We drove a little behind the "Russian light tank" along Petrska Street, then Truhlarska, turned off at Rybna, Hybernska, Rytirska. My cell phone rang.
"Hello."
"It's Richard." "Well, what else?"
"We have another important case…"
"Hey, I need a vacation too, send someone else."
"No one else can handle it, it takes an experienced person…" "There are no irreplaceable people."
"Maybe, but we haven't found anyone."
"First, tell me, what do you want?"
"Some work needs to be done in the city of Brno…" "Which one?"
"Teach one guy some tricks…" "Take him to the circus."
"I mean it…" "Me too."
"We'll pay 500,000 thousand…" "How long is this job designed for?" "5 Days…"
"Don't tell me that's where I'm supposed to arrive at five o'clock tomorrow night…" "No, five o'clock in the morning."
"There you go…" "Yes."
"All right, it's a deal."
We were passing Spalena Street when I turned off the phone, we got onto Reslova, Rasinovo, finally we reached Podolske highway and, having passed it more than halfway, we turned onto Jeremenkova Street. "The KAMAZ stopped at the next red gate, Giuseppe a little farther on. Morten got out of the "tank", approached the gate and knocked, which made the latter open with an unknown hand. The smuggler said something, and then the barrier moved away, the KAMAZ moved inside, the Skoda too. We found ourselves in the same garage as on Petrska Street. As we went along, it became clear that the people standing in front of the KAMAZ were the buyers (three fat men in white suits) and their bodyguards (three big men in black near each of them).
The room could hold a total of six long-haul vehicles. At the end stood a couple of containers. On the sides were large crates, canisters, cylinders, and the like. There were two more men looming at the gate (one of them had opened whatever it was he was looming at in the past).
Me and Jarno climbed to the surface, Morten went inside, and the fat guys went to the truck to inspect the cargo.
"Well, show me," the fattest, and obviously the main fat man, "what you've got. Morten jumped up and opened the doors, "Here, look," and behind them was a pile of wooden crates, mostly used for gas masks or "plastic ice cream scoops" (as I sometimes call things that are not needed in the business). The white blazer waved his hand to the black, and the two (let's designate them #1 and #2) hissed, reached in, and opened the first one they found. It was overloaded with grenade launchers…..
Satisfied with the result
1:40 a.m. July 22.
"Uh-huh… okay…" the right-handed shopper steadied himself as he looked at the weapon, "Where's it from?"
"Poland, Yugoslavia, even Russia, by the way, Russian guns are more expensive. — The seller praised his goods with evident pleasure, "First of all, they are better and, secondly, they are harder to get".
"When will the rest arrive?" "Any minute now."
"My time is worth a lot."
"We arrived ahead of schedule." "Okay, you can examine the board."
Nos. 3 and 4 went to the containers and opened them more than to the limit. Fresh European Union currency was revealed.
"It's all thirty million here."
Morten was on the spot in a bullet, "hugged" the entire pile of the first container he found, grabbed a wad of bills, flipped through them, sniffed, took out the money, checked it for light, sniffed again, and put it back.
There was a knock on the gate — a second party with an escort had arrived. The guard repeated his procedure. It turned out to be Gento's crew, Penzal's. They too climbed out of the car, and their ward vehicle was also opened and the contents examined. The bosses were inspecting the merchandise, seeming to take some pleasure in it. The next five minutes passed at this pace, and I realized that something had happened to Cepino, so I turned to Galanzio almost in a whisper, "Hey, Jarno, does Cepino have a cell phone?"
"Yes."
"Number."
"954-7848".
I poked at the receiver and heard a familiar voice say, "Yes." "It's Faust, why aren't you there yet?"
"I don't know, the KAMAZ is going the wrong way." "Where are you?"
"On Ostrovskeho St "
"Wait."
I leaned over to Garibaldi and asked: "Joz, where is Ostrovskeho St.? How far is it from here?"
"On the other side of the Vltava River. "
I whispered into my cell phone, "What the hell are you doing there?! Quickly catch up with the driver and set his mind right, does he know where to go or not?"
"Said he did "
"I don't care if he gurgled, the load has to be here, not across town!" "Okay now we'll do it."
"Fly!!!!"
I slammed the phone down. What kind of people, they can't do anything humanly I
wonder where they got this fool from? We have trade going on in full swing here, and he's driving around behind a truck, saying he was told only to guard it And why do I
always have to work with such people, I should raise my salary.
If I had worked like that in my twenty-five, I wouldn't have lived to be twenty-six…..
I remembered how I was driving around Syracuse here and there, looking for some car, wanted by the police along with others like me, and still did not find, remembered how I guarded the boss, remembered that I am already forty-seven and that my son is now sitting at home with a nightmarish disease …
Suddenly I noticed the hands of the No. s reaching under their jackets, saw their faces and the glare in their eyes. Those glares are the first thing that give people away before they want to whack someone. The second thing is what they want to turn it in with.
I grabbed a Kedr (Yevgeny Dragunov's design; being in the "embassy" I had replaced the pistol with a submachine gun), which had the safety off and was set on automatic firing mode, pulled it out and opened fire. The firing began…
I took out three of them at once (the right boss and two of his #'s). On our side we shot Morten, Penzall and the trucker (he just didn't have a chance — the cab of the truck was in front of the middle fat guy with his Nos. who had been standing there since I saw them), Garibaldi was wounded in the shoulder, as I found out later, I was not hit (all the time I was there I was covered by the back door of the Skoda), Jarno, despite his sluggishness, survived and, following my example, opened the door nearest to him and started shooting, blasting away even more fiercely than before.
I hid with my head behind the door to at least cool down the ardor of those who were shooting at me, then I came out with a new machine-gun burst — this time only two "black" corpses (people had time to scatter), again "got behind the rock" and heard that the glass on the door shattered into pieces (this event surprised me a little, because I was absolutely sure that it was bulletproof).
Suddenly a thought pierced me like an arrow: two more men behind me. I turned around lightning fast, but saw only two corpses in their own pools of blood. I could tell from the amount of red substance that they had been killed seconds ago, that is, almost at the time of the "start" of the firefight.
"Wait. — One thing struck me about this case," The guards were killed at the beginning, or possibly before the beginning, that would explain the fact that the #'s reacted in sync…"
The bullet hit the foot of my left leg: my body started to roll to the left (away from the car), but I managed to catch the wounded part and put my knee in its place. This brought me to my senses, because, jumping out and shooting from behind the door with a brutal murderous scream, I ran out the last three "competitors" (one fat guy and two #'s). The battle was over…