by Tobias Roote
In his head he heard a chuckle and realised Zirkos was listening in.
Zeke still wasn’t finished. He had a lot more to say.
“Now I know transportation is a serious issue, so here is my simple offer to you,” he said, turning to Romanov.
“If you find that you are unable to collect and deliver all of the necessary materials and finished products in a timely and productive manner, I promise I will come down and personally test out my new fleet of anti-gravity vehicles to manage it for you. They are all controlled by robots so none of your drivers would be required.”
Romanov went a decidedly angry red colour. He was definitely the most volatile of the lot, Zeke decided.
“I warn you, Romanov, I can follow every single one of your trucks, drivers and every piece of cargo that moves inside Russian borders. I will know if you are not cooperating. You will not know anything from me until I remove you and your people.” The warning left the thug nicely simmering.
Zeke congratulated himself, politics was a breeze !
“Now, Leibowitz,” Zeke turned to the last member of the little cabal.
He was a nasty looking sort, not big like the others. He smoked black cheroot type cigarettes that reeked of camel dung and he always wore his black leather gloves. A fetish, they had decided. He liked wearing the German round glasses that always seemed to be fashionable amongst the certain few. His grey suit looked a little unkempt, as if he had worn it a few too many years. Too tight to buy a new one, Zeke suspected.
“That’s not a Russian name, is it ? East German ? Ex Stasi, I would guess. You didn’t like the other side of the Berlin wall because you had no opportunity to ply your trade.”
The only response was a single eyebrow raised as Leibowitz sucked on his cheroot nervously.
“Well, I’m very sorry to say you are going to have to retire. We have every intention of ensuring everyone will have a protection shield, which means your ability to fix problems for your friends will no longer be possible.”
Zeke smiled at them all then.
“We,” he gestured including all of them in his sweeping hands, “are very grateful for your input, but we also know that some of your friends in West Germany have been looking for you for a while, so, I have personally arranged for you to make an unscheduled visit to see them.”
He smiled maliciously, he really didn’t like this little guy. He was an evil bastard who was just about to get his just desserts.
“You are leaving for a long holiday, just about...... now !” And with that, Leibowitz disappeared.
He would be most hurt to find he had been dropped into a holding cell at Interpol’s Berlin headquarters, along with a pile of brown folders, photos and tapes, retrieved from the hidden filing cabinets of his private apartments.
Other such documents had been distributed amongst other western nation Police forces. A lot of case files would soon be made available to Nuremberg, for prosecution of their new star genocidal killer.
The other three stepped back, seeing their little fixer friend disappear like that. Zeke thought it was probably a good message to leave them thinking about, while he and Zirkos continued organising the replacements that, they had no doubt at all, were going to be needing shortly.
“So, gentlemen,” he winked conspiratorially. He knew they wouldn’t understand the gesture, but keeping body language on the attack was something he was learning to do.
“I will come back to see you three in one weeks’ time. We will meet here, at the same time, and I expect to hear from you that everything I have requested today is being delivered. Yes ? Are we in agreement ? And, if any of you don’t turn upto this little meeting, well ! You saw what happened to your little friend a moment ago.....”
He looked at them and noted their stubborn burning anger was begining to surface, time to go, he decided. Thank God for personal shields. Without it, he had no doubt he would have been torn limb from limb.
These were not people used to being talked to in that way, and Zeke was acutely aware of the battle they had on their hands. One they would win, but nonetheless, they had to be given the opportunity to change.
“Good ! Thank you, Gentlemen. Nice doing business with you all.” Ship D-Jumped Zeke back to the control room.
Zirkos was laughing, which was funny to watch. It was something that had infected him since they had met, as a lot of human mannerisms seemed to. If it hadn’t been for the silvery tint to his skin, he would have been as human as the rest of the planet.
“What do you think, next week ? Ambush, or compliance ?” Zeke smiled, relieved the confrontation was finally over.
“Oh ! Ambush, for sure,” he reckoned, “they were not at all happy with you. I think they will attempt to overpower you with numbers, or something we haven’t yet considered.”
“Yes, I suggest we undermine their power base over the next week. We have enough people in place on the ground down there that can take over when the time comes.”
Zeke thought for a moment.
“I will go down and talk to Nublenko, he needs to know his cells are going to fill up this coming week.”
“Ship ? Do me the honour of putting me into Nublenko’s office, please.”
Nublenko was in the middle of roasting a young recruit when Zeke appeared behind the young man.
“Mr Callaghan, your timing is perfect. Please tell this poor excuse of a police officer that the force shields will be here soon. So, he won’t have to worry about getting his pretty face shot up.” He looked back at the officer and tossed his head towards the door.
The poor lad got the message and skidded out relieved to be free of his roasting.
“Petrov, it’s been a difficult week,” Zeke began, hands splayed out in the Russian mob’s style of placating mannerisms.
They laughed, both knowing the problems that were dogging them all.
“Okay, here’s the real deal, Petrov. The whole thing is about get really exciting,” Zeke grinned, rubbing his hands gleefully. The meeting with the mobsters had got his adrenalin flowing.
“How much room do you have in your cells ? If I fill them, can you process them ?”
“Hah ! The jails in this place are bigger than the offices.” Nublenko threw his hands out, indicating the size of the place. It was huge.
“These were the ones used by the KGB and GRU. You could put an army in here and lose them for a year and when you found them again, you would discover they had eaten half their men and used the bones to begin digging tunnels to the outside.” He laughed at his own humour.
Zeke suspected that it was in part, true, and wasn’t prepared to consider which part that might be.
Instead he updated Petrov with the results of his meeting.
“Right then, listen to this. We have just set up a showdown with your mob leaders and things are going to get a little rough. We will do what we can to keep it away from your officers and the innocent public, but I need to store the soldiers until it’s over. You can do what you like with them when we have finished.”
Petrov’s eyes widened as Zeke told him of their intentions. He hadn’t ever seen them in action properly, but had a fair idea of what Zeke and his friends could do, especially the disappearing and arriving bit. He had no doubt that his jails were going to fill up. He just hadn’t quite come to terms with how full they were going to be.
Zeke needed to get some kind of visual of the jails so Nublenko showed him around. They were, indeed, enormous, and dank, somewhere no-one would want to be, except as a fleeting visitor. He imagined the people who had been incarcerated here in the past with no hope of reprieve. Zeke sighed, humans were real bastards most of the time.
Ship had taken the coordinates of each of the rooms as they proceeded through them and would use them to drop people in there as they were ‘cleaned up’.
After a few more details and stopping to down a quick red pepper vodka with a strong coffee, Zeke managed to leave Petrov ready
to organise World War III. He didn’t think he would be seeing him again until all this was over.
- 21 -
Zeke and Ship monitored the Russians for any relaxation of the mob’s stranglehold over the coming week. There was little change, and if anything, some aspects were harsher. Every time Ship picked up someone and dropped them into the Russian jail, there was another one ready to take their place. Zirkos sighed.
“They breed, these black tattooed bears. Is it that vodka liquid they drink that does it ?” asked Zirkos
“Yes. No, it’s an all out power play,” Zeke laughed. “ They are saying, for every soldier you take, we will put up two in their place.”
Zeke leaned across the table that had become their base of operation.
“I have an idea.”
Two hours later, Ship came under some heavy pressure as Zirkos and Zeke continued to identify soldiers of the Russian mob and, as quickly as they were identified, they were removed. New ones replaced them, only for those ones to be removed. By the end of that day, there was no longer two for one, and it was more likely one for two, as the supply of soldiers dried up. The effect on the streets, factories and businesses was electric.
The next day there was a change in the atmosphere on Moscow’s streets. People gathered to make sense of the disappearing minders. As soon as a new one arrived, barking orders, they disappeared, never to be seen again.
The people started to rebel. The factory workers had a different attitude and they sensed things were changing. Zeke put the odd person in place to keep the rebellion on an even keel, but word was getting out. The mob were being cleared out to make way for a new way of working.
The following day, all hell broke loose. The mob leaders decided they needed to make a big stand, so they took over a large government building and holed up in it with what was left of their soldiers and explosives, booby trapping the whole complex.
They had amassed several hundred innocent employees in there, all wired to packs of DXC, a Russian-made explosive of incredible power. The victims, if it all went off, would be nothing but smears on the moon. The building would cease to have a GPS coordinate. It was their endgame, Zeke realised.
Zeke and Zirkos studied the building. They would be unable to remove that many people with so many of them wrapped in the explosive. It looked like a dangerous stand-off that came immediately to a head when Romanov decided to start shooting at the police cars outside. A typical stunt, but it had the effect of galvanising Zeke into action.
“How big a beam can you create with Ship ?”
“Are you thinking to D-Jump everyone out of there ? It won’t work, there are too many.”
“No, I have a better idea. Ship, can you detect the molecular composition of the DXC they are using ?”
“Affirmative.”
“Are you able to change the molecular composition, without being detected, to say, this ?” He held up his hand and showed Ship what was in it. Ship scanned it.
“Affirmative.”
“Ship, proceed with transfer of molecular composition of the DXC. Advise time to completion.”
“Started. Time to completion in ‘invisible mode’ is eight minutes and twenty four seconds.”
“Ship, D-jump me to the main entrance of that building, stand by to remove the three leaders when I say clear. At the same time remove all weapons from the soldiers.
Zeke arrived at the front entrance, a commanding edifice that housed the municipal tax office. It would be no great loss to the locals if the building with all their records went up. He reckoned half of Russia would be routing for the mob leaders, despite the havoc they created with the economy.
“ROMANOV ?” Zeke hollered.
“ROMANOV, I’M COMING IN !” Zeke shouted, as he headed for the steps.
He didn’t for one minute, believe he would be allowed to reach them before they responded aggressively.
He was right. Within a second, the whole of the front of the building seemed to open fire, as all of Romanov’s men moved into position in the window frames and began spraying him with bullets. The front of the shield went red in patches as it absorbed the heat of the shells and contact friction. The shells themselves either ricocheted off somewhere, or landed on the ground, spent and buckled.
Zeke saw an anti-tank weapon and flinched, wondering if the penetration of the shield into the ground would provide him with sufficient stability to withstand the blast. His bio-readings would indicate his concerns to the shield, and he hoped it would dig in.
He considered moving out of the way, using his enhanced speed, but this would mean the police vehicles and bystanders might get caught in the blast instead. Zeke decided he would have to try and absorb the impact.
A shape appeared beside him. Zirkos ! Their shields instantly melded just as a gout of smoke and flame erupted from the shoulder-held tube. Zeke saw the trail in the second it took to reach them. Bracing themselves against the incoming missile, he wondered just how they would survive. They had never personally tested these shields at such extremes.
As the impact hit, Zeke felt extreme pressure and some of the heat leaked through the screen of the forcefield.
The blast burned the shields to a dark red glow, but they held, keeping them rooted to the ground beneath as the explosion raged around them. Clarity returned as the smoke and the shields cleared.
Despite the massive impact crater where the blast had spread along the bottom edge of the shield, Zeke and Zirkos had stood firm. There was damage all around them, shrapnel from the anti-tank missile everywhere, but nobody had been harmed. All shields had held.
“I think we were expected,” Zeke smiled at Zirkos.
“Ready ?”
They walked slowly to the main entrance and, as gunmen appeared, Ship picked them off with needle accuracy and they disappeared into the depths of Petrov’s jailhouse.
Romanov appeared, the remote detonator in his hand.
“So, you think your shield can save all of these people, you stupid foreigner, meddling in the affairs of Mother Russia ?” He bellowed, finger poised above the button.
Zeke could speak without shouting
“Things are changing, Romanov. Your way isn’t the way to do things any more. It never was.”
“Oh, I think you won’t be so popular after this goes off,” retorted Romanov, safe behind his own forcefield shield. Zeke realised they could have just neutralised Romanov’s shield, but they didn't want that kind of knowledge to get out there yet. If ever.
‘DXC neutralised,’ came the mental message from Ship.
“Well ! if you are going to press it, you lily-livered coward, who Mother Russia would bury in the backyard along with the bones of the other chickens of your little gang, then go ahead !”
Romanov pressed the button. Nothing happened. He looked around confused when no explosion took the building apart. He ran back in through the main doors and disappeared inside.
‘Clear’ Zeke ordered via his implant. ‘Ship, take Romanov out of there first, before he shoots anyone.’
Climbing the steps outside the building, back to back, ensuring there were no more surprises, they reached the doors and walked in. Seeing the grenades lying to the side, seconds from exploding, Ship had visually intercepted using Zeke’s eyes and D-jumped them to a safe location before they went off.
Ship then grabbed whole groups of Romanov’s soldiers that they had already identified and removed them to the holding cells. Petrov would be rubbing his hands with glee, but before that he would tear his hair out trying to manage the chaos inside his jails.
As they began to release hostages, some of them threw off the satchels of explosives as if they were something evil and tried to get as far from them as they could.
However, when Zeke walked over to one of the bags and, rummaging around, brought out a stick of what looked like light brown plasticine, they stepped further back in fear of what was going to happen next.
Whe
n he bit off a piece of it and started chewing, their eyes popped, jaws dropping wide open. He turned to them and threw over a piece, they ran for cover.
One went back, picked it up and smelt it. “Almonds ?”
Zeke nodded and took another bite.
The Russian nibbled and laughed deliriously, almost hysterically. “Marzipan,” he shouted at the others, “it’s marzipan,” and broke off pieces to hand out.
By the time everyone had understood, and delved into their satchels, or bags which had, moments before, contained high-end explosive, to find it was only an almond paste sweet bar, the place was in uproar as relief swept through the building.
Zirkos and Zeke left them to it, as the Police began filing in to take statements and handle the aftermath of the chaos.
Back on the ship, Zeke stacked several blocks of the converted DXC on the side of the kitchen area as a reminder to himself to always think outside the box !
***
After the take-down of the Russian mob in Moscow, things began to move more smoothly. Other mob bosses, from the outlying areas, suddenly decided to cooperate with the initiative to manufacture personal shields. The two companies capable of building the city sized shields and power units were up and running in a matter of weeks and, within a further three months, Moscow lay under a protective shield of its own.
The citizens were happy to wear their own personal forcefields and, as the spread of them became more commonplace, the level of crime and violent assaults dropped to such low proportions, that the Police were often seen playing football with the kids in the street.
They soon became disgruntled when their forces reduced in size, due to lack of work, but then the factories producing the new technology took up the slack and the domestic Russian economy grew in leaps and bounds as prosperity went hand in hand with increased tourism. With the benefit of shielding in restaurants and cafés, al fresco dining became popular. The mob were not missed and, by now, most of the leaders had been incarcerated. Government officials that were linked to them, suddenly found themselves out on the streets, where corruption simply died because there were no more victims.