Fury (The Butch Karp and Marlene Ciampi Series Book 17)

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  Once again the alcohol flowed like the Volga River. The bodyguards, who’d been treated to dinner, drinks, and half-naked women in the same room their counterparts of another generation had, suddenly found themselves staring down the barrels of 9-millimeter handguns outfitted with silencers. Their captors put fingers to their lips to indicate that the men should be silent if they wanted to live. Not one tried to be a hero and warn his employer.

  Meanwhile, in the main dining area the young Turks were enjoying cigars and cognac when Yvgeny nodded his head to the immense waiter who stood behind the most violent and aggressive of them. Sergei Svetlov stepped forward and dropped a loop of piano wire around the man’s neck, then placed a foot against the back of the chair and pulled with all his might. The gangster had grabbed at the wire but too late; it sliced deep into his neck, severing his windpipe as well as his carotid artery and jugular vein. Blood sprayed over the men on either side of the dying man. Then with a final yank, Svetlov took his head entirely off. It struck the table with a dull thud and lay there, the sightless eyes gazing down past trays of the finest Russian caviar, smoked herring, and loaves of black Russian rye.

  The killing took all of twenty seconds, but those who witnessed it would remember it as seeming much longer for the rest of their lives. They were used to violence, but usually from guns or even a quick knife in the kidneys. None had ever seen a man have his head cut off with a piece of wire. Several vomited and one crapped in his pants.

  Meanwhile, Yvgeny had used the distraction to pull a gun from his coat. “So, who would like to steal the house my father built? You, Boris?” he said, whirling to point his gun at a fat young man seated next to the headless body.

  Svetlov stepped toward the indicated man, who screamed and dived beneath the table, where he could be heard gibbering as though insane. A tougher member of the crowd stood, drawing his own gun. “You will never get away with this…” His threat died with him as the waiter behind him thrust an ice pick through his skull and into his brain. He fell forward onto the table, where his body continued to twitch as Yvgeny offered the survivors a choice.

  “You can die now, or in the days ahead,” he said. “Or we can all be smart businessmen. There is plenty for everyone. As you know, my family has no interest in drugs or prostitution or gun smuggling or extortion. We want only to be left alone to pursue our own small enterprise.”

  Yvgeny paused and looked at the faces around the table. Some were white with shock and fear, but a few were hard and angry. “I know that some of you are thinking, ‘When this is over, I will kill this man, and take what is his family’s,’” he said. “And it’s true. You could kill me, and my father. But let me assure you that my men in this room, and those holding your men in the next room, are sworn to kill you if any member of this family or the people under our protection is harmed.

  “From this moment, there is a one-million-dollar bounty on each and every one of your heads, as well as one hundred thousand dollars for each member of your family they kill. An attack on one of us will be their signal to begin collecting. It will not matter which of you commits this offense; all of you will be hunted. As you have seen, these men know how to kill—most were with me in Afghanistan and have certainly known tougher men to kill than you. I would suggest that it is vital to your interests that no member of my family or friends suffers an ‘accident’ as you will all pay the price.”

  Yvgeny paused to let his threat sink in. “Now, you are all free to leave in peace,” he said.

  When they were gone, Yvgeny slumped down onto the couch while his father, who’d watched the affair with admiration, sat behind the desk.

  “You did not enjoy that,” Vladimir said.

  Yvgeny shook his head. “I hated it,” he replied. “I’ve never enjoyed killing, despite my former occupation. But I learned the hard lesson that sometimes the death of one or two at the critical moment can save the lives of many later. In Afghanistan, I learned that the only way to combat terrorists was with terror. But I did not enjoy it then, and did not enjoy it tonight.”

  Vladimir pursed his lips and nodded. “Good,” he said. “It is good that such a thing troubles you. It shows that you still have a conscience. This is a hard business that sometimes requires hard decisions, but we should never make them lightly. Americans like to argue that violence never solves anything, but the history of the world demonstrates that sometimes violence is the only way to stop the violent.”

  Vladimir rose from his seat behind the desk. “Come here,” he said.

  Yvgeny got up from the couch and walked over to the old man, wondering what he was up to.

  “Sit,” Vladimir said, indicating his chair behind the desk.

  Yvgeny shrugged and sat down. He watched, puzzled, as his father walked around the desk to the couch where he sat as well and then grinned at his son.

  “What?” Yvgeny said, smiling in his confusion.

  “It’s your house now,” Vladimir said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “As I said before, I’m tired and this is a business for a younger man.”

  “But I don’t want to be the boss.”

  “Perhaps not. But you need to accept the responsibility anyway. There are a lot of people who depend on the house of Karchovski remaining strong, lest the wolves of the world, those young men you dealt with so decisively out there, devour them. When we bring people to this country, we charge them, yes, and they give us a percentage of their paychecks until they have redeemed what they owe us. But they are paying for a service for which they receive good value. These other men, they would not care—they’d enslave them, threaten them all the days of their lives with exposure to the authorities. And there are the people who work for us. All of these depend on the leader of the Karchovskis to be strong for them. I’m no longer strong enough. I’m asking you to take my place as you have now behind the desk.”

  Yvgeny had looked at his father and saw that this was more than an old man turning over his business to his son. It was a plea to continue his life’s work.

  In the short time he’d been in America, one thing had perplexed Yvgeny about his father’s attitude. He was a criminal, had even committed murder—whatever the provocation. Yet, he professed to believe in the American justice system, as well as the U.S. Constitution, which he called “the single greatest document in the world.”

  When he’d finally asked the old man about the apparent contradiction, Vladimir shrugged. “I’ve done what I had to do to survive, though I would have preferred to be the simple owner of a teahouse. I’ve been lucky and smart and avoided the authorities. However, if I’d been caught and convicted, I would have accepted my punishment. I am like the sinner who nevertheless loves God; I am a criminal, but I am also a patriot.”

  More than ten years later, Yvgeny thought about that conversation as he sat in the chair behind the desk and looked at his father on the couch. The Kaminsky twins had been a constant headache almost since their arrival in the United States. They weren’t bad as in evil, but they were lazy, and rather than pursue any legal means of making a living, they’d constantly pressured him to let them join the family business.

  When he refused, Igor had decided to strike out on his own, robbing stores. But he’d proved extraordinarily inept and got sent to prison. Yvgeny had called in a lot of favors and paid a lot of money to keep him alive.

  It was fortunate that Sergei Svetlov was in the same prison. The former wrestling champion had made a mistake transporting the body of a man who’d raped a woman in the Brighton Beach Russian enclave and paid the price when Svetlov tracked him down. Such things were not to be tolerated.

  Unfortunately, Svetlov had had the bad luck of getting pulled over for a missing taillight as he drove toward a pig farm in New Jersey where the tenants would have made quick work of the body. As he talked to the officer who’d pulled him over, a rookie cop on his first patrol and trying to look as if he knew what he was doing, the cop tapped his flashlight absentl
y on the lid of the trunk. Apparently, the locking mechanism was faulty, the lid sprang open, and the rookie found himself looking into the dead eyes of the pigs’ dinner.

  Yvgeny’s team of lawyers managed to get the charges reduced from murder to manslaughter. (There was some evidence that the rapist was still alive—barely—when placed in the trunk, which, the defense attorney contended, meant that Svetlov had not necessarily intended to kill the deceased despite breaking nearly every bone in his body.) They’d also introduced at his sentencing that the man he killed was a serial rapist. However, the big man was going to spend the next seven to ten in prison, which had been fortunate for Igor.

  Svetlov was nearly beside himself for having failed to protect the young man from Lynd when Yvgeny visited him in prison. “Such things happen in a place like this,” he consoled Sergei. “You are not to blame yourself, my old friend.”

  The attack was going to require retribution—otherwise, the black hoodlums would take liberties—but he’d let it wait until he’d arranged for Igor to be freed, which had taken large payments to the INS and Department of Corrections officials but had not been difficult to arrange.

  Yvgeny had wondered why the Bloods were so eager to kill Igor that they’d risk a war with the Russian mob, knowing he was under their protection. But this story about the confession by the piece of garbage Villalobos explained it. He kicked himself for not sending a car to pick Igor up outside the prison, but he’d thought that once the young man was outside the prison he’d be safe.

  Now, Ivan was dead. Obviously a case of mistaken identity, which meant that Igor was still in danger. Which means that what he was told by Villalobos must be the truth, Yvgeny thought, and they’re worried.

  He remembered the trials of the so-called Coney Island Four. A woman raped beneath the pier on Coney Island. A horrible thing, Yvgeny thought, and if it had happened to one of my own, then perhaps I would take care of the animals myself…but this is not my business. The family didn’t need to draw attention to itself by having an associate, Igor, going to the authorities, who might or might not believe him, but they would certainly deport him. And who knew what he might say when questioned. Igor wasn’t the bravest or toughest soul on the planet.

  Unlike his father, Yvgeny was no fan of justice systems whether they were Russian or American, and not just because he was a gangster. He believed they were all just as corrupt—from the cops to the judges—as any crime family. And in the case of the Americans, what wasn’t corrupt had been so bastardized in a ridiculous effort to protect criminals that victims had fewer rights.

  The woman raped beneath the pier wasn’t his concern, but protecting Igor was. Once again, he’d failed to live up to his oath to Vasily. Now two of the old sergeant’s children were gone and there was only one left.

  Igor had finished his story by demanding that his brother be avenged. But Yvgeny had waved him to silence before pressing the buzzer on the intercom and asking one of the men outside the door to enter. He turned to Igor and told him that he was sending him to a safe house. “You’re not to leave until I give you permission,” he said. “If you do, I cannot protect you anymore.”

  Igor started to protest that he needed to seek out the killers of his brother, and if he had to, he’d go by himself. But again, Yvgeny interrupted. “All in time, nephew,” he said. “In the meantime, you’ll do nothing that might make the authorities look into our activities here, do I make myself clear?”

  The young man had stopped complaining and nodded his head. He wiped at his eyes and nose with his hand.

  “Leave us,” Yvgeny said, his voice softening. He pointed to the bodyguard. “Stefan will take you somewhere for a nice dinner. Then to your new apartment, where you should mourn your brother and get some rest if you can. We’ll talk later of these other things.”

  When Igor and the bodyguard had left, Yvgeny had settled back in his chair when his father cleared his throat and brought him out of his contemplation. “So what do you think?” Yvgeny asked.

  “I think he should go to the authorities and tell them what he knows about these men who did that terrible thing to that woman,” Vladimir said.

  Yvgeny frowned. “We don’t need the attention if they ask him questions and he makes a mistake,” he replied. “Besides, you heard what happened after he wrote to the authorities. They betrayed him and it nearly got him killed…as it did his brother.”

  Vladimir sighed and looked up at the ceiling as if seeking inspiration. “We have family who might help…,” he started to say but was interrupted by a snort from his son.

  “And why should he?” Yvgeny asked. “He is family in blood only. You haven’t seen him in years, and he and I have never met. Not to mention our ‘occupations’ are not exactly compatible.”

  Yvgeny shook his head. “I cannot allow it. I am sorry for what happened to this woman, but it was a long time ago and I have responsibilities to our people that I cannot jeopardize. You taught me that.”

  The old man held up his hand. “It is your decision,” he said. “I asked you to sit in that chair, and these decisions are yours to make. But you asked me my opinion, and I gave it to you.”

  Yvgeny smiled. “Actually, I was asking you what should be done with these blacks who killed Ivan.”

  Using a cane, Vladimir stood up with a grunt. He fixed his son with the family look and said, “You know what needs to be done. You don’t need the advice of an old man anymore.” He shouted for his bodyguard, who appeared in an instant, and then left without another word.

  Yvgeny sat back in his chair and picked up a remote control and pointed it at the video player for the security camera that monitored the restaurant. He backed the video up to the point before Igor had rushed into the restaurant until he could see the two women who’d been sitting at the table near the door. He’d been surprised that he knew both of them but more surprised that they’d shown up together and wondered what that might mean.

  7

  Sunday, December 12

  L UCY KNEW SHE WAS DREAMING BY THE WAY SHE SEEMED TO be floating above the cave floor, following along behind like a tethered helium balloon as four men and a young boy ran for their lives below. Yet, she could smell the dank rot of the air in the narrow space and felt its cloying chill in her bones. She heard the crunching of feet running on gravel and the panicked gasps. Gunfire echoed behind her…and something else…a scurrying sound from side passages they ran past. As if large rats ran there in the dark, just out of sight.

  The light was dim, and she could not see the boy clearly, but she could the men. She noted the fear in their eyes whenever they turned to look at whatever pursued them.

  The men were dressed in insulated mustard-brown jumpsuits of the sort road crews wear in the winter, but these were no laborers. Their faces were swarthy, bearded—Middle Eastern, she thought—and they carried AK-47 rifles. She sensed that they were not good men, but those who delighted in bloodshed and murder.

  Terrorists. The word flashed in her dreaming mind like a cheap motel Vacancy sign.

  Yet Lucy almost felt sorry for them as they stumbled ahead, crying out to each other in Arabic, one of nearly sixty languages she understood. “Hurry, he’s coming,” shouted the leader, a pockmarked man who pulled the boy along by his arm. The others picked up speed as they frantically muttered prayers, beseeching Allah to save them.

  Then she sensed that whatever it was the men feared…He…was right behind her. There was a fury in the air, as palpable as her heartbeat, which drummed even louder in her ears as He passed beneath her. She felt that she should be afraid, but while a coldness enveloped her, there was no fear. Then He was ahead of her—a hooded shadow in the darkness that caught up to the slowest of the men. A large knife flashed, and then a headless body stumbled forward two more steps before collapsing into a pool of fetid water.

  Horrified, she wanted to reach out and touch the darkness and ask Him to stop. But she knew she was powerless to halt the relentless, deadly pu
rsuit. She could only follow and witness the carnage.

  He overtook the second man. The man cried out,“Shaitan.” Satan, her mind translated. The darkness obscured her vision for a moment; then a round object flew through the air in slow motion—a bearded head, the mouth still gaping in a soundless plea—and landed with a splash.

  Lucy tried desperately to wake, but the dream pulled her along. The third man stumbled and fell against the cave wall near one of the side openings. He shrieked as thin white hands, white as bone, reached out of the opening and grabbed at him like vines. “Help me, therajim have me.”

  Rajim, the outcasts, she thought. The cursed ones. Then he was pulled into the fissure, his screams mixing with strange, excited whispering voices, then dying off completely.

  The last man and the boy ran on, then stopped. Beyond them stood another dark figure of a man, and behind him were hundreds of barrels arranged neatly and in their center was a scaffolding on top of which was a…a menace; the dream was unclear about its nature but when she saw it she shuddered in her sleep.

  The pockmarked man turned back to face his pursuer. “Stay where you are,Iblis,” he shouted.

  Iblis? Lucy wondered in her dream. Satan’s Islamic name from before his fall from grace.

  The muscles of the man’s pitted face twitched with fear, his eyes as wide and luminous as twin full moons, almost insane with hatred and terror. He pulled the boy’s head back, exposing his neck with one hand, and with the other pulled a long knife from his belt.

  Lucy gasped. Only now did she recognize the boy, her brother Isaac. “Zak,” she tried to scream. But he could not see or hear her.

  The presence below her—Him—stepped slowly toward the man and the boy. Somewhere a dog—or a wolf, she thought with a shiver—howled. He threw back his hood and she recognized the thin, haunted face. “David,” she whimpered in her sleep.