“Don’t worry. We’re not that late,” the driver reassured her. He glanced at the leather satchel by her feet. “The others are right behind us.”
Their Russian was lightly colored with the accent of the south, as distinctive as the American variation of English from its southern states. Here, near Moscow, it sounded out of place, the huge city’s pronunciation faster-clipped and more abrasive. Denizens of the capital city, the largest in Russia and a melting pot of ethnicities, quickly adopted the urban cadence and looked with disdain at those with more languorous speech, considering any but Muscovites provincial.
Yulia and Taras had been in Russia for six weeks, networking with like-minded Ukrainians to organize financial support for their cause. They wanted to rid their country once and for all of what they thought of as Russian lice perverting their nation’s heritage, and considered the pro-Russian insurgent forces in the North and East to be traitors. Their leadership had hatched a plan where they could use Russian-built missiles to attack civilian locations, creating the impression that the Russians were engaging in war crimes, which would in turn force the Russians to pull out of the country, their denials hollow to a world accustomed to government lies.
Subterfuge was the order of the day, and in order to garner the trust of the mafia in Moscow, they’d posed as pro-Russian guerrillas in need of weaponry to aid in the rebellion against the Ukrainian government. Even the organized criminal elements that operated in Russia for their enrichment would balk at selling pro-Ukrainian separatists missiles, no matter the profit to be made, but the palatable lie that they were really more or less on the same side had been effective.
The meeting on the outskirts of Dmitrov to which they were headed was the culmination of weeks of negotiations with an offshoot of the Russian mob whose primary business was trafficking in arms stolen from the army. Each year five to ten percent of all weapons and armaments in official hands simply disappeared, usually showing up in trouble spots around the world – in the hands of Central American gangs, Middle Eastern terrorist organizations, Mexican cartels, Colombian rebels, and African despots. After considerable fruitless probing, Yulia had finally been introduced to a pair of brothers who owned a network of nightclubs in Moscow as well as a host of other business interests, including what they’d cautiously described as an import/export company that could obtain virtually any commodity a buyer was willing to pay for.
More meetings had ensued, and a shopping list, as well as a price, had been agreed upon. Yulia’s network had come up with the first half of the payment required to guarantee delivery of a truckload of Igla-S shoulder-fired missiles that had gone missing from various army bases around the country.
Yulia squirmed in the uncomfortable seat, trying not to think about the money in her bag – more cash than she’d ever seen, a half million euros, counted and recounted the prior sleepless night once she and Taras had arrived in Dmitrov and checked into an anonymous hotel. Four other members of their group had driven to town that afternoon, and their car was trailing by a block. All were armed with pistols, although they hoped they wouldn’t need to use them. The chances of being robbed were slim, given who they were dealing with – anyone foolhardy enough to make a grab for the mafia’s money wouldn’t live out the evening.
The Lada inched around a stopped pest-control van, an image of an anthropomorphic pesticide tank wearing goggles and wielding a spray wand with its unlikely gloved hands emblazoned on the side, with its hood up and the driver staring at the engine with a baffled expression. Yulia and Taras sat in silence as traffic cleared past the van, and after two more long blocks he turned onto a smaller street that paralleled the river. Huge waterfront cranes stood motionless along the waterfront like alien arms reaching into the burnt orange sunset.
Taras inclined his head at a long, low concrete bunker ahead. “That’s it.”
Yulia’s eyes narrowed as she took in the structure. The high perimeter walls were dark, only a few lights on beneath the ungainly building’s roofline. “Looks deserted.”
Taras nodded to her. “They’ll be there.”
He turned off the road and pulled to a stop at a guard shack, where a grizzled pensioner in a threadbare coat regarded them indifferently through a haze of hand-rolled cigarette smoke.
“Closed,” the guard announced, squinting at Taras with bloodshot eyes.
“We’re here to see Nico.” Taras paused and jerked a thumb at the headlights rolling to a stop at his rear bumper. “The car behind us, too.”
“Yeah? Who are you?”