Sentinel Read online

  Sentinel

  Matthew Dunn

  Dedication

  To my children and Margie, special operations personnel who operate within the four corners of Hell without a safety net, and to Russians and Americans

  Contents

  Dedication

  Part I

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Part II

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Part III

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Part IV

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Glossary

  Acknowledgments

  Excerpt from The Spy House

  Chapter One

  About the Author

  Also by Matthew Dunn

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Part I

  Chapter One

  The Russian submarine captain ran through the woods, searching for signs of anyone who might kill him. It was night, and the forest was dense. Sleet struck his face. His body trembled with cold and fear.

  Reaching a tiny area of open ground, he stopped, crouched, and listened. The sea was only a few hundred yards away, and he could hear the sounds of waves crashing over shingle. Turning slowly, he braced himself, half expecting to see men with flashlights, guns, and dogs rushing toward him.

  He stayed like this for two minutes before glancing in the direction of his car. It was hidden from view, parked in the trees off the nearest road. It would take him one minute to get back to the vehicle and another twenty minutes to reach his submarine base. He was allowed off the base for only one hour. Time was running out.

  Walking quickly, he moved out of the clearing and into more forest. He counted each step, stopped when he had gone eighty paces, changed direction, and walked a further fifty steps. The tree was before him. It looked like those around it—tall, thin, no foliage, and slightly bent from easterly winds—but he knew it was the right tree. He’d been here seven times before and despised the location because on each visit he’d always wondered if it was the place where he’d be trapped and killed.

  He unwrapped a thin, waterproof poncho, draped it over his head and body, withdrew a small flashlight and penknife, and knelt at the base of the tree. The ground beneath him was sodden with an icy slush, and his pants quickly became saturated. After lifting the poncho’s edge and positioning it against the tree, he switched on the flashlight and moved its beam over the trunk. He quickly found what he was looking for: a small circle with two horizontal lines within it carved into the bark. Around it were seven older carvings that had since been defaced. Flicking open the knife, he carefully cut a third horizontal line into the circle.

  He bent down and let the poncho fall away from the tree so that it was completely covering his body and acting as a makeshift tent. Sleet banged against it. After putting the end of the light into his mouth, he used the knife and his other hand to dig in the ground directly beneath the symbol. Pain shot through his fingers as they removed cold, wet soil, but he kept digging, constantly aware that he had to do what was necessary as quickly as he could.

  The knife struck something hard a few inches beneath the ground’s surface. He tapped the blade against the thing to confirm that he’d not simply struck a root, but the object was clearly metallic. Discarding the knife, he eased both hands into the hole, wincing as more pain moved into his arms, and gripped tight when he felt the small box. After he pulled it out, he placed it next to his knife. Then he momentarily put his hands into his armpits to try to get them warm before shining the light directly on the container.

  Brushing soil off its surface, he saw that it was the same gunmetal box he’d always used. But he had to be careful in case it was booby-trapped. He lifted it off the ground and thought that it felt the right weight, though he knew that told him nothing. Only a tiny piece of primed C4 would be needed to rip off his face. Grabbing the knife, he placed the tip under the container’s latch, paused for a moment, and flicked it open. The rain drummed harder against his poncho.

  He stared at the box for a while, his heart racing, sweat running down his back even though he was colder than he’d ever been in his life. Placing one hand on the base and the other on the lid, he began pulling it open. When he felt the hidden rubber seals resist, he closed his eyes and pulled harder until it was ajar. He opened his eyes. The only thing inside was a metal cigar tube. Lifting it carefully, he unscrewed the tube’s cap, peered into the tube, and felt relief. Inside were a stubby pencil and a rolled sheet of plain paper. He flattened the paper and began to read.

  The relief vanished.

  His hand shook as he brought the pencil close to the paper.

  The codes raced through his mind. He identified the numerical equivalent of each letter, added that to another set of memorized numbers that corresponded to the letters in order to determine the cipher text letters, and then began writing.

  It took him six minutes to write the first sentence. He hated communicating this way but knew that the code was almost unbreakable unless the key code was discovered or he was tortured to reveal its detail. Communicating with anything more sophisticated was far too risky. All electronic communications signals into, out of, and near to the base were monitored. Sending an encrypted burst transmission from close to the base could easily pinpoint him as a spy.

  He was about to begin the second sentence, but then he stopped, his hand hovering over the paper. A noise, distant but loud enough to be heard over the dreadful weather, was coming from the direction of the road. Then it grew louder. He thought it might be a car. Then he knew it was a truck. Only the military drove vehicles like that around here.

  His hand unconsciously became a clenched fist. Tonight he was due to telephone his daughter to congratulate her on her promotion within Russian military intelligence. She would be pleased with his call because she respected her father’s opinion and deeply admired his lifelong career of service to Russia. But he knew that if she could see him now she would be deeply ashamed of him.

  The truck slowed. He wondered if the patrol had spotted his car and was worried about its owner or whether it had come here looking for a traitor. He tried to think clearly and wished the sleet and rain would stop.

  An idea came to him: if his car had been spotted, he would confront the soldiers and tell them that he’d hit a deer and followed it into the woods, a likely enough occurrence on these forested roads. They’d probably even volunteer to help him kill the injured beast so that they could take it back to
the base.

  The truck braked; its engine idled.

  The captain looked at the cipher. He had to write the next sentence, but time was short.

  A door slammed. Then another.

  He had no time.

  He made a decision and muttered in Russian, “It’s all I can give you.”

  Ramming the paper and pencil back into the cigar tube, he put it back into the box and buried the container in the same spot. Wind buffeted his poncho, the rain forcing it onto his face. He had to move, but he hesitated for a moment. Shivering, he silently recited the message he had just written.

  “He has betrayed us and wants to go to war.”

  Chapter Two

  Will Cochrane stood alone on the deck of the rusty merchant cargo ship. It was night, and the boat rocked with the swell of the sea as a snowy wind blasted his face, but the MI6 officer ignored the vessel’s movement and freezing weather. All that mattered to him was his destination. The desolate Russian coastline drew closer. He was being taken to a place where he knew he could die.

  His objective was to get to shore, infiltrate the remote Rybachiy submarine base, and locate the captain. The Russian submariner, an MI6 agent code-named Svelte, had sent an encrypted message of such importance that it had been passed to the top secret joint MI6-CIA Spartan Section. It was clear that the message was incomplete, and a decision had been made to deploy the section’s senior field operative to find out who had betrayed the West and wanted war.

  The big officer brushed snow off his cropped dark hair, checked that his Heckler & Koch USP Compact Tactical pistol was secure in his jacket, and waited. He’d been on similar missions in the past during his nine years in MI6 and during the preceding five years as a French Foreign Legion Groupement des Commandos Parachutistes special forces soldier. But the thirty-five-year-old knew this was going to be particularly tough—even for a man who carried the code name Spartan, a title given to only the most effective and deadliest Western intelligence officer.

  The boat slowed down.

  It was time to go.

  He was dressed head to toe in white arctic warfare clothes and boots; he pulled up the jacket hood. Walking carefully to a gap in the railings, he crouched down and ran a hand along the edge of the deck until he found what he was looking for. The rope ladder would take him thirty-five feet down the starboard side of the ship to the tiny rowboat.

  The noise of the ocean and wind seemed even louder as he moved down. With every step he wrapped his forearms around the rope to stop him from being thrown away from the ladder as it slapped hard against the merchant ship’s side. Reaching the rowboat, he found both ties and loosened them so that the vessel was free. The merchant ship moved on. Will was now on his own.

  He waited until the barely lit ship was out of sight, then he gathered up the oars to his vessel and rowed toward his destination.

  It took him four hours to reach the shore.

  When he arrived, he got out carefully, grabbed the boat with both hands, and hauled it onto the slim beach of sand, loose rock, snow, and ice. Using his flashlight to check his compass, he mentally pictured the maps he had studied of this area. The base was ten miles away; the journey there would take him over forest-covered mountains before he reached the thin peninsula where the naval installation was located.

  He pulled himself up a large snow-covered bank until he was off the beach and on higher ground. Snow was falling fast now, and the wind seemed even stronger. He started shaking and knew that he would have to move quickly to generate some warmth. He moved uphill through the forest. After two hours of running, walking, and clambering ever higher, he stopped.

  He was on a mountain peak, and although little could be seen around him, in the distance and far below were numerous artificial lights. They came from an area of land that Will knew to be his destination: a peninsula three miles long and a quarter mile wide and accessible only via a bottleneck of land. The peninsula was surrounded by the icy waters of Avacha Bay, and the lights he could see ran from the bottleneck along the entire southern side of the peninsula. The lights belonged to the Rybachiy Nuclear Submarine Base.

  Checking his watch, he saw that it was three A.M., and he began to run fast, knowing that he had a maximum of four hours to get into the base, find and speak to Svelte, and escape the military installation and its surrounding peninsula.

  He covered two miles before throwing himself onto the ground. The bottleneck entrance to the peninsula was before him. It was three hundred yards below his position and contained medium-sized buildings and huts, a wide road, smaller adjacent tracks, and four stationary military jeeps. It also contained seven naval guards, two of whom had German shepherds on leashes. They were all dressed in navy blue overcoats and standing underneath streetlamps by a sign saying HALT in Russian. There were no barriers on the road, and the rest of the bottleneck was unprotected; its buildings would give him cover to enter the base easily.

  Will smiled. Svelte had previously briefed MI6 that the land around the Rybachiy submarine base was so severe and remote that the base had small need for guards save for those who patrolled around the nuclear and diesel submarines. On top of that, those few guards were little more than poorly trained naval conscripts. Will had worried that Svelte’s intelligence might be wrong, but he was relieved to see that it wasn’t. He looked to his right and watched a four-ton truck drive slowly along a road toward the base. Glancing back at the guards, he saw that they were looking at the vehicle but had not raised their rifles. It clearly did not bother them.

  Deciding that the vehicle’s approach to the base would be a good distraction, Will got to his feet and ran fast to his right. After five hundred feet, he stopped and saw that the truck was now motionless by the entrance. The guards were standing by the driver’s door and stamping their feet on the ground, their arms wrapped around their chests. To their right were the buildings and huts.

  He moved diagonally so that he was heading toward the side of the bottleneck that was furthest away from the guards. Soon, trees and buildings obstructed his view of the truck. Slowing to a jog, he moved into open ground before reaching the wall of one of the huts. He placed himself flush against the building and listened for a moment. He could hear nothing save the sound of wind and the sea.

  Moving along a gap between the hut and an adjacent larger building, he crouched down when he got to the end of the alley and slowly eased his head around the corner. The road entrance was visible on the other side of the bottleneck, but it was at least five hundred feet away. No one was looking his way. Glancing ahead, he saw more buildings beyond another area of open ground that was in darkness. He waited a few seconds, then sprinted toward them. After reaching the buildings, he spun around and looked toward the guards. They were still by the truck, doing nothing. He’d successfully entered the outer perimeter of Rybachiy submarine base.

  He was about to move when he heard distant engine noises from the black sky. The noises grew louder until they were directly above him. They were clearly coming from aircraft, and their deep drone sounded very familiar. He briefly wondered if they were flying to the base, but Svelte had never mentioned that the base had an airstrip. He silently muttered “shit” as he realized why the sounds were so well known to him. Looking desperately at the black sky, he searched for what he knew was coming. There was nothing at first, but then he glimpsed the first one, followed by another, followed by several others. Paratroopers. They drifted silently through the sky before landing within one hundred feet of the guards behind him.

  Will stayed very still. The soldiers were dressed in white combat clothes and had balaclavas, webbing, and tactical goggles. Assault rifles were strapped to their chests. He counted twenty-five of them as he watched the platoon gather up its parachutes, pack them away, and walk toward the guards.

  Some of the airborne soldiers had unslung their weapons; some had not. The guards remained stationary and showed no signs of concern at the encroaching force, now clearly lit up by the
lights of the base. The paratroopers moved right up to the guards, who seemed to be communicating with a handful of the men. The dogs were handed to two of the airborne soldiers. Then the guards turned and walked casually away from the entrance into the peninsula base.

  The airborne soldiers split into groups. Four of them took two of the jeeps and drove into the base, six men and one dog took over protection of the entrance, the rest entered the base on foot. Now all of them had their weapons at the ready.

  Will shook his head slowly; his heart beat fast. It seemed that the silent and clearly very professional Russian airborne troops had taken over security of the base. He had no idea why this had happened, but it meant everything had changed. His chances of completing his mission and escaping without being spotted were now nearly impossible.

  He ran deeper into the base, using more buildings and the darkness as cover, but as he did so his mind raced with confusion. Only two men knew that he was attempting to infiltrate the Rybachiy submarine base—the CIA director and the MI6 controller who ran his covert unit—and he knew they would never betray him. A stark conclusion entered his mind: the Russian airborne troops were not searching for him; they were searching for another man.