by Ed Kovacs
“Congratulations. You are now married,” said the clerk in Russian. To Yulana, the clerk’s tone sounded like he had just pronounced a death sentence. And maybe he had.
From the corner of her eye she observed as the stocky thug, who was holding a manila envelope, handed a large wad of U.S. hundred-dollar bills to the nonplussed clerk. The clerk took the money without counting it and left the room.
Yulana watched the stocky thug put the manila envelope on the table and slide it over to Kit, as the other thug recorded the payoff with a video camcorder.
“Open and count,” commanded the stocky thug.
Bennings gave him a hard look but then did as he was told. “Fifty thousand,” said Kit. Yulana didn’t know it, but Popov had cut the original bribe offering by three-quarters.
“The boss told me to tell you you’re not even worth this much.”
“Tell Popov he can shove it up his fat Russian ass.” Kit tossed the envelope of large bills at the stocky thug, who caught it in front of his face. “We all know this isn’t about money.”
Yulana flashed a slight look of surprise. The American doesn’t want the money? She felt intrigued and struggled to hide her interest.
“If you don’t take the money, we don’t have a deal.” The way the thug said this indicated there was no negotiation on the point. He threw the envelope onto the floor at Bennings’s feet.
Yulana stoically watched as Bennings hesitated, then reached down for the envelope. He stuffed it inside his jacket.
The man with the camcorder turned it off, then tossed a cell phone at Bennings, which he caught in the air.
“We’ll contact you in Los Angeles,” said the taller thug.
After the two men left, Bennings stood, pocketed the cell phone, and turned to her. “We need to get going,” he said in perfect, Moscow-accented Russian.
She stood up without looking at him and moved toward the door. The threshold had been crossed; she wondered if in a week from now, she’d still be alive.
* * *
The stop at the embassy to get Yulana Petkova’s visa was quick and perfunctory. Secretary of State Margarite Padilla had come through; they were in and out in twenty minutes, and Yulana hadn’t spoken a word.
The car Kit had hired for the morning spent two harrowing hours in chaotic traffic for the ride from the embassy to Sheremetyevo Airport. Ninety minutes after checking in, the Aeroflot nonstop on an Airbus A330-200 to Los Angeles was wheels up. So far, Yulana Petkova had spoken exactly zero words to Kit Bennings.
* * *
Yulana ordered a vodka and peach juice from the vacuous, dye-job-blond flight attendant in the quasi-military style Aeroflot uniform. Service on Aeroflot generally ran from fair to poor, just as customer service all over Russia lagged far behind Asia and the West. The idea of taking good care of paying customers was still a foreign concept to the Russians. Kit had had nothing but bad experiences flying Aeroflot, but the airline flew nonstop from Moscow to Los Angeles, so here he was.
He ordered the same drink as Yulana and knocked it back quickly. Unable to sleep or relax, he’d been absentmindedly fingering a key that he wore as a pendant on a silver chain around his neck. His father had worn the key for most of his life and had passed it on to Kit about a year before he died. The key opened a strongbox in the attic of the Chino Hills family home, where important papers and irreplaceable mementos were kept. The steel box held nothing of tremendous monetary value, so the key was more symbolic, a passing of family responsibility from one generation to the next.
There had been nothing sexist in his father’s gesture: Tommy Bennings bluntly told Kit he got the key because he was the oldest and for no other reason. Staci was as sharp as they came, and Kit had considered passing the key to her, especially after all of the close brushes with death he’d had in the last few years. But he’d kept the key and taken his responsibility to the remnants of his family very seriously.
But now only Staci was left, and he couldn’t pass the key to her if he wanted to. Assuming she was still alive.
Bennings scratched his head, his mind stale from internally reviewing scenarios he might have to use in the quest to free Staci. He and Buzz Van Wyke had already worked out some diversionary tactics to employ at LAX in case there was a Russian welcoming committee waiting for them, so at least that much was taken care of. And although he was worried sick about his sister, his thoughts turned to his seatmate and new wife. Feeling frustrated in general, he decided he’d had enough of her pretense.
Yulana sat in her seat with earbuds plugged in as she watched an out-of-date film the airline was so generous to provide. He reached over and pulled her earbud plug out of the jack. She flashed him a look of irritation and tried to pull the cord free from his grasp. But instead, he yanked hard and the earbuds flew out of her ears.
She welled with anger, her flashing eyes tore into him, but she didn’t speak, didn’t make a sound. Her gaze leavened into one of annoyance, as if Kit were insignificant.
“You’re not deaf and dumb. You ordered the drink. And now that we’ve cleared Russian airspace, it’s time we had a chat,” he said in Russian.
“And what could I possibly want to say to you, soldier boy?” she asked, irritated, in perfect English.
“Tell me about your real relationship to Viktor Popov.”
“No.”
“But you’re not his niece.”
“Did he say I am?”
“Yes.”
“Then I am his niece.”
“You know, sorry, my mistake, he didn’t say niece. He said cousin. He said you were a kissing cousin.” Yulana wasn’t the only one who looked irritated, and Bennings was baiting her.
“You think I’m coming to America to be Popov’s lover, or to be a prostitute?”
“Your words, not mine.”
“Why is it that so many men, when they feel threatened by a woman, have to make themselves feel superior by reducing the woman to the status of ‘whore’?”
“I don’t feel superior to anyone, but that doesn’t mean you’re not a threat. I don’t know what your role is in this, other than to spy on me, but it would be better for you to just tell me.”
“I’m spying on you?”
“This cold-shoulder business, the silent treatment, is a bad act to make you appear disinterested.”
“Believe me, not being interested in you is no act.”
A little exasperated, Kit said, “I didn’t mean romantically interested. This isn’t a game we’re playing, lady. This is life and death, and most people show some interest in that.”
He bore his eyes into her and got nothing in return; he could have been staring into a dry well.
“Tell me what you know. Why did Popov target me for the fake marriage?”
She’d make a good poker player and betrayed no reaction as she said, “I’ll tell you nothing.”
“We’ll see about that,” he said, with more than a little bit of threat to his tone.
A hint, the briefest hint of fear, flashed in her eyes.
“So let me give you something to put in your first report,” said Kit. “Very soon I intend to dance on Viktor Popov’s grave. And I will kill all of his people who were connected to what happened to my family. Viktor will understand this, because it’s what he himself has done to the men who murdered his daughters.”
Yulana’s eyes widened just a bit.
“So if I learn you were involved, believe me, I’ll have no problem blowing your brains out. Right into your peach juice and vodka.”
Yulana looked at him for a long time. Her mask of intractability softened. There was slightly less judgment in her gaze now. “What happened to your family?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know.” He tossed the earbuds into her lap and looked away. “I liked you better when you didn’t talk.”
CHAPTER 13
Until recently, the international terminal at Los Angeles International Airport had long been one of America’s great
est embarrassments. Buzz Van Wyke remembered all too clearly how the departure and arrival gates and corridors and concourses for hundreds of thousands of visitors either setting foot on or leaving American soil created one big dingy, shabby, uninspiring, hard-to-fathom letdown. The subtext for arriving passengers had been: Hey, we let you into our country, so don’t complain. What did you expect, luscious colors, convenience, modern amenities, clean toilets not marred with gang graffiti? Yes, we’re purely functional, out-of-date, and tawdry, but the sunshine and palm trees and movies stars are outside, so keep walking, please. Similarly, the underlying message to departing passengers had been Good-bye, and we don’t really care if you come back.
Even today, with improvements in place, a country as small as South Korea has an international airport that puts LAX to shame. Yes, L.A.’s departure area is now a fabulously chic and artful juxtaposition of metal and glass—graceful curves meeting sharp angles, all designed to optimize the gorgeous light of Southern California. Towers of LED screens called “Portals” interactively display continuous shapes and forms; a quasi-retro design theme informs some common area café chairs and tables; faux wrought-iron rails and light fixtures add nice arty touches. The ubiquitous designer shops hawk their overpriced wares and branches of local high-end trendy cafés tempt the traveler with everything from caviar and champagne to gourmet tacos.
But the departure terminal is actually quite small for a major international airport, the concourses narrow, and there simply aren’t enough seats. Departing passengers waiting to board super-jumbos must line up in the concourse walk space, blocking the path of any other travelers. After tens of millions of dollars, things are much better, but LAX just can’t seem to get it right.
Despite renovations elsewhere in the international terminal, the seediness of the old arrivals hall remained, and that suited Buzz Van Wyke just fine. He liked the feeling of Third World bus depots, so he felt right at home in the cramped mess.
Buzz had just bought a lousy cup of overpriced coffee, which he nursed when he wasn’t chewing on the stem of the Savinelli “413” smoking pipe given to him by his late wife. Dressed in chinos, a T-shirt, and a light khaki jacket, Buzz casually counted the surveillance cameras and airport police officers present as he leaned on an aluminum luggage cart he’d paid five bucks to rent. The airport police had been absorbed by the LAPD years ago, but the officer sitting behind a high desk at the top of the ramp where arriving passengers trudged up to meet family and friends seemed more interested in the smartphone he was trying to keep from view than he was in scanning the crowd for potential threats.
None of the airport coppers Buzz watched looked even vaguely concerned about their situational awareness. They were phoning it in, perhaps letting the unseen crew watching the security cameras do the heavy lifting.
Buzz casually glanced about fifty yards across the hall, where Angel Perez scanned a brochure at a kiosk, as he twirled his lucky green-handled screwdriver in one hand like a drum major twirling a baton. The screwdriver was “lucky,” because he had once used it to successfully diffuse a dirty bomb that was rigged to explode. A twenty-eight-year-old, barrel-chested Puerto Rican American with longish, unruly black hair, who was as intense as Buzz was laid-back, Angel was a brilliant gadget geek and backyard mechanical engineer/inventor. He was also one of the smartest close-quarters combat fighters on the planet. There was something kinetic about him, as if he were always in motion, even when standing still. He tended to speak his mind bluntly without editing himself, and that was one of the reasons both Buzz and Kit liked working with him: they could count on getting Angel’s unvarnished opinions, every time. Kit and Angel had first gotten to know each other when they were Rangers together in Afghanistan.
Angel and Buzz communicated with encrypted two-way radios that looked like cell phones, because speaking into your sleeve or having an earpiece was just too obvious in such a crowded space.
“Buzz, there’s an Asian girl over here that I’d have to rate as a nine point six,” said Angel, in his usual rapid-fire delivery.
“You’ve got a hot girlfriend, mijo, remember? You told me that if you ever looked at another woman again to please just shoot you,” said Buzz. “Or was I supposed to call Yumi Nakamura in D.C. before I pulled the trigger?” Nakamura was a Japanese American lawyer for the DEA whom Angel had been seeing for over a year.
“Buzz, I’m a seventh son of a seventh son!”
“Meaning?”
“I’m not sure, but it should be worth something. So please cut me some slack.”
Buzz chuckled to himself. He was almost as proud of Angel Perez as he was his own kids. Angel was a self-made man who grew up in extreme poverty in Puerto Rico. At age three he was taking things apart to see how they worked. At age five he was building his own toy tanks and jeeps from scrap metal. The United States Army gave Angel a more formal education, and he’d been repaying them with his blood and loyalty ever since.
“Angel, forget about the eye candy. What do you have for me?”
“First of all, it would seem that none of my goodies have been discovered.” The “goodies” Angel referred to were small, easily concealable smoke bombs that had sticky tape on one side. A slick operator could easily attach such a device to most surfaces. When detonated, it made a sharp report, then released an enormous amount of colorful smoke for its small size. This morning, when large crowds were arriving from Asia, Angel had donned a blond wig and a facial prosthetic that defeated facial recognition software. He stealthily planted dozens of the mini smoke bombs, set to detonate remotely, under chairs, tables, sinks in the men’s room, and elsewhere. That the devices hadn’t been found was testament to the fact that cleaning people don’t look under things.
“Good,” said Buzz. “What else?”
“The two bruisers standing together by the arrivals board have to be cops.”
Buzz casually clocked the two men. He didn’t know it, but the bigger Asian one was San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Detective Bobby Chan.
“Detectives investigating the Chino Hills shoot-out?” asked Buzz.
“That would make sense. Kit’s neighbor told the cops he was flying in today, remember? They probably want to talk to him real bad,” said Angel.
“But he doesn’t want to talk to them, just yet.”
“I also made a deuce in black leather jackets. Sitting over by the low wall. Russians, without a doubt. Where do they get their taste in shirts, anyway?”
“Maybe they watched Goodfellas too many times.” Buzz casually glanced toward the men. “Got ’em. Which means we have a quartet. Might be too far for you to see, but check the pair over my shoulder, far back corner of this poor excuse for a café behind me.”
Angel, who wore jeans, sneakers, and a loose-fitting brown shirt, seemed to casually glance at the second pair of men while still holding the phone to his ear.
“So four mob guys and two deputies, plus airport police and all the cameras. Plus maybe more mobsters in a van or SUV in the parking structure or circling the airport. In other words, no problem.”
Buzz considered the layout for a moment. “I’ll slow down the two behind me. You delay the leather jackets. The deputies are the wild card.”
* * *
The longest part of the customs-clearing process was the last check after you got your bags, which was really no check at all. Since his body was still on Moscow time and he hadn’t slept on the plane, hadn’t slept at all since he heard of his mother’s death, by all rights Bennings should be exhausted.
But the adrenaline kicked in as he started to lead Yulana up the ramp into the arrivals hall, because he knew what was coming. He pulled out his U.S. cell phone and called Angel. It was 3:37 in the afternoon, Pacific time.
Angel answered his cell without saying hello. “Boss, welcome home. We are a go and can handle the Russkie greeting committee, but there are two big county-mounties, plainclothes, that might be here looking for you.”
“Understoo
d. Stand by,” said Kit into the phone.
Yulana had only brought one rolling suitcase, and Kit took it from her and hefted it by the handle. Before she could say anything, he said, “Take off your shoes.”
“What?!”
He drilled her with one of his stares. “Take off your shoes and do exactly as I say.”
She stared at him for a few seconds, then took off her heels and held on to them. They walked farther up the ramp, slowly, being passed by throngs of Russian citizens hurrying to begin their Southern California vacations.
“On my mark … five, four…” said Kit slowly into the cell phone.
As Kit’s eye level came even with the floor level of the arrivals hall, he saw scores—check that—hundreds of people waiting to meet friends or loved ones.
“Three … two…”
He locked eyes with Buzz Van Wyke. Now it would be a race.
“One … zero!” said Kit into the phone.
He quickly pocketed the cell and grabbed Yulana’s arm as small bangs sounding like gunfire began echoing throughout the hall. Screams rang out; Kit saw the airport cop at the high desk leap to his feet, looking confused. Then all hell broke loose and the hall quickly filled with colorful smoke.
“Run!” shouted Kit to Yulana, pulling her along. But she resisted. “Run with me or I’ll kill you where you stand!”
She looked frightened, perhaps as much from the pandemonium as from Kit’s grasp on her arm and his intimidating eyes. So they ran together right into the mass of panicked, smoky confusion, barely able to see.
CHAPTER 14
Several of Angel’s smoke bombs had gone off right under the seats of the Russian thugs sitting by the low wall. As the men stood, they were enveloped by smoke but started to calmly move toward the ramp. Until Angel blocked the way. He held an ASP collapsible steel baton and with more than a little relish, thrust the unopened unit into the first thug’s solar plexus. He assumed these men took part in the carnage at the Bennings family home, and hoped he’d have a chance to do more than just hit them with a baton.
