by Jared Paul
“Your life isn’t over. If you want we can get you into witness protection. You’ll be safe.”
Zhadanov’s laugh was mocking and bitter. Again he spat a bloody mess onto the floor.
“Pah! Witness protection. Please. I vill take my chances and make run for it. Whoever you are, I don’t know. But you do not understand Vladimir. You do not understand us. Wis us there is no protection. Wherever you possibly could hide me in ze world it does not matter, zer is no safe.”
Jordan placed the cold flat of the blade against Zhadanov’s cheek.
“How safe do you feel right now? Tell me where he is.”
The captive’s Adam’s apple quivered and bobbed. Zhadanov’s pupils dilated and then he began to speak.
…
With Zhadanov sedated, taped up and hidden in the trunk of the Honda CRV, Jordan drove out to the offices of Schuester, Wong, and Kagonovic in Murray Hill. It was early in the morning and a crescent moon was visible, hanging low in a pink and cerulean sky. Jordan used a wire clothes hanger and a credit card to jimmy the back door open and then snuck into the room that had Kaganovic’s nameplate on the desk. He sat in the high-back executive chair, kicked his feet up on the desk and waited.
Half an hour later, Kagonovic came in for work bearing a briefcase and a steaming cup of coffee. It was indeed the same attorney that had represented Askokovic. Jordan recognized him by his thick glasses, dictator moustache, and conservative suite and tie combo. Kagonovic was four foot ten with the feet and hands of a pre-pubescent child. When Kagonovic walked into his office and saw the stranger at his desk he cocked his head to the side.
“Can I help you sir?”
“Yes I do believe you can.”
Jordan showed the lawyer a Beretta with a silencer attached to the barrel. He pointed the gun at him and motioned for Kaganovich to sit. Kaganovic dropped the coffee, spilling it all over the carpet as he raised his hands.
“Look, take whatever you want. But I don’t have any money.”
The lawyer’s suitcase clicked and dropped open and a few dozen thick stacks of cash fell out right into the puddle of coffee, sugar and cream. Kaganovic paused and then threw the suitcase at Jordan and turned to run. He missed badly. Jordan caught up after several strides and grabbed Kaganovic by the scruff of the neck like a kitten, then threw him up against the wall. Jordan pressed the Beretta against the lawyer’s nose. He squirmed from side to side, eyes closed behind his glasses and pleading fast and desperate.
“Alright alright I have money! There’s fifty thousand dollars on the floor in my office just take it and go!”
“What makes you think I’m interested? Who said this is about money?”
Kaganovic’s eyes opened and he looked up at the anonymous gunman like he had just disembarked from a flying saucer.
“Isn’t everything?”
Jordan felt a flare of anger. He pulled the gun away from the lawyer’s face and smashed the hilt of it into his groin. All of the wind rushed out of Kaganovic and he slid down to the hallway floor in a little heap. Then Jordan kicked him in the face and knocked him unconscious. He dragged Kaganovic back to his office, tied him to the executive chair with duct tape, and splashed water in his face to revive him.
“Who are you? Untie me!” The lawyer demanded as he woke up.
“Not happening, counselor.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to play a game. The way this works is, I ask you a question, and if you don’t answer I break a finger. Once you answer all my questions then I’m done with you. Is that understood?”
Kaganovic nodded.
“You represented Anton Askokov in the Sarah Ross case, correct?”
“I did.”
“And you were aware that Askokov was not drunk driving. That in fact the Russian mob placed a hit on Sarah Ross and used the drunk driving as a cover story?”
“Yes.”
Jordan felt another flare of rag and he was tempted to gouge the diminutive lawyer’s eyes out with his bare fingers but he resisted. There were still a few questions to go.
“Who ordered the hit? Who specifically and why?”
“If I tell you will you promise not to shoot me?”
Speaking completely truthfully, Jordan placed his hand over his heart and swore to Kaganovich that he had no intention of shooting him. The lawyer did not look convinced so to assuage his fears Jordan tucked the Beretta away into his hip holster. Once Kaganovic relaxed and caught his breath he answered.
“The woman was part of an activist organization in D.C. They help out illegal immigrants with their paper work, stop exploitative labor practices, things like that. Sarah Ross was the lead for an initiative to save women who were brought over here and forced into the sex trade. Each one of them was worth a lot to the Russians, so she had to go.”
Jordan had known this for some time. He didn’t need it to be spelled out for him to connect the dots. Even still, it did not make hearing it out loud any easier to swallow. For a while Jordan just stood there gazing through Kaganovich. It was like his soul had vacated his body and gone on to another plane of existence, once the consisted of nothing but excruciating pain. The duct tape was wrapped so tight that it was starting to cut off the lawyer’s circulation.
“Can you loosen these? I’m starting to get dizzy.”
The sound of Kaganovich’s voice brought Jordan back.
“Shortly. Who ordered the hit?”
“Vladimir Shirokov.”
“And where can I find him?”
The address that the lawyer gave Jordan was the same that Zhadanov had provided. Reassured that the information was accurate, he decided that he was through with the lawyer.
“Are we done then?”
Jordan replied yes they were done. He used a letter opener filched from the lawyer’s desk to cut through the duct tape. When he was free Kaganovic rubbed at his wrists. Jordan let him stand up to get the circulation going in his legs again. Then he grabbed Kaganovic by the collar and twisted him around the desk,
“What are you doing? You said that you wouldn’t shoot me.”
“I’m not going to shoot you.”
Jordan dragged the lawyer behind him out through the back and into the alley where he’d left the Honda’s engine idling. Jordan pushed Kaganovic down and shoved his face against the concrete. There was a small tuft of white hair still clinging to the back of his scalp, the lone survivor of the lawyer’s long lost battle with male pattern baldness. Jordan grabbed the tuft of white hair for leverage then slammed Kaganovic’s head into the pavement. Then he slammed again, and again, and a few more times for good measure.
When it was finished Jordan went back into the office and pick up the $50,000 in cash. He emerged back out into the alley a minute later. The sun had risen over the peaks of Manhattan’s skyline. Everything was warm and orange but he could still see the crescent moon in the northern sky. It was like night and day all at once.
…
Detective Bollier was sure that Uri Grigoryev would be the one to crack. Over many years of interrogation she had developed a sixth sense for identifying the weak links in a chain. While the other Russians were stoic, and responded to all questions with one syllable curses or by spitting, Grigoryev got more and more demonstrative as time went on. With detectives in the room he argued and cursed and threatened. When he was left alone he fidgeted and picked constantly at his auburn red beard, yanking out unruly hairs one at a time. Bollier guessed that he was going through withdrawal from some kind of stimulant that couldn’t be bought in a pharmacy and that going without it would be a major contributing factor to his fall.
The last time Bollier had gone in to question Grigoryev he had demanded to see his lawyer. She told him that his attorney Mr. Kaganovich was unreachable, but that there were more than enough brave public defenders who would take up his cause. Grigoryev responded with a loud “suck my fuck.”
Bollier was watching him fiddle his thumbs and tap his f
eet through the viewing window when she got a call from Jordan’s burner. She didn’t bother with small talk.
“How did it go with the lawyer?”
“Swimmingly. He’s gone.”
“And Shirokov?”
“I’ve got an address, corroborated by two sources. I’m dropping off Zhadanov at a Greyhound station then heading over there directly.”
“He didn’t go for witness protection?”
“Doesn’t trust us to protect him. Can you imagine that?”
“I can. So you’re going over to Shirokov’s by yourself?”
“That is affirmative.”
“Alright. Be careful.”
The line went dead and Bollier tucked the phone away. With a flourish she opened the door to the room where Grigoryev was being held, chained to a table.
“Well Uri. I’m afraid that I have some bad news. Rupert Kaganovich is dead.”
Uri Grigoryev let out a deep sigh. Despondent, he rested his greasy forehead on the table and knocked it a few times lightly. There would be no money coming to the rescue, no payoff to keep his mouth shut. Bollier let him sulk and ponder on that fact for a minute. Grigoryev took his time wallowing in self-pity. Finally he sat up straight and spoke to her.
“I am ready to make statement.”
…
Just above a shining gold onion dome in Saint Petersburg, Vladimir Shirokov had painted two red phoenixes entwined together, burning up in mid-flight. Shirokov stepped back from the canvas and took in the composition as a whole. The painting was almost complete but there was still some work to do. For one, the sky was all wrong, blue and sunny where it should have been gray and bleak. Shirokov knew that eventually he would have to change this by throwing in a thick layer of clouds with a mix of grays and off-whites and blacks, but he had not had the heart to remove it yet. Why he felt attached to the blue sky in Saint Petersburg Shirokov could not have explained.
The studio space was a wide, airy, brightly lit room on the west wing of his compound next to the master bedroom. Velvet curtains were closed over the ceiling-length windows. Ordinarily Shirokov painted with them thrown open to let the sun in, but the afternoon had turned dreary.
Thunderstorms began shortly after lunch and were expected to continue well into the evening. Storms had never bothered Shirokov even as a young boy; he felt energized and invigorated by them, but he still much preferred to work by natural sunlight. Every now and then the easel trembled at the sudden boom of thunder and he had to take a break so as not to misplace a stroke of color.
Shirokov dabbed at the red with his brush and made a move to finish one of the bird’s tails when the phone rang. He hated nothing more than the phone ringing while he was working.
“Ack! Poshyol ty!”
He put the palette down and answered the call.
“Bonjour?”
“As you know I am calling long distance so I will be brief.”
Shirokov shivered and froze in place. The deep disembodied voice had never called him when he was home before and this unsettled Shirokov more than he would ever care to admit.
“The lawyer Kaganovich has been killed and the police have convinced one of your men to testify against you. A judge has issued a warrant and the police will descend on your residence in force within the hour to arrest you. You must leave immediately.”
In a panic, Shirokov went to the window and pushed a velvet curtain aside, as if already expecting to see an army of riot gear cops crossing his capacious lawn.
“Who killed the lawyer? How do you know that they are coming?”
The voice did not reply to Shirokov’s questions. When checked the screen on his phone the call had already ended. Shirokov felt violated. Out of nowhere this voice had come floating into the sanctity of his home and disrupted his painting with this awful news. He was filled with a cold terror and a hot rage. Shirokov feared and loathed the voice like nothing else on Earth but he knew better than to not take its advice. Shirokov ran as fast as he could to the master bedroom closet, pulled out several duffel bags and began to pack.
Chapter Twelve
The main entrance to the Shirokov estate was impassable. Two gargoyles guarded an imposing iron gate, which opened into a winding road that led to a one-floor metal building bristling with security cameras. Jordan Ross guessed that there were half a dozen private security guards inside, monitoring the property twenty four hours a day. He elected to take his chances with the twelve-foot high limestone wall that ringed the perimeter of the estate which to his eye had to be at least 150 square acres
Jordan parked the CRV’s back bumper up against the wall at the northwest corner, got a running start, and launched himself from the roof over onto the other side. The landing was not as smooth as he had imagined and he nearly had a stroke when one of the fragmentation grenades fell out of his pocket and rolled away. Jordan retrieved it and breathed a sigh of relief.
A thick patch of pine trees provided cover for Jordan as he took out his binoculars and studied the landscape. He was at the bottom of a hill that seemed to cover the entire property. The security building was fifty yards up the road from the main gate. An imposing 19th-century gothic German mansion stood at the apex of the hill.
There was no way that Jordan could know how many guards were in the mansion, so he decided to draw them out by blowing up the security building and sneaking in around the other side. Jordan tip-toed from tree to tree, working his way closer until it was only a stone’s (or a grenade’s) throw away. He was about to pull the pin and chuck it when his pre-paid burner started ringing. Usually Jordan kept it on vibrate and he could have sworn that he hadn’t changed it. He was tempted not to answer but only Bollier could be calling and she only called for serious business.
“Hello?”
“Jordan. It’s Bollier, listen, you need to abort.”
If he hadn’t been trying to stay hidden Jordan would have screamed at the top of his lungs. He kept the volume down but lost none of the venom.
“Are you serious? No fucking way. Do you have any idea where I am right now?”
“Please hear me out. We got one of Shirokov’s men to flip. He’s talking. Look, this is much bigger than Shirokov. He’s given us the broad outlines of an epic fucking conspiracy. I’m talking about tens of billions of dollars in drug money, prostitution, extortion, corruption at the god damn federal level. If you kill Shirokov our best link to finding out how deep this goes is gone!”
“It’s too late. I’m already there.”
“Jordan! You need to get out. I’m on my way with about thirty other cops right now. We will be there in around twenty minutes. I can’t protect you if they find on top of a pile of corpses.”
“I don’t care if they catch me or not. This ends today. It was Shirokov who ordered the hit on my wife. The lawyer confirmed it.”
Bollier sounded exasperated.
“Please. I know that you want revenge and you have every right, just please listen. Shirokov is just one small piece of this puzzle. He may not be a pawn but he takes orders. After the Russians kidnapped me Shirokov got a call from someone who ordered him to let me go. Someone much higher up is pulling the strings that’s a thousand times more dangerous. Listen! The scope of this thing is so much bigger than we thought.”
“I’m not a cop, detective. I just want my selfish little satisfaction.”
“I know. But think about the bigger picture. Look, according to our stoolie, the Russians’ have hundreds of sex slaves working for them, maybe thousands. Killing Shirokov won’t help them. Think about what Sarah would want.”
Jordan took a sharp intake of breath. Through some miracle of self-control he forced himself to bite his tongue. If he kept talking he knew he would blow his cover, so instead of ripping into the detective he hung up and turned the phone off.
There was an open window on the side of the security building facing Jordan, which he planned to toss the grenade through. The casualty radius was fifteen meters. Since
the building would absorb most of the shock Jordan figured he would be safe at about half that far. He would have preferred to throw from a long distance but the window was only about a foot and a half tall and three feet wide. Jordan wished for a second that he had not given up playing pitcher so easily in high school. He breathed deep, counted to three, then came out of his hiding spot and raced at the building. When he was closing in he pulled the pin, jumped and dunked the grenade through the open window, then ran back and dove headlong over a small knoll. He landed with a splash in a puddle of muddy water and curled into a ball, squeezing his eyes shut and holding his hands over his ears.
The blast was surprisingly quiet. Jordan had been expecting an ear-splitting boom. Instead he heard someone from inside the building yelp out holy shit, then a clamor, and then nothing.
No boom. The grenade was a dud. Voices were shouting from all over. Jordan opened his eyes and inched his head up over the top of the knoll to see. If not for the mud cover he would have been spotted easily. Several men rushed out of the security building and stood in a ring around the entrance. Coming down the hill three more men wearing the same uniforms joined them. There were seven of them in all, talking heatedly and scanning the miniature forest with automatic weapons drawn. They would find him in a matter of seconds.
Jordan shook his head and dug into his pocket for the other frag grenade. He glared at it. It looked like an innocuous olive green fruit that anyone could pick from a low branch, only with a bronze cap on top.
“God I hope you’re not like your sister.”
Before he pulled the pin he kissed the round bottom of the grenade. Jordan sat up and threw it at the circle of security guards, then dived down again into the mud.
The heat from the explosion singed the hairs on the back of Jordan’s neck. Clumps of hot grass and pine needles rained down first, then body parts. A severed arm landed not a yard away from Jordan’s wet, filthy fox hole, still clutching a Walther PPK. Wrestling it away from the rigor mortis fingers was harder than Jordan thought it would be. In order to make the jump over the outer wall successfully Jordan had to leave his heavier weapons in the Honda. He came over with five handguns on him; two each under his shoulders, two more on his hip, and one on his ankle. The dead man’s Walther made six.
