by C. G. Cooper
I’d made it through the list six times when the van showed up. It screamed Samson Security in red and black lettering on the side. The vehicle wrap looked untarnished and new under the car wash lights. Instead of pulling into one of the spots in front of the entrance, the van pulled up into the first bay, and I saw a guy get out and unlock the garage style door, slide it up, then get back into the van and pull it in. The sliding door went back down a few seconds later, the driver and van safely inside.
I got up from my post behind the large oak tree, and stretched the soreness out of my legs. Time to see what Mr. Security Van knew.
+++
Adam locked the garage bay door behind him, and flicked on the bay lights. He’d never imagined owning a car wash, but that’s where he’d ended up. Not that he actually owned it, but according to the Registrar of Deeds, Adam S. Eplar did indeed own the parcel of land and the improvements of said property.
He didn’t have to do much with the business. It pretty much ran itself and he only had to occasionally jump someone’s ass for screwing up a piece of the operation. As long as the cars were washed and the insides were detailed, customers were happy and that meant Adam was happy.
Adam hadn’t understood the wisdom of running his other business out of a car wash until they’d actually made use of it. There were always shipments of some sort, and the simple building was an easy cover for such transactions. Another benefit that had quickly become apparent was the ability to house and change a variety of vehicles. That’s what he had to do now. The large sticker with Samson Security had to come off tonight, the exterior prepped, and then the next morning, a separate crew would come in and apply a new full body wrap, completely transforming the white van into a delivery vehicle for a popular video game store.
If he had more manpower at the moment, Adam wouldn’t have had to get his hands dirty, but every last extra man they had was being used in preparation for some important arrival. He didn’t know what it was all about, other than the stern orders from his superiors and the reassignment of his available men.
Adam put the thought aside and flipped on the radio in the corner. He bobbed his head as Mick Jagger kicked on with his languid love sling, “Beast of Burden.”
I’ll never be your beast of burden.
I’ve walked for miles, my feet are hurting.
He sang along as the heat gun warmed in his hand and he worked the stream over the top corner of the Samson Security sticker.
Am I hard enough?
Am I rough enough?
Am I rich enough?
Adam loved those lines. Even though it was supposed to be a love song, it reminded him of the miles and miles he’d marched in the Russian cold, his feet close to frostbite and belly rumbling from hunger. He’d come a long way since then, even donning a new name and painstakingly wiping his old accent from memory.
His grin disappeared when he felt cold hard metal jabbing into the back of his neck. He froze. He’d been robbed once before, but that had been in Boston by some cracked out Irishman looking for an easy score. The man had gotten away, but he’d been found a week later in a puddle of his own blood in an abandoned row house.
“The money’s in the register,” Adam said calmly, raising his hands over his head.
“I don’t want your money,” said the equally calm voice.
“Then what do you want?”
“Tell me about Natasha Varushkin.”
Adam tensed. Shit, he thought. How did this guy get into my shop?
Adam’s shoulder sagged an inch and he pretended to turn around slowly. Halfway into it, however, he picked up speed and his leg bent in order to avoid the bullet aimed at his head. It was a long shot, but Adam had been in similar scraps before. Usually it was all about who made the first move, and Adam Eplar wasn’t about to get shot in the back.
The first thing he noticed was the guy’s clothing. Adam was expecting a guy in black or maybe a couple guys in suits, but this guy was wearing a fluorescent shirt and held a simple iron bar in his hand, not a gun.
Adam grinned, whipping the heat gun at his assailant, now sure that he had the upper hand. But the man never stepped back. He never hesitated. Instead, to Adam’s disbelief, the iron bar, that he now realized was some kind of copper tubing used for plumbing, slammed down onto the same hand holding the heat gun. Adam’s grip loosened and he felt the heat gun being pulled from his hand. And then, to his complete horror, the blond man didn’t cast the gun aside. Instead, he jabbed it into Adam’s eye socket, sending searing streams of pain into his skull and down to his toes.
And in the background, Mick Jagger sang on,
I can suck it up
Throw it all at me
I can shrug it off.
Not this time, Adam.
Chapter 17
The Marine Corps teaches Marines to use “weapons of opportunity.” Basically, utilize whatever you can find and overwhelm the enemy with it. I’d used plenty of odd weapons before: branches, bar glasses and even a hardback book. The heat gun was something new. The only downfall? The screams. The guy really wailed, like someone being burned alive. That wouldn’t do. The car wash was next to a residential neighborhood, and Mick Jagger wasn’t loud enough to cover the sound. So I turned the gun in my hand, and slammed it into his temple. That stopped the screeching and sent him to the floor. Smoke rose from his burning eye socket, a tiny wisp like his eyeball saying its final farewell.
I turned down the music and listened. One minute passed, then five. The guy on the ground hadn’t stirred and no one came knocking. No sirens either.
I dragged Mr. One Eye over the wet floor, into the main building and down the short hall to his office. He was twitching a little and I knew that as soon as he woke up the screaming would start again. There was a pile of laundered towels sitting in a basket next to his office door. I grabbed one, wedged the middle in his mouth, and tied the ends around the back of his head. Then I fished around in his pockets and found a keychain. The third key I tried unlocked the office and I pulled him in.
By the time he was fully awake, I had him propped in a chair with his arms and legs bound with electric cord. His one good eye was round like a cue ball, and he was chomping down on the towel in his mouth. I bet the damaged eye hurt, but he’d been the one to make the first move. Try to kill my friend and I’m happy to take your eye.
“Are you ready to talk or do you need some time?” I asked, sitting on the corner of his desk.
He glared at me like he was going to hurt me or something. His bravado was returning and I could see he was probably a real tough guy, at least in his own mind. I had to give him credit. He seemed to be taking the loss of his eye pretty well. He breathed like an angry bull through his nose, but his inhales were slowing as he pulled himself together.
He nodded.
“I’m going to take the towel out of your mouth. If you scream, it goes back on and I grab the heat gun.”
He nodded again.
I untied the towel and draped it over his shoulder.
“Good. Now what’s your name?” I asked.
“Adam,” the man said, hocking a wad of snot and spitting it on the floor.
“What’s your last name, Adam?”
“Eplar. Who the fuck are you?”
I ignored the question.
“Adam Eplar. That’s a new one. Where are you from, Adam Eplar?”
His eyebrow twitched a little, like he hadn’t expected the question.
“I grew up in Boston.”
“Where in Boston?”
He named some place I’d never heard of.
“You don’t look Irish. I thought only the Irish were from Boston.”
He snorted and said, “Then you must be a real moron.”
There was something in his voice, the hint of an accent, so faint that if I hadn’t been listening for it I might not have noticed.
Just then my phone buzzed. I looked at the screen and shook my head.
“Looks lik
e you’ve been naughty today, Adam.”
“What are you talking about, asshole? I’ve been on deliveries all day.”
I nodded like I believed him, even smiled. The guy was all muscle and no brains.
“You like fires, Adam?”
The text had been from Pastor Walker. He said a neighbor had called to see if he and Anna were okay because of the fire. Their house was gone, the old wood beams consumed by Adam’s greedy flames.
His eyebrow twitched again, but he recovered with the same mask of indignation.
“You never told me who you are. You’re not a cop, so what the hell do you want?”
He tried to hide his fear, but it was there. I could feel it, and the beast in me licked its lips in anticipation.
“Tell me about Natasha,” I said, the comment eliciting the same tell I’d seen twice before.
“I don’t know who Natasha is.”
“Yes, you do. I hear she bankrolled your little business here and that she sent you to take care of Ed Walker. Does that sound about right?”
I was speculating, but I had to find out about Natasha Varushkin. She was the key to getting Anna back.
Then, to my complete surprise, Adam started laughing. I watched him for a minute, letting the chuckles subside as black liquid oozed from his lost eye.
“Wanna let me in on your joke?” I asked once he’d finished.
“You have no idea who you’re dealing—”
My fists cut him off. One, two, three jabs to the nose. Each time his head snapped back like a speed bag. I finished the series off with a sweeping right hook that sent the chair tumbling.
Before he could recover, I had the chair upright again, and my left thumb pressed underneath his good eye. Blood ran freely from his flattened nose, and Adam inhaled deep gulps of air through his mouth like he was going to throw up.
“Tell me where Natasha is,” I said evenly.
The ballsy bastard actually smiled. I nodded and smiled back. You have no idea who you’re dealing with, the beast thought with simmering primal intensity.
Ten minutes later, Adam was a bloody mess. He was lying on his side on the floor, one arm twisted grotesquely to the side. I gave him a chance, had even untied him and let him fight back. Final score? Snake Eyes, one. Adam Eplar, zero.
He’d cracked halfway in, but the beast hammered on. I didn’t stop it, watching the beating with a detached curiosity, marveling at the way my alter ego dismantled a professional assassin like a kid on the school playground. Adam was a bully, I could tell by the way he moved, by the way he glared at me. He wasn’t used to losing. Tough break for him.
Adam didn’t know much, but he’d confirmed his orders to kill Ed Walker. He’d also mentioned something about a high level arrival, an olive branch as he begged me to stop. When I pressed him for details, he couldn’t give any. That elicited more pain, more rage from the beast. Too bad for Adam.
Just as his head lay on the ground in resignation, the magic words finally came out of his mouth. An address.
“See, Adam, I told you everyone eventually talks.”
He’d bragged about being Special Forces, and as the fight continued, his Russian accent kept slipping out. “I’ll never talk,” he’d promised.
Wrong again.
I grabbed another towel from outside the office, wiped my face and then my hands. They were covered in Adam’s blood. He hadn’t landed one punch on me despite being a trained professional. I threw the towel on the floor and told him not to move. I was back a minute later carrying a gas can that I’d found in the back of Adam’s van. He was still panting on the floor, his crushed ankle cradled in his only good hand. When he saw the gas can, he started hyperventilating. He shook his head as I poured it over his head, gas running off his face and splashing across the floor.
I walked to the door and pulled something from my pocket. I didn’t think twice as I struck the match and flicked it to Adam. He actually tried to catch it, but it did little to stop the fire that flared to life in his hand and then engulfed him completely. By the time I slipped out the back door, the fire alarms inside the car wash were wailing, but Adam’s screams were louder.
Chapter 18
They sat on the sun deck together, waiting for the sunrise, just as they had each morning for the entire journey. Georgy Varushkin, former Soviet Navy Captain and his faithful steward Vasily. As pale tangerine turned to pink and then a brilliant yellow, they gazed east from where they’d come. Both men knew they would never return to their homeland. To Varushkin, it was a broken land, corrupt and frozen, a shell of its former glory.
He turned away from the sun and looked west, to his new home, to his new life, and to where he would finally be reunited with his family.
+++
The night before, Anna’s mother had treated her daughter to the fanciest dinner Anna had ever eaten. There was escargot (something she’d only read about), bourbon glazed pork belly, three kinds of pasta, and a tray of desserts that made Anna think of Marie Antoinette.
They talked through dinner and Anna did her best not to chatter too much. The novelty of hearing her mother’s voice still entranced her, like a lullaby she’d longed to hear since childhood.
After dinner, they walked through downtown, always shadowed by her mother’s security contingent. When Anna asked about them, her mother explained that people with money needed protection, especially in large cities. Anna had never had any exposure to bodyguards other than the movies she’d watched. She remembered watching Whitney Houston’s classic The Bodyguard and wondered if the smartly dressed men following them were willing to jump in the path of a bullet for her mother. And then it hit her. Just by being there with her mother, she was being protected, too. Would the bodyguards take a killing blow for her?
The question disturbed her and she didn’t bring up the bodyguards again. Mostly her mother asked questions to get a better sense of Anna. While many teenagers might not warm to such questioning, Anna answered freely and from her heart. It was all she’d ever wanted, a mother. While she worried about her father, she was still filled with the Christmas morning glow of a new gift, a life-changing treasure.
They’d walked and talked, much like the way Anna imagined two women strolling down lively Paris streets, commenting on the day’s gossip and enjoying each other’s company. It was the loveliest evening she could remember.
And things were about to get better. As her mother pulled the covers over her chest the night before, she’d kissed her on the forehead and whispered in her ear. “Tomorrow, you meet your grandfather.”
She’d hugged her mother on impulse, the warmth of her rekindled family filling her almost to the bursting point.
As she slept, she dreamed of her mother and an old man with a fuzzy face. Anna couldn’t make out his features, but in her dreams he seemed kind, like someone who would sit by a fireplace and read to you into the wee hours. She’d also seen her father as she slept, his face drawn and tired. Her excitement pushed those images away, clearing the puffy smokescreen to reveal another face, gentle yet wounded, kind yet reserved. His blond hair swayed by some unseen breeze, a smile peeking out from perfect lips. Daniel. Where is Daniel?
+++
Natasha waited on the pier, flanked by two of her ever-present staff. When she saw her father’s face at the top of the ramp, she smiled and even waved; something she hadn’t done in years. But as he moved closer, her smile faded. She’d had limited contact with her father, and communication had always been through a well-paid intermediary. Her father had always said he was well. He’d lied. She was shocked to see him wheeled down the ramp, and she was horrified to see his wiry frame.
Georgy Varushkin had been a tall, proud man, a Navy officer others had always looked up to. Now he looked withered and ancient, frail and weary. Despite his appearance, he smiled and she saw his eyes, still bright and strong, as if bragging that even the worst prisons could not take away their sparkle. She returned the smile, but inside she promised to
find out who had done this to her father and have them all killed.
She embraced him as soon as his man servant pulled to a stop. Natasha tried not to focus on the bony shoulders her arms wrapped around. She kissed him on the cheek instead, his skin tight like leather. It took every ounce of self control not to wince.
“My Natasha, let me look at you,” he said, his voice the same as she remembered. He stroked her hair with a bony hand and grabbed her arm with his other. There were tears in his eyes. She’d never once seen her father cry. “You are more beautiful than I remembered.”
Natasha nodded, her voice momentarily unusable. Her aide saved her by saying, “Captain, a car is waiting to take you home.”
“Home,” her father said dreamily. “Yes, let us go.”
He did not release her hand as they moved to the stretch limo, and only surrendered it when his man placed him in the back of the car. Natasha got in on the other side, and slid in next to her father. He grabbed her hand again, and this time she didn’t feel like flinching.
They stared at each other for a long moment, and then he asked, “Tell me, when do I get to meet my granddaughter?”
A twinge of jealousy stabbed in her chest, but she said, “Soon, Father. She is waiting.”
+++
Anna took turns pacing and sitting. She wanted to look like a proper lady when her grandfather walked in. The problem was all the nervous energy that kept her from sitting still. Instead, she did loops around the expansive foyer, stealing glances out the front window every time she passed.
Finally, when it seemed that an eternity had passed, there was a single honk from outside. A procession streamed in. Anna went to meet the newcomers.