UNDERGROUND

6

Chapter 6

Pustovalov knew that as soon as he took the first steps, a guard would appear in the doorway of the checkpoint, who was now hiding there. In his hands he will have a baseball bat or something like that. He will play as a distraction while one of the bearded men comes up from behind and stuns him. They won't come out now that he's standing in front of the door. They will wait for him to step back a couple of steps to have more space. Also, they most likely won't mess with a firearm while it's under their control. Stunned, and then simply strangled and thrown into a container. This is their simple plan. Pustovalov understood him as soon as they arrived here.

Without taking his hands out of his jacket pocket, Pustovalov pressed the button on the electronic key. The doors of the BMW X5 silently unlocked.

Pustovalov estimated how many seconds he would have after he took a couple of steps.

And came to the conclusion that less than one. Because as soon as the bearded men see him running, someone will surely get the gun.

So, he has only the time that they will spend on opening the glass door of the vestibule.

Pustovalov ducked sharply and rushed forward. A man in a short unbuttoned jacket immediately appeared in the doorway of the checkpoint. In his hand he clutched a straightening hammer with an elongated handle. A loud knock on the door caught up two seconds later. And a second later - the clatter of an auto-locking lock and a thud of a heavy body against the armored door of the BMW X5.

Pustovalov cast an indifferent glance at the gray-bearded "intellectual" and slowly moved into the driver's seat.

The car was quickly surrounded.

Pustovalov pressed a key on the electronic clock and, ignoring the sliding blows of the hammer inches from his own head, turned on the toggle switches on the block bolted to the left post one by one and started the engine. The radio came on with the engine. The salon filled with the voice of Frankie Avalon: “I will never let you go. Why? Because I love you".

The hammer with a resonant knock twice swept in front of his face, and Pustovalov remembered the mechanic's question last year - whether he wants to replace the double bending with the multilayer ARMET system - in the last tests it withstood ten shots from the SVD rifle.

Pustovalov did not turn off the radio - he did not waste time on unnecessary actions. Frankie Avalon sang that broken hearts are not about him... It seems that the "intellectual" has just begun to understand that not everything is so simple. There was something akin to bewilderment in his empty eyes. And he probably hears the sweet-voiced Frankie too.

Pustovalov bent down, took off the rug, feeling the car lurch sharply forward and to the left - the front left wheel was pierced. Throwing the rug back on the passenger seat, he opened a small lid at the bottom. Then, pushing off with his feet, he pushed the chair back, picked up the touch of the "torpedo", removed it, grabbed the handle, pulled it towards him. There was a hiss, the car rose slightly and froze. To the left behind the glass appeared the black barrel of a Glock-19.

“Step back,” someone shouted, and then a shot rang out. Instead of Pustovalov's head, the bullet hit the glass loudly and, ricocheting, flew into the upper part of the checkpoint. Yasin is probably watching all this fuss now from the window of his luxurious office. And he's probably starting to lose his patience.

This thought amused Pustovalov. And while Frankie's baritone tenor confessed his love, Pustovalov took out a Nokia 3310 phone with connected vacuum headphones from the glove compartment. I put one earpiece in my ear.

Five men near his car came together for a meeting. Pustovalov glanced at his watch. A minute has passed.

At the same time, Colonel Basurov flew out of the glass doors of the vestibule and, running along an arc, rushed at Pustovalov's car. His right eye was swollen, and there was a red mess instead of his mouth.

Pustovalov heard his own name. Basurov was immediately seized and pulled by the legs. The Colonel fell into the snow with a dull thud.

Pustovalov has long crossed the threshold of sensitivity. The time when something could shock him had passed almost thirty years ago.

Basurov raised his broken arm three times to protect his head from a blow with a straightening hammer. After the second blow, he stopped yelling, after the third - to raise his hand. After the fourth - Frankie Avalon finished his song, and Colonel Basurov left this world forever.

Pustovalov looked down and dialed the first number from his contact list. A youthful voice answered on the third ring:

- Yes!

- Hi. - Pustovalov said, looking at how the corpse of the colonel was being dragged to the container.

- Do we work?

- Name - Igor Basurov. The camera above the checkpoint, a little to the left, the second one looks at the gate.

- Understood. Are we hiding the car?

- Yeah.

- Wait.

We had to wait a minute or two. Pustovalov pulled out his Maxspeed backpack from the back seat and began to transfer money into it, thinking about what Yasin's people could do in that time. They can try an industrial saw. If they have it, of course. Set fire? Unlikely, even without taking into account the engine compartment fire extinguishing system and the fire protection of the gas tank. Grenade launcher? Doubtful. Tow truck? They won't succeed. They've pierced the tires, but the wheels are equipped with a "Pax" system, internal rubber rims to escape in case of a puncture. The only thing they can do is try to block his car so he doesn't have a car rodeo.

They had already rolled the Hummer close to the bumper of his BMW, and there was a lot of fuss about the rest of the cars - apparently, not all of them had keys.

Having finished transferring the money, Pustovalov threw Yasin's bag into the back seat and noticed a box of Simon Coll chocolate umbrellas that he had bought the day before. Without thinking twice, he stuffed the candy into the backpack with the money and zipped it up. Now all that was left was to wait.

At this time, a movement on the right attracted Pustovalov's attention, he turned his head and raised his eyebrows in surprise.

The guard was pushing a cart with cylinders. Walking beside him was a man in overalls and a fancy welding helmet, clutching the torch of a propane torch.

He did not expect such a turn.

With such an arsenal, Yassin's people will open his armored BMW in twenty minutes.

At the same time, the bell rang in the courtyard.

Six heads turned towards the checkpoint.

The guard with the hammer moved to the gate. Pustovalov imagined what happened next in general terms: the guard would look into the camera and see behind the door Sergei Kamenshchik, the police captain lured by Pustovalov, with whom he spoke on the phone a minute ago. Seryoga, as Pustovalov called him, despite his rustic appearance a la "Lenya Golubkov", had a tenacious mind, talkativeness and a love of money. The standard cover that Pustovalov called to secure against complex "operations".

Seryoga's task is simple - to portray a friend of Colonel Basurov, whom he has been waiting for here for a long time and wants to know if everything is fine, because for some reason the colonel's phone does not answer. Well, as soon as the door is opened for him, Masonshchik's subordinates, Lieutenants Bolotny and Ryakhin, will come out of the dead zone. Unlike Seryoga, they will be in uniform.

The guard appeared at the checkpoint door. The “intellectual” shouted something to him. The guard put his finger to his lips and took out his mobile phone.

At this time, the bell rang again, and this time it rang continuously.

A sad-eyed man approached the guard, they exchanged a few words and disappeared together at the checkpoint.

And as soon as fine figures in police uniforms and Seryoga Kamenshchik gesturing majestically appeared in the yard, Pustovalov breathed a sigh of relief, grabbed his bag, unlocked the doors and quickly got out of the car.

The smell of gasoline and blood hit my nose.

The bearded men, who were guarding the car, leaned towards him, but when they saw the policemen, they stopped in confusion. Fear of police uniforms is almost an instinct. Of course, Yasin's connections are much more impressive, but it is unlikely that his thugs will decide on an outright massacre with the police without a direct order. Pustovalov approached the policemen. He was damn happy to see them.