Bear by Matt Rogers

Author:Matt Rogers [Rogers, Matt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-08-05T16:00:00+00:00

38

Pasha hadn’t been exaggerating.

The plant was effectively a miniature city within Vladivostok. A high-walled perimeter fence built of concrete and topped with barbed wire flanked the entire perimeter of the grounds, but the colossal ships being constructed on the other side of the wall towered over everything in sight. They were the size of ten skyscrapers mashed together — some merchant vessels, some icebreakers, some container ships. They hung ominously in the dusk, backlit ever so slightly by the dark blue sky.

Despite the late hour, Slater sensed the electricity in the air. He couldn’t hear voices, but the unmistakeable hum of operating machinery trickled over the wall. He identified the familiar beeping of forklifts — the construction sites were alive, and the workers in the shipbuilding plant were hard at work. But at the same time Slater sensed desolation — no matter how many men toiled away over the wall, there were vast swathes of dead land, home to dozens and dozens of warehouses and storage facilities and head offices and loading zones. The sheer amount of resources necessary to construct these behemoths was an operation unto itself.

The blonde-haired man tucked the overcoat tighter around his mid-section, hunched over a little more, and approached an unimpressive metal door in the side of the perimeter fence. It rested in a small concrete indent a few feet off the sidewalk, effectively hiding in plain sight. The man strode up to a simple numerical keypad in the side of the alcove and thumbed five consecutive commands — Slater loitered halfway down the street, watching closely, fixating on the number of times he stabbed down with his finger.

Five.

V12XY.

Adds up, he thought.

The door unlocked with a soft click that seemed to echo down the empty street, passing over gravel and potholes and sleet, and the blonde man hurled the door open and disappeared inside Medved.

Slater touched the knife in his belt in a rare moment of vulnerability. He’d spent years learning the ins and outs of urban warfare in an attempt to eliminate hesitation entirely. If he had to move on a target, he didn’t want to stop and pause for a moment.

It was dead time.

Wasted time.

But now, something was different.

His sixth sense had aggravated again, kicking into high gear as he stared at the tops of the half-finished ships and the cranes towering over the rest of the site. Something lurked in that darkness, something he knew would rattle him to his core. There was no way to avoid it.

All roads lead to this.

He took a deep breath. Took his hand off the knife. Adjusted his jacket. Hardened his mind using a brief meditation tactic to inhale resolve and exhale doubt.

He envisioned his brain as a bundle of endless neurons, and in his mind’s eye he destroyed anything that might make him waver in the face of a deadly threat.

Then he stepped out of the shadows and strode for the metal door, crossing the road and skirting around a handful of jagged potholes. The

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