Sleeping Dogs: The Awakening

by John Wayne Falbey

  Whelan burst through the entranceway with cover fire from Larsen’s MP5 SD. Two men stepped forward with guns, but Whelan was quicker. He put a blast into each man’s chest at close range with his Kel-Tec KSG shotgun. With its deadly pattern and thirteen round capacity, it was his weapon of choice for close quarters combat.

  The sounds of flashbang grenades mixed with the chatter of HK UMP45s and the responding roars of KSGs came from other parts of the huge home. Like him and Larsen, Whelan knew that Thomas, Stensen and Kirkland were moving from room to room, killing everyone who resisted and everyone who didn’t. The ENVGs, stun grenades and Kel-Tecs, along with their genetically superior speed and intelligence gave them an advantage over Laski’s security force.

  Whelan saw a head wearing NVGs glance around a doorjamb down the hall. He snapped off a round from his shotgun, but the head disappeared in time to avoid the blast. The pellets did chew a chunk out of the fine-grain wood case molding. Whelan noted how quickly his intended victim had moved, and suspected it was Maksym. Expecting the other man to slip his weapon around the jamb and fire blindly down the hall, Whelan pumped another shell into the chamber and fired at the same spot he had seen the head. It ripped off another piece of the molding along with a chunk of the adjoining wall.

  He ducked into the room where the monitors were located and chambered another round. Larsen slipped in right behind him.

  “We’ve got an unfriendly down the hall. Room on the left, two doors down.” He paused and sneaked a quick glance down the hallway. “I think it might be Maksym.”

  Larsen nodded and a tight little smile squeezed across his lips. It was his bad smile, the cause of sphincter failure in lesser men. “Plan?” he said.

  “Go around to the window of the room the unfriendly is in, and put several rounds through it. High, just so he knows he can’t get out that way.” Whelan glanced around the jamb and began firing rounds down the hall to discourage anyone from exiting the library, as well as to provide cover for Larsen. He stepped back into the room, reached over and switched to the second magazine.

  Moments later he heard Larsen’s MP5 spitting bullets through the library window. He edged cautiously down the hall, the thick recoil pad pressed firmly against his right shoulder as he sighted over the barrel through the folding iron sights. He stopped about a foot short of the doorway, reached around and tossed a flashbang into the room. For good measure, he waited a couple of seconds after the blast and followed it up with a second grenade.

  He slid down the wall. Then, quickly spinning around what was left of the doorjamb, he swept the room with the muzzle of his KSG. Maksym was sprawled beneath the large library table. His powerful body was jerking spasmodically. Blood oozed from his nose and ears. A Norm, Whelan thought, would have been injured much worse. What did this say about Maksym? He remembered the cautionary comments Levell had made.

  Larsen leapt over the jagged windowsill and landed deftly on the balls of both feet. “Kill him?” he said, motioning with the barrel of his weapon at Maksym’s twitching form.

  Whelan shook his head. “Negative.”

  He handed his Kel-Tec to Larsen, reached under the table and grabbed Maksym by the collar, dragging him out. A woozy Maksym swung a clumsy roundhouse right at Whelan, who easily blocked it with his left forearm and crushed a hard right hook into the left side of the man’s jaw. Maksym’s knees buckled. Whelan tossed him several feet into a portion of the bookshelves. Maksym slid to the floor, as tomes rained down on him. He just sat there, slumped against a bookshelf with a stunned look on his face. Larsen stepped over to him. He had slung the MP 5 over his left shoulder and had his SIG Sauer P226 Tactical Operations pistol in his right hand. He pointed the weapon at the middle of Maksym’s broad chest and smiled his bad smile again.

  Thomas, Stensen, and Kirkland entered the room together. “Target secured,” Kirkland said. “No more unfriendlies. Jamming has been terminated. Power will be back on any moment.”

  Thomas looked at Maksym. “Why is he still alive?”

  “Levell’s orders,” Whelan said. He looked around. “What’s Rafe’s status?”

  The three newcomers looked at each other and shrugged. As they did, the power was restored and the library lights came up.

  “Shit,” Whelan said. He pressed the push-to-talk button of his lightweight tactical headset. “This is Alpha One. What’s your status, Alpha Six?” There was no response. He tried several more times, but the results were the same.

  He turned to Stensen and Kirkland. “Find the little bastard. And do it quickly.” He paused, then said, “If he’s been terminated, bring the body back. We’ll take it with us in the extraction.”

  The two men nodded and left. Whelan pulled the secure satcom from a cargo pocket and spoke into it. “Kennel One, this is Alpha One. Lenin’s tomb is secure.”

  There was a slight crackling sound on the receiver. Levell said, “Copy that, Alpha One. We can see that via satellite feed. What’s the casualty situation?”

  “Unfriendlies have been neutralized. Your friend from the warehouse is in custody.”

  “What about your unit?”

  “Jury’s out on Alpha Six. He’s MIA. Alphas Three and Five are searching for him.”

  There was a brief pause at Levell’s end. “You haven’t mentioned the status of the priority package.”

  “No sign of the priority package yet. As we suspected, it’s probably in the vault.”

  “What is your position now?”

  “The library.”

  “Good. From the plans we reviewed, the entrance to the vault is behind the bookshelf in the far right corner of the library.”

  “Copy that.”

  “Get his worthless ass out of there asap. The chopper with the extraction team is on schedule.” With that, Levell hung up.

  Whelan stuck the satcom back into a cargo pocket of his battle dress uniform and glanced at his watch. They had less than ten minutes. He turned to Maksym, who was still sitting on the floor surrounded by fallen books. “We gotta job for you,” he said.

  “Fuck you. I do not fear any of you.” He sneered as he said it.

  “Wouldn’t expect you to fear us. That’s not what people in your line of work do. But there is a finite point somewhere between life and death that’s almost too difficult for the mind to conjure.”

  “What, you are scaring me now with tales of boogie man? You are wasting your breath.”

  “You’re the one who needs to be concerned about his breath. You may not have much left.”

  For a few moments, Maksym stared sullenly at Whelan.

  “You have options,” Whelan said. “There are some people who would like to have you kept alive, for interrogation purposes.”

  Thomas said, “And then there are people like me, who would love to jack a round through your skull.”

  Maksym shrugged to indicate his indifference.

  “Or, there is Alpha Three,” Larsen said, in reference to Stensen. “He’ll take days to kill you, inflicting indescribable pain and horror. You’ll be begging him to kill you long before he ever gets around to it.”

  Maksym’s head swiveled on his thick neck and he looked up at Larsen. “You are talking about the one called Stensen. We know of him. He is insane. The devil is in him.”

  “Probably worse than that,” Whelan said.

  “Laski is not alone in the panic room,” Maksym said. “Senator Howard Morris is with him.”

  Whelan and Larsen exchanged quick glances. Each man thought the same thing: two birds with one stone.

  “If I help you get them from the room, my reward is to spend my life in a maximum security prison, subjected to torture and round the clock interrogation techniques, yes?” He did not sound enthused.

  “It’s a life,” Larsen said.

  “And if I refuse to be of assistance to you, you will let your insane comrade butcher me.”

  “No,” Whelan said. “We don’t have time for that. Instead, I will shoot you in
both knees and both elbows. You won’t be able to run or to drag yourself out of the way.”

  “The way of what?”

  “The door to the panic room is made of steel reinforced concrete. It’s behind those books.” He pointed to the far right corner of the room. “We have Semtex H. We’ll prop your sorry, shot-up ass against the door and blow it open. If the explosion doesn’t kill you, the door falling on you will.”

  Maksym’s eyes narrowed in thought. Whelan knew what he was thinking. He had escaped the clutches of the Society once before. Perhaps he could do it again. What he needed to do now was buy time and wait for the right opportunity.

  Whelan said, “Time is short. What’s it gonna be, Slick, the lady or the tiger?”

  “I will help you,” Maksym said.

  * * *

  Stensen and Kirkland returned. Almeida was slung over one of Stensen’s thick shoulders. His right pant leg was drenched in blood.

  “He alive?” Whelan said.

  “Yes, I’m fuckin’ alive,” Almeida said with a grunt. The pain in his voice was clear.

  “What’s his status?” Whelan said to Kirkland.

  “GSW. Upper right leg. He’s losing blood, but he’ll make it if the extraction is on time.”

  Whelan looked at Almeida and said, “What happened?”

  Through clenched teeth, the other man said, “The guest quarters were empty, but the fuckin’ caretaker was at home in his place. He must have seen me crossing over from the guest house, grabbed a weapon and fired at me.” He paused for a moment than said, “He ain’t ever gonna do that again. ’Nother inch over and his slug woulda blown off most of my world famous python. Women everywhere woulda cried for months.”

  “Python? Is that what you call that little twinkie?” Stensen said, as he unloaded Almeida on the library table, none too gently.

  “Sounds to me like he’s hallucinating. Must be post traumatic stress disorder,” Kirkland said.

  “Fuck you fuckin’ wiseasses. At least I got a battle souvenir.” Behind the pain, there was a definite sense of triumph in his voice.

  “Only because you’re too slow to avoid getting shot,” Stensen said.

  “All right, that’s enough banter, girls,” Whelan said. “We have a precise timetable to meet if we want to get out of here ahead of the excitement that’s soon to follow.”

  He turned to Maksym and pulled him to his feet, then shoved him to the area of the bookshelf that disguised the door to the panic room. “Work your magic, Merlin. And, just so you know, several of us enjoy some degree of fluency in Russian, so use it.”

  Covered by several weapons, Maksym pulled on a section of the bookshelf. It swung outward on carefully hidden hinges to reveal a door set flush with the concrete wall. To the right of the door there was a callbox built into the wall. Maksym held down the PPT button and said in Russian, “Chaim, it is me, Maksym. All is clear now. We have repelled the attackers.”

  Laski’s voice, sounding metallic, came through the speaker in the callbox. “Are you sure it is safe to emerge? What if there are others?”

  Maksym sighed. “There are no others. We have checked. This place is secure now. Do not act like a little girl; come out.”

  There was a long pause followed by an audible click, and the door began to move inward along a slow arc. Larsen grabbed Maksym and pulled him back so that he no longer was in front of the door. He didn’t want him to leap through the door and reshut it. While they could use the Semtex H to blow it, it could take too much time. The extraction was on a precise timetable.

  When the door had opened far enough, Whelan nodded at Thomas and Kirkland. They burst through the doorway into the vault. Moments later they emerged, dragging Laski and Morris. Both men stared at their captors in mute shock.

  Laski looked around the badly damaged room and said in his heavily accented English, “What have you done to my house, my beautiful house?” He sounded as if he was about to cry. Then he saw Maksym, bruised and bloodied. “You have failed me,” he said incredulously. “After all I have done for you? How could you do this to me?”

  Whelan looked at Thomas and Kirkland and motioned toward the library door with his head. The two men began shoving Laski and Morris out of the room and down the hallway. Larsen slung a loudly complaining Almeida over a shoulder and brought up the rear. Laski’s glassed-in sunroom was at the end of the hallway. Most of the glass had been blown out by flashbang grenades. Parts of the carpet and upholstered furniture had been badly charred.

  Kirkland shoved Laski roughly into one of the chairs. A moment later Thomas did likewise with Morris, pushing him into a badly damaged loveseat facing Laski. Larsen deposited Almeida in a comfortable looking chair near the entrance from the hallway. Thomas and Stensen focused their weapons on Maksym. The look on Thomas’ face left no doubt about his thoughts. Maksym had gotten the drop on him at the warehouse, but it wouldn’t happen again. His finger was tight on the trigger, his body tense. If Maksym so much as belched, Thomas would feed him several rounds from his KSG.

  Whelan glanced at Kirkland and Stensen and nodded. As they left the room, he turned back to Laski, whose eyes were opened wide with fear in a face grown very pale.

  “I know who you are,” Laski said. “You are those people Harold Case knew, the ones they call the Sleeping Dogs, yes?”

  Whelan nodded. “Thanks principally to you, Case, and the senator, we’re no longer sleeping. We’re wide awake. And there’s a price to be paid for that.”

  Laski seemed to perk up. He detected that the conversation had entered an area he knew very well. “Price? I can pay price. I am wealthy man. I control billions. Name your price. I can pay,” he said, hope rising in his voice.

  Whelan shook his head. “This time your wealth can’t help you.”

  Laski’s voice took on a pleading tone. “But there is always a price. And I can pay it.” He paused then said, “And we will forget all about this affair. Even the senator.” He looked at Morris and said, “Yes, Senator?”

  Morris just stared at Laski, his face contorted in fear. A large wet spot was spreading across the crotch of his trousers.

  “The Senator is having sphincter issues,” Whelan said. “I don’t think he’ll be of much help to you.”

  “Bu…but,” Laski stuttered, “he is senator of United States. Surely you would not harm him.”

  “He isn’t our objective. You are.”

  Laski sagged back into his chair, seemingly defeated for the first time in his life. He looked over at Maksym, as if for help. The other man only smiled a cold, empty smile.

  A crafty look came over Laski’s wrinkled face. “So, tell me, my friend, who it was that sent you.”

  “You’re a smart man, Laski. You can figure it out.”

  Laski tipped his head to one side and said, “No doubt it was my old adversary, Clifford Levell.”

  Whelan gave no response, either verbal or physical.

  “Yes, of course it was him. And his fellow compatriots with so-called Society.”

  It was playing out just as Levell had said it would. Laski would stall for time, hoping some members of his security force still survived. He would expect them to storm into the room at any minute, guns blazing. Whelan remembered Levell’s words: “In the final act, it’s only fitting that we allow his hopes to rise before we terminate him.”

  Kirkland and Stensen reentered the room. Entwined in the fingers of their hands were long greasy strands of hair attached to the severed heads of Maksym’s security men. They dropped the heads in front of Laski.

  He shrank back in his chair in horror. After a few moments, he leaned slowly forward and looked at the heads, silently counting them. Sixteen. But there had been eighteen men. He glanced hopefully at Maksym. The same empty smile was on his face, but his head slowly swiveled back and forth.

  Stensen again left the room. He returned moments later with two additional heads. “Looking for these?” he said and dropped them at Laski’s feet.


  It was the final blow. All hope was gone now. Laski collapsed back into his seat and began to sob. “Please, I am old man. I never intended to harm anyone. I was only following orders.”

  “Free will,” Whelan said.

  “What?”

  “You always had the option not to work for the Russians. It might have been more difficult and taken longer, but with your intelligence and prowess in the world of finance, you would have succeeded eventually. Maybe you wouldn’t have accumulated quite as much wealth, but it would have been more than enough.”

  Laski stared at him. “Do not kill me, please. I can help you. I know who the Russians are. They are led by a man named….”

  “Federov,” Whelan said. “He’s nothing more than a handler. There are others above his pay grade.”

  “But I will use my wealth to counter their efforts.” He looked at Whelan hopefully.

  “It doesn’t work like that. Their efforts have been underway for decades. The disease has penetrated the cells of this country’s vital organs. It will take a more than a generation to exorcise it. If, in fact, it can be exorcised.”

  Whelan looked at Stensen and said, “It’s time.”

  The red areas in the other man’s eyes were dilated well beyond mere dots. They almost filled each iris. He stepped up to Laski and said, “Open wide.”

  Laski, paralyzed by fear, just looked at him. Stensen swiftly jammed the barrel of his Kel-Tec shotgun into Laski’s mouth, breaking teeth and wedging the man’s tongue back into his throat.

  Thomas kept his gaze focused on Maksym.

  Stensen squeezed the trigger and most of Laski’s head disappeared in a shower of blood, skull splinters, and brain goo. Thomas never looked away from Maksym. The Ukrainian winced; it was the first time he’d displayed any emotion. Morris fainted and fell off the loveseat. Kirkland picked him up and threw him back into it. He slapped the senator until he regained consciousness.

  Stensen pumped a new round into the chamber, shoved the bloodied barrel down the stump of Laski’s throat and fired another load. He grabbed a charred section of drapery and wiped blood and goo off the barrel.