A Bloody Storm

by Richard Castle

  “For what purpose, may I ask?” Sokolov said.

  “I want Jedidiah Jones to know when they recover her body that she was executed because of his decision to go after my gold.”

  “We embarrassed him in Tangiers,” Sokolov said. “We will do it again.”

  “I do not want the FBI agent or members of the CIA team killed until we have my gold. No mistakes this time. Once I get my gold, then I want them all dead. I want to send this arrogant Jedidiah Jones a message.”

  “Everyone but our friend, the mole, of course,” Sokolov said.

  “No, kill him, too,” Barkovsky said. “There is only one reason a spy betrays his own country. There is no romance, no mystery. It is always for the money. And a man who can be bought is not a man who can be trusted. After we have the gold, he is expendable.”

  “But he might be useful later,” Sokolov protested.

  “Jones is too smart for that. If only one person survives and escapes, he will know that person is a traitor. Why else would he be alive?”

  “Then we will kill all of them and the FBI agent, too. This time she will not escape.”

  “I do not want any witnesses. No survivors. I want to piss on Mr. Jedidiah Jones, and I want him to know that I am doing it.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A military flight delivered Storm to a U.S. base in Germany, where he boarded a privately owned aircraft chartered by the CIA. It took him to an airfield in Kazakhstan. Although the Kazakhstan government denied that it allowed U.S. flights to operate within its borders, a backroom deal had been cut to allow the CIA to use specific airstrips for its covert operations in return for U.S. foreign aid, and this was one of those operations.

  Storm found a late model Range Rover waiting at the Kazakhstan airfield, with a woman standing next to it. From the photograph that Jones had shown him, he knew it was Dilya.

  “Welcome to Kazakhstan,” she said, extending her hand. Storm estimated she was five feet, five inches tall and about 120 pounds. She had short black hair and a firm, no-nonsense grip. Even though she was a native of Uzbekistan, she spoke with a proper British accent.

  “Grab your gear and get in,” she said. “I’ll drive you to our staging area, to where the others are waiting.”

  “Did you study in England?” he asked as they were driving from the airfield.

  “The Soviets didn’t allow us to travel when I was a child. But all of our schools relied on English textbooks. That is why we speak with an accent. The audiotapes we heard were from London. I speak three other languages, and there is not a trace of a British accent in my voice then. Only when I speak English do I sound British.”

  She glanced at him and said, “You will stick out when we go into remote mountain areas. You don’t look like men here. People will think you are a Russian, and everyone here hates Russians because they tortured us for decades.”

  “I’ll wave an American flag.”

  “Tell them you are from American television. We love American TV here. If you want to get women excited, tell them you are from Dancing with the Stars and are thinking about making a dance competition in Uzbekistan. You will be a hero!”

  “Thanks for the pointers,” he said. He noticed the scar that cut across her cheek. It was illuminated by the dash lights as they drove through the night’s blackness. She noticed that he was looking at it.

  “What do you think of my decoration?” she asked. “A little memento. Here they always cut a woman on her face. That way, every day when she looks in the mirror, it reminds her of what they can do, of their power. And everyone who sees her knows that it is dangerous to associate with her.” The car hit a bump that caused them both to bounce in their seat as Dilya turned off the main highway onto what looked to Storm like a cow path that would guide them up a mountain.

  She said, “You’ve never been tortured?”

  “Only by former girlfriends”

  The Range Rover arrived at a one-room farmhouse with rough stone walls and a wooden roof. It was completely isolated from any neighbors. Dilya parked and explained, “The American inside is called Casper and the Russian is called Oscar. I will introduce you.” He followed her through the wooden front door.

  A bespectacled man glanced up from a table where he was studying a map. Storm recognized him as Oscar. On the other side of the room, sitting on the edge of a bed, smoking a cigarette, was Casper.

  Oscar stood, Casper didn’t. Oscar spoke. Casper glared.

  “You must be Steve,” the ex-Soviet geologist said.

  “Nice to meet you, Oscar,” Storm replied. He glanced at Casper and said, “We meet again.”

  “Hello, Stevie,” said Casper, accenting his name in manner that was clearly meant to belittle.

  The last time they had met, Casper had had black hair. Now it was completely white and pulled back into a ponytail. He’d added a new tattoo to his collection. This one was on his right arm and showed a skull with a snake coming out of one eye and a knife jabbed into the other.

  “Thought you got killed in Tangiers,” Casper said, ignoring Jedidiah Jones’s rules about revealing anything about past missions.

  “Disappointed?”

  Casper sneered. “All I know is that Tangiers went bad and I heard you were the reason.”

  “It did go bad,” Storm replied, “and I was thinking that you might have had something to do with that.”

  Casper rose from the bed, and Storm saw a U.S. Marine Corps Ka-Bar knife on his belt. The two men locked eyes as Storm readied himself for a fight.

  “I lost good people in Tangiers,” Casper said. “Good men who shouldn’t have died.”

  “I ended up on the floor with my gut riddled with bullets, while you were miles away sitting in a bar nursing a beer,” Storm replied, “so don’t lecture me about casualties.”

  “This really isn’t the time or place for you two to argue,” Oscar said in a quiet voice.

  Dilya stepped between Casper and Storm and in a belittling tone said, “We wouldn’t have been chosen for this assignment if Jedidiah Jones didn’t trust us. You need to be professional. You can resolve your personal disputes after we find the gold.”

  “Scarface is right,” Casper grunted. “We’ll settle our personal score later, Stevie boy.”

  Storm couldn’t imagine why Jones had paired him with Casper. He only knew that he’d have to watch his back when it came to him. As for the other two: Dilya seemed trustworthy. He wasn’t certain about Oscar. Did Jones have some reason—besides the fact that they were all officially “dead or disappeared”—for putting them on the same team?

  “Everyone gather around,” Dilya said, assuming command.

  They each took a position on one side of the square table. “We are here at the base of these mountains,” she said, placing her finger on the map. “We will drive as far as possible tomorrow morning up into the mountains, and then we will hike across the border into Uzbekistan. Our orders were to go this way.” She swept her hand across the map to where she had marked a bright red X. “That is where the gold is hidden. However, we are being diverted.”

  “What are you talking about?” Oscar said.

  “Yeah,” Casper said suspiciously. “Why the last-minute change in plans?”

  “As you know, there is no way for us to contact Langley from the base of this mountain, but while I was at the airport, I received an urgent call from Jones. He gave me additional orders.”

  “I don’t like the smell of this,” Casper grumbled.

  “I was with Jones yesterday, and he didn’t say anything to me about a change in plans,” Storm added.

  “You have been flying with orders to stay off the air since you left Germany,” she reminded him. “It seems that a friend of yours has been kidnapped in England.”

  “Agent Showers?” Storm exclaimed. “Kidnapped! How’s that possible? She’s in a hospital recovering from a gunshot wound.”

  “She was in a hospital in Oxford, but she was kidnapped while she was be
ing driven to an English air base to fly back to the States.”

  “Whose got her? Where is she now?”

  “According to Jones, she is being flown to Jizzakh, a city not far from our original destination in the Molguzar Mountains,” Dilya said. “He has ordered us to go to Jizzakh and rescue her.”

  “What?” Oscar said indignantly. “I’m a geologist. I’m not risking my neck because some careless FBI agent got herself kidnapped.”

  In a move that surprised even himself, Storm grabbed the front of Oscar’s shirt, jerking him off his feet and slamming his head down on the map.

  “You’re talking about a partner of mine,” he said. “And she is not careless and we will go rescue her, is that clear?”

  “Please release Oscar,” Dilya said in a matter-of-fact voice.

  Storm turned him loose, and the Russian stood, clearly angry. “Touch me again, and I will kill you,” he sputtered.

  “With what?” Casper said. “A rock?” Reaching down, he pulled his knife from its scabbard and flipped it in the air, causing it to turn over so that he could catch it by its blade. “I can loan you this, if you think you can take him.”

  Oscar looked at the extended knife and then at Storm.

  “Huh, just like I thought,” Casper said, expertly returning the blade to his belt. “I didn’t think you had the nuts.” He looked at Dilya and said, “This Commie geek has a point though. We were recruited to help find the missing gold. If this FBI broad needs to be saved, why doesn’t Jones send in the marines?”

  “We’re the closest,” she said.

  “And we’re untraceable,” said Storm.

  “You mean expendable,” Casper complained.

  “This woman knows the location of the gold,” Dilya said. “If she talks before we can rescue her, we could be walking into a trap.”

  “We either need to rescue her or silence her then,” Casper replied.

  “We’re going to rescue her,” Storm snapped. “No one is going to harm her.”

  Casper rested his palm on his knife and said, “I’m not like our little Commie friend here, Stevie boy. You grab my shirt and push my head down on the table and I’m going to come up swinging. I’ll give you a souvenir just like our Uzbekistan princess here has.”

  “Why don’t you two just drop your pants and get this over with?” Dilya said. “This is not a democracy. Jones has given us an order and all of us, for various reasons, have to listen to him.”

  Casper removed his hand from his knife and said, “Where are they holding this broad?”

  Dilya jabbed her finger down on the map. “This is the city of Jizzakh. Jones has arranged for transportation and a satellite tracking device to be waiting for us on the other side of the mountain after we cross the border tomorrow morning. He has told me to use GPS to get our team to where the woman is being held captive. When we reach the location, I am supposed to turn over leadership to Casper.”

  “Casper?” Storm asked.

  “Yes,” she said firmly. “Jones was very clear about this. We are not to try to call or communicate with the Agency while we are in Jizzakh, because our signals will be picked up by the Uzbekistan authorities. Jones said it is up to Casper to formulate a plan to rescue Agent Showers.”

  “Jones clearly doesn’t want you to screw this rescue up like you did in Tangiers,” Casper said.

  Although he was boiling inside, Storm kept himself under control.

  Dilya said, “We rescue Showers first and then go after the gold.”

  “Assuming she’s still alive,” Oscar said.

  Casper grinned, revealing a missing front tooth. “Better be nice to me, Stevie boy. You’re girlfriend’s fate is in my hands now.”

  “That’s right, this time you’d better plan a perfect rescue.”

  Storm was worried. Not for himself, but for Showers. He didn’t want to think about what might be happening to her at this very moment.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Where was she?

  April Showers stayed perfectly still. She didn’t want her captors to know she was conscious. She needed to assess her situation. How long had it been since she’d been kidnapped in England? How long had she been sedated? Through half-closed eyes, she carefully checked her surroundings. It was dim in the small room, but there didn’t seem to be anyone watching her. Good. She opened her eyes fully and searched for a video camera. There was none that she could see.

  The chamber that she was in felt cool and damp. A low-wattage bulb dangled from the center of a concrete ceiling. The walls were also made of concrete. There was a metal drain in one corner and a water hose coiled around a stainless steel hanger bolted to a wall. She saw meat hooks attached to the high ceiling and realized that she was being held in a room where animals were slaughtered. The smell confirmed her suspicions. It was a putrefied mixture of a hundred foul odors. Flies landed on her skin. When she tried to swat one, a pain shot through her right arm. In her drug-induced stupor, she’d forgotten that she was recovering from her wound. She felt her shoulder. Someone had applied fresh bandages. Her right arm was dangling at her side. She could move it, but not without great pain and with only limited mobility. She was wearing the same jeans and T-shirt that she’d been dressed in when she left the hospital. Only her baseball cap was missing. Her sling was still around her neck. With her left hand, she guided her right wrist through it. That felt better.

  Showers used her left hand to sit up. She had been lying on a thin mattress that had bloodstains on it and smelled of urine. A leather collar had been fastened around her right ankle. The binding was connected to a two-foot short chain anchored into the floor. If she had a knife or something sharp, she could cut the collar. But she could not break the chain. There was only one entrance into the room and it had a solid door. There were no windows. Escaping was going to be difficult.

  She pulled her legs up to her chest. When were they coming? She had no concept of time, and that frustrated her. Was it night? Was it day? Were they sleeping?

  Showers had never been a patient person, and after several minutes of aimlessly swatting at flies and wondering what might happen next, she decided to take charge of her situation.

  She screamed, unleashing her pent-up rage.

  “Here I am! C’mon inside.”

  She waited, listening. But there was no reaction. Only silence. She decided to try again.

  “Hello!” she called. “Let’s get this party started.”

  Still no reply.

  There was no way for her to know that Hasan Sadikov was only a few yards away, resting on a metal folding chair outside the room. His back was facing the door and he was reading.

  Books were Hasan’s escape. He ignored Showers’s calls and instead focused on the novel. He wanted to read another thirty pages before he would stop to interrogate her. The wait would be a good thing. He’d done this many times before and had always found that his victims were uncomfortable with uncertainty. The imagination could be worse than the reality, especially with Westerners. They’d watched too many horror films.

  Hasan was teaching Showers a lesson, too. He wanted her to understand that she had no control over her current situation. She was at his mercy.

  It had become quiet inside the slaughter room by the time he finished reading and placed his book into a well-worn satchel that he had brought with him. It was time to go to work. He stood, unlocked the door, folded his metal chair together, picked up the satchel, and carried it and the chair into the room.

  Showers still had her face pressed against her knees when he entered. She quickly lowered her legs.

  “I think we should speak in English,” he said politely. He moved close to her, opened his chair, and took a seat. To Showers, Hasan looked completely unremarkable. He was a middle-aged man of medium height with a belly that hung over his belt. He reminded her of a man you might see riding the bus to work or walking with his children in a store. He could have been anyone.

  “I’ve visited the U
nited States,” he said, smiling. “New York, Washington, D.C., and, of course, Orlando. Have you been to Disneyland?”

  “Disney World,” she said, correcting him. “Disneyland is in Anaheim, California. Disney World is in Orlando.”

  He ran his right hand through his black hair. He turned his neck from one side to the other, as if he were a boxer getting limber before a fight.

  Showers said, “I’d like to use the toilet.” She was testing him.

  He paused, considering her request, then said, “I am a reasonable man.” He called out, and a younger man entered the room. “Bring us a pail.”

  “I’d rather use a bathroom,” Showers said.

  “Of course you would, because then you could try to escape from this room. But a pail will have to do.”

  The aide placed it next to Hasan’s chair, and he slid it with his foot toward her.

  “You can do it here. I’ll wait,” he said. “I might even turn my head.”

  Considering how much trouble Showers had had when she’d undone her pants in the bathroom at the English service area, she decided to wait. She kicked the pail back over to him. “I’m not using that.”

  He shrugged.

  They were playing a power game, and she apparently was going to lose.

  “When I was in the United States,” Hasan continued, “I kept hearing a phrase. It was ‘I have good news and I have bad news.’” He grinned, clearly pleased with himself, and continued, “The good news is that I am not a cruel man. I am not a terrorist. I have no interest in holding you hostage for years for ransom or sacrificing you for the glory of Allah. If it matters at all, I was raised Eastern Orthodox.”

  “Obviously, you slept through Sunday School.”

  “A sharp wit,” he said. “I like that. It makes my work challenging.”

  He placed the satchel in his ample lap and removed an old Panasonic microcassette recorder from it. After checking to make certain it contained a tape, he switched it on and placed it on the floor.

  “My employers will want to know exactly what you said to me and how you said it. I have been hired to make certain you tell the truth.”