by Mike Ryan
“Hello,” she greeted, with a warm, friendly smile. “Just here to give new, fresh towels.”
“Wait a minute,” one guard said. “Where’s the regular girl?”
“Oh, she called out sick today. I’m new, it’s just my second day here.”
“I’ll need to see your credentials.”
“Oh. Of course. They’re in my apron. Could you hold these while I get them?”
Parker handed the oversized towels to the guard, withdrawing her hands and guns from them as she passed them over. When the guards saw the pistols, they hurriedly tried to reach for their guns, though it was too late. As soon as Parker withdrew her guns, she immediately came up firing. She first took out the other guard, firing three shots directly into his chest, the guy hardly even having a chance to defend himself. Then with her left hand, she fired three more shots into the guard that was holding the towels, one of the bullets ripping through the towel before it lodged into the man’s chest. At such a close distance, both guards immediately perished. Parker just hoped that when their bodies hit the floor, the massive thumping sounds didn’t alert Nikishin inside.
“All right, guards are down,” Parker reported.
Though Parker was able to steal the outfit out of the staff worker’s locker, there unfortunately wasn’t a key card already inside, and she wasn’t able to pilfer one from elsewhere. She bent down at the bodies of the two men she’d just killed, rifling through their pockets, hoping one of them had a card or key for the door. After looking through every single pocket of the two men, she came up empty. The only thing she could do at that point was to knock and hope someone answered. A minute later, Cole and Turner came rushing down the hallway from their position by the stairs. Cole looked at the two bodies with envy.
“Nice work,” he whispered. “You always get all the fun.”
“Unfortunately, neither of them have a key to get inside,” Parker replied.
“Have to get in the hard way. Use the old knuckles.”
“Just be ready for anything.”
“Marcos said there was only one inside,” Turner said.
“That he knew of,” Cole returned. “Maybe he added more help since then. Maybe not. Don’t take anything for granted. Be prepared for the worst and hope for the best.”
Cole tapped Turner on the arm, motioning for him to get on the other side of the door, out of sight for when the door opened. Cole did the same as they positioned themselves in anticipation of the door opening after Parker knocked. She looked at the two of them, making sure they were ready. Cole gave her the nod, letting her know to continue. Parker began knocking.
“Room service!” she shouted, knocking three times. “I have fresh linens.”
Parker put her ear to the door, listening for movement inside. After waiting ten seconds, and not hearing anything, she knocked three more times and repeated her words. This time, she thought she detected something. She looked at Cole and nodded, indicating she heard something. It sounded as if someone was walking closer to the door and she started preparing herself. Knowing it was likely whoever it was would probably look through the peephole first, she grabbed one of the towels and put her gun inside it again as she waited for the door to open. The door opened just a crack as the man sized her up. Parker held the towels up for him to see.
“We’re OK. Come back later.”
Parker didn’t bother replying, instead, letting her gun do the talking for her. With the man’s body visible through the crack in the door, she shot through the towel, with the bullet traveling right through the man’s forehead. The man immediately slumped to the floor, though the door was still locked. Cole eagerly jumped in front of the door, violently kicking it open. As soon as the door swung open, and the two agents appeared in the doorway, a bullet pierced through a piece of the door. Parker and Cole both ducked and flew into the room to take cover behind some of the furniture. Parker looked back toward the door and saw Turner about to enter as well.
“Stay back, Ryan!” she yelled, not wanting him to take the chance of getting a stray bullet.
“I can’t stay out here all day!” Turner yelled back.
Cole also looked back toward the door to make sure Turner was complying with his partner’s wishes. He then double checked his gun to make sure it was fully loaded. He took a peek around the chair he was behind to see if he could see where Nikishin was, but didn’t notice a thing. Parker peeked around a chair as well, also not seeing a sign of Nikishin.
“Can I come in now?!” Turner asked.
“No!” Parker and Cole yelled in unison.
“How you wanna do this?” Cole asked.
“Well, he’s in here somewhere,” she replied. “He’s either behind that couch over there or he ducked into that bedroom. Either way, he’s got nowhere to go.”
“Let’s flush him out.”
Parker moved to the right of the room, while Cole moved to the left. They moved slowly, not wanting to rush into a bad situation. They stayed near furniture as much as possible in the large room just in case Nikishin came up shooting. It was an expensive hotel, with good quality stuff, and plenty of furniture to go around, so there was no shortage of obstacles for them to hide behind. The two agents methodically walked around the edges of the room until they met behind the maroon couch that they thought their target might be hiding behind. Since he wasn’t there, they assumed he must’ve been in one of the three rooms to their right. There were two bedrooms as well as a bathroom. Before they went in, Cole tiptoed back to the front door with further instructions for Turner.
“He’s gotta be in one of those bedrooms back there,” Cole informed him.
“Great. What do you want me to do?”
“Take these two dead guys and drag him in here and close the door before somebody walks down the hallway and sees them.”
“Really? That’s all you need me for? Dragging dead guys around,” Turner stated.
“Well, I guess I could do it. You want my gun so you can shoot it out with him?” Cole sarcastically asked, with an evil smile on his face.
“You want them over here or over there?”
“Just drag them in.”
“Yes sir!” Turner saluted.
Cole rolled his eyes and went back to where Parker was positioned. The bathroom was the first door and the easiest one to check out. They assumed he wasn’t in there, but still had to check just in case. Parker lip synched to her partner while pointing at the bathroom, wanting him to clear it. Cole nodded and quickly opened the door, ready to fire. It was empty though. He came out a minute later and shook his head to indicate he wasn’t there. There were two rooms left and he had to be in one of them. Cole had an idea to hopefully find out which one, without either him or Parker catching a bullet. The doors to both rooms were closed, and he figured as soon as they opened the right one, bullets were going to start flying in their direction. Cole stood next to Parker, who was clinging to the wall next to the one door.
“How bout if you turn the handle, I’ll lay on the ground, and push it open from down there. If he fires, he’s gonna aim high,” Cole offered.
Parker thought about it for a few seconds, then nodded, agreeing to the plan. “You sure?”
“Yeah.”
Cole got down on the ground, his face almost touching the door. Parker slowly gripped the handle of the door, waiting for his signal. He nodded that he was ready, and she opened the door just a hair. Cole threw his hand into the base of the door, loudly and violently pushing it open. As soon as the back of the door hit the wall, a shot rang out, a bullet penetrating the middle of the door.
“Bullseye,” Cole whispered.
Cole stared into the darkened room, not seeing or hearing any signs of movement.
“He’ll pick us off as soon as we enter the room,” Parker whispered.
“Relax. I got this,” Cole reassured.
He reached into one of the pockets of his cargo pants and removed a small object. Parker strained her eyes to see
what it was but couldn’t make it out. Whatever it was had a small fuse at the end of it. Her eyes widened at the thought of what it might be.
“Please tell me you’re not gonna blow up the room,” Parker said.
“Nah,” he replied. “Though it is an enticing thought. This should get the job done.”
Cole reached back into his pocket and pulled out a lighter. He then lit the fuse to the small handheld object and tossed it inside the room. Within seconds, smoke started filling up the room. Like a child who was proud of himself after performing a good deed, Cole looked up at Parker and smiled. After a minute, they could hear Nikishin coughing. Cole motioned to his partner that he wanted this one, which Parker happily obliged him. After taking out three people already, she wasn’t too eager to go for a fourth. She was more than willing to let Cole take him. Cole moved into the room, slithering on his stomach, trying to see through the smoke. He thought he detected movement to his right and strained to see through the smoke filled room. He thought he saw Nikishin’s legs moving around and fired two shots in his direction. At least one of the bullets found their mark, as Nikishin yelled out in pain, then dropped to the floor. Upon hearing the sound of his target’s body hitting the floor, Cole fired several more rounds in the direction of the noise. He then thought he heard the sound of a gun dropping to the floor and a body slumping over. He continued crawling over in that direction until he ran into the lifeless legs of his victim. Coughing a little, and struggling to see, Cole verified that Nikishin was in fact dead. He put his hand on the man’s vitals to see if he still had a pulse, but he did not. Cole got back to his feet and headed toward the door.
“Coming out,” Cole said, Parker still waiting outside the door.
“Dead?” she asked.
“Dead,” he confirmed.
Hearing that the assignment was complete, Turner headed over toward the pair, who were milling around in the hallway.
“Did I just see right?” Turner asked.
“About what?” Cole wondered.
“Did you just throw a smoke bomb?”
“Yeah. Beauty, wasn’t it?”
“Do you often just walk around with smoke bombs in your pocket?”
Cole shrugged. “I dunno. Sometimes. Never know when the situation might call for it.”
“What kind was that?” Parker asked. “Didn’t look like one that I’ve ever seen before.”
“Cause it’s not. Made it myself,” Cole proudly stated.
“You made it?” Turner incredulously asked.
“Yeah. It’s not hard. Just throw in some sugar and potassium nitrate. Nothing to it. The style’s in how you package it.”
“Unbelievable.”
“What?” Cole asked. “Why are you so surprised?”
“I really don’t know. Nothing about you should surprise me by now. It just seems sometimes that you’re a walking weapons store.”
Cole made a face, not at all offended by the comment. He actually took pride in it. “Whatever gets the job done.”
“What kind of person walks around with some of the stuff you do?”
“The kind of person who walks out of here alive and the mission completed, that’s who,” Cole replied. “When you’re in a tough spot and you’re struggling to find a way out…I’ll be the guy with six or seven tricks up his sleeve and walks out without a scratch.”
“All right, the mission’s finally complete, let’s get out of here,” Parker told them.
“Roger that. It’s about time we left this place.”
“We’ll head back to the hotel and inform Burnett. Then we’ll see about Yevenko.”
“On to mother Russia,” Cole said.
They immediately left the Grand Casa and went back to their own hotel. Their first order of business was to contact Burnett and get further instructions on where to go from there. They waited a few minutes before she appeared on the video conference.
“You have news for me?” Burnett asked.
“Nikishin’s dead,” Cole bluntly replied.
“Way to be subtle,” Turner said.
“You can be subtle. He’s still dead in any case.”
“Good work, team. Took a little longer than anticipated, but he was a little more elusive than we thought he would be. Nonetheless, he’s out of the picture now and that’s all that matters.”
“Where to now?” Parker wondered.
“Russia. Darius Yevenko is still on the loose and still creating headaches for us.”
“How so?”
“Well, since it took a little longer to get Nikishin, we had another team go after Yevenko while you’ve been there. We didn’t want to wait too long for you to get there and risk having him slip through our fingers,” Burnett told them.
“Sounds like something went wrong,” Cole stated.
“Indeed. Something did go wrong…terribly, terribly, wrong. I received word yesterday that the two agents that were sent after him were found dead in their hotel rooms.”
“How’d he find them?”
“We’re not sure. We can only assume that while they were looking for Yevenko, he got wind of it somehow, and followed them to their rooms. There’s no other explanation that we can come up with,” Burnett answered.
“Any possible connection with the hotel or its staff to Yevenko? Maybe they tipped him off.”
“It’s always possible, though we haven’t yet come up with anything that would lead to that conclusion.”
“When do you want us up in the air?”
“As soon as possible. The longer we delay, the more time Yevenko has to craft up his escape.”
“And it’s sure he knows we’re coming for him again.”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Is he still in Moscow?” Parker asked.
“We do not think so. All indications are that he’s moved his operations to St. Petersburg. He most likely thinks there was too much heat on him in Moscow. He already had ties in St. Petersburg and likely still has connections there to help keep him underground.”
“What about his right hand man…Lobanov?” Cole asked.
“Anatoly Lobanov is also still at large, and make no mistake about it, he’s just as violent and dangerous as Darius Yevenko is. There’s a reason Lobanov is his top aide. He’s more than willing to do the dirty work that needs to be done. It’s also likely that he’s still at Yevenko’s side, working hand in hand with him.”
“Understood.”
“I hope you also realize that as difficult as it was to find Nikishin, it’s likely to be double or triple tough to find Yevenko. It may take you weeks to find him now that we’ve missed him twice.”
“We’ll get it done.”
“I have the utmost faith and confidence in you that you can. Make your own flight arrangements. We’ll have your hotel and car reservations made for you and I’ll e-mail you the information,” Burnett said, just before the screen faded to black.
“So how’s Russia?” Turner wondered. “As cold as they say?”
“Oh, it’s wonderful this time of year, very lovely,” Cole remarked with a fake smile. “Not as nice as Los Angeles and Mexico though.”
Turner stood there silently, letting Cole pass by him on his way to his room, just shaking his head, knowing that he didn’t mean a word of it.
“You’re a huge jumbled ball of complexity wrapped up into one,” Turner said to himself, out of range from Cole’s ears.
Chapter 13
The agents booked a flight to St. Petersburg the following morning. It was a sixteen hour flight to the Russian city, arriving at the Pulkovo International Airport. St. Petersburg was the second largest city in Russia, next to Moscow. Located on the Baltic Sea on the Gulf of Finland, it’s located on the Neva River. It was a major European cultural center, as well as the most westernized city in Russia. Home to over two hundred museums, and many of them historic buildings, including the world famous Hermitage Museum. With its extensive landmarks, museums, theaters, galleries, librarie
s, and music, St. Petersburg was considered a big tourist attraction.
Once they checked into their hotel, Cole, Parker, and Turner, immediately reviewed the notes and reports that the previous teams had sent in regarding the information they had on Yevenko. The first team’s notes weren’t as important, since their hit was based in Moscow. Since Yevenko had now relocated, most of the information was invalid, though they hoped to gain some knowledge about his pattern of movement. The second team that was sent, and killed, were only in St. Petersburg for three days before they were found and eliminated.
“I got a bad feeling about this,” Cole said, shuffling papers to the side of the desk, giving his eyes a break after several hours of continuous reading.
“What’s the matter?” Parker asked.
“Just doesn’t feel right. Something’s off.”
“In what way?”
“Well, it only took the second team three days to find Yevenko. It took us a week to find a secondary player like Nikishin. Don’t you find that strange?”
Parker shrugged. “Not necessarily. Maybe they just got lucky, talked to the right people.”
“Or maybe Yevenko let himself be found, or almost found.”
“You mean he let himself get put out there, the agents thinking they were close, when in reality, Yevenko was just setting a trap for them so he could kill them?”
Cole nodded. “Yeah. That’s what I think.”
“I guess it’s possible.”
“I don’t know what we’re even reading these for. After two attempts on him, in two different cities, he’s obviously not gonna hang around his usual connections. He’s gonna go dark somewhere.”
“You know as well as I do that people are creatures of habit. They always, at some point, return to something they know. Something familiar,” Parker stated. “No matter how dangerous and stupid it is.”
