by Jared Paul
“Sir.”
“You’ve done well with this Shirokov thing. Despite recent… developments that can hardly be blamed on you.”
Even though that was probably true Agent Clemons felt responsible.
“It was my fault sir.”
“That’s the right thing to say but you’re wrong. You’ve done well, but this is a small pot. I don’t want one of my best minds wasting his career away chasing Russian gangsters with more gel in their hair than brains.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
Clearly the Director’s patience had been exhausted. He stood up and soothed over his midnight blue jacket, then buttoned the top button.
“This trial, I sincerely hope we get a conviction tomorrow. Because if we don’t you’ve still got to run around and waste several more months, maybe a year, chasing loose ends.”
“And if we do?”
“I’m transferring you to our counter-terrorism unit in Manhattan. Big step up. A whole staff underneath you, a real staff. Then you can go after the real bad buys. Stop chasing around these useless Ruskies.”
Agent Clemons was taken completely off guard. He may have even let his mouth hang open for a second or two before he recovered his composure.
“Sir, I… I don’t think it’s that simple. As you know Shirokov is just one piece of the puzzle. The sex trafficking, the heroin, it’s all a lot more complic…”
“What’s the matter? You think you’re the only genius who can take care of it? You’re getting a promotion. Now stop acting like a mouth breather, smile, shake my hand and say thanks.”
Tiny dots of green light danced in Agent Clemon’s field of vision. The room was spinning. This had happened several times since he’d been shot on Riis Landing, but this was the first since he’d returned to work. The doctors had written it off as nothing more than a little post-traumatic stress disorder, purely psychosomatic. Nothing to worry about. It took some discipline but Agent Clemons took a step forward and shook the Director’s hand, but he could not force himself to smile.
“Don’t look so grim, Clemons. When you’re up and running I’ll have you over for dinner some time. Get you going in my poker game.”
“Ha. Yes of course. Thank you sir. Sir.”
The Director walked out of his office and Agent Clemons collapsed into his chair. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply until the dots faded.
News of his promotion should have been the happiest day of his life. Agent Clemons had no wife, no girlfriend, no dog, and no kids. Career advancement was the only thing that got him out of bed in the morning. Then why the panic? Why this sensation that his world had been turned completely upside down and spun around like a kid twirling his head on a baseball bat?
Agent Clemons nudged the Prokorov brothers file back into its proper place and looked around at the rest of his office. Everything appeared to be in its place.
…
Jordan Ross did not allow himself many comforts. Since Sarah and Emma had been killed he’d been living an ascetic existence. He got up in the morning, ate a healthy breakfast, and did an hour of intensive cardio exercise. He went for a walk around the block for groceries, drank a protein powder shake, and did weight training, legs or arms, depending on the day of the week. He took a short nap. He read the New York Times or the Village Voice for an hour, and then he ate a healthy dinner, followed by a six mile run around the neighborhood. He watched a movie and went to bed early. In the morning, he got up early and did the same.
The condo that Agent Clemons and the detective had set up for him was ideal of his purposes. He kept the furnishings spare. Since he was technically still dead he could have no day job, so they gave him an allowance for the necessities. Rent was paid through some automated system he had no knowledge of. He hadn’t even bothered to paint. Jordan thought it would be a waste, considering he would likely be killed for real in one shootout or another with the Russians sooner rather than later.
Jordan Ross had accepted this without much of a fuss. Most people when they become aware of their pending mortality have an existential crisis or a mental breakdown. Jordan was not particularly bothered by it, for a couple of reasons. During his decorated career in Special Forces he’d been trained to believe that he was already dead and taught to do his job anyway.
Losing Sarah and Emma just sealed the deal. There was nothing to live for except to kill as many Russians as possible before they brought him down. Sometimes he missed them, and he often dreamt of happier days when his wife and kid were still around, but on the whole Jordan functioned remarkably well in this new life. He had no expectations. He had no desires beyond the basic food, water, shelter, and revenge. Despite everything that had happened Jordan was happier than he ever would have guessed.
Maybe all the workouts just kept a constant flood of endorphins running through his system so it was impossible to get depressed. Maybe Jordan had secretly always pined for a simple, hippy-like existence. Whatever it was, Jordan was surprisingly content to eat, sleep, and kill Russians.
The only creature comfort that he allowed himself, aside from a daily allotment of two fingers of whiskey on ice, was Thursday night pizza.
Even if he had a healthy perspective on his life, after several months of kale smoothies and protein shakes, Jordan felt that something was missing. Socializing was out of the question. He could not go out to a bar and mingle with other people. He was supposed to be dead. The only interaction he got was when Agent Clemons or Detective Bollier came over to talk shop. On a whim one Thursday night when he was feeling particularly lonely Jordan ordered a large pie with sausage and extra cheese.
It was a risk of course. He was supposed to have minimal contact with the outside world, and the delivery boy was just one more variable. But the second that Jordan got a whiff of that first thin-crust New York pizza fresh in the box he decided that it was well worth the danger.
No amount of fresh-baked pizza could fill the hole in Jordan’s social life, but sometimes it came close.
The Thursday evening before the last day of Vladimir Shirokov’s trial, Jordan ordered from his usual preferred destination: Linelli’s on 123rd street, also a favorite of Columbia undergraduates. He felt like something slightly different, so he opted for pepperoni instead of sausage. Thirty-five minutes later the bell rang. Jordan rushed over to the intercom.
“Who is it?”
“Linelli’s.”
“Come on up.”
Jordan pressed the buzzer down with his thumb for three seconds, then he opened the door a crack and went to retrieve the cash from his bedroom. When he came back Jordan yanked the door open all the way. He could hear the sound of the delivery guy coming up the last steps.
Linelli’s usually sent a middle-aged guy with a pot belly named Jim. When Jordan saw the delivery boy carrying the pizza box was a slight, fresh-faced Asian youth with long black hair tied in a ponytail he paused.
“Where’s Jim?”
The kid answered without missing a beat.
“He’s out sick today. I’m Akio. Are you Mister Wallace?”
It was the identity that Agent Clemons had set up for Jordan when they first hatched the plan to fake his death. He had a social security card, a driver’s license, a credit card, everything.
“Yeah. That’d be me.”
The substitute delivery boy grinned brightly.
“Awesome. It’s so great to finally meet you!”
Akio raised his right arm. He had been balancing the pizza box on his wrist and the barrel of a double action 9x18 millimeter Makarov. Akio closed his left eye to aim and pulled the trigger. Sensing something was amiss but not having enough time to react, Jordan only had time to throw his head to the right, hitting the doorframe hard.
The bullet split through the cartilage in Jordan’s left ear and tore off the upper lobe on its way into the kitchen, where it lodged into the cupboard where Jordan kept his spices. Jordan screamed and ducked just in time to miss another round that punc
hed a hole the size of a fist into his door. He dived forward and tackled Akio. The box of pizza tumbled open and several slices of steaming pepperoni fell out, filling the narrow hallway with an irresistible scent.
Jordan bled freely from his ear onto the rug and all over Akio, who tried to swing the Makarov up from the ground to get a clear head-shot, but Jordan pinned his arm on the floor. The delivery-boy-come-hitman was astonishingly strong for his size. It was that wiry kind of strength that often takes bullies by surprise when they pick on the skinny ones.
Without the gruesome wound to his ear Jordan would have likely perished in the struggle. But the blood dripped down into Akio’s eyes, causing him to miss again and giving Jordan a second to slap the Makarov out of his hand.
The gun went tumbling into the apartment. Jordan resisted his first impulse to chase after it and instead punched Akio in the face a couple of times. Confident that the kid couldn’t take those blows and recover, he got to his knees and made a lunge for the weapon. Akio was quick, though. He caught Jordan’s leg with a devastating kick to the shin that tripped him up.
Rising together, the two of them both went for the Makarov. Jordan got their first but Akio kicked the gun free with another precision strike from his feet. The kid had evidently studied karate or some other martial art. Realizing this, Jordan almost let out a moan. It had been years, dozens of years since his basic training with hand to hand combat. Now he had to face a kid who moved like Bruce Lee and likely spent hours every day practicing.
Jordan caught the next kick with his arms but Akio leapt and delivered a roundhouse blow to his jaw with the other. Stunned, Jordan went reeling into the living room, falling over the coffee table. The glass of Evan Williams on ice spilled. Nothing filled Jordan with a rage quite like seeing good whiskey gone to waste, and he got up with a renewed vigor and a vicious sense of purpose. He blocked a knee strike from Akio and punched him square in the sternum. The kid rocked back several paces, the wind clearly knocked out of him.
Akio sucked in a breath of air and charged with an axe kick. Jordan deflected most of the first blow but caught the next. He grunted and ducked under a hook kick that would have pounded his temple and knocked him unconscious. Akio yelled and swung his arm around in a slicing kind of punch, but Jordan caught his hand and chopped down with his elbow on the forearm. The kid let out a shriek his knees buckled.
For a moment Jordan thought that he had him but when Akio went to the floor he immediately launched into a sweep kick that brought Jordan down right next to him. The Makarov was still waiting, silent and deadly just under a foot stool at the breakfast bar. Akio crawled for it but Jordan caught his leg and swung his whole body out the other direction towards the open balcony.
Red faced and flustered, Akio came punching and kicking as fast as he could, landing several hard strikes on Jordan’s rib cage that broke a couple of them. The kid punched at his bleeding, half-destroyed ear and the pain sent a searing monotone ring through Jordan’s head. Akio wound up for a kick to end the skirmish once and for all.
Jordan let Akio kick him, but in the process he finally caught hold of his hair. He wheeled around, grabbed the hip, and threw him as hard as he could. Akio bounced off the top railing of the balcony and then disappeared over the edge. The yell on the way down echoed up for a moment and then Jordan heard a crash and a car alarm.
There would be no time to take a victory lap and survey the wreckage on the street. Jordan made a quick dash to the bathroom and grabbed a towel to swab his ear, then he ran into the hall closet and pulled out his gym bag full of automatic weapons and hunting knives.
Moving awkwardly, Jordan came out of his domicile and started down the hallway. He went down two steps and then turned around to go back up.
Jordan found the overturned box of Linelli’s and yanked one unspoiled slice of pepperoni free. Speaking with his mouthful, Jordan moaned.
“Ooh God that’s good.”
And then he bolted for the emergency staircase to make his escape.
…
The morning his trial resumed Vladimir Shirokov rose early and had Vitaly drive him out to Queens to see the chemist, Dima Paviel. Once upon a time Dima Paviel had his own laboratory in Belarus and a grant from the parent state to perform autonomous research. Now Paviel was working in a subterranean lab in Queens, a hack and a shill for gangsters and moral midgets who seemed to have flooded into the city from every failed former Soviet state.
Before the fall of the Berlin Wall the Soviets were keenly interested in funding the brightest young scientific minds in the federation, especially those with degrees in chemistry. Paviel was smart for an egghead and he had little doubt as to what end the research would go eventually, but Shirokov assumed that his guilt was assuaged with the mountains of money and heaps of prostitutes they threw his way. He liked to joke that the U.S.S.R. would never have gone bankrupt if they could have paid him off some other way.
Shirokov paid him well. Not as well as the red army of course, but one had to make do with the situation one was given. Still, Shirokov could plainly see that Paviel resented him and felt that his talents were wasted. He was a brilliant chemist but a terrible liar and wore his prejudices like a tattoo on his face.
The lab was situated beneath a junkyard that Shirokov owned. They opened the blue crate, third from the left on the fourth row, and took the specially installed elevator down.
Paviel was scrutinizing a specimen under a microscope when they came in. He pretended not to notice their entrance and continued working, determined to show that his current work was far more important than any seediness his patron could have in mind. Next to the microscope there was a tall coffee cup filled with Smirnoff and Folgers that had to burn going down. Shirokov allowed him this vice because at times Paviel had to work several days running, testing the purity of every single package that came in with a shipment. He suspected that Paviel dipped into the amphetamines in order to stay awake but had no prove as of yet. More than likely, he would tolerate this minor theft, so long as Paviel did not dare to hope that it had gone unnoticed.
Shirokov walked up behind Paviel and greeted him.
“Bonjour docteur.”
Bent over his instrument like a hunchback, Paviel waved a hand.
“Have you procured compounds we discussed?”
Paviel grunted like he was unimaginably irritated.
“Dah. Over there. On the… next to the… no… I’ll get it.”
He stood up straight and ran a hand over his white lab coat, which he insisted on wearing at all times in the lab for some idiotic reason that Shirokov never bothered to learn. When he first came to work there Paviel tried to ban anyone not wearing one from the lab. Vitaly made him realize that it was not necessary.
Paviel strode over to a table strewn with vials, tubes and flasks. He reached into a lockbox and pulled out a pair of small balloons.
Using the tip of his pen, the chemist pointed to one and then the other.
“Potassium Perchlorate. Aluminum powder.”
He handed them over to Shirokov, who held them up to the light. The plastic was only semi-transparent and he had to squint to see the compounds resting inside.
“And you are certain of desired effect?”
Nothing angered the chemist more than having his methods questioned.
“Absolutely. You will want to stand some ten, fifteen meters away. And for now. You will not wish to eat anything else for twenty four hours to allow digestion.”
Shirokov nodded.
“And you are aware of what will become of you if compounds should fail?”
Looming behind the chemist, Vitaly cracked his knuckles. Although Paviel made a valiant effort to hide the shudder that followed it did not work. Shirokov took a step closer to the chemist and brought his face so close that he could smell the cheap coffee and vodka on his breath.
“I will ask you again. You are aware what will become…”
“Yes! Yes. Aware. I assure you,
you will have no problems with compound.”
“Very good. To be taken with water?”
Paviel said yes. The bodyguard was carrying a thermos filled with tap water, which he gave to Shirokov. The mad Russian grinned at the chemist and smiled then took several deep breaths. He was trying to work up the nerve. He did this several times. When he was finally ready, he lifted the thermos in a toast to the chemist.
“To your health.”
With a quick toss, Shirokov put the two balloons on his tongue and washed them down with a hearty mouthful of water. He gasped and coughed a couple of times and the chemist came close to terrified that he would suffocate right there and then of course the mindless bodyguard would blame and murder him precipitously. However, Shirokov recovered after a minute.
“Ahhh. Good. Good work, doctor. We will be in touch. Keep up good work!”