‘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.
24
Kadurik wasn’t just choking her, he was wrenching her forward and back, cutting off her air entirely each time he pulled back and strengthened his hold. Then he stopped moving. He stood erect, hugging Jasmine tight against him, lifting her onto her toes.
She tried to remember what she had been taught: focus on one finger. If she could pry one digit from her throat, his grip would loosen significantly. At the same time, she thought about her stance, and how she might be able to knock him off balance.
But training is not instinct. Thought is not muscle memory. And the seconds Jasmine squandered remembering the techniques cost her air and consciousness.
Now she was helpless.
Jasmine’s face turned red. Her tongue stabbed out of her frighteningly twisted mouth. Then her body jerked forward limply as if she were trying to throw up. The sounds of her gagging made Garcia and Papineau sick with helplessness all those miles away.
‘Sarah!’ Papineau screamed in the Moscow railroad office. ‘Where the hell are you?’
But Sarah wasn’t answering.
‘There must be something wrong with her unit,’ Garcia said.
‘Quiet!’ Cobb whispered, low enough so that Kadurik wouldn’t hear.
‘You!’ Kadurik snarled in heavily accented English. ‘Kick … pipe … here!’
He clutched Jasmine to him, huddling behind her, shaking her head with his hand at Cobb like a mad puppeteer.
Cobb motioned to lower his elbow first, relax the choke.
‘Do it!’ Kadurik threatened.
Cobb shook his head. ‘She dies, you die.’
Kadurik relaxed slightly — but it was enough. Jasmine was in no condition to fight, but at least she could breathe, albeit raspingly.
Cobb agreed to his end of the bargain. He slowly placed the pipe on the ground and kicked it forward — all the while deciding when to make his move. But before he had a chance to do anything, there was a blur of motion behind Kadurik, who made a whining, wailing sound, which was drowned out by the stomach-turning noise of ripping skin and smashing bone.
Kadurik crumpled to the sidewalk like a rag doll. Jasmine fell, too, but before she hit the ground, Andrei Dobrev caught her in his blood-splattered hands. To do so, he was forced to drop his nineteen-inch-long saddle-bolt spanner — an open-ended wrench used to tighten bolts in locomotives. Covered in strands of hair and bits of flesh, it clattered to the cement in the suddenly quiet night.
Cobb blinked a few times, surprised by the turn of events.
Although Jasmine was his main concern, Cobb rushed to Kadurik first. Not to treat his wounds, but to make sure he was no longer a threat.
He wasn’t. The skinhead was dead.
Cobb patted him down and searched his pockets. Then he placed the weapons back in the hands of the men who had been carrying them — including the rock, so the police would know who had attacked their colleagues.
All in all, it wasn’t a bad result.
