The Treachery of Russian Nesting Dolls

by Orest Stelmach

  The crimson wall in Iskra’s bedroom had transfixed me with its gruesome depiction of the evil that one human being could perpetrate against another. The guards’ bodies had an entirely different effect on me. They made my nerves stand on edge with the knowledge that all our lives, in fact, were in danger. But they also boosted my confidence. The murder of these men, seemingly innocents in this matter, was tragic collateral damage. And yet it proved my theory about the killer to be correct and, as a result, galvanized my senses.

  While the bodyguards and Simmy exchanged words, I snuck in from behind them. The carcass of the guards’ pet, the wolf who had attacked me, lay beside their bodies. One guard had been killed by a shot to the forehead. The other had been shot twice in the chest before also being shot in the head. Perhaps the killer had surprised them at the gate, shot the first guard in the head, then fired two rounds into the other guard’s chest before the man could square his weapon. Then he’d finished him off with the shot to the forehead. The wolf had probably been tethered to his post and never had a chance.

  The sight of the dead animal bothered me as much or more than the sight of the human corpses. Maybe that was wrong, but there was no denying its truth.

  I grabbed Simmy by the arm. “We have to get in there now, ” I said. “What did your bodyguards do before they became bodyguards?”

  “They dealt with situations like this,” Simmy said. “That is why you’re going to wait here and let us do what’s necessary.”

  “Us? You mean them.”

  Simmy glared at me. “You will stay here.”

  “Okay, boss. You’re the client. Whatever you say.”

  Simmy conferred with the bodyguards. After a thirty second discussion where the bodyguards did most of the talking, one of the guards brought four vests from the trunk of the black Mercedes. Each of us put one on. Mine needed strap adjustments to fit my smaller frame and still felt too big.

  Then the bodyguard with the assault rifle raced past the gate. He used the tree line as cover and disappeared from sight.

  Less than a minute later Simmy’s phone trilled. The bodyguard had circled the house and gotten the layout. They had another chat. I knew Simmy didn’t want to get us all killed and precautions were necessary but precious seconds were ticking away. I finally couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Simmy,” I said.

  He raised a finger and nodded at me, as though reassuring me that he, too, was ready to jump out of his skin. Then he hung up and headed for the driver’s seat to his Mercedes. I expected the bodyguard to head for the passenger side but he didn’t. Instead, he raised the gate and took his position directly behind the car.

  I recognized my opportunity, sprinted around him, and got to the passenger front door just as Simmy had one foot in the driver’s side.

  “What are you …”

  I slid inside and shut the door before he could finish his sentence.

  Simmy slipped behind the wheel. He pressed a button on the armrest and the doors locked with the emphatic thump of a bank vault.

  “Seat belt,” he said.

  I shot him a look. “You’re suddenly okay with my going?”

  “I’m suddenly aware that this is the safest place for you. My man reconned the property. The house is an optical illusion. There’s glass in front but the back of the house is a stone fortress. No windows on the lower level. No access to the windows on the second level. The only way to get inside … “ Simmy started the car and the engine came to life. It sounded like rolling thunder wrapped in silk. “Is through the front door.”

  Simmy wrapped his hands around the wheel. I rushed to snap my seat belt in place. He pressed the throttle. The engine shed its silky overtones and screamed.

  My neck snapped back against my headrest. I felt like the arrow that had been sprung from the crossbow. The Mercedes devoured the tarmac between the gate and the house. My stomach shot up my throat.

  I barely heard Simmy speaking. “This is the S65 AMG with six hundred thirty horsepower and one thousand newton metres of torque …”

  The front door appeared dead ahead. To its right, the floor-to-ceiling glass wall. The engine unleashed its full fury.

  “Simmy, what the fuck …”

  We were supposed to be slowing down, but we weren’t.

  Simmy raised his voice so I could hear him over the din but his tone remained shockingly composed. “You should know I’ve had some modifications made.”

  We would be upon the door in seconds.

  “Ballistic stainless steel, Kevlar, Dyneema …”

  “Oh my God …”

  “Fear for the house,” he said, “not for your life.”

  The car veered right toward the glass window. A row of thick hedges provided a lift.

  I closed my eyes.

  The front of the car vaulted into the air. The engine stopped wailing.

  I heard a thunk. A nanosecond of complete and utter silence followed. My body floated downward, as though being pulled to the Earth by its gravitational pull—

  The car landed with a thump.

  I opened my eyes.

  Glass fell to the floor around us. I felt the brakes grab the wheels. The car slowed instantly but kept rolling.

  We pulverized a tinted glass coffee table, piled into an upholstered recliner and carried it through the living room. The living room opened into the dining room. I spotted the dining room table a second before we crushed it, an oval sheet of glass atop an asymmetric white stand that looked like a designer vault for skateboarders. Sleek white side chairs scattered like kites in a hurricane. We plowed through a serving table containing a monumental glass vase and burst through the half-wall beyond it.

  The Mercedes stopped.

  The car came to rest in front of a center island with a white marble countertop. A box of Alpen cereal, a bottle of almond milk, and a bowl with a spoon rested atop it. The stainless steel stove looked like a duplicate of the one I’d used at Sarah Dumont’s restaurant.

  Simmy managed to open his door just enough to slip out. Mine was pressed against a tabletop with a giant industrial mixer that looked like it had never been used. Someone liked the idea of home-baked cookies, but didn’t want to do the work or consume the calories, I thought.

  I swung my legs over the car’s center console and pushed off with my arms to propel myself into the driver’s seat. Knobs and buttons stabbed my hipbone but adrenaline dulled the pain.

  The killer was in the house. He’d murdered two bodyguards and a perfectly nice wolf after I’d told Sarah Dumont that they should all be careful.

  Simmy stood with his back against the refrigerator, facing the debris in the living area. A hallway that ran perpendicular to the rooms we’d destroyed was the only other way into the kitchen. It opened up around the corner from Simmy.

  As I slipped out the driver’s side door, I heard footsteps coming from the direction of the living room.

  Both bodyguards had their weapons raised. They were stalking their way toward us through the wreckage. One of them had eyes on the kitchen and the corridor. The other was turned the other way, focused on the path in their wake.

  I slipped beside Simmy. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I took comfort in the bodyguards’ presence. We had numbers. We had arms. The men who were with me were trained. The question was whether Sarah Dumont was still alive or not.

  “Nadia?”

  A man had spoken my name. When Simmy looked back at me with the same shock I’d just experienced, I knew I wasn’t imagining it. I’d only heard that voice once before, but I recognized it nonetheless. I’d been expecting to hear it soon, just not calling out my name.

  The voice sounded again. “Nadia? Are you there?” The man spoke Russian. Fear and urgency punctuated his delivery.

  I glanced at Simmy, who looked to the bodyguards. They nodded.

  “Sasha?” I let my voice carry to make sure he heard me. “Is that you?”

  “I want to come out. I want to surrender.
Don’t shoot.”

  The bodyguards spread out and took aim at the corridor. They nodded at Simmy.

  Simmy whispered in my ear. “Tell him to come out with his hands up in the air, and if he tries anything, two former members of FSB special forces will shoot him dead, no questions asked.”

  I repeated what Simmy had told me but peppered my delivery with enthusiasm. I had to give the kid credit. I strongly suspected he’d been manipulated into his current situation. Sufficient time had passed since Iskra’s murder for him to contemplate what he’d done, and he’d finally come to his senses.

  “I’m coming out,” Sasha said. “Don’t shoot. I’m unarmed.”

  Uncertain footsteps came our way, heavy boots over a hardwood floor.

  Sasha appeared. He wore the trademark blue trousers and a white short sleeve shirt of the Bruges police. Even more surprising was his head. His dreadlocks were gone. In their place, he wore a baseball cap that matched his uniform.

  I leaned into Simmy’s ear. “It’s Sasha—”

  A muffled thud interrupted me.

  Sasha collapsed to the floor. Blood trickled from a hole in his head and stained the collar of his white shirt.

  “Shit,” Simmy and I said, almost simultaneously.

  I crept around Simmy, but before I could see Sasha’s face, I spotted the watch around his wrist.

  It was the same Panerai he’d been wearing at the museum, the one the real killer had been wearing in the Romanov family photo.

  CHAPTER 25

  I slipped back beside Simmy.

  The bodyguards had to be careful about an offensive because they not only had to protect themselves, they had to be concerned with Sarah Dumont’s whereabouts. This was obvious even to me, the untrained member of our group, and no words needed to be spoken to make it clearer. And yet the clock was ticking, and for all I knew, Sarah Dumont’s throat was being slit even as we stood by absorbing Sasha’s death.

  And then we heard it. A distant moan. Someone trying to scream but unable to fully open her mouth. It came from where Sasha had appeared, from a room down the corridor on the first level.

  The bodyguards motioned to each other with their hands. One made a knife with his right hand, aimed it toward the corridor, and then made a V of his second and third fingers and brought it to his eyes. His partner nodded.

  They glanced at Simmy, who nodded back at them. Then he turned at a slight angle toward me so that only I could hear him.

  “We’re going in,” he said.

  The bodyguards disappeared down the corridor. Simmy started to follow. It made no sense for him to go until his men had dealt with whatever awaited us. And yet I respected him for his courage, just as surely as I wondered about the motivation behind it, and if he had some connection to Sarah Dumont that had escaped me thus far.

  As soon as Simmy negotiated the corner, I followed him. Sometimes it’s better to be imprudent than be labeled a coward, especially by oneself.

  The hallways gave access to a series of doors on both sides. I counted five of them. Three on the left, and two on the right.

  All the doors were closed.

  The bodyguards whipped the first door open. One of them charged inside.

  He returned five seconds later.

  They flung the second door open. The other one bust into the room.

  There was no one inside.

  The bodyguards moved on to the third door. And then the fourth. They moved quickly and efficiently and yet the process was interminable.

  They got to the last door on the left. Two closets, an office, and a laundry room preceded this room. A bedroom, I thought. Most folks who built a large home these days made sure the ground floor contained a bedroom.

  Simmy’s men approached the last door. One of them turned the handle. He rushed inside.

  He disappeared from sight but I heard him shout.

  “Put the knife down, put the knife down.”

  The second bodyguard followed the first one and barked something similar. By then Simmy was in the doorway and I was on his heels.

  George Romanov stood dressed in a policeman’s uniform identical to the one Sasha had been wearing. The gun—presumably the one he’d used to shoot Sasha—was stuck in a holster attached to a belt along his waist. He held a knife to Sarah Dumont’s throat. She was naked except for the strip of duct tape around her mouth. Her hands were tied behind her back. Both her eyes appeared swollen and a darker shade of red. I saw a mixture of fear and anger in her eyes but she stood tall with a defiant posture and exuded an astonishing sense of composure. What I did not see was the emotion that would have gripped most people at that moment. I did not see any signs of pure, unadulterated terror.

  In fact, the man holding the knife appeared more unsettled. He was the one with sweat on his brow, and I understood why. The men who’d run the former Soviet Union and those who ran Russia now were consumed with one thing—themselves. Romanov was not expecting us even though his wife was the one that had given me the clues about his identity and where to find him. She’d known I’d been kidnapped and threatened because she must have overheard her husband giving the order. Obviously, she knew he’d killed their daughter and she’d been unable to live with herself since then.

  “There they are,” Romanov said. “The ego and the imbecile.”

  I knew he wasn’t talking about the bodyguards, but I didn’t know which moniker belonged to Simmy and which one was mine.

  Romanov looked at me. “Maybe not such an imbecile after all.”

  That clarified things.

  As Romanov continued talking, I noticed the chalk outline of a body on the bedroom wall. Four narrow holes had been marked neatly, two for the hands and two for the feet. A toolbox rested on the floor beside a stud finer and a drill.

  “You seemed so out of your depth at the dead girl’s apartment,” Romanov said to me, “so determined to prove to the world that you’re a strong person, I never thought for a minute you’d be able to see past your own ambitions. But I guess I was wrong.”

  “You seemed overwhelmed with grief that day at the crime scene. I never would have guessed you were acting.”

  “I wasn’t acting,” Romanov said. “Before she became filth, she was my little girl. And that is who I was remembering.”

  “Filth?” Simmy said, his words laced with disgust. “The dead girl? That dead girl was your daughter, George. What in God’s name has happened to you?”

  A heavy silence filled the room. It seemed to grow with each passing second, and if someone didn’t speak soon, I was certain we’d all be crushed beneath its weight.

  “You murdered your own daughter,” Simmy said.

  Romanov shrugged. “That shows how little you understand and how weak you are. My daughter died a month ago, long before I killed the disgusting lesbyanka she’d become. No flesh and blood of mine would ever act in such an immoral way. She’d never engage in that kind of behavior.” He pressed the knife harder against Sarah Dumont’s throat. “She’d never touch something like this the way she did.”

  “Speaking of touching,” I said. “Those three men you had attack me yesterday…”

  Simmy turned to me. “Who attacked you?”

  “Who were they?” I said.

  “Men for hire. Our kind of men,” he said, using the literal translation of Nashi. “I told them that you were one of us, to treat you with respect.”

  I got the feeling he expected me to be grateful. Given a different trio might have done far worse to me, he would have had a point if he hadn’t been the man who’d ordered my abduction in the first place. Still, strangely, I couldn’t help but appreciate his insistence I not be harmed.

  “That’s neither here nor there,” I said. “That’s in the past. Here’s the present situation. If you hurt Sarah, these men are going to kill you. But if you let her go, you might walk out of here alive.”

  “I’m going to walk out of here with her,” Romanov said. “You’re going to get me a
robe and give me the keys to that black Mercedes parked by the gate. We’re going to drive away and you’re not going to follow us or this thing dies.”

  When Simmy answered, his entire demeanor changed. Gone was his scolding tone and any sound of displeasure. In their place was the voice of the corporate negotiator, the one who held the most leverage over the eventual outcome of the matter at hand and was dictating proceedings.

  “I’m afraid I can’t let that happen, George. You have two choices. You can be shot where you stand or you can have the keys to the car and leave here unharmed, if you let her go.”

  “You’re saying you’ll let me go if I release this filth?”

  “That is what I’m saying,” Simmy said. “And my word is good.”

  “Your boys will shoot me as soon as I take the knife away from her throat.”

  “No they will not.”

  “What assurances can you possibly give me? And spare me the lies about your word being good.”

  “It’s quite simple. You’re going to take the knife away from her throat and put it against mine.”

  I stared at Simmy in disbelief.

  So did Romanov.

  “You heard me,” Simmy said. “I’m going to trade you. My life, for her life.” He raised his hands in the air, placed his gun on the ground and stepped forward.

  “Get back,” Romanov said.

  Sarah Dumont swept Romanov’s feet from under him. It was a swift, practiced, and shocking move.

  Romanov fell. His right hand continued gripping the knife. His left hand remained wrapped around Sarah Dumont’s neck. He pulled her atop him as he tumbled.

  Simmy didn’t waste a second. Even before Romanov’s body hit the floor, he recovered his gun, aimed and fired.

  Blood and brain matter flew from Romanov’s head. The knife fell from his grip.

  Simmy rushed forward and lifted Sarah Dumont from atop him. She fell into his arms and embraced him as though she’d known him her entire life.

  After we all regained our composure, I told Simmy I was calling the cops.

  He said he wouldn’t have it any other way.

  We waited for the police and an ambulance to arrive. Sarah Dumont sustained minor injuries. She thanked us both before she was taken to the hospital. She wasn’t any more sentimental than she’d been before, but I could tell her appreciation was heartfelt. I used to think that the eyes never lied, but Sasha and Romanov had proven that theory wrong. In Sarah Dumont’s case, however, her eyes spoke the truth when she channeled gratitude Simmy’s and my way.