairs and flattened against its inner railing. The footfalls rapidly approached. She heard a grunt from the landing overhead, then a shadow swept along the wall across from her, cast by the someone descending the neighboring flight of steps.

When the figure reached a position directly above her, she burst up and stabbed her blade between the steel balusters of the railing. She aimed for the top of the man's boot. She severed his Achilles tendon with the razor edge of her knife.

A sharp cry of surprise burst from him. Pain and a flopping foot sent his body tumbling headlong. He crashed hard onto the next landing.

Seichan leaped to meet him.

Before he could get up, she landed on his back—where the tube of an RPG launcher was strapped. The man fought to free the arm pinned under him. His hand was in view, clutching a Russian MP-443 Grach, a standard military-issue sidearm. She plunged her second knife into the back of his hand, severing a finger. The weapon skittered off across the tile floor.

She held the other knife to his ear, while leaning tight to the same lobe.

" Ne dvigaysya ," she whispered coldly, intimately. She was fluent in Russian, a necessity in her former profession, where many mercenaries were from Slavic countries. "You don't want to feel this blade's kiss."

The man cursed and bucked under her.

So be it.

She kept her knife at his ear, but she flicked the other blade and sliced off his opposite ear. He hollered, but she pressed her forearm against the back of his neck, throttling the noise to a gurgle.

She needed him cowed, more fearful of her than even pain could achieve. She kept her voice cold. "You think your boss Mikhailov is a cruel nadsmotrshchik . Trust me, comrade, I am the one who gives that kúrva nightmares."

She had no need to pretend, to fake this threat.

I was a monster.

"You're going to tell me where she is," Seichan promised him.

He tried to deny her.

She shifted her knee to his neck and showed him she was not lying. Her vision narrowed as she let loose that monster. The Guild had taught her well, where pain and terror resided in a body. She used her knives until the man mewled under her. His blood spread wide across the tiles.

" Stoy... " he pleaded with her, his voice a croak of agony.

"Tell me."

"Fifteenth floor... 1509..."

She retrieved his Grach and pointed the pistol at the back of his head. He did not even try to move. She breathed heavily, a slight tremble in her arm, as she fought the monster inside her.

Finally, she scowled, reversed the weapon, and struck him hard behind his remaining ear. Bone cracked, and he slumped limp into the pool of blood. She stripped him of his radio, then grabbed the RPG launcher and slung it over her shoulder.

She stared at the Grach in her hand.

Her breathing remained hard.

I won't be that monster.

Still, she leaned down and sliced his other Achilles tendon, hobbling him, making sure he was no longer a threat.

But I won't be a fool either.