by K R Hill
“You witnessed a murder and suddenly Russians are breaking into our apartment to snatch me? Connor, stop talking to me as though I’m your fiancée. You were special ops. Say it straight out.”
Connor stood and paced about the room. “You’re right. I got a lucrative offer to settle an old score. It involved filming some Russians and a syndicate that deals in stolen artwork.”
Ashley pointed and moved her hand up and down. “Wait a minute. When you said ‘settle an old score,’ you were talking about that boy that got murdered, that Army case. That’s why you’re having those dreams again. This case is bringing back those memories.” She stood up and leaned her head to one side. “Oh, baby,” she whispered.
Bartholomew raised his hand. “There’s more. The murderer was a pro, and he saw us. He’s probably searching for us. There’s also something else going on.”
“What are talking about?” she asked.
“He’s talking about Tia Alma’s stories.”
Ashley stepped forward and placed a hand on her hip. “The rantings of an old woman?”
Connor stepped forward. “Alma was together with a Haitian general who fled Haiti with $3.5 million. She says she hid the money.”
“So find the money and use it to help Alma. How is that bad?”
“Yeah,” said Bartholomew.
“My helpful brother there is saying that we’re getting close to finding out where the money is hidden, but the Russian mob knows about it too and is following us, hoping that we lead them to it.”
Ashley slapped her sides and marched around the room, shaking a hand in the air as she spoke. “Wait a minute, you have the Russian mob and some killer searching for you?”
“Kinda,” muttered Connor.
“Kinda?” Ashley folded her arms and stared, then tied her hair into a bun. “Kinda yes, or kinda no? I don’t care which.” She stomped a foot. “I want to know what you two are going to do about it?”
“Me?” asked Bartholomew, looking about.
“Yes you, Bart. You think you get to just sit back and make smartass remarks and leave all the responsibility to Connor? This isn’t fun and games.”
“Settle down,” said Connor. “I know exactly how we get out of this. I’ve had a plan the entire time, but I need your help to make it happen. There’s no turning back. Once it’s done, we have to take a long vacation outside of the US. We won’t be safe here.”
Ashley stared out the window for a moment, sighed, and asked: “What’s the alternative?”
“It’s not pretty,” said Connor. “That Ghrazenko killer is tracking us. The police won’t help unless I surrender a surveillance video. If I do that, we’ll never be safe. The Russians will retaliate with blood. The only question is when.”
Ashley raised her hands and looked from Bart to Connor. “Then it’s decided for us. We hit them before they hit us. Tell me the plan.”
Without his notes, all Connor could do was give Ashley a general overview. While he was busy doing that, Bartholomew left the condo and came back with Mexican take-out.
When they finished eating, Connor stood up. “I need to go by the office and get my notes and Alma’s notebook.”
Bartholomew agreed to go along, and climbed to his feet.
“When you come back,” said Ashley, “you’re going to go over the details with me, right?”
“Of course. You’ll get a full timetable to memorize. We’ll practice together until the three of us have it right,” said Connor, opening the door. “This is going to move quickly, so be ready.”
“You two shouldn’t drive together. You’re easier to spot as a pair.”
Connor smiled. “How long do you think I’ve been doing this, Babe?”
“Sorry.”
Connor hurried down the staircase and walked out onto the driveway. “I’ll take an Uber. You take the car and meet me at the office.”
***
When they reached the office, Connor rushed to the gun safe. From the shelf inside, he took the yellow notebook and the thumb drive.
“You know,” said Bartholomew. “You could sub out some of this case.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I know an old doctor. Sometimes I use him on side cases.”
“Side cases? You asshole. You were pissed at me for taking a side job.”
“I told you I started boxing to get out of debt. Side cases help. I’m firing on all cylinders.”
“Who’s the old guy?” asked Connor.
“You’ll like him. He’s a crazy German.”
“Is he expensive?”
“Not really. He was some sort of spy in East Berlin.”
“You serious? How old is he?”
“All I’m saying is that you should talk to him. He knows his stuff.”
“How old?”
“Old, okay?”
“Let’s have a quick beer and get back to the condo.”
***
Just like every other time they went for a beer, Connor tried to go to the Federal Bar in the old Security Pacific National Bank building, because it reminded him of his dad. But Bartholomew wanted to visit Trenchtown, a Jamaican bar where he felt at home.
They ended up going to Trenchtown. The moment Connor stepped through the front door he was in Jamaica.
Leroy, the handsome owner, stood beside the beer taps strumming a drum stick across the ridges in a gourd, head and shoulders swaying with the rhythm of the background music, smiling at the blonde before him.
“No!” Leroy jutted his head forward and his mouth fell open. “Call my dead momma, Bartholomew has arrived.”
“Hey, brother.” Bartholomew tapped a fist against Leroy’s, pulled him forward by the neck and patted his back. “Are you good?”
Leroy stepped back. “How can I be good? Look what that crazy Lizzy did.” He flung an arm toward the windows and frowned.
“Lace curtains?” laughed Bartholomew.
Leroy poured two beers and set them on the bar. “I had a cop in here today. He was asking about you two. He said you were mixed up with the Russians.”
Bartholomew gestured with a nod. “Do you still have that club under the bar?”
“You mean Lula? My girl’s always close.” Leroy smiled.
“Good,” Connor said. “If Redmond shows up, we’ll need it.”
Windows spanned the width of Trenchtown, allowing car headlights to dance around the walls. Two metal tables filled the area before the windows, where laughing students clinked their glasses together.
Connor followed Bartholomew across the dance floor and sat at a table beside the back door. There they laughed and sipped beer and spoke about work as couples danced around them.
Before they’d drunk half their beers, Leroy pushed through the dancers with two more full glasses and leaned forward. “One of my customers told me that there’s a car full of men watching Trenchtown.”
Connor climbed up on a stool and looked across the barroom, over the top of the crowd to the door. “Police?” he asked.
“No, I asked that too. He said the car was too dirty for police. Five stone-faced men, brown skin, black hair, one old with gray hair. They could be coming right now.”
“Shit.” Bartholomew slid a twenty-dollar bill across the table.
Leroy jerked upright. “Your money isn’t good here, my friend. You two should leave before those men arrive.”
“Yeah, we need to get back anyway.” Connor stood up and reached for the back door. The second before he touched the knob, something pounded on the door with a force that shook the wall, and the handle fell to the floor. Cool air touched his face as the door opened.
“Run, Bart. Get out!” Connor backed up and went into his fighting stance.
A Latino with slicked-back hair and acne scars stepped through the doorway and looked at him with a who-the-hell-are-you kind of look.
He had seen that empty stare many times in the army. It was the price men paid for getting too comfortable with k
illing. This guy, he knew, had looked into the eyes of death too often, and it had sucked some of the living out of him.
Connor could not allow this killer to enter a bar filled with innocent, laughing people. He would not move.
The man stepped close and Connor saw a contraction around his eyes, the closest thing to a smile the man had left. He also saw a gun, inches from his chest. But that didn’t matter. Every bit of his awareness was focused on the man’s eyes. It was from there the attack would come. That was where he would read the assassin’s move.
Connor’s entire life was this moment. All his military training, the years of exercise, hand-to-hand combat training, daily sparring, toughening of hands and mind, all boiled down to this second. He focused his thoughts inward, breathed deeply, picturing his arm pushing the weapon aside. His arm was already at the pistol. He just had to make it so. If he could move the weapon a few inches before it discharged, the shot would go wide.
But that was not the greatest challenge. No, Connor’s second strike would be far more important. With that movement he had to kill the man, or innocent people would die.
Time stopped. The bar noise vanished. He heard his own breathing. His pulse, slow and steady, pounded in every cell of his body. He felt a light growing, shining within his chest, until it burst out like a blinding camera flash.
Connor jerked his left arm upward with every bit of strength in his body, and felt the man’s forearm snap.
He batted the pistol aside and shouted as he reared back; then he snapped his right hand forward, like the cracking of a bullwhip, aiming not at the killer’s throat but through it, four inches behind the neck. He heard a pop when the weapon fired, and knew the pistol had a silencer attached. The force of the blow lifted the man off his feet, crushed his windpipe and snapped his neck. Before the killer hit the floor, Connor grabbed him and set him on a stool in the corner, took the pistol from his hand and turned. At the front of the bar he saw a shattered window where the bullet had exited.
“Get out. Get out!” He started shoving people out the back door. He had emptied the back third of the bar when he heard a scream.
Beside the front door stood an old man with an assault rifle. And Connor remembered seeing the man disembowel Saunders at the warehouse.
It was starting, he knew, and Connor searched the crowd for other gunmen. Over by the beer taps, a stranger grabbed Leroy’s shoulder and jerked him forward.
"Hey, what the hell," said Leroy.
A second man jumped across the bar, knocked the stereo to the floor, and pointed an Uzi machine gun at the crowd.
"Four minutes,” shouted the old man at the front door.
Connor’s heart pounded. His breathing became deep and erratic. He didn’t want to plan, didn’t want to be responsible for these people.
One, two, three gunmen, he counted, and each with an automatic weapon. If one customer panicked, the little bar would turn into a slaughterhouse.
"Three minutes," shouted the man at the front door. “Do it!”
“Who do you want?” Leroy asked.
A gunman took hold of Leroy's Afro and shook it violently. "You're a good nigger," he said. "Two men, one black, one white. Connor and Bartholomew. Full names and locations."
Leroy came to attention as though for military inspection. "Sir, fuck you, sir," he shouted.
The Latino hit Leroy in the teeth with the stock of his rifle, and stepped back.
“Now, do it!” shouted the old timekeeper.
Connor checked the safety of the 9mm with a shaking hand, and inched his way across the dance floor. He breathed deeply, letting his training take control as he moved to a position where he’d have a clear shot at each hostile.
“Two minutes,” shouted the man at the entrance.
“You!” The man in front of Leroy grabbed a woman and removed a pair of cable cutters from his pocket. “Is someone going to tell me? Connor and Bartholomew. Full names and whereabouts.” He placed the cutters on the woman’s index finger and looked around the bar. “She’s about to lose a finger.”
That was when Connor heard Bartholomew chanting. It was low at first, and he could barely hear it, but within seconds it increased in volume.
Connor nudged Bartholomew and whispered for him to shut up, but the chants grew louder.
People turned and looked.
“You,” one of the gunmen shouted, pushing through the crowd.
When the man was a few feet away, Bartholomew lifted his beer glass and broke a piece off the rim, then another, leaving two jagged points.
“One minute.”
The instant the gunman touched him, Bartholomew swung the glass like a hammer and stuck it in the guy’s neck.
“No!” Connor crouched and fired.
The man with the cable cutters fell against the bar, turned to the timekeeper and called: “Zakai, help me.”
People screamed and dropped their glasses. Some dropped to the floor.
Leroy reached for the club. The instant he found he looked at the front door, but the timekeeper had vanished.
"Are you wounded?” Connor touched Bartholomew’s arm.
Bartholomew shook from head to toe and tried to vomit, but nothing came out.
"You two, get out. The police are coming,” shouted Leroy.
"Come on. Walk with me." Connor wrapped an arm around Bartholomew.
“I’m okay. I can walk.”
Leroy,” said Connor, placing a hand on the bartender’s shoulder. “Wipe the beer glass or Bart will be up for manslaughter.”
“I got it. Run now. They’re coming for you.” He took the pistol from Connor’s hand. “I’ll clean this too. Now go.”
Connor hurried out the back door and forced himself to walk at a normal pace when he reached the sidewalk. “We need to find a safe place. The timekeeper, the old guy at the door, he’s the guy from the warehouse. Zakai.”
“How’d he find us?”
“Somebody is feeding him information.” Connor wiped his face. “I think it’s coming from the PD. We need to disappear. They’ll be watching the loft and the car. Come on, walk faster. Keep up. How do we get off the street?”
“The doctor, that old guy I told you about, he lives around the block.”
Connor turned and glanced behind them several times as they rushed up the street. “You lead the way.”
They had walked half a block before Bartholomew stopped, trembling over his whole body, and vomited in the gutter. “I went crazy back there. I killed that man right there, right in the bar.” He cried and wretched and wiped vomit onto his sleeve.
Connor pulled him along and they walked. “You stopped him from killing other people.”
“I can’t ever take that back, can I?” He wiped his cheeks.
“No. Now where does that doctor live?”
Chapter 18
White calcium deposits streaked the brick walls.
A noise, as though a heavy metal object struck the concrete floor, rang through the garage. Connor turned toward the noise. Among the old cars, some raised in the air on hydraulic lifts, engines and leaking transmissions beside them, he searched for the source of the noise.
Seconds later, a scraping sound moved through the garage. Connor leaned forward, walked a few steps to see around an old green Volkswagen. Someone in the garage mumbled as the smell of sweet pipe tobacco drifted through the air.
An old man stepped from the shadows and tapped his pipe against the wall, creating a shower of sparks. He blew through the mouthpiece, hooked his cane on his arm and shuffled to the workbench.
"Dr. Morganstern."
"Yes, Bartholomew my friend, I know you are here, and a friend is with you, I believe?"
"Come on, Bart.” Connor turned sideways so the old man wouldn't hear. "A dotard with pigtails? How can this old—”
"Dotard?” the doctor shouted, stepping forward and swishing his cane through the air like a rapier, whacking Connor on the shoulder. "Go on, you, rush on about y
our life. That's exactly why I wear these pigtails: So fools like you will think me simple.” His voice changed to a mumble as he patted his shirt pocket and pulled out a fireplace match. He scrapped it on the wall and said, "I was outsmarting the Russians in Berlin before you were born.”
Bartholomew laughed. “Doctor, this is Connor."
The old man nodded. “Bartholomew, you bring such color into my life, better than a drink of my Eiswein, no?” He shuffled closer. "Is everything well, my friend?"
"Fine, Dr. Morganstern."
"Bart, come over here," Connor said, pulling him away. When they were a distance from the old man, he looked over his shoulder and started to speak, then pulled Bartholomew a few steps farther. "How can this old guy help us? That Zakai is probably hunting us right now."
"Good God!” shouted Dr. Morganstern, waving the cane. “That name. What name did you just use?"
"See? He’s crazy. Here he comes again.” Connor hid behind a car. “If he whacks me again, I’m going to snap his wishbone.”
"You mentioned a name. Repeat it now."
"Zakai."
Dr. Morganstern whispered the name and lowered the cane. "Please, tell me where you heard that vile name.” He searched for a place to sit.
"We stepped in a bad case," Bartholomew said, guiding the old man to a chair. "Can you help?"
"Tell me you haven't fought with Zakai. No, tell me the whole story. Leave nothing out. Your lives depend on it."
Bartholomew coughed.
"Time is wasting. Out with the story."
“This was my idea.” Connor walked back and forth. “Bartholomew is helping me take down a mob boss.”
“That is dangerous work. Who is the boss?”
“His name is Teddy Ghrazenko.”
“Ghrazenko? My friend, you stepped on a land mine.” Dr. Morganstern spit out a particle of tobacco and looked into his pipe. “The Ghrazenkos are organized crime royalty. In Germany, they run what is called The Ghost Syndicate. It is whispered that they practice secret rituals. But the facts are that neither law enforcement nor government agencies can prove they do anything illegal, or even that the syndicate exists. Yet their enemies and business rivals often turn up dead. Oh, wait, let me show you something. Follow me.”