by Allen Eskens
“This is Detective Max Rupert.”
“Hi, Max, it's Everett. What can I do for you?”
“Listen, Everett, I got a favor to ask you. I'm trying to track my brother down, and I think his cell phone is dead. Could you run his squad GPS and let me know his location?”
He paused. “Excuse me?”
Max sensed the man's nervousness coming through the receiver. Max's request ran afoul of policy, so he parried with an explanation half born of truth. “Everett, you know all about that man we're hunting, Drago Basta.”
“Sure, I've been moving squads around all morning like dogs chasing their tails.”
“Alexander is with a witness involved with that case, and we're keeping her hidden. I haven't been able to reach Alexander to check in. I just need to make sure he's at a safe location.”
“Um…sure,” Everett said. “Just give me a second.”
Max glanced sideways and saw Niki eyeing him with a mixture of confusion and concern. Max shook his head to wave her off, but she held her glare. Everett came back on the line and gave Max the coordinates for Alexander's squad car. Max wrote down the address, hung up the phone, and typed the location into his computer.
“Max, what's going on?” Niki whispered.
The address put Alexander's car outside of Jericho Pope's apartment. Max pulled up a subpoena form on his computer and started filling in the information.
Niki asked again, “Max, what are you up to?”
He stopped typing and turned to Niki. He lowered his voice so that no one else could hear what he said. “I'm doing an administrative subpoena for Alexander's phone. I need to get a ping location.”
“Alexander's phone? Why?”
“He's AWOL.”
Niki looked at him as if searching for some sign that he was joking.
“I need to find him. I don't know what's going on, but something's not right. His car's at Markova's apartment, but they left there together last night. Maybe they took her car or walked, I don't know. He's not answering his phone, so I'm going to track him down and find out what the hell's going on.”
He hit enter on his computer, sending his ping request to the county attorney's office for a signature. “When the subpoena comes back, get it out to the carrier as soon as you can.”
“Sure, Max.”
“I'm not going to answer my radio or phone for anyone but you. Call me if you hear anything.”
“I'll keep you updated,” Niki said. “In the meantime, where will you be?”
“I'll be at Markova's apartment, hopefully kicking my brother's ass.”
Drago watched as Alexander Rupert and Ianna Markova entered the apartment and began digging through the piles of debris on the floor. He strained to hear and understand the conversation being fed to him by his surveillance transmitters planted in the condo. At first he heard something about a Bible and then a fountain. Then he watched as Rupert pried a stone plate from the wall and produced a box, and he heard Markova exclaim that they found the flash drive.
Drago held his breath as he listened to them plan their next move—their disappearance. They would be taking Ianna's Cadillac, and they would be running north.
Drago Basta sat on the edge of the bed and laughed quietly at his good fortune. Rupert and Markova were running away together. How perfect, he thought. His biggest fear—that the evidence of Richard Ashton's death would pollinate the world—now fell to the ground, and with it, any doubt that he would complete his mission.
Drago lay back on the bed and began to plan the deaths of those who had to die. He would begin with the two lovebirds. They would drive north, probably heading for Canada. Without the remote-tracking equipment, Drago would have to stop periodically to link up with the tracking system at Patrio. If Garland hadn't scheduled that trip to DC, Garland could have followed the tracking device from his office in New York. Once again, Drago had to deal with the burden of Garland's poor planning.
In the end, Drago decided that it didn't matter. He would let Rupert and Markova run for a couple hours, getting a head start while he followed their progress on his computer. He would mark their farthest point, shut down the computer, and drive to a town near that point where he could once again access the tracker. This would keep him within a few hours of the fugitives. Eventually, they would have to sleep. He would not. They had no idea that he would be hunting them. He would know where they would stop for the night, and while they ate their dinner and had sex in their hotel room and slept in the peaceful belief that they were safe, he would be driving to them. He would find them and kill them in their sleep. Then he would take back the property stolen from him.
Drago watched as Ianna's Cadillac—or at least the blip on his computer screen that signified her car—made its way north on Highway 169. They had already gone past Lake Mille Lacs, which gave them a two-hour lead, and Drago had determined that he would wait to start his journey until he confirmed that they had driven as far as Grand Rapids. He would link back up to the tracking device from Grand Rapids and plot his next course from there. As he waited, he fixed himself a sandwich and ate it, washing it down with orange juice from Alexander's fridge. When he looked at the dot again, it had crept up close enough to Grand Rapids that Drago knew that they would go at least that far.
He cleaned up what he touched in the kitchen, then turned off the computer and slid it into its case. As he looked around the bedroom one last time, he heard a clicking sound coming from the front door. He dropped his computer bag, drew his gun out of the shoulder holster, and ran to a hall closet, where he would have a view of the intruder. He pulled the closet door shut until a crack of less than an inch remained.
A woman with long, dark hair and expensive clothes walked through the front door, pulling a small suitcase on wheels. He recognized her face from the many pictures hanging on the walls of the house and cluttering up the bedside tables. The gears in Drago's head turned as the chess pieces on the board rearranged themselves once again. This could be helpful. He pulled himself up tightly against the closet wall and waited.
The woman went to the kitchen, poured a glass of water, and called out for her husband, “Alexander, you home?” She showed no surprise at the lack of response, as though she expected him to not be there but wanted to make sure. She kicked off her shoes and then took the jacket off, slipping it over the back of a chair. She perused some mail on the kitchen island while she unbuttoned the front of the blouse with one hand and sipped the water from the glass in her other hand.
Drago thought about revealing himself, because to watch her undress would demean his professionalism, but he waited for tactical reasons. She was still near enough to the garage door to run outside for help. He needed her alive, so he would have to catch her before she could alert the neighbors.
The woman pulled the blouse out of the waist of her skirt and let it fall open, exposing a black, lace brassiere far more provocative than one would expect to find hiding under business attire. She finished her water and her review of the mail, and then started down the hall toward the bedroom. As she passed by Drago's hiding spot, she reached behind her and unzipped her skirt, letting it fall to her ankles. Then she gave the skirt a kick, sending it flying onto the bed. That's where she stopped—her attention captured by the mess in the bedroom.
Drago eased his door open, his gun trained on the back of the woman's head. She didn't notice him. Her attention was consumed by the sight of the covers wadded up on the floor, the strange computer and rucksack, and the unfamiliar pink negligee lying sprawled in the middle of the confusion.
Drago put his gun to her head and clapped a hand over her mouth in a single motion. “Don't scream,” he said. She screamed anyway, which he had expected. He turned her around so that she could see the gun, and she screamed again. This time he hit her with the barrel of the gun, sending her tumbling to the floor.
“I am not here to hurt you. Not if you do what you are told.”
“No! Please! Take anything y
ou want. Just don't…please…don't.”
Drago picked up a bed sheet from the floor and tossed it at her. “Wrap yourself,” he said. By her reaction he couldn't tell if she was relieved or insulted. She lay at his feet half naked, her long, athletic legs freshly shaved, her perfumed body at his mercy, and he tells her to cover herself, as though the sight of her disgusted him. Drago smiled at her bewilderment.
“What do you want?” she whimpered.
“I want you to be silent. No words unless you are answering my questions. No screams. No sounds. If you try to run, I will shoot you dead. But if you follow my instructions, I will not kill you. If you do not scream, I will not gag you.” Drago walked to the bedroom closet, keeping his eyes and his gun trained on the woman. Just inside the closet, he saw a woman's terry-cloth robe hanging from a hook. He retrieved it and threw it to the woman. “Put this on,” he said.
The woman obeyed, standing up and turning her back to Drago in some futile show of modesty. Drago grabbed some ties from a rack, also just inside the closet door. He walked up behind her and shoved her onto the bed. She squeaked out a small scream as she landed. He bound her wrists with the tie.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Desiree,” she said in a voice that shook with fear. “What are you going to do to me?”
Drago yanked hard on the tie that cinched her wrists. Desiree squeaked again as the tightness of the knot registered against her skin. He turned her over, gripped the lapel of her robe, and lowered her to the floor at the foot of the bed. She didn't struggle as he secured her to the bed using the second tie.
Satisfied that she couldn't move, he went to his rucksack and picked up another of the prepaid cell phones. He sat on the floor beside Desiree and calmly asked for Alexander's cell-phone number. Desiree had tears streaking down her cheeks. Her chest heaved as the fear squeezed her breathless. She managed to say the number between spurts of panic, and then watched as Drago typed it into his phone.
“I'm going to hold this phone to your lips in a second. You say hello to your husband. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
Drago punched the send button and waited. The call went immediately to voice mail.
“You've reached the phone of Detective Alexander Rupert. Leave a message.”
“Detective, this is the man whose property you have. I want to propose a trade.” He held the phone up to Desiree's face and nodded to her. She let loose her words in a voice that made even Drago feel sorry for her. “Alexander, please…please help me.”
Drago pulled the phone back and stood up to move away from Desiree. “I will kill your wife if you do not return my property. If you call anyone to tell them about our business, I will kill her. This is a very simple transaction, my property for her life. Don't try to be a hero and don't be stupid. You will call me at this number. If I do not hear from you within one hour, she will die a very painful death.” He hung up the phone.
When Desiree heard those last words, she went berserk, screaming and flailing her head, tugging at the restraints around her wrists. Drago picked up the pink, silk negligee lying on the floor and shoved it violently into Desiree's mouth, using the ribbon to lash it in place. He raised the back of his hand to slap her, and she winced and fell silent, her entire body trembling. Because she stopped screaming, he didn't hit her.
If Alexander Rupert agreed to an exchange, Drago would have to come up with a plan to get the flash drive back and kill Rupert in the process. If Rupert didn't go along with the trade, Drago would expect him to call his friends at the police department. He would be on the road by then. He also took the battery out of the phone so that he couldn't be tracked. He would check his phone in an hour to see if Rupert decided to play ball.
He untied Desiree from the bedpost, rolled her over, and trussed her up—her arms, hands, feet, and legs bound together in a tight package. “It is all up to your husband now,” he said. “If he gives me what I want, you will live. If he does not, you will die. I am sorry, but that is business.”
Drago then located a set of keys to a Ford Explorer parked in the garage and loaded his rucksack and computer. He opened the tailgate, walked back into the house, and came back with Desiree, carrying her over his shoulder like a bag of feed. He laid her in the back of the Explorer and covered her with a blanket. Then he drove out of the garage and headed north.
An hour into their drive north, Ianna Markova let her mind wander back to the scene at the bank, to that moment when Mr. Johnson told them that her name was on the contract for the safe-deposit box. She hadn't signed that contract, and James did a reasonably good job of forging her signature. But why? Why did he put her down as an owner of the box, and why did he never tell her about it?
As the miles slipped away, as she thought things through from every angle, she came to a single conclusion: James wanted her to have the flash drive that made money fall from the sky. He knew that if he ever died, the bank would eventually track her down to either pay the renewal for the box or claim its contents.
Then she wondered: if she'd known about the safe-deposit box all along, would she have tried so hard to get Alexander to help her? Would she have worked her talents to turn Alexander? Then again, calling it work really overstated things. He showed up ripe for her to pick. A cheating wife. A career in the toilet. If she hadn't been there to steer him, wouldn't he have taken this road anyway? If he had the flash drive in his hands and she was nowhere around, wouldn't he have chosen this new life over what he was leaving behind? Of course he would.
But still, if she had known about the safe-deposit box and all it held, would she have brought him along? That question tumbled in her head for much of the drive.
On one side of the ledger was the fact that she'd have to share the money with Alexander. Maybe they could increase the amount from half a million to a full million each year. After all, one has to account for inflation. Alexander would want to have a say in where they go, but she was pretty sure she could talk him into anything she wanted. She had a talent for getting what she wanted. She could certainly make Alexander bend to her will.
On the other side of the ledger, Alexander was handsome and incredible in bed. But Ianna had a habit of losing interest in those attributes of a man. He had a dark side that she hadn't expected when they first met, and she liked that. They would need new names to hide behind. Surely he'd come across a fugitive trick or two that they might use. He was strong and smart and putty in her hands. But most of all, he could protect her.
The cops would stop looking for them someday. And they might be able to convince Alexander's brother, Max, to leave them in peace. But that madman, Drago Basta, he'd never stop hunting them. For the rest of their lives, they would fear what moved in the shadows around them—something she could learn to live with, considering the amount of money they would be extorting.
Alexander pulled the Cadillac into the parking lot of the Roadside Market in a little town called Hill City, Minnesota. “We'll need a few supplies for the trip. Want to come in with me?”
“Would it be okay if I stayed in the car? I trust you. Get whatever you think we'll need.”
Alexander leaned across the console and kissed her. She grabbed his face and held him in that kiss until she was satisfied that she had power over him. Then she let him leave her and go into the store.
After he'd gone, she found his cell phone inside the console, popped the back panel off, and reinstalled the battery. She'd been paying attention to Alexander's fingers whenever he used his phone. She knew that the phone unlock was a Z pattern brushed across the nine-dot grid, and his voicemail PIN was 7295—the four numbers that made the shape of a capital A, for Alexander. She accessed his voicemail and punched in the PIN. As she suspected, the first voicemail was a message from Max.
“Alexander, where the hell are you? Call me. They're talking arrest warrants. This is no joke. Call me!”
Ianna scanned the numbers and saw that Max had called eight times
in the span of a few hours. She could not let Alexander hear those messages. Ianna knew that the biggest flaw in her plan wasn't Drago Basta. James had been living under a false name for years. Basta never found him. No, the flaw in the plan would be Max. Especially in the first few weeks, until she and Alexander established themselves in their new lives, Alexander would be susceptible to the influence of a big brother. She suspected that if Max ever reached him, it would be only a matter of time before he convinced Alexander to turn himself in. She couldn't allow that.
She began erasing voicemails but stopped when she saw a message from a different number. She hoped that the message might be from Alexander's wife. A smile creased her lips as she thought about Desiree coming home and finding the pink, silk negligee lying on the floor beside the bed—exactly where Ianna had laid it. She became almost giddy as she imagined Desiree opening the pink phone and finding the picture of Ianna in bed with Alexander.
Ianna peeked at the door of the market to make sure that Alexander was nowhere around. She tapped the screen and listened.
“Detective, this is the man whose property you have,” a deep, throaty voice hissed into the phone. “I want to propose a trade.”
Ianna held the phone tight against her ear and listened to Desiree Rupert beg for her life. The man's anger surged through the phone as he spoke. The man ended the call with a demand “You will call me on this number. If I do not hear from you within one hour, she will die a very painful death.” Ianna looked at the time of the message. It had come in half an hour earlier, so the hour hadn't yet run. Again she looked toward the market to see that Alexander was still inside, paying for his groceries.
