by Laura Acton
Dom’s face split into a grin noting Mike’s brown locks instead of coppery blond and the transformation of his facial features too. Anastasia worked her makeup magic on Mike giving him a haggard appearance with dark circles under both eyes and darkening his light eyebrows, eyelashes, and the day-old stubble of his unshaven face to match his new hair color. “Most definitely.”
Slipping off his pack, Dom joined Anastasia on the bench. “You two have been busy, me too.” He withdrew the purloined and altered identification card. “Found a printer. Your photo now supplants Cheslav Nikolayevich.” He handed over the plastic card.
“Excellent forgery.” Mike clipped the tag on the lapel of the white lab coat the Makhachkala crime scene investigators wore. An acquisition he lifted from an unmanned CSI vehicle when he reconned the Cherry Club.
Dom opened the laptop he borrowed from a contact and established a connection. His fingers flew as he hacked into the police station’s security cameras. Once he finished, he turned to Anastasia. “Showtime. You be careful in there. After you distract the front desk officer, I’ll initiate the code.”
Standing, Anastasia nodded, adjusted the tiny earwig, and sauntered away. She prepared mentally to assume the persona of an abused woman seeking help from the politsia.
A few minutes later, Mike followed as he lit another disgusting coffin nail. Over dinner, as they discussed exfil options, they realized they overlooked five potential items which might blow back on Ripsaw and Dan. One was Dan’s upchuck in the vetting room. The other four were locations where Ripsaw bled. The foyer on the fifth floor, the elevator, Panin’s office, and the stairwell.
They hatched a plan to gain entrance to the forensics lab to abscond with any evidence before it could be analyzed. Risky yet necessary. Mike stopped a little way from the opening and waited for Dom’s signal. Anastasia needed to engage the officer so Dom could execute the virus, thus ensuring no images of him could be captured when he entered the evidence processing area.
Politsia Station – Front Desk – 2215 Hours
Officer Vasil Vladislavovich observed a stunning woman entering the station, his eyes first traveling up her long legs, going up to the form-fitting miniskirt, and stopped on her breasts as she walked towards him.
Drawing on painful memories, Anastasia produced the appropriate woeful expression as her eyes glistened with unshed tears. With a shaky hand, she touched her cheek and allowed her voice to quiver as she spoke using the accent she perfected while waiting for Dom to return. “Help me.”
At the plaintive voice, his gaze moved to her face and noted the bruising and moist eyes. His desire to be a hero surged forth as he rose from his chair. “Miss, what happened?”
Allowing a tremor to infuse her intonation, Anastasia said, “My boyfriend attacked me.” She allowed the gathering tears to fall and let out a sob as she deliberately wobbled on her heels and put a hand on her stomach. “I … I …” she trailed off feigning as if she might faint.
Vasil rushed around the corner of the desk to catch the gorgeous woman. “Here, let me help.” He assisted her to a row of chairs off to the side and lowered her into one. “Better?”
Anastasia nodded and gripped his hand to ensure his back remained facing the entrance. “A little.” She gazed into his eyes as she said, “Am I ugly?”
Confused why a stunning woman would ask that question, Vasil instantly reassured her, “No. You’re beautiful.”
“But Timur said I was ugly, and he is so smart.” Her eyes welled with tears again. “He said such mean things before hitting me.”
“He’s an idiot if he thinks you are ugly. Would you like to press assault charges?”
Noting Mike striding in, she grabbed at the officer’s shirt leaning forward and sobbed. “He might punch me again.”
Vasil wrapped an arm around the woman. “I’ll protect you.”
After several minutes of crying, she asked, “May I have a glass of water?”
“Yes. You stay here, and I’ll bring you some.” Vasil rose and hurried to the break room. Things were mostly quiet tonight after the massive chaos last night with the shootout at the Cherry Club. Traffic in and out of the building had been constant when he first arrived on shift four hours ago, so many lab technicians, investigators, and officers he never met before had been called in to help process evidence from the crime scene.
Investigator Semyon Kirillovich rushed towards Lieutenant Tikhonovich’s office. He had news to impart, and the lieutenant had been on his back since finding out Panin Savelievich fled the country. He halted as Kesar appeared at the front desk. “Lieutenant, I have information on Panin and Maks.”
Anastasia’s ears perked up, but she remained in character as she covertly eyed the two officers and tuned into their conversation.
Tiredly, Kesar came to a halt. He had not eaten all day and had now been up for over twenty-four hours. Irritable he cautioned, “This better not be a further waste of my time. What did you find out?”
“The plane he departed on is registered to the Emir of Oshar. He went through security with a diplomatic entourage of five men. I also pulled footage from customs the night Maksim entered. The only face clearly shown is Maksim. Seven men, including the massive bodyguard, and one blonde woman arrived with him.”
Semyon cringed before conveying the next part. “The video shows the customs agent accepting a wad of cash. He waved them through, stamping their passports, but not scanning them in the system. The agent is in custody now. Unfortunately, we have no names or useful descriptions for those who entered with him. Nine people could pull off something of this scale.
“And with those areas with blood and no bodies, I had a hunch some might be injured. I contacted all the hospitals and clinics. Hope Clinic reports a watchman tried to stop a robbery in the wee hours of the morning.”
Kesar nodded. “Is he dead or wounded?”
“Neither. He said someone got a jump on him from behind and choked him out, woke with only a headache. He never saw a face, the one he glimpsed wore a mask. They took surgical supplies, morphine, and such, which supports my theory at least one, if not more, are wounded.”
“Should make it easier to locate them. Inform security to pay close attention to anyone leaving who matches the general description of those arriving with Maks and is injured in any way. I’m going home now. Only call me if you catch any of them. I want to be the one to interrogate.”
“Yes, sir.” Semyon leaned on the desk and then realized the overnight officer was missing. “Where’s Vasil?”
As if called, Vasil appeared and stopped abruptly, almost spilling the water, spotting Lieutenant Tikhonovich and Investigator Kirillovich. “Sirs.”
“Where have you been?” Kesar demanded.
“I went to get water for the lady. She is here to report an assault and nearly fainted.” He motioned towards the chairs.
Both men turned and spied a battered woman and dismissed her. They had more important matters to attend to than a mere woman. Kesar reprimanded the officer, “You better not leave your post unattended again or you will be stuck on the graveyard shift until you are an old man.” He strode out needing food, sleep, and a stiff shot of vodka … not necessarily in that order.
Semyon continued into the building, intent on catching forty winks in his office after communicating Tikhonovich’s directives. He grasped his superior’s callous innuendo—he wouldn’t be going home tonight either.
Vasil returned to the woman, handing her the glass and sitting next to her. Preferring nighttime, he could care less if he worked the overnight shift. Putting on his best smile, Vasil said, “Now, shall we fill out a report so we can deal with your ex-boyfriend?”
Anastasia coyly smiled. Adroitly she steered the topic of conversation to the shooting at the club and pumped him for information without him ever realizing her purpose.
Politsia Station – Forensics Lab – 2225 Hours
Mike made his way into the inner recesses of the buildi
ng, taking a few wrong turns as he sought the lab. Spotting a couple of men with lab jackets like his, he followed at a sedate pace and finally located the room. He opened the door and strode in as if he belonged. Scanning the vast area with tables, boxes, and equipment he possessed no clue how to use, he was surprised to find only one person inside.
Lera Germanovna rolled her shoulders, her back aching from being on her feet for hours. No rest for the wicked … and overworked. Catching footsteps, she turned and smiled. “Finally, someone to help me. Everyone else went home. We have not met, I’m Lera.”
“I’m Cheslav.” He refrained from saying the patronymic name in case she knew the man. “Transferred from Saint Petersburg and this is my first day. What an introduction to the area! I expected an army of technicians with so many casualties.” Mike moved closer to Lera.
“We’re smaller than where you come from. The others left about two hours ago after working for twenty-hours straight. Take your pick to begin.”
Mike glanced at the plastic crates overflowing with evidence bags. Finding the right items would be daunting.
Lera giggled catching sight of the handsome man’s frown. “Exactly how my face looked when I saw how much work there is to do. Luckily, the garage, alley, and roof evidence has been cataloged, and the machines are chugging away on samples from those areas. We need to enter the rest of this into the database and prepare for testing.” She pointed to the mountain of cartons.
“Where would you like me to start?” Mike donned a pair of gloves.
“I’m tackling the fourth floor. Kira, one of our field technicians, grouped each area in containers based on floor and room. Pick your poison.” Lera turned back to her work as she added, “You can use the workstation with the bobbleheads, but don’t touch Cyril’s collection. My boss is seriously demented and extremely protective of his bobbleheads. He has one he prizes above all others at home. I don’t understand why a grown man collects dolls with wobbly heads, but sometimes he becomes so fixated on them I swear he might actually kill to obtain one he desires.” Lera chuckled.
Mike listened as Lera babbled on about her boss’ obsession with collecting bobbleheads as he searched for the third-floor box. Locating it, he found the evidence to be minimal but came across one bag of puke. His next problem, how to sneak out the articles once he uncovered them all. I can’t believe we thought of everything but this … must be more tired than I imagined.
He blew out a breath glancing around for anything he could use. His eyes lit on a red bag from a hobby shop. Better than nothing. He shoved the puke bag into it and responded to Lera’s question about how he liked living in Saint Petersburg. He counted ten boxes labeled fifth floor, the most of any, and the second floor came in second with seven. “Lera, how do I tell from what area the box comes from?”
“Check the chain of evidence logs prepared at the scene, should be inside each box. If it helps, Kira created a sitemap for quick reference. It’s on her workstation … the one with all the cat pictures. Careful though, those sheets are our only copy until we enter them into the database.”
“Thanks.” Mike went to Kira’s table and grabbed several sheets of paper which contained a rough hand-drawn map of the rooms on each floor and a code identifying the section. The meticulous technician denoted areas where blood evidence had been collected where no bodies lay.
Taking the papers with him, he examined the boxes until he discovered the ones containing evidence from the foyer. Appearing to be working, he hunted for items from areas Ripsaw would have been, but he also took several other bags to throw them off. Lera’s chatter continued as he acquired the samples and stumbled on one more blood specimen with no corpse in an auction room. He snagged that one too since Dan experienced a bloody nose.
Lera sighed and turned. “I’m going for coffee. You want one too?”
Grinning as fortune yet again solved his problem, Mike said, “Yes, please.” Mike waited until Lera strolled out before he gathered all the paperwork and map, shoving them in with the evidence he pilfered. He proceeded to smudge the ink and marker writing on several labels in each box using acetone.
So nice of the lab to provide what I need. Inability to read these will cause further confusion, making it more difficult to determine what I took. When finished, Mike removed his gloves to dispose of them with the seized evidence, tucked the hobby bag under his lab coat, and left the room.
Politsia Station – Investigator Kirillovich’s Office – 2315 Hours
Catching sight of Lera returning with the coffee, Mike ducked into an office to avoid her. The snoring man indicated he was not alone. With catlike stealth, Mike moved to the desk and peered at the forms laying there. A satisfied grin played on his face as he read the information. I got you now you rat bastard. You can run, but I’m gonna track you down and exterminate you. His eyes flicked to another sheet with several questions written on it.
1. Why would Maks and eight others shoot up a brothel?
2. Why is there a bed surrounded by twelve rooms on the fifth floor?
3. What is Savelievich’s real business?
4. Why were many shot execution-style?
5. When we arrived on the scene, why did Lieutenant Tikhonovich delay our entry into the Cherry Club?
Mike picked up a pen and scribbled. The answer to 3 is the depraved bastard traffics innocent children and adults for the purpose of sexual exploitation. He stuffed the pen in his pocket and returned to the doorway. Peeking out and finding his path clear, he briskly walked down the hall.
Politsia Station – Front Desk – 2320 Hours
Sighting Mike as he left the building, Anastasia wrapped up her part. Having kept the considerate police officer engaged the entire time. She stood and said, “Thank you, Vasil. You helped me so much.”
“Would you mind if I called you? I mean to check up and make sure you are alright of course.” Vasil smiled, hoping she would say yes.
“Yes. I would like that. You have my number on the form.” Anastasia ambled out feeling a tinge cruel she used the young man. She learned a lot about him, and he possessed a generous heart. She hoped he found a woman who would appreciate him … because it wouldn’t be her. Yulinka Antonovna, her persona tonight, would become one of the two hundred thousand people who went missing in Russia every year.
Fires and Liquid Gold
49
May 30
Sacred Heart Abbey – Unit’s Room – 0230 Hours
Pacing as Winds followed his movements back and forth along the pathway between the beds, Blaze’s mind remained ill at ease with four significant concerns weighing on his shoulders. Dom, Mike, and Anastasia still had not returned, Ripsaw’s fever increased, Blondie had yet to pee, and he had no decent options for getting his unit out of this situation and to safety.
“Blaze, your gonna wear a hole in the concrete. We will figure this out,” Winds said even though his worry mirrored Blaze’s. When the door opened, and he spotted Dom, his voice came out harsh, “About damned time you returned. Where the hell …” he trailed off as an unknown, brown-haired, beaten, bare-footed woman wearing a grimy miniskirt and carrying three-inch heels appeared behind Dom.
Anastasia smiled. “Well, now I know how to shut you up.”
Speechless Winds’ mouth gaped as both he and Blaze stared at Anastasia with an expression of shock. Gathering himself, Blaze said, “I would’ve never guessed that was you. How? Why? What happened?”
Shuffling in exhausted, Mike tossed the hobby shop bag on the table. He coughed a couple of times, his lungs irritated by smoke inhalation. “Needed to do a little cleanup and create a bonfire. At dinner, we realized biological evidence of Dan and Ripsaw existed at the Cherry Club.”
Mike grabbed his bag from the corner and headed back to the exit. “I’m gonna shower. Can’t stand the smell of smoke and need to wash off Cheslav.” He stopped at the door and turned to address Anastasia. “You coming, Yulinka?”
“Yes. A shower and bed sound p
erfect.” She picked up the bag with her clothing and followed Mike.
Dom went directly to his girls and kissed them. Yawning, he lowered his weary body to the bed. Running on fumes ever since his daughters had been taken, Dom shut his gritty eyes. “We discussed a few options for exfil, and I have a suggestion, but I need sleep. Let’s talk in the morning.”
Noting Dom’s haggard appearance, Blaze agreed. “Alright. Not like we can go anywhere at the moment. What’s in the red bag?”
Opening the plastic bag, Winds pulled out what appeared to be evidence bags, a map of Panin’s club, and several sheets of paper he couldn’t read but assumed to be a log of some sort. “Where did you obtain these?”
“From the forensics lab.” Dom stretched out on the mattress and yawned again. “Tell you all about it tomorrow. Suffice to say, Dan and Ripsaw can’t be linked to the club. We stole the evidence and burned down the Cherry Club. Mike and Anastasia are excellent operators.” He closed his eyes as the Sandman pulled him into sleep.
Winds showed the blood samples and bag of upchuck to Blaze. “They fixed our screw up. I didn’t even consider a forensics team would gather Blondie’s vomit or Ripsaw’s blood.”
His eyes went to Ripsaw and noted the restlessness. Dropping the baggies, he moved towards their explosives expert as worry increased. Laying a hand on Ripsaw’s forehead, the heat radiating off Ripsaw unmistakable, Winds urgently said, “Hell’s bells, he’s on fire. Wake Patch. His fever is spiking.”
Blaze moved to Patch’s bunk and gently shook him awake. “Ripsaw needs you.” He went to Blondie’s bedside and picked up the basin of fresh water Mary Catherine brought in only twenty minutes ago. With Blondie no longer sweating bullets, he had not used it on him. Dipping a clean cloth in the tepid water, he wiped at Ripsaw’s heat-seared face and neck.