by Trevor Scott
Jesus, Jake thought. This guy was still wasted. “Just give us an address.”
“No,” Bragin said defiantly. “You are right. I must make a stand.”
Jake grabbed the Russian’s hands to check how steady he was. No real shake. He guessed that would require the man to be coming down from the alcohol. That could be hours away. This guy was a functional drunk who seemed more normal with vodka in his veins than the average sober Joe.
“I am going with you,” Bragin said. “Or I will not tell you how to find them.”
Jake was going to regret this, but he knew he had no real choice.
“Fine,” Jake said. “But put on a shirt. You look like a Mafia hit man past his prime.”
The Russian shrugged and found his shirt. Then he found his thin leather jacket and added a couple of full magazines to an inside pocket.
“Now we go,” Bragin said. “Are you girls ready to rock and roll?”
Jake shook his head and pointed his thumb at Zaiga. “She’s driving.”
“Good plan,” the Russian agreed.
35
Karl Adams sat at a small bar off of the main lobby of the Radisson Blu Hotel, nursing a beer and considering his life. He still wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted to be when he grew up. But he did know one thing for sure. These last couple of days with Kadri Kask in Estonia and now in Lithuania had been more than enjoyable. She was a beautiful and accomplished woman who had nearly made him forget about the grueling adventure of his kidnapping by the Russians, followed by days on that cold, wet boggy island.
Kadri walked back from the bathroom and Karl watched as a few other men checked out her fine body.
She took a seat next to Karl and smiled. “Is everything all right?”
“Fantastic,” Karl said. “I was just watching the other men drool over you as you walked back.”
Kadri hit Karl in the arm. “You’re lying.”
“I’m sure you know how beautiful you are,” he said.
She blushed. “I try not to think about appearance.”
“Is that why you have been with me?” he asked.
Shaking her head, she said, “Oled kena.”
“What does that mean?”
“I said you are handsome.”
Karl changed the subject. “Where is Hans tonight?”
“He is up in your room on Skype with his wife,” she said. “I think they have sex that way more than real.”
He looked past Kadri and saw two men and a woman walk through the lobby toward the front door. “Let’s go,” Karl said.
“Where? To my room?”
“Eventually,” he said. “But first we need to check on something.”
Karl led Kadri out of the front door and saw the two men and the woman heading toward the parking lot. They had parked their own rental car, the charcoal gray Skoda, on the street in front of the building, which the two of them got into and watched the parking lot.
“Who is that?” Kadri asked from the driver’s seat.
“The woman is the Latvian intelligence officer,” Karl said.
“Zaiga Ulmanis?”
“Yes.”
“And the men?”
“My father,” he said. “And the other man is former KGB and SVR officer, Ivan Bragin.”
“What are they doing together?”
“Follow them,” Karl said. “That’s what we need to find out.”
They watched the silver Skoda depart from the parking lot. It looked like Zaiga was driving, his father was in the front passenger seat, and the Russian was in the back seat.
Kadri pulled their gray Skoda into the street and took up the tail.
“Keep your distance but don’t lose them,” he said.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
He didn’t answer. But something wasn’t right. Otherwise his father wouldn’t have been hanging out with the Russian. He took out his phone and ran his father’s number through his mind. He had been instructed to clear the number from the phone’s memory after each contact. So his was one of the only numbers he had actually memorized.
Karl texted his father: ‘What’s going on? Wanna get a beer?’
•
Jake felt his phone buzz, so he looked to see who had texted him. It was his son, Karl. He texted back: ‘A little busy. Maybe later?’
“Is everything all right?” Zaiga asked.
“Yeah. It’s fine.”
Another text came in. It read, ‘What are you doing with the Russian?’
What the hell. Jake checked the right side mirror and saw another car back a couple of blocks.
‘What are you doing?’ Jake texted.
‘You tell me first,’ Karl answered.
Jake shook his head and went from texting to calling his son directly. “Don’t you know it’s not a good idea to tail me?” He glanced to his left at Zaiga, who then looked into the rearview mirror.
“I saw you leaving my hotel with that Russian,” Karl said. “I thought you might need some backup.”
“You need to stay out of this,” Jake said.
“Why? Is that what you would do?”
The kid had a good point. “We’re just going out to dinner.”
“Right. Do you expect me to believe that?”
Jake sure as hell didn’t want his son coming along to extract Sofia Sepp from a bunch of dangerous Russian thugs. “What the hell? Are you still pissed that I never played ball with you?”
“That has nothing to do with this,” Karl said.
“So then it’s true?”
“Wait. . .what? No. I just want to help. Maybe I’m still trying to decide if this is what I want from life.”
“Don’t be a needy little pussy,” Jake said, trying to chase him off his back.
“You can be a real dick; you know that?”
Jake knew it. “No shit. I just don’t want your mother haunting my ass.”
“You’re afraid of ghosts? I thought you were afraid of nothing.”
There was plenty to fear in life, Jake thought. But he didn’t tell anyone his weaknesses. Not even his own son. Yet, he also thought about his current situation and realized they might be a few guns short of a real assault team. He was used to going in outmanned, though.
Jake put his phone to his chest, turned to Zaiga, and whispered, “How far?”
“About two kilometers,” she said softly.
He got back on his phone. “Who do you have with you?”
Karl said, “Just Kadri.”
“What about Hans?”
“Still back at the hotel,” Karl said.
Let’s see, Jake thought. A former CIA officer, a former KGB officer who was still drunk, two female intelligence officers from two countries, and an Army officer on loan to the Estonians. Not exactly Jake’s preferred tactical team. He could reach out to Anthony Paitrick and his CIA contract agents, but he really didn’t think there was time for that. And Paitrick would probably try to take over the operation, putting Sofia Sepp in even more danger.
By now they were traveling along a small park on the south side of Vilnius.
“Pull over,” Jake said to Zaiga.
She looked confused, but did as he said.
Once the car stopped, Jake got out and clicked off from his call as he watched the nearly identical Skoda pull in behind them.
His son got out and met Jake on the sidewalk.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Jake asked his son.
“What! I saw you with the Russian and thought you might be in trouble. Remember, the SVR still wants to kill that man. You could easily become collateral damage.”
Jake let out a deep breath of air. Part of him wanted to send the kid away. But then he realized what he himself had been doing at his age. By now Jake had resigned his Air Force commission and had already gone through CIA training. He had even been assigned back to Germany by Karl’s age. Yeah, he needed to trust that his son could handle at least as much as he had handled back in the
day.
“All right,” Jake said. “Here’s what we’re doing.” He explained how the Russians had taken Sofia Sepp earlier in the day and how they were heading to her possible location to rescue her.
“Wow,” Karl said. “You’re a shit magnet.”
“Watch your mouth, kid,” Jake said. Then he shrugged and continued, “When you’re in this game for any time at all, you come to realize that not everything goes as planned. Especially once the bullets start to fly. Then all bets are off. Now you’ve gotta ask yourself. . .are you ready for this? Because I can’t afford to give you on the job training.”
“I’ve been trained in tactical assault, dad. I’ve kicked in doors in Afghanistan.”
“I know,” Jake said, but he really didn’t know the extent of his son’s action in that conflict. “But we’ll be a little lighter on the arms here. And we have to worry about the safety of Sofia Sepp.”
“I understand, sir.”
“Do you trust Kadri?”
“With my life.”
“All right, then,” Jake said. “Let’s go get Sofia.”
36
The Russian bastard had come to Sofia almost an hour ago. At first she had thought they could find common ground. She would acquiesce to his questions, at least on the surface. But deep down she knew she would never comply with this pig.
His questions started out simple, asking her questions that anyone would know. She guessed these were control questions much like those used with a lie detector. Then when she would eventually have to lie, he would see a change in her. He would know.
Her mind drifted back to her training for the Olympic biathlon. Despite the furious skiing and her pounding heart, she had been able to find a way to slow this beat considerably to allow herself to take an accurate shot.
Pavel Tursunov had brought one of his men with him, along with a thick nylon rope. They had stripped her down to her bra and panties before tying her hands together and fastening it tightly to an eye bolt in the floor joist above them. Then the other man, the one with the wool hat, had tied each of her legs to other ropes and fastened those to bolts screwed into the walls, spreading her legs about a meter and giving her no leverage to defend herself. She was more vulnerable than she had been as a young girl.
They wanted to take away her dignity. But she would not let her mind degrade to what they desired.
So far nothing the Russian had done had brought pain to her. In fact, the Russian first used a feather to tickle her bare skin. But then she sensed a change once the Russian sent his man away.
“What do you want from me?” she asked, her chest heaving from the awkward position she was in.
Pavel smiled. “I think you know.”
She guessed the man wanted his intelligence, but also wanted to take her sexually.
“I have told you already that I don’t know much about the summit,” she said, deflecting his advance. “This is not our function. We are intelligence, not presidential security.”
The Russian pulled out a knife and flipped the blade open. He put the short blade up to her eye and said, “Do you see a problem with that statement?”
The blade was just about against her right eyeball. “I am telling you the truth.” Sort of.
He stepped back and shook his head. “That is a lie. You attended the briefing.”
Sofia lowered her chin slightly. “That was simply an overall security briefing. A session without details.”
Pavel smiled as he ran his knife blade along her shoulders. Then with one quick flick, he put the knife under her bra strap and cut it loose. He found the other one and did the same, releasing her and exposing her breasts to this man. Now he went around behind her and instead of simply releasing the bra clasp, he cut the strap and her bra fell to the floor.
He came around to her front again and said, “Very nice. Big enough without being obnoxiously so. Is it cold in here?” Pavel moved the blade over her erect nipple—first the right one and then the left one. “Or does this excite you?”
She was disgusted by this man.
He continued, “There is only one way to know for sure.”
She closed her eyes, unsure of what was coming next. Sofia no longer had to guess what this man wanted from her.
With his left hand, he felt the front of her panties. “Interesting.” Then with profound deftness, the Russian cut off her remaining dignity, exposing her entirely.
“Please,” she begged. “What do you want to know?”
“I want to know why you shaved everything,” he said, confused. “You look like a twelve-year-old down there.”
“It’s the style now,” she said.
Pavel ran the blade of the knife along her groin and she jumped when he touched her clitoris with the cold steel. “You like that,” he said. “Let us find out how much.”
“Please,” she said. “Just ask me the questions.”
But he didn’t ask her anything. Instead, he ran his left index finger over her clitoris and then quickly shoved it inside her. The Russian raised his brows and said, “Just as I thought. You are very moist. Why is that?”
She couldn’t answer that question. Sofia was confused and disgusted with herself. How could she possibly be interested in what this man was doing to her? It had to be a simple conditioned response.
He pulled his finger out of her and wiped it on her lips. Then he backed up slightly so she could see him clearly.
She had held herself together to this point, but now tears streamed from both of her eyes. The VSD had not trained her for this. Of course they had brushed with broad strokes, saying that an enemy might use sex to get information. But this wasn’t sex, this was rape.
The Russian unzipped his pants and pulled out his hard cock. She nearly gasped when she saw it, since it was so much bigger than anything she had ever seen in her limited sexual encounters. What could she do to stop this?
37
The Russian safe house sat in a southwest Vilnius neighborhood near the main train station. It was dark now and swirling clouds above threatened rain. Both of the rental Skoda sedans sat a couple of blocks down an isolated residential street, but the large house itself was obscured by thick pines and large maples and oaks that had fresh foliage.
Jake had ensured all involved had communications ear buds and could hear each other member of this hastily-organized bunch. Together they had come up with a plan to free Sofia. Assuming she was even located at this house.
Their assignments were clear. Karl and Kadri would go around the back and hold until told to go in. Jake and Zaiga would be at the front with Ivan Bragin. The Russian hoped his status with the SVR would get him at least as far as the front door. But that only worked if the rank and file intelligence officers didn’t know that the SVR had put out a hit on him. The motion sensors would put those inside on instant alert. And according to Bragin, there was no way to avoid those.
“All right,” Jake said. “Let’s go. And watch your cross fire.”
The five of them hurried up the dark sidewalk toward the safe house. When they got to the front wall, the men lifted the women over the top. Then Jake and Karl helped the larger, older Russian over the top. Finally, Jake was helped to the top of the wall and then pulled his son up.
Once they all got to the other side, Ivan Bragin led them through the trees, avoiding the motion sensors that he knew about, but they had no idea if the SVR had filled in the holes. They had to assume they had been detected and were even on video by now.
There would be no perimeter patrols, Bragin had explained earlier. That would have been too much of a giveaway to something important. The Russians needed anyone passing by to simply think this was an old house that had been somewhat repaired from its dilapidated state during the Soviet era. In fact, this house had been used by the old KGB to interrogate dissidents for years, according to Bragin.
Karl and Kadri split off and rounded the back of the large house, while Jake and Zaiga moved along a row of cedars near t
he large front porch. Ivan Bragin went right to the front door, where he pulled out his Makarov and placed it at the back of his right leg.
“In place,” Jake said into his comm unit.
“In place,” Karl said from the back of the house.
“Hold tight,” Jake reminded his son.
They all wished they had intel letting them know how many were inside. They could be heading into a major shootout, Jake thought.
Jake had his Glock out and pointed at the ground in front of him. He could hear Zaiga breathing behind him. He turned and reminded her to hold tight here while they cleared the house, in case someone tried to slip past them.
She nodded understanding.
Bragin glanced back and Jake waved his hand for the man to go in. Then Jake moved up from behind the trees to the side of the door just as the Russian tried to kick in the large, thick wooden door. But the damn thing wouldn’t breech. Just as Bragin was about to try to kick it again, Jake pushed the man to the side and rushed the door with his left shoulder. The door gave way and Jake ended up on the wooden floor just inside the foyer.
Movement ahead, followed by multiple shots fired toward the door.
Jake returned fire as he crawled deeper into the house toward his right.
Bragin fired over the top of Jake.
Then silence.
There was yelling in Russian or some other language, followed by movement in the hallway and the large living room to the left of Jake.
More gunfire.
“One coming around to your right, Jake,” Bragin yelled.
Jake rolled to his right and aimed toward another entry point, probably the dining room. Just then a man showed up and started shooting.
Returning fire with three shots, the man dropped to the floor in a heap.
“One down,” Jake said into his comm.
Now he got up and took a position against a door frame with a view of the hallway, the stairs leading to the second floor, and back toward the man he just shot.
A figure flashed up from the living room and fired six shots toward Jake.
