“You still hate Scotch?” Keats asked from the bar, pouring himself a fresh two fingers of amber liquid. Stuffed heads of various animals Keats shot on hunting expeditions framed the mirror-backed bar. The animals regarded Jake with lifeless black eyes. How many human heads would be on the wall if Keats was inclined to stuff and mount the many men he’d wiped out in his time as head of the Kansas City mob?
“Scotch still tastes like ass last time I checked. Beer would be great if you have one.”
Keats popped the top from a local Boulevard Brewery IPA and handed it to Jake before settling in a plush leather chair, dipping his head to a brown couch opposite him. Jake lowered himself, hands sweeping leather as soft as a baby’s bottom.
“I’ll give you ten minutes, Caldwell. After that, my Scotch will be gone, and my Viagra kicks in for Veronica.”
“Who’s Veronica?”
“A former model from the Ukraine wanting to make a better life in the States. She’s waiting for me upstairs.”
Jake’s lips curved upward. “Nice of you to help her along.”
“I do what I can to help foreign relations. Nine minutes left.”
Jake reached into his jacket and pulled out the envelope with the photos. He organized them on top of the marble coffee table between them, spinning the pictures around to allow Keats to view them. Keats spent five seconds sweeping his eyes across the photos before leaning back in the chair and crossing his legs.
“And who are these guys?” he asked.
“I hoped you could tell me,” Jake said.
“And why would I, even if I knew who they were?”
Jake spread his hands wide. “Because the guy whose basement we found these pictures in killed his wife along with an FBI agent.”
Keats’s steeled eyebrows shot up. “Was it that bitch, Snell?”
Jake sucked in air to quell the rising fire. “No, but she did get shot and is in surgery right now fighting for her life if it makes you feel any better.”
“It does…a little. Seven minutes left and you still haven’t given me a good enough reason to help you, let alone allow you to keep breathing after screwing me over.”
As Keats perused the photos, his eyes locked for the briefest moments on at least two of the pictures. He needed to know who those guys were, but Keats wasn’t telling him anything. Jake hoped to hold onto his Keats trump card for a little while longer, but he couldn’t find another way to get what he wanted other than to play it.
Jake clasped his hands together. “Look, you know why you’re not sitting in a federal penitentiary right now?”
Keats huffed and took a drink. “This should be good.”
“Me. I’m the reason. The FBI couldn’t tie you to Senator Mitchell Young and those terrorists, but I can.”
If looks could kill, Jake would be deader than a doornail. The vein in Keats’s neck pulsed and swelled. “What the hell are you talking about? They raked me across the coals but couldn’t find shit.”
“Not yet, anyway. But I have pictures of you and Senator Young exchanging thick envelopes. Time-stamped notes of the exchanges, and I bet if those pics found their way into the hands of the FBI, they could turn what they have on you into something real. Maybe even arrange for you and Young to be roommates in the big house.”
Keats slammed the rest of the Scotch back in a single shot, setting the empty glass on the coffee table hard enough for Jake to know he’d gotten under his skin. Jake’s pulse thundered in his neck, as if he’d pushed all his chips to the middle of the poker table on a bluff. He knew the pictures wouldn’t be worth a plug nickel in a court of law, but Keats didn’t know it. Even if he did, would it be worth the headache of having financial ties to a corrupt United States Senator awaiting trial for treason?
“You blackmailing me, Jake?”
Jake tilted his head and clicked his tongue. “Blackmail is such an ugly word. I’m letting you know I want two things, and if you help me with them, those pictures might find their way back to you.”
“How do I know you’re not full of shit?”
“Because you know me, and I’m giving you my word. I just need two things.”
Keats flicked his eyes between Jake and the pictures on the table. “What are the two things?”
Jake scooted to the edge of the couch, getting to the business at hand. “One, you tell me what you know about any of these guys in the pictures. I know you recognized at least two of them.”
“You still have the gift. You should have stuck with playing poker. What’s the second thing?”
“You recognize I went into the Ares ordeal to save a girl and stop innocent people from getting killed. I didn’t do it to fuck you over. I want you to let it go. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life worried one of your goons is going to spring from an alley and pop a cap in the back of my head. Deal?”
Keats surveyed the pictures once again. “Again, you’re lucky I like you. Deal.”
Jake pointed toward the pictures on the table. “What do you know?”
“I don’t know who these three guys are.” Keats tapped his manicured finger on the photo of the dead FBI Agent Jackson Blake, one of a gaunt-faced man in a black leather jacket and smoking a cigarette in front of a featureless black limousine, and the third picture of a black man exiting a revolving door, broad across the beam, shaved head, in a dark suit with a red tie. Jake couldn’t make out any helpful details in the pictures to locate where they were taken. He pulled the three unknowns and set them on the couch. He was right, Keats recognized two of them.
“This woman,” Keats said, “is named Marta Niroff. Was named Marta Niroff, I should say.”
A fragment of Angela’s story tickled his brain. Didn’t she mention Connelly talked about someone named Niroff? “She’s dead?”
“As of last weekend’s six o’clock news. Found strangled to death in a Westport back alley behind a dumpster.”
Jake spun the picture around. “You know her?”
“First met her six months ago. She did some work for the Russian government.”
“What kind of work?”
Keats pursed his lips and swayed his head from side to side, as if he contemplated a polite way to say something nasty. “I can’t think of any other way to say it. Spy shit.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Come on, Jake. How naïve can you be? The Russians have a vested interest in wreaking havoc on the good ’ole US of A. Their people have infiltrated us in all kinds of interesting ways. In politics, the media, even law enforcement.”
“She was a spy?”
Keats shooed away the notion. “No, a handler. A conduit between those agents on the ground in the US and Moscow.”
“Why was she killed?”
“Beats me. I didn’t know the woman other than a quick introduction, but I know what she did.”
“Who did she handle?”
Keats grabbed his glass off the coffee table and rose, heading to the bar to refill. Two cubes of ice plinked in the glass. “I don’t know how many they assigned to her, but I do know who one of them happened to be. They were together when I saw her again four months ago at a function. They maintained a business demeanor, but I’d bet my left nut they were banging each other. Once I knew what she did, her being with the guy made perfect sense.”
“Why?”
Keats returned to his chair and sat. “Few people know who this guy is or what he does, but I do. He’s been a spy for the Russians for a couple of decades, and we’ve crossed circles a few times.”
“What kind of circles?”
“Guns, mostly. You know how I like my firepower.”
Jake rested his elbows on his knees. “Did he kill her?”
“I doubt it. Looked like they were in love.”
“Well, if he didn’t, who did?”
“Maybe someone killed her to get at him. He was involved in some nefarious shit.”
“Like what?”
“Like guns. Mayb
e something else.”
Jake would lay a pretty good wager Keats wasn’t telling him the whole truth. Marta and the FBI agent in the picture were dead. He felt like Keats was leading him in a certain direction, but the reason why needed to be resolved because Keats rarely did anything unless he benefitted from it. “Maybe something else? What’s that mean?”
Keats scratched his chin, looking a bit like Marlon Brando in The Godfather. “I won’t tell you a damn thing until I learn more. Your head’s so far up Snell’s ass you’ll blab this to her. But nice guy that I am, I can wet your whistle and tell you his name.”
Jake’s head tilted forward, waiting for Keats to continue, but the smug mobster pasted a cocky smile on his face. Keats did enjoy his little games. “You going to tell me or keep me in suspense while your Viagra wears off?”
Keats reached forward, tapping the picture of the guy on the table between them. Dark, widow’s peaked hair, fishy lips set on a lantern jaw atop a sleek body clad in a tailored navy suit.
“His handler may be dead, but he’s still bouncing around town with some bad intentions.”
“Who?”
Keats sunk back in his chair. “That, my friend, is Borya Sokolov.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
“There’s a handful of people in this world who could link that face with the Sokolov name,” Keats said. “I happen to be one of them. He may not look like much, but he’s deadly.” Keats craned to the clock above the bar. “You got two minutes left before I kick you out the front door.”
“And you said this Sokolov has bad intentions? Like what?”
“He came sniffing around my office about a year ago looking for help,” Keats said.
“What kind of help?”
“IT shit. Programming. Something he called the Blackbird.”
“What is it?”
“Don’t know, don’t care.”
Jake wondered how truthful Keats was at the moment. He picked up the photo again and studied the face. “So, why’d he come to you?”
“Everyone knows my affinity for the Russians. Sokolov is an old KGB agent working here in the States.”
“Wait, the KGB?”
Keats rose, his hands in the front pockets of his garish robe. “The KGB is kaput, and I don’t know what they call the organization that took its place these days, but he’s around. I don’t know shit about what Sokolov is up to or what this Blackbird is. You want to know? Ask him. Your time is up, my friend. I expect those pictures of me and Young in my hands in twenty-four hours.”
“Wait,” Jake said, holding out the torture pictures. “Is this the handiwork of Sokolov?”
Deep lines exploded around Keats’s eyes. Keats had witnessed and dealt in a lot of violence, but even these pictures curled his lip. “Jesus Christ, where’d you get these?”
“Same place we got the surveillance photos I showed you. Is this Sokolov’s work?”
Keats handed the pictures back over. “Not that I know of. From what I know, the guy was a little more subtle than that.”
“Help me out. Where can I find Sokolov?”
“You can’t. The guy’s a ghost. I’d suggest you hunt down the other mopes in your storybook and leave the guy alone.”
Keats walked toward the hall leading to the front door. Jake grabbed the pictures and hurried to follow, frustration mounting. Keats knew more than he told him, but Jake worked with him long enough to know he’d get nothing more from his old boss. Still, Sokolov’s picture was in Connelly’s stash, and at least two of those people were dead.
Jake cut him off at the front door. “Put me in touch with him.”
“If I could, why would I?”
“Because I think someone’s on the prowl for him. Maybe if he saw these pics, self-preservation would bring him in.”
“Jason?” a smoky, sultry voice floated from upstairs. “You coming?”
Jake tracked the stairs to the top where a voluptuous, raven-haired woman posed with an open robe and threads of red lace covering her unmentionables. She ranked a twelve on a scale of one to ten.
“Close your mouth, Jake,” Keats whispered. “Now you know why your time’s up.”
Jake clenched his jaw. He’d gotten some good intel, but nothing concrete to jump on. Keats had it and wouldn’t give it to him, which pissed Jake off. He stepped out the front door and hit the bottom step when Keats called out after him.
“Some friendly advice? Don’t go chasing after Sokolov. That motherfucker will sing you a lullaby.”
Keats closed the door, the deadbolt snapped shut, and the front light blinked out, leaving Jake in the dark.
* * *
By the time he returned to Shawnee Mission Medical Center, Foster had sacked out in the waiting area, her feet propped on a coffee table, head back, mouth ajar. He checked in with the duty nurse who told him Snell was still in surgery and directed him to wait with Foster. Instead, he stepped outside and called Bear, filling him in on the aftermath of the shootout and what Keats told him about Sokolov and the vague reference to the Blackbird.
“Never heard of him or a Blackbird,” Bear said after a brief bitch and moan session about being woken so early. “But hell, those ex-KGB guys are crazy. You might have the feds run with it.”
Special Agent Murphy jumped into Jake’s head, dangling a pair of handcuffs with Jake’s name engraved on them. “I doubt I’m getting any help from those guys. Murphy wants to lock me away already.”
“Must be your sparkling personality. Get Foster to do it. She seems to be on our side.”
Jake suppressed a yawn and rubbed his burning eyes with the heel of his free hand. “She’s sleeping in the lobby, and I’m close behind.”
“Do it. You’re kind of an asshole when you’re tired, like the Snickers commercial.”
Jake disconnected and headed back inside, plopping in a chair opposite of Foster. He dropped his boots on the coffee table, his feet twice the size of hers. He closed his eyes, macabre images flashed like a slideshow. Snell, bleeding out on the ground, Angela’s blood soaking into the floorboards of the cabin, Christopher crying, the beady eyes of Sokolov staring out from the photo, Jake’s father in a casket, his brother Nicky laying on the dock with the heroin needle that killed him still stuck in a vein. So much death.
A few minutes later, the slideshow stopped, and he slipped into a dream of walking a rough, dirt path in the Ozark woods behind their Warsaw property. The cold air he expelled hung like clouds, and the leaves crunching under his feet echoed in the gray, still morning. Ahead on the path lay a rotten wood log, smelling of death and decay. A blackbird perched atop the mossy log, its midnight eyes regarding Jake, head cocked in curiosity. Jake stopped on the path, boots sinking in the mud, unable to go another step. Blackbirds were omens of bad things to come. He tried to pull his boots free, but they locked as if encased in cement. When he glanced back to the log, he could swear the ebony beak of the blackbird was twisted into a grin.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The Wolf disconnected the call from Demetri and tossed the phone on the couch. He tried to rub the exhaustion from his eyes, the world blurry with it. Demetri passed on a directive from the right wing of his government. Stop Sokolov and the Blackbird or start digging yourself a grave.
“Fucking bureaucrats,” the Wolf muttered, leaning his head back against the sofa cushion and studying a crack in the ceiling of the living room. The crack aptly represented his government at the moment—unsightly with sharp, jagged edges that would flay you open if you ran into them.
On the left side of the crack were the conservatives who wanted to flex the Russian muscle to the world, but not to use it. These men believe in the power of information in negotiation in the political machine. There were always terms to be reached, and the achievement of a position of mutual interest. The conservatives would never want war and thought they believed in the power of diplomacy, though it was tough to be too diplomatic when you were blackmailing someone. The conservatives were
not above, getting a little blood on their hands to accomplish their goals, and that is where the Wolf came in.
The other side of the crack was represented by the right wingers, members who wanted to not only flex the muscle of the Russian government but use it to smash anyone who stood in their way, especially the United States. It was the right wing that believed they had what it takes to defeat the US and become the global power Russia was meant to be. It was the right wing that injected bots to stir up the masses in the social media of other countries to divide their people because they were firm believers that a house divided cannot stand. But the right wingers were frustrated because, despite the rhetoric, the United States had protected their power grids and infrastructure systems well, and things like bombs and mass shootings were tactics better left to radical Islamic groups like ISIS. It was the right wing that injected Sokolov into the US and tasked him with his mission to release the Blackbird.
The conservatives fed the Wolf the name of Garald Androv who was working the extremist side with Sokolov. The Wolf managed to track down Androv weeks ago and worked to turn him. Whether Androv was playing both sides of the fence remained to be seen. Androv wasn’t answering the Wolf’s calls, no matter which side he resided, and it made him nervous. Androv knew too much about him and could crush the Wolf if he gave up the information to the wrong people.
Either way, it was a tangled web, and the Wolf was tired of climbing along its threads. When he expressed the inkling of his desire to get out, Demetri reminded him that, in addition to the Wolf meeting an untimely demise, his wife Mariya would meet a far more gruesome fate.
Where was Sokolov and was he close to finishing the Blackbird program? The Wolf had exhausted every known lead and wiped people from the face of the Earth in search of his fellow countrymen, including the gun dealer in Nebraska. Now he sat in the dark, sipping a beer that had grown warm and hashing out a plan to keep Mariya and himself alive.
Jake Caldwell Thrillers Page 65
