Nevsky kicked Morgan in the knees, and he fell on all fours. “Down like the animal you are. So you do not forget your place.”
Morgan’s face burned with rage, but he couldn’t do anything about it without getting it worse. Nevsky was daring him to.
“General Suvorov is coming,” Nevsky said. “He wishes to interrogate you personally. I just wanted to let you know. One more week. And then he will make you talk.”
Chapter Twenty-five
Alex didn’t dare take a taxi. Instead, she walked barefoot for three hours through the streets of Moscow until she arrived at Dobrynin’s butcher shop. The shop was closed for the day, so she knocked, softly at first, but when she got no response, as the stress of the night caught up to her, she slammed her hand against the door harder and harder, as if it were to blame.
Dobrynin opened the door to admit her.
“Did anyone follow you?”
She pushed her way past him. “You aren’t even going to say you’re glad I’m alive?”
Dobrynin shrugged. “I guess I am glad you are alive. Were you followed?”
“No, I wasn’t goddamn followed.”
She grabbed a t-shirt, jeans, shoes and socks from her suitcase and changed out of the dress in the bathroom. When she came out, Dobrynin was waiting for him in the kitchen, a chair pulled out for her. “Sit. Tell me what happened.”
She related to him what had transpired in Suvorov’s mansion and he listened, heavy lidded. When she was finished, he said, “You need to go home, girl. Your little adventure here is finished.”
“I still haven’t found my father. I think he might be alive.”
“He knows your face, and soon, so will every policeman in Moscow, or worse. It is time for you to go.”
“I won’t go.”
“Then you will go from my house,” he said. “I will not have you endanger me and Agrafena with your presence.”
“Fine,” she said, getting up from the table. “I’ll go somewhere else.”
“You do that and you will be killed. And I will not be there to help you.”
“Are you serious, Dobrynin? You haven’t left this goddamn house. Not since I got here. Every moment I’ve been out there so far, I’ve been on my own.”
“And do you know why I do not leave this house?”
“You’re a shut in,” she said. “A coward.”
“I am a dead man. I have been a dead man from the day your father came after me. To kill me.”
She furrowed her brow. “Kill you?”
“Yes! Or do you not know he was an assassin? I was an agent of Russian intelligence. I gave information to the Americans because I was done with this piss pot of a country. They were supposed to get me out. Instead they sent a man to kill me.”
“But he saved you,” she said. “That’s what happened, isn’t it? Instead of killing you, he let you go and told you to disappear.”
“He did. For me to live the rest of my life stuck inside, never going out in the sun. To live in this stinking house!”
Alex slammed her palm down on the table. “He saved your life!”
“Only from himself. I don’t owe you nothing else. Get out. Get out!”
“Fine,” she said, going into the tiny room she had been sleeping in and stuffing her things into her suitcase. “I’ll go, and you can go back to being a miserable old man who isn’t any good to anyone!”
“You are just a goddamn child!” he hollered. “I never asked for you! You came to my door!”
“Well, I won’t make that mistake again.”
She stormed out, slamming the door behind her with a ring of the bell that hung above it.
Chapter Twenty-six
Grushin helped Morgan up. They watched him walk away in his unsteady drunk’s version of a military march, like a rooster surveying his chickens, as the guards resumed the prisoner count.
“He told me just to screw with me,” Morgan told Grushin. “But you know what? It’s not going to work. Because we’re still going to get out of here.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“Except we’re going to need to do this in less than seven days.”
“Wait, what?” said Grushin. “No. There’s no way.”
“No choice. After a week they’ll move me to an interrogation cell. And I don’t come out of that alive.”
“Shit.” Grushin rocked back and forth. “Shit. What do we do?”
“We have no choice,” Badri said. “We do this with Morgan or we do not do this at all.”
“Shit!” Grushin yelled. People turned and stared. Morgan hushed him. But it wasn’t too suspicious. Not here. There was plenty to scream and curse about.
“We need to get word to my people,” Badri said. “We need them to be ready in a week’s time. That means—”
“We have to go back into Nevsky’s office,” Morgan said.
* * *
The hallway was dark.
They’d done this before, but there was a nervous energy now that hadn’t been there before.
Morgan picked the lock once more and pushed open the door.
There was light inside the office, pale and dim. The computer was on. And at the desk, asleep, was Nevksy.
He was snoring like a drunkard, a snorting, gasping snore. He smelled of liquor.
Morgan looked at Grushin, who stared back in wide-eyed terror. Badri was calm. He was used to focusing under pressure. He was ready.
Morgan tiptoed to the desk and turned the monitor slowly around. He picked up the keyboard with his right hand, lifting it off the desk. As he carried it, he tipped over the pencil cup. Morgan’s hand shot out and grabbed it before its contents spilled all over the desk.
Nevsky stirred, snorting.
Morgan noticed that he was holding his breath, and started breathing again. He set the keyboard down on the desk for Badri to use.
Badri stood at the desk across from the sleeping Nevsky. Morgan kept his eyes on him, watching him for any twitch that might herald his return to consciousness. He was so vulnerable. It would be so easy to reach out and snuff out this bastard’s life, and end all the evil he would ever do.
Except he couldn’t. Not now. Morgan needed to let him live, so that they would have their chance to escape.
Badri hit send and closed the browser window. He then set the keyboard back where it belonged as Badri turned the monitor back around.
He nodded. Done. Time to get the hell out of there.
They slipped out of the room and Morgan locked the door behind them. The three issued a collective sigh of relief.
“It is sent,” said Badri. “If everything goes to plan, they should be here in three days.”
“If,” said Morgan. “Let’s hope they do. Or else it’s my ass.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
Morgan and Grushin met up at dinner after a day of nervous anticipation. The day’s stew smelled pungently of spoiled potatoes. The wind seemed to have died down, and the weather seemed to be mild, if anything.
“Eat up,” said Morgan. “We don’t know when we’ll have the chance to eat again.”
This was the day.
“Are you both ready?” Badri asked.
“I got the dynamite,” said Grushin. Morgan had already noticed the subtle bulge at his waist.
“The cars are ready,” said Morgan. “I put metal shavings in the oil of all the cars except the newest jeep. If anyone tries to follow us, whatever car they use will run about as well as a brick within a few seconds.”
“So we get past the fence and we’re in the clear,” said Grushin.
“Something like that. I also left the crowbar hidden in the grass outside the garage.”
“Then we’re ready,” Grushin said. “All we have to do now is actually do it.”
Morgan leaned back against the concrete wall of the prisoner barracks. “What are you going to do when you get out?”
“I’m going to a bar and I’m going to order myself a beer and a hambur
ger,” Grushin said in a dreamy tone. “Then I’m going to find my girl. I don’t care if she’s moved on, if she’s with someone else. The moment she sees me—that’s all that’s going to matter.”
Morgan knew the story too well of what so often happened with the guys in the military who left their sweethearts behind. And this one had every reason to think he was dead.
But he needed something to cling to. And who knew. Maybe she was waiting for him after all.
“What about you?”
“I don’t know,” said Morgan. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot. And I don’t know. My organization has a hell of a life insurance policy. My family’s taken care of for life, moneywise. And there’s something else. I’m marked. Suvorov knows who I am. He’s going to leave them alone now that he has me, but if I escape . . . If I go back to them, I’m dooming them to a life on the run. Maybe they’re just better off without me.”
“You do what you have to do,” said Grushin.
Morgan had to steady himself through evening count and the march into the barracks as adrenaline pumped through him in a constant buzz. He was ready. They were going to do this.
Morgan lay in the dark, excitement pounding in his head, until he heard Grushin’s bird call. He met him and Badri outside. In his hands were two objects, long and thin. Two sticks of dynamite, which he handed Badri, who was already holding a length of rusty rebar. “Make it count.”
“Just be ready to do your part.”
They moved together as far as the laundry building. Badri broke away from them there, moving toward the fence, where he would twist the rebar around the cable that tethered the dogs and then drive it into the ground. This would stop any of the dogs circling the perimeter from being able to approach him as he lay down the dynamite.
Morgan and Grushin, meanwhile, made their way across the yard to the garage. Grushin climbed through the unlocked window of the motor hangar and disappeared inside.
Leaving the Russian to do his part of the plan, Morgan made his way along the outer wall of the building. Around the corner was the large door through which the cars came out of the garage.
Morgan watched for the pattern as the spotlight shone around the grounds. He retreated from the corner as it passed, casting a long straight shadow on the ground.
He had to wait before breaking the padlock open with the crowbar. Once he opened the garage, they would have to move fast.
He stayed put and listened for the start of the engine that was the signal for him to spring into action.
Minutes passed, and the tundra wind howled. The light circled back, and then again. Morgan strained to hear, but there was no sign of the engine starting up.
This was taking too long. Badri was going to blow the gate and the truck would still be in the garage.
He couldn’t wait anymore. He readied himself, tightening his grip on the crowbar. He waited until the light passed, then he ran, inserting the crowbar through the padlock and pulling down, using the leverage to break it open. It fell to the ground with a soft thud.
Morgan pulled the door open just enough for him to pass, revealing the dark garage inside, the black shapes of the trucks looming in the murk. He closed the door behind him.
“Grushin?”
The lights came on with a loud crack, and Morgan found himself staring down the muzzles of half a dozen submachine guns. Each was held by a uniformed prison guard.
In the middle was Nevsky, a diabolical smile plastered on his face. Grushin was standing stiffly next to him.
“Do you really think I didn’t see the three of you scheming out in the yard? Do you think I don’t know what goes on in my prison?”
Among the guards was Filipov, holding his rifle nervously, something apologetic in his expression. There was nothing he could do about this, he seemed to say.
“My men are bringing the Arab in as we speak. He, like you, is too valuable to dispose of summarily. I’m afraid I can’t say as much about young Mr. Grushin.”
Nevsky drew a knife and in an unhesitating movement pushed it deep into Grushin’s throat. Grushin’s face contorted in pain and surprise. Nevsky pulled it out with a spurt of blood.
He fell at Nevky’s feet.
“Oh, and before I forget.” Nevsky drew his sidearm. Before anyone could react, he aimed at Filipov’s head and fired. The guard crumpled to the ground on top of his submachine gun.
“See what happens to those who help you? See what happens to the people you rope into your plans?” He wiped his knife on a handkerchief. “I have orders to keep you alive until General Suvorov returns. But believe me. Your end will be much less pleasant than your friend’s here.”
He punched Morgan in his side.
“You will be taken to solitary confinement. And there you will stay until the day you die. Don’t worry. It won’t be too long.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Alex returned to her cramped room at the Ustritsa Hotel from her morning run. The wallpaper was peeling, the air smelled of mildew, and something that looked like black mold was growing in the corner. But it was a place to sleep. And to plan.
She took a shower and sat down on the hard bed, setting the partial map of Suvorov’s house she had drawn from memory on the bed.
The time was approaching to implement her plan.
She’d been studying the patterns of Suvorov’s security. Two men sat in a car across the street from the mansion, all day, every day. But every night at around two a.m., the car moved out and new guards took their place. This would give her a narrow opening to move in on the house.
She’d wait across the street, hidden in shadows, until they were on the move. Then she’d move across the street, scale the fence, and then climb the wall of his house back to the roof and gain admittance from there. She knew she could do it going down. Going up wouldn’t be any more difficult.
She’d go in through one of the windows that opened to the roof. From there, she traced the route through her map to Suvorov’s private chambers. If she didn’t find what she was looking for, she’d settle for killing him.
Alex got dressed and set out for another day of surveilling the mansion. She needed to make sure everything was according to plan.
She climbed down the stairs and moved out into the street, hailing an approaching taxi. It pulled up to the curb, and the driver stepped out to open the door for her.
Alex was too excited to be suspicious. As she put one leg into the car, she felt a prick in her neck and things started to swim before her eyes. She felt herself falling, and the driver held her, easing her into the seat, and closed the door. She tried to scream but her body was unresponsive. She heard the engine start, and the taxi started moving just as things turned black.
Chapter Twenty-nine
There was no food at all this time. There was nothing, just the blackness of solitary. Morgan had no idea how much time passed before the door opened again. He squinted at the hard light that shone into his cell, hungry, aching, and exhausted.
They yanked him to his feet and pushed him out into the hall. It was night, he saw. They led him down the hall and into a room in the same building that he had not been in before, but he knew it immediately. It was all white tiles. In the middle was a chair, around which the tiles were whiter than the surrounding ones, discolored by bleach. The grout was stained with brown dried blood.
Morgan had been in places like this before, on either side of the divide. He liked the other side better.
They sat him down on the chair and tied his hands around the back. Then they turned their backs and left him alone, locking the door behind them.
Morgan tested the cuffs. They were solid. But he had one last trump card.
He worked his tongue in his mouth until he got his improvised lock pick in between his lips.
Now came the hard part. He needed to get it into his hands, which were currently at his back. He turned his head over his right shoulder, adjusting the pick with his tongue to get the angle ju
st right. He brought his hands as far to the right as he could manage.
He heard the door unlock. No time. He pushed the pick out with his tongue.
It bounced off his outstretched fingers and fell on the floor behind him.
He swore in his mind and turned his head as the door opened, and a man he recognized walked into the room. Alligator shoes, shined to a sheen. Green Russian military uniform, his chest festooned with honors and decorations. Eyes bulging like that of a fish, thick meaty lips, heavy eyebrows.
General Suvorov.
“I hear you have been giving Nevsky some trouble,” he said as he rolled up his sleeves. “He will be glad to be rid of you, I think.”
“I think we can agree on that.”
Suvorov raised an eyebrow. He was a humorless man, grave and unfeeling. “Do you know what they call me in Ukraine?”
Morgan did. “The Barber of Lozhki.”
“And do you understand why they call me that?”
He was known for scalping his victims and then slitting their throats.
“So you are aware of what is to happen to you?”
This Morgan did not answer. He tried to avoid picturing it with too much vividness. It wasn’t good for his mental health.
“You can stop this,” he said. “You can even save yourself. All you have to do is speak.”
“Already? I wouldn’t want to ruin the party. I’m sure you have a lot of exciting surprises in store for me.”
Suvorov swung. He had a hell of a right hook, hitting Morgan in the temple.
“This will be very predictable. I will inflict increasing amounts of pain and mutilate you in increments until you speak.”
“Here I thought the Barber of Lozhki would have a better sense of showmanship.”
Suvorov swung again. This one was hard enough to tip the chair on its back legs.
This one hit him in the face, and he tasted blood in his mouth. “Come on,” he said. “Is that the best you can do?”
“We are just getting started,” said Suvorov, and followed up with an uppercut.
For Duty and Honor Page 8
