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luck!”
    “No. We make it unlucky for them!”
    A sound from below brought Bull very much back to the present. He raised the kite sight and saw three trucks moving slowly along the rural road. Shifting his weight slightly he looked to his left and could make out the hunched figures of the militia’s ‘SOCOL’ Eagle unit further down the incline in front of him. His lips formed a serpent like smile as he depressed the switch on his covert transmitter twice. Seconds later his ready signal was acknowledged by three bursts of static in his earpiece.
    On the valley floor the lead truck slowed and stopped. The driver stepped out and made a show of kicking the tyre in disgust. The two remaining trucks concertinaed and also stopped. Soon all three drivers were inspecting the ‘guilty tyre’. In the green haze of the night scope; movement again as a larger but solitary truck appeared on the horizon heading directly towards the convoy from the opposite direction. It joined them and the driver greeted his fellow truckers warmly and offered his help and advice.
    As Bull had hoped, the stationary convoy made too good a target to pass up. The armed members of the SOCOL appeared on the road below and advanced towards the drivers, weapons up. The second SOCOL group on the hill now stood and started down the incline on a ninety-degree approach to the target. Bull pressed his switch again. SOCOL’s ‘plan’ was going to plan, here twenty kilometres inside the Ukrainian border they would intercept the latest arms shipment and punch a hole in this smuggling route, that was, until…
    Bull’s sign was this time met by two short static bursts. From above and to the right his men opened fire. A tracer flew towards the descending SOCOL ‘cut off’ group. Four fell without even knowing where their executioners were. The remaining two flung themselves down on the barren hillside and scrambled for the smallest piece of cover. On the road the intercept team had just enough time to train their weapons. The lieutenant, whose reactions had been surprisingly rapid, managed to get off a single low velocity round from his pistol which struck Driver Two square in his concealed Kevlar breast plate. Staggering back he had fallen as Drivers One and Three let rip with armour-piercing rounds from short barrelled AKs, all but cutting the officer in half. Further shots sought out the two attackers on the hill and the engagement was over within minute one. Like the Poznan anti-terrorist police a decade before, the Ukrainian SOCOL had met the Soviet Red Army Spetsnaz and lost. Bull stood, walked down the hill and joined his Brigada. The first part of his business deal had just gone through. He exchanged congratulatory glances with his men and retrieved a satellite phone from a padded pocket.
    *
    Tiraspol , Transdniester
     
    Ivan Lesukov sat in the sauna and sweated. “You have done well my friend. And the other half of the bargain? You are a real man of your word, Bull.” He shut his flip phone and placed it on the wooden plank next to him.
    “They have done it?” Arkadi Cheban was anxious to know.
    Lesukov beamed. “Yes they have. The shipments will no longer be hampered by those Ukrainian ‘heroes’.”
    “That is great news uncle.” Cheban used the term as a sign of respect. Lesukov was actually the uncle of his wife. He had married into the business, leaving his days of being an interpreter behind.
    Lesukov wiped his brow and looked at the younger man. He was ready. “We are expanding on all fronts Arkadi and I have a job for you.” He noticed Arkadi’s narrow chest swell with pride. “I want you to organise our deliveries in London. Who knows, you may even be able to import chairs.” He tapped his nose.
    Arkadi was ecstatic, he had been dreaming of permanently leaving this joke of a country for ever. When he had been ordered back from England by his uncle he had thought that perhaps he had done something wrong and had even questioned