“Even at the MK?”
“Not everyone there is in lockstep with Putin,” Roman said. “There are always dissenters, but you can’t always tell by their writing. Just know that no media member is immune to the FSB’s reach, not even you.”
Cal shuddered, wondering just how deeply he should dive into this issue in public. “Are you sure this is a safe place?”
Roman gestured toward the rest of the room. “It’s as safe as you’re going to get inside the Russian border.”
“Yuri was a good journalist?”
“One of the best. He was respected even by those who didn’t agree with him.”
Cal nodded. “Well, I think I know why he was killed.”
Roman steepled his fingers and pressed them gently against his lips. “Go on.”
“His daughter tracked me down and gave me some information on a flash drive. After going through the documents, I’m convinced Yuri was murdered because of what he knew.”
“Why not publish it then? At least then if he was murdered, it wouldn’t be difficult to find a prime suspect.”
“It’s likely because of who the suspect is.”
“Out with it, Cal. Who did all the signs point to?”
“A man by the name of Sergei Bazarov. Ever heard of him?”
Roman stood immediately and slapped some money on the table.
“What are you doing?” Cal asked as his face twisted from wide-eyed excitement at sharing the big reveal to bewilderment.
“If Sergei Bazarov is involved, I want nothing to do with this. I don’t want anyone even knowing we ate dinner together. Just being seen with you—a crazy man espousing such ideas—makes me want to disappear underground for a few days.”
“Is he that dangerous? And are you that afraid of Mr. Bazarov?”
“Yes, he is, and, yes, I am.”
“Sit back down,” Cal snapped.
Roman reluctantly agreed but positioned himself at the edge of the booth. “You have one minute, and then I will walk out that door and never speak to you again unless it’s at a soccer match. Do you understand?”
Cal nodded.
“Good,” Roman said, glancing at his watch. “Your one minute begins now.”
“Is Bazarov capable of a terror attack?”
“That’s not typically his style. He’s most well-known for dealing weapons. However, he’ll order a hit on occasion. But what kind of attack are you talking about?”
“My minute, my questions.”
Roman shrugged. “Fair enough.”
“Do you know of any existing feud he might have with any other Eastern European mafia?”
“I only hear rumors and what’s generally regarded as public knowledge. But there are several other groups who have infringed upon his turf. The most recent involved a gang leader by the name of Alexi Krechenko. A week after news broke about Krechenko’s men killing someone affiliated with Bazarov, Krechenko was found dead, just like Yuri.”
“One more question.”
Roman looked at his watch. “Better make it quick.”
“Am I in danger if I pursue this story?”
“If you aren’t already, you will be.”
Roman glanced at the time again and abruptly stood. “Be careful, Cal,” he said before spinning on his heel and striding toward the door. Roman never even looked back.
Cal sighed and stared at the money Roman had thrown on the table, wondering if it had been made a mistake to ever accept the flash drive from Natalya.
Heeding Roman’s warning would’ve been the wisest course of action for Cal. But he wasn’t about to let this story go. Too much was at stake.
Chapter 11
SERGEI BAZAROV SLUNG HIS GLASS across the great room, shattering it in the fireplace. The broken pieces that escaped tinkled around the hearth as the room fell eerily silent. Sergei held his gun in one hand, tapping the weapon gently against his head.
“I thought that plan was foolproof,” Sergei bellowed as he glared at Alexander Negovsky.
Alexander paced through plush luxurious furniture and around a stack of boxed weapons, refusing to look Sergei in the eyes. “Not everything goes as planned.”
“That sounds like an excuse my son Niko would use,” Sergei sneered.
“I’m just as disappointed as you, sir. I can assure you of that much.”
“Our mutual disappointment does not change the fact that Ivan Mortuk is still alive and he’s still going to be eating into my business.”
“Apparently they had more guards than we anticipated.”
“Again, another excuse, which I will not tolerate,” Sergei said as he raised his gun and pointed it in Alexander’s direction.
In a gesture of surrender, Alexander threw his arms in the air. “Sir, please, we took every precaution we could in leading up to the meeting. Perhaps something happened that made Ivan suspicious. I don’t know. But I do intend to ask him myself when we capture him.”
Sergei lowered his weapon but kept it trained on Alexander’s feet. “I’ll be the one asking the questions if you catch him, not you.”
“Of course. What I meant was that—”
Sergei fired a shot that whistled past Alexander’s head. The bullet lodged in the stone fireplace behind him. Sergei narrowed his eyes, squinting as he studied where the bullet had landed.
Alexander, who’d hunched over and grabbed his head as he braced for the worst, slowly straightened back up. Wide-eyed, he stared at Sergei.
“Let that be your final warning,” Sergei said with a growl. “The next time I won’t miss.”
“Yes, sir,” Alexander said. “I promise I won’t disappoint you. I know that last operation didn’t get you the desired result, but we’re not going to stop trying. At least, I know I won’t stop trying.”
“Good,” Sergei said as he eased himself down into a chair. “Now, let’s talk about how we’re going to prepare for Ivan Mortuk’s visit to Samara when he comes to see his son play here in a few days.”
“Sounds like you already know what you want to do,” Alexander said.
“Of course I do,” Sergei said. “Only one thing really. I want to kill him the moment he arrives.”
“The moment he arrives?” came the question from a man around the corner.
Sergei knew that voice all too well. He didn’t move, his back still turned to the man. “How long were you listening?”
“Long enough.”
Sergei spun around to face his son. “Niko, this doesn’t concern you.”
“These things always concern me,” Niko fired back. “Your sudden change in plans is going to put everyone at risk. And knowing you like I do, you’ll likely send me on the mission to kill Sergei—and he’ll be ready, prepared even, for such an attack. I’ll be vulnerable and susceptible to a counterattack if not executed properly.”
Sergei didn’t flinch as he stared his son in the eyes. “So you’ll do it?”
Niko slipped into a chair next to his father. “We stay the course to the original plan. You can’t let your emotions override sensibility in this case.” Niko snorted a soft laugh through his nose. “You of all people should know this. After all, you’re the one who taught me that.”
“There are always exceptions.”
“You also taught me that exceptions aren’t to be governed by emotions, but instead only by fluid situations. Nothing has changed. Ivan Mortuk will still be in Samara, and we can kill him as originally planned.”
Sergei sighed and stared at his son. “When it’s my time, you’re going to be a worthy successor.”
Niko nodded, accepting the compliment. “I’m counting on it, Papa. Now let’s get to work. We only have three more days to prepare.”
Chapter 12
THE ASSASSIN STUDIED HIS TARGET closely and ran through his mental notes again. He’s lefthanded. He walks with a slight limp in his right leg. He’s overly cautious, paranoid perhaps. Too bad it won’t matter.
The assassin’s mechanically goi
ng through his progression of mental notes was more of a means of verification rather than information gathering. This wasn’t the first time he’d spent an evening following his target’s every move. It wasn’t even the second or third. Vladislav Rakitsky didn’t get to be Ivan Mortuk’s trusted agent without putting in the time. Every time Vladislav—more commonly known as Vlad—received an assignment, he recognized his own life was also on the line. Survival required a meticulous approach. Omitting even the slightest detail from his reports about the mark could result in dire consequences, even if he survived. A hit needed to be sudden and clean for it to be effective. Nothing to trace the murder back to the originating source.
But this was an exception. Ivan Mortuk wanted to send a message, a vivid one at that. Everything about the hit would be as it always was, except for the note Vlad would leave behind.
Vlad peered through his binoculars at the man getting out of his car on the dimly lit street. Killing the man would likely be easy despite his paranoid state. If Vlad could ever write a book about life as an assassin, he imagined writing a chapter about how people are usually paranoid about the wrong things. The lengths they go to in order to make themselves feel safe often proved to be a false sense of security. Vlad wondered if his victims thought about this as they lay dying or if their thoughts were consumed with regret for daring to cross Ivan Mortuk. Neither one would be very pleasant. Or perhaps they thought about something else entirely, though Vlad suspected regret would be the prevailing theme no matter what they were thinking about.
The man glanced around several times at the quiet street as he inserted his key into the lock. He turned the key and rushed inside before relocking the door. The clicks echoed against the pavement. Vlad counted four, though he’d be entering through the kitchen window once the man retired upstairs.
Vlad continued to watch as the man went through his routine, turning on several lights throughout the house before sitting down to relax in the living room. A glass of cognac, a vinyl record playing Alexander Borodin’s Symphony No. 2, and a novel from his classic collection. Valdislav assumed the routine was designed to help the man forget about all the atrocities he committed for his master that day. The liquor helped the most as he usually consumed at least two glasses, more if his task for the day required a more hands-on approach. But that wasn’t all Vlad figured the man was trying to forget.
Vlad couldn’t see the smudge of lipstick on the man’s collar from this position, but Vlad knew it was there, the evidence of the man engaging in an affair with his boss’s wife. The pair were engaged in a dangerous game, and Vlad felt like killing the man would be merciful in a way. There’s no way Sergei Bazarov would extend such mercy to the man, no matter how close they were. But Sergei would never find out.
Once the lights went out downstairs, Vlad waited five minutes before approaching the house. He crept in through the window above the kitchen sink, the only access point the man never checked. Perhaps it was because the window was completely covered with a curtain and he rarely spent any time cooking in his own home, let alone standing over the sink. It was almost as if he’d forgotten it was there.
Maybe that’s what he’ll think about as he’s bleeding out.
Vlad eased up the stairs. He’d been inside so many times that he’d memorized all the squeaks and creaks in the wooden steps. Putting his ear close to the door, he heard the water running.
Men of routine make my job so much easier.
After he entered the room, Vlad stole toward the bathroom where the man was washing his face vigorously. Vlad wore a mask but only to make sure the hit was clean. No digital camera that happened to catch an image of him would ever have anything to link his face to a crime. He raised his gun to the height of the man’s head and waited for him to pick his face up out of the sink. When he did, his mouth fell agape. Then he fell to the floor.
Vlad needed only one shot. The quick bullet to the back of the man’s brain led to a messy scene, but it was clean by the only standard Vlad measured his assignments by. Yet Ivan Mortuk required something extra this time.
Vlad waited until the man was dead before delivering the message. Kneeling next to the victim, Vlad laid a note on the man’s chest:
Take care of your sons. Sons are precious.
The message was cryptic, but Ivan Mortuk insisted Sergei Bazarov would be able to decipher it. The warning would be clear.
Vlad stood and looked down once more at the dead body, pronouncing somewhat of a eulogy over the man.
“Rest in peace, Alexander Negovsky. You have to live in fear no more.”
Chapter 13
CAL PARKED HIS CAR and then slung his laptop bag over his shoulder. He trudged toward the practice facility, where the cracked pavement appeared to waffle in its function. It appeared to serve as both a temporary location for vehicles and a fertile breeding ground for weeds. While Russia’s new stadiums sparkled on television, Cal wondered what people would think if they saw the conditions of the practice locations. The outside of the grounds were just a precursor to the dilapidated conditions inside: rudimentary locker rooms, showers devoid of hot water, and a field that had enough ruts and divots for Cal to wonder if the playing surface was built over a former dirt road from the 1800s.
Cal sat on the end of a paint-chipped bench and took in the last half hour of the Ukrainian national team’s training session. Kyrylo Babich had risen to stardom in Seattle, anchoring the Sounders’s midfield. He’d become a prolific goal scorer as well as a flashy playmaker. And despite the fame thrust upon him, Kyrylo remained even keel in both his public appearances and his interviews with the press. After covering professional sports for quite a few years, Cal hadn’t seen many athletes manage success with such aplomb like Kyrylo.
After practice ended, Cal waited for the clearance to enter the media zone to interview a few players. However, Kyrylo was the focus of Cal’s assignment, a profile about the Ukrainian on the big stage. Cal asked one of the FIFA media relations team members if he could have extra time with Kyrylo, a request that was granted.
By the time Kyrylo exited the locker room, he was freshly showered and wore a big smile on his face when he saw Cal.
“They will let anyone into this country,” Kyrylo said.
Cal chuckled and shook his head. “I know. They even let Ukrainians in here.”
“Touché, my friend.”
“Do you have time for a longer interview?”
Kyrylo shrugged. “Why not? It will only cut into my time drinking vodka, which is probably a good thing.”
Cal briefly studied Kyrylo, unsure if he was being serious.
“I’m kidding,” Kyrylo finally said after a few awkward moments of silence. “I wouldn’t drink the crap they make here. The best vodka is made in Ukraine.”
Cal smiled and scribbled down a note before continuing. “Back in Seattle, things are relatively safe and secure. Does playing in such a volatile environment bother you?”
Kyrylo arched his eyebrows. “Volatile?”
“Well, there was the bombing in St. Petersburg last year and then the Chechen rebels promising to do something disruptive during the World Cup. It seems like there are regular bombings here.”
“Welcome to Eastern Europe or however Russia is defining itself these days. This is life here, and we are used to it—all of it. The bombings, the insecurity, the fragility of our own existence. When you come to terms with that, you move on and embrace the moments of peace with great gratitude. So, do I think about it? You bet. Every time I step on the field. Do I let it dictate my life? Not a chance. Living in fear is no way to live. And I think living in fear might be worse than anything a terrorist attack could ever do to you.”
After Cal finished his interview, he exited the locker room and was met by a FIFA official from Russia in the hallway.
“What exactly do you think you’re doing?” the official asked.
Cal scowled at the man. “My job. Now if you’ll please excuse me.”
> The man didn’t move. “The last thing we need right now are stories from unfounded sources that create panic around the tournament. It’s not necessary to publish empty threats from toothless rebels.”
Cal studied the man, who’d apparently been listening to the interview with Kyrylo. “My job is to report news.”
“And threats aren’t news.”
“That’s not what my editor says, especially in a place where threats are more like promises.”
The official looked down at the credential dangling from a cord around Cal’s neck. “Just remember that we can revoke your access to the tournament at any time.”
“Is that a threat?” Cal asked.
“No,” the man said with a smile. “This is a place where threats are more like promises.”
Cal moved slightly to the right, enabling him to get around the official yet not without a firm blow to his shoulder.
Once Cal walked outside, the glow from the stadium lights was all that lit his way across the desolate parking lot toward his car. The breeze rattled a few stray pieces of paper in front of his path. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched.
Cal stopped and looked over his shoulder, scanning the area. He couldn’t see another person. Continuing on, Cal pondered his approach to telling Kyrylo’s story. There was zero chance of leaving out the compelling quotes about life in Eastern Europe. Cal figured if the FIFA officials in Russia revoked his credentials in an act of retaliation, he’d let Buckman sort through the politics of it all. And getting back home to see his family earlier than planned wasn’t the worst punishment either.
Upon reaching his car, Cal dug into his bag for his keys. He fumbled with them for a moment and then froze. He swore he’d heard footsteps and seen a flash from a reflection in the window.
Cal started to turn around to see if anyone was following him, but he never made eye contact. The hood pulled over his head prevented any visual identification.
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