She pulled a holstered Glock 26 pistol from the pack and dropped the bag and her hood on a chair in the saloon, then racked the slide of the weapon. As she slid the pistol into a holster on the utility belt and dropped it next to the pack, she checked the threads on the silencer, housed in a case on the belt. After doing this, she glanced up at the other men in the room.
All seven of the Zaslon operators just stood there, staring back at her.
“What?” she asked.
Vasily addressed the SVR officer. “Off for a nighttime swim?”
She looked back to her gear, then checked to make certain her three extra pistol magazines were in their pouches on the utility belt. “Don’t start with me. I’m going with you.”
“No, you’re not. Someone will come back to get you when the Tai Chin VI is secure.”
“It’s ten minutes away. Twenty minutes round-trip. Plus, you might need me during the takedown.”
“We’ll have eight men. We need eight men. Men.”
Arseny and Pyotr both chuckled over by the navigation table.
Zoya asked, “What if that tender on shore returns to the boat? I can stay on the deck and watch the bay for any counterattack.”
Vasily knelt down to load rifle magazines into a load-bearing vest propped against the wall. “Not necessary. Ruslan and Sasha will stay with us just long enough to clear B deck; then they will return to the main deck. They can keep watch for anyone returning to the boat during the operation.”
“I can help them. I won’t get in your way. I’ve been in combat multiple times.”
Vasily snorted. “Really? Where?”
Zoya shrugged. “Classified.”
“Right.”
“You know I’ve trained at Yasenevo with FSB Spetsnaz forces.”
Vasily snorted. “Like I give a shit. They probably gave you fluffy towels and massages.”
“No, they did not.”
“And we aren’t FSB Spetsnaz, dear. We are Zaslon.”
“Which means you belong to SVR. I am an SVR officer, I remind you, and this is my operation.”
All the men looked at Vasily, but the paramilitary commander didn’t budge. “I have tactical control of direct-action ops. And I say you stay here and wait for us to call you forward. End of conversation.”
Vasily was technically correct. An SVR case officer had no authority to make herself part of the tactical team conducting a difficult “bottom up” raid on a ship full of potential hostiles. Still, they knew she’d passed all the Spetsnaz qualifications necessary to make her an asset to the op, not a detriment, so Zoya felt they should have had no problem with her trailing along.
But these guys were all ex-military, whereas Zoya was a civilian government employee and, of course, Zoya was a woman. These alpha males didn’t want her fighting alongside them.
She wouldn’t push it; she needed their help in this, and even though she thought these guys were assholes, she wanted them to remain focused on the mission at hand, not on her. Zoya said, “Very well. I’ll go to the hide on the island when you stop to pick up Mikhail.”
“Mikhail is breaking down the hide. We won’t need it.”
“Let me see you at work. I will give you overwatch during the raid, and I’ll be closer than I am here.” To that she added, “You can keep me off the boat, but you can’t keep me off the damn island.”
Vasily just shrugged, but before he could speak, Zoya’s radio chirped. “Anna Seven to Sirena.”
She grabbed her walkie-talkie out of her gear bag and brought it to her mouth, her eyes still locked on Vasily. “Go, Seven.”
“I have another tender leaving the target vessel. Five men on board, just like last time. They look like they are heading to that same bar the other subjects went to.”
This was good news for the Zaslon unit; they would have fewer hostiles on board the cargo ship. But Zoya didn’t like it. She had no idea how many would be on the ship when they hit it. Could it be possible that all the men who knew what happened to Fan Jiang would be drinking in the bar she’d visited that morning? In that case, Vasily and his men would have to wait around for them to return.
Zoya looked to the Anna team commander. “That’s ten off the boat you are hitting.”
“I call that good news.”
“Not if all ten come back at once.”
Sasha broke into the conversation now. “Ten men on two fifteen-foot launches? A shooting gallery.”
Zoya sighed, but Vasily acquiesced to her demand. He said, “You can go to the overwatch during the raid.”
“Thank you. One more thing.”
“What is it?” he growled.
“Survivors. Give me survivors. The more the better.”
“Roger that, Koshka.”
Zoya turned to go back downstairs to change out of her scuba gear and into clothing appropriate to return to the overwatch position. She stopped, suddenly, then turned back around. “Oh, and I want the VSS up there with me. Just in case.” She was speaking of the suppressed sniper rifle they had been using at the hide site all day for the reconnaissance powers of its scope.
Vasily showed his frustration with a heave of his big chest, then just waved a distracted thumbs-up her way before returning to his work.
Court Gentry approached the entrance of the raucous bayside bar and immediately caught long looks from many of the patrons standing around near the entrance. He acted like he didn’t notice, and like he was perfectly comfortable, but in truth he was already wondering if he had just ambled into a bear trap.
When he’d passed through the door some eleven hours earlier, he’d been surprised to see other Western faces, but this time, there was no surprise.
He was the only gweilo in the joint.
He never felt relaxed standing out in any instance, but he’d known he wasn’t coming in here to hide out in the corner. He was coming in here to provoke a reaction. The three British assassins missing for five days had been in this place — of that Court felt certain — something bad had happened to them, and people here knew about it. A new Western stranger was probably going to learn something about the fate of the others, Court surmised, although he knew his plan wasn’t among his most subtle or nuanced.
He entered the dimly lit establishment, passed the edge of the bar on his left, then made his way through tough-looking Chinese men as he walked all the way down to the opposite end of the wooden wraparound bar. He was lucky to find a single metal stool around the turn at the end, farthest from the door. He sat down, taking off his backpack and sliding it in front of him, hooking his leg around a strap as a force of habit in case of thieves. On his right he had a wall to the kitchen, and behind him were a few empty tables in a darkened corner with concrete-block walls. The covered deck layout of the bar meant that just twenty feet off his left was the railing that looked down to the dinghy dock and the water of the bay.
While he’d garnered a lot of attention since he’d arrived, there was still a good bit of laughing and talking in the crowd; for every man looking his way now there were three or four more who either didn’t know or didn’t care that a new Western face was in the building.
The age range ran from early twenties to late forties, but most people he saw, regardless of their age, were dressed roughly the same. Some sort of undershirt, usually a tank top, under a short-sleeve shirt left completely unbuttoned. Baggy pants along with shoes or sandals. It was a common look in Hong Kong, but here it seemed to be a dress code.