Russian Roulette

by Austin Camacho

  The trails were mostly wooden boardwalks over the wet earth, about four feet wide. Tall, narrow trees overhung the paths, almost shutting out the waning sunlight, despite the fact that most of the leaves had deserted their posts. The group walked at a brisk pace while Hannibal opened his cell phone.

  “Rissik.”

  “Hey, Chief, it’s Hannibal. I got a long, fascinating story to tell you, but it will have to wait. Right now, I need some help and I’m pretty sure I’m on your side of the Potomac.”

  “What kind of help?” Rissik asked. “You sound kind of out of breath.”

  “That’s because I’m out here hiking with a couple of friends, including Viktoriya Petrova.”

  “The girl you said you were protecting.”

  “That’s right,” Hannibal said, “but it’s turning out to be more challenging than I thought. Right now a couple of cars full of Russian mob muscle is chasing us and I could really use a little police assistance here.”

  Hannibal heard Rissik’s chair squeak as he stood. “Moving now, buddy. Where are you?”

  “We’re trying to lose them on Roosevelt Island. Make lots of noise when you get here, okay?”

  As Hannibal ended the call he heard Viktoriya say, “I’m cold,” to no one in particular. He turned long enough to see Ivanovich, bringing up the rear, holster his weapons long enough to pull off his sport coat and hand it to the girl. Then he drew his Browning Hi-power from the holster under his right arm, and pulled a smaller Colt Commander from a holster in the back of his waistband.

  “Hannibal, I wonder if you realize the irony.”

  Right then all Hannibal could think of was turning at random points in the trail so there would be no pattern for their pursuers to guess. “Something here strikes you funny?”

  “Not funny, my friend, ironic,” Ivanovich said. “We Russians, we are very sensitive to irony.”

  “Oh yeah,” Hannibal said, his breathing getting deeper as they hiked into the gathering darkness. “Dostoyevsky and Chekov and all those guys were into it. But we’re not being chased by wolves we think are friends coming to save us.”

  “No, but consider this,” Ivanovich said. “Jamal Krada murdered three people. “Two of his victims died slowly of gunshot wounds that would not have been fatal if they’d gotten immediate medical attention. And he didn’t hate these people; they were just in his way.”

  “I see. He got his comeuppance in a similar way. I suppose that’s ironic. Or maybe it’s just fitting, in a karmic kind of way. Like my dad used to say, what goes around comes around.”

  They lost the hollow sound of their feet on wooden planks as they moved onto a branch of the path that put them back on hardpacked earth. A bench invited them to stop and rest for a while. Hannibal declined.

  “All right then, consider this,” Ivanovich said. “We have come to Roosevelt Island to find peace and avoid war.”

  “Going to have to explain that one to me,” Hannibal said.

  “You Americans are so ignorant of history,” Ivanovich said. Hannibal could hear a smile in his voice. He was enjoying this. “Just after the turn of the century, my country was at war with Japan,” Ivanovich went on. “Your President Roosevelt offered his good offices as mediator between Russia and Japan to negotiate the conditions of peace. With his help, they worked out a peace settlement in a couple of months.”

  “OK, that is ironic,” Hannibal said. “Was it a fair settlement?”

  “Well, I’m sure the Americans thought so. It led to a loss of face for us, and eventually to the downfall of the czar, but it saved many lives.”

  “Do you think we’ll be able to negotiate a peace here, between us and the Red Mafiya, and maybe save a few lives?”

  “With Roosevelt’s own island helping us, maybe.”

  After covering about twenty minutes of trails, Hannibal came to a crossroads with a large tree at its center and walked into a heavy branch hanging over the road. He stopped and tucked his sunglasses into his jacket. A bench on the other side of the trail offered a comfortable resting place. He turned to face his followers. It was getting dark now, but he could still make out the maroon stain on Viktoriya’s dress below the sport coat she had wrapped around her. Behind her, Ivanovich didn’t seem to mind the chill at all. Unlike Hannibal, he was bred for this.

  “This is a good place to leave the trail,” Hannibal said. “Then we just hunker down and wait for the police to search us out. This way.”

  Again Hannibal led. He stepped down about a foot to the marshy land off the hard packed trail. Five steps off the path the ground became very wet. His feet sank ankle deep into the muck, but six steps later he came to a mound surrounding a tree trunk. The tree was nearly a foot thick, and he figured the mound was the top of its root ball and therefore was relatively solid. He turned to face the trail but could not see it. If he didn’t know what direction he had come in, he would never have found it. As he dropped to a seated position, he saw Ivanovich approaching, with Viktoriya in his arms.

  “Her heels would have sunk into the marsh so deep she’d never have gotten free,” Ivanovich said. Hannibal decided to say nothing. Ivanovich lowered the girl onto the mound on the other side of the tree. After settling her in place he bent and kissed her very respectfully on the cheek. Then he walked around to Hannibal and held out his hand.

  “What’s this?” Hannibal asked, looking up into the Russian’s ruddy face and making out a smile.

  “Probably good-bye,” Ivanovich said. “I’m going to a better position to watch over you two. When the police arrive you will say, with complete honesty, that you do not know where I am. It is unlikely that we will meet again. So this is my chance to wish you well, and say that it was a pleasure to work with a man I could respect.”

  Hannibal seized the offered hand in a fierce grip. “Likewise, brother. And if you ever want to find a better path, let me help you.”

  “Thank you for the offer,” Ivanovich said, “but my path is set and I know what lies at its end.”

  Then Aleksandr Ivanovich took two steps back and disappeared into the darkness.

  Now that he was sitting still, Hannibal realized that it was getting cold. Not the cold of his youth, not Berlin-in-the-winter cold, but maybe approaching the freezing mark. It didn’t get a whole lot worse than that in what passed for winter in the District. He sat with his back against the tree and his hands on his upraised knees and wished his behind wasn’t wet from the marshy ground. But the slip of a girl behind him wasn’t whining, so he certainly wouldn’t either.

  Besides, he knew it wouldn’t be long. He figured twenty minutes for Rissik to assemble a team and get on the road. Maybe a half hour to get to the island. They’d search with lights and loud hailers and that would be enough to discourage even rabid Russian mobsters. Viktoriya would support his story, as convoluted as it was. And whatever coroner had Krada would tie the bullet to a Russian mob gun. So he had a few minutes, and only a few more questions.

  “Viktoriya,” he whispered.

  “Yes?” There was a slight shiver in her voice. She was cold too.

  “You attacked Krada for killing your parents, but you never mentioned your husband, Dani Gana.”

  Silence.

  “That same weird little gun Jamal killed your mother with was used to kill your husband. You knew Jamal shot Dani, didn’t you? You knew before I did.”

  “Yes.” Viktoriya said. It was cold confession, but now that the door was open he could draw more out with less effort.

  “How did you know?”

  “Because Dani told me,” she said. “The doorbell rang and he answered it and when he opened the door, Jamal shot him. He told me when I found him in the living room. Before I called for help.”

  “How did he even know where to find you?” Hannibal asked. He heard short rapid breaths, the kind that precede sobbing.

  “It was my fault,” she said, almost too low to hear. “I always called Jamal when I was scared or in trouble. I didn’t k
now that he would…”

  Hannibal fell silent as something tiny drifted past his nose. It was followed by a second speck, then a third, and then a steady falling flock of them. White flakes were landing on the back of his gloved hands and disappearing as soon as they touched him, only to be replaced by others.

  “I don’t believe it. It’s snowing,” he said, although he knew it was unnecessary.

  “Things happen,” Viktoriya said.

  “Yeah, I know,” Hannibal replied. “It’s just that I prayed it wouldn’t rain tonight. Guess I should have been more specific.”

  He heard her stifling a laugh and for some reason that made him angry. He let a few minutes pass while he watched the world grow a tiny bit brighter and examined his new information to see where it might lead. After a while he turned his head so that he could at least speak in her general direction.

  “You loved Krada, didn’t you?”

  A long sigh. “Yes.”

  “So what was the plan, Viktoriya? You could have had his baby, but instead you went to another man. Didn’t you want to marry Krada?”

  “I loved him, but I could not see myself living on a college professor’s salary.” Her voice was matter of fact, as if she was discussing stock options or the price of gasoline.

  “Did you ever care for Aleksandr?”

  She snorted in the darkness. “He was the solution to my problem, that’s all.”

  “Your problem?” Hannibal asked. “You mean the money.”

  “The mob paid him huge sums to do their dirty work. I planned to marry him. Then, after a couple of years I could divorce him, take half his money, and then live with Jamal in the manner I had become accustomed to.”

  Sitting on the ground, the smell of decay in the swamp was harder to avoid. “Why didn’t you?”

  “The fool was accused of killing my father,” she said after another snort. “Everybody thought it was him, hired by a rival. Dani and Uncle Boris made sure everyone thought it was him. And I couldn’t marry a man who killed my father, could I?”

  “I see,” Hannibal said. “So you just had to change your target. Dani was plan B.” Hannibal thought he heard an animal approaching on the trail.

  “Yes,” she said. “Plan B. Different man, but the intent was the same. Do you hate me now?”

  “Hate you?” Hannibal asked. “I hardly know you. But I got to admit, I can admire your focus. You knew what you wanted and you went after it.”

  “You mean Jamal.”

  “I mean the life you wanted to lead,” Hannibal said. It sounded as if the animal on the trail was getting closer. “I’ll bet you understood what Dani was doing for Boris Tolstaya. Yeah, and you convinced him to steal that money. The whole idea of him going to Africa instead of you, then coming back under another name, that was all you, wasn’t it? All that so you and he could live happily ever after. Except you planned to dump him and make off with the cash, and your happily ever after was going to be with Krada. Too bad you didn’t share your plan with the professor, because he sure screwed things up for you. Now he’s probably dead. And Dani knew it would be easier if he and his fortune traveled separately, so now his mother’s got the money.”

  If she had an answer for all that, Hannibal never found out. A flashlight beam lanced across the ground a dozen feet away, pulling an involuntary gasp from her throat instead. Hannibal sat very still. The police would be shouting for them. That meant that the wolves had arrived before the rescuers first after all.

  “We know you are there,” a man called. The voice carried a strong Eastern European accent and seemed familiar. “This need not be messy. Show yourselves. We take your weapons, tie you, and leave you here to be found in the morning. We take the girl for questioning. Nobody dies.”

  Hannibal wanted to respond to that disembodied voice, to say that he knew the kind of questioning his people did, that he could spend the night hidden in those woods without their help, and that anyone trying to take his gun would pay dearly. But he knew the wise course was to stay silent.

  Snow was just beginning to stick to the frigid ground around him, and in the distance he thought he saw a ghostly form, or maybe two, on the trail. And then he heard the calm, assured voice of Aleksandr Ivanovich.

  “You can leave now.”

  His voice seemed to come from everywhere, and Hannibal could hear the smile behind the words. He was ready.

  “You know better,” the other man said. Hannibal waved to Viktoriya to stay still. Then he slowly rolled forward to his knees and began inching toward the trail.

  “Vladimir?” Ivanovich asked, his voice drifting through the trees like that of an angel.

  “Yes, Aleksandr.”

  “How many?” Ivanovich asked.

  During a pause, Hannibal moved again. The damp ground sucked at his gloves as he crawled forward. He wondered if other men were moving just as carefully around in the muck near him, trying to get better position.

  “Seven,” Vladimir said.

  “You underestimate the black one,” Ivanovich said. “And you insult me.”

  “Is the girl worth so much?” Vladimir asked. Hannibal could now just make out a form, standing near the crossroads. Both his hands were full of pistol. At least two stood behind the front form. Hannibal was not sure which form was talking. Nor could he figure out the source of Ivanovich’s voice when he answered the question with a question.

  “Must we kill each other, old friend?”

  Hannibal rolled to his right side. Now he lay only a few feet from the trail, looking up at the front figure in the darkness.

  “I cannot simply walk away,” Vladimir said.

  “I cannot simply surrender the woman,” Ivanovich replied.

  “Well then,” Vladimir said. “Here we are.”

  Hannibal heard a deep sadness in both voices. He had heard it before, sitting next to Yakov Sidorov in the Russia House. Grudging acceptance. This is the way things are. Ivanovich knew his path, and he knew what lay at its end. And now Hannibal knew too.

  Silence fell with the snowflakes. For a few seconds the night held its breath. And then one cloud shouldered another aside and a moonbeam laid a soft glow on the forest. Tree branches like bent, gnarled fingers reached for the figures on the path.

  A concussive burst of sound set off Hannibal’s startle reflex as a pair of flame jets burst from the tree at the crossroads. Two bodies sprang off the path and into the marsh as if yanked by wires.

  Hannibal pressed his back against the ground as a roar of gunfire answered the first two shots. Five or maybe ten guns lit up the night as their bullets chewed the top half of the tree to kindling. Shell casings bounced along the ground all around him. In the muzzle flashes Hannibal could see no joy in those stern faces, no excitement. This was business. And this was survival.

  The gunmen stopped and seemed to be appraising the damage to the tree they had assaulted. Hannibal drew his pistol and aimed at the nearest man, knowing that firing would make him a target. Before he could squeeze the trigger, Ivanovich leaped from behind the tree with both guns blazing. In that seemingly slow motion that Hannibal sometimes experienced at moments of extreme tension, he watched Ivanovich float in a horizontal arc across the path and down into the swamp on the other side. Two more men crumbled to the ground. Hannibal could not see the remaining shooters, but thought he could get close to their last positions based on the location of the muzzle flashes. If Ivanovich would stay down for a moment, they might get out of this whole.

  But then, Ivanovich rose up out of the swamp and began walking slowly toward the path again. Someone fired at him from ten yards off to the right. He fired back. A man howled in pain.

  “It didn’t turn out the way you wanted it to,” Ivanovich said. Hannibal wasn’t sure if Ivanovich was talking to his attackers or himself. He stepped up on the path and started walking in the direction the killers had come from. As his foot touched the first section of wooden boardwalk, another man fired at him from farther down the
path. He raised his left hand slowly and fired back. Again he was rewarded with a shriek of pain.

  “It didn’t turn out the way you wanted it, did it?” Ivanovich asked. More damned Nine Inch Nails lyrics even in the face of death. Then Hannibal noticed a movement ahead of him. Down off the path on his side, a man raised a gun to shoot Ivanovich in the back.

  Like hell! Hannibal ran toward the man, firing at the vague shape in the darkness. His target turned in surprise, dived away from the path and fired at Hannibal. He also missed and suddenly they were too close for guns. Hannibal screamed out as his shoulder hit the man’s chest and they went down into the mud.

  The other man was bigger, and skilled. He punched Hannibal hard enough to crack a rib. Then he managed to gain the top position, straddling Hannibal’s waist. Hannibal managed one solid right cross before his enemy locked fingers around his throat. The starless night sky was a solid deep purple shroud, threatening to cover Hannibal permanently. He heard his own breath rattling in his throat. His hands and feet scrambled for leverage, but the mud beneath him offered no purchase. He could feel the welts rising on either side of his larynx.

  Rage shook him when he glanced at the impassive face of the man strangling him to death. Then his right hand hit something that was not mud. A root? No, a stone. It was small, but it made a sickening crunch when Hannibal swung it up and slapped it into his enemy’s temple. The fingers weakened and the man fell to the side.

  As the stranger crumbled to the earth, Hannibal felt an unexpected joy. He struggled to his hands and knees, gasping to suck in as much of the frozen air as he could. Then he felt around until he found his pistol and clambered up on the path to follow in Ivanovich’s footsteps. Ahead of him, two shots came from the right, out in the swamp. Ivanovich jerked to the side, returned fire, and dropped to his knees. As Hannibal reached him, he could see the shooter off to the side, crouching in the mud behind a mound of earth. Hannibal dropped low beside Ivanovich, who wavered and tumbled to his side. Blood poured from his chest and neck.