Victor’s limo was truly something out of this world, at least as far as the country was concerned. Blessed be the infinite patience of the poor bastard who had to park the thing. Or turn it around. She half expected a brick or two at any second, but the locals’ resentment of such a display of wealth, if there was one, seemed understandably tempered by their fear of retribution. Easily two tons of armor just on the sides, definitely a few more on the bottom, with no doubt corresponding aftermarket parts in suspension and drivetrain. The limo was easily worth over a year of her wages. Maybe their combined wages, before they ended up unemployed, in a drug trade or put on ice. Viktor was indeed paying for something [i]special[/i] she thought, already halfway through a second sandwich.

Although the market smelled wonderful, she knew better. Such street food markets were often dodgy, even in first world countries. Then the market became dodgy for a very different reason. Not to the Russian, who looked around like a fat kid in a candy store. True, some of the items on display had seen better days, but true to life’s nature of a coin, with two opposite sides, some of the stuff there looked better than what she had in Chechnya just two years ago. Katya stared at the case of diamonds a little dumbfounded for a few seconds, her brain’s operating system taking time to process what she was looking at and that it was real. Probably. “I’m just going to check something.” She reached down to grab a diamond with her left hand, taking care to keep her hand far away from the SKS’s trigger and the weapon pointing down so the Amazons didn’t get the wrong idea. Then she scratched a steel part of the weapon. The rock left a visible mark on the bolt carrier and a smile on the Russian’s face. “What this briefcase alone could be worth in the civilized world.” she muttered as she returned the diamond into the briefcase.

Yekaterina took time to wander through the market, exchanging a few words with several merchants and checking out their wares. Finishing a circle around the market, she parked herself in front of one of the stalls, letting her Russian accent off the leash. “[i]Privet.[/i] I’m in the market for a rifle and some equipment. You have something from home that doesn’t remember Korea?” She gestured to her captured SKS. Truth be told, she wasn’t too enthusiastic about Kalashnikov pattern rifles, but Beth would’ve been right: AKs had the advantage of familiarity.
“Naturally! A paratrooper 74, from Serbia if the supplier wasn’t lying. Yours for a mere 14 diamonds!” the merchant hollered enthusiastically in an accent she couldn’t place so quickly it rivalled the rate of fire of his goods as he handed her the AKS-74.
“Guy over there is selling a solid stock one for 12.” She lazily pointed over her shoulder to one of the stalls she’d visited earlier. The fire selector moved smoothly from the wear, and the stock rattled around when stowed, but a look under the top cover showed a decent, if used, firearm.
“Bah, Paulus. Dresses up his antiques to look nice, and then it falls apart on you! Stay away, I’m warning you for your good. 13 diamonds.”
“13 and I get a sling to go with it.”
“Deal. You’ll need bullets and magazines, of course.”
“Say, five magazines and 150 rounds of 5.45 and 10 9 mil.”
“Let me see, that would make seven diamonds for the magazines and rifle bullets and one for the pistol.”
“And if I give you this on top?” She placed the Simonov on the table.
He examined the weapon briefly. “Two diamonds.”
“And one more for the bullets and stripper clips.”
“Two for the whole deal. You’ve said yourself it’s old.”
“I may not be [i]buying[/i] from Paulus, but selling’s another thing.”
The merchant though for a second. “Gah, fine.” he relented and yelled something in his native tongue into a hut behind him. A few seconds later, a boy no older than ten came out, carrying the agreed upon items. On the way to find the others, the Russian shelled out another diamond for a chest rig that looked like Afghanistan was just the start of its long journey. One diamond left.

“So much for a unified caliber.” She laughed when she found the others and saw what they picked, taking a seat on the fountain’s edge. “And I thought living with eleven people in a three bed apartment to make rent in Moscow was a budgeting nightmare. This place, though... Here’s hoping we can get Victor to set aside some corporate hidey hole for us as part of further employment. Would be better than paying for some seedy trucker den with piss-stained mattresses. Safer, too.” she lamented the economical situation. Taking advantage of a solid surface and some time on her hands, the Russian swapped the magazines in her Gesha and began the arduous process of reloading the old one. Since neither Mr. Gryazev, Mr. Shipunov or any of the other engineers thought to include a belt clip in the loader’s design, she had to make due trying to compress the uncooperatively stiff magazine spring with a suitably shaped pebble, giving up after a minute of wasted effort, wondering whether a more or less matching loader or even a piece of sheet metal bent into the right shape was a worthwhile investment or if she should abandon it entirely and get a different backup. Where did that loader end up, anyway? She had it in Samara, and then it disappeared into some pocket dimension to join all the odd socks consumed by the laundry basket and tupperware boxes she could only find the lids of. “We could’ve nicked the map from the Caddie. Getting lost and wandering to the bad- badder side of town here of all places could be bad.”