Rusty Kowalski was reclined in his favorite chair in his modest manufactured home. It was raining in Dutch Harbor, and he could hear the gentle patter on his roof. The rain was streaking down the windows. He was warm and comfortable. His feet were up, and he was watching a well worn VHS copy of Top Gun on his tube television. The heat was purring away. He had a cold, sweating can of beer in his cup holder.

Rusty was in his mid-fifties. When he was a younger man, he had been in the Army during the Gulf War. Now, he had grown a little around the midsection. His hair had receded. He was still powerfully built, and he had a bright red goatee and mustache. Back in the war, it had just been a mustache. His squadron had given him the nickname Rusty because of his mustache, and it had stuck all this time.

Bogdan and Aleksandr parked their van three blocks away, and opened their doors into the rain.

“Ready?” Said Bogdan, in heavily accented English. He was the older of the two, in his forties. He was about six feet tall, and stocky. He had taken a leadership role over Aleksandr, who was his junior both in age and in the organization.

“Sure. Seems simple enough. Oleg gave us a solid plan.” Aleksandr was shorter, and wiry. He was trying to put on a confident face, but he was jumpy.

Bodgan punched him in the arm. Aleksandr tipped sideways and caught himself. “Sure, Sasha. You’re putting on a brave face. Maybe the walk in the fresh air will calm your nerves, though. We will be fine.”

Bogdan and Aleksandr had come to Dutch Harbor a week before. They had flown from Brighton Beach, New York. Brighton Beach was a corner of Brooklyn that they called ‘Little Odessa,’ because of the number of Russians and Ukranians who called it home. They could both navigate the neighborhood in Russian, but more importantly they had a strong network there. Their employment relied on this network. Their boss, Oleg, wasn’t due for a while. He sent them as an advance team to find a vehicle, a base of operations, and to get a feel for the place.

They had both eaten a hearty late lunch at Varenichnaya, their favorite restaurant in Brighton Beach. Plates of herring and potato, pelmeni with veal, borscht, a side of kasha and onions, and a steaming pot of tea. They knew these comforts wouldn’t exist in Alaska, despite it being so close to Russia. Bogdan loved geography. He reasoned that you couldn’t have a tie to Russia, the largest country in the world, without appreciating geography. It spanned two continents! Bogdan appreciated that Unalaka was further west than Hawaii. It was practically part of Siberia. It had been Russian once, after all. There was still an onion-domed small orthodox church.

They had flown from JFK airport as Konstantin and Fyodor, with beautifully forged passports. Someone in their organization had taken the time to beat them up a little bit, and forge a few entry stamps to the EU and Canada. They had spent two hours in Seattle, then back in the air to Anchorage. A short night there, and then into an old turboprop plane to Unalaska. The airport had one terminal building, a squat structure with a faded red metal roof. Once they were outside, Konstantin and Fyodor were torn up and tossed in the wastebasket.

The gravel at the margins of the road crunched under their feet. They were dressed in heavy, bulky fishermen’s rain jackets in drab colors. Aleksandr was carrying a small black canvas tool bag. The rain dripped off the front rim of their hoods, in front of their eyes. There were no street lights. The neighborhood, if you could call it that, was a loose agglomeration of aging manufactured homes. They were spaced well apart at odd angles, and their driveways were all gravel. Too loud to approach by car. Many of the front yards had chain link fences and cars under tarps or on blocks.

They approached Rusty’s house and continued on the damp grass to either side of the gravel. The steps on the porch were crooked, and gave slightly as they stepped. They had decided to knock. If there were peeping neighbors, it would cause less suspicion. Bogdan stood in front of the door, feet firmly planted. Aleksandr stood to the side, out of sight, with his gun drawn under his jacket. It was a well worn Tokarev, an old Soviet military sidearm. Bodan knocked, four staccato loud raps.

“Just a second,” called Rusty. He kicked the footrest of his recliner down. Visitors weren’t common in Dutch Bay. It was a small town. But they were even less often hostile. No cause for alarm. It was probably his neighbor Bruce. Bruce loved to complain about the neighborhood coyotes, or maybe the bears tipping over his garbage cans again. Bruce stood too close when he talked to you. You could always see his gold chain necklace over the top of his A-shirt, nestled in his chest hair.

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Rusty opened the door, and his face immediately registered his surprise.

“Rusty Kowalski! Good to meet you.” Bogdan stepped forward without warning. He pushed the door further open and caused Rusty to step backward.

“What the fuck is this about? Who are you?” Rusty had his hands stretched out wide. Aleksandr took a step in and quietly closed the door behind them.

Bodgan put his large hand on Rusty’s shoulder and squeezed. “Not to worry, my friend. We just want to have a chat about your work day tomorrow. Just some extra planning to do. Nothing too serious! Why don’t you offer us a drink?”

Rusty’s alarm bells were all ringing. He was scanning the windows and planning an exit. The side door was through the bathroom, but it would take some planning to get there. The wiry small guy was blocking the door, and had his hand in his jacket. Rusty assumed he was armed, but he looked young and anxious. There was a good chance he would miss with his first shot. Maybe his first two. The bigger guy was a different story. He was no stranger to violence.

“Sure. Where are my manners? Have a seat.” He gestured to his couch. It was upholstered in a mouse fur fabric, and worn down in the middle. “What about a beer?”

“That would be perfect. We’ve had a long day.” Bogdan sat down, and nodded at Aleksandr.

Rusty made his way to the kitchen, and Aleksandr followed behind. His hand was still in his jacket. He opened the fridge and carried the cold cans back to the living room.

He handed one to Aleksandr, who sat down in the recliner. He handed another to Bogdan, who gestured to sit beside him.

Rusty had a shotgun leaned against the mantle around his wood stove. It was an ancient Ithaca Model 37 pump shotgun. It had been his father’s. The old hunting barrel was long and unwieldy in the small space. It was made for hunting ducks. It had bagged a buck once, but that was a stretch. It wasn’t made for close quarters battle.

Despite all that, Rusty kept it handy and loaded with 00 buckshot. He knew that 12 gauge killed just the same now as it had seventy years ago. A rock could smash a skull the same way it could thousands of years ago. Weapons changed all the time, but skulls and bones and muscle and fat didn’t.

The gun was half a room away. All things considered, he liked the odds of going for the gun better than being trapped in a room with two hostile armed men. God knows what they wanted. He would rather go down swinging.

“Thank you for this, Rusty.” Bogdan opened his beer with a click-fwish and tipped the top of the can in a small salute. “Look, what we have is a simple problem. We are just two men, with very little luggage, who want a ride tomorrow. You give people rides all the time. This is no different.” He held his hands open, palms upward in a motion of mock innocence. “It’s no big deal. We won’t cause you any trouble. We’ll just have a little more luggage than we stopped with.”

Rusty had been a reluctant fighter when he was younger. He had always lived in small towns, and fights weren’t common. The Army had changed that. He had been trained to fight, sure. But he had also scrapped with recruits from all over the country, over beefs big and small. If his alarm bells weren’t enough, now he was angry that Aleksandr had taken his recliner. There are some things a man just doesn’t do.

Rusty kept his cool. He shrugged. “We can talk about it. Is it just the two of you? How much luggage?”

“Just the two of us, yes. Not much luggage. Just a duffel.”

“Where are you headed?”

“We need a ride to a ship. We understand you run tours there. It’s a normal stop for you.”

“It might be fine. But first, it’s getting too hot in here. Hang on just a sec. I need to close the damper on this stove.” He got up with a small grunt from the low couch.

Bogdan had seen the gun near the mantel. It had been obvious. On some level, he appreciated that Rusty was going to fight back. He respected that. He would have done the same.

Rusty leaned down to close the damper. In one fluid motion, he grabbed the buttstock of the old shotgun and lifted it to his shoulder.

But Bogdan was behind him, gripping his own Tokarev by the barrel. As Rusty came up, the butt of the Tokarev came down. It was a fast whipping motion. It connected with the side of Rusty’s head with a dull thump. The shotgun clattered to the floor, and Rusty followed. He fell sideways onto the carpeting, and lay still. Aleksandr was happy that the carpeting had muffled the sound.

Bogdan straightened up. Rusty had crumpled in the fetal position. “ Сука. What the hell was he thinking?”

Aleksandr got up and stood over Rusty. “Блядь! Is he dead? Гавно. He’s no use to us dead.”

“Or with a head injury. He won’t be able to fly straight if he’s dizzy.” He shrugged. “It was this or shoot him, Sasha. Then he’d be dead and the neighbors would call the police.”

“I guess so.” Aleksandr unzipped his tool bag. He pulled out a roll of duct tape and a bundle of zip ties.