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Getting up with my rifle, I walk to the other side of the roof and set up position again, waiting for the last guy to try getting into the car. He does exactly that. When he’s inside, I send the last bullet through the open window, right to his head. Four down. Six more to go.
I put the rifle back into the case and look at my watch. Twenty minutes is the most I can afford to spend here. I set the timer, take out my handgun, and head back inside the building.
The two guys in the side alley are easy to dispatch—they don’t even see me coming—but the last four are going to be more difficult to deal with because they’re sitting inside a locked, and probably armored, car behind the dumpster. There isn’t enough time to bother with the gun. A look at my watch. Five minutes left. Fuck. I run across the street to my car, stowing the sniper inside the trunk and retrieving a small grenade launcher from the hidden compartment. Luca said its accuracy is impeccable. Good thing the Irish picked a deserted location for the meeting.
I run toward the corner, aim, and fire. A few seconds later, the car with the Irish explodes, sending a magnificent thunder into the night.
“Got them,” Felix mumbles next to me.
He’s been switching through traffic cameras’ recordings for the last forty minutes, looking for the car that left the underpass with Kostya inside. I tried to track what Felix was seeing on the screen, but he’s too quick. I barely managed to catch a glimpseof the two black SUVs here and there as he flipped between the video feeds.
The front door bursts open, and Sergei runs across the living room, heading toward the stairs that lead to the basement.
“You have them?” he shouts.
“Yes. An abandoned house south of the city. I’ll send you the GPS location.”
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Sergei is going to get Kostya.”
“Now?”
“The Irish will try to extract as much information as they can from him, then they will kill him. It has to be within the next hour or so,” Felix says and nods.
“Who’s going with him?”
“He’ll pick up Dimitri on the way, but he’ll be staying with the car. Sergei is going in alone.”
“What?” I widen my eyes at him. “You don’t know how many people are there! He can get killed!”
“There couldn’t be more than six or seven people in those cars. They probably don’t have anyone at the location. This wasn’t planned. They expected Roman, and would have just killed him if he’d been in that car.”
“It’s still seven against one!”
“We can’t risk sending anyone else, Angelina. If the Irish see them coming, they’ll kill Kostya on the spot.”
The sound of quick footsteps reaches me, and Sergei rushes into the kitchen a moment later. I look him over, my eyes scanning the bulletproof vest over a long-sleeved black T-shirt, black tactical pants with leg holsters holding knives, extra magazines, and a gun, as well as two more guns in shoulder holsters. He looks like he’s going to war.
“We’re good?” he asks.
“Yes.” Felix looks up at him. “Don’t die.”
Sergei nods and turns to me. He doesn’t say anything, only watches me for a few seconds, then reaches up and traces a line down my cheek with his finger. I open my mouth to say something, but he turns away and marches to the front door. All I can do is stare at his back as he leaves.
* * *
“One man in the parked car down the street. Two by the door,” Sergei’s low voice comes through the headphones that Felix gave me. “Three more inside the house. With Kostya.”
“Is he alive?” Felix asks.
“Yes. But he’s beaten up pretty bad. Tell Roman to have the doc wait for us at the mansion.”
“Doc is already there.”
“Good. I’m going in.”
For a few minutes, the only thing I can hear is Sergei’s breathing. Then, suddenly, there’s a choking sound that lasts for a few seconds. I strain my ears, trying to catch anything else, but the only sound coming though once again is barely audible breathing.
