The Hunters

23

Cobb was waiting at the curb for Jasmine when she emerged from the squat apartment building on the suburban street. He was leaning against the gray UAZ Simbir that their railway partners had loaned to him — a plain but fairly powerful four-by-four that looked like a western SUV but with a more prominent snout and an overall look of Communist reserve.

Cobb had left the vehicle when things looked like they might go south. He held back as Jasmine regained control of the situation with Kadurik. Now he smiled as she approached.

He was glad to see her safe.

Jasmine looked both ways down the bleak, harshly lit, cement-enclosed street. She was relieved to see that the area was all but empty. Little wonder. The entrance to the Dobrev apartment was tucked into an unnatural pyramid with a curving wall beneath a roadway forming one side, the apartment building forming another, and the maw of a dark alley comprising the third.

In Manhattan, this would have been the butt end of the building.

In Kartmazovo, it was the grand entrance.

‘Hope I didn’t make you wait too long,’ Jasmine said with a mixture of sarcasm, relief, and pride — the pride that came from successfully pulling off a first assignment.

‘You did great in there,’ Cobb assured her. ‘I was thinking, though, we missed a golden opportunity. We should have brought one of those gold foil chocolate coins and done a switcheroo. He probably wouldn’t have noticed for years, if ever.’

She laughed at the suggestion. ‘Honestly? I was trying to think of some way to palm it. I would have felt bad, but not—’

came a loud, rough voice.

‘Shit,’ Cobb whispered under his breath. He saw two uniformed patrolmen out of the corner of his eye. ‘What’d he yell?’

‘Excuse me,’ she translated.

Cognizant of the button camera on his shirt, Cobb turned toward the cops, giving Garcia a clear view of what they were dealing with: two veteran Russian patrolmen, both with square-brimmed gray caps and gray pants, one with a matching gray shirt, the other with a light blue shirt with epaulettes on his shoulders. Both had heavy, brown belts complete with handcuff holders and large, worn, leather holsters.

One was taller than the other, but both were overweight. They had buzz-cut hair, double chins, bobbed noses, and suspicious eyes. The expressions on their flushed faces were smug.

‘What can we do for you, officers?’ Jasmine asked in Russian.

Both men were taken aback by the fluent Russian coming from the mouth of the statuesque Asian. They stopped a few feet away, their surprise fading as they became bossy.

said the taller, heavier one.

‘Papers, please,’ Jasmine translated.

Cobb was already pulling his passport and visa out of his jacket pocket. She did the same from her coat. They calmly handed them over to the officers and waited, apparently unconcerned, while the two conferred.

said the shorter one, looking up.

‘These are not in order,’ Jasmine translated, looking hopefully at Cobb. Thankfully his manner was as comforting as it was confident.

‘Ah,’ he said, nodding. ‘Give them my apologies, tell them that it’s all my fault, and if they’d be so kind as to hand our documents back for a moment, I’m sure I can correct my mistake.’

Jasmine did so, while the cops used it as an excuse to stare at her as if she was a particularly clever animal in a zoo. They handed the passports and visas back. Cobb returned them with a one-hundred-ruble bill tucked between each set. The cops’ eyes brightened at the sight, but they still put on a show of study.

‘What’s going on?’ Jasmine whispered to Cobb.

‘It’s the Russian game, been going on for centuries,’ Cobb assured her casually. ‘They lie, we know they’re lying, they know we know they’re lying, they keep lying anyway, and we pretend to believe them.’

‘How about if I just believe you?’

‘That works.’

The heavier officer looked up and held out the passports and visas — minus the money, of course — with a smile on his face. He opened his mouth, probably to say that their papers were in order this time, but he never had a chance to speak.

Instead, a jagged rock smashed into the side of the cop’s head.

He fell to the ground like a shot duck.

Jasmine screamed as Cobb moved her behind him and twisted to get a clear view of the entire area. The other cop stumbled back and started clawing for his gun.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t fast enough. A lead pipe struck the side of his head. He hit the ground with a heavy thud. Blood poured from the wound, staining the street.

Three skinheads in camouflage pants and mock leather jackets had rushed out of the alley. Two had lead pipes, and one held a stained AK-47 bayonet — a straight, single-edged, five-inch blade with a dark wooden handle and a black ring under the hilt for attaching it to the automatic rifle’s barrel. They came at Cobb and Jasmine like the pack of animals they were. The knife-wielding one in the middle, the pipe-swingers on either side.

Jasmine shrieked again when Cobb ran from her without a word, but the cry was cut short when she saw what he was doing. He wasn’t running from the three men. He was running straight at them, launching off the balls of his feet, and moving so fast they started to falter even though they were much better armed than Cobb.

In a flash, Cobb was on the man in the lead. He blocked the knife hand by slapping his left hand hard on the man’s wrist. That bought him the time he needed to bring his right hand to bear. Jasmine saw Cobb strike him in the face with the bony heel of his open hand. The man shuddered and staggered backward on legs that reminded her of cooked noodles.

Jasmine couldn’t follow Cobb, he was moving so fast. Even before the knife-wielder was finished wobbling, Cobb was already shifting to grab the man to the left by his pipe arm. He grabbed the back of the man’s wrist with his left hand and swung his right hand into the back of the man’s elbow. One deft move from Cobb, and he had immobilized his opponent with a classic arm-bar. The skinhead went down on his knees. Cobb planted a foot on his back between his shoulder blades and pushed the rest of him to the pavement, face first.

She could hear the crunching of broken teeth.

The one to the right tried to redirect his attack, but the knife-wielder was in his way. He had to step around him, which cost him valuable time. With the pipe of the man he had just taken down, Cobb stepped forward, the pipe extended before him. It connected with the third man’s chest, cracking something inside. Cobb quickly regripped the pipe and swung it upward, smashing the hard iron into the soft cartilage of the attacker’s nose.

Blood sprayed in all directions.

Cobb’s counterattack had taken about five seconds. That’s how long it took Jasmine to suppress her fear, remember her training, and join the fray. The man Cobb had knocked to his face was trying to rise. Jasmine pounced, straddling his neck like a horse, grabbing his hair from above, and dropping. She allowed her entire weight to fall upon his upper back. That drove his face back into the street, knocking him out — along with more teeth.

She rose just as a fourth man darted from the shadows of the apartment building behind her. Jasmine chirped with surprise as she turned to face Marko Kadurik. There was a snarl on his face as his hand grabbed her by the throat. She remembered her training and tried to break the grip by laying her forearm on the groove of his elbow, pushing down, and twisting away, but he surprised her by punching her in the belly with his free hand.

She doubled over in pain.

He grabbed her by her hair, spun her around so she was facing Cobb, and pushed her left arm high up her back while clutching her throat in a death grip.

She tried to breathe, but Kadurik wouldn’t allow it.