by Noel Hynd
Then Boris repeated the trick, but using the vodka while it was still flaming. He tossed it high into the air, quickly positioned himself under it and caught it in his mouth. The second shot, the same. Then the third, which was a slight miss and splashed him across the jaw.
He staggered slightly, laughed, and wiped his face with his sleeve. Alex applauded as if drunk out of her mind.
More small talk. The room started to sway a little for Alex, but not as much as her body language tried to show. She wondered how much booze she had consumed in her life for the overall security of the United States of America. She kept crossing and uncrossing her legs. She knew that the fire had been extinguished from the top of the booze, but she had lit one in her target’s gut.
Two shots later, Boris got around to what he wanted to know, “Are you staying here with him?”
“Here with who?” Alex asked.
“Your boyfriend.”
“Oh. Him. No,” she said.
Good, she thought. He’s inquiring about my room arrangement.
In the periphery of her view, she watched Rizzo, who had arrived that morning, walk into the bar and sit down at a table.
“No,” she said to Boris. “He’s at another overpriced hotel. The Hilton. He was supposed to meet me here, and then we were going to go out. But he’s stood me up, you know that, Boris? You know how much it hurts a woman to be stood up?”
She took on a dispirited expression. “He probably went chasing after a younger girl,” she said. “So why should I care?”
“You’re here alone?”
“On business. For three days. Then I go on to Athens, then back to Miami. That’s where I live. Miami. The new capital of Cuba.”
Boris was more than intrigued. Alex slurred slightly, then took another sip of the wine that still sat in front of her. Her hand was shaky, and she spilled a few drops.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m bothering you. I should leave.”
“No, no, no,” he said, amused. “You’re not bothering. Please stay.”
“I don’t want to make a fool of myself.”
“You’re very beautiful,” he said again.
She looked away. “I don’t feel beautiful. I feel rejected. That’s how I feel. I hate being alone. I’m almost thirty,” she said.
“You could pass for five years younger.” He placed a hand on her bare thigh to steady her. The touch went through her like a shock, but she went along with it. His hand was every bit as strong as it looked. If things went the wrong way, this was going to be real trouble.
“You’re kind,” she said.
He glanced at the small bandage on her arm, the one that covered the vestiges of the bullet grazing.
“What happened to you?” he asked.
“My boyfriend gets rough with me sometimes,” she said. “He’s a pig.”
That seemed to turn Boris on. Alex looked him in the eye. She had had her experiences with post-Soviet Moscow-style hoods, and this was another one. In a previous generation, Boris’s station in life would have been as one of the thick-browed KGB security gorillas who would stand by the door in a leather jacket to keep the trade delegates from going AWOL. These days, in the buoyant Putin-era consumer culture of workers-of-the-world-shop-till-you-drop, the same tough boys developed a taste for Swiss watches, German cars, and French cologne, while they pursued North American women.
Her gaze drifted away. She knew she had him. She wondered if Rizzo was getting jealous with the hand-on-the-bare-thigh stuff. She also wondered how much of this the bartender was taking in. The bar was otherwise quiet.
She looked back to Boris. His eyes were not on hers but rather on her breasts, or what he could see of them in a moderately low-cut dress. She caught him looking at her neckline. He grinned when detected.
She straightened up and withdrew slightly. She put her hand on his hand, the one on her leg. She made an effort to push it away, but he wouldn’t budge. He was grinning like a lecherous gargoyle.
“You’re a fresh boy,” she said.
“Yes, I am,” he said proudly.
“You’re coming on to me,” she said drunkenly.
“Most certainly,” he said.
“But we just met.”
“I don’t care.”
“Didn’t your mother warn you about strange women in hotel bars?” she teased.
“I like strange women in hotel bars,” he answered.
He wasn’t very smart, Alex was thinking. Occasionally, she liked that in a man.
“Maybe I’m offended,” she said.
“If you were offended, you’d walk away. You’re not doing that.”
She laughed slightly. “Are you always so sure of yourself?” she asked.
“Often,” he said. “I’m drawn to beautiful women.”
She said, “I’m much too drunk. Before I fall off this stool, I should go upstairs.”
“I would like to join you,” he said.
She didn’t answer. She took a final swig of wine, rose from the bar stool, and turned. “Do what you want, Boris,” she said. Then she leaned forward and whispered in his ear. “Follow me but be discreet. The ‘towel heads’ are terrible prudes,” she said.
Boris smiled and nodded. He lifted his hand from her leg so she could stand.
She took a tentative step to leave, played the drunkenness just right, and steadied herself with a hand on his massive shoulder. She turned toward the bar exit, struggled a little on her heels, and headed out. From her peripheral view, she saw him knock back another shot of vodka. He then reached to his pocket and dumped a fistful of cash on the bar.
Alex passed directly by Rizzo. She left the bar and crossed the lobby with another wobble. She went to the elevator. She turned.
Good. He had followed. Now Boris was about ten feet from her, trying to make a decision. She gave him a smile and then, to seal the deal, a wink.
The elevator door opened. There was no one else in it. She stepped in and he followed again.
“My room is on the sixteenth floor,” he said.
“Mine is on the seventh,” Alex said.
“We will go to mine,” Boris said.
“I need to stop at mine first,” she said.
She wondered if she had somehow alerted him to danger. His expression suggested that he didn’t like that idea, her room. In the Russian services, or any services, survival was contingent upon the continuing talent for suspicion. And so far, Boris had survived very well.
“I will wait for you upstairs,” he said.
“If I lie down in my room I might never get up,” she said.
The elevator arrived on the seventh floor. The door opened.
“So if I don’t come upstairs, I’ve gone to bed alone. Don’t wait.”
Impulsively. Boris stepped out of the elevator behind her. But she could pick up the scent of suspicion from him. He didn’t like this. Something about this was setting off alarms.
“Why do you have to go to your room first?” he asked.
She held his hand and gave him a wink.
“Never ask a woman too many questions,” she said. “But if you really want to know, I want my toothbrush and a few overnight things. Is that okay?”
He didn’t answer. She moved to her door. Everything was going the way she wanted it to so far, but it was essential that she bring him into her room, if only for a moment. If he held out for his own room, she was sunk.
But he followed her to her door. She felt his body hulk behind her. She could smell the bad cologne and imagined that she could feel his breath on her neck.
“I have a negligee that I was going to wear for my boyfriend,” she said. “But now, tonight, I don’t care. You’ll be my boyfriend, and I’ll wear it for you. Two days from now I’ll be back in Miami and no one will ever know about us. Except us. How’s that?”
“That’s good,” he said.
“Will you wait outside my room for me?” she asked. “Do you want to wait here? Or would you
like to come in and watch me get undressed?”
He didn’t answer. She ran her room card through the proper slot on the door above the doorknob. The little green light came on. She placed her hand on the doorknob and began to push the door open. She felt his powerful hands on her shoulders. She wondered how he would try to kiss her. Then, quickly, she found out.
His slid his hands roughly down her and surrounded her body with his arms. He pulled her back closely to him until her body was flush against his. His lips came down on the right side of her neck and he began to kiss her bare shoulders. He held her in one of the strongest and most powerful grasps that she had ever encountered.
The grasp didn’t thrill her. It scared her.
She managed to turn around in his arms, but only because he let her. He could have overpowered her in an instant. He could have choked her to death in a few seconds. She looked up to him and he smiled. She knew she had him.
His lips came down on hers. His lips were firm and warm, and she realized it had been quite some time since she had allowed a man to kiss her like this. Then one of his hands was busy behind her back. He had the zipper to her dress in his fingers, and he was working it downward.
She professed shock, even when he had it down a few inches and the shoulder strap of her new dress was loose. Her body was pressed firmly against his. She managed to move a leg and push the door open behind her.
“You’re a very bad boy,” she said. “I don’t think we’re even going to get upstairs.”
He grunted. “Maybe not.”
“My room is very comfortable,” she said. “The bed is big enough for two. Follow me?”
Alex pulled away from him. She had a sense that the booze had caught up with him, and his reactions might be dulled. She hoped she was correct.
Flirtatiously, she smiled and took his necktie in her hand. “This is going to be fantastic,” she said. “Come along.” She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.
She felt the door open inward behind her. She pulled him along and whatever hesitation he had felt now dissipated. Boris followed her into the room. As they took the first steps inside, she leaned back to him, cupped her hands behind his head to block his view, and kissed him again.
Their lips were still touching when the blackjack in Abdul’s hand came from the right side and smashed across Boris’s temple. The blow landed with more of a clunk than a crack. It split open the skin and bounced off.
With exquisite timing, Alex released her prey and pulled her hands back. Tony, crouched low behind the door, came from the left with a small iron club that went straight at Boris’s knee from the left side. The club smashed into the side of the kneecap with a resounding crunch. A second harder blow to the same spot staggered Boris more than the first.
At the same time, two of Voltaire’s other local people rose like phantoms from behind a sitting-room sofa. They rushed toward Boris, who was now screaming profanely in Russian. Alex ducked out of the way. Her four backup men tried unsuccessfully to drag Boris to the floor.
Alex kicked the door shut as the men wrestled violently. Voltaire’s men hit Boris hard and shoved him forward until he crashed onto the carpet, knocking over a table and a lamp.
Alex moved too close and caught an elbow to the side of the face. She staggered from it. In the melee, other fists flew wildly. One of them grazed her under the chin. Half of her face stung, and Alex realized that she was right in the midst of the brawl herself. She had lost a shoe and a shoulder strap had ripped.
Boris fought like a wild man. He threw his powerful elbows at the men on top of him. He caught one in the jaw and one in the gut. The room was alive with crashes, thumps, and profanity. Boris clenched one of his huge fists, threw a massive backward punch at one of Voltaire’s men and caught him in the testicles.
The man howled profanely and loosened his grip.
Boris lunged for his right ankle, and Alex realized she had been correct. That’s where his gun was. “Pin his leg! Pin his leg!” she yelled.
Abdul sat on the leg, and the other men managed to yank Boris’s hands upward behind his back as Alex knelt and lunged into the fray, grasped at Boris’s ankle, and struggled to take the gun from him. Abdul shoved a Taser to the base of Boris’s neck and let fly with several seconds of current. The electric charge shot out of the Taser with a cracking, zapping sound.
Boris’s body jumped like a great fish on a line. He howled again. His body convulsed, then the howl ceased, and a guttural near-choking sound followed. At the same time, Tony and Abdul continued to work his hands upward behind him. Finally they succeeded in handcuffing him.
Alex accessed the gun on Boris’s ankle. She pulled it out.
Voltaire stood nearby, arms folded, surveying calmly. A few seconds later, it was over.
Boris lay stunned but not unconscious on the crumpled and torn Iranian carpet that covered the floor. Tony grabbed him by the hair, lifted his head, and slammed it down again.
He was still breathing hard, clinging to consciousness, blood flowing from his brow and skull. He was probably wondering how he could have been so stupid as to follow a woman into a hotel trap.
“Very nice,” Voltaire said. “Dare I say, this is almost an art form.”
Abdul and Tony unleashed a strand of duct tape. They wrapped tape firmly across Boris’s mouth and looked to their boss for further instruction.
“Give him a lot more,” Voltaire said with more feeling than was necessary. “He’ll need it.”
The assailants stood him up. Tony caught him again with a fist to the midsection, then another. They Tasered him again and watched his body convulse. Then they picked him up and shoved him awkwardly down onto the sofa, his wrists still manacled behind him.
The sofa was bolted to the floor and from somewhere someone produced a chain. They wrapped the chain around the captive, locked it to the sofa, and then stood back.
“Nicely done,” Voltaire said again.
Boris came out of his stupor slowly. His eyes were wide and delirious, like a beached shark. But he was a prisoner and he knew it. Alex stepped back, her hand to her face where she had been hit twice.
“Are you all right?” Voltaire said evenly. “I’m fine. I got grazed. No big deal.”
“I’m so glad,” Voltaire said. “At least you don’t have to undress and go to bed with him. That might have been even worse.”
“Very funny,” Alex said. It wasn’t.
“Ouch,” Voltaire said. “But I assure you I’ve done worse in the call of duty.”
Voltaire reached beneath a jacket and pulled out a Glock. He stepped forward until he stood five feet away from Boris, with his arm extended and the business end of the Glock trained at Boris’s head.
“Okay,” he said to Alex. “Talk to our guest.”
Alex pulled a chair into a position a few feet from Boris. She sat down and crossed her legs to get comfortable.
She spoke in Russian.
“We’re very sorry to inconvenience you, Boris,” she said. “But we need some cooperation from you.”
Boris looked at her with surprise and then hatred. But her Russian was so sharp that night that it corralled Boris’s attention immediately. He stopped struggling and was very still.
“Cooperate with us, and we will make it worth your time. Cooperate and you’ll be out of here in twenty-four hours. No one will ever know what happened. You’ll be free to go, and my employer will even reward you with a few thousand Euros for your trouble. Fail to cooperate, and I’m afraid my friend here will grow impatient and shoot you.”
She let it sink in.
“Unfortunately,” she continued, “time is very short. So you have only ten seconds to decide.”
Boris searched the room. Voltaire removed the clip from his weapon so Boris could see it was full, then slapped it back in. He whirled it in his hand with a sadistic flourish and moved the weapon closer to its mark. He squinted with one eye as if to bring the aim to the center of Boris’s head.
> “Such a beautiful carpet in this room too,” Voltaire said. “It would be a shame to stain it. Let’s see what our boy has to say now.”
Abdul reached to the duct tape and ripped it off Boris’s face.
Boris responded with a torrent of obscenities in Russian, Putinstyle. Then he spit at Voltaire.
“Oh, dear,” Voltaire said. “Insubordination.”
Boris turned back to Alex.
“Who are you?” Boris asked. “Americans?”
“It doesn’t matter, Boris. You’re our prisoner until we get what we want.”
The hostage continued in Russian. “What do you want?” he asked.
“Cooperation,” she said. “Now. What will it be? Please make the wise decision.”
Boris spit again. This time the expectoration contained parts of a tooth. But at least it was the beginning of a dialogue.
FORTY-FIVE
Ten o’clock the next morning. There were six of them now in Room 734. No one was particularly cheerful.
Boris sat on the sofa, chains still across his feet and his waist, a large white bandage covering the purple bump and gash across his forehead. There were bags under his eyes. His captors had seen to it that he had been up all night.
Alex sat on a chair several feet away in a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and her Beretta on her right hip where it now lived. She had changed since the previous night, and while the cocktail dress had been fun and served its purpose, the jeans were a better fit.
They had been joined by a young Swiss who went by the name of Leonardo—after DiCaprio, not Da Vinci—a lad who was the resident cybergeek who worked for Voltaire in Cairo. A wiry young girl named Rebecca had done an impressive break-in of Boris’s room. She had filched Boris’s laptop and brought it downstairs.
