by Jared Paul
For the first time since the rain began the previous morning he felt a crisis of confidence. He kept checking the side view and rearview mirrors to make sure that they weren’t being followed. He should have gone directly to the airport. How many men had he sent after the Army man Jordan Ross? A dozen? Two dozen? Three? Now they were all gone, thanks to him. The code said that any man who kills Russian brother must die but at a certain point you had to admit defeat and cut your losses.
Luka was squealing like a baby that’s just been tossed from the warm comfort of its mother’s womb into the unforgiving world. It reminded Shirokov of Sherman and Vodka from his dream and it pained him. With each passing minute the howling got louder. Shirokov remembered when the Army man had shot him in the foot. A painful ordeal, and although he had recovered full functionality of the muscles and tendons he still felt phantom pains. All of the nerve endings in Luka’s thigh must have made the pain unthinkable.
There was only one road from the Walsh cabin. It wound through hills bristling with trees. The sun was shining, and Shirokov only saw a few smatterings of clouds here and there. He could be in a plane right now rising above them, but for his pride, and now he had to listen to Luka’s dying throes.
“Anton. Hold him tight. Luka, close your eyes.”
Shirokov commanded from the front seat. He knew without having to look that they obeyed. The driver Josef understood and handed him his Makarov with the suppressor. Shirokov closed his eyes and counted to three. When he opened them he turned and shot Luka through the temple. The splatter of red stained the windows. That was no good. It would draw attention on the road, and there were many miles to go to Bradley International Airport. Shirokov got upset with himself again, but there was nothing to be done. Any decent human being would have done the same for him, he hoped. But now they needed a new vehicle.
“Josef. Next car you see, pull him over. We must switch.”
“Da.”
Josef always did what he was told and hung on to spare syllables like hoarding gold. When they landed in Russia, Shirokov decided to make him his new number two.
Few drivers were out on the quiet country road that morning. They drove for another three miles before Josef spotted a Sedan coming the other way. He flashed his lights to get the driver’s attention, then pulled the vehicle over perpendicular across the oncoming lane. Josef got out the same time as the other driver, an elderly man wearing a red flannel sweatshirt despite the season.
“What seems to be the problem mister?”
“Our friend. He is sick. You must help.”
“Well I gotta first aid kit back of my trunk. Let’s get outta the middle of the road first though what do ya say?”
“Yes. Is good idea.”
The old hunter man started walking back to his car and Josef shot him in the back of the neck. Quick, painless and clean. Shirokov approved. Josef dragged the old man off to the ditch on the side of the road then came to help Anton get Luka’s already stiffening body out of the back seat. They were almost there when Shirokov heard the distant rumble of a V8 engine picking up speed, like a front of thunder sweeping in.
Up the road a rust-red Jeep was approaching fast. Shirokov could not see the driver’s face but his instincts told him just the same. It was the Army man.
...
“What are you going to do?” Agent Clemons asked Jordan but he already knew the answer.
Jordan pointed the nose of the Jeep at the fat Russian, Anton Askokov, who was shirtless for some reason. The one who had killed his wife and daughter the year before. Jordan was going to splatter Askokov like a bug. Along with another Russian, they were carrying a dead man across the road.
At the last second Askokov dropped the carcass’s arms and jumped into the side ditch. Jordan grumbled and adjusted the wheel. He would have to settle for the other Russian. Just before the impact Agent Clemons clamped his eyes shut and gripped the dashboard. The crunch was sickening. When Agent Clemons dared to look, he saw the front end of the Jeep buckled in a V shape. He thought he could see a splatter of blood, but it was the same color as the paint so it was impossible to tell.
The Jeep’s engine made a croaking sound and died as the car came to a stop. Jordan cocked his weapon and left the vehicle. Feeling like he’d been hit by a Giants defensive tackle, Agent Clemons woozily got out.
Fat topless Askokov had fled into the woods and Jordan was already chasing after him with his gun out. Agent Clemons surveyed the damage. There was one dead old man in the ditch, Luka Gusin’s body, and what was left of Josef Dhokorin was pinned under the Jeep. Clemons did not see Shirokov anywhere. He tried calling after Jordan to tell him this, “Corporal! Hey Corporal!” But he knew it was no use. Likely there was no force on earth that could have called Jordan Ross off the hunt.
Agent Clemons drew his weapon and started walking towards the Sedan when a bullet sang past his ear. He hit the dirt and crawled underneath the bloody mess of a Ford Flex. He tried to locate where the shot had come from, but he could not see much under the car. He pointed the .22 here and there, but saw nobody. A minute passed and then Agent Clemons heard the Sedan starting.
“Aw shit.”
He scrambled out from under the Ford Flex just in time to see Shirokov at the wheel of the Sedan. Shirokov executed a U-turn on the narrow road, then pointed the car east and drove off. Agent Clemons felt torn. He did not want to leave Jordan Ross alone in the woods, but he could not let Shirokov escape. He yelled into the trees.
“Jordan! I’m going after Shirokov!”
The quiet pines gave no answer. Agent Clemons climbed into the bloody Ford and was relieved to find the keys still in the ignition. He turned them and headed east in pursuit.
Chapter Thirteen
As a boy years ago, Jordan Ross had made Tenderfoot Scout but he’d forgotten everything that he learned about tracking in the wild. Jordan thought he saw a shoeprint sometimes, but his eyes were not accustomed to it and he could never follow the trail for more than a few paces at a time.
Askokov had a strong head start and he could be practically anywhere in the dense wood. The worst scenario was that Askokov had doubled back to the road already, but Jordan doubted this.
Lacking the knowledge to track Jordan had to make do with what he knew about his prey. Anton Askokov was alone in an unfamiliar terrain, shirtless, covered in his own blood or someone else’s, and running from a man whose family he had slain. Jordan tried to imagine what he’d do in Askokov’s shoes. The answer was not difficult to find. He was a stupid panicked animal, and stupid panicked animals ran in straight lines. Once he had decided this Jordan picked up his pace, confident that he would overrun the burly Russian in half a mile at the most.
It took much longer than that. After two miles Jordan began to fear that Askokov really had doubled back, but then he spotted a pale, tubby band of flesh waddling through a stream about two hundred yards ahead. Jordan could not help but be impressed. Askokov must have known what was coming if he was caught, because he ran much faster and moved quicker than his body had any right too.
For six months Jordan had been running twelve miles a day on the treadmill, half of them on an incline much steeper than any hill in the woods. This was not a challenge. When he’d closed half the distance Jordan began taunting Askokov.
“Anton! I’m catching up.”
“Anton! You’ll have to do better.”
“Not long now, Anton. Not long. Can you feel it?”
To that last jibe the Russian shouted back.
“Leave me alone crazy man!”
Jordan giggled as he leapt over a thick log that Askokov had left in his wake, a clumsy attempt to trip him up. A minute later he was only a couple of yards behind. He easily could have shot him then, but Jordan was determined to drag it out, to torture Askokov as long as possible. He was close enough that he didn’t even have to yell his trash talk.
“Anton. You don’t look so good, maybe you should sit down and rest.”
> “Crazy man! Go away!”
Askokov was wheezing so hard that Jordan wondered if he might expire from an asthma attack turned into cardiac arrest, but he kept plodding on. Even when Jordan was right on his heels he kept going. So much sweat had drained from the fat Russian’s pores that all of the blood had been cleaned off.
Jordan pulled even right alongside and ran for a while like they were jogging partners, out for a harmless exercise in the great outdoors. Askokov was so spent that it never occurred to him to fight back.
He started crying as he ran. Finally after a couple of minutes of running this way with Jordan he stopped and fell to his knees.
“Please you let me go.”
The earnest desperation on Askokov’s face only made Jordan angrier. He slid a fresh clip into the glock and thumbed the safety.
“Why would I do that?”
“Because. I can pay you. Why destroy me? You can be rich man.”
Jordan allowed the farce to go just a little further.
“How much do you have?”
Panting, Askokov shook his head as if he could not remember.
“I am not sure. There is big checking account though. Account with millions. Millions!”
“How many millions? Is it enough to buy me a new family?”
His prey knew then if he did not already that nothing he said or did was going to dissuade Jordan Ross from murdering him right there, under the shade of a sycamore in the lonely Connecticut woods, in the middle of nowhere. Weeks might go by before anybody stumbled across his body. Askokov soiled his pants as he made his one last request.
“I am sorry for your family. Please. Will you not make it fast?”
Jordan was almost touched. It was a reasonable request, and if it had been an enemy soldier or a terrorist or anyone else in the wide world he would have granted it.
He put the first bullet of many into Askokov’s left kneecap.
…
Agent Clemons chased the Sedan on the highways for two hours. Shirokov kept looping around in circles, and at first he thought it must be that Shirokov was trying to throw him off his tail. Then when Agent Clemons saw a map splayed out on the steering wheel he realized that the Russian had no idea where he was going. Outside of New York, Shirokov had no comprehension of the local geography.
If only Agent Clemons had a radio or a phone the chase would have been over very quickly. However, in the mad dash from the cabin he had forgotten everything, including his wallet. He kept hoping to pass a state police cruiser or anyone to flag down but none came. The highways were crowded with weekend traffic and he did not trust his aim in a moving vehicle, so all he could do was follow dutifully.
Near the end of the second hour Agent Clemons realized that Shirokov’s destination had to be the airport. It was crazy. After escaping from Sing Sing, every cop on the East Coast had to be looking for him and he was going to walk right into an airport. At one point he could have sworn that he saw Shirokov shaving with an electric razor as he drove and read the state map. He was undeniably out of his cotton picking mind. Agent Clemons marveled that such a deranged individual had eluded prison for so long. He did not wish to dwell on what that said about the FBI and the NYPD.
As they got closer to Bradley the traffic grew thick. Shirokov’s stolen Sedan was only a few car lengths ahead of him, yet somehow Agent Clemons lost sight of it in the scrum. He cursed and punched the steering wheel. He honked and yelled at the other drivers that he was a federal agent and they had to get out of the way but they just regarded him like he was as batty as the mad Russian.
Agent Clemons circled the drop off area three times, desperately searching through the crowd for Shirokov. When he spotted him darting into the number four terminal Agent Clemons slammed on the brakes and ran out of the Ford Flex to go after him. The line of cars behind him was backed up. He sprinted for the terminal doors. He was almost there when he was tackled by a TSA security officer, who forced his face into the pavement and handcuffed him.
“What are you doing?”
“Stop resisting sir! Hold still or I will use brutality.”
The airport cop told him he was under arrest for parking in a restricted zone. They also had some questions about the condition of his vehicle, which was sporting several bullet holes in addition to some heavy blood stains.
Agent Clemons kept insisting that he was a federal agent but as he had no wallet there was no immediate proof. By the time the airport officials were able to confirm that Clemons was indeed an FBI Agent, Vladimir Shirokov was gone.
…
Finding the electric razor in the old man’s car had been a stroke of luck. In the glove compartment Shirokov also discovered sunglasses and a baseball cap with a wide mouth bass on the peak. He put these on and then hustled into the airport. The FBI man had also lost his trail. With the aid of an obscenely expensive phony passport, he went undetected through the screening process even as he saw his prison file photo on a television screen nearby. Clearly, God intended for Shirokov to return to his homeland.
The airport bookstore was like all the others. They only seemed to carry mindless pornography, self-help books and spy thrillers. Shirokov disdained this kind of reading and was almost resigned to flying without anything to read at all when he came upon an anniversary edition of In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.
Ordinarily Shirokov only read fictional books on special occasions. He considered himself a serious reader and he preferred something real. So, when he read the back blurb that described the book as a non-fiction novel he was delighted; it did not count as cheating.
He could not fly commercially and risk being discovered. For a small fortune Shirokov had arranged for the pilot of a private single engine Cessna to wait on standby for him. Shirokov made a call from a payphone outside the bookstore to the pilot and inside of ten minutes they were in the air.
As the plane zoomed out over the great blue expanse of the Atlantic Ocean Shirokov felt a great tension ease from his shoulders. At long last, he was free.
...
Chapter Fourteen
Detective Bollier missed the funeral. She had never gotten on with Shannon’s family, who disapproved of their shared lifestyle. Facing them would have meant making a wretched scene at the grave. There was nothing Bollier despised more than people who thought their morals superior to her own. For that reason and because she could not bear to see Shannon still and pale she did not attend.
Instead Bollier drank herself into an oblivion for eight consecutive days. At the end of the bender, when she could no longer pull herself together for another run to the liquor store, Bollier waved the white flag.
She checked herself into a rehab clinic on Long Island. One of the best in the state, according to the police union rep she’d asked.
Agent Clemons and Jordan Ross came to visit a month after she was admitted. They found Bollier alone in her room, wearing a white gown as she stared out at the clinic’s grounds. Yellows and browns and reds were beginning to make their way into the leaves. A few at a time they fell from the branches.
The window was open and a brisk wind was billowing in. Bollier did not say a word to them except when Jordan made a move to close it.
“No.”
Jordan nodded and backed away from the window. Agent Clemons was on his knees, holding onto her hand. He begged her to say something. She refused. After trying for the better part of an hour Agent Clemons finally gave up. Bollier had shut herself away, closed off from the pain. Their time was almost up when Clemons told her what had transpired.
Anton Askokov was dead. Luka Gusin was dead. Josef Dhokorin was dead. Shirokov, through some miracle had escaped at the airport and could be anywhere. The bureau was working on tracking him but they were not confident, if he had any brains at all Shiorkov would never surface again.
None of this news brought any change in Bollier’s expression. She just stared at the changing of the leaves. Like this was the only phenomenon left in the world th
at she cared to observe.
“Alright. Well I’ll be checking in again. I’m off suspension. I finally bit the bullet and went to work in counter terrorism. But once you’re back on your feet look me up. If you ever need intel or someone to talk too.”
Agent Clemons waited, hoping Bollier would say something. When she did not he finished up.
“For now Jordan will be unavailable. He’s going underground. Until we can say for sure where the leaks were coming from it’s safer if we don’t have any contact with him. If something comes up he’ll get in touch with me, or, if you’re feeling up for it, when you get back to work I mean, he’ll reach out to you. Okay?”
A nurse working at the clinic came by to tell them the hour was over. She stayed in the doorway, waiting for them to leave.
