The four-man team assembled on Reznikov’s doorstep had worked exclusively together throughout the world for the past three years, making money hand over fist doing business with some of the nastiest people alive. Assassination, kidnapping, extortion, blackmail…all for sale to the highest bidder, and the Solntsevskaya Bratva was by far their best customer.
When the flashbangs exploded, the assault team’s point man peeled away from his position next to the smoldering doorway and slid into the house. The operative on the other side of the door started to follow, when two gunshots knocked the point man’s lifeless body back onto the granite porch in a cascade of brains and blood. The second man fired a burst from his shortened AK-74 into the house, which instigated mayhem. Yergei heard screaming, followed by several rapidly spaced pistol shots, all of which competed with the sound of crashing furniture.
“He’s upstairs, you fucking idiots. He shot me in the face!” yelled a Russian voice from inside.
“Watch your fire!” he yelled to the team.
His instructions had been clear. If he didn’t recover the scientist alive, they had no reason to return to Russia. They would be out of business, simple as that, targets of the next team standing in line to take their place…and there were many. Their bratva contact had made this painfully clear, which underscored the importance of the mission and better explained the exorbitant fee they had been able to negotiate. Reznikov was critically important to the Solntsevskaya Bratva.
“Hit the upstairs,” he said, pointing at the cottage’s shuttered dormer windows.
The two remaining operatives sprinted several meters back from the house and turned, each firing an entire magazine at the second floor. Yergei charged through the door during the mayhem and headed right, hearing the snap of a bullet pass inches from his head. The pistol’s report was lost in the hammering of automatic weapon’s fire from just outside the house, but he had caught a glimpse of the shooter on the staircase.
He spotted Reznikov sitting against a floor-to-ceiling bookcase, precariously close to a splintered doorframe he presumed to be fully exposed to the shooter who had just fired on him as he entered the house. Reznikov muttered to himself, holding a blood-covered hand to his face while repeatedly hitting the bookshelf with the back of his head. Scarlet fluid oozed through his fingers and dripped into a widening stain on his right thigh.
Yergei aimed his rifle high along the room’s interior wall, pointing in the presumed direction of the staircase off the kitchen. He fired several controlled bursts through the thin drywall while advancing toward the scientist. He arrived at the splintered doorframe next to Reznikov with enough ammunition in the rifle’s thirty-round magazine for a short, well-aimed burst at the staircase. As he fired the rifle, two more bullets snapped past, missing his head by inches and striking the wall behind him. He yanked his head back, satisfied that he had done enough damage to the shooter to escape safely with Reznikov. A sizable bloodstain had appeared on the wall at the top of the stairs.
“We’re getting you out of here,” Yergei said, reloading his weapon.
“Team. Inside left! Watch the stairway!” he said.
Within seconds, the two operatives appeared inside the house, fanning to the left and occupying the corners of the room. He pointed at the ceiling above them and gave the hand signal to open fire. The men crouched and aimed at the ceiling, firing wild bursts of automatic fire into the drywall above. Yergei joined them, sending most of the steel-jacketed rounds from his fresh magazine into the remaining ceiling areas that didn’t show significant damage. He always retained a few rounds just in case.
“We’re done here!” he said to his men, walking back to Reznikov.
They didn’t have any more time to play around with the mystery shooter. They had less than five minutes to secure a landing zone behind the security building, which still presented a considerable obstacle to their success. The constant sound of small arms fire, intertwined with the deep boom of a .50 caliber sniper rifle, reminded him of why they had been paid so much for this job. Nobody said it would be easy.
“You have to make sure he is dead!” Reznikov said.
“We don’t have time for that! My job is to get you out of here alive! So stand up and move out! I don’t see anything wrong with your legs,” Yergei said.
“You could at least be polite about it,” Reznikov protested.
“I don’t get paid for that, so don’t push your luck. Get on your fucking feet and move!” he said, spurring Reznikov into action.
He pushed the scientist through the front door and activated his shoulder microphone.
“Support team. Move up on the house. We’re on our way.”
Berg pressed his hands against his ears, wincing from the pain that radiated through his left arm. The flashbangs detonated moments later, whitewashing the kitchen in a six-million-Candela flash, but essentially causing no distress to his eyesight. Similarly, the one-hundred-and-seventy-decibel subsonic deflagration emitted by the grenade was reduced to a tolerable level by his hands. The suppressed gunshots fired from his pistol moments earlier had produced significantly more discomfort. He sprang into action and crossed the kitchen, torn by his decision to seek safety instead of hunting down Reznikov. He was in pure survival mode at this point, with little on his mind beyond getting upstairs, where he might be able to put up a better defense.
Reaching the center hallway, he didn’t hesitate to lean out and search for targets. His experience told him that the men entering the house would rush through the “fatal funnel,” or front doorway in this case, and immediately clear the front corners of the house. Their attention would not be focused forward directly upon entry. A heavily armed operative suddenly appeared in his sights, oblivious to his concealed presence dead ahead. Berg fired two 9mm hollow point rounds at his head, stopping the Russian cold. Based on the crimson explosion behind the man’s head, Berg had no doubt that he had scored a lethal hit. Unwilling to press his luck, he sprinted toward the stairs, barely avoiding a burst of rifle fire centered on the hallway.
Before he reached the stairs, Reznikov burst out of the walk-in pantry to his right, holding a kitchen stool and shrieking like a madman. He sprinted past Berg, swinging the stool at his head, but missing by inches. The CIA officer extended his right hand and fired repeatedly at the fleeing scientist. At least one of the rounds connected, knocking Reznikov against the far wall, but before he could line up a kill shot, Reznikov spilled through the doorway leading to the library.
He had missed his last chance to kill Reznikov, a fact he knew would condemn thousands, if not millions of lives in the near future. The thought of this epic failure kept him from fleeing up the stairs, which probably saved his life. The upstairs landing disappeared in a storm of drywall and splintering wood, as the sound of automatic fire echoed throughout the house. Movement near the front door attracted his attention, and he brought his pistol to bear on a single intruder. He managed to squeeze off one shot, missing by inches, before the commando vanished into the library.
Bursts of automatic fire punctured the wall on the other side of the hallway and chased him upstairs. He reached the top of the stairs and turned, noting a discernible pattern on the downstairs wall. Each burst had shifted left across the wall, indicating that the gunman was moving toward the back of the house. Berg crouched low and steadied his hand against the stairway corner, aiming at the kitchen doorway as bullets continued to pour through the wall. Through the smoke and drywall dust, a head appeared, and he fired twice, never seeing if his rounds connected. He was struck in the upper left shoulder and spun into the bathroom behind him. He landed on his hands and knees, physically stunned and unable to breathe…but fully aware that he was a dead man if he didn’t move.