A Tangled Ball of Yarn - Ep6
#6 of A Tangled Ball of Yarn
Dafydd realizes that the "charity ball" he and Sarah are attending has been used as a setup by the opposition in a recently concluded case.
A tangled Ball of Yarn - Ep6
So... Somebody went to a certain amount of trouble to get my associates and I into the same place where Franks family and associates were going to be, along with sufficient wealthy individuals to be considered a target-rich environment by gentlemen of a criminal persuasion. This evening wasn't about the respectable side of my career at all, we were probably going to be paid a visit by some of Vladimir Ostrakov's crew. It was probably going to look like a robbery, since many of the folks attending the ball had their jewelry out of the safe deposit boxes and sparkling against their fur, but somewhere along the course of the evening they'd either find some excuse to start shooting or they'd roll out of there with some "hostages" which would no doubt include my people and Franks family.
I looked over the room and caught sight of Liz by the punch bowl. As I walked towards her my eyes were scanning for Sarah. There she was, dancing with Brad, Liz's boyfriend. Something about my body language had caught her eye and she looked straight at me. I flattened my ears against my skull as if I were about to snarl and suddenly hers pricked straight up and she started steering Brad over to meet me where Liz was standing.
"Dafydd? What's up?"
"Nothing good. Which of us are carrying tonight?"
"Not much space to hide anything in this dress, Love, but I've got my mini-Glock on my leg and one reload in my purse. Got my other little friend with me too."
"You know Brad doesn't, Boss, and my revolver is back in my truck with three speedloaders ready to go."
"So with my usual two and two, and the razor in my sock we have three guns and two blades in this room with a total of about seventy rounds between us. If the folks I am thinking about are going to pay us a call, that might not be enough." Sarah's ears flattened.
"Ostrakov?"
"Can you think of anyone else who would want to make sure that both Franks family and us were gathered on the bullseye of the same fat juicy robbery target?"
"Yeah, if you're going to take out some opposition, why not pull a nice fat profitable heist to cover it up at the same time?"
"Sarah, you and Liz go talk to the valet service. Have our cars brought to the side entrance. We might need what's in Liz's glovebox and our trunk. I'm going to talk to Frank."
After a few words with Frank he immediately walked me over to introduce me to the head of his security crew. I knew the company he'd engaged, they were not up to Marko's standards but for ordinary security work they were good and were building something of a reputation in the business. The boss of tonights crew was a stocky alsatian bitch who looked like a pirate in a business suit, complete with eye patch.
"Deb, Mr Owen thinks we might have some unfriendly visitors tonight."
"I know your reputation, Mr Owen. How unfriendly?"
"Call me Dafydd, please. Russian mob with a grudge against both Frank and I along with all of our family and associates. They'll probably make it a robbery but they'll have specific targets and major league firepower."
"I've only got twelve on my crew tonight and apart from two, nothing heavier than our sidearms."
"By now Sarah and Liz will have retrieved our tac-bags and Liz's sidearm from our cars, so three of my people are also armed and we do have a little heavy stuff. Got a spare 16 for one of your people if you want it."
"Civilian model?"
"Nope. Full rock&roll and it's got a 203 mounted on it too. Not many 40 mil rounds available though, two frag, two smoke and two CS." The response was a grin that made her look even more like a pirate.
"If it drops in the shitter I'll take that one myself."
"We've got to be subtle until the games actually begin, I've no idea if they have anyone inside, either on the staff or the guest list."
"The staff were provided by my company and are all personally known to at least one of the security crew. Only exception is the chef, his kitchen staff and the musicians. I dont think we need worry about them." I laughed. Frank had engaged the services of a prominent local chef for the evening and music was being provided by a well known professional chamber orchestra. The chances of slipping a ringer into either crew were somewhere between slim and none."
"Guests are still a possibility though."
"Yeah, we'll just have to watch them."
"Point out your people to me and I'll start spreading the word to mine."
"The lynx, vixen and lab standing over by the catering table. The two ladies and I are armed, if we can get to our kit-bags when things kick off Sarah and I will have an MP5 apiece too. If you can get to the bags to pick up your 16 and we can't, feel free to pass those to your people. Brad, on the other paw, can manage to miss from three feet away so he isn't armed with anything but his black belt in aikido. Sarah will have stashed the kit bags in the vestibule just to the left of the side entrance."
"Dafydd, we may have a problem."
"Big one? Little one?"
"That finch couple over there. Something was tweaking me every time one of them walked past me but I couldn't put my claw on it. Just now they both came close as they were dancing and I got a double dose of it. Dafydd, they both smell of explosives. It's real faint but it's there."
Turning my body so that my paws were hidden from the two finches I stared across the room at the security boss until she saw me doing it and watched me. I held up a paw showing two fingers and then tapped the side of my muzzle. She nodded and drifted over to stand by a nearby door into a small side room while Sara and I split up to catsh the finch couple from two different directions as the dance brought them close to us. As they stepped between us my nose caught what Sarah's had. These two had definitely been playing with some dangerous toys.
"Excuse me, boyo, but if you move a muscle I shall put a round straight through your spine, and my lovely companion will do the same to you, girl, so don't even think it." I couldn't see his eyes, but I watched hers go very wide as she felt the muzzle of Sarah's weapon against her back. "Let's not make a fuss and just step out here for a little chat, shall we?"
"What the fuck?" Oh great. A Dublin accent. Talk about old horrors coming back to haunt me.
"Shoulda cleaned up better before stepping into a room full of canine and feline noses when you knew at least some of them were intimately familiar with the smell of ordnance. Not another chirp out of either of you, birdie, until you're through that door or I will make what remains of your life a living hell."
Once inside the side room, both Sarah and I pushed our captives against the wall while Deb expertly frisked them. The search revealed two small pistols, one in his pocket and another in her purse. In a matter of moments, Deb had cleared both and then proceeded to field-strip them before putting them down on the table. She grabbed the two finches and shoved them into a couple of chairs while Sarah and I holstered our weapons.
"Smell anything funny on these two, Deb?" The alsatians long muzzle sniffed at the two birds and she frowned.
"I don't find that particular odor funny at all, Dafydd. I was EOD back in the day and it always meant bad news. However, speaking of news, I do have some of the good variety. Metro's going to roll a SWAT team out here given the nature of the threat. Only downside is they won't be here for an hour, maybe two." I watched the two finches slump in their chairs.
"Yep, you're totally blown. Feel like telling us all about it?" They stared straight ahead saying nothing.
"Ok, I know how this goes. I've met your kind before, see? Back when you thought you had some kind of noble cause before you all had to go freelance when the cause evaporated." As I spoke I was pulling out one of my pistols again and this time fitting the suppressor from my right pocket. Pulling out my handkerchief I wadded it up and stuffed it in the male finches beak then tipped him out of his chair, sending him flat on the floor. Before he could move, I was pressing my weapon to the back of his knee. He went absolutely still and tried to say something. "Yeah, I learned all about this trick from your old playmates. Ever seen the result? I have and I'll bet that if you haven't you've heard about it. Now, I do hope your girl over there cares for you, because she's got only a little time to start talking. Once you run out of knees the next step will be your wings and then you'll be the one who had better find his voice because you'll have about the same amount of time to save her from going through the same sequence." I looked across at the hen, who was wide-eyed and shaking. "Probably better if you started talking before I'm done with him. There's a real chance he wont be able to speak until after I've at least started in on you and at least one of you should remain un-crippled to take care of the other."
"Ostrakov will kill us if we talk."
"That's cleaner than what I'll do to you if you don't, starting in about twenty seconds, and Ostrakov isn't in this room with a gun to use on you. I am."
Loyalty commanded by fear is a wonderful thing, but it does carry the risk that your minion might run into somebody that convinces them he's a bigger badass than their boss is.
"Four demolition charges in the basement. Ostrakov has the detonator."
"We're going down there and you two are going to disable them while Deb and I watch. Then we're going to see about your colleagues. How many others did the old bastard slip in among the guests? Don't even think about lieing to me, what I just threatened you both with is nothing to what will happen to you and everyone associated with you if it's your fault that anyone I care about gets hurt. If that happens I go hunting with no bag limit, get me?"
"Two. One of his goons and one of his whores pretending to be a couple."
"On our way downstairs you can point them out. Move."
These two were obviously fairly good at their trade. They were careful but confident as they took apart the bombs they'd made. For good measure, after they were done, I took the receivers and the electronics from each of the four charges and stomped them into fragments. We could clean up the charges themselves later, or could we? I exchanged looks with Deb and she was clearly thinking along the same lines. She pulled a couple sets of zip cuffs from her pocket and secured the two finches so that they were each hugging one of the support posts that held a disabled charge.
"You'll be safe enough down here. We can turn you over to whoever wants you after this party is all over."
"Wait!" I laughed as the two finches said the word almost in unison.
"Looks like we were right, Deb."
"Yep. Always clear for a secondary. Where is it?"
"Backup chemical timer on the bottom of each one."
I hated those fucking things. Real simple devices with a thin sheet of metal inside holding back a spring loaded firing pin. Turn the screw on the end and you both release the spring and crush a vial of acid that slowly eats its way through the thin piece that is the only thing preventing that firing pin driving into the primer at the far end of the tube. Once started there was no way to stop them, not exactly accurate as far as timekeeping went either. Handle 'em too roughly and you might find out the hard way that they were further along than you thought. Carefully, Deb and I extracted them from the blocks of explosive.
With the chemical timers in my paws I headed up the stairs, meeting two of Deb's security crew on the way down, pushing Ostrakov's two other inside furs ahead of them. Stepping out back into the grounds, I dumped the timers in the fountain.
When I walked back in, the place seemed curiously empty, less than half the guests were here, the orchestra was gone and the number of guests seemed to be diminishing while the number of security staff were increasing. Deb was leaning against a pillar looking pleased.
"So, Deb, what we got happening here?"
"There's two ballroom suites at this venue. Frank booked both of them at our insistence to simplify security concerns. Didn't want to have to deal with guests from another party. We're relocating this event to the other one, two floors up. It's going pretty smoothly. Soon any uglies that try to crash the party will no longer be able to walk through the front door into a crowded environment. Our excuse is that there's a power issue down here and they have to use the alternate to finish the ball."
"Meanwhile we get ready down here to make sure that if any of Ostrakov's goons want to get to Frank's family or other guests, they have to go through us. I like it. Once you have the last guests relocated tip me the nod. Don't want to gear up in front of the other guests and scare 'em."
"Yeah. I'm having the valet guys make themselves scarce too. One of my people is manning the station outside to take care of any latecomers, he'll call up to the valet service to park the car once they are vetted. If anyone leaves they call down to us and only bring the guest to their car once we confirm the area is still secure."
"Nice to work with folks that have been around the block some."
"So, you ready to ditch Marko and give us your security contract?"
"Not hardly." I smiled at her. "Marko and I go way back and we understand each other. We made something of a personal connection in Bosnia and we work well together."
"Way I hear it, he'll do shit for you that he wont for any other clients."
"Taking out the Serbian militia crew that was about to get their evening entertainment out of his mother and sisters will do that for a guy. Somehow Marko found out that I was the guy ordered my team to do that, even though it was technically a violation of our rules of engagement."
"Like your little display with the finches earlier?"
"I was betting I wouldn't have to shoot out more than one knee before the finches turned into canaries. Worked out better than I expected."
"Well you had me convinced. I was sweating how I'd explain the mess."
"Deb, I meant every fucking word and I would have cleaned up my own mess." She just nodded in response. Suddenly both of us pricked up our ears.
"I hear trucks. Two of them."
"Yep. Here they come."
As Sarah and I pulled our gear from our tac-bags, handing the M16 to Deb as agreed, I shook my head. There was no way I'd have time to shed my jacket and holsters then get into my vest and tactical rig before the party started. Sarah was thinking on similar lines. I happened to know she wasn't wearing anything under that dress apart from her thigh-holster, because she'd made pains to point that out to me before we left to come here. Like I needed any extra incentive to find my lovely mate sexy as hell. Her choice was to wear only the dress, or only the vest. She looked up at me with a rueful grin.
"No way I'm wearing that without something underneath it to keep the girls in line. I don't mind flashing the rest of the goods, it might even be a useful distraction, but up top I'd be chafed raw in thirty seconds and that kinda pain puts me off my aim."
"So I guess your strategy tonight is the same as mine... 'Just don't get shot.'"
"Yeah. And do unto others what they are still just thinking about..."
"Right. Let's move."
They were coming front and back. Sounded like we were getting at least a couple dozen bad guys rolling in on us. My ears were swivelling like fucking radar dishes as I focused on one footstep after another. They were trying to be stealthy but with that many guys sneaking up on us there was no way they could remain totally quiet. The good news was that they were deploying without any knowledge of the preparations we had made. I looked over at Deb and she grinned back at me as I counted down on my fingers.. three.. two.. one...
Just as the guys coming from the back walked into a smoke grenade from the 203 on Deb's rifle, one of her crew fucked up dealing with the guys coming from the front.
"Freeze! Drop your weapons!"
Damn it. You don't announce your ambush other than by springing it. If Deb didnt ream that guy a new one after we were done tonight I was going to, assuming that he didn't collect his karmic reward in the firefight that suddenly erupted all around us. The guys from the rear started spraying fire into the room without any idea of their targets, which was fine because we were all out of the line of their fire. Sounded like about a dozen AK's and they were welcome to empty their mags at nothing. The guys at the front though, they had at least an audible target and three of Deb's guys hunkered down behind a couple of pillars as they sheltered from concentrated fire. Deb had reloaded her 203 but instead of dropping one of her two frags into the middle of the smoke cloud and taking out most of the guys coming in from the rear, she had to give her people cover. She popped it neatly into the front foyer and the fire from that direction stopped rather abruptly.
My turn then. Every time I saw a shadow move in the smoke I popped a burst in its direction. Sarah joined in from the other side of the room, our suppressed MP5's not giving away our positions. The stealth thing was totally out of the window, curses and yells in Russian coming from both sides of the room as the bad guys realized they were expected. That ambush idea lasted only a few seconds, because they took the only rational course left to them. Two grenades came sailing in from both front and rear and burst in the middle of the room. No casualties from that but a chandelier that came crashing down to the floor but it meant everybody inside had to take cover and that, in turn, meant that we were not putting any suppression on the doorways. Both teams of Russians swarmed the place. Debs team was gathered in the entryway to the stairwells, which was fair enough. After all, their job was to protect the guests not take down bad guys. Me, I had other priorities. I slid my selector all the way to full auto and cut loose at the front doorway, holding the foregrip firmly so that my rounds went into the guys crowding through and not harmlessly over their heads.
Folks who have never fired one don't understand just how rapidly an MP5 cycles. Two seconds is all it takes to empty a full mag and mine wasn't full any more. Way sooner than I liked I was grabbing my only spare as an empty mag clattered to the floor. I saw half a dozen guys down near the front doorway but two more rushing in and drawing a bead on where Sarah was keeping the guys from the back occupied. The way the world slowed down when I got like this made it worse, it felt like my hands were moving through thick molasses as I reloaded, somewhere in the back of my mind knowing I was going to be a fraction of a second late.
As I was sliding the full mag into my weapon, the first guys head splashed as my ears plastered themselves even flatter to my head, reacting to a deeper report from a high caliber round, way too close for comfort, near enough that the sound was acutely painful. Liz brought her revolver down from the recoil and delivered some .357 attention to the second guy as he pivoted looking for where that sound had come from. She ducked down next to me as I rose up and resumed firing at anything that showed itself at the door.
"Boss at the back, Dafydd!" That was Sarah, crouching in cover and reloading. My head whipped round. That had to be Ostrakov himself, not only was the big bear the only guy we had seen wearing a vest but he was stabbing at the button on what looked to be a small transmitter. Shame his demo charges were in pieces downstairs. Got to give the guy credit, he could think under fire. Simultaneously with his realization that his bombs were unavailable and the sound of sirens to the front he swept up two guys with a gesture and bolted out the back. I yelled back at Sarah as I went to follow.
"Cover front!"
Dropping my MP5, because I couldn't have more than a few rounds left in it, I drew both my pistols and sprinted for the back door. I could hear the firing die down behind me as the guys assaulting the front started taking fire from the recently arrived SWAT team and either went down hard or realized they were in a hopeless position and started to surrender.
Ok. So in all the confusion, I'd lost count. There was still one of Ostrakov's goons at the back door.. Thankfully his weapon was empty and he'd put it down to scavenge a reload from one of his fallen comrades. I saw him start to jump me out of the corner of my eye and he collected the pistol in my right hand lashing across his muzzle. He folded and I kept running.
There was Ostrakov. Recalling my interview with his little stooges earlier I lowered the gun in my left paw, aimed carefully and shot him in the right knee. He screamed and collapsed to the floor, clutching at it and yelling a stream of Russian invective that cast significant doubt on my parentage, my sanity and my morals. As he pitched onto the grass the two furs with him started to turn round but froze when I yelled at them.
"Bros'te oruzhiye! Spuskaytes' na zemlyu!"
They both glanced over their shoulders and since each of them saw a perfect view of a pistol barrel aimed at their heads, they obeyed, throwing their weapons to the side and dropping to the ground. Stepping forward, I kicked their weapons to the side then knelt next to Ostrakov, taking a firm grip of his right armpit, dew-claw digging in to the flesh on his chest and the others piercing the skin under his arm as they curled to meet it. Leaning down I spoke, quietly. My Russian was good enough to order the goons around but for this I stuck to English.
"You know what happens if I close my fist, Vladimir? My claws go right through your brachial plexus and it's over for your right arm, you're gonna have to learn to paw yourself off with your left. This time, it only cost you a bunch of your goons, a busted knee and a leg that wont work so good any more. I'd call that a real cheap price. Next time you go after me or mine I'll find you and feed you your own balls. As of right now there's a bounty on your head in this city that will have every crook in town wanting to put it on a spike for me. Have these two drag your sorry hide out of my city and don't try anything with me again, ok? Because if you do I'll give you an entire fucking lifetime to regret it, even if I have to visit your dacha on the Neva to make that happen. If you think I'm kidding or boasting, just fucking try me. Count yourself lucky that I only lamed your repulsive carcass"
Damn but that felt good. Some guys would have just killed the boss but I'd rather leave a top hood in power that knows not to fuck with me than have to educate his successor all over again. As his soldiers carried him off into the dark I reflected that this particular branch of the Russian mob wasn't coming back here as long as Ostrakov lived. I'd call that "case closed." Properly closed, this time. No loose ends. I strolled back towards the back door, mentally rehearsing my "I winged him but he got away" speech for the cops that I'd no doubt be dealing with for the next couple of hours.
fin.