The Pretender's Gambit

by Alex Archer

“You should have known. It would be easier to name the buildings with elevators in this neighborhood.” Serov walked to one side of Klykov, both of them in front of Annja.

  “You could have told me Onoprienko lived on the fifth floor.”

  “I did.”

  “Guys,” Annja said as they neared the third-floor landing. The anticipation of getting to Onoprienko, and to the elephant, was making her impatient, and the familiar bickering between the two old gangsters was getting on her nerves a little. It also reminded her of how Garin and Roux acted sometimes. She assumed it had to do with people who had spent so much of their lives together.

  They stopped and looked at her, breathing a little harder than they had been due to the strenuous climb.

  “I can go up and see Onoprienko on my own.”

  “No,” they said together.

  “Onoprienko is a dangerous man.” Klykov started up the next flight with a look of determination. “We’re already halfway there anyway.”

  “A girl like you,” Serov added, “he would kill you in an instant. That thing you did with Georgy? That was a fun thing to watch. But Onoprienko? He is no Georgy. He is a much different kind of man.”

  Annja continued, not having any choice because although she knew Onoprienko lived on the fifth floor, she didn’t know which apartment the man lived in.

  “You do realize there’s a chance Onoprienko’s not even there? I mean, if you’re right, he did kill Benyovszky last night.” Annja thought maybe if she suggested this was a waste of time she might talk them out of accompanying her any farther.

  “He’d better be there,” Klykov growled. “If I go all this way, and on my bum knee, and he isn’t there, I may shoot him myself the next time I lay eyes on him.”

  Annja thought Klykov was kidding. She hoped he was kidding.

  “Maybe we should have called first?” Serov suggested. “You know, to make certain Onoprienko is at home.”

  “Would you take a call after you’d just killed a man and knew the police might be looking for you?” Klykov asked.

  “I never have. I always wait a few days. Let things cool down.”

  “Exactly. So Onoprienko is up in that apartment because he has nowhere else to go.”

  Annja followed, always glancing up to make sure Onoprienko didn’t bump into them on his way out of the building. “Onoprienko doesn’t still live with his mom, does he?”

  Klykov and Serov reached the fifth-floor landing and stood there for a moment to catch their breath.

  “No,” Klykov said.

  “She wouldn’t let him,” Serov added.

  Klykov shrugged. “Onoprienko, he has a thing for the ladies. His mother, who should be a saint for all the trouble that son of hers has caused her, would never allow such a thing in her home. Getting to have girls come to his house is probably the only reason Onoprienko moved out of his mother’s place.”

  “What about a roommate?” Annja glanced down the hallway.

  “He lives on his own,” Klykov said.

  “No one would live with the likes of him.” Serov nodded at Klykov. “I am ready.”

  Together, the two men walked down the hallway and stopped in front of number six.

  Klykov removed his hat, then leaned in and pressed his ear to the door. After a minute, he pulled back. “All I hear is the television. A game show, I think.” He tried the doorknob slowly, then shook his head. “Locked.”

  “It won’t be for long.” Serov took a flat case out of his pocket and opened it, revealing an impressive assortment of lock picks. He knelt down and set to work on the door.

  “You’re sure this is the right apartment?” Annja glanced along the hallway, thinking that if a neighbor happened on them this would be hard to explain. Breaking into an innocent person’s home would be hard to explain, too.

  “Sure, sure.” Klykov nodded. “Don’t you worry, Annja. Me and Pitor got this. This is easy-shmeezy for us. You just stay back so you don’t get hurt.”

  “Right.” Annja leaned against the wall beside Klykov and thought about the mysterious assassin who had killed Calapez and Pousao, if those were really their names, in front of the police precinct. She hated thinking something might happen to Klykov and Serov, and if it did, it would be her fault.

  Serov got to his feet, put his lock picks away and hauled out a massive revolver that Annja had not even realized he had. It had a long barrel and looked like it was capable of bringing down a charging rhino. “Okay, we can do this now.”

  “You’ve got a gun?” Annja asked.

  Serov looked at the weapon. “Well, yeah. I’m not gonna go after Pavel Onoprienko with a hammer. Do you want a pistol? I have an extra.”

  Of course he did. Annja felt the situation was sliding out of control. “No. I’m good. Thanks.”

  “Pitor likes those big guns,” Klykov said. “Like something those guys out in the Old West would carry. I go for something a little more sophisticated.” He pulled out a sleek Beretta, then took out another one. “Maybe you’ll find it more to your liking.”

  “No, but thanks.”

  Klykov shrugged. “I didn’t know if you had one in your backpack.”

  “No.”

  Klykov nodded at Serov, who reached for the doorknob, turned it, then pushed and followed the door inside.

  * * *

  PAVEL ONOPRIENKO ALREADY had guests. He sat in a straight-backed chair in the middle of a small living room that evidently spent part of its time as a trash bin. Empty pizza boxes and Chinese takeout containers covered most flat surfaces. The temperature inside the room was cooler than outside, and a breeze blew over Annja that felt like air-conditioning.

  Dressed in boxers with red hearts on them, his skin sallow and sagging a little, Onoprienko sat nervously with his elbows on his knees. Hair hung down into his face, partially covering a swelling purple bruise on the side of his face that also threatened to close his right eye. Angry red spots on his chest, stomach and arms showed he’d been hit several times.

  Four other men occupied the room. All of them were young and hard looking, dressed in jeans and pullovers. One of them sat in the open window. Another sat backwards in a chair with his arms folded. Another rested against the doorway that probably led to a bedroom. The fourth man stood in front of Onoprienko while holding a pistol to the captive’s head and a phone to his ear.

  Wheel of Fortune played on the large-screen television against one wall. The players were clapping their hands and the audience was cheering a letter selection.

  Klykov and Serov brandished their weapons. The four young men looked back at the two old gangsters in disbelief.

  “You boys just sit tight,” Klykov said in a flat voice, “and we’ll all get out of this alive.”

  The guy holding the pistol to Onoprienko’s head looked nervous. “Back on out of here, old man, or you’re gonna get hurt. Got me some business to take care of and I don’t need no distractions. Or witnesses.”

  “Who’s he calling old?” Klykov asked, but he didn’t take his eyes off the men. “He must have been talking to you, Pitor.”

  “He wasn’t talking to me. Punk like that knows I’d kneecap him for talking fresh like that.”

  “You, tough guy,” Klykov said, waving toward the guy with the gun pointed at Onoprienko’s head. “You want to listen to me.”

  “No, I don’t.” The young man sneered. “I got a lot of extra bullets, old man. Mess with us and you’re gonna get one of ’em.”

  Klykov ignored the threat. “What are you doing with Onoprienko?”

  The young man cursed at Klykov.

  “You know who this is, Leonid?” Serov asked his friend.

  “Just some punk getting too big for his britches.”

  “That there is Johnny Kaneev. He works for M
ikhail Guro.”

  “Guro? The loan shark?”

  Serov nodded. “The very one. Kaneev here enforces for Guro. People get behind on their payments, Guro sends Kaneev and his creeps to bust heads.”

  Klykov glanced at Onoprienko. “Is that true, Pavel? Do you owe the loan shark?”

  “Da.” Onoprienko nodded and blood spilled out between his cracked teeth and poured down his chin. “I keep finding slow horses.”

  “Guro is a bad man to owe money to. How much are you into him?”

  “Seventy-three thousand and change.” Onoprienko shrugged and spat blood on the floor.

  Serov gave a low whistle. “That’s a lot of money, Pavel.”

  “I’ve been working it off with Guro, a nickel here, a dime there. I just can’t catch a break and nobody wants to hire me for a real job that pays.” Onoprienko nodded in disgust at the young man who held him. “Mostly I have been doing this pig’s work. Getting people to pay Guro. I should get a bonus for that. Payment has never been so good as when I am working for Guro. Then, after I am about to finally get free of debt to Guro, he sends around this one to take my good fortune.”

  The knowledge of what that job was sent a chill down Annja’s spine. She kept her hand to her side, already feeling the sword in the otherwhere. She wanted to say something, to do something, that would get them all past the moment, but she was afraid the next moment would be filled with the stench of spent gunpowder.

  “What good fortune?” Klykov asked.

  “Just a little something I chanced upon.”

  Understanding dawned in Annja. “Do you have the elephant Benyovszky was auctioning off?”

  “Enough questions!” Suddenly concerned, the young guy with the gun peered at Annja, but he asked his question of Klykov. He took a fresh grip and kept the pistol steady. “Who is she?”

  “A friend. A television-star friend.” Klykov tapped his Chasing History’s Monsters T-shirt with one of his weapons but kept the other pointed at the man. “She wants to talk to Onoprienko.”

  Kaneev shook his head. “Uh-uh. Onoprienko ain’t gonna talk to nobody but Mr. Guro. That’s how this goes down. Wassily, what are you waiting for?”

  The man in the window moved so fast that the pistol just seemed to appear in his hands as if he were a magician. As fast as he was, though, Serov already had his weapon out and didn’t hesitate to use it. The big revolver bucked and spat fire, and a large-caliber bullet slammed into Wassily’s chest, blowing him back through the open window. He vanished without a sound.

  Annja moved away from Klykov, trying to find a good battleground as detonations filled the air. The sword felt calm and sure in her hand, but she didn’t pull the weapon from the otherwhere because there was no room to use it. Bullets slapped into the wall only a couple feet from her and tore at Klykov’s jacket, taking his hat off. Klykov never batted an eye, just lifted his pistols and fired.

  Kaneev pulled his pistol from Onoprienko’s head and pointed it at Klykov. Before he could fire the weapon, though, Klykov shot him three times. Slack in death, Kaneev fell to the floor.

  The man sitting in the chair managed to get up, but bullets from Serov’s or Klykov’s pistols, or maybe from both, struck him in the chest and drove him backward.

  Onoprienko leaned sideways in his chair and managed to land on the ground hard enough to break the chair. Semifreed, he started pulling the ropes up over his head and shoulders. He managed to get free, and reached for the dead man’s pistol.

  Moving more swiftly than either of her companions could, Annja grabbed the pistol and stepped back from Onoprienko as voices filled the room, coming from the bedroom. The man lounging in the door stood on both of his feet and brought up an elegant-looking machine pistol. Behind him, two more men with fully automatic weapons appeared in the doorway.

  Klykov or Serov shot the man, but he managed to trigger a burst that chopped the wall beside Serov. The men in the bedroom opened fire, but they’d fired in a hurry and didn’t manage to hit the old Russian gangsters.

  Racing back toward the apartment entrance, Annja caught up with Klykov and Serov. Something tugged at Annja’s backpack, then she was through the door.

  “The walls are thin!” Klykov roared as he dove to the hallway floor. “Get down!” He dropped one of his pistols and grabbed her wrist, taking her down with him.

  Chapter 16

  Annja went to the hallway floor readily. She’d already thought of the thinness of the walls and how they would provide no real protection. She had been concerned about the old men and was about to warn them of the same thing. Covering her head with her arms, she watched as bullets smashed through the apartment and tore into the hall. She hoped that the neighbors there weren’t home or the bullets didn’t penetrate. The sharp reports of the machine pistols ricocheted through the hallway.

  Lying on his back, Klykov fired both pistols into the wall, keeping his aim low. A startled cry of pain came from within, and Annja hoped that it didn’t belong to Onoprienko. She was certain now that the killer’s “good fortune” had been in murdering Benyovszky and taking the elephant.

  She dropped the magazine from the weapon she’d taken, found it fully loaded, then checked the action and saw a bullet in the chamber.

  A shaggy-haired man appeared in the doorway of Onoprienko’s apartment. He stepped out farther and tried to bring the machine pistol he carried into play. He started firing prematurely, stitching an uneven line across the tile toward Annja and her companions.

  Coolly, lifting one arm to take aim, Serov shot the man in the face twice and continued lying on his back in the middle of the hallway. He swung the cylinder of one of the revolvers open, dumped the brass and replenished it with a Speedloader.

  “Reminds you of old days in Russia, nyet?” Serov smiled at Klykov.

  “Reminds me more of East Germany when we were thwarting the Stasi.” Klykov smiled, animated and excited. Their English had regressed during the excitement. “Look at you with your grandfather’s gun. Already having to reload. You should have one of these.” He shook his Beretta proudly. “Would be better to have two.”

  “Is better to only have six rounds. Counting so many as in your guns, I sometimes forget.” Serov snapped the cylinder closed with a flick of his wrist. “Is not good to forget count and run out of bullets at wrong time.”

  “They say math keeps the mind sharp.”

  “Until it is blown out of your head.”

  Annja started to get up, but Klykov restrained her. In the next moment, another wave of gunfire tore through the apartment wall.

  “I wish I had grenade,” Serov said in a low voice. “Grenade would make this so much simpler.”

  “Grenade would mean Annja could not question Onoprienko about the elephant,” Klykov countered.

  “Grenade also much harder to conceal in suit, you know? And as for Onoprienko, he is probably already dead.”

  Klykov nodded. “Let’s go.” With surprising agility, the old gangster rolled to his feet. “I think maybe they are getting away. We must not let that happen. Others may get the wrong impression, would make us look weak.”

  Look weak? Annja didn’t even have a response to that. They’d already killed a handful of men and somehow dodged hundreds of bullets. She rolled to her feet as well and stayed low with both hands locked on the pistol.

  “Where do you think the extra men came from?” Klykov asked.

  “From bedroom.”

  “That was a lot of men to bring to face Onoprienko.”

  “Maybe Guro is scared of him. If Onoprienko wanted me dead, I would be scared.” Serov peered cautiously around the doorway. “Is good. All clear.”

  Annja didn’t risk the doorway. She just peered through one of the big holes in the wall made by repeated bullets passing through. In addition to Guro’s enforce
rs, Kaneev, his three men, and three other men lay on the floor, dead or dying. Including the man Serov had shot in the doorway of the apartment, so that made eight men.

  It was a massacre, and Annja was in the middle of it.

  Worse than that, Onoprienko was nowhere in sight.

  “Where is Pavel’s body?” Klykov asked as he stepped into the apartment after Serov. “It should be here somewhere.”

  “That one is lucky when it comes to sudden death,” Serov said. “Not so much lucky with picking horses.”

  Annja stepped over the bodies and looked out the window. Five stories below, Onoprienko was running for his life wearing only his heart-covered Skivvies. She was just about to throw a leg over the window and take up pursuit when a loud, authoritative voice rang out behind her.

  “NYPD! Drop the weapons!” A man in his thirties took cover beside the doorway and leveled a handgun at Klykov, Serov and Annja. “Do it now!”

  Klykov looked at Serov. “You think he is a cop?”

  “Probably,” Serov said. “Only cops yell warning, and even they do not do it all the time.” He lowered his weapons to the floor and laced his fingers behind his head while dropping to his knees. “We don’t want any more trouble.”

  Klykov surrendered his weapons as well and took the same pose. “We will surrender, Mr. Policeman, but we did nothing wrong.”

  The police officer directed his attention. “You, too! Put down the weapon!”

  Annja wanted to protest, to tell the police officer that Onoprienko was getting away, but she knew it would do no good. Even now, two armed men were pursuing him, and she didn’t know where they had come from. Frustrated, she placed the gun on the ground and put her hands behind her head. Bart was so going to love this.

  * * *

  RAO FROZE AS the man clad only in his underwear and carrying a pistol in his fist bailed out of the fire escape from the building where Annja Creed had gone. The cab she’d arrived in had taken off shortly after the bullets started flying. Rao was across the street watching.

  Two men with guns emerged from the fifth-floor window and pursued the underdressed man. Pedestrians had paused on the street and shopkeepers had come out of their businesses to investigate the source of the gunshots.