Chapter 2
Bullets tore off pieces of the wall he was hiding behind. The pops of the AK47s boring into his skull. Some went past where the wall was broken and hit the ruined hulks of the SUVs. His employer was panicking, curled up into a ball in the dirt beside him. He just sat calm and waited. These were ill trained guerillas, not a Spetsnaz team.
Two of the remaining mercenaries he was in charge of fiddled with their Bushmasters waiting to be ordered to return fire. They knew that their leader was waiting for the fire to die down, however long that took. It was nerve wracking to just sit there with people shooting at them.
The lead merc drew the pistols he was wearing from their holsters on his thighs. Winding his right forearm in a circle he told his men to get ready. The enemy fire started to slack off. Chopping his arm down his men returned fire. The snaps of the smaller 5.56x45mm rounds were lost under the report of the larger 7.62x39mm rounds. However the more precise M4s started to thin out the AKs. The AK47 was meant to wipe out things by mass fire, not accurate shooting.
He heard something shift the dust on the other side of the wall. Aiming his pistol at the edge next to him the second a head entered his sights he fired. Only afterwards did he notice that the figure was a young girl not even twelve years old, and she was carrying an old Tokarev pistol.
Ethan shot up his eyes wide. Every night he dreamt he was in some godforsaken hellhole he had fought in. Always the most traumatic events. This time it was Somalia. It was the main reason he had an apartment away from everyone else.
Over the last two months he had started integrating himself in with the crew. He pulled his own weight without complaint, he worked proactively to maintain the engines, and he accepted his pay without asking for more than his fair share.
He doubted they would understand about him waking in the middle of the night screaming bloody murder. Most people didn't. At least this had been one of the milder dreams.
Laying back he calmed himself. He could not remember the last time he had gotten more than four consecutive hours of sleep at once. He was too young for this. Though Ethan Haines was twenty six, he was actually twenty nine. He had been a gun for hire since he was fourteen.
He had had one of those "perfect" childhoods. Mommy locked him in a closet while she had another strange man over, and daddy got drunk and beat him to within an inch of his life because he got a B on his spelling test. His grandfather had been the only kind person in his family, and a week after he died and Ethan's father went into the hospital Ethan stole his father's old pistol and ammunition and sneaked across the border into Mexico.
After that he managed to find work as a gun for any low grade hood that would pay him. Some of the more experienced mercenaries had taken him under their wings and he had gotten good. Soon he was being hired to wipeout upstart drug cartels in Bolivia.
He went to Africa when he was seventeen. He mostly worked VIP protection, most mercenaries did. Getting there he had gotten work in the engine room of a tramp steamer leaving out of Panama. During that trip he had learned the ins and outs of being the head mechanic on an ocean going vessel. And gained his favorite way of getting into coastal countries for a job.
He had worked most of Central and South America, most of Africa, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and throughout the former Soviet Bloc. He could field strip a M2 machinegun and reassemble it in a half an hour. He could put a round through a man's eye from two hundred and fifty yards and move before they heard the report.
He was tired. After his last job went bust he decided to retire. He hopped the smuggling ship and was now steadily employed as the mechanic of Lagoon Company. Not quite as dangerous as merc work, but it was exciting.
"Hey. Catch."
Ethan expertly caught the can of beer Revy tossed him. He let it set for a minute before he opened it. He learned after the first three times that she would shake his beer before handing it to him. History repeats itself quite often.
"Did Dutch say what the job was," He asked the female gunslinger.
He eyed her while he waited for a response. Delicate facial features, flaming red hair, long lean legs, and decent sized boobs. He didn't let his eyes linger there too long due to the Berettas framing them.
"Something for Balalaika. She wants us to come by her headquarters so she could brief us her self."
This intrigued him. He had yet to meet any of the crime bosses on the island. He really didn't care if he did or not, as long as they paid Dutch and Dutch paid him.
The name is what got him though. He had heard it a great deal in the Soviet Bloc. Applied to the older model Dragunov sniper rifle. That and a three stringed instrument from Russia. Never liked them, he would always prefer an old six string guitar.
Benny chose then to walk in, "If she is telling us herself it means its big. And if its big it pays good."
"It also means there is going to be some sort of trouble," Rock added following Benny in.
Ethan took a drink from his can as Dutch walked in. Nodding his welcome he started coughing when the liquid proved it was drunk itself by trying to go down his trachea.
"Easy now. I think you have heard that Miss Balalaika has asked us to her headquarters to explain a job. Don't do anything stupid. It is a wonder she hasn't killed Rock here for his sheer audacity," his boss informed him.
"So basically shut the fuck up and look pretty."
"Basically."
Ethan had not seen this many Russian soldiers in one place since the days he did mercenary work for the mujahideens in the mid eighties. For some reason he still didn't feel safe around them. Some things never change.
The building was quite nice. That meant that the Bougainvillea Trading Company was doing good, or the boss wanted to keep up appearances. Probably the latter since it was the local Russian Mob front. With the varying shades of red the only thing missing were the guards with AKMS74Us standing on either side of the door to the bosses office.
It was upon entering the office that his heart started pumping a bit faster. It turns out that he had met one of the crime bosses of Roanapur. Only the meeting was not what you could consider good. Not when the said boss was a Russian paratrooper captain the rebel cell you were working for captured.
Luckily if she recognized him, she didn't say anything. Of course this did occur in 1986, he wasn't even shaving yet.
"Welcome. You must be the mechanic Dutch told me he had hired. It is nice to meet you," Balalaika said pleasantly.
Ethan nodded and said, "Likewise."
"Well, to explain your presence here today. There are some smugglers that believe they can move narcotics into the city under the radar. Usually I would have the Vissotiniki meet them at port,however I have decided that I would prefer them to never get sight of the Buddha. Deal with them and acquire the cargo. I will pay you half the price of the cargo. $500,000 American. Any questions?"
Revy raised a hand, "Do they have to survive, Sis?"
Balalaika smiled, "I will leave that up to you, Revy. If that is all you may go. Mr. Haines, I believe that is the name Dutch gave me, would you stay here for a minute. I would like to get to know you a little."
Ethan sighed, "Go on, I'll catch up."
As the rest of Lagoon Company left he sat down in one of the available chairs.
"It has been a long time, Mag," she said after a moment.
"It has at that Capt. Pavlovena, it seems the war was not kind to you after our meeting," he said, a weary tone entering his voice.
"No, it was not. I do not remember if I ever thanked you for helping me."
Unnoticed by Ethan a large man standing to the side of Balalaika's desk finally spoke up, "You met this man during the war capitan?"
Balalaika nodded and Ethan relayed the short version, "I was a mercenary employed by the mujahideen forces during the mid eighties. In '86 my cell captured her. The regulars planned to interrogate, rape, and kill her. During the night I slit the throats of the other members and helped her escape. I led her to within a mile of the Russian held line, and then I left Afghanistan myself. I figured that it was better to do one good deed in my time there than to be the crony of a bunch of freedom fighters. After that I ended up chasing down rebels in Libya for a few months. I forget after that."
"Do you still have it," she asked after he had finished.
Reaching down into his boot he withdrew the .25 Beretta he had used on the smuggling ship and laid it on the desk.
"It saved my life coming in here a couple of months ago. That smuggling vessel with the five dead on it was how I was going to arrive. I did too good a job with the engines though."
With that he stood and left.
Boris turned to Balalaika, "Capitan, I remember you saying you had escaped on your own. Why did you lie?"
"If I had said something about him he would have been hunted down, tortured for every bit of information he had, and then killed and buried in the middle of the desert. He did not deserve that. He was only trying to earn his pay, he had no stake in the war. I thought the least I could do was protect him in return," Balalaika explained to him.
"Hey Rock, whadda you think she wants to talk to him about," Revy asked while they were waiting for Ethan.
"I don't know, it almost sounded in her voice as if she knew him," he replied.
Dutch looked over at them, "How would she know a ship mechanic. Last I checked she was a former Soviet paratrooper and a Russian gangster. There is nowhere they could have come into contact."
"Like I said before, Dutch, he is hiding something painful to him. Maybe he hasn't been a mechanic as long as it says he has."
"If he has something to hide in his past it is his problem until it affects us. I don't want you two snooping around him," Dutch warned Rock and Revy.
"Yessir, Dutch, no snooping for me or Rock," Revy said with a mock salute.
Ethan went straight to the engine room when they arrived at the dock. He knew everything was perfect, but he wanted to be alone. Afghanistan held some hard memories for him. Though some were good.
The night he helped Balalaika escape she had forced him to go through all of the packs and find her Dragunav before she would leave the camp. So they had been delayed half a hour while he searched for a specific rifle among the twenty or so Dragunavs that had been captured by the cell. And when they had gotten about a day between them and the camp she had offered herself to him in thanks for her life. He had refused, he didn't save her because he was horny, he did it because it felt like the right thing to do. Most of the stuff he did he did because it paid good or felt right, and the stuff that felt right never paid real well.
He looked over to the small cot he had down there. Underneath it sat his suitcase. He knew the contents intimately. A broken down M4 carbine and several pistols of varying make and caliber. There was a story behind almost every handgun he owned.
He turned his mind from it. He should have dumped those guns overboard. He just couldn't do it though, he would be throwing away a part of himself as he did.
More than likely he would never have to handle a gun again in his life if things went real well.
Who was he kidding. When things went well, someone was always going to be gunning for him.