Cold Fire

by Dustin Stevens

  Ten minutes on the ground confirmed just that.

  The smell of the sea filled my nostrils as I exited the train station, a dull, drab building made exclusively from gray stone. In the distance I could hear the sounds of ships in dock, see the flashing lights mounted on high, guiding vessels into port.

  Using the cover of my private compartment, I had stripped out of my jacket and shirt, putting on the polypropylene shirt provided to me by X. Sized large, it was a bit snug in the shoulders and around the middle, a harsh reminder that I was no longer twenty-eight and the size he remembered.

  Not wanting to stand out too much while still out in plain sight, I put the shirt and jacket back on. The three layers were warm almost to the point of discomfort. The ski cap I kept stowed away in a pocket, waiting until I was closer to my chosen target before sliding it on.

  At such a late hour, the city seemed to be quieting down for the night, by far the most movement coming from the docks to the south. Bathed in halogen light by banks of overhead bulbs, the entire area was as bright as noon, and activity flourished.

  After an initial glance, I kept my attention aimed away from it, careful to protect my night vision. With the shoulder bag over one arm and briefcase in hand, I walked five blocks from the train station, passing run-down storefronts and decrepit eateries, none with more than a few small clumps of people inside.

  Those I did see were huddled tightly together, dressed in heavy clothes, their moods somber. Nobody seemed to even glance my way as I slid by, just another faceless stranger in the city.

  I walked slowly, using the windshields of parked cars and the front glass of buildings to scan my tail. Content that nobody was following me, I flagged a taxi down and gave the driver an address five blocks from my first intended target, reciting the location Pally had given me a few hours before.

  When I talked it through with Pally, we’d agreed that the residence would be the best place to start. There was no way Blok would be at the production site this time of night, and showing up there first would only alert him to my presence. The odds were overwhelmingly good he already knew I was in-country, or at least en route. The faux plane ticket to Kiev might have gotten him to let his guard down a bit, but that would work in my favor for only so long.

  If I started with him, there was a chance, however slim, that I could get to the production site and raise hell before anybody could warn them to my presence. If I went to the warehouse first, there was no way somebody wouldn’t tip him off beforehand. Doing so assured that he would either have an army waiting for me or disappear into the night, neither of which I was especially fond of.

  I had the taxi drop me off near what appeared to be a family restaurant, making a series of grunts and emphatic gestures to grab the driver’s attention and get him to slow. The man shook his head in complete disgust as I counted out the forty rubles for my fare, added another ten to the pile for him, and stepped out into the cold night air.

  My foot had barely touched the sidewalk when he zoomed off, a flash of tires smoking and taillights blazing, making sure I knew he did not appreciate my presence or my business. I played the part of an innocent foreign rube until he was gone before turning a hard right and heading off in the opposite direction.

  Not once in my life had I ever been to Vladivostok. I was depending entirely on the directions Pally had given me, telling me exactly where I should get out of a cab and how far I should travel to reach my destination. If any part of him wanted to do me in, this was his chance, by leading me into a certain trap with no way of knowing for certain that I was wrong about him. I could only bank on the fact that I had always done right by him and pray he would return the favor.

  One block past the restaurant, the streetlights behind me faded, and a quiet neighborhood took its place. From what I could see through the darkness, the street was lined with older, stately homes, all constructed more than fifty years before, comprised mostly of brick and mortar. Their exteriors appeared strong and imposing, even more so by moonlight, with towering trees dotting their yards. A handful had lights visible through the front windows, a few more with the reflected images of television screens dancing off them.

  Somewhere in the distance a dog barked, setting off two more in response. On the opposite side of the street an elderly woman shuffled along, her hands shoved into the pockets of her coat, her gaze aimed at the ground.

  My heels clicked against the sidewalk beneath me as I gripped the handle of the briefcase in my right hand, rested my left along the strap of my bag. Relieved of most of its cargo, the case was considerably lighter than when I’d first picked it up.

  Both of the Mark 23s were wedged along the small of my back, handles pointed out toward my hips, noise suppressors resting against my butt. It had made for an uncomfortable ride in the cab, sitting with ramrod posture, but it was worth it. Either one could be extracted in less than a second, already loaded and ready to be fired.

  The Garra II was slid into the front pocket of my slacks on my right side, my stronger hand. The blade was still folded shut, most likely to be employed only in the event of an emergency. That left just the phone and the spare magazines packed tight against each other in the bottom of the briefcase to prevent sliding around and making costly noise.

  One by one the houses filed by on my right, and my gaze flicked to the side at every third one to check the numbers. Four long blocks fell away as I walked, letting the feelings I had suppressed long ago come to the surface.

  The first time I ever laid eyes on my wife was in a genetics class my junior year of college. I was in there out of basic student obligation, looking to fill a core requirement after my first three choices were already full. She was there as a premed student, taking the course as an elective, hoping it would be useful in her future career in medical research.

  Far and away the most beautiful nerd I had ever seen.

  Her name was Elizabeth Spence, and she hated me from the start. Some couples like to brag about how they knew the moment they met that they were going to spend the rest of their lives together. We liked to joke that if she’d had her way, we never would have even had a conversation, let alone a child.

  It took me more than six months to get her to say anything to me that wasn’t laced with arsenic, another three before she would even consider a date.

  By graduation we were engaged. Three years later, we had a daughter named Alice.

  Having had five years to dwell on it, there were a thousand things I did wrong along the way, a million more I would change if given the chance. I never would have gone into the Navy, would have told the DEA to stick it the minute they came sniffing around. Not once would I consider moving them to the southwest, leaving them alone for long stretches of time, nobody to protect them in a hostile environment.

  Of course I couldn’t change any of those things, and I’d had five long years, sixty months, two hundred and sixty weeks, to have to accept that. When most people make mistakes, they have to change jobs, move to a new city, at worst declare bankruptcy. My mistakes cost me my wife and daughter, the last two women I will ever love in this world.

  The last of the numbers dwindled down on the buildings beside me, depositing me alongside a two-story brick home framed by a front porch extended between two wings stretching out to either side. Easily the largest house on the block, it commanded the lots to either side of it. A series of obvious additions had been made to it over the years, stretching the home to look like it included a dozen bedrooms and just as many other rooms serving various purposes.

  A black wrought iron fence encompassed the grounds, a gate with a simple latch standing at the end of the front walk leading up to the door. Briefcase still in hand, I let myself in and strolled along it, noting two windows with lights on, both on the second floor.

  The state of the place indicated a number of things right off, all working to my advantage. First, the lax s
ecurity told me that Blok wasn’t expecting me to show up at his home. Whether that meant he didn’t believe I was in-country or just didn’t think I knew where he was I couldn’t be sure, but either way it was a fact that greatly played into my favor.

  Second, it also told me that Pavel wasn’t nearby. There was no way the famed brute could be on the grounds and let me get this close without doing something to stop me. Even if a trap was lying in wait on the other side of the door, I could have been carrying an IED in this briefcase right now to wipe out half the house. He would never allow that to happen.

  Finally, it told me that Blok wasn’t taking me seriously. He had lived in a state of false superiority for so long, he didn’t fear the possibility of somebody walking up to his front door and doing to him exactly what he had done to me years before.

  In all that time, the only thing that had kept me from being consumed with rage, from letting my thirst for vengeance overtake me, was the simple fact that I never had a face to aim it at. Even then, despite what I was working on at the moment, I had known the Juarezes weren’t the ones who killed my family. If I had thought that for even a second, I would have wiped them all from the face of the earth five years earlier, prison be damned.

  The whole situation, from the depravity of the actions to the public display it was done under, was too deplorable, even for people like them. The kind of people who would go after a man’s family, who would murder his wife and daughter and stake their bodies out for the world to see, had to be nothing short of monsters.

  For five long years I had lived not knowing who those monsters were, peering out into the darkness, wondering if they were lurking, suppressing my rage. Finally, I had a face, a name, a target for it. Someplace to aim everything I’d been carrying all that time.

  I could feel it boiling within me, forcing its way to the surface. Despite the cold night air, sweat bathed my brow, soaked through the undershirt, drenched my button-down. My breath came in long, deep pulls, and my heart pounded in my ears. Every sound in the neighborhood found its way to me; each nerve in my body tingled with sensation.

  On the edge of the front porch I deposited the briefcase and the shoulder bag, dropping both to the floor and drawing the Marks from my back. The grips on each one fit easily into my hands as I pulled them free, moonlight flashing off their polished steel barrels.

  Yeah, I’d made mistakes, but nothing compared to what Blok had done. He had picked a fight with someone he wasn’t equipped to handle, started something he couldn’t finish.

  His mistake wasn’t in being a monster.

  It was in creating one.

  Chapter Forty

  After ten months spent in the balmy, arid climate of Baja, it was a welcome respite to be back in Russia. The familiar November chill had set in, this year a little stronger than the previous few, frost already covering the ground just hours into the evening.

  Still dressed in nothing more than a T-shirt, Pavel drew in a deep breath through his nose. The cold air cleared his nasal passages and filled his lungs, the taste bitter in his nostrils. Just the mere scent of it reminded him that he was home where he belonged, far from the warm ocean breezes and sandy beaches of Mexico.

  Once more a smile crossed his face as he circled around to the opposite side of Blok’s sedan and opened the door. Viktor’s unconscious body had been leaning against it. Upon the door’s release, his frame spilled out onto the ground, his shoulder taking the brunt of the fall, his forehead not far behind. A gash opened on his brow, and a tendril of blood ran down into his eyebrow as Pavel put one hand into his armpit and hefted him upright.

  Dipping at the waist, he positioned Viktor’s body over his shoulder and lifted him from the ground. Viktor’s slight frame weighed almost nothing. Pavel slammed the car door shut and headed toward the front door as Viktor’s arms and legs flopped on either side of him.

  The punch had been glorious, a long time coming and even longer overdue. If Sergey had not been standing there, Pavel would have taken his time and really relished the shot, winding up for a haymaker that might very well have ended Viktor on the spot. As it were, the direct right had more than done its job, aided considerably by the alcohol flowing through Viktor’s system.

  After nearly twenty years in the business, the blow was more than just a punch to Pavel. It had been delivered on a direct order from Sergey, an order for him to strike a member of the family. For such a directive to be issued meant he was now considered on the level with everyone else, a sign of things to come.

  What this meant for him moving forward he wasn’t sure, but it had to be a good sign. In no way did he want to return to Mexico, but if ordered he would do so happily, taking over the network there, making sure Krokodil became the next big thing to seize America.

  Pavel adjusted Viktor a tiny bit on his shoulder and jerked the front glass doors open, stepping by the heat blowing down in the buffer zone and passing on through the second set of double doors. Even at the late hour they remained open; the evening shift was on and the enterprise was operating in full swing.

  Stopping just within the main door, Pavel rested his hands on his hips and took a look around. The last time he had been inside was almost a year earlier, when the process had been nothing more than Anatoly and a small group of scientists, all still working to perfect the product. Their lab had been just thirty feet square, a plastic bubble rising up out of the middle of the enormous space.

  In the time since, things had expanded exponentially, with finished product now lining the west side of the building, raw materials in equal amounts standing on the opposite end. The once tiny research facility had quadrupled in size, and a team that looked to be a dozen strong moved about inside, their white suits giving them all the appearance of beekeepers at work.

  Pressing his lips together tightly, Pavel nodded in approval. He passed one last gaze over the room, taking in what would soon be making its way to North America, before turning to the left and heading toward the corner. Around him he could hear the whine of forklifts speeding about, could smell their burnt rubber in the air.

  His gait slow and easy, Pavel walked past a string of offices extended out from the wall. Many had glass fronts lining them, their doors standing open as he passed, most with their lights off. Inside was the standard office fare of desks and tables, one housing snack and soda machines, a card table for workers taking a break.

  Pavel made his way by each of them to the far corner, toward a solid metal door surrounded on either side by concrete blocks painted white. He ignored any stares that fell on his back from the workers outside, entering the room and shutting the door behind him.

  A single switch on the wall brought a candescent light fixture above to life, and a filmy yellow glow filled the space. Otherwise there was not a single thing in the room, its walls natural gray block, its floor polished concrete. The floor slanted inward from each side, culminating in a steel drain cap. Despite being clean and dry, the air inside was damp and smelled of mildew.

  Tilting his torso to the side, Pavel let Viktor fall from his shoulder, and his body landed with a slap against the smooth floor.

  The decision had been Sergey’s, though Pavel had not fought him on it. Traditionally the room had been used for interrogations, occasionally to make an example of a wayward employee. In a previous life it had been used for storing harsh manufacturing chemicals, but the concrete walls worked just as well for muffling the screams of anybody inside.

  Given the state Viktor was in, and what he had done, they stood in agreement that he was best served by a night or more in the room to think things through. While he was there, Sergey would consider the proper thing to do with him, even suggesting creating a new post for him somewhere in Siberia.

  Pavel had thought more along the lines of the bottom of the Baltic Sea, though he kept the thought to himself.

  The order had been to deliver Viktor to the sto
rage room, but to do no further damage. As much as he wanted to drive his boot into Viktor’s face, ribs, groin, he fought back the urge, leaving him lying on his side in the middle of the floor and turning the lights out as he went. His next destination was to be Kiev, and he would have ample opportunity to let out his rage once there.

  He caught a few men quickly looking away as he emerged, and the rubberneckers hurried back to their work at the sight of him. The glower remained in place as he headed back toward the door, his phone vibrating against his hip halfway there.

  It took a moment for his massive hands to fish the implement from his pants. He lifted the device to his face and responded without looking at the screen. Sergey was the only person who ever called him, so there was no question who it would be.

  “Yeah, sir?” Pavel asked, pressing his left index finger into his free ear to block out the whine of tires on concrete behind him. Over the line he could hear heavy panting followed by the sound of a woman screaming. He couldn’t be sure, but it sounded a lot like Anya, terror in her tone.

  Extending his pace to great strides, Pavel covered the last of the floor to the door and pushed his way outside, and the silence of the night flooded in around him. He kept his finger jammed into his left ear and pressed the phone down hard with his right, straining for any sound on the opposite side.

  “Yeah?” he repeated, adrenaline starting to course through him.

  “Pavel,” Sergey said between ragged gasps, his voice weak. “He’s here.”