The Dangerous Boxed Set

by Lisa Marie Rice

  The thirtieth floor held the offices of an interior decorator, an ad agency, a graphic designer, the New York offices of a Chinese manufacturing company, a ballet school and two small apartments.

  Apartment 3033 belonged to one Christopher Wright, low-level broker and sometimes day trader. Which meant he did a lot of work from home. Wright was thirty-four, married to a freelance designer who did a lot of volunteer work. They had a child.

  While Rutskoi was perfectly prepared to take a family out so he could establish his sniper’s nest, there could be consequences. Wright and his wife seemed to be plugged into the world. The child went to school. A family like that couldn’t just disappear. Inside of twenty-four hours, forty-eight max, someone would call and, not getting an answer, would show up.

  Rutskoi needed to hole up for as long as it took, or as long as the situation let him.

  Apartment 3034 looked better. It was owned by one of the advertising agencies and used as a residential hotel for visiting clients. Rutskoi took a look at the schedule and saw that he had a stroke of luck. The next occupancy was one Oscar Melim from Florianopolis, Brazil and he wasn’t due until December 2. Until then, Rutskoi was free to arrange his nest. He would have liked an open-ended availability but it was unrealistic to hope that the perfect spot would remain eternally empty. Still, fourteen days wasn’t bad.

  About time things started breaking his way.

  “Come on, get up.” Drake tugged at Grace’s hand, the only thing visible under his fur blanket besides a swirl of shiny, reddish-brown hair.

  Grace waggled her index finger. No.

  “Come on,” he wheedled, “I’ve got something to show you. You’ll like it, I promise you.”

  The finger wheeled. Later.

  “Presents,” he said slyly. “Lots of presents, for you.”

  The hand flapped up and down. Bye-bye.

  The sex had exhausted her, but not him. He was thirty-four years old and he had no idea sex could do that to him. Make him feel relaxed and on top of the world, while forgetting all about the world.

  He didn’t even mind that he hadn’t come. Just watching her, that beautiful face flushed with pleasure, feeling her soft little cunt milking him, feeling her shudders, ah—it had been worth it.

  He bent down and kissed the tip of her shoulder, the only piece of skin showing besides her hand. A pretty little shoulder it was, too. He kissed it again. A sigh came out from under the blanket. “Not fair.” Her voice was muffled.

  He loved the English saying All’s fair in love and war. “Not fair” was a concept for losers. He kissed her again and she rolled over, looking at him out of mutinous eyes.

  “I was just falling asleep. Someone exhausted me. You might be Iron Man, but I’m not.”

  “I think a bullet hole pretty much proves I’m not Iron Man. And you can sleep later, I promise. But right now you need to get up, love. There are some things I have to show you.”

  There was nothing more he would love to do than to slip back into bed beside her, hold her tightly while she slept. And when he felt her begin the slow rise toward wakefulness, he would slide his hand downward, gently caress her soft little sheath until he felt the dampness begin, and enter her with his fingers. He wanted her to awaken on an orgasm, her own body’s pleasure the gentlest of alarm clocks. He would turn her until he was flush against her back, lift her leg and slip inside. She would be tight. But a little less tight than last time. She would soon stretch to accommodate him. Over time, her cunt would slowly become branded as his, shaped to receive his cock, and his only.

  They’d make love very, very gently, half asleep, coming slowly awake in a haze of pleasure. Afterward, they’d snuggle in bed until late afternoon, when Drake would ring for more food. He’d have fun feeding her again, watching that luscious mouth open for his fingers, stroking her breasts. He wouldn’t let her get dressed. Clothes were for civilians.

  Quiet time, for two lovers just discovering each other. The most natural thing in the world.

  Of course, that was all on an alternate planet, in another universe, where Drake was free to love whom he wanted, without fear that his woman would get her brains blown out, or her skin flayed off, or raped for days as payback.

  Wasn’t going to happen. They weren’t going to get her. Not while he drew a breath.

  He needed to start on a long and treacherous path today, if he was to be able to guide them to safety, and he needed to start now.

  “Grace,” he said, putting the bite of command into his voice. “I’d like for you to get up now, please.”

  It worked. She turned over, sat up, startled. “Sure.”

  Throwing back the blanket, she stood up in one graceful move. She took in his work clothes—a black turtleneck sweater and black jeans—and reached for his gi. Drake nearly sighed as he watched her pull up the pants almost to her breasts so she wouldn’t trip on them and wrap the top around herself almost twice.

  On this other planet, Drake would simply keep her naked. Make it easier.

  It pained him to see her in his ugly gi, but luckily, he had an answer for that. In boxes in the study.

  He stepped close to her and kissed her on the neck. “Sorry to disturb your rest, love, but there are some things I have to show you.”

  Any other woman would have berated him for making her get up. But Grace took one look at his face and merely nodded. Good girl.

  Now that he was in work mode, the relaxation he’d felt when they were rolling around on the bed like puppies was gone, as if it had never been. He’d clawed a few hours out of the face of the rock for them, but now it was time to start putting things into action. One misstep and they were gone. He knew his face reflected that.

  “Come with me.” They walked into the study, where it looked like Shota had outdone himself. There were two piles of boxes plus a folded easel leaning against the wall. One pile was of plain brown cardboard boxes with the logo of the art supply shop; the other pile was of elegant boxes in every color of the rainbow, with enormous ribbons and bows. He was amused to see that her attention went immediately to the art supplies.

  Sitting on the arm of a chair, he brought her to stand between his legs. She looped her arms around his shoulders. Taking her cue from him, her face was sober as she looked down at him.

  His hands spanned her narrow back. He could feel the delicate rib cage, the sharp indentation of her waist. Against the stark black of his gi, her skin was pale, fine-grained. She was so damned…vulnerable. In every way. The world isn’t kind to the vulnerable, not even to artists with the gift of the gods in their hands.

  It was a miracle she’d survived the firefight outside Feinstein’s. It was by no means certain that she would survive the next. And there would be one. If it was Rutskoi teamed up with Cordero, Cordero was too stupid to quit and Rutskoi knew Drake, knew that he wouldn’t rest until Rutskoi was down, so he’d have to go on the attack. This wasn’t going to go away.

  And if Drake survived their next attack, there would be the next one and the one after that to deal with. They’d never gotten him, up until now. They never would, as long as he was alone. But now there was Grace and they would get her, oh yes. No question of that.

  There was nothing in Grace’s beautiful head that would help her defend herself. No survival instincts at all. There was kindness, a unique way of looking at the world to discern its shapes and colors, a constant striving to reinterpret the world in her work. But she had no strategy for survival, no idea of the treachery of the world and how to combat it. To a certain kind of man, Grace had target written on her forehead.

  With her to worry about, he’d be off balance. He already was. Just the thought that Rutskoi and Cordero might be planning her kidnapping right now, and with some inside help, too, drove him a little crazy.

  He tapped the small dent in her chin and breathed her in. “I knew you’d probably go nuts without being able to paint or draw, so I got you as many art supplies as I could. If anything’s missing,
or if you want more, all you have to do is ask. The other pile over there is clothing. Again, just let me know what you need and it’s yours.

  “For a while, you’re going to have to stay here, so I want you to be as comfortable as possible. I have books, music, movies. Anything you want that I don’t have, ask me, or press the intercom and you’ll get it within the hour.”

  “Drake…”

  He grabbed a quick kiss. “Yes?”

  She looked troubled and he tried to wipe away the small frown between her eyebrows with his thumb, wishing he could wipe away the threat as easily.

  “How long do you think I’ll have to stay here?”

  Forever. Or until we disappear.

  “Let me worry about that. I’m going to start work on that right now. You just relax.” He stood, because if he stayed, he’d walk her straight back to the bedroom, and he couldn’t indulge, not with all that he had to do this morning.

  Reluctantly, he stood, breaking her hold, and walked across the room, hating it that he had to leave her. He stopped at the door, then turned. She hadn’t moved. He pointed to the brightly colored pile of boxes. “There are several boxes of underwear there. But Grace?”

  Her face was a pale oval, eyes glittering. “Yes?”

  “Don’t wear any.”

  Rutskoi had had a mistress many years ago. An actress. Though she’d been beautiful beyond compare, she’d been a lousy lay. Much too preoccupied with herself to think of pleasing him. Rutskoi had kept her well past her sell-by date because of her beauty, thinking that sooner or later things would warm up in bed, but they never did.

  He could barely remember her name now and he considered the three months she’d lived with him a failure. But one good thing came out of all that sexual frustration. She’d given him a professional course in the fine art of disguise.

  He’d watched, fascinated, as she made up for the theater, explaining all the tricks of the trade as she did. How to change skin color and the shape of the nose, the cheekbones. How a change in hair color—whether by dyeing or a wig—and hair length altered perceptions. How to call attention away from identifying characteristics by emphasizing other traits. How to appear taller, shorter, fatter, thinner. He’d watch, fascinated, as she dropped a decade, aged twenty years, became a nun, a streetwalker, a peasant woman.

  So the doorman didn’t blink twice at the handyman who announced his presence at ten A.M. A leak on the twenty-first floor, causing electrical shortages and blowing out the computers of a travel agency.

  The doorman saw a man of medium height, dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, light brown skin, wearing stained workmen’s overalls and carrying a big aluminum case. The man spoke with an accent, but then most repairmen did these days.

  The doorman pointed out the elevator and turned back to look out the huge ground-floor windows in time to see the first snowflakes fall.

  Rutskoi was certain the doorman had already forgotten his existence by the time he swiveled back to his monitors.

  He went up to the fifteenth floor, got out and took the stairs to the thirtieth. He knew what sniping was, what it entailed. It was perfectly possible that he’d have to wait, prone, unmoving, for days. He welcomed the tiny toll fifteen flights of stairs at a run took on his muscles.

  Never get soft, he reminded himself.

  He drifted along the corridor of the thirtieth floor, head down, big-billed cap hiding his features. The lock took only a few seconds more than if he’d had a key. A few movements hidden by his back, and he was in.

  It was a studio apartment, some 80 square meters, with two bedrooms and a modern kitchenette in the corner.

  Carpeting, which was nice. He’d spent more hours of his life than he could count lying on the hard, stony ground, waiting for a shot.

  Working quickly while there was still daylight, Rutskoi pulled on latex gloves, then opened his case and took out the pieces of the broken-down Barrett from their foam cutouts. Snap snap snap. His hands assembled the pieces without any conscious thought, performing the task automatically, perfectly, the fruit of thousands and thousands of repetitions. The tripod was next. Several efficient twists and snaps and there it was—the stable platform for his rifle.

  He placed a plastic tarp on the carpet and carefully smoothed it down. A wrinkle could feel like a mountain after a couple of days. That tarp was going to be his home for however long it took.

  He was going to get one chance at this, one. He had to do it right. He had to wait until the opportunity arrived, then use it. He couldn’t afford the least distraction.

  This was like any military op, he reminded himself, only better paid. He had an enemy to observe and then take out. All the military rules for urban sniping held here, too. In Manhattan, as in Grozny, the principles were the same, only this time he wasn’t holing up in the rubble of a building destroyed by tanks, or behind an abandoned vehicle or on the rooftop of the tallest building around, but in a comfortable studio apartment with heating.

  Everything else was the same. The sniper’s cool ability to wait out the prey. Planned routes in and out. A stable platform. And—above all—the right equipment.

  He lay it all out beside him on the tarp on the floor.

  Thermography infrared scope and night-vision scope with germanium lenses. Plenty of ammo. Once he had Drake in his sights, he would lay down withering fire. Two weeks’ worth of energy bars, bottles of Evian he’d found in the pantry and four empty water bottles for when it came back out again. BlackBerry.

  He looked around and dragged the sofa cushion seats onto the tarp, blessing the decorator who’d opted for the cheapest solution. Down-filled cushions would have been impossible to use as a platform—too soft. The hard, flat foam-rubber rectangles covered with fabric were perfect.

  The distance to the window was crucial. The outside windows were lightly reflective. Not as much as Drake’s windows—which were basically mirrors and showed absolutely nothing of what was inside—but enough so that he didn’t have to position himself at the back of the room in trapped shadow, as he had in Chechnya. In one ruin of a building in Grozny with a southern exposure, he’d had to position himself a room away from the window and bore an aperture through an internal wall for the rifle muzzle. It wouldn’t be necessary here. Even looking straight out, Drake wouldn’t see anything. He would also be used to seeing the drapes of this apartment open, since it was rarely inhabited.

  Shooting through glass was always a problem. It was best to shoot in a straight line. The glass in this apartment was only laminated. The powerful bullets would sail through without deflection. Drake’s windows would be a bitch to shoot through, but with the thermal imager to give away position, and his .50-cal bullets, there was no doubt in Rutskoi’s mind that one of his bullets would catch Drake.

  One bullet was enough.

  He had boxes of ammo, including incendiary rounds, enough to fucking blow up the room if he had to. Once he started, he wasn’t going to let Drake out of the room and he wasn’t going to stop until Drake was dead.

  Rutskoi settled onto the tarp, slightly to the left of his line of fire, bracing himself over the tripod, letting bone, not muscle, take the weight of his body. His cheek found the familiar position against the exact same point on the stock weld, as always. He was prepared to wait in this position for as long as it took.

  As he assumed the position that would give him maximum comfort over what might be a long period of time, while at the same time assuring maximum accuracy, he felt himself disappear, sinking and floating at the same time, cut off from the world, his entire being narrowed down to his finger on the trigger and eye on the scope.

  It was the closest thing he knew to happiness.

  This is where he belonged, he realized in a sudden rush of insight. This is what he was born for—the hunt. And what greater, more exciting hunt, than that of man?

  How wrong he had been to want to go into business with Drake. Rutskoi wasn’t a businessman, not even close. Drake knew his guns
but his real genius was in moneymaking. Drake would have made a fortune from whatever it was he decided to sell. Cars, real estate, stocks. It just happened that he’d started business in a godforsaken part of the world where weapons were the main commodity.

  What the hell had Rutskoi been thinking? He’d been so eager to get out of the Russian army and out of Russia, he’d somehow convinced himself he was a businessman. Wrong. He was a hunter. That was his nature.

  And—he finally understood—that was his future.

  A 10-million-dollar contract would never come again, because there would never again be a target like Drake, not in this lifetime. Drake was an outlier, a black swan. Like Tamerlane or Alexander or Napoleon. His like would not come again for another hundred years.

  But the world was full of targets. Thousands of them. Millions. Men standing in your way, blocking the path upward, men with knowledge that could hurt you, men who betrayed you, men who’d killed and needed killing in turn. The world was full of them and full of their enemies.

  The world was not full of men with Rutskoi’s skill set. He was a genius with a rifle, and was one of the few military snipers who could take his skills out of the armed forces and not go insane. Hired killers were often unbalanced, a step shy of madness, highly unreliable, blunt tools.

  Not Rutskoi. He was as sane as could be. Not a coldhearted killer, but a technician with a highly prized skill, which he was going to start selling very dearly to the highest bidder.

  Once he took Drake down, Rutskoi would invest part of his 10 million dollars in a new identity and a luxurious home base, far from prying eyes, and send out the word that he was available, for a fee. Success and discretion guaranteed.

  As his body settled on the carpet, his entire being settled into this new plan. It felt utterly right, as right as the rifle in his hands, his cheek at the spot weld, his eye on the scope. This was his destiny; he just hadn’t realized it before.