by Ty Patterson
Kozlov got a quiet reputation as the go-to Russian and by the time Blokhin died, the mob business was making money hand over fist. Sure, they still had enforcers and killers, but those goons were more likely to wear Armani and had better teeth.
Zeb called Kozlov’s office to set up an appointment and was told politely that the great man was abroad, traveling for an indefinite period.
‘He’s right there in Beverly Hills,’ Broker snorted when Zeb briefed him. ‘Werner dug out satellite photos over his mansion just today and there he was lying next to his pool. There was a busty blonde next to him.’
Broker’s concept of privacy differed wildly from that of most people.
Zeb made the forty-minute drive from the lush coolness of Malibu to the snarling downtown traffic and made his way to the gangster’s office. Of course, it didn’t look like a mob outfit. Modern art and wall hangings covered open spaces and blondes sauntered through the office as if time was elastic.
Zeb searched for a couch, some kind of a seat and found something in a warm red that looked like it was designed by someone stoned high. He gave his name to the receptionist and was given the same message.
Mr. Kozlov was traveling. No one knew when he would be back.
‘I’ll wait.’ Zeb told her blandly and settled on the thing that was a couch but looked like it was the back end of a horse.
Blue eyes stared at him in astonishment and the smooth brow furrowed. Visitors left when told the great man wasn’t around. They didn’t plant themselves in the office, cross their legs and lean back and close their eyes.
She tried again and told him that Mr. Kozlov was out of the country. On another continent. Like did the visitor know that there was a world beyond Los Angeles?
Zeb opened his eyes, acknowledged her and went back to meditation.
The receptionist gave up and whispered in her headset and presently two men approached Zeb. They didn’t look like heavies, but all the fake tan, the fancy suits and the blinding smiles couldn’t conceal who they were.
They stood in front of Zeb poised to use their manicured hands, but Zeb rose easily and for the briefest moment allowed the beast to reveal itself. He saw the reaction in the men’s eyes. ‘Tell Kozlov I am waiting for his call.’ He gave them a number and left silently.
Kozlov didn’t call. Zeb waited a full day but neither the mob boss nor any flunky rang him.
He went back to the downloads from the twins and studied the night club that Kozlov owned. It was on La Cienaga Boulevard; its website spoke of discreet opulence and privacy for men and women to let their hair down. Very wealthy men and women. Ordinary Joes weren’t welcome at the club.
Meghan sent him its plans, its security setup and Beth sent him dossiers on its employees.
‘Rog and I can be there on the next plane.’ Bwana told him helpfully.
‘Nope. I just want to meet him. I don’t want to level Los Angeles.’
‘It might come to that,’ Roger countered. Hope sprang eternal in the breasts of his team.
The club was crowded when Zeb visited it that evening. The largest room was the central events room, which had a dance floor around which tables were laid out. The center of the floor had a stripper’s pole and a couple of women were plying their trade when Zeb took a table.
All the women were attractive, displayed a significant amount of cleavage and from their accents and high cheekbones, and were either Russian or East European. A waitress smiled brightly, took his order and disappeared to a bar, behind which a large black man was busy. The bar man had a couple of assistants, all of whom worked competently.
Scattered throughout the room were security personnel, discreetly observing the floor. There will be cameras all over and a security room constantly manned.
The central floor led off to several rooms, some of which were the bathrooms and the kitchen, others were private entertainment rooms and changing rooms for the dancers.
Zeb stayed till ten p.m. just as the crowd was becoming raucous and when he stepped outside, the line outside the club’s doors was half a block long.
Nine p.m. to one a.m. are their peak hours.
He returned the next day and after nursing a drink for a couple of hours, he followed one of the dancers to the changing room, which was guarded by a burly man.
Zeb approached the man swiftly, concern etched over his face. ‘Gus wants you at the front. Trouble’s brewing. He wants experienced men to handle it.’
The man frowned, tried his radio but got silence.
‘Comms are dead,’ Zeb replied impatiently. ‘Why do you think I’m here?’
‘Just who are you?’ The man growled. ‘I haven’t seen you before.’
‘No reason why you should. I joined today.’ Zeb let anger burst through him. ‘Look buddy, a brawl has probably broken out by now. Gus said I should take your place while you are away. You may not have a job tomorrow if you aren’t out there, but suit yourself.’
The guard tried his radio a couple of times more and then tossed it to Zeb with a glower and trotted to the main floor.
Zeb released the jammer he had been holding in his pocket and the radio burst to life. He waited for a few more moments and when he was sure the guard wasn’t returning anytime soon, he went inside the changing room.
There were about twenty women in the room in various stages of undress. They ignored him and went about dressing or undressing or painting their faces. He removed his jacket and let his gun show and still not an eyebrow lifted.
I guess the security guys are like furniture over here. They probably see enough guns about the place.
‘Ladies, you need to leave. Show’s over. This place is no longer safe.’
They ignored him. He fired a shot in the air and got instant silence.
‘You need to--’ he started and then got drowned out in the screaming.
That’s all right. I want them to raise hell and then disappear.
The room emptied in less than ten minutes and when the last woman had left cursing and swearing, Zeb went back to the floor where the first ripple of chaos had reached. The sound of the gunshot had been covered by the loud music, but the replacement girls hadn’t arrived and the ones on the floor kept glancing at the changing room. A few patrons had noticed the half-naked women rushing out and heads were starting to turn, fingers were pointing.
Zeb found an empty table near an exit, and with his back to a wall, pulled out his gun and fired in the air.
‘The night’s over, folks. Leave now.’ He announced over the loud silence. The crowd still didn’t move. They thought it was a prank, part of the show. ‘This nightclub is lined with explosive and will go off any time.’ Still no one moved. He fired twice more and then the stampede began and the yells and the shouting started.
Twenty minutes later a head popped from behind a door, spotted Zeb and disappeared. ‘Your club is packed with explosives. Don’t do anything stupid, like using your trigger fingers.’ Zeb called out.
Murmuring sounded from behind the door and then Gus, the chief of security Zeb had spotted, approached cautiously, a phalanx of men beside him. They trained guns on Zeb and from the distance of twenty feet, Gus shouted at him angrily. ‘Who are you, man? Do you realize what you’ve just done?’
‘I’ve closed your nightclub. Not the end of the world.’
A side door opened and goons rushed in, more guns trained on Zeb.
He lifted the jammer and waved it in the air and the men halted suddenly. ‘This is a detonator. If I stop pressing it, your nightclub will provide L.A with the best display of fireworks it has seen. Rest your trigger fingers.’ He waved his gun to emphasize his point.
The men looked nervously at one another and then at Gus, seeking direction. They knew their way around guns. They had broken up many a violent fight and faced down armed men. But detonators and explosives?
The security head licked his lips and tried to stay calm. ‘There’s no need to do anything rash. We can work this ou
t.’
‘Of course we can. I want your boss, Julian Kozlov.’
Sweat beaded Gus’s dark forehead and rolled down his face. He made no attempt to blot it. Face was important. Image was all that mattered.
‘He isn’t here. He doesn’t hang out in the club.’
Zeb raised the jammer and grinned at the collective suck of air. ‘That’s not an acceptable answer. You need to do two things. One is to call the cops and convince them not to show up. The other is to get your boss here in fifteen minutes.’
Another wave of the jammer, another gasp. ‘I need my beauty sleep, so you’d better get moving.’
Kozlov came an hour later, with a retinue of armed men flanking him. The Russian was dressed in elegantly tailored khakis, a white silk shirt that gleamed in the dim light and a jacket to complete the sartorial display. He was taller than Zeb by an inch and had blue eyes that pierced the air.
The blue eyes sought Zeb out and when they landed on him, his fury burst out. ‘You-- ’
Zeb moved so swiftly that it caught the guards unawares and jammed his Glock in Kozlov’s mouth. ‘If you’d met me at your office, it wouldn’t have come to this.’
He maneuvered the man out, using him as a shield. ‘Whether your boss lives or dies is down to you folks. If anyone pops his head out, I’ll cap him right here. Be good, and he might come back. I can’t guarantee that he’ll be unharmed, though.’
Kozlov whirled to snarl, but the grip on his throat tightened and all he could do was croak. Zeb pulled him swiftly down the drive, fired a warning shot when a head appeared outside the main doors, and when it disappeared, cuffed the man and shoved him in his vehicle.
He secured Kozlov to a handle in the door, used the man’s belt to fasten his legs and drove through the San Diego Freeway, keeping a close watch on his mirrors. No cruisers showed, no choppers shadowed him. He parked in a turn-off area briefly and emptied the Russian’s pockets, flung his phone, wallet and keys out of the vehicle.
He smashed the gun barrel in Kozlov’s mouth when he made to protest, didn’t even turn to look when the man gagged, spat, and groaned.
He had considered various ways to get to Kozlov, but a hard, brutal takedown seemed to be the best way to get fast answers. Emptying the nightclub had been a deliberate tactic to cow Kozlov’s men, to give them the perception he wasn’t acting alone.
He was counting on Kozlov’s men not yet involving the cops; not until they knew what exactly was going down.
He came off the Freeway and drove up Mulholland Drive, through its winding curves, past pull-outs which had the occasional vehicle. He carried on higher till the traffic fell off, following the ridgeline of the Santa Monica Mountains, the lights of his Durango boring tunnels through the darkness.
Did I miss it? No, there it is.
The break in the road was barely visible in daytime since it was covered by overhanging growth; in the night, it was invisible. He nosed through it and revved up a steep drive, drove round its curve and suddenly they were in a wide clearing with just the sky above and the city below.
He dragged the gangster out and brought him to the edge of the clearing. In the night, all they could see was a dark abyss below and the lights of the city, the spires of downtown L.A.
‘I ask, you answer. If you lie, you end up at the bottom, a bobcat’s dinner.’
Kozlov’s eyes glinted in the dark, but he didn’t answer. He nodded his head furiously when Zeb raised his gun.
Forty-five minutes later, Kozlov stood breathing harshly, shivering in the cold. Zeb ignored him and looked over the city, going through the man’s replies in his mind.
The Saudi minister was just another high profile customer. The Venezuelan minister had threatened to expose his drug running business unless he got free favors. So did Kozlov have the Venezuelan killed?
Kozlov had vehemently denied killing either of the ministers. Some of his drug supplies came from Venezuela, but that country wasn’t his only source. If he wanted the man killed, why would he do so in the U.S.? The Saudi minister was no more than a patron of his agency.
He didn’t recognize the assassin from Zeb’s description. He had enough of his own, many of them ex-Spetsnaz, who would run rings around whoever Zeb was referring to.
Zeb looked at the Russian, a broken man; his pride stripped and believed him. Kozlov would have exposed his entire business if Zeb had asked him.
Kozlov had inherited his uncle’s gang, and had grown up surrounded by power. He was a smart businessman, knew when to use violence and didn’t hesitate to wield that tool, but he hadn’t had to claw his way up the way his uncle had. Sure, he had been reared in the streets of Moscow, but that was a lifetime and a continent away. Now, as with many men, the trappings of wealth and importance were what made him.
Don’t underestimate him. Just because he’s broken doesn’t mean he’s any less dangerous.
The steel showed when Zeb shoved Kozlov outside his mansion in Malibu. The Russian looked back at Zeb with hooded eyes. ‘You’re a dead man.’
‘Heard that. Many times.’ Zeb waved at him and drove away in the darkness. He headed back into the city, to their outfitter in Culver City where he exchanged the Durango for a black Ford Expedition and checked into another hotel in Los Angeles.
Kozlov will be hunting me. So will the 38th Street. Maybe the assassin too.
Kozlov kept quiet as a physician injected him and taped his injuries and when he had left, his fury broke. ‘Fifteen of you in the club and not one of you could stop that man?’ He shouted at Gus, and in a sudden fit went and slapped the man. Hard slaps that brought Gus to his knees.
Two men rushed to restrain Kozlov and drag him back. ‘And you? You are Spetsnaz, you said. The best in the world. You did nothing when he dragged me away.’ Kozlov spat at them.
He flung their hands away, ignored their protestations, hurled a jug of water at a wall, overturned a glass table and stood heaving when the last shard crashed down.
‘Find him. Bring him to me.’ He ordered and dismissed them. He headed to his bathroom and felt his face gingerly. His jaws would remain swollen for several days, his teeth would need refitting, the bruises over his eyes would turn black.
He didn’t hurt me that much. I’ve inflicted more pain on others. It’s the way he did it. His eyes. He didn’t even say who he was. Kozlov shivered and glanced quickly behind him, even though he knew he was alone. He shamed me.
He yelped in surprise when a voice spoke suddenly. ‘Kozlov?’ I know you’re there.’
He froze for a second. The room was empty. He was all alone. But that voice? He dived at his bed, hurled pillows across and uncovered the phone. He stared at it while the man spoke.
‘I know what’s going through your mind. Scrub that thought. You won’t find me. You’d better not find me.’
Kozlov waited, but the man hung up. Kozlov fingered the phone gingerly. It was one of those early generation phones long before big screens and fancy menus had made their appearance. How did he place it in my bedroom? How did he know what I was thinking? Kozlov pulled his robe closer and shivered though the AC was at full blast. He yelled at his men, flung the phone at them and ordered a search of the house.
The house was empty but for them.
The sun was streaming through the thick curtains when he woke up the next day. He stumbled out of bed and shoved the curtains open and took in the city. The view normally filled him with pride; today it just made him nauseous.
He made his way to the bathroom and a hot shower calmed him and brought his rage back. He made his way downstairs where a maid laid out his breakfast silently. He had just picked up the day’s newspaper when the voice spoke again and ruined his day.
‘Kozlov, I know you’re feeling invincible again. You aren’t.’
The phone was buried under a couch.
Another round of screaming at his men didn’t calm Kozlov. He rushed through his breakfast and heaved a sigh of relief when he parked his backsi
de on the plush leather of his limo. The vehicle wended its way from Malibu to downtown; a drive that the Russian normally enjoyed as he watched the peasants on the other side of the glass toil away.
The voice spoke again.
‘Kozlov, forget yesterday. You’ll live longer.’
This time the phone was between the join of the rear bench seats.
Kozlov looked at the phone for a long time. Another anonymous, old model.
He took the advice.
Chapter 19
The assassin didn’t know that his apartment in Florida was bugged. He swept the apartment twice a day, used secure, encrypted phones, and bounced his calls across hundreds of servers. He used voice over internet protocols for his calls, but his security setup couldn’t detect the bug.
It wasn’t that his security had a flaw. The bug used by the FBI was a military utilized device that just a handful of agencies knew about. It was still in the design stages. The FBI had managed to get prototypes from the Defense Intelligence Agency and had successfully used the bugs to bring down a couple of drug cartels.
The FBI wasn’t hunting the assassin. They were after Russian gangsters who were known to live in the same block; they didn’t know which apartments exactly and hence they had blanketed the entire block with bugs. They sucked calls, messages and where possible, even emails, from the building like a giant magnet and a daily dump got sent to Langley for analysis.
This had been going for more than a month before the assassin returned from Dallas.
His call to Wasserman got packed into the daily download that winged its way to a bored analyst in Langley who ran a keyword search, got nothing and logged the file in a growing database.
The log got shared with multiple agencies in the country and also with a particular supercomputer on Columbus Avenue in New York.
