Vengeance Read online

No surrender, Chuck thought. He would never back down.

  CHAPTER 3

  A quarter mile down the road, he saw two returning crew members. These were not the ship’s original crew members—nobody knew what happened to them. These were the replacement crew members involved in a criminal operation at sea. They wore orange jumpsuits and had gone into town for some unknown reason.

  Chuck walked past an old Victorian-style house that was twenty years overdue for a paint job. He walked past an auto repair shop that was closed and locked down like a fort with metal doors and no windows except above the doors. He walked past a bar with an open door and the sounds of yelling men inside.

  He stopped in front of an old florist shop that had seen better days—probably back when Stalin was still premier during World War Two. This old cement building would likely survive for another fifty years.

  Chuck pulled a wad of cash out of his pocket. He was flipping through bills when the crew members walked by. He had to deal with the criminals now or face their guns later. He would be facing too many already. He didn’t need two more to put lead in him.

  “Hey,” Chuck said in English, “come here.”

  An unshaven bull of a man with a nose ring scowled at him. He snorted dismissively, but then he eyed Chuck’s cash and grinned at his friend, an angry-looking bald guy with oversized wrap-around sunglasses and oversized arms. They walked over.

  “You American?” the bullish-looking man said.

  Chuck could smell a mixture of alcohol and tobacco. He waved his hand in front of his nose. “Which one of you stinks?”

  The angry looking bald guy started to look even more furious. In Russian, he said to his friend, “Bogun, let’s roll this fool.”

  Chuck spoke Russian, so he knew what was coming.

  “Hey,” Chuck said, “I don’t want no trouble.”

  “Then give me that money,” The stout bald one said, “and maybe I won’t break your face.”

  “Okay, okay, don’t hurt me.” Chuck handed over the cash.

  As the bald one reached for it, Chuck grabbed his hand and swung him against the door to the florist. The door cracked, but didn’t open. Chuck executed a reverse spin and kicked the bald one against the door. The door flew open and the bald one hit the ground inside the shop.

  Chuck followed him inside and kicked him in the face. The big wraparound sunglasses skidded on the ground in pieces.

  Chuck heard movement from Bogun, the second attacker. He turned, and the bull-faced crim tried to sucker punch him. Dodging, Chuck landed a fist in his ribs that made the attacker stumble against the nearest wall.

  Chuck walked toward him. “You want my money, too?”

  “I want to kill you,” he said. He reached for his gun under his belt. Chuck grabbed his wrist and twisted it hard enough to bring him to his knees and scream.

  “Put the gun on the ground with your left hand. Try anything foolish, and you’re dead. Got that?”

  “Yes.” Bogun groaned in agony as Chuck twisted his right arm. “I won’t do anything.”

  “You better not.”

  Bogun put his gun on the ground.

  Chuck said, “You just saved your life.”

  The stout bald guy rolled over and suddenly had a knife in his hand. He leapt to his feet and cocked his arm to throw his blade. Chuck drew his silenced Glock and fired two shots into his chest. The bald one fell backwards.

  Lying on his stomach, Bogun tried to seize the moment. The full-faced criminal lunged for his own gun. As he brought it up, Chuck fired two shots. The first shot glazed his neck. The second one smashed into his nose ring. The big man twisted on the floor.

  Chuck grabbed a handful of dead flowers from a dust-covered shelf and dropped them on the failed attackers. “Sorry, pal.”

  He closed the door on his way out of the old florist building.

  CHAPTER 4

  A local CIA contact had provided Chuck with a dirt bike, and he was riding it down to the port. The gate to the container yard was open during the day, so Chuck entered and raced his motorcycle across the yard. He had an Uzi slung over his shoulder now and was ready to blast his way onto the ship. There had been an armed guard stalking the decks all night and all morning, but to his surprise, the guard was nowhere in sight. Chuck rode the dirt bike right up the gang plank and stopped on deck, ready to dispatch any of the pirates—whatever it took to free the crew. But no gunmen appeared. They’d been in sight all morning. Now they were gone. Had they all gone into town while he was dealing with the two attackers? He had no idea.

  Chuck shut off the engine and leaned the bike on its kickstand.

  He looked around. It was an old tramp ship, the kind that took on various cargoes by crane and was no longer commonly used in major ports for common trade. The big container ships were more efficient, so these smaller tramp ships serviced low-traffic, out-of-the-way ports, including shallow ports and those up rivers that were not deep enough for the mega ships.

  The tramp ship’s name was Belama. She stretched to around two-hundred-and-fifty feet in length with a dirty white paint job and a big red smoke stack amidships. Port holes lined the accommodations superstructure, which ran from amidships almost to the cruiser spoon stern. An excessive number of antennas and satellite disks topped the wheelhouse and upper rear decks. Very unusual. This meant that all cargo would have been loaded into the cargo hatch on the weather deck and dropped down into her holds.

  Chuck had traveled on an old CIA surveillance ship very similar to this. He walked toward the bow, glancing back up at the wheelhouse, but nobody was behind the window. He entered the forecastle, the triangular room just behind the anchors.

  What he saw confirmed his worst fears. The forecastle was filled with communication electronics, much like on the ship that Chuck had traveled on years ago. This secret equipment could only mean that the ship had been retrofitted by the CIA. An intel ship would have extra personnel, analysts, techies, and maybe a team of paramilitaries.

  Why hadn’t his handlers told him this was a CIA ship? Such a ship would likely be defended more fiercely by the criminals than a common tramp ship. Chuck had just walked into a death trap. So where were the defenders?

  He took the ladder down the manhole into the cargo hold, which was mostly empty. That explained why the ship was riding high on her draft. The limited cargo that was there appeared to be supplies for a long voyage, which made sense for a CIA ship that might stay at sea for long periods. Two refrigerated shipping containers loomed in the dim cargo hold—probably storing food for the crew. He also saw crates of computers and electronic equipment, most likely used for intelligence operations at sea. Carefully, he opened up several metal boxes containing weapons, including weapons that were popular with US special forces, especially Navy SEALs.

  Chuck was leaving when he decided to open a refrigerated container just to verify that it contained just food and not some unexpected contraband. Both containers were locked, so he pulled the bolt cutters from his knapsack and cut the locks. Opening the first one, a cloud of super cooled mist poured out. Once that cleared, he gasped.

  The missing crew!

  They’d been locked in the containers and left to freeze. Five men and three women were in a variety of poses.

  They were all frozen solid. Two women were huddled together by the door. A couple sailors were huddled alone in a corner. A few were sprawled out on the floor, and frozen blood on their chests suggested they’d been shot and left to die there.

  Of those huddled together, a few of their faces had been severely beaten. A woman’s eye had been gouged. One man’s fingers had been cut off. A tear watered in Chuck’s eye. He felt it run down his cheek. From reading the transcript file, he knew details about these sailors and their families. He could sense the human repercussions of this tragedy.

  He closed the door and opened the other container. It was all food. That meant that there were still five crew members unaccounted for, plus CIA personnel.

&nbs
p; Chuck wondered about the fate of the others, and about the motives of the killers. These beasts had tortured the doomed crew.

  A clanking noise spelled trouble.

  The metal trap door opened above the ladder that led back up to the forecastle.

  Someone was up in the forecastle. Chuck realized that he was now trapped.

  Voices!

  He stepped behind a support column. Peeking around the gray metal pole, he watched as two gunmen climbed down the ladder. Evidently they’d come back from town or wherever they’d been and found the dirt bike on deck. They were searching the ship.

  Chuck let his silenced Uzi hang from its shoulder strap. He held his silenced Glock in his gloved hands. As he heard footsteps approaching, he stepped out and said, “Looking for me.”

  He fired two shots. The first gunman crashed to the floor.

  The second killer dove for cover. Chuck squeezed off four shots and nailed the moving target.

  “Well, you found me,” Chuck said.

  He hurried for the ladder and climbed back up to the forecastle. He didn’t want to get trapped down there, or he’d be doomed. From the forecastle, he peeked out the door to the weather deck.

  Nobody else in sight.

  He ran across the weather deck and entered the main superstructure through a starboard doorway. The metal door was held open with hold-back hooks, so all he had to do was step through the open hatchway into the hall.

  “How many more are on this ship?” he mumbled to himself.

  CHAPTER 5

  The galley was on the main deck. Nobody was there, so Chuck took the ladder steps up to the second deck. He quickly checked all the doors. They led to various offices and crew accommodations. There was no sign of missing crew members. Five crew members were still unaccounted for although there could be more if this truly was an intel ship. Chuck figured he’d add ten more to play it safe. The poor souls in the refrigerated containers had looked like the deck crew, so it was likely that the intel crew had been taken hostage. If they’d been turned over to the Russian government, there wasn’t much else Chuck could do. But he had a hunch that these pirates had been looking to heist a cargo ship and got more than they bargained for.

  He took the stair-ladder up to the wheelhouse. Nobody was there, so he started checking drawers for evidence. He’d love to get his hands on a log book. It would have some telling information. Maybe he could find a book of passwords. It would be great if he could get onto the computer in the purser’s office. Problem was, he had to get out of there in a hurry. He was on a ship with nine dead bodies. Not a good place to be if the authorities showed up. Still, he kept looking for the log book. Then he heard a sound, probably from down on the second deck.

  He pulled his Glock and descended the stairs.

  It was dead quiet now. He eased down the port companionway. Then he heard a yell over on the starboard companionway.

  “Get down!” a man screamed in Russian. “Get down on your knees now!”

  Chuck eased down to the crosswise hallway and moved toward the hostiles. He peeked around the corner and saw a long-haired man standing halfway inside a doorway to a cabin.

  A second man rushed toward him, so Chuck pulled back around the corner to stay out of sight.

  “Put that gun down, or I’ll blow your brains all over the bulwark,” the gunman said. “Lie on your stomach…Put your hands behind your back….Who are you?”

  “Port security,” a man said.

  “Do not lie to me. I will kill you and like it. You’re with SMERSH, aren’t you?”

  “What?”

  “Answer me.”

  Chuck had heard about SMERSH. They were Stalin’s assassins. A long-closed episode of history.

  “That’s crazy,” a man said. “SMERSH was disband in the 1940s.”

  “Do not lie to me. I know they were reinstituted.”

  “Whatever, pal. We’re port security.”

  Chuck heard a silenced shot.

  “Oh, my God,” another man said. “You shot. You killed him.”

  Chuck swung his gun around the corner, but there was nobody there. He quietly approached the door. He noticed the door across the hall was open, but he didn’t see anyone inside. He aimed his gun at the killer’s back.

  “Don’t move!” Chuck yelled. “Now it’s your turn. Put your gun down or I’ll drop you right now.”

  Chuck heard a shuffling of feet behind him.

  A kick to his back rammed him further into the room. He ran into the shooter, elbowing his neck and knocking him down. His gun fumbled from his fingers and landed on the back of a dead man.

  Chuck stayed on his feet and spun around. A tower of a man came after him. The man had a thick chest under a black t-shirt and spider tattoos on his forearms.

  Chuck relaxed and took a subservient posture with his hands folded across his crotch. He was looking down like he knew he was beaten—and indeed facing this beast of a man, it was a natural reaction. As this huge person came at him, Chuck launched a backhand ax-hand. The blow to the side of the attacker’s head stunned him. The big man winced from pain. Chuck was already chambered. He reversed his momentum, delivering a brutal palm smash to the enemy’s face. He heard bone and cartilage crunching in the nose. Blood almost immediately began pouring out of his nose and dripping off his chin onto his black t-shirt.

  Now Chuck did a reverse kick. His boot slammed into the attacker’s chest. The oversized killer was thrown backward into the hall. He hit the door jam on the opposite side and hit the floor.

  The first guy now reached for his gun against the wall and leapt to his feet. Chuck dove to the floor snagging his Glock. He fired three shots, blowing the gunman back against the wall. His head struck the little round window so hard that his face got stuck in the shattered glass. He hung there for a moment before he collapsed to the floor. The surviving SMERSH assassin rolled out of the way.

  “Stay where you are,” Chuck yelled at him, “or you get the same!” Chuck stood up.

  The big guy in the black t-shirt had not only gained his footing, but he was picture of fury. An expression of primal rage contorted his features. He rushed in and threw a roundhouse punch. Chuck ducked and hammered his ribs with both fists, knocking him back against the wall, wincing from a new source of pain. The big man grabbed his chest, but when he pulled his hands away from his black t-shirt, they were bloodstained from all the blood dripping from his nose and down his shirt. As Chuck went after him, the tall man reached out and grabbed Chuck’s neck with his bloody left hand while reaching with his bloody right hand for the pistol under his belt.

  Chuck slammed his right forearm down against the fighter’s left arm. Chuck reached with his left arm for his bloody gun hand. At the same time, Chuck slammed his right elbow into the side of the tall man’s bloody face. This knocked him back, but not out.

  The tall man came on so fast that he managed to throttle Chuck, pushing him against the wall. Chuck sprung off the wall, hand hooked his right arm, and slammed his right ulna into the tall man’s left arm. Using his momentum, Chuck slung the tall fighter into the wall and forced him to his knees. Chuck fired off a vicious elbow to the back of his head. Then he crashed the gap with his chambered knee. Chuck heard several ribs crack.

  He turned on the surviving SMERSH assassin, who was standing. He was not attempting to help Chuck, but wasn’t trying to make a move on him either.

  The SMERSH assassin had a face that looked like a fist with eyes. “Looks like you took care of the big guy.”

  The massive person was cringing on the ground.

  Chuck kicked the big guy in his bloody black shirt and broken ribs. He let loose a pathetic cry like a wounded hyena. “I haven’t taken care of him yet, but I’m about to.” Chuck picked up his Glock off the floor and aimed it at the black t-shirt. “You did quite a job on the crew down in the freezer,” Chuck said. “I suggest you tell me where the rest are.”

  The tall man reached quickly for Chuck’s ankle, so
Chuck fired off a shot.

  “Bad move,” Chuck said.

  Now he turned on the surviving SMERSH killer. “What are you doing on this ship?”

  “These men are criminals. We were sent here to investigate.”

  “I just saved your life,” Chuck said. “Where are they?”

  “Who?”

  “The missing crew members.”

  “I don’t know. We just arrived.”

  “Where are the men who hijacked this ship?”

  “I don’t know, but finding them will be a death sentence for you. I warn you: get out of Petropvalovsk. Leave. It’s not safe for you here.”

  CHAPTER 6

  TOWN of Petropavlovsk

  An Hour Later

  Walking around Petropavlovsk in the rain, Chuck felt like he was in the old Russia with nostalgia and romance, except everything was run-down and decrepit. Pot holes marred the paved streets, and dreary apartment buildings lined the dirt alleys. He walked to the old seaport building, which was abandoned. It was a huge two-story cement structure. Half of the windows were broken out or missing. Long, wide mud puddles stretched across the dirt parking lot, which was empty.

  The front door was unlocked. He entered and found a dreary interior. Filth clung to every inch, and weather had ruined most everything. The tiles were bulging up at the corners. Moisture had saturated the walls, creating ripples in the texture. Paint was peeling. Wood fixtures were rotting.

  Chuck’s only interest was in the little man with an envelope standing in the lobby. He wore jeans and a sweater and had a full beard.

  “Thanks for leaving the motorcycle in town,” Chuck said.

  “I didn’t mean to.”

  Chuck nodded. That was code talk to verify that this was his contact.

  “Then you are Minsky. What can you tell me about Belkin’s compound?”

  Minsky handed Chuck the manila envelope. “Two satellite photos. Belkin’s compound is near the Valley of Geysers. You can take a look. Then I must return the photos to where I got them.”