Brass Monkey: A James Acton Thriller Book #2 (9 page)

“Yes, sir.” The man left, leaving his partner to take the heat for both.

“And you!”

The man snapped to attention; his eyes longingly followed his partner from the office, then turned to face Dymovsky. “Yes, sir!”

“You and I, Ivan, will go pick up Anya Kushchenko. There’s no way that is a coincidence.”

“Yes, sir!”

Dymovsky headed for the door and pointed at three uniforms sitting at their desks. “Come with us.”

They drove to the hotel in two cars, and mostly in silence. As they pulled up, Ivan cleared his throat as if he had something to say.

“What is it?” asked Dymovsky.

“Well, sir, should we be doing this? I mean, isn’t she FSB’s responsibility?”

“And what if she is?”

“Well, sir, won’t they be mad?”

“Most likely.”

Ivan gulped and with a hint of panic in his voice, almost whispered, “But you don’t want to piss those people off, sir! You’re liable to end up in Siberia!”

Dymovsky brought the car to a halt and threw open the door. He glanced back at his scared underling. “My orders come from higher than you can possibly imagine.”

Ivan’s eyes shot up at this, seeming to rid him of some of his fear. They climbed from the car and headed to the hotel entrance. Joined by the other three men, he ordered two to the back of the hotel, one to remain at the front, and he and Ivan entered the lobby. Dymovsky strode up to the desk clerk and flashed his badge. “Agent Alexey Dymovsky, Prosecutor-General’s Office. What room is she in?”

The desk clerk stared at him, a look of terror that reminded Dymovsky of what the old days must have been like, and how much of their hard fought progress had been lost. “Wh-who do you mean?” he asked as his hands gripped the counter in front of him.

Dymovsky leaned in. “You know who I mean.”

The man nodded. “Three-fifteen.”

Dymovsky nodded. “Spaseeba.”

He ran to the elevator, Ivan following, and rode to the third floor, both silently anticipating what was to come. The bell chimed their arrival and the doors slid slowly open. Dymovsky stepped out and checked the sign in front indicating 315 was to the left. Three doors down they found the room.

Dymovsky decided speed was the safest course of action. He drew his weapon and Ivan did the same. He stepped back, then rammed the door with his shoulder, splintering the lock and sending the door flying open. He fell into the room, but regained his balance, and gun drawn, stormed inside.

“Moscow Police, nobody move!” he yelled to what turned out to be an empty room.

“Are we too late?” asked Ivan.

Dymovsky raised his finger for silence. The sound of a shower came from the other side of the room’s lone interior door. They took up positions on either side, then Dymovsky gripped the doorknob, and slowly turned it. He pushed the door open and they both burst into the small bathroom. He stepped toward the shower and yanked the curtain aside, his weapon extended in front of him.

The woman on the other side yelped in surprise, her hand flying to her chest.

“Agent Dymovsky, Prosecutor-General’s Office,” he said, raising his badge. “And you are Anya Kushchenko.”

She turned to face him, placing both hands on her hips as the water drenched her naked body. “More questions?”

Dymovsky couldn’t help but stare. He reached blindly past his gawking younger partner and snatched a towel off the nearby rack. He handed it to her. “Yes, more questions.”

She didn’t take the towel for a moment. Finally she reached down and turned off the shower, then wiped the beaded water off her body. She ran her hands over each opposite arm, then down her chest and over her breasts, all the while staring at Dymovsky. Dymovsky met her stare, knowing she was trying to make him uncomfortable. It was working, but he wouldn’t let it show. He tossed her the towel and snapped his fingers. “Hurry up, we haven’t got all day.”

Southeast District Police Headquarters, Kashirskoye Street, Moscow

Interrogation Room 1

Dymovsky stared at Anya through the two way mirror as he waited to be connected to the Minister in charge of his investigation. He had only met the man once, when he was given this assignment. “Find the missile, no matter what the cost.” Simple, concise. In the old days that would have meant a lot more than it did now, but with the swing back to the old days over the past few years, he had a lot more leeway than he was willing to take. He was part of the new Russia. He was twelve when the Soviet Union had collapsed, so he had no memory of it. He had survived the chaos afterward, and had vowed to help clean it up so Russia could take its place on the world stage as a free, democratic, strong country. Well, they were barely free, barely democratic, and if it weren’t for the price of oil and an aging nuclear stockpile, hardly strong.

And the last thing Russia needed now was a rogue ex-army colonel with an American nuke, selling it on the open market, and then having that weapon used in some terrorist attack. The Americans would immediately go public, blaming the Russians, and with the way Russian luck seemed lately, it might just get sold to the Chechnyans, and used on Moscow.

There was a click on his cellphone as a phone on the other end picked up. “This is Silayev, speak.”

“Sir, this is Agent Dymovsky.”

“Da, what is it?”

“I found one of Trubitsin’s men, and it appears they are connected to Ms. Kushchenko somehow. I have picked her up—”

“You did what?”
Uh oh.
The voice didn’t sound at all pleased.

“I believe she knows where Trubitsin is.”

A grunt, then, “What makes you think that?”

“She told me so.”

This time there was silence for a few moments. “She told you so?” repeated the Minister, saying each word as if a sentence of their own.

“Yes, sir, she says she knows where Trubitsin and his men will be, but—”

“Yes?”

“Well, sir, she wants to make a deal.”

“Of course she does.” He heard a sigh at the other end of the line. “What does she want?” he asked, sighing out the words as if talking about a child.

“She wants to be given a new identity and sent back to America or Canada.”

The minister chuckled. “Put her on.”

“One moment, sir.”

Dymovsky stepped from the observation room and entered the interrogation room, closing the door behind him. He handed Anya the cellphone. “Minister of the Interior, Mr. Silayev.”

She nodded and took the phone. “Mr. Minister.”

Dymovsky watched as Anya listened to the Minister, saying nothing. Finally, after several minutes, she handed Dymovsky the phone. “He wants to talk to you.”

Dymovsky placed the phone to his ear. “Yes, Minister?”

“We have a deal.”

“Yes—” The line went dead before he had a chance to finish his sentence. He flipped the phone shut and clipped it on his belt. He looked at Anya. “So?”

“Cyprus, Livadhiotis City Hotel, room four-oh-nine.”

“When?”

“October.”

Sahara Desert, Egypt

“If they are successful, the war that will result will never end. We must do everything in our power to stop this from happening.” As if to punctuate Abdullah bin Saqr’s point, a gust of wind blew through the tent the ruling council sat in, resting comfortably on silk pillows and thick carpets, bringing with it the delicious aroma of Turkish coffee brewing in the hearth on the other side of the black goat and camel hair cloth. “With the target they have chosen, we cannot afford to fail.”

“What will the Americans do?” asked Sheik Ahmed, the youngest council member.

“They do not know the target, our operative erased it from the record.”

“Is that wise? With their resources, they might be able to find it first!”

Several members’ heads bobbed in agreement.

“And what would they do?” asked Sheik Omar. “If the Americans told them the target was in their country, the regime there would use it to their advantage. They would twist the American’s help into something evil, something to further their cause.”

“Agreed,” said Abdullah. “The Americans must not know the target. We will handle this as we have handled innumerous threats to Islam and the Prophet’s teachings, peace be upon him, and we shall emerge victorious.”

The laptop sitting by his side sounded a tone. Abdullah glanced at it and clicked to open the new message that had arrived via the satellite link. He nodded with a smile, then turned to the expectant group.

“Good news, my brothers, our conditions have been accepted.”

Larnica, Cyprus, 500 Meters Offshore

“Sir, infrared shows the same two targets in the room. No one has come in or out in the past twenty-four hours except for room service,” said Lt. Colonel Kolya Chernov, commander of Alfa Group Six, Spetsnaz, Russian Special Forces. He and his team were stationed on a yacht, half a kilometer from the beach side resort of Livadhiotis City Hotel. They had room 409 under surveillance now for over a day, waiting for confirmation their target was in the room. They had every type of camera and listening device at their disposal trained on the room, but with the curtains closed, they didn’t have confirmation of who was in the room. The two men simply talked about football when not sleeping, and called each other by anything but their names.

“Recommendation?”

“I recommend two of my team get eyes on the targets.”

There was a moment’s pause. “Proceed,” came the order over his earpiece.

“Yes, sir.” He turned to his second-in-command, Major Anton Koslov. “We’re going to get some eyes inside that room.”

Chernov, very hands-on for a Lt. Colonel, led most of the missions his men were tasked with, begrudgingly agreeing to take this last promotion only when promised he would still be operational. “We have good men, but not enough good leaders!” his commander had said. Chernov had to concede that point, and agreed to the promotion, and never regretted it, the leeway it provided him on missions more than he had ever imagined. He grabbed a small gym bag and they both climbed over the side of the yacht and into a rubber dingy floating lazily in the water below. Both dressed in beach attire, they headed for shore and tied up to the pier in front of the hotel. It was now almost dark, and the beach had thinned out to a few couples out for romantic walks. They strode down the pier and headed to the hotel. Chernov touched his earpiece.

“Which rooms are unoccupied?”

“You’ve got one directly above, and one to your immediate left of the room,” came the response from one of his men on the yacht.

Koslov turned to him, having heard the same intel. “So, which is it? Top or left?”

“Let’s go top, more options.”

Koslov nodded and they entered the hotel, making directly for the elevators as if they belonged there. A quick trip to the fifth floor and they exited the elevators, turned left and headed for the room directly above their targets. Koslov made quick work of the keycard lock and they were securely inside.

Chernov already knew the layout of this room was exactly the same as the one below, having studied the hotel plans before the mission start. He pointed to a corner. “Get a snake cam in there, that should give us a look at their faces without them noticing.”

Koslov nodded and pulled a hand cranked drill from his bag and silently drilled a hole through the floor, the specially designed device gently sucked up any debris, preventing anything beyond a few dust particles from falling to the room below. In less than two minutes he was feeding the flexible camera through the hole while watching a display. With the head poking through a couple of millimeters, he twisted the camera to aim at the two chairs their targets had positioned in front of the television. Zooming in on both their faces, he clicked a button on the control pad and took pictures of each, immediately transmitting them to Moscow for identification.

On the screen they saw one reach for his cellphone.

Chernov activated his comm. “Let me hear the room audio.”

He heard a burst of static, then muffled background noise, as the gain was cranked up. The laser guided device, trained on the window glass, picked up the vibrations of every sound inside the hotel room. They watched the display as the man answered the phone.

“Da.” There was a moment’s pause, then he leapt to his feet, searching the ceiling. “What? Where?”

His partner jumped to his feet, looking confused. “What is it?”

“The Colonel says someone is watching the room!”

“What?” Now both searched, the one with the phone nodding rapidly as he listened to the person on the other end.”

“Understood, Colonel, we’ll meet you at the rendezvous point.” He flipped the phone shut, and pointed to the bedroom. “Grab our gear, we have to get out of here now.”

Chernov had seen enough. “Move in now!” he yelled over his comm. He ran to the balcony door, threw it open and launched himself at the balcony railing. He flipped over the side and slid down the front railings, swinging himself onto the balcony below. He yanked the balcony door up and to the right, lifting it out of its rail, and pushed it aside as Koslov swung down behind him. They both burst into the room, drawing their weapons tucked into their shorts.

Charging forward, Chernov pistol whipped the first man who had the phone, knocking him out cold, then continued the advance toward the bedroom with Koslov. The other man burst through the door.

“What’s going—”

He stopped as soon as he saw the two guns pointed at his head. “On the ground, now!” ordered Chernov.

The man nodded and dropped to his knees, clasping his hands behind his head as if he had done this before. Koslov used plastic ties to secure both prisoners, then taped their mouths shut as two men slid over the balcony railing to join them.

“The room is secured,” said Chernov to the new arrivals. “Grab any intel then join us on the beach. Sixty seconds.” They nodded and split up, grabbing every piece of paper and technology they saw, stuffing them into small black gym bags.