Brian Drake - The Glinkov Extraction

“You want me to fly to New York?”

“Yes.”

“Is that an order, sir?”

“Consider it the last one I’ll ever give you.”

THE FLIGHT to New York was a long one. Stiletto stared blankly out the window, unaware of much that was going on around him. A screaming baby didn’t break his reverie.

He might have sounded confident about striking off on his own to take on the battles nobody else would, but he also wondered who he was kidding. That was no way to live. But he had to at least try. Maybe just a few months, a year. If it didn’t work, he’d call Ali in San Francisco.

And he’d miss the C.I.A. With all of its faults, the Agency had been home for a long time, and he had friends there who, presumably, were wondering about him after seeing a stranger clean out his desk. The gossip would be huge, but his phone hadn’t rung with anybody asking how he was doing.

The only thing to do right now was stay the course.

He landed at JFK and used his cell to call Susan LaRochelle, who agreed to meet him at her apartment that night. Stiletto checked into a hotel and took a long walk to try and clear his head. When that didn’t work, he found a bar and nursed a beer.

Susan met him on time and had Chinese food waiting. Over dinner they talked about General Ike, her work on the Zubarev case, and the file she’d been presented with before the State Department pulled the plug on her investigation. He listened with rapt attention to her story about the woman, Siyana Antonova, whom she believed pulled the trigger on the Zubarevs.

The information in the file confirmed a lot of the information Ravkin’s file had contained, except for the names of the local mob players. Stiletto wanted to know where they were. Susan said the top dog was Shishkin Pavlovitch. And she knew where they hung out.

Scott spent two days tracking the local bosses and presently settled on a plan. Pavlovitch and his buddies liked to play poker in the basement of one of their bars. Finding a back way in was easy. Stiletto contacted Number One and asked for some equipment.

It was time to get even, if only a little.

HE HEARD them laughing as he moved down the hall.

Stiletto gripped the submachine gun a little too tightly. He’d probably over-oiled it from the residue dripping onto his gloves, but the weapon would not fail. He’d trained and planned too hard for anything to fail now. But deep down he knew he might not survive the night, even if he did succeed. If he saw the sunrise, he might just live to be an old man.

The dark hallway seemed to close in, the only illumination coming from the crack underneath the door ahead of him. He pushed the jitters away. The walls were not going to crush him. He had to stay focused. The laughter from behind the door continued. Stiletto adjusted his grip and stepped closer. Sweat coated his skin, his clothes clinging to his body. A trickle down the back of his neck irritated him and he almost wanted to stop and swipe, but he kept his eyes focused on the door.

The laughter stopped. Four voices reached his ears.

“I’ll take three.”

“One for me.”

“I’m good.”

“How about we start over?”

More laughing.

Stiletto counted down. Three. Two…

He lifted his booted right foot and slammed it into the wood. The loud thud shook the walls, but the door did not open. He kicked again. Another loud thud and the doorframe started to splinter. Stiletto put everything he had behind the third kick and that’s when the door swung open with enough force to slam the opposite wall, the collision sounding more like a gunshot than those that followed from the mouth of the submachine gun.

Stiletto stepped into the room, swinging left. The lone guard was reaching for the light switch; Scott blasted him in the chest and belly, cutting him almost in half, the guard leaving a smear of red on the wall as he fell. His hand still hit the light switch and plunged the room into darkness but it was too late. Stiletto’s combat senses had already pinpointed the remaining targets.

The SMG spat flame in measured bursts, Stiletto shifting his aim, the flash from the muzzle creating a mild strobe effect that highlighted the twitching bodies of the four men around the poker table. The chips and cards, splashed with blood and bits of flesh, were no longer the center of attention and the four men saw their lives flashing before them in the strobe. They screamed, cursed, arms flailing, their overweight bodies falling onto the floor with squishy finality. When the SMG clicked empty, Stiletto reached for the light switch. One man still lived, his cries of pain filling the room as the echo of the shots faded from Scott’s ears.

Stiletto pulled the magazine from the submachine gun and inserted a spare. He stepped into the carnage, doing his best to avoid the puddles of blood, but some of it still attached to the heels of his shoes. He walked around the table to the far side, where the survivor lay on his back, legs and belly torn open by the nine-millimeter flesh-shredders, his bloody fingers clawing for the holstered revolver under his left arm. The tips of those fingers, wet with what was leaking from the man’s body, could not wrap around the butt.

Scott aimed the SMG at the Pavlovitch’s face. It was a round and jowly face with a scarred chin. The eyes, still defiant, remained blank.

“Would you like to know why?” Stiletto said.

Pavlovitch gave up reaching for his gun. His right arm fell limp across his chest. His gasps were getting shorter.

“Zubarev. And two others named Ravkin and Anastasia.”

Now those defiant eyes widened and he sucked air sharply.

Flame flashed from the SMG once more and that jowly face splattered into fragments of flesh and bone that peppered the floor.

Hello! My name is Buster. If you liked my human’s book, will you please leave him a review? Here is the link. Also, you can read more about Scott Stiletto in The Petrova Betrayal (click hereto buy), first two chapters on the next page! Thank you… and meow!

Somewhere in Iraq

THE LEFT tires almost lifted off the pavement, the right side screeching terribly, as Hardball wrenched the Jeep around a tight corner, the two men in the back holding tight to whatever grip they could find.

Scott Stiletto, his knees on the hard metal floor of the back seat, felt the wind rip at the collar of his partially-open khaki shirt as he raised his AK-47 and eased back the trigger. Flame licked from the muzzle, his salvo aimed at one of the two trucks in pursuit. Return fire bit at the Jeep. He clenched his jaw tight. None of his rounds appeared to have hit.

From behind the wheel, Hardball shouted, “Almost there!”

“Can’t this heap go faster!” Stiletto said, straining to shout over the whine of the stressed motor.

Hardball did not respond. The bald-headed mercenary, so nicknamed because the top of his head resembled the rounded tip of a full-metal-jacketed bullet, kept low with hands tight on the wheel. The street wasn’t helping, large cracks and bomb craters creating hazards equal to the automatic weapons fire behind, the wreckage of blasted buildings flashing by on either side. Any people in their way scattered. They could have had weapons of their own, but what mostly struck Stiletto were their frightened faces. They were not fighters, but innocents caught in a war not of their own making and trying desperately to survive amongst the constant threat of stray bullets. Stiletto fired again, the AK bucking against his shoulder. The windshield of the truck closest to the Jeep spider-webbed and shattered, rounds connecting with the gunner in the passenger seat and rear seat, chucks of flesh and a spattering of blood splashing the cabin but appearing not to distract the driver. Stiletto shifted his aim, the Jeep jolting on the rough pavement, and squeezed another salvo. The driver’s head snapped back, the truck veering off the road and smashing into a light pole.