by Ty Patterson
Beth and Meghan pitched in. They donned headpieces and sat alongside the agents to take calls. Listening, grimacing, and at times chuckling at the people on the other end.
Some of the calls made them look at each other. An eighty-year-old grandma said her granddaughter was missing. She disappeared on the way home from school. ‘I am the only family she has. The cops haven’t found anything. I don’t have Konstantin’s money,’ she sobbed. ‘Or else I would have run ads, too.’
Beth bit her lip, lost for words. Take her details, Meghan scribbled on a sheet and passed it to her.
Beth nodded and, when the call ended finally, looked at Megan. ‘We’ll set Werner onto it?’
‘Yes.’
Felix Hidalgo called on the second day, as the sisters were leaving the call center. By then, the agency had recruited more handlers and the twins weren’t manning the phones.
The fence called on Meghan’s phone. She climbed into their SUV and patched it into the vehicle’s speakers.
‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING?’ he screamed.
‘Driving,’ she replied snarkily.
‘WHY ARE YOU RUNNING THAT CAMPAIGN?’
‘Who said we are?’
‘YOU ARE BEHIND IT. NO ONE ELSE KNOWS ABOUT THE RUSSIAN.’
‘The cops know.’
‘YOU TOLD THEM. HE WILL KILL ME.’
‘Someone should have killed you a while back,’ she laughed. ‘Felix, why did you call?’
The fence’s loud breathing filled the vehicle. He swallowed audibly. ‘I know what you’re doing,’ he lowered his voice, rage and anxiety lacing it. ‘You’re trying to draw him out.’
‘You gave us no choice. You didn’t tell us anything more about him. Your network clammed up when we reached out.’
Which was true. The sisters had hit a brick wall when they had made cautious enquiries.
‘There’s a reason,’ Hidalgo snarled. ‘I told you, we have never dealt with anyone like Nikolai.’
‘In that case, watch us deal with him.’
She hung up and drove out.
Zeb and Angie were holed up in an apartment in Harlem. It was on the ground floor, with a rear door that only apartments at that level had, opening into a common backyard.
The heiress inspected the accommodation, and this time she didn’t turn her nose up, nor did she comment.
‘We can’t live in hiding forever,’ she said the evening the ads ran.
‘We won’t.’
She looked up, but Zeb didn’t elaborate.
The next day he got her to wear a long, loose shirt, shades over her eyes, a baseball cap pulled low over her head.
She didn’t protest. She was a changed woman since Kloops’ attack. She had traded her expensive dresses for jeans and shirts. They were still high-end apparel but were less noticeable.
She slithered down in her seat and looked out over the tops of her shades.
‘Sunshine,’ she rasped. ‘I had almost forgotten what it was like.’
Zeb honked at an impatient cab.
‘You think it will work?’ she questioned him.
‘These ads? Yeah.’
‘Won’t Nikolai come after them?’
‘Possibly.’
She sat up. ‘You aren’t worried?’
‘Nope.’
He parked in an empty space, went around to her side and opened her door.
‘My, my.’ She stepped out regally. ‘I didn’t expect such service.’
He didn’t respond. There was a reason for his move. His body shielded hers, even as his eyes checked out the street. He kept close to her and guided her to an electronics retailer, where he bought a burner phone.
Headed to a drugstore, where he paid for another one. He had five cell phones with him by the time he had finished shopping.
‘What are those for?’ Angie asked, her mouth full with a burger.
‘For making calls.’
She rolled her eyes.
She watched him clone her cell phone with one that he had bought but said nothing more.
She’s changed, he thought. The previous Angie would have talked or griped non-stop.
‘You miss the old Angie?’ she grinned, reading his mind.
‘This is the old Angie. What you had then was a mask.’
She was biting her lip, regarding him thoughtfully, when he looked up finally.
‘What will you do with those?’ she asked, pointing to the phones, not pursuing his comment.
He tossed her phone at her. ‘Who’s your best buddy?’
‘Stace,’ she replied immediately. ‘Stacey Rios.’
He looked blank.
‘YOU HAVEN’T HEARD OF HER!’ she shrieked.
‘Should I have?’
‘Zeb! She’s the biggest pop star in the world,’ and then she punched him in the arm when he smiled briefly.
‘Beth, Meghan, they listen to her. Call her.’
‘Call?’ she frowned. ‘But what about —’
‘It’s time to stop hiding.’
Chapter Thirty-Three
Nikolai wasn’t a happy man. He had watched, horrified, as the ad campaigns ran. Vasily tried to interrupt him a few times and slunk away when the Russian swore savagely.
The sisters had outwitted him. It galled him. It also scared him. He had been careless in his early years. Power and money had swayed his head. He had tied up as many loose ends as possible, but there were still a few in America who had heard of him or met him.
Hidalgo, for example. Thinking through all his dealings and the people he had met, he calmed himself with the thought, they don’t know anything about me other than my name.
He didn’t know how the Petersen women had known of Russian involvement.
And then he thought of Grigor Andropov. There had to be a connection.
The phone on his desk rang, the sound chilling him.
Only one man had that number.
His sponsor, his protector, in the Kremlin.
‘Da,’ he said, trying to sound confident, then fell silent as the tirade began.
‘I will make it right,’ he told the man when the angry words stopped. ‘But I need your help.’
He winced when another flood started. He held the phone away from his ear and waited for the man to draw a breath.
And said just one sentence.
‘I need Razor.’
He summoned Vasily when he hung up. ‘Those bids on those two sisters. Did you accept any?’
‘No,’ the hacker said, moistening his lips nervously. ‘You told me to —’
‘Don’t take any bid. Let the game run.’
‘But those sums will keep going up,’ Vasily protested. ‘We have to accept a bid. There’s a timeline.’
‘We’re changing the rules. We won’t take any bid. The players will think they are still competing with each other.’
‘What happens to the characters?’
‘There’s another player. He will take care of them.’
‘No one new has registered,’ Vasily frowned.
‘This one does not sign up.’ Nikolai grinned wolfishly, his confidence returning. Razor never failed.
‘What about Angie Konstantin?’
‘Are there any bids on her?’
‘Yes, a Mexican shooter.’
‘Accept it.’
Hidalgo called on the fourth day of the ads, by which time there were some leads the sisters were pursuing.
‘There’s someone who wants to meet you,’ the fence told them.
‘We’ll only meet Nikolai.’ Meghan twirled a curl of hair and mouthed Hidalgo at her sister.
‘You have to meet this man,’ the fence said urgently. ‘He is taking a huge risk in coming out.’
‘Coming out of where?’
‘To meet you.’
They met Hidalgo and his mysterious contact in a crowded fast-food joint in Queens that evening.
They had made the fence drive to several restaurants before finally giving him the corre
ct location.
Less time to set a trap, Meghan thought, as they waited in their SUV and watched the establishment’s entrance.
‘You’re in place?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Bwana chuckled in her earpiece.
He and Roger cased the rear of the restaurant, while Bear and Chloe were slouched down in another vehicle at the front. The four of them would come crashing, ready for war, at the slightest sign of trouble.
An hour later, Hidalgo showed up. By his side was a figure wearing a raincoat, even though there was no sign of rain.
Meghan raised her binos but couldn’t make out his face.
‘Where are you?’ Hidalgo demanded on her phone.
‘Who’s with you?’
‘He’s … you’re watching me?’
‘Of course, we are,’ Meghan snorted.
‘He’s the one who wants to meet you.’
‘You’re good to go,’ Bwana rumbled in her earpiece. ‘No heavies. No shooters. I miss the days when we had someone to kill.’
Beth entered the establishment first and waited by the door, checking out the interior.
Meghan joined her after a while, and they headed to where the fence sat, the second man with his back to the entrance.
Beth sat next to the stranger, while the older sister slid beside the fence.
‘Look under the table,’ Meghan commanded.
Hidalgo snuck a peek. His face turned red. ‘You have guns on us.’
‘Yeah. We’ll use them, too, if this is a trap.’
‘My customers are deserting me,’ the fence said through gritted teeth. ‘My network knows I moved weapons for Nikolai. Your ads have scared my clients. I should be holding guns on you.’
‘Try it and see where it gets you,’ Beth glared at him.
‘Felix,’ the stranger broke his silence. ‘Let’s tell them and get out of here.’
His voice was rusty, as if speech were alien to him. His eyes were dark and still, his head shorn of all hair. A graying stubble on his chin, hands spread on the table, nails clean.
Calluses on the sides of his hands, Meghan noticed.
Hidalgo breathed deeply, controlling himself. He nodded his head at the stranger.
‘Meet Francis Jurado. He is dead.’
Chapter Thirty-Four
‘Dead?’ Beth blurted.
‘That’s what the world thinks.’ Hidalgo’s face lightened at the surprise on her face.
‘Spill,’ Meghan commanded.
‘I was Nikolai’s man,’ Jurado said, looking around casually.
He’s sweeping the place. Sectioning it. Taking in everything, the way we do, Meghan thought. He is no low-level heavy.
‘What do you mean by that?’ her sister asked.
‘I was his trouble-shooter. I made his problems go away.’
Hidalgo leaned forward to whisper, ‘Jurado was Nikolai’s killer.’ He shrank and raised a hand placatingly when still eyes bored through him.
‘What Hidalgo said,’ the shooter continued, when the fence stayed quiet. He had no accent; his English was good. ‘A client didn’t pay on time, I reminded him. A customer backed out of a deal, I backed him out of life. I enforced Nikolai’s reputation.’
‘So, what happened? Why aren’t you working with him still?’
‘Nikolai was getting out of the arms business. He had some loose ends. He asked me to take care of them.’
‘And then?’
‘He sent Razor after me.’
‘Razor?’ both sisters asked simultaneously.
‘You haven’t heard of him?’
‘No.’ Beth replied.
‘That’s because he is the best killer I have come across. He never fails. He’s Russian. Based in New York. He serves his master in Moscow. No one knows who that is.’
‘Not Nikolai?’
‘No, even Nikolai can’t afford him.’
‘Why did he send this Razor after you?’ Meghan tried to make sense of what Jurado was revealing.
‘I told you,’ the shooter said impatiently. ‘Nikolai didn’t want anyone alive who could recognize him. I was one of them.’
‘He left Hidalgo alive.’
‘That’s because Felix does business with cartels as well. No one wants to deal with them. Besides Felix has a stand-up reputation.’
Meghan snorted.
‘Is true,’ Hidalgo insisted and subsided into silence at a glare from Jurado.
Beth put on a smile as a server approached, took their orders and went away. ‘Why are you telling us all this?’
‘Because you poked the bear,’ the fence snarled. He looked around hastily and lowered his voice. ‘There’s a good chance Nikolai will send Razor after you. It is possible he will come after me, too, and Jurado.’
‘He left you alone all this time,’ Beth said, not hiding her disbelief.
‘This time is different.’ Hidalgo shook his head vehemently, his command over his language slipping, revealing his fear and frustration. ‘You are ruining his business with these ads. He doesn’t care anymore.’
‘He doesn’t know about Jurado.’
‘Razor will finish you, first. Then come after me. He will torture me. I won’t be able to hold back about Francis.’
Beth considered the men in front of them. Hidalgo’s fear was palpable. Jurado was more composed, but a muscle twitched in his cheek.
‘Razor never fails, and yet here you are?’
The killer waited for the server to lay out their order and took a pull on his drink.
‘We had finished moving a shipment from Hidalgo’s warehouse on the river. Everyone had gone. It was raining. I was running to my car when he came out of nowhere. A shadow wearing a raincoat. I had never seen him before, but I had heard of him. I realized why he was there. I brought up my gun. He moved so fast, the next thing I knew I was on my back, a knife in my side. He stood over me and shot me twice in the chest. I lost consciousness. He probably thought I was dead, because next thing I know, Hidalgo is leaning over me.’
‘That was the final shipment,’ the fence took over. ‘I had forgotten something at the warehouse and hurried back. Found Francis. He was barely alive. I knew what had happened. Dragged him away, put him in a safe house, and when he recovered, gave him a new identity.’
‘Jurado isn’t your real name?’
‘No,’ the killer eyed a customer who had come too close to their table. The look was enough. The man walked away hastily. ‘I had another name.’
‘What?’
‘It doesn’t matter. That life is behind me.’
‘You have turned into a saint?’
‘No. But I don’t break the law anymore, if that’s what you are asking.’
‘What do you do now?’
‘I build houses. Help in charities.’
Beth stared at him skeptically.
Jurado looked back impassively. ‘It was me who asked Felix to set up this meeting. You should know who is coming after you.’
‘You don’t look scared.’
‘I lived a particular life,’ the killer shrugged. ‘Dying was an everyday possibility.’
‘We can call the cops, you know,’ Meghan sucked her drink noisily and flashed a smile when a family looked their way. ‘Have you arrested before you leave this joint.’
‘For what?’
‘You confessed to being a killer.’
‘It’s your word against mine.’
‘We are recording this.’
‘You are not,’ the killer moved, held his left arm placatingly when the sisters pointed their guns at him beneath the table. He brought out a device with his right hand. ‘A jammer. It interferes with any listening device’s frequency. Even your phone’s.’
Maybe he is who he claims to be, Meghan thought with reluctant admiration.
‘What does Razor look like?’
‘I never saw his face, but from what I have heard, he is my height. Close-cropped hair. Black eyes. Clean-shaven. No marks on his face.’<
br />
‘You just described hundreds of thousands of men in this city.’
‘That’s one reason he’s successful.’
Jurado rose. Hidalgo followed suit. The meeting was over.
‘Wait,’ Meghan stopped them. ‘Why should we believe you?’
The killer removed a transparent foil from his right thumb and pressed the digit against a glass.
‘Run that print. It will take you to a murder that was never solved. A gangbanger who had lived too long.’
Chapter Thirty-Five
The sisters sat in silence for several moments after Jurado and Hidalgo had left.
‘What do you make of that?’ Beth swirled the remains of her drink and swallowed the last sip.
‘Why would he make that up?’ Meghan said slowly.
Beth scrunched her face, thinking, and then shook her head. ‘Beats me.’
‘We have to assume that was the truth. That print should be easy enough to run.’ The elder sister raised her hand for the check and paid it when the server arrived. ‘As if these attacks weren’t enough, we now have a mysterious Russian killer to deal with. Someone who reports to yet another shadowy person. Did I tell you everything about this case sucks?’
‘About a million times.’
‘We have to tell Zeb.’
Zeb listened silently when Beth narrated their meeting with Hidalgo and Jurado.
‘Razor?’
‘Yeah. You’ve heard of him?’
‘Nope. He’s not lying.’
‘Who? Jurado?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That’s what we figured, too.’
‘Be careful.’
‘Yeah —’
A startled exclamation stopped her. Angie’s voice. That’s all? Be careful! they heard her say.
‘She’s listening in?’ Beth asked, astonished.
‘Yes. You’re on speaker.’
‘Why?’
‘She said she would start talking if I didn’t.’
The sisters looked at one another, astounded, and burst into laughter. Fearless Zeb scared by Angie Konstantin’s threat of conversation.
‘You are not in the house?’ Meghan asked him, still chuckling.
