Last Man Standing

by Stephen Leather

  Yokely took another pull on his cigar.

  ‘Was it you, Richard? Were you working some scheme to get Koshkin to roll over on Markov?’

  Yokely smiled thinly. ‘You know perfectly that if that was the case, I couldn’t tell you.’

  ‘I realise that, Richard. But let me continue my train of thought. Let’s assume it was you behind the plan to get Koshkin to the US. You must have been pretty pissed off when he was killed, but then I think you saw a way to turn that to your advantage when those two FBI agents turned up dead and Matt Standing arrived in LA. At that point you realised just how well connected Erik Markov was, and how far the Solntsevskaya had penetrated the US justice system. All you had to do was keep tabs on Standing and Barnes and see who moved against them. And that’s what happened, right? This operation is crippling the Solntsevskaya, so it’s been a success. And I’m guessing it has given you leverage over Markov that you can use in the future.’

  Yokely took another pull on his cigar.

  ‘But I don’t understand why you didn’t pursue Markov. I would have thought the whole point of the operation would have been to see him jailed for his manipulation of the US election.’

  Yokely blew smoke. ‘Perhaps it would be better if we spoke hypothetically,’ he said.

  ‘Go for it,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Okay,’ said the American. ‘Hypothetically, yes, the plan might well have been to get Koshkin to roll over on Markov, to get him to produce the smoking gun that would show that Markov manipulated the presidential election and that he was doing that at the behest of the Russian president. If it could be shown that the Russian government interfered with our elections, well, that’s a stick that could be used to beat them again and again.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘So, hypothetically speaking, you can imagine how upset investigators were when it started to look as if Markov wasn’t working for the Kremlin. He was doing it for the Solntsevskaya. It was all about money. And power. And nothing to do with the Russian government. Then it became a whole different story. If the public were to find out that Russian gangsters influenced an election and that those same Russian gangsters have infiltrated our cops, our legal system and our government, then how can we expect people to trust those organisations? And a government depends on trust. If the public starts to believe the entire system is corrupt, then they’ll stop cooperating with it, and that way lies anarchy.’

  ‘So best to suppress the whole thing? Make it just go away?’

  ‘No, it’ll be dealt with. But quietly, with as little public scrutiny as possible. We’re making a start with Faith Hogan’s testimony but there’s a long way to go.’ He flicked ash and took a sip of his coffee. ‘What’s the other thing that’s troubling you, Spider? You said there were a couple of things that were troubling you.’

  Shepherd flashed the American a cold smile. ‘You won’t like it.’

  ‘You’re among friends.’

  ‘I hope that’s true, Richard.’ Shepherd sighed. ‘Okay, here it is. Bobby-Ray was holed up in the cabin his parents owned, all the way up in Trinity Alps.’

  ‘Lovely part of the world,’ said Yokely. ‘Very rustic.’

  ‘So I’ve heard,’ said Shepherd. ‘Matt and Bobby-Ray’s sister go to see him there, and are followed by Oleg Ivchenko and his Solntsevskaya heavies. Despite being outmanned and outgunned, Bobby-Ray and Matt emerge victorious.’

  ‘To be fair, highly-trained super-fit special forces soldiers are likely to wipe the floor with untrained thugs, no matter what the odds.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Shepherd. ‘And I’m sure you took that into consideration when you pointed Ivchenko in the direction of Bobby-Ray’s parents.’

  Yokely’s jaw tightened.

  ‘I spoke to Matt, and he tells me that the Russians attacked the cabin in the early hours of the morning, just after dawn, about six or seven hours after he and Kaitlyn got there.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So that implies that the Russians didn’t have the Barnes house under surveillance. If they had they would have seen them arrive and then followed them up to Trinity Alps. There would have been no need to wait for dawn.’ He took a sip of coffee and was impressed that his hand was rock steady. ‘So it looks as if they turned up at the home of Bobby-Ray’s parents after Matt and Bobby-Ray’s sister had left.’

  ‘That makes sense.’

  ‘At which point they tortured and killed Mr and Mrs Barnes to get the location of the cabin.’

  Yokely’s eyes had hardened now and he was no longer smiling. ‘What are you suggesting, Spider?’

  Shepherd shrugged. ‘I suppose we’re still talking hypothetically, aren’t we? In which case, hypothetically speaking, I guess that someone wanted that confrontation between Matt, Bobby-Ray and the Russians, because that someone would have known that Bobby-Ray and Matt would win the day and that they would then go after the man behind it all, Erik Markov. A fair enough plan, except that whoever tipped off Ivchenko must have realised that he was putting Mr and Mrs Barnes in danger.’

  ‘Maybe whoever it was assumed that the Russians wouldn’t hurt the couple.’

  ‘Do you think so, Richard? The Russian mafia? You think they’d think twice about hurting anyone if it suited their purpose? You yourself warned me about what dangerous bastards they are.’

  ‘We’re talking hypothetically, remember?’

  ‘Are we, Richard? Are we really?’

  ‘I assumed we were.’

  Shepherd stood up. ‘As you said, all’s well that ends well. Except for Mr and Mrs Barnes, of course.’

  Yokely grimaced. ‘That was never part of the plan. Trust me.’

  ‘Trust you? Can I? Really?’

  ‘We go back a long way.’

  ‘No question of that. But you do tend to put your government’s interests above all else. And in this case, Mr and Mrs Barnes paid a terrible price.’

  ‘I never thought that the Russians would kill them. You have my word on that. To use the vernacular, shit happens. It was a mistake, and a mistake that will be on my conscience for the rest of my life.’

  ‘I’m sure that will be a great comfort to Bobby-Ray and Kaitlyn.’

  ‘I think Bobby-Ray and Kaitlyn realise that Oleg Ivchenko killed their parents, and that Ivchenko and his men got what they deserved, out there in the woods. They got their revenge.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Shepherd. ‘I just hope they never find out who told Ivchenko that they were heading up to Redding.’

  Yokely shrugged again. ‘We’ll cross that bridge if and when we come to it,’ he said.

  Shepherd shook his head sadly. ‘How do you live with yourself, Richard? The things that you do?’

  Yokely smiled but there was no warmth in it. ‘Is that a hypothetical question?’ he asked.

  Shepherd sighed in frustration, turned and walked away.

  Get HARD LANDING, the first book in Stephen Leather’s electrifying Spider Shepherd series, here