“You think he’s here?” I asked, watching as a dune rose out of the desert ahead of us, seeming to swallow up the path we were on. On the front side of it appeared to be a solid surface, though it was hard to decipher anything out of the wall of light brown.
“I don’t know,” Diaz said, keeping her head locked in place. “I don’t see anybody though, not even a car outside.”
I nodded in agreement, the same thought spurring my question in the first place. “And he damned sure didn’t hike in here from anywhere.”
There was no response from Diaz as she slid the car to a stop twenty feet away from the front door, the brakes again offering a tiny moan of protest. She killed the engine and left the keys in the ignition, both of us sitting in silence, sweeping our gaze over the grounds.
A small part of me almost told her to stay put, that I would be right back, but I refrained. The move was not one of misogyny, but rather the feeling that anything we found here couldn’t be good. No point in subjecting us both to it.
Instead I waited though, allowing her the lead, sitting in silence until she unlatched her door before climbing out on the opposite side.
The structure seemed pretty simple, exactly as Manny had described it. A square concrete crash pad, partially covered by sand, painted to match. There was no foliage of any kind to be seen, the only path in being the one we were now parked on. Not a single thing seemed to be out of place until I took a deep breath, catching just the slightest hint of a smell on the breeze.
“Oh, shit,” I muttered.
Diaz snapped into a crouch on the other side of the sedan, her right hand cocked by her hip, poised to grab her weapon. “What?”
“Draw,” I said, my voice low, reaching into the small of my back and extracting the Glock. I gripped it in my right hand, my left wrapped around the base for support, bending at the knees to match Diaz’s pose. One foot at a time I advanced on the front door, pressing my back against the concrete alongside it, waiting as Diaz got into position opposite me.
“What?” she mouthed again, her voice inaudible.
I raised both sides of my nose at her in an even snarl and replied, “Smell that?”
I paused as she drew in a deep lungful of air, her chest rising as it filled her body. Just as fast she shoved it out through her mouth, a look of revulsion on her face. “Blood.”
The scent had caught me twenty feet away, a practiced response from my time in Yellowstone. There, fresh kill often meant predators in the area. Being able to recognize it at a moment’s notice was a necessary life skill.
Rotating out away from the door I positioned myself in front of it, my legs square. I pointed down at my right leg and motioned at the door, followed by gesturing for Diaz to go inside right after. One at a time she raised each of her feet from the sand and prepared to move, nodding in agreement, shifting her focus on the wooden structure before us.
Unwrapping my left hand from the gun, I lowered my hands to either side and drew in a quick breath. I allowed the moment of seeing Manny Juarez to enter my mind, of seeing his face for the first time in years to play across my senses, before snapping forward and driving my heel through the door just inches from the handle.
The aged wood exploded backwards on contact, disintegrating into a flurry of dust and shards. They still hung thick in the air as Diaz darted through, gun extended in front of her, moving fast. Her lower body was visible in the dim glow as I raised my weapon and joined her, swinging in the opposite direction.
The open doorway was the only source of light in the place, but it was more than enough to illuminate everything there was to see. We each did a lap in our respective directions, meeting on the opposite side, directly across from the door, before holstering our weapons and walking side by side into the center of the room.
“Oh, shit,” I said again, Diaz nodding in agreement beside me.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The tip of the Pidka cigarette glowed bright in the darkness, filling Victor Blok’s lungs with acrid, bitter smoke. He held it there a long moment, savoring the taste, letting it burn, before shoving it out, the sea breeze catching it and pulling it away from his face in a sideways mist.
The cigarettes in America were too pure for his taste, the tobacco thinned out, watered down by additives. Making things worse, nearly every brand on the market had taken to jamming a filter on the end of it, removing all flavor, stripping the smoke of any inherent bite.
Pidka cigarettes were the only thing Viktor ever missed from the Motherland. Everything else he could get at a moment’s notice, even good vodka, except for real smokes. Eight months earlier he had had a shipment brought in, one hundred cartons, to be used only in extreme situations.
Tonight seemed like one such circumstance.
Standing on the edge of his dock, Viktor watched as a small team, five men all dressed in black, loaded supplies into a boat. A high-end trawler painted glossy silver, the vessel would carry the men up the coast into La Jolla. Once in place offshore, four of the men would enter the water and go ashore, taking with them the supplies that were currently being loaded. The fifth would stay with the boat, pushing it north along the coast, returning in exactly an hour to retrieve them.
The plan had been hashed and rehashed no less than ten times in the preceding hours. Viktor could sense from the last phone call with his uncle that the old man was growing antsy, threatening to exert his presence once again. For the time being he had Pavel out of his hair, hopefully still somewhere in the mountains, digging around for the remains of Lita.
It was a very narrow window Viktor had, getting the operation completed before either Sergey or Pavel became aware of his actions. Once they did they would try to insert themselves, either eschewing his plan entirely or at the very least insisting on their involvement.
If Viktor was ever going to break free from the tether his uncle insisted on keeping him tied to, this was where it had to begin. His operation, with his people, going off without a hitch. A simple in-and-out procedure that was effective and quiet, securing the last holdout in the network, allowing new distribution to begin.
Taking one last drag on the cigarette, Viktor cast it into the ocean, the small white speck being swallowed beneath the dark waters. He blew the smoke from his lungs and stepped up alongside the ramp leading onto the boat, the evening breeze pushing his hair atop his head, tugging at the collar of his silk shirt.
“This is the last of it,” Anton Chekov, the leader of the expedition, said, peeling himself off from the procession of men loading up the ramp for a final time. He stood several inches shorter than Viktor but was considerably thicker, his upper body cut from corded steel. He wore his dark hair shorn close to the scalp, his face free of any stubble.
Behind him the other three continued on their way, the first carrying an automatic weapon in either hand, their barrels pointed at the sky, their butts resting in the crooks of his arms. The other two marched on either end of an elongated box, wooden, white in color.
None of the three looked at Viktor or Anton as they went, moving in silence with complete precision.
Through the front window of the boat’s cabin Viktor could see the fifth man, an affable young guy named Ivan with blonde hair and ruddy cheeks. He was dressed in white linen pants and an Aloha shirt, just another rich playboy taking his boat up and down the coast for a late night joyride.
“Good,” Viktor said, nodding, fighting the urge to pull out another Pidka and light it. “Has he checked on the conditions yet?”
“Twice now,” Anton said, offering a grim nod. “Everything is clear from here to Oregon. Should be no problem getting in and out this evening.”
“Good,” Viktor repeated. Both men had been over the plan so many times there was nothing more to say. They each knew how important the run was, to their position in Mexico and to the operation as a whole.
“I’ll be available by phone the entire time if anything should happen,” Viktor said, extending a hand to
wards Anton.
A thin crack of a smile broke across Anton’s face as he returned the shake, squeezing hard for a moment before releasing it. “Nothing’s going to happen, sir. We’ll call and let you know when it’s done.”
Viktor attempted to force a matching smile onto his features, though the best he could manage was a lopsided grimace. He nodded and slapped Anton on the shoulder, watching as he turned and bounded across the gangplank before lifting it from the edge of the boat and shoving it onto the dock.
The water around the boat began to churn as the engine picked up steam, Viktor remaining in place as it started to ease away. The turbo stroke diesel puttered in a steady cadence as the vessel moved forward, a wide wake behind it.
Viktor stood with his hands in his pockets, the scent of diesel smoke and saltwater in his nostrils, and watched until it was nothing more than a cluster of lights moving through the darkness. With it went his plans for the next decade, the first step in breaking free from the family, establishing his own empire on a new continent.
The thought of it brought a smile to his face, a genuine response that stretched across his features as he climbed the steps away from the water’s edge, his shoes shuffling against wood. Deep within his right pocket he could feel his phone begin to vibrate against the palm of his hand, dropping the smile away in an instant.
“Already?” he muttered. “Jesus, they just left.”
Shaking his head from side to side, he pulled the phone out and held at it arm’s length, his gaze settling on the name displayed before him. As if Pavlovian, his heartbeat began to thunder in his chest, sweat dampening his armpits. For the first time he became aware of the taste of smoke and salt in his mouth, his tongue fighting to conjure any bit of saliva within him.
After the fourth buzz, he accepted the call and pressed it to his ear.
“Hello, Uncle.”
“Where the hell were you this time?” Sergey barked, annoyance, anger in his voice.
The same pair of emotions welled within Viktor as he finished ascending the stairs and stopped on the top landing. He rested his rear against the railing encasing it, the ocean breeze hitting him full in the back.
“And why does it sound like you’re in a wind tunnel?”
Viktor held the phone away from him for a moment and muttered a string of explicative words, each with more hostility than the one before. When he could think of no more he brought the device back to his face, his features contorted in anger.
“I’m down by the dock,” Viktor said. “I was here to send off a team headed north to La Jolla, going to take care of that last little problem we discussed.”
Five minutes before he’d hoped to be completed with the task before mentioning it to his uncle. Now, he just hoped his decisive action would be enough to curry a bit of favor with the old man.
“You did what?” Sergey asked, his tone pointed, low.
For a moment Viktor felt a bit of panic within him before pushing it aside. “There was a problem, I fixed it,” he said, shoving more bravado into his voice than he actually felt. “That is why you sent me here, isn’t it?”
He could feel the challenge in his tone, knew that he was walking on very thin ice. Still, if this was to be his moment to break free, to put some distance between himself and things back home, this is where it had to begin.
A long moment of silence passed, followed by the exaggerated inhalation of air. When his uncle spoke his voice was flinty, honed to a razor’s edge.
“No, you arrogant little prick,” Sergey spat. “You’re there because my brother is dead and my son is in jail. If there was anybody else in this family to send, anybody, they would be there instead of you.
“As it is, I’m still considering taking the whole damn thing away from you and giving it to Pavel.”
A surge of rage roiled within Viktor, his hand squeezing so tight it threatened to shatter the phone in his hand. Scads of retorts sprang to mind, ranging in ferocity from telling his uncle off to threatening to come back to Russia and finish him himself.
“Pavel isn’t family.”
“But at least I can trust him!” Sergey shouted back, his voice cracking with each word.
Viktor clenched his left hand into a ball and held it by his side, squeezing it so tight it trembled beside his head. He kept his eyes and mouth both screwed shut for several moments, pressed together so hard little white lights began to dance before his eyes, before releasing the tension in his body. Vitriol still pulsed through him as he took two deep breaths and asked, “Why are you calling me? To tell me I’m out?”
On the other end he could hear Sergey panting, fighting to get himself under control. He waited as his uncle coughed and spat out a wad of phlegm, the sound repulsive over the line.
“No, that’s not why I’m calling you,” Sergey muttered. He sounded weak and tired, much older than the man that had been screaming just a moment before. “I was calling to tell you La Jolla has been taken care of.”
Viktor’s eyes spread wide for a moment before sliding shut. Tonight was supposed to have been his chance to step away from the bonds that were growing tighter by the day. Instead, his place at the bottom of the pecking order had been sealed, done by actions thousands of miles away, completely unbeknownst to him.
“And when you say...?”
“I mean it’s been taken care of,” Sergey repeated. “The message has been delivered. La Jolla is now on board with our plans.”
Viktor ran a hand back through his hair, shaking his head, trying to comprehend what this meant for his operation. “Does that mean shipments are ready to begin?”
“We’ll discuss the shipments another time. Right now, just get on the phone and call your crew back home. The last thing we need is another embarrassment.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The plastic wrapper on the outside of the Gatorade bottle crinkled in my hand, the sound serving to mask a bit of the noise going on inside the bomb shelter beside me. After hours of being left on its side the liquid inside was rather warm, even the condensation on the bottle long since evaporated, just a few smudges of clumped sand the only reminders that it was ever there.
“Where did you get that?” Diaz asked, stepping up alongside me and leaning against the trunk of our sedan. She wrapped the front of her suit coat across her torso and folded her arms across it, the autumn breeze blowing cool across us.
“Courtesy of one Carlos Juarez,” I said, lifting the bottle towards the sky in a faux salute before taking another drink. “Want some? Fruit punch was never my favorite anyway.”
Diaz stared at me a long moment, a fleeting bit of shock, almost revulsion on her face, before raising a corner of her mouth in a smirk. She reached out and took the bottle, upending the bottom of it, downing a couple inches of the beverage.
“You know, technically this was part of the crime scene,” she said, handing it back to me.
I accepted the bottle and took another pull, not bothering to wipe the lip of it. “That’s not a crime scene in there. That’s a massacre. A brutal ending that even a smartass like Carlos didn’t deserve.”
Diaz nodded in silent agreement beside me, both of us envisioning what we had found just an hour before.
The building was entirely void of life when we entered. It was obvious the moment we stepped across the threshold, though we both did our due diligence and cleared the premises before focusing on the macabre centerpiece the scene had to offer.
Lying chest down in the center of the floor was Carlos, his arms and legs extended out from his body like a twisted starfish. Two plastic sacks with bottled water and Gatorade lay beside his left foot, a couple of strays having rolled across the dusty floor towards the wall.
We knew it to be Carlos from his skin tone and the clothes he was wearing, the same khakis and open button-down he’d had on this morning. A certain ID wouldn’t be possible until DNA results came back though, given that his head had been cleaved away from his body, removed with a s
ingle slice.
Most of his blood had spurted from his exposed carotid, striping the dust-covered floor in angry sprays of crimson. The speckled rooster tails covered a wide half-arc over the ground, tracking the descent of his body, his heartbeat continuing even after the removal of his head.
Once the body had come to a stop, most of his blood had pooled out onto the concrete around him, moving in an uneven circle across the sandy floor. By the time we arrived it was already dark and sticky, the first flies just beginning to buzz around it.
After a moment, Diaz had stepped outside and called it in, leaving me behind to glean away what I could without disturbing anything.
With the exception of a few uneven foot prints, large, with heavy treads, there was nothing of use in the place. Crime scene was now inside combing through things, but something told me they weren’t going to find anything either. Even if they did, odds were it would come back to another ghost originating somewhere in Russia, completely beyond the scope of any major American agency.
The desert sun was now below the horizon, nothing more than a faint speck of orange glow along the western skyline. Behind us the techs had set up a mobile field unit, bright fluorescent light filling the inside of the building and spilling out into the night. It splayed across the ground in long orbs, passing just a few feet away from us and extending far ahead over the ground.
“Thoughts?” Diaz asked, holding her hand out for the Gatorade.
I passed it across without glancing her way, my gaze aimed out at the darkening sky. It had been years since I’d seen a desert evening, though the image seemed to carry a certain familiarity with it that was both comforting and startling.
“Two big ones,” I said, my eyes narrowed. “First, how the hell did they know about this place? Manny swore, swore, that he and Carlos were the only ones with access up here.”
“Yea,” Diaz agreed, nodding her head. She took another swig from the bottle, tilting the bottom of it towards the sky, giving the distinct impression she would rather be drinking something a little stronger than Gatorade.
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