Brian Drake - The Glinkov Extraction

“Make a few extra turns,” Scott said. There was one car, the make of which he couldn’t tell in the glare of the headlamps, aggressively weaving through lanes. The car closed the distance quickly.

Anastasia turned onto Leningradsky Avenue and the engine grumbled as she pressed the accelerator, weaving through cars, honking, Stiletto gripping his seat to keep from being jostled. The headlamps of the unknown car stayed with them, now only a few cars back.

“Do we have a tail?” she said.

“For sure.”

Stiletto faced forward, buckled up, and loosened the sawed-off shotgun. He placed the shotgun in his lap.

“I see them,” Anastasia said after a quick glance in the rearview.

Stiletto held his breath a moment, let it out. Not a clean getaway after all. It had been too easy up in the office, the noise of the club drowning out any sign of their activity, the crowd outside adding more cover as they made their way back to the car. But now the enemy was on their tail. There might be no avoiding a street fight.

He looked forward. Streetlights flashed; storefronts a blur. Anastasia powered through a yellow light.

“That car just turned off,” she said.

Scott looked back. There were plenty of other cars.

“They’re going to try and box us in.”

Scott lurched as Anastasia made a sharp right turn. He sat forward again.

“They can’t do that if they can’t catch up,” she said. “What’s the plan if they do?”

“Shoot our way out.”

“Is that the best you can do?”

“Do you have another idea?”

“The passages.”

“What?”

“Tunnels under the street.”

The cabin brightened as a car behind them got right on the bumper, high beams unmerciful. Scott grabbed the sawed-off with his finger resting on the trigger.

Another sharp turn onto Butyrskaya. The car sped onward, the street less crowded as the blocks turned to closed offices and warehouses. Stiletto spotted signs for the Savyolovsky railway station ahead

Anastasia let out a curse and slammed the brakes. Stiletto strained against the seatbelt. A car blasted out of an alley ahead and screeched to a stop in front of them. Anastasia threw the car into park and leaped out of the car, Stiletto behind her. Other doors opened and closed around him. Horns blared. People yelled. On his side with the greasy blacktop beneath, Stiletto aimed the sawed-off at a wheel of the car in front of them and let off a barrel. The roar shook the night. The front right tire exploded, sending shrapnel and bits of rubber everywhere. Men yelled and screamed. Stiletto rolled to his feet and ran around the front of the car. Anastasia waited near the mouth of an alley. Scott almost stopped when he heard somebody call his name. But he kept going.

Anastasia turned and started running as Scott neared. He reached the alley, looked back. Two men from both cars converged, three of them with drawn guns. The fourth man held no weapon and continued calling Scott’s name. The street lamps highlighted him perfectly.

David McNeil.

Dammit!

Scott turned and ran after Anastasia. The mafia wasn’t after them. This wasn’t related to Pushkin.

The C.I.A. had found him.

STILETTO’S BOOTS pounded the pavement as he stayed behind Anastasia, trusting her instincts to get them out of the area.

And McNeil was behind him, sent by General Ike, no doubt, to try and reel him in. He didn’t blame the General. One had to keep up appearances. It was Scott’s job to avoid capture. Nothing good would come of him being brought home and he doubted the Cabal would in any way step in.

They reached the street at the other end of the alley and kept running along the sidewalk, dodging pedestrians who expressed various levels of vitriol at being jostled by the sprinting couple. Anastasia cut across the street, Stiletto shooting a glance back as he followed. McNeil and his crew cleared the alley, but he was missing two. They were probably back in the undamaged car, trying to circle around for an interception.

Fenced-off constructions zones along the street funneled traffic into one lane. Scott felt mildly disoriented with the blaze of bright headlamps, the nighttime darkness, and the unfamiliar territory. He stayed close to Anastasia, no longer looking back. His lungs burned with the exertion. The sidewalk narrowed as part of a construction closure extended onto the sidewalk. Anastasia powered through, knocking down one or two people, Stiletto leaping over one of the fallen. She turned a corner, running into a parking lot.

Anastasia stopped and lifted a circular manhole. She shoved the cover to one side and started down the hole, Scott following, pulling the cover back in place, his fingers almost getting crunched. He started down the ladder after Anastasia, who waited on a concrete walkway.

She ducked into an alcove to open another door with a key from her pocket. The door squeaked open. Stiletto followed her. She shut the door and bolted the lock. They stood in the dark. Scott took out his cell phone and shined a light around. A narrow tunnel indeed.

“It branches off from the sewer,” she said. “We can follow it back to the streets near the safe house.”

She spoke while panting, Stiletto catching his breath as well.

“That wasn’t the mafia,” he said.

“Who were they then?”

“My people. Americans. The C.I.A.”

“Why is the C.I.A. after you?”

“Because I’m not supposed to be here,” he said.

“I thought—then why are you?”

“Vlad is my friend. I don’t have many.”

She watched him blankly, still breathing hard. Finally, she said, “Come on,” and led the way once again.

McNEIL GAVE up the pursuit once witnesses said the people he was chasing went down the manhole.

They were already pushing it after Stiletto’s shotgun blast. If the Russians caught them worming around underground, there’d be hell to pay.

He reunited with the rest of his crew in the good car and went back to the embassy. He’d have to report the shooting and the damaged car. The embassy would have to deal with the cops on that one, work out some sort of cover story.

McNeil stewed all the way back.

In the embassy cafeteria, he sat quietly at a corner table, letting a cup of coffee get cold.

He looked up when Joe Wilcox, his contact at the embassy, dropped into the unoccupied chair opposite him.

“Staking out Pushkin was a good idea,” Wilcox said. “Do you have any other ideas?”

“Bring in Pushkin. They went there for a reason.”

“We can’t.”

“Why?”

“Pushkin was shot in the head. The cops are looking for a man and a woman and they know the man is American. They didn’t exactly hide their faces, and they left a guard alive.”

McNeil shook his head.

“Stiletto is in more trouble,” Wilcox said, “than he realizes.”

ANASTASIA LED them through a maze of tunnels, Stiletto losing any sense of where they were many times, the rumbles of car engines and street traffic sometimes audible through the concrete above. Presently she stopped at a ladder, climbed to the top, and popped open another manhole. After a look around, she slid the lid back and climbed to the street Stiletto followed. They made a long sprint up two blocks before finally reaching the safe house, where a nervous Ravkin greeted them and explained that the cops were hunting them for Pushkin’s murder, and that they had his car. That meant he was a suspect too.

Stiletto explained the circumstances for leaving the car but had nothing to say on Pushkin. Anastasia handled that, but her flippant answer didn’t satisfy Ravkin. Before an argument could start, Stiletto told Ravkin what information Pushkin had revealed.

“The mob is using an oil refinery near Leninsky Ave., just off the Moskva River, as a hide out. Glinkov being kept there.”