On either end of the enormous space I could see boxes and drums of what I assumed to be pre- and post-product, both sides stacked high, row after row aligned with neat precision. If my hunch was right, it would be more than enough to get X any post he wanted, keep the streets of California safer for at least a little longer.
In front of me, heavy plastic sheeting hung from the ceiling, the same sort of makeshift sterile environment I’d seen many times before. On the opposite side of it I could see lab equipment and conveyor belts, two handfuls of people in white protective gear all staring back at me, none of them moving.
Surprise was on my side. It was time to move.
I had no compassion for these people; no offering them quarter, no standing guard over them until backup arrived. These people, the product they created, were the reason my family was dead. It was the reason countless others had had their lives ruined, through fallen loved ones and harsh addictions. Even if these people weren’t the ones pulling the trigger, they were what called for men like Pavel.
It was an ugly, vicious system, one they were all guilty of participating in. If I let a single one of them walk away, they would be back on the street within a year, if not sooner. That same vile substance that was stacked high beside me would find its way to some other city, would be the cause of some other law enforcement agent’s downfall.
The mere thought of it brought bile to the back of my throat, the same familiar rage surfacing within me.
Heavy or not, the plastic sheeting was no match for the .45-caliber bullets my guns spat, one after another in rapid succession. I started with four rounds from each. Five people fell to the floor in order, red blotches blooming over their white suits. On impact each one melted to the floor, the others standing in complete shock at what was happening, watching without moving.
I picked off each of the people standing directly in front of me before stepping forward, a jagged string of bullet holes scattered several feet wide across the plastic. Shoving the gun from my right hand into the back of my pants, I slid the Garra out and popped the blade release, swiping a vicious slash, connecting the bullet holes in an uneven line.
The sheeting fell to the floor, the material slapping against the concrete as it landed in a heap. For the first time people inside began to scurry away from me, the protective covers on their shoes making them slip and fall, a tangle of shapeless white bodies trying in vain to flee.
Using my left hand, I began firing again, bullets striping the opposite side of the space. Men writhed in midair, their bodies jerking in ugly spasms, their arms flailing above their heads.
I jammed the knife in my right hand into a finished block of Krokodil waiting on the conveyor belt to be loaded, leaving the handle sticking up at a ninety-degree angle, and pulled the second gun out again.
A small piece of me was almost disappointed by the fact that not one of the men inside stood their ground. Nobody drew a weapon and tried to return fire, or even attempted to throw a chunk of their precious product at me in an effort to slow me down. Instead they all filed toward the back corner, trying to free themselves of their plastic prison, their sterile attire making it impossible for them to gain purchase and move away fast enough.
By the time I reached the far end of the homemade lab, a litany of bodies lay in my wake. Blood spatter coated the polished concrete floor, dripping from open wounds, seeping into the powder piled everywhere.
Leaving the bodies untouched I passed through the flaps comprising a narrow doorway at the back end of the space. A dull throbbing settled in behind my left eye, a trickle of blood continuing to drip down my face. I could feel the adrenaline ebbing within me, knowing I needed to finish the job and move on fast.
A series of black skid marks striped the floor outside the plastic, the telltale signs of forklifts at work. Swinging my gaze in a wide arc I spotted two of them parked side by side in the corner, silent, no operators nearby.
My arms hung at a forty-five-degree angle from my shoulders, the barrels of the guns pointed at the floor, their elongated noses extending almost to my knees. The thumping in my head grew in intensity as my heart rate increased; my shoulders bunched up tightly as I walked heel-to-toe, watching for any sign of movement.
There was not a single sound as I walked back the length of the lab, past dozens of yards of clear plastic, past my own makeshift door, which was now an uneven, gaping hole. One quick glance inside told me that nobody had survived the first purge. Their bodies remained where they’d fallen, their positions as misshapen as the moment they’d been hit.
Sweat bathed my skin beneath the heavy knit shirt and slacks, and a sheen of moisture was visible on the backs of my hands. Droplets worked their way down my forehead and mixed with the blood as I inched forward. The taste of salt was heavy on my lips, stinging my eyes.
I ignored each of these things. My attention settled instead on a string of offices embedded in the left half of the warehouse, opposite of the direction I had taken after crashing through the front door. Added as an afterthought to the larger structure, they were no more than eight or nine feet tall, an even, flat ceiling extended across the length of them.
Glass windows lined the entire expanse; blinds had been left open along most of them, doors gaping as well. In my mind I thought back to the transactions Pally had tracked across the globe, most likely originating in these rooms, actions performed by pencil pushers in shirtsleeves working nine to five, now long gone for the day.
To most of the offices I gave no more than a passing acknowledgment. The probability of anybody being inside them was negligible, more likely nonexistent. Illicit drug trade or not, a warehouse is a warehouse. The white-collar workers go home at quitting time, but the real muscle of the operation is on hand all night long.
Bypassing the dark and shuttered windows, I set my course for the dull glow of neon red extending from the only door with a light on in the place. It showed itself by protruding an uneven trapezoid out into the warehouse; its sides were formed by the edges of the door, and its bottom extended outward before fading away at some indeterminate point.
I’d been on enough worksites the world over to know the telltale indicators of a soda machine when I saw one. Judging by the forklifts sitting idle on the opposite side of the building, their operators had either cut out a side door or were hunkered down inside this room. If they were gone, I didn’t have the time or the inclination to chase them around their home city in the dark. If not, they were soon to meet the same end as their coworkers.
Raising the guns from hanging at an angle to almost parallel to the floor, I circled wide toward the break room door and entered directly through it, my silhouette framed by the doorway. There was no point in trying to hide myself or slide in around the side. If anybody was waiting inside with a weapon, they would have opened fire by now.
Weapons raised, I entered to find a rectangular room a little longer than it was wide. A soda machine rested against the back wall, a vending machine stocked with candies and chips beside it. Counters extended out on either side, various odds and ends strewn about.
Plastic silverware, napkins, condiment packets.
The remainder of the room was filled with round tables with silver bases, each surrounded by brown plastic chairs with slits in the backs. The room was empty.
A sigh passed over my lips as my guns dipped a bit lower. I turned and walked back out into the warehouse, then stopped just past the edge of the room, watching. Nothing throughout the entire space moved; the competing scents of fertilizer, sawdust, ammonia in the air, and a hint of blood laced in around the edges.
Curling my arms toward the base of my spine, I began to stow my weapons when a low sound drew my attention to the left. Even, persistent, barely audible but muffled. Keeping the Mark 23s at the ready, I crouched into a shooter’s stance and inched toward the noise, which grew stronger as I went.
I
t took less than a minute to find the source, a metal door in the far corner of the cavernous room. Painted white, it was set even, with concrete blocks on either side of it colored the same hue. A heavy metal padlock clasped the door shut. Its surface vibrated just slightly, in tune with the banging on the opposite side.
The sound was too loud, too steady, to be caused by anything random. The room looked like a basic storage shed, but something falling over inside would not make the banging noise that now met my ears. Whatever is was was alive, and not pleased with its situation.
For the briefest of moments, I considered leaving whoever was behind the door trapped inside. X and the sweeper team would find them soon enough, having someone alive and breathing they could lean on for information. Depending on how they worked them, a veritable bastion of useful intel could be gleaned.
The more pragmatic, realistic side of me pushed it away just as fast. What was more likely was the guy wouldn’t say a word, or if he did, it would be complete shit. They would talk fast, end up demanding immunity, live a nice long time on American taxpayer dollars.
I had no interest in sustaining a man responsible for the death of my family for even a day, let alone the rest of my life.
Bringing the guns together in front of me, I fired a single round from each, sheering the U-ring in the lock off just above the base. The square chunk of steel fell to the floor, smacking to the concrete and leaving a small indentation on impact before tumbling to the side. The top half teetered in place for a moment before falling down behind it, ringing hollow and thin against the floor.
Inside, the banging stopped as the door handle turned, slowly, evenly. When it had gone as far as it could, it stopped. The world was in slow motion as I kept my guns trained ahead of me. Then the door opened.
The first thing out of the room was a plume of stench, urine, sweat, and booze. It passed over me, barely registering with my adrenaline-heightened senses, and was swallowed up by the chilly warehouse.
Behind it followed Viktor Blok.
His hair and face were disheveled, the recognizable visage of a man on the back end of a three-day bender. His clothing, all black, made from silks and cashmere, hung from his lank form, swinging from side to side as he walked forward.
“About damn—” he started before lifting his gaze to see the barrels of twin Mark 23s aimed his way. His eyes and mouth formed congruent circles, and his focus changed from the guns to me.
“You,” he said simply, as realization set in, followed quickly by unadulterated fear.
“Me,” I replied, squeezing both triggers at once.
PART V
Chapter Forty-Six
The moment I walked out of the warehouse in Vladivostok, my chief concern became invisibility. No longer was I concerned with the Bloks, or the Juarezes, or any other cartel on the planet. In that instant my chief worry became an enemy far more sinister, with a reach that extended beyond anything I’d yet encountered.
The only thing out of X’s care package I took with me was the phone, leaving behind the weapons for him to dispose of as he saw fit. There were ways I probably could have gotten rid of them, but on the off chance they were ever found and tied back to what had happened, it might ignite a fiery investigation. That wouldn’t do for me, or for DEA interests in Russia, so I left them behind, trusting they would be swept clean, taken care of the way they preferred.
Shoulder bag looped over one arm, I found my way back into town and made it to the train station, catching a return train back across country departing in two hours’ time. Using the station bathroom, I cleaned up my face as best I could and pulled on the watch cap, making sure the black wool covered the gash and most of the residual bruising. I wiped away as much of the blood and debris from myself as I could before my ride out of there arrived, finding a private compartment and commandeering it for myself.
Using the strap on my shoulder bag, I tied the compartment door shut and stretched my body out across one of the benches, my legs doubled up, my feet resting against the wall. Folding my arms across my chest, I let the gentle sway of the train lull me into a half sleep, the hours sliding by as I came down off an adrenaline high.
For the first time in a week, I allowed my guard to drop just the tiniest bit. I rested knowing there was nobody left to come after me, not a soul alive who knew where to find me even if they wanted to. I was a ghost, a nameless passenger on a train, a cash fare that could be anybody going anywhere.
The first gray streaks of dawn began to stripe the sky, shining down on the snow-covered peaks to the north, before I stirred from my position. Leaving the tie on the doorknob in place, I made a single call to Pally, asking him to get me home.
The rest I left to him.
He was nothing short of a genius.
The train deposited me near Sheremetyevo a few hours short of noon, providing me plenty of time to catch a cab out to the terminal. By that point Pally had arranged four different itineraries for me, two under my actual name and two under my old alias. Each of the possible routes departed within an hour of each other, piecing together random trips circumventing the globe, all depositing me back on American soil late the next day.
Using the last of my rubles I purchased a plain black T-shirt from an airport gift shop and a red hooded sweatshirt, letters stretched vertically down the left side of it in support of a sports team I had never heard of. Opting to keep the watch cap, I deposited my polypropylene gear in a bathroom stall and checked in for my flight, choosing an option that sent me through Berlin, London, and finally landed in New York City.
Upon arriving at LaGuardia International, I caught a shuttle to a rental car counter and took out a Dodge Charger on my alias’s ID.
That was six days ago.
Not even two weeks had passed since the last time I sat on Hutch’s porch, though a great deal had changed. The last of the fall leaves had fallen from the trees, their orange-and-gold tones now turned to brown, and were piled along the curbs, ready to be sacked up and hauled away. In their stead were barren branches, gray fingers clawing against a slate-colored sky, rattling with every gust of breeze.
The temperature outside had dropped another ten degrees, forcing the casual outdoorsmen inside for the winter, leaving only a handful of hard-core types to troll the streets alone, bundled in wool and flannel. None of them seemed to notice me as I sat and waited, the toes of my shoes pushing the swing back and forth a few inches at a time, my hands balled into the pockets of my coat, a small red cooler on the ground by my feet.
A year ago at this time I was back in Montana, putting the last touches on things before winter set in. Firewood to be stacked, a freezer to be filled, plumbing to be checked over for breaks in the line.
Now here I sat, swinging on a porch outside of Washington, D.C., every last one of those chores still needing to be tended to. If I didn’t get to them soon, there was little chance I would make it through the winter unscathed, though that was a concern that didn’t seem to bother me.
No longer was it so imperative for me to remain out of sight, hiding until the last possible minute from the world before emerging, doing just enough to make a living before going back into hibernation for the winter. In the past week a great many of the demons I had carried with me for so long had departed, drifting away in the night, my eyes opening to a world that seemed clearer, lighter, than the one I’d known before.
I had only one last item I needed to tend to before I could truly be at ease, and it was of far greater importance than any amount of firewood would ever be.
At half past six, a pair of headlights made their way down the street, just as they had a few weeks before. Once again they paused by the street at seeing my rental sitting there. Then the car eased into the driveway and stopped halfway down it, the headlights casting a bright glow over the front of the house and illuminating my profile.
There was no attempt on my
part to hide my face, nor did I make any effort to turn and stare at him, to wave and let him know it was me and everything was okay. After a moment the lights blinked out and the engine turned off; the car’s hot inner workings hissed in the cold night air, and an occasional pop was audible. I remained seated where I was as Hutch opened the door and stepped out, his wingtip shoes clicking against the sidewalk.
He’d added an overcoat to the ensemble he wore before, a long beige number with the collar flipped up around his neck that ended just past his ears. He trudged forward with his hands shoved into the pockets and stopped at the foot of the stairs, taking me in.
“You’ve done well to keep so much hair, when so many’s after it.”
A smile crept across my features as he took the stairs one at a time and walked forward, sliding down into the chair beside me.
“Please tell me that cooler doesn’t have the same thing in it you brought me last time.”
A snort jerked my head backward as I stared out at the silent neighborhood, remembering the desiccating hands of Mateo Perez and Lita Haney I’d showed up with last time. Even after everything that had happened I still didn’t know her real name, doubted I ever would, not that it mattered any longer. She, like everyone she was affiliated with, was a distant memory.
“No,” I said, turning my head back and forth, “this one is a celebration.”
Bending at the waist, I lifted the lid of the cooler and extracted a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue from it, holding it up to him and giving it a shake. “This is the good stuff, isn’t that what you told me?”
His eyes crinkled around the edges as his lips curled up into a smile, seeing the bottle in my hands. “That it is.”
I handed it across to him bottom first, the glass cool to the touch. “Please, do the honors.”
Cold Fire Page 26