25. Nikolai #2
"Is he that stupid? Are they all new?" I asked.
"They have to be. Half of them don't even know where to stand." Yakov ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. We'd seen poorly trained militias before. We probably didn't even need Gregg or the other team. I just didn't realize how strapped Markin was for men now.
Vlad checked the slide on his nine millimeter one more time and tucked it back against his thigh. "That's an advantage, but fourteen is still fourteen. Even if they're green, that's a lot of guns."
"Not if we hit them from three sides before they can figure out where we're coming from.
" I pointed to Yakov's crude map. "Gregg will take the north perimeter and come around behind the truck and cut off their exit.
That box truck is the only vehicle big enough to haul the product, so if they can't get to it, they've got nowhere to go.
Vlad, the south approach through the container stacks is yours.
Get yourself clean sight lines between the rows.
Yakov and I are going straight at them up the middle, through this gap here. "
Vlad looked at me. "Straight up the middle?" It was like he thought I was incredibly stupid or very ballsy. Maybe I was a bit of both.
"They're all facing the storage unit. Nobody's watching the center because there's nothing out here but containers."
"But it's insane, Boss." Vlad's protest fell on deaf ears as I drew my weapon and rose, rolling my neck to loosen up for this.
We'd have a limited time to get this over with before someone called the cops and we'd have to scramble.
And we'd get one shot.
If Markin knew we were gunning for him this hard and ended up getting away, we'd never get a second chance.
"Yakov, you ready?"
"Always, Boss."
We fitted our radio earpieces and split.
Vlad went south, weaving between the stacked containers with his gun low, and Yakov fell into step behind me as we stalked toward the shadows that would mask us until it was too late for Markin's men to do anything.
I gave them ninety seconds to get into position and called, "Are we ready?"
"In position," Vlad grumbled. "I've got eyes on eight or nine of them from here. Markin hasn't moved. He's still standing around with his hands in his pockets."
"Gregg?" I chimed in, and he squawked his coms a few times before his voice came in clear.
"We'll cut off access to the truck, Boss, but they're heavy on this side." Glowering, I gestured with my gun to Yakov.
"Move that way, help them if they need it."
"Nik—" he started to protest, but I glared at him.
"Do it, and don't miss," I ordered. Yakov slunk off past the shadows but he wasn’t happy with my sending him away. And when Yakov called the all-clear, it was time to move.
I came through the gap between containers, staying low, using the nearest SUV as cover.
The gravel was loose under my boots but the sound of waves lapping at the shore on this side of the lot swallowed the crunch. I closed thirty yards before the first guard saw me.
He was leaning against the front quarter panel of the SUV with his rifle hanging loose at his side, half asleep on his feet, and by the time his brain registered what his eyes were seeing, I was already inside ten feet.
I put a double tap in his chest and he slammed backward against the vehicle and slid down the panel, his rifle clattering to the concrete.
But the sound carried across the distance and it woke up the rest of the yard. Everything around me exploded into chaos, shouting, and gunfire.
Yakov and Gregg hit them from the north before anyone could react. Yakov's AK tore through the night in controlled bursts and the two smokers behind the box truck went down before they could drop their cigarettes.
A third man came sprinting around the side of the truck trying to flank Yakov's position and caught a burst across his midsection that folded him over and put him face first on the ground while I stalked closer.
Vlad had a good position with a great view and his sniper rifle on aim.
He dropped a shooter behind the second SUV who'd been reaching for a shotgun in the back seat.
Then he put another one down near the storage unit door, a man who'd been crouching behind a stack of pallets thinking he was hidden.
Both shots were clean, and neither man got a chance to return fire.
I advanced up center toward the storage unit, keeping the containers to my right. Markin's new hires were panicking.
I could hear it in the shouting, the way commands overlapped and contradicted each other.
I could tell they'd never fought together.
They were trying to figure out who was in charge.
Three of them clustered behind the hood of the nearest SUV, bunching up instead of spreading out, and Gregg caught them from the side with a sustained burst that blew out the windshield and sent safety glass showering over their bodies as they dropped.
When a shooter came out from behind the box truck with his weapon up, aimed in Yakov's direction, completely unaware I was closing from his left, I fired twice.
The shots spun him ninety degrees and put him on the concrete.
His gun skidded away from him across the wet ground and I stepped over him and kept pushing forward.
It was all happening so quickly, I barely had time to think about what to do next. I reacted on instinct, all while trying to track where Markin went so I could keep him in my sights and not let him get away.
Another one came around the end of a container to my left with his gun up, but he was sweeping the wrong direction, looking south toward Vlad's position.
I grabbed the barrel of his weapon with my left hand and wrenched it sideways, torquing his wrist with it until something popped.
He yelped and tried to yank free, but I drove my right elbow into his throat hard enough to feel cartilage shift under the impact.
He dropped to his knees choking and clawing at his neck, and I raised my gun and put a round right in the back of his head.
Blood splattered the ground and my shoes before I stepped over him, moving onward toward my goal of capturing Markin.
"Six down," Vlad reported through the earpiece, but I kept stalking forward, searching for the man I'd come to hunt.
The rest of Markin's crew fell apart.
Without leadership or anyone directing fire or establishing positions, they scattered in every direction.
Two of them tried to run for the water at the far end of the port and Vlad dropped the first one at thirty yards with a single shot that caught him mid-stride and sent him tumbling hard across the gravel.
The second one watched his partner fall and stopped dead and put his hands straight up in the air in surrender, but by then Gregg and the rest of my men were swarming the place.
I pushed up to the storage unit and found the man I'd been searching for backing out of the doorway clutching two sealed packages of product to his chest.
He'd been inside grabbing merchandise while a firefight raged ten feet behind him, either too greedy or too stupid to realize his entire crew was getting dismantled around him.
He looked up, and his face went slack.
He dropped both packages on the ground and raised his hands without my having to say a word.
"On the ground," I told him anyway, and he went down to his knees.