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Paco had positioned himself in the middle of the loose semi-circle of men that slowed to a stop roughly twenty feet away from Talanov and Sofia. In the faint ambient light from the lighted windows of some upstairs apartments, Talanov saw the shapes of six men.
Paco held up his navaja and snapped open the blade. The others did the same.
Hearing the click-clack of four distinct blades locking into place, Talanov pulled out his Makarov. There was no time to screw on the silencer, which meant if he had to fire, it would make a lot of noise. And in a quiet street like this, surrounded by hundreds of apartments, the sound of a Makarov would echo for blocks. One shot, much less seven or eight, plus any associated cries and screams, would bring the police, who were already out in force controlling the protests. No police or this mission was over.
He held up his gun. “I don’t want to shoot. But I will.”
“Really?” Paco said. He pointed to a parked car and one of his men used his bat to bash in the rear windshield, setting off its alarm. “We will see what the police have to say when they arrive to find the two Russian spies who killed my friends.”
“Excellent idea,” said Talanov. “I wonder whose fingerprints they’ll find on the gun used to shoot your friends. I guarantee they won’t be mine. So we shall see who the police want to believe. Us, or a mob of extremists who have already been causing a lot of trouble. And when they finally do identify those fingerprints as yours, you and all of your friends here will be implicated. That means jail. I’ll be interested to see who that old woman picks out of a lineup when she’s called to identify the men who assaulted her.”
The car alarm continued to wail. Porch lights began to click on. A few people emerged onto their balconies to see what was happening.
Paco’s men began to grow nervous at the prospect of getting caught. Even in the darkness, Talanov could see them glancing at one another.
Talanov knew they did not have a lot of time. A car alarm would bring the police. But not as quickly as gunshots would. A fast negotiation was the best way out of this crisis.
“What’s it going to be, Paco?” asked Talanov. “I’ll kill you if I have to. But I don’t want to. We all walk away. We live to fight another day. See, I’m lowering my gun. I mean you no harm unless you force me.”
Talanov lowered his Makarov.
A tense silence ensued between the two men while the alarm continued to wail. Talanov kept his eyes on Paco. Paco kept his on Talanov. It was dark but the two men were keenly aware of one another. To the exclusion of everything else, each ready to spring into action the instant aggression was sensed. Talanov with his gun. Paco and his men with their navajas.
Which is why neither of them were paying any attention to Sofia. Had either of them been able to see her, they would have known what was about to happen. Talanov in particular would have seen the angry glare that said her patience had run out. It was not that Sofia was not patient. Soviet agents were trained to outlast any enemy . . . to lie in wait until just the right moment. Sofia knew how to wait.
Her problem was duress. Duress changes everything. And it did with Sofia. She was agitated by the way Talanov had manhandled her in the van. She was agitated by his smug attitude about Gorev, he being the only one who knew for sure where Gorev was going to defect. No one else had been able to figure that out. And she was agitated by his reckless compulsion to rescue that worthless old woman, which had now jeopardized everything. And here he was, trying to talk his way out of a situation that should have been handled differently. Which is just what she was going to do.
Moving left to right, Sofia slid quickly behind Talanov and with a twirling pirouette, used her momentum to snatch the Makarov from his hand, rack a cartridge into the chamber and emerge an arm’s length away to effortlessly and take aim. “Enough talk,” she said, pulling the trigger.
Click.
Talanov grabbed Sofia’s hand and lifted it upward in an arc above his head. He then pivoted beneath it while yanking downward to pry the Makarov out of Sofia’s hand with the same ease she had taken it from him.
Turning in time to see the glint of steel, Talanov front-kicked the navaja out of Paco’s hand. He then used the butt of the Makarov to smash Paco in the forehead. Paco made a brief gargling sound and fell to his knees just as Talanov leaped to his right and used the pistol to backhand the man standing next to him. The man staggered awkwardly into a parked car and collapsed.
Another man flew at Talanov with his bat. When the man swung, Talanov did a tumbling roll to one side and came up to catch the man in the back of the head with a spinning roundhouse kick. When the man stumbled forward, Talanov deflected a clumsy swing that lightly scraped his face. Grabbing the man by the scruff of the neck, Talanov hammered a knee up into his chin.
While Paco crawled to safety, Talanov squared off against the others.
Paco scooted up into a sitting position against a wall. “Kill him!” he shouted in a raspy voice. “Vuelo Navajas.”
Talanov’s heart sank. Vuelo Navajas, or “flying knives,” meant three knives were about to come flying toward him. And while his reflexes and the darkness afforded him a measure of protection, they did not guarantee that at least one of the spinning knives would not inflict serious if not fatal injury.
In moments of shifting strategy there is a instant of time – almost like a vacuum – when momentum is paused and power is refocused. An instant for new information to be processed, old courses of aggression to be suspended and new courses of aggression to be commenced. An instant for Paco’s men to receive their orders, suck in sharp breaths, plant their feet and loop their navajas back and around in tight figure-eights before hurling them forward.
Talanov racked a cartridge just as Paco’s men planted their feet and drew back their knives just as Talanov fired.
Three shots. Three casings singing through the air and tinkling on the pavement. Three grunts and the rustle and scuff of bodies falling in a heap.
Talanov grabbed Sofia by the wrist and began running. He would take this up with her later. Right now, they needed to escape. Right now, he needed to cool down.
It was not that he was against shooting an adversary. He had done so on many occasions. These killings, however, could and should have been avoided. They were unnecessary and would intensify the police search to find them, especially with witnesses alive to identify them.
At the corner, Talanov glanced back to see people streaming out of an arched gateway. Several rushed over and helped Paco to his feet. Others rushed over to see of anyone else needed help. Seconds later, the screaming started.
Sofia said, “See? In the end, Ice Man did what needed to be done, although I do not understand why your Makarov misfired. Such things never occur, not to us. We clean our weapons more often than our teeth. What happened, Sasha? That first shot was a dud.”
Talanov kept running and did not reply.
“As you wish, it does not matter,” she continued. “We can talk about it later. What matters now is following orders. You following yours and I following mine.”
Talanov glanced guardedly at Sofia.
“Yes, Sasha,” she said, running beside him. “We have a defector to catch, and to do that, we must set aside our differences. But no more stepping out of line. No more helping old women. We must set our sights on Gorev.”
