by Tom Abrahams
To the left, the lower of the two security cameras swivels toward me. I smile and wave at whoever’s controlling it. He asks me who sent the delivery.
“The, uh, the Consul General in Houston, Texas.” I figure that’s odd enough to pique his interest and let me inside.
He directs me to the building to the left, the one with the portico, and tells me that he’ll meet me at the door. There’s a loud metallic buzz and the gate slides open. My right hand is carrying the DHL bag, my fingers wrapped around the grip frame. If pushed I could fire through the bag before anyone knows what’s coming.
My plan is do the threatening with the Smith & Wesson, so I rest my left hand underneath the package on my waist. To whomever is tracking me with the security camera, I must look a little odd with the package on its end and my hands beneath it.
I’m actually a little surprised I’ve gotten this far, given the added security to Russian consulates all over the world after a nationalist mob attacked the embassy in Poland in November 2013.
I remember reading that Russia’s foreign minister decided to up the ante and put armed border police at their embassies all over the world. It only sticks with me because of how surprised I was that prior to that attack, Russia protected all of its embassies with unarmed civilian security specialists.
As I approach the door, I’m greeted by a pale looking man, who couldn’t be more than twenty, in a dark blue uniform and tie, a pale blue collared shirt, and a blue and green service cap with a black shiny bill. He’s definitely Russian military, but he’s unarmed.
I smile at him and again check the security camera, which is pegged as far to the left as it will go. I’m out of its range. Three steps more and I’m within a yard of the officer.
“Hel—” he starts to greet me, but before he finishes the word, I’ve pressed the barrel of the Smith & Wesson between his eyes. Both of his hands shoot straight up in the air when I strongly suggest he not move or speak.
I explain that in the package is another, much more dangerous weapon, that will kill him and everyone around him if he does anything that upsets me. He nods, his eyes as wide as moons, made to look even bigger by the dark circles that frame them. There’s something about Russians and their dark circles. It’s as though generations of pain and anger and vodka are stored underneath the eyes, trying to hide just underneath the surface, unaware the whole world can see them anyhow.
“Can you understand me?” I ask him. He nods.
“Where is your weapon?” My eyes don’t leave his.
“I don’t have it,” he tells me, shaking his head vigorously. “I left it at the desk inside.”
“What is it?”
“Kalashnikov AK-12.”
“I’m looking for someone who came here in a white car that’s parked over there,” I motion my head to the right. His hands still in the air, his eyes roll, trying to see between the two buildings.
“Do you see it?” I release some pressure on the six shooter, sliding it to the side as his head turns. He nods again before turning back to face me. His service cap is set back on his head, enough that I can see the beads of sweat on his brow.
“Where is my friend?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “I haven’t seen anyone irregular come in the building.”
“You have those cameras. Did you see my friend on them?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, ‘I don’t know’?” I lean into him, the agitation in my voice designed to frighten him as much as the shot shell just six inches from his brain.
“I m-mean,” he stutters in less-intelligible Russian, “I saw a group of people in that car. I saw them get out and go into that building. But I didn’t see the woman. I promise you.”
I pull the hammer on the revolver, its racketing click startling the young guard. He whimpers and spreads his fingers wide as he tries to hold up his tiring arms.
“You promise?” I tilt my head to one side and narrow my gaze. He nods quickly and averts his eyes like a dog in a staring contest.
“Why would you lie to a man with a gun your head?”
“I wouldn’t lie,” he says, squeezing his eyes shut. “I didn’t see her.”
“That’s the thing,” I say. “I never said my friend was a woman.”
His eyes pop open, pupils shrinking to pinpricks, and his shoulders slump, causing his arms to drop. He’s searching my face, trying to gauge whether or not I’ll pull the trigger.
“Tree, dva… “ I count down from three in Russian.
“Wait, wait!” he pleads. “I know where she is. They took her into that building, but they’ve moved her to the basement. There are passageways, tunnels, between the buildings. She is underneath us now, in this building.
“How would you know where she is once she’s inside?”
“There are coded doors,” he says. “We get an alert at security whenever a coded door is opened and closed. The series of doors that opened and closed within the last hour started at that building and followed the tunnels to this building.”
“Take me there.”
“I can’t,” he closes his eyes in anticipation of a gunshot reply.
“Why not?”
“Because,” he’s speaking more quickly, making it more difficult to understand, “there are security measures. I cannot take a delivery man to the tunnels.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll handle it.” Drawing the gun from his forehead, I tell him to turn around and put his hands in his pants pockets. “You tell whoever we run into that you’re escorting me to the tunnels. If there’s a problem, it’s my problem.”
He nods, and with my pistol now tucked back into my pants and the DHL-covered Tec-9 pushed into the small of his back, the security guard presses his entry card against a scanner and activates the automatic door.
The door shuts behind us and we’re in a drab entryway, mint green walls and gray terrazzo flooring. There’s a desk in the center with a bank of LCD monitors surrounding it like a command center.
We approach the desk, and another young guard stands at attention. He’s a lower rank than the three-striped sergeant leading me into the building. An AK-12, the latest incarnation of the AK-47, is leaning up against the desk. Rookie mistake.
“I’m taking this man to the tunnels,” he says. “We have a package that must be hand-delivered.”
“Yes, Sergeant,” says the one-stripe desk clerk. “I will alert internal security that you will be arriving in the tunnels momentarily.”
“No need.” He waves off his comrade. “I already have orders from our Major. He knows we are on our way.”
The underling hesitates and looks at me, standing behind his superior. I can see in his eyes that he doesn’t trust the situation, but he’s not about to challenge.
“Yes, Sergeant,” he nods. “Please have your guest sign in here at the desk.”
“Sign in,” my guide tells me without turning around.
I step to his left and to the desk, where the comrade slides an open binder toward me. I have the package in my right hand, overtly aiming it at the sergeant. With my left hand, I scrawl an illegible name and put DHL next to it. I jot down the time and then step back behind my escort, slipping my free hand around the AK-12, slyly carrying it so the comrade can’t see it.
With that, we are on our way into the tunnels.
***
The elevator opens into a hallway that turns only left. To the right is a wall, decorated with a large Russian flag. Beneath the flag is a smaller, painted insignia of the Border Guard Service of Russia. It’s a large golden conjoined eagle behind a blue shield emblazoned with a green cross. The eagles’ twin heads share a single crown, one talon clutching a scepter, the other a golden orb.
I’ve ripped open the DHL package, tossed to it to the elevator floor, and have the Tec-9 strapped over my shoulder. I’m gripping the AK-12 with both hands as the sergeant and I step into the hall. It’s a narrow passageway with low ceilings
. Up ahead, there is a series of windows, the top halves of which are above grade, glowing with outdoor light through the opaque glass.
The sergeant is walking silently ahead of me, save the clicking of his boot heels on the linoleum floor. The flooring is aged, curling at the edges where it meets the peeling plaster walls. The smell is dank and rife with mold or mildew. I’m guessing from the black splotches on the ceiling tiles that it’s mold.
At the end of the hall is a thick metal door with a wall-mounted security pad to the right. The sergeant waves his entry card over the panel and a red glowing light turns green. There’s a series of clicks followed by a loud metal hum and he heaves the door inward. There’s no security camera. Before he walks through he turns his head to the side and whispers, “There’s another security check up here. It’s maybe fifty meters and to the right. They will be armed. They will see you are armed. Maybe you should put down the weapons.”
I’m not giving up my weapons.
What do I do? I’ll be outmanned and outgunned.
“Take the AK-12 from me,” I whisper back, releasing the magazine, and tucking it in my waistband next to the revolver. “It’s unloaded. I removed the magazine.”
“Why?” He turns toward me, still propping the door open with his hip and leg. “I don’t under—”
“Just do it.” I shove the rifle into his chest. “When we approach, I’ll tell you what to do.”
He nods and exhales. His breath smells rancid, like old sauerkraut mixed with limburger and braunschweiger. The expression on my face must give away my disgust. He jerks back and presses his lips together. He knows it’s bad.
“Just breathe on the guards,” I suggest. “That’ll knock them out.” I nod my head in the direction of the hallway, instructing him to move.
“I had dinner, I’m at the end of my shift.”
I pull the Tec-9 sling over my head and carry the machine pistol vertically, against my chest, as though I’m in a color guard. It’ll remain hidden from the guards until the last possible second.
About twenty yards ahead, the hallway widens and intersects with another corridor that runs right and left. Parked in the middle of the intersection is a lectern and pair of guards. Above them is a security camera.
“Act normal,” I whisper to the sergeant. “Whatever the protocol would be, follow it.”
He nods and waves to the guards up ahead.
“Comrades,” he calls out, “I have a visitor here. He has a delivery for the female guest who arrived within the hour. Can you sign us in and direct us to the woman?”
“Sergeant,” one of the guards calls back, tilting his head to his left, “The visitor is at the end of the hallway. What is the delivery? Who is this man?”
The other guard, the one who hasn’t spoken yet, is built like a juiced professional wrestler. He’s easily six foot five, and two hundred fifty pounds of muscle. His AK is a toy in his meat hook hands.
“He is from DHL,” the sergeant says, his voice quavering. “He has a package for the woman.”
The shorter guard’s eyes narrow as he tries to peek around the sergeant to get a better look at me as we approach the desk. “What is the delivery, Sergeant?” He tightens his grip on his rifle and moves the barrel toward us. He swallows hard.
The sergeant starts shaking his head as we step to the lectern and the large guard’s eyes catch the Tec-9 in my hands. He raises the AK and yells for us to stop. I use all of my force to shove the sergeant in the middle of his back and drop to my knees, sliding to my left and away from the larger guard.
The sergeant trips forward, stumbling into the lectern, which in turn falls back into the smaller guard. The guard’s neck snaps back and his head slams onto the floor with a thud. Both men lose their weapons, which rattle onto the linoleum and slide a good ten feet from the dog pile to my right.
The large guard swings his rifle toward me. I snap off a short burst, which hits his AK, knocking it from his hands and putting a hole in his left wrist. He bellows something in Russian and lunges toward me, leaping over the sergeant, the lectern, and the other guard lying unconscious underneath both.
On both knees, I aim directly at the behemoth’s chest and pull the trigger.
Click!
Another two pull.
Click! Click!
Jammed!!!
The Hulk lands squarely on top of me, pressing my shoulders to the floor. My legs fold back, wrenching my surgically repaired knee. That pain is almost instantaneously replaced with the crack of the ogre’s fist plowing into my jaw. A second punch knuckles my neck just behind my ear. A third from his bloody left hand drives into my temple.
Against the ringing in my ears and his immense mass, I struggle to free myself, squirming on my back like a beetle. I somehow manage to reach my hand into my waistband and snag the Smith & Wesson.
Another blow to my head and I can’t see clearly, but there’s surprisingly little pain now. The adrenaline coursing through me has me on whacked out survival mode. The barbarian rears back, straddling me, clenching his fists together, as though he’s about to plunge a sword into me, and drives his joined hands together into my gut, forcing the wind out of me.
The shift in his weight, and my instinctive wrench against the punch frees my left hand enough that I yank the Smith & Wesson out from under the back of his thigh. He swings down a second time and I bury the muzzle into his midsection.
Pop!
The gunshot is muffled, nearly silenced in his girth but it does little to sway him.
Pop!
The second shot does the damage. His swing into my sternum is ineffectual and he falls to the side into the fetal position, grabbing his gut and screaming unintelligibly.
I roll over in the opposite direction, feeling the drool run down my cheek and on the floor as I battle to find air. From my position on the floor I can see the sergeant scrambling to grab the loaded AK-12 farther down the hall.
Switching the revolver to my right hand, I’m able to fire off another shot.
Pow!
Shot shell sprays outward, lodging itself in the fallen lectern, the unconscious guard on the floor, and the sergeant’s butt.
He cries, grabbing for his backside, loses his balance, and falls down again. From this distance, maybe seven or eight feet, the spray didn’t do much damage but it’ll keep him down long enough.
I suck in a shallow breath, followed by a deeper one, and push myself to my feet. I’m a little off-balance, and steady myself against the wall long enough to focus.
I’ve got three shots left in the Smith & Wesson and the Tec-9 is jammed. To my left, about fifteen feet from me are two AK-12s, one of them likely with a full magazine.
I stagger past the intersection toward the AK when, from the corner of my eye, I catch movement in the distance to my right. At the end of the hallway, where the guard says Bella’s being held, there are two men running toward me. Both of them are armed.
Then from behind me another sound. The elevator opens and two more men, one of them the young comrade from the security desk upstairs, are marching at me with their AKs leveled in my direction.
The sound of the gunfire is deafening. Bursts of semi-automatic fire interchange with the percussion of large caliber handguns.
My dive across the hallway lands me just short of the two AK-12s. On my elbows, I inch my way to the one missing the magazine. I pull the cartridge from my waistband and slap it into the rifle, roll over onto my back, and sit up to take aim.
I’ve got partial coverage from the fallen lectern in front of me, which is obscuring the view of the two guards coming from the direction of the elevator and the card-coded door. They’re not an immediate concern.
I press the AK into my shoulder, feeling its heavier weight than a M16, adjusting my hold for the shorter barrel. My legs spread into a wide V for balance, I tilt my head and look through down the barrel at the blur of a civilian rounding the corner to my left.
He takes the corner a li
ttle wide, slipping on the linoleum, and I trace his movement for a beat before pulling the trigger.
Pop! Pop! Pop! With surprisingly little recoil, a quick three round burst finds its target in the civilian’s head, snapping his neck backward violently and he goes down.
I reset to my left and follow the second civilian as he too slips too far around the corner.
Pop! Pop! Pop! His right shoulder, where it joins his neck, disappears behind a spray of red. His momentum carries him backward into the wall.
Now back to the guards who’ve quickly closed their distance, the sounds of their semi-automatic fire whizzing uncomfortably close to my head. The lectern is splintering into a heap of wooden shards, one of which finds its way into my shin.
Their fire is coming in waves, not bursts. Though there must be multiple settings on the AK, I can’t even think about switching modes.
I tilt my head again to aim just as a bullet grazes my shoulder, ripping a hole in the DHL shirt. Another bullet skims my bicep, drawing blood.
I ignore it, exhale, steady, and frame my target. Pop! Pop! Pop! The guard from the desk upstairs goes down, his right thigh shredded. He’ll live as long as I didn’t hit his femoral artery.
Pop! Pop! Pop! The second guard takes two in the arm, one in the hand. He’s down.
Amidst a horrifying chorus of wails and cries, I find my feet again, grab the second AK-12, and march hurriedly down the corridor where I hope to find Bella.
CHAPTER 19
I’ve got one AK slung across my shoulder, the other at waist level and ready to fire as I approach the last door on the right.
I press my back against the wall adjacent to the door, trying to ignore the cries for help amidst the carnage thirty yards behind me.
“Bella!” I call out. “Bella, are you okay?”
Nothing.
“Bella! I’m coming for you on three. One!” I spin, kicking the door with all of my force just below the tarnished brass knob. The frame splinters and the door flies inward, hanging on only part of its hinge.