Location unknown
Evgeny Domashev would have sworn on his mother’s life that he was at least passingly familiar with every section of Moscow. He’d grown up in the area, had spent most of his time haunting its streets and neighborhoods as a child, and had worked in and around the city for the majority of his adult life.
But when the redheaded bitch popped the trunk and motioned him out at gunpoint, he could not say with complete certainty he was even in Moscow. He guessed he was, because the timing seemed right, but he wasn’t positive.
He’d lost consciousness when the cyka kicked him in the head, but had awakened in the cold and dark of the trunk before the vehicle’s engine had even started. Checking his watch was out of the question given the way his wrists had been secured, so the glow-in-the-dark numerals it featured did him no good.
But Moscow was roughly a six-hour drive from Kremlyov, and his internal clock told him approximately six hours had passed since his humiliation at the hands of the tiny woman who had somehow gotten the drop on him.
He could only thank the fates that none of his KGB peers had witnessed it. Not even Nikolay Mineyev, whose head had been blown apart by a high-velocity sniper round, and who, Evgeny was certain, had been dead before his body hit the frozen Russian roadway.
The car squealed to a stop and the engine died, and a moment later the trunk lid opened and Evgeny squinted against the watery grey light. His head pounded and he assumed he’d suffered a concussion. The woman was small but her boot was heavy, and she hadn’t held anything back with her kick.
Bitch.
She leaned over him, weapon aimed at his midsection, and spoke quietly. “I’m going to slice through the tape on your ankles. Then I’m going to help you out of the trunk. If you try to kick me, or try to escape, or even look at me like I have spinach in my teeth, I’m going to shoot you in the stomach. You won’t die—yet—because we need to have an important conversation. But you will wish you were dead, and I promise to maximize your suffering for every last second of what’s left of your life. Do we understand each other?”
He tried to keep the smoldering anger out of his expression, but doing so became more and more difficult as the little cyka droned on. No one spoke to Evegny Domashev in the tone that bitch was using.
No one.
Even his KGB superiors were deferential.
They requested, they did not demand.
They were solicitous, they were not arrogant.
They understood that Evgeny Domashev had ended more lives, and in more creative ways, than they could count, and understood also that staying on Evgeny’s good side was not just good sense, it represented the key to a long and healthy life.
This woman understood none of that, and he could feel his pulse racing and his temper shortening. The building anger made his head pound even worse and made any kind of clear thinking that much more difficult to achieve.
Still, she was the one with the gun—for now—and thus she controlled the situation.
For now.
Evgeny forced a placid look onto his face and nodded. Da, I understand. He couldn’t actually answer, because the little bitch had taped his mouth closed.
“Good,” she said. She reached into the truck with her right hand while holding her weapon rock-steady with her left. Sliced through the duct tape on Evgeny’s ankles with a combat knife.
She slipped her knife into its sheath and grabbed Evgeny under the armpits. Then she lifted him roughly to his knees and supported him as he clambered out of the trunk.
Despite her warning, Evgeny immediately assessed the situation, searching for a potential escape route and attempting to determine his whereabouts.
He was unsuccessful on both counts.
He had assumed immediately upon the trunk’s opening that there would be no potential witnesses. The little bitch’s level of comfort in displaying her weapon told him that before he had even glanced at the surrounding area.
And his assumption was a good one. They were alone in a very narrow, trash-filled alley. It felt claustrophobic, with dirty concrete block walls looming over them on either side.
As far as Evgeny could see, the walls were windowless, meaning the location must be industrial. The buildings were clearly not residences; therefore they were either factories or warehouses.
His captor stepped behind him and prodded him forward, shoving the barrel of her gun roughly into his back.
He considered his options. His feet were now free. Could he pivot and sidekick her in the knee, disabling her before she had time to squeeze the trigger? Could he—
“Do not go there, Comrade. Do not even think about it. I am faster than you even when you’re uninjured. With your head pounding and your wrists secured, you would have no chance. Trust me.”
Chert voz’mi. This little bitch was good. He must be careful not to underestimate her any more than he already had.
He reluctantly trudged forward, moving deeper into the alley. Night was falling quickly, and between the setting sun, the overcast grey skies, and the walls that seemed to stretch upward for hundreds of meters, light was minimal.
After perhaps twenty meters, a third wall loomed in front of them. It was constructed of concrete block as well. A door that looked as though it belonged in a residence stood in the middle of the wall. It seemed bizarrely out of place in this industrial setting.
“Turn to your left,” the woman hissed.
Evgeny complied, and as soon as he had, the woman shoved him in the back. He crashed into the concrete wall face-first and the pain blossomed in his head.
“Do not move,” she said. “If you move, you die. Do you understand?”
If it’s the last thing I do, I am going to kill this little cyka. He gritted his teeth and nodded. He knew what she was doing. She was well trained. Unlocking the door would require her to divert her attention from Evgeny, which would make her vulnerable. She was minimizing his chances of taking advantage of her distraction.
She was smart.
Shrewd.
He would still kill her.
The jingle of keys told him he was right, and after a moment the woman grabbed him by his parka and yanked him backward. He stumbled and she caught him, and before he could regain his balance she spun him around and pushed him through the door.
A dim light flickered on. They were in a small, mostly bare room. A sturdy wooden chair sat precisely in the middle of the room.
This was a safe house. Evgeny should know. He had spent more hours, days and weeks inside safe houses than he could possibly count.
And this particular safe house had been prepped for an interrogation.
For his interrogation.
He had already long-since come to the conclusion the little bitch was CIA. It was the only explanation for how she could have managed to overcome the difference in their sizes and taken him down. This safe house only served to confirm what he had already deduced.
For the first time, a thread of real fear snaked through his bowels. Getting assaulted had not fazed him. Being threatened with a gun had not fazed him. Even being knocked out and tossed into the truck of a car like a bag of garbage had not fazed him.
Evgeny Domashev had lived through all those things and worse, many times in the past.
But this. This was different. The prospect of interrogation by this grimly determined young woman, who seemed to possess not a shred of empathy, or a drop of concern for his wellbeing, or even a morsel of humanity, was cause for real concern.
Maybe more than concern. Maybe fear.
Because ever since the trunk cover lifted and he found himself staring into the face of his captor, she had reminded Evgeny of someone. It had taken him a few minutes and a little bit of pain to figure out exactly who she reminded him of.
But now he knew.
She reminded him of himself.
And he knew better than anyone else in the world what he was capable of.
And that was terrifying.
26
/> January 24, 1988
4:35 p.m.
CIA safe house
Moscow, Russia
Tracie frog-marched Speransky across the room. She shoved him constantly, keeping him off-balance, not allowing him the luxury of an easy trip. His anger was still building, but he didn’t resist.
Smart move on his part.
Before leaving for Kremlyov yesterday, Tracie had screwed the heavy wooden chair—to her it looked a lot like the electric chair that this cold-blooded murderer deserved—to the floor. She had taken a few minutes to modify the chair by attaching a heavy metal L-brace to each leg. Each brace she had then screwed into the floor. Her modifications would prevent the chair from skidding across the floor or tipping over.
No matter how…spirited…the interrogation became.
Speransky was doing his best to project an image of stoicism, but she could tell he was getting more and more nervous.
Concerned.
Afraid.
The last thing an animal like he could stand was loss of control, and once Tracie had finished strapping him into the lookalike electric chair, he would have even less control over his fate than he had now.
He would have absolutely none whatsoever.
And he knew it.
Tracie stopped Speransky next to the chair and moved in front of him. Stood silently, gun trained on him, staring into his face and waiting for him to meet her gaze. He seemed to want to look everywhere but at her. Eventually, though, he’d taken in every object in the room—it didn’t take long, this portion of the safe house was nearly barren—and with obvious reluctance he lifted his eyes to her.
She held his gaze for three seconds.
Four.
Five.
Then she very slowly looked from his face to the chair. To punctuate her point, she flicked the barrel of the Beretta from his midsection to the chair and back again.
Playing out the little vignette was not strictly necessary. Speransky’s hands were still secured behind his back at the wrist and his mouth was still gagged and taped. She had the gun. He would wind up sitting in that chair in a few seconds, one way or the other.
But it was all about control. About reinforcing the notion of who had it and who did not. About establishing the type of psychological dominance that would enable her to pry information from this experienced KGB operative.
Information that he was undoubtedly determined not to share.
Physical torture could be effective. Every human being, no matter how strong and how determined, had a breaking point. Everyone could be turned.
Eventually.
But Tracie could not afford to take the time it would require to break Speransky’s resistance using only physical means. Sooner or later someone was going to find Yuri Ryakhin bound and gagged in his kitchen, and when that happened, Tracie’s assignment would instantly morph from difficult to nearly impossible.
So her plan was to combine physical means with psychological. To create in Piotr Speransky a certain mindset: that his captor was smarter and stronger and better prepared than he.
To break him mentally.
She thought she knew just how she was going to do it, and her plan was to start right now.
Speransky followed her gaze. He looked from her face to the chair and then back again.
Didn’t move.
Tracie stepped forward. Lifted her gun and placed it under his chin. Pushed steadily upward until he was gagging and struggling to breathe.
He would know or strongly suspect—and rightfully so—that Tracie would be reluctant to shoot him. If she’d wanted to do that she could have done so back at the ambush site and saved herself a lot of trouble and risk.
Her intention to interrogate him would be obvious, and since a man who was dead could not provide answers, the prospect of taking a bullet became much less likely in his eyes, which made the threat the Beretta represented that much less effective.
But it didn’t mean she was out of options. She swiveled her wrist and clubbed him in the jaw with the butt of the gun. He stumbled back a step with a brief groan of pain. His eyes watered and he blinked rapidly to clear them.
Then they narrowed until they were nothing more than slits, the barest of openings, his fury and humiliation plain.
Still he held his ground.
Tracie drew back her arm to strike Speransky second time, in the exact same location, and abruptly he moved forward. Turned and slumped into the chair, making certain to hold his head up in clear defiance of her.
But the damage had been done and her point made.
She was fully in charge.
Now she had to get down to business.
* * *
January 24, 1988
8:15 p.m.
CIA safe house
Moscow, Russia
Speransky’s hair hung in his face, sweaty and stringy, and he moaned through his gag. Five minutes had elapsed since she’d removed one of the fingernails on his left hand—the second one she’d taken—and now she approached him again, pliers prominently displayed in front of his wide bloodshot eyes.
Blood dripped from his left pointer finger and middle finger, and Tracie knew the pain must be immense. But even worse than the throbbing in those fingers with each rapid beat of his heart would be the knowledge that a third nail was about to be ripped from a third finger.
The pain would again explode in his hand and he would again scream into his gag and a third finger would join the first two in becoming swollen, bloody, disfigured pulps of useless flesh.
Tracie hated inflicting pain on another human being. She felt sick to her stomach resorting to physical torture but maintained a mask of steadfast determination. She knew she was making headway and showing any reluctance to Speransky at this point would only stiffen his weakening resolve.
“Let’s see,” she said. She leaned over his hand and pretended to examine it closely. “Which finger to choose?”
She raised her head and looked into his eyes. “Or maybe it’s time to start on the right hand. You’re going to have a hell of a time tying your shoes or buttoning your shirt or wiping your ass when you can’t use the fingers on either hand, aren’t you, Piotr?”
He whipped his head back and forth, eyes still angry but now pleading rather than arrogant.
She lowered the pliers to the pointer finger on his right hand and began digging the nose into the tender flesh between nail and forefinger.
Speransky whimpered. He was panting heavily behind his gag, sweat pouring down his face, his agony obvious. He had started out this portion of the interrogation with a determined look on his face and had managed to maintain dead silence until screaming into the gag as the nails were ripped from his fingers.
This single whimper represented major progress and Tracie paused.
Held his gaze.
“Had enough, Piotr?”
He could of course not answer. At least, not with spoken words.
But he whimpered again, a reaction she knew was unintended. He meant to resist, the inflamed nerve endings in his injured fingers simply would not allow it.
“Would you like me to remove your gag? Maybe have a friendly conversation, like two civilized human beings?”
This was a critical juncture. Tracie hoped she was not moving too quickly. Her intention again was to establish psychological dominance over the KGB man. She needed him to bend to her will.
If he toughened up and refused her offer of gag removal, it would be a victory for him. An extremely painful victory to be sure, as she would have no choice but to then rip another fingernail off his hand, but it would be a victory nevertheless, and would add potentially hours more onto the interrogation.
Hours Tracie could not afford.
He hesitated, pausing at the question, and she shrugged. Began digging the long nose of the pliers deeper under the nail, and that was when he screamed into his gag.
It wasn’t a scream of pain, although she knew he had to be experiencing plenty
of that. She had not been gentle with the pliers, and even now blood began to well up around them and dribble over Speransky’s fingertip, pooling on the chair’s wooden arm.
But previous screams had been mindless, nothing more than his body’s natural expression of severe agony. He couldn’t have stopped these screams from erupting even if he’d tried, which at the time he’d been beyond doing.
This scream had a point. It was meant to convey a message.
Tracie stopped what she was doing. Withdrew the pliers and said, “I’m sorry, you’re going to have to speak more clearly. Did you say you do want me to remove your gag, Piotr?”
He closed his eyes, perhaps from pain, perhaps from sheer exhaustion, or perhaps from shame at his loss of self-control.
Then he nodded, just once and so abruptly as to be easily missed.
But Tracie didn’t miss it.
She said, “Listen to me closely, Piotr. This safe house is in an industrial area, as I’m sure you are well aware. It is a Friday night, which means no one is near. Additionally, this building has been soundproofed.”
She had no idea as to the truth of the statement and seriously doubted the CIA would have spent the time and funding it would require to soundproof a simple Moscow safe house, but Speranksy would have no way of knowing, either. And given the dynamics of the current power structure, he could not afford to question her assertion too rigorously.
She frowned and continued. “You could scream at the top of your lungs with a fellow operative standing right outside, ear pressed to the exterior wall, and do you know what he would hear?”
He stared, eyes unblinking. She took that to mean he did know what his hypothetical rescuer would hear, but she told him anyway.
“He would hear nothing, Piotr. No one will hear you if I remove your gag and you scream. Trust me on this.”
She held his eyes with a dark gaze and continued. “But one thing will happen if you scream. You will make me very angry if you scream. And if I get very angry, do you know what will then happen?”
Another unblinking stare.
“If I get very angry, Piotr, your gag will go right back into place and I will immediately continue removing your fingernails until they are gone. There will be no five-minute breaks between removals, either. They will disappear one after the other. And then I will start on your toenails. And when your toenails are all gone I will shoot you in the knees, one after the other. All of that will happen before I take my next break.
Tracie Tanner Thrillers Box Set Page 111
