Lion - Most Wanted

1

1Moscow, Russia

Briefly in his career, Igor Sokolov was the Russian FSB’s golden boy. He had orchestrated a spectacular abduction of a high value target (HVT) 35000 feet over the Aegean. He was the man. He had barely acclimatised with his fame when the HVT escaped during a brazen attack on the Russian supermax prison where he was being held.

The FSB was humiliated. Before a panel of his superiors, Sokolov vowed he would recapture the HVT and make the perpetrators pay. The panel trusted he would be ruthless. Letting Sokolov loose was their best option at cleaning up the mess.

Sokolov’s vengeance had three targets. One, the HVT: Leonid Rashnikov, a sympathiser of the Syrian rebellion. Two, the team that had freed Rashnikov. Three — and this vexed him immeasurably — traitorous FSB agent, Illiya Pushkin. Illiya was the daughter of Alexi Pushkin, a rival from Sokolov’s past.

Sokolov’s investigations gleaned facts that he stitched into a compelling narrative.

Alexi Pushkin’s private security consultancy — an illegal entity by Russian law — had contracted a mission in Syria. Pushkin had been captured by the rebels. The HVT's daughter, Sarah lived with the rebels. At her behest, fugitive rebel leader Aslan ‘The Lion’ Terzi leveraged Pushkin to coerce Illiya into revealing the identity of Rashnikov’s prison. Marko, the only mercenary to return from Pushkin’s ill-fated mission, warned Sokolov of the imminent prison break. In exchange he pleaded leniency for Illiya and himself. The warning was too late — the attack was already in progress! Fearing Sokolov’s wrath, Marko and Illiya fled Russia. Sokolov believed they would turn up in Syria searching for Alexi Pushkin. Why? Because, if Illiya was the FSB agent he knew her to be, she would do everything to find the people responsible for her predicament.

Syria was awash with Russians. Sokolov decided to keep Illiya on a short leash. With luck she would lead him to Terzi and Rashnikov. Then Sokolov would step in and claim them all.

In the meantime, Terzi had had help. Plenty of help… considering that he had used a Mil24D gunship to breach the prison’s fortifications! Discovering who had equipped Terzi occupied most of Sokolov’s waking hours.

Not that he was sleeping much.

The contest between the mercenaries led by Aslan Terzi and the guards at Prison Andozero had not been one-sided. With the gunship out of the equation, Terzi and Rashnikov had commandeered a prison vehicle to reach an abandoned airfield north of the prison island.

The obvious conclusion: they had aerial support.

The FSB cast a dragnet on all flights leaving the country, especially private charters. Within an hour, Sokolov had a probable: a Dassault 500 had left Russia shortly after the breakout. Its flight plan was falsified. The plane had not landed in China.

Analysts investigated the aircraft.

The Dassault was registered to a shell corporation in Abu Dhabi with wisps of a connection to a minor Dubai sheik, Achmed bin Rashid. Sokolov included the sheik in the investigation, while he headed to the airfield.

An interview with air traffic control informed him the Dassault had departed with three passengers. Sokolov’s gut told him he was on the right trail. Then the air traffic controller said, “We had to tow the helicopter into a hangar when the pilot did not return for it.”

Sokolov said, “What helicopter?”

“The helicopter in which the three passengers arrived,” came the innocent reply. Then, under Sokolov’s glower, the ATC guy did the math. “Oh,” he said sheepishly.

Sokolov took off his sunglasses and approached the Ansat helicopter. The gaily coloured fuselage proclaimed the name of an unknown aerial sightseeing tour operator. There were several in the Moscow oblast. Sokolov climbed into the cockpit, ran a gloved hand over the yoke. He twisted in the pilot’s seat, stared at the rear seats. As if willing the upholstery to talk to him.

Sokolov had a vision of Leonid Rashnikov attired in a prison jumpsuit, taunting him with a smug expression. Sokolov punched the seat rest. Ignoring the surprised look from one of his agents, Sokolov’s eyes flicked to the side, where he imagined Rashnikov’s saviour. Aslan Terzi.

Three passengers , the ATC had said. Who was the third?

The attack on Prison Andozero had involved four individuals, plus Terzi and the gunship’s pilot. The bodies of five attackers had been dug out of the rubble. That satisfaction was tempered by the fact that there were no clues to the sponsor’s identity in the bodies. They had been rendered unidentifiable by incendiary grenades.

He climbed out of the helicopter. The FSB agent said, “Sir, the helicopter is registered to Piotr Lenko.” The agent tilted his tablet for Sokolov. Lenko operated the sightseeing business advertised on the Ansat’s fuselage. The FSB agent tapped and flicked at the tablet’s screen. Sokolov felt like a dinosaur when he thought about the effort he endured to type a text on his phone. Soon, Sokolov was looking at Lenko’s financial records. Lenko’s business was in the red. Another dinosaur.

A dinosaur who, Sokolov mused, would be open to an offer of easy money.

“Let us pay Comrade Lenko a visit.”

Piotr Lenko’s modest office, co-located inside his helicopter’s hangar, was deserted. Interviews with the airfield’s security confirmed his complicity. Lenko had been contracted by Acacia Films to fly its location scouting crew. Security informed him the paperwork had checked out.

“When was this?” Sokolov asked. He smiled grimly at the answer: a few hours before the prison break.

“Were they carrying anything suspicious?”

An awkward pause from the guards. Sokolov caught on to the unsaid. “You didn’t check.” He sighed, making his irritation evident.

“The paperwork was good,” protested one of the guards who had been on duty that day.

Sokolov refused to argue with the i***t. “That was the last you saw of Piotr?”

The guards affirmed this. Sokolov asked to review security footage. A little later the FSB agents were watching the silent frames from cameras mounted on the airfield’s gates. The angle was bad, the roof of a side-panel van obscured the features of the occupants.

“Anything you can tell us about the occupants of the van?”

“They…” A heavy pause.

“Come,” Sokolov encouraged, “what is done is done. We must now focus on capturing these criminals. Please tell me everything. Anything that will help.”

“They did not look like a film crew.”

It took great restraint for Sokolov to not strike the guard.

“One of them,” said the other guard, “had grey eyes. And his face was scarred.”

Sokolov could barely contain his anger and excitement. Aslan Terzi had grey eyes and a disfigured face, courtesy his stay at Syria’s notorious Tadmor prison. “We must locate Piotr Lenko.”

The FSB agent replied, “A unit is already on its way to his house.”

“I doubt he will be home.”

When the raiding police unit called in, Sokolov was proved right. He reiterated, “We must locate Piotr Lenko.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yesterday.”

One look at Sokolov’s dark expression and his junior only said, “Yes, sir.”

Sokolov nodded and stalked out to his waiting car. As he went, he issued orders to throw the airfield guards into a gulag.