Tom Callaghan - A Summer Revenge

Saltanat stared at me, wondering where this might lead.

“I’ve found that if you plan too far ahead, work out every possible move as if you’re sitting opposite your opponent, wondering how to move your pieces toward checkmate, then they’ve already moved on. Because it’s not a game; there are no rules. So you don’t give them the advantage, you strike before they expect it. And that way you win. Sometimes.”

Saltanat said nothing, simply looked at me as if inspecting an hitherto unknown species. I felt uncomfortable at having revealed an approach I knew she would regard as amateur, even dangerous in a partner. But sometimes you have to go with instinct.

A knock on the door of my room broke an uncomfortable silence. Saltanat pulled on a robe, opened the door, exchanged a few words with someone in the corridor, came back carrying an army-issue dark green duffel bag with the name CHUSOVITINA stenciled in white along its length.

The bag was obviously heavy, and I could hear metal strike metal as Saltanat swung the bag onto the table.

“Chusovitina?” I asked.

“You think I’m going to carry around a bag full of weapons with my name in large white letters?” Saltanat said, taking my question as yet another example of how I couldn’t be trusted not to fuck up.

“What if you’re stopped, asked to show ID?” I said.

Saltanat reached into the bag, pulled out a black Glock 19, waved it worryingly in my direction.

“All the ID I need,” she said and carried on unpacking the weapons.

“You’re planning a siege or expecting an army?” I finally asked, surveying the guns, stun grenades and packs of ammunition that covered the table. It was a very peculiar sensation to witness the transformation from gentle, passionate lover to deadly weapons instructor. And not one that promised a long future ahead for both of us.

“Your plan may consist of charging in as if you were in a Steven Seagal movie,” Saltanat said, checking the Glock, “but I think we can do rather better than that. In fact, I think we couldn’t do any worse.”

“And your grand strategy is?” I asked.

“Two of us is not enough,” Saltanat answered. “We need one more person. Someone to get us in through the front door. Someone expendable if we need to bail out fast.”

I had a suspicion that definition might apply to me, but decided not to ask.

And then I understood what Saltanat was planning.

“You mean…?” I asked.

Saltanat nodded.

“That’s right. We need Lin.”

“She’ll never agree to it,” I said, pacing up and down, my agitation apparent. “Why would she? And if you think I’m an amateur, what does that make her?”

“She’s Vietnamese,” Saltanat said. “She’d be very happy to get her revenge on the man that ruined her livelihood. Remember, when she stops earning, her family stop eating. Think of the shame attached to that back in her village.”

“But why her? Apart from the fact that we don’t know anyone else? How about whoever you got the guns from?”

Saltanat shook her head. “Embassy staff; no way they’d get involved in an active operation.”

“So to repeat, why Lin? Boris knows her, remember?”

“All the more reason to use her. She goes to the building, says she has some information that Boris will want. He tells her which floor to go to; we make sure we’re already in the building; he opens the door for her and in we go.”

“I don’t like it,” I objected. “It’s not as if he’s not done enough damage to her already.”

“From what I saw of Lin,” Saltanat said, “he’ll wish he’d done a lot more before she’s through with him.”

I sighed, knowing when I was beaten. And to be honest, I didn’t have a better idea in any case.

“Twenty-five thousand dollars,” Lin said. “I know you can afford it.”

“Are you crazy?” I said. “Do you think we’re millionaires?”

“No, but I think Natasha is. Or she has something that makes twenty-five thousand dollars like a tip on the bedside table in the morning.”

“It’s too much, Lin,” I said.

“Deal,” Saltanat said. Overruled.

Now that the pecking order of our team had been established, I decided to sit down, shut up and pretend not to sulk. Saltanat outlined her plan, which seemed just as thin as earlier. Lin was obviously not overwhelmed by it either.

“How will I know if you’ve managed to get in the building once I’m inside?” she asked.

“Don’t worry about that,” Saltanat said. “And we’ll be on either side of the front door when you knock on it.”

“What if he sees you through the spyhole?”

“He won’t. Especially if you get up close to the door.”

“Or he starts shooting through the door?”

“We’re not paying you twenty-five grand because we’re in the business of rehabilitating Asian hookers,” Saltanat said. “There’s a little risk for you that comes with a big reward.”

I’d heard the good cop bad cop routine before, and I was sure Lin had sat through it a few times as well. But Saltanat gave it an extra air of menace and grace all her own.

“Besides,” Saltanat continued, “you’ll be armed.”

I winced inwardly. Putting a gun in the hands of someone who’s used to firearms is bad enough. Giving a weapon to a novice is almost a stone tablet guarantee that things will go messily wrong.

To give Lin credit, she didn’t look as if she cared for the idea of being weaponed up. I was certain she would have a blade in her bag for the kind of protection that doesn’t need condoms, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t freeze when it came to slicing a cheek or an arm.

“I’m not carrying a gun, no way,” she said, and the finality in her voice was as harsh as a punch in the mouth. “I get caught, I maybe get away with a beating. Carrying, I’m dead for sure.”

“You know how to use a knife?” Saltanat asked. I could see that, like me, she didn’t want Lin to carry a gun. All too often you can get shot by your own side. Assuming they’re on your side, that is.

In a move as swift as any I’d ever seen, Lin’s hand swerved like an out-of-control speeding car, dived toward her waist, surfaced with steel glittering at her fingertips. There didn’t seem to be any more questions that needed answers. I held my hand out for the knife. The handle looked like an ornate buckle, and I realized that Lin’s wide leather belt acted as a sheath. As concealed weapons went, it was pretty impressive, so I handed it back to her, reminding myself once again of that old line about the deadlier of the species. I was with two prime examples of the breed.

“We’ll be using silencers,” Saltanat told Lin, watching her put the blade away, “so there shouldn’t be any noise to alarm the neighbors or summon the police, not if we’re quick.”

Quick killing everyone and everything that moved was what Saltanat meant, but I didn’t think Lin realized that’s how far we would have to go. Maybe she anticipated giving Boris a beating in return for his football match with her face, maybe even give him a scar to remember her by every time he shaved. But not seeing him lying face down, with blood and brains pooling around his head like vomit.

I don’t consider myself a professional the way Saltanat is; I didn’t have the years of hard training that she went through even as a child. But I’ve been in enough situations to know it can go all the way to hell if the wrong people are involved.

I waited until Lin had gone before I spoke to Saltanat.

“I know what you’re planning,” I said, “and it isn’t a rescue, it’s a massacre.”

“And what do you think these men are planning, Akyl,” she said, “a dinner party? As far as they’re concerned, this world can go to hell in a blaze of fire and an avalanche of ice. You, me, the children playing football in the streets of Bishkek and Tashkent. And you’ve got scruples about wiping these guys out?”