Revenge, Inc.

by J. D. German

  Chapter 19 – The Hunter

  When they split up in Fresno Z turned east and headed up into the Sierra Nevada mountains. She figured the others would continue on south to Los Angeles or west to pick up I-5 going north. She wanted get far away from them as quickly as she could. She figured that those three idiots would be captured in a day or two, and they would tell the police what kind of car she had and maybe even the license number if any of them thought to look at it. But up here in the mountains, on the mountain roads that weave their way east into Nevada, no one would think to look for an escaped prisoner. In another couple of hours Z would intersect U.S. 95 that would take her to Las Vegas, where she could get another car, and some more cash. The $400 wouldn’t last long.

  It was late at night when Z pulled into the long-term parking lot at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas. She found a parking spot and waved down the bus that took her to the airport terminal. From there she caught a hotel transport van to the Golden Nugget Hotel in the old downtown district. This was the easiest place for her to blend in with the mass of vacationers, gamblers, and guys looking to pick up a woman for the night. She sat down at the bar and told the bartender she was waiting for someone. Her eyes scanned the room looking for a mark. A couple of men returned her look, but they looked as broke as she was, so her eyes kept on moving. Now there’s a likely looking victim she thought. He wore a Rolex watch and expensive cowboy boots. He carried himself straight up and looked at those around him with disdain. Z knew that look – some of her past victims were just like that. She couldn’t catch his eye so she got up from the bar and walked past him to the ladies room.

  Z was an extremely attractive woman – slim but not thin, black hair, nice breasts. But it was the cat-like way she moved that drew furtive looks from men. She stayed in the restroom a few minutes, straightening her hair, brushing her teeth with her finger, and opening two more buttons on her shirt. She took a breath and left the room – and ran right into the man she was after.

  “Oh, excuse me ma’am. I was headed for the men’s room. Are you all right?”

  Not a very original pick-up technique, but she rolled with it and sucked her breath in.

  “You . . . you startled me. Let me catch my breath.”

  Z looked down at the floor as she faked shortness of breath. I have to be careful with this. If I come on to him he will think I’m a prostitute. Let him make the move.

  He pointed to the bar. “Come over here and sit down for a few minutes. That should help.”

  Z, faking reluctance, slowly followed him. She wanted to play the compliant but apprehensive woman – someone he could easily dominate in bed.

  She hesitantly sat down beside him at the bar, keeping her breathless act up. “T . . . thank you. I’ll only need a minute. When I get startled it triggers a panic attack.” She held up her shaking hand. “I’ll calm down soon.”

  “Let me order a drink to help relax you. What can I get you?”

  “”Nothing. I don’t tolerate liquor well.” ‘That should start the bells tingling in his brain – and elsewhere.’

  The man turned to the Bartender. “Bring the lady a coke. And a bourbon straight up for me.” Then he turned back and held out his hand. “I’m Brandon Cunningham.”

  Z quickly ran through some names in her mind and decided Rebecca would fit her persona. “I’m Rebecca Rose . . . Hughes.”

  “So do I call you Rebecca, or Rebecca Rose, or . . .”

  “Only my mother calls me Rebecca Rose. I like to be called Becca.”

  “That’s a nice name, Becca Hughes. Where are you from?”

  Some more quick thinking. I should have planned this on the drive over here. She said the first thing that came to mind. “Chowchilla California.”

  “I don’t have a clue where that is, but it doesn’t matter. Where you are from doesn’t define a person. I split my time between here in Las Vegas and New York City. I have real estate businesses in both places.”

  “Doesn’t your family miss you when you are away?”

  “My parents are dead and I haven’t married. Maybe someday.”

  The perfect victim, Z thought.

  When their drinks arrived they chatted some more, Z/Becca – and maybe Brandon, – making it up as they went. When they finished their drinks, Brandon invited her to have dinner with him.

  Z’s stomach growled at the thought of food. She hesitated a few seconds, continuing to play a woman unsure of herself. “No. I’m not hungry.” After she hesitated just long enough she relented. “All right. I guess that would be okay. She looked around. “Where’s the dining room?”

  “Actually I thought we could have it in my hotel suite, if that’s agreeable to you.”

  “I . . . I don’t know you well enough, Brandon.”

  “Hey, it’s just dinner. No strings, and you can leave whenever you want.”

  “Well, I enjoy your company so . . . Yes, I’ll join you. Are you staying here at the Golden Nugget?”

  “This old place? Never. I live in a suite at the Trump International, just off the strip.”

  “Is that a good place? I’ve never been there.”

  “It’s just the newest and classiest hotel in town. Come on out front and I’ll have my limo brought around.”

  Even with the limousine Z wasn’t certain that Brandon was the real deal until she entered his hotel suite. Then her mind kicked into overdrive. I planned to pick up someone, take them to bed, then kill them and steal their money like I used to. But this guy is too well known, and the hotel staff saw me come in with him. If I kill him, someone will find out and the cops will put up road blocks. I’ll never get out of town. I need to do this all over again with a nobody at a no-name hotel. So how do I get myself out of here?

  Brandon broke into her thoughts. “I’ll order some dinner brought up. What would you like?”

  “Is there a menu?”

  “No, the kitchen will make whatever I order.”

  Z thought, I want a medium-rare steak with all the trimmings and a bottle of fine red wine, but that would be out of character. “I’ll have a cheeseburger and fries.”

  “Is that it! You have the choice of any meal you want, and you pick a cheeseburger and fries?”

  Z answered “It . . . it’s what I’m used to.” As her mind worked out a new approach to getting the money she needed.

  Brandon picked up the phone and placed her order, adding a steak, baked potato, and salad for himself. “What’s going on with you? You’re not what I expected in a bar pickup. What’s your story?”

  Z paused the appropriate length of time before she forced tears out of her eyes. “My husband is after me. He beat me up again so I had to leave. If he catches me he’ll kill me. I waited until he was asleep and took everything he had in his wallet – $138. I needed more so I hocked my wedding ring.” Z manufactured a couple of sobs and kept the tears flowing. “I spent most of my money on a bus ticket. I wanted to go to my sister’s place in Dallas, but this is as far as I could get with the money.”

  Brandon knelt down beside her and reached to put his arm around her to comfort her, but she pulled away from him thinking, That’s what a battered wife would do. She would be afraid of men.

  Brandon pulled his arm back quickly. “I’m sorry. I only intended to comfort you – nothing more. Forgive me.”

  She sobbed some more, then slowly regained her composure. “I’m sorry for acting this way. It . . . it’s just that . . .”

  As he heard room service knock he said “I understand. Let’s get some food in you. That should make you feel better.”

  “No it won’t. Nothing will. I’m afraid all the time. I thought that knock might be my husband until I heard it was room service.”

  “How could he find you here? No one knows where you are.”

  “I know that, but being afraid keeps me from thinking straight.”

  “The table is set up for us. Let’s talk some more after we eat.”


  Z gobbled up her food like she was a starving runaway. She didn’t have to act the role because she was a starving runaway. As they sat across from each other drinking their after-dinner coffee Brandon looked at her with genuine concern in his eyes. “What are you going to do, Becca? You can’t keep running. And you’re out of money. Why don’t you stay here for a few days?”

  Z shot him her best frightened look and started easing out of her chair.

  “No, it’s not what you think. I just want to provide food and shelter – nothing else. No strings, remember?”

  “How do I know you won’t call my husband and keep me locked in until he gets here?”

  Brandon thought, Wow, this woman is really paranoid. But I guess being abused does that to you. “I promise you I won’t do that. Besides I don’t even know his name or phone number.”

  “You could get it from the operator. We’re the only Hughes in Chowchilla.” Z formed a look of panic on her face. “ No, I can’t trust you. I can’t trust anyone. I have to leave – now. And don’t try to follow me.” Z got up and started edging her way toward the door – slowly, because she wanted to give him time to respond like she expected.

  “Look, if you won’t stay here at least let me give you some money.”

  “No . . . Well, maybe. But just enough to get to Dallas. That’s all I’ll take.”

  Brandon went into the bedroom and came out with a handful of $100 bills.

  “I can’t use those. If I start handing out big bills like that people will remember me and Kurt will find me.”

  Brandon thought a minute, then took out his wallet. “Here’s all the small bills I have – close to $100 dollars.”

  She reached out and grabbed it, then stuck it in her bra. Damn, I was hoping for more than that. As she reached for the door knob he said “No wait. That’s not all. Here’s my debit card. Withdraw whatever you need from the ATM machine in the lobby, then leave the card at the front desk. You can get up to $500, and it will all be in twenties.”

  “I . . . have no way of paying you back, at least not for now.”

  “This is a gift, Becca, from me to you. There’s no need to pay me back. I have more money than I know what to do with. But if you get back on your feet and this thing with Kurt clears up, come back and visit for a few days – no strings.”

  “Okay, no strings . . . and no promises.”

  Z took the card from him and went down to the lobby. Before going to the ATM, she stopped by the gift shop and bought a black hooded sweatshirt and a ball cap using the cash he gave her. She stopped into a restroom to put the hoodie and cap on, then headed to the ATM machine, looking around to be sure Brandon wasn’t following her. She pulled the cap down to cover most of her face from the ATM camera and withdrew $500. She thought about keeping the card and withdrawing more money tomorrow, but he would probably cancel it. So she left the card at the front desk and went outside to catch the airport shuttle.

  When she arrived at the airport terminal she caught the next shuttle to long-term parking. She gave the driver a phony parking spot number and got off the bus in the middle of the 10-acre lot. She didn’t want to linger, so she waited until a the right kind of car swung into an empty space and watched the driver lock up and get on the bus. As soon as the bus was gone she walked over to the convertible, pulled out the pocket knife she bought in the gift shop, and cut a small “X” just above the driver’s door. With a quick look around, she stuck her arm down through the hole and lifted the door latch. She was lucky this was an older model that still had latch buttons on the window sill. Otherwise it would have taken a much bigger hole and some gymnastics to reach the inside handle.

  Once she was in the car, she got on the floor and searched out the wires on the steering column. She found the right two wires, cut them with the knife, and spliced them together to turn on the ignition. Then she cut another wire and touched it to the splice to crank the starter. In a couple seconds the engine roared to life. “Bingo! Shakira isn’t the only one who knows how to hijack a car” she said to herself. She took out the parking stub she got when she parked her get-away car and used it to get out of the lot. Twenty minutes later she was on U.S. 93 headed for Kingman, Arizona where she would pick up I-40 east. West Virginia, here I come she thought as she moved along with the traffic. Damn, everyone drives so slowly around here. Lord, send me a speeder who I can get behind and use as smokey bait. She wasn’t really serious about the ‘Lord’ part. She hadn’t been to a church in her entire life, and didn’t believe in that God and Christ stuff.

  Z had a stop to make before she could check out Jack’s place in West Virginia – a small house in Alexandria, Virginia that Alexei owned. The taxes and bills were paid automatically from one of his bank accounts. He kept it as one of his hidey holes he could run to when he needed to disappear. At this point, no one knew he was dead – even Z wasn’t certain – so the safe house should still be secure. The reason Z assumed he was dead is that he hadn’t written to her in prison since his last letter telling her that he had “taken care of” Jack Preston. Z knew about the Forseti Group and was certain one of them killed Alexei as revenge for his murder of Jack Preston. So her mission was to take out the Forseti Group, one at a time, starting with his widow, Lynn.

  Z circled the block twice, watching Alexei’s house for signs that cops were watching the place. The third time she turned up the driveway and into the carport. With a quick look around, Z got out of the car, retrieved the door key from under the planter, and entered the house. She closed the door behind her and listened for any unusual sounds. When she heard nothing, she slowly went from room to room to be certain she was alone, then she let herself relax and enjoy the feeling of home. She and Alexei had lived here together off and on for the past four years and to them, it was the closest thing to home they ever had. They never married, but in every other respect they were man and wife.

  She wandered into the bedroom and lay back on the bed they had shared. Alexei was one of the few men in the world who she would let get close to her. When she grew up in Moscow her father had abused her physically and mentally. When she passed her fourteenth birthday she had all she could take, so she let him take her to bed. Then, when he was sleeping afterward, slit his throat with a knife she hid under the pillow. She ran away before her mother came home from shopping and lived on the streets for a month. She saw posters with her picture that read “WANTED FOR MURDER, ZARAH SAVVIN, followed by a phone number to call if she was spotted. Her hair was long in the poster photo so she took her knife – the one she killed her father with – and hacked off her hair, leaving only 3 or 4 inches. If it wasn’t for her strikingly good looks, she could have passed for a boy.

  Then one night, as she was being friendly to a drunk while she slipped his wallet from his pocket, two men closed in on her and took her away in handcuffs. She was thrown into dark cell where she stayed for an indefinite length of time – two days, six days – with no daylight she lost all track of time. Then two matronly women showed up and dragged her into a shower room, where she was scrubbed all over and given a towel to dry herself. Then they led her into an empty room with clean clothes laid out for her. As soon as she was dressed a guard led her to an office somewhere upstairs. They told her to sit and wait, then left the room. She immediately got to her feet and started searching the office for anything she could use – a weapon, something of value she could trade for food when she got out of here.

  She was going through the desk drawers when the door opened and a muscular man with an expressionless face entered. “That’s just the kind of resourcefulness I like to see in my agents.”

  “Agent? I’m not anybody’s agent.”

  “From this moment on, my dear, that’s exactly what you are. I am Col. Alexei Brusilov of the SVR – the Soviet Foreign Intelligence Agency. One of our responsibilities is to train Russian men and women to serve in foreign countries as undercover agents – spies. You have already demonstrated an essential quality in
a spy – the ability to kill without remorse. I’ve gone over your police files covering the brutal murder of your father, and I like what I see. I will take you under my wing and make you one of the best female agents the SVR has ever trained.”

  “Don’t I have a say in this?”

  “No, you are effectively my slave. Any attempt to escape will result in your immediate execution for the murder.” Alexei buzzed for his assistant. “Have her transported to the Institute. They will know what to do with her.”

  Three years later she had ‘graduated’ from Russia’s premier spy school and was sitting at an elegantly set table in Alexei’s palatial home. He discussed what she thought of her training and asked her if there was anything she would do to improve it. This surprised Zarah. No man had ever asked her for her opinion before. She thought for a few minutes and began listing some areas where she thought the training was ineffective or useless. When she noticed that Alexei was writing them down, her respect for him improved greatly. But she knew what was coming next. The evening would end with him taking her by force, just as all the men in her life did.

  As the dishes were being cleared Alexei said, “There is a guest room prepared for you upstairs, with a maid to attend to you. Please enjoy a full night’s rest and we’ll talk some more in the morning.”

  Her surprise showed on her face. “I thought . . . I expected . . .”

  “I understand. You expected me to do what most men in my place would do. But I’m not most men. You, Zarah, have turned into a woman who should be respected, and that’s how I intend for our relationship to be – one of mutual respect and admiration for each other’s mind and capabilities. We will be the greatest spy team that Russia has ever sent into the world.”

  A year later Alexei would be on the run, charged with embezzling SVR funds. He took Zarah to the U.S. with him and started a personal security firm known for operating outside the law. That kind of work was in high demand, so it took the two of them only a year to make their first million dollars. Two years later they had over four million dollars spread among several bank and investment accounts.

  Then Alexei got the job as chief of security for the Charles Winston and made another million. But they ran into Jack Preston and his team, who were trying to stop Winston’s election to the White House. Alexei’s attempts to take Preston out of the picture met with failure after failure. Winston was elected President in spite of Preston’s opposition but didn’t survive the inauguration.

  During the investigation one of the Forseti team, Tom Gutierrez, had uncovered Zarah’s hobby – sleeping with men she picked up then killing them. The police labeled her the praying mantis killer. An anonymous tip from one of Preston’s men sent her to prison for life. Alexei caught up with Jack Preston a month later in Telluride, Colorado and got his revenge.

  Z snapped out of her recollections and got back to the reason she was here. She went down to the basement and slid a cabinet out of the way to get at the wall safe behind it. When Alexei set up this safe house he programmed the fingerprint lock to work for both Z and himself. She placed four fingers of her right hand on the pads provided, and was rewarded with the satisfying click of the opening lock.

  Alexei had stocked the safe with everything he and Z would need to escape the area – or the country if necessary. Fake driver’s licenses and passports, $50,000 in cash, and ATM cards to an account with almost a million dollars in it. It also contained two 9 mm Glock 17 pistols and several spare ammunition clips. Z removed the cash, an ATM card, and a Glock with four extra magazines.

  Next she went upstairs to Alexei’s office to see if he left behind directions to Jack Preston’s cabin. His desk, like always, was a mess. But this time the mess was covered with a heavy layer of dust. She sorted through the books and papers – nothing interesting there. When she opened the file drawer she spotted a file folder labeled J. Preston with a printed Google map detailing the route to his place. She put the folded the map in her pocket and went through the rest of the file. The only thing of interest was another map to Rick and Harriet Goodman’s farm outside of Leesburg. I’ll take care of them too, she thought, but Mrs. Preston comes first.

  Zarah left the house on foot and walked to a bus stop. Thirty minutes and two bus transfers later she got off in front of M&B Auto Sales. After looking over the inventory of used cars, she drove off in a 2014 black Chevy Avalanche truck that she paid cash for. She left Alexandria on I-66 headed for the eastern mountains of West Virginia.