He seemed to be unfazed by what was happening.
“Please turn around and put your hands behind you,” Berezovsky said as he took a plastic handcuff from a pocket.
“I will not.”
Sweaty, holding Max on his leash beside her, walked up to him. While doing so, she took her Colt .32 ACP model 1908 from her pocket.
“And the beautiful Svetlana,” Sirinov said. “Wherever did you get that absurd uniform? And that dog?”
“Turn around, Yakov, and put your hands behind you,” Sweaty ordered.
“Or what? You’ll shoot me with your toy pistol?”
Sweaty aimed her toy pistol quickly, and shot General Sirinov in the right foot.
He looked at his bleeding foot, then screamed with the pain and fell to the ground, looking up at her in enraged disbelief.
“Roll onto your stomach, Yakov, or I’ll put the next round into your other foot,” Sweaty said.
Max growled.
General Sirinov rolled onto his stomach.
Berezovsky knelt beside him and applied the plastic handcuffs.
Sirinov was moaning in pain.
“If you don’t give me any more trouble, when we’re on the plane I’ll give you some morphine,” Sweaty said.
“Where are the pilots of the airplane?” Berezovsky asked Koussevitzky.
Koussevitzky pointed to one of the trailers.
“Get them out here,” Berezovsky ordered. Then he pointed at Castillo, and ordered, “Get our pilot in here.”
Castillo said, “Yes, sir” in Russian, and hoped his conscious attempt to sound like a basso profundo had been at least partially successful.
He went onto the tarmac, saw Jake Torine, and waved him over. He saw that Sirinov’s Spetsnaz were now all sitting on the tarmac. They had plastic handcuffs around both their wrists and their ankles.
They don’t look worried.
They look terrified.
And so did the Tu-934A pilots when they walked up to Berezovsky.
Castillo went to them, and ordered, “Show the colonel and me around the airplane. If you do anything suspicious, Podpolkovnik Alekseeva will shoot you in the foot.”
“You’re going to fly the Tu-934A?” one of them blurted.
“That’s the idea,” Castillo said. “Start by opening the ramp door.”
When the ramp came down, Castillo could see there were three blue barrels firmly strapped to the floor, plus a tracked forklift inside.
“Up the ramp,” he ordered.
When they were in the cockpit, Castillo asked, “Where are the rest of the blue rubber barrels?”
He believed the pilots when they assured him, with almighty God as their witness, that there were no more blue rubber barrels anywhere.