by Finian Blake
“How much are you talking about,” Lynn asked.
“Half…” Alex wanted to be sure that they were on the right track before he left.
“I’m working with half of how much?”
“Juan was sharp so I figure half of thirty.” Alex left quickly, before Lynn could say anything. Liliana turned to Lynn, with her mouth agape. Lynn liked her because of all the people that were involved with this deal Liliana, was probably the most innocent. When she started out, Liliana only wanted to find her sister. Lynn broke out a bottle of fine port from her private collection and poured two glasses.
“Let’s have a few before we start. There is a lot to digest. They killed your sister for entertainment, they tried to kill you for the same reason and you were not doing anything wrong.” Liliana nodded her head silently and Lynn continued. “They did it because they were seriously sick people. Now, take that first glass non-stop and cry. You need to get that out of the way. You have not let the shock work through you and not yet grieved for your sister. You can’t think until you let your emotions out.” It took a second bottle of Port to release the tears. Lynn held Liliana letting her cry. They dined in Lynn’s office talking late into the night in one of the security apartments.
Ramon showed his true colors without hesitation sitting in between Sarah and Cassandra. He enjoyed the company, in awe of their beauty, but he admired their talent most of all. Sarah was downright crafty and Cassandra was every inch her daughter. Jeff joined them for dinner, but was generally ignored which he understood, since Ramon was truly a legend. They exchanged stories about their trade, and Ramon made several passes at both women. After dinner the three of them went down to the studio with Jeff in tow. It was a forger’s convention. The four of them opened a few bottles of wine, and talked shop. It was rare for people in this area of expertise to be together at the same location. Jeff and Cassandra sometimes met with Wanda, but this was a true meeting of the minds. When nobody could keep their eyes open, they all agreed to spend the next few days together. Sarah took Ramon back to her apartment.
“Sarah, the Russians greatly miss your talents. Why aren’t they looking for you?
“The Generals tried to have me quietly murdered. The Russians think that I am dead. Alex had me assassinated with great fanfare by a fake Spetsnaz team. He made it look like the generals succeeded.”
“So Seraphina is dead.”
“Yes, there is only Sarah now.”
“Well, can I talk Sarah into a fire and a bottle of Spanish Port?”
“Would you prefer the fire in the great room or the bedroom?”
“The bedroom sounds much better I am an old man, and floors are hard on my body.” She lit a fire curling up in Ramon’s arms on the bed. Sarah collected fine port and had several rare bottles which she was waiting to test. Ramon was in his late sixties, but easily proved that he was a romantic. They fell asleep talking about their art.
John was fighting sleep in the control room. The intruder alarm went off around midnight. He was instantly alert. John called Nadia up in her apartment on Russian hill first.
“Nadia, this is John. I have two intruders coming up slowly from the river and two coming down from the main highway on the central road. They are all speaking Russian.” Suki had installed microphones at critical hide points on the roadway about a year ago. He called Brent in his cottage down by the river, Mark by the gate and Susan in her home. Susan and Lynn went to the second floor of the house pulling out a pair of Dragunov rifles, with their starlight scopes. The two women covered the opposite side of the road from Russian hill. Alex and Anna were with Liliana in the apartment at the security center. Nadia broke out the radios, and the Dragunov rifles with the starlight scopes.
Sarah moved to Nadia’s apartment over the garage, to work with Nadia with Ramon tagging along to see what was happening being quite impressed by the set up. Nadia handed Ramon a pair of low light binoculars.
“We try to isolate the intruders in the roadway. There are only four gates, two on each side of the road. We use the hedgerows to maneuver intruders.” Sarah pointed to the, two story building on the equestrian property. “Susan and Lynn are in that building with a set up much the same as ours and they control the other side of the road. We have at least one person covering each gate.” Ramon had a grand stand seat for the whole operation. Mark selected a silenced Mac ten and the night vision glasses with Brent making the same selection. Tom had equipped all of the weapons with small three power scopes that provided perfect sighting out to four hundred meters. Nadia and Sarah quickly located the targets on the road.
“I have two targets approaching the entrance to the service center. They are coming up from the river. I also have two targets coming down from the main road to the entrance of the guest area. It looks like they are going to split and work both sides of the road. John has closed the barriers to the equestrian property. Susan and Lynn are you set?” “Yes we are.” Anna took the entrance to the service area and Alex moved through the hedgerow to the entrance of the guest area. Nadia marked their progress with calls on the radio from the high point at the gym. “All parties are moving slowly with purpose it looks like they are using night vision. Wait all of the targets have stopped.” Squawk when you have them in sight. When she had six squawks, Nadia cut a decision. “I am going to have John switch on the flood lights. Remove your night vision in five, four, three, two and now.” The flood lights came on blinding the intruders with their night vision on. The four intruders were caught in a cross fire at both gates. The fire was kept to a minimum, with the short scopes keeping the fire on target. Two more intruders ran down from each end of the road, to back up their comrades. Nadia and Sarah each took a target. Nadia killed her intruder with a single shot and Sarah wounded her target with two shots.
Keeping her eye to the scope Nadia smirked, “One shot, one kill…” Sarah snapped back at Nadia.
“At least you can talk to mine. I wounded him on purpose.” Sarah had to admit that the port that she just consumed did nothing for her aim.
“Right…” Nadia was clearly not impressed.
Susan ran down the stairs, switching to an AK74. Lynn released the dogs switching to an AK74 also. Susan, Anna and Brent followed them down the river. They moved slowly checking the brush on the bank. The dogs worked quietly moving down the bank. Lynn had trained them well. There was a sudden burst of fire from the bank. One bullet grazed Susan in the shoulder. Anna and Brent concentrated their fire on the flash. The dogs took the lead. There was one more flash and a dog yelped with the other dogs closing on their target. They grabbed the gunman by his arms and legs. Lynn hurriedly called off the dogs. Anna and Brent subdued the last target with the intruder suffering several bite wounds. Anna made the call for a cease fire.
“Susan and Shultz have been wounded. We are starting first aid, but the wounds do not appear to be life threatening.” Lynn checked Susan first. Susan’s arm was grazed by the bullet. Brent was applying a field dressing to her wound.
“I am all right. Go check on Shultz.” Lynn raced to Shultz. He had been shot in the neck and was whimpering loudly. Susan ran up behind Lynn.
“The bastard surprised me. The flood lights made some strong shadows for him to hide in. How is Shultz?”
“There is a lot of blood. We need to get him to the stable. Somebody call Martin, and have him get the vet area ready.”
“Take care of Shultz, this is just a scratch. I will be along in a few minutes. We need to interrogate this bastard.” Anna and Brent loaded Shultz on a cart and Lynn sped off to Susan’s stable. Alex came down the river on a cart picking Susan up. He left Anna, Brent and the other dogs to finish sweeping the river.
Mark and Angela swept the entrance by the highway. They found a van parked one hundred yards down the road. A man was leaning against the van smoking a cigarette. Mark whispered in Angela’s ear, “If he were one of my men I would have shot him. Look at his weapon it is leaning against the van.” Angela grunted
to acknowledge Mark’s comment. She released a short burst into the man’s legs. She ran up quickly securing his weapon. Mark was caught by surprise with Angela’s sudden move.
“I said that I would have him shot.”
“I thought that it was a good idea. I only shot his legs, so he can still talk.” Close examination revealed that he had taken three rounds in the right thigh. “I shot him because he was stupid, not for revenge.”
Nadia and Sarah put the rifles away. They picked up a pair of Mac 10s and walked down to the security center with Ramon.
Ramon was in awe, “That was amazing. I had no idea that you had your own security force. Nadia, Alex was not kidding. You are a bodyguard!”
Nadia laughed, “That was a prepared ambush. We have every inch of this property zeroed in. The ‘Old Men’ are former SAS hostage rescue instructors and we practice defensive ambushes at least once a week. Angela and I have seen more combat than most men. I was a sniper in Afghanistan. I have seventeen confirmed and several unconfirmed kills. Tonight was unconfirmed.”
“Why is that?”
“He was not a target that they sent me out after. It only counts if I am sent after a target, otherwise it is unconfirmed.”
“How many kills do you think that you have between the two categories?”
“Oh, I shot somewhere between seventy and eighty, although I prefer the protection business to that of assassination.” Ramon shivered at Nadia’s comment, since she had said it as if she were ordering a meal. “Sarah and I are going to drop you off at the security center for your safety.”
Ramon pursued her comment, “You said that you were a sniper in Afghanistan.”
“Yes, I was there for two years. I came out of Russia with Sarah and Angela two years ago. They are easily as good as I am. Lynn and Susan are former MI personnel, the ‘Old Men’ are former SAS and Alex, is an American smuggler. We also have French, German, Swiss, Turk, Japanese, Arabic and of course Spanish contributors. I can safely claim that we are one hundred percent independent. No one has ever been asked to betray their country although we would probably be considered criminals if we had names.” Nadia kissed Ramon gently. “Thank you for your help. We must take care of business now.” Ramon settled down in the monitor room to watch all of the activity on the monitors in the control room.
Mark swept the van and had Angela drive it down the road with the wounded intruder. Mark followed on foot giving the road one last critical look finding nothing. Brent called Martin to open the stable for Lynn. He had the doors open just in time for Lynn to drive her cart in the building. He opened the vet cabinet and started to prepare. He was familiar with deep wounds, but after a quick examination, he determined that it was a flesh wound. The bullet passed along Shultz’s neck just under the skin. Within minutes Martin stopped the bleeding, and had Shultz stitched up. Susan’s bleeding had stopped with a few gauze compresses. When she came in, Martin had a look at her. The bullet barely broke the skin on her shoulder. Martin gave her a local and applied six stitches closing the wound nicely. Alex brought the two wounded intruders into the stable. Mark, Brent, Angela, Sarah and Nadia continued to sweep the property with the dogs. Lynn soothed Shultz. Both sides had used silenced weapons so the guests were unaware that anything happened. The lights were turned out and the Inn was cleaned up within an hour. The two wounded intruders would not be so lucky.
Anna tied them to the bottom rail of a horse stall. Susan was aware that Martin did not like his stable being used for interrogations, but this time he offered to help. He elected to take three bullets out of the villains in the legs. Martin slowly went to work probing for the bullets. He was cursing up a storm in Russian pretending that he did not speak English. Anna answered him in Russian switching to Ukrainian and he knew that he could not hold out for an interpreter.
“You will get your morphine when you answer the questions.”
“Have some sympathy.”
Lynn was on the attack, “You will find sympathy in the dictionary between shit and syphilis. You came in my house, attacked my guests and shot my dog.”
“Screw your dog.” Just then Nadia entered the stable with the other two dogs. Susan went to Lynn’s cabinet retrieving a spray bottle. She sprayed several streams of liquid on the man’s zipper. “What are you going to screw them with?”
“Nadia release the dogs.” They tore his pants in several places making several solid bites in sensitive areas. She had Lynn call the dogs off. He started to talk and did not stop for an hour.
Susan sprayed the other man’s zipper with him starting to talk before Nadia released the dogs. Lynn tied the dogs off inches away from the men’s feet. His story varied from that of the first man.
“One of you lied. If I release the dogs again, they will have their fill of your sausage.”
“This is against the rules of war,” one man whimpered.
“This is not a war. You are assassins in my home, and you will talk, or your balls are dog food. You have three seconds to talk. Remember, I want the location of your base here.” Lynn applied the spray liberally to both men. “One, two…” Both men started to talk at the same time. They were quickly separated to be sure that they were telling the truth. After they were through Anna and Susan compared their notes.
“They were deserters from the Russian military coming to the US on forged papers to work for a pair of Russian generals in Chicago. The generals received word of a pending attack on their illegal operations from somebody called ‘Mercury’ and they were sent to do a preemptive strike on the Inn. The team was warned that there could be security. They were told to use caution, but the hedgerows prevented any effective reconnaissance, so they had to probe blindly. The team launched a strike from a farm belonging to a Russian couple twenty minutes away. Half of the team crossed the river coming from the preserve, and the other half came down the road from the main gate. They had no idea of the sophistication of Suki’s electronic security, or the level of training of a bunch of whores. They used the term with distain. The family that owned the farm is being held by two of their comrades back at the farm.”
The two men gave Mark a full lay out of the farm. Alex decided to push for a quick rescue of the two hostages turning it over to Mark since he was the logical choice. Angela, Nadia, Brent, Ryan and Tom were selected. They took the silenced weapons, Tasers, tranquilizer guns and night vision. Mark decided on six people for the operation and Alex opted to go with them making it seven people. He did not want to take any chances because they wanted prisoners to interrogate. Alex and Roger drove around to pick up the van from the other side of the river. Susan had a final word with the prisoners.
“If you have lied to us about anything, I will cut off your balls and you can watch the dogs eat them.” One of the men admitted that there were two more men at the farm, in addition to the two that he told her about. As the team loaded into the van Susan called them on the radio. They elected to wait for Alex to return with the van from the other side of the river.
Mark set a new plan to allow for the two additional men. They left with four in one van and three in the second van. Anna had Alice come down to Susan’s stable and prepare for any medical emergency that might arise. They might need a real doctor later. Sarah and Roger prepared to take out the trash. Anna secured the prisoners in the center cage of the kennel, so that they could listen to the snarling dogs in stereo. Shultz was allowed to roam freely just outside the door of the cage. The two prisoners had to do their best to keep awake and away from the wire of the cage. Susan, Lynn, Anna and Martin cleaned up the stable for the next round. They knew that the targets were trained military, and the crew would be on unfamiliar ground. The chances of someone being shot had to be considered.
The two vans drove down the long drive of the farm. The first van driven by Brent pulled into the farm yard making a wide arc with its bright head lamps on. The second driven by Alex pulled up to the corner of the house. When the first van started to back to the front door B
rent started to blow the horn. Nadia and Mark hopped out of the van at the corner of the house racing to the back door. Alex followed after they reached the house. Brent announced the word three on the radio to let the others know that there were three targets coming out the front door. One man raced to the driver’s door screaming for the driver to stop blowing the horn. He was greeted by a tranquillizer dart in the neck followed by a load from a Taser. The other two men ripped open the rear doors. They were greeted by a combination of tranquillizer darts and Taser loads. The three men were down with no appreciable noise.
Mark tested the back door of the house finding it unlocked and entered the kitchen. Two words came over the radio.
“Three down,” Mark was only looking for one man now. He and Nadia moved quickly. Alex covered the door to prevent surprises from behind. Mark was shorter so he took the lead with a tranquillizer in one hand and a Taser in the other. With Nadia’s height she could easily shoot over his head, so she concentrated on the high areas of the staircase. Nadia was armed with a silenced AK 74. She would open fire if there was any chance that the non-lethal weapons would not be effective. They cleared the kitchen starting down the hall, when Mark heard footsteps on the stairs. He held up his hand to signal a stop, pointing up the stairway to the second floor. A man came storming down the stairs swearing in Russian carrying a pistol in his right hand. The pistol was pointed forward and low at the floor away from the two rescuers. As the man turned to the front door with his back to the pair, Mark fired the Taser into his spine followed by a tranquilizer dart. The charge from the Taser caused a muscle reflex and the man fired a round into the flooring before he dropped the weapon. Mark fired a second tranquilizer dart into his back and ran up to secure the pistol while Nadia covered him.
