“Okay, okay. I was just asking.”
Jet saw the other two officers share smiles behind the speaker’s back, telling her that this was routine, and the main cop was just busting Yulia’s chops for lack of anything better to do. She wished she could communicate her observation to the men in the back, but there was no opportunity, and she prayed they remained calm.
Yulia moved to the rear of the van with the cops and opened the cargo doors. The police eyed the fatigued faces of the uniformed Ukrainians, and the main officer turned to Yulia. “Papers?”
“Let me see if they gave us any for them,” she said. “You know how it is. Everyone’s in a hurry, but nobody wants to do the work.”
The cop followed her to the passenger side so she could look through the glove compartment for documentation that didn’t exist, and Jet beamed a friendly smile at the two young officers, hoping they didn’t notice that her hand never left her bulging pocket. She shivered and shifted from foot to foot, ostensibly to keep warm, but in reality to keep the officer who was with Yulia in sight.
“Colder than hell, isn’t it?” she muttered, and one of the police nodded. Jet was hopeful that they’d allow them to continue, and then Yulia reappeared with the other cop.
“Figures they forgot to give me the docs,” Yulia said. “Oh, well. You can see we all work for the same outfit. It’s a company vehicle.”
“That may be, but we need to check it. Everyone out of the van. Now,” the cop ordered.
“Seriously? There’s nothing in here. You can see from here,” Yulia complained.
“Out.”
“You heard him,” Yulia said, and the men scrambled from the cargo bed. Jet pretended to watch them climb from the vehicle, but her eyes were on the police, and when she saw one of them bring his weapon to bear on the van as Mikhail stepped out, his face rigid and his body language radiating fear, she knew they wouldn’t be able to bluff their way any longer.
She whipped the little pistol from her pocket and fired at the main cop from point-blank range. The slug caught him in the throat and he gurgled a scream as he went down, and Jet was already shooting at the other two before he hit the ground. Her rounds struck them as they fumbled with their weapons, and they dropped their guns as they tumbled backward.
The night exploded with the percussive chatter of the second submachine gun from the SUVs, and Jet threw herself to the side as Yulia answered the shooting with a volley of her own, using the downed cop’s pistol she’d clawed loose from his dying grip. Bullets ricocheted off the gravel near Jet, and one of the Ukrainians screamed, hit. Jet crawled to where the cop with the submachine gun lay and freed his weapon. She felt for spare magazines and found two, and then ducked lower as slugs slammed into the ground around her. She emptied her pistol at the shooters and tossed the useless gun aside. The firing stopped for a moment, and she rolled behind the van and then jumped to her feet and sprinted for the driver’s seat as the shooting behind her resumed.
“Come on. Move it,” she cried as she slid behind the wheel and felt the van rock as the men leapt aboard. She fired a stream of slugs with the submachine gun at the police, emptying the magazine in a couple of seconds as she bought Yulia time. Bullets thumped into the side of the vehicle and someone grunted in the bed. Yulia continued firing at the cops from the rear doors, and Jet waited as long as she dared before pulling away. Yulia threw herself into the back as the van began accelerating, and then they were on the road, past the SUVs, the orange blossoms of muzzle flashes lighting the night behind them.
Chapter 35
“Stop the van!” Mikhail cried from the rear after they’d rounded a series of curves.
“Not a chance,” Jet growled, intent on the road in front of them.
“It’s Vlad. He’s…bad.”
“There’s nothing we can do for him,” Jet said. “We have to keep moving or we’re all dead meat.”
“Sandra, stop. It’s not just Vlad.”
Something in Yulia’s voice gave Jet pause, and she bit back a sharp response as she pulled over. “What is it?” Jet demanded, twisting in the driver’s seat.
“Taras. We left him back there.”
“And?”
“He was wounded,” Mikhail said. “In the leg.”
“Damn,” Yulia said, holding Vlad’s head in her lap. She closed his eyes with a trembling hand and looked up at Jet. “He’s dead.”
Jet ejected the spent magazine from the submachine gun and slapped another into place. “I’m sorry he didn’t make it, but there’s nothing we can do except head for the border.”
“No. Taras’s been with me since the very beginning. We can’t leave him. I won’t do that with one of my men.”
“That’s very noble, but we can’t go back,” Jet countered.
“We’re going to.”