Pavel Durov grimaced as one of his men yanked a handkerchief wrapped around Durov’s arm into a tight knot. He nodded his thanks and slid his bloodstained pistol over to his left hand. Durov cursed his luck. Twenty-five years in the Russian Special Forces without so much as a scratch. His first assignment since leaving the military as a private contractor, and he’d been shot and lost one of his men. Durov grasped the edge of the long, metal bench he sat on and braced himself as the boat took a sharp bend in the river, sending a tall wave crashing into the far riverbank.
“Easy does it,” said Durov to a black-haired man steering the vessel. “I don’t want to end up in the water with the alligators, and neither do you.”
“Sorry,” replied the driver. “I’ve never driven one of these before.”
“You’re doing fine, just keep us from flipping over.”
“How far do we have to go?” asked the baldheaded gunman who had helped Durov with his wound.
“I think there’s a town not too far down the river where I’m sure we can get our hands on a car. Then we make our way back to Tampa, and get out of this country,” replied Durov.
“What about Ivan?” said the bald man, staring down at the lifeless body of their comrade, lying in a pool of blood at his feet.
“He knew the risks when he signed on. Dump his body over the side.”
“What of his family back home in Moscow?” asked the black-haired man. “Surely, they’ll want his body returned home, so they can bury it.”
“That’s never going to happen,” said Durov. “I’m sure our employer will see that his family is well looked after. Now, dump his body before someone sees it and reports us to the police.”
The bald man mumbled something under his breath as he grabbed his dead associate under the arms and hauled him to the side of the boat. After crossing himself, he pushed the corpse into the river. The waves from the speeding boat washed over the body, pushing it out of sight in the reeds. The bald man resumed sitting on the bench next to his boss, cradling his weapon in his arms.
Durov patted the gunman on the shoulder. “I know you think I’m a monster for disposing of Ivan’s body like that, but there’s nothing else we could have done.”
“I sure as hell hope that whatever’s in that box we found was worth Ivan’s life,” replied the baldheaded man.
Durov lifted the metal container off the floor and placed it between himself and his comrade. “My friend, this is worth millions of dollars to the man who hired us. Trust me, we’ll all be paid handsomely for what’s in here.”
“Hang on,” called out the black-haired man to his colleagues as he took a bend too fast, spraying water on some people standing on a dock as they waited to climb into a boat.
Durov looked over his shoulder and grinned. If his situation wasn’t so grave, he was confident he would have laughed at the drenched fools waving their arms in the air, swearing at him.