by D S Kane
Gretchen was bargaining with Horst about what he could do to get his clothing. They spoke in German, a language William didn’t understand. Horst said something and Gretchen laughed and handed him back his pants. Then they left together, leaving Sylvia alone with him.
She walked the five steps to the desk, where William sat forcing his eyes to the notebook’s screen. Still naked from the waist up, she said, “Eet looks like you and me. Do you have to watch zee bloody screen every second, or can we talk like humans?”
William smiled at her. “I’m a geek, Sylvia. Not muscled. The best part of me is here.” He pointed to his head.
She nodded. “I already guessed that. Look, I’m not proposing marriage. But I am needful. Are you not? Just a quick roll on the bed, as they say in America. I’m tense, waiting for the mission to commence. Besides, I know you will enjoy it. No?” Standing very close, she leaned over his head and unbuckled her bra, letting her breasts drop in front of his face. “You want me, of course. I am young and pretty. I can give you pleasure without wanting what you call ‘commitment.’ No?”
William thought for a second. Just for a second. Betsy was at home in Iowa and he hadn’t seen her in months. He didn’t get many opportunities and she was cute as she claimed.
He reached a hand toward her breast and she grabbed his other hand, placing it between her legs. She was moist and he was past the point of conscious thought. She dragged him to the bed. Her hands worked furiously, removing his clothing in record time. Then she dropped on top of him, making contact with her hands, her lips, and finally, her crotch. In seconds he’d slipped inside her. She rode him like a jockey taking a racehorse on a trot.
He felt the wet heat of her overflowing his consciousness. She began to breathe hard before he even knew what was happening to him. Her fluids came in spurts over his lower body, on the bed, the smell of her sex everywhere. William felt it slicing into him like a burning knife blade, heat, passion building to crescendo. It was a race to climax, and she won. Her voice was a growl as she hyperventilated, then screamed in a low voice, then growled again as she built up toward a second climax. Hearing her animal sounds took some getting used to. William was finally peaking to ejaculation when she climaxed the third time. As he emptied into her she fell on top of him. Sylvia whispered, breathing hard into his ear, “Thank you. See, Wheelyam, I don’t bite.” She looked at the red marks she’d left across his chest and smiled again. “Only a leetle.”
She dismounted and began to get dressed. William sat up, panting. It occurred to him she’d just raped him. Before he could even think of something to say, his cell phone started ringing. He knew it was Cassie. He tried to calm himself by taking a deep breath before he answered. “Wing here.”
“Any luck?” she replied.
He smiled at the unintentional pun. “Uh, no. Not yet. I think that—” He heard the notebook computer begin chirping an alarm. William interrupted, “Wait! He’s sending email right now.” He raced from the bed to the notebook computer and read the screen. His fingers—still coated with her fluids—pounded out several commands. “I’m backtracing it as we speak.”
Cassie replied, ten thousand miles away. “I copy that.”
Wing said, “He’s in Oman, in Muscat, again at the Airport. At Seeb International. And he’s got a smartphone. We can trace him now. If he found the cash to buy one, he has at least a little money. If he stole the smartphone, then the authorities in Oman can find him. Most of the smartphones sold in Oman have embedded GPS chips. They’ll be able to find him within a few inches of where he’s standing.” William smiled. “The penalty for stealing in a Muslim country is removal of a hand.” He got up from his chair.
* * *
Ann sat at the table in the cafeteria eating a peanut butter sandwich she’d made at home. Charles was out sick and there no one else was sitting near. It was as if she had a contagious disease. She focused on keeping herself from crying. She assumed by now the whole school hated her. First the sex video, now the news about Cassie.
A group of fourteen-year-olds from her Algebra class sauntered by and sat at her table.
One, with a pink stripe of hair, sat opposite her. “You’re Sashakovich.” She smiled. “I’m Susan.”
Another of them, a chunky stub of a girl with heavy goth makeup and bleached black hair, sat on her right side. “Mary.”
The one sitting on Ann’s left was tall, with a long sweep of bright red hair. She smiled. “Julie.” She leaned across the table and in a voice no louder than a whisper, said, “We heard about your mother. It’s on the Internet.”
Ann’s head fell into her hands.
Mary reached out and hugged her. “My ma died of breast cancer last year. But maybe you’ll be luckier.”
Susan touched Ann’s cheek. “I read about you mom. Her background and what she did for our country. She’s a real heroine.”
Ann’s head lifted. “Thanks.” She tried to smile. The other three held out their hands to her. She extended hers.
With all their hands together, Julie scanned Ann’s face. “Friends?”
Ann nodded. New tears fell but now she was smiling.
* * *
He thought, Vladivostok stinks like a sewer.
Exiting the airport, Shimmel sniffed the air and wanted to vomit from the foul stench of bus exhaust and the sulfur of a nearby refinery. This city was so polluted he’d been advised before his first visit a few years back, not to eat, drink, or even breathe here. He’d dreaded being in Vladivostok since takeoff from Frankfurt.
During the taxi ride from the airport, he thought about the city as a battleground, and prayed it would be a simpler mission than he already knew it would be.
Shimmel thought about the street layout of the city, as he and the mercs walked from the taxis up the steep hill toward their hotel. According to the local ecological specialists—Ecocenter—some areas, such as those near the printing works in Pokrovsky Park and the Far Eastern National University campus, were so polluted that they were defined as ecological disaster zones. It was no better than during his previous two visits.
Only a few areas had “permissible levels” of contamination, according to Professor Boris Preobrazhensky, a top ecologist at the Pacific Institute of Geography. The professor concluded there was nowhere in the city healthy enough to live. Shimmel suspected this was the reason that though the city had a population of about six hundred thousand, it had never grown into the commercial port the Russians had hoped.
But the dirtiest secret was that the Russian mafiya was the largest industry in Vlad. It was therefore a city where government—and anything else—could be bought. Shimmel wondered how to succeed when the mafiya was the target for him and his mercs in this mission.
The thirty men and women climbed up the hill overlooking the Amursky Bay to the door of the Hotel Vladivostok. While he waited for the last member of his team to catch up, Shimmel looked around the seaport. They stood at the southern extremity of the Muravyov-Amursky Peninsula, just off the coast of the Sea of Japan. Too close to both the Chinese and Korean borders. They gathered in the lobby of the hotel at Ul. Naberezhnaya 10, above the corner of Naberezhnaya and Tigrovaya. He estimated it would take four minutes to walk downhill to the harbor and another two minutes to the spot on the wharf where both submarines sat waiting.
Shimmel had a bad feeling about this operation. He looked around at the hotel’s signage indicating it was really two hotels. The mercs moved through the lobby to the registration desk. Shimmel smiled at the registration clerk. “I’m with Asian Tours Limited. We booked thirty doubles and two singles for one night.”
The clerk told them their rooms were on the fourth floor, named the Hotel Visit, the separate hotel within a hotel, where they put foreigners letting them bypass the desk on the main floor.
Shimmel checked them in for the night. He paid in advance and told the clerk they’d likely leave before sunrise in the morning.
The clerk printed a receipt and
handed it to him. “Spasibo. Thank you, Mr. Smith.”
His cell phone showed “No Connection.” Shimmel cursed in Hebrew. Then he saw a computer in the lobby with a slow voice-grade telephone connection to the Internet. He knew it was monitored by the Russian mafiya. He sent Cassie an email:
Sashakovich—
I am in Hotel Vladivostok. Can be called through the hotel switchboard at (4232) 41-28-08. No cell phone signal here. That means only public, non-secure email. I have a satphone but it will take a bit of time to set up, so don’t try contacting me. Remember, the landline isn’t secure. Let me know status of device pick-up as well as current contact info for uncle Misha.
—Shimmel
While he keyed and sent the email, his mercs stood silent, waiting him to signal before they walked to their rooms. Shimmel inserted a USB flash drive into the rent-a-computer and used the stored program William had created to remove all traces of the email he’d sent. Shimmel signaled and the mercs carried their mission bags up the stairs to their rooms on the fourth floor. Within five minutes the thirty men and women were crowded together in Shimmel’s room.
The room phone buzzed, a pathetic noise. Avram put down the partially assembled sat phone and its battery, and picked up the hotel room’s phone receiver. “Shimmel.”
“It’s Cassie. Are you ready? What’s the plan?”
Shimmel cut her off. “I’ll have the satphone set up in about three more minutes. I’ll call you back.” He didn’t want her saying anything over the mafiya-monitored room phones that might jeopardize the lives of his mercs and their mission.
After he and Cassie connected via satphone, she asked, “What’s your status?”
He thought about her question as he walked to the room’s window. Below the fourth floor, down the hill, he could see the subs and the guards on the pier just a short walk from the hotel. “Our hotel affords us a view of the wharf and I can direct ops from here.” He examined the pier from his room’s window and saw twin guard towers. Shimmel closed his eyes, conjuring the reconfigured operation. “When mercs reach the pier, I’ll leave the hotel. As soon as we control the subs, we’ll leave fast. If necessary, we’ll kidnap the two submarine crews, but I’m hoping to make them an offer they can’t refuse. We need them or we’ll never get the subs out from the harbor. I’ll call you later, after the theft, when we’re underway. If you don’t hear from me, well, then, ah… Shimmel out.”
* * *
The corporate jet William Wing rented landed and taxied down the runway at Seeb International. It headed toward the corporate terminal hanger. Wing, Horst, Gretchen, Sylvia, Alphonso, and Jillian picked up their mission bags and stood by the aircraft’s door as it stopped. The door popped open and an airport worker stood aside to let the mercs pass down the stairs, followed by Wing. They all dressed as tourists, wearing their STF-treated Hawaiian shirts and walked slowly toward the terminal.
The desert heat felt extreme, but less oppressive without humidity. Oman was much cooler than Dubai. Once within the terminal and out of the sun, Wing was quite comfortable. He led them to one of the Western-style restaurants. The menu looked like one from Denny’s, but without any pork product on the menu. They ordered meals while he set up the notebook computer and began exploring the back-traces he’d planted since they took off from Dubai. Wing’s eyebrows arched when he saw the results. “Holy shit, I have to call Cassie right now.” The others looked at him, but he said no more.
Wing’s face reflected his emotions: excitement, distress, urgency. He said, “Cassie, this is Wing. I have solid intel for you.” Now the others stared at him.
“Cassie here. Talk fast and loud. They’re launching another attack. About fifty of them this time, coming from both sides of the hall. So it’ll be noisy and you haven’t much time. Lester can see the elevator lights with his night scope and the elevator’s on its way up right now.”
“Uh, oh shit! Well, Watson is in Muscat, Oman, but not at the airport. He’s downtown, possibly at a hotel. And the last phone call he received was from Achmed Houmaz.”
There was silence from Cassie’s end. He knew she was pondering what else could go wrong with her dismal life. “Oh.”
Wing could hear gunshots and explosions, and then the connection terminated.
PART III
CHAPTER 27
October 30, 11:36 p.m.
The Hotel Visit,
Vladivostok, Russia
Thick smog obscured the moon so there was nothing to illuminate them or their path as the mercenaries left the Vladivostok hotel and walked in groups of two along Tigrovaya, down the hill toward the harbor.
Shimmel observed from the hotel room. They were spread out, but that wouldn’t make them undetectable, just less threatening to any guards watching their progress. He was ready to join them just as soon as he was sure they’d gained command of the two subs and no longer needed him in his perch to coordinate the battle effort.
The mercs stopped just short of the wharf, where the two subs were moored on either side of the pier. One by one, they disappeared, almost into thin air, from Shimmel’s viewpoint. It was now all set up. The mercs remained undetected. His presence in the crow’s nest was no longer necessary.
He placed a Bluetooth earbud over one ear, then looked at his watch and triggered its stopwatch function. He shouldered his mission bag and stepped out of his room, leaving it empty of anything that could identify them.
Shimmel was sure of where the plan called for them to be right now. The two assault teams crawled on their bellies at the edges of the wharf toward the guard towers. “We’re ready now,” said Lieutenant Yakov Abelson, his second-in-command.
Running down the stairs, Shimmel whispered, “Go, go, go!” and each assault team flung flashbang grenades into the two guard booths, twenty feet away in the middle of the pier. As the grenades exploded, the mercs rose to their feet, ran to the entrances to the booths and shot tranquillizer darts into the guards. The teams ran to their respective submarines where they boarded, dropping fast down the hatches.
Shimmel made his way to one of the subs. No gunshots came from within either submarine and this was good news. He dropped from the conning tower to the bridge of one of the subs and looked around. He asked Abelson for Submarine One, as they had “named” this sub, “Is the sub’s crew on board?”
Abelson, a huge bearded monster of a man simply nodded in reply. Then he turned and pointed his Ruger Mini-14 toward one of the cowering men covered by three mercs, holding identical weapons. In Russian, a language Avram Shimmel knew slightly from his childhood in Israel, he asked the ten crewmen standing against the bulkhead, “Which of you is this submarine’s commander?”
Replying in Russian, one of the men said, “I am Captain Rogov. I am in charge.”
“Ty govorish’ po-angliyski?” Shimmel asked him. Do you speak English?
“Da, ya govoryu po-angliyski,” answered Rogov in the affirmative. “What do you want?”
“I am General Avram Shimmel, head of a mercenary group. We bought this submarine. It’s been paid for. And we want you to operate it. We’ll pay you much better than your current employers. A lot better. Are you agreed to work for us?”
The captain turned to his men and began speaking to them fast, in Russian. The conversation went on for almost a minute and then the captain turned back to Shimmel. “We might agree to work for you. But first you have to tell us what you want us for. And for how long you will need us.”
Shimmel knew that soon the guards would sound the alarm. Then, if they hadn’t submerged, they would have more trouble than they were equipped to handle.
He also knew that a similar conversation was occurring in Submarine Two. He smiled. “Right now, we’re tasked with picking up a group of mercenaries in Hawaii. America.” As he expected, Rogov smiled at the mention of their destination. “Then we will have to travel to another place, probably also within the United States.”
Rogov nodded and turned away.
&n
bsp; Shimmel touched his shoulder. “We are a mercenary force. Using submarines is a necessity for us to complete many of our assignments.”
Captain Rogov nodded. “Will we be permitted to become citizens of America?”
Shimmel nodded. “Very likely.”
Rogov faced his crew and spoke with them. They all smiled and nodded. Rogov said to Shimmel, “Okay, we will do as you want. What you want first, for us to do?”
Shimmel spoke into the earbud in Hebrew. “Lieutenant Sorkov, will Sub Two’s crew work for us?”
Sorkov replied in Hebrew, “Yes. We’re ready to leave. The harbor is too shallow to submerge, but we are moving out right now.”
Shimmel nodded at Rogov, “Move out of the harbor as fast as you can and into the Sea of Japan. Submerge as soon as you can. Then head east to Hawaii.”
Rogov gave a spate of orders to the crew and then faced Shimmel. “Will we always be stationed in the United States?”
Shimmel realized the question Rogov asked meant that he could easily buy the crew’s loyalty. He nodded. “Yes, but many of your voyages will be to other places.”
Rogov smiled. He faced his men. “America!”
Avram heard the soft whine of engines started as the sub shifted forward. He pointed to the comm. “Do you have any communications facilities on board?”
Rogov nodded. “Da, a state of the art Satellite Node. Includes stolen CIA-issue Secure Telephone Unit circuitry. It works well when we surface or submerge shallow enough so we can float an antenna.”
Shimmel knew that they’d be submerged for at least four hours until they entered open sea and were not easily detectible. He’d have to wait most of the night before he could call Cassie to report status. He nodded to Rogov and went looking for a place to sit. There’d be nothing for him to do but wait for several hours.