From behind me, Bruto said, “That must be the cartel with the merchandise.”
“Man,” Luka murmured, “nothing gets past you.”
“Shut the fuck up, douchebag,” Bruto snarled from the back. “I’m getting pretty fucking tired of your yapping.”
Quietly, I said, “Don’t let the tension get to you, Bruto. We could have a while to go.”
“The fuck do you know about it?” He was almost shouting. He sat back in the seat. From the look on his face, even he must have realized that he was losing it.
In the far-off gloom, I made out a half a dozen armed men climbing out of each of the SUVs, and two more men in fatigues got down from the cab of the truck.
As we waited, I thought I saw the truck shake from time to time. The second time it did, I looked across to Luka to see if he saw it, too. Without looking round, he made a small nod.
The sound of the helicopter reached us from a long way off. The tiny white and red lights seemed to take forever creeping closer, and all the time, the noise grew louder. It came slowly nearer and my insides tingled at the sound of Luka’s low, steady voice. Quietly, he said, “It’s a Russian pilot.”
I asked him, “How could you know that?”
“The style of flying. Flies in a straight line to a landmark, turns to the next one, files in a straight line again. When he comes in to land, he’ll stop over the light, turn to the direction he wants to face, and then come almost straight down.”
The rattling whine grew louder and echoed around the compound as the sides of the square body heaved into view. The helicopter seemed huge. The roar of the engine and the thunder of the blades were painful, and the rotor made the van shake.
The van shook, and the noise was deafening as the massive machine stopped in the air over the weak pool of light. Slowly it rotated to face the way it had come. My heart skipped. I thought it was going to leave. Far across the compound, the high-sided truck leaned away from the wind of the huge blades.
The floodlights all blazed and I was blinded for a few moments. I held up my arm to shield my eyes.
As Luka had said, the chopper came straight down and landed in the middle of the compound between us and the vehicles on the far side. The blades slowed, but the whine was still painfully loud as Vassily stepped out of the helicopter and led about a dozen men, all of them with machine guns, down onto the tarmac.
They all kept their heads low. Vassily strode toward the truck. From the backs of the SUVs, two men in suits came out to join him. The men’s arms went out as they approached each other. When the three men met, Vassily embraced first one, then the other. He kissed them both and they all acted like the dearest old friends from school.
Vassily and one of the men pulled out small iPads and their faces were illuminated by the screens as they tapped on them. Vassily typed on his tablet, then showed it to the men from the cartel. They looked at their own tablet, and back up to Vassily. After a moment they all nodded, shook hands, and hugged again.
The three men bent in conversation. Their arms waved, they nodded, and slapped each other’s shoulders.
The big truck seemed to shake again. Maybe it was the wind from the chopper blades that still slashed the air. Behind me I just made out Bruto’s voice, shouting hoarsely into a phone. “Now!”
Two black Hummers with a blaze of lights crashed through the gate. They were followed by four more. There were scuffles and some shots around the wrecked gates. The Russians by the chopper all lifted their weapons.
The cartel’s men raised their guns. Some faced the gate, others aimed at the Russians, who were advancing from the chopper. The white-haired men in suits clambered back into the SUVs and Vassily ran back toward the helicopter.
Bruto’s men at the gates and around the compound drew their weapons on the Russians. Armed men spilled out of the black hummers and scrambled to surround Vassily and the cartel. The cartel’s men moved back toward their vehicles, guns pointed outwards. Vassily had a machine pistol in both hands as he ran and swerved toward the helicopter.
Shots broke out around the compound. First in short bursts but escalating quickly into a pitched battle. When I whirled to look around at Bruto, the rear door was open and he was slinking out. Luka and I got out to follow him. Luka said, “This fucking chaos is all Bruto’s fucking doing.”
I was certain he was right. Bruto had a big gun in one hand and his phone in the other as he ran toward the two cartel vehicles. All around the compound was gunfire.
Luka grabbed my hand. “Come with me.” When I felt the strength of his grip, my spirits rose.
Luka jumped into the helicopter and I followed him just as Vassily was climbing in through the wide-open door on the other side. There were two rows of seats behind the pilot and empty co-pilot’s chair. Swiftly, Luka put a gun on the pilot and he waved it. “Off,” he said and pointed to the door. The pilot clambered out of his seat with a shake of his head and a look of resignation.
Luka slid into the pilot’s seat. He pointed to the co-pilot’s seat next to him and told me, “Get strapped in.” I did as he said and the noise became intense as the engines spun up and the rotor blades turned faster. Vassily was climbing into the seat behind Luka. The huge aircraft lumbered slowly off the ground.
From behind us, Bruto ran. He jumped and got a grip on the sides of the door. As the lumbering aircraft slowly climbed, he heaved himself into the cabin. As Bruto came aboard, the look on Luka’s face matched the sinking feeling in my stomach. The ground lurched sickeningly near in front of us.
Bruto shouted, “Get some height.”
Luka growled, “Shut the fuck up.”
Bruto moved toward him, pointing his submachine gun, but Luka turned the huge bird at a terrifyingly steep angle with the nose pointed at the ground. Bruto scrambled and just about grabbed a hold of a seat back in time to stop himself pitching at the windshield.
He scrambled to get behind a seat in the row behind us. The helicopter was tilted so the blades at the front were chopping almost at the ground.
Another convoy of SUVs approached the gates with blazing spotlights. Bruto yelled, “Massimo! Double-crossing fucker!”
Luka and I shared a look. Luka’s voice had a quietly calming authority.
“Hold tight,” and he tipped the nose of the helicopter toward the gate. With his left hand, Luka took a remote from his pocket that looked like small a game controller. When he pushed the smaller of two red buttons, machine guns on the sides of the chopper blasted up the tarmac in front of the newcomers.
They stopped and the doors were beginning to open. He squeezed off a second blast and they turned back and fled.
From the back, Vassily called out to me, “You told me the weapons were decommissioned.”
“Are you sure?” I said. “I wonder what I could have meant by that.”
Bruto growled, “Good work, flyboy. Now fucking do something to back up my guys down there.”
In the same quiet tone, Luka said, “Go fuck yourself, Bruto. I’m not going to be part of your double-cross either.”
The helicopter tipped sickeningly and moved low, parallel to the ground. The blades kicked up a dust cloud and sliced toward two of Bruto’s men. They turned with their eyes wide and fired at us. The skin on their faces blew back like the fabric of their clothes and their feet were unsteady.
The fight in their eyes turned to horror and they fired right at us but they couldn’t aim in the turbulent air. As the blades swept closer they turned and ran. Luka flew slowly around the compound and chased Bruto’s men, the Russians, and the cartel.
They all scattered and dove back into their SUVs and Hummers. After a close up view of the rotor blades they all headed for the gates and out at speed.
“Fastest way to stop a conflict.” Luka grinned. “Give ‘em a common enemy.”
“Yeh, very fucking clever, flyboy. Still, none of that helps me get to the fucking money.” He turned his gun on Vassily. “So. Where is it?”
Vassily blinked. “You’re not serious.”
Bruto jammed the gun in Vassily’s face. “Want to bet?”
Vassily laughed. “The money’s moved.”
“I know that, where the fuck is it now?”
“It’s probably about two floors down from where it was an hour ago.”
“What the fuck?”
Vassily took out his little iPad and waved it. “It’s in the Cayman Islands. Did you think we were going to show up here with sacks of cash, with all of these guns around?”
Bruto blinked. “I’ll take the merch, then. Luka, put us down.”
Luka flipped the helicopter sideways so suddenly I felt like I’d be ripped out of my seat. The webbing straps hurt as they cut into my flesh. Bruto sailed toward the door, but he grabbed a hold of the frame. The helicopter straightened back up just as fast as it had flipped and Bruto’s gun clattered as it slid toward the far door.
Luka’s eye followed it, and his face was still for a moment like he’d just realized something. Bruto struggled to get back into the cabin as Luka shouted, “The ammo box, Bruto. Why didn’t it explode?”
Clawing across the floor, pulling himself from one chair leg to the next, Bruto snarled, “What the fuck are you talking about?”
The chopper rocked again, pointing nose up. I was pinned in my seat. Bruto slammed into a chair next to Vassily.
Luka said, “That was what you went back for, wasn’t it? The ‘recovery’ mission. You went back for the box.” Bruto’s machine gun was near the other door and he scrambled after it. My little clutch purse fell out of my coat pocket and onto my chest as Luka pitched the chopper’s nose up.
He shouted, “There wasn’t any ammo in the box, that’s for sure. I don’t know why I never thought of it before. We didn’t need any ammo. There was no reason for it to be there. And it didn’t explode. What was in the ammo box, Bruto?”
Hand over hand, using the chairs as support, Bruto made it to the door, so Luka tipped the chopper the other way. Bruto’s gun slid down and I heard it hit the back of my seat. Bruto got a grip of an armrest and managed to stay aboard.
“What was in it? What did those men die for, Bruto?” Luka shouted, “Was it Afghan heroin?”
The chopper leveled off again. My clutch slid off me and landed on the floor by my foot. I reached to pick it up. Bruto’s face was red.
He said, “It was part of an Abyssinian frieze, if it’s any of your goddamned business. Third century BC.”
Luka said, “We say ‘BCE’ now, Bruto.” Bruto stood. He leapt at Vassily’s seat and gripped him around his neck. Vassily’s face grew red. “I’ll take the merchandise, Vassily.”
Vassily laughed. “From the truck?” The truck was still there, in the compound below and it shook constantly now. “The cartel probably put explosives on it.” My heart missed a beat. I looked at Luka. He narrowed his eyes.
He said, “I’ll tell you why it’s my business, though, Bruto. Two men died and I lost my military career so that you could steal a work of fucking antiquity.” I unzipped the clutch and reached inside.
Luka shouted over his shoulder, “What did you get for it? The frieze?”
Bruto lunged forward, and he had his gun when his face fetched up beside mine. My hand was inside my purse, but the barrel of his stubby machine gun pressed against my temple.
“I made practically nothing. Some fucking lying Brit professor shafted me. Said it was a fake, so the Continuity-fucking-IRA got the thing for peanuts.”
His gun was almost against my head and shouted back to Vassily, “So, how are we going to get the shipment? How are you going to salvage it for me?”
Vassily laughed. “What do you think you’ll do with it?”
“Cut it up and sell it. Obviously. Dickhead.”
My fingers closed around the handle of my little gun. If I turned the clutch, I could point it into his groin, but I didn’t know it I could be fast enough. The barrel of his gun was shoved against my head so hard it bent my neck painfully. I shouted, “The ‘merch’ wouldn’t be worth much after you cut it, Bruto.”
He said, “What the fuck?” Now he turned the barrel to point at me.
I pursed my lips, “You haven’t worked out what’s in the truck yet, have you?” Bruto grabbed my wrist and pulled my hand with the clutch. Now it pointed at Luka.
Bruto shouted, “Come on, Luka,” and he jabbed the gun even harder against my temple. “Put us down, I’ll get the merch and we can be done.” He still had a tight grip on my wrist. “Otherwise I’ll waste this cunt.”
The helicopter’s engine whined into a deafening scream and we climbed fast. My stomach stayed behind. Luka jerked the control column and we flipped sideways again. This time Bruto didn’t get a grip quickly enough.
He splayed and yelled as he plunged backwards through the open side of the helicopter. The sound of the machine gun’s rattle faded as he loosed off a crackling arc of bright sparks into the night. We must have been six, maybe seven hundred feet up.
Luka looked over at me anxiously. I was grinning so much I thought I might drop a tear. He gave me back a beam of his smile that warmed me like a volcano all the way through. In that moment I realized I could trust him with my life. More, even...
I said, “I bet he wishes you’d flown lower now.”
Luka said, “Not for long, though.” A distant brrap from the machine gun was followed by a dull, crumpling thud.
Over his shoulder, Luka said to Vassily, “You don’t really think the cartel will blow the truck, do you?”
“No,” Vassily chuckled. “They’ve been paid. They’d have no reason to. The little skirmish on the way out? They’ll probably consider that a bonus.”
I asked him, “Why the huge helicopter though, Vassily? Why not just use the truck?
“We deliver directly to the club. There’s a big terrace on the roof. Not big enough to land this bus on, but we can hover over it to get out. Going directly into the club saves any potential embarrassment with police along the way.”
I put the helicopter down right back where we’d taken off. It wasn’t even that bumpy of a landing. Fortunately, Bruto’s remains were crumpled somewhere out in the darkness so Alexa didn’t have to look at them. Vassily may have felt differently. I wouldn’t have minded a view for confirmation, but there were other things to deal with now.
Alexa stepped out of the big military helicopter like it was something she did every day. She crossed the tarmac with Vassily, over toward the back of the truck. I followed.
Alexa said to Vassily, “The Columbian girls—are they Columbian?—they’re slaves.”
Vassily looked shocked. “They’re from the Central America and the Caribbean. But no. They have to work for six months so I recover the cost of the passage, then they’re free to go. They can stay in the States or fly home, if they want.”
“How many of them do you allow to take up that option?”
He stopped and turned to her. Seeing her standing up to this ruthless mobster, I wondered if there was anything, anything at all that this woman couldn’t do. He smiled as he told her, “Truly, Alexa, all the girls who want to leave are free to go. By six months, they’ve made enough money to fly home and have some left to take with them. Not so much maybe, but some.” He looked sincere enough, but she was still doubtful.
She lifted her chin as she said, “Yeah, if they haven’t spent it all and gotten deep in debt with your drug dealers.”
Luka: Perfectly Damaged – a Bad Boy Mafia Romance Page 18
