Weapons Grade by Ross Sidor

Author:Ross Sidor [Sidor, Ross]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2019-12-29T22:00:00+00:00

SEVENTEEN

DUSHANBE

14:24. Avery parked the Lada off Saadi Sherozi Avenue and proceeded on foot to the Barakat Bazaar, wearing jeans, windbreaker, polarized sunglasses, and a ballcap, with his concealed easy access tactical radio and USP Tactical. He was nearly an hour early for the meet.

There now existed no doubt in Avery’s mind that Dagar was a plant and had alerted Babayev’s team in Yazgulam that they were coming.

The bazaar essentially served as downtown Dushanbe’s commercial center, located a mile east of the Varzob River, near rail yards, the National Museum, a prison, and upscale hotels. Barakat was the country’s largest outdoor marketplace, a popular stop for tourists, and an essential part of daily life for locals. Shortages of food and goods were the norm in Tajikistan, making Barakat the place to go for anything and everything.

When Flounder scoped out the bazaar earlier that day, it had taken him nearly an hour to cover all the ground.

That afternoon the market was packed with shoppers and traders, local Tajiks and foreigners from both near and far. The masses of people streamed around the array of kiosks, tables, and stalls, forcing Avery to walk at a snail’s pace and to maneuver impatiently around them. Minibuses constantly pulled up and deposited more people. The mixed aroma of grilled meat, tobacco, incense, and sweaty, unwashed bodies carried in the warm air. A variety of languages registered in Avery’s ears, mostly Tajik, Farsi, Dari, with a smattering of Russian thrown into the mix.

It wasn’t the exotic Middle Eastern-style marketplace most tourists probably envisioned. Western food, clothing, computer games, and VHS tapes were readily available and highly sought after by local Tajiks. Avery wasn’t surprised to pass a vendor serving pizza, French fries, and Pepsi. It smelled good but didn’t exactly look the same as back home. Plenty of stalls, though, still offered indigenous rugs, garments and other exotic items that mostly appealed to tourists or visitors.

Avery was also immediately aware of a moderate police presence. Recently, local hooligans had taken to setting the bazaars on fire. Avery kept conscious of the cops as his eyes scanned the sea of faces. It would be nearly impossible to try to keep track of someone in here. While this worked both ways, Avery had more faith in Sideshow’s combined skills than he did in that of Dagar and whatever thugs he would almost certainly have tagging along.

Avery’s pace came to a grinding halt when he came upon a large group of people clustered around an art exhibit and street performers, including jugglers. No one paid attention to the big American as he discretely squeezed his way through the crowd.

Reaper and Mockingbird were on target, too, and had been for the past hour. Avery had passed Reaper coming into the bazaar, but they’d ignored each, so that to an outside observer they would have seemed to not even notice or recognize one another.

Poacher was also positioned nearby, in the team’s Datsun, parked a block outside the market from where he had

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.