Frozen Conflict (Brannigan's Blackhearts Book 4)

by Peter Nealen

  Brannigan raised his eyebrows slightly. “You mean to tell me you haven’t been to Ukraine since that all kicked off? What kind of Russian-hater are you?”

  Javakhishvili just grinned toothily. “I’m not saying I haven’t. I’m not saying I have, either.” He reached back into the bed of the truck and pulled out a bottle of Popov and a pair of glasses. “Shall we have a drink to celebrate our new business association?” he said. “Then you can give me the brief.”

  Brannigan shook his head slightly. It wasn’t even noon. But there was something about this Georgian wild man that was already growing on him. He accepted a glass as Javakhishvili splashed the clear liquor into it, and they threw them back with a pair of explosive, “Pahs!”

  Then it was time to get down to brass tacks. Time was a-wasting.

  Chapter 6

  Chisinau International Airport wasn’t the most impressive such installation that Brannigan had ever flown through. It felt more like one of the smaller airports back Stateside; there was one runway and a small terminal, with parking pads for additional aircraft outside, allowing for more flights than there were gates.

  He’d cleared Customs without too much trouble; Moldova was trying hard to be a modern European state, and so the reception given to outsiders was pretty welcoming. He didn’t even get shaken down by the cops standing around in their blue slacks and black bomber jackets. He was sure that was going to change on the other side of the Dniester.

  Gathering his small bag, with just enough clothes and toiletries to make him appear to be another harmless tourist, he headed for the exit, looking around for their contact. He knew that Santelli and Hancock were due in at roughly the same time, but they’d deliberately spread their arrivals out across multiple flights from multiple countries. The last few Blackhearts, namely Wade, Jenkins, and Bianco, wouldn’t even get to Chisinau until the next day. Dalca’s people were being generous enough with their resources that he was determined to take full advantage of it.

  Of course, he’d insisted that he and Hancock get the money up front, then they’d booked the flights themselves. There was no way in hell he was trusting Dalca or her people with that much information.

  He spotted the man almost immediately, though only because Guildenhall had provided a photo. Fat, sweaty, and with a terrible, graying combover that just looked greasy, even from fifty feet away, Anatoly Gorev was bundled up in a thick pea coat, tapping away at a smartphone in front of him. Brannigan was almost on top of him before he looked up and started a little.

  “You Gorev?” he asked, even though he knew it was.

  Gorev nodded, his extra chin jiggling as he did so. Closer up, Brannigan could see that the man’s eyes were rheumy and bloodshot, and his thick nose was red as a tomato. “Yes, that is me,” he said, in thickly accented but passable English. He looked around. “Where are the rest?”

  “They’re coming,” Brannigan said. “We couldn’t all get here on the same flight.” Which was as close as he was going to come to telling Gorev anything about their plans. “Have you got a car for me?”

  “You can ride in my car,” Gorev said, still looking around. “I have place for you. Safehouse. I rented it just for you.”

  Great. Means it’s probably bugged six ways from Sunday, with the info either going straight to Dalca, or onto the open market. Or both. He was going to have to work on keeping Gorev and his lackeys as much in the dark as possible, while still utilizing their resources as much as he needed to.

  “Well, we can get going now,” he said, when Gorev just kept looking around and not moving. They’d decided to avoid going anywhere together, at least at first. Let the locals think they were just a bunch of unconnected tourists. If anyone saw this pack of meat-eaters together, they might start doing the math and wondering what a bunch of obvious military men were doing in Moldova. Especially with the Ukrainian war right next door.

  “Aren’t there supposed to be more of you?” Gorev asked, still looking around past Brannigan’s shoulders.

  “They’ll be along later,” Brannigan repeated, starting to get annoyed. “We’ll have to come back for them. Better yet, if we can get our own car, we can handle the pickups, and you won’t have to keep running back and forth to the airport.”

  But Gorev shook his head. “Just the one car,” he said. “Until it is time to go.” Brannigan was about ready to knock the guy out if he continued, but fortunately, Dalca’s contact in Chisinau wasn’t stupid—or drunk—enough to name their destination.

  Gorev let out a deep sigh, as if he was enduring something he hadn’t signed up for, and turned toward the doors leading to the parking garage. “Come along,” he grunted. “I will take you to the safehouse, then come back for the others.”

  Brannigan slung his duffel over his shoulder and followed, watching Gorev carefully even as he scanned their surroundings. He didn’t like this setup. He hadn’t liked the idea of dealing with this kind of underworld scum since Dubai. But the prize was potentially worth the risk.

  He just kept alert, ready to snatch the aluminum pen out of his pocket and stab Gorev as many times as it took, should he turn on him.

  The car turned out to be an old Lada, painted a nauseating lime green, except where the paint had flaked away to reveal the rusty metal beneath. “This is the one car?” Brannigan asked incredulously. “How were you planning on getting us all to this house in a Lada?”

  “It would take several trips, yes,” Gorev said as he got in, the car’s suspension noticeably sinking under his weight. “But fewer than taking you one at a time.”

  Brannigan stifled his frustration as he got in the back seat. “You can sit up front,” Gorev protested.

  “I’m fine back here,” Brannigan replied. He was sitting right behind Gorev, where he could easily reach around the seat and either stab or choke him if need be. Moldova might be trying hard to be part of the EU, but in Brannigan’s mind, he was already in enemy territory. Which meant he would be polite and outwardly as touristy as he had to be, while planning to kill everyone he encountered who wasn’t one of his boys.

  Gorev looked at him in the cracked rear-view mirror, as if he was going to protest. Brannigan met the man’s bloodshot gaze in the mirror, letting a little bit of the steel in his own stare leak through. Wordlessly, the two of them came to something of an understanding. Brannigan didn’t trust Gorev, and had both the capability and the will to kill him if he crossed him.

  His face a mask, Gorev started the car, put it in gear, and started out of the parking garage.

  The airport was a little way outside of Chisinau itself, and they had some fields and woods to drive through to get into the city. Brannigan looked around, cataloging as much of the environment as he could as Gorev drove.

  Moldova was poor; it was one of the poorest of the post-Soviet Republics. The architecture was fairly Western—where it wasn’t obviously the soulless concrete block Soviet design—but somehow much of the place reminded him of places he’d been in the Middle East, if not quite as dingy. Maybe Kurdistan.

  They hadn’t gone far into the city before Gorev turned into a residential neighborhood. If anything, the resemblance to the Mideast struck Brannigan even more strongly there. Most of the houses were surrounded by high fences or brick walls, with gates for vehicles to come and go. The leaves were all off the trees, and the road was packed with snow and dirty slush.

  After a couple of turns, Gorev pulled off the road facing a black-painted metal gate, parked the car, and got out. He unlocked the gate, then returned to the car and drove inside the little compound.

  The house was a big one, with a peaked roof currently partially covered in snow. The yard must not have had much, if any, grass, because there was another vehicle, an old GAZ truck, parked inside the fence, and Gorev pulled the Lada up next to it and parked it, before heaving himself out from behind the wheel again to go close the gate behind him.

  Brannigan got out, looking around the compound. The fence was made of tan bri
ck, and about six feet high. There was a run-down shed in one corner, opposite the house. The house itself didn’t look half bad from outside; the walls were blue-painted stucco, and the roof didn’t seem to be sagging at all. There were curtains in the windows, so the neighbors shouldn’t be able to look in.

  Huffing a little just from closing and locking the gate, Gorev waddled to the door and unlocked it. He led the way inside, giving Brannigan a glance but apparently deciding that the big American wasn’t going to agree to precede him through the door.

  Brannigan stepped inside, looking around. It wasn’t quite the hole he’d half been expecting. The plastered walls were painted white, and were fairly clean. The living room was furnished with a couch and several chairs, with a widescreen TV on the wall. The kitchen appeared to be fully equipped, though the refrigerator was empty except for some eggs that Brannigan didn’t intend to touch.

  With another long-suffering sigh, Gorev said, “You stay here. I will go back to airport and pick up the others. They know to find me?”

  “Yes, they do,” Brannigan said, still looking around the safehouse. He didn’t especially like the idea of letting Gorev out of his sight, but there wasn’t much else he could do, and with the man gone, he could at least start finding the bugs he was certain the house was riddled with.

  Gorev nodded heavily and started toward the door. “I will be back.”

  Brannigan wasn’t sure if it was a promise or a threat.

  ***

  By ten o’clock that night, Brannigan and Hancock were able to convince an increasingly put-upon Gorev to relinquish the keys to the GAZ out back, so that they could pick up the last four Blackhearts themselves. Gomez was due in just before midnight, with the last three coming in the next morning.

  Where things started to get tense again was when Santelli asked about weapons.

  Gorev had shaken his head so hard that his jowls flapped. “No weapons. Not in Chisinau,” he insisted. “You get the weapons in Ribnitza.”

  “I don’t like this,” Flanagan had said grimly.

  “We have to cross into the Security Zone going across the river,” Gorev had said. “Transnistrians are suspicious people. They might let you through with payment. Or they might decide to search vehicle, see if you have anything they want. They find weapons, game is over.” He looked at the hard faces and angry eyes watching him, and turned somewhat more placating. “Trust me; weapons, equipment, ammunition…is all ready in a safe house in Ribnitza. We just have to get there first.”

  “Fine,” Brannigan said, before any of the others, especially Javakhishvili, could say anything more, even though the entire situation was far from fine. He jerked a thumb out the window at the yard. “And you’re sure that GAZ will start?”

  “Of course,” Gorev replied, sounding hurt. “Truck runs fine. Looks bad, maybe, but the engine is good.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” Hancock said, though at present there wasn’t much they could do to Gorev if he was bullshitting them. They were painfully reliant on him at the moment, and Brannigan knew that at least the original Khadarkh crew was probably having painful flashbacks to Dubai, and the double-cross they’d endured at the hands of the Suleiman Syndicate, even before they’d been left high and dry by the Russian Mafiya.

  Brannigan knew he was.

  Gorev nodded. “Everything is fine,” he repeated. Somehow, none of the Blackhearts looked especially appeased.

  “I don’t trust this guy, Boss,” Flanagan said quietly, his eyes still on Gorev, who was puttering around the little kitchen.

  “I don’t, either, Joe, but there’s not much we can do except be ready when he double-crosses us,” Brannigan replied, in the same hushed tone. “This ain’t exactly our first go-round with gangsters, and given the nature of the work, I’d be hesitant to say that it’ll be our last.” He glanced at the black-bearded man. “What have you found for weapons?”

  Flanagan didn’t look at him, but the corner of his mouth quirked a little. “Some wire, a couple of old chair legs, and a bicycle chain that was in the back,” he said. “I think Roger’s getting a collection of throwing rocks together, too.”

  Brannigan smiled a little. Hancock had used a thrown rock to knock out a Suleiman Syndicate sentry in Dubai, and had gotten a bit of a rep because of it. To Brannigan’s Blackhearts, everything was potentially a weapon. Granted, none of the items that Flanagan had listed would be all that useful against a gun, but that was why they had all subconsciously mapped out spots throughout the house and the compound where they might be able to jump somebody coming through a door.

  None of it was ideal, but they were becoming used to less-than-ideal circumstances. Let them get even a momentary advantage, and they’d be able to build on it.

  But for the moment, all they could do was watch, wait, and plan.

  Outside, it was starting to snow again.

  ***

  The GAZ did indeed run, though not well. Javakhishvili immediately took over driving duties, since he could pass for a local, if one of the Russian or Ukrainian minority in Moldova. Most of the Moldovans spoke Russian, but he didn’t speak Romanian, which was Moldova’s official language.

  He’d gone out to get Gomez, and returned without incident, though he’d reported getting stopped by Moldovan police on the way back, given the lateness of the hour. He’d talked his way past them and hadn’t even had to bribe anyone.

  “That’s surprising, around here,” he said.

  “You’ve been here before?” Childress asked.

  “Not in Moldova, no,” Javakhishvili replied. “But all post-Soviet police forces tend to be corrupt. You need to have some cash set aside just for bribes running around a lot of these places. We’ll definitely need it in Transnistria.”

  “Which we’ve already planned for,” Brannigan said. They were keeping their voices low, even though Gorev was apparently passed out in the back room. “Carlo, get a watch schedule set, then everybody hit the rack. We’ve got some acclimatization to do.” Jet-lag could be a killer, in more than one way.

  With Gorev shaking the safehouse with his alcoholic snores, they turned in for the rest of the night.

  ***

  Javakhishvili had been back with the last three team members for about half an hour when Gorev got a phone call. He jabbered in Ukrainian for a few minutes, then mumbled something about, “Stay here,” before hustling out the door, lowing himself into his protesting Lada, and leaving the compound.

  “Could you catch any of that?” Brannigan asked Javakhishvili, but their new doc shook his head.

  “Not enough to say what the conversation was about,” he said, “but what I could catch didn’t sound good. He sounded scared.”

  “You think he’s going to sell us out?” Wade asked, fingering the snapped-off chair leg he had as a weapon. He’d claimed that one in particular as soon as he’d gotten in, and it hadn’t left his side since.

  “If he gets a chance and a good enough offer, I don’t doubt it,” Brannigan said. He rubbed his chin. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, and wasn’t planning on doing so until after the mission. He made a decision. “If he’s not back by dark, then we need to consider the plan blown, and this place burned. We’ve got the GAZ, but we’ll have to figure that it’ll be burned too, so we’ll take it just far enough to ditch it, then steal a couple of cars to go from there.”

  “If the mission’s blown, then what?” Santelli asked. “The whole plan was based on using Gorev’s assets. We might be able to find our way over into Transnistria as ‘tourists,’ but we need weapons, ammo, and gear to pull this off, and I doubt that that kind of stuff is going to be available in the local mall for foreigners.”

  “I’ve still got that Iridium phone and Dalca’s sat-phone number,” Brannigan said. “If it comes to that, I’ll contact her for information about where to acquire what we need.” Which is something I really don’t want to have to do. “Hell, if worse comes to worst, we use the emergency cash we brought and
buy airline tickets out. Scrub the mission entirely.”

  There were nods at that. None of them necessarily liked the idea of ditching a mission. Some of it was professional pride. Some of it was the fact that the guy they were after might have answers to questions that had been weighing on everyone since Mexico. But necessity could mandate it sometimes.

  Brannigan pulled the road map out of his duffel and spread it on the table. “Let’s go over our exfil routes again.”

  ***

  They didn’t have long to wait to find out what had spooked their host. Tires crunched in the snow and ice outside the compound, and then a fist hit the gate and a voice called out in Romanian.

  Bianco had been on lookout, up in the loft, peering out through the curtains over the single window in the peak of the roof. “Looks like local cops,” he called down. “Two black-and-white Ladas, and they’re in uniform.”

  “Hell,” Brannigan swore. Did that fat son of a bitch sell us out to the cops? I wonder what he told them.

  “We could just stay put,” Hancock suggested. “If nobody answers, maybe they’ll figure no one’s home, and go away.”

  “We could,” Brannigan agreed. But then there was the clatter of a chain, and the gate started to creak open.

  Looking out, he could see that one of the Moldovan policemen had a pair of bolt-cutters. They’d snipped the chain and were coming into the compound, looking up at the windows.

  There were three of them, with one more hanging back by the vehicles. They were all bundled up, wearing their black jackets with Police patches on the shoulders, and fur hats with brims. None of them had weapons in their hands, which was somewhat reassuring, even though it looked like they were doing a “knock, then search whether anyone’s there or not.”

  Somehow, sincere efforts to be a Western country or not, Brannigan doubted that they’d be all that worried about having a warrant.