The pain he’s in must be indescribable, he thought.
“Roger, I want to go after Vostov, see where that takes us,” Blackburn said after what seemed a very long time. “But I need your permission to do it fast and dirty. And if it means putting a real hurt on the sonovabitch ...”
He let the sentence hang in space somewhere between Russia and the west coast of America.
Gordian didn’t make a sound for another full minute. Then he nodded, more to himself than to anyone else.
“There’s to be no killing on our part unless it’s in self-defense,” he said. “I won’t sink to the level of these scum. And I want this done so the entire world can learn the truth.”
“I understand.”
“I know you do, Max. And I’m sorry for jumping down your throat.”
“No problem,” Blackburn said. “These are rough times for all of us.”
Gordian nodded again.
“I want to make sense of this,” Roger said, swallowing thickly. “I need for it to make sense.”
Neither of the other men said anything to that. Neither of them knew what to say.
Make sense?
Sitting there with his eyes fastened to the wall, still reluctant to look at Gordian, Nimec found himself wondering if it ever possibly could.
They came prepared for a siege.
They had a warrant, but nobody was expecting Nick Roma to open the door and stand quietly and calmly while they cuffed him and read him his rights.
They figured they were going to have to work for this one.
So they brought out all the good stuff—high-tech surveillance equipment and low-tech battering rams, full-body armor and tear gas grenades. Everything they could think of, and more.
They even had the SWAT team on standby.
They never expected to find the Platinum Club as silent as a tomb.
Or the door wide open.
But that’s exactly what they found.
“Dammit, the guy has snitches everywhere. He knew we were coming for him. He’s probably halfway to Russia by now.” The officer in charge, police lieutenant Manny deAngelo, flipped off his radio and pulled his gloves back on. He’d have cussed a blue streak, but it was too cold to waste the energy.
“Think it’s a trap?” one of the cops asked.
“Nah.” Manny sighed. “Nick’s smart, but nobody’s ever accused him of being subtle. But it wouldn’t hurt to be careful going in.” He signaled his men to move forward.
So they did. Cautiously. Two by two, in covering formation.
The warehouse was deserted, and it had been looted. Whoever had done it had left a mess behind, but not a single thing of value. They’d pulled the phones from the walls and busted open the canned drink machines to get at the change. They’d tagged the walls with graffiti—more than one gang had been here. Some of the spray paint was still wet.
Penny-ante stuff. And very recent.
It seemed Mr. Roma had enemies in low places.
“These guys better hope Roma’s outa here—he’s likely to cut their balls off if he’s still around.” Manny surveyed the wreckage with a jaundiced eye. “I wonder what they knew?”
“Yeah.”
They kept moving. The deeper into the building they got, the worse the damage was, probably because the street resale value of the missing contents rose as they got farther in. When they reached Nick’s office, it looked like it had been stripped clean by hungry locusts. But the hoods had left something behind.
“The chief isn’t gonna like this.” Manny looked down at Nick’s body, tumbled to the floor so somebody could steal the chair the man had clearly died in.
“I don’t know—seems to me Nick got what he deserved.” The cop gave a tight grin. “But I’m glad it’s your job to call it in.”
Manny had it right.
Bill Harrison was still in his office. It was close to midnight, and his desk was stacked so high with reports and associated materials that he’d need an archaeologist to get to the bottom of it.
The photos of Nick Roma at the crime scene occupied a prominent position on the top of the pile.
Harrison didn’t like it.
He’d wanted to put this man who had caused so much unbearable grief on trial. He’d wanted to confront him, along with all the other victims, and tell him what he’d done. Tell him about the nightmares and the pain and the loneliness.
He’d wanted to lock him away and watch the system slowly eat Nick Roma alive.
And then, only after he’d been through decades of it, Bill Harrison wanted to watch Nick Roma strapped down and killed.
But now it was too late for that.
Unlike most of his victims, Nick had died fast and easy. He’d probably barely had time to know it was coming.
Harrison was cheated of his revenge.
He didn’t like it at all.
He looked at the eight-by-ten glossies of the man who’d gotten away—permanently.
That’s when he heard Rosie’s voice, as clearly as if she were standing there beside him. “It’s better like this. Now you can get on with living.”
He turned to look around him. He was alone, not a soul in sight. Downstairs, the usual business of the city at midnight went on at a feverish pace. But here, there was nobody but him, and a voice that he couldn’t possibly have heard.
“Rosie?” Nothing. “Rosie!” Silence. The pain came crashing down again. But through it, he felt, for the very first time, a sense of peace. Rosie—had that really been Rosie?—was right on target. As usual.
His thirst for revenge was as destructive as the man in those pictures. It would tear him up, slowly eat his soul if he let it.
Instead, he needed to look for justice.
The people who did this needed to be stopped. They had to be caught and caged so that they couldn’t do it again.
Nick Roma wasn’t going to cause any more trouble in this life. Once the paperwork was filed, his case was over.
He’d not acted alone, of course. Bill Harrison wouldn’t rest until he’d gotten them all, one way or another.
But not for revenge. For justice. And to preserve the peace for all of the good people he’d sworn to protect.
That was his job, and he was going to do it.
He stood up, turned his back on his desk, and went to get his suit jacket and overcoat.
He had a daughter to go home to, and a life to put back together. He had a future. He owed it to his wife to make it a good one, to live the very best life he could without her.
He turned off the light and left, closing the door behind him.
Tasheya was waiting for him.
FORTY-FOUR
MOSCOW FEBRUARY 11, 2000
MINUTES AFTER LEAVING THE TELEVISION STUDIO from which he conducted his nightly talk show broadcast, Arkady Pedachenko stepped into the backseat of his Mercedes and had his chauffeur take him to the exclusive Hotel National opposite the onion domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral. He was dropped off outside the front doors, strode through the chandeliered lobby with a familiar nod to the concierge and desk staff, and then took the elevator up to the luxury suite he had been reserving on a long-term lease for several years.
This was very much a matter of routine for Pedachenko, who would arrive once or twice a week, most often alone, to be joined by a dostupniey dyevochkia, or “easy woman,” in his rooms shortly afterward. The driver and hotel staff knew this well enough, but it was hardly regarded as scandalous behavior, even for a prominent politician. Pedachenko, after all, was unmarried, and his reputation as a playboy only enhanced his charismatic appeal to a public seeking Western-style youth and glamor, as well as a slight flavor of eroticism, in their leaders. Besides, Russians—particularly the upscale Muscovites who formed the core of Pedachenko’s following—valued the good life, and found it difficult to understand the sexual prudishness that seemed to have overtaken the United States. Let the man have his little adventures.
Tonight Pedachenko had n
o sooner gotten to his room than he heard a soft knock at his door, opened it, and stepped back to admit a beautiful woman in a short black skirt, black stockings, black leather jacket, and black beret. The concierge had seen her enter the lobby in her spike heels, guessed immediately that she was going to Pedachenko’s room, and admired her long-legged figure with a kind of wishful envy aimed at the politician, whom he was sure would be enjoying his tryst even more than usual this evening. The woman was like a pantheress, he observed. One who was no doubt in heat.
Now she sat down on a plush Queen Anne wing chair, pulled off her beret, and shook her head so her hair spilled loosely over her jacket collar.
“The money before anything,” she said coolly.
He stood in front of her, still dressed in his sport coat and slacks, and shook his head ever so slightly.
“It makes me sad to know our relationship is based so exclusively on payment for services rendered,” he said with a pained look. “After everything we’ve done together, one would think some kind of deeper bond would have formed.”
“Save your cleverness for the viewers of your program,” she said. “I want what you owe me.”
Pedachenko made a slight tsking sound, reached into his inner jacket pocket, and brought out a thick white envelope. She took it from him, opened the flap, and glanced inside. Then she dropped it into her purse.
“At least you didn’t feel it necessary to count it in front of me, Gilea,” Pedachenko said. “Perhaps we have the beginnings of a closer, more trusting relationship here, after all.”
“I told you to play the raconteur with someone else,” she said. “We have urgent business to discuss.” Her cheekbones suddenly appeared to sharpen. “I haven’t heard from Korut. He was supposed to contact me two nights ago.”
“Can you try to get in touch with him?”
“The members of my band don’t spend their nights in the comfort of expensive hotels, with telephones at their bedsides and fax service at the push of a button,” she said, with a single quick shake of her head. “The surroundings in which they sleep are far more Spartan.”
He gave her a hard look. “How concerned should we be?”
“Not too, yet. He could be on the move and feel it’s unsafe to communicate. That’s happened before. But we’ll have to wait and see.” She paused. “He’ll get a message through to me if he’s able.”
Pedachenko kept his eyes on her face.
“Well, 1 don’t like it,” he said. “In view of the failure at the satellite station—”
“It wouldn’t have happened if I’d been in charge of the operation instead of Sadov. You should have waited for me.”
“You may be right. Certainly I’m not inclined to argue. The important thing now, though, is for us to rectify our mistakes.”
“Your mistakes,” she said. “Don’t try that psychological ploy with me.”
He sighed and moved closer to her. “Look, let’s dispense with the antagonism and talk straight. I have another job, Gilea.”
“No,” she said. “We’ve gone far enough. The minister, Bashkir, has been set up for a fall and Starinov will follow him into the pit. Just as you planned.”
“But there’s the possibility someone’s stumbled onto us. You know it as well as 1 do. That incident at the headquarters of the New York gangster, the rumors that it was somehow connected to UpLink. And then the resistance at the ground station ...”
“All the more reason to keep a low profile,” she said.
He expelled another sigh. “Listen to me. Starinov has notified the Ministry that he’s going to be at his cottage outside Dagornys for the next several days. I’ve been there before and can tell you it’s particularly vulnerable to assault.”
“You can’t be serious about what you’re suggesting,” she said. But her eyes had suddenly brightened, become razor sharp, and her lips had parted a little, showing the upper edges of her front teeth.
“I’ll pay anything you ask, make any arrangements you wish for your safe haven afterward,” he said.
She stared into Pedachenko’s eyes, her tongue moving over her lip, her breath coming in short, rapid snatches.
A second crawled past.
Two.
She stared into his eyes.
Finally she nodded.
“I’ll take him,” she said.
FORTY-FIVE
MOSCOW FEBRUARY 12, 2000
THERE WERE THREE MEN IN DARK SUITS, WIDEBRIMMED fedoras, and long gray overcoats hanging around outside the bathhouse when the Rover pulled up in front of it.
“Will you take a look at them?” Scull said from the backseat. “It’s like they’re fucking play-acting at being gangsters.”
“They are and they aren’t,” Blackburn said, glancing out the front passenger’s window. “In some ways, I really don’t think these monkeys can distinguish reality from what they’ve seen in old-time American gangster flicks. But you have to remember that every one of them is packing a weapon under his coat.”
“You guys want me to come in with you?”
This from Neil Perry, who was behind the steering wheel.
Blackburn shook his head.
“It’d be better if you wait here, in case we need to take off in a hurry,” he said, and halfway unzipped his leather jacket. Scull could see the butt of his Smith & Wesson nine in a shoulder holster underneath it. “I don’t think they’ll give us much trouble, though.”
Perry gave him a small nod.
Blackburn looked over the seat rest at Scull.
“Okay,” he said. “You ready?”
“Been ready for days,” Scull said.
The two men exited the car and strode across the sidewalk. It was a sunny day and a few degrees above freezing, warm for Moscow in winter, but despite the relatively moderate weather the street was nearly empty, and business was slow in the trendy shops along Ulitsa Petrovka. It was the uncertainty about worsened food shortages, and the withdrawal of NATO assistance, and a potential economic embargo, Scull thought. People were holding onto their money in anticipation of the worst.
The hoods closed ranks as Blackburn and Scull approached the bathhouse entrance, blocking their path to it. One of them, a tall man with dark hair and a large shovel chin, said something to Blackburn in Russian.
“Ya nye gavaryu pa russkiy,” Blackburn replied.
Shovel Chin repeated what he’d said, motioning the two Americans off. Out the corner of his eye, Blackburn noticed another of the men edging forward, opening the middle button of his coat. He was shorter than the first one and had a mustache that looked as if it had been traced over his upper lip with an eye pencil.
“I just told you I don’t speak Russian,” Blackburn said, and started forward.
Shovel Chin bumped him back with his shoulder.
“I tell you again in fucking Engleeski, then,” he said, shoving out his chest. “You get the fuck out of this place right now, you motherfucking American asshole.”
Blackburn looked at him a moment and then punched him hard in the sternum, pivoting toward him as he connected, putting his full weight into the blow. Shovel Chin sagged to his knees, grimacing. He heaved twice and then threw up all over his coat.
Still watching him peripherally, Blackburn saw the thug with the mustache stick a hand into his coat. He whirled and drew his Glock, shoving its barrel into the thug’s throat, cocking its trigger. Mustache’s hand froze under his lapel.
“Get your hand out where I can see it,” Blackburn said. “You understand?”
The guy nodded, a fearful, bolting look in his eyes. His hand appeared from inside his coat. Scull hurried over and patted him down, reached under his lapel, extracted a Glock pistol, and shoved it into the right hip pocket of his jacket.
Blackburn glanced at the third man. The guy hadn’t budged from where he’d been standing when they got out of the car. He shook his head quickly back and forth as Blackburn’s gaze fell on him, then put his hands up in the air.
&n
bsp; “No trouble,” he said. “No trouble.”
Scull frisked him, found his gun, and pocketed it, shoving it somewhere inside his jacket.
Blackburn screwed the bore of his gun deeper into Pencil Mustache’s throat.
“Help your komerade to his feet.”
The gangster did as Blackburn asked. The three of them stood there, trembling.
Blackburn gestured again with the gun. “All three of you, I want you to walk slowly and quietly into that bathhouse. If you make a sound that I don’t like, you won’t live long enough to regret it. We’ll be right behind you. Now move!”
A moment later, all of them were headed down the sidewalk. Shovel Chin was still unsteady, and had vomit dripping from his chin.
They pushed through the door of the bathhouse and a kind of stewy, humid warmth spilled over them. An attendant peeked his head out of a doorway. A moment later he pulled his head back and quietly closed the door.
Scull looked around and started opening likely-looking doors. Halfway down the corridor he found what he was searching for. A closet, stacked high with towels and cleaning supplies. He pushed the gangsters inside, whispering a chilling promise of what he’d do to them if he should hear a sound from this closet in the next hour or so. Then he closed the door, shutting them in, and propped a chair against the knob. They’d be able to break out eventually, of course, but not without making lots of noise—and they’d be too scared to do that for a while.
“Come on,” Blackburn said to Scull.
The sauna was on their left toward the back. They could hear groans coming from inside it. A man, at least two women. Blackburn nodded to Scull and reached for the door handle, pulling open the door to release some of the steam. The Smith & Wesson was in his free hand.
Yuri Vostov was naked. So was the woman on his lap, her back against his rolling middle, his hands on her belly. And so was the second woman with her head between both their thighs. The three of them looked up from the bench in shock and bewilderment, jumping apart as they saw the armed man in the doorway.
Scull pulled a couple of towels off hooks on the wall, tossed them to the women.
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