Rasputin's Prodigy

by Michael Weinberger

  Alexei maintained his grip on Yurovsky’s wrist, but the old Bolshevik managed to squeeze off a shot. The barrel of the gun was aimed harmlessly at the ceiling, but Alexei quickly took the weapon out of Yurovsky’s grip before he could fire it again.

  Alexei tossed the gun aside and hovered over Yurovsky as he sat in his chair, “No!” The old Bolsevik screamed, “Stay away! I killed you!”

  Alexei swatted the man again with a blow that rocked his whole body and threatened to send the man out of the chair. Alexei caught the man before he could fall and righted Yurovsky’s body so was sitting upright in the chair. Outside voices were being raised as the few remaining people in the building reacted to the gunshot. Commands to open the door came from what must have been the soldiers tasked with security of the building and, upon hearing them, Yurovsky seemed to regain some of his composure.

  “They heard the shots and will break down that door to get to you soon enough. It will be easier on you if you surrender now,” Yurovsky said meekly while attempting to put a small bit of steel back in his voice.

  Alexei was still smiling as he looked from Yurovsky’s face to the office door and back again.

  “I suppose it would,” Alexei said as he looked to the door, “but they will not save you.”

  Yurovsky saw the look in Alexei’s eyes and his face blanched white. Somewhere deep inside the man he managed to speak and the few words came out him in a broken, desperate plea, “Don’t… please… I beg of you…”

  Alexei placed one hand on Yurovsky’s throat and slowly pushed his knife into Yurovsky’s stomach. Yurovsky’s eyes went wide with pain and shock as the cold steel went deeper into his body until the point passed out his back. His body began to shudder as the pain intensified, but Alexei pushed more steel forward until the blade puncture the back of the chair, pinning Yurovsky where he sat.

  When he realized Yurovsky was fully impaled Alexei triumphantly stood to his full height and watched as Yurovsky raised his hands in an attempt to pry the knife from his abdomen.

  Yurovsky looked up pleadingly from the knife in his belly, “I was…I was a…soldier… following orders…”

  Alexei nodded, “I know. I have grown to understand the politics behind my father’s execution and what it represented. Perhaps, as heir to the throne, I could understand mine as well.” Alexei leaned forward and grabbed the handle of his knife as he peered, unblinking, into Yurovsky’s eyes, “but you could have sent my mother and my sisters into exile. Instead, their execution was nothing more than a Bolshevik act of sadism that I cannot forgive.”

  Yurovsky seemed to know what was coming as Alexei tightened his hand on the knife’s handle, and the Bolsevik eeked out, “No!... orders… all of you… betrayed…”

  Something inside Alexei made him pause as that singular word flowed into his ears. Frowning slightly, Alexei asked, “What do you mean?”

  The door to the office burst open and six soldiers filled room and screamed for Alexei to surrender as they took in the ghastly scene.

  Alexei didn’t move as Yurovsky’s eyes darted from Alexei to the men funneling through the doorway. Yurovsky coughed a laugh as, in his deteriorating mind, he thought himself saved.

  His confidence restored, Yurovsky managed a snarl, “I win.”

  Alexei’s eyes never left Yurovsky and he returned the smile, “You lose.”

  Alexei ripped the blade up and out of Yurovsky causing an explosion of gore that sprayed the room.

  The soldiers froze at the sight as Yurovsky’s blood covered them and Alexei turned to face them, blood dripping from the elongated dagger he held, “My name is Alexei Nikolaevich and today I have justice for my parents, my sisters, my friends and myself. May God have mercy upon all of you black hearted, murdering Bolshevik scum, for in the end, I will not!”

  For a moment none of the soldiers could move. Most were understandably in shock from the graphic display that they had just witnessed. Eventually all eyes turned away from the ruin that was Yurovsky and focused on Alexei, but none of the half dozen armed soldiers made any move to restrain Alexei.

  Alexei smiled, “I would advise anyone who wants to live to leave now.”

  Two of the soldiers raised their rifles but, before they could properly aim, Alexei was moving. The rifles weren’t meant for such close quarters and the soldiers fired without regard for their surroundings as Alexei dove behind Yurovsky and his heavy oak desk. Bullets ripped through Yurovsky’s corpse and splintered the wood as Alexei reached into one of his pockets and withdrew a handful of what looked like ash.

  Now the riflemen held their fire so the other soldiers could push their way into the room, handguns drawn, in an attempt to capture Alexei, but Alexei drew in a deep breath, held it and was on the move again. He threw the powder into the air toward soldiers and then dove behind a filing cabinet as more shots from the handguns exploded in his direction. Instinctively the soldiers ducked as if Alexei had thrown something solid at them, but they quickly realized that no object was hurtling toward and they again lifted their guns toward the filing cabinet… but hesitated.

  Confused expressions spread across the faces of the soldiers as the first one audibly tried to clear his throat, then another began to cough and hack, until all of them desperately grabbed at their throats. Within moments their faces turned as gray as the ash Alexei had thrown and they dropped to the floor while they asphyxiated on the substance.

  Five bodies hit the floor, leaving only one still standing and struggling to breathe. Apparently he had inhaled less of the ash than the others, but Alexei didn’t give him the chance to recover. Bolting up from his position behind the filing cabinet, Alexei barreled into him, lifted the soldier off the ground and slammed the man against the office wall where Alexei held him aloft and pinned. The rifle was knocked out of the soldier’s hands and Alexei wrenched the man’s head to one side exposing his neck. Without thinking Alexei plunged his head forward and drove his teeth into the side of the man’s neck, bit down hard and ripped the flesh away. Blood erupted in rhythmic pulsations as the man screamed. Spitting the chunk of meat in his teeth to one side, Alexei clamped his mouth over the wound and quickly began swallowing as much of the blood gushing out as he could.

  Alexei held the pinned soldier fast despite the man thrashing wildly in panic and pain. Soon the soldier’s thrashings began to fade and his body grew limp, as what was once a gush of blood became merely a trickle. Alexei swallowed a final mouthful and eased his grip on the now dead man allowing him to drop to the floor.

  Slowly, reality began to return to Alexei who now stood wide-eyed at what he had done. He had never killed a man for blood before as he had always received the blood he needed through the animals he had hunted, from butcher shops or, as a child form the medicine he had received from Rasputin.

  Killing a man the way he just had left him nauseous; in fact, the next thing Alexei knew he found himself retching, but his convulsions came in the form of dry heaves as opposed to the purging of a stomach full of blood. When it was over Alexei managed to compose himself to enough of a degree that he knew he had to get away. More people would have heard the shots and others would come to investigate.

  Alexei ran.

  He had planned his escape but, as the revulsion wore off, he was shocked at how strong he felt. He was running faster than he ever had before and when he came to a wall that he had expected to climb, he scaled it with far less effort than he ever believed was possible. It was not a superhuman effort, but it was as if his body was performing at the very maximum of its ability. He wanted to test himself, but the sounds of soldiers arriving in the distance cleared his mind.

  All of that could wait. Now his only goal would be to get away and he used every bit of newfound speed and strength available to him to get home again. Back home to the United States of America.

  Chapter 26

  There was no secret concerning the owner of the new five-story office building that held Nightingale Industries. The buildi
ng, a gleaming beacon of shining new glass and steel, was standing alone in its splendor beside the ruins of Nazran’s other structures. I stood across the street from the building staring up at its majesty and I couldn't help but feel how out of place the building looked amongst the dilapidation of the rest of the city.

  How, or better yet why, Dimitri would construct a building in such stark opposition to the rest of the city was puzzling. Certainly the city required the new growth to make any sort of comeback, but he was making a target of himself with such a lavish display of fortune. Then again, Dimitri was anything but subtle. Perhaps the ostentatious display was, in its own way, a challenge, a defiance or a dare, for anyone to try to threaten what he had built, or by extension, himself.

  I scanned the area, realizing that despite my having found what I felt was a satisfactory hiding space, I was the only person in the vicinity who was not going into, or coming from, the Nightingale building. The only cars that passed on the street in front of the building were the ones that would ultimately turn into the building's parking entryway. No pedestrians walked past the building. People who weren’t leaving, were entering the building through its front doors.

  I had been watching the building for most of the afternoon, just to get a sense of what security might be in place. My plan was to get inside the building and confront Dimitri in a similar way to which he had met with me less than a year ago in Las Vegas. My plan was simple in principle, if not in application. I was going to sneak in, bypassing security, and wait for Dimitri in whatever he used for his office space.

  Simple right?

  Chris, before he had left with Alpha and William, had done quite a bit of the proverbial “heavy lifting” with the computer when it came to finding out about the floor plan and the basic security of the building. In a way that seemed to me like modern magic he had hacked into the building's security system and hijacked the feed from the security cameras spread throughout its interior. From the comfort of our chairs we had been able to see every hallway within the building, although we were still blind to whatever was inside each of those office spaces. The front lobby consisted of only a desk with a single security officer stationed behind it. The desk was situated in front of a set of elevator doors, to which the security guard controlled access by punching in a code that called the elevator back to the lobby from the other floors.

  This was a pretty significant problem, as the guard’s hackles would be raised the instant someone walked into the building whom he didn't recognize. I could probably incapacitate the man before he set off any alarms, but then I'd lose the ability to access the elevator, and despite the blatant safety violation, neither Chris nor I could see any sign of a stairway.

  The cameras inside the parking garage revealed a better option. If I could get through the initial security gate, then the elevator could be called from within with a normal push-button call switch. There was a security presence of three guards within the garage, two stationed near the elevator at what looked like a valet parking kiosk, while a third pedaled a bicycle around the two stories of parking spaces. I don't know if it was the presence of the additional personnel, or if it was the fact that every car had already passed through some degree of security measures, that gave the men stationed within the garage their more relaxed demeanor, as compared to the one displayed by the guy in the lobby, but they definitely seemed bored by comparison.

  “So,” Chris had said, “it looks as though once you get past these guys you can get to whichever floor you'd like.”

  I nodded, “Unless there are cameras in the elevator car.”

  Chris shook his head, “Normally I'd agree, but I can't find anything in the system for the elevators or the office spaces. My guess is that it was either an oversight, or for some reason Dimitri and his people didn't want the security people to be able to see what was happening in the elevators and offices.”

  I had frowned, “That make any sense to you?”

  Chris had thought a moment, “No, not really.”

  Chris and I studied the video feeds for another moment before Chris asked, “So how do you plan on getting past the gate?”

  I smiled wolfishly at Chris, “I'm going to take a lesson from our regal friend Alexei's playbook.”

  Chris frowned at me, not understanding.

  “Don't worry,” I told him, “I have no intention of actually getting past the security guards, because in the end, I don't think I'll need to.”

  When I told Chris the plan his face had blanched, “You know how bad they're going to beat your ass?”

  I sighed, “I'm hoping that there will be a certain level of professionalism in the security personnel.”

  “You mean the guys who stand around all day, bored off their asses and waiting for the chance to earn their pay by showing how willing they are to break heads for their employer? Those very professional guys?”

  I sighed again, and with my sarcasm honed to a fine edge I said, “Thank you for sending me in with the proper attitude Chris.”

  I had spent the morning scouting the innumerable homeless people living on the streets of Nazran until I had found one that was roughly my size. The man looked terrified as I approached, but when I offered him one hundred U.S. dollars to trade clothes with me his apprehension turned to excitement. Fifteen minutes later the man walked proudly away in a new pair of jeans, cotton T-shirt and leather jacket with one hundred dollars in the pocket. I, on the other hand, was wearing his filthy overalls and flannel shirt. The stink wafting from the fabrics nearly turned my stomach and made my skin crawl as I slipped them on. I was fairly sure I'd need to be de-loused and get a tetanus shot once this little adventure was over, but his clothes would more than serve in order to convincingly sell the illusion.

  It was around four in the afternoon when I decided to make my move. I lumbered out from where I was hiding, shuffled drunkenly to the other side of the street and into the driveway of Nightengale Industries until I was standing behind the next car that waited at the entrance to the underground garage security gate.

  The driver saw me coming and rolled up his window, probably thinking I was going to ask for a handout. I didn't say anything as the glass slid upward, I couldn't speak the local lingo in any case, but I still held my hand out and tried to look as desperate and sorrowful as I could.

  The look he returned was one part repulsion and another part predatory exhilaration, which gave me an impression that he might jump out of the car and try to make a meal out of me before the security gate to the underground garage had a chance to open. To my relief the gate began rattle as it started to slide into its fully open position, which also served to snap the driver out of his daydream. I could see the driver through the tinted glass as he took a deep breath, apparently to settle himeslef, then release the brake as his car began to roll forward.

  At this point I made an effort to shamble after the car and, when the gate started moving back to the closed position, I feigned a trip and “fell” down the decline of the entry driveway, which rolled me past the gate before my body came to a halt

  The driver must have noticed my tumble as the car screeched to a halt a few yards inside the gate. The driver immediately climbed from the car and slammed the doorbehind him while cursing at me in something that sounded like Russian. In response I only moaned and held one arm up to the driver as if to ask for a hand up, but I also tensed my torso in preparedness for what I knew was going to happen. The driver swatted my hand out of the way and launched a kick to my ribs that would have shattered bone had I not been anticipating the blow. The driver must have realized his kick did less damage than he intended as he quickly threw in several more kicks that were less powerful, but came in rapid succession. I maneuvered my body so the force of the blows were insufficient to do any real damage beyond being painful and raising bruises. The trick was to keep rolling and moving so he never managed to kick the same spot twice. I blocked a few kicks with my arms as well, and I could feel the man begin to tire as ea
ch kick landed with less and less force.

  Voices called out from the distance and echoed through the garage. Initially the driver ignored them, but as his breath began coming in heavy gulps of air from the effort of kicking me, I knew it wouldn't be long before he would need to rest and he would answer.

  The voices called out again in Russian and the driver responded with a tone in his voice that resonated with annoyance and frustration. He made a gesture to the far part of the garage that looked as if he were telling whoever else was out there that he didn't need any help. I heard some laughter echo as the other voices acknowledged the driver and seemed to fade away, probably as the people who had come to assist were walking back to their posts.

  Hands suddenly grabbed at my shirt and jacket and hauled me back to my feet. I raised my hands as if to cower and protect my face while I snuck a glance into the garage and saw the pair of security men walking away just before they disappeared into the shadows of the garage.

  The driver began dragging me toward the car, opened the rear door and tossed me inside. He slammed the door, and then went back to his own seat and started the engine. I let out small whimpers that I thought would be consistent to the type of damage the driver had hoped to inflict, as I felt the car roll forward. The sounds of a cellular phone dialing could be heard over the hum of the car engine and then the driver spoke hurriedly between labored breaths, as the car once again slowed to a stop. When the driver climbed out I had expected he would pull me out as well, but instead he just shut the door and left me in the backseat. I turned my head and could see the driver speaking with the two other guards that were stationed next to the elevators as well as the third, who was wearing what looked to be a bicycle helmet. Apparently the commotion had brought the bicycle guard to the scene as well. I smiled as the plan was going even better than I had expected.