37 Hours
‘Nadia is a heroine readers are bound to fall hard for!’ – BestThrillers.comThe only way to hunt down a killer is to become one…After two long years spent in a secret British prison, Nadia Laksheva is suddenly granted her freedom. Yet there is a dangerous price to pay for her release: she must retrieve the Russian nuclear warhead stolen by her deadliest enemy, a powerful and ruthless terrorist known only as The Client.But her mysterious nemesis is always one step ahead and the clock is ticking. In 37 hours, the warhead will explode, reducing the city of London to a pile of ash. Only this time, Nadia is prepared to pull the trigger at any cost…The deadly trail will take her from crowded Moscow to the silent streets of Chernobyl, but will Nadia find what she is looking for before the clock hits zero?The gripping second novel in J.F. Kirwan’s brilliant spy thriller series. Perfect for fans of Charles Cumming, Mark Dawson and Adam Brookes.
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Now she has killed once, she knows she can do it againâ¦
After two long years spent in a secret British prison, Nadia Laksheva is suddenly granted her freedom. Yet there is a dangerous price to pay for her release: she must retrieve the Russian nuclear warhead stolen by her deadliest enemy, a powerful and ruthless terrorist known only as The Client.
But her mysterious nemesis is always one step ahead and the clock is ticking. In 37 hours, the warhead will explode, reducing the city of London to a pile of ash. Only this time, Nadia is prepared to pull the trigger at any costâ¦
The deadly trail will take her from crowded Moscow to the silent streets of Chernobyl, but will Nadia find what she is looking for before the clock hits zero?
The gripping second novel in J.F. Kirwanâs brilliant spy thriller series. Perfect for fans of Charles Cumming, Mark Dawson and Adam Brookes.
37 Hours
J.F. Kirwan
J.F. KIRWAN
In his day job, J.F. Kirwan travels worldwide, working on aviation safety. He lives in Paris, where he first joined a fiction class â and became hooked! So when a back injury stopped him scuba diving for two years, he wrote a thriller about a young Russian woman, Nadia, where a lot of the action occurred in dangerously deep waters. It was the only way he could carry on diving! But as the story and characters grew, he realised it was not one book, but three⦠J.F. Kirwan would love to hear from readers. You can follow him on Twitter at: @kirwanjf.
Thanks to my Parisian writer colleagues Chris, Dimitri, Marie, Gwyneth and Mary Ellen, to my pre-readers Beatrice, Ruth, Andy and Gideon, to Maxi and my fellow HQ authors, and to my editor Charlotte, the HQ cover designer and the entire HQ team. Last but not least, thanks to all the readers of 66 Metres who demanded a sequel.
For Kevin
Contents
Vladimir was cuffed and hooded, but his guards had made a fatal mistake. His hands were behind him, but not attached to the inner structure of the military van, a standard Russian UAZ 452 â heâd know those rickety creaks and the pungent blend of oil and diesel anywhere. The vehicle trundled towards some unknown destination where he would be interrogated, beaten some more, then shot in the back of the head.
Three of the four men chattered as they picked up speed down a straighter road. Their second mistake. Clearly they werenât Special Forces â Spetsnaz â like heâd been until recently. They were regular army. Heâd only seen the two heavies whoâd snatched him from breakfast with his daughter. Now he knew there were four â one other had engaged in the banter, another had remained silent but was referred to as the butt of several bawdy jokes. The hierarchy of the men was also clear. The leader was in the front passenger seat, the silent one the driver, leaving the two musclemen in the back with him.
He waited. Theyâd been driving for an hour or so, initially dirt tracks, now a highway, which meant they were on the E119 to Vostok. If they turned right, he had a chance, as they would have to cross the Volga River. Then he would make his move.
If they turned left, he was a dead man.
Vladimir wasnât one for options, or for hedging his bets. Not a question of making the right choice, but of making the choice right. In all his missions heâd never cared much for a Plan B. Leave too many options open, and events control you. You invite failure.
The van would turn right.
Vladimir mapped the van inside his head. The van layout was standard: two seats in the front facing forward, two benches in the back facing each other. Two front doors on the driver and passenger side, a double door at the rear. He was on the left-side bench, a heavy beside him, one opposite. The leader was in the left-hand front seat, the driver on the right. He needed to know if there was anything between him and the driver, in front on the opposite side, such as a vertical strut, or a metal grill. Because if there was either of those things, his plan wouldnât work.
Nobody had talked to him since his arrest. Why talk to a hooded, dead man? But they were military, or at least they had been at one stage or another, so it should work. He waited for a pause in their talk fuelled by bravado â they were probably wondering which one of them would get to pop him in the skull. He reckoned theyâd make the driver do it. A rite of passage. Probably a rookie, not yet blooded.
The pause came.
âCigarette?â he asked, nodding through his hood to the one opposite. âMy last, we all know that.â
