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  “Mayday. Mayday. My gas tank is leaking. A bullet must have punctured it. Oh my God…”

  She dropped the mike onto the deck and switched the radio off. Then, gauging her timing, she pulled the pins on both the grenades, dropped them into the bilge, and dived off the transom into the wake, the swimming fins and snorkel she’d found below clenched firmly in her good hand.

  The Intrepid continued for sixty yards before exploding in a fireball, lighting up the night as the remaining fuel detonated. Maya felt a surge of heat on her face. She pulled on the swim fins and put the snorkel in her mouth as she watched the crippled boat burn to the waterline and sink into the depths.

  Her hand stung from the salt water, as did her shoulder – nothing she couldn’t handle, and in March, the sea temperature was in the low eighties, which was ideal. She quickly guesstimated that she would need to swim six miles to get to shore. With the fins, and in no particular hurry, she could do that standing on her head.

  Maya began pulling for the glimmering lights of what appeared to be a small fishing village in the distance, using a smooth, measured stroke, the fins a considerable help in propelling her along. By the time either the Venezuelans or the Trinidad patrol made it to where the boat had exploded, she would be miles away.

  Three hours later, she pulled herself up onto a deserted beach a quarter mile west of the little village of Macuro. She cut a solitary figure as she peered out to sea, where in the distance, the spotlights of the naval ship pierced the night, no doubt in position where the Intrepid had sunk. The moon seemed brighter as she stood panting in its eerie glow, dripping salt water onto the sand. She surveyed the few lights on in the sleeping fishing hamlet and decided to wait until morning before making her way in to either catch a bus or hire a local skiff to take her to a larger town.

  The warm wind tousled her damp hair as she gazed at the horizon, turning the same thoughts over in her mind that had occupied her for most of the swim.

  How had they found her, and who were they? And why were they trying to kill her? Nobody knew that she was still alive. She’d covered her tracks.

  She was long dead, the life she’d lived dead as well.

  Except it wasn’t.

  Somehow, some way, her past had caught up with her.

  She ran her fingers through her hair, brushing away the salt and sand, and closed her eyes. Only a select few had ever known her real name was Maya. Everyone else had known her by her operational name, which was the way she liked it. Long ago, Maya had morphed into something deadly, something awe-inspiring, and she’d left her true identity behind when she’d assumed the code name Jet – the name of a clandestine operative the likes of which the world had never seen. And ultimately, she’d left her Jet identity dead off another coast three years ago, on the far side of the planet, finished with the covert life she’d led and everything that had gone with it.

  Jet had been the polar opposite of her donor, Maya, and had never found any use for her weaknesses, no room for her softness, her compassion. Jet was lethality incarnate, the swift hand of vengeance, a deadly visitation from which there was no escape. She was a ghost, untouchable, the reaper, a killing machine revered in hushed tones even in her own elite circle.

  And now Jet was back in the land of the living, the beast awakened. Whoever wanted her dead had loosed a primal force of nature that was unstoppable, and as much as Maya had tried to leave Jet behind, the only way she could see any future at all was to become that which she had buried forever.

  Jet slowly reopened her eyes, seeing the world as if for the first time, the warm breeze caressing her exotic features like a lover. She inhaled deeply the sweet air, turned, and then padded across the powdery sand to a spot where she could rest until morning.

  Dawn would break soon enough.

  And there would be work to do.

  Chapter 3

  The frigid Moscow wind sent a flurry of snow slanting at the beleaguered inhabitants as they struggled down the sidewalks on their way to dinner. The stink of poorly combusted exhaust soured the air over the city, belched out by the battered Soviet-era Lada sedans that clattered along next to spanking new Mercedes cruisers. Nowhere was the disparity between rich and poor more evident than on the clogged streets of this unlikely metropolis, where the ruling elite were transported in luxury while the rank and file trudged through the sleet.

  Mikhail Grigenko stood looking out over what was more or less his city, his massive villa in the Kuznetskiy Bridge neighborhood better guarded than the Kremlin, its window glass bulletproof, and all of the homes on its walled grounds’ periphery also owned by him and occupied by his security detail. Infrared cameras, laser optics and the latest technological innovations protected him from a world filled with rivals, enemies and recalcitrant malcontents.

  Exhaling noisily, part sigh, part groan, Grigenko moved from the window to the antique table in the corner, where a bottle of Iordanov Vodka complemented three crystal tumblers and a heavy ashtray. After ripping a rectangle into a pack of Marlboro reds, he shook out a cigarette and tapped one end on the tabletop. He studied it and then blew on the cigarette’s filter prior to putting it in his mouth – a superstitious tick from his youth, when he’d been told by a friend that it was the stray microscopic synthetic fibers on the filter that did most of the damage. He poured three fingers of vodka into one of the glasses, lit the Marlboro with a gold ST Dupont lighter and drew the rich smoke deep into his lungs before blowing a blue-gray stream at the oblivious ceiling.

  He raised the glass to his lips and sipped the vodka – one of his favorites – even if it was marketed for women. Something about the flavor. Nobody would dare question his preferences in anything, so he didn’t really care about the branding – he was buying what was in the bottle.

  Grigenko paused to savor the taste of the clear, pungent fluid, appreciating the burn as it trickled down his throat. After another drag of smoke, he turned and retired to the brown leather sectional he’d had specially built with additional lumbar support for his aching back. Such luxuries were perquisite for one of the most powerful and wealthy men in Russia. His empire spanned the globe with a web of companies, most of them concentrated near home, but some in obscure, far-flung reaches. An oligarch who operated at the highest levels of the administration, his ex-KGB background had ensured his good fortune once the wall came down. Everyone running the country was ex-KGB, and the plum opportunities had landed in the laps of a rarified club, of which he was a proud member.

  He stabbed a button on a remote, and one section of the wood-paneled wall slid aside, revealing a seventy-five-inch flat screen television. His finger hovered over the power button, hesitating. Why torture himself?

  Because it was time.

  He powered the system on, and the LCD flickered to life.

  Grainy static appeared, then a fixed image of a driveway, with a slight fishbowl effect from lens distortion, filled the screen. The color footage was clear – amazingly so. The very latest technology camera had filmed it, no expense spared.

  There was no sound. At the far edge of the field of vision, he saw motion, a man falling backward into the view, fifty yards away from the camera, which was mounted at a high elevation, perhaps fourteen feet off the ground. The rusty spray of the man’s blood was plainly visible in the night’s lighting if one paused and enlarged that area, Grigenko knew, but he saw no point in doing so again. He could manipulate the images as much as he wanted, enhancing the luminescence, zooming to the point where he could read the numbers on a key. He had done it all, and then some. He knew everything there was to find.

  Then he saw it. There. As he had seen hundreds of times before. A blur of motion. A figure, all in black, moving with unexpected speed and agility. One moment, the area was empty, the next a streak of movement as the figure sped to the rear entrance underneath the camera. A second later, the stream went back to static.

  Then the final scene of the familiar drama, the one that Grigenko savored like a fi
ne wine. He had watched it at least a thousand times. Yet another view, this one a hallway, the camera hidden in a molding, he’d been told later. Same incredible resolution.

  An interior door. Stationary. Old looking, the joinery and carvings distinctly antique. A time code played along the bottom, counting off tenths of seconds.

  The door opened, and a black-clad figure stepped out, blood smeared plainly across its torso, the head cloaked in a balaclava, features hidden by the black fabric – except for the eyes. The figure moved stealthily, softly, footsteps precise, a pistol gripped in one hand.

  And then it happened.

  The figure looked up at the camera.

  For a brief instant, less than a heartbeat, a nano-second, the lens peered into the figure’s soul even as it gazed blankly at something it didn’t know was there. He had been told that the clandestine camera was so skillfully hidden that nobody could have recognized it – incorporated into the ornately fabricated molding that ringed the ceiling of the hall. But every time he saw that piece of footage, he felt like the figure was staring at him, with full understanding that he was watching. An illusion, he understood. Impossible. And yet he was always struck by the same sensation. He felt compelled to stop the show at that point, freezing the image of the watched, watching the watcher. Even if paused, when most footage would have gotten blurrier, this was such high digital resolution that he could enlarge it until he was an inch off the eye’s surface without visible degradation.

  The moment stretched uneasily as Grigenko studied the figure, searching for something he’d missed, something he hadn’t seen. As he always did, he eventually pushed ‘play’, his scrutiny having revealed nothing new.

  Then it was over. The figure moved out of the frame, leaving only bloody boot prints on the richly carpeted floor.

  Grigenko swallowed the remainder of his drink as the screen went black, the montage finished. He raised himself from the couch with a lurch and walked back to the table and the bottle.

  It would be another long night if he allowed himself to perpetuate this, he knew from harsh experience. Still, knowing and doing were two different things. He poured himself a healthy soak of vodka, fished another cigarette from the pack, and returned to his seat.

  Later, he would stagger to his ornately appointed bedroom where his latest conquest, a seventeen-year-old Bolshoi ballet sensation, waited patiently for his advances. Irena could soothe the brutalized animal in him like nobody he’d ever met, which made her both irresistible and dangerous. She had a power over him he feared for its intensity – he couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted someone like he wanted her. It was like a disease. A sickness; an addiction.

  Still, he had chosen to watch his little movie instead of availing himself of her passionate charms. For the moment, anyway.

  He settled back down and picked up the remote, cueing the playback to start at the beginning again, taking another burning swallow as the screen flickered to life, the phantom that tormented him shimmering on the wall in a kabuki dance that transfixed him every time he watched it, jaw clenching unconsciously, teeth grinding with barely controlled rage.

  Chapter 4

  Three Years Ago, Belize, Central America

  The chopper’s blades sliced through the damp atmosphere, thumping a hypnotic beat as the aircraft hovered fifteen hundred feet above the jungle treetops north of Spanish Lookout. The five passengers gazed through the windows at the topography below – referring to their bound reports, making discreet notes in the borders, exchanging glances before returning to their study of the land.

  The pilot was flying in a methodical grid pattern so that the group could better appreciate the area in which they’d spent the last six months. Professor Calvin Reynolds, a rail-thin man with a largely bald head and round, steel-rimmed spectacles, pointed to a small clearing in the distance.

  “There’s A-7. Looks pretty remote from this far up, doesn’t it?”

  They slowly drifted toward the site, climbing another few hundred feet in an effort to find calmer air – the heat rising from the earth was creating unpredictable updrafts, resulting in an uncomfortable ride, and the pilot was sensitive to providing as pleasant a trip as possible.

  A swarthy, heavyset man wiped his neck with a red bandana and shifted uncomfortably in his seat, obviously ill at ease. The occasional turbulence from thermal drafts wasn’t helping; every time the helicopter jolted, he clutched the sides of his seat with a hawkish grip. He hated flying, but especially hated helicopters. He’d read about their aerodynamics, or rather their lack of them. As far as he was concerned, they were death traps – a conviction that Reynolds ribbed him about mercilessly.

  “It looks that way because it’s in the middle of nowhere. I don’t care if I never see the place again, frankly,” he declared in a tone of disgust.

  Oscar Valenzuela was a highly competent geologist with over twenty-five years of experience in Central America, but one of his personality quirks was that he complained incessantly about everything. His colleagues had long ago grown used to it, but not so his first and second wives, who eventually couldn’t stomach his worldview and moved on to more palatable possibilities. Oscar threw the pilot an evil glare, as though the turbulence was a personal slight, and swallowed with difficulty, his complexion decidedly pasty.

  Professor Reynolds gifted him a humorless grin. “You know as well as I do that we’ll probably be spending a lot more time here,” he said, with a condescending nod of his sunburned head.

  “Just my luck. Filthy place. Bugs the size of buses. Malaria, dengue, yellow fever, typhoid–”

  “And those are the positives,” Reynolds reflected.

  Another jolt hit the cabin as they encountered more bumpy air, causing Oscar’s sweating to intensify. He was preparing to complain about the heat and the roughness of the ride when a loud beeping sounded from the cockpit. The pilot fought with the controls, and then leaned forward and tapped on one of the gauges. The helicopter shuddered as the motor stuttered, then it resumed purring as it had for the last forty-five minutes, the strident screeching of the failure warning dying abruptly.

  Oscar’s eyes were now saucers of panic.

  “Wha…what the hell was that? What’s wrong?” he demanded in a shrill voice a full octave higher than normal.

  The pilot was turning to address him when the alarm clamored again, but this time the vibration intensified before a grinding sound tore through the cabin. Another louder alarm began howling as the rotor stopped turning.

  Oscar’s stomach lurched into his throat as the helicopter stalled. The screams of horror and panic around him battled with the din of the engine failure alarms – his worst living nightmare playing out in real time. The drop began gradually for a quarter second and then accelerated like a runaway elevator, freefalling into the embrace of gravity. All Oscar had time to think was “Oh, God – no, no, no…”

  The explosion from the chopper plowing into the earth was audible fifteen miles away in Spanish Lookout, and the plume of smoke from the wreckage was visible all the way to the Mexican border. By the time rescue craft mobilized and made it from Belize City, the flames had exhausted themselves, and all that was left was the charred skeleton of the frame.

  Chapter 5

  Four Years Ago, Chechnya, Russian Federation

  Jet steered the maroon Lada Kalina to the roadside and stopped to check her GPS coordinates. She was outside of Grozny, on a minor artery that ran south to Alkahn-Yurt, a quarter mile from the target, and there was no traffic at a little past midnight on a Tuesday. Even so, she didn’t dally, and inched the small vehicle back onto the pavement before pulling onto a side road a hundred yards farther up – a farm access-way, according to her study of the satellite images.

  Once out of the city, the surroundings quickly became rural, with large crop fields separating the farmhouses that punctuated the landscape. It was a quiet region where neighbors kept to themselves and didn’t poke their noses into the busines
s of others. Everyone would be asleep by now in the nearby homes, few as they were, as tomorrow would bring another twelve-hour stint in the fields, commencing at daybreak.

  She killed the headlights and engine, and exited the hatchback, moving to the rear compartment to secure her backpack and weapons. As was her custom, she had loosened the interior bulb and the brake lights so they wouldn’t alert anyone to her presence – particularly valuable if she had to run dark once the operation was over and she was making her getaway.

  The PP-19 Bizon submachine gun she pulled from a duffle in the back was a Russian weapon, as was the compact PSS pistol, capable of delivering six shots in nearly complete silence; one of the true feats of Soviet ingenuity – the Mossad had gotten their hands on three almost a decade before to reverse engineer for their own purposes. One of the pilfered weapons had been sacrificed to Jet for this mission. The PSS used a special subsonic cartridge with an internal piston that blocked the escape of the explosive gasses that made noise; it was as close to a silent killing firearm ever developed.

  A complement of throwing knives, as well as her main blade, were of Russian paratrooper stock. All of her clothes, weapons and ammunition had been sourced in Moscow, so in the event she was captured or killed, the trail would end in Russia – standard procedure for this kind of assignment. The night vision goggles she slid on were the only non-Russian device – a consumer type readily available anywhere online, so foreign manufacture signified nothing.