Traitor by Chris Ryan

Author:Chris Ryan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zaffre Publishing

Fourteen

From his OP in the back of the Škoda, Carter looked on as one of the BGs spoke into his sleeve mic. He figured the heavy was relaying the flunky’s information to the drivers over the secure comms channel. A logical assumption. At once the two G-Wagons and the Maybach chuntered further along the access road, taking the same route as the earlier motorcade, while Ternovsky started towards the theatre entrance. Two BGs walked in front, with a third guy at his six o’clock as the tail-end Charlie and the flunky at his right shoulder. Forty metres away the doorman stood holding the door open, ready to admit the evening’s star guest. A few plain-clothed KGB toughs and police officers hung around the front of the building, facing outward, keeping a close eye on the park grounds.

The bodyguards scanned the area as they moved, like professionals. Looking for anything that didn’t fit the picture. But they had made a fatal mistake. They were working on the assumption that any threat to the principal’s life would come at him from ground level. They weren’t expecting an airborne attack.

Ternovsky had almost made it halfway up the steps when the tail-end Charlie abruptly halted.

Carter heard the faint insect buzz of the drone bearing down on its target. He figured the rear bodyguard must have detected the noise too. Because he wheeled away from his principal and lifted his head skyward.

On the step immediately above the tail-end Charlie, Ternovsky had stopped too. The flunky at his side pointed at the sky. At the drone swooping down towards them.

Then he shouted in terror.

Several steps further up, the two BGs in the vanguard had also halted and spun round. Eyes drawn towards the flunky and the principal five or six metres below their position.

The tail-end Charlie was closest to the principal. A distance of no more than a metre between the two men. Therefore, the best placed to react to the threat. His training automatically kicked in; he lunged desperately at Ternovsky, shoved the flunky aside and threw the minister to the ground, landing on top of him. Like a gridiron player sacking a quarterback before he could make a game-winning pass.

A few paces away, the doorman dashed forward to help the dazed flunky to his feet.

In the next breath the first drone detonated its payload.

The explosion engulfed the steps in a savage fireball, fragging the tail-end Charlie. Ball bearings flew outward, peppered the nearby flunky and the doorman. Like a shotgun blast pattern. The resulting overpressure blew out the windows at the front of the theatre. Glass fragments rained down on the red carpet. Someone screamed in agony. Others yelled in shock and terror.

When the smoke cleared, Carter glimpsed the rag order bodies of the junior flunky and the doorman sprawled amid the broken glass, debris and blood spatter. The dead weight of the shredded tail-end Charlie lay slumped over Ternovsky, pinning the latter to the ground.

The two BGs further up the steps had survived the explosion.

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