I wish I knew more about our contact. But the old man's always been cagey as hell about such things. 'What you don't know you can't divulge.'
But it has to be done; the old man wants it. But how? Kill two guards at the same time? Okay; that we could do. Kill a third person, probably a woman-no, wait a minute. This is the Arabian Peninsula; there is no reason to assume the third person is female. In any case, kill someone that we can't see, before she-or he-screams? Not going to happen.
Kill one and mount the wall, then go for the couple? Oh, God that doesn't exist, that's not going to . . .
Baluyev interrupted. 'Comrade Major, the guard above you is turned away, watching the blow job. The pervert.'
Maybe there is a God. And maybe we have to take a risk.
Konstantin squatted and pointed a single finger at Timer Musin. Once he was certain he had the sergeant's undivided attention, he made a throat cutting gesture, a quick flick of his index finger in the general direction of his own throat. Then the major directed both thumbs toward his own shoulders, at the same time sticking both index fingers up to indicate the direction of travel.
Musin raised an eyebrow, momentarily, then took half a step on padded feet to place one foot on the major's shoulder, then both hands against the wall. He briefly took one hand away to loosen the restraining strap on his knife, then replaced it on the wall.
I am so glad you're not the huge sort, Sergeant Musin, Konstantin thought, because I am frankly too old for this shit.
Then Konstantin stood up, his back shrieking in protest.
Tim padded his hands lightly up the wall as the major raised him. As he felt himself nearing the summit of Konstantin's ability to propel him, he took his right hand off the wall and grasped his knife. His eyes cleared the edge of the wall and saw the distracted guard. His chin cleared, then his shoulders. He let his chest fall to the wall as he reached out with both hands.
Rather than a helmet, the guard was wearing a keffiyeh not dissimilar to the one adorning Musin's head. Strong fingers drove through the cloth to grip hair. An arm stronger still yanked backwards, even while the hand on the other, gripping its knife, took advantage of the exposed neck to drive the blade in to the hilt and then rip it all the way across the throat.
The guard's body went into a fair simulacrum of the funky chicken, shaking and twitching like a mad thing. Blood gushed; noisily, it seemed to Musin. It sailed upward, then sprinkled down, some of it landing on his keffiyeh. In an instant, Tim's legs and torso, using the late guard's body for balance, were on and over the wall. In the process, he lost his keffiyeh even as part of his false beard, scraping the wall, tore off. Ignoring the loss, still gripping his knife, Tim set his feet on the parapet and began a silent trot for the woman on her knees further down.
'Kill him, Krav.'
Kravchenko took a quick but deep breath, let it out, then did both over again. Between his first and second breath he gave the ground another careful look to ensure that there were no obstacles. Then, pistol in both hands for a steady hold, he began to walk backwards. As soon as the guard's head came into view he aimed but . . .
'Shit, Comrade Major, two thirds of the bastard's head is covered by the crenellations. I haven't got a decent shot.'
The girl was milky white, with midnight hair long in the back and cut in bangs across the front. She looked perhaps fourteen. Even her breasts, exposed where she'd opened her shirt, were small and budding like a young teen's. Her eyes were not closed, as Musin had expected. Rather, they were not only open, they saw him. And yet the woman did nothing except continue the business on which she'd been engaged. Then she held up one hand, palm out, stopping Musin in his tracks. He pressed his back against the parapet wall.
Removing her mouth from the guard, she began to rise from her knees, snake-like, slithering up the guard's body. Once she reached her full height of perhaps five feet, she took both the guard's hands and slid them under her shirt. Then she reached up to pull the guard's head down for a kiss. While they kissed, and while her left hand stroked the back of his neck, under his keffiyeh, she used her right to lift her skirt. Strapped to her thigh, the sergeant saw, was a long, thin stiletto. He watched, fascinated, as she silently drew it, rotated it, and then plunged it through the guard's chin and into his brain, spinning the thing like a mortar's pestle once it was well inside.
Pulling out the stiletto, she backed up slightly, and began easing her victim's body to the floor. Musin moved in to help. He had a very difficult time keeping his eyes off the breasts that looked so very young and tender.
Seeing that, she began to button her shirt against his gaze. She said, in good if highly annoyed Russian, and in a fully grown woman's voice, 'Those are for business, rarely for pleasure. And, speaking of which, it's about time you assholes showed up. I've had to entertain these two every night for the last three weeks to make sure I would be here when you came, as the old man ordered.'
'You . . . ummm . . . serve the motherland,' Musin said, as if by way of acceptance of the woman's . . . job. Besides, she was altogether too pretty to judge.
She sighed, and at that moment she really did look fourteen. 'In my own way,' she said. 'I'm Lada and, no, I'm not fourteen.'
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something.
-Pancho Villa, Last words, 1923
D Day, Nugaal Highway, Ophir
Under its thin coat of dust, the limousine was brightly polished. It bounced and jarred over the potholed highway between the airfield and the town of Nugaal.
'And how many guards?' Welch asked Mr. Dayid, as the two sped up the highway. Terry rescrewed the suppressor onto the muzzle of his submachine gun as they rolled.
Pigfucker drove the limo. It was followed by the largest truck the parking lot in front of the palace had held, a more or less long-bed five ton. That was driven by Ryan, with Graft and Semmerlin in the back. All the men from Terry on down sported freshly touched up 'Black-is-Beautiful.' It wouldn't fool anybody for more than a second. That said, given the velocity of a bullet, even a subsonic one, a second was awfully long time to be laboring under an error.
The accountant shrugged, answering, 'It varies sometimes but never more than a dozen. Of those, not more
