The Emperor of Vegas

by Ryan Stygar

  “There is a narrow lip at the base of the tower” Lukas yelled over the whirring sound of the helicopter above them. “We can take shelter beneath it and then reach the ventilation systems!”

  “Gahhh!!!” Mikhail screamed.

  Lukas whipped around and watched in horror as a three-round burst of high-velocity bags peppered the old man’s chest.

  “Father! –

  A bean bag round struck the back of his head like a hammer and cut off his words. Pain shot from the back of his skull to his eyes and then the world around him seemed to spin. Two tan-clad SWAT officers rappelled downward from the helicopter and pounced on him like a pair of spiders. Lukas felt his wrists being yanked behind his back and then cuffed before he drifted away into unconsciousness.

  Andrew knew there was nothing he could do to help Lukas or Mikhail. Without looking back he leaped across the six foot gap between him and the narrow lip of the Cosmopolitan building which led to the massive ventilation ducts. Twice he was nearly knocked off balance when heavy bean-bag rounds slammed into the wall behind him and caused him to flinch.

  One of the two SWAT officers that had rappelled down from the helicopter was a mere twenty feet behind Andrew. Heavily laden with his tactical gear, he shifted his attention between the six story drop to his left and the narrow path to the ventilation ducts ahead of him.

  Andrew reached the end of the ledge and jumped, falling six feet before landing with a roll on the roof below. He jumped back to his feet and ran to the exhaust ports. A loud hum filled the air and he groaned when he saw that all six of the fans whirring at full speed. Entering the ducts would be impossible without being sliced to a thousand pieces by the blades. “Shit!” he cursed aloud and looked for another way to escape the roof.

  He never got the chance. An instant later the pursuing officer threw himself into Andrew with a tackle that would have put an NFL linebacker to shame.

  Andrew flailed like a ragdoll in midair before crashing into the ground. He tried to wriggle free but the highly trained SWAT officer rapidly overpowered him, pinning his arms behind his back and wordlessly snapping his wrists together with a pair of flexi-cuffs. With a knee pressed into Andrew’s back the officer keyed the mic on his radio.

  “Zebra One to Command, I have the third suspect in custody. We’re by the exhaust ducts above the Marquee. I’ll need an extraction team to get him off the roof,”

  “Well done Zebra One,” the radio squawked. “Extraction team is on the way.”

  “Copy.”

  The SWAT officer clicked off his mic and looked down at the captured fugitive. With his eyes concealed by dark protective goggles, he looked more like some kind of robot than a man. In a friendly gesture that seemed to belie the violence of the pursuit, he reached down with a gloved hand and patted Andrew on the back.

  “I hope you like Las Vegas, Andrew Kremenski,” he said. “Because you’ve just been booked for very extended stay.”

  2

  A ndrew Kremenski was left alone for hours. Seated on an aluminum chair that listed uncomfortably to one side, he would have liked to get up and walk around to ease his aching back. The cuffs around his ankles, however, made movement impossible. His arms were stretched across a cold metal table and his wrists were cuffed to a tubular-shaped bar at the center. A thin black hood was thrown over his head after he was detained. Through the fabric he could see the room was lighted with bright white fluorescents.

  He shivered; clearly this was an interrogation room, which meant his next stop would be prison if he didn’t play his cards right. But what cards did he have? Prison was no place for a guy like him, he had to stay free.

  A loud clang interrupted his thoughts. From under his hood he saw two shadows walk into the room. One was carrying a long stick with a boxy device attached to one end. They set it up across from the table and red light began blinking from its top.

  Video camera.

  “Good evening, Andrew Kremenski,” a deep voice boomed. At once the hood was yanked away and bright white light glared into Andrew’s eyes.

  When his vision adjusted he saw that there were two men in the room with him. One of them, a silver-haired man in a white dress shirt with a blue tie, pulled a chair from the table and sat across from him. His gut pressed heavily against the buttons of his shirt when he plopped down. He had a bulbous nose that looked as if it had been broken at some point in the old man’s life. To make matters worse he bore an unfortunate combination of mild rosacea and pock-marks on his face. A rather ugly man, Andrew thought with pity, his single redeeming feature was a pair of slate-gray eyes that exuded confidence and authority.

  “You’ve been in here for some time,” the ugly one continued, “almost twelve hours actually. I’m sure you must be thirsty.”

  With a warm smile he produced a cup of water and placed it on the table in front of Andrew.

  “Sergeant,” the ugly man prompted.

  The police sergeant produced a key and unlocked one of Andrew’s wrists. He was much younger than the unfortunate-looking old man, more handsome as well. With short black hair and a deep tan, he had the look of a man who spent a good amount of time outdoors. His long-sleeved uniform shirt did little to conceal his muscular build and Andrew noted with a degree of envy that he was also blessed with a strong-set jaw and sharp dark eyes.

  The sergeant was almost handsome, except for one glaring imperfection.

  Like a crack in an otherwise perfect piece of stone, a long, discolored scar ran down one side of the sergeant’s face. Like a fissure it emerged from somewhere above his hairline then ran down across his eye socket and ended at his jaw-line. There was a subtle dent along the scar, almost as if the man had been struck square in the face by a dull sword.

  A United States Marine Corps pin on the police sergeant’s uniform pocket hinted that it might have been a battle scar. If there was about to be some sort of good-cop, bad-cop routine, Andrew figured Mr. Fat-and-Ugly would be playing nice while Sergeant Scarface laid down the hammer.

  Slowly, not wanting to give his captors the satisfaction of knowing how much his thirst was tormenting him, Andrew grasped the cup and forced himself to take small, measured sips until it was empty.

  “Thank you,” he rasped quietly. Fat-and-Ugly placed a thick dossier on the table and clasped his hands in front of his chest. Despite being about as pretty as a boar, the man had a self-satisfied, almost arrogant way that he spoke, like he knew some sort of embarrassing secret about you that he’d never tell.

  “My name is James Wyatt. I’m the Sheriff of Clark County and the Supreme Commander of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. My colleague here is Sergeant Adrian Ramirez. Adrian’s the man who tackled you on the roof.”

  Ramirez looked at him expressionlessly. With a matter-of-fact voice he remarked, “To your credit, you ran pretty fast for a guy with glass shards in his feet.”

  Wyatt chuckled. “I’m sorry for keeping you tied up for so long. I just finished two long, productive conversations with your friends. Don’t worry they aren’t far. Just across the hall actually. Lukas is enjoying a nice Salisbury steak dinner with mashed potatoes. His father, Mikhail, was offered the same but he requested a salad instead. Get a load of this; Mikhail said we never would have caught him if he wasn’t so fat, can you believe that? What a joker!”

  He slapped the table and had a good hard laugh that Ramirez did not participate in.

  “Look son,” he said after settling down, “We know all about what the Petrov Crime Family’s been up to, this is the day of reckoning.”

  Sergeant Ramirez chimed in. “Getting approval to dispatch all those officers to the Marquee required hard evidence, of which we have plenty. Moving forward, we have enough to put you away for a very long time. And don’t think for a minute that the Petrovs are going to help you out of this. They made it clear during our interview that they don’t care one bit what happens to you so long as they get a plea deal.”

  Wyatt nodded grimly.
“They threw you under the bus right away. We didn’t even need to put the heat on ‘em to get it. They stuck together like we expected them too, and Mikhail’s daughter already posted bail. Now they’re enjoying a nice meal and waiting for their ride outta here while your butt is looking at thirty years,” Wyatt tapped the bulging dossier of documents on the table for effect.

  “Bullshit,” Andrew said.

  “I’m afraid not.”

  Wyatt opened the dossier and flipped through a few pages. He paused to display the freshly signed documents at the end. “It’s all here. We know Mikhail Petrov was in the Soviet Army and that he fought in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1983.”

  “We use the term ‘fought’ rather loosely in this case,” Ramirez said.

  Wyatt shrugged. “True. It appears that Mikhail was more interested in making friends with the locals than fighting them. Over the years he made contacts with all the key players in the Afghani opium industry. Apparently the Russians were so busy getting their asses kicked by the insurgency that no one really took an interest in what Mikhail was up to,”

  “Until the Taliban took over,” said Ramirez.

  “Ah yes. And that’s where Lukas Petrov comes in. Lukas was in the Russian Special Forces – Spetsnaz to be exact. Mysterious stuff, kind of bad-ass actually. Anyway, we know that he spent some time in Afghanistan. We have little doubt that much of his time was likely spent making nice with the Taliban and ensuring a steady supply of opium for his father’s growing distribution business.”

  At the mention of the Taliban, Sergeant Ramirez rubbed the battle scar on his face and made an unhappy grunt.

  “We know that you and the Petrovs have been smuggling opium into the city,” Ramirez said. “And we can prove it. Now it all comes down to convictions. Your bosses sold you out. It’s over Andrew. You’re over,”

  Andrew felt a sting of fear creep up in his belly, then a sense of betrayal, and at last, anger.

  Ramirez’s glare faded slightly as he suppressed a yawn. “I suppose we should begin,” he said, giving his head a little shake. “If you cooperate and answer our questions truthfully, life will be a lot less terrible for you when the sentences are handed out.”

  Wyatt looked at his partner and patted his back. “You know, I’m happy to conduct the questioning on my own; I don’t think this one will be much trouble. Isn’t that right, Andrew?”

  Andrew’s face flushed bright red. He glared at his hands, refusing to meet Wyatt’s gaze.

  “Really I’m fine,” Ramirez insisted. “Let’s get it done.”

  Wyatt shook his head. “You’ve done a fine job, Sergeant, but it’s been a long day and now I’m ordering you to go home and get some R&R. I’ll record the interview for you to work on later.”

  Unwilling to admit he was exhausted, but happy to accept a little time off, Ramirez gave a curt nod and stood from his seat. “I’ll be at my desk by oh-eight hundred tomorrow.”

  “Take as much time as you need,” Wyatt said. He stood and held open the door for the ex-Marine and showed him out.

  Wyatt re-entered the room a short time later, grinning like a teenager who had just been left home alone when he did.

  “Adrian is one hell of a police sergeant,” Wyatt said.

  Andrew watched him with suspicion, something had changed about the way the Sheriff carried himself. There was a slight bounce in his step, not unlike someone who had just gotten away with something. Andrew didn’t like it.

  “He doesn’t like to talk about it,” Wyatt continued, “but that man’s a war-hero. He single-handedly rescued a downed Marine Corps pilot and killed something like a dozen rag-heads in the process. They gave him the Medal of Honor for that. I doubt there’s a person alive who hates the Taliban more than he does… and he sure is pissed that you guys have been doing business with them. You’re lucky he showed so much restraint when he arrested you.”

  Andrew shuddered.

  “Yep, Ramirez is one bad dude. Not the kind of guy I would want to cross if you ask me.”

  He strolled over to the camera and pressed a button. The red recording light faded away. Andrew’s pulse quickened.

  “It’s just you and me now,” Wyatt grinned, “off the record,”

  Andrew balled his fists and pulled defiantly against his shackles. “I’m not afraid of you.”

  “There’s no need for posturing, Andrew. I’m not gonna hurt you,” Wyatt said. He waddled over to the chair and eased himself down. “On the contrary… I want to help you. This is quite a pickle you’ve gotten yourself into, but there’s a way out. I’m a very powerful man; I can make all these charges disappear like that.”

  He snapped his fingers inches away from Andrew’s eyes.

  “I’m no rat,” Andrew said, eliciting a snort from Wyatt.

  “How about you just shut up and listen?” Wyatt said. “I’ve waited a long time to get access to the Petrov Crime Family. Now I’ve got them right where I want them and I refuse to let this opportunity slip through my fingers, understand?”

  Andrew eyed the old man warily for a few seconds, then leaned a little closer.

  “What… what do you want me to do?”

  “I’ll cut to the chase. Do you think you can access the Petrov family’s opium contacts?”

  “Why would you want those?”

  “Just answer the question.”

  “Well yeah but… well, it’s complicated.”

  “I have time. Tell me how you can get those contacts and I might have a Get Out of Jail Free card in store for you.”

  Andrew shifted in his seat. “Look, I can get to them, but it’s not easy. All that stuff is kept in one place; Lukas Petrov keeps his opium contacts in a single master binder. But the information is always changing, so he spends hours updating his contacts. When he’s done making a new binder, he burns the old one. Only way to get those contacts is to get the latest version of Lukas Petrov’s master binder.”

  “Can you get it for me?”

  Andrew scoffed at the idea so hard it was nearly a full-blown belly-laugh.

  “If you want me to try to steal it then you might as well just kill me. Do you have any idea how dangerous the Petrovs are?”

  Wyatt smacked a hand on the table. “Dangerous? Me selling your ass to the highest bidder in prison is dangerous! Piss me off and I’ll make you someone’s girlfriend within twenty-four hours, you understand? I’m offering you a way out. Can you get the contacts or do I need to set up a jailhouse auction?”

  “Alright yes! Yes I can do it,” Andrew said. “Jesus you don’t have to get all psycho about it. It’ll just take time, I need time.”

  “Good man,” Wyatt said. “Now, my evidence indicates that the Russians have had extensive dealings with a powerful local kingpin named Dimitri Jordan. Is that true?”

  “Jordan…” Andrew thought out loud, Wyatt grew impatient.

  “Dammit son! Big black guy; owns the Sumatra Hotel. Dimitri-fucking-Jordan!”

  “Yes! Yes we work with him,” Andrew snapped back, his voice dripping with vexation. “Just give me a minute to breathe – I’ve had kind of a shitty day if you didn’t notice.”

  He nodded toward his feet. Both had been bandaged upon his arrival but Wyatt could see that blood was seeping through the wraps. The Sheriff seemed to relax a bit, holding up a hand.

  “Ok Andrew… you’re right, you’ve been through a lot for one day. When this is all over I’ll be sure you get a nice hot dinner and some rest, but only after you earn it. Now, I want you to tell me all about the Petrovs’ dealings with Dimitri Jordan.”

  “Well… I don’t know a lot of specifics. I can tell you he’s one of our biggest clients. The guy is worth billions. Nothing gets sold unless he gets a piece of it,” He paused for a sip of water. “Since all our opium comes in through Nellis Air Force Base here in Vegas, we have no choice but to wholesale one hundred percent of our opium to him. Then he turns around and resells it for a huge markup. Like, super huge,” Andrew paused
for a moment. “Wait… you’re not planning on going after him, are you?”

  Wyatt chuckled a bit and shook his head. “Absolutely not. I know all about Mr. Jordan, but he’s worth a lot of money to me as I can keep him out of prison. That’s where you and your bosses come in. How much opium have you been selling him?”

  “It’s hard to say exactly. We wholesale around two hundred million worth of the stuff each year, sometimes more. But the Petrovs only keep maybe fifteen or twenty of that once Dimitri Jordan takes his cut.”

  “Jesus,” Wyatt whispered, surprised by the massive sum. “So this guy has the balls to gouge you for a discount on the opium and then he turns around and marks it up almost ten-fold?”

  Andrew Shrugged. “They don’t like it but what can they do? He’s a very powerful man.”

  Wyatt huffed. “I’m a powerful man.”

  He then stood from his chair and paced around the table. “I’ve worn a badge for almost thirty years. I’m the most powerful police commander in Nevada. I could do a lot of damage if I wanted to. Or, if I felt so obliged, I could also prevent a lot of damage.”

  Andrew tilted his head. “You want to form a protection racket. Don’t you?”

  “Smart lad,” Wyatt grinned. “I could torpedo the entire Petrov family if I wanted, but I’m not gonna do that. Instead I’m going to allow them to continue wholesaling opium to Dimitri Jordan. And because I’m such a nice guy, I’m even gonna keep the police off their backs.”

  “And what will that cost them?”

  “Let’s just say that it will be enough to buy their freedom, and freedom ain’t free, you get me?”

  Andrew nodded cautiously. Wyatt continued.

  “I’ll pull a few strings and get you all out of this in one piece. The charges against the Petrovs will get dropped and your record will vanish altogether, clean slate. What happens next is you will continue to import opium for Dimitri Jordan. The only difference now is that I’ll get a piece of the action.”