As they did, Mike gestured for the four team leaders to rally on him.
“Okay, mission time,” he said. “We planned this out with you guys in charge, Sawn in lead. Here’s why. I’m going to take position right by the meet point. I’ll initiate from there. The teams are going to be too far out to ensure the package secure. My job is to secure the package. Your job is to keep me alive and make sure it stays that way.”
“Kildar… ” Padrek protested.
“As soon as I move, you move,” Mike said, shaking his head. “This is my thing. All I’ve got to do is stay alive for fifteen seconds or so. I’m very good at that. You be good at getting my ass out.”
“Yes, Kildar,” Sawn sighed. “As you will it.”
“The Father of All will be with us this day,” Mike said. “Now move out. And when it starts, you’d better come a runnin’ like hell.”
She hadn’t realized that Kurt spent the whole night in the room.
However, he apparently didn’t talk to Marina. She had heard the door open, footsteps and then a hand checking her shackles. Then a scrape as he sat down in the same padded chair Marina used. After that… Nothing. She couldn’t even hear him breathing over the sound of the rain and wind.
After a bit, though, there was sound from outside the door and a knock.
“Come.” She heard the quiet cocking of a pistol. Then wheezing. Fucking Yaroslav.
“Has the girl been satisfactory?” Yaroslav wheezed. It must have been hell for him to just keep standing.
“Fine,” Kurt replied. “What do you want?”
“I have a buyer. I wish to sell her on.”
“That’s fine,” Kurt said. “Do you want your money?”
“I think we’re paid up,” Yaroslav said, nervously.
“I think we’re a bit behind.”
“If I get out of this room alive, I’ll be happy for the experience.”
“Very funny, fat man. You can go. The girl has never mentioned her name. You don’t know it. And soon it won’t matter. You may leave.”
“Good night, then.”
From the sound of the footsteps, and the slight bump at the door, Yaroslav backed out of the room.
As the door closed Katya heard the gun decock and a slight giggle.
Fucking insane. And she was trapped in the same room with him.
God damnit, Master Chief, where the fuck are you?
Hardly anything was moving in the town. Not surprising given the weather. The exterior guards on the target building were still out, but they were blinded by the rain and the light from the forward windows.
Just as Adams thought that the door of the target building opened and one fucking obese motherfucker waddled out and across the street. He was out of sight quickly. Adams tentatively ID’d him as the pimp that Katya had been bought by based on the description from Vanner. He wasn’t sure what he was doing in the building at this time of night, but it didn’t really matter. If he’d still been in the building when they hit it, he was a target. Everyone in the building was a target except the detainee.
Adams looked over his shoulder and gestured for the Keldara to take up pre-attack positions. Then he glanced at his watch. Fifteen minutes. Good time.
Now to wait in the pouring rain. It was a fine night for killin’.
Mike slid down the hill cautiously, watching for signs of enemy snipers on this ridge and hoping his camo was holding. The Russians would have access to thermal imagery for sure and the Chechens might. So he was wrapped up like a mummy to avoid thermal signature, longjohns, fleece and gortex top and bottom, hands in thick gloves, coldweather mask over his face, balaklava and fleece-lined hood up with the hood drawn tight. They’d tested the outfit and while he still gave off a heat image it was muted and weak, a gray ghost rather than a blazing white beacon. However, even with the cold and lashing rain all the gear meant he was hot as hell. At this point his gear was so soaked he couldn’t tell where the rain left off and the sweat started.
There was a click in his headphones and he froze. Slowly he reached down and pulled up his data pad, shielding it so the glow from the plasma fusion screen wouldn’t be visible beyond his position.
Three points on the far ridge were now highlighted with the icon of snipers. Their “team” was unknown but they were overlooking the rendezvous.
Mike enjoyed sniping and hated snipers. For all he knew, the snipers had already spotted him and would wait until he was in position, or the meet was already going on, before they fired. That’s what he would do. Let the target think he’d succeeded and then fuck him at the last moment.
He clicked on the icons and upgraded their priority to first engagement then slowly slid the pad away. Gear stowed, he started his stalk again. He was just going to have to depend on the night, rain and coverage to avoid the snipers. He shunted all doubts aside and slid onward, belly down. But he kept as much concealment between him and the three snipers as possible…
He wondered, briefly, how the rest of the mission was going and then put it out of his mind. He had good subordinates. They all knew their jobs. He could, had to, depend on them.
They were good. He was good. Time to odie.
Vladimir Yaroslav waddled to the small room he had been renting and quickly stripped off his clothes. As he pulled off his watch he gave it a brief glance and then dropped it on the bed. He was on very short time.
The fat suit unzipped in seven places and was off in less than a minute. Finally. It was one of the worst disguises he had ever affected, but very effective. Nobody noticed anything but the fat. Getting the smell of rotting flesh from obesity necrosis had been tough but he’d finally found just the right mixture of scents.
Pulling off the mask, J stretched, his own self, whoever that was, for three seconds. Then he started getting his next mission face on.
Islamic clothes went on then a false beard, the prophet being big on beards. The old wig came off and a new one, long, black, lanky, went on. Shoes with the backs pushed down. A different, cheaper, watch. A scar on one cheek. A small silver ring inscribed with the symbol of a crescent moon. But mostly it was the attitude. He was suddenly a person from an Islamic society. Maybe a fighter. Maybe the scar was from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Many men in the region were scarred who had never held a gun.
A packet of perfectly forged papers went into a pocket, money bag around his neck and out the door he went.
Down the street a Lada, virtually identical to every other Lada in the former Soviet Union, was parked on a side street. A Chechen gentleman had purchased it for cash five days before and it had been sitting ever since. A couple of street urchins had been paid by a different man, a Russian, to ensure that it wasn’t stripped to the frame.
Hadit Temiz climbed behind the wheel and with a brief prayer to Allah that the infernal machine would start turned the key. The Allah cursed vehicle came to life and he pulled out into the wind and rain.
At the main road he turned right, south, and headed to his next business appointment, secured two weeks before, in Azerbaijan. He’d have to remember to take the unmarked left fork in the valley ahead.
He tried to put out of his mind that as he went through the intersection he was going to have guns pointed at him from every side. Hadit Temiz did not know that.