by Ted Halstead
Unfortunately, as long as the guard stayed where he was, he was well out of Kharlov’s reach.
So, perhaps not total amateurs.
Kharlov sat quietly, keeping his eyes nearly closed, and listened.
He was nearly certain no one was in the room with him besides the single guard.
But there were definitely more men just outside. At least four or five, from the sounds he was hearing.
Kharlov waited until the guard had once again glanced at him, and then returned his view to the window. Then, he carefully moved the fingers of his right hand towards his shirt’s left cuff.
Next, Kharlov probed the cuff with a fingernail, until he teased a thin piece of metal from inside the fabric.
The guard looked at Kharlov. Had he spotted his movement?
No. The guard’s view returned to the window.
Kharlov had practiced using this tool to pick handcuffs open until he could do it with very little effort. There was really just one challenge.
Doing it without the telltale audible “snick” that would alert the guard to his success.
The problem was that he had no way to know what model of handcuffs these were, or their condition.
Well, slow and gentle might work. If it didn’t, he had to be ready to lunge at the guard as soon as his hands were free.
That probably wouldn’t work out too well, though.
Kharlov was certain he could overcome the guard before the man could bring the pistol at his waist to bear.
But without making enough noise to alert the four or five men outside?
Doubtful.
So, best to wait for an opportunity. If he could just get these cuffs unlocked without alerting the guard.
Kharlov tried to focus equally on the delicate task of picking the handcuffs open, while simultaneously watching the guard for his reaction to any sound he made.
Yes! Kharlov relaxed a fraction as he could feel the cuffs loosen, without any sound he could hear. And if he couldn’t hear anything, the guard shouldn’t have either.
Sure enough, the guard’s focus on the window remained unchanged.
Now, he just had to wait for the right moment.
Which appeared in no hurry to arrive.
Kharlov tried willing the guard to move closer, so he could be sure of disabling the man without making enough noise to alert his compatriots outside.
Apparently, that only worked in the movies.
After what felt like forever, but Kharlov knew could have only been about an hour, the door opened.
In the doorway stood a squat, heavily muscled man sporting numerous tattoos. Kharlov saw he was holding his Udav pistol, and repressed a visible reaction with some difficulty.
To Kharlov’s surprise, the man spoke to the guard in English.
“Did he give you any trouble?” he asked.
The guard shrugged. “He’s been awake for about an hour, but he hasn’t moved or said anything.”
OK, Kharlov thought with a sigh. I’ve got to stop underestimating these men. I just hope he didn’t hear me unlock the handcuffs.
Apparently not, because that’s all the guard had to say.
Kharlov opened his eyes fully and looked around him. As he’d thought, they were the only ones in the room.
“Ah, you are awake. Well, you’re lucky we found your boss’s card in your clothes before my men decided to let you sleep permanently. Or have some fun with you before you died. Pedro was a good man, and you killed him like it was nothing,” the gang leader said, keeping the Udav aimed squarely at Kharlov’s head.
The leader had left the door open behind him. Kharlov could hear more men moving, and revised his estimate of their number upwards. Probably their number now included this man’s bodyguards.
Kharlov was careful to keep his expression neutral. “I’m sorry I had to do it. But Carlos was expecting me, and your man was in the way.”
“Carlos” was the alias on the card Alina had given him to contact Evgeny.
The leader reached in his pocket, and shook out a folded piece of paper. It contained a sketch bearing a remarkable resemblance to a certain Boris Kharlov.
Kharlov couldn’t read the Spanish surrounding the sketch. But he had no trouble understanding the many zeros in the Mexican peso amount printed in large type at the paper’s bottom.
“We wondered why a white guy like you didn’t just wait in line to walk into Mexico like any other gringo. Turns out you’re wanted on both sides of the border. You’re lucky your boss was willing to pay even more than they’re offering,” the leader said with a toothy grin.
A grin that told Kharlov the leader saw the chance to earn multiple payments for Kharlov.
Kharlov wasn’t going to leave here unharmed just because Evgeny handed over a big bag of cash.
That left one important question. Did Evgeny know what he was about to walk into?
The leader’s head jerked backwards as several of the men outside called out.
“Your boss is right on time,” he said, and then gestured to the guard, who was still standing by the window.
“Keep an eye on him. If he makes a run for it, shoot him,” the leader said.
The guard nodded and removed the pistol from his waist. He held it in an easy, familiar grip that told Kharlov he had used it before many times.
And was the one standing here today.
Yes, it was an important point to remember. These men clearly had no military training. But they had the benefit of a Darwinian selection process that weeded out obvious incompetents.
A man commanding a criminal band this large could afford to hire the best from whoever remained.
Minutes later, the leader was back, still holding his Udav. This time, he was accompanied by a slight, nondescript man with thinning brown hair holding a briefcase.
Kharlov had trouble suppressing a groan. This was the famous Evgeny? His already low estimate of their survival chances plummeted still further.
The gang leader appeared no more impressed than Kharlov. But something was apparently making him hesitate.
Evgeny noticed as well.
“I’m glad to see that you recognize the make of the briefcase. It will save me the trouble of explaining how this will work,” Evgeny said calmly.
The leader nodded slowly. “Yes, I’ve seen Antonio’s work once before. You leave the briefcase with me, and once you and your man have reached a safe distance you call me with the disarming code.”
Evgeny nodded. “Correct. And if I either fail to call you with the code, or haven’t left the agreed payment inside the case, you contact Antonio and he will fix the problem.”
The leader nodded again. “Yes. I’ve only heard of one time when that was necessary.”
“Well, Antonio doesn’t sell his cases to just anyone,” Evgeny said with a thin smile.
“Fine,” the leader bit off, with poorly disguised frustration.
Evgeny turned to Kharlov and asked, “Are you injured?”
At the same time two of the fingers on Evgeny’s right hand moved in a manner that, if others had noticed it at all, would have been dismissed as a nervous tic.
For someone from the FSB, the signal meant, “I am about to launch an attack. Are you ready to assist?”
Kharlov had found this the easiest part of his months spent in FSB training, since most of the body signals were familiar to him from his Spetsnaz days.
During training he had thought several times to ask whether the FSB had borrowed them from Spetsnaz or vice versa, but in the end Kharlov had decided it didn’t matter.
A slight shrug with only his left shoulder gave Evgeny the response, “Yes.”
Aloud, Kharlov said, “I’ve got a headache, but I think I can walk.”
Evgeny pointed at Kharlov’s hands, which still appeared to be handcuffed behind his back, and said to the leader, “Please remove the handcuffs, and I will give you the case and we will be on our way.”
Frowning, the gang lea
der jerked his head towards the guard, and leveled the Udav pistol at Kharlov’s head.
“Take off his cuffs while I cover you,” he said to the guard.
Turning to Evgeny, he said, “If either you or your friend feel like trying anything, remember how many men I have waiting outside.”
The guard appeared distinctly unenthusiastic about his orders, but moved quickly to obey them.
“And don’t even think of trying to take him hostage,” the leader said. “I’ll have no trouble shooting you both.”
Evgeny shook his head, and looked towards Kharlov.
“He knows better than that,” Evgeny said, patting his briefcase. “No need for heroics, when the payment is right here.”
The guard was walking towards Kharlov, at the same time reaching inside his shirt pocket for the handcuff key.
What happened next took place so quickly Kharlov thought it was closer to a magic trick than combat.
Evgeny somehow covered the distance separating him from the Udav pistol before Kharlov knew he’d done it.
More important, before its holder became aware he was no longer holding the pistol.
Evgeny pushed the gang leader off balance with his left hand, at the same moment that the Udav spoke twice.
The guard fell dead at Kharlov’s feet.
The leader had regained his balance and was reaching for another pistol when Evgeny shot him twice as well.
Kharlov had barely managed to get his hands free when the Udav came sailing towards him.
He caught it perfectly, so that it was not just in his hand, but ready to fire.
Evgeny smiled and said, “Yours, I believe.” Then he removed the second pistol the gang leader had been too slow to retrieve.
Evgeny and Kharlov were covering the only door from two different angles. If the men outside had any sense, they’d realize trying to rush inside would be suicide.
Three gunmen in quick succession proved they did lack such sense, and were soon stacked in or near the doorway.
But what happened when someone with more intelligence or experience decided to set a fire on the side of the house?
Or what if they had a grenade?
Kharlov was about to ask Evgeny how he thought they could escape when he could hear the answer. The distinctive sound told him first. Confirmation came from a shouted word in Spanish repeated by several of the men outside that he had no trouble understanding.
“Helicoptero.”
“Better get down,” Evgeny shouted over the rapidly swelling noise outside.
One of Kharlov’s first military lessons had been to obey orders immediately, and worry about understanding them later.
Heavy caliber rounds punching through the walls above them made Kharlov glad he had wasted no time in joining Evgeny flat on the floor.
The professional soldier in Kharlov was surprised at the volume and intensity of the fire pouring out of the helicopter. Police with automatic rifles firing from its interior certainly couldn’t account for it.
But Kharlov had trouble believing the obvious alternative.
A military helicopter.
Less than a minute later, the roar of automatic weapons fire was replaced with the rapidly diminishing sound of helicopter rotors.
“You OK?” Evgeny asked, as he rose from the floor.
Kharlov rose as well, shaking off some of the dust he had acquired from the none too clean floor.
“I’m fine,” Kharlov said. “Your friends out there, I hope?”
Evgeny nodded. “I asked them to be careful with their aim, but I’m not really surprised. If these were elite troops, I wouldn’t have been able to bribe them.”
With that, Evgeny walked confidently towards the helicopter. Kharlov recognized it immediately as an American-made Black Hawk, and the weapon he’d heard as an M134 Minigun, a 7.62×51mm six-barrel rotary machine gun with a two thousand round per minute rate of fire.
Kharlov followed Evgeny. These had better be friends, he thought, or this is going to be a really short walk.
A half dozen Mexican soldiers were walking around the scene, checking that all the gunmen present were dead. From what Kharlov could see that appeared likely, but as a professional he approved of their priorities.
Kharlov’s concerns receded as Evgeny was warmly greeted by an officer whose bearing told him this was the unit’s commander.
Rapid fire Spanish followed on both sides, and Kharlov quickly saw the officer’s smile replaced with a deep frown.
Then Evgeny held up his cell phone’s screen, followed by more Spanish in a much lower voice, spoken even more quickly.
A chime sounded on the officer’s cell phone, which he pulled out from his uniform pocket.
Now the frown was still there, but it wasn’t nearly as deep.
Finally, the officer shrugged and gestured for both of them to get on board.
The officer quickly followed, to the pilot’s evident surprise.
The officer snapped something brief in Spanish to the pilot, who reddened and immediately started the helicopter’s engine.
A minute later, they were soaring over the Mexican countryside, at what felt like the helicopter’s top speed.
Evgeny sent Kharlov a warning look he had no trouble understanding.
No questions.
They sat quietly for nearly an hour. For almost half that time, Kharlov heard the officer speaking rapidly and often impatiently in Spanish into the helicopter’s radio.
Then the officer put the handset down for what turned out to be the last time. Kharlov could see a small smile on Evgeny’s face, which disappeared so quickly at first he thought he’d imagined it.
No, he hadn’t. Evgeny at last sat back and relaxed, and Kharlov realized only then how tense Evgeny had been to that point.
Kharlov could tell from his training and the sun’s position that they were flying almost directly south. To where?
It turned out the answer was, another Black Hawk helicopter. This one had exterior fuel tanks attached, and was sitting in a large open field surrounded by several jeeps and a fuel truck.
Their Black Hawk settled down next to it. The officer and Evgeny immediately exited their helicopter without a word.
Kharlov wasted no time following them.
He noticed this Black Hawk had no minigun. Instead, he saw with relief it had been configured for VIP transport, with plush leather seats that looked far more comfortable than the jump seats they’d been on for the past hours.
The helicopter’s engine started at once, and they were quickly airborne.
Kharlov noticed that the officer was still with them. But the pilot was the only other Mexican soldier on board.
Evgeny sent Kharlov another look.
He needn’t have bothered. Kharlov knew he’d get an explanation once it was safe for Evgeny to give one.
Kharlov’s watch and cell phone had been taken from him while he was unconscious, so he wasn’t sure how many hours were passing. But he did understand why the external fuel tanks had been necessary.
The pilot had been on the radio several times during the flight, but Kharlov had understood none of the Spanish conversations. However, he had taken comfort from the calm, professional tone of the exchanges.
Including the one the pilot was having right now with whoever was in what Kharlov assumed was the control tower for the airport dead ahead. Clearly, a civilian airport, since Kharlov could see the logos of several commercial airlines on the planes below.
Or, Kharlov corrected himself, perhaps a dual-use facility. There were many in Russia, and he knew they were common in many other countries as well.
But no. As they came closer to the airport, Kharlov could see only civilian aircraft. Their helicopter settled to a landing next to an Airbus A350 bearing the logo of Spain’s national carrier.
A military jeep was driving at high speed towards the helicopter before its rotors had stopped turning. A fuel truck was right behind it.
The Me
xican officer and the pilot jumped out of the helicopter. As soon as the jeep pulled up, the Mexican officer began speaking in Spanish to the officer in the back seat.
There was another man next to the officer in the jeep’s back seat, wearing a shirt and tie.
He was carrying a briefcase, and looked nervous.
Kharlov noticed that both the jeep’s camouflage pattern and the uniform of the officer it contained were different than the ones he had seen in Mexico.
Where were they?
“We have a few minutes alone, so I will update you now,” Evgeny said. “We are in Guatemala City, and if all goes well are about to board a flight to Madrid.”
Evgeny handed Kharlov a passport. When Kharlov opened it, he recognized his photo as one of several Alina had taken just after shaving off his beard in Cocoa Beach. The name and date of birth were not his, and he quickly committed them to memory.
Evgeny’s approving nod told Kharlov he had done as expected.
“I appreciate your help,” Kharlov said. “I hope everything you’ve done for me won’t be too disruptive to your operations in Mexico.”
Evgeny stared for a moment in what, Kharlov slowly realized to his embarrassment, was disbelief.
“I will be on the plane with you,” Evgeny finally said.
“I’m sorry,” Kharlov said sincerely. “You don’t know me, but I do understand what it’s like to lose everything and have to start over. I regret being the cause for having it happen to you. I owe you a debt you can call on me anytime to repay.”
Evgeny looked at him coolly for a moment, and finally shrugged. “It’s really Alina you should thank. When she told me to expect your contact, at first I thought your military experience would allow you to cross the border unobserved. Once I had time to check, though, I found out your likeness had been given to the Mexican authorities. And from the many informants there to the cartels. I then told her your capture by one or the other was nearly certain.”
“Do you know if Alina and Neda are safe?” Kharlov asked.
Evgeny nodded. “I’m pleased to see you care. Neda is on her way to Paris, and from there will fly to debriefing in Moscow. Alina will soon be en route to her next assignment. You have no need to know the details, but all is so far going according to plan.”