by RD Gupta
The red-haired beauty was definitely easy on the eyes. She was wearing some black silk nothing that could have been taken from her wardrobe at a lingerie photo shoot. And maybe it was.
But after the initial impact of her raw beauty, he found her conversation got stuck in a continuous loop about the married makeup artist’s snit with the gay hairdresser, who had thing for the lighting director, who was sleeping with the photographer, who was also sleeping with one her model buddies, who was in a snit with the same makeup artist…and on it went, over and over, like a recursive loop.
“Then Jerry got so incredibly pissed because the foundation base Barry was using wasn’t going to contrast my hair the right way for the fabric on the bustier I was wearing.”
“I believe you mentioned that,” injected Jarrod.
“Did I?”
“Yes, a couple of times. By the way, how is your Peruvian trout?”
“It is kinda weird, its so fishy tasting, but I guess I shouldn’t complain cause it swam all the way from Peruvia”
Ummm. She was kidding right? Trying to move things along, he inquired, “Do you think China will devalue the Yuan some more?”
“I thought Yuan was a rapper?”
“The, uh, Yuan. The Chinese currency.”
“Oh. I don’t think I knew that.”
“Ever been to China?”
“Oh, yes. I think a lot of lingerie is made over there.”
“I’m sure.”
“I did a photo shoot on the Great Wall once.”
Jarrod perked up. “Really? Well, that must have been an intriguing experience.”
“Mainly it was cold. That’s never fun when you’re modeling lingerie or swimwear. And I remember on that shoot the lighting director got into this huge argument with the photographer on which shade of shadow to use because the clouds—”
“Lisa?”
“Yes.”
“I apologize for doing this, but I’m going to have to call it an early night. I have a splitting headache.”
And sadly he wasn’t kidding.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CPC Pipeline Pumping Station No. 2
Stavropol Krai Province, Russia
Lemontov and twelve men carried silenced Heckler & Koch MP5 machine pistols and wore black balaclava ski masks. No one spoke. It had all been rehearsed many times. They did not run but walked the quarter-mile to the pumping station briskly, muzzles up and at the ready. All were battle-tested Chechen rebels, handpicked by Basayev himself.
They arrived at the high chain-link fence. After a wave from Lemontov, one of the men came forward with large cable cutters and snapped the shackle of the lock as if it were a soft pretzel.
The squad of men entered the grounds as Kordan emerged from the darkness, and the trigger-happy invaders almost shot him.
Lemontov stepped up to Kordan, who only said, “All in the central control room as of a few minutes ago.”
Lemontov nodded and said, “Execute.”
Two men hid off the road outside the gate, and two inside, so no one went in or out alive unless it was by their grace.
Lemontov, Kordan, and the others ran to the admin building. Two more deployed on the outside, covering the exits with their MP5s. At the security door, Lemontov nodded at Kordan, who punched in the code on the cipher lock. Then he peeked in and saw no one. Lemontov and the remaining six entered behind Kordan. They went down the corridor, doing a duck walk under the interior windows until they arrived at another cipher lock door.
Kordan stood, concealed by the door, and peeked through the window. Three men were monitoring consoles, and two others were playing a card game with an empty seat at the table. Kordan held up five fingers to Lemontov, who didn’t like that all six Russians were not present.
Lemontov whispered the question, “Rogonoff?”
Kordan peered in, then nodded.
Lemontov made the decision and said, “Go.”
Kordan punched in the number, and five bored meter readers were suddenly confronted by seven menacing figures who were clad in black and toting some serious guns. And the janitor was among them!
“Stand up! Hands on your head!” barked Lemontov.
All complied immediately, except one, who was too dumfounded to stand up from the card table. To establish who was in charge, Lemontov butt-stroked the laggard across his teeth, sending him to the floor. Lemontov smiled under the ski mask. Inflicting pain on a Russian was one of life’s little pleasures.
The muffled sound of silenced muzzles caught Lemontov’s attention.
“One down outside,” crackled a voice through Lemontov’s hand held radio. He keyed the mike, “Then all are accounted for.”
The five pumping station workers now stood against the wall, hands on heads. One had a bloody mouth.
With some ceremony, Lemontov removed his ski mask and said, “Good evening, gentlemen. Or should I say morning? My name is Colonel Arkady Lemontov, and I am Deputy Commander of the Riyadus Salihiin Reconnaissance and Sabotage Battalion of Chechen Martyrs. Which one of you is Rogonoff?”
A middle-aged, balding, bespectacled man with a generous paunch slowly raised his hand.
“You come with me,” ordered Lemontov. Then he pointed at another and said, “You as well.”
Two of the gunmen and Lemontov left central control with Kordan. The Chechen Commander cryptically said into the radio, “Bring up the truck.”
Two minutes later, Lemontov and his party were standing outside next to the exoskeleton of pipes, valves, and fittings that made up the pumping station. The air was punctuated by the omnipresent sound of compressors. A truck wheeled around the corner and then backed up to a large pipe that jutted out of another pipe in a Y-joint configuration. The end of the pipe that extended into the yard was waist high, with a hatch secured by a wheel lock over a meter in diameter.
The tailgate of the truck dropped and four ski-masked men jumped from the bed, one of them Markov, the bookish-looking Professor who had measured the fire hydrant when it first arrived. Without a word—as they had done in rehearsals—the men rapidly pulled out a gurney-like device, then slid the fire hydrant contraption onto it and rolled it to the hatch at the end of the protruding pipe.
Lemontov motioned for Rogonoff to approach, and nervously the little man stepped forward. Lemontov put his hand on Rognoff’s shoulder and asked, in a paternal voice, “Your name is Alexei, is it not?”
Numbly, Alexei Rogonoff nodded.
“Now, Alexei, it is my understanding that you are the pig technician at this facility. Is that correct?”
Pipeline Inspection Gauges—or “pigs” as they are commonly known—have been used on oil and gas pipelines for decades. The first pigs developed were simple plug-like devices that were inserted into the pipeline and the pressure of the oil flow pushed it along to act like a bottle washer. It shoved the sludge down the pipe to the other end where the muck was expelled. A pig technician monitored this process.
Again, Rogonoff nodded, his mouth dry.
“Of course it is. Now then, Alexei, please listen carefully. We want you to launch our pig here”—he motioned to the fire hydrant device—“downstream through the pipeline. Just as you would a regular cleaning pig. Is that understood?”
He rapidly nodded.
Lemontov continued as if he were telling a neighbor about his golf handicap. “Now we have our own pig technician with us, and he will be watching your every move as he gives you instructions. But I have to be honest with you. I have been in these situations before and—surprisingly—sometimes people in your position decide they want to do something stupidly heroic to try to stymie our success. To keep that idea from entering your head, we brought your colleague along to dissuade you from having such thoughts.” And with that, Lemontov’s MP5 burped and the colleague’s head burst open like a red melon.
“Now then, shall we proceed?”
An apoplectic Rogonoff nodded vigorously.
“Excellent,” said Le
montov. He motioned to a metal structure that looked like a very large phone booth. “This is the pig launch control is it not?”
“D-D-Da.”
“Then move. Time is of the essence.”
To inject a pig into a pipeline was much like launching a torpedo from a submarine. And in a sense, that was exactly what Lemontov’s crew was doing.
“Flush launch tube and close valve,” ordered Mitrofan Markov.
Rogonoff hit some buttons on the console, and the sound of a pump kicked in, followed by a hissing noise as the air pressure built up in the tube, forcing out the oil into the main pipeline. When the instruments told him the launch tube was clear, he flipped a toggle switch, and the valve closed off access to the main pipeline.
“Tube clear and valve closed,” said Rogonoff meekly.
“Depressurize launch tube,” ordered Mitrofan.
Rogonoff hit some more buttons on the console and another hissing sound was heard as the excess pressure inside the launcher was vented to the outside atmosphere. This equalized the pressure inside and outside the tube. Without depressurization, if someone unlocked the hatch, it would fly open with the force of a cannonball.
“Depressurization complete,” said Rogonoff tentatively.
Mitrofan twirled his finger in the air, and one of the hooded men unscrewed the wheel lock and opened the tube while his comrades rolled the gurney up to the opening. Lemontov unsnapped a panel on the side of the pig and powered up a digital LED counter display. He entered 04:00:00 and mashed the start button, causing the digital readout to begin counting backward. Then he snapped the panel shut and nodded to his men to slide the fire hydrant into the tube.
And as it had been designed, the rear end of the pig had the open fishing reel gizmo attached to it, holding a large spool of filament line. At the end of the line was a clasp, and this was clipped to the interior shaft of the locking mechanism on the hatch of the launcher.
“Close and lock hatch,” ordered Mitrofan.
The men shut the metal lid with a clang, and the locking wheel was spun tight.
“Close vents and pressurize,” said Mitrofan.
Rogonoff mashed some buttons, and the pump kicked in again, building up air pressure behind the pig.
Both men leaned forward and watched the pressure gauge needle move up until it was just caressing the red zone on the meter.
“Open launch valve!” ordered Mitrofan.
Rogonoff tripped the toggle switch again, causing the valve to flip open. There was a whooshing sound, much like a toilet flushing, as the air pressure hurled the pig into the pipeline. The clasp held fast, and although the filament line appeared fragile, in fact it was quite strong as it unwound from the spool in the rear of the pig.
After the initial launch, the pig settled into the 5.3 mile-per-hour flow velocity of the oil in the pipeline as the filament line continued deploying behind it—sort of like a fisherman holding the lure and casting the reel.
“Close release valve 90 percent,” instructed Mitrofan.
Rogonoff looked at the masked man quizzically but complied with the order.
He didn’t know that closing the valve all the way would sever the filament line and derail the entire Chechen enterprise before it started.
“Valve closed 90 percent,” replied Rogonoff.
“Now come with me.”
Meekly, the bespectacled Russian was led back into the admin building.
Lemontov ordered everyone into the break room where the Russian soldier was still passed out on the table. The Commander withdrew his bayonet and handed it to Kordan—the unassuming janitor and master spy. “Basayev himself gave an oath the mark would be left on this soldier. Would you care to do the honors?” he asked.
Kordan nodded and took the knife. He yanked the soldier onto the floor and rolled his limp figure over. Then with both hands, he grasped the hilt of the bayonet, fell to his knees, and plunged the blade into the chest of Russian.
The captives looked on in horror as Kordan slit open the soldier’s abdomen and inserted the blade deeply under the ribcage. It was obvious the young man had done this before as he operated with a grisly efficiency. A few moments later, a bloody hand at the end of a bloody forearm extracted a human heart, prompting one of the captives to faint. This elicited a grim smile from Kordan as he recalled the rape and murder of his sister by a Russian invader. She had been violated in a drunken orgy to celebrate the subjugation of Grozny.
“Now, gentlemen, we must bid you farewell,” said Lemontov with great formality. Checking his watch, he observed, “It appears we have almost four hours before the next shift arrives, so we will leave now. May you all burn in hell.”
And with that, four machine pistols spat their silent death, creating an abstract painting-like scene on the back wall.
Inside the forty-two-inch diameter pipeline, the specially manufactured pig built by DortmündFabrik of Hamburg continued on its journey at 5.3 miles per hour, the digital clock counting down from four hours, and the filament line spooling out the rear silently as it travelled along in a bath of black crude.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Tbilisi, Georgia
Shamil Basayev paced nervously, slamming his fist into this palm. He would order coffee from one of his minions, then reject it once it was brewed. He checked the screen of the satellite phone twice a minute. Some of the men went for walks to escape the frustration, but Elbruk Matsil stayed put, never free of Vaslav’s omnipresent eye.
“Is that coffee not ready yet?” bellowed Basayev.
“Da, Commander. It is ready,” replied the cook.
“Then why did you not tell me?”
“I did, Commander.”
“Do not contradict me! I will have your—” The phone chirped and Basayev froze. Then he leaped for it and greedily read the message that said, EGGS HAVE BEEN DELIVERED.
Basayev howled in delight. “Lemontov, you devil! You have done it! Now only a few hours remain and our dreams will be realized!”
Elbruk looked on in total befuddlement. He still had no clue what this was all about.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Stavropol Krai Province, Russia
Irgut Ergodan was facing an exhausting day. The cattle and sheep farmer had been up half the night dealing with a difficult calving, but he’d finally gotten the critter delivered. Then he’d watched as it stood up on wobbly legs and took its first suckle of mother’s milk. But now he had to start a long day of labor on the farm after a sleepless night. He hated that, for he was no longer a young man.
The first hint of the dawn’s early light was barely discernible in the east. He would go back to his hovel of a farmhouse and wash up, have some breakfast, and then get on with the day’s chores. First order of business was to move his herd of sheep from one section of his land to another. He rotated them on quartiles of the farm to allow the grass to regrow after being grazed by the livestock. He had an outstanding sheep dog who was smarter than the itinerants he employed from time to time, and that would ease the burden of the task.
The pipeline that bisected his land had actually saved him the cost of a new fence to section his grazing land, but it was a barrier. The government had built a shoddy earthen ramp to allow the sheep to traverse from one side of the farm to the other, but Irgut had had to improve it himself so it could take continued traffic. He still chafed at how the government had built it without as much as a “how do you do” before construction began. They had paid him a pittance for the easement across his land despite the billions of rubles Moscow harvested from the pipeline—billions that went into the pockets of the oligarchs.
They said Stalin was dead, but Irgut wasn’t so sure.
*
The shift supervisor at CPC Pumping Station No. 2 approached the front gate in his antiquated Lada sedan. Still barely awake, he was looking forward to his first cup of tea when he pulled to a stop and noticed that gate was open. He shook his head and uttered a tut-tut under his breath. Procedur
e called for the gate to be secured at all times. Somebody got lazy and forgot to relock it. He drove through and then stopped and got out to do the right thing. He looked around and couldn’t find the padlock until he saw it on the ground in the bright moonlight. He picked it up and noticed the shackle had been cut. He wondered who had done such a thing.
He drove the Lada to the parking area, then got out and walked toward the admin building. In the dim light, he noticed a figure laying on the concrete outside the entrance. He halted, then slowly approached. There was a pool of liquid beside the body, which he came to realize was blood. He looked closer and recognized the face with eyes frozen open.
“Borisov?” he said numbly as he gazed as his coworkers motionless body.
Seized by shock, he didn’t know what to do. Then he decided he’d better get the hell out of there.
*
Irgut was plodding along from the barn to the farmhouse, which was built on a hill overlooking the pastureland, when the digital counter inside the pig travelling through the pipeline reached 00:00:00 from its four-hour countdown. At that point, it triggered the primer connected to the filament line trailing twenty-two miles behind it—all the way to the clasp on the launch tube hatch at the pumping station. This filament line was not for catching fish. It was a new iteration of detonation cord made of crystallized pentaerythritol tetranitrate (think nitroglycerine on a string), a clever brand of munitions manufactured by the Czech company VCHZ Synthesia, the same people who brought you the Semtex plastique used in the Lockerbie bombing.
The primer in the pig fired, and the cord detonated at a rate of 8,700 meters per second, creating a white-hot fulmination that ruptured the pipeline and ignited the oil within.
