Cyprus Rage Read online

  Cyprus Rage

  Book 3 of the Sauwa Catcher Series

  J. E. Higgins

  Mercenary Publishing

  Copyright © 2019 by J. E. Higgins

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Also by J. E. Higgins

  The Dublin Hit: Book 1 of the Sauwa Catcher Series

  The Bosnian Experience: Book 2 of the Sauwa Catcher Series

  The Montevideo Game

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  The Players

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  1

  The Ilyushin cargo plane whined and jittered angrily throughout its big steel body, a constant reminder of both the aircraft’s age and poor workmanship. The plane was a flying death trap by almost any assessment, a fact not lost on Sauwa Catcher as she pressed against the bulkhead, bracing herself. It didn’t help that they had run smack into a series of thunderstorms over the Turkish-Iranian border, adding to the possibility of a fatal crash.

  Only a few hours earlier they had landed at a remote and forgotten military base somewhere in Azerbaijan, where Sauwa and her colleague, Ivan Gorev, were met by a frizzle-haired officer Sauwa presumed was the post commandant. The introductions were brief.

  A couple of large trucks rolled up to the plane’s ramp. A forklift removed large wooden crates and slide them into the hull of the aircraft while a fueling tanker made its way toward the aircraft's wings to fill the aircraft with petrol.

  Sauwa asked no questions as Gorev dealt with the commandant. There was no point. She had been briefed only on what she needed to know: what she was picking up and who she was delivering it to.

  Gorev, a former diplomat with the Russian foreign ministry acted as liaison. Similarly, the flight crew only knew the coordinates to their destinations and the passwords that would grant them access to a restricted military base.

  Using a crowbar, Sauwa cracked open the side of one of the larger crates and then a smaller one. When she was confident the material was acceptable, and the inventory count was what she was told to expect, she made a call on her satellite phone.

  Andre Valikov answered instantly in English. Sauwa gave him the code they had worked out before her departure from Turkey that let her boss know all was good, then she hung up. Gorev, who was not privy to the code, stood by nervously.

  It would have been foolhardy for Valikov to allow money to physically change hands, and Andre Valikov was no fool. As usual, Sauwa’s boss had made all the arrangements directly with the base leadership, part of his meticulous planning and compartmentalization. No money on site meant it couldn’t be stolen in an old-fashioned double-cross. Robbing Sauwa would be pointless. And she couldn’t steal it herself. A few minutes later the commandant received a call on his own sat phone confirming his payment.

  The cargo loaded and the plane refueled, they were back in the air and on their way to the next destination.

  Sauwa grumbled over Gorev’s unsuccessful, half-hearted attempts to get a maintenance check done prior to the takeoff. The commandant had little interest in them staying after Gorev had been paid and, by the decrepit look of the base, it was doubtful that they would have been able to do much anyway.

  Now, back in the air in a plane that was already in questionable condition, the cargo bounced wildly. Aside from herself and Gorev, the only other people on the flight were the two Russian pilots, whom she had just met Turkey prior to take off. Valikov had briefly explained that the pilots were formerly in the Russian air force and had flown in Afghanistan for the Soviet Union and in Chechnya. Otherwise, she and the aircrew were complete strangers.

  This was a practice Valikov promoted in his organization. When the people he had working together were strangers, they were less inclined to conspire. His business had been growing rapidly and, as a result, he was hiring new people all the time to keep up with the ever-growing list of customers and their continuous appetite for weapons. The only exceptions he made to this rule were those in his most trusted inner circle—who needed full disclosure to help him run his operation—and those such as Sauwa, on whom he maintained other forms of leverage.

  Sauwa didn’t like working under such conditions. Carrying out dangerous operations, it was helpful to have a good relationship with the people you counted on. Moving illicit weapons over the borders of several volatile countries to deal with even more suspicious and volatile clients was not a good time to find out how different people responded in an emergency. As a professional, she would have preferred to spend time war-gaming the mission with the team involved and developing operating procedures for everyone to fall back on in the event of a disaster. Even if she were working with a questionable sort, external threats often made for strong loyalties among strangers in desperate times.

  The plane continued to shake. Gorev sat across from her, extremely pale, his eyes tightly closed, shivering nervously. Apparently, such forms of air travel did not suit him. He clutched a set of bars as if they were a means of divine protection, and Sauwa wondered what drove a man obviously unaccustomed to rugged living to work in this business.

  A man in his early fifties, Gorev had a large, round stomach indicating a history of too little exercise and far too much self-indulgence. He was bald except for a sprinkle of salt and pepper hair lining the edges around his skull. He wore an ill-fitting white collared shirt and tan slacks. An old green military field jacket was the only garment that did not fit tightly over his obese frame. Even from a distance, Sauwa could see the brownish sweat stains on the upper portion of his white shirt.

  She had only known the plump diplomat for a short time. Though she tired of his reminiscing about his supposed illustrious diplomatic career, she found him at other times to be a kind man. He was a perfect gentleman around her, never neglecting to rise from his seat when she entered a room and provide a chair for her when she went to sit down. His command of the English language was excellent which made it easy to talk to him. His favorite topics of art and western literature were a welcome departure from the usual subjects of weapons, operations, and tactics or the tiresome topics her colleagues favored ─ sex, liquor, and petty side-wagers.

  And he was enthralled with Africa where he had spent several years posted to various diplomatic missions. When he met her a few months ago, he instantly recognized her accent as South African. His interest piqued. he tried to strike up conversations with her when they found themselves together. Normally, she didn’t mind engaging the older man’s interest in the Dark Continent. She was sure that if it weren’t for Gorev’s current shattered nerves, they would have been deeply engaged in some to
pic about African tribal cultures. In this case, though, she needed to be alert and keep her wits about her and that meant resting.

  Leaning back against a rubber mat she had found, she attempted to get some sleep before their next meeting, but it was difficult to relax. Throwing her field jacket over herself she tried to find a comfortable position, all attempts thwarted by wild jerks as the plane dipped and bounced in the turbulence.

  The time was 1837 hours when the intercom began to squelch. She retrieved the mike from its cradle.

  “What is it?” Sauwa groaned into the device.

  “We’ve just crossed into Iraqi airspace,” the heavily accented voice of the pilot replied. “We were instructed to inform you the minute we did so.”

  Valikov had instructed the pilots accordingly. Now in Iraq the pilots would be taking their orders from her until the job was completed. It would make things a lot easier when dealing with the next portion of the trip.

  Somehow, she was having trouble forming a coherent thought. “Thanks,” she finally spat out. “How far out are we to the landing zone?”

  “Roughly twenty minutes.”

  Rubbing the mike gently against her forehead she looked around at the stacked piles of wooden crates filling the plane’s giant hull. With a deep sigh, she spoke into the mike. “Stay airborne for now. Don’t try to land until I tell you. Wait for my instructions.”

  “Roger, out.”

  Reaching inside the brown canvas bag sitting at her feet, she pulled out a satellite phone, dialed, then waited as the system connected. A few seconds later, she heard a click, followed by a man with a deep, forceful voice. “This is Red Wolf, send it,” the voice instructed.

  “Red Wolf, this is Ghost. We’re twenty mikes out,” Sauwa replied with a cold, direct voice of her own. “What’s your status?”

  It was a few seconds before the man replied. “We’ve got your contact in sight. They’re at the rendezvous point and have been there for about an hour. They have a standard operation force, five small vehicles being used for tactical purposes carrying between six to eight armed personnel per vehicle and dispersed to cover the flanks of five larger trucks intended to carry the equipment. All small arms are in the vicinity of the meeting spot with some RPGs and a machine-gun mounted on two of the smaller trucks. They look to be 7.62 caliber systems. I have no movement in any of the surrounding buildings and no activity along the hillside. You’re good to land. What do you want us to do?” Red Wolf spoke English with natural ease. It was evidently his primary language.

  “Hold your position,” Sauwa said, thinking out her next move. “Maintain security until contacts have vacated the area. We’re coming in. We’ll maintain contact and adjust our plan based on the situation.”

  “Roger, out,” Red Wolf hung up.

  Valikov had a diverse array of clients, some more volatile than others. Sauwa’s job, as she quickly found out when she was pressed into his service, was to be his right-hand, managing deals with the more combustive clients, and there were many of them. In situations like this, meeting with a radical group whose politics tilted heavily in the Marxist direction who had numerous enemies in their own right, she found it wise to take steps putting the odds in her favor.

  On her recommendation, the Red Wolf team was set up to be involved in such deals and provide advanced recce intelligence. They would stage a few days ahead of time in the location where the deal was to take place. They would recce the area to ensure nothing was afoot. When the deal was conducted, they would move to a location where they could provide the best security in the event anything went wrong. If that happened they would become a quick reaction force and, hopefully, neutralize the threat.

  This was only her second job with the Red Wolf team. Aside from the contact over the sat phone, she had never actually met any of them in person. Another measure engineered by Valikov. A measure she found difficult to work around.

  When it came to preparing for such operations, a routine was followed. Valikov and she went over the details of the transaction ─ what was being delivered, to whom, and where. After that, they planned the operation in his office. When they worked out some plausible course of action, he would brief the plan to the Red Wolf team separately. Presumably, they would have no issue with it. Sauwa was not present for that briefing nor was the Red Wolf team present for her briefing. this left open the possibility complications were discovered by the team and rectified without her. Unsettling, to say the least.

  Tucking the phone into her coat pocket, Sauwa reached for the radio mike that linked her to the cockpit and the pilots again. “Go ahead and take us down,” she ordered.

  The mike squelched,“Copy, we’re beginning our descent.”

  “Roger,” she replied. “When we land, keep the engines running and be prepared to move quickly. We don’t know how we’ll be received. If you hear shooting don’t wait to hear from me. Just close the ramp and takeoff.”

  Though the pilots were supposedly experienced military flyers with combat experience, this was their first time working for Valikov’s operation. It was doubtful they had ever done a similar job. She didn’t want to assume the pilots would know what to do in the event of hostilities.

  “Copy that, will do,” the pilot’s voice held a twinge of concern, which only confirmed her suspicions.

  “We’ll be landing soon!” she shouted to Gorev, who was shiny with persperation. He opened his eyes and managed to turn his head in her direction. She shouted again. “We’re landing!”

  His face soften with a look of relief. He seemed to consider cut-throat guerrillas a safer option than the junker plane.

  Though he had been in service to Valikov for several months, this was the diplomat’s first excursion into the field. Normally he was in Turkey at the mansion advising Valikov on international issues. For some unexplained reason, Gorev was accompanying her on this operation. All she knew was that he was to take the lead in the transaction, and she was provide security to the best of her abilities and make sure nothing bad happened. But something bad could always happen.

  Gorev gripped the seat, his knuckles white, as the plane began its descent.

  2

  The descent was as rocky as the rest of the flight.

  Sauwa picked up her tactical webbing that was tucked behind the rubber matting. Throwing it over her shoulder, she placed the padded shoulder straps over her thin grey T-shirt, added the tactical vest, and finally clipped the web-belt snuggly around her waist. The magazine pouches, fully loaded with banana magazines, were cumbersome. She adjusted them, but between their weight and stiffness, it still proved to be an uncomfortable garment.

  Running her hand across the top of the pouches she felt each snap to ensure the magazines were properly secured. She reached to the center-right pouch and unsnapped the cover. If it came down to a gunfight, she didn’t want to have to fight to get her pouches open. Keeping one unsnapped ensured ready access. She had practiced grabbing from the center several times until it was muscle memory, so she wouldn’t have to think about it when it was needed. She also chose a center pouch because it provided easier access in the event she was wearing a coat over her vest.

  As she started to dress, she caught Gorev out of the corner of her eye. She saw him watching her intently with a blank look on his face. She presumed that seeing her get into her tactical gear made him finally realize the danger they were about to face. This sudden revelation now superseded the fear of being in the flying death trap as he relinquished his grip on the bars and sunk down into his seat. His attention was now entirely fixed on her.

  She continued dressing, throwing on the green camouflage army coat she had picked up at one of the Russian army bases. She preferred to wear her tactical gear under the coat so that it would be less conspicuous and therefore invite less unwanted attention from the wrong people. Reaching down she grabbed an object wrapped in plastic sheeting. Carefully unwrapping the sheeting, she retrieved an AKSM assault rifle with a magazine taped
to one side and the skeletal shoulder stock collapsed into the upper receiver. With the knife she carried in her coat pocket, she slashed the tape and removed the magazine. Depressing the locking mechanism, she extended the shoulder stock to its full out position. She proceeded to insert the magazine into the weapon’s magazine weld as Gorev continued to watch her prepare for battle.

  She laid the weapon over the rubber matting and went behind a pile of sandbags she had brought on board. Kneeling she unwrapped more plastic sheeting and, when finished, she was looking at a Soviet-built PKM 7.62 mm general purpose machine-gun and a box containing a belt of ammo for it. It was the Soviet variant of the M-60 machine-gun used primarily by the U.S. military. Aside from the Soviet trademark, wooden shoulder stock, and trigger grip, the two weapons were virtually identical. The weapon had gained some popularity with several of the old Soviet Bloc and client states, particularly among the Polish Naval Assault Force.

  Sauwa opened the ammunition tray and fed the ammo belt into the weapon’s chamber. If Gorev had been nervous by the sight her AKSM, she wondered what was going through his mind as she lifted the massive weapon against the sandbags where the muzzle protruded well above the stack. In a city such as Ismar, such a monster would have been excessive, however, in the middle of a lawless backwater in the third world, hostilities often turned into full-blown combat. It was just good sense to have a more powerful backup weapon if things took a bad turn.