by Jo Black
Nish drew a deep breath. He knew there was no point in arguing with Alex, and it would be hypocritical in any case, it was his tutelage that had given Alex such a ruthless efficiency in the persecution of his operations. It was a little late in the day for moralising. He made ready his carbine. Non-participation would be less than advisable given his recent return and need to rebuild the trust that once existed. As the ambulance turned the corner, all the windows of Alex’s lair erupted with automatic fire, a hail storm of red tracer rounds arced down into the gathered crowd of civilians and the Chechens trying to return to their posts. There was no screaming, no running, and no panic — there was no time for the event to register before the sheer weight of fire consumed its victims. Finally the guns fell silent with no targets remaining.
‘Two minutes. They’re improving,’ Alex said with a satisfied nod as he stared at the wanton destruction he’d unleashed. A sea of bodies strewn across the entire of the street where they fell, small fires from tracer rounds here and there and a large cloud of barrel smoke hanging in the cold air. An eerie silence descended on the scene that lasted for more than thirty seconds, inside Alex’s building near silence apart from subtle clicking as magazines were changed. The odd scream for help quickly silenced by a high velocity marksman’s bullet. Then, after the sheer magnitude of the bloodletting that had taken place registered on their remaining enemy in the opposing fortress, the response came in the form of a single soldier.
He ran out the building, ‘Allahu Akbar!’ he yelled as he ran across the street clutching a bag of C4 and a live grenade. He made it half way across before one of Alex’s snipers picked him off. The grenade thumped in a bright orange flash before the C4 set off a much bigger explosion, shattering the wooden shutters in front of Alex and Nish and blowing them off their feet in the compression wave. Alex lay on his back briefly, ears still ringing.
Nish was up first onto his knees. He looked at Alex as he wiped the small trickle of blood from his nose. ‘Now I understand...’
‘They’re Chechens Nish, you know there is never any other way,’ Alex responded coughing the dust out of his lungs. What Alex had known, and Nish perhaps not at that time, was the tactics they had faced on recent operations, and the adoption by the Chechens of the Islamic fundamentalist fondness for suicide bombers. Alex knew everyone in the street was dead in any case, by his hand or theirs; all he could do was turn their sacrifice to his advantage to allow his survival. Right on mark the entire of the Chechen building’s battery opened up in a salvo of fire, fifty cal’ rounds started taking massive chunks out of the front wall of the building as tracer whizzed through the open windows shattering the rotting wood and plasterwork around them. ‘Time to leave Nish.’
‘I won’t argue.’
Alex’s digital watch bleeped as the third minute elapsed. On schedule, the automated rotary Gatling’s on the upper floor opened up, shredding the opposing building with a relentless rain of rounds, briefly silencing the Chechens as they were pinned to cover. Using the break, Alex and Nish got to their feet. Escorted by his vanguard, they quickly made their way through the back staircase and down to the basement followed by the rest of his force. One by one they quickly slid down the rusting ladder into the dry old sewer shaft running to the back of the building. Nish remained at the exit to count everyone out. When he was satisfied all men were accounted for, he walked over to the charge and pulled the dead man’s pin to arm the explosives. As he removed it a cat’s cradle of laser trips ignited round the building. Nish made his way down the sewer pulling the metal cover back down over him to seal it. At the bottom, he hustled to catch up with the main group led by Alex. He reached the exit to the tunnel after thirty seconds where Alex was waiting by the exit. In the dried-out concrete storm overflow river below, a line of armoured grey Overfinch tuned V8 Land Rover Defenders lay in wait. Alex and Nish walked down to where one of Alex’s men waited with the drone uplink terminal. Alex spun it round to watch the scene. The Gatling’s fell silent as they spent the last of their ammo, the Chechens wasted no time, and as Alex had predicted, answered the threat with a pair of R.P.G’s onto each position.
‘Blow it.’
Nish flipped the safety off the detonation trigger, punched in the four-digit confirmation code and pressed the red button. The two distraction charges next to the Gatling’s fired first, taking out a small powder magazine in a bright light, a few seconds delay then one by one the shaped charges on the support columns blew, finally, Alex’s simulated full magazine explosion went in the centre of the building. With the structure fatally weakened the floors collapsed like a house of cards, folding the entire four-storey structure into a pile of concrete and stone debris over the basement exit. There was an almighty cheer from the Chechens, a few seconds later they began to casually emerge from their building, mistaken in their belief they had won the fight. From the drone, Alex watched as Danilov exited the building, he gave instructions to the Chechen militia head then got into the back of his BMW and drove away at speed.
‘Track Danilov,’ Alex ordered his drone operator. ‘Finish them off.’
Nish took the secondary detonator, entered the code and fired it. In the street, one by one, in alternating sequences starting at both ends, the shops exploded outwards. The Chechens stopped in their tracks, caught without cover in the open street, and stared at the wall of explosions walking towards them. That was Alex’s gift as an artisan of death; he liked his victims to have time to contemplate their end before he delivered it to them. The charges were set to create the maximum theatre, and the maximum terror, so anyone who was graced with enough luck to survive would account for his capability to seemingly summon death from any direction he chose.
The Chechens were enveloped in the final explosions. All that remained was rubble and dead bodies as a pall of grey smoke lay over a scene of utter devastation. ‘They’re done,’ confirmed Nish, a nod of approval. ‘Houdini.’
‘The factory. Now we need to get paid.’ Alex headed for the lead transport and got in, Nish mounted in the second. The entire convoy took off at speed, breaking through a set of rusted gates and onto the main highway towards Baku’s industrial district.
12
From high on the hillside perch overlooking the industrial complex below in the cover of a storm drain tunnel exit, Alex surveyed the scene through high-powered binoculars. He passed them to Nish. ‘Lot of open ground to cover.’
Nish nodded as he studied the vast expanse of derelict waste ground that lay between them and the shell of the disused Soviet-era arms factory that soared nearly three-hundred feet above its surroundings as a ruined monument to the failed communist idealism that had constructed it. The rusting remnants of a hammer and sickle and red Soviet star atop the roof were all that reminded the locals of their former colonised status. Nish dotted his attention around the brief cover opportunities afforded by the rusting hulks of trucks; tank bodies, cargo containers and pipework overgrown with weeds. ‘It’s not ideal. If we can get up to the refinery heat pipes then we’ll have a decent covered fire position.’ Nish indicated towards the long line of rusting pipes splitting the waste ground to the factory forecourt, where large steel pipework ran south out of the factory building before joining the east-west run into the adjacent oil refinery, that had provided waste energy from the cracking towers to heat the vast main armaments construction hall. ‘Snipers can cover our advance from here to the pipes. Then we flank around the left and right with a centre fixed gunnery pit to pin fire.’
Alex nodded. ‘Make it happen.’
Nish surveyed the scene again before focusing on the black 7 Series BMW kicking up a dust trail as it made its way into the factory complex escorted by a guard convoy. ‘Danilov is here.’ Nish pointed at the small black speck and handed Alex his binoculars. Alex focused on the BMW and watched as it made its way through the frequent chicanes and roadblocks impeding a straight ingress. ‘Get The Ninja.’
Nish whistled back to one of Alex’s
guards. ‘Get The Ninja.’
A few moments later, “The Ninja” appeared, a slightly built but deadly Japanese assassin whose reputation for stealth and surveillance had earned his moniker. His long Samurai sword was not merely for show, an expert in martial arts and swordsmanship he was as adept with his forebears’ skills of war as those afforded by modern alternatives.
‘I want you to track Danilov when he leaves. I need to know who he sold us out to. Report back as soon as it’s confirmed. Once you know, then send Danilov my regards.’
The Ninja bowed. ‘As you wish.’ He quickly and silently made his way through the long grass leading down to the waste ground then seemingly vanished into thin-air. Despite Nish’s best efforts he couldn’t spot him anywhere. Alex returned his attention to Danilov’s convoy. As they reached the main gate a number of soldiers emerged from the guardhouses. There was a brief verbal exchange and the cars were searched with sniffer dogs before the barrier raised and they continued on their way. Danilov’s car rounded the corner before coming to a halt in the main parking lot outside the factory. Danilov emerged, a procession of (Chechen) militia fighters emerged from the building, Danilov and his men were searched before their commander emerged. A noticeably sharp intake of breath from Alex, unusual enough to have Nish’s attention prickled immediately as to what could break the normally sedatory Dragon from its unruffled rest.
‘What is it?’
‘Take a look.’ Nish took the binoculars. ‘You really should have brought your own pair.’ Alex exhaled with annoyance.
‘I wasn’t expecting to party. I was here to deliver a message remember?’
‘You delivered it, you’re welcome to fuck off anytime you want now.’
Nish shook his head as he peered intently at his target. ‘No, fuck that, I’m not missing this one for all the whores in Amsterdam. He’s supposed to be dead. We brought down a building on him.’
‘He doesn’t look too healthy for the experience...’
Nish stared at the bright red skin grafts from burns surgery on the target’s face, and the serious limp that suggested he wasn’t in the best of shape.
‘Well it explains one thing.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Why the Chechens are not going quietly into the night. As long as the Grozny Butcher is drawing breath, they’ll keep on going.’ Nish lowered the binoculars. ‘We could take him right now. We’ve got enough snipers here to take him. We could end it.’
Alex remained silent for a few minutes. ‘No.’
‘Alex, he’s the primary target on the Kremlin’s shit list. You’ll get a hero of the Soviet Union medal or whatever they hand out in these post communistical times. You know how many Russians he’s put in the ground. You take him, they’ll had you governor of a nice oil-producing region of Siberia.’
‘We’re not here for him.’
‘No...but target of opportunity. How many years since we even got this close? We may not get another chance.’
‘Nish, if we take him now, the deal will go off. We won’t get the shipment or the funds. Thanks to your decision to go off reservation and take out Radic, it’s likely our sponsorship is revoked. The Company is broke; we need that money to fund the expedition to get Zara back. Right now, I don’t need a fucking medal or a political office in an oil-shitting wasteland in the arse-end of The Motherland, what I need is those weapons and those treasury notes.’
Nish shook his head and exhaled. ‘I knew this was a mistake; she’s like bloody kryptonite. Every time she is involved logic goes straight out the fucking window. We’ll figure out how to get her back, but this...this is bigger.’
‘We don’t have time. And nothing is bigger. Before you chastise my allegiances need I remind you that you were cupid.’
‘Blame me. Yes. It was a job. I didn’t expect you to lose your nut over her, and then bloody marry her.’
‘Are we going to have this argument here, right now? Do you think this is appropriate?’
‘Yes I bloody do. You’ve got a target down there that we have razed Grozny to the ground to hunt down, we have spilt so much blood, and so much treasure pursuing him and you could finish it with one sniper round. But you won’t. Because of her. I don’t know why I came back. You’ll never change.’
‘Why did you come back?’
‘Loyalty. For what it’s worth.’
‘What do you want from me Nish?’
‘To do your fucking job. Kill the target. Persecute the mission. So then maybe we can draw a close to this whole clusterfuck of Chechnya and move on to something better, and all these years we wasted chasing him won’t leave me feeling blue-balled at the end of it.’
‘And Zara?’
‘She’s probably going to hand you divorce papers as soon as she claps eyes on you. God knows you didn’t exactly part under good terms.’
‘Well you’ve got a problem haven’t you Nish.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘I’m the only person in The Company who can make that shot, first time, on target. You miss and he’ll be in cover before another round gets close. The minute we open up, he’ll be off.’
‘And you won’t do it?’
‘No, I won’t.’
‘Well, I might as well just fuck off home then. Because all this shit was for nothing.’
‘You’re leaving?’ Nish handed Alex his binoculars and stormed off towards the tunnel.
‘Aye, I’m fucking leaving.’
‘Still a little bitch McNish. Go on. Fuck off then. There’s a hundred million quid of merchandise and funds down there. Don’t you want to get paid? Those two little Latvian whores have expensive tastes in shoes I hear...’ Nish stopped on his heels. He held his temper in check before turning round. ‘Don’t act surprised. They’re safe.’
‘Are you blackmailing me Alex?’
Alex shook his head. ‘No. Just looking after your interests in your absence. You never were very good at cleaning up after yourself Nish. Leaving those poor girls to fend for themselves. Lucky for them not all of us are so sloppy.’ He nodded at his guard. ‘Bring him the box.’ One of Alex’s guards arrived with a box and handed it to Nish.
‘What the fuck is this?’
‘Me looking after your interests in your absence.’ With some hesitance Nish put the box down and broke the seal with his combat knife. As always with Alex, he was somewhat reluctant to discover its contents. He opened it before pulling the severed head of the Latvian twins’ pimp out by its bloodied mop of hair. ‘He was rather unhappy at the prospect of losing his property, let’s just say I negotiated a severance package on their behalf.’
Nish looked at the head and smiled. ‘He clearly didn’t have a head for business.’ Nish returned the head to the box and shook his head at Alex. ‘You. I hate you when you do this.’
‘What? Looking after whatever future divorce settlement you’ve got excited over this month...’
‘Aye. I might have to become a Mormon for this pair. Making me owe you. I hate that you always keep me one marker behind.’
‘I’m looking after your girls Nish, you help me look after mine, and we’ll overlook all the fuck-ups I have dug you out of over the years.’
‘Who’s the master now eh...?’ Nish drew a deep breath. ‘It seems you have me to your advantage Mister Green.’
‘I’d prefer you acted voluntarily.’
‘When have I otherwise?’ Nish walked back over. He shook his head. ‘Can’t believe we’re going to let him walk out of there.’
Alex stared at Nish. ‘We’re not.’ Nish stared back at Alex. ‘Before you had your little tantrum did it not occur to you to leave me to do what I do best. Now can we please stop this pointless bickering and get on with it?’
‘Whatever you say. Boss.’
Alex walked back towards the tunnel. He stopped. He looked at Nish. ‘If you were anyone else Nish, for the dissent and insubordination I’d cut your tongue out.’
‘If you were anyone els
e you wouldn’t dare try...’
‘Then let’s not go there, for both our sakes.’
‘We’re on the same team Alex. You know that. In your heart you know that.’
‘Do I? Lately, I’m not so sure. There is a lot of betrayal going round...’
‘If you were anyone else I’d cut your tongue out for daring to question my loyalty. But as you said, let’s not go there.’ Alex stormed off. Nish sensed the simmering discontent and resentment, but Nish knew if The Butcher was present then he was companied by a host of the most feared blood-letters in the Chechen separatists. Every bit of Alex’s demonic fury would be needed to win the coming battle given the numeric disparities, sometimes The Dragon must be provoked to show its full fury, and Nish had often been the only one with sufficient fire-retardant to prod hard enough without being burnt to a crisp. He made his way to join the group. Alex’s guards looked at him. ‘He’ll calm down once he’s been paid,’ he said nonchalantly.
13
The team moved with precision across the open ground, cover to cover they crept between the shadows as they advanced towards the factory. With sniper observers high on the hill guiding their movements between the patterns of watch as the Chechens idly milled around their own overwatch high atop the factory. The team reached the cover of the main line of heating pipes running east west and prepped for the full assault. Nish and Alex hadn’t spoken since their minor disagreement, commanding the opposing right and left flanks respectively they were separated enough that if there was any ill-feeling remaining then Alex wouldn’t be in a position to avail himself of taking Nish out in the confusion of battle, the only point he could safely despatch his Troop Commander without causing widespread dissent amongst his men. They were loyal, but killing such a respected member of their fraternity over a relatively minor disagreement brought about by Alex’s personal agenda would not sit well amongst the democratic brotherhood of The Company. Nish tried to ignore the on-going dispute and formulate in his mind his tactical advance path towards the factory. Their primary objective was to secure both the arms shipment and funds before either party had chance to utilise one of the many escape routes the factory afforded. Having secured the shipments they would then have to fend off the (likely) sizeable contingent force inside the factory whilst the extract team recovered the assets to the R.P. Then there was the small matter of getting back out alive. As efficient as Alex’s company were, and none were better, they were still outnumbered ten to one with an enemy that possessed both superior concealed cover and high ground advantage.
