Brian Drake - The Glinkov Extraction

Ravkin forgot about Anastasia and went to his laptop. He typed hurriedly and clicked on a picture of the refinery.

Ravkin said, “I’m afraid that’s never been on our radar as a place for them to use.”

“We don’t know how old the information is,” Scott said, “so Vlad might not be there anymore. But it’s a place where security is armed, it’s hard to get in and out, and nobody would come looking there.”

Ravkin agreed.

“Let’s go knock on the front door.”

Rina Glinkov came over from the couch. “What about us?”

“You’ll be safe here,” Ravkin said.

The little girl joined her mother and wrapped both arms around her left leg. She looked at Scott, Anastasia and Ravkin from around the side.

“Are you going to bring back my daddy?”

None of them could muster an immediate answer. Scott thought back to another child who asked him a similar not very long ago.

He said, “We’ll bring him back, honey.”

Xenia smiled.

THE BRIGHT lights of the refinery blazed into a narrow portable building on the west end of the property, and Rostov had ordered heavy drapes put over the windows. The light still broke through the gaps around the edges, an eclipse effect.

He hadn’t wanted to remain in charge of the detail holding Vladimir Glinkov prisoner, but orders were orders.

The building had been brought specifically onto the property for the purposes of using it as a jail; they had Glinkov chained to the wall, naked except for a T-shirt now stained with sweat and blood. He lay slumped against the wall and half on the floor, unconscious, his breathing slow. There was still plenty of information to get out of him, Rostov’s bosses and the government believed, so they didn’t want to dump him in the river just yet.

But to Rostov, the chance of a rebel counterattack was too realistic. He’d asked for twenty men. His bosses laughed. At the refinery? Somebody will notice. You can have ten men and that should be more than enough. His crew was spread out around the refinery, wearing appropriate uniforms and badges, and, so far, there had been no trouble. If the government had rounded up all of the coup suspects, there would be no more need for Glinkov.

But as he sat behind a desk at the far end of the portable, shuffling a deck of cards for a game of solitaire, he reflected that not only did he have his orders, he also didn’t make the decisions.

However, he’d be fully in charge of his destiny once he retired.

When the alarm went off, he dropped the cards and ran to the door. Two guards cradling short-barreled AKs stood at the ready.

“What’s happening?” Rostov said.

One of the guards had a radio set in his ear. He said, “I can’t raise the front gate, sir.”

“Send somebody to look.”

THE GATE of the refinery was right off Leningradsky Avenue. The Moskva River was a back drop, more city lights across the water. The guard shack brightly lighted. The automatic gate was firmly closed, and as he approached, Stiletto figured the opening mechanism was on the panel on the guard shack. The guard looked up at him as he came within six feet.

The guard stepped out with a hand up. “Turn around. It’s after-hours.”

Stiletto dragged the sawed-off from the pocket of his overcoat and smashed the guard on the side of the head. But the man didn’t drop, he just leaned to one side, caught his balance, and looked angrily at Scott. He let out a curse as he swung in return, Stiletto ducking the fist, snapping a leg out to kick the guard in the stomach. The man doubled over but didn’t fall, grabbing Scott’s leg, twisting. Scott hit the ground hard on his side, the wind knocked out of him, losing his grip on the sawed-off. The guard kicked him in the back. Stiletto grabbed his weapon and started to turn as the guard ran back to the shack and hit the alarm button.

The wailing Klaxon filled the night. The sawed-off boomed once. The guard went down in a spatter of blood, broken glass and splintered wood. On his feet, Scott was quickly joined by Ravkin and Anastasia. Ravkin helped him up as Anastasia reached through the open guard shack and pressed the button on the panel that swung open the gate.

“So much for quiet,” Ravkin said.

Stiletto, gasping, only nodded. He dropped two more shells into the shotgun.

“They make you people out of solid rock or something?”

“How do you think we survive the winters?” Anastasia said, heading through the open gate and onto the property. She carried her Dakota Tactical D54R-N A3 like she’d had it since birth.

Stiletto and Ravkin followed, the trio quickly splitting up to take care of their individual tasks which they’d worked out in the car.

The size of the refinery was awesome. The sprawling complex contained a set of buildings off to one side, and a mass of pipes, storage containers, pumping units and tanks on the other, the pipes intertwining like multiple spider webs and lit up with bright lamps that made it feel like daylight. The glare of the lights clashed against the dark background of the night sky.

Stiletto put away the shotgun and unleathered the MK18 submachine gun. His job was to search the buildings for any sign of Glinkov. And with the alarm blaring, they had to be quick. Enemy forces would be all over; the alarm would also signal cops and federal agents.

Stiletto dropped to one knee beside an obviously empty building, the door padlocked. He caught his breath and looked around. Another building sat about twenty yards ahead but that looked empty too. He pushed on, clearing the open distance quickly, reaching a corner and trying to peer through a window. An office of some sort. Spotless desks. Obvious signs of everyday use, but nothing in use now. Stiletto moved along the length of the building to the far corner, and spotted the portable.

Well, duh. This one had two guards out front. There were other gunmen racing from another nearby building to the center of the refinery, all armed with Kalashnikovs. But the two gunmen by the potable building did not move, though they sure looked antsy enough and ready to do so.

Stiletto needed to get past those two guards. Vlad was inside. Obviously alive, otherwise why bother with the shooters? But he also couldn’t engage them just yet. The walls of the portable wouldn’t stop any stray .223 rounds from the MK18. Accidently killing Vlad wasn’t an option. He’d have to explain what happened to Xenia. She wouldn’t understand.

He looked around for another way to approach the building without attacking head-on.

RAVKIN WEAVED through the mass of pipes and pumps, ducking the low ones, stopping when he came to the metal cabinet he was looking for.

He took out the full-auto Glock-17C and smashed the padlock holding the protective doors closed, opened them, and examined briefly the switches and dials within. The dials all showed green, the humming pumps around him a low drone. He breathed hard from running, but he knew what to press, and started hitting the cooling fan switches. The fans spinning on the exterior of the larger tanks slowed to a stop, the pumps still going, oil in various stages of refinement flowing, but the needles showing the temperature of said fluid rising rapidly. The needle moved from green, to yellow, and into the red. Red cherry lights began flashing. More alarms joined the original Klaxon. Ravkin looked up to see a swarm of armed men closing in on him. He jerked out the Glock and steadied his arm against the side of the cabinet.

He wanted to keep them occupied and away from Anastasia and especially Stiletto. A line of flame spit from the Glock, a controlled three-round burst. The gunners scattered, bullets ricocheting off pipes, creating a danger as they continued to bounce from pipe to pipe, the whine of the slugs almost audible over the new alarm. Ravkin fired another burst.