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The Company
Time: November 1, 2009 (13:30).
Place: Offshore of Grandfather's island, south of mainland Greece.
Last Event: Boarding the Дед Россия.
Vinnie maneuvers the tender to deliver the rest of the team to the Дед Россия. Realizing that he can only pull this off if the yacht slows down or stops, he shouts over the radio for Zhang to seize the controls. Zhang approaches the bridge cautiously to do so . . . but as soon as he peeks in, he takes fire from three men. Using a dead gangster as a human shield, he tries again. That goes no better – pushing in more than a step means being shot in the side or simply having his "shield" fail to stop some of the bullets.
Zhang radios back a situation report and then heads down to check on Wen, giving his allies time to examine the ship from afar for alternative entrances or easily sabotaged mechanisms. On arriving at Wen's side, he sees that she's still alive but bleeding, and needs a medic. His own first-aid skills aren't up to the task, so he yells for Ben and Qoqa to hurry, grabs Wen's spare magazines, and goes off to see what he can do about stopping the yacht.
Zhang's next approach is a door on the main deck. This, too, proves fruitless – at least one shooter is in there, dug in behind heavy furniture and covering the entrance from an oblique angle. A frustrated Zhang climbs back up to bridge level to try something else. At this stage, his allies aboard the tender radio him to suggest that he try the roof, as there's likely an access hatch to the antenna mast there. Staying away from the windows and doors, Zhang deftly pulls himself up to take a look.
Sure enough, there's a hatch up top! Zhang knows that prying this open would be noisy and obvious, and decides to turn this to his advantage. He deliberately hammers on the thing and makes a racket, and is rewarded with muffled gunfire as bullets pierce the steel. He does this again, and draws more fire. Then suddenly, he darts athletically to the edge of the roof, slides over above the main entrance, grabs an antenna root between his ankles, and swings his upper body down into the doorway, M16 in hand.
From this crazy angle, Zhang can see three men on the bridge. Two are exposed, while the third is crouching in the companionway. He shoots and wounds one of them. The surprised gangsters return fire, but their only mark is a small and an awkward target, causing them to miss badly. Thanks to having fired at Zhang's distraction, the gunmen must pause to reload almost at once. When they do, Zhang acrobatically drops into the doorway, draws his pistol, and charges!
Zhang falls upon the reloading thugs like a tiger, pausing only to switch targets. In seconds, the bridge is his. He decides to risk not securing the area fully . . . his friend is bleeding out, and every second takes him further away from medics and backup. Instead, he lunges for the controls. While he's no seaman, and doesn't read Russian, he manages to figure out how to cut the engines. Then he radios his allies, reloads his weapons, and waits.
As soon as Vinnie sees the Дед Россия slow, he heads for it at high speed. Once the vessels are alongside one another, the Agents use gaffs to pull them together. Anabel and Qoqa shinny up the gaffs to board the yacht, aided by Ben and Klas (Anabel actually says, "Don't be shy. Touch my bum." Yikes!). There's a brief scare when Qoqa turns around to see a door opening – she and the gangster on the other side surprise each other, but her trigger finger is faster. After that, the two women head forward to aid Wen.
Qoqa and Anabel move up along the port side. Toward the end of the superstructure, Anabel hears a noise around the corner. Crawling forward, rifle in hand – and Qoqa's hands on her ankles, ready to drag her back behind cover – Anabel takes a look. She finds herself locking eyes with the wounded mobster whom Zhang shoved off the upper deck! There's another startled exchange of fire, and Anabel proves to be the better shot.
After that, the way is clear. Qoqa dashes over to Wen to begin treatment, while Anabel reloads her M16 and keeps watch. Over the radio, the others hear that Wen is alive and has no wounds that will kill her, if Qoqa can just get the bullets out.
Further aft, Vinnie, Jili, Ben, and Hamid clamber aboard the yacht. Vinnie leaves Iannis at the controls of the tender, and JB, Klas, and Lev with him to guard the prisoner and provide security. Vinnie and Ben head up to give Zhang some backup, while Hamid and Jili turn their technical skills to operating various ladders, gangplanks, and winches so that everyone else – especially wounded Agents and prisoners – can get aboard more easily.
Once Zhang has reinforcements, he, Ben, and Vinnie do a mental casualty count: four victims sniped by Wen and Klas, five taken out by Wen and Zhang during the initial boarding, one shot by Qoqa as Zhang was climbing, three dealt with by Zhang on the upper deck (including the one Anabel finished), a further three dropped by Zhang in the bridge, and another one gunned down by Qoqa just now. With the man Zhang knows is covering the main-deck entrance, that's 18 – high for a vessel of this size. There couldn't be many more gunmen aboard.
Vinnie and Zhang lock and load, and head down the companionway to clear out the remaining few gunmen. In the lounge, they deal with the man who shot at Zhang earlier; Zhang surprises him by entering from the bridge area, and manages to grab him and hold him down for Vinnie to subdue. After that, they rush from compartment to compartment, opening closets and poking guns into dark corners. However, it seems as if all the thugs rushed out to shoot at the Agents!
The last area that Zhang and Vinnie must search is the engineering compartment. As they move to the ladder, a gunman with a full-automatic shotgun sprays a hail of buckshot up at them! Vinnie miraculously escapes without a hit, but Zhang catches steel balls in the hand, arm, and leg, and drops from the shock. Vinnie grimly returns fire, literally blowing his assailant's head off. Then he drags Zhang back to Ben for medical attention.
By now the tender is securely roped to the Дед Россия, enabling the Agents to occupy the yacht in force. Iannis takes the helm. Qoqa and Ben treat Wen and Zhang, respectively, with Olga "helping" them and the wounded JB and Lev watching the unconscious Grandfather as they wait their turn. The unwounded Agents (Anabel, Hamid, Jili, Klas, and Vinnie) do a second, slower sweep of the ship but turn up no further crew. It seems that the vessel is truly secure.
After that, Anabel, Hamid, and Jili head for the bridge. Anabel hastily labels the Russian controls in English for her allies' benefit. Hamid works on the electronics, resetting the computer controls to English and then finding and removing a radio transponder. Jili is sent off to do the cheery job of rifling the pockets of dead and dying Russians for phones and other small electronics. While this is going on, Iannis steers the yacht further offshore to get it out of sight of police helicopters, naval vessels, and possible mob reinforcements.
For the next two hours, Ben and Qoqa treat the injured. Wen and Zhang are soon conscious and briefed on the current situation. JB is able to hobble around, while Lev is bandaged up and looking good. Grandfather is still unconscious, but Qoqa works hard to ensure that he'll recover in time to stand trial . . . albeit with a gimpy hand and a lot of scars.
At this juncture, Anabel takes a moment to get on the satellite phone to Chaturvedi. He isn't in – probably because he's busy feeding information to MI5 and the Greek police – so she has to leave a message. She tells the handler that the yacht is secured, informs him that no Agents are dead, and requests that he arrange a friendly Mediterranean port for repairs and R&R.
Toward late afternoon, Anabel, Vinnie, and Zhang meet below decks to look over the items taken from Grandfather's safe on the island. Wen is propped up nearby, but not feeling well enough to participate much. Vinnie makes sure that Iannis is busy helming the ship, with Olga for company – and that neither is within earshot. While the Agents trust the cop, at least, they want to make sure that he only knows what he needs to know. After all, certain items might well be of more value to the Company if kept secret.
Zhang carefully removes the safe's contents from the pillowcase that Vinnie dumped them into, taking care to handle the evidence exactly as he learned in his police days. There are only four articles present, but all are of great interest:
• A bag of diamonds – lots of diamonds. Vinnie guesses that they're probably "blood diamonds" from Africa, although he can't be sure. He's reluctant to hazard a guess as to their value, aside from "tens of millions, at the low end." The Agents decide to give half of these to Iannis as evidence of Grandfather's activities. They'll confiscate the other half to foot Company operating expenses and use as bribes on future missions.
• A fat, lightproof envelope full of photographic negatives. Examination reveals the most recognizable people in the images to be lawmen, media personalities, politicians, or military leaders of some stature – all in compromising situations involving bribery, drugs, sex, etc. In short, it's blackmail material. The Agents agree that the Company will keep this. Vinnie grabs some photographic equipment he found aboard the yacht and makes hasty contact prints for backup.
• An expensive leather portfolio containing a single strip of paper with a series of numbers written on it. Those present suspect that this is a list of numbered bank accounts, possibly with numerical passwords. Anabel calls Terence West immediately and reads out the list – and sends both a cell-phone photo of it and e-mail containing the data, just to be sure. Terence promises to see what Interpol can do about freezing the accounts post-haste. The Agents decide to give Iannis the original list as evidence.
• An electronics box with Russian military markings. Puzzled, Anabel, Vinnie, and Zhang show Wen, who identifies it as an arming box for nuclear warheads. When Anabel sends a photo to Terence, he's shocked and warns that this has to be "disappeared," more-or-less assuming that the Agents are FSB and will take possession of it. Anabel tells him that the actual plan is to send it back with Iannis without telling him what it is, to add overwhelming weight to the case against Grandfather.
While this is going on, Qoqa finds cleaning gear and attacks the tender and the bloody decks of the yacht, carefully collecting shell casings, blasting evidence overboard with a hose, and denaturing all the blood and residue that she can find. Ben assists her at this. Lev helps by policing up guns and ammo, stashing everything out of sight below. Hamid and Jili download data from the transponder, cell phones, and other electronics to their laptops, and then fry the original devices and dump them into the sea.
As the cleaning and meeting proceed, Klas stands lookout while JB keeps an eye on Grandfather. Fortunately, neither has much to do. Iannis keeps the yacht well out of sight of land and other vessels, while Grandfather is simply too injured to do anything but moan.
It's after 17:00 when all the Agents have completed their assigned tasks, and well after 18:00 when everybody has been briefed and it's time to execute the final phase of their plan. Vinnie has Iannis brief him on the ship's controls. Then Vinnie explains to the cop who Grandfather is – "The Sausage-Maker" – and hands him a bag of evidence: half of the diamonds, the list of numbered bank accounts, and the arming box. Iannis takes this, boards the launch with the tied-up Grandfather, a whole bunch of Russian guns, and Olga, and heads back to the island to make his bust.
To be continued . . .