Tainted Blood

by Ferrel D. Moore

  When Hauck went silent; Evgeny could imagine his thoughts.

  “Status?”

  “Didn’t even slow it down.”

  “Eliminate the van immediately,” said Hauck.

  “Understood.”

  “Then get the hell out of there. Proceed to the extraction point.”

  “Understood.”

  Evgeny scanned the neighborhood. No one on the street. The windows were dark. A burning house two streets over, a wild beast knocked over a van and a shooter stood firing after it, yet no one ventured out. They would be on the phones, though, he knew. He hoped that Yuri took down the communications grid before the beast hit him.

  From a side pocket, he withdrew a single device, moved quickly to the van’s open door and threw it in. Then, he ran back to where Yuri lay, and helped him to his feet.

  “Tell me you didn’t do what I just saw you do,” said Yuri.

  “Move,” said Evgeny, “and don’t look back.”

  They were moving through the alleys when the explosion cracked the night and bright light plumed overhead. Sirens blared closer than Evgeny liked. Even Detroit came alive sooner or later.

  Chapter Five

  Sveta did the math in her head. Three left turns and three right turns from the street corner Mishka had given her. Mishka loved codes. From Moscow street punk to made man and station head in the Russian Mafia and he still used the same codes, still played the same games. But it was good tradecraft. Anyone listening in to her call to Mishka on Zoe’s cell phone would be six blocks away, waiting in the wrong place

  The streets were nearly empty. Twice she was passed by police cars who drove by and kept on going. She held her breath and watched their taillights disappear into the night. Street people wandered in and out of shadows when she stopped at streetlights. Crumpled papers and plastic bags jumped up and raced down the road ahead of her whenever the wind blustered. Darkened storefronts were locked away behind thick metal gates and she drove by more pawn shops and liquor stores than she had seen in any other American city.

  The young woman stretched out in the passenger seat did not move beneath her blanket. Sveta worried that she was dead or dying, but could do nothing without Mishka’s help. She would not trade her own life for the life of someone she didn’t know. Taking her to a hospital and leaving her was too risky. Driving her to Mishka was risk enough.

  Her nerves were on overdrive. Too much in one night. Crue, Chenko and Bodin dead. Turning on Hauck. Drogol. The wild beast. And this Zoe that lay still as death. All connected in ways that she did not understand and had no time to think about. First she had to survive and escape and that would require guns, papers and money. As Russian Mafiya, those were things her cousin Mishka was well suited to supply.

  As she approached the appointed intersection, Sveta saw a black Humvee idling in a parking space. It looked as out of place as an Uzi in a trash heap. Russian gangsters like Mishka were notoriously unrepentant about their wealth and power. But Sveta would have preferred for them to have driven up in a slightly battered older car that would fit the neighborhood and draw less attention. Still, she had no choice and pulled her car behind theirs.

  The driver and passenger doors opened at the same time, but two very different men emerged. The sight of both men coming toward her car made Sveta wish for her pistol. The driver was six feet of jet black hair and broad shoulders. He wore an unbelted trench coat and she could see by the way he walked he was armed for trouble. The thickset bald man who approached the passenger side was packed with muscle beneath his turtleneck sweater and he moved like a man used to breaking anything in his way. Sveta thought he was built like a heavyweight class Olympic weightlifter. Every nerve in her body told her to slam her car in reverse and keep going, but she knew that they could catch her in their Humvee. She knew that even before she made fifteen feet, the dark man in the trench coat would break out his automatic weapon and kill her and Zoe both.

  Slender fingers bunched and knocked against her window. She hit the button and waited til the window was halfway down before asking, “Yes?”

  “You have a rug in need of repair?”

  Sveta motioned her chin toward Zoe.

  “Turn off the car, get out with your hands where I can see them, if you please, and then follow me. We will take you to the cleaner. My partner will bring your merchandise along with him.”

  She did as she was told. No real choice. These two were not from Hauck.

  “Backseat,” said the man, pointing toward the Humvee.

  He had the eyes of a man waiting for a chance to hurt you. They were deep set and dark and dull with indifference. He walked with her, a safe distance back, always a free hand near the slung stock shotgun hanging beneath his coat. Far enough back to swing it up, enough time to splatter her if he didn’t like her moves.

  Sveta got into the backseat of the Humvee. He closed the door behind her—there was no door handle for her to pull it closed herself.

  The passenger side door opened and Zoe, blanket and all was placed inside by the muscleman. He arranged her like a mannequin, and as he did so, Sveta saw the ragged scar that cut down the left side of his face. He stared back at her for a second, then smiled and closed the door.

  The Humvee began to roll forward while Sveta contemplated the thick glass wall that separated her from the two men. She and Zoe were prisoners behind tinted glass and armor plating. The muscleman turned to face her again. This time he didn’t smile.

  She heard the whir of an invisible motor, and a black cover slid down and blocked the two men from view.

  *****

  They drove for half an hour or so. Sveta had no way of knowing for sure, because she could not see out of the Humvee’s windows. Zoe didn’t move. Her skin seemed dangerously pale; there was nothing for Sveta to do but hope she could hang on until Mishka provided a doctor.

  But she finally had time to think.

  Hauck had involved another group to bring in Drogol—that much was clear by Chenko’s presence. Whether it was Russian Security or Russian Mafiya was not yet clear. But he had no use for his new partner and appeared to have been working at cross-purposes to them all along. Whoever they were wanted Drogol alive, while Hauck must have wanted him dead. That would explain the mercury bullets.

  What she did not understand was why this man was so important that Hauck wanted him dead. No question because of the mercury bullets. The other side wanted Drogol alive. But she didn’t know why.

  What if he had been infected as part of a secret biological research program? Thirty years later he was still walking around, and the world had not changed as a result of it. Was he some sort of a biological time bomb? Sveta knew that she was thinking crazy conspiracy thoughts, but kept her mind open to the possibilities.

  Could he be a political asset or liability to someone high up? She doubted this, too. Kremlin cold war secrets from over thirty years ago were ancient history. Yeltsin was dead and Gorbachev did book tours. The new generations of Russians and Westerners alike wanted to forget the past.

  One thing she knew was that Hauck could still hunger for revenge after thirty plus years. After what happened in that prison under his watch, Sveta was surprised he hadn’t shown up in person to shoot Drogol.

  But the biggest thing on her mind was the beast that knocked over Yuri’s van, then came after her and Zoe as they drove away. What was the creature?

  She tried to remember exactly what the monster looked like and couldn’t. It moved with incredible speed and had enough weight and power to knock over the white van, rip off the door, and drag poor Yuri out. It ran on four legs as it slammed into the van, she was sure of that, but she sure she had seen it move just as easily on two. And it kept up with the car and pulled up close enough to rake the trunk as she drove at forty miles an hour.

  The Humvee pulled to a stop. She heard a motor kick in and the squealing protest of metal, and then the vehicle pulled forward a bit more and stopped. Doors opened and closed. They h
ad arrived.

  *****

  “Sveta,” Mishka exclaimed, “how good to see you again.”

  The bright warehouse lights blinded her momentarily. The thick smell of oil and solvents hit her before her sight cleared.

  A circle of perhaps ten or twelve hard looking men fanned around her as she stepped out. Mishka stood at their center, his rich, black cashmere coat and crème colored scarf setting him apart from the others the way an executive stood out from the hired help. He was tall and handsome in a brutal sort of way, with a full head of black hair swept back from his narrow forehead. With a fluid motion he moved forward and embraced her so hard she lost her breath. When he stood back, his smile bright as halogen lights, he spun round and opened his arms to the assembled men.

  “I give you my dear cousin, Sveta. Is she not the most beautiful creature on the face of the earth?”

  No one replied.

  “She has her mother’s beauty and her father’s boldness. Once, a major in the GRU. Can you believe this? One side of the family produces officers, and the other, my side, I must confess, produces criminals. Yet, here she is coming to me for help.”

  “The woman,” said Sveta, “she needs medical attention.”

  “Of course, of course. Sergei, you and Vladim take the woman to where the doctor waits.”

  The crowd of men seemed to press closer to her. She could feel the tension in the air. The two men who had driven her went around to the passenger side of the Humvee and removed Zoe.

  “Careful, Vladim,” said the thinner man, answering the question of who was who.

  “I would like to go with her,” said Sveta.

  “Nonsense,” said Mishka.

  He ran his eyes over her, and Sveta felt a cold chill go through her body. When they were teenagers there was a night when they drank too much and too much happened. Mishka’s father stumbled in on them and beat Mishka so badly he was hospitalized for two days. But that was a long time ago, and the only man Sveta truly feared now was Hauck.

  “She has information I need.”

  Mishka looked around at his assembled men and shrugged.

  “Later,” he said, “when the doctor has done what he can.”

  They were in an open bay of a warehouse that could have housed a football field. Rows of wooden crates big as cars were stacked almost to the lights. Palletized boxes, forklifts, and motorized winches on a network of rails were street legal stage props for a Mafiya front operation. Windows darkened with black paint ran along the upper edges of the walls to prevent any chance of someone looking in. Sveta didn’t know what they were shipping, but it wasn’t legal.

  “Can we talk somewhere privately?”

  “Later,” said Mishka dismissively. “I have someone important to meet at the airport. You are my guest here until I return.”

  “There are things that I need, Mishka.”

  “Perhaps a woman as pretty as you should be more careful in a man’s world.”

  When he brought his hand up to brush his thick black moustache, she saw the red flash of his ruby ring. The night before he fled to America, Mishka cut off the finger of a small city’s mayor. The next morning, he mailed the man’s finger to his wife, but kept the ring for himself.

  “I can handle myself.”

  He stepped forward and ran his hand along her cheekbone. She flinched, but did not move. Thirteen to one were not good odds.

  “You are more beautiful than ever,” said Mishka. “But tell me, why are you here in my city?”

  “Business.”

  Mishka lowered his hand and caressed her neck. The semicircle of men watched impassively. He was, she knew, looking for an excuse to slap her in front of his men.

  “And what business brings you to my city?”

  She said nothing.

  “Answer me.”

  “Private business, Mishka, that I can speak of only to you.”

  “But you did not see fit to inform your dearest cousin of your arrival?”

  “It is private business.”

  He started to turn away, but spun back again and whipped his open palm against her face. She rocked back so hard her back slapped against the Humvee. Even though she’d seen the blow coming, Sveta didn’t move out of the way. He was playing the Mafiya kingpin in front of his men, and she took the hit knowing it for what it was. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.

  “Everything that goes on in this town is my business. If you weren’t family I would have Gennady cut out your tongue and make you eat it.”

  A swarthy man behind Mishka pulled a knife from his pocket, pushed a button that shot the blade out to its full length, then twisted and turned it, reflecting the light into Sveta’s eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Mishka.”

  “Sorry,” he repeated thoughtfully, then moved forward and slapped her again, hard.

  Spots of light flashed as she fell against the Humvee. Her head cracked against the glass and her fingers bent back painfully as she tried to absorb the impact.

  I’m coming back for you, she thought.

  “Is this what you call tough in the GRU?” Mishka sneered. “Wipe your mouth.”

  With a flick of his wrist a monogrammed silk handkerchief sailed over and landed at her feet. Keeping her eyes downcast, she stooped while making a show of needing the support of the Humvee’s door to keep steady.

  Her cousin approached, then squatted to look at her as she sat on the floor dabbing the blood away from her chin and lips.

  “You need money, paper, and guns, yes? It is my thought that you have been very bad in my city, my dear cousin. Gennady has all three waiting for you in that black bag near the shipping door. You see? Good. But if what you have done here has angered the Iron Woman, if it is why I have been summoned to the airport, then that black bag will be buried with you.”

  He stood and called out to the man with the knife. The others still stood grouped around them, still watching with little apparent interest.

  “Gennady, take a few men with you and escort my cousin to our waiting room. If she gives you trouble, you may beat her, but not fuck her. And, Gennady?”

  “Yes, Mishka?”

  “Chain her.”

  *****

  Mishka settled back in the fine leather seats of his chauffeured limousine, and removed his gloves and scarf. How good it was to see his cousin again, and to observe how far she had fallen. To have her come to him like a beggar for protection—it was almost worth the beating his father had given him all those years ago.

  The warehouse door rolled up slowly, exposing a night as cold, as sleek, as heartless as Gennady’s switchblade. He loved this town with its torn and defaced posters nailed to any spare board or pole that was available. The trash that piled in the streets, the abandoned houses, wild dogs and street people that bought and sold each other like stolen car parts. People such as these gave him no trouble; they were used to being taken advantage of by the powerful.

  From the built-in bar, he withdrew a rock glass, dropped a few ice cubes in and then poured a generous amount of vodka. The Iron Woman would be arriving soon. Mishka could use a drink.

  Why she was in the United States was not something he cared to think about. His only concern was that she was not angry at him. People who angered Anna Kazakova did not live long. Did she know what he and Sasha were doing? That would be very bad. After a moment’s thought, he drained his glass and poured another.

  Yefim put the limousine in gear, then they pulled out onto the street and turned the corner.

  *****

  The moon drifted out from behind a brooding mass of twisted clouds as the limo disappeared. Across the street in an alley defined only by shadows, amber-red eyes glowed. Suddenly, a deep, angry growl scraped the night.

  The door operator hit the stop button.

  He was a loose faced man with thinning hair and deep-set brown eyes. He drew his pistol as he stepped forward to the door opening and peered out into the night. Three other men came runn
ing up behind him.

  “What was that?” asked one.

  Mishka’s limousine was gone from sight. The streets appeared empty. A ghostly silence spread through the night as the men grew nervous.

  “Wild dog,” said another. “Had to be. Pit bull maybe or a Rottweiler. These assholes around here breed them and fight them, and then let them loose when they don’t make money. Cops don’t do shit about them.”

  “Didn’t sound like a dog,” said the door operator.

  “It ain’t a fucking cat.”

  A few more men came and gathered around the open door, including a forklift driver who rolled up on his machine to see what was happening. More weapons were drawn and they gripped them tightly, sensing something indefinably dangerous lurking in the night.

  Gennady returned and shouted, “What the hell is going on? Close the fucking door.”

  “Something’s out there,” said the door operator. “Didn’t you hear it?”

  “Hear what?”

  “Like some animal.”

  “Well maybe,” said Gennady taking out his knife, “we should catch it and skin it.”

  The operator hit the down button again and the door began its gradual descent. It protested and groaned.

  “Somebody ought to grease that sprocket,” said Gennady.

  He was about to say something else when he saw a giant form burst from the darkness across the street and charge straight at them. The door inched its way down, too slow to stop the enraged darkness.

  The creature hit the door operator like an explosion. It spun and slashed out in a vicious swipe, and Gennady saw the man’s head rip loose from his neck in a spray of blood.

  Someone fired a shot that hit it in the back and its furious roar echoed throughout the warehouse. With a flash of teeth it bit his arm off at the shoulder. Suddenly, everybody started firing and two men went down from the barrage of bullets. Smoke filled the air as blood spread over the floor. The beast roared and leapt onto another man, digging its hind claws into his abdomen. They hit the concrete in a slick of blood and screams and more shots.