In the blink of an eye, the two cars sped past one another with less than a millimeter to spare. The other driver cursed and shook his fist at Yuri. However, his troubles weren’t over. He barely had time to react to the black Lada coming at him. The astonished driver hit the brakes and turned the wheel hard. A second later, the car slid off the road and into the deep snow covering a farmer’s field.
Letting off another burst, the bull-necked thug swore when he saw his shots strike the road in front of the van. Pulling his frozen hand back inside, he quickly went to change magazines when he saw Yuri’s minivan unexpectedly leave the road. After calling their boss, the two thugs were now on a mission to kill Uvarov and everyone in the minivan. The word on the street was that there was a two-million-dollar payout for the first men to kill them all, and they wanted the money.
“Where are you going?” called Jen, as she held on for dear life in the back of the vehicle as it bounced up and down on the narrow frozen dirt road.
“I’m going to try and lose them in those woods,” said Yuri over his shoulder.
“What woods?” asked Cardinal, trying to see what Yuri was going on about. He was about to say something when, through the snow, he saw a dark line of fir trees about one hundred meters away.
“Can we reach them in time?” asked Sam.
Yuri glanced up at his rearview mirror and winced; the Lada was still coming after them. Worse than that, it was closing in behind them. The engine light flashed on. “I think we have a problem,” glumly said Yuri. “They may have hit the engine.”
Cardinal couldn’t believe their bad luck. He looked over his shoulder at Sam and Jen trying their best to protect the two men in their care. Cardinal knew what he had to do. Flipping the AK’s safety off, he looked over at Yuri. “When I tell you to, I want you to slow down for just a second and then drive this thing like a bat out of hell.”
“Why?” asked Yuri.
“There’s no time to explain,” replied Cardinal firmly. “Now slow down!”
Yuri put his foot on the brakes. The minivan slowed down. A second later, Cardinal flung open his door and rolled out onto the snow. He didn’t hear Sam cursing him as he rolled over on his shoulder and came up on his knees. With the AK held out in front of him, he took aim down the road.
In the Lada, the bull-necked thug was growing anxious. He had temporarily lost sight of the minivan in the snow as it blew across the open field. The man known as the Butcher was driving the car and swearing up a storm. If they lost them, both men knew there’d be hell to pay with their short-tempered boss.
“What is the hell that?” asked the Butcher as he leaned forward over the steering wheel, trying to get a better look at a dark object on the road directly in front of them.
“Jesus, it’s a man,” was as far as the bull-necked man got before the front windshield of their Lada exploded inwards. Bullets and shattered glass tore into their bodies, instantly shredding them to bloody pulps.
Cardinal kept his finger on the trigger until the entire thirty-round magazine was empty. He watched as the Lada, its windshield blown away, swerved off the road and come to a sliding halt about thirty meters away. He quickly changed magazines, got up on his feet, and cautiously approached the Lada. Its engine was still running; however, the front of the vehicle had slipped into a ditch hidden under the snow. With his weapon trained on the car, he stepped close. Cardinal looked down into the broken windshield and saw that the passenger was dead with a hole in his head. Unbelievably, the driver, although covered in blood, was still alive.
The driver lifted his head slightly and saw Cardinal standing there. Painfully, he reached down and grabbed hold of the meat cleaver that he had used to end so many of his enemies’ lives. With a loud, bloody cough, he brought the sharp blade up. With a maniacal grin on his face, he defiantly swore at Cardinal.
Cardinal pulled the trigger, firing one round into the man’s head, ending the thug’s miserable life. “Idiots,” muttered Cardinal to himself. He quickly checked the car for any other passengers, turned off the ignition, and threw the keys out into the blowing snow.
It was done.
Cardinal looked back towards the snow-covered treeline and couldn’t see Yuri’s minivan. A cold shiver ran down his spine. He may have finished off the men following them, but he knew that people like them seldom worked alone. There would be more and he wanted to make sure that he was ready for them next time.
Five minutes later, Cardinal found Sam standing in the middle of the road in the blowing snow, with a pissed-off look on her face. “Just what the hell do you think you were doing, mister?”
“It was the first thing that came to mind,” replied Cardinal, stopping in front of her.
“Well, it could have gotten you killed. Did you think about that?”
“No, I suppose I didn’t.”
“No, you didn’t. Don’t do that again!”
“I won’t,” he replied leaning forward for a kiss.
“There’s no time for that. Follow me,” said Sam curtly.
A short while later, they walked inside an old barn that thankfully still had its roof. The minivan’s engine had seized up a dozen or so meters from the barn and had to be pushed inside. Jen sat over by an iron stove that looked like it had been last used during the Russian Revolution. Using pieces of wood littering the floor, Jen soon had a roaring fire going.
“Well, at least we won’t freeze to death,” said Yuri, trying to make light of their situation.
Sam walked over to an old chest, flipped open the lid and rummaged about inside for a minute or two. When she stood up, she held a couple of candles in her hands. She lit them. Their flickering light lit up the area around the stove.
“Not quite like home, but it’ll have to do,” remarked Jen as she dug out her cell phone. She pursed her lips and shook her head when she saw that they still had no reception.
Pasha and Tokarev sat down on a couple of old crates looking scared and tired. Pasha said to Yuri, “Tell me, does it always go this way for you and your friends?”
Yuri shrugged his shoulders. “It’s been worse.”
“I always thought the KGB would come for me,” remarked Tokarev. “I guess it beats dying of old age.”
“Gentlemen, there’s no need to talk like that,” said Yuri. “Trust me, we’ll all be home tomorrow with a story that you can one day tell your great-grandchildren.”
“Yuri, did you happen to pack any food?” called out Sam, as she dug around in the back of the minivan.
“Da, I bought some cookies and a few cans of coke at the airport,” replied Yuri.
“Got them,” said Sam triumphantly.
Cardinal walked over beside Yuri. “It’s getting dark outside. We’re going to have to ride out the storm until morning. Hopefully, the snow will lift and we can find a home around here with a phone, or it’s going to be a long, cold walk back to Saint Petersburg.”
“If we’re going to be stuck in here, I’m getting back to work,” said Tokarev. He returned with a couple of notebooks and began to read them by candlelight.
Yuri helped himself to a cookie and said to Cardinal. “We can take turns on sentry tonight?”
“It would be the wise thing to do,” replied Cardinal. “We’ll do four-hour shifts. I’ll start. You can follow me and Sam can have the last shift.”
“Da, sounds good,” replied Yuri, taking another cookie.
A couple of hours later, the storm picked up in its intensity. Powerful winds surging down from the north buffeted the aged barn, which creaked and groaned like a banshee every time a gust of wind struck it.