by J C Ryan
“How do you know it’s the Russians?” Margot asked.
“There’s no time to explain, Margot, I need to get you to safety immediately.”
***
KUDRY’S HACKER WAS able to pinpoint the location of Rex’s cellphone within minutes after getting the number. One of Kudry’s team entered the GPS coordinates into his smartphone and brought up a map and directions. It was a forty-minute drive from their current location.
On the way, Kudry tried to warn his men about the mad beast that had attacked him in Vietnam. “It’s huge, its black,” he said. “And it’s vicious. You must shoot it on sight.”
“But sir, so far we haven’t seen any sign of a dog with the man and woman. He must have left it behind, or perhaps it was a stray dog in Vietnam.”
“I’m telling you, there is a dog. It obeyed his commands.” But Kudry got the impression his words fell on deaf ears. He had no time to argue with them—he’d warned them, and that was all he could do about it.
***
AT THEIR HOUSE, Rex spent a precious two minutes deciding where to stash Margot. He didn’t want her in the house if he could avoid it and finally settled for the root cellar not far from the kitchen door in the back yard. “Are you claustrophobic?” he asked.
Margot told him she was not, but when she saw where he expected her to wait, she asked, “Why not upstairs in your quarters?”
Rex didn’t want to frighten her any more than she already was, but he didn’t have time to argue. “I don’t want you trapped up there if they enter the house. I expect them to be armed, and just like in Vietnam, they won’t hesitate to use their weapons.”
“But Rowan, if they’re armed…”
“Margot, just get in there, we don’t have time. Digger and I can take care of this.”
Margot heard the urgency in his voice and bundled into the cellar without further objections. It turned out to be a nicely-appointed but dated bomb shelter, circa 1960s, by her estimate. To Margot’s relief, it was clean, and there were no spiders in sight.
When Margot closed the cellar door behind her, and he heard the lock turning, Rex called Digger and ran back to the house and upstairs to his bedroom. He quickly retrieved Digger’s surveillance harness and equipment and fitted it. He donned his photographer’s vest which he’d always had with him in his and Digger’s equipment bag. The vest had many pockets and hiding places, ideal to carry all kinds of weapons, spare magazines, cable ties, pocket knives, piano wire, duct tape, and such, even a small first aid pack.
He ran down the stairs, switched off all lights in the house, and went back out through the back door with Digger right on his heels.
Outside, he had a quick look around, kneeled next to Digger, ruffled the dog’s ears, and said, “We’re on, buddy.”
Digger looked at him in anticipation. Rex turned Digger’s face to his and rubbed his nose against Digger’s and said, “Clever boy, scout and hide.”
As Digger disappeared into the darkness among the garden plants, Rex plugged the wireless earphones into his ears and started the iPad.
He felt naked without a firearm in a situation like this where he knew his adversaries would probably be heavily armed. But there was no time to dwell on that. He had been trained to kill with his bare hands, a toothpick, a paperclip, a broomstick, and anything up to knives and guns. And on many occasions, just like in Vietnam, his enemies supplied the guns, once he got his hands on one of them.
In the kitchen, he used the small penlight to find two steak knives and a butcher’s knife and crawled to the lounge where he stashed the weapons under a sofa, then hid behind it. Once he was ready, Rex fell naturally into the waiting that characterized so much of the operational time of his profession.
He was neither anxious nor bored. Alert but relaxed, he could have waited for hours.
Chapter 58
Geneva, Switzerland
BUT THIS TIME, he had to wait less than five minutes when Digger alerted, apparently on a smell, since Rex couldn’t see any human figure on the iPad monitor.
“Digger, down. Wait for my signal.” By now, Rex was so convinced that Digger understood plain English, he often added sentence-long commands to the familiar ones Digger had been trained by his first partner, Trevor, to respond to. Rex also knew Digger would act on his own when the situation warranted it.
After a few minutes, a low growl reached Rex’s ear via the comms unit.
“What is it, boy? I can’t see them.”
And then he did. Digger had apparently stood up. Four, no, five men were approaching the house along the long driveway from the street. Were there more? Rex would not have made so open an approach, but these men were bunched as if their business was legitimate, and they were just paying a friendly visit.
Digger’s next soft growl was accompanied by the squeak that usually came at the end of one of his anxiety yawns. Rex interpreted it as Digger having recognized the scent of one of the men. The figures he could see in the night-vision camera’s feed were of average size, none of them big enough to be Brawn from Vietnam. But the last man, the one he hadn’t seen at first because he was lagging behind, that man had a limp. Could it be his old ‘friend’ Curly? He’d know soon enough.
Because the house sat on a few acres of wooded land, the walk up the driveway was a long one. Rex reckoned he had five minutes. But he needed to know whether there were others approaching from different directions.
“Digger, leave it. Scout,” he commanded. A soft whine indicated Digger’s reluctance to leave the targets he’d spotted, but the camera feed soon showed he was moving again, trotting around the perimeter of the grounds as trained. Rex figured at the speed Digger was going, he’d cover about half the perimeter in the time the five men would take to reach the house.
He didn’t expect them to knock politely on the front door when they did.
Rex saw that Digger was speeding around the perimeter, which was an indication to Rex that the dog knew there were no other intruders on the way to the house—only the five he’d spotted before.
It was a puzzle to Rex how the Russians could be so stupid as to come in a bunch rather than approaching from all sides.
Not a military-trained bunch, another rag-tag criminal operation.
“Digger, return,” Rex said with a low voice.
Rex couldn’t see the men, but by his estimate they would reach the front door momentarily. His iPad was about to become a liability because of the light it put out. Rex pushed the screen’s off button and shoved the iPad under a throw rug under the sofa he was hiding behind.
Rex heard them fiddling with the lock of the front door for a few moments and then the door opened, slowly. The Russians were talking among themselves in low voices but made little effort to be quiet. He heard one of them, who was about three paces away from his hiding place, saying, “I told you there was no dog. It would have barked.”
Boy, are you scumbags in for a nasty surprise.
Rex was waiting on Digger’s imminent arrival and the advantage the shock and surprise of the dog’s appearance would give him before going into action. And that moment arrived right on time, just as a heavy boot narrowly missed his body behind the couch, Digger came flying through the open front door. Rex lashed out with a leg, and as his victim dropped to the floor, he karate-chopped the man in the jugular before he even had a chance to cry out.
At almost that same moment, someone cried out. Rex was on his knees, looking over the couch, and saw Digger had engaged the man who shouted. There was no time to think about it; there were three others to disable.
With no more element of surprise, Rex jumped to his feet and ran through crossed beams of the attackers’ flashlights to turn on the lights in the lounge. The sudden brightness of the lights left the three men dumbfounded for a second or two before one of them aimed a pistol at Digger.
Rex took two steps and hit him with a flying two-legged kick in the chest that sent him reeling backward and deflected the gunshot
from the silenced pistol into the ceiling.
The man he’d dropped first was gurgling, his larynx crushed. He was out of the picture. The second man had lost his pistol in his fall. Rex kicked it out of the way and followed it up with a kick to the face which knocked him out cold, and whirled to meet the remaining two, who were stupid enough to charge at him in tandem. He lashed out with one foot, connecting with the soft belly of the first one.
“Oof,” Rex heard, as he turned his attention to the second man, who seemed more competent as well as fitter. But Rex was a moment too late. A punch rocked him backward, and he tripped over the guy who’d tried to shoot Digger.
He registered a vicious snarling and someone crying out in pain as the man he’d belly-kicked scrambled to his feet and waded in.
Rex had stumbled backward after tripping, and he was still off-balance when the one who’d punched him came at him again. Rex seized a lamp from the table that had broken his fall and swung it in a wide arc, connecting with his assailant’s head, but doing less damage than he’d hoped. The lamp had broken into pieces—what remained of it was useless as a weapon.
But the blow to the man’s head was enough to give Rex a chance to regain his balance, and he was ready for the next charge. The softer guy got to him first, so Rex head-butted him, and a gush of fresh blood cascaded over the guy’s mouth and chin. His eyes went blank as he reached for his injured nose and dropped to the floor, revealing the tough one, who was once again preparing a charge at Rex.
A sharp yelp from Digger momentarily distracted Rex. He had just enough time to catch a glimpse of a familiar face, Curly’s, and he had a knife in his hand, before the charging assailant was on him with no time for Rex to move out of the way. The man connected with him in the solar plexus with his shoulder, carrying him backward, past the table and onto the floor, and landed on top of him with so much force it almost took Rex’s breath away. A street brawl ensued, with Rex taking punches to the face and chest. Rex blocked most of it with his arms while trying to dislodge the man straddling his chest. He quickly managed to gain leverage by getting his feet under the man’s knees and heaving backwards, tossing the guy over his head to land on the floor behind him.
Rex twisted quickly and lunged from his hands and knees and landed with his knee in the guy’s liver, which caused him to grunt in agony. Rex pushed off him, landed a kick to the same place his knee had just injured, and the guy went still.
Rex stood up and looked at the carnage. Two out cold, one maybe dead. The first one was no longer gurgling. The last one moaning and holding his side, unable to get up. And Curly still in Digger’s death grip, stabbing at Digger over and over but missing as far as Rex could tell.
Rex rushed over and picked up the Russian’s weapon, about two paces away, turned, and pointed it at Curly’s head. He told Digger to stand down. Rex looked Curly in the eyes and said, in Russian, “Stupid asshole, you’ve lost again. Get it through your thick skull, you’ll never have the woman.”
His finger tightened around the trigger, Curly’s eyes widened. For a few moments, Rex was tempted to pull the trigger but didn’t. Instead he let loose with a vicious kick to Curly’s face which rendered him unconscious. Curly was not only going to need extensive surgery to his jaw, he’d probably also need a full set of dentures.
Rex finally turned to Digger and found he had several bleeding wounds in various places over his body. A quick check assured him, to his relief, that none of the wounds were life threatening.
Rex sat down heavily beside his wounded partner and gathered the dog into his arms. “Digger, you’re going to make it, boy. It’s all over. You can relax now.” Slowly, he eased Digger onto his side on the carpet and said, “Stay. Don’t move, I’m going to get Margot. We’ll be back in less than a minute.” Digger replied with a soft whine and his wagging tail thumping the floor a few times.
Chapter 59
Geneva, Switzerland
WHEN MARGOT ENTERED the room and saw the carnage, her hand flew to her mouth to stifle a scream. When she saw the injuries Rowan and Digger had suffered, she could no longer control it and cried out in alarm.
Rex put his arms around her and said, “Margot, there could be more of them. We have to get out of here as quickly as possible.”
She was shaking, but she nodded and said, “What do you want me to do?”
Rex retrieved the first aid kit from a pouch of his tactical vest. “You can tend to Digger’s wounds while I tie up and gag these men. After that, we have to gather our stuff and leave.”
“Where do you want to go? Are you going to leave these men here?”
Rex shook his head. “No, I won’t leave them here. We’ll never get a chance like this again to find out who is behind all of this and why. That’ll be powerful information in the hands of Aguillard when he has to deal with the Russians. I want to take them over the border and hand them over to the French authorities for interrogation. I am thinking of going to your family farm.”
To Rex’s surprise, Margot was calm and collected. She nodded and said, “Makes sense to me. Let’s do it. I might need some direction from you when doctoring Digger. I’ve completed only a basic first aid course, and that was many years ago.”
“No problem. He should be okay. He’ll let you know when you hurt him.”
Margot went to work on Digger while Rex checked the five men in turn, discovering they were all alive. With the cable ties he had in one of his vest pockets, he tied their feet and then their hands behind their backs, took their boots and socks off, and used the latter to gag them, then secured his handiwork with duct tape wrapped over their mouths and heads.
When he was done, he stood and looked to see how Margot was doing. Digger was licking her arm while she very tenderly applied antiseptic ointment to each of his wounds and spoke comforting words softly to him. Digger hadn’t made a single sound to indicate that he was in pain.
Margot wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her free hand and said, “Thank God you’re both alive. I’ve stemmed the blood flow from his wounds, and none of them seem to be deep. I think he’s going to be okay.”
Digger raised his head from the floor, turned from his side onto his belly, and let out a soft woof.
“Yep, that’s it, boy. You’ll be out jogging with me in no time.”
Margot got up and took a close look at Rex. “What?” he asked.
“Just checking if you’re in need of any first aid.”
Rex grinned. “Just a few bruises, I’m good. Now I want you to bring the car around from the garage to the front door while I keep an eye on them.”
Margot took a few steps toward the kitchen to get the car keys, stopped and asked, “Do you think there’ll be enough space for all of us?”
Rex just grinned. “It’s going to be a bit tight for them, but we’ll be okay.”
Margot turned and went to collect the car.
Fifteen minutes later, they were ready. Rex had let the back seat of the station wagon down and packed the Russians in like sardines in a tin. Digger was in the space on the floor behind Margot’s seat. She’d put a blanket on the floor for him, and he seemed to be comfortable.
Behind Rex’s seat, on the floor and in the space under his seat, they shoved in the few personal belongings they didn’t want to leave at the house. Rex had explained that he’d have to talk to Lucien to send in some DGSE agents to clean and sanitize the place as soon as possible, preferably before the sun came up. He looked at his watch. It was 10:00 p.m.
***
En Route To Lyon, France
THE RUSSIANS IN the back of the PEUGEOT couldn’t have been comfortable, since the car had never been intended for five men to lie side-by-side, even with the back seat folded down. Rex had put the less-injured men on the bottom and had arranged Curly and the guy with the crushed larynx on top, in the gaps between the bottom three. Nevertheless, those two had to be weighing heavily on the others. Not long after crossing the border toward Lyon, they beg
an waking up, moaning and groaning, and by the sounds of it, complaining about the ‘seating’ arrangements.
Rex hadn’t heard Curly’s voice yet, and he knew the one with the crushed larynx wouldn’t be able to make any sounds, other than maybe a grunt, if that. Rex wasn’t certain he’d survive, since his airway was clearly obstructed. If he did, there might be brain damage from hypoxia. But Rex couldn’t be bothered too much. He didn’t have any problems justifying the injuries to any of them, including Curly, whose jaw was completely destroyed. Rex figured they deserved what they got. They were the ones who’d invaded Margot’s temporary home, armed, and with evil intent.
When the noise from the back grew loud enough to be annoying, he yelled, in Russian, “Shut up back there! You were full of bravado when you entered the house to attack a defenseless woman, now you sound like a bunch of old women with wet knickers. Don’t make me pull over and silence you, again.”
The moaning and groaning ceased, and it made Rex remember when he was a kid, bickering in the back seat with his brother and sister, and his mother would say, “Don’t make me pull over!” It made him smile, but at the same time it caused him a pang of missing his family, dead now for more than ten years. If these scumbags were terrorists rather than common thugs, they’d be dead when he finished his interrogation. The French authorities would get none of them.
Margot flinched when he yelled. She began in a gentle voice, “Rowan, they’re not comfortable, and they’re injured. Should we…”
“No, Margot, we should not. Have no doubt, their instructions were to kill Digger and me and take you alive to force you to cooperate with them. They deserve this, and worse. It’s the second time the guy with the broken jaw has tried to kidnap you and injured Digger in the process.”
