The Russian Bride

by Ed Kovacs

  “Sounds like we need to get in there, pronto,” said Buzz.

  “While you’re doing that, we’re going to hit Popov’s hackers here.”

  “Who is we?”

  “Yulana and me.”

  “That’s suicide!” protested Angel.

  “Kit, be reasonable,” said Buzz. “Let us hit the PIC first. If the Russians are there, we grab them and we’ll all be heroes. Then the Company can help you take down Popov’s HQ.”

  “You’re forgetting the CIA tried to wipe me at Nellis, Buzz. But even if they loved me, in a million years, they would not go in hot to take down a target in Moscow, a block from Red Square. It’s up to us,” said Kit emphatically. “Jen, how many strands could they have intercepted so far?”

  Jen did the numbers, then took on a sober tone. “I’d say about five hundred.”

  Kit shook his head. “That just reinforces to me that we have to hit them right now. How do we know the data they’ve gotten so far will be in the computers at Popov’s headquarters? Couldn’t they have sent it elsewhere?”

  “Yulana could confirm that,” said Jen. “There will be a separate room for the computer servers. I’ll explain it to her. But you will need to destroy the servers.”

  “I know.”

  “You got a plan, boss?”

  “You know my plan, Angel. The aggressive-queen, no-strategy strategy.”

  * * *

  “We forgot to tell him about Staci!” said Jen.

  Buzz had heard through his Metro PD contact about the shoot-out and rescue at Siegel Suites. The press were playing along and had withheld Staci Bennings’s name. Jen had even managed to speak to Staci briefly on the phone.

  “I didn’t forget,” said Buzz.

  Angel and Jen both looked at him quizzically. “Forget Yulana. Kit is going to try and take down Popov’s headquarters by himself. It’s great news about Staci, but if we told him, it would have taken some of his edge off. And right now he needs all of the edge he can get.”

  CHAPTER 49

  Yulana offered vodka, but Kit shook his head in refusal. He got up from the couch and crossed to where his Fender Stratocaster rested in a stand. The guitar had been given to him by his mom, Gina, when he was in junior high. So he picked it up and held it, maybe for the last time. Holding the Fender brought back lots of memories, almost all of them good. Holding it also brought him pain from the gunshot wound to his upper arm. He could feel it bleeding again, probably as a result of the scuffling he had had to do with Sergei Lopatin before the man died.

  “You can play guitar?” asked Yulana.

  “Badly,” he said as his gaze shifted to the table where all of the weapons and other gear were laid out. From being lead guitarist of a high school blues band, to having been raised with privilege and love and financial support and opportunity, the twists of fate that comprised his life had lead him to this very night, standing in a Moscow safe house full of exotic weapons of death, with his future, his very life and the lives of others near and dear to him, on the line. What a long strange trip it had been.

  He held no regrets, since you can’t change the past, making regrets a waste of time. So he gently put down the guitar and crossed to the table, where he began to methodically check each piece of equipment, stuffing them into pockets, pouches, and packs. He eased a futuristic-looking, sound-suppressed, P90 submachine gun into a special large shoulder holster, then put on a light jacket to cover it. He’d culled together a nice, sophisticated arsenal but held little hope he could actually penetrate Popov’s HQ and free Kala. He gave himself a 30 percent chance, especially if the migraine hit; his migraines could be incapacitating—blistering pain, vomiting, and vision affected to the point he could barely see.

  Yulana joined him at the table and set down both shot glasses.

  “Okay, so we drink when we come back,” she said.

  “You stay here. Wait for one hour after I leave. Then take a taxi out to that hotel across from Domodedovo Airport. I’ll join you there for breakfast with Kala.”

  “No. I’m coming with you.”

  He stopped his preparations and gazed downward. He didn’t want her to come with him, because he didn’t want her to die.

  “Your government thinks I’m a spy, so they will not help rescue my daughter,” she said emphatically. “They won’t even help you move against Popov. And the Russian police won’t help rescue Kala, either. Popov is too powerful.”

  “I have the element of surprise, so this should be easy. You’d just slow me down,” he said, avoiding her gaze.

  “Like I have slowed you down until now?” She touched his arm.

  “This is different.”

  “You are a poor liar. You don’t even need to go, do you?”

  “What does that mean?” he asked.

  “Your friends will stop the information theft in Las Vegas. Five hundred strands … not good, but not the end of the world. And if you want to kill Popov, you don’t need to invade his fortress; you told me yourself he takes breakfast at the same hotel every week. You are only going for one reason: to save Kala.”

  He didn’t answer and wouldn’t meet her eyes. He picked up an ammunition magazine, but she tore it out of his hand and pulled him into her arms. Her lips insistently found his, and for many long moments they lost themselves in hot desire. Then he broke off the kiss and looked into her mesmerizing eyes.

  “I’ve got to go.”

  “We have got to go.” She said it as an absolute.

  “Yulana, I … I don’t want you to be … injured.”

  “You don’t want me to get killed, is what you were thinking. But I won’t allow you to change the game on me now. We are both in this until the end!”

  He looked into her eyes, searching them to measure her resolve. “It won’t be like Sandia. People are going to die. Lots of people.”

  She picked up a glass of vodka from the table and downed it. “Do I have to find my own gun again, or will you give me one this time?”

  He looked at her for a long beat and could see it was useless to try to dissuade her from coming. “If you really want to do this, then you’ll be carrying a lot more than a gun.”

  * * *

  Scaling a three-story Russian neoclassical building on Nikolskaya Street is doable, as long as you’re a hardened, well-trained special operator. Even though he carried over seventy pounds of gear in a backpack and distributed on his body, the many hand- and footholds, outcroppings of cement blocks, window ledges, drain spouts, and conduits made the climb possible. Not easy, but possible.

  In the darkness at 04:33 A.M., Kit made it to the roof of a building three doors down from Popov’s headquarters. In a city known for its wild nightlife, the street had finally quieted down around four o’clock.

  His gunshot wound hurt like hell, and physical exertion exacerbated a migraine’s symptoms. Bennings promptly threw up. He felt like crap-on-a-stick, and part of him wanted to just sprawl on the roof and call it a night. But that line of thinking lasted about three seconds. He blinked his eyes, trying to focus as he looked over toward Popov’s lair.

  Since there was no space between the buildings, the approach would be straightforward. Using low-light binoculars, Kit spotted the two rooftop guards in a fifteen-foot-tall cement tower topped by a cupola. Popov had turned the classic architectural feature into a security post.

  Kit silently eased off his backpack and left it on the neighboring roof. He then crept up to the tower, where the guards sat inside on high stools, smoking, chatting, and listening to Russian pop at a low volume. Kit sprang into the room and slammed the butt of a marine KA-BAR knife into the skull of the biggest guard. The other guard, a thin guy, was too shocked to even speak, and Kit swung the other way, catching him in the jaw with the butt of the knife and knocking him down. He then pounced, pressing the supersharp blade against the guard’s throat.

  “Help me and you will live. Do you understand?” asked Kit in Russian. The adrenaline now pumping into h
is system helped him concentrate.

  “Da.” The man was so frightened he could barely speak.

  “The three-year-old girl, Kala Petkova—which room is she in? Which floor?”

  The thin man hesitated, and Kit pressed the knife harder against his skin.

  “Second floor. In a private room across from Popov’s suite. She has a nanny in there with her. Room number is eight.”

  “If you’re lying, you’ll pay with your life.” Kit lifted him to his feet and pulled him outside. “Let’s take a little stroll on the roof. You will explain to me, floor by floor, room by room, where everything is in the building. Do that, and I won’t kill you.”

  The man nodded. Kit guided him out of the tower, and they began to walk a grid pattern on the roof.

  “The computer servers. Where is the room with the computer servers?”

  The man led him to the northeast corner of the roof. “Here,” said the guard. “A corner room.”

  “Right under here? On the third floor?”

  “Yes. Right below us here.”

  * * *

  Yulana had never been to Popov’s building before, and there was some risk she might be recognized by the men who had accompanied her when she met and married Bennings just a few days previous, although it now seemed like a lifetime ago.

  So her hair was up in an asymmetrical ponytail, and a baseball cap rode crooked and low over her forehead. Bright red lipstick and heavy eye makeup altered her looks but didn’t change the fact that she was perfectly gorgeous. She wore boots and blue jeans, and the backpack straps tugged mightily at her shoulders due to the heavy load inside. She held a red silk flower on a long stiff stem and stumbled on the deserted sidewalk on Nikolskaya Street as if she were drunk. She stopped in front of the iron gate under a stone archway leading to the rear of Popov’s building. She tried to light a cigarette, but her lighter (courtesy of Kit’s tinkering) wouldn’t light. She could see the gate guard from the corner of her eye watching her.

  Yulana threw the lighter on the ground, then pretended to notice the guard for the first time.

  “Do you have a light?”

  “Da.”

  She staggered slightly as she approached the closed gate. The man’s massive hand reached through the bars and flicked his lighter. Yulana grasped his hand as if to steady it as she still held the flower, then touched her cigarette to the flame. She looked into his eyes and could tell he liked what he saw.

  After slowly releasing his hand, Yulana exhaled sensuously. She stared at him for several beats.

  “Big night?” he finally asked.

  “Small night.” She took a long drag and stroked the flower blossom against her cheek. “I need six thousand rubles. Now.”

  “Don’t we all?” joked the guard.

  She slowly reached through the bars and touched his chest. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  The guard cleared his throat. She then moved her hand down to his belt buckle and gave it a wiggle.

  “One thousand.”

  “Four thousand,” she said.

  “Fifteen hundred.”

  “Take a look at my face and say you won’t pay two thousand.”

  He looked hungrily. “Okay, two thousand.” He clicked a remote control and the doors silently swung open. She eased inside and then the gate closed.

  “Where do we do it?”

  “I’m on duty, so do me right here.” He backed up against the wall into the shadows and began to unzip his pants. Standing at arm’s length, she playfully stroked the flower along his groin and then up, up to just below his chin. She smiled, moved the flower near his nose and squeezed a button on the hard stem.

  A blast of vapor sprayed into his face, and she quickly spun clear and stepped away from him. He looked confused, but it only took one second for the Kolokol-1 incapacitating agent to change his confused look to one of sheer terror. He took a step, wobbled, and then collapsed. Russian Spetsnaz troops had used something almost identical against Chechen terrorists—3-methylfentanyl dissolved in halothane—during the Moscow theater hostage debacle in 2002. Yulana knew the big man would be out for several hours, unless, that is, he died from the drug, as did many hostages during the 2002 theater raid. She didn’t want the man to die, but the truth was, it wouldn’t break her heart, either.

  She placed an earbud into one ear and turned on the radio in her pocket. She clicked the TALK button three times, and after a few seconds, she heard Kit click the TALK button on his radio three times. So far so good.

  Yulana moved to the rear corner of the building and chanced a scan of the parking lot. She didn’t see any guards, but half a dozen late-model sedans sat parked and she couldn’t tell if anyone was inside. If so, they’d see her as soon as she stepped into the open.

  She pulled the radio from her pocket and whispered into it. “Kit, the parking lot.”

  CHAPTER 50

  Kit finished binding the two rooftop guards with duct tape. He put a final piece of tape across the thin man’s mouth, then answered Yulana’s radio traffic.

  “What is it?”

  “I think I see someone sitting in one of the cars,” she said.

  “Wait one minute.” Kit slithered to the edge of the roof and used the binoculars. He squinted and blinked and finally made out the image of a guard sitting behind the wheel of an Audi sedan. And the man was wide awake.

  With haste, Kit shouldered the futuristic-looking, suppressed P90 bullpup that he had in the rig under his jacket. The T-shaped reticle of the tritium night sight glowed red in the dim light as he tried to acquire a target picture. But even the soft red glow of the optics hurt his eyes, which were now supersensitive to light due to the migraine.

  Suddenly, the guard opened the door to the Audi and got out. Something was wrong; he looked concerned and pulled a pistol from his shoulder holster.

  Kit tried to sight on him, but he now had a flickering, partial alteration of his center field of vision. He rubbed his eyes, then looked into the sight again.

  The guard slowly walked toward where Yulana stood pressed against the building.

  Kit pressed the sight tighter against his eye. The flickering in his vision now spread out to the sides, like zigzagging black-and-white lines. It felt bizarre to be gazing into state-of-the-art optics with a migraine-related visual impairment, but then, life happens.

  In a few more seconds the armed thug would reach Yulana and no longer be in Kit’s field of fire, so he relaxed, exhaled, sighted the weapon as best he could, then gently squeezed the trigger, because, death happens, too.

  * * *

  Yulana stood frozen with fear, her body pressed hard against the old building wall. She had chanced a second look into the parking lot after contacting Kit, and she feared the guard in the Audi might have seen her.

  She heard a car door open and close, she heard footsteps approaching, and she wanted to run but couldn’t. She stood rooted in place, petrified with fear as she slowly reached for the pistol in her purse. She tried to will her hand to move faster, but it seemed to have a mind of its own. She could barely move; how in the world would she be able to aim and pull the trigger if the guard rounded the corner of the wall?

  She bit down hard on her lip, using the pain as a stimulus to action. It worked, and she raised her pistol … just as she heard a different sound … like someone had fallen on the pavement.

  She took a tentative step forward, then …

  “Sorry, I should have checked that for you. You’re clear now,” said Kit, over the radio.

  She exhaled with relief. As blood dripped down her chin from where she bit herself, she tugged on the backpack straps, then stumbled forward.

  * * *

  The commercial version of the device was called Sonic Assault and was sold as a gag item. Switch it on, and the high pressure acoustic generating device causes anyone within fifteen feet to get very sick to their stomach and begin vomiting. Unless the device was turned off, the only relief was to move away
from the unit. The device Yulana placed on the window ledge of the first-floor security office was much more powerful than the commercial version.

  She turned it on and quickly moved away.

  * * *

  Boris Krutov was bored, as usual. This kind of security duty wasn’t his cup of tea, because he never got to bust any heads. He much preferred working in strip joints or nightclubs. As he ran a hand through his thick black hair, he looked into the hackers’ room. They didn’t even notice him; all three of them wore earphones, listening to ugly music at ridiculously high sound levels. Overpaid spoiled brats, thought Boris, although he’d like to get his hands on the girl hacker for some horizontal recreation.

  It wasn’t time to rotate posts yet, but screw it, no one really cared, and the bosses were either gone or asleep. So Boris crossed to the stairwell, opened the heavy steel fire door, and trudged up the stairs to the roof. He decided to play another trick on his friends at the rooftop post, so he opened the steel rooftop door very quietly and closed it softly. He took a few steps toward the cement tower, when he saw his friends, bound up with tape, lying on the roof.

  Then Boris saw a man at the northeast corner of the roof hoisting a backpack. An intruder! Boris pulled his pistol and opened fire.

  * * *

  Vertigo, as part of the package of symptoms experienced by migraine sufferers like Kit, usually happened during the aura phase. For Kit, it always came at the end of that phase and just before the unbearable pain of the headache itself began. Kit always got objective vertigo, where the objects around him appeared to be in motion. As he bent down to open his backpack and remove a thermite grenade, he stumbled as his world went into a spin.

  And then, gunfire! Kit felt heat rip into his back. He dove to the roof and rolled as more gunfire pierced the night. Wobbly, he stood up with his sound-suppressed pistol, an FN Five-seven that held twenty-one 5.7x28mm high-velocity cartridges that can defeat most body armor—the same rounds the P90 held.

  He saw a man, one of Popov’s guards, but the man seemed to be moving so fast, circling Kit, that he actually saw many images of the same man. Kit understood intellectually that the vertigo was playing tricks on him, but he also knew that he made a good target just standing there. So he started firing his weapon at the images as he turned his body counterclockwise.