FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The raid was to take place that very night. We had no other choice, any longer and we'd risk him escaping. We packed, readied ourselves, then bundled into the sedan we were given by our contact, with Victor behind the wheel, and off we went.

I was nervous. Extremely nervous. Unlike the gang bangers, drug addicts and the occasional mafioso I'd fought in Manhattan, this was a whole new ball game. These were hardened Russian gangsters, armed to the teeth and ready to fight to the death if they needed to. One step up from the little league that was Manhattan's crime network. To calm my nerves, I'd brought along my earbuds, and as I popped them into my ears, I connected them to my phone and hit play on my music app. The familiar strains of my favorite band rolled through my ears, and I sat back and went through our plan in my head. The whole journey was long, very long, and by the time we reached the compound, it was the dead of night. Visibility was near zero, and I was regretting not asking our contact for some infrared lenses or night vision goggles.

Victor dropped us off further up the road than we had anticipated, and I could see why: the road up ahead was blocked by concertina wire, a remnant from an age gone by, perhaps to discourage motorists from going that way until they were finished doing whatever they were doing here. It was snowing too, not a heavy snowfall, but enough had fallen during the journey to blanket the whole area in white.

"Its to our advantage, if you're thinking about the snow."

"Hm?"

I'd been distracted by the view that I didn't notice Brandon looking at me.

"The snow. It'll mask our approach."

"Oh, yeah, yeah that'll work."

He turned to face me.

"Y'know, I haven't seen you this nervous since Brazil."

Oh yeah, Brazil.

"Well its been a while since I've done something this crazy."

"I know, I can tell you're worried. You're wishing you were back at your cushy desk in Manhattan, eh?"

I was indeed. Nowhere in my deepest, darkest thoughts would I imagine myself about to raid Russian mobsters and arrest one of them for Interpol. But here we were.

I turned around. Victor was staring at us out the window of the car.

"Don't worry Victor. We'll be fine. Just hold here until we give you the signal, or you start hearing gunfire. Once you know it's us, you know what to do."

He nodded and rolled up the window, turning off the lights within the car. No one had seen us yet, but I didn't count on that lasting long. Brandon tapped my shoulder and pointed to the house with his chin. Time to go. I nodded and slung my rifle behind my back and stuck right behind him.

He lead me on a long, winding route around the perimeter of the house. I could see the guards in their black coats, their clouds of breath and the shapes of their rifles outlined against the white snow. We gave them a wide berth, sneaking past them towards our intended destination. I could already see where the cellar doors started, but getting from here to there was another thing in itself. Snow was a noisy thing to move in, and trying to keep quiet while trudging through a field of snow was just asking for trouble. I tried to follow Brandon's lead as he crept silently through the carpet of white, but it wasn't easy, and I lagged behind several times, forcing him to stop and wait anxiously for me to catch up. After an eternity of fumbling through the snow, we reached the cellar doors, miraculously without alerting anyone to our presence. The doors, however, were locked, a problem quickly solved by Brandon as he whipped out two long, thin pieces of metal and bent over the lock. I crept close to him and whispered as loud as I could.

"What are you doing?"

He gave me a puzzled look.

"Picking the lock, what does it look like I'm doing?"

Oh. Duh. Looking closer, I saw him twiddling the two pieces of metal within the lock, and after a few moments I heard a soft click. Brandon took out the lock and buried it in the snow, before slowly opening one of the doors to let me in.

"There, in you go. I'll be right behind you."

I nodded and crept past him and into the open door. It was pitch black inside, and I smelled copper all over the place. The darkness made me kick my heightened senses into gear, and as my eyes adjusted to the dark, I fumbled around for a light switch. I heard Brandon behind me, creeping in and closing the door behind him, heard the scuff of his boots and felt his breath on my back as he approached me.

"Jesus balls, its dark in here. Found a light yet?"

"Looking. Can't get one yet."

I sidestepped to the left slowly, arm extended, until I felt my palm kiss cold concrete. I started moving forward, feeling along the wall, until my fingers touched a length of insulated wire. I followed the wire down and found a switch, most likely to the lights, so I flipped it. The glare from the harsh yellow bulb blinded me for a second, forcing my eyes shut as I tried to readjust to the light. I opened them again and saw what I smelled earlier.

In the center of the cellar was a single iron chair, very barebones, solid metal seat. All around it was a puddle of long dried blood, which explained the strong copper smell. Hanging on the opposite wall was a whole rack of equipment, comprising various types of pliers, forceps, blades and other nasty implements.

This wasn't your ordinary storage cellar. This was a torture chamber.

Jesus what were we getting into?

I grimaced and looked for the cellar entrance, finding it easily enough in a recess in the wall. The stairs leading up were wooden, and old from the looks of it, which meant they were most likely creaky. I turned back to Brandon and he gave me a nod.

"Just step on the sides of the staircase. Middle means creaking, which we don't want."

His voice was still barely a whisper, and I was about to ask him why when I heard a noise.

The door.

Someone was unlocking it.

It was locked?

No time.

I whipped around and clicked the lights off, pulling Brandon down against the wall, just as the door opened. I heard footsteps coming down the stairs, one, two sets of individual feet. The sound was unmistakable. I pushed Brandon and we hugged the wall as hard as we can.

Too exposed. Way too exposed.

I heard the light switch click on right above us.

Harsh, blinding light.

Two men, one with a black sack over his head, one with a gun against the former's back. The former also had his hands tied behind his back, and I could see the bruises on his arms.

Oh boy.

The gunman made his victim sit on the chair. I saw the man flinch from the sheer cold of the steel as he sat, but the mobster forced him down with a sharp prod from his pistol. The man wriggled, trying to break free of his bonds, while the mobster stood guard. A third set of footsteps, and another mobster joined his companion. He had surgical gloves on, and I watched in mute horror as he went over to the rack of tools on the far wall and took his time in looking them over. The first mobster, the gunman, talked in Russian to the poor fellow on the chair, and the man whimpered and pleaded, obviously for his life. I didn't have to understand the language to understand what was going on here. I glanced to my left and saw Brandon already on the move, creeping towards the man against the wall. He saw me looking at him and held a finger to his lips, then pointed at the gunman and drew his thumb slowly across his throat, then held up three fingers and tapped his wrist where a watch would be, then pointed at himself.

Kill order. Three seconds. His count.

I nodded and slowly eased to the side, directly behind the gunman. They hadn't noticed either of us yet, but I focused on the man as he continued to speak, oblivous to the whimpering and crying coming from his victim. Brandon positioned himself just to my left, his eyes fixed on the second man. He glanced at me and gave me a thumbs up. I nodded and returned the gesture. Then he closed his fist and raised three fingers. Then two. Then one.

I lunged for the gunman, one hand going for the wrist that held the pistol, my other arm snaking around his neck and circling it tight. I twisted his arm round and held it against his back, while tightening my grip around his neck. Next to me, Brandon fought with the second mobster, tussling for a mean looking saw out of the corner of my eye. I returned my focus to the gunman, who was struggling against my chokehold and trying in vain to squeeze his finger round the trigger of his pistol. I twisted his arm tighter in response and choked him more, grabbing onto his shoulder with the arm I had wrapped around his neck. My foot shot forward and kicked the back of his knee and he crumpled, falling forward but staying upright as I caught him on my arm. I heard him grunt and gurgle as the momentum near crushed his windpipe against my elbow, and I tightened my grip as his struggling slowly weakened, until he became limp in my arms. I dropped him and took away his pistol while glancing upward. I saw Brandon holding the other guy in a chokehold, the saw now firmly in his hands, and as I watched he brought it up and then across the man's throat, sawing violently as blood gushed from his neck like a fountain. The former SAS instructor dropped the corpse as it gurgled and spat blood, then dropped the saw right after as he dried his hands on the dead man's back.

"Right, that's done with. Hopefully they didn't hear anything upstairs."

His voice was low as he slowly took the hood off the captive. The man struggled the whole way, and as the hood left his head I saw that he was gagged as well. It wasn't anyone we knew, but Brandon held a finger to his lips and quietly urged him to calm down, which he did, slowly at first, but as he saw the two dead guys on the floor he relaxed a little more as he realised that the two men who were still alive were here to help. As I helped the captive out of his bonds, Brandon took out his phone and dialled a number. Seconds later he put the phone to the captive's ear, and an exchange in rapid fire Russian ensued. I understood not a single word, but it wasn't until Brandon took back the phone that I understood: he'd asked Victor for help in translation, since neither of us spoke the language. Hopefully that hadn't attracted any attention outside either. The man shied away from the bodies, taking the chair with him as he sat in a corner. I gave Brandon a look and cocked a brow.

"No doubt you guessed that I called Victor. Victor told me that the man comes from another village within the mob's turf, and that he was captured and taken here to possibly extract debt money from him. Victor told him that we were here to help, and told him to sit tight until we got our guy, then we'd come down and take him with us."

I snorted and looked back at the man. He was cowering quietly in the corner, obviously very scared.

"Some capture mission this turned out to be. Still, at least our friend here isn't dead, right?"

"Yeah, now we gotta go, this commotion down here has to have a follow up. I think its high time we start going loud with these folks."

I nodded.

"No guns though, but as soon as they start shooting at us, we fire right back, agreed?"

"Agreed mate. Let's show these idiots how the well trained function."

"Damn straight."

I gave our man another finger to my lips and he nodded in understanding. Brandon tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the stairs with his chin, and I nodded and followed.

The cottage itself was a nice, homely affair, judging from the fire that crackled from a fireplace in the living room. The cellar stairs led to a door that emerged in a kitchen, well furnished and obviously well used. There wasn't anyone here, but judging from the smell someone had been here very recently to brew coffee. The kitchen also opened up to a room beyond, and I saw a group of four men at the dining room table, playing cards as a steaming pot of coffee and a clear bottle of what I assumed to be vodka sat on a chair nearby. They weren't paying any attention to us, from what I saw, they were too focused on their cards to care. I sneaked right out and hid against the wall as Brandon followed, shutting the door quietly behind him. He hid across from me, but he had his eyes set on the room beyond. From my viewpoint, I had a clear sightline to the front door as well. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, until one of the men burst through the door, holding a lock in his hands.

The lock that Brandon had picked.

The man said something in Russian that made two of the men at the table stand and grab their rifles. They turned towards the kitchen to head downstairs.

Shit.

I pushed myself against the wall and willed myself to be invisible as Brandon did the same. After the men passed us by, Brandon snuck to the door as it closed and he locked it from the outside. Then he pointed at the dining room and nodded. I gave him a thumbs up and slipped out from the wall, charging into the dining room and surprising the two men still there.

It was go time.

Time slowed.

I saw both of them reach for their rifles while one of them opened his mouth, presumably to shout for help. I reached their table and flipped it over bodily, sending it crashing into the goon furthest from me and making his friend tumble head over heels and off his chair. I swiveled to my left and hopped into the air, drawing my knees to my chest and angling them downards as I landed on the fallen Russian. His ribcage buckled under my weight and blood sprayed out of his mouth, catching me by surprise as I righted myself after the leap. He used that to push me off himself and I landed on my ass. Both of us struggled onto our feet, but he collapsed onto a knee as his broken ribs drove themselves painfully into his lungs, and hopefully his heart. I took the advantage, reared back, then swung a kick at his chin that cracked his jaw and flipped him backward again. He collapsed, choked and gurgled, then was still.

Time normalised.

Brandon, meanwhile, had engaged the other thug, and was just finished putting him down by driving his face into the floor for the umpteenth time when we heard angry banging coming from the cellar door.

The other two guys.

In my haste, I'd completely forgotten about our other man down there. Hopefully our ruckus up here saved his life.

Brandon picked up a rifle from the carnage in the dining room and moved towards the kitchen. He saw me looking at him and shook his head.

"I'll take care of this mate, don't lose focus. Head upstairs and grab our guy."

I nodded and threaded my way past broken table and chairs. As I ascended, I heard gunfire from the kitchen, staccato cracks and splintering wood. And men screaming.

Upstairs I was met withi a withering hail of gunfire that forced me back down the stairs. They knew, oh boy they knew. I grabbed my gun from my back and clicked off the safety, then risked a peek up.

I saw several man in various positions down the hall, hidden in doorframes and behind a large table that had been flipped over. One of them spotted me and fired his shotgun, making me duck down as splinters rained down on my head.

Damnit this wasn't a good place to be. Too many of them, too little of us, and unprepared we were as well.

I felt a shove from behind me and saw Brandon push his way beside me. He had something in his hand, small, potato shaped.

A grenade.

I got the hint and retreated downstairs. I saw him pull the pin, then release the safety lever.

The crazy man was cooking it. I only dared do that in Call of Duty.

He counted three seconds, then chucked it upstairs and dove off the stairs. Not a second too soon, as an explosion ripped right through the upper floor of the house. I extricated myself from bits of wood and floor as I coughed. Brandon rose to a stand just ahead of me, his coat covered in a layer of wood dust.

"What in the hell was that?!"

He looked at me and grinned.

"That was the signal I agreed on with Victor."

"Really Brandon?! A goddamn grenade?! At least warn me first!"

He gave me a thumbs up as a response and advanced upstairs. I flipped him the bird but he gave it no mind, so I followed him up.

The grenade had torn a hole right in the back of the upper floor, exposing it to the elements. A lot of the wooden floor and walls were on fire as well, and the stench of copper was dizzying. I saw body parts strewn everywhere, and several corpses strung across floor, wall, and one shoved into the ceiling, impaled on a broken roof beam. Brandon made an immediate left once he reached the top of the stairs, kicking a door open and firing wildly inside at someone, a guard I presumed. I reached the top as he went inside, shoved the still standing corpse of a guard away and grabbed a cowering wreck from behind the heavy oak desk. On the table was a package containing several papers, and I caught glimpses of Victor's name on them.

Peter. Our man.

Brandon grabbed him by the collar and slammed him roughly down onto the desk, chest first. I got the hint and went to his hands, zip tying them behind his back. He was hauled roughly to his feet and we took him downstairs, where Brandon waited while I retrieved our freed hostage from the cellar. He was no worse for wear, but the explosion had pretty much made his already pale countenance even worse, and I smelled something foul about him.

Welp.

"That's all?"

"Yep."

"Good, then let's hope Victor's in the driveway waiting for us."

I nodded and went forward to open the door.

Outside, the snowfall had ceased, and gunfire raked across the porch as I dove for cover, returning the fire as the remaining guards converged on the house. I peeked out from the porch and fired at the men, downing one or two before I had to reload and their fire forced me down again. Brandon emerged right after, firing his gun wildly out into the snow, forcing the mobsters down as he raked his gun across the field, spitting fire at them from afar. Our hostages followed right behind us, but shrank away from the gunfire.

Over all the chaos, I heard an engine gunning.

Victor.

His sedan crashed through the snow, sending a few fellows flying and tumbling as he gunned it towards us. He swerved on the driveway and turned his car, making an almost perfect 180 spin. He poked an arm through his window and beckoned us to come, and he shouted out the window as a bullet crashed through his windshield.

"Hurry! We leave now!"

I took the hint and scrambled to my feet, laying down another wave of fire as I ran towards the car. I reloaded mid sprint and stopped at the car, taking my time now to level my aim so I could take out more of them as they approached, buying time for Brandon and our guests to reach the car. He bundled them in and got in himself, and I followed suit. Victor gunned the throttle and we sped off into the night, pursued by what was left of the mobsters.

---

Victor dropped off our passenger at his village and drove off, leaving us alone with Peter. The man waved us off as we left, and I caught sight of women and children, his family obviously, crowding around him and embracing him. I smiled and sat back, trying to relax even as adrenaline pounded through my veins.

Tonight could not have gone any better, except for the whole grenade thing. I'd have all the time to swear at Brandon for that once we got back and handed Peter into Interpol's custody. Which reminded me about something. I pulled out my phone and dialled Nina's number. She picked up after the fifth ring, and judging from her voice I'd called at a bad time; she sounded as if she'd been woken from hibernation too early.

"Its two in the morning, Anderson, what do you want?"

"Its done, Nina. We have Peter and we're on our way back to Moscow."

She must've perked up right at that, because her voice changed immediately.

"That's fantastic, Anderson, I knew you could do it. I'll phone ahead to my contact, he'll be ready with the rest of the team to take him into our custody."

"Roger that."

"Oh, and Daniel? I owe you one for this."

I smiled.

"Nah, no need, Nina, as far as I'm concerned, this is good enough."

"Well I can't let good help go unrewarded, right? How about letting me finance your trip back home? First class on Lufthansa sound good?"

I grinned and looked back at Brandon. He cocked a brow.

"She's offering us a flight back to New York, first class."

He grinned back.

"Tell her that I'm in, but only if she lets us have a whole row to ourselves."

"I think she'll be inclined to agree to that."

After we'd agreed on a time for the flight, I hung up. We were to fly out the next day in the morning, giving us some time to cool down and recover from our feat tonight. I checked the time on my phone. No wonder she sounded tired, it was nearly 7 AM. We'd spent the entire night and early morning on the journey there, but time flew on a mission, and it wasn't long before we were back in the city. We were greeted at the safe house by the same young agent, along with several other men and women, who took Peter into their custody as soon as the door was open. The young agent watched his colleagues take him away and smiled to us.

"Spasyiba. Thank you for your help."

"No problem, young man, its our pleasure."

We shook hands and he left, leaving us in the early morning sun in front of the safe house. Victor yawned and stretched.

"How about we go back to my place? I used to have an apartment here, still do, actually, and its empty right now."

"Sure. We'll just need to move our stuff over and we're set."

"Da. Take all the time you need. You saved my life back there, so I owe you two big favour."

I smiled.

"Well, you are coming back to the States with us, right?"

He shook his head.

"Nyet. I figure, since I'm here, I go visit family. I think its time I see them in person, instead of watching from distance. Feels like now is right moment, yes?"

He smiled, and for once I saw a smile unfettered by worry, a true smile that was echoed by Brandon and me. Afterward he drove us to his apartment, where I found the guest bed and collapsed on it, drained of energy by the night's proceedings.

---

The next day, Victor drove us to the airport. He helped us unload our bags from the trunk and walked us in. As we waited to check in, he spoke.

"You know, I think I might go back to flying. I see if Russian airline willing to take me back."

"That's a good idea, Victor, seeing as you're a free man now."

"All thanks to you two. Spasyiba, comrades. I owe my life to you."

He grinned and gave us both pats on the shoulder. I shook his hand and smiled.

"No problem, Victor. Maybe we'll see each other again soon, if I need someone to fly me to the moon."

"I didn't know you were a fan of Sinatra, comrade Daniel."

We had a good laugh, but by then it was time for us to check in. We got our boarding passes and headed to the departure area, where we bade the old Russian farewell. He responded in kind, with a loud, happy and hearty,

"Dasvidanya, comrades!"