The building was part of a large fenced-off compound in the suburb of Muhaisnah. Like most of the structures in the area it was three stories high and constructed out of rendered concrete. Row after row of air conditioners jutted from the windows on each floor. At the front, vehicles were parked in a row. Nowhere was there a sign indicating it belonged to a construction company.
“Keeping it pretty low-key,” said Mitch to himself. He reached over and turned up the air-conditioning. The kaffiyeh he was wearing was drenched in sweat.
The compound’s steel gates swung open and a workman’s van drove in and parked next to the other vehicles. The door slid open and a pack of thugs climbed out. Mitch caught a glimpse of an assault rifle. “Bingo.”
His cell phone was sitting in his lap, a hands-free cable running to his ear. He hit one of the speed-dial buttons and it rang twice before Vance picked up. “Boss, this looks like the place. I just got a visual on four more heavies on target; looks like they’re packing at least one AK. They’re probably going to be ready for you.”
“Do they look Russian?” Vance did not sound concerned.
“Big, shaved heads, jeans, and T-shirts. Yeah, old man, I’d say they’re Russian mafia. I mean they’re not wearing Cossack outfits, but hey, it’s the next best thing.”
“OK, smartass, we’re a few minutes out. Give us any updates as you see fit.”
“Roger, Mitch out.”
***
“You sure this Simeon guy will be there?” Vance asked from the backseat as they sped along a multi-lane highway in one of their new Mercedes SUVs. Ice was driving with Bishop in the passenger seat.
“Yeah, he’ll be waiting,” Bishop replied. “But he won’t be expecting the shitstorm we’re bringing.”
All three PRIMAL operatives wore blue coveralls wrapped in assault body armor covered with pouches. Suppressed short-barrelled M4s hung from slings and Bishop also had a compact shotgun resting across his knees. Ice wore a backpack, pressed up against the car seat.
“What’s in the bag, Ice?” asked Vance.
“Some gear I thought we might need.”
“Bish, the upside to having a former Marine on your team is you’re never short on bang!”
Ice slowed as they approached the target address, the SUVs dark tinted windows keeping them hidden from view.
“That’s it,” said Bishop. “I can see Mitch’s car.”
Ice pulled over. “Everyone ready?” he asked as he pulled his Nomex balaclava on, adjusted his Oakleys, and activated his hearing protection.
Bishop followed suit, then drew back the bolt on his M4 a few millimeters to check that the first round was seated fully. “Ready.”
In the back Vance ran through his own checks. “Good to go.”
Fully kitted up with identical rigs, the three PRIMAL operatives could almost have passed for a police SWAT team.
Ice pushed down on the accelerator and the big V8 growled, launching them forward. Bishop felt a burst of adrenaline surge through his body.
The SUV bounced over the curb and its steel bullbar crashed through the gates to the compound. Ice brought it to a sliding halt in front of the office building. Bishop was out first, the shotgun in his shoulder. He aimed to the side of the door handle and fired.
The buckshot tore the lock from the door. Bishop pumped the shotgun and gave it another blast for good measure. Then he drove the barrel into the wood, pushing the shattered door open.
Ice lobbed in a flashbang. It detonated with a thump and he pushed inside, holding his M4 ready.
Inside the lobby a man lay on the floor, an AK assault rifle by his side. He moaned with hands clamped over his ears, eyes tightly shut. Ice kicked the AK away and covered the stairs. Vance was next in; he took up a position to the left of Ice covering the ground-floor doors.
Bishop entered last, the shotgun hanging from its sling. He took a pair of zip-ties from his vest and secured the shocked gunman.
A deafening volley of shots splintered the door in front of Vance, narrowly missing his head. He blasted the door with a long burst from his M4 then kicked it open. The bullet-riddled corpse of another mobster twitched on the floor.
Vance and Bishop worked as a team to clear the rest of the bottom floor. Once they’d made sure there were no more threats lurking in the other rooms they joined Ice back at the stairs.
Ice gave them a hand signal as he covered the stairs, indicating at least three more were on the upper floor.
“How we going to do this?” Bishop asked.
“We could always bring a few of them down to us,” said Ice.
“I like that idea. Let’s make it happen,” said Vance.
Ice took less than a minute to prepare his charges. He dragged a table across to the middle of one of the rooms and used it to reach the ceiling. He smashed the drywall from the roof with the butt of his M4 and taped the two pounds of semtex directly to the concrete. Once he was done he activated the fuse and moved back to the stairs.
“Five, four, three, two, one,” he counted.
The explosion was deafening and reverberated throughout the building. It fractured the entire floor of one of the upstairs rooms, causing it to collapse.
Bishop and Vance used the explosion as a distraction. They charged up the stairs and caught two gunmen cold in an office. They cut them down in a hail of gunfire.
Ice waited for the dust to settle before he rushed back into the room with the collapsed ceiling. There were two men lying in the rubble, covered in debris. One of them clutched a pistol. Ice shot him through the head. The other man struggled to get to his feet and Ice knocked him out with a swift kick to the face.
Back up on the upper floor a woman screamed from under a desk.
“Hey, it’s OK. We’re not going to hurt you.” Bishop offered her a hand and helped her up.
“All clear.” Vance appeared from one of the side rooms.
The woman’s eyes were wide with fear as she stared at the balaclava-wearing intruders.
“Keep an eye on her.” Bishop pushed open the door to the main office. Inside, the floor was completely missing. He could see down to where Ice was securing the hands of one of the Russians behind his back. Unlike the others, this man was of average build, and dressed conservatively with a suit jacket and slacks. “Vance, bring her here.” He waited until the woman was standing next to him. “Who’s that?” he pointed at the man Ice had captured.
She looked down into the rubble. “Simeon,” she whispered. “That’s Simeon.”
***
PRIORITY MOVEMENTS AIRLIFT HANGAR
Vance strode into the shipping container and the door slammed shut. He adjusted the mouth of his balaclava before approaching their prisoner.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Simeon Isayev.”
The Mafia lieutenant wore a black hood and was tied to a chair. He squinted as Vance ripped the hood off. Harsh fluorescent lights illuminated the otherwise empty container.
“Where am I?” Simeon shook his head in an attempt to clear the grogginess.
“Somewhere no one can hear you scream.”
“Do you know who I am?” the Russian snarled. “If you don’t free me immediately some very powerful people will come looking for you.”
“Your threats mean nothing. You’re a low-level gang banger. I could put a bullet in your head, dump you in a ditch, and no one would give lesser of a fuck.”
Simeon contemplated that thought, his eyes darting around the container as he searched for an opportunity to escape. At the same time he wriggled his hands against the zip ties. They were ruthlessly tight.
“You’ve got nothing to bargain with, Mr. Isayev. Nothing at all.”
“Then why am I still alive?”
“Because I want you to deliver a message to your boss.”
“Fuck you, deliver your own message.”
“Have it your way.” Vance banged twice on the side of the container. A few seconds later the door opened and he was
passed a round object wrapped in plastic. He strode to the prisoner and emptied it into his lap.
Simeon screamed when he realized it was the head of his man Matra. Carved into Matra’s forehead were three words.
UAE GET OUT
He bucked his hips and the head dropped off his lap and rolled across the floor. “What—what—what the fuck, you—you sick fucking animals!” he stuttered.
Vance chuckled. “Not much of a talker, is he?”
Simeon’s eyes remained fixed on his former enforcer’s mutilated forehead.
“As you can see, Mr. Isayev, I’m pretty serious about this message.”
“I—I’ll take it, I’ll deliver your message.”
“Where?”
“What do you mean?”
“Where will you take the message?”
“To my boss.”
“Very good, and what’s his name?”
Simeon was still staring at the head. “Karelin… Aslan Karelin.”
“And where is Aslan?”
Simeon continued to stare at the bloodied head.
“My patience is wearing thin, Mr. Isayev. Where does Aslan live?”
“Limassol, Cyprus. I’ll take the message to him in Cyprus. He has a house on the beach there.”
“Good.” Vance knelt down close to the man’s face. His mouth was almost touching his ear. “You tell Aslan Karelin to get his business the fuck out of the UAE, or I’m going to come for him. Do you understand?”
Simeon’s eyes never left the decapitated head of his man. “Yes, yes,” he repeated, almost as if in a trance. “I will tell him.” His face was deathly white.
Vance left him in the container. Once outside in the hangar he tore off his balaclava, pulled out his phone, and sent a text as he walked across to the planning room. Mitch, Ice, and Bishop were waiting for him.
“How did it go?” asked Bishop.
“Good, he sang like a canary. The carving on the head was a nice touch. Who was that?”
Both Bishop and Ice turned to Mitch. The Brit was wearing bloodstained coveralls.
“What? Bloody hell, guys, it’s just a head. Don’t tell me you get a bit squeamish at the first sign of blood?”
“Wouldn’t have picked you for a psycho people butcher,” said Vance.
“My old man was an undertaker, guys. Corpses stopped bothering me at age three.”
“So what are we going to do with Simeon?” asked Ice.
“I texted this Aslan guy’s details to Tariq. If it checks out we’ll send Simeon on his way. If it doesn’t Mitch might have to get a little more creative.” He got up from his chair. “In the meantime I’m going to hit the gym.”
***
“That the info on Karelin?” Vance walked into the planning room with a gym towel draped over his broad shoulders and a protein shake in hand.
Bishop glanced up from the thick pile of documents he was flicking through. “Yep, one of Tariq’s people dropped it off. I didn’t want to interrupt your workout. Hope you don’t mind, I took a look.”
Vance collapsed into a chair as he drank from the shake. “Not at all, bud. Anything worthwhile?”
“Yeah, they’ve got a bit of dirt on Karelin. Simeon’s telling the truth. He’s the boss of one of the richest Russian mafia families. Spends most of his time at a beachside villa in Cyprus; throws mega parties when he’s on the island.”
“Bit of a Hugh Hefner wannabe.”
“Pretty much, this file’s got the villa linked to drugs, prostitution, illegal gambling. When he’s not at his beach house he’s back in Russia.”
“So where do you think he is now?”
“Considering it’s winter in Mother Russia, my money’s on him being in Cyprus. The villa is just outside Limassol.”
“Makes sense.” Vance finished off his shake. “Any photos?”
“Nope, and no description. Weird because it’s not like he’s maintaining a low profile. I reckon if we dropped into Cyprus we’d ID him pretty quick.”
“I concur. Everything lines up with what Simeon is saying; might be time to turn our boy loose.”
“Let him run to his master.” Bishop nodded. The gangster was still tied to his chair in the shipping container.
The door to the room opened and Mitch walked in, still wearing bloodstained coveralls. “Lads, what’s up?”
“We’ve got the police file on Aslan Karelin,” said Vance.
“And?”
“Looks like we’re heading to Cyprus.”
“So, you’re going to cut our Russian friend loose?”
“Yep, you finished with his phone?
“Sorted. If we get within a few hundred meters you can pick up the transmitter with this.” Mitch reached into his pocket and placed an MP3 player on the table. “It will beep when it detects the signal. The faster it beeps, the closer it is to our man’s phone.”
“So you have to listen to it?” asked Bishop.
“No, you can set it to vibrate only.”
“That’s handy.”
“Glad you approve because you’d better pack it,” said Vance. “I’m sending you to Cyprus to find this guy’s beach house.”
“Too easy. And what about the rest of the team?”
“Once you’ve ID’d Karelin we’ll be there. I think our message from Simeon will be more effective if we reinforce it with a little more finesse, and by finesse I mean firepower.”
“Nice.” Bishop smiled.
“Mitch, I need you to dump our friend here in the desert. Get Ice to help you.” Vance got up from the table. “Not too far out. We do need him to get back to his boss.”
“Can do. I’ll let him keep the head for company.” Mitch was already on his way out the door.
“So what’s your plan going to be?” Vance asked once Mitch had left.
“The party scene has the best chance,” Bishop said, thinking. “I’ll probably need to hire a girl to make the connections; the file said the Karelin family runs all the high-class prostitution in Limassol.”
“And your cover?”
“Typical Yank socialite. You know, lives large. Has a crack at gambling away daddy’s trust fund.”
“Right, I guess you’re going to need some cash if we’re going to pass you off as a rich American playboy.”
Bishop grinned. “Sounds good to me.”
“Tariq will have his people make all the arrangements. Once you’re ready, Mitch will fly you in on the business jet.” He got up, then stopped halfway to the door. “Everything else OK, bud?”
“Yeah, I’m OK. Just taking it one day at a time.”
“Ain’t we all.”
CHAPTER 14
CYPRUS
Bishop poured himself a glass of champagne and sat back in the luxurious seats of the Rolls-Royce Phantom. The limousine, complete with black-capped chauffeur, had been waiting for him at the airport when he landed. He smiled as he lifted the glass to his lips. He was certainly dressed the part: cream-colored slacks, Italian leather boat shoes, a smart blue polo, and a sports jacket. He looked and felt every inch the wealthy American playboy that he was supposed to be.
Gazing out the window, he sipped from the glass, watching the countryside race by as the Phantom cruised on the A6 highway that joined Paphos with Limassol. The countryside reminded him of southern Spain. Outcrops of limestone on the low hills, dry scrubby vegetation, and plantations of olives and citrus interspaced between villages and towns. As his mind wandered, his thoughts turned to his parents. A ball of grief almost choked him and he fought to suppress his emotions, forcing his mind back to the present, to the mission that the others were relying on him to complete.
Bishop glanced at the platinum Omega Speedmaster on his wrist, another recent addition. It was ten in the morning; he had an entire day to fill before the nightclubs opened and the town started to party. Vance had only given him seventy-two hours to complete his mission to find the mafia boss. PRIMAL’s leader wanted to maintain the pressure on the Russians,
or, as he so eloquently put it, stamp on the turd while it was still steaming.
The limousine slowed as they entered the town of Limassol. Bishop had asked the driver to follow the coast road to the hotel, and they cruised past the lines of holiday apartments and condominiums. Lowering the window, he inhaled the fresh seaside air. It was obvious why the town was so popular with the expatriate Russian community. It lacked the glamor of the French Riviera or Amalfi Coast, but the climate was on par and the local property prices better value. More importantly for the Russian mafia, the foreign investment and banking laws were lax.
Near the end of the town the Phantom slowed and pulled up outside the lobby of the Le Méridien Spa and Resort. “Your hotel, sir.”
“Thank you very much.” Bishop dragged out his r’s slightly, turning his usually clipped Australian accent into a hint of an American drawl. He tipped the man and walked inside.
The lobby was fresh, with a nautical theme. Honey-colored wooden floors, polished marble benches and attractive staff wearing crisp white shirts. It reminded Bishop of a cruise ship.
“Hello.” Bishop strolled up to the reception desk with a bellboy and his bespoke leather luggage in tow.
A beautiful receptionist with vibrant blue eyes looked up and flashed him a smile. “Hello sir, how can I help you?”
“My name is Anthony Newport.” He placed his US passport and a credit card on the desk. “I have a reservation.”
“Of course, Mr. Newport. We’ve been expecting you.” She checked in his credit card and returned it along with the passport. “If you would follow me.” Leaving her desk, she directed him toward one of the elevators. “We’ve got you in the Presidential Suite.”
At the top floor she led him down a short corridor and opened the door to his suite. “Would you like me to show you around?” She gave a suggestive look.
“No, that’s quite all right.”
“Your luggage will be up in a moment.”
She left with a smile and Bishop took the opportunity to explore the apartment. It was unlike anything he had ever stayed in. His wage as an Australian officer had been generous but this was way out of his league. He opened the sliding doors and strolled out onto a decked courtyard. The view from the private pool was stunning; it overlooked the hotel’s grounds and out to the blue waters of the Mediterranean. “Holy shit!” he murmured under his breath. He did not want to know what this was costing Tariq each night. He smiled, the reality of working for an extremely well-resourced company was only just sinking in.
PRIMAL Starter Box Set (PRIMAL Series) Page 30