BLOWBACK
By Cameron Curtis
Available on Amazon—Pre-order for only $0.99 BLOWBACK
Thirty stories below the streets of New York, in tunnels 150 years old, BLOWBACK has come home. Only Breed can stop it.
Excerpt from Chapter 7—Club Marennya, Kiev
Stein wrinkles her nose. “Why would Datsyuk want to meet here?”
“It’s his favorite hangout,” Babich says. Signals a cocktail waitress for drinks. Stein orders a G&T, I order an orange juice. Babich asks for a local cocktail I’ve never heard of.
Two pretty girls approach our table. They’re dressed in miniskirts and diaphanous tops. A brunette and a blonde. Something for everyone. All dolled up. Nice hair, simple but elegant jewelry. They’re very nice.
The blonde speaks to me in Ukrainian.
“She is asking you to dance,” Babich says.
“Explain that we have matters to discuss among ourselves.”
Babich translates for me.
The two girls confer. Address Babich, all the while smiling at me and Stein.
Amused, Babich turns to us. “They are inviting you to a foursome. I can come too, but orgies are not my thing.”
Stein shoots me a dark look. “Don’t even think about it.”
“How can I not? It would mark a quantum leap in our relationship.”
Stein says to Babich, “Tell them no, thank you.”
The girls leave. I can’t tell if they’re huffy or disappointed.
A big man in a dark suit approaches us. Uncombed hair, five o’clock shadow. His dress shirt is unbuttoned at the collar and his tie is loose. He nods to Babich. “Stein, Breed. I am Matviy Datsyuk.”
He gives us each a perfunctory handshake, throws himself down on one of the straight-backed chairs. “We can complete this business in short order,” he says. From his breast pocket, he fishes out a thin plastic case the size of my thumbnail. Hands it to Stein.
“What did you find?” Stein asks.
“We have extensive dossiers on the Marchenkos and Cherkassky. The Marchenkos are a pair of the finest fighters Ukraine has ever produced. If we had ten thousand of them, this war would be over.”
“They just happen to be Vikings,” Stein says.
“It is an ideology,” Datsyuk says. “Russia wants to destroy us. We are speaking about the survival of our country. We can debate ideology when the war is over.”
He has a point.
Stein takes out her laptop and inserts the micro-USB card into the reader. She taps on the keyboard, makes certain she can read the contents. Checks the file sizes to make sure the data is complete. Finally, she backs up the contents to the Company net.
Datsyuk cannot keep the sneer from his voice. “Does this meet with your approval, Stein?”
“It’s fine,” Stein says. “I hope it will be helpful.”
Stein slaps her laptop shut and slides it back into her briefcase.
I find myself staring across the table at Datsyuk. Behind him, the dancers wash back and forth across my field of view. Off to one side, the two girls are hitting on a pair of older men. Join them at their table. One of the men puts his hand on the blonde’s knee, slides it up the inside of her thigh.
“What about the MRAP?” Stein asks.
“As you suggested,” Datsyuk says, “the train arrived early this morning. There are records. The Cougar HE MRAP you seek was on the train. It was not taken off. In fact, it was sent on to Rzeszów.”
Babich gets to his feet. “Excuse me,” he says. “I must go to the toilet.”
The captain disappears into the crowd.
Rzeszów gives Marchenko more options than leaving the bomb in Ukraine. The most important feature of Rzeszów is its airstrip. The runway is long enough to accommodate the US Air Force’s C-17 Globemaster III transport. That makes it a perfect candidate to act as a logistics hub.
Rzeszów sits in Poland, only fifty miles from the border with Ukraine. Green Berets like Captain Damon built rat lines to transport the weapons and supplies to the fighting in Ukraine. There, they train AFU soldiers and gather intelligence. In the south, British SAS commandos did the same in Odessa. Their rat lines extend all the way to Romania.
“What time did they arrive in Rzeszów?” Stein asks.
“Noon today.”
“Where are they now?”
“I have no idea.” Datsyuk places his meaty paws flat on the table. “I have done my part, the rest is up to you.”
“I assume you have briefed the president,” Stein says.
“Yes. He is in a very difficult position. Russia is in the process of encircling Kharkov. The second largest city in the country. We are diverting men from Donbas and Kherson, leaving those places exposed. Our defenses are collapsing.”
“The situation at the front is pretty bad,” I say.
“We must have NATO troops. The president was to travel to Brussels tomorrow to request assistance. Failing that, he will appeal to the United Nations for intervention. We require a UN peacekeeping force.”
I absorb Datsyuk’s words as my mind struggles with the notion of an 800 kiloton Topol-M thermonuclear warhead sitting in a Polish airport. The kaleidoscope of lights washes over Datsyuk’s heavy-featured face. Yellow, green, blue, red. All the shades in between. I wonder how much LSD, MDMA and cocaine is changing hands in Marennya.
“It sounds like this is the endgame,” Stein says.
“I think it is.” Datsyuk lowers his head. “The president cannot leave the country. He is sending his chief of staff, Artem Lysenko. A capable man. If his mission fails, we will have no choice but to throw ourselves at the mercy of the invaders.”
The blonde girl draws her new friend to his feet and guides him onto the floor. They dance together, and she grinds her buttocks against his groin. Meets my eyes and smiles. She’s teasing me. No question, Ukrainian girls are beautiful.
Babich makes his way to our table. It’s hot, and he’s sweating hard. He pulls up one of the chairs and sits next to Datsyuk. Angles himself sideways so he can watch the floor.
The blonde is more interested in me than her dance partner.
Two men make their way through the crowd. They look heavy-set, in their late thirties. Their suits are baggy and ill-fitting. There’s something about the way they’re dressed, the way they move.
My hand goes to the Mark 23 under my shirt.
Babich gets to his feet, raises his hands as though to ward off a blow. “Ni, ni!”
I put my hand on Stein’s shoulder and shove her to the floor. Throw myself on top of her thin body. The Mark 23 clears my waistband.
There’s an explosion of automatic rifle fire. The two men have drawn AKS-74U Krinkes from under their baggy suit jackets. No stocks, just pistol grips. Muzzle flashes flare from the commando weapons. The short barrels make the AKs extremely loud, extremely difficult to control.
Bullets tear into the blonde girl and her dance partner. She’s hit in the back and blood spurts from exit wounds in her chest. A crimson gout explodes from her mouth. She’s thrown against Datsyuk, who crashes face-first onto our table.
The mirror on the wall shatters. Jagged shards rain on us.
There’s nothing between the shooters and Babich. Bullets riddle his chest. Those tiny 5.45mm bullets behave in bizarre ways. At point-blank range, they are moving at three thousand feet per second. I once saw a guy hit in the temple. The bullet cracked his skull, ran a racetrack inside his helmet, came out, and drilled him in the neck. You can’t tell where they’ll end up. Bullets shatter Babich’s sternum, exit the small of his back and shoulders. They tumble inside his chest cavity, tearing him to pieces.
I keep my left hand on the side of Stein’s head, press the side of her face against the floor. Weight her body with mine. Stretch the Mark 23 out and fire under the table. This is why you keep a round in the chamber and train to fire one-handed. SOP-9, the New York Police Department’s study of pistol engagements, shows that between forty and fifty percent occur with one hand. The operator does not have the time or ability to bring both hands to his weapon. Forget about racking the slide, let alone assuming an isosceles stance.
My .45 caliber hollow points smash into the shooters’ shins and knees. They scream, empty their magazines as they fall. People on the dance floor shriek and scatter in all directions.
One shooter falls behind the bodies of the blonde and her dance partner. I can’t see him. The other is on his side, trying to swap out his mags. The spare is in his coat pocket and he’s lying on it. I pound two rounds into his face.
Scramble to my feet. In the same motion, I throw my shoulder against the bottom edge of the table, turn it over. Spill Datsyuk and all our drinks onto the floor. I’m not trying to use the table for cover, I just want to get it out of the way.
I step over the table, accidentally plant my foot on Datsyuk’s arm. The big guy howls—that’s good, he’s alive. I regain my balance, advance on the wounded shooter. He’s on the floor, got a fresh mag into his weapon. Raises the muzzle toward me.
Before he can line me up, I point the Mark 23 at his face and shoot him between the eyes. Decorate the floor with his hair, shards of occiput, brain matter. Anyone worth shooting once is worth shooting twice. I fire again into the bridge of his nose. His face collapses into itself. I hold the pistol on him, separate him from his weapons system.
Sweep the dance floor. It’s clearing fast. Turn to the other shooter. He’s slumped on his side. I fire once into his ear and his head bounces on the floor.
Stein’s on her feet, SIG in hand. She’s got its muzzle pointed at the ceiling. Pieces of the broken mirror are shining in her hair.
I decock, then step to Babich and check for a pulse. The captain’s dead. Grasp Datsyuk’s elbow and help him to his feet. “Are you hit?”
“I don’t think so.”
He looks okay. There’s a tear in his suit where a bullet passed through the blonde and drilled his jacket. Sometimes all you can ask for is luck.
“Let’s go.”
—
Available on Amazon—Pre-order for only $0.99
Cameron Curtis
Cameron Curtis is the author of the Breed series of thrillers. He has held a lifelong interest in geopolitics and all things military. He writes novels with credible premises, propulsive plots, and fast-paced action. He is happy to engage on all these topics and can be reached below.
