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The Company
On December 14, the gang consisted of Bonnie ("Xiang Wen," a.k.a. "Wu Xie Zhi"), Marc ("Anabel Windsor," a.k.a. "Abigail Wilson"), Martin ("Zhu Zhang," a.k.a. "Harold Lee"), Mike ("Vincenzo Calliente," of many aliases), and Torsten ("Qoqa Ramazanov," a.k.a. "Zoya Petrovna Sidorov").
Time: October 5, 2009 (late afternoon).
Place: Dingy cinderblock gang clubhouse, London.
Last Event: Neutralizing mob soldiers defending Yuri, the local boss.
With the majority of the gangsters gunned down, most of the building secured, and Wen keeping the door to Yuri's office in the sights of her rifle, the Agents hastily plan their next move. As the others reload and confer, Ben and JB quickly check the man who was shot while Anabel was listening in from the basement. Unfortunately, he's dead – he'll only be providing useful information via an autopsy.
The decision is to hit the office quickly and force a surrender. Vinnie assesses the office door and surrounding wall. It looks like a vault door on an interior panic room of sorts. Luckily for the Agents, there are limits to how good this sort of security can be when it's bought on the black market and installed by mob soldiers. Hamid whips out his tools and has the lock neutralized in under a minute. Then Vinnie flings open the door.
Anabel demands the mobsters' surrender. Facing a large strike team that took out their guards in seconds and their security system in a few seconds more, the crooks decide to give up. Two men – presumably Yuri and a bodyguard – emerge, putting their guns on the floor. Zhang dashes up and cuffs them both while his teammates cover him. The group does a final quick sweep of the area and declares it secured.
Vinnie heads down the basement and through the sewers to go fetch the truck. Meanwhile, Hamid works on the locks on the place's exterior doors so that when Vinnie pulls up, the Agents will be able to march in the prisoners taken after the warehouse shootout. While those two see to their tasks, Anabel and Zhang take a look around the entire ground floor for safes, files, or anything else of importance. They find only guns, phones, vodka, and cigarettes, however.
When Vinnie pulls up, Ben, Lev, Qoqa, and Wen start moving the prisoners from the vehicle to the building. Zhang marches Yuri the other way: out of the clubhouse and into the truck. As his associates take care of this business, Hamid locates and checks the security panel, and informs the others that the system got a call out. Terence telephones his team at once, briefing them on the situation and warning them to hurry, as they're racing possible mob reinforcements.
At the same time, Anabel, JB, and Klas examine the basement armory. This proves to hold firepower enough to overturn a medium-sized banana republic: hand grenades, demolition blocks, directional antipersonnel mines, machine guns (general-purpose and heavy), 40mm grenade launchers, RPGs, antitank rockets, mortars, even a couple of old Russian SAMs . . . all with ample ammo, fuzes, and accessories. Vinnie remarks that this stuff would bring up to £10 million on the black market.
As the team awaits the arrival of Terence's people – hopefully before Yuri's people – Vinnie takes another look around. He finds a wall safe that his allies missed, hidden in the office. Realizing that there's no time to crack this quietly, the Agents decide to blow it. Wen appropriates some explosive from the basement stash and prepares the necessary charges. Vinnie places these and blasts the door.
When the smoke clears, there are no sensitive documents or plutonium or anything like that to be found. However, Vinnie does see a cool £1 million in notes sitting there. The Agents agree that this would be best put into the group's "victims' fund," for anonymously compensating innocents harmed by their Company work. Terence sees the money being bagged, but remarks only that it's irrelevant next to the arms bust he's about to make.
Terence's team arrives shortly thereafter. Thomas warns that the armed-response and evidence-collection vans are on the way, so it might be best for the FSB team (as he still identifies the Agents) not to be present. Once the MI5 men have secured the guns and prisoners, and posted sentries, the Company crew moves out. As they leave, Terence tells his people that the arms bust is theirs but that Yuri is the FSB's. He doesn't mention the £1 million at all.
The Agents depart in the truck, minus their guns and prisoners, but plus Yuri and £1 million. Qoqa adds all the cigarettes and vodka she could find to the haul. With Vinnie at the wheel, Sharkmeat and Röttwalkyr head back to their original London safe house, abandoned since Anabel's car wreck. It proves to be in the state in which it was left, complete with dirty dishes.
Once it's dark, Zhang and Vinnie manhandle Yuri out of the truck and into the place's basement. As they duct-tape him into a chair, they notice a tattoo that suggests he was in a Spetsnaz unit, perhaps 15 or 16 years back. Once he's securely bound (Zhang is very good at this), they switch off the lights and head upstairs to confer with the others.
The plan is to make Yuri a simple offer: "If you tell us nothing that we can use, we'll kill you. If you tell us something useful, you'll get a new life elsewhere. The better the info, the better your future. But we'll be watching. If you return to crime in your new life, you'll wish that we had killed you." Qoqa also plans to remind Yuri of all the defeated mob soldiers he saw after he surrendered, as proof of his captors' might – but she intends to point out how some of the thugs had their wounds treated, too, as evidence of the group's mercy.
With that course agreed upon, the remaining decision is whether to interrogate Yuri immediately or to let him stew first. The consensus is that the group is sufficiently numerous that they can each get a full eight hours of sleep while taking turns keeping Yuri awake all night. Jili sets up Röttwalkyr and Sharkmeat's sound boards and instruments, runs a cable down to the basement, and duct-tapes a set of big, expensive headphones to Yuri's head . . .
The morning of October 6, the Agents are all well-rested. Yuri is not, having spent the last 10 hours duct-taped to a chair in a dark basement, listening to heavy-metal guitar solos, drum practice, techno, and other noise. When Qoqa turns up the lights, Yuri looks decidedly haggard and unhappy. He might have been an elite soldier in the 1990s, but 15 years of excess seem to have robbed him of his resistance.
When Qoqa is ready, Anabel walks in, nicely dressed and made up. Lev and Zhang stand behind her, armed and menacing. Qoqa takes out a shiny scalpel and cuts off Yuri's gag. Anabel waits for the gangster to stop blustering and then, in perfect Russian, delivers the offer: a new life, including some cash to start over, if he spills . . . or a really unpleasant death if he holds out. With that, she smiles sweetly and leaves with Lev, ignoring Yuri's shouts as she does.
This leaves Yuri with Qoqa, Zhang, sundry surgical instruments, and an intimidating wall of cameras and microphones set up by Jili. The other Agents are able to see and hear what's going on as Qoqa works. Qoqa decides that to disorient Yuri further, she will interrogate him not in Russian, but in English. She opens by reiterating Anabel's offer, reminding Yuri of recent losses dealt by his captors, and gesturing at the assembled hardware as vague evidence of the group's "other resources." Then she starts questioning:
Qoqa: Where did you get all those weapons, Yuri?
Yuri: Bah! All liberated from Soviet stock. Surplus!
Qoqa: But who set that up? Who was your source? Names!
Yuri: Here and there. Lots of people. Lots of Russian military men need money. I don't remember most of them.
Qoqa: Names, Yuri, names.
Yuri: Many officers. Many. Your English police friends will eventually find list in my office, won't they?
Qoqa: Okay. What about girls? What about prostitution? What is your connection to this?
Yuri: Yes, yes – some people connected to me do that. I don't do that. It's different business. I only provide those men with guns. My contact with them is Boris Budakov. Kill him, for all I care.
(Zhang is surprised at the last response, but reads genuine hostility in Yuri's words and expressions.)
Qoqa: Fine. Now tell us about Grandfather. What do you know about Grandfather?
Yuri: Hah, mythical. Mythical! A horror story for young Russian gangsters.
(Zhang gets the impression that this is actually what Yuri believes.)
Qoqa: What's a myth, Yuri?
Yuri: That there's gangster at very top of Russian mobs, running everything from big private island in Greece like James Bond villain.
Qoqa: Who would know more about the real men at the top, then, Yuri?
Yuri: Georgi, of course. Don't know last name. Smart people don't ask that. Georgi was in secret Spetsnaz subunit, one I never saw when I served.
Qoqa: You're not in Spetsnaz any more, Yuri. How do you contact Georgi these days?
Yuri: I can't contact Georgi! But he'll be coming now, after what you did. With Red Army. They can get anywhere, do anything. You will get ass kicked!
Qoqa: How big is this scary Red Army? Why should we be afraid?
Yuri: Big enough to deal with my boys and all our guns, if we screwed up. These are all men from subunit – high-end, ex-commando. Paid well. Motivated.
(In the other room, Vinnie comments that if all this is true, the only way the Red Army is getting into the U.K. with guns on such short notice will be by boat.)
Qoqa: Well if Georgi only comes if you screw up, who do you report to the rest of the time?
Yuri: Zoltán Bazd.
(Pressed for more information, Yuri provides a phone number but cannot give a better address than "southern Europe.")
Qoqa: Let's talk about something else. Who did you shoot just before we showed up?
Yuri: Ah, guy who failed to provide good intel on your MI5 friend and his working relationship with FSB. His error cost me many men.
Qoqa: And what do you know about the car attack in downtown London on September 24?
Yuri: More FSB talking with West. This had to be stopped. I ordered hit to silence that.
Qoqa: How did you learn about our meeting with West, though?
Yuri: You watch us, we watch you. FSB watching West means we watch West. FSB meeting with MI5 in broad daylight is bad for business – our business.
Qoqa: Who was driving the vehicle in the attack?
Yuri: One of my men. You shot him.
Qoqa: And who was watching the FSB and West? Who provided you with the intel to send your man to that exact spot?
Yuri: Georgi's people. They watch everywhere. That's how they protect the organization's investment.
Qoqa: How do you contact them?
Yuri: Still no contact! They call. They have phones. We have phones. They call and we act . . . or else.
Qoqa: I see. Okay, more about Georgi, then. Have you actually met Georgi?
Yuri: Sure, when first setting up local business.
Qoqa: And does Georgi have any habits or preferences? Anywhere he's likely to go when he gets to London? A favorite club? A restaurant?
Yuri: Hah! Georgi? He is "monk of death" when on job. He comes. He kills. He leaves. No time for club, no time for fancy restaurant. And no friends.
With that, Qoqa decides to give things a rest for a while. It all seems to come back to Georgi and his Red Army, just like in Paris. Qoqa and Zhang gag Yuri, turn out the lights, and head back upstairs for another conference.
Consensus is that fighting Georgi would be suicidal. Even if Yuri was lying about the particulars, the Agents saw Georgi and his men in Paris. They were traveling in platoon strength, in armored SUVs, and using dogs and night scope-equipped snipers to cover their meeting with Kirill. Kirill was clearly afraid of them, despite being on his own turf, and even the indomitable Pavel – reputedly willing to take on three or four men personally – suggested that the only way to take on the Red Army was in an ambush with explosives.
Instead, the Agents feel it would be best to make it look like they beat a hasty retreat when they learned that the Red Army was coming. The plan is to return to the cottage, which Georgi will doubtless learn about, and scatter some gear there to give the appearance that the operation was abandoned in haste. Hamid indicates that he could easily plant some tracking devices on the "abandoned equipment," making them small enough to evade detection, and passive, with essentially no signature, until triggered.
The group decides that the best items for this gambit would be computers. Their electronics experts will make it look as if the drives were hastily burned, but incompletely. The drives will be in bad enough shape to require high-end reconstruction, though. On them, the data will be heavily encrypted, requiring much work to crack. All this should be enough to convince the Red Army that these things need to be taken back to some sort of home base where a high-priced cracker can work on them for weeks or months undisturbed. And a few weeks in, Hamid can fire up the tracking devices . . .
Time: October 5, 2009 (late afternoon).
Place: Dingy cinderblock gang clubhouse, London.
Last Event: Neutralizing mob soldiers defending Yuri, the local boss.
With the majority of the gangsters gunned down, most of the building secured, and Wen keeping the door to Yuri's office in the sights of her rifle, the Agents hastily plan their next move. As the others reload and confer, Ben and JB quickly check the man who was shot while Anabel was listening in from the basement. Unfortunately, he's dead – he'll only be providing useful information via an autopsy.
The decision is to hit the office quickly and force a surrender. Vinnie assesses the office door and surrounding wall. It looks like a vault door on an interior panic room of sorts. Luckily for the Agents, there are limits to how good this sort of security can be when it's bought on the black market and installed by mob soldiers. Hamid whips out his tools and has the lock neutralized in under a minute. Then Vinnie flings open the door.
Anabel demands the mobsters' surrender. Facing a large strike team that took out their guards in seconds and their security system in a few seconds more, the crooks decide to give up. Two men – presumably Yuri and a bodyguard – emerge, putting their guns on the floor. Zhang dashes up and cuffs them both while his teammates cover him. The group does a final quick sweep of the area and declares it secured.
Vinnie heads down the basement and through the sewers to go fetch the truck. Meanwhile, Hamid works on the locks on the place's exterior doors so that when Vinnie pulls up, the Agents will be able to march in the prisoners taken after the warehouse shootout. While those two see to their tasks, Anabel and Zhang take a look around the entire ground floor for safes, files, or anything else of importance. They find only guns, phones, vodka, and cigarettes, however.
When Vinnie pulls up, Ben, Lev, Qoqa, and Wen start moving the prisoners from the vehicle to the building. Zhang marches Yuri the other way: out of the clubhouse and into the truck. As his associates take care of this business, Hamid locates and checks the security panel, and informs the others that the system got a call out. Terence telephones his team at once, briefing them on the situation and warning them to hurry, as they're racing possible mob reinforcements.
At the same time, Anabel, JB, and Klas examine the basement armory. This proves to hold firepower enough to overturn a medium-sized banana republic: hand grenades, demolition blocks, directional antipersonnel mines, machine guns (general-purpose and heavy), 40mm grenade launchers, RPGs, antitank rockets, mortars, even a couple of old Russian SAMs . . . all with ample ammo, fuzes, and accessories. Vinnie remarks that this stuff would bring up to £10 million on the black market.
As the team awaits the arrival of Terence's people – hopefully before Yuri's people – Vinnie takes another look around. He finds a wall safe that his allies missed, hidden in the office. Realizing that there's no time to crack this quietly, the Agents decide to blow it. Wen appropriates some explosive from the basement stash and prepares the necessary charges. Vinnie places these and blasts the door.
When the smoke clears, there are no sensitive documents or plutonium or anything like that to be found. However, Vinnie does see a cool £1 million in notes sitting there. The Agents agree that this would be best put into the group's "victims' fund," for anonymously compensating innocents harmed by their Company work. Terence sees the money being bagged, but remarks only that it's irrelevant next to the arms bust he's about to make.
Terence's team arrives shortly thereafter. Thomas warns that the armed-response and evidence-collection vans are on the way, so it might be best for the FSB team (as he still identifies the Agents) not to be present. Once the MI5 men have secured the guns and prisoners, and posted sentries, the Company crew moves out. As they leave, Terence tells his people that the arms bust is theirs but that Yuri is the FSB's. He doesn't mention the £1 million at all.
The Agents depart in the truck, minus their guns and prisoners, but plus Yuri and £1 million. Qoqa adds all the cigarettes and vodka she could find to the haul. With Vinnie at the wheel, Sharkmeat and Röttwalkyr head back to their original London safe house, abandoned since Anabel's car wreck. It proves to be in the state in which it was left, complete with dirty dishes.
Once it's dark, Zhang and Vinnie manhandle Yuri out of the truck and into the place's basement. As they duct-tape him into a chair, they notice a tattoo that suggests he was in a Spetsnaz unit, perhaps 15 or 16 years back. Once he's securely bound (Zhang is very good at this), they switch off the lights and head upstairs to confer with the others.
The plan is to make Yuri a simple offer: "If you tell us nothing that we can use, we'll kill you. If you tell us something useful, you'll get a new life elsewhere. The better the info, the better your future. But we'll be watching. If you return to crime in your new life, you'll wish that we had killed you." Qoqa also plans to remind Yuri of all the defeated mob soldiers he saw after he surrendered, as proof of his captors' might – but she intends to point out how some of the thugs had their wounds treated, too, as evidence of the group's mercy.
With that course agreed upon, the remaining decision is whether to interrogate Yuri immediately or to let him stew first. The consensus is that the group is sufficiently numerous that they can each get a full eight hours of sleep while taking turns keeping Yuri awake all night. Jili sets up Röttwalkyr and Sharkmeat's sound boards and instruments, runs a cable down to the basement, and duct-tapes a set of big, expensive headphones to Yuri's head . . .
The morning of October 6, the Agents are all well-rested. Yuri is not, having spent the last 10 hours duct-taped to a chair in a dark basement, listening to heavy-metal guitar solos, drum practice, techno, and other noise. When Qoqa turns up the lights, Yuri looks decidedly haggard and unhappy. He might have been an elite soldier in the 1990s, but 15 years of excess seem to have robbed him of his resistance.
When Qoqa is ready, Anabel walks in, nicely dressed and made up. Lev and Zhang stand behind her, armed and menacing. Qoqa takes out a shiny scalpel and cuts off Yuri's gag. Anabel waits for the gangster to stop blustering and then, in perfect Russian, delivers the offer: a new life, including some cash to start over, if he spills . . . or a really unpleasant death if he holds out. With that, she smiles sweetly and leaves with Lev, ignoring Yuri's shouts as she does.
This leaves Yuri with Qoqa, Zhang, sundry surgical instruments, and an intimidating wall of cameras and microphones set up by Jili. The other Agents are able to see and hear what's going on as Qoqa works. Qoqa decides that to disorient Yuri further, she will interrogate him not in Russian, but in English. She opens by reiterating Anabel's offer, reminding Yuri of recent losses dealt by his captors, and gesturing at the assembled hardware as vague evidence of the group's "other resources." Then she starts questioning:
Qoqa: Where did you get all those weapons, Yuri?
Yuri: Bah! All liberated from Soviet stock. Surplus!
Qoqa: But who set that up? Who was your source? Names!
Yuri: Here and there. Lots of people. Lots of Russian military men need money. I don't remember most of them.
Qoqa: Names, Yuri, names.
Yuri: Many officers. Many. Your English police friends will eventually find list in my office, won't they?
Qoqa: Okay. What about girls? What about prostitution? What is your connection to this?
Yuri: Yes, yes – some people connected to me do that. I don't do that. It's different business. I only provide those men with guns. My contact with them is Boris Budakov. Kill him, for all I care.
(Zhang is surprised at the last response, but reads genuine hostility in Yuri's words and expressions.)
Qoqa: Fine. Now tell us about Grandfather. What do you know about Grandfather?
Yuri: Hah, mythical. Mythical! A horror story for young Russian gangsters.
(Zhang gets the impression that this is actually what Yuri believes.)
Qoqa: What's a myth, Yuri?
Yuri: That there's gangster at very top of Russian mobs, running everything from big private island in Greece like James Bond villain.
Qoqa: Who would know more about the real men at the top, then, Yuri?
Yuri: Georgi, of course. Don't know last name. Smart people don't ask that. Georgi was in secret Spetsnaz subunit, one I never saw when I served.
Qoqa: You're not in Spetsnaz any more, Yuri. How do you contact Georgi these days?
Yuri: I can't contact Georgi! But he'll be coming now, after what you did. With Red Army. They can get anywhere, do anything. You will get ass kicked!
Qoqa: How big is this scary Red Army? Why should we be afraid?
Yuri: Big enough to deal with my boys and all our guns, if we screwed up. These are all men from subunit – high-end, ex-commando. Paid well. Motivated.
(In the other room, Vinnie comments that if all this is true, the only way the Red Army is getting into the U.K. with guns on such short notice will be by boat.)
Qoqa: Well if Georgi only comes if you screw up, who do you report to the rest of the time?
Yuri: Zoltán Bazd.
(Pressed for more information, Yuri provides a phone number but cannot give a better address than "southern Europe.")
Qoqa: Let's talk about something else. Who did you shoot just before we showed up?
Yuri: Ah, guy who failed to provide good intel on your MI5 friend and his working relationship with FSB. His error cost me many men.
Qoqa: And what do you know about the car attack in downtown London on September 24?
Yuri: More FSB talking with West. This had to be stopped. I ordered hit to silence that.
Qoqa: How did you learn about our meeting with West, though?
Yuri: You watch us, we watch you. FSB watching West means we watch West. FSB meeting with MI5 in broad daylight is bad for business – our business.
Qoqa: Who was driving the vehicle in the attack?
Yuri: One of my men. You shot him.
Qoqa: And who was watching the FSB and West? Who provided you with the intel to send your man to that exact spot?
Yuri: Georgi's people. They watch everywhere. That's how they protect the organization's investment.
Qoqa: How do you contact them?
Yuri: Still no contact! They call. They have phones. We have phones. They call and we act . . . or else.
Qoqa: I see. Okay, more about Georgi, then. Have you actually met Georgi?
Yuri: Sure, when first setting up local business.
Qoqa: And does Georgi have any habits or preferences? Anywhere he's likely to go when he gets to London? A favorite club? A restaurant?
Yuri: Hah! Georgi? He is "monk of death" when on job. He comes. He kills. He leaves. No time for club, no time for fancy restaurant. And no friends.
With that, Qoqa decides to give things a rest for a while. It all seems to come back to Georgi and his Red Army, just like in Paris. Qoqa and Zhang gag Yuri, turn out the lights, and head back upstairs for another conference.
Consensus is that fighting Georgi would be suicidal. Even if Yuri was lying about the particulars, the Agents saw Georgi and his men in Paris. They were traveling in platoon strength, in armored SUVs, and using dogs and night scope-equipped snipers to cover their meeting with Kirill. Kirill was clearly afraid of them, despite being on his own turf, and even the indomitable Pavel – reputedly willing to take on three or four men personally – suggested that the only way to take on the Red Army was in an ambush with explosives.
Instead, the Agents feel it would be best to make it look like they beat a hasty retreat when they learned that the Red Army was coming. The plan is to return to the cottage, which Georgi will doubtless learn about, and scatter some gear there to give the appearance that the operation was abandoned in haste. Hamid indicates that he could easily plant some tracking devices on the "abandoned equipment," making them small enough to evade detection, and passive, with essentially no signature, until triggered.
The group decides that the best items for this gambit would be computers. Their electronics experts will make it look as if the drives were hastily burned, but incompletely. The drives will be in bad enough shape to require high-end reconstruction, though. On them, the data will be heavily encrypted, requiring much work to crack. All this should be enough to convince the Red Army that these things need to be taken back to some sort of home base where a high-priced cracker can work on them for weeks or months undisturbed. And a few weeks in, Hamid can fire up the tracking devices . . .
Good plan
Mind you if they want to take out the whole network it might be better to watch it for a while so they can try and remove as many mobsters as possible all at once.
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