The Spy Devils by Joe Goldberg (top rated books of all time .TXT) 📕

warm spotlight, then just as suddenly, thick clouds brought the gloom again.

Anna was a thirty-four-year-old rising star in the prosecutor’s office. Tough. Determined. Smart. Her trendy teal overcoat was buttoned to the top against the chill of the morning. She took confident steps forward, holding out her left hand that clutched the orders signed by the General Prosecutor. Her other hand was buried in her coat pocket, clamped around her mobile phone.

Escorting her were six members of the General Directorate of the National Police, each protected in deep blue riot uniforms, body vests, black helmets, and dark visors lowered to cover their faces.

Four heavily armed soldiers of the Bondar Battalion-1 met them. Bondar’s lethal private militia was a mixture of Russian, Chechen, Serbian, Bulgarian, and Cossack mercenaries drawn to the Battalion by the Bondar family's generous pay. Bearded. Body armor and camouflage. Ammo belts over shoulders. Young and old. Chiseled emotionless faces. Hard faces.

Ukrainian television, radio, and social media were tipped off by the Prosecutor’s Office of their planned anti-corruption activities against the Bondar empire. Instantaneous analysis by TV anchors welcomed the fall of the oligarchs that had dominated the politics and economics of Ukraine for decades. Transparency and openness were the policies of the day.

Anna stopped ten feet in front of the line of mercenaries.

“We…are here…to serve papers…legal papers,” Anna stuttered with uneasiness. “Papers assuming possession of the facilities Ukraine Bondar Shipping and Transport.” Her alto voice pitched higher with apprehension. Her hand was shaking as she kept the paper extended in front of her.

The men of the Battalion did not respond either verbally or by lowering their weapons. Their response was to disregard her with looks of contempt.

“I repeat.” Her adrenaline was not helping enough as she faced the armed men. “We have legal authority, on behalf of the General Prosecutor’s Office, to—”

Before she could finish her sentence, metallic clicks came from all directions. Four mercenaries to her left and four more to her right appeared from behind trees and parked cars. They were sighting down the length of their weapons right at her. Her hand and the paper descended slowly to her side.

“By blocking our entry—you—I must inform you— the law—" Her teeth and tongue rattled in her mouth so violently she could no longer form words.

She jumped when her phone suddenly rang inside the pocket of her coat.

“Hello, Anna,” said her boss, Sergei Pavlenko, the prosecuting attorney.

To Anna, the calmness in his voice was incompatible to the drama surrounding her.

“There are soldiers. Tell me what to do.”

“Yes, I can see it on television. They will not harm you.” He wasn’t so sure his words were true, but he had nothing else to tell her. “They are only there to scare you. Tell them they are breaking the law.”

“I tried.”

“I want to talk to them. Give their leader your phone.”

“I don’t think—”

“Please try,” he interrupted.

She pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at it with contempt. No soldier had moved a muscle. She reached her hand out and waved the phone left and right, offering it to any of the men. She mustered a false smile and took a step in their direction.

“The General Prosecutor would—like to—speak with you, please?” She ended with more of a plea than a question.

One mercenary glared directly into Anna’s eyes with the cold sharpness like a knife. “Go” was all the low voice said in a non-Ukrainian accent. He pointed his AK-47 above their heads and fired three bursts in rapid succession.

Abandoning any pretext of a professional demeanor, Anna let out a high-pitched shriek, tossed her phone, turned, and ran. The National Police did not fire. Instead, they quickly walked backward, protecting her retreat.

Reaching her car in a full sprint, she slammed against it to stop her momentum. She flung the door open and dove in. In seconds the engine was gunned, the wheels burned in black clouds, and the car sped away. The National Police piled into their vehicle and followed her.

Sergei Pavlenko’s voice came from Anna’s phone lying on the ground at the mercenary’s feet. The mercenary looked down and stomped on the device until it was shattered into pieces.

At 3 a.m., the point man picked the lock while two other men oiled the hinges on the gate at the corner of Pushkinska and Zukovskoho streets in Odessa. On the far side of the gate was the fortress that covered an entire rectangular block in the center of the city. It was the headquarters of the General Directorate of the National Police.

The compound was considered one of the more secure buildings in the city, given its occupants. By day, security managed access to the area they had just accessed. By night, there was nothing.

The thirty members of the Bondar Battalion-1 Assault Team huddled in the arched service passageway built through the mustard-colored façade of an adjacent building.

The leader knew thirty was twice as many as was needed, which was still twice too many. His men were fighters, and they were all eager to kill the government soldiers—more for practice than ideology. So when he asked for volunteers they all stepped forward.

Each carried a Fort-221 bullpup assault rifle and a Fort-17 9mm semi-automatic pistol. They were equipped with night-vision goggles on their helmets, various explosives, communication gear, and body armor.

Inside the compound was the pale-yellow training and barrack building that housed the elite members of the National Police of Ukraine. It was a Tetris-tile puzzle of L-shaped, square, and rectangular buildings—courtyards inside tree-lined courtyards.

A one-story building contained an operations center and classrooms. Attached was the two-story structure. The first floor contained the equipment and weapons of the special unit. Upstairs were twenty-four cots for the Gold and Blue Teams—eleven were currently occupied, including six who accompanied Anna Malinov to the Bondar facility the previous day.

When the gate swung open, six teams of five men crouched and moved quietly and quickly in the darkness of a row of trees lining the Pushkinska Street wall. One team spread