"Yeah. I'm here. I'll be following the sonuvabitch down. You should call the paramedics. I'm a fucking mess right now. Units One, Two, and Snipers...you heard the boss, stand down."
"Unit One, copy that."
"Unit Two, copy."
"Sniper One, understood. Holding."
"Sniper Two, copy. Holding."
Mikhail grasps his bleeding shoulder with his free hand, still keeping his pistol drawn. He shouts down to Brian.
"Ok, Amerikanski. We're done for now. Let's go meet the boss before we kill eachother."
"<Copy that, Mikhail. Give me a moment.>" That said, Yuri switches channels on his radio and calls in both backup and ambulance support. He suspects they're going to need more than one.
Switching his radio back to the tactical frequency, Yuri moves toward the building entrance.
Brian nods, lowering his SMG, offering the Russian a hand.
"Fair enough, let's get you down the stairs..."
Whether or not the Russian takes his offer, Brian moves down the stairs towards the exit, his gun up, but not aimed at anyone...just enough to remind any Russian who decides to be heroic that he too has a firearm, and has done enough damage with it already. As he goes down, he clicks the radio again.
"Glad your willing to see reason. We'll talk inside, nice empty apartment...and if I were you, I'd call an ambulance for your friend here...he suprised me. As for my friend, bring him in as well...we'll trade." The is a note of genuine concern in his voice, and its clear he sincerely didn't want to harm the man as much as he did.
Walking downstairs, Mikhail tears his shirtsleeve and wraps it around his arm.
"Next time you see him. Make sure to punch the officer in charge of your field-dressing portion of your Ops training." Mikhail quips, tying off his arm above the elbow.
"Doesn't generally come up in my line of work..." his eyes widen a bit as his body begins to report in and feel the effects of the blood loss incured in the day's adventure. "We'll get your boss in for a sit-down first..."
Mikhail shrugs while keeping pace with Brian, grumbling something under his breath.
"In KGB, first thing we are taught is that bleeding wound is death sentence if not properly treated. For you it almost....first-year cadet could have tracked your blood trail."
Moten is holding his arm to prevent further damage after the rough treatment is has currently undergone. "It's not major, I'll be fine. Just get the medics to set my arm and stop the bleeding."
A short drive from the airport later, the convoy comes to a stop outside a small garage. Hai leads the way again, excitedly chatting on.
"...and Russians, well, they're all about execution. Case in point, the Eastern front in the Second World War. The Russians were dumbstruck when they first saw the Wehrmacht use submachineguns. But leave it to the Soviet Army to take the concept and come up with the popular versions. Germany had the first assault rifle, too, and it took the Russians until after the war to put out the Kalashnikov, but look what everybody is lugging around these days. All I'm saying is that they have inertia. That's not a bad thing. When they try to do things quickly, it fails, but when they take their time, they invariably produce stuff only the working people and grunts can really appreciate. The AK's beautiful, not to the casual collector, but to an engineer like me. It just works. On the other hand, when the Allies dismantled Germany, they found so much weird shit it boggled the mind. Nothing worked just right, but the ideas! They were literally stumbling over themselves innovating during the war. You can still find traces of that ethic today. Me, I like to believe I have the best of both worlds."
He unlocks the garage door, revealing...the car. It's a monster of sleekness, with a borderline tasteful deep red paintjob only slightly marred by a few decals. Hai grins as he explains.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Covert Operations Battle & Recon Automobile Mark I Mod 7. Class III-a ballistic armor and advanced anti-ballistic tires. The engine has been overhauled and is fitted with programmable fuel logic for performance adjustment. For dangerous situations - and I know this will come up -, all seats are capable of explosive ejection. The front portion has been completely rebuilt to house two .50 cal heavy machineguns with a total ammunition capacity of 800 rounds. Of course, the car is completely controllable via remote control."
He looks over to Artis.
"And it comes with a built-in DVD player and ten-inch flipdown monitors in the rear."
Brian is waiting inside the entryway when the Russian arrives, his gun slung once again, working on turning one of his insulation layers into a bandage for his various wounds...man, his arms were a mess.
He chuckles thinly as the man appears, offering his hand.
"Name's Brian...and yes, I actually do have a lighter."
Yuri accepts the man's hand, giving it a brief shake in the Western manner. "Yuri. That's okay, I don't smoke, or at least that's what I tell my wife."
He pauses for a moment to watch Brian bandaging his wounds. "You should have the medics look at that when they arrive."
Two ambulances arrive on the scene about twenty minutes after Yuri's call, which is pretty good considering the horrific road conditions and lack of an efficient infrastructure.
The medics are at first weary of the extensive wounds suffered by all parties, but the flash of Yuri's FSB badge assures them that this is all in a day's work. Bandaged, splinted, and slinged, the group looks like death warmed-over.
Thirty minutes later...
Sirens on, the ambulances roll out with the wounded policemen leaving Yuri, Mikhail, Moten and Brian standing amidst the blood spatters and spent shell-casings of the recent free-fire zone.
Dieter
