Before sunrise on Thursday morning, the snow fell as if a giant dump truck had unloaded its bed on St. Petersburg. Alex and Cat parked their Mercedes near the docks. As they walked to the ships it looked to Alex like a scene out of World War II. A large warehouse had obviously burned down within the last few weeks and those adjacent to it had been severely damaged. Steel girders leaned at extreme angles and piles of charred rubble took on the appearance of white pyramids. It looked like a war zone.
They surreptitiously boarded an oil tanker tied to the pier. The crew had unloaded the vessel days ago; now it was empty. Unlike other ships, where the bridge was located near the bow, the oil tanker’s bridge was located at the stern. Alex and Cat broke into the bridge and closed the door on the freezing weather behind them. Inside the ship, the bridge was still cold, but not as cold as outside in the wind. Windows spanned the 180 degrees in front of the bridge, giving Alex and Cat a panoramic view of ship’s lights on Neva Bay in the Gulf of Finland, leading out to the Baltic Sea.
The sun that leaked through the clouds and snow warmed up the bridge, but it didn’t warm up the cold tubes of energy gel Alex and Cat ate for lunch. A ship neared the pier, but it wasn’t General Tehrani’s. Again and again, Alex and Cat became anxious at a ship’s arrival, only to find out it wasn’t the general’s oil tanker. Although General Tehrani’s ship was supposed to arrive at noon, it was late.
As the sky became darker, another ship approached the pier and stopped in the bay while a tugboat brought it the rest of the distance to the pier. Cat handed Alex the binoculars. Finally! The vessel was the Iranian oil tanker, General Tehrani’s ship. A dockworker helped tie the ship to the pier, and the ship’s deckhands lowered the gangway from the stern. Soon the Venezuelan crew scurried off the ship—they wouldn’t be offloading oil tonight. Alex worried that one of the crew might be General Tehrani in disguise, but with the divining rod attached to Alex’s combat vest, he picked up the first beep in his earphone. “General Tehrani is on board,” Alex said.
Alex and Cat put on their black balaclavas and readied their sound-suppressed AKMS assault rifles. “There’s a guard standing just outside the bridge,” Cat said. “He’s got an AK.”
Alex slipped out of the bridge on the side away from the Guard. He rested his rifle on a metal lip protruding from the ship and took aim through his scope at the upper torso of the man. Alex exhaled, and in the natural pause before he inhaled, he pulled the trigger slowly until he heard the shot and felt the recoil. The Guard fell, but he stood up again, and Alex shot him in the upper body again. This time, the Guard didn’t stand up.
Another Guard stood inside a passageway near the gangway. Alex moved to a different location to enable a clearer shot. This time, Alex aimed higher, and after the shot, the Guard went down.
Alex motioned to Cat, Let’s go. She exited the bridge behind him, and they descended the stairs to the main deck, where they surveyed the general’s ship once more. There seemed to be no more shooters outside waiting for them, so Alex and Cat jogged across the gangway of their ship, hurried onto the pier, and ran across the general’s gangway and onto his ship. The divining rod beeped more frequently. They were nearing the general.
Alex took the point position and Cat covered his six. Alex put a bullet through the head of the fallen Guard in the passageway. The head wobbled, but the rest of the man’s body remained still. Better safe than sorry. Alex stepped over his body and into the ship’s interior. To Alex’s right was a metal bulkhead, and in front was the passageway that led to the port side of the ship. Alex turned left, pulled on a metal bar, and opened the hatch before he proceeded aft through its passageway. To his left was the starboard bulkhead, and to his right was an open door leading to the living spaces for the crew—it looked empty. Alex didn’t have enough shooters to clear each room, so he just passed the open door—following the beeps on his divining rod. The beeps sounded in staccato as if Alex were right on top of the general, but he was nowhere in sight. To Alex’s right was a closed door leading to the crew spaces. Alex expected General Tehrani to be on the deck above, where the ship’s officers berthed, but he had learned to expect the unexpected. He quietly turned the doorknob and opened the door. Creeping inside, he searched the berthing area with its racks standing three high, like bunk beds. The deeper Alex and Cat searched into the crew’s quarters, the less frequently the divining rod beeped. General Tehrani must have been directly above or below them.
Alex took Cat out of the berthing and moved aft. At the ladder, Alex went up. As he reached the top of the ladder, he heard shots below. Cat was shooting it out with someone. Alex looked down and saw someone near the ladder below the crew’s deck, but he couldn’t see if the person was armed. Alex was now near the galley and mess on the officers’ deck. From inside the galley on Alex’s deck someone fired shots, missing. Alex fired back, missing the shooter. Shots rang out from the man near the ladder below the crew’s deck, and when the rounds hit the ladder next to Alex, they sparked. Alex ducked into the galley to avoid the man in the ladderway and waited for the man in the galley to poke his head out again. Meanwhile, he was cut off from Cat on the deck below him.
When the man in the galley poked his head up, Alex didn’t miss. He snapped off two shots and saw that at least one tore through the top of the man’s head. Blood spurted high in the air as the man fell. Alex realized that the beeps had become less frequent. The general wasn’t above the crew’s deck; he was below. Alex returned to the stairwell as the man below the crew’s deck was climbing up. Alex wanted to shoot him—if Cat stuck her head out a little, Alex’s shot would miss her; if she stuck her head out a lot, he’d hit her. If he didn’t take the shot, the man climbing the ladder might take her down with a shot from behind while she was shooting it out with someone else. “Shooting down!” Alex called before firing. Alex’s round cracked the man through the top of his head. The man in the ladderway made a clanging sound as he and his weapon crashed to the deck below.
No more shooting sounds came from Cat’s position. Either she’d popped the bad guys or they’d popped her. “Alex coming down!” Alex shouted before he descended the ladder to the crew’s deck. Cat appeared. Behind her a bullet-riddled man in a green uniform with an AK lay motionless.
“You okay?” Cat asked.
“Yeah. You good?”
Cat nodded. “Take us to the general.”
She sounded positive and Alex hoped she could remain upbeat—their situation would probably become worse before it got better. Although Alex was stationary, the general’s beeping became even less frequent. “The general is escaping.” Alex returned to the stairs and smoothly descended them until he stepped on the man with a bullet hole through his skull, lying next to a large storage compartment. General Tehrani’s signal beeped faster. Alex glided down another flight of steps, landing on the engine room deck. He paid attention to his earpiece to find out if he was heading in the correct direction. The beeping rate increased. Alex could hear that Cat was above him, engaged in a firefight with Guards on an upper deck.
From the engine room, a Revolutionary Guard peeked around the side of a post covered with gauges, pipes, and control panels. He shot at Alex. Alex returned fire. Alex’s shot hit the post but missed the Guard. None of the Guard’s body showed to the left of the post, but he overcompensated by allowing his leg to stick out on the right side of the post. Alex drilled the Guard’s leg near the kneecap. The soldier yelped and fell to the deck, exposing himself from his leg to his gut. Alex tattooed him in the gut with three shots. The Guard grunted.
From behind a labyrinth of pipes in the engine room flashed three AKs, their shots striking all around Alex—deck, bulkhead, and overhead. Alex took cover behind a bulkhead and waited for a lull. He needed to fight through the Guards in order to advance to the general’s position. Alex switched to full auto, lay on the deck to vary his location, and when the three Guards’ shooting slowed, Alex looked around the corner and sprayed about ten rounds at the maze of pipes they had fired from. Water sprayed from bullet holes in pipes.
In spite of Alex having delivered what he thought was an effective counterattack, three Guards answered Alex with a hurricane of lead. Alex hid behind the metal bulkhead, but the onslaught was so furious, he wanted to hide under the ship. When the firing eased up, Alex leaped to his feet, turned around the corner, and unleashed ten more rounds on full auto, emptying his magazine. More water sprayed, and the Guards stopped firing. Once again Alex took cover behind the bulkhead. “Changing mags,” Alex informed Cat, then reloaded.
“Cat coming down.” Her footsteps on the metal steps echoed from the ladderway above.
Before Alex could enter the engine room, another storm of lead punched the bulkhead and surrounding area. What the hell? Did I miss all of them? Are these reinforcements? Meanwhile, the beeps in his earpiece slowed. “General Tehrani is getting away.” Alex grabbed a grenade from his vest, pulled the pin, and let the spoon fly. “Frag out!” He cooked three seconds off the five-second fuse before giving it an underhand toss into the engine room. Boom! “Moving forward,” Alex said.
“Moving forward,” Cat repeated.
Alex shuffled forward into the engine room as efficiently as possible. If he went too fast and missed a shooter, he could die. Efficiency trumped speed. Smooth is fast.
He searched behind the labyrinth of pipes and found three Guards lying on the deck. Two more writhed on the ground. Alex shot each of the writhing Guards in the head. A bloody Guard sat with his back against the wall and his AK rifle on his lap. He raised his hands in surrender, but Alex didn’t have time for prisoners—or tricks. Alex shot him in the forehead.
Alex scanned for threats as he proceeded through the engine room looking for the general. He wasn’t anywhere in sight. He must have fled up the ladder on the port side. Alex climbed the ladder on the port side, aiming his AKMS up the passageway. The higher Alex climbed, the higher the rate of beeps sounded. Alex reached the storage deck and continued up the metal ladder to the crew’s deck. The metal hatch leading to the ship’s passageway was open—someone had left in a hurry. Alex entered the passageway where the dead Guard from earlier lay, hopped over him, and hurried outside. Alex ran across the gangway. Before he reached the end of it, he spotted a lone man running from the pier. Alex stopped, planted his feet, and aimed. “General Tehrani!” Alex yelled.
The man turned and looked in the direction of Alex’s voice. It’s him. General Tehrani rushed away, just before Alex took the shot, missing him. Before Alex could take a second shot, the general ran past the heavily burned warehouse and disappeared.
A shot zipped past Alex’s ear. He ducked and spun around, but couldn’t see the shooter.
“Sniper!” Alex shouted into his mouthpiece. “On the deck.”
Alex debated dealing with the shooter, but realized Tehrani had to be stopped. He spotted a length of coiled rope near the railing. He took a smoke grenade from his vest, pulled the pin, and threw it toward the shooter. As soon as the smoke billowed up ten feet Alex got up and ran to the gangway, charging down it onto the dock after Tehrani.
Snow and concrete kicked up by his foot as the sniper got off another shot at him. Alex didn’t bother to return fire, but ran after Tehrani, following his tracks in the snow.