Politika

FIVE

Gregor Sadov moved through the darkness like a thief in the night. But Gregor wasn’t a thief. Not on this mission. He and his team had a larger goal in mind.

Their target loomed out of the darkness. A low, squat building, it stood less than three stories tall yet took up most of this city block. It was a warehouse, with service entrances on all sides and a loading dock that ran along most of the back. In better, more prosperous times, there had been two shifts of workers, bringing foodstuffs into the warehouse and loading it onto the trucks that passed through in a steady stream.

But these weren’t prosperous times. These days, the warehouse was less than half-full, and had only a single shift working — a shift that wasn’t due to arrive for another three hours.

Gregor held up a hand. Around him, his team merged with the shadows surrounding them and froze, waiting for his next command.

Sadov smiled to himself. This was a new team, but they were improving. After months of intense training, the four who had survived to this point were beginning to show real promise.

Still smiling, he reached down and unclipped the night vision goggles from his belt. Gregor had spent the last seven nights watching this warehouse, timing the guards, counting the assets arrayed against them, and laying his plans.

There were fourteen guards, ten on irregular foot patrol within and around the building, the rest up on the rooftop. None of them were hidden. The owners of this warehouse didn’t want their guards to catch anyone; they wanted the guards to scare away thieves and looters, and so kept their presence highly visible.

The guards were all armed alike, small-bore handguns strapped to their sides and AK-47s in their hands. Gregor was sure that they had riot guns locked in a cabinet somewhere inside as well, but he wasn’t concerned about their weapons. If he and his team found themselves in a position where the guards were likely to fire at them, they had failed in their mission.

No, it wasn’t the weapons he was most concerned about. It was the K-9 units: one guard with a German Shepherd in each unit. The patrols appeared to be random, but Gregor had noticed that the two dog units managed to always stay on opposite sides of the building.

That would help. It gave his team a window of approximately two and a half minutes to get in, do their work, and get out. It might be longer than that before one of the guard units passed near their exit, but that was the minimum time they would have.

It would have to be enough.

Slipping the goggles into place, he motioned for his team to do the same. Within moments they were set. Now all they had to do was wait.

It didn’t take long. Gregor was watching intently, tracking the dog unit patrolling the two sides he could see. From its position, he could make a good guess as to where the other unit was.

Less than three minutes after they’d gotten set, Gregor saw the K-9 unit come into position near the far corner of the building. Reaching down, he hit the squawk button on the small radio attached to his belt, twice. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. The double signal was enough.

On the far side of the building, Nikita, the fifth and last member of his team, silently unlatched the doors on the covered cages she had brought with her. Opening the doors, she pressed a button on a control she had laid on the ground before her, discharging a small battery and sending a mild electrical shock through the floor of the cages. The reaction was immediate as two rabbits darted forward, fleeing the cages and the unexpected pain of the shock.

They would veer away shortly, she knew, as soon as their pain faded and they became aware of the dogs, but by then it wouldn’t matter. All they had to do was to attract a little attention.

They did. Just as Gregor had planned. The nearest dog started barking and, moments later, the second one joined in. Nikita smiled softly to herself. Picking up the cages, she melted back into the night to await Gregor’s return.

Gregor Sadov heard the dogs start barking, but he did not give the command to move forward. Instead, he waited, watching for the moment when, as they had done every night this past week, the guards all turned their heads to see what had gotten the guard dogs so worked up.

His hand went up, holding his team in check, and then, when the last guard turned away, he formed his hand into a fist and let it drop. Instantly, his team moved forward, keeping to the shadows as much as possible and moving quickly into the warehouse.

Sadov went with them, leading from the front as he always did.

Security was light within the warehouse itself. Some of the guards patrolled inside as part of their irregular rounds, but mostly they stayed outside, on display, warning away any who might try and steal the foodstuffs stored within. In times like these, food was worth more than gold — and Gregor was there to drive its value even higher.

Taking up a position with a good vantage point, he gave the signal for his team to disperse. Outside, the dogs grew silent, but that didn’t matter anymore. Inside the darkened warehouse, Gregor’s team had the advantage over the guards. And soon they would be making their own distraction.

Through his goggles, Gregor watched as his team scattered through the darkness, dropping their little devices at all the preplanned points. These devices — each a block of paraffin with grain and sawdust mixed in, along with a tiny piezoelectric mechanism that would create a single spark on command — were all Gregor needed to help bring down a regime. At his signal, these devices would ignite. Strategically placed, they would bring a touch of fire to the grain stored here and, within a very short time, the entire place would go up in flames.

The best part was that no one would ever be able to prove arson. The paraffin was similar enough to the wax sealing many of the crates and cartons, and the sawdust and grain would be indistinguishable from the crates and their contents. Only the piezoelectric devices would stand out, but they were small enough that they would most likely be utterly destroyed when the warehouse burned.

As his team placed their paraffin blocks, Gregor disabled the sprinkler system. It was old, and hadn’t been tested in years, and probably wouldn’t have worked anyway, but Gregor never took unnecessary chances.

Gregor was turning away from the sprinkler system, about to head to his next task, when some unexpected movement caught his eye. One of the guards had come in through the far door, and was making his way deeper into the warehouse, toward Gregor’s team.

That was a problem. One guard would not be able to stop them, but he might be able to get off a shot — and that would bring more guards than Gregor and his team could handle.

And there was another, bigger problem. Even as Gregor began moving forward, toward the guard, he saw Andrei, the youngest and most impetuous member of his team, also moving toward the guard. And Andrei was drawing his gun.

Gregor could not allow that. Any shot — whether it came from the guard or from one of Gregor’s men — would draw more guards. For that reason, Gregor would have liked to have had his young team tackle this assignment unarmed… but that would have been tempting fate. Even the best laid plans could go wrong, and his team deserved every chance to survive a screw-up.

Gregor started to reach for his radio, but it was already too late. He could see Andrei bringing up his pistol.

Gregor had no choice. He didn’t hesitate. Drawing his gravity knife, he flipped it once in his hand and then threw it.

He could have gone for the guard, but he didn’t dare. He knew Andrei. Seeing the guard fall, Andrei would have simply assumed that he was ducking, and would have fired anyway. So Gregor did the only thing he could do. He threw the knife at Andrei.

The heavy blade went into Andrei’s throat, but Gregor wasn’t watching. As soon as he threw the knife, he started moving once more, heading toward the guard.

Andrei grunted, already strangling on his own blood. The guard, hearing the faint noise, started to turn, and Gregor’s hands closed around his neck. A squeeze, a twist, and the guard was dead, moments before Andrei, too, died.

“Shit,” Gregor said, softly. He lifted a crate from a nearby pile and leaned it against the guard’s neck. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best he could do on such short notice. Besides, it wasn’t necessary to convince the authorities that this was an accident.

His job was to set this fire without making it obvious that it was arson. With luck and the usual Russian incompetence, the fire would still look like an accident. But if not, it wouldn’t matter. The people were starving and terrified. Even if the government pieced the puzzle together, they wouldn’t dare announce that these fires were deliberate. Not unless they wanted to start the very panic they were working so hard to avoid.

Turning to Andrei, Gregor retrieved his blade, cleaned it and sheathed it, and then hoisted Andrei’s body onto his shoulder. The rest of the team had finished placing their blocks, and it was time to leave.

Gregor settled Andrei’s body more comfortably on his shoulder and gave the signal to withdraw. His team met him at the door farthest from where the fire would begin. None of them said a word, but from the way they looked at the body he was carrying, Gregor knew they had all learned a valuable lesson tonight. None of them offered to carry the body.

Standing in the darkness beside the door, looking out into the night for signs of any guards, Gregor reached into his pocket and pressed the ignition switch. Moments later, he caught the first faint whiff of smoke.

The guards reacted quickly — more quickly than he’d expected — but that was good. The fire was already too well set for them to stop, and their quick response only let Gregor’s team slip out that much sooner, and increased their slim safety margin. Gregor knew grain, and how it burned, and he wanted to be well away from this area before the fire really got going.

Once more, he gave the signal to move out. Their job here was done, and Gregor had a report to call in. His masters would be very pleased with this night’s work, and with the work Gregor and his team would do over the next few days.

Slipping out into the night, Gregor tried not to think too much about the mistakes they had made as, behind them, the first orange flames leaped toward the night sky, and the first stores of grain exploded.