The Domino Game

by Greg Wilson

  That was how he had reassured himself and reassured Natalia, but as he grabbed the banister and swung into the last turn he saw her face again and realized that somehow she had seen beyond this moment and recognized that his promise was a lie.

  Somehow she knew, and now it was too late.

  Whatever was about to happen, there was no way out.

  Hartman clenched his fists, pumping them with frustration until his nails bit into the flesh of his palms. Stuck here behind these goddamned parked cars he couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t even see anything! He cursed and swung his head to the side.

  “We can’t just sit here!”

  Roman turned to him slowly, eyebrows raised. Lifted his hands palm up from the wheel, inviting a suggestion.

  Hartman stared at him, grimaced. He made up his mind and reached for the door but before he could move, an arm as taut as a length of steel swung back across his chest, pinning him to the seat. Roman swiveled to face him, leaning in close as he spoke.

  “I don’t know what this is about, and neither do I want to, okay? But one thing I do understand is that while your Russian is commendable, you are not one of us. You are American, and given your connections, I assume you are something to do with the American Government, yet clearly whatever you are doing cannot be official or you would not be sitting here with me. So I would suggest that you think very carefully before getting out of this car and walking into a possible confrontation with the Russian Ministry of the Interior. Does that make sense?”

  Hartman snared a breath. “Perfect sense.” He pushed the arm aside and reached for the door handle. “But I’m fucking doing it anyway!”

  He sprang the lock and started to get out but now a hand closed like a vice on his shoulder. He swung back. Roman was glaring at him, the expression a fusion of anger and frustration. His eyes scanned Hartman’s for a moment then he plunged his free hand into his jacket and withdrew it clasped around the grip of the pistol. He held the weapon for a moment, weighing it, watching Hartman’s reaction, then spun it forward on its trigger guard and extended it, butt first, towards the American. He let out a heavy breath.

  “Then take this,” he leaned in closer and hissed the words, “but don’t get caught!”

  He let go of Hartman’s shoulder and set his hand back on the steering wheel.

  “And when you have finished whatever the fuck it is you are going to try and do, this is where I will be waiting!”

  In so crowded a city the vast empty lot opposite was a complete anomaly. It hadn’t started as a park. In fact, it had never been intended that it become one. Up until twenty years ago the site had been occupied by the palace of some forgotten minor noble from the previous century, or possibly the one before, then after the Revolution, the property had been seized by the state and its buildings partitioned into a rabbit warren of tiny flats and that, of course, had been the start of its decline. Winter by winter, over the next six decades the place had sunk into such a state of disrepair that finally the only thing left was to pull it down before it collapsed. It was a large property for this part of town – perhaps two hectares – and not to be wasted, so architects had been instructed to prepare plans for four hideously massive new brick and glass apartment towers but, thanks to a stroke of good fortune, by the time the plans were completed there was no money for the project to proceed, so it had stalled. And that was when the more cunning of the resident neighbors, disillusioned with everything Soviet, had come up with their plan to seize it back.

  The trees had come first. One at a time to begin with and then in twos and threes, overnight. Not just shrubs or saplings. Real mature trees. Some of them four and five meters tall. Birch and larch and even some remarkably healthy firs, stolen from somewhere else of course, then carefully relocated here to a plan devised and executed by determined, invisible minds and hands, in a symmetry that made the open space appear as though this was how it had always been.

  The park benches had come next. Half a dozen, a century old, wrought iron and dark green painted timber, bolted to concrete strips set in the ground, then once they were installed the gracious, serpentine gravel pathways that wound around them had begun to take shape.

  When all of that was done, the last whimsical touch had been the children’s playground at the center. Slides and ladders, monkey bars and climb-through hoops and, eventually – the pièce de résistance – a small, handcrafted wooden carousel, its octagonal segments a palette of rich colors, lovingly decorated with folk art motifs.

  It was behind the carousel that the shooter lay, his body prone, his spine arched up from the waist, his left elbow propped on the low wooden base of the structure, the barrel of the Kalashnikov Saiga 308 resting on one of the iron handgrips that separated the seats.

  He had chosen his vantage point carefully. Behind him – less than thirty meters back – lay the rear line of the buildings bordering the park; between them a maze of alleyways and a dozen options for escape. The carousel itself provided cover, far enough back to minimize the hazard of any return handgun fire, and the position he had taken behind it gave him a clear view of the doorway opposite, between gaps in the rows of parked vehicles. Or had done. What he hadn’t counted on was the black Audi saloon that had now drawn to a stop in the street, completely compromising his fine of fire.

  He cursed silently to himself and glanced around. Too late to move. Nowhere else to go. He edged forward and sideways trying for a better angle, adjusting the fit of the stock to his shoulder and pressing his eye to the rim of the enhanced night vision scope, reading the flat, magnified image on the lens.

  The front passenger door of the Audi opened and a figure emerged.

  The shooter moved the Saiga a fraction. The man in the crosshairs stood by the open door, scanning the street, leaned back down into the vehicle, spoke a few words and straightened up, then the rear door on the driver’s side swung open and another figure appeared. The shooter cursed to himself again.

  Two plus the driver at least. Three minimum.

  He tracked the scope across the roof of the black sedan. This one was taller, his movements more fluid and confident, his back and shoulders cloaked in a dark overcoat: well fitted, expensive. He turned slightly and the shooter caught his profile as he said something across the car, then he swung away again and started across the street towards the building.

  Nikolai took the last step onto the stone floor of the lobby and stopped. The entry lay in front of him now, the glazed panel of the door covered by a thick film of condensation that had settled against it overnight. He should have been able to see ahead – to see through it to where Hartman should have been waiting outside, his Embassy car behind him at the curb – but he couldn’t. Couldn’t see anything.

  He started forward, slowly, conscious of the click of his heels against the floor, passing the thickly varnished door of the superintendent’s flat to the right, the disused elevator car to the left. Through the clouded pane ahead he could see movement now: the shadow of an approaching figure projected onto the glass by the weak light from the streetlamps outside.

  Something was wrong, he knew it. Knew it first from the look he had seen in Natalia’s eyes and now from his own instinct, but what option did he have? There was nowhere else to go so he carried on, stepping slowly towards the edge of his life.

  Jack Hartman inched forward, crouching low and close to the row of cars at the edge of the pavement. Eighty meters out from the Mercedes he noticed the movement and slid onto the street, covering himself between the hood of a battered Fiat Uno and the back of an ancient Volvo wagon, watching through the corner of the grime-smeared tailgate glass as the first man climbed from the Audi and the second followed. He froze. Dropped to his haunches and pressed in close to the back of the Volvo, lifting the automatic, reading it in the muted light.

  It was a Glock 20, 10 mm. Familiar, at least. He released the clip and eased it into his palm, checking the magazine. Ten shot version. Fully loaded. He slid the clip back
into place. What the hell for, he had no idea… stranded in no-man’s-land on a dark street, midway between his only means of escape at one end, Nikolai Aven and a carload of Russian secret police at the other. He swore to himself. Looked back, then forward, judging distances and the time it would take to cover them.

  The man in the overcoat had started to cross the street now; the other was making his way around the front of the Audi, ready to follow. They were only twenty meters at most from Aven’s door. There was no way in the world he could get there before them and even if he could, what the hell use would it be? He glanced down at the Glock again. Unless he was prepared to use it, because that was his only chance. Aven and his family’s only chance.

  Hartman closed his eyes, aware of the throbbing pulse at the side of his neck. Was he? Was he prepared to use it?

  How the fuck had he ever gotten himself into this!

  He pulled a breath and lowered the pistol to his side, edging back onto the pavement, working forward again, clinging to the shadows.

  The door knob was new. Round brass and polished.

  It was the first time he had noticed it and it struck Nikolai as absurd. Everything else in the building was falling to pieces but the door knob was new.

  He closed his hand around the cold metal and turned, pulling the glazed panel inwards, feeling the frigid night air slithering through the opening, flowing into the lobby and enveloping him.

  There was a figure straight ahead. Tall, draped in a heavy, dark coat, striding across the curb between two parked cars, coming towards him… Hartman wasn’t tall.

  Behind the approaching figure Nikolai caught another movement – a second man stepping from the shadows, falling in behind the first – then the man in the overcoat spoke to him, called his name as a question.

  “Nikolai Aven?” The voice was deep, the syllables pronounced with the guttural Russian inflection.

  The second man had caught up and now they were striding towards him in unison. Nikolai looked past them and saw the sleek shape of the black sedan parked behind them on the other side of the street.

  The voice came again, calling across the last few meters that separated them, demanding, now.

  “Are you Nikolai Aven?”

  Nikolai stood on the threshold, body frozen, mind racing.

  This wasn’t Hartman. They weren’t his people. But they weren’t Ivankov’s people either. He knew the tone. Not the voice but the tone… Recognized the bearing and the confident authority. These were government men. Not FSB; Procurator’s Office or Interior Ministry. His mind was spinning beyond reason.

  What was this? What was going on?

  A film of sweat had risen across his face and brow and a deep, hollow clutching gnawed in the pit of his stomach.

  He took a step outside, letting the door come to rest against his back, keeping it ajar as he stared at the approaching figures. To his left his eye caught another movement, further along the street, but there was no time to compute its meaning. The two men came to a stop, in front of him, the one in the overcoat, directly opposite, the second a pace behind and to the side. Nikolai steeled himself, searching for his voice.

  “Yes,” he answered tentatively. “I am Nikolai Aven. Who are you? What do you want?”

  His cover was gone now.

  In the time it had taken the men from the car to cross the street Hartman had closed in by another thirty meters, but now they’d all arrived on the same stretch of pavement and he had nowhere to go. He shot a glance at the Glock. Still hadn’t answered the question about whether he was prepared to use it. The last time had been in Beirut half a dozen years before, when an exchange with a bunch of Islamic militants had turned to shit and he’d had to shoot his way out of the situation dragging a wounded hostage with him. The odds stacked against him now were even worse than they had been then. Lousy light, someone else’s weapon and multiple targets too far away to give him a realistic chance. And now there was another problem. Another obstacle in his path.

  Up ahead a dozen paces someone had discarded a packing carton, big as a dog’s house, at the edge of the curb. If he tried to track around it the men from the car would see him for sure, so what next? He was working the problem when the front door of Nikolai Aven’s building swung inwards.

  His eyes tracked to the left. The men from the car were crossing the curb. Too late to try and break around the carton; his only option was to get as close as he could. He took a dive, rolling low across the pavement, coming up in the corner between the carton and the nearest car with the Glock locked before him in a two-handed grip.

  Aven was standing on the threshold now, squared off against the two men confronting him. His head swiveled a fraction and he threw a brief glance in Hartman’s direction, then turned back and started to speak. Hartman was too far away to hear the words but close enough to see the reaction. The taller man began to reach into his overcoat pocket and he knew this was it: the defining moment. To have any chance of pulling Aven out of this he had to act now.

  This was crazy. Even if he could take these two, there could still be more in the car. And then he had to somehow get Aven and his family out of there and that was just the start. Christ! What was he doing?

  An image of Kelly flashed through his mind… little girl, teenager, grown woman; a wedding he wished would never happen yet, worse still, might never see… Why was he doing this? Then somehow Kelly became Nance, and whether it was her voice he heard, or his own, he couldn’t tell.

  Our lives. Our time together. Our daughter. What would you have done if someone had tried to take all of that away from us? You’re doing it because it’s right!

  That was the answer. However crazy it was, it was right. He swallowed hard and swung the Glock across the edge of the carton, his aim tracking to the gloved hand emerging from the coat pocket.

  First threat, first priority.

  Concentrate, Hartman. Trust your judgment. Take it one step at a time.

  Nikolai heard the trail of apprehension in his own voice. “What do you want?”

  The man in the overcoat stared back at him for a moment then looked aside, as though he would have preferred not to have been there. His movement was sudden. His gloved hand plunged into the pocket of his coat and a kaleidoscope of panic shattered in Nikolai’s brain as he realized he had been betrayed. He had been betrayed and he was going to die here, on his own doorstep, at four a.m. on a cold Moscow morning, with his wife and daughter waiting for him upstairs. His eyes fell to the man’s pocket, waiting for the hand to emerge. Waiting to see the gun, or knife or piano wire, or whatever instrument of death they had chosen for him, but it didn’t happen. There was no weapon. Nothing more sinister than the small leather wallet flicked open on the gold and red MVD seal. Then the man in the overcoat was speaking again, pinning him with his eyes.

  “Nikolai Aven, I am under orders to arrest you. You are charged with treason against the Russian Federation.”

  Nikolai knew it was absurd, of course, but a wave of relief surged through him, draining him, leaving him dizzy. He shook his head and started to speak and at that precise moment the world exploded.

  The trigger drew back to the point of no return then crossed it with the faintest click and the head that had been locked at the center of the crosshairs disintegrated in an eruption of bone, blood and brain, then the whip crack of the rifle echoed around the deserted street and the glass door behind Nikolai Aven shattered into a million fragments as the bullet continued on its course.

  For an instant Hartman thought he must have fired the Glock but he hadn’t. The man in the overcoat was still standing, stunned, open-mouthed. The second man who a moment before had been standing just behind him lay sprawled on the sidewalk at the center of a widening pool of blood.

  Instinct took over and Hartman dropped like a stone behind the cover of the packing case, spinning from left to right, searching for an explanation.

  Shit! What the fuck was happening?

  One thin
g was certain. Besides himself, Aven and the guys from the car, there was someone else out there as well. But who the hell was it, and whose fucking side were they on?

  Think! Focus!

  There was only one answer. It had to be Ivankov and that meant Aven had been the target. Whoever these other guys were – MVD, whatever – they must have just stumbled into the way, but the fact that they were here at all raised its own questions. How had they known to be here right now? Who the hell had sent them, and why?

  From behind in the street he heard the sound of a car door slamming, then another; a second rifle shot then a third, then voices – tight and frantic – screamed commands and acknowledgments. Hartman pushed himself up on his haunches and squinted back along the street.

  Aven and the man in the coat were struggling now, pushing and pulling like a couple of schoolkids around the body on the pavement, then the man in the coat skidded in something and lost his footing and Aven broke free and stumbled backwards. Maybe there was still a chance – still something Hartman could do – but that hinged on what was going on in the street and on that score he was flying completely blind. He shuffled backwards into the narrow space behind the nearest car and squinted out through the gloom, trying to work out what the hell was happening.

  He saw the shooter first, crouched low, right arm rigid, holding the rifle close and parallel to the ground, sprinting away from the open playground towards the line of darkened buildings behind the park. He let the figure go and tracked backwards until he picked up the one giving chase, ducking and weaving between trees and around benches, a handgun raised at his shoulder, the edges of his jacket flailing behind him as he ran.

  But then he’d heard two car doors slamming; that meant there was someone else.

  He spun to the right and picked up the fourth man from the car heading in the opposite direction, darting across the street towards Aven’s building, heading right for the shattered doorway, the man in the overcoat scrambling back to his feet, following.