“What have you done?” Benny muttered in horror.
Sokolov had no time to reply as he heard feet thudding up the stairs.
Alerted by the gunshots, the pair of thugs scampered, weapons drawn.
Witnessing the carnage, it took them a moment to realize what had happened and overcome their confusion. That split-second of hesitation was all that Sokolov required to overturn the table and dive for cover behind it.
Benny’s reflexes weren’t good enough. As the goons fired, the slugs hit his body, cutting his scream short.
Splinters flew as the bullets punched through the tabletop within inches from Sokolov’s head.
He rolled sideways out of his defensive position and returned fire, blasting away at the two thugs. His shots found their mark. One thug dropped to the floor, blood gushing from his torso. The other went down like a tree being felled, his skull cracked open by sizzling lead. Both joined their boss on a journey to hell.
Sokolov picked himself up, surrounded by five corpses, and hurried away from the stench of blood and death that followed him out in the streets of Brighton Beach.
He found his way back to the car and climbed in the rear seat of the Blazer.
“Go! Let’s get out of here.”
Constantine hit the accelerator.
“Are you okay?” he asked with concern, glancing in the rearview mirror.
“I survived. Gosha didn’t.”
“Are the mobsters chasing us?”
“They’re out of business. Permanently.”
“What about Benny?”
“He didn’t make it.”
“You should’ve called me. The plan did go to hell, didn’t it?”
“No. In fact, it played out to perfection.”
“What next?”
“We need a breather. We’ve got to lie low somewhere and take stock of the situation.”
“You’re right. And I think I know the perfect hideout.”
25
Constantine navigated to Upstate New York. Two and a half hours later, they reached the exit off the highway and proceeded along a rural road. As they turned off to a bumpy dirt track, the Blazer’s headlights cutting through the darkness ahead, the destination finally came into view.
Constantine stopped the car in front of a country farmhouse and killed the engine.
Sokolov stepped out of the vehicle. The silence and spaciousness of the surroundings felt eerie after the bustle of Brooklyn. The air felt fresh, with a smell of dampness coming from a nearby stream or pond. Grass rustled under his feet as he followed his brother to the porch of the rustic, two-storied building. It seemed like a fantastic getaway location. He had no idea how Constantine knew about the place but he trusted his brother.
The house hardly looked abandoned. The front door was equipped with an electronic lock. Constantine punched in the passcode combination on the keypad and the lock clicked open. Constantine pushed the door ajar, flicked the lights on, and ushered him inside.
The interior of the farmhouse looked large and comfortable, boasting wooden finishes and furnishing. The living room featured a fireplace and a white leather sofa.
“All right, you’d better tell me why we’ve broken into this property,” Sokolov said. “We’re facing enough criminal charges already.”
“Don’t worry, the owner won’t sue us for trespassing,” Constantine assured him.
“And who might that nice person be?”
“You’d never guess.”
Several framed photos hung on a wall. As he inspected them, one immediately caught Sokolov’s eye. A picture of himself and Constantine sitting at a table inside Appleby’s Times Square, together with a young woman.
“Michelle?”
“That’s right.”
Michelle Valery was their cousin, a French connection to a long-lost Sokolov bloodline, a girl he’d encountered in a world of trouble in Paris and helped her to flee to the U.S.
“She owns the place?”
“Not exactly. Her boyfriend does.”
“Boyfriend, huh?”
“A guy named Brian, some artsy type she met at a social event. He’s crazy about French music and Michelle bears a striking resemblance to some pop singer, Lara Fabian I think, so he fell in love with her instantly. Don’t ask. They’re having a torrid affair. They’re currently back in Paris together on a two-week holiday.”
“How do you know all this gossip?” Sokolov asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh, they invited me for dinner here over the weekend, just before their trip. I’m the closest thing she has to a family member here in the States. Brian told me I could use the house any time I wanted while they were away. So here we are. Four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a twenty-acre plot with its own pond.”
“And on paper, nothing links us with this Brian guy.”
“Like I said, perfect.”
“It will be if you can find me a computer.”
“I’m on it,” Constantine said and went upstairs.
Sokolov sank in the sofa. Tiredness had crept into his every muscle. It was well past midnight but the jet lag gave him insomnia.
Michelle. He’d rescued her from the Russian bratva in France. Now he had to save another woman from a Kremlin-backed gangster in Spain. Paulina.
Find her.
Constantine returned with a laptop.
“I found it in a bedroom but it won’t be much use. The screen is locked and I don’t know the password.”
Sokolov inserted the backup flash drive into a USB port and held down a key combination as he rebooted the machine.
“Netto said it’s a bootable drive. Using the disk image, we don’t need to log into the computer’s base system to access the files or worry about security. Let’s see if it works.”
After the start-up screen, the self-contained disk loaded, presenting a Linux graphical user interface on the screen.
“It does,” Constantine said. “All right! Time to hunt.”
Sokolov opened the file directory.
Hundreds of folders showed. To make matters worse, their names were random numbers.
“Okay,” Sokolov said, scrolling down the meaningless list. “Any idea what we should do with all this? Where do we start?”
“We start with determining our approach,” Constantine said as if talking to a student. “First, we must decide what this is.”
“Documents.”
“More specifically?”
“A huge repository of documents. A historical archive.”
“Exactly. Thus, we apply archival research methodology to analyze it. History is made by men. Their actions. It’s about individuals, not objects. These files embody text of immense power but we shouldn’t be searching for traces of Moscow Gold. We must look for people and the relations that connect them. That’s the key. The rest will fall into place.”
“So we begin with the key man and build a network around him. Now we have his name. Anatoly Shaloy.”
Constantine nodded with satisfaction. He reveled in the role of historiographic investigator.
“Are the files indexed?” he asked.
“Netto said so.”
“It would save us a lot of time. That way we can search within the file contents right away, as if using Google.”
Constantine took control of the laptop and launched the search prompt. He typed in: Shaloy.
Then he hit ENTER.
They waited a few seconds as the results were processed.
Constantine opened a summary of the number of hits returned by the search term.
“What did you say his first name was?” he asked.
“Anatoly.”
“Are you sure? The most top-ranked result found in the files isn’t Anatoly, it’s…”
Sokolov felt a jolt as if struck by lightning.
“Dmitri,” he muttered.
“Uh-huh.”
Sokolov ran his eyes over the file list.
“Here, can you open this PDF?”<
br />
Constantine did.
The document listed personal details, including the date of birth.
Dmitri Anatolievich Shaloy, aged sixteen.
Yeah, it was all falling into place.
Sokolov leaned back and let out an exasperated sigh.
“I always suspected it. Something about her story was off-key. There’s no way she could’ve stumbled upon that database by chance. Not through some personal probe, hearing whispers of Kremlin gossip. A bank audit? What a load of bullshit. Now it all makes sense. Paulina is Shaloy’s wife.”
“Are you certain?”
“Wife, lover, woman, whatever. The mother of his kid. And when Dmitri died, she blamed the father. She wanted revenge. She betrayed him. These are his files. She must’ve had direct access to his computer and copied them from the hard drive.”
“You’re right. Here, look what I found next. A scan of the kid’s birth certificate. It reads, Mother: Paulina Pavlova. Father: Anatoly Shaloy.”
“I’m sure we’ll find a lot more but that’s all the proof we need. Like you said, the bank accounts and company ledgers aren’t important. The people are. She’s learned more information about his criminal activity and his ties to the Kremlin than any of these documents might contain.”
“That’s why she’s so dangerous to him.”
“And also why we must bring her back to testify.”
“How?”
“I’ve got a few ideas. Let’s keep digging. We need to organize a structure around him. The next link in the network is Roman Chepurin, Ambassador to the U.N.”
26
From the building blocks of email messages, memos, contracts, loan-back agreements and bank transfers, details of the Kremlin’s plan emerged.
Chepurin’s speeches at the U.N. Security Council and his Twitter timeline depicted him as a selfless public servant and a staunch defender of international law. Stripped bare of his secrets, there was nothing dignified about the image of a typical Russian gangster.
The profits from Chepa’s drug shipments went to shell companies in various offshore jurisdictions.
Belize, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, the Comoros, Gibraltar, Liechtenstein, Nauru, Vanuatu.
“In their messages Shaloy and Chepurin mention something they call Operation X,” noted Sokolov. “Any idea what it stands for?”
“Operation X was the code name for Stalin’s involvement in the Spanish Civil War. I wonder if there’s a deeper meaning behind the reference.”
“That would explain a lot of things.”
The cocaine came from Venezuela.
The money trail led to Spain.
The goal was chaos in Catalonia.
There were men behind each corporation and bank account. A Venezuelan general. A Catalan crook.
And an American traitor.
Suddenly, Sokolov heard a distant buzz, growing in intensity.
The thrashing of rotor blades.
A helicopter was approaching the house rapidly.
27
Sokolov jumped to his feet and rushed to the window. Parting a curtain, he peered outside.
Highlighted by the early rays of dawn against the dark sky, he saw the chopper as it swooped down and landed in front of the farmhouse, whipping up waves in the grass around it. A light, twin-engine Bell, painted black.
No sooner had the pilot touched down and the whine of spinning rotors subsided than a man emerged from the cockpit and headed toward the farmhouse.
Jeff Monteith.
Sokolov motioned for Constantine to get to the front door and pulled out his gun.
“Open up! I know you’re in there!” Jeff yelled pounding with his fist.
Sokolov nodded.
As Constantine turned the lock and swung the door open, Sokolov grabbed Jeff by the lapel and pulled him inside, propelling him to the floor. Sokolov aimed the gun at the CIA man while Constantine slammed the door shut and locked it.
“Is this how you welcome your guests in Russia?”
“It’s how you treat unwelcome visitors in America, isn’t it? After all, this is private property. Or did you expect us to offer you some coffee?”
“Screw you. I came to talk. Now I think I should have you cuffed up and jailed and be done with it.” Jeff said as he got up to his feet.
“Okay, let’s talk.” Sokolov pointed with the gun at the sofa.
Jeff sat down. Sokolov and Constantine stood facing him.
“How did you find us?” Constantine asked.
“Even amateurs like you should’ve guessed that the SUV was equipped with a tracking device. My gut told me you two were up to no good. When I saw the news report about that massacre in Brooklyn, I knew you were behind it. Have you gone berserk?”
Sokolov tucked the gun away. “You wanted us to go to Brighton Beach and we took the bait. We’ve done you a massive favor and you know it. Any outcome would have suited you but at least you don’t have Gosha’s Brigade to worry about.”
“Fair enough. And you baited me to come here by not ditching the car. You’re smarter than I thought, Sokolov. What do you want?”
“To discuss a few things that might interest you.”
“Like what?”
“For starters,” Sokolov said, “I know the identity of the traitor who ratted us out and sicced Gosha’s scumbags onto the HRF.”
“You think it was me?”
“I would have already killed you if I didn’t believe you were clean. Shot you on sight the moment you showed up.”
“Thanks for that, chum. Who is it, then?”
“The owner of a Delaware company called Blackfox Capital Holdings, LLC,” Constantine replied. “Or should I say, the company’s true beneficiary hiding behind a complex corporate setup. Senator William Brathwaite.”
“He’s been receiving Russian money for years,” Sokolov added.
Jeff grunted. “I’m not surprised. The U.S. political class is corrupt to the core. It attracts foreign influence far too easily,” he said. “Where did that information leak from, though?”
“It wasn’t a leak. More like a torrent. A tsunami.”
“Pavlova’s files?” Jeff glanced at the laptop. “You made a copy, you sneaky bastard.”
“You should thank me.”
“Okay, what else have you got there?”
“The scheme employed by the Russians to smuggle drugs into U.S. run by none other than the Ambassador to the U.N.”
“Roman Chepurin?”
“Known among Russian gangsters as Chepa.”
“That’s funny, he was in the news last night. During a session of the U.N. Security Council he condemned the actions of the Spanish Government to stop the Catalan riots as excessively brutal.”
“The riots were instigated by the Kremlin through a man named Shaloy,” Constantine said. “Gerard de Puig is also on Shaloy’s payroll. Spain is their main objective in the entire operation.”
“What’s their agenda?”
“The creation of a Catalan People’s Republic,” Constantine said.
“A what?”
“A criminal enclave in the heart of Spain, run by a Kremlin-backed puppet government. All under the guise of a popular independence movement. Something Moscow has done many times before. They’re using Stalin’s playbook and picking up where they left off during the Spanish Civil War.”
“If what you’re saying is true, it would be a nightmare,” the CIA man said. “A soft occupation by a hostile power, bringing the area under a reign of fear and terror. A cancer that would threaten the rest of Spain and the whole Europe. Full control of the Barcelona seaport by the Russian Mafia would bring a tidal wave of drugs flooding the continent.”
“The protests are just the first phase of Operation X,” Sokolov said. “Phase Two is scheduled to begin in forty-eight hours from now. Covert military action. The Venezuelans are sending over a group of commandos to help take over government facilities and key infrastructure.”
“Similar to
what we saw in Ukraine.”
“If not worse, if the details outlined in Shaloy’s messages are to be believed. They’re planning a series of attacks that will result in a huge number of civilian casualties.”
“We can’t allow it to happen,” Constantine said.
“How? What are we supposed to do? Any kind of action would take weeks or months to plan, prepare, and put into effect.”
“We don’t have weeks or months. It’s a matter of days. Shaloy must be eliminated before Phase Two is in full swing,” Sokolov said. “Once decapitated, Operation X will fizzle out quickly.”
“And who’s going to do it, wise guy? Nobody would want to hear you out except the FBI and the only thing they’d like to hear from you is your homicide confession.”
“You can hand them Chepa and Brathwaite instead. I imagine the Feds will be more than interested to learn about top Russian officials in the U.N. using their diplomatic cover for drug trafficking. Or of a U.S. Senator conspiring with the Russian Mafia because he’s in Frolov’s pocket. In a game of kompromat with the Kremlin, the U.S. will finally have the upper hand.”
“And what do you expect in return by offering this kind of deal?”
“You just want me to disappear, don’t you? Then give me a plane. After you brought me here, it’s only fair that I’m asking you for a return ticket.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Spain.”
“You’d be mad to think you could stop a civil war from breaking out.”
“You’re right, I can’t prevent it,” Sokolov said. “But I think I can win it.”
SPAIN
28
Valencia. A town perpetually placed third in the two-horse race between the country’s major cities, still chasing the mirage of grandeur following its brief spell as the capital of the Second Spanish Republic. It had been the Valencian port of Cartagena from which the ships carrying Moscow Gold had departed.
And it was the Valencian Manises Airport where Sokolov had arrived aboard the Gulfstream.
Moscow Gold (SOKOLOV Book 5) Page 11