“You ever going to tell us what this is about?” Sam yelled back. He was the tall one, Vlad’s height.
“No!” I yelled. “I’ll just owe you both a favor, all right?”
They nodded.
“Hey,” I said. “We need our jackets and hats back.”
Too soon, Vlad and I would be going outside again. To the Jeep. Knowing that the Russian mafia monster would follow us to a place where he thought we wouldn’t be safe.
chapter twenty - three
As I’d predicted, Abe was in his computer room. He was wearing headphones. His back was toward us. He was facing his computer screen.
I walked into the room. Vlad was behind me. I locked the door. Abe didn’t move.
I tapped Abe on the shoulder.
He jumped halfway out of his chair. He landed. He took off his headphones.
“What were you listening to?” I asked.
“Silence,” Abe said. He gave his head a shake. “Too much noise in the house. I mean, do people actually enjoy parties?”
“Your parents,” I said.
He snorted. “Yeah.”
I pointed at the screen. “Do you think you have it set up?”
“I’m afraid to say it,” he said, “but yes. I’m using an IP address that I’m running through a server that I’ve hacked into that belongs to a college in England. Through there, I’ve found a way behind a firewall of a newspaper computer in Alabama, using a Trojan horse that is impossible to detect. From that computer, I’m relaying through a mainframe in Argentina and—”
“Abe,” I said, “I just need to know there’s no way in the world to track us to this computer in this house.”
“Um, basically.”
“Basically?” I said. “We need a hundred percent guarantee here. Basically isn’t good enough.”
“How’s this?” he answered. “If we stay online for less than ten minutes, there’s not a security expert in the world who could follow the trail back here.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear,” I said.
“Then we’re ready.”
“To go where?”
“Kuwait,” I answered.
“Kuwait,” he repeated.
“More specifically, a bank in Kuwait,” I said. “Trust me.”
Abe glanced at Vlad, then back at me.
“How do you know?”
Abe didn’t know that Vlad knew English. It was a secret I’d keep for Vlad.
“I’m sure,” I said. At least, I was sure according to what Vlad had already explained to me. “Trust me.”
“A bank?” Abe said.
“A bank.”
“Online?” Abe asked.
“Unless you would prefer to walk.”
“Online it is,” Abe said. “Got an internet address?”
I gave it to Abe. His fingers flew over the keyboard. The computer screen brightened, then dimmed, then brightened.
Abe read out loud, “Commercial Bank of Kuwait. Cash link service. Fixed deposit interest rate inquiry. Limit inquiry. Balance inquiry. Funds transfer. This the stuff you’re looking for?”
I glanced at Vlad. He gave me a nod too slight for Abe to notice.
“That’s it,” I said. “How about balance inquiry.”
“To find out how much money is in the account?”
“Yes.”
Abe tapped the keyboard again. “It needs a user name and password.”
I took a piece of folded paper from my back pocket. I unfolded it. I put it on Abe’s desk.
“Vladinsky,” Abe said. “This is the user name?”
“Try it,” I said. “And there’s the ten-digit password.”
I put a hand on Abe’s shoulder. “Go slow. Don’t make a mistake.”
“I don’t make mistakes,” he said. “Not at any speed. That comes with being a geek.”
I leaned over his shoulder and watched the computer screen. Seconds later, a number appeared on the computer screen. A very big number.
Abe spun his chair around and faced us.
“Ray,” he said, “that’s over twelve million dollars.”
I wasn’t good at math. But I was good enough to know that all those zeroes meant he was right.
“It’s in a bank in Kuwait,” I said.
“You don’t understand,” Abe said. “We are in this account. Remember earlier when I said ‘funds transfer’?”
“I remember,” I said.
“That means you can send this money anywhere. Right now.”
“Anywhere,” I repeated.
“Sure,” Abe said. He was trying to act casual. But I could see he was scared. “By entering the right user name and password, it’s as if the money is yours. If you’ve got another account somewhere that can take the transfer, all I need to do is give this online account instructions where to send it.”
I closed my eyes and rubbed my face. Twelve million dollars.
“Ray,” Abe said. “People will kill for money like this.”
chapter twenty - four
“Ray,” Abe said. “Ray, what is going on here?”
I was standing at his window, looking through the blinds and down the street at a parked white van.
“Abe,” I said, stepping away from the window. “Give me a second or two. I need to think.”
Abe was right about one thing. People would kill for a twelve-million-dollar bankaccount. In fact, after hearing Vlad’s story earlier in the night, I knew that at least one person had already been killed for it. Vlad’s father. Now it looked like Vlad might be next. Or guys on the hockey team.
Still, it didn’t seem right to let the Russian mafia just take the money.
“Ray,” Abe said.
I put up my hand to keep Abe from talking. An idea was coming to me. Mr. Russian Mafia couldn’t take the money. Not right away. He needed the user name and password. Then he’d have to find a way to get that information to the people back in Russia who had sent him here. If there was some way to delay him, and if the delay was long enough...
“Abe,” I said, “how long would it take for you to set up a new account at another online bank where we could transfer money from this account?”
“Are you thinking of stealing the money?” There was awe in Abe’s voice. I guess twelve million dollars will do that to a person.
“No,” I said. “That would be very, very stupid.”
Not that stupid,” he said. “It’s a lot of money.”
I looked at Vlad. “Can I tell Abe how the money got there?”
Vlad nodded.
Abe frowned. “Vlad understands English?”
“When you find out how that money got into the account, and why Vlad had the user name and password hidden in his teeth, you’ll understand why he keeps everything in his life so secret.”
“Hidden in his teeth!”
“In his teeth,” I said. “Are you going to listen? Or make me keep repeating things?”
“Listen,” Abe said.
So I told Abe everything that I’d learned from Vlad.
He’d grown up in a shipping town called Taganrog, a port on the Black Sea. It had become a hotbed of criminal activity after the collapse of the Soviet Union. His father had been part of the Russian mafia there.
When Vlad was ten, his father had taken him to Moscow to get some dental work done. Shortly after, Vlad’s father had died in a car accident that probably wasn’t a car accident. When some Russian mafia showed up to ask Vlad about missing money and the password and user name for a bank account, Vlad had told the truth. He didn’t know anything about it. It probably helped that he was only ten, and they couldn’t be sure if his father had passed on any secrets. Still, Vlad knew enough about the Russian mafia to know if it involved money stolen from them, they would always be watching him.
When I was finished, Abe’s eyes were wide. “They’ve been waiting six years.”
“Not waiting,” I said. “Watching. Spying. Just on the chance that Vlad had the information a
nd would someday try to draw the money from the account. I’m guessing they paid someone here to keep spying on him, and that someone must have reported back to Russia about strange capsules in the X-rays. Three days later, a guy in a white rental van shows up. Tells Vlad to give up the information or guys on the hockey team start dying. That’s when Vlad realized he had the missing information in his teeth.”
“Not a good idea to steal money from them,” Abe said.
“No. Every day for the rest of your life you would be wondering when they would show up to take it back. And you’d be wondering exactly what they might do to you. Which is why Vlad was so willing to give Big Frank the capsules. Vlad knows he’s got a great shot at pro hockey.”
Abe shivered. “Make your money in pro hockey and you don’t have to worry about Russian mafia taking revenge for stolen money.”
I thought of poor Pookie, hanging from a skate lace in the dressing room. I thought of how the guy in the white van had threatened Vlad that he would do worse to the players on the team.
I smiled at the thought of making this guy pay for it.
“Wouldn’t it be great,” I said, “if it looked like someone else had stolen the money?”
chapter twenty - five
Vlad and I left through the front door of Abe’s house. We were wearing our Medicine Hat Tigers hockey jackets and Medicine Hat Tigers hockey caps again.
I had the car keys in my pocket. We walked directly to the Jeep. We got in and drove past the man in the white van. Seconds later the headlights of the van came on. The van pulled out and followed us.
I drove toward the Trans-Canada Highway. Vlad still wasn’t saying much. Maybe he didn’t like my plan. Maybe his mouth was so frozen from the dentist that he couldn’t talk. Maybe he was afraid. I didn’t ask.
The headlights of the van stayed close behind. The driver obviously didn’t care that we might know we were being followed. And why should he care? He knew that Vlad couldn’t run from him forever.
But for our plan to work, there were a lot of things I hoped the driver didn’t know. Like that we had not been at the party, but at the dentist. And that we had figured out exactly what had been hidden in the crowns of Vlad’s teeth.
I had to keep driving as if I didn’t know about the driver or his intentions. So on the Trans-Canada, I headed south. Our destination was the Saamis Teepee.
This was the world’s largest teepee. It was built of steel and was twenty stories tall. It was named for the Saamis, a Blackfoot Indian word for the headdress of eagle tail feathers worn by a medicine man—the medicine hat. It was painted white for purity, red for the rising and setting sun, and blue for flowing waters. It had been built for the 1988 Olympics in Calgary, Alberta, then moved to the city of Medicine Hat. It could withstand winds of 150 miles per hour.
Vlad didn’t appear interested in those facts as I explained them to him. I realized I was talking for the sake of talking because I was afraid. So I shut my mouth and drove.
Our plan was simple. When we got to the parking lot, Vlad was going to leave the Jeep and walk up toward the teepee. This would force the Russian mafia guy to follow him. That would leave the white rental van empty.
My job was to run to the van and find the rental papers. All we needed was the guy’s name. Then I would call Abe with my cell phone and give him the spelling of the Russian’s name. We were going to open a bank account for him. Maybe we would have been smarter just leaving all of this alone. But there were no guarantees that giving Big Frank the information would end all of
this for Vlad. It would be much better to find a way to give Vlad some insurance. Like moving the money somewhere else.
If Big Frank locked the van before chasing Vlad, I would use a rock to bust the window and break in. Yes, that was wrong. But compared to the threat this guy was to Vlad and our hockey team, it seemed necessary. I wasn’t too worried that he would report the damage to the police.
Vlad had the tough job. He had to let himself get caught and then allow Big Frank to use those pliers to pull his crown out of his mouth. Freezing or not, I didn’t know if I could do that. Just thinking about a guy pinning me to the ground and jamming a pair of pliers into my mouth was giving me the shivers.
It was a pretty good plan, I thought.
Except for one thing.
When we parked and Vlad got out of the Jeep and began running toward the teepee, Big Frank didn’t chase him.
Instead, Big Frank walked up to the Jeep with a tire iron in his hand.
I locked my door. Then leaned over and locked Vlad’s door. I wanted to drive away, but I couldn’t. That would mean leaving Vlad all alone with the monster.
Big Frank tapped on my driver’s side window with the tire iron. It was a gentle tap, but it sounded like thunder.
I shook my head.
He lifted his hand. Swung the tire iron down. I barely managed to shift out of the way as it crashed through the window. Pieces of glass sprayed my leather hockey coat and my head.
He reached in to unlock the door. What made it more frightening was his total silence.
I tried to scramble over the gearshift to the other side of the Jeep, but I still had my seatbelt on.
Big Frank popped open the door.
I felt the breeze of the cool night air. Saw the brightness of the stars over his shoulders. It was so peaceful at the teepee. But not at my Jeep.
I fumbled with my seatbelt. It clicked open. Maybe I should have left it on. He dragged me out of the Jeep. He pushed me up against the side. He yelled something in Russian over my shoulder. Like he was telling Vlad he had me.
I took a swing at him.
That was as dumb as undoing my seatbelt.
He grunted as my fist hit his ear. But that was it. Only grunted. Didn’t fall down. Didn’t let go. He was big.
He lifted the tire iron again. This time it wasn’t to smash my window but my head.
I tried ducking but the tire iron caught me on the side of my face. The pain was beyond description. I couldn’t even scream. I fell to my knees. Then onto my elbows.
Big Frank kicked me in the ribs. Twice. Maybe more. But after two kicks I didn’t feel anything except for blackness closing in on me.
chapter twenty - six
I regained consciousness just before the van started moving. I was in the front seat on the passenger side, slumped against the seatbelt. The Russian must have buckled me in to keep me from falling over.
My jaw was broken on the left side of my head where the Russian mafia guy had hit me. I’d never had a broken jaw before, so I shouldn’t have known that it was broken. Except there was no other explanation for the pain tearing through the side of my head.
My left eye was swollen shut too. To see, I had to turn my head to look out of my right eye. Moving my head made me so dizzy I nearly threw up.
Vlad was behind me. I only knew this because I recognized his shoe, sticking up in the middle of the floor of the backseat.
“Vlad, you okay?” I said. Talking sent spears of pain through my head. My words seemed to come out as a mumble.
“He got my tooth,” he answered. “Otherwise, I am alive.”
Big Frank shouted at me in Russian. Then shouted at Vlad.
“He says if you talk anymore,” Vlad told me, “that he will hit you across the head again. He says if I try anything from back here, he will kill you with the knife in his pocket.”
The van was moving out of the parking lot now. Back toward the highway. I wanted to close my eyes in the darkness. I wanted to be unconscious again, where it didn’t hurt like this.
But I needed to think. Something was wrong about this besides the very, very obvious.
Big Frank had what he needed from Vlad. But he’d gone to the effort of putting Vlad and me in the van. He could have just as easily left us behind at the Saamis Teepee. When I realized that, I realized what it meant. He wasn’t taking us somewhere to give us a reward for being nice boys. He was taking us somewhere to m
ake sure we’d never be able to tell anybody about what had happened. Ever. Probably going to make sure no one would ever find our bodies. I’d been right. Giving Big Frank the information hadn’t been enough to make it safe for Vlad. Or now for me.
I didn’t see a choice. I had to speak to Vlad. I braced myself for the pain of speaking with a broken jaw. And for the pain of getting hit across the head by Big Frank.
I spoke as loudly as I could. “Vlad, move your left foot if you think he’s going to kill us.”
Big Frank backhanded me with as much force as a regular person’s full punch. Itknocked my head against the seat. Then I slumped forward with only the seatbelt holding me in place. Tears ran down my face at the pain. I could hardly breathe.
I turned my head enough to see Vlad’s left foot between the seats. He was moving it back and forth. Big Frank was going to kill us. Once he got the van back on the highway, it would only be minutes until we were away from the lights of the city. There were hundreds of square miles for him to take us and hide our bodies.
Think, I told myself. Think!
But the pain was so bad I couldn’t concentrate.
Dr. Dempster’s words came back to me. When you try to ignore pain and when you want it to go away, the pain just screams at you. The strange thing is that if you focus on it and try to feel it, it stops being pain. It’s just another sensation.
Pain. I was so afraid of it. My head and jaw hurt so badly that I wanted to break down and sob like a baby. And I was afraid of how much it would hurt when the Russian mafia guy stopped the van and forced us to walk somewhere before killing us.
Dr. Dempster’s calm voice seemed to speak to me. In other words, welcome the pain. Make it your friend. Once you do that, something else happens. You stop being afraid of pain. And then you stop being afraid.
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