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  That left Fisher alone, and Hansen voiced his concern.

  Fisher grinned. “I’ll get by.”

  Hansen was almost embarrassed by the question. He’d grown so used to working with his teammates that it suddenly seemed unnatural for a Splinter Cell to be working alone. With a curt nod, Hansen turned back and headed off with Gillespie.

  Chapter 40.

  NEAR LAKE FROLIKHA, RUSSIAN FEDERATION

  ONCE Hansen and Gillespie left the utility room, they came into a wide corridor with a low ceiling barely seven feet high. The floor was painted with faded red, yellow, and green lines that fanned out away from them, not unlike the lines Hansen had seen on some hospital floors. Three-letter Cyrillic acronyms were stenciled onto each line. They donned their night-vision goggles and took Fisher’s order to head down the corridor to the left. Noboru and Valentina fell in behind.

  They moved quickly down the hall, keeping tight to the wall, rifles at the ready, until Hansen spotted something and called for Fisher to come to their position.

  They were staring at a map of the complex, protected by a sheet of dust-covered Plexiglas. Cobwebs extended up from the sign and rose to the ceiling. Hansen wiped a gloved hand across the glass. The complex was shaped like a cloverleaf with four concentric circles at its center. A label read RAMPS TO LEVELS 2, 3, 4. Each leaf was marked as a zone, and each zone was divided into four areas interconnected by more corridors.

  “Medical, electronics, weapons, ballistics,” said Gillespie, reading the labels for each zone. “It’s a test facility.” She hoisted her brows at Valentina, who’d made that guess earlier on. Valentina nodded curtly.

  “I assume ballistics means missiles and rockets,” Gillespie added.

  Fisher nodded, and Hansen glanced over at Noboru, who said, “This place is massive. Take a look at the scale.”

  Hansen watched as Fisher used his thumb and finger to check the map’s gradated line, then measure the complex from one end to the other. “Twelve hundred meters.”

  With his jaw falling open, Hansen said, “That can’t be. That makes it a square mile.”

  Valentina shook her head. “Four levels. Four square miles.”

  Fisher squinted hard at the map, deep in thought. “Ballistics and electronics. If you were experimenting, you’d want access to water for cooling and fire suppression.”

  Hansen agreed.

  “We’ll clear it as it’s laid out, by zone and level, starting here and moving down.”

  He assigned Hansen to the medical zone, Valentina to electronics, Gillespie to weapons, and Noboru to ballistics.

  “I’ll loiter at the ramp area and play free safety. Questions?”

  They were good to go and started off, but not before discovering a freestanding elevator shaft that Hansen thought might lead up to the “meteorological” hut they’d found in the meadow. Fisher took up a position beside the ramp railing while everyone else split up.

  HANSEN picked his way down to the medical zone, the corridor festooned by overhead piping that dripped here and there. He ventured about two hundred yards farther and came to a pair of doors marked with a laboratory number. He tried the handle: open.

  Tightening his grip on his rifle, Hansen eased the door open, braced himself, and slipped inside, sweeping the rifle over what was, in fact, another, shorter corridor with doors on both sides. Hansen poked his head inside the first open door and saw a laboratory with workbenches, sink area, rolling stools, and complicated networks of Pyrex tubing, test tubes, and beakers. He shoved up his goggles and flicked on his small LED flashlight. Gray metal shelving lined the walls. On the shelves were large glass jars filled with a yellow liquid. Hansen drew closer, wiped the dust from one of the jars, and something inside it shifted and pressed against the glass.

  Hansen blinked hard. Cursed.

  Was that a tiny human head? A nose? He gasped and backed away from the jar. “Sam, meet me in medical zone one,” he called over the headset.

  Within a minute, Fisher arrived and they moved on into a hospital ward where the long rows of beds were equipped with shackles. They moved on to the next two areas, encountering more laboratories and hospital wings.

  “There were a dozen or so gulags within a hundred miles of here,” Fisher said. “There’d always been rumors of prisoners disappearing and either never coming back or coming back … different.”

  Hansen swore under his breath.

  Fisher called for a status report, and the others checked in. They regrouped at the main ramp, where Gillespie said she had found an indoor target range. Valentina said she’d found a test area full of antique electronics, even some stuff equipped with old vacuum tubes. Noboru just shook his head: drafting tables and workbenches. No high-tech arsenal.

  They started down the wide ramp toward level 2.

  No more than a minute later, Fisher signaled a halt, advanced, leaned over the railing, then returned and filled them in.

  “Two guards stationed at the entrance to the ramp below. They’ve got AKs. No night vision that I could see.”

  So they had two guys down on level 3, and Hansen told the others that where there were two, there were no doubt more. Fisher agreed. They opted to check level 2 before contending with those guys below.

  NOBORU had been charged with clearing the ballistics area of level 2. The test facility was already sending chills up and down his spine. It seemed that back during the Cold War the Russians knew no bounds when it came to discovery and experimentation. He was almost afraid of what they’d find next.

  And, in fact, what he found next left him standing there like a proverbial deer in the headlights.

  Slowly he slid up his goggles, flipped on his flashlight, and gazed up into the massive, man-made cavern that had been carved into the rock and earth. The place was at least two football fields across and lined with engine-test scaffolding that looked like something from Cape Canaveral. Four massive steel bays still held rocket motors, their colossal nozzles sitting before giant, concrete, sewerlike pipes whose innards were blackened. The pipes were no doubt some kind of exhaust system to flush the motor fumes and gases out of the test zone.

  Noboru doused his light, refit his goggles, then charged down the row of scaffolding to make a perimeter search. He reached the zone between the second and third nozzles, rushed past a wall lost in deep shadow, then did a double take. He froze, looked back, and started toward the wall, which in silhouette seemed to be part of a pyramid. He passed several thick posts that had partially blocked his view, and then he saw it.

  VALENTINA slowly opened the first locker and found nothing but coveralls and a moth-eaten parka. She didn’t bother opening any of the others. The entire locker area appeared as though it hadn’t been touched for years.

  She came back out into the corridor, and for a moment, she thought she saw someone at the far end of the hall. She dropped to her knees, and did, in fact, see a shadow shift slightly to the right.

  But then it was gone. She blinked. Had she really seen it?

  A call came in from Fisher. He wanted everyone down in ballistics.

  HANSEN gasped at the twenty-eight Anvil cases ranging from the size of small footlockers to that of bedroom furniture. They looked exactly like the case he’d seen back in Korfovka and were secured by the same type of padlock they’d found on the hut above.

  Gillespie remarked that this couldn’t be the entire arsenal. Fisher estimated it to be about a third, so the rest was elsewhere inside the facility or, perhaps, not in Russia at all. Valentina was concerned about Fisher’s Ajax nanobots being able to get inside the cases to tag the weapons. He assured her that they needed a gap that was only a fraction of a hair’s width and was certain they’d penetrate.

  Fisher ordered them back, then drew one of Noboru’s modified paintball guns and fired at the ceiling. The dart bounced off the rock, hit one of the Anvil cases, then rolled to a stop.

  Hansen wanted to say, “That’s it?” but just stood there, watching. He e
xpected something far more dramatic.

  Noboru had already initiated an uplink to the bots and glanced up at Fisher. “Nothing yet.”

  “What if there’s no power for them to gravitate to?” asked Hansen.

  Fisher explained that just about every weapon or system on the inventory list was equipped with some form of EPROM, or erasable programmable read-only memory, a low-power battery for housekeeping functions like date, time, and user settings. If the item didn’t have an EPROM, then it wasn’t one of the higher-end items and losing it was no disaster.

  Within five minutes, Noboru was reading multiple pings from inside the cases. He grinned. “I’d say our first live-fire exercise is a success.”

  Before they left the area, in search of more of the arsenal, Gillespie pointed out a section of extra venting between the blast funnels and the wall. To Hansen, the gap at his feet resembled a bottomless pit, and his light faded before it could pick out any floor below. The vent probably extended all the way down to level 4.

  VALENTINA took no pleasure in killing the guard, and she sensed that Noboru felt the same. She did, however, take great pleasure in working with Nathan, and she knew once the mission was over she would succumb to her feelings and ask to see him again … on a personal level.

  She thought about this, even as she held her blade in a reverse grip and approached the guard.

  Her hand rose to the man’s mouth at exactly the same time Noboru’s did for his guard.

  Holding her breath, she drove her blade down into the guard’s neck to make a perfect kill shot to the spinal cord. The slash to the throat or knife thrust to the heart that instantly kills someone is the stuff of Hollywood inaccuracy. Most knife fighters would tell you, if you don’t get a kill shot to the spinal cord, your victim is going to stay alive for a while, and things will get very, very sloppy. Slashing the jugular was one of the last things you wanted to do. Sever that spinal cord and he’s dead, Jim. Instantly dead.

  Valentina and Noboru dragged the bodies up to the top of the ramp, where Hansen and Gillespie would take over and stash them in the medical area.

  NOBORU took point, leading the way down into level 3. He headed off into the ballistics zone once more and found yet another stack of Anvil cases set up on tables within an electronics repair room adjacent to another, though smaller, rotor motor testing facility.

  Now, this was more like it. This resembled an auction site. While the items weren’t fully prepared, they were being arranged for display. Noboru was glad he’d packed the second paintball gun. He fired a round, waited, and smiled once he got back the pings he needed. He rallied with the rest back at Fisher’s location near the main ramp and reported his find.

  “Two down, one to go,” said Fisher.

  LEVEL 3 of the medical section sent a shudder through Hansen. He was crouched near the main doorway, staring past the half-open door, into an operating area that had been converted into a barracks. He counted about twenty beds … all occupied. They were all men, mostly nondescript, a few European looking and a few markedly Middle Eastern.

  He returned to Fisher, his cheeks warm, heart pounding, and reported what he’d seen.

  Fisher agreed that those were probably some of, if not all, the attendees, at least those who’d been able to work around the weather conditions. More could be coming. Many more.

  But they all agreed that the big fish was most certainly not among them. Who was the man behind the auction? That was the burning question Hansen hoped they could answer before leaving the facility.

  “We’ve got one more level to check,” said Fisher. With any luck, he added, they’d be back in Severobaikalsk for breakfast.

  Suddenly a familiar voice rose behind them. “Not gonna happen.”

  Hansen cursed, turned, and realized that the man in the shadows to their rear—the rat bastard known as Mr. Allen Ames—was privy to everything.

  “He’s got a grenade,” Valentina muttered.

  Chapter 41.

  RUSSIAN TEST FACILITY

  AMES stood about sixty feet behind Fisher and Hansen, and he knew they’d have no time to react before he tossed the grenade. It was glorious. Just glorious.

  “Don’t even think about it,” he said in a slight rasp. “Don’t even turn around. I go down, so does the grenade.”

  With that, Ames darted forward for the ramp railing, moving to within forty feet.

  And then he emerged from the shadows and watched as the entire group turned to face him.

  He’d told them not to move, but what did he expect? Compliance from a group of misfits? “Not another step,” he warned.

  Ames hung his arm over the railing, prepared to drop the grenade down to level 4, where it would explode and set off alarms throughout the facility. He was sure they wanted to know what he was doing there, how he’d arrived, and what he wanted, but it was quite nice just letting them hang for a few moments—after what they’d done to him.

  “What do you want?” asked Fisher.

  Ames snorted, told Fisher that, yes, he was a survivor, and that was all he really wanted—just to say that. Fisher probed him about how he’d escaped, and Ames gave him the condensed version, said he’d flagged down the helicopter that had been pursuing them and had convinced the boss man that he was working for a mutual friend.

  That left Hansen puzzled. If Ames had spilled his guts, why wasn’t the facility on high alert?

  Fisher must’ve been thinking the same thing and asked, “Do they know we’re here?”

  Ames shook his head. “I told him you were still in Irkutsk.”

  “Him?” Fisher asked. “Who?”

  This was the part where Ames laughed. “You’ve met him. In fact, he told me you had him in your hands and let him go.”

  Fisher’s expression soured, and his mouth moved, almost forming the name.

  “Yep, that’s him,” Ames confirmed.

  “Who?” asked Hansen.

  “Zahm,” Fisher replied.

  Hansen frowned. “You’re kidding me.”

  Fisher shook his head and sighed.

  Ames’s smile broadened. Good old Sam Fisher couldn’t see the forest for the trees. The damned bad guy had been right in front him. The same guy who’d pulled off the weapons heist in the first place was the guy orchestrating the auction. No brainer, Sammy boy. It was the introduction of the banker that made the plot seem larger, when, in fact, it was all quite simple. And Zahm was just the kind of maniac to push things over the top. He never knew when to quit, and never, ever, had enough … of anything.

  “Where is he now?” Fisher asked.

  Ames grinned and shrugged. “Around.”

  Hansen glanced at him emphatically. “You can still do the right thing.”

  “I could,” Ames agreed, “but I won’t.”

  He’d already pulled the pin on the grenade and let it slip from his hands. In the same instant, he sprinted back up the ramp, even as he knew they were swinging around, bringing their rifles to bear on him.

  THE explosion echoed up from the level below, and Hansen, along with the others, was on his belly as the corridor reverberated and a sulfurlike stench wafted their way.

  “We gotta tag the last of the cases,” cried Fisher, which meant they were going down, not up, to escape.

  “Gonna be trapped,” Hansen told him.

  Fisher answered in a deadpan: “Bad luck for us.” Then he turned to Noboru. “You have the ARWEN?”

  “Yeah.”

  Fisher spoke in a rapid fire. He told Noboru that the initial counterattack would come from the medical zone, where Hansen had spotted the attendees. Zahm had most assuredly placed some of his guards near and around them. As soon as Noboru heard them moving, he was to put two gas canisters downrange. Valentina and Hansen would back him; then they would leapfrog down to level 4, split up, and make a last sweep of the zones for the rest of the arsenal.

  With wide eyes, Fisher wished them all good luck, then took off with Gillespie. They would hol
d the ramp intersection, while Hansen, Noboru, and Valentina made their sweep.

  Once they reached the medical zone, Noboru set up about fifty feet from the twin main doors leading to the makeshift barracks. He clutched the ARWEN tightly and gave Hansen a quick nod: good to go.

  One door shifted open and Noboru fired, the gun echoing with a fwump. The gas canister arced through the gap in the door and clattered on the floor inside. Shouts in Russian and a few other languages announced the attack as the hissing canister spewed a thick funnel of smoke.

  Hansen, who had tucked himself tightly against the wall, steadied his rifle, ready to unleash his first salvo, while Noboru stood ready once more with the ARWEN. He had a five-shot capacity in the weapon’s rotary drum.

  The doors slammed open, and through the smoke, a pair of gunmen appeared, AK-47s held high. With a grunt and thump, Noboru express-mailed another gas canister.

  At the same time, Hansen and Valentina sent their first wave of automatic fire punching through the veils of smoke. The two guys dropped like drunken frat brothers. He and Valentina couldn’t see much after that, but they didn’t need to because Fisher’s plan was already working. They kept firing, and farther back, Hansen stole a second’s glimpse of two more men hitting the floor. Four down.

  Valentina abruptly charged toward those doors and took cover on the left side. Hansen gave her a look that said, What the hell are you doing? She ignored him and drew a fragmentation grenade from her web gear, pulled the pin, then extended her arm and pitched it inside.

  With bug eyes, she came racing toward them, screaming, “Time to rock and roll!”

  Hansen exchanged a look of surprise with Noboru as they dropped in behind her. Call that the Valentina Day Massacre. A heartbeat later, one of the doors blew off its hinges behind them. But what was worse, somewhere down below echoed the sound of more gunfire. As he ran, Hansen spoke into his headset, telling Fisher they were on their way.

  They were out of the corridor in thirty seconds and reached the main ramp to head down. Below they spotted Fisher, who nodded to Hansen, then jammed his rifle around the corner and fired two shots.