Darke Mission (62 page)

In the United States, basements tend to be large, with substantial headroom, good enough to live in or play in. In Scotland, basements are rare, usually full of junk and, in the instance particular to today's action, constructed with low hanging, jagged concrete beams that would near decapitate anyone over 5ft 10ins. JJ knew his basements. On hearing a Russian wailing in agony, JJ opened the door, sped down the stairs, flicked on the light switch and popped two 9x19 mm Parabellum rounds into the man with the gashed head.

“Sergei!” shouted his mate who was close behind, but not close enough as Sergei was no longer with us.

Gil and Cyrus had followed JJ at pace. They were all taking cover behind old or unused suitcases, packing boxes, a sofa and a couple of unloved dining room chairs. At least two ex-FSB thugs were now diagonally opposite, maybe only 50ft away, sheltering behind a concrete pillar and keeping low. JJ may have made a tactical error. The Russian machine guns were not letting up. Bits of furniture were flying everywhere with fragments of wood and cloth showering him, Gil and Cyrus. The Chelsea three could hardly get a shot off. Soon their cover would be riddled through and useless. This wasn't good. They needed a way out.

* * *

“I need to get into that house, officer,” said Carolyn Reynolds, looking stern and really meaning it.

“No way hen,” replied the young and pimply Argyll and Bute constable. “There's murdur goin' on in there. We've called for armed back-up but they're no here yet. Nobody's goin' in there till they arrive.”

“Officer, I don't have time for this. My father is in there, my grandparents—”

“You don't sound Scottish, ma'am,” interrupted the constable.

“I live in America. Anyway that's got nothing to do with it. I'm a US government agent and these two gentlemen are US Navy SEALs. We're going in,” insisted Carolyn.

“Yer no and I'm President of the United States,” replied the unconvinced police officer.

Carolyn turned tail, got back into the VW and started it up.

“What did he say, Carolyn?” asked Mark O'Neill.

“He said he was Barack Obama, the lying fuckwit. I mean, he's not even black. Get ready, we're going in.” With that Carolyn floored the accelerator pedal and aimed straight for ‘the President'. The nimble bobby leapt out of the way. Carolyn drove round the Land Rover and into the driveway of her grandparents' house.

“Follow the noise!” shouted O'Neill, as the Borei Three exited the VW. All of the Russian's Mercs were blocking the driveway so they needed to get out and run for the house. Babikov saw them coming from his interior mirror as he and Boris lay flat on the AMG's rear seats. Neither Carolyn nor the two SEALs saw them as they were not visible due to the blacked out windows. The doors of the Merc saloons were wide open, so a swift glance in there revealed no human presence. As they approached the front of the house, O'Neill went left, McCoy right and Reynolds straight through the open and wrecked front door. Carolyn had her SIG Sauer out, ready, arms extended and pointing ahead. Frances Darke saw the young woman run into the hallway and vault the dead Russian while collecting his UZI. Black Nana had JJ's rifle raised and poised. Carolyn spotted her.

“I'm Carolyn, Granny,” called the NGA officer, as she flashed along the hallway.

Frances Darke registered the words but was totally bamboozled nevertheless. “Basement!” was all she could utter, lowering her rifle.

Carolyn heard the cacophonous racket from the basement. Without much intelligent thought for her own safety, she barrelled down the stairs and dived to her left to join the Chelsea Three.

Cyrus was totally taken aback, pointed his dad's Glock at her and yelled, “Who the heck are you?”

“I'm your sister curly-top so would you mind taking that gun out of my face. Hi Dad!” said Carolyn.

“Hi Princess,” replied JJ.

Cyrus did as he was told by his big sister. He more or less flopped down as low as he could. He didn't even know he had a sister. Bullets, wood, cloth, glass and bits of metal were flying all around but all Cyrus was thinking was
I've got a sister
.

Thankfully, Mark O'Neill had more focus on the task at hand than the youngest Darke. He moved in behind Babikov's two basement goons having followed the noise. The SEALs commander took one of them out with a shot from his handgun. As the Russian's mate turned to fire on O'Neill, Carolyn had raised herself and her recently acquired UZI and sprayed the exposed thug with at least ten of the magazine's twenty rounds.

Basement action was over. There was a lot of explanation that would be needed but now was not the time, Cyrus was smart enough to realise that. As they rose from the wreckage that was their cover, Cyrus could not take his eyes off Carolyn. She was pretty and she looked like him, bar the curls. It was well-friggin weird he said to himself but kind of exciting in an odd way.

Mark O'Neill emerged from behind the two dead basement Russians.

“Dad, this is Commander Mark O'Neill of the US Navy SEALs,” said Carolyn.

“Good to meet you Commander, really really good,” said JJ as he shook O'Neill's extended hand with gusto. “Just happened to be passing?” asked JJ, managing to retain a sense of humour amidst the carnage.

“Not exactly. Officer Reynolds, I mean Carolyn, your daughter and I—”

“We were on a mission together, Dad,” interrupted Carolyn, keen to end O'Neill's feeble stuttering. “We're friends.”

“Great,” said JJ, definitely wanting to know more but concluding that a well-wrecked basement with corpses was not the place to do it. “This is Cyrus, my son, and Gil an exceptional friend,” said JJ, completing the introductions. “Gil's ex-NSA and CIA, Commander. She's American and invaluable,” added JJ, clearly very proud of his protégé. Cyrus thought that this must be the Day of Revelations or something. One minute he finds out that he's got a big sister, the next minute he discovers his nanny is a trained professional spy that can shoot to kill.

Pop! Pop! JJ immediately recognised the sound of gunshots from his sniper's rifle.

“JJ!” yelled his mother.

JJ was first up and out of the basement followed by Carolyn and Cyrus. O'Neill and Gil had gone the other way past the dead Russians. They had stayed low to avoid the dangerous concrete beams and were swiftly out into the garden. It seemed that Babikov still had firepower.

Two more ex-FSB killers had now come straight through the front door. Frances Darke was certain that she was not related to either of them. She shot and hit the lead entrant fatally but missed with her second shot. She threw one more knife but it missed its target too. By the time she had called for her son, Babikov's man had her by the throat and was using her as a human shield. Becky was cowering over the rapidly fading Robert Darke. She was too petrified to move and he was helpless. The Russian ignored them. As JJ, his son and daughter arrived in the hallway, his mother and her captor were heading out of the front door.

“Drop your weapons or she die,” said the goon in broken English and a deep Russian accent. It was Bogdan, Babikov's top man. He had his short-barrelled machine gun right on Mrs Darke's right temple. The three non-captive Darkes lay down their weapons. JJ liked to think of Carolyn as a Darke even though she had chosen to be a Reynolds.

Unbeknown to Bogdan Zhirkov was that both O'Neill and Gil were hunkered down behind one of the grassy mounds on the periphery of the expansive front lawn. Gil motioned to O'Neill not to fire. This was going to be her shot. Sniper training involves a whole lot of information, practice and resultant skill. Black Nana was a mere finger twitch away from being headless, dead as a dodo, permanently out for the count. Gil knew this. There was one target, one place in the human body that would generate an instant kill. Professionals called it ‘the apricot'. Its technical term was the medulla oblongata, located inside the brain, at the base of the skull. A direct hit there and not even a finger twitch would result. Obligingly, the Russian holding Frances Darke was exiting the front door backwards. In a few seconds he would call for his remaining men to join him.

Bogdan did not have a few seconds. Gil had lined up the goon's apricot using her mil dot reticle. He was close, not even twenty yards away, so there would be no need to compensate for bullet drop. Gil dialled in a small adjustment for windage. They were at the edge of the Clyde and while it was not blowing a hoolly, it was breezy enough to make the trees' leaves audibly rustle. She was satisfied. The target was still. Zip! Bull's eye. The goon and his gun dropped instantly. No shots were fired from his machine gun. Frances Darke was unharmed. Babikov's top man was toast.

O'Neill nodded to Gil and she acknowledged it. All the angst that she had given herself over the non-shot of the druggy dude in Boston had now been lifted. As the family and friends at the front of the house were regrouping, the rat-a-tat of machine gun fire could be heard. It was coming from the outbuildings at the back of the house.

“McCoy,” groaned O'Neill realising that his SEAL mate was on his own.

Frances Darke and Cyrus returned to the house to help tend to her husband and his granddad. JJ, Gil, Carolyn and O'Neill headed for the back of the house. Rapid gunfire was coming from one of the outbuildings used mainly for the storage of logs for the house's fires and equipment for gardening. David McCoy was the subject of the gunfire. He was pinned down behind a sizeable tractor unit used for grass cutting and collection.

“Hey Big D,” yelled O'Neill. “Need a hand?”

“It's about fuckin' time,” Big D hollered back sounding none too pleased. “These commie assholes have had me stuck here for ages. You lot been havin' tea and biscuits or what?”

“Or what,” responded O'Neill. “We're here now. Keep your crew cut on.”

Mark O'Neill did not know how to address JJ, He wasn't going to pre-emptively jigger up future events by calling him ‘Dad' and ‘JJ' seemed somewhat familiar given they had just met.

“Erm, Mr Darke,” began O'Neill.

“JJ,” interrupted the Scot. “Any friend of Carolyn's and all that.”

“Fine. JJ is there any way into those outbuildings apart from the obvious entry points we can see?” O'Neill asked.

“Yes, if we go over that low level wall,” replied JJ pointing to the hundred or so year old four foot high brickwork to their right. “We could climb onto the roof. There's a small skylight. It's a tight squeeze but if one of us dropped on them then the others could crash the rickety door. We'd need to time it just right. The dropper will be the deader if we're not inside in a flash.”

Size wise it made sense for one of the women to be the dropper. Gil would have volunteered but without saying a word she pointed to her gammy leg. JJ understood. In all likelihood if Gil had crashed down on the floor or even on top of the Russians inside the outbuilding she would be off-balance and more vulnerable than an able-legged human. O'Neill and JJ were too big to guarantee a swift drop from skylight to ground. Carolyn had drawn the short straw.

JJ briefed her quickly about the layout on the inside. McCoy was still under heavy fire. The increased number of small holes in his tractor cover would soon join up to leave a big hole and expose his person directly to the incoming projectiles. JJ had a plan. He gave Carolyn his Glock 19 and she still had her SIG Sauer. Gil was to stay in situ and drop any bad guy motherfucker who came out of the door. O'Neill was to low-crawl underneath one of the outbuildings' windows and, in precisely four minutes from the synchronised initiation of JJ's chronograph and O'Neill's plastic Luminox, chuck a brick through one of the lower windows. There were plenty of loose bricks lying around. JJ was to go with his daughter. On hearing the breaking glass, Carolyn was to drop from the skylight, both handguns blazing as she went. She was bound to hit somebody.

The plan was off to a good start. O'Neill signalled to McCoy to stop firing. The Commander then lobbed a fair sized brick right through the window immediately above his head. On hearing the crash the two Russians started firing at the hole in the window and Carolyn dropped like the proverbial stone, blasting away indiscriminately, unloading her bullets on the blurs that were Babikov's men. One of them crumpled instantaneously. As the other rounded on Carolyn, JJ had his upper torso dangling through the skylight, he was wedged in. Strangely, this was part of his plan. He was stable in his position and had already loaded and aimed his crossbow. Whoosh! The standing man was no longer. JJ's arrow hit him in the throat. He was spurting and gurgling blood.

O'Neill leant through the smashed window, grabbed the arrowed Russian by the head and hauled him backwards out of the window space and thumped him hard onto the cobble stoned courtyard. He intended to twist his neck, but no need, the Russian was already dead.

Carolyn was a mess. Not from any gunshots, the Russians had all missed her by a mile. She was sore from landing on the hard surface of the outbuilding and she had straw embedded in her hair from the bales of hay that Babikov's men had been using as cover. Her clothes and face were black with dust and the general muck that flies about such an unkempt storage facility. David McCoy and Mark O'Neill came through the door. O'Neill caught sight of his love interest.

“Not one word O'Neill,” said Carolyn before her open mouthed Navy SEAL could say anything.

“A little help here,” implored JJ, well and truly wedged in the skylight's opening.

There were no more gunshots to be heard. All was quiet and the group of five finally leaving the outbuilding were walking back to check on the four still in the main house. As they approached the front door, they could hear the engine of a powerful car start up.

“Boris, get us the fuck out of here,” yelped a most unhappy Babikov. The driver reversed his Merc 4x4, turned it left onto a small footpath in the grounds and then drove out of the front gates at pace. He avoided the police Land Rover but not the unfortunate constable who had previously harangued Carolyn. The police officer was sent flying into an offside ditch and eventually rolled onto the rocky beach. He was not dead but had two broken legs and quite a few facial lacerations. Boris was lamenting his lack of boy action. Vladimir Babikov was lamenting the loss of his entire bodyguard squad, his money and the damned day that he had ever come across that reprobate Neil Robson. If it wasn't for that scumbag debtor he would never have come to Scotland, never known of the existence of JJ or Cyrus Darke and never left the warm home comforts of Mayfair for this cold, desolate island. Babikov's lamenting was not over. He was about to lament that the Rothesay to Wemyss Bay ferry ran only every hour at this time of day. He was about to lament that the armed police response unit from Glasgow was ready to disembark from the ferry that he was hoping to board. Finally, he was about to lament that four heavily armed Americans were only minutes behind his getaway car. It was a day of laments for the criminal, murderous Russian. Fitting then that a lone piper on the pier was droning out ‘The Flowers of the Forest' on his beloved bagpipes.