by John Bowers
“So it was definitely murder.”
“Yes, but this doesn’t prove that the ambassador was the target.”
“Who else could it be? Was there anyone else on board important enough to target?”
“Not that I’m aware of, no. But it still isn’t enough to take into a court of law.”
“We’re not going into a court of law. I’m going to try to settle this myself. Anything on Boris Nikolaev?”
“Yes. It looks like your suspicion was right—he’s known the Petreykins for decades, but was never a member of Bratva. He started out as a street cop, then moved up to MGB and worked his way to the top in a very short time—just three years.”
“Wow.”
“Exactly. The word is that Orel Petreykin greased the pole for him; two other candidates for the top spot had convenient accidents at the same time that Boris made his move. He pretty much got the job by default, though his experience and qualifications were inferior in every way. He’s held that job for sixteen years, and his influence helped Stepan Petreykin gain a seat on the Council of Five.”
“So it’s about money.”
“I would say so. His net worth is something in the neighborhood of thirty million russos.”
“Thanks. One more thing, if you can.”
“What’s that?”
“Find out whatever you can about a crime family named Patushkin. Apparently they’re also Bratva, but they are rivals to the Petreykin family.”
“Patushkin?”
“Yes. I hear they are headquartered in Molograd.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Connie.”
After he rang off, he sat there another thirty minutes, slowly chilling to the bone. Finally, his mind still spinning, he went below and crawled into his bunk.
Chapter 18
Friday, April 3, 0448 (CC)
Periscope Harbor, Beta Centauri
Since Nicola had taken a hovercar for the casino trip, they didn’t have to walk back to the Rodina. She delivered Nick to his apartment in plenty of time to shower and change. He checked the keycard in his shoe but found no messages waiting. A glance at his watch told him he still had forty minutes before anyone would expect him, so he settled down to review what he knew so far. He was in the habit of organizing the facts of a case on his pocket ‘puter, but he hadn’t brought it with him, so he used a paper and pencil instead.
This case was more of a challenge than some he had worked on in the past. He wasn’t a lawman tracking a criminal this time, but an undercover hit man looking for payback. And in spite of Connie’s help—and Polina’s—he was largely working without a net.
His primary mission was clear, and he wrote it down:
Clear the way for President White Wolf to safely visit Periscope Harbor just over two weeks from now.
To accomplish that, he had several objectives:
Find out what really happened to the ambassador’s plane.
Find out who was responsible.
Eliminate that person.
He also had secondary objectives, none quite as critical as protecting the President, but important just the same:
Confirm that Sirius was making a play to ally with Beta Centauri.
Find a way to obstruct that alliance before it happened.
Nick had been on the ground for three days and so far hadn’t learned a great deal. He’d been successful at getting hired, and the Petreykins, except for Lebed, seemed to trust him, at least as much as they would trust any newcomer to the organization. He had met the elderly brothers who were head of Bratva and four of the five cousins who actually ran it. He had worked with Aleksandr shaking down merchants for “protection” money, had shown some initiative by running down four thieves who dared steal from those merchants, and had proven his willingness to get his hands dirty by executing a Sirian slave trafficker at the casino just last night. All in all, not too bad for just three days on the planet…
But where did that leave him in relation to his mission?
It barely scratched the surface.
The closest he had come to anything substantial was the conversation between Kozel and Turner, the Sirian. It sounded as if Bratva was indeed selling slaves to Sirius, or about to start. But that looked like a private-sector transaction, nothing that directly involved the two governments.
So far, he had no idea who had pulled the trigger on Allesandro Federico, and no hard proof of a potential alliance between Beta C and Sirius. In other words, he didn’t have squat—and only fifteen days to go before the President’s visit.
There was one thing, however—it wasn’t much, just a thread, but at the moment it was all he had:
Nicola knew something. When Nick quizzed her about the ambassador’s murder, she had seemed uncomfortable, and when he pressed her further, had replied that “some things are just above my pay grade”.
What, exactly, did that mean?
In Nick’s mind, it proved she knew something, or at least suspected it. “Above my pay grade” was a tacit admission that she knew about things without knowing the details. In other words, she knew the ambassador’s death was the result of assassination, even though she couldn’t prove it.
He would have to be careful with Nicola. She was clearly attracted to him, but she was also a blood relation to the Petreykins, and if push came to shove, would most likely side with her bread and butter over Nick. He could probably shift the odds somewhat by sleeping with her, but he wasn’t willing to do that. Early in his career, when he was unattached, he had slept around a few times, but since he met Suzanne Norgaard he’d become monogamous; now he was with Victoria Cross, and wasn’t willing to jeopardize that relationship just for the sake of his case.
There had to be another way.
He sat thinking for a moment, then glanced at his watch. Time to go. He reviewed his notes one last time, then went into the bathroom and burned them, flushing the ashes down the toilet. He strapped on his holsters, slipped on a windbreaker, and left the apartment.
It was time to go to work.
***
The next four days were busy, but also frustrating. Nick did what work was assigned to him but gained little in pursuit of his mission. He checked in with Polina and Connie almost every day, usually at night when he could go for a walk with a reasonable assurance that he wasn’t being watched. Neither had anything significant to report.
On Friday night he was assigned to work with Sasha at the front door of the Rodina (it was Aleksandr’s night off), checking IDs and keeping the outside crowd at bay until enough room opened up inside to admit them. Sasha did most of the work, with Nick following his lead. Sasha actually had a brain and Nick rather enjoyed working with him.
Sometime just before eleven p.m., a young man with two girls on his arm stumbled up the sidewalk and pushed his way to the front of the line. Sasha stopped him with a beefy hand against his chest, but the kid—he looked about twenty—wasn’t to be deterred.
“Move ashide, big guy!” he slurred in a drunken voice. “We need to get inshide—we got some partying to do!”
“Sorry, sir, but all these people are ahead of you, so you have to wait your turn.”
The kid had obviously been drinking. He was just under six feet and burly, with arms as thick as a beef shank. His hair was buzzed short and his left cheek sported a tattoo of Jesus.
But he didn’t turn the other cheek; instead, his chest swelled and his face fused red with indignation.
“Fuck that! I got money to shpend and two gorgeous women to shpend it on, so lemme in!” He thrust his jaw into Sasha’s face. “I won’t tell you again!”
Sasha, who weighed half again as much as the kid, exhaled a weary sigh and shook his head. Keeping his hand on the kid’s chest, he nudged him backward a few inches.
“Sir, I’m sorry, but you’re drunk and belligerent. We don’t need the kind of trouble you are likely to start, so you don’t get in at all. Go home, sleep it off—�
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Before he could finish, the kid shed the girls clinging to his arms and nailed Sasha on the left cheek. The blow wasn’t hard enough to dislodge him, but it did stop him in mid speech, and his patience evaporated in a flash. He shoved the kid with both hands, forcing him back several feet. Enraged, the kid lunged forward again but Sasha dropped him with a right hook. The two girls with him screamed in protest.
With Sasha temporarily distracted, six people waiting in line slipped past him into the club. Nick saw them go but was out of position to stop them. Instead, he pushed Sasha back to his post.
“Let me handle this prick. You keep the people from sneaking in.”
Sasha, barely breathing hard, didn’t argue.
“Okay, Russo. Have fun.”
Nick turned to face the drunken youth, who had just regained his feet and stood swaying to regain his balance. The kid’s nose was bleeding and he had a crazed look in his eyes. He pointed a shaky finger at Nick, apparently without realizing that it wasn’t Nick who had hit him.
“I’ll teach you, motherfucker! I’ll teach you!”
Nick braced himself, both feet planted, bent slightly at the knees.
“Yeah? What are you going to teach me?”
“Reshpect, motherfucker! I’ll teach you some reshpect!”
The kid lunged again, but none too steadily. The alcohol in his bloodstream and Sasha’s fist had left him somewhat diminished in capacity, but his rage and humiliation still demanded satisfaction. What he probably perceived as a lightning attack was so slow and wobbly that a schoolboy could have taken him down. Nick merely stepped to his left and shoved the kid sideways, sending him sprawling again. Before he could get up, Nick was beside him, on one knee.
“You want to talk about respect, asshole? Is that what you want to talk about?”
“Yeah, that’s right, bitch! I wanna talk about…reshpect.”
“Good, because here’s what you need to know about respect. If you want respect, you have to earn it. Did nobody ever tell you that?”
“F-Fuck you! I don’t have to earn n-nothing!”
He tried to sit up, but Nick shoved him back down, then slapped him soundly on his Jesus cheek.
“Everybody gets a certain amount of respect, but only up to a point.” Nick slapped him again. “You understand, punk? You get minimal respect until you qualify for more, and you earn respect by giving respect.”
Nick stood up, grabbed the kid by the arm, and hauled him to his feet.
“Now get the fuck outta here. Go home, sleep it off, and then come back and tell Sasha you’re sorry.”
The kid, swaying, blinked at Nick as if he were crazy.
“Tell him I’m sorry? Tell him I’m sorry? Fuck that! I’ll make him sorry, is what! And you, too, motherfucker! I’ll make you sor—”
Nick slapped him again, openhanded, and the kid sat down hard, jolting his entire skeleton. People waiting in line started to laugh.
The kid struggled to his feet again.
“Don’t you know who I am?” he demanded.
“Yeah, I know exactly who you are. You’re a spoiled brat, a mama’s boy who thinks he deserves special recognition just because he was born with a dick and balls. Well I got news for you, punk—the universe don’t work that way.”
“Yeah? You don’t know shit!”
Nick only stared at him.
“Go home, kid, before you embarrass yourself any further. People are already taking videos to upload to the Net, so save yourself while you can.”
“Fuck you! Fuck you!”
He hocked up a gob and spat it directly at Nick’s face. Nick had one or two seconds to see it coming and ducked, but few things enraged him more than someone who resorted to spitting to win an argument. He moved in and grabbed the kid by the throat, forced him to the ground, and held him there while he pinched off the kid’s airway.
“If you do that again, I’m going to get mad.”
“Fuck you! F…” The kid’s voice trailed off into a wheeze.
Nick released him and stood up, but didn’t go anywhere. At that exact moment he became aware of flashing blue lights and looked up. A police car was sitting at the curb, and for just an instant, Nick felt a flash of alarm—who had called the cops? Or had they just happened by? Then he saw the officer approaching, and whatever tension he felt drained away.
“What’s going on here?” asked Polina Stepanova. Without waiting for an answer, she rolled the kid facedown and snapped on E-cuffs.
“Drunk and disorderly,” Nick said. “He tried to crash the gate and when Sasha stopped him, he got violent.”
“He got a name?”
“I have no idea. You can ask those two young ladies…” Nick pointed. “…they were with him.”
“All right, I’ll take care of it, sir. Thank you.”
Nick stepped back as she shoved her prisoner into the police car and turned to corner the two girls. Two minutes later she had them all loaded up and drove away. He returned to his post as a couple of dozen people burst into applause.
The rest of his shift passed uneventfully.
Saturday, April 4, 0448 (CC)
Saturday morning, Nick went down to the gym for a thirty-minute workout, grabbed some breakfast from a lunch counter in the underground mall, then reported to the Rodina for his day’s assignment. As usual, he was dressed in denim jeans, a pullover shirt, and a windbreaker, both holsters snugly in place and hidden from view. When he reached Rodina, Diana was waiting for him.
“Upstairs,” she said, and spun on her heel to lead the way.
Nick’s eyebrows lifted at her brusque manner, but he didn’t ask questions. They took the lift up to the fourth floor, then turned for Orel’s office. Nick’s senses flashed alert as he spotted two extra bodyguards at the outer door, but as he and Diana entered the office, none of them made a move.
Orel was seated at his desk. To his left was Lebed in a straight-backed chair, and seated facing the desk was a man Nick hadn’t seen before. Diana led Nick to the desk, then moved aside and settled into a chair of her own. Orel gazed up at Nick for a moment, letting the silence stretch to fifteen seconds. Nick waited at parade rest until spoken to.
“Nick Russo,” Orel said at last, and inclined his head toward the man in the chair before him, “this my brother, Stepan. Stepan, Nick Russo.”
The man in the chair didn’t get up. Instead, he twisted his head around until he could look up at Nick, but he didn’t speak. Nick nodded at him.
“Pleased to meet you.”
Stepan Petreykin turned to look at Orel again, as if Nick didn’t even merit his curiosity. He was wearing a casual suit that had been tailored to cover a rather large body; he was clearly overweight, had salt-and-pepper hair, and looked about fifty. His resemblance to Orel was striking—they weren’t exactly twins, but it was obvious they were brothers.
Orel turned his eyes back to Nick.
“Stepan wanted to meet you. He has a disturbing story this morning, and maybe you can shed some light.”
Nick’s pulse jumped…what kind of disturbing story were they talking about?
“Anything I can do to help,” he said.
Stepan spoke without looking at him.
“What did you do to the Prime Minister’s son?”
Nick frowned. “Excuse me?”
Stepan twisted in his chair, giving Nick his full attention. His heavily-jowled features were tight with anger.
“The Prime Minister’s son! Leonid Ivanovich Federov. What did you do to him?”
“Sir, I…don’t think I did anything to him. I don’t even know who he is.”
“He came to the Rodina last night with two young ladies. He was refused admission and, according to his story, you roughed him up, then had him arrested. The Prime Minister is most upset and wants to know why. So, I ask you again—what did you do to him?”
Nick took a step back and let his breath out in a rush. What the hell!
“The young man was alread
y drunk when he arrived at the club. He tried to crash the line but Sasha stopped him. He then took a swing at Sasha, so Sasha told him to go home. He got really belligerent and tried to start a fight, but since Sasha had to watch the door, I intercepted him and dealt with the situation.”
“You dealt with the situation? By beating him up?”
“Sir, I don’t know what the young man has told you—”
“He didn’t tell me anything, he told his father! And his father had plenty to say to me!”
Nick shook his head and continued.
“Whatever he said, I did not beat him up. He was so drunk he could barely stand and all I did was restrain him. As for having him arrested, I did not do that. Right in the middle of the altercation, a police car pulled up and an officer asked me what was going on. When I told her, she arrested him and took him away. I never saw him again after that.”
Stepan Petreykin, breathing heavily, stared at him for several seconds.
“Is that your story?”
“No, sir, that is not my story. That is what happened. You can ask Sasha what he saw.”
“I already talk to Sasha,” Orel said. “His story same as yours, pretty close.”
Nick shrugged and held both hands out to his sides, then dropped them. Stepan was still glaring at him, but finally got to his feet. Standing, he didn’t look as heavy as he had while seated.
“The Prime Minister is a close friend of this family,” he told Nick. “We provide services for him, he reciprocates. He also dotes on his son, and the last thing we need to do is piss him off.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry if my actions caused you any trouble.”
Stepan glared at him another few seconds, his anger starting to fade. He seemed to want to milk the moment, but finally sighed in frustration.
“All right. You need to come with me. The PM wants to meet you.”
“He wants to meet me?”
“Da. You can explain to him what happened.”
Nick nodded. Meeting the Prime Minister was the last thing he’d expected to do today, but…this might turn out to be an unexpected opportunity.