Krupin laughed, through his visibly quivering jaw. “Your president and the Europeans are worried about Latvia? If it’s discovered that I was assassinated by a CIA operative, Latvia will be nothing. You’ll have started World War III.”
“Are you sure?” Rapp said, aiming his gun between the man’s eyes. “Who are all these people who are going to give a shit that you’re dead? The generals you got into this clusterfuck? The nationalists who just watched you get half their navy sunk? Or all the backstabbing Russian politicians waiting to take your place?”
Some of the man’s rage was replaced by uncertainty as his amphetamine-fueled mind began to grasp the precariousness of his situation. “I . . . I can give you Andrei Sokolov. He’s in the building.”
Rapp closed one eye, focusing on Krupin’s increasingly pale face over the sight of his Serdyukov SPS. “What’s Sokolov to me?”
“This is his doing. He wanted this war. Not me. I’ll admit to being ill. We can say that he took advantage of my situation and I’ll order a retreat.”
Rapp just kept aiming. “I’m not State Department, Maxim. I don’t work for the negotiating part of the U.S. government.”
“Wait!” he shouted. “I’m willing to make concessions. Tell me what you want.”
Even half-dead and high as a kite, Krupin wasn’t a stupid man. Russia was an almost purely destructive force in the world—a country consumed not with improving itself but with bringing everyone else down to its level. And Krupin was behind all of that. An offer of major concessions from him wasn’t something to just shrug off. On the other hand, what was that offer really worth? Even assuming he survived his illness and managed to maintain power, he’d walk away from any promises made while staring down the barrel of a gun.
Like the consummate politician he was, Krupin read his hesitation. “There’s a communications room in the building. We can use it to call President Alexander. I’ll talk to him personally. We can make a deal.”
Rapp kept his gun on target but looked over at Dr. Fedkin. “What’s his condition?”
“Serious,” he responded hesitantly.
“I’d rather not shoot you, Doc. But I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.”
“Likely terminal,” the man quickly corrected. “He’ll continue to decline and probably be dead in three months. It would be a miracle if he lasted six.”
When Rapp turned back to Krupin, the man’s face had gone blank. One of the by-products of being a brutal dictator was that people tended to softball everything they told you. The unvarnished truth spoken in such a matter-of-fact way didn’t seem to be sitting well. Not that it mattered. Rapp hadn’t come there to make deals. He squeezed the trigger.
Instead of the comforting buck of the weapon in his hand and scent of gunpowder, there was nothing. The piece-of-crap Russian pistol had jammed.
He swore quietly under his breath, trying to work the stuck slide as Krupin crawled desperately for the door. He’d made it over his dead guard and halfway into the hallway before Rapp grabbed him by the foot and dragged him back. The Russian leader thrashed wildly, but his broken leg prevented him from getting any real leverage. The syringes on the desk were within reach and Rapp picked one up, slamming it into Krupin’s calf.
The reaction was immediate—his strength and desperation increased to the point that it was like trying to hold on to a wildcat. Rapp grabbed another syringe and dropped his weight onto the man, this time breaking the needle off in the man’s collarbone. There was enough of a barb left, though, to get it into his neck and depress the plunger.
That was the one that pushed Krupin over the edge. His body went rigid and his breath caught in his chest. Rapp backed away, watching the Russian convulse for a few seconds before finally going still.
The shit had now officially hit the fan.
CHAPTER 52
AZAROV kept his back pressed against the polished wood behind him, sliding slowly along the curved wall. There was little doubt that he was on the right path. The passage had gone from simple hospital corridor to a level of opulence that would have been at home in the Kremlin.
A finely carved door came into view, confirming the description given by the medical personnel he’d intercepted a few minutes before. Even more telling was the dead man lying near the threshold and the bullet holes near the latch.
The door opened onto an opulent room furnished with a massive bed and various wall-mounted televisions. Rapp was gone but had left his handiwork behind. Krupin was on his back, staring at the ceiling with a grotesquely broken leg and syringes still hanging from his calf and neck. Not the CIA man’s customary head shot, but no less effective.
Azarov knew that there was nothing for him there, but still he found himself unable to move from his position on the blood-soaked carpet. What would he have become without the man lying dead before him? Without the training, money, and education? Without his upbringing by the state, first in the Soviet athletics program and then in the army?
A farmer like his parents and their parents before them? The possibility of that seemed almost laughable now. Those days came to him only in brief flashes now. Triggered by smells, sounds, or briefly glimpsed images, the memories disbursed like smoke the moment he tried to grab hold of them.
He aimed his weapon at Krupin but felt none of the expected rage or catharsis. There would be no pleasure to be derived from firing into his lifeless body. The few rounds he had left could be put to better use.
Azarov retraced his route through the corridor, allowing himself to move somewhat more quickly than he had earlier. Krupin’s guards would have fallen back to defend him and the fact that there had only been one suggested that the threat inside the building was neutralized.
He crossed into the building’s main medical facility and stumbled on a scene that reminded him of one of the low-budget horror films that Cara loved so much. They were usually poorly lit and atrociously acted, with improbable storylines that climaxed either in boiler rooms or abandoned hospitals.
Andrei Sokolov, in full dress uniform, had barricaded himself in an operating theater made entirely of glass. Outside those transparent walls was a group of people in hospital gowns, some with partially shaved heads, others bleeding from where IV catheters had been recently removed.
The glass had been damaged by gunfire but was holding, and Sokolov had taken refuge behind an MRI machine. One of the patients, a big man with forearms covered in tattoos, discarded his empty AK and sprinted toward the door leading into the enclosure.
Azarov watched, transfixed, as the man’s ghostly compatriots followed at speeds that ranged from a full run to an unsteady lurch. Sokolov fired his service pistol, missing the big man and instead hitting a woman behind him. It was one of those minor errors that could be so fatal in a combat situation. His aim had been wide by only a few centimeters but now the man was on him. A few more muffled shots sounded but it was impossible to know if they hit anything in the frenzy that ensued.
Azarov backed away as the patients dragged Sokolov toward an operating table that many of them had likely experienced firsthand. It would have been desirable to question the man, but it seemed unwise to try to get between those people and their tormentor. Nothing—not even Mitch Rapp—was going to stop them from tearing Sokolov apart.
? ? ?
“I lost her. Get her back. Now!”
Azarov recognized the voice coming from the room ahead and strode toward it, avoiding the oxygen cylinders strewn across the floor. It appeared that they’d fallen from a medical cart that had been repurposed as a battering ram. A hasty, but effective improvisation. The steel door it had been used against now hung twisted and dented from damaged hinges.