The three men bent in conversation. Their arms waved, they nodded, and slapped each other’s shoulders.
The big truck seemed to shake again. Maybe it was the wind from the chopper blades that still slashed the air. Behind me I just made out Bruto’s voice, shouting hoarsely into a phone. “Now!”
Two black Hummers with a blaze of lights crashed through the gate. They were followed by four more. There were scuffles and some shots around the wrecked gates. The Russians by the chopper all lifted their weapons.
The cartel’s men raised their guns. Some faced the gate, others aimed at the Russians, who were advancing from the chopper. The white-haired men in suits clambered back into the SUVs and Vassily ran back toward the helicopter.
Bruto’s men at the gates and around the compound drew their weapons on the Russians. Armed men spilled out of the black hummers and scrambled to surround Vassily and the cartel. The cartel’s men moved back toward their vehicles, guns pointed outwards. Vassily had a machine pistol in both hands as he ran and swerved toward the helicopter.
Shots broke out around the compound. First in short bursts but escalating quickly into a pitched battle. When I whirled to look around at Bruto, the rear door was open and he was slinking out. Luka and I got out to follow him. Luka said, “This fucking chaos is all Bruto’s fucking doing.”
I was certain he was right. Bruto had a big gun in one hand and his phone in the other as he ran toward the two cartel vehicles. All around the compound was gunfire.
Luka grabbed my hand. “Come with me.” When I felt the strength of his grip, my spirits rose.
Luka jumped into the helicopter and I followed him just as Vassily was climbing in through the wide-open door on the other side. There were two rows of seats behind the pilot and empty co-pilot’s chair. Swiftly, Luka put a gun on the pilot and he waved it. “Off,” he said and pointed to the door. The pilot clambered out of his seat with a shake of his head and a look of resignation.
Luka slid into the pilot’s seat. He pointed to the co-pilot’s seat next to him and told me, “Get strapped in.” I did as he said and the noise became intense as the engines spun up and the rotor blades turned faster. Vassily was climbing into the seat behind Luka. The huge aircraft lumbered slowly off the ground.
From behind us, Bruto ran. He jumped and got a grip on the sides of the door. As the lumbering aircraft slowly climbed, he heaved himself into the cabin. As Bruto came aboard, the look on Luka’s face matched the sinking feeling in my stomach. The ground lurched sickeningly near in front of us.
Bruto shouted, “Get some height.”
Luka growled, “Shut the fuck up.”
Bruto moved toward him, pointing his submachine gun, but Luka turned the huge bird at a terrifyingly steep angle with the nose pointed at the ground. Bruto scrambled and just about grabbed a hold of a seat back in time to stop himself pitching at the windshield.
He scrambled to get behind a seat in the row behind us. The helicopter was tilted so the blades at the front were chopping almost at the ground.
Another convoy of SUVs approached the gates with blazing spotlights. Bruto yelled, “Massimo! Double-crossing fucker!”
Luka and I shared a look. Luka’s voice had a quietly calming authority.
“Hold tight,” and he tipped the nose of the helicopter toward the gate. With his left hand, Luka took a remote from his pocket that looked like small a game controller. When he pushed the smaller of two red buttons, machine guns on the sides of the chopper blasted up the tarmac in front of the newcomers.
They stopped and the doors were beginning to open. He squeezed off a second blast and they turned back and fled.
From the back, Vassily called out to me, “You told me the weapons were decommissioned.”
“Are you sure?” I said. “I wonder what I could have meant by that.”
Bruto growled, “Good work, flyboy. Now fucking do something to back up my guys down there.”
In the same quiet tone, Luka said, “Go fuck yourself, Bruto. I’m not going to be part of your double-cross either.”
The helicopter tipped sickeningly and moved low, parallel to the ground. The blades kicked up a dust cloud and sliced toward two of Bruto’s men. They turned with their eyes wide and fired at us. The skin on their faces blew back like the fabric of their clothes and their feet were unsteady.
The fight in their eyes turned to horror and they fired right at us but they couldn’t aim in the turbulent air. As the blades swept closer they turned and ran. Luka flew slowly around the compound and chased Bruto’s men, the Russians, and the cartel.
They all scattered and dove back into their SUVs and Hummers. After a close up view of the rotor blades they all headed for the gates and out at speed.
“Fastest way to stop a conflict.” Luka grinned. “Give ‘em a common enemy.”
“Yeh, very fucking clever, flyboy. Still, none of that helps me get to the fucking money.” He turned his gun on Vassily. “So. Where is it?”
Vassily blinked. “You’re not serious.”
Bruto jammed the gun in Vassily’s face. “Want to bet?”
Vassily laughed. “The money’s moved.”
“I know that, where the fuck is it now?”
“It’s probably about two floors down from where it was an hour ago.”
“What the fuck?”
Vassily took out his little iPad and waved it. “It’s in the Cayman Islands. Did you think we were going to show up here with sacks of cash, with all of these guns around?”
Bruto blinked. “I’ll take the merch, then. Luka, put us down.”
Luka flipped the helicopter sideways so suddenly I felt like I’d be ripped out of my seat. The webbing straps hurt as they cut into my flesh. Bruto sailed toward the door, but he grabbed a hold of the frame. The helicopter straightened back up just as fast as it had flipped and Bruto’s gun clattered as it slid toward the far door.
Luka’s eye followed it, and his face was still for a moment like he’d just realized something. Bruto struggled to get back into the cabin as Luka shouted, “The ammo box, Bruto. Why didn’t it explode?”
Clawing across the floor, pulling himself from one chair leg to the next, Bruto snarled, “What the fuck are you talking about?”
The chopper rocked again, pointing nose up. I was pinned in my seat. Bruto slammed into a chair next to Vassily.
Luka said, “That was what you went back for, wasn’t it? The ‘recovery’ mission. You went back for the box.” Bruto’s machine gun was near the other door and he scrambled after it. My little clutch purse fell out of my coat pocket and onto my chest as Luka pitched the chopper’s nose up.
He shouted, “There wasn’t any ammo in the box, that’s for sure. I don’t know why I never thought of it before. We didn’t need any ammo. There was no reason for it to be there. And it didn’t explode. What was in the ammo box, Bruto?”
Hand over hand, using the chairs as support, Bruto made it to the door, so Luka tipped the chopper the other way. Bruto’s gun slid down and I heard it hit the back of my seat. Bruto got a grip of an armrest and managed to stay aboard.
“What was in it? What did those men die for, Bruto?” Luka shouted, “Was it Afghan heroin?”
The chopper leveled off again. My clutch slid off me and landed on the floor by my foot. I reached to pick it up. Bruto’s face was red.
He said, “It was part of an Abyssinian frieze, if it’s any of your goddamned business. Third century BC.”
Luka said, “We say ‘BCE’ now, Bruto.” Bruto stood. He leapt at Vassily’s seat and gripped him around his neck. Vassily’s face grew red. “I’ll take the merchandise, Vassily.”
Vassily laughed. “From the truck?” The truck was still there, in the compound below and it shook constantly now. “The cartel probably put explosives on it.” My heart missed a beat. I looked at Luka. He narrowed his eyes.
He said, “I’ll tell you why it’s my business, though, Bruto. Two men died and I lost my military
career so that you could steal a work of fucking antiquity.” I unzipped the clutch and reached inside.
Luka shouted over his shoulder, “What did you get for it? The frieze?”
Bruto lunged forward, and he had his gun when his face fetched up beside mine. My hand was inside my purse, but the barrel of his stubby machine gun pressed against my temple.
“I made practically nothing. Some fucking lying Brit professor shafted me. Said it was a fake, so the Continuity-fucking-IRA got the thing for peanuts.”
His gun was almost against my head and shouted back to Vassily, “So, how are we going to get the shipment? How are you going to salvage it for me?”
Vassily laughed. “What do you think you’ll do with it?”
“Cut it up and sell it. Obviously. Dickhead.”
My fingers closed around the handle of my little gun. If I turned the clutch, I could point it into his groin, but I didn’t know it I could be fast enough. The barrel of his gun was shoved against my head so hard it bent my neck painfully. I shouted, “The ‘merch’ wouldn’t be worth much after you cut it, Bruto.”
He said, “What the fuck?” Now he turned the barrel to point at me.
I pursed my lips, “You haven’t worked out what’s in the truck yet, have you?” Bruto grabbed my wrist and pulled my hand with the clutch. Now it pointed at Luka.
Bruto shouted, “Come on, Luka,” and he jabbed the gun even harder against my temple. “Put us down, I’ll get the merch and we can be done.” He still had a tight grip on my wrist. “Otherwise I’ll waste this cunt.”
The helicopter’s engine whined into a deafening scream and we climbed fast. My stomach stayed behind. Luka jerked the control column and we flipped sideways again. This time Bruto didn’t get a grip quickly enough.
He splayed and yelled as he plunged backwards through the open side of the helicopter. The sound of the machine gun’s rattle faded as he loosed off a crackling arc of bright sparks into the night. We must have been six, maybe seven hundred feet up.
Luka looked over at me anxiously. I was grinning so much I thought I might drop a tear. He gave me back a beam of his smile that warmed me like a volcano all the way through. In that moment I realized I could trust him with my life. More, even...
I said, “I bet he wishes you’d flown lower now.”
Luka said, “Not for long, though.” A distant brrap from the machine gun was followed by a dull, crumpling thud.
Over his shoulder, Luka said to Vassily, “You don’t really think the cartel will blow the truck, do you?”
“No,” Vassily chuckled. “They’ve been paid. They’d have no reason to. The little skirmish on the way out? They’ll probably consider that a bonus.”
I asked him, “Why the huge helicopter though, Vassily? Why not just use the truck?
“We deliver directly to the club. There’s a big terrace on the roof. Not big enough to land this bus on, but we can hover over it to get out. Going directly into the club saves any potential embarrassment with police along the way.”
I put the helicopter down right back where we’d taken off. It wasn’t even that bumpy of a landing. Fortunately, Bruto’s remains were crumpled somewhere out in the darkness so Alexa didn’t have to look at them. Vassily may have felt differently. I wouldn’t have minded a view for confirmation, but there were other things to deal with now.
Alexa stepped out of the big military helicopter like it was something she did every day. She crossed the tarmac with Vassily, over toward the back of the truck. I followed.
Alexa said to Vassily, “The Columbian girls—are they Columbian?—they’re slaves.”
Vassily looked shocked. “They’re from the Central America and the Caribbean. But no. They have to work for six months so I recover the cost of the passage, then they’re free to go. They can stay in the States or fly home, if they want.”
“How many of them do you allow to take up that option?”
He stopped and turned to her. Seeing her standing up to this ruthless mobster, I wondered if there was anything, anything at all that this woman couldn’t do. He smiled as he told her, “Truly, Alexa, all the girls who want to leave are free to go. By six months, they’ve made enough money to fly home and have some left to take with them. Not so much maybe, but some.” He looked sincere enough, but she was still doubtful.
She lifted her chin as she said, “Yeah, if they haven’t spent it all and gotten deep in debt with your drug dealers.”
Vassily gave her back a thin smile. “They don’t do too many drugs. They have them for the customers, but I do what I can to keep the girls clean.” He looked in her eye, “Oh, don’t look at me like that. I don’t do it because I’m a nice guy. It makes them better at their jobs.”
“They fuck better?”
“Maybe, I don’t know about that. I think they’re all pretty good at that aspect of the work. Like I said, it isn’t new to them. No, if their heads are clear, they work the clients better.”
She gave him a puzzled frown.
He said, “Help him to see the value of extra services. Bottles of champagne. Suites of rooms.” As the armed Russians came out of the darkness and clustered around the back of the truck, Vassily told her, “When the time comes, six months from now, most of these girls will want to want to stay. The money’s good, the working conditions are a different world to what they’re used to. Their living conditions here are better than anything they’ve ever seen before. They’re safer at work and they make way more money. After the six months, out of twenty to thirty girls, no more than one or two want to go home. And out of those, more than half want to come back a few months later.”
“You’re telling me that the girls are happy?” She looked him in the eye. “I think all pimps say that. I don’t think many little girls dream of growing up to be prostitutes.”
He chuckled, “You might be surprised about that. Did you never see the Julia Roberts movie Pretty Woman?”
She shook her head. “I’ve seen it, of course, but that’s just a stupid movie. Working girls don’t live like that. They don’t get picked up by billionaires, either.”
“Maybe, but the girl in that stupid movie is a role model for a lot of kids, you know?”
When we got to the truck, Vassily punched numbers into a keycode lock on the back door. Before he pulled it open, he told Alexa, “Okay, it might not have been their childhood dream, but how many adults are living out their favorite fairytales? These girls have all been working long before they come to us.”
“And you’re going to keep them as working girls.”
“Instead of what, Alexa?” He put a hand on his hip and looked hard at her, “Look, I could open the door and turn them loose right now. If you want me to, I will.”
“Really?”
“Think. What will happen to them? If they’re lucky, they won’t be attacked while they wander around the fringes of Manhattan before they all get picked up. Then they’ll have a nice time in the holding cells, then detention while they await trial for illegal immigration, and then they’ll be deported.”
I didn’t know what to say. He asked me, “Shall I give them all your address so they can write and thank you when they finally get home?”
The door opened. The girls ducking out of the back of the truck were stooped, and they all looked pretty tired and ragged.
Vassily said, “They’ve come a long way. Probably not the easiest journey.” He put a hand on her arm. Something in my stomach rose and I had to hold myself back. He told her, “Come to the club and see them tomorrow. See if they don’t look happier to you.”
Vassily’s pilot emerged from out of the shadows and trotted over. I offered him my hand. “No hard feelings, I hope?”
The pilot slapped my arm and said, “You’re joking, right? You think I’m going to be upset with you that I was on solid ground while you stood that huge fucking can on its nose about a meter off the ground and then flew it sideways? Yeah, I’m really sorry that I missed that ride.
”
We shook hands and bro-hugged.
The line of girls shivered and kept their eyes down as they dipped out of the truck. The Russians hustled them across the compound and climbed into the helicopter. They didn’t seem to be using any force or coercion, but the girls all looked pretty exhausted, so it wouldn’t have taken much.
Vassily told Alexa, “Come and see them when they’ve had time to shower and rest. I’ll introduce you. Come tomorrow, if you like.”
As he was leaving, he turned back and said, “Come now if you want to. You’ll have to climb the rope ladder down to the club while we hover, but I don’t think that will bother you too much.”
Two Hitmen: A Double Bad Boy Mafia Romance (Lawless Book 1) Page 105