Not wanting to get in the way, I stepped back to clean up.
Andrusha moved to lean against the counter with his arms crossed. He watched me work.
I knew he was observing me for a reason, but what that reason was, I couldn’t hazard a guess. “What are they talking about?”
“Viktor is organizing our team to extract your grandfather.”
That sounded promising. “Okay.”
“Would you like to come along?”
I whipped my head toward him. “Yes!”
“I’m going to be running the surveillance from the van. No reason why you can’t come in the van and sit with me.”
I glanced over at Viktor. His big arms were crossed and his legs were planted as he stood and listened to one of his men speak. “He’s hurt.”
Andrusha’s eyes narrowed. “How bad?”
“He was in a fist fight with this man, and that was one of the worst fights I have ever witnessed. And he mentioned something about a motorcycle accident, and he got shot in the leg. His body has taken a beating.”
He looked at me a bit closer. “You care.”
I flushed deep. “He’s saved my life a few times.”
He raised his eyebrows. “What the hell happened over there?”
Viktor chose that moment to walk over. “What do you know about Beirut?”
Andrusha shook his head. “Almost nothing. I overheard the men speaking. They said that your past in Beirut was following you, but they didn’t elaborate.”
Viktor looked grim. “Drake said much the same thing.”
“What’s been going on?”
“There is a sniper. I’m not sure how he’s connected, but he just shot Drake.” Then he deliberately switched to Russian, cutting me out of the conversation.
I hated not understanding what was going on. I stepped a bit closer. “What are you saying?”
He touched my shoulder. “It’s okay. This whole thing is almost done. You just have to wait here.”
“I told her she could come in the van with me,” Andrusha cut in.
Viktor looked at him with incredulity. “Absolutely not.”
“She’ll be safer there with us than alone here.”
“That’s not your call to make.”
“No, but it’s the right one. Plus, the grandfather would probably appreciate a friendly face.”
I looked at Viktor with pleading eyes. “I’ll do exactly as you tell me, just don’t leave me here.”
Viktor didn’t look happy, but he spoke to me directly. “You stay in the van, you listen to Andrusha at all times and you don’t ask any questions.”
Andrusha laughed. “He’s a bossy fucker, isn’t he?”
Viktor said something in Russian, and Andrusha laughed again.
“What did you say?” I asked Viktor.
Andrusha answered. “He said you’ve been running the show since day one.”
Viktor and I made eye contact, and I could see the amusement in his eyes. He was teasing me. I was used to having him by myself. I didn’t know how to act when his life and his people were bustling around us.
“I’ll follow all your rules.”
“That will be a first.”
Andrusha laughed again.
An hour later, I sat in the back of a van with Andrusha. We were parked slightly down the road from the old cannery. Fifteen minutes earlier, Viktor and the other men had left the van and disappeared into the darkness.
Beside me, Andrusha was on a laptop. He was wearing a headset, and he spoke in a quiet voice in Russian to the men.
I waited in the dark on the bench beside him. In a short time, my grandfather would be in my arms. I could bring him back to my grandmother. I couldn’t think past that moment, so I just focused on being able to hug him and ask him if he was okay.
“Are you cold?”
It took me a moment to realize that Andrusha was speaking English, and another moment to realize he was speaking to me. “No. I’m okay. What’s happening?”
He turned the laptop toward me and showed me a screen that had six different camera views. “Right now, the men are getting in place around the property. We’re trying to determine if your grandfather is in there, and if so, how many men are holding him.”
It all looked very official and high-tech. “And then they’ll go in?”
“What we find inside will determine our approach.”
I had seen enough of Viktor in action to know that he operated in a different world, but now I was seeing him in an even more professional setting. “Is this the kind of stuff you do on a regular basis?”
“We provide security. Bodyguard service, property security, and vetting events. Believe it or not, most of the time we create environments to avoid the necessity of extracting a hostage.”
“Oh.”
“How long have you and Viktor been together?”
I froze. “Did he tell you that?”
“Is that something you think Viktor would talk about?”
I felt like Andrusha knew something I didn’t. “No.”
“I’m good at reading situations. And I’ve known Viktor a long time. My wife tells me that Viktor is gentle and patient. But at work, I have never seen him show a lot of that.” He sounded wry.
“Oh.”
“Until tonight.”
I felt myself flush, but his words pleased me. I knew his friend could offer me a lot of insight into the mystery I called Viktor. “What side of him do you usually see?”
“Resilient, ruthless, relentless. Unstoppable.”
I swallowed. I realized I had seen all of those sides of him too. “I’ve never met anyone like him before.”
“Are you serious about him?”
Andrusha was speaking casually, but he was observing me and all of my reactions. “Obviously I am.”
He laughed. “Hang on to that spunk. You’re going to need it.”
I decided to angle for more insight. “Have you met a lot of Viktor’s girlfriends?”
“Not a single one.”
He touched his headset and started to speak in Russian. When he was done, he looked at me.
“They’re going in.”
I startled. This was happening faster than I thought it would. “What, right now?”
“There are not that many men watching, and they are pretty spread out. So we’re going to use tranquilizer darts.”
I spoke slowly. “Because you don’t want to kill anyone.”
He grimaced. “Yup. We made a pact to try not to kill, and it’s been a pain in the ass, if you ask me. And a lot more dangerous. But we’re not exactly the police, and we can’t run around shooting people anymore.”
Anymore. “Are they in danger?”
“They have live weapons too, if it comes to that. But they all know to use their weapons as a last resort. Look. Viktor is getting into place. Come scoot closer if you want to watch.”
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
VIKTOR
I quietly climbed onto the top of the building and went through a roof hatch. Aware that my body was hurting, I used extra care when I climbed down onto one of the main roof rafters. The old wooden building below me had been gutted years ago, leaving most of the space open. This meant I had a very good visual on most of the building. I silently set up my rifle and scope and calibrated it before I set up the high-powered dart rifle.