Psycho Within Us (The Psycho Series Book 2)

by Chad Huskins

  Recently, people the world over had started getting wise to the Nigerians and their scams. It was a widely known fact that if you were sending money to Nigeria to help build an orphanage, your money was going into the pockets of thieves, and nothing else. Therefore, the Nigerians had had to come up with a new approach: Have the packages mailed to some innocuous place, like Moscow or London or Paris, and then use a re-mailing service to turn it around and mail it to Nigeria. That way, the word “Nigeria” never showed up on any mailing slips of the poor schlubs who sold an expensive digital camera to someone on eBay, cameras for which they would never receive payment.

  It could all just be a coincidence. It might not be anything. The Nigerian thing might mean nothing. Every part of his being fought against this. No. I’m not wrong. I’m never wrong about people. It’s no coincidence. It’s a whatchacallit? A convergence.

  It wasn’t that far of a stretch, considering the vory were collaborating with the At-ta Biral. He could see it all as though he were there, present every step of the way, watching the whole operation from start to finish. He knew it the way that Kaley Dupré knew things about people’s hearts and minds. He knew it in his bones, in his marrow.

  The Nigerians set up their vast network of authentic-looking eBay accounts, using techniques that could teach the vory a few tricks in thievery. Each account would be complete with positive reviews from fake customers, making the reputations of those accounts look ironclad. People like this “Felix Azu” would send an email saying, “Hey, I’m going to pay you soon, just go ahead and send the items to my grandson in Chelyabinsk. He’ll love it! It’s almost his birthday!” The duped seller did just that, the package arrived in Chelyabinsk, got rerouted through other re-mailing services, either by sea or by air, eventually wound up in Nigeria, and the Nigerians probably paid the vory back. If not in money, then in favors.

  Thieves helping thieves. Ain’t that just sweet.

  The handful of slips Spencer had found were just printouts of a few transactions. Some office worker being a little too diligent trying to track certain packages by their tracking numbers, and leaving a little too much written down. Even thieves needed order and regulations, sometimes.

  Spencer waited patiently for a response. He’d left the message unsigned, hoping that the recipient believed him to be in too much of a hurry to leave it. If he’d left some kind of signature, and it wasn’t anywhere close to the kind of signature that Zverev or his people typically left, this fella in Nigeria might smell a rat.

  Then again, this might all be one giant long shot. “C’mon, c’mon. Take the bait. Get back with me. C’mon!” he hissed.

  He heard shouting outside of the café. Spencer turned and looked out the door. No one was rushing the Starbucks, but out in the mall’s open lobby he could hear men yelling something about checking the exits. Time to go. He stood up, and looked at Zakhar’s phone. He pulled up the eBay site while slipping out, logged into his new account, and set the phone to buzz whenever he received a new message. He glanced over the railing to the first floor, where two police officers were darting around a running fountain.

  “Takim obrazom! Takim obrazom!” shouted one of the officers: That way! That way!

  Spencer turned and went in the other direction, towards a clothing store called Peplos Clothes Factory, very popular in Russia these days. It was here that he had purchased new clothes just a day ago. On that visit, he’d checked for exits, on both the first floor and second floor. He buzzed through the men’s apparel, bending slightly at his knees to remain behind a few of the racks. There were only a few customers browsing near him, and only one sales clerk putting up shirts on a rack.

  The bathrooms were in a short, narrow corridor at the back of the store, and the stairwell leading down to the first floor was located at the far end of that hallway. The door opened ahead of him. Spencer reached inside to touch his Makarov, but it was only a pair of teenage mall girls, laughing about some secret as they walked past him. He smiled politely and dipped into the stairwell.

  Halfway down, his phone vibrated. Spencer looked at it eagerly. He had a single bar of reception, and a message:You have a message from eBay user Felix Azu. He read it, and smiled:

  I understand. What new arrangement can we set up?

  Hook, line, and sinker. At the foot of the stairs, Spencer paused to crack the door open and look across the first floor of Peplos. Except for a bored-looking clerk putting clothes up on hangers and an elderly lady perusing a rack of items on sale, the floor looked clear. Spencer stepped out and moved quickly behind a row of mannequins, all of them bearing the latest winter fashions, and one of them opting to go nude.

  He sent a message back to Felix Azu. He spoke into the phone, using speech-to-text while on the move. “I need the item mailed back to me ASAP. Period. Sensitive material may have been mistakenly sent with it. Period. Mail back ASAP. Period. Not to the docks, though. Period. The docks are compromised. Period. What’s the last personal address you have for me? Question mark.” He checked to make sure the phone had gotten his words right, then hit SEND.

  Presumably, Zverev and his people had at least a few things a year from Nigeria going directly to their homes or other places of business. Probably the more innocuous of items, but still, there had to be some way for the vory and the Nigerians to interact directly, in case the ports were ever compromised.

  Raised voices. They were coming from the mall’s court. Spencer had already made it to the back of the store, to an emergency exit. There were many doors leading out of this mall, but there would be no going out the front door of Peplos. If cops hadn’t closed in on the front doors already, they soon would.

  The bored sales clerk spotted him moving towards the emergency exit, and hollered at him that he couldn’t go that way. Spencer pushed right out of it without even a glance back, and the alarm went off immediately.

  Out into the blizzard again, into the furious winds. It was as cold as the bed between two angry lovers. Spencer checked his phone for the local weather: -18° Fahrenheit.

  A wolf’s summoning howl on the wind, a single harsh note left bleeding in the air. Spencer picked up his pace.

  The sirens were all around him now. He peeked around the corner of the building and spotted a squad car that came screaming into the parking lot. Spencer turned, trudged a short distance through knee-deep snow and leapt over a rundown chain-link fence, and then darted through a short patch of woods to a gas station. “Petrol,” as Zakhar had said.

  Stepping inside the store, he nodded to the late-night clerk—a young man with pink hair and headphones who was stocking shelves—then stepped out another door near the back. There was a back alley here, one he thought he recognized because…Yep, there it is. The street was long, busy, blanketed in snow, and brilliantly lit by numerous lampposts. There was light to medium traffic, all of it moving very slowly. No squad cars here. Not yet. Everything seemed clear.

  Echoing not far off, though, were plenty of sirens.

  Fast as fast can be, he thought, you’ll never catch me. This was the most exciting time to be alive. Right here, right now, with the whole world against you. Hated by so many, and with so many seeking vengeance. Cops and crooks alike clambering for a piece. Best time to be alive. Right here, right now. No doubt about it.

  Across the street was the Samara hatchback he’d rented, courtesy of Tsulukidze-Cherkasov Car Rentals. Spencer glanced up and down the street. There was a crosswalk with about fifteen huddled strangers waiting to cross. He made his way over to the crowd, waiting for the walk sign to change with his hands in his pockets. The crowd all huddled in, perhaps instinctively, to share heat.

  His phone vibrated. He checked it. Bingo! Thanks, suckers.

  The last address we have for you are the Heights, on Fermilov. But that was 2 years ago.

  The sign changed to walk and the crowd started moving. He spoke into Zakhar’s phone, “That has also been compromised. Period. Await further instructions and a chang
e of address. Period.” The phone converted his speech to text—he had to make one minor correction because it converted “change of address” into “change a dress”—and he hit SEND.

  Spencer grinned. Armed with this new knowledge, he felt invincible.

  He still had a bar on his cell, enough of a signal to consult a couple of online maps. He searched for “Russia,” “the Heights,” “Fermilov,” and “Chelyabinsk.” The circling icon appeared in the top right corner, indicating his phone was thinking about it.

  Meanwhile, Spencer continued following the crowd across the street. He was about to break away from them and head for his hatchback…but something stopped him. He couldn’t say exactly what it was, he only knew that one didn’t need to have the powers of Kaley Dupré in order to read people’s intentions.

  Something his eyes had seen and maybe his ears had heard. There was a man jiggling the newspaper dispenser about ten feet in front of his hatchback. Another man stood facing the darkened bay window of a closed clothing shop. He was just standing there, collecting snow on his shoulders. Awfully cold to stand around out here and window shop.

  Spencer’s eyes raked across the street, over the moving headlights, and at the windshields of all the cars parked parallel to the sidewalks. His eyes landed on a silver Mazda, a four-door sedan, parked across the street from his hatchback. A big fellow sat in the front seat, nibbling on a candy bar or something, talking on a phone and looking across the street.

  In Spencer’s hand, the phone chimed. It had located the Heights, just a few miles from here. He didn’t take his eyes off the street, though. Rather, he bent his knees just slightly so as to stay well below the crowd line, and when they reached the other side of the street he continued straight ahead. Ten of the walkers went to the right, towards his hatchback. Two others just sort of stopped and looked around, getting their bearings. Spencer continued directly ahead, keeping up with two women walking arm-in-arm, and one heavyset fellow looking down at his phone.

  He took one last glance over his shoulder, at the man still jiggling the newspaper dispenser, and the man staring at his own reflection in the window. “Silly rabbits,” he muttered. “Tricks are for kids.”

  Spencer moved up a street suffused by the white-orange light of streetlights. The street went uphill for about a hundred meters. A sign identified it as Bolshaya Ulitsa. He waited until he was out of sight of the men around his Samara before jaywalking over to a line of cars parked in front of a long series of meters.

  Sirens. Having turned up nil at the mall, and having heard the alarm going off, the police knew he’d slipped out the emergency exit of Peplos. They were on the move again.

  Spencer spotted a red PT Cruiser. Nice. Ignition covers are easy to remove on those. Reaching into his pocket, he produced the spare shoelaces he’d taken from Zakhar’s drawers. Approaching the Cruiser without stealth, he very quickly tied a tiny noose, no bigger than his thumb, at roughly the center of one of the laces. Then he pulled each end taut and wrapped the lace around the top right corner of the Cruiser’s driver side door, and performed a sawing motion back and forth until the noose slipped inside. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, the noose getting lower and lower until it was right above the door’s lock. He fished the noose over the lock, then jerked swiftly up. He missed on the first try, then sawed it back down and tried again. Bingo!

  Thanks, Hoyt, he thought. Hoyt Graeber, criminal philosopher and the man that had introduced him to the underworld lifestyle, had armed him with countless bits of knowledge.

  The lock popped up and he slipped inside. The Cruiser’s alarm went off at once, but within five seconds he’d gripped the steering wheel with one hand and ripped the ignition cover off the steering column with the other. Eight seconds later, the alarm was disabled, and he had identified the power and starter wires.

  Another summoning howl, almost merging with the approaching sirens. Spencer looked up, and spied a trio of wolves standing on the sidewalk directly across from him. A car slid by, and they remained still, as if waiting for it to pass, and then started across the street towards him.

  Yuri Shcherbakov was still staring at his reflection in the window, as well as the reflection of everyone else moving around the street behind him, when sirens began blaring all around. Squad cars could be heard screeching their tires all around the block, but none were here on this street. So then, why hasn’t he come?

  The Grey Wolf knew why, he just needed to confirm it. He took out his phone and called Roman, sitting in his car across the street. When the big man answered, Shcherbakov said, “What have you heard?”

  “Nothing much. The police scanner says they believed he dipped into the mall. A couple people they’ve questioned inside said they saw a man matching his description. An alarm has gone off, and they think he’s gone out an emergency exit.”

  “He got clear of the search area.”

  “So why isn’t he here yet? There are no cops this far, he should’ve had a straight shot to his vehicle.”

  “Because,” the Wolf said, turning away from the window and tapping Veniamin on the shoulder—Veniamin, who had been hovering near the newspaper dispenser. “He spotted one of us, or maybe all of us, and he knew something was wrong.”

  “How could he know that?”

  “Because he knows we’re after him,” he said, and hung up. To himself, he muttered, “And because he’s got guile.”

  He’s around here someplace. He must’ve just gone by, kept to the crowds. Shcherbakov had been watching the people moving up and down the streets, as well as those using the crosswalks. But there was no way he could keep tabs on every single person. He slipped through the cracks, but he can’t have gone far. He just left the mall and likely headed this way, so he’s got to be—

  “Stop,” he said to Veniamin, putting a hand to his chest and bringing him up short. “You hear that?” It was difficult to hear amid all the cars swishing by, the harsh wind in their ears, and people chattering on phones as they walked by, but it was there. Somewhere in that sea of noise, it was there, stark and at once recognizable. “Car alarm,” he said, and took off running around the corner. Veniamin tried to follow, but slipped on ice almost immediately and went to his knees, struggling to stand.

  The Grey Wolf had his hand in his jacket but had not yet pulled his weapon free. Up the hill of Bolshaya Ulitsa, he scanned quickly for any sign of…There, lights flashing. Yellow lights and headlights. About sixty meters away from him, a PT Cruiser’s alarm was blaring. Just as he spotted it, though, two things happened in quick succession: the alarm was cut off, and shots were fired. He heard screams, and…dogs yelping?

  His eyes caught the black-and-gray blurs darting across the street, on their way to the Cruiser. Before the driver could close the door, the animals were upon him, and the shots put one down, but the other two kept coming. Pedestrians screamed and ducked behind cars for cover.

  The Cruiser’s driver side door was shut on the head of one of the dogs, which yelped and snarled angrily for a second, then, its head exploded. Then, the Cruiser started moving. Shcherbakov drew his gun at low-ready and bolted for it.

  Speed-dialing up Roman, he shouted into his phone. “He’s here! Just around the corner at Bolshaya! Bring the car around! He’s here! He’s here!”

  Horns blared at him as he darted through traffic.

  Sirens were approaching.

  The dogs moved unnaturally fast, closing the distance to him before he could reach for the door handle. The lead dog leapt at him, and instinctively Spencer knew that if he went for the door handle, he would be just a second too late. He leaned back across the seat and his hand went inside his jacket, barely getting the Uzi out in time. The bullets hit the lead dog in the center of its chest, and lit a trail along its body as it fell to the street, its corpse sliding slowly down the hill. The noise from the gunshots caused the other two to leap to one side, reconsidering for half a second, sliding on the ice, fighting to recover. This gave
Spencer his chance. He reached for the door handle and slammed it, just as the head of one of the dogs came through and snapped at his arm. He aimed the Uzi at it, and fired point-blank, sending up a spray of blood and smoking fur against the windows, and across Spencer’s face. The thunder of the Uzi inside the car was nearly deafening.

  People were screaming, darting for safety.

  Spencer spotted six more dogs moving across the street in front of him, slinking around the cars, using them for cover as they tried to encircle him.

  More sirens. Just around the corner now.

  The alarm switched off, all that was left was to light this firecracker. Touching the wires together, on the engine turned over on his fifth attempt, and then opened the door to let the wolf’s corpse flop out before shutting it. He put on the gas.

  Just in time, because five seconds later a pair of police cars came slashing down the road, throwing up icy slush at his windows. The Cruiser was tightly parallel parked. He threw it in reverse, then moved forward, then reverse again, then forward and out. He clipped a Chrysler Concorde on his way out, and received an ornery honk from a motorist he cut off when hitting the road.

  The two squad cars raced right by him—they had been too late to see him unload an Uzi on two dogs, and too late to see him boost the car. No doubt they were on their way to the mall, to Spencer’s last known whereabouts.

  Watching the police cars squeal away ahead of him, Spencer couldn’t help but smile. “That’s right, folks! He—could—go—all—the—wayyyyyy!” He laughed in supreme triumph.

  And then a gunshot through his windshield cut the celebration short. The bullet tore into his right arm, which caused him to jerk the wheel to one side. He lost control, swiveled, had time to see his shooter just out his left window, just as another shot was fired and smacked against the side of the car, and then he clipped the side of another parked car on his way past.