Pushed to the Edge (SEAL Team 14) (18 page)

Umm huh
.  Joshua wasn’t a moron.  By “law
enforcement” Vicki meant federal law enforcement—so either the FBI or someone
within the DEA itself.  That was the only type of contact who could get her
that type of information. 

“Did you tell Henning that his company was under a
federal drug investigation?” he repeated his second question that she had left
unanswered.

“Well yeah, I may have mentioned that in the
interview right before he walked outside and was gunned down.”
May
have mentioned it to him.  Yeah right.  “Shit Tory.”  Tory was a
nickname for Victoria that only Joshua had called her.  And he only used it
when he was particularly exasperated with her.

“Did you see the shooting, yourself?” he asked. 
He had stopped at another red light, so he turned his head to get a good look
at her.  He knew that as strong as Victoria tried to be, she hated violence and
weapons.  The whole ordeal had to have been tearing her up inside.  Sure, she
had torn up and burned his clothes—destroying personal property could be considered
extreme.  But, she’d never tried to hit him or anyone else in anger.

“No.  No, I didn’t see the shooting.  I heard the
shots and ran out, and there he was, bleeding all over the place.  I tried . .
. I tried to help him . . . he was just bleeding so much . . .” she trailed off
again.

Victoria didn’t say anything else as Josh drove
the jeep back to his house.

By the time they made it back to his home it was
close to nine p.m.  “Hey Victoria, we’re here,” he said. 

“Come on,” he said.  Victoria hesitated, but then
she opened the passenger side door.  He picked up her travel bag to carry it
inside for her.

“You moved, out of the base?  I didn’t think you
would ever do that,” she said, walking up the porch steps with him to his one
story bungalow.  

“Yeah, I did.  I moved in here around January of
this past year.”

“Wow, congrats.  It’s a beautiful home,” Vicki
said, stepping inside the living room.  Joshua had already turned on the lights
and closed and locked the front door. 

“Yeah, it’s not a mansion, but it’s enough space
for me to stretch out.  I’ve been thinking about taking a mortgage out on it
instead of just renting it.  It really just depends on how the next year goes,
and whether I’ll be moving to another location with the Team.”

“Oh.  Where will you be moving to?” Victoria
asked, staring intently at him.

“Like I said, I’m not sure if I’ll be moving, but
it’s a definite possibility.  Anyway, you must be exhausted.  How about you go
ahead and take a shower and get settled in?  I’ll fix up my guest bedroom for
you okay?”  Joshua then showed her where the bathroom was and where the towels
and bath supplies were located in the hall linen closet.

“Sure, thank you again Joshua,” Vicki said.

Hearing the shower start up in the guest bedroom,
Joshua picked up the phone and dialed his friend Malcolm Clarke who had just
returned to their home base in Coronado.  He would have called Will as well but
he was still OCUNUS.

“Yo, what’s up Pope?”  Malcolm’s deep voice filled
Joshua’s ear.  Joshua and Will would sometimes joke and call Malcolm “Freeman”
due to the mellow tenor of his voice being similar to Morgan Freeman.  Malcolm
also had movie star good looks and could have passed for Denzel Washington’s
younger brother.  Both of these attributes explained why his friend got more
ass than a toilet seat.

“Hey Malcolm.  How have you been man?”

“All is good . . . I can’t complain man.  I just
got back from a wonderful extended vacation in hot as balls Turkmenistan.  Now
that I’m back Stateside, I’m feeling footloose and fancy free.  What’s been up
with you?”

“I’ve got a big favor to ask you man.  You’ve
heard about Richard Henning’s shooting a couple days ago, right?”

“Yeah, something about some people in all black
rode up to him on a sidewalk and opened up a few rounds of a clip into him,
right?  He’s really got some epic bad luck by being shot to death after having
been rescued in a covert op by our team earlier.”

“Yeah, incredibly piss poor luck.  But it’s more
likely that he was on someone’s death list, and luck has nothing to do with
it.  Anyway, I have sort of a situation that has come up, in regards to
Henning’s shooting, and I need you to look into some things for me.”  Of all
the people in the world, Joshua trusted both Will and Malcolm with his life. 
He knew that anything he asked of him, Malcolm would do it if possible—and vice
versa.

“Yeah, you know I’m down, Pope.  What’s the
situation?”

“Well Vicki—”

“Whoa.  Wait.  Hold on man.  Time out.  You’re
talking about Victoria Sanchez?  The same Victoria Sanchez who crushed your
heart and left you to bleed out on the kitchen floor, a year ago?”

“Yeah.  The one and the same.  Glad you
remembered, man,” Joshua said dryly.  Of all his friends, Malcolm did have
something of a flair for the dramatic.  But Joshua couldn’t blame him for his
incredulity about this.  Will and he had basically picked a very much broken
Joshua up of the floor—figuratively at least—and had helped him to repair
himself and get through what was one of the worst periods of his life.

“Look,” Joshua continued, “she’s in trouble and
she needs my help.  She was interviewing Henning when he got shot the other
day.”

Malcolm let out a loud whistle before replying,
“No shit.  Is she okay?”

“Yeah.  She’s okay.  She’s taking a shower now
and—”

“Wait she’s there with you now?  Umm hello,
‘Danger, danger Will Robinson!’  Look Pope, I don’t think that’s such a good
idea.  Can’t you help her you know . . . from a distance?”

Joshua chose to ignore his friend’s remark. 
“Look, she came to me for help.  Her apartment has been broken into since the
shooting.  You know that there is a rumor going around that this recent gang
style execution of Henning was ordered by the same terrorist group that
kidnapped him.”

“Do you think that’s true?  If so, Victoria is in
some deep shit if it’s a terrorist group that is threatening her.”

Joshua’s guts twisted inside out at his friend’s
observation.  “Yeah.  But it doesn’t fit.  Unless I’m missing something here,
if it had been someone from a local cell of the Haqqai network who thought that
Vicki saw something that she shouldn’t have, they would have waited until she
got back to her apartment and then executed her.  They wouldn’t have just left
after grabbing her computer.”

“True.  Well, what do you think is going on?” 

“Damn if I know.  But I have to find out soon. 
Can you check into a few things for me?”

“Of course, man.  You know that I have your back.”

“You still have some contacts in Pakistan and
Afghanistan right? “

“Yeah, I know a few operatives who are still
active in the region.”

“See what you can shake loose in regards to
whether or not Victoria’s been identified as a target.  If not, then Richard
Henning probably has someone else who wants him dead and who is currently
flying under the radar,” Joshua said grimly.

“Sure, no problem, man.  I’m on it.  I’ll get back
to you when I get that info.  Are you on leave?”

“Yeah, just for a few days.”

“All right, be careful.”

Joshua hung up the phone, powered up his laptop, and
turned on the television.  The cable news station was currently talking about
the attack on Henning and his death a few hours after the attack.  The female
news anchor was talking to a law enforcement contributor about the unidentified
individuals who rode away on a black motorcycle just after the shooting took
place.  The station then cut to a visual of the former Congressman with his
wife and daughter at a past Christmas dinner.  Joshua turned the volume down
and sat down on the couch with his laptop. 

Riiiiiinnnnnnnnnngggg.    

“Hello,” he said, answering his cell phone.

“Hey big brother,” his sister’s excited,
high-pitched voice filled his ear.  Joshua smiled.  Emmani had always been a
bundle of energy, and even her hectic career as a pediatric nurse hadn’t
managed to alter that. 

“Hey Little Bit.  How are things going down there
in Texas?”  Little Bit was a nickname that had been bestowed upon Emmani when
she was born.  Their mother had been in her early forties (so older than
normal) when she became pregnant with her second child.  The pregnancy had been
a very difficult one for her.  As a result, Emmani had been born about a month
premature, and she had remained slightly underweight throughout much of her
childhood. 

“Great.  The little ones make sure that I never
have a dull moment.  I’ve been working some killer shifts lately, but I’m going
to take some vacation time next month.  That’s actually why I’m calling.  Do
you mind if I come and stay with you in sunny San Diego for a week?”

“Of course you can come and stay.  I’d love that. 
When were you thinking about visiting?”

 “Cool.  I’m going to take some time off from work
at the end of May.  Do you know if you’ll still be stateside then?

“I’m not sure, yet.  I’m actually on a short leave
right now.  If I get called out on a long-term overseas assignment I’ll get in
contact with you to let you know the dates of my absence.  So how are things
going with you and the lawyer guy?”  The last time that Emmani had called
Joshua, she had been gushing about this new guy that she was dating, about how
“different” and “mature” he was compared to her past few boyfriends. 

“Ugh,” Emmani scoffed.  “Don’t get me started on
Jason.  He turned out to be a real asswaffle.”

“Oh yeah?  Is there anything that I need to handle
for you?”

“Nah.  He was just your everyday, average jerk. 
Nothing that I could not deal with myself.  So anyway, how are you doing big
brother?”

“I’m doing just fine.  I’m on leave for a couple
of days.”

“I hope that you are actually taking it easy on
your vacation.  You should do something fun.”

 “Josh.”

He glanced up from the sofa and saw that Vicki was
standing before him in an Emory University T-shirt and a pair of shorts—clearly,
these were her nightclothes.  Her dark brown hair was still dripping wet from
the shower, hanging down to her waist.  Joshua had to pry his gaze from
Victoria’s chest because he could tell that she wasn’t wearing a bra.  God help
him.

“Hello, Joshua?  Is someone there with you?”

His sister’s voice pulled his attention back to
the phone.  “Yeah, I have company.  I’ll call you back tomorrow,” Joshua
promised before hanging up.  Emmani had still been in mid-sentence when he hung
up, asking him if it was “someone special.” 

After he ended his relationship with Victoria,
Emmani had been very vocal in sharing her opinion about the whole situation
with him.  Her opinion had actually surprised him.  Even though she had gotten
along well with Victoria, Emmani had agreed with both Will and Malcolm—that
Joshua should just move on.

Looking back up at Vicki’s face he saw that she
had also taken out her contacts and was wearing the rectangular glasses that
she had always hated, but that Joshua had loved.  Joshua had always found
glasses on women to be sexy.  And Victoria was no exception.  To him, glasses
were just one more item of apparel to take off. 

“Hey Vicki, did you find everything okay?”

“Yeah I did, thanks,” she said, sitting down on
the sofa next to him.  “Joshua, do you think that my mother is okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“I haven’t told her anything about what’s going
on.  Do you think that anyone would try to hurt her?”

Joshua stared into Victoria’s worried brown eyes,
and he knew at that very moment that he was a goner.  Actually, truth be told
was probably a goner as soon as he answered her phone call.  “I’m really not
sure.  I don’t know what we’re dealing with here, yet.  I don’t even know
who
we are dealing with.  So anything is possible.  Your mother lives in New York
still, right?”

“Yes.  Should I call her and let her know?”

“Yeah, that would be a good idea.  It’s probably
not necessary, but I’ll call in a few favors tomorrow morning and see if I can
get her a protection detail for the time being.  You know what they say, better
safe than sorry.  I have some ex-military friends located in the Northeast that
should be able to help,” he said.

“Really?  You would do that for me?” Victoria
asked, unable to hide the bit of wonder in her voice. 

Joshua laughed.  It couldn’t really have been
described as a joyful laugh.  “Yeah Victoria, I would.  I’m surprised that you
still don’t realize that by now.”

Victoria looked at him and smiled, but it didn’t
quite reach her eyes.  She moved to touch his hand.  “Thank you, Josh.  I
really appreciate it.”

“Yeah, sure.  Don’t worry about it.”

“I’ve missed you, you know,” Victoria whispered,
looking into his eyes.

“Yeah.  It’s probably better for both of us if we
don’t start reminiscing about the past.  You’re just here because you need my
help.  And I’m happy to provide that.  We’re still friends, right?  So, anyway,
it’s after midnight.  You should head on to bed we have a lot of things to
check off our list for tomorrow.”

“You’re right.  Goodnight Josh,” Victoria said. 
She stood up and then leaned down to kiss him on his cheek before heading to
the guest bedroom and closing the door. 

“Shit,” Joshua mumbled to himself. 
Yeah
,
he was definitely in trouble.

January
25, 2012

Sokol,
Russia

o the outside world,
Dimitriv Arshavin was a successful businessman.  He drove a fancy black
Maserati, had a different blonde model for every day of the week, and a 15,000
square foot stone mansion in Moscow that sat on twenty acres of land. 

He was a moderately handsome man, with black hair
and dark blue eyes.  To all extents and purposes, he had “made it”—he was
living the good life.  Walking down the street in his designer tailored suits,
he could have been any successful, talented business owner. 

However, what many people were not aware of was
the type of industry that Dimitriv was involved in. 

The Russian criminal underworld had inducted
Dimitriv into their circle at the tender age of eleven.  He had first honed his
skills with various crimes ranging from petty theft to arson.  He’d moved on to
intimidation, extortion, and murder in short shrift.  It would be correct to
say that Dimitriv had graduated at the top of his class from the School of Hard
Knocks. 

His father had been a small-town pimp and his
mother one of his father’s prostitutes, who died of AIDS when Dimitriv had only
been ten years old.  Even at the age of ten, he didn’t remember ever having
cried for the loss of his mother.  He hadn’t shed a single tear. 

She had been a prostitute and drug addict.  A
nobody in Dimitriv’s opinion.  A shell of a person who wasn’t worth the time or
energy to cry over. 

Dimitriv had been thirteen years old when he’d
killed his first man.

 At a time when the biggest worry for most boys
his age had been about asking their favorite crush out to the movies, Dimitriv
had been concerned about murder.  About making sure that he had the silencer on
correctly, and that his aim was steady so that he only had to pull the trigger
once—one trigger pull to the back of the head. 

Dimitriv had just walked up to the guy, who had
stupidly been walking alone at night, and unleashed a single round from a clip
into the back of his head.  He hadn’t even seen it coming.  The execution had
been quite genius actually.  What grown man would have been afraid of a thin,
short twelve-year-old child?  What the poor SOB hadn’t realized was that even
children could be taught to kill. 

The man had made the lethal mistake of pissing off
the wrong people, and had made it onto quite a lengthy hit list for one of the
gangs in Russia’s well-developed criminal underground.  To this day, Dimitriv
didn’t even know the man’s name.  His bosses at the time hadn’t told Dimitriv
the man’s name, and he had never asked for it.  It had never been important. 
But he had memorized the man’s photograph before making the hit.  He could
still recall every crevice and shadow of that man’s face. 

Dimitriv was now an underboss of that very same
organization: the King’s Triad.

It was quite possible that he was a man who was
beyond redemption.  Now at thirty-seven-years of age, he was as cold-hearted of
a motherfucker as you could ever have the misfortune to meet.  But being a cold
motherfucker was pretty much a necessity for the type of work that Dimitriv was
involved in. 

Currently, his group’s biggest criminal
enterprises were the narcotics trade and prostitution.  Dimitriv had put in his
dues and he was now one of the top leaders of his organization.  In the
mid-1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian mafia saw a
rebirth in leaders such as Vladimir Yasevich and Antonin Elson.  Dimitriv was
determined that his name would go down as one of the great Russian mob
leaders. 

Right now, however, his organization had something
of a cash flow problem.  To put it simply, there wasn’t enough cash flowing
into their operations.  His group had the drug trade and prostitution arenas
locked down in southeast Russia.  But Dimitriv saw an opportunity for expansion
into the heroin market in other countries. 

This wasn’t completely new territory; his group
had dabbled in the drug trade before.  There were close to three million heroin
addicts in Russia and Dimitriv’s group was already supplying a large percentage
of those addicts.  However, now an excellent opportunity had landed right in
Dimitriv’s lap so to speak.  He had made contacts that had access to an
original heroin source: Afghanistan poppy farms. 

With the punishing weather and arid climate in
Afghanistan, it was difficult for farmers to make a living by trying to
cultivate legitimate crops.  This difficulty was fueled by extreme poverty and
domestic instability.  With his new connections in Afghanistan, he would be
able to get initial access to a prime grade of opium before it was even cut,
processed, and packaged for distribution. 

Dimitriv had learned a long time ago never to
underestimate the lengths that people would go to in order to survive.  When
your family of four is facing elimination due to poverty and starvation,
certain actions to prevent or alleviate that suffering suddenly doesn’t seem so
bad.  Contributing to the narcotics trade was the lesser of the two evils if
the other evil was to watch your family waste away to nothing.  Therefore,
Dimitriv was quite confident that the supply from Afghanistan wasn’t going to
be abating anytime soon.

Anyone who had been paying attention knew that
Afghanistan had been the main producer of heroin and cannabis—and had been for
at least the past two decades.  In recent years, Afghan heroin production had
increased at a rapid rate, and the country had become the biggest supplier of
heroin to Europe.  Afghanistan opium exportation had now developed into a $4
billion business, and Dimitriv badly wanted a piece of that action. 

Dimitriv’s aspirations went beyond the European
market, however.  He wanted some of the U.S. market as well.  The tricky part
of the arrangement was to get the supply into the United States.  Dimitriv and
his group didn’t really need the U.S. Feds riding their asses. 

His new contact was guaranteeing access to largely
untouched markets within the United States—which after Europe was one of the
biggest “importers” of illegal drugs in the world.  This arrangement was poised
to be a guaranteed moneymaker, though obviously it wasn’t without risk to his
organization.

Dimitriv trusted his new associates about as far
as he could throw them, which wasn’t very far.  One of his trusted
acquaintances, Saverin Tarasov, had introduced him to some “businessmen” who
wanted to talk to Dimitriv about a new business proposition.  The men had been
cleared by Dimitriv’s security personnel before he even agreed to meet with
them.  Of the two men, he trusted Dr. Adil the most.  Malook was purportedly a
cleric, but Dimitriv got a bad vibe from the man.  Dimitriv had never much been
one that embraced religious ideologies.

Ordinarily, he would have stopped the meeting
right then once he got a bad feeling about any of the men he was going to do
business with.  However, the proposition that the two proposed was just too
tempting to resist. 

On Dimitriv’s part, his organization only had to
agree to an exchange of weapons and protection for a portion of some of the
heroin product coming out of Afghanistan that would be flowing into European
and U.S. markets.  Exchanging weapons was a small price to pay to get in on the
type of action that Adil and Malook were proposing.

Previously, Dimitriv’s group had purchased already
processed, lower-grade heroin for distribution from local suppliers.  This new
working relationship would drastically reduce the price that Dimitriv’s
organization would have to pay for the product by cutting out the middleman,
and the product itself would be of a higher quality than their current batch. 

He was meeting today to discuss the finer details
of the protection outfit that he was providing for the new laboratory that his
group had helped open up on Sokol.  The new laboratory was located in the back
quadrant of land owned by a legitimate pharmaceutical company, Nava Drug Corp. 
Well, at least the company was legitimate on paper.

 It was a small facility, but bigger than what
Dimitriv was used to for opium processing.  Dimitriv had twenty of his own men
guarding the building.  Ten were outside guards and ten were “inside” guards. 
The purpose of the “inside” guards was to make sure that the product didn’t
just up and walk away with the workers.  Today, he was meeting with the head of
the security.

The first new shipment would arrive within the
next few days and it would be cut, processed, and ready for distribution within
two weeks time.  They were going to be using the same transport company and channels
that were currently used by Nava Drug Corp in order to bring the product into
the United States. 

“How many security personnel do we have on
schedule for when the first shipment comes in at the end of the week?” 
Dimitriv asked Andrei, one of his right hand men, as the two men stood on the
third floor landing of the production facility, watching the factory workers
below on the second floor. 

Dimitriv gripped his hands around the metal
railing and leaned forward to peer down at the scene below.  He closely watched
from the east-end railing as twenty workers were huddled around three long
metal tables, and were bagging the lower-grade heroin that Dimitriv’s gang
already had in supply for distribution. 

The women at the center table were processing chalky
white, powdery pure-grade heroin.  Dimitriv and his crew would be able to
charge a high street price for that heroin.  The heroin processed on the outer
two tables, however, had a rose gray color that indicated slight dilution of
the product.  Because of the dilution, they were unable sell the second batches
for as much as the first.  Dimitriv could not wait to get his hands on more of
the premium smack coming in from Afghanistan. 

The workers in his facility consisted mainly of
indigent women from the surrounding towns.  The entire staff was required to
wear only a tank top and short, tight bicycle shorts that had no pockets. 
These precautions were to prevent the women from leaving with the product on
their persons. 

“We have hired fifteen men to guard each floor
every day, for the next two weeks.  Based on prior production rates, for a half
ton shipment, it will take at least two weeks for the workers to cut and bag
the product for individual or bulk sale.”

“How is the product coming in from Afghanistan?”

“We’ve worked out that the easiest route is
through Tajikistan.  Our associates in Afghanistan will be using many of the
same couriers that they’ve used before.”

“Are the couriers supplied with enough arms?  And
are they adept at moving the heroin from the mountains through Tajikistan
without being caught by the Tajik Border Forces or the Russian border guards?”

“From what we can confirm with Malook, yes.  Each
courier is supplied with at least one weapon depending on the amount of product
that they are carrying across the borders.  The couriers that are being used
for this shipment are skilled in hiding in the mountains and within the heavily
wooded forests.  In addition, key Tajik legal officials have been on Malook’s
payroll for quite some time.  So if some of the couriers should run into
trouble, they have a point man to contact in the local police agency for
assistance.”

“Good.  Then it looks like things on that side are
going well.”

“Yes, sir.  As well as can be expected.”

“What about the transfer out of Russia.  Do we
have everything lined up with the shipping company?”

“Malook still has to contact us with those
details, sir.”

“What’s the hold up?  We need to have all of these
details hashed out within the next day.”

“I know sir, I spoke to him yesterday about
shipping the items out on one of the tankers, but so far he hasn’t given me any
concrete information about the drop off.”

“I want you to call him again as soon as we finish
our walk through of the facility.”

“Of course, sir.”

“We need that information as soon as possible,”
Dimitrive continued.  “When you speak to Malook, make sure he understands that
his lack of professionalism is this matter is making an extremely bad
impression upon us.”  Dimitriv hated when self-centered pricks like Malook felt
that they could jerk his chain.  He didn’t get as far as he had in life by
being a fool.  And so he didn’t appreciate anyone trying to make an idiot out
of him. 

“Yes, okay.”

“Make it crystal clear to this asshole that our
current agreement is not set in stone.  Our organization can very easily find
another business partner to work with.”  That wasn’t a completely accurate
statement.  In fact, it assumed a lot.  It assumed that the King’s Triad would
be able to find another suitable partner, with premium product, who could
guarantee access to U.S. markets.  It wasn’t impossible, but it was highly
unlikely.  No, Dimitriv was counting on this deal to go through.