I knew what Gerry was asking me, to go up against the Russian mafia, to willingly take on one of the most feared organized crime groups in the world.
He must have thought I was crazy.
But my last job was searching for a lost cat, and the beast within was itching for a fight.
It didn’t make sense, but I already knew what my answer would be.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’m in.’
Well, I supposed Gerry was right about one thing.
It looked like I was crazy.
Chapter Two
Three days passed, and I was once again back in the café for an early dinner. Since meeting Gerry I’d eaten pretty much all my meals there, spending the time in between walking the streets of South Boston. I wanted to familiarize myself further with the area, as well as see if I could spot any Russian influence in the neighborhood.
I’d also taken the opportunity to rent an apartment, a short-term let a few blocks away from Sophie’s. If the shit hit the fan, I didn’t want her getting involved, and I wanted a base of operations that I could secure properly. Gerry had offered that I could stay with them, but again I preferred to have my own place, unconnected to the café. Kane was there now, watching over the place.
Once I’d known what to look for, finding Russian influence in South Boston hadn’t taken long, and I was surprised I hadn’t noticed before. It wasn’t that there were groups of them massed on street corners, but – pretty much everywhere I looked – there were signs of Russian encroachment. A grocery store here, a bar there; notices and leaflets in Cyrillic, even a stand selling Russian newspapers.
I’d checked out a couple of local gyms too, and one of them was top-heavy with tattooed thugs chatting in various Eastern European languages. I was no expert, but I managed to make out some Romanian, Estonian and Latvian, although the majority seemed to be Russian.
Apparently, Russians had traditionally kept further out, especially the area west of South Boston, from Brookline to Newton, with Brighton and Allston particular hotspots. But now it seemed they were making inroads east, and I couldn’t be sure how much of it was innocent capitalism, and how much was mafia-related.
I’d read up on the subject over a so-so Americano in a small internet café, and what I’d learned was pretty interesting.
The Russian Mafia – or russkaya mafiya, sometimes just referred to as Bratva, ‘the brotherhood’ – is not a single organization, but rather a collective of up to six thousand separate groups, two hundred of which have international connections across fifty countries. Nobody knows for sure, but it’s estimated that membership of these groups numbers in excess of three hundred thousand.
Although most people think of the Russian mafia as being a relatively new phenomenon, stemming from the collapse of the Soviet Union in the last decade of the twentieth century, nothing could be further from the truth – organized crime has existed in Russia since the 1700s, when thieves enjoyed a reputation akin to Robin Hood. They would steal from the government and aristocracy and divide the spoils among the poor, and became the folk heroes of their time. A code of conduct slowly emerged within the group which was based both on loyalty to the brotherhood and opposition to the government, and the Vorovskoy Mir – the Thieves’ World – was alive and well by the time of Lenin and the rise of socialism.
Although Lenin tried to annihilate these criminals, there were still plenty left by the time Stalin came to power; he put millions of them in the gulags and – while many of these were undoubtedly innocent victims of Stalin’s madness – many of them were members of the Vorovskoy Mir.
In the Soviet gulags, the most powerful criminals worked their up to become vory v zakone – ‘thieves-in-law’ – and dominated the prison system; but when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Stalin granted freedom to whoever would fight for him and many thieves-in-law did just that, breaking the age-old rules against working with the government. And when Stalin broke his own promise and reinterred the criminals back in the gulags, these suki – ‘bitches’, a term used by the Russians with much more venom than we understand in America – were cast down to the bottom of the criminal hierarchy. Their presence back in the gulags kicked off the ‘Bitch Wars’, where the loyal vory v zakone – those who had not followed Stalin into battle against the Germans – took their revenge on the traitors, who – in turn – sought protection from prison officials. Violence between the two groups was on a massive scale, with killings occurring daily.
When Stalin finally died in 1953, eight million prisoners were released from the gulags, many of whom – having survived the Bitch Wars – had developed into a new breed of criminal. The laws of the Thieves’ World no longer applied, and everyone was now out for whatever they could get, even if it meant blatant collusion with the government. As a result, criminal enterprise flourished within the corrupt regime, and the first modern gangs began to emerge.
With the beginning of the end of the Soviet system in the 1970s and ‘80s, alongside relaxed American immigration policies, it was these gangs which originally made their way into the United States. Their first base was established in Brighton Beach, a neighborhood of Brooklyn that soon became known as Little Odessa and which is still the headquarters of the Russian mob in the States.
Massive expansion started in the 1990s with the final collapse of the USSR when the criminal underworld was deluged with new recruits from the KGB and military. Vyacheslav Ivankov, who had been terrorizing post-Communist Russia, was sent to take over mob operations in North America in 1992, and had soon spread mafia influence from New York to Miami, Los Angeles and – yes – to right here in Boston, with links to both the Cosa Nostra and the Columbian drug cartels.
So the Russian mob in Boston was – apparently – nothing new; but its sudden decision to move outside its traditional base of operations most certainly was. What did the Italian and Irish mobs make of it, I wondered?
From what I’d learned so far, it looked like I had stumbled into the beginnings of a gang war.
I was only halfway into my Irish coddle – sausage and bacon cooked with thinly-sliced potatoes and onions, and a specialty of the café – when the two men entered.
I’d known it was only a matter of time – when a gang wants to move in on a business, they like to put on the pressure on a regular basis – but I was pleasantly surprised I hadn’t had to wait too long. Three days was long enough, and I was starting to get restless. If it had taken any longer I might have gone back to that gym and started a more active investigation.
Of course, the presence of these two gentlemen also meant that I might very well be in serious danger in the not-too-distant future, and so my feelings were mixed. But danger was always going to be a part of this deal, and I was a firm believer in getting things over with sooner rather than later.
My strategy here wasn’t anything special – I figured I could either run around Boston to find these guys, or just wait right here for them to turn up on my doorstep.
Naturally, I didn’t know who ‘these guys’ were, at least not exactly; but I knew their type, and I’d known that people like these would be bound to show up here at some stage.
The first man through the door was exactly what I expected – the prototypical hard-man Russian thug from the movies. He looked as if his buddies had had to squeeze him into his suit with all their strength, and I was sure the seams would burst at the slightest provocation. He wore no tie – presumably after being wrapped around that twenty-inch neck, most ties would have barely reached the bottom of his massive chest – and an intricate network of tattoos snaked their way out from the collar and sleeves of his pressed white shirt, finishing just short of his huge bald skull and his meaty fists. He radiated violence in an almost comically obvious way; the first couple of diners were already asking for the check even before the second man followed him in.
This second man was less obviously muscular, but the one I immediately took to be the more dangerous of the pair. While the first walk
ed like a gym freak, a guy addicted to lifting iron, his partner moved gracefully, well-balanced, like an athlete. I had no doubt that the big guy was more than capable of smashing heads; it was just that his abilities in this area probably stemmed only from brute strength rather than specialist training. The smaller man, meanwhile, looked like he’d had training in spades.
I took another bite of the coddle while I watched. The same pair – Gerry’s kids, Mary and Joe – were working as before, joined now by an extra pair of hands for the dinner-time rush. The new girl was older than the others and was too busy serving a table to notice the Russian gangsters who had entered the café.
But Mary noticed straight away, and was followed only moments later by her brother. They exchanged looks – fear, trepidation, resignation – but studiously avoided looking my way. Good – I’d asked them not too, as I wanted to see how things would go down, with me as a simple, casual observer.
For now, at least.
The pair moved past the customers – some of whom recognized the scent of violence that accompanied the men and started to finish off their meals at a staggeringly increased rate – until they got to the counter.
Joe – who had been working the tables – had used the time to get over to his sister, and was now right by her side, arm around her.
The big guy didn’t miss a beat, just launched a straight right over the countertop into Joe’s face the moment he came into range, as the second man looked on dispassionately.
Mary screamed as her brother – blood flying from broken teeth and mangled gums – collapsed to the tiled floor, barely conscious.
‘You are looking good, Mary,’ the big man said to the girl, with a crooked grin and a thick Russian accent, even as the rest of the café erupted into screams of terror and frenetic movement, tables and chairs scraping the floor as the diners raced each other to get the hell out of there.
The big man nodded his head as his friend continued to watch silently. ‘Yes, you are looking very good.’ He looked over the counter, where Mary was kneeling, arm around her injured brother, tears in her eyes. ‘Oh, don’t worry about him, little angel,’ he said. ‘He will be fine. You, on the other hand . . .’ He smiled again. ‘Well, little angel, you might end up a tiny bit worse.’
I watched as the big man’s hand went to his crotch, yanking it up in his pants. ‘Unless you like some of this, eh?’ he said, then nodded his head. ‘Yes, I bet you do, you little slut, I bet you do, don’t you?’
He moved closer to the counter. ‘How many have you sucked?’ he asked. ‘Eh? Come on now,’ he said, his voice softer as he started to go around the edge of the counter, ‘it’s okay. It’s okay. I tell you what. You suck mine, and my friend here won’t put a bullet through your brother’s head.’
Mary just carried on whimpering, hugging her brother close to her, eyes closed to the terror of what was happening to her.
‘Come on, little angel,’ the man said with the crooked grin still plastered across his face, hand going to his zipper. ‘It is time for you to get on your hands and knees.’
Well, I thought as I left the coddle and stood up, it looked like the ‘casual observer’ phase was over.
Now it was the time for the part I enjoyed the most.
The kicking ass and taking names phase.
I just hoped that it wasn’t my ass that was going to get kicked.
Chapter Three
‘Hey, mudak,’ I said as I rounded the table, using a useful bit of the language I remembered from military exchanges with a Russian airborne unit – mudak meant ‘asshole’. I hoped it would get their attention.
It did; with the café emptied of customers, there were now only the six of us – Joe was still seeing stars on the other side of the counter, Mary hovering over him in horror, while the other waitress stood in what looked like a state of shock in the middle of the floor. And then there was me and the two Russians, separated now by only eight or nine feet.
At my words they both looked at me, the smaller man with an expression of curiosity, the big guy with outright rage. His massive skull dropped down and he stared at me through the shelf of bone of his forehead, like a bull about to charge. In fact, I decided, that was a great name for him – Bull.
‘Chto yebat' ty skazala suka?’ he shouted, the veins on his neck popping. I didn’t know what he’d said, but recognized the final word, suka. Like those guys back in the Soviet gulags, it meant ‘bitch’; and I guessed the rest of the sentence was equally unfriendly.
I edged closer, eyes locked on Bull while letting my peripheral vision pick up his quieter buddy. The smaller man – I decided to call him Oleg, as he reminded me of the old Russian UFC fighter, Oleg Taktarov – was almost certainly faster, and by softening my gaze, I would be able to pick up his movement easier than if I stared directly at him. I figured I could get away with it with Bull though, and I carried on staring at him as I spoke.
‘I’m going to give you three choices,’ I said evenly. I could see that Bull was about to shout again and I pressed on quickly, cutting him off. ‘One – you try and carry out your threat on the girl there, and I run over there and stomp your faces. Two – you forget about her and attack me instead, and I stomp your faces. Or three – and this is the one I personally recommend – you walk out that door like two good little bitches and don’t come back.’
Bull just couldn’t take it anymore and went straight for option two, rushing toward me while screaming. ‘Blyad!’ he yelled in full voice, a word I seemed to remember was ‘whore’, and which had been another perennial favorite of the airborne troops I’d met.
The big man covered the ground between us in the blink of an eye, but I didn’t move until the last possible moment; and then – just as Bull came into range – I flicked out my right hand, twelve inches of steel baton telescoping out of the nine-inch rubberized handle I’d been hiding up the sleeve of my jacket.
My arm swung in a horizontal arc and the baton struck the side of Bull’s head just as it reached full extension, connecting perfectly; I saw the lights go out from his eyes, and he crashed hard to the floor.
Oleg, who had up to now only been watching dispassionately – as if he’d been assessing the threat all this time – finally moved. And it was, as I’d predicted, fast. Fair play to him, he recognized what I could do and decided to put an end to the situation as simply as he could.
By shooting me.
In one smooth action – which immediately led me to suspect he was ex-Spetznaz, or ex-FSB/KGB – he pulled aside his jacket with one hand while simultaneously drawing his concealed handgun with the other. It was a snub-nosed revolver, like a .38 police special; very useful indoors, at close range.
I was already moving before I’d made any conscious decision, however, and the first .38 round sailed over my right shoulder as I leapt left, the report of the revolver deafeningly loud in the confined space.
I knew that Oleg would be altering his aim, and that my temporary cover behind a table and chairs didn’t really offer a huge amount of protection, but I found once again that my body was moving already, almost of its own accord.
My foot kicked out hard, striking the table leg next to me and sending the table and furthest chair scraping across the tiled floor into Oleg’s lower body. I heard another round explode from the barrel, saw it go high into the ceiling.
I leapt up and threw my baton at Oleg’s face, causing him to instinctively react by covering up with both hands; and as the gun was taken momentarily out of action, I used the opportunity to close the distance between us.
By the time I’d got there, Oleg had all but recovered and was once more lowering the revolver, aiming it toward me; but by then, I’d drawn my Spyderco folder and I wasted no time in plunging it deep between the man’s exposed ribs.
His body convulsed and spasmed and he dropped the gun, gasping in pain; it wasn’t a kill-shot, but it would definitely slow the bastard down while I administered the coup de grace. I pulled the blood-slick
blade from Oleg’s side and prepared to give the knockout blow, a straight right to the jaw. At this stage I didn’t want to kill these guys, just send a message up to the top of the food chain, see what would roll back down.
My fist flew toward its target, but missed completely as I was tackled from the side. I recognized the massive bulk that hit me as Bull, and cursed myself for underestimating the thickness of his skull. He was one tough son of a bitch, that was for sure.
I smashed into the hard floor and dropped the knife, Bull’s heavy body right on top of me, but my knee came up sharply into his balls and we both gasped in pain at the same time. Bull was still on top though, and I barely got my face out of the way in time to avoid a crushing head butt from the big man. I took the impact on my shoulder instead, which was bad enough.
I knew that Oleg would be recovering as I rolled around on the floor with Bull, and didn’t want to be there when he got his gun back and came looking for me. I therefore took advantage of the proximity of Bull’s head, grabbing it with my hands and pulling it down sharply, delivering a rising head butt of my own to his brutal face. The nose smashed open, but it could hardly make him any uglier.
I used the distraction of the blow to insert one of my feet between his legs, extending it upwards powerfully while controlling his arms with my hands, turning him over in the air with a classic Japanese stomach throw.
He landed hard halfway into the café, and I jumped back to my feet, grabbed hold of the nearest chair and smashed it over the big man’s head while he lay, prone and dazed, on the floor.
I turned to see the wounded Oleg, holding his bleeding side with one hand, take aim with the revolver in the other. I immediately hurled the chair at him and he fired, but the chair blocked the shot and he was forced to move out of the way before it hit him.
THE THOUSAND DOLLAR CONTRACT: Colt Ryder Is Back In His Most Explosive Adventure Yet! Page 3
