Sochi, Russia
Fine rain fell from a sky the colour of ash. Aside from the patter of raindrops, the forest was quiet. Victor knelt in the undergrowth. The ground was soft beneath his knee. He was on a highpoint that protruded from the slope of the hill, enabling him to see over the canopy that blanketed the hillside below. Mist enshrouded the trees. The rain was fine but relentless. Victor preferred the weather from an operational standpoint, even with the cold water trickling down his back. Better to be wet and unseen in the mist and rain than dry and visible. Binoculars provided him with a clear, albeit limited view of Kasakov’s vacation dacha some seven hundred yards away to the west, at the base of the hill.
The mansion was located about three hundred yards inland from the eastern shore of the Black Sea. Woods surrounded the walled twenty-two-acre grounds, which included a guesthouse, swimming pool and the grand dacha itself, according to the plans Victor had been supplied with. From his vantage point, Victor could see only the rear side’s roof and some of the building’s second storey, but most of the house, as well as the swimming pool and guesthouse that stood beside it, were hidden by the trees that dotted its grounds. They formed a useful privacy screen and a highly effective security measure. A narrow road led from the house, twisting north-west through the forest until it joined the highway running parallel to the coastline. The dacha was isolated, with no other buildings for at least half a mile in any direction. Again for privacy, but this feature made Victor’s job far simpler.
The Black Sea coast was Russia’s own Riviera with the region enjoying a sub-tropical climate. Warm and humid. Not today, Victor thought, as cold rain dripped from his nose. The closest town was Sochi, three miles south-east and famous for being home to one of Stalin’s dachas. Victor had arrived on a cargo ship, travelling from Istanbul. The trip was uneventful and he had spent countless hours studying all the information he’d been given on Kasakov, his grand vacation home and Sochi. By the time the ship reached port, he knew everything he was going to about the strike point, terrain, weather, local population, transport links, police capabilities and his Ukrainian target.
A modest hotel near the port provided his accommodation. The room was small but came with a pleasant sea view. Adler Airport was located twelve miles due south along the coast from Sochi. Just as with the Bucharest contract, there had been an unremarkable sedan waiting for him in the long-stay parking lot of the airport with a trunk full of weapons.
Victor’s employer had supplied everything requested. The dossier was the most detailed one yet. He had all the lead time he required. It was all as it should be. But the best way for the voice on the other side of the world to protect himself from Mossad was if Victor wasn’t alive to tell them anything. And even if his employer wasn’t planning on betraying him, the Kidon unit was still out there looking for him. Victor knew how to stay hidden as well as anyone, but no one was invisible.
Despite the two potential enemies, he had to concentrate on the job at hand. This could prove to be one of his most challenging and dangerous assignments. It was also one of the most unpalatable, despite the long list of heinous acts Vladimir Kasakov had committed during his long career and the numerous atrocities his weapons had been responsible for. Victor reminded himself he couldn’t afford to be distracted by emotions he shouldn’t be experiencing in the first place.
He carefully set his metal water bottle on the ground so it was standing up at the highest point of the outcrop and clear of vegetation, and descended the hillside. He moved slowly, carefully, gaze sweeping from left to right and back again. Every thirty yards he stopped and listened before moving on. He wore a green Gore-Tex jacket, Gore-Tex trousers and hiking boots. The woods were gloomy. The mist was thick in the air. Visibility was no more than twenty yards through the trees and thick underbrush. He approached the dacha’s grounds from the east.
Raindrops pattered and splashed on leaves. He breathed in the cool air. It smelled of wet earth and decaying vegetation. Between the trees, he saw a wall up ahead. Made of stone and ten feet high, the wall formed a rough square around the property, with each section approximately one thousand feet in length. There was a single gate in the centre of the north wall, but covered by a security camera and therefore not worth tangling with when there were easier options. The plans made no mention of other electronic security measures along the wall, but Victor carefully checked anyway and wasn’t surprised to find none. The boundary to the property was far too long to be effectively covered by cameras, and motion sensors would be frequently set off by wildlife or falling branches. Metal spikes topped the wall to create a barrier more than enough to stop a typical intruder.
Victor backed off to give himself a short run-up and sprinted at the wall. He jumped from a distance of four feet, hitting the wall with the ball of his right foot and using the momentum to propel himself vertical, doing the same with his left a split-second later to push himself even further before reaching upwards to grab the top edge. He pulled himself on to the top of the wall. Staying in a crouch, he stepped over the spikes, turned and lowered himself down the other side. He dropped the last few feet.
The house sat at the centre of the grounds, some two hundred and fifty yards away. The woods had been left as nature intended on the other side of the wall. It was quiet. The rain had stopped. Victor heard the rustle of leaves in the breeze and nothing else. He set off through the undergrowth, taking his time to reduce the noise he made, stopping regularly, always listening. The sodden ground squished underfoot. Leaves glistened.
As he was on reconnaissance the only weapon he carried was an MK23 handgun in the right side exterior pocket of his jacket. A suppressor in his left. He didn’t anticipate using it, as Kasakov wasn’t due to arrive for another two days, but there was always the chance some of his people had travelled ahead of him. Even then, Victor would only use the gun as a last resort. Dead bodies left at the strike point tended to keep targets away.
The trees gave way to cultivated grounds after Victor had gone about two hundred yards. A six thousand square foot lawn led up to the rear of the dacha. The grass was very green and recently cut. A small wooden shed stood to the west of the lawn. The guesthouse lay to the east. A few trees were scattered across the grass. Their foliage had blocked Victor’s view of the dacha from the highpoint.
At the far side of the lawn lay a swimming pool and beyond that the mansion itself, which was large but not huge: six bedrooms and just under four thousand square feet on its main level, according to the plans. The garage was big enough for four sedans. The odd light was on inside so Victor crouched within the tree line and used his binoculars to get a better look. He stayed watching until a woman passed an upstairs window. The dossier had stated the dacha would be cleaned and prepared at some point before Kasakov’s arrival. He stayed watching for another half-hour but saw no one else.
He then used the binoculars to check the security cameras were where they were supposed to be. There were two where he expected to find them, each one positioned beneath the overhang of the roof so they had overlapping fields of view that covered the back of the house, patio, swimming pool and part of the lawn. They were small, high-tech, and would provide anyone watching the monitors with a clear picture.
Rain started to fall again. Victor continued through the undergrowth, moving west towards the shed. Inside was probably grounds-keeping equipment and not much else, but there was no need to confirm that either way. The door was set facing the lawn, out of sight of the dacha. He circled back east through the trees and around the lawn to where the guesthouse was located. It was a two-storey detached cottage, close to the swimming pool and big enough to comfortably house a family of three in a nice suburban neighbourhood. The rain started back up.
Victor approached the rear of the cottage, emerging from the cover of the woods at the point with the least amount of open ground. He hurried across the twenty-foot-wide corner of lawn and paused with his back to the exterior wall. Listened.
There may have been no cameras here, but the cottage had its own alarm system. He peered through a few windows. Nothing of note. He circled the dacha through the woods surrounding it. There was about thirty feet of open space from the edge of the woods to the wall occupied by flower gardens. It was the same on the opposite side. At the front of the house there was a big driveway and lawn and then more woods.
Victor found a small car, most likely the housekeeper’s, on the driveway. The front door of the dacha opened and the woman he’d seen pass the window appeared. She was young, not far over twenty, petite, wearing a big padded coat, her shoulders hunched up. The coat had no hood but she held a folded newspaper above her head as a shield against the rain. She rushed over to her car, leaving the mansion’s front door open behind her. Victor watched as she smoked a cigarette and drank what he guessed was coffee from a thermos.
She wasn’t facing the dacha and Victor knew he could easily sneak inside without her noticing, but not without taking off his muddy boots first, and there wasn’t time for that. There was little point in exploring the house as Victor had no intention of getting up close and personal for this one. He knew from Bucharest how alert Kasakov’s guards were.
The housekeeper smoked her cigarette right up to the filter and tipped the dregs of her coffee on to the drive, before hurrying back inside.
Victor stayed crouched for another hour until she finally left for the day. He watched her drive away, before making his way to the rear of the dacha.
Staying clear of the security cameras and their fields of view, Victor stepped out on to the lawn and got as close to the dacha as he dared. He turned and looked back towards the hill. The branches and leaves of the few trees on the lawn obscured his vision. He looked back to where the back door was located. Again, he looked at the hill, judging the angle.
The tree took seconds to climb after a short jump and pull up. Victor removed his knife from a pocket and opened it. He used the serrated part of the blade to saw through a thin branch. It fell to the lawn. He did the same with several others. Then again, up a second tree, then a third. When he was done, there were over a dozen thin branches scattered across the grass. Victor collected them up and dumped them individually throughout the woods. He returned to the first tree and climbed it. Squatting to achieve the right angle, he peered down to his left and saw the mansion’s back door. He then took out his binoculars and looked right and up, through the tunnels of gaps he’d created in the foliage of the trees until he located his metal water bottle sitting on the protruding highpoint halfway up the hill. He cleared a couple of thin branches to improve his field of view and descended the tree. From the ground, the trees looked no different from before he’d tampered with them.
With his preparations complete, Victor headed back into the woods at the rear of the grounds. He followed his original trail back towards the wall. The paths he had made through the undergrowth were obvious to him but would be invisible by the time Kasakov and his bodyguards arrived. Until then no one would be around to notice them.
Someone noticed.