In the top drawer over a hundred folders were filed alphabetically by name, a virtual Who’s Who of Russian business and society. He recognized many of the names. They were all men, all older, all wealthy beyond the comprehension of young Slava. He opened one folder to see what it contained – a dossier gave detailed information about the client, his sexual preferences and his payment details, including credit card numbers. He glanced at others; each had an identical sheet inside.
A lot of files also contained grainy photos obviously taken by a hidden camera. These would be the brothel’s insurance policy against problems with its customers. There were even pictures of naked politicians with young boys and girls. Perfect. Slava stuffed everything into a box he’d prepared just for this day. Although there were a lot of files, each was slim, and they all fit easily in his little box. He didn’t bother to close the file drawer.
He glanced at the Russian’s watch and put it on his wrist. He had at least an hour and forty-five minutes to get to the bank’s ATM and make a withdrawal. Eventually the madam would check on her boss. But not for a while. He needed Andrey Bodrov’s money, but it was far less important now than it had been before he’d opened the cabinet and taken the files.
The boy stepped into the hallway, pressed the lock on the knob and closed the door. Without a sound he carried his small box down a back staircase that led to the kitchen. No one was there at this time of the afternoon. He grabbed someone’s heavy coat and cap from a peg by the back door, put them on and stepped out into an alley filled with garbage cans. His box of treasured information under his arm and Andrey’s plundered possessions in his pockets, Slava Sergenko walked away from this life forever.
That was his first murder. Only the first of many.
CHAPTER TWO
As she worked in her office next door, the woman realized Andrey was sleeping much longer than usual today. And, she mused, Slava must be napping with him. When their sessions were finished, the boy usually left and Andrey dozed for an hour or so. Today she hadn’t heard a peep for over three hours. There wasn’t a sound from the room next door.
By five it was getting dark and she had to do something. Andrey should have left by now, heading home to his wife and his dinner. At the risk of angering her boss, she decided to take a peek inside.
She opened the door quietly. In the gloom she could see Andrey sleeping. Slava wasn’t with him. That was odd; once he finished, he was required to report to her. Time was money in this business, and there was usually another customer waiting his turn. She pulled the door quietly shut and walked downstairs.
Ten minutes later she knew Slava was gone. No one had seen him for hours, and the coat and hat of her handyman were missing from a peg by the back door. Now she had to wake Andrey. She walked upstairs, tried the door in the hallway, found it locked, and entered the bedroom through her office.
“Andrey, darling. Andrey, wake up. It’s after five and you need to go.”
Nothing. She didn’t hear snores. She didn’t hear anything. Not a rustle.
She walked to the bed and put her hand on his shoulder. “Wake up…”
She stifled a scream as she felt cold flesh. He’d been dead so long he wasn’t even warm anymore. She pulled the covers back; he was naked, but she saw no wound, nothing to indicate he’d died from anything but natural causes.
This was a dilemma. She didn’t know what to do. She felt no sadness – as sexually involved as they’d been, he was not her lover in the emotional sense. She was worried because she was in a jam. Should she call Andrey’s wife? Another person at the company he ran? None of those solutions sounded good. She had to get his body out of this place without involving the authorities. That she knew for sure. If she called the police, she might as well get fitted for her prison suit because that was where she’d be for the rest of her life.
Damn you, Andrey. Why did you have to die here?
Suddenly she remembered something. Andrey had a son who worked for him. He’d told her once the boy was in his thirties and his name was … What was it? Boris? Boris Bodrov? Yes, that was it!
She placed a call to PetroRussia, the huge oil conglomerate Andrey controlled. She asked the operator for Boris Bodrov and soon was speaking to a secretary. The assistant quizzed her for a moment about the nature of her call until she finally said, “It’s about his father. There’s been an accident. I must speak with him now!”
As she waited, she hoped Boris knew his father frequented brothels. She had no intention of letting him know exactly what kind of place this was, of course. She’d make it sound like the regular kind, with beautiful ladies for sale. Regardless, it would be embarrassing and difficult if the man had no idea about his father’s prurient side.
The son undoubtedly didn’t know that Andrey owned this place. That would be good for her; she could just keep things going and the money would be hers instead of Andrey’s. She wouldn’t mention anything unless the younger Bodrov brought the subject up. In the meantime she’d better move the client dossiers locked in the file cabinet. It would be better if they were somewhere else for now. She glanced across the room and gasped.
Oh God, no.
The top drawer of the cabinet was open slightly.
She ran to look and her worst fears were realized.
It wasn’t just Slava who was missing from the brothel. The files were gone too.
And that meant soon she’d be as dead as Andrey was.
——
The porter, Andrey Bodrov’s son and two men he enlisted from the oil company had difficulty moving the heavy man’s body downstairs. Before moving his father, Boris waited until the establishment closed and all customers had gone. By then rigor mortis had set in; Andrey’s body was stiff as a board.
The woman had told Boris Bodrov his father was enjoying the company of a female prostitute when he died. He had no idea that this place even existed, much less that it housed child prostitutes. All the young employees had been closeted away far out of sight. She also now understood he had no idea Andrey owned it. Those were the only positive things at this point.
The public story was that Andrey Bodrov died of a heart attack at home. No one called the police, no one thought to check him for a tiny puncture wound to the heart, and no autopsy was done.
The woman would like to have kept the brothel open for at least a few months so she could accumulate enough money to live comfortably. She had some now, but Moscow was an expensive place to live.
There was no question that Slava Sergenko had taken the files and disappeared. It was also obvious what would happen next. The brothel’s customers were going to get a surprise soon. The clever boy would extort money from them, she was certain. Once that happened, she was a dead woman. The first place her wealthy Russian clients would come was to her. They’d demand to know about the files, the pictures, and where they were. They’d torture her to find out what they wanted. She had to leave, and leave quickly.
She took all the cash she had in the place – around ten thousand dollars – and ran. She wasn’t smart and didn’t really have a strategy. She just wanted to get far, far away. Without proper papers she couldn’t leave Russia, so she went as far as she could. She found a nice beachfront flat where she could enjoy the summers and tolerate the winters.
About a year later a couple was strolling the beach in front of a resort near Sochi, Russia, on the Black Sea. Arm in arm and lost in each other, they almost tripped over the nude body of a woman lying on the sand.
The tourists began to scream in horror.
The body was missing its head.
You can run, but they’ll find you eventually.
CHAPTER THREE
That afternoon in Moscow, Slava Sergenko had made a fateful, life-changing decision. The authorities might have gone easy on the sixteen-year-old child for murdering the man who’d sexually abused him and sold his body to other pedophiles. He might even have been exonerated for that crime. But he’d gone further – past the proverbial
point of no return. He’d sealed his fate and his future by stealing client information from Andrey Bodrov’s brothel. The things he stole became both his blessing and his curse.
Those men whose information he now had were all active participants in the child prostitution ring. They also were some of the new Russia’s highest-level executives in business, government and even religion. Since the fall of the Soviet Union in late 1991, certain people who previously were at the top of the KGB and the military had become immensely wealthy. The newly elected president of post-Soviet Russia rewarded the Communists who had worked with him. Those people transitioned easily from the USSR to Russia. They continued to be its powerful elite. Instead of holding intelligence or military jobs, they were handed oil companies, telecommunications firms and a thousand other new private businesses required for a country suddenly thrust into capitalism.
These fat cats – these mostly corrupt Russian political hacks – became wealthy beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. And it happened literally overnight. As many suddenly wealthy individuals do, they became enamored with wealth, power, excess and impregnability. They were bulletproof. They could do whatever they wanted and no one could stop them.
Until now.
Over a hundred powerful men, customers of an establishment that provided underage children for sex, were being systematically blackmailed.
The plan had taken time to set up. Slava was tall and thin, wise beyond his sixteen years, and armed with an idea that had worked amazingly well. Between what he took from Andrey Bodrov’s dead body – money and jewelry – and the ATM at the bank, the boy ended up with nearly forty thousand US dollars. He rented a cheap flat in the suburbs for a month and obtained a new identity. That had cost him a fourth of the cash he had, but it was worth it. Within a week his new passport and identity card showed he was no longer sixteen. He was Juan Carlos Sebastian, a twenty-four-year-old citizen of Spain.
He bought a laptop and began to research which countries had financial secrecy laws. He learned how to set up offshore bank accounts, initiate and receive wire transfers, and move funds from one place to another.
Two weeks later he left Russia, presenting his new credentials at the airport and boarding an Aeroflot plane for Prague. He carried a suitcase that held everything he owned, including over thirty thousand dollars.
In Prague Juan Carlos rented another small apartment like the one he’d had in Moscow. He opened a local bank account and deposited his dollars. He created three more – one in Cairo, one in the island country of St. Lucia, and a third in Paraguay. One country he’d considered but avoided was Cyprus. It was famous for bank secrecy, but almost every one of the Russians he planned to blackmail had accounts there, according to the information sheets he’d stolen. With that much money in that small a country, it was possible someone could pay off a banker. He had to be anonymous. His very life depended on it.
Juan Carlos set up a complicated system of interlocking email accounts, using every trick he’d read about. One morning it was time to make it all happen. He prepared a brief demand letter, entered a hundred email addresses and emailed them individually.
Dear Comrade ________________:
My name was Slava Sergenko. I was one of the children at the brothel in Moscow you frequent. I am also the person who killed Andrey Bodrov. I tell you this so you will understand my motive.
I want two million US dollars. You have ten days to comply with my demand. You may not know that Comrade Bodrov took secret pictures of you with his children. I have those pictures and so will the press if you do not do as I demand.
Juan Carlos provided the Cairo bank account, which auto-forwarded the money to Paraguay and finally to St. Lucia. Although he only had photos of half the men, they didn’t know that, so almost all of them paid up. He was exhilarated to see dollars – amazing numbers of dollars – begin to accumulate in his bank account within just a few days.
After ten days Juan Carlos Sebastian had $168 million. Eighty-four men had coughed up the funds he demanded. The other sixteen got a second offer – the Slava Installment Plan. Fourteen of those paid fifty thousand a month. Some paid for a year or so and quit, others were still paying. He decided not to pursue them, but he kept everyone’s information, including the pictures, just in case.
That accounted for all but two. They committed suicide. One was a prominent cleric and the other was head of the government’s education system. Juan Carlos had no tears for them – his only regret was that they got out of paying the blackmail.
CHAPTER FOUR
Prague, Czech Republic
After his windfall from the blackmail scheme, Juan Carlos found himself bored. He had to live under the radar, always watchful. There were a hundred wealthy men who would search the world for the blackmailer, cut his dick off, stuff it in his mouth, and laugh while he choked to death. He could never be ostentatious – he never spent much money although he had millions. He was reluctant to take a job, had allowed himself no friends, and had nothing to occupy his time. He had all the money a person could ever want and no way to spend it without risking exposure. He was bored.
Juan Carlos began to travel extensively throughout the world. He visited archaeological sites on six continents, and he began quietly acquiring rarities. He found a solution to his boredom and a way to spend his money without fanfare. Through research and intuition, he developed an eye for quality and learned to separate the fakes from the authentic pieces. Within a couple of years he had a very private, very valuable assortment of rarities from the world’s past great civilizations.
Juan Carlos displayed only a few things in his Prague flat and, with no visitors ever, they were solely for his pleasure. The bulk of his collection was in a safety deposit box in Lucerne, one of several cities where he maintained an apartment.
He loved traveling, but he wanted something else. He wanted the semblance of a normal life. Although he could afford to never work, he wanted interaction with other people. He couldn’t allow friends into his very private existence, so he thought of other ways he might get the social interaction he craved.
On a whim one afternoon he answered a help-wanted ad for a bartender in the Princi Palace, Prague’s newest and trendiest hotel. His personality and looks got him the job, and soon he was the star of the show every evening as regulars looked forward to seeing him.
——
Ten Years after leaving Moscow
Summer 2004
Juan Carlos gazed through expansive windows at a park across the street from the Princi Palace Hotel, where he’d been behind the bar the past three years. It was eighty degrees outside. He would have loved to be with one of the beautiful, bikini-clad girls he could see sunbathing. Summers in Prague were his favorite time – the country had become totally Westernized since the fall of Communism, and the girls loved to bask in the sun. The strikingly handsome bartender with his fashionable close-cropped mustache and beard could have dated any girl he wanted. Despite their attraction to his rugged, aristocratic good looks, he kept to himself. He had secrets he couldn’t share.
At thirty-four, the age he’d chosen for his passport, Juan Carlos was fortunate – he was free to do whatever he wished. His investment portfolio was vast, his current profession was extremely lucrative, and tending bar was an enjoyable, convenient and simple cover for it. For some time he had run the evening shift in the bar of Prague’s finest hotel. He knew his regulars by name, profession and interests. They knew him too – at least the story Juan Carlos had created. And everyone liked spending time with the suave, affable bartender who kept a close eye on his guests and made sure drinks were always full and conversation always entertaining.
None of his acquaintances – customers, employers, anyone – had ever ventured into Juan Carlos Sebastian’s personal space. No one knew what he was like outside of the bar, how he lived, what his interests were – anything. That was good, because Juan Carlos certainly wasn’t a struggling bartender.
He glanced at his
Casio watch. Juan Carlos never wore the Rolex to work – there would be questions if well-heeled customers saw the bartender sporting a watch more expensive than theirs. It was almost five o’clock and staffers from the embassies would begin filtering in sometime around six. The upscale bar adjoined the lobby of the Princi Palace, built ten years ago after the Velvet Revolution transformed Communist Czechoslovakia into the democratic Czech Republic.
There would be a drop sometime this evening; he had learned that a moment ago when he watched the sun goddesses in the park from the window. At the bus stop outside someone had drawn a large X on the schedule sign with a marking pen. That was this week’s signal. He’d keep his eyes and ears open tonight.
Right now he set up whisky, wine and beer, wiping clean a streaked glass here and there and prepping lemons and limes. Before long the first customers arrived.
In flawless French Juan Carlos welcomed three girls in stylish pantsuits who took seats at the bar. He knew them well; like many of his patrons, they stopped by after work every day. Mid-level translators from the French Embassy, they were young, beautiful representatives of their native country and enjoyed the bartender’s friendly banter in their own language.
Juan Carlos was a natural linguist, fluent in five languages and conversant in several others. He had learned both his native Russian and English in elementary school like every other student in the Soviet Union. Languages came easily to him. He had picked them up as he traveled from place to place over the past ten years.
He set up drinks for the young French beauties as two groups entered from the lobby. They too were regulars – one was Italian and the other from the United States Embassy across the street. The Italians took a table by the window and the three Americans sat at the bar. A cocktail waitress handled the room while Juan Carlos greeted the Americans.
The Crypt Trilogy Bundle Page 2
