Draft version - Russian Roulette - Family secrets

Ch. 85: Don't be smart with me!

Two routine tasks left, and he could call it a day.

He had spent days guiding the new people under his command into their designated functions. At least he was not in charge of pickups. He loathed going to those dumps, luckily Dimitri drew the short straw on that shit.

Jace had gotten a bunch of seasoned guys and a few newbies to join his teams. Together with Oleksander who supervised the weapons caches; Jace had divided his teams to teach them about the town, the different locations of the caches, transport routes, how to check out weapons and get them where needed as fast and smoothly as possible.

At some point their ability to do their jobs would become crucial for them. If not against Grychenko then later on. It had been Jace's responsibility to make sure they knew everything. All in all, he felt confident that the men knew what to do in an emergency.

Smoking a cigarette, he waited at the parking lot near one of Gareth's warehouses to be picked up by his team. They were going to get a shipment of weapons and then take them to a cache for storage. Oleksander would be waiting at the cache, when handed over to him Jace's day would be done.

Jace had three other teams out doing the same at other delivery locations. Oleksander was a smart man, he made sure the deliveries were small and at alternating locations every time to avoid the authorities.

The big truck with the logo of a 24-hour moving service driven by Kolja, with Igor and Pavel came first. They joined him smoking while they waited for the two other cars. A little later a van with a 24-hour locksmith logo on arrived with Nicholay and Ruslan and parked next to the moving truck soon followed by a huge cold storage truck with Stepan, Yefim and Kirill.

The cars were made to look like they belonged in the nightlife city picture, nobody would suspect any 24 hour service companies to not have their people working at night, and the cold storage could in theory deliver at any deli, supermarket or restaurant and would not raise an eyebrow if going through town.

Jace was riding with Nicholay and Ruslan in the van. They all took their time to smoke and shoot the breeze. They had to act and look casual which they had to be in the mood for. Just smoking and talking for a bit made them all relax.

That did not mean they were not prepared or alert. All of them knew the importance of weapons deliveries and they were all good at it. Though some of them were new to Jace's team, they had been on weapons duty in the cities they came from. They all knew the drill and looking relaxed and bored with their jobs was part of that, if they had to pull over at a gas station or something to avoid suspicion.

When Jace asked them to saddle up they all got in their respective cars and drove their specific routes to the delivery rendezvous where they would meet again.

It was safest to take different routes.

Nicholay was far chattier than Ruslan, he had some great tales from being stationed in Moscow with Gareth's mother at one point before being transferred to another city and later ending up on Jace's team with Gareth.

Jace already knew Gareth's mother, Zariyah, she was a tough lady though she looked like a porcelain doll. She was beautiful and well mannered. She spoke softly and rarely raised her voice at anything or anybody, though if the going got tough she did not hold back. She had a mouth on her that would make most sailors proud.

When she went at it with Gareth the building structure was at risk. It was not hard to see where Gareth had gotten his temper and vocabulary from. Zariyah might be called a Russian princess but she was a proper tsarina.