Dead End

by R. J. Patterson

  “I’ve got this,” he said. “You’re the one who has your most important assignment ahead of you. Go convince him that he can’t be a monster.”

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER, Natalya got off the bus and stood in front of the repair shop where Maksim worked. Her lips quivered as she tried to repress her emotions, which flooded her all at once. The thought that her boyfriend was involved in this plot—the one that helped contribute to her father’s early demise—made her nearly lose her mind. She dabbed just beneath her eyelids with the outside portion of her right index finger, a last-ditch effort to keep her tears at bay and her mascara in a respectable place. For a fleeting second, she pondered letting the waterworks fly. She’d found tear-stained cheeks were an effective tool at winning almost instant sympathy from Maksim, but she decided against and opted for a more direct approach. The angry girlfriend tact seemed like the one to utilize.

  When she spotted him, Maksim was reattaching a wheel to a car he’d been working on. After she called his name, he looked up. With arched eyebrows, he stared at her, mouth agape.

  “Natalya,” he began, “what are you doing here? What’s wrong?”

  “We need to talk.”

  “I can’t right now,” he said. “I’m finishing up a job for a customer.”

  “I’m in a hurry, and this is important.”

  He exhaled a long, slow breath. “Give me five minutes, and I’ll meet you in the back.”

  Ten minutes elapsed before Maksim appeared in the back of the store. He was working a rag over his greasy hands as he strode toward Natalya. She noted his furrowed brow and considered it a good sign that her ambush had arrested his attention.

  “What’s this all about, baby?” he asked.

  She looked down and closed her eyes then took a deep breath. “What are you involved with here?”

  “What do you mean? This is where I work.”

  Her steely gaze met his. “I know you are working for Grigori Zima and—”

  “Ssshhh,” he said, glaring at her and putting up both hands as a gesture of silence. “Don’t talk about that around here.”

  “You didn’t act like it was some big secret this morning. I heard you talking away on the phone about what you were doing and—”

  “That was a private conversation in my home, but I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t play dumb with me. I followed you to one of Zima’s bars. I saw you meet with him.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  Natalya felt the tears welling up in her eyes and decided not to hold them back. The conversation was getting away from her, and she needed to reel it in.

  “I thought you were cheating on me,” she said.

  He moved forward and enveloped her with a hug. “I would never do that.”

  “I know,” she said as she withdrew. “I found out the truth. And in a way, you were cheating on me. It just wasn’t with another woman.”

  “I can explain everything.”

  “You better start talking fast because I’m very close to contacting the FSB about your behavior.”

  “No, no, no. Don’t do that, baby,” he said. “It’s really simple. What you heard this morning was me talking with a man from another organization. Mr. Zima asked me to penetrate Sergei Bazarov’s outfit and win their trust so my boss could set up an ambush. I swear I would never cheat on you. These past few weeks have been very stressful for me—and you too with your father’s passing. I know I haven’t been there as much as I should have, but I promise I will make it up to you.”

  “How about you start now?”

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked, a grin breaking across his face.

  “Help stop the attack on Cosmos Arena that you were discussing with your friend on the phone.”

  He stared at her. “I—I can’t do that.”

  “What do you mean you can’t do that? People are going to die, Maksim. Thousands of innocent people are going to be murdered because of you.”

  He glanced over his shoulder back toward the shop. It appeared empty. “You don’t understand. I have to win Mr. Bazarov’s trust to gain access to him. What better way than to work on the biggest terrorist attack in Russian history? It will endear me to him. Then we’ll be able to take down this monster once and for all.”

  “And what? Replace him with another monster like Grigori Zima?”

  “Ssshhh,” he said. “Keep your voice down.”

  “You make your choice, Maksim. But if you choose wrongly, don’t expect me to be home when you get back from your plotting. Don’t ever expect to see me again.”

  “If I don’t follow through, Mr. Zima might kill me. Maybe even you too.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got a swell boss then. I’m not changing my mind.”

  Natalya turned and walked toward the door before he jogged after her. He caught her by the arm and turned her toward him.

  “Don’t go,” he said before sighing. “I’ll help you if it matters that much to you.”

  “Of course it matters to me that my boyfriend isn’t a cold-blooded killer,” she said, stamping her feet. “I would never be able to trust anyone so heartless. I’m even surprised you’re involved with Zima.”

  “Oh, he’s harmless.”

  Natalya’s voice rose as she spoke. “But he wants to take over for Sergei Bazarov? I’m sure it’s all harmless like you say.”

  “Please keep it down,” he said.

  “What are you so worried about?”

  “Some of the men here work for Mr. Bazarov.”

  “Okay,” she said, lowering her volume. “I need you at the stadium early tomorrow morning around 10:00 a.m.”

  “What exactly do you expect me to do?”

  “I’ll tell you when you arrive.”

  “See you then,” Maksim said. “Now, I need to get back to work.”

  She gave him a hug and exited through the back door, slipping into an alleyway and then heading straight toward a bus stop. She waited until she was a couple blocks away to call Cal.

  “How’d it go?” he asked.

  “Maksim will help,” she answered.

  She looked over her shoulder and back down the street. Though she saw no one, she felt like someone was following her. But she didn’t have time to worry about it. There was still plenty of work to be done if she and Cal were going to do what she thought her father would have wanted.

  Chapter 27

  SERGEI BAZAROV PUFFED on his cigar and shifted in his seat. He looked down at the ground, hoping the verbal lashing from Niko would end soon. After the fourth time Niko launched into a tirade about how his father almost wasted their chance to take down Ivan Mortuk once and for all, Sergei narrowed his eyes and glared at his son.

  “Are you done now?” Sergei asked, staring past Niko and looking out of the window.

  Niko mumbled something unintelligible.

  “What was that, Son?” Sergei demanded.

  “I’m done, Papa—for now.”

  “No, you’re done for good. You’ve said your peace four times now, and I’m tired of hearing about it.”

  “I only said it four times because I’ve learned it takes at least that many times for anything to get through that thick skull of yours. You possess an unrivaled stubbornness, which is a powerful trait when we’re working together. But when we are butting heads . . .” Niko let his words hang.

  “We don’t butt heads,” Sergei said flatly. “You sometimes disagree with me. That is all.”

  Niko took a deep breath. He appeared as if he was going to respond and perpetuate the disunity before he decided against it.

  “Fortunately for you, I didn’t get too upset that you attempted to usurp my authority when we attacked Ivan.”

  Niko laughed mockingly. “Usurp your authority? More like saved your life. You’d be dead right now if it weren’t for me. You’d be drifting along the Volga River somewhere, face down with tattered clothes from the beating your body wou
ld have taken from the rocks and sandbars. No one would’ve been able to even recognize you. I’m sure that’s not how you’d like to leave this planet.”

  Sergei would never verbally admit that his son was right, but he was. In Sergei’s grand plan, he intended to go out on top, a man to be feared and admired in his profession of illegal arms dealing. He’d be the king maker, the man who never backed down from a fight and always won. And so far, Sergei’s dream had become a reality—but only in terms of his financial standing. But Sergei wasn’t satisfied with simply reaching that mark; he wanted to stay there, the king of all king makers. The only kink in Sergei’s plan was Ivan. Sergei wanted his nemesis gone two weeks ago, but getting rid of him wasn’t that simple, which Niko reminded him of almost daily.

  “Since you’re so keen on reminding everyone about your heroics, why don’t you earn my respect and go over your brilliant plan to take down Ivan Mortuk tomorrow once more.”

  “Nothing would make me happier, if for anything so you would stop obsessing over him.”

  Sergei stood and stomped his foot on the marble floor as he began talking. “If you think for one minute that I’m just going to roll over and take it when someone infringes upon my territory, you don’t know me at all. Ivan has been taunting me, and that’s nothing something I can—or should—ignore any longer. It’s time to teach him a lesson.”

  “You have my full support there,” Niko said. “Anything to get you to shut up about it.”

  Sergei’s face flushed with blood. He was certain that if Niko wasn’t his son, Sergei would make an example out of him, too. Dissent wasn’t always bad. Sometimes it even helped galvanize a team as it discussed different ideas. But this wasn’t one of those storied exceptions. Sergei had observed his own son make a dramatic shift from fearing and respecting Sergei to mocking him.

  Lunging toward Niko, Sergei grabbed his son’s shirt and twisted the fabric to tighten it uncomfortably against his body. Sergei pulled Niko close and spoke softly in a stern and measured tone.

  “You’ve gone over the line, Son,” Sergei said. “If you weren’t my own blood, your blood would be staining my Italian marble floor at this moment. Time to quit bemoaning my decision to go after Ivan and grow up. Tell me how you’re going to do it—and I swear this plan better work.”

  As Sergei attempted to pull away, Niko held his father close. “It will work better than your ambush the other night, Papa.”

  Sergei glared at his son and backed away. He called several of his top lieutenants into the room to discuss the plan. Sergei stood at the head of the table, leaning forward on his knuckles while waiting for everyone to gather.

  “Is everything in place?” Sergei asked after the men settled into their seats around the table.

  Everyone nodded.

  “Niko,” Sergei said as he sat down. “The floor is yours.”

  “We lost a few good men the other night in the raid on Ivan’s house, but it hasn’t delayed the preparations for our original plan.” Niko glanced at his father.

  “What’s done is done,” Sergei said. “Time to move on.”

  Niko paused and took a deep breath before continuing. “Cosmos Arena will be packed late tomorrow afternoon for the match between Ukraine and Turkey. And it will also be packed with explosives.”

  He opened a folder in front of him and passed out copies of the schematics to the stadium.

  “Where did you get these?” Sergei asked, eyes widening.

  “A frisky young woman named Viktoriya,” Niko said with a wink. “Some women enjoy leveraging their position. She was one of them. And let me tell you, she was a—”

  “Get on with it,” Sergei said with a growl. “No one here is interested in your sexual exploits.”

  “No one?” Niko said as he scanned the faces of the other men around the table. Nobody said a word.

  He clapped to break the awkward silence.

  “Okay, on with the plan,” Niko said. “As you can see on your diagram, there are several key places that will be armed with explosive devices tomorrow. The places highlighted in yellow represent critical weight support walls. If all of those crumble at once, the entire stadium will collapse upon itself. This whole operation is a matter of simple science.”

  “Wait,” Sergei said as he held up his hand. “Did you say will be armed tomorrow? As in, they haven’t been armed yet?”

  “There’s nothing to worry about, Papa. We have several men over there now installing the devices. Nothing has gone wrong, nor will it. I won’t let it. I’m going to show you how to execute an operation.”

  Sergei took a deep breath. “When are the explosives set to go off?”

  “We rigged all the explosive devices to blow just before kickoff, gaining maximum impact. High body count, more media, all the things we want out of this.”

  “And how exactly are we going to pin this on Ivan, especially if he’s one of those killed in the attack?” Sergei asked.

  “Suicide note,” Niko said.

  “Nobody will believe that,” one of the men said.

  “Least of all the media and the FSB,” another man said.

  Palms open, Sergei slammed them down on the table. “The FSB will believe it if we tell them it’s true.”

  “Even I would struggle to believe such a thing,” another man said.

  Niko looked at the man. “Even if it came from the FSB?”

  “You would believe it especially if it came from the FSB,” Sergei chimed in. “Our people don’t question them.”

  “At least not in public,” one of the other men said.

  “The public is all we care about,” Sergei said. “The media narrative is what will drive this story. And if we encourage the FSB to sell the story of a crazy Ukrainian illegal arms dealer whose life was falling apart, every tabloid in Russia and beyond will eat it up. Ivan Mortuk will get no special treatment from the press. Everyone knows what a menace he is. And after the blame gets pinned on him for blowing up Cosmos Arena, no one will care about his feelings. They will simply want their—how do the Americans say it?—pound of flesh?”

  “But what if something goes wrong?” one of the men asked.

  “We’ve already created a plan around that scenario, just in case it happens,” Niko said.

  “And what is that plan?” Sergei asked.

  “We have a man who will be perched atop the stadium. He’ll have the coordinates for Ivan’s cell phone, and it will be fairly easy to target him from there.”

  Sergei wasn’t impressed. “He won’t be easy to target if the stadium explodes before the assassin gets to take a shot.”

  “The plan is not going to fail,” Niko said, sounding as if he was trying convince himself. “It’s a lock. Tomorrow evening at this time, we’ll be toasting our victory and the defeat of Ivan Mortuk.”

  “I hope you’re right, Son,” Sergei said. “In fact, you better be.”

  Chapter 28

  VLADISLAV RAKITSKY SLITHERED BENEATH the bed and settled in for a long wait, though he wasn’t sure how long it’d be before his target returned home. However, it wasn’t due to any shortage of information about Maksim Petrov’s movements. The snitch had been thoroughly vetted by Sergei Bazarov’s henchmen with Maksim’s daily habits tracked for more than a month before he was allowed anywhere near Sergei. Apparently, Maksim had outwitted Sergei’s men, earning both their trust and favor, though Vlad’s assignment meant Maksim’s good graces were short lived. Until Vlad received the assignment to eliminate Maksim, the newcomer had become a rising star for Sergei, causing even greater head scratching than usual over the report that landed on the mafia boss’s desk a mere day ago. What motivation did Maksim have to stay with his former employer over aligning with Sergei? Vlad pondered how a man could walk away from such a lucrative opportunity. As Vlad saw it, only the truly insane would trade a sports car for a bike or the equivalent of a CEO position for that of a mailroom clerk.

  The liner on the bottom of the mattress hung long a
nd tickled Vlad’s nose. He rubbed it intermittently, turning his face to the side for relief. Putting his head back helped Vlad relax and avoided a neck cramp, but the annoyance of the liner negated any opportunity he had to rest his mind and prepare for his next kill. Forced to turn his head to the side, he stared out beneath the bed and into the hallway. Despite the unpleasant nature of his position, he didn’t get anxious and soothed his nerves other ways. To take his mind off the discomfort, Vlad often considered the person’s life he was about to take and the poor choices they’d made to land in the crosshairs of Sergei Bazarov’s top assassin.

  From what Vlad knew about Maksim, the snitch had never really amounted to much of anything. Vlad preferred these types of targets. Bad decisions mounted in Maksim’s past as if he were an enthusiastic collector of rare antiquities, flush with an inexhaustible supply of cash to stockpile articles for his pleasure. People like Maksim gave Vlad a little extra leeway when it came to killing them. Nobody was ever too concerned about the death of such miscreants. There would be a grieving parent or two, if one were still alive. But a target like Maksim wouldn’t draw the type of attention and sympathy generated for someone who was more respectable in the community. Maksim’s murder would be dumped onto the heap of cold cases and forgotten about, good as buried. That much Vlad knew for sure. The thought made him smile and momentarily forget about the cramp forming in his neck.

  Maksim’s biggest transgression had been discussing the plot to bomb Cosmos Arena on the phone. Sergei’s men monitored the calls of most of their agents, especially those new to the organization. And Maksim slipped up. Suddenly, Sergei’s trust vanished, and so did the favor Maksim once held. And in a few minutes, he’d be gone too, gone for good.

  At 3:00 a.m., the sound of the door creaking open was followed by heavy footfalls. Maksim lumbered across the room, his boots thudding as they sent jarring vibrations along the hardwood floor. From the staggered pattern Maksim took, Vlad felt it was safe to assume his target was drunk, quite possibly even high. Not that any of that mattered to Vlad. He could take the majority of his targets without much effort. While Vlad’s natural tendency was to taunt the victim before killing him, the assassin resisted such urges, especially in situations where his mark was drunk. This was one such instance. Vlad reminded himself to be quick, thorough, and professional.