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Rustling. Something hits the ground. A short silence, then someone starts panting and a choking sound comes again.
I grab the edge of the table in front of me, trying to control my own erratic breaths.
Distant voices. Three gunshots in quick succession. Someone screams. Yelling. Several gunshots. Sergei cursing. A thud. Gunfire again, followed by shouting. Running feet. A single gunshot. A sound of something breaking. Two more gunshots. Then, silence, broken only by the sound of heavy breathing.
“Kostya!” Sergei’s voice. “Davay. Poshli.”
Grunting. A few Russian curses.
“I have him,” Sergei says into the mic. “Tell Dimitri to bring the car around the front. The kid weighs a ton, and he’s barely conscious.”
I let out a breath and close my eyes, listening to Felix as he calls Dimitri, then someone else. I don’t pay attention to what’s said because I’m engrossed in the sound of Sergei’s slightly labored breathing. Is he okay? He doesn’t sound that well. Was he shot? I look at Felix who’s still on the phone, but he doesn’t look concerned.
I unmute the speaker on my headphones.
“Sergei? Are you okay?” I ask.
He doesn’t say anything. There’s a sound of an approaching car, then, the screech of tires.
“Sergei?” I try again.
After a few moments of silence, I get a dry reply, “I’m okay. Dimitri is here, I have to go.”
I hear the car door opening, rustling, and a few more curses, then the door bangs closed. The audio feed disconnects.
Thirty minutes earlier
There’s some kind of shed a hundred yards from the house where they’re holding Kostya. I would prefer something closer, in case I have to carry the kid out in haste, but it’ll do. After parking the car behind the shed, I take the black beanie from my pocket and put it on. Going on a night mission with hair as light as mine uncovered, is just asking for a bullet to the head.
“I’m coming with you,” Dimitri says from the passenger’s seat and takes out his gun.
“If you dare leave this car,” I say as I’m pulling on my gloves, “I’m going to knock you out and dump you into the trunk.”
“Damn it, Sergei.”
I look up, right into his eyes. “Stay. Put.”
Dimitri glares at me, then throws the gun onto the dash. Good.
After leaving the car, I cross the wide patch of grass to the backyard. It takes me longer than I’d like to reach the fence because I have to make sure not to step on the junk scattered around the ground and alert the Irish. I do a wide circle around the house and the yard to see where the men are located, then get closer to take a look at the room where they’re keeping Kostya.
There are three goons inside with Kostya. They have him strapped to a chair in the corner. Two of the guys are standing to the side, and the third is in the process of rearranging Kostya’s internal organs with his fists. The side of Kostya’s face is swollen and bloody, and one of his arms is hanging in an unnatural angle. The kid looks awful.
I retrace my steps to the front of the house, crouch behind a bush, and update Felix on the status at the location. With that done, I head toward the front gate, hugging the side of the house to stay out of view, focused on the man inside the parked car. The guy is so engrossed in porn playing on his phone, he doesn’t even register when I slide into the backseat and wrap my arm around his neck. I’m positive the guy is dead, but I snap his neck before leaving the car anyway. Better safe than sorry.
Keeping to the shadows, I move in closer and then creep along the wall toward the two guys at the front door. They’re smoking and chatting, and their guns are secured inside the holsters as if they don’t have a care in the world. One stands with his back to me, so I focus on the other and take out one of my throwing knives. They might not be a good choice if you want to dispatchsomeone, but they certainly make a hell of a distraction. After gauging the distance, I swing and let the knife fly. It finds its target, hitting the guy dead center in his neck.
It takes me exactly three seconds to reach them. Using my bowie knife, I kill the guy facing away from me first. The idiot is so focused on the blade protruding from his friend’s neck that he hasn’t even reached for his weapon. Letting the body fall, I slash at the neck of the other man, finishing off the job.
Now, the harder part.
If the situation was different, I would have picked off all six of the Irish, one by one, with my sniper rifle, but having Kostya’s life on the line changes things. I can’t afford to alert any of them to my presence, or they’ll kill the kid before I get to him. It’s either stealth or guns blazing. The last three guys are in the room with Kostya, so there is no way to sneak in and neutralize them individually. I’ll need to barge in and kill all of them in one fell swoop.
Taking out my gun, I step inside the house and traverse the narrow hallway. The door at the end is ajar, the captors’ voices reaching me as I approach. When I reach it, I lift my gun and kick the door. I send three bullets into the first man I see, then turn on the one raising his gun at Kostya. I shoot, aiming for his head. The asshole moves at just that moment, and my bullet finds the wall instead. I fire at him twice more, hitting my mark, but gasp and stumble as I get hit square in the chest. It was likely a low caliber, so I manage to recover a split second later. I take a breath, ignore the pain, and shoot at the only remaining guy. My bullet strikes him in the center of his head, and his body falls backward, crashing over a coffee table.
I enter the room, put a bullet in the head of each lifeless body for good measure, then rush to Kostya and cut his restraints.
“Kostya!” I wrap my arm around his back. “Davay. Poshli.”
