And speaking Russian.
I watch them, gesturing for quiet. They haven’t noticed me yet. I squint in the dim light, listening closely. I know those voices…
Daniel gets close behind me. “Those are Marat’s men,” he says, voice low and rage-filled.
The scene clicks into place.
Anger flares in my chest. I grimly raise my rifle and open the comms so all my men will hear. “No survivors,” I say calmly. “Anyone you find, kill them. I want them all dead.”
I’m not sure how the team leaders reply. Their voices are drowned out by the crack and scream of my rifle as I walk straight into the bloody soundstage. I hit the first Russian man in the heart, ripping his chest open and leaving a gaping, gore-slick hole. The other turns in shock, mouth open, and a bullet takes him in the jaw, blowing it off. He gurgles, staggering back and raising his hands, but more bullets tear him to shreds.
More men come running from the far end of the room. I kneel down and fire, clipping thighs, ripping off legs, tearing their flesh to pieces as my crew unleash hell on them. The building is a nightmarish din, likely for the second time in only a few hours at most. Four more Russians are dead, four more men I vaguely know.
Traitors. All of them traitors.
Marat is the ultimate scumbag. I knew he was a bastard, but seeing this only makes me rage. He knew Aslan was wounded and his men were weak, and instead of rallying around his supposed ally, he decided to backstab the Turk. I don’t knowwhat he was after, but it must’ve been big to risk so much blood and to leave himself exposed.
I charge forward. Daniel and the others keep pace, watching my back, clearing the soundstage. I press into another side hallway; this one is filled with offices. The fighting here is more intense as Russians spill out of tightly packed rooms. I kill one up close, blowing his face into pieces, splattering gore on the men behind him, blinding them long enough for Daniel to fire over my shoulder. I hit the wall, reload, drop another man, his body exploding into chunks of gristle. He dies screaming, grabbing at his leg. I stomp on his face as I march past, following the line of dead toward another, smaller soundstage, this one located centrally.
Most of the Russians are here. Team2 has them pinned down already. I charge in, taking their flank. I count ten men huddled around what looks like another TV set, this one structured like a prison. The walls here are blackened and there are more corpses in the corners. Several drones are smoking wrecks on the floor, one tangled in the beams in the ceiling, its metal guts spilled and oil leaking. I kill another soldier, blast his brains out, paint the fake prison bars red. I run forward, kick a man in the leg, shoot him in the eye point blank, misting his skull. I’m pretty sure his name was Maxim.
There’s shouting from inside the prison set. I kick a door and turn a corner, only to find a massive safe, the front of it leaning open, with money spilled out the front. There are more bodies here, clumped up in a heap at the foot of a desk. I recognize Aslan among them, his eyes blank and his mouth hanging open, his tongue purple and distended.
Marat’s tearing handfuls of money from the safe and shoving it into a bag. His men flank him and try to hold us off, but I killone while Daniel takes down the other. It’s only when Marat’s soldiers are bloody paste that he stops and staggers backward, his flabby, pale face going slack with horror. He’s holding stacks of money as he sinks to his knees.
“Don’t shoot!” he yells into the sudden rush of quiet. “Pakhan, please!”
I storm forward across the blood-slick floor as my men clear the rest of the building. There’s sporadic gunfire as they follow my orders: nobody left alive.
“You always hated calling me that.” I press the barrel of my gun to Marat’s head. He’s trembling now. The once-powerful Brigadier trembles like a child faced with the impossibility of his own end. It’s pathetic, the little swine.
“Please, Pakhan. I did this for you! I swear! Look, I took down Aslan, and I was here recovering this money!”
“You were going to bring it to me?”
“Yes, Pakhan, of course!”
“You weren’t desperately trying to steal from Aslan’s private stocks to enrich yourself?”
“No, no, I would never! I made a mistake, siding with the Turk, and I did this to try to make amends.”
He seems to believe his own bullshit. Maybe that’s how a spineless rat like him manages to live with his own fucked up decisions. He’s got the power to convince even himself that his web of lies and delusions are actually reality.
I press the gun tighter to his skull. “I want you to know this. Every single man that followed you is dead now. I will make surethere are no survivors. All of them will suffer because of your decisions.”
“Please, Pakhan. There are millions here—so much money—it will help fund your war?—“
I pull the trigger. Marat’s skull breaks to pieces and his body flinches backwards, his blood and brain matter spraying the cash.
My eyes linger on his corpse, and I feel sick.
All this for money.
Aslan was a piece of shit. He was my nemesis and my enemy, and I was going to have to kill him no matter what, but something feels wrong about the way this happened. Aslan was supposed to be mine to kill. Instead, he was murdered by a backstabbing cocksucker.
But if all relationships are based on transactions, what more can I expect?
Marat was never loyal to me for me, and he saw an opportunity to get a better deal.