by Finian Blake
Mark called on the radio, “The fourth man is down we are moving upstairs, load the others up.” Angela moved into the house following Nadia up the stairs. Her weapon was pointed high to cover anything overhead. Brent, Tom and Ryan started to secure and load the four prisoners in their van.
Mark went to the master bedroom finding the farmer and his wife tied on the bed. Before removing the tape from their mouth, Mark reassured the man and his wife.
“We are here to help.” He removed the tape from their mouth and untied them. “Everything is under control.”
The farmer was panicked, “There are eight more men. They left to kill someone! You must call the police!”
“We caught them at their target. They will not hurt anyone.” The man was confused, and his wife was in hysterics.
Nadia and Angela noticed that they had a Ukrainian accent. Angela started to comfort her speaking in Russian. The farmer continued to speak to Mark in English.
“They are very well armed. They will succeed! They are very bad men!”
“They are all under our control,” Nadia reassured them. “Right now, we need you to come with us. We have a doctor where we are going and he will check you out. We are with hostage rescue.” As they walked down the stairs the farmer looked around. There was no sign of any damage. He looked out the front door, and saw a van driving out the drive. Mark loaded them in the second van and handed them blind folds.
“These are for your protection. You cannot see where we are going. Please put these over your eyes.”
The couple quickly complied as the van pulled off on its trip back to the Inn.
The farmer’s wife said, “I have seen the tall lady before. She is the chauffeur that drives the fancy car and works at the Inn down by the river.” It was hard to hide Nadia, since people noticed her wherever she went. A six foot six raven haired Amazon would be noticed wherever she went.
“Take your blind folds off. We are British intelligence you must not speak about this to anyone. We can discuss this when we get you to where we are going.”
The farmer was confused, “But the ladies both speak perfect Russian. They calmed my wife.”
“Yes, we know who we are dealing with.” Nadia switched to a Ukrainian dialect. The farmer’s wife was so glad to hear her native dialect that she would not stop talking for the entire trip. Mark drove the van to the Inn pulling up to Susan’s house passing the other van as it was driving into the stable. Vasyl and his wife Hanna were escorted to Susan’s dining room and introduced to Sarah and Alice. They were pleasantly surprised when Sarah greeted them in Ukrainian.
“This is Alice, she is a doctor. We need to be sure that you are unharmed. Would you like some tea?” Vasyl and his wife visibly relaxed with the warm greeting that they received. Alice spoke Ukrainian to them as she examined them. Sarah brought out cakes and a loaf of warm black bread with butter. They were served Russian tea, in glasses with silver holders. “Our hostess does not speak Russian. May we continue our discussions in English?” Hanna was disappointed. She only heard her native Ukrainian dialect at home. Alice gave both people a quick examination to be sure that they were not seriously injured.
Susan continued the conversation in English, “I am sorry for your troubles. Our doctor feels that you have suffered no permanent harm.” Hanna pointed to the bandage on Susan’s arm.
“Are you alright?”
“It is only a scratch. Please help yourselves to whatever you would like, and we will continue when you have served yourselves.” Susan waited until everyone settled in with their food. Hanna admired the silver holders for the tea glasses, and the utensils were silver. These were people of quality. She noticed the women’s clothing, it was all high quality and custom made.
“I was a seamstress by trade before I came to England. I could not help noticing the workmanship of your clothing.” Susan could tell that Hanna was relaxing if she could talk about clothing.
“We will discuss that later. We have other things to discuss right now. We cannot have you tell anyone about what happened tonight. Is there any way that we can talk you out of going to the police?”
Hana was adamant, “These are evil men, and they must be punished. We must report this.”
“Yes, they are evil and they will be punished. I will assure you that you will never see or hear from them again which the law will not do.” The tone of Susan’s assurance chilled Hanna and Vasyl. There was not one speck of doubt in her voice. “It is critical that this is never mentioned to anyone. Your home will be repaired and you will be compensated. When you greet your neighbors, say that it was just another night.” It would not really be a problem for Vasyl or Hanna. The neighbors did not talk to them anyway. These were powerful people, yet they did not threaten in the least. There were several people here that spoke their language. Hanna was beginning to wonder if they were not spies too.
Vasyl tried for a reaction, “We will say nothing. We would like to be your friends.”
Susan smiled warmly at the two of them, “Thank you I have some business to attend to please enjoy your breakfast.” As she left the room, the language switched back to Ukrainian. Sarah assured Vasyl and Hanna of her friendship. Susan walked back to the stable. Anna, Nadia and Angela had been chosen to interrogate the prisoners since they spoke several dialects of Russian. They pretended to be KGB to confuse them further threatening the men’s families and loved ones after all these were defectors. Nadia, Anna and Angela were just finishing up their interrogation.
All of the intruders were close to the operation in Chicago. They provided a great deal of detailed information about the operations of the two generals. They ran extortion, drugs, gambling, and prostitution. Their prostitution ring was more like sexual slavery. They kidnapped young run away girls forcing them to whore for them. They were not worried about the girls getting pregnant. They forced them to have babies selling them to an adoption agency run by one of the other generals. There was a high premium for drug free white babies. They fed the girls fertility drugs, which assured multiple births. Once the girls entered the house they never left alive. When the girls were no longer profitable or too much trouble they would be used in snuff films. The generals terrorized the neighborhood that they lived in trying to extort all of the businesses in the area. They sold the babies to an adoption agency run by the third general out in California. He would squeeze as much money as possible out of the prospective clients claiming that the adoption agency in Russia wanted more money, or they had to pay for medical bills. The couples that paid enough received babies. Those that did not lost their investment.
The generals would bring their soldiers over on a tourist visa. When they arrived, they would get fake papers. They worked for the generals, so the other identification was a formality. Anna looked at Alex.
“We should have done something when they tried to kill Sarah. We have to eliminate more than just them.”
“Squeeze them some more. I want addresses and layouts for the buildings. We only brought the people out from the farm. We need to retrieve all of their equipment. There may be something there we can use. I was thinking that we could make this look like a Spetsnaz action against traitors. Alex walked Susan back to the house. Vasyl and Hanna were standing on the porch talking to Sarah and the girls. The Twin Otter banked and flared Roger landed on the center road using only half of the road. Vasyl and Hanna were surprised to see that a plane could land here.
“You have a runway!”
“Yes, you must come back this afternoon after you have had a chance to clean up. We will take you home, but invite you to return later when we can talk more freely. Nadia and Sarah will take you home now. We need to clean up the rest of this mess.” Nadia pulled the van around while Alex instructed her on what to look for. Tom, Brent and Alex went through their gear keeping anything of use, loading anything that needed disposal in the plane. They spread plastic throughout the plane also loading some rocks to weight the plastic down. They stripped the
prisoners naked, and stripped the corpses loading the bodies forward with the prisoners sitting in the back by the door. Sarah returned from the farm with their gear loading all the items that they might want to dispose of, on the Twin Otter and any useful items were stored for later use. Lynn elected to go along with Alex on the flight wanting to see them start their journey to hell. These assassins shot both her partner and her dog. Alex and Lynn sat as far back in the cabin as they could. Roger was in the cockpit alone. With the twelve people and their gear Roger decided to use the whole runway, flying North-North-West, for three hundred and fifty miles. When the plane reached the target area, Alex opened the door. They were at twenty thousand feet, and Rodger did a slow three sixty to make sure that there was no surface traffic. The first man by the door was the one that shot Susan and Shultz. Lynn screamed in his ear.
“You shot my lover and my best friend. Go to hell.” She gave him a vicious kick to start him on his 20,000-foot trip with a scream. The rest fought as best they could, but to no avail after which Alex rolled the bodies out. Roger flew fifty miles south from where they threw out the gear and then launched the weighted plastic. Alex closed the door inspecting the cabin. The plastic had done its work. The cabin was clean. Lynn sat on the floor crying the whole way back. Alex sat down next to her holding her for the return trip.
“Revenge does not work,” Alex pulled Lynn close to him. “They had to go as a matter of business and that is why we did it.” Roger landed at the Inn and washed out the main cabin of the Otter.
Alex was on his last legs as Nadia came running up to the plane. “Anna needs to talk to you right away. She is in the security building with Susan and Sarah.” When he entered the conference room Anna pushed a folder across the table. There were pictures of several people at the Inn. This was in their gear. Fighting exhaustion, Alex did not catch on right away. Anna pushed another folder across the table. It was the same as the one from Dianne’s stash that they retrieved in Barcelona. The pictures are identical to those that were in the first folder.
Anna was fuming, “That ‘Mercury’ bitch set us up. That is how she was so certain that she would take over Susan’s operation. She gave all of this to the generals. Laurita helped them plan this little raid.” Sarah pushed a stack of driver’s licenses from the intruders across the table.
“The street is the same and some of the numbers are on opposite sides of the street.” Alex looked at the addresses. They were in the same general area that Chloe and Pat originally lived in.
“They set up shop in my old neighborhood.” It only took a few seconds to come to a decision. “We are going to need a full scale operation. Call Frank and have him return with Suki. I will take Liliana and Roger with me. We will clean out all of their European stashes. Keep Alice and Grace here with Edward and have Mark call our best auxiliaries to take over security. I am going to take anyone willing to go with me. It will only be a matter of time before they try something more extreme. I know that there is only one source for this information, and more than ever I am glad that we took her out now.”
Anna was not so kind, “That flaming bitch, I feel like digging her up and killing her again. I am in on your plans whatever they are. Sarah is in, and the girls will go too.”
Mark had already polled the ‘Old Men’, “I am in, Brent, Tom, and Ryan, are in too. I am sure that Frank and Suki are good to go also.”
“I am in.” Lynn offered.
“I am in also.” Susan added.
“We will discuss the roster plus we are going to need to hold down the home front.” Alex did not want to take all of the Inn’s staff. “I want Alice and Grace to stay here too. With General Zarcalov in LA, I don’t want to take a risk. We also need someone to watch Edward.”
Alice exploded, “I have a graduation, and a life to live. I am going home. Grace has a business to run and we also need to plan the clinic.” Alex knew that he could not ask Alice to baby sit, but something had to be worked out.
“We need to work out some kind of protection. It will be a few days before we come up with a plan. You do have your life to live, but we need to work out some kind of protection.”
Alex decided to start his collection with the stashes in London while Mark started planning the raid on the Generals. Nadia did the driving in a hired car. Alex was not surprised to find that they were in the same building as Dianne’s stashes, only in a different apartment. He followed the notes finding gold coins, diamonds and cash totaling one and a half million Pounds. He also found some more black mail documents and false IDs for ‘Mercury’. Nadia helped him load the stash in the car.
The second stash held one million Pounds, plus more false IDs for Laurita. She had been hiding a lot from Juan. Laurita was running her separate enterprise independent of him. Alex found a few more of Dianne’s snuff films along with some still shots. Juan’s stashes were numbered accounts in banks. The notes from the safe had all of the account numbers and passwords. Alex made a transfer to the hub accounts in Zurich. There were just under, twelve million Pounds in those accounts. The take for the day was fourteen point seven million Pounds between Laurita and Juan. Juan’s accounts became Laurita’s when he died, so Alex did not feel like he was ripping off Juan.
When they arrived back at the Inn, Alex turned the black mail evidence and false IDs over to the women for evaluation. He gave Nadia and Angela fifty thousand pounds for their help and Susan a half million for the use of the Inn after which he collapsed into bed and slept until dinner. When he awoke Alex found a note on the bathroom mirror. DINNER WILL BE IN THE SECURITY CENTER.
There were several people drinking and browsing on appetizers when he arrived. Alex noticed Vasyl and Hanna chatting with Anna, Sarah and the girls. As he walked up he could hear them speaking Ukrainian and he could smell the Russian cuisine coming from the kitchen. Anna greeted him with a passionate kiss.
“I hope that you don’t mind us speaking Ukrainian. It has been so long since Hanna has heard her native language that she is in heaven when she hears it. Sarah and I are debriefing them. We are trying to find out anything that we might have missed this morning. Vasyl slaughtered a suckling pig and Hanna brought some dishes. We introduced her to Beth and Arlene and I believe that they will hire her for their shop.” Anna grabbed Alex’s arm as he started to walk away. “Before you go, they both swear that they will not tell anybody about our problem this morning. I am so glad that we were able to work something out without any unpleasant discussion.” Anna gave him a light push in the direction of Susan.
As he neared her, Alex noticed that Susan was not in a happy mood.
“You have done it again,” Susan said with a frown. “We went through the documents that you brought with you from Laurita’s stash in Spain. There are a few hot items. The snuff reel that you found shows Laurita as a major player. This particular reel shows a very prominent person actively snuffing victims. The stills are a repeat of footage from the reel. It is my guess that they are blackmailing those people. Laurita is wearing a wig and some makeup, but there was no doubt about who it was. She has a tattoo on her back that is a dead giveaway. It seems that she prefers bleeding to smothering.” Sarah looked over the IDs, Ramon made one set and the others are inferior. The address on one of the cheap sets is the same address that the generals are using. “We have to assume, they know everything that she knew. Jeff told me that the generals would not deal with him because of his price.” He looked over the papers from the farm as Susan continued, “The documents are cheap, and will not standup to hard inspection. They shipped their gear over on Everywhere Air under a ‘Mercury Black’ counter sign.” The anger flared on Susan’s face. “I actually helped them move their gear! The paper work is in my office with my signature on it! Are you sure that Laurita is dead?”
Alex issued his assurances, “I threw the dirt on her face myself and her head separated from her body. We also killed the henchman Paul who was the voice of ‘Mercury’. Liliana was her maid and nobody else cam
e to the house. I made all of my arrangements through for Everywhere Air with the exception that you handled the paperwork there should be no record of the Inn. I personally paid all of the expenses in cash and upfront and all of my transactions with the Inn have been in house with Lynn. The generals have a minimum of information about the Inn. I still blame Dianne for Terri’s death, and Laurita was directly linked to Dianne. Susan, I have not forgotten about Terri. With this information, I feel that ‘Mercury’ is directly responsible. ‘Mercury’ is dead, and I intend to deal with the after effects in short order. I need to call Wanda to see what she needs. I have a feeling that it is related to our problem.” Before he could leave there was a call to dinner. Anna joined Alex at Susan’s table.
Anna went straight to her problem, “That team did not end up at Vasyl’s farm by chance. Sarah was in the forging section at spy school for a while. She thinks that they are sleepers. Sarah is working on them now. If the general that we know as Victor has a list, he can use patriotic spies for his criminal operations. Vasyl and Hanna were not happy with their treatment by the raiders. The team leader made no pretense about killing them when the job was done because the generals are hotter with Russia than they are with us. Sarah has patience and before they leave we will have what we need without being nasty. We want to know how they were contacted. I don’t think that there is any love for the generals there.”
“Have her stay at it,” Alex said. I need to talk to Lynn and Liliana. I will report to them on collecting the stashes. We may have some more people hurt by ‘Mercury’s’ actions.”
Susan broke in, “What should we do with the black mail material?” She did not wait for Alex to answer. “My first inclination is to turn it all over to MI for action. I can’t find anybody that even remotely deserves a break. Nobody knows that ‘Mercury’ is dead. We can make it look like she turned them all in to MI and they can squeeze the smucks.”