7. Dimitri
7
DIMITRI
30-YEARS-OLD
I’m pacing the room, sick with anxiety and worry about Nataliya. Jacob is on his fifth cigarette, and he gave up smoking years ago. A coterie of his men is gathered outside, and their low voices fill the space with a steady, deep drone of conversation.
Blade is here with his friend, Duke. Duke is a guy who looks to be in his early forties, American, an ex-Green Beret. Blade is around my age, perhaps a little older, with piercing gray eyes and dark hair. His skin is olive, and he has ink curling up his neck and down one corded forearm. He looks like the sort of person you really don’t want to mess with. Duke is a little less aggressive looking. As for Riley, he looks like a wall no one is getting through.
Riley has opened the weapons safe, and the three men are picking and choosing what they want.
“Why not pay them?” Duke asks without turning around.
The men holding Nataliya have made a demand of a million dollars and our latest shipment. Jacob lied and told them that he’s gathering the money. It is buying us time to organize and orchestrate.
“Because there is no way they are letting her go alive, whether we pay them or not,” Jacob says.
“I concur,” I add. “They won’t. She’s seen them. Can identify them. Plus, for some of the men this is personal. They’ll take the money and the shipment and kill her.”
The call we are all waiting on finally comes, almost three hours later.
Jacob answers his phone, listening with a grim face. “Okay. Thank you for this. I am in your debt.” He hangs up and turns to us.
“That was Ilya. Nataliya is being held in a disused warehouse near the old Navy shipyards, close to Hunter’s Point.”
“Who has her?” I ask. “Specifically?”
“They are called Fobos.”
“Come again?” Duke asks.
“It’s a mid-level group who have been increasing their presence in the city. They fucked up one of our transports, so we returned the favor. Then they took out one of our guys, so we took out four of theirs. Thought that was it. We gave them a spanking and a warning and left it at that. This is their revenge.” Jacob rubs his eyes wearily.
“The enemy always gets a vote.” I sigh. It’s the old forgotten adage. One side acts and thinks it has closed the matter out, but the enemy has a say too. And the enemy might not behave in the way you either expect or desire. I don’t say anything in front of our guests, but Jacob taking out four of their men was a mistake. It was disproportionate, but not enough so to put the fear of God in them. You either go for an eye for an eye, or you go scorched earth. An in between measure is always going to risk retribution.
“I’m still stuck on the name,” Duke says.
“It’s a play on the Greek word for fear,” Riley says. “They’re a mix of Greek American, a few Cypriots, as well as our Russian friends. They were run by some kid from Athens, but he got shot. Not by us. Now, they’re run by a Russian kid. When I say kid, I mean wet behind the ears, and too young to really know the implications of what he’s doing. Think he’s only twenty-two. But some of the men in his group used to work with me.”
“Do we know how many are in the group, and how many are holding her?” I ask.
“There are around fifty in total, and we have eyes on at least thirty of them who are not in that warehouse. That leaves twenty unaccounted for, who most likely are in the warehouse,” Jacob says. “But, they might have hired some help too.”
“What’s the building she’s being held in?” I ask. “Do you have a visual?”
Jacob turns his tablet around and shows me on the street map where she is. I take a good look with Duke and Blade. It’s in the old Navy shipyard area. That space is generally being gentrified, but there are still no-go zones.
Where they have her is literally a block away from a new apartment development with gourmet vegan cafes and hipster coffee shops.
“We need to know exactly how many men they have inside that warehouse,” I say. “Is there anyone who can get us intel on that asap? We can’t guess at between two to twenty men.”
I’m as terrified as Jacob is for my little sister, but I’ve gone into that head space I enter when on a mission. I’m calculating, thinking, planning.
“Let me make more calls,” Jacob says.
Two hours later and I’m four buildings down from the warehouse, watching through my night vision goggles. Jacob got the intel, and we can only pray it’s correct. If so, this should be an easy extraction. There are ten men guarding the warehouse and Nataliya. My fear is that they’ve done something to her while holding her. They must know that taking her will bring holy hell raining down on them. They’re damned if they do and damned even if they don’t. So why wouldn’t they? I doubt they are honorable, decent men, or they wouldn’t have taken a kid in the first place.
The sound of a ship’s horn rings out forlorn in the dark night. The foghorn from the bridge follows on its heels.
Four men move around the perimeter of the building.
“Distracted,” Duke murmurs quietly.
He isn’t wrong. Two of them are smoking, one is playing around on his phone, and the fourth is staring out straight ahead. None of them seem particularly aware of their wider surroundings.
They are leanly built, except for the fourth, who is carrying some extra weight. I can see when they turn around that two of them have guns shoved into the waistband of their jeans. The handles poke out of the back and ruck up their shirts. That means at least two of them will have a delay between seeing a threat and reaching for and aiming their weapon. I can’t see the other two’s guns. Maybe they aren’t even armed, although I doubt it.
“Not one fucking semi-automatic or serious firepower amongst them, from what I can see,” Blade says. “This outside part is going to be a cakewalk.”
“You have your silencer on?” I ask Riley.
He nods.
“Okay, Duke and myself will head around the back. We’ll take out the two smoking, using knives. Silent. Can you shoot the other two? And, Blade, you cover us.”
They nod, and we move toward the building.
There’s only four of us and ten of them, but it can work in your favor to have a smaller, tighter, team.
Duke and I take off at a silent jog down the side streets leading to the back of the building. We approach the two men smoking while one of them is putting his cigarette out on the ground with the heel of his boot.
I grab him, hand over his mouth to stifle the yell he will automatically make. The slice of my blade across his throat is silent but his gurgling death rattle is loud enough that one of the two not smoking whips around and starts to reach behind him. Before he can do anything, red blooms on his shoulder as he jerks forward with a moan. He jerks again, and then again before falling to the ground. Nice shot .
Duke has the second smoker in his grasp, and he stabs him three times in the guts before he lets him drop to the ground. The man twitches two or three times, and I take my gun from the holster and aim at his head. He goes still the minute the bullet hits.
The fourth man is hit before he can react. Riley emerges from the shadows across the street as we all meet at the front of the building. Blade joins us last, jogging across the road from where he had us covered.
We enter the building as silently as we can, but the big old door creaks when we push it open. I listen and hear voices at the far end of the large space.
We have a map of the layout, and it’s basically one big room, with a smaller room to the back, alongside a catwalk and small office building above some steel stairs. They must have her in the smaller room to the back.
I point in that direction, and we all file toward the door. It’s slightly ajar, throwing some light into the space. I pull my night vision goggles down and pause for a moment as my eyesight adjusts.
The air is both dusty and oddly damp. It tickles my nose, and I try not to sneeze.
As we near the door, loud clattering has us all freezing.
Fuck.
I glance down to see a discarded paint can rolling across the floor.
The noise rings out, deafening in the silence. Shit.
“ Ella, yannis? ” The shout comes through the gap in the door.
I speak a lot of languages well, but Greek isn’t one of them. However, courtesy of a Greek girlfriend in the past, I know some very basic words. Ella means come , or come here . But it is used universally to also mean hello , is that you ? Hurry up . Come on .
Heart racing and weapon raised, I blithely reply. “ Neh, malaka .”
I’ve just answered yes, asshole , basically. She also taught me that malaka is practically a term of endearment in Greece.
The other man starts to speak in a string of words that mean nothing to me, but we’re already running toward the door. It opens wider, throwing a blinding rectangle of light in our path.
I reach it just as a man steps into the larger space we are occupying.
Duke grabs him and yanks him to one side. I reach for him and pull him to me from behind. Arms around his neck, I twist viciously before he can react or make a sound.
He slumps in my arms, and I drop him to the floor.
“Fuckers, stop messing around and get in here.” This time the voice speaks in accented English. It’s a Russian accent.
A muffled scream has every hair standing on end. Nataliya.
We reach the door, and I peer around it, taking a quick inventory of the inside. My stomach churns as I see Nataliya zip tied by an old radiator. Her face is bruised, and she has a cut on her cheek. Her blouse is torn, but she still has her bra on, and her other clothing is intact.
Thank God .
I’ve seen rape in war, and the aftermath is horrific. The idea of Nataliya going through that had me churned up inside.
Two of the men are playing a card game. A third is pacing, a fourth is smoking a cigarette, and one is busy undoing more of Nataliya’s blouse.
He’s the one I will kill last, and I will make it hurt.
He slips his hand inside her blouse and squeezes hard. She screams again around the gag. Her eyes are wide, terrified, and he laughs. The fucker laughs .
Riley counts down, three, two, one before he bursts into the room. He’s all noise and distraction. He’s wearing a Kevlar vest, and thank fuck because two of the bastards grab guns and fire in his direction. They were the ones playing cards. They are lousy shots, and the bullets hit the wall by Riley.
Ping, ping, ping . They bounce around us, hitting everything but their target.
Nataliya screams again as the room erupts into noise and chaos.
I have my knife in my hand, replacing my gun. I don’t want any bullets firing in her direction. I grab the guy nearest the door and slice into him hard and fast. When I let him go, he hits the ground like a sack of potatoes.
Duke shoots the two men firing on Riley. He’s an excellent shot, and both go down instantaneously.
The man with the cigarette has dived under a table. Blade turns it over and pulls him out by his ankle. The man is reaching for his waist, fingers grappling to get behind him as Blade drags him over concrete. Riley kicks him in the head, and the man’s fingers stop moving. His head lolls to the side as Blade gets him into the open and kneels on his chest.
I’m across the room and on the fucker who had his hands on Nataliya. He’d hidden by a filing cabinet the minute the chaos went down. The fucking coward.
I pull him up by his hair and punch him in the face hard, twice.
His head snaps back, and blood blooms across his nose as it flattens against his face, all caved in and useless.
He shrieks, and I throw him at Ripley. “Zip tie this fucker. We’re taking him back with us.”
I bend down to Nataliya and brush her hair from her face, examining the bruises and the cut. I gently pull her blouse closed, and then remove the gag from her mouth. She turns to the side and coughs and retches.
Duke squats by me and reaches into his pack, taking out fresh water and some wipes. I hand her the water when she’s finished coughing, and she takes a grateful sip. Her hands are shaking.
I use the wipes to gently clean her face. She winces when I swipe over the blood.
She could have a concussion if these fuckers hit her hard enough. She’s going to need medical attention to make sure she’s okay.
“You’re safe now, Nataliya,” I say.
She’s shaking so much her teeth are rattling. I take off my jacket and wrap it around her shoulders before working on the zip ties around her wrists. Once I have them off, I bring her arms forward and gently rub at her wrists and hands.
Taking me by surprise, she falls into me, wrapping me in a hug, and I return the gesture, holding her tight. She’s so petite, and the anger rises in me again. Ten men to take this one petite, unarmed girl. The fucking cowards.
I stroke her hair. “You’re safe now.” I repeat my words, unsure what else to say.
“You came for me,” she sobs.
“Of course I did. Come on; let’s get you home.”
We are walking out of the warehouse when Nataliya stumbles and falls. She starts to cry, and I pick her up, holding her in my arms as we make our way back to the car. The fucker who molested her is being dragged with us by Riley.
Duke and Blade have their weapons still drawn, providing cover until we are back in the car.
Once we are settled in the vehicle and Nataliya is strapped in, I take out my phone and call Jacob.
“She’s safe; we’re heading back to the house. Can you get a doctor to come and check her over?”
“Done.” His voice is raw. “Thank you, son.”
I swallow hard. “You don’t have to thank me.”
“I do.” He breathes out as if he hasn’t done so for the last few hours. “Son, you’re not mine by blood, but you might as well be. I want you in on this with me. Your sister and your mother are always going to be targets. I want you onboard. We’ll discuss it when you get home, but this is your destiny.”
My destiny?
I glance over at Nataliya and then at the piece of shit who hurt her, and I know I’m about to burn every moral that ever held me in check to the ground.
He’ll wish for the fiery depths of hell when I’m finished with him, and I know once I’ve done this, there will be no turning back.