by Michael Priv
21
Lots of shooting and broken glass all over the pale, gleaming vinyl floors. Desks with glass tops, glass cubicle partitions, glass tactical boards, several rows of computer screens on one of the walls—dozens of screens. The Marines’ Special Ops C2 was made mostly of glass. This wasn’t the time to ponder the philosophical significance of this discovery. Maybe later.
A young, athletically-built blond guy, sporting a standard crewcut, and dressed in bloodied jeans and Kevlar over a dark t-shirt was crawling painfully toward me, reaching, shaking, propping himself on his other hand, the one still clutching a handgun. He must have taken a machine gun burst across his Kevlar and both shoulders and also across both legs, unless some of the blood on him was somebody else’s. A sizeable blood smear on the floor behind him originated somewhere in the bleak depths of the Control Room around the messy pile of dead bodies and overturned filing cabinets.
Only about six feet away, the wounded soldier froze, staring up from the floor, obviously startled to see me. He wasn’t reaching for me. His quick glance to my right betrayed his objective. With my gun trained solidly on his head, I stole a glance. A square recess in the wall by the door, which I had just come through, housed an unmarked red lever deep inside the niche. Must be the manual door lockdown override. Somebody must have interrupted or prevented the normal lockdown procedure. I bet that somebody had great health insurance coverage, including childcare and dental.
“ Stay down, I got it,” I assured the soldier and pulled down the lever. Something clicked inside the wall, presumably shutting off the entry card reader, and a steel security partition slid down from the ceiling, sealing off the entrance.
“Thanks,” he breathed out, uncertain now if I was a friend or foe. Although not truly a foe, his friend I certainly wasn’t, which is why I relieved him of his Glock and joined the firefight. This one was easy to figure out: Russians, Americans—anything that moved was a valid target for me.
The garage was my only objective —there I expected to find Linda. The way I figured it, the garage was at the far-left front corner of the building, while the Control Room was located at the far-left rear. That placed me right behind the garage area. Hang on,hon,
I’m almost there. Taking out a couple of targets, the Americans, who came into my field of vision, I moved carefully toward the front wall of the shuttered Control Room. A dead Russian attracted my attention mainly by his attire—dark-blue Adidas pants, a matching jacket and a white t-shirt. I wondered briefly if I could expect them all to be dressed that way.
I was fascinated by the computer monitors plastering the opposite wall: surveillance photos of my friends and me, satellite pictures of my neighborhood, Jane’s office building, Bill’s house in Sunnyvale, several mysteriously-pulsating thermal images, live traffic feed of what looked like Market Street, surveillance footage of people getting in and out of cars, digital schematics of audio recordings, more satellite shots, an x-ray video of some luggage moving through security, more satellite pictures and more thermal images. This furniture shop was not a one-off makeshift command center set up just for me; this was a permanent covert Special Ops Command & Control installation in the heart of San Francisco. Holy Jesus. Conspiracy theorists of the world unite! Once again, I had no time to ponder.
I dropped down to my knee and fired, almost by the far wall of the control room, reacting to some motion on my right. I missed. My gun was kicked out from my hand from the left by the Russian dressed in Adidas. A big guy. I rolled, coming out in a good position for a low kick. The Russian stumbled, I brought him down on top of me with another kick, this one to the side of his knee, noticing from the corner of my eye the second Russian, in position to take a shot. Several shots rang in rapid succession, pummeling the body of the Russian on top of me. He shuddered a few times and went still. I didn’t have a gun. The next shot of the remaining Russian would take me out. I kicked the dead body off me and rolled. The shots rang as expected, but the pain never came. I jumped to my feet.
The second Russian was dead, shot by an American soldier, who was looking at me through the scope of his M16 rifle. The soldier saved my life.
“Thanks, man,” I said, genuinely grateful.
“Who are you?” he asked, his rifle still plastered to his face. “Hey, aren’t you that kid, the clerk guy?”
“My name is Norman. How many times do I have to tell you people that I’m not a clerk?” This was beginning to get on my nerves. “Yeah, Norman, that’s right. You’re that terrorist kid, you motherfucker! You took out all our guys at…” The conversation had obviously degenerated into groundless rebukes and vague recriminations, so I dropped straight down on my butt with his shots ringing above my head, and kicked his feet from under him. As his body hit the gleaming floor next to me, in one fluid motion I yanked his knife off his belt and slashed the side of his face with it, giving him something else to worry about. With the soldier’s rifle in hand and my recovered Beretta in my pocket I rushed toward the Control Room entrance. A grenade explosion ripped a rugged hole in the wall, knocking me off my feet. I took a few shots at the shadows moving in the smoky darkness on the other side of the wall. Somebody yelled in pain.
I had to crawl the last few steps to the entrance door, as I was being shot at blindly through the thin wall from at least three points— all of them to the left of the door. As I kicked the door open, I emptied the big M16 into the hallway blindly and stole a quick peek. A couple of Adidas’ed motionless Russians decorated the floor, probably gotten by the grenade, and a couple of equally motionless Americans. Two other Americans were wounded, possibly by me, but still a threat as they looked battle worthy. The assault rifle was empty. I shot them both into their Kevlars and legs with the Beretta. The handgun froze open.
Shots rang behind me in the hallway. I rammed the opposite hallway wall in front me full speed, protecting my head with my hands and hoping desperately it was flimsy. I broke through the drywall and a tangle of metal studs and found a lunch room with several dead bodies strewn around. I could see the garage through the ripped-off door in the opposite wall. Finally, the garage!
Bullets kept pounding around me. Should probably get me a Kevlar vest next time. I hit the floor next to a dead, Adidas-clad body, and grabbed an AK from the floor that was slick with blood. The fire from my right had to be suppressed, or I’d either end up dead or pinned down. I loved the AK as soon as I squeezed the trigger. My new favorite weapon, a heavier gun, felt better, more solid, more balanced. It also seemed to be a noticeably more powerful weapon than the M16 and used .32 caliber bullets instead of .22 and had a 30-bullet clip. Having emptied the magazine blindly, I reloaded the AK with a clip I found on the dead Russian and burst into the garage just in time to see a Russian goon throwing two large suitcases into the back seat of one of their sedans, then hopping into the driver’s seat and taking off. The back door of his sedan flew open as he was pulling out and Linda rolled out, her hands bound behind her back. She scrambled away from the car. My fire burst into his back window went true. The car rolled to its left where it was stopped by the far garage wall, the car’s horn blaring.
My mad dash toward Linda was interrupted by gunfire as the second of the Russian sedans burst onto the scene. I rolled, taking cover behind a rather small wooden crate next to a way too narrow concrete pillar. Two Adidas men jumped out of the sedan, one of them with an RPG on his shoulder. A truly bad news. The other one kept me down with incessant gunfire. Firing my AK wildly, I darted back toward the lunch room but only managed a few steps, when the RPG round exploded the entire world behind me. Briefly I sensed flying through the air. Then a crash. Then nothing.
When I came around, the Russians and Linda were gone, and the garage was filling up with police officers in SWAT uniforms. The Russians still had Linda. Did they believe they got me? If they did, they’d kill Linda. I had to let them know I was still alive. Not looking for any cover, right then and there, with a shaking hand I called Eugene’s “b
lack” phone.
“Norm? I knew you’d make it, boy, good to hear your voice.” “Tell your goons to keep Linda alive or I’ll kill all of you and your families to the third of kin in the goriest way I know.” “ Don’t worry, man, she’s okay. I already told them. They said, ‘He’s dead! RPG! Blown to bits!’ but I said ‘No, he made it.’ So, yeah, look, kid, you know how much I love you, but you must understand the situation. You dragged us into a war with the goddamn Pentagon. Marines, Special Forces, man! You didn’t tell me before, did you? Are you out of your mind? You walked us right into this. What about the safety of my organization? We all got wives and kids to worry about, too. The fucking White House! Are you kidding me?”
“Let her go and I’ll disappear.”
“No, you come see me. I’ll let Linda go. You stay.” “Eugene, trust me, you don’t want me to come see you.” “Yes, I do.”
“You’ll kill Linda anyway. She knows too much.”
“She doesn’t know shit. She can’t connect me to anything. She’s only seen a few of my guys and now only two are still alive. I’ll transfer them to Texas or Sri Lanka somewhere. She got nothing on me. So, come on in like a man.”
“I’ll think about it.” I hung up. In my estimation, Eugene had received enough motivation to keep Linda alive for now and that was all I wanted. My shoulder was dislocated, my ears were ringing badly, my head was covered in blood from several lacerations, and I had a new sizeable gash on my thigh. Rough couple of days all around.
No way could I sneak out of here undetected. Half an hour ago there wasn’t any way in, now I couldn’t find any way out. Funny. Well, I did get in, didn’t I? But I failed to get Linda out. All for nothing. I was unarmed. Groping around for a weapon, I finally found a loaded Glock.
“Hey, I need a medic,” I yelled to the shadowy figures in the smoky garage. Almost immediately a blackclad cop leaned over me. “Stay calm, soldier,” he said. “The EMTs are here already. Hey, got a live one here!” he shouted.
After some rudimentary medical attention, such as an injection of something or other, hydrogen peroxide and some creative bandaging, the EMTs loaded me onto a gurney and off we rolled toward the ambulance, waiting outside. The familiar figure in brown, the UPS truck driver, was giving a statement to police in a loud tone of voice, referring to me as an “asshole” in his description. Fortunately, he did not recognize me with blood-soaked pads plastered to my head, as I was rolled past him.
The ambulance took off with a siren. A middle-aged EMT tech and his youthful female helper busied themselves rigging an IV. I pulled out my gun and cleared my throat significantly to get their attention. They both stared. “Guys, thank you very much for all you did for me and for your country. I want you to know you are in no danger. But I do need to get patched up and out of this ambulance very fast. I’m not going to the hospital. Understood?”
The girl nodded eagerly. She would like to see me go and the sooner, the better. Her boss was not convinced. “You have a concussion and that thigh should be looked at,” he stated, unafraid. Well, of course he wasn’t compliant, I just told him myself that he was in no danger, dah.
“Great! What’s your name, doc?”
“Burt,” he replied.
“And you?” I waved my gun at the girl.
“I’m Megan,” the girl said with some reservation.
“Okay, B urt, Meg, listen, it’s a matter of National Security. Sew me up, clean the blood off my face, get me a hat to cover the bandages, give me a couple of shots of antibiotics, pump me full of uppers—do your magic, guys. No time to waste. The country needs me. We will neverforget your service. You’re in this country’s rosters of heroes forever! You hear me?”
22 It only took an hour by taxi to cover a couple of miles from wherever the hell the ambulance dropped me off to Eugene’s mansion on Green Street. I would have probably walked faster free of charge.
Burt and Meg did a great job. A baseball hat covered the bandages. My jeans had to be discarded as they were ripped and covered in blood, so I was wearing Burt’s EMT dark-blues, a couple of sizes too big. With his pants off, Burt’s Fruit-of-the-Looms brightened up the ambulance considerably. I liked his pants, more room for my Glock and the knife.
I thanked Bill Hall silently for all the careful work he ’d done last summer to get Eugene to invite me over to his house to clean up his files and reload a few things on his home computers. Bill really wanted me to see where Eugene lived and meet his elderly housekeeper, Aunt Rosa. By then I had already met his very nice wife, Clara, at the café. I also knew his two school-aged sons. In addition to Eugene, his wife, their two sons, the housekeeper, a handyman, and the cleaning lady, Masha, they also had a live-in security guard, Oleg, a grim Russian Special Ops vet.
Eugene ’s enormous but impersonal mansion failed to impress me once again. To be polite, on my first visit I had to exaggerate my awe a tad. The reasoning behind living in such a huge and unwelcoming house escaped me. In life I often felt like a stranger at a party. Everybody else seemed to know exactly why people kissed ass, slaved, cheated, stole and murdered each other to live in huge, multimillion-dollar houses, such as this one. It made perfect sense to them. Eugene’s five thousand square foot, expensive monstrosity with an underground garage for a dozen cars sure felt like an inside joke to me.
At 10:30 a.m. I stood in front of Eugene ’s intercom, feeling mildly annoyed. The door opened. Sullen Oleg, the security guard, eyed me suspiciously.
“Hey, Oleg. Eugene sent me to check on the computers.” “He didn’t say anything to me. I’ll verify with Eugene. Stay here.” He took out his phone, peering at me, searching for any reaction. He found none.
“Go ahead.” I walked past him indifferently, ignoring his order, then turned, thrusting my commando knife into the base of his neck and covering his mouth with my hand. Oleg’s body kicked a few times and went limp in my arms. This didn’t seat well with me. I wish I could have avoided killing Oleg. I knew I couldn’t. He was simply too good. Sorry, man, no other way. Maybe I’ll make it up to you some time down the road. A lame excuse but you never know. I dragged his limp body behind the house into the manicured myrtle bushes, and pocketed his phone.
Aunt Rosa did not recognize me until I gave her the password “Britney Spears.” Then she was all hugs and smiles. She called me horoshiy malchik(good boy), ushering me into a kitchen roughly the size of my entire apartment, where the family spent most of their lives. As I’d found out on my first visit here last year, Aunt Rosa loved Britney Spears, so I put together a couple of CDs for her. Now in addition to Britney Spears, Aunt Rosa also loved me. Clara, Eugene’s wife, was still asleep.
I went to the porch and called Eugene from Oleg’s phone. Eugene answered with a short but passionate tirade in Russian, which was wasted on me in its entirety. “Listen to me, Eugene,” I interrupted, “ stop blabbering. Oleg’s dead. You know how much I love you? You’re like family to me. So, I swear to God, I will kill Clara and everybody else in your house, unless I see Linda back here in an hour in her car with my money to pick me up.”
“You, fuck! I’ll kill you!” Eugene blew up, but I interrupted again. “Oh, yeah , and did I tell you I rigged your house with explosives? The detonator is only good for a thousand yards or so. I leave with Linda with no problems, your family and your property are safe. At the sign of any of your people following us, you can kiss Clara’s ass goodbye. Clear?”
Eugene was silent for a long minute. I could make out the sounds of Good Morning America, partially buried under some Russian MTV videos. Four TV screens at the café offered patrons a variety of entertainment this morning. Despite the gravity of the situation, I was not worried. Eugene was a reasonable man. He would never risk a shoot-out in his own home, putting his wife in danger, just because somebody went beyond what was considered good manners among the Russian mafia types. The boss knew what I was capable of.
Eugene reached the intended conclusions and reluctantly promised to have
Linda there in a couple of hours. “And don’t call anybody here and keep your goons away from the house or I’ll start serving Clara to you in very small pieces,” I assured him.
“If you so much as touch a hair on Clara’s head,” he started. I hung up on him.
“Come! We’ll have some tea,” Aunt Rosa announced with a smile. “Where is Oleg?” “Don’t know, he was just here. He let me in.” I shrugged. “I’ll call him,” said Aunt Rosa. “He loves tea.”
Myopic Aunt Rosa started patting all horizontal kitchen surfaces in search of her cell phone. I whipped Oleg’s phone from my pocket and turned it off.
Aunt Rosa finally found her phone. “Strange,” she said. “Oleg isn’t answering. Goes straight to voice mail.”
“Probably doing something important. It’s okay, he’ll come later. Let’s have some tea.” “Yes! Let’s have some tea !”
“And invite Masha and Vadim, too.”
“They’re doing their chores,” the old lady started.
“I insist! There is always time for tea.”
“Sure!”
Masha, the cook, and Vadim, the handyman, were all too happy to oblige. A Russian tea ceremony could be as elaborate as the Japanese. Aunt Rosa placed dried, crushed tea leaves in a ceramic teapot, which she filled with boiling water, covered with the lid, and set it aside for some minutes. Then she boiled some more water in another pot and set it next to the ceramic teapot. Next, she took out a set of matching exquisite porcelain cups, into which she placed slivers of lemons. She and Masha pulled out over two dozen different types of cakes, pastries, and cookies, while repeatedly apologizing for not having any sweets at all for the dear guests—all accompanied by the dear guests’ incessant complements to the contrary.
I liked vanilla sushkithe best—kind of like a happy marriage between a donut and a hard pretzel, not very sweet. Aunt Rosa poured about half a cup of very strong tea from the ceramic teapot into my cup and diluted it with some hot water, adding a couple of teaspoons of sugar. That concluded the tea preparation ceremony and started the tea consumption ceremony, which lasted a couple of hours. This took stamina.