Wanted by Emlyn Rees Read Free Book Online Page B

the north and the west. Danny and Spartak would move in from the east and the south. Danny wanted them to surround the building simultaneously, which meant the twins needed a small head start.
    Tensing, ready to go, he again scoped the streets and buildings for signs of life. Still nothing moved. The one advantage to being in a hot spot like this: he didn’t have to worry about the law. Even the MVS and the Ukrainian State Border Guard Service, whose job it was to police the Zone, kept away.
    Because only a madman would set foot there voluntarily. Only a madman or someone out to catch one.
    Rain beads zigzagged across Danny’s goggles. Scoping the street again, he noticed his hands were trembling for the first time since he’d said goodbye to Lexie three days ago. He’d finally got her somewhere he was still praying was safe.
    Concentrate on here, on now, he ordered himself. Not on Lexie. Not on then. Concentrate on getting your team in and out alive. Concentrate on doing what you do best.
    But he knew that this wasn’t what he did best. What he did best was prepare and strategize, leaving nothing to chance. That was why he was good at his job: he never went into anything he didn’t know his way back out of. The same as anyone else in his line of work. Anyone who wanted to stay alive.
    But tonight he was barely prepared at all. Spartak had seen to their equipment and weapons, and Danny hardly knew the other half of his team. And only had the most basic intel on where they were heading. Not even a floor plan for the telephone exchange. No surveillance. No knowledge of what weaponry, or how many people – if any – might be waiting inside.
    Which was maybe the real reason he was trembling now, he thought. His whole life he’d been one of the good guys, with the might of government and all its resources at his back. Now that safety net had been ripped away. For the first time, Danny Shanklin was operating on the wrong side of international law.
    Ten, nine, eight . . .
    Danny wanted this done with now. He could feel his energy levels dropping. Hardly surprising. He couldn’t remember when he’d last had more than two hours’ straight sleep. And Spartak, even though he’d never admit it, would by now be tiring too. They’d marched five and a half kilometres to get there tonight, having first penetrated the Zone’s security perimeter on foot. They’d had no choice. If the people he’d come for really were there, they’d be on the lookout for approaching vehicles.
    He forced himself to sharpen up and focus on what was to come.
    He told himself that soon there would be blood.
    Three, two . . .
    The thirty seconds was up. And so was Danny. Mobile. Out through the gates, then heading right, sticking as close to the deserted buildings as he could. He sprinted up the street, counting off the alleyways either side, relieved to find their spacing matched the Soviet map of the area he’d memorized that morning.
    ‘One – move in,’ he radioed, unleashing Spartak too.
    Danny switched left into the fifth alley. More of a side-street, he saw, as he raced on past a dozen arched wooden doorways set into a crumbling grey brick wall. A forgotten place. Gutters hanging at crazy angles. Blistered paintwork. A rusted tangle of bikes. Faded signs for cobblers, mechanics and furniture repairs.
    At the end of the street, grim as a Gothic castle in a rainstorm, the two-storey utilitarian concrete block of the abandoned telephone exchange loomed into sight. In between lay what had once been a municipal car park, but which looked now like a junk yard full of abandoned cars.
    Danny slunk into the shadows of a stack of warped pallets and peered through the dripping rotten slats. He scoped the exchange and the ivy-snaked buildings around it. Dark, empty windows stared blankly back.
    He felt it then. In spite of his exhaustion. The same buzz of imminent action he had always felt at times like this, as if he’d been strangely