…the biggest Russian goon he had ever seen simply exploded through the hallway wall, splintering drywall and showering Kit with paint chips and dust. The goon teetered right next to him, having pulverized the wall between Kit and the reception room.
Bennings wheeled the subgun, but the goon grabbed Kit’s gun hand in a viselike lock. As Kit raised his weak-side hand holding the SIG, the goon grabbed that hand too. The man was incredibly strong and slammed Kit’s body against the wall, then pressed in close. His huge hands clamped harder around Kit’s hands and started moving both gun barrels toward Kit’s head.
The Russian’s plan was easy to fathom; he was going to force Kit to shoot himself with his own guns.
Bennings glanced down the hallway; a couple of thugs had taken aim, waiting for the outcome of the grappling contest he now found himself in with the Russian poster boy for steroid abuse. Sweat broke out on his forehead as he looked his maniacal assailant in the eye; it was like looking into a soul of pure murderous lust. It reminded him of the look on the face of the woman who had broken his sister’s bones.
Staci. Staci’s favorite martial art was aikido. She was so good at avoiding his attacks when they sparred together, he used to bust up laughing. He could almost hear her voice say, “Merge with the momentum of the attacker rather than resisting, then redirect the force.”
Aikido while pinned to a wall? Why not? thought Kit, so he instantly relaxed the resistance in his arms, allowing the goon’s force to point the gun barrels at his head. But this change in physical dynamic was a feint, and Kit then pivoted his strong wrists sharply, causing the gun barrels to change direction, as he pulled both triggers.
Rounds shattered the front teeth of the goon, then tore into his brain. Bennings squeezed his eyes closed against a spray of spittle and tooth chips and blood as he shoved off from the giant, then he hosed the hallway with suppressing fire. The storage door opened behind Kit; Jen had come looking for him.
Russian thugs returned fire, but most of their rounds only found the body of the giant who swayed unsteadily, still on his feet even though he was already dead.
Jen grabbed Kit by his upper arm, pulled him into the storage room, and slammed closed the gray steel door just as rounds impacted on the other side. She tripped the door lock.
Bennings was dripping with sweat and breathing heavily. “Damn, we’re getting our asses kicked,” he said.
“I dunno, looked to me like you nailed that big guy.”
“Close enough for government work,” said Kit, who weakly managed a wink.
Jen started up the ladder.
“I left them a special surprise,” she called down. “So get your butt up here, quick.”
Bennings didn’t need to be asked twice. He hurried up the escape ladder into a dim attic space. Faint light filtered in from a hatch that led to the flat roof. He retracted the ladder and pulled up the ceiling panels, closing them and erasing evidence of their escape route.
He clambered onto the roof, and Jen helped him close and lock the hatch. Buzz, Angel, and Yulana, barely visible in the first light of dawn a hundred yards ahead of them on the roof, were running in a low crouch. The exterior walls of the structure came up four feet higher than roof level, keeping them out of sight of anyone on the ground as long as they stayed low.
He and Jen exchanged a look, then took off running.
Dimi hustled into the safe house, where his men were busy searching the place. He moved toward the gray steel door and watched as some men used pry bars on the door. He was about to say something when other men ran up with sledgehammers and went to work.
Just then, the Russian who was taken prisoner from the morgue parking lot was brought to him, still in handcuffs.
“Dimi! Get me out of these cuffs.”
Dimi glanced down at the handcuffs. There was no warmth in his voice when he asked, “What did you tell the Americans?”
“Nothing! What could I tell them? I don’t know anything!”
“Everybody knows something.” Dimi turned to another thug. “Put him in the Yukon.”
Dimi turned to look as the gray steel door gave way. Men charged in to find… an empty storage room. “Dimi!” one of them called.
Dimi hurried into the room and cursed. “Look for false walls, trapdoors! Everywhere! Quickly! This is taking too much time!” He looked to the ceiling and fired a burst into the ceiling tiles. “Check up there too! Hurry!”
Dimi crossed back into the hallway and grabbed a man. “There’s an empty business next door. Take most of the men and check,” said Dimi. The man ran off, ordering others to follow him.
Dimi scanned the common room and saw a large laptop sitting on the coffee table. He reached for it.
Kit and Jen made it to the opposite end of the roof of the L-shaped shopping center. Running in a crouch for a long distance can make one remember forgotten muscles, and the remembrance isn’t a particularly fond one. Kit looked over the edge of the wall and saw that Buzz, Angel, and Yulana had already dropped down on a rope ladder and were getting into the white van parked just below.
Jen looked at her watch. “Boom.”
Just then, a tremendous explosion ripped the dawn. They felt the building shake under them.
“You rigged the Semtex left behind by the CIA?” asked Kit.
She nodded grimly. “I didn’t like the way they woke us up,” said Jen, and it didn’t sound like she was joking.
They chanced a peek over the top of the facade wall and saw that the entire end of the shopping center that held the safe house had been demolished; smoke and dust rose, rubble rained down.
Fifteen or twenty Russians had been knocked to the ground just outside the blast area. Anyone who’d been inside was now south of the frost line.
“We could take out a few more of those bastards,” said Jen, hoisting her MP7.
“Every cop in the county will be here in minutes. Let’s go. Popov wins this round.”
CHAPTER 24
Louis Kraminski, the bearded, seventy-two-year-old longtime manager of Wheels Up Aviation at Chino Airport, ate breakfast at Flo’s Airport Café every working day of his life. Flo’s was kind of a classic Southern California greasy spoon; if Louis didn’t feel like Salisbury steak, he’d get the huevos rancheros. A lifelong aviation nut, he’d arrive like clockwork at 6:45 A.M., and at 7:30 he’d leave Flo’s and make his way through a security gate to get onto the airport proper and open the doors for business.
Over six hundred aircraft were based at Chino, which is a somewhat historic, general-aviation reliever airport serving private, business, and corporate tenants. Wheels Up owned and maintained six executive jets. A collection of other aircraft owned by the Bennings and Carrillo families were flown less frequently. The business model was simple: corporate or private clients would call to book a jet to their chosen destination. Wheels Up provided the jet and arranged for a pilot and any additional crew to staff the plane. Business had been good.
But now… the airport gossip had been so thick, what with the FBI and sheriff’s and army investigators nosing around after the murders of the Carrillos and the disappearance of Staci Bennings, that Louis felt almost sick to his stomach. The Carrillos and Bennings and Wheels Up Aviation had been his family for more than twenty-five years, since his wife had passed away from breast cancer at age forty-five. But today he wasn’t at all sure what to do, especially if Staci Bennings didn’t return soon.
Louis trudged out of Flo’s at 7:33. As he crossed the asphalt parking lot toward his pickup, a horn honked. A man with a gray-haired buzz cut waved at him and stopped his white van just feet away. “Louis!” said Buzz Van Wyke from behind the wheel, smiling, like he was greeting an old friend.