by Trevor Scott
The Russian suddenly bit his tongue, knowing not to give away more than he should. “I must have a cigarette. Do you mind?”
“Yes, I do,” Jake said. He was done playing games. “Aleksei Mikhailovich Volkov.” He drew out the man’s real name slowly.
The Russian looked concerned now. “I should have killed you last night.”
Jake put his Glock away in its holster and then pointed the barrel of the Russian Makarov at his leather jacket sleeve. “You ruined a perfectly good jacket. That’s Italian leather.”
“You are with German Federal Intelligence,” Aleksei said. “Why are you here in Riga? Your country is full of pacifists and pussies.”
Zaiga held back a laugh.
“I’m Austrian,” Jake said. “And just a businessman.”
“Right.”
“You are an assassin with Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki or SVR,” Jake said. “If I had to guess, I’d say first directorate.”
The Russian had no response. He simply glared first at Jake and then to Zaiga. Finally, he said, “You think we didn’t know you are with Latvian Intelligence?”
Zaiga shook her head and said something to the man in Russian. Jake was sure he had heard that disparaging term before, and guessed that the Russian wasn’t flexible enough to do as she suggested.
“Where are your two butt buddies?” Jake asked.
“Fuck you.” Then Aleksei followed that up with something in Russian.
Zaiga pulled her gun now and pointed it at the Russian.
“What did he say?”
“He said they would be here soon and would kill us both,” she said.
Jake shook his head. He slid open the action a little to make sure there was a round in the chamber of the Makarov. Then he pulled the magazine out and saw it was full with eight rounds of Makarov 9mm. The gun looked older than Zaiga.
“Who ordered you to make the hit last night?” Jake asked, still looking over the man’s gun.
“I did that on my own,” Aleksei said. “A perk of the job.”
“Bullshit. You drones don’t do anything without Moscow giving you a permission slip. Now answer my question.”
The Russian said nothing. He just crossed his arms over his thick chest.
Jake pointed the Makarov at the Russian and pulled the trigger. The gun coughed and the bullet struck the wall just behind the man’s head. Aleksei startled, like a cat on edge springing into the air.
“Interesting,” Jake said. “I thought the hollow points would do more damage to the wall.”
“They are made to expand quickly,” the Russian explained.
“Oh, I know,” Jake said. “They will clear the skull and rip your brain all to hell. Depending on the distance to impact, the round will either bounce around and scramble your brain, or will exit the back of your skull and turn the wall into a Jackson Pollack painting. Now answer my damn question. I have seven more rounds. And I’m sure you’d hate to lose your head over a simple question like that.”
Finally, the Russian shrugged. “The man is a traitor to our country.”
“The man? Name the man.”
“Ivan Bragin,” Aleksei forced out with bile.
“Ivan is more of a patriot to Mother Russia than you and your entire crew of assholes.” Jake glanced to Zaiga, who looked confused.
Without saying it, Aleksei had let Jake know that the kill order had come directly from Moscow. That’s all he really needed to know. In the past few years Jake had run across a number of SVR officers who had gone off the reservation, freelancing their services to the highest bidder.
Just as Jake was about to vector in a new direction with his questioning, he heard an electronic click at the door. Jake turned just as another Russian entered.
Aleksei yelled something in Russian and his man went for his gun.
But Jake swung around and fired twice, hitting the man in the chest with both rounds. The second shot must have hit the man’s spine, since he crumpled straight to the tile floor with a resounding crash.
Suddenly Jake was hit like a linebacker by the larger man, knocking him back to the wall, the Makarov bouncing to a halt next to the man Jake had just shot.
Jake took a punch to the gut, almost taking his breath away. He shoved his knee up and connected again with the Russian’s groin. As the beasty man bent over somewhat, Jake landed an uppercut elbow to the man’s thick jaw—knocking the Russian back a couple of steps.
Then there were two loud shots and Jake saw Aleksei’s head nearly explode out the side. The large Russian crashed to the floor and landed on top of his friend.
Jake turned and saw Zaiga holding her gun. She was in shock, her eyes wide. He found the silenced Makarov on the floor and put the gun in Aleksei’s right hand, trying to make sure some prints transferred to various surfaces.
Zaiga was shaking, so Jake took her in his arms and held her tight. She mumbled something in Latvian.
Jake glanced about the room, making sure neither of them had touched anything in the room. When he reached the door, Jake tilted the handle with the sleeve of his leather jacket. He looked out into the corridor and saw that nobody else was there. Where was the third man? The driver would have had to park the car quite a distance from this building because of the protest, Jake thought.
“Let’s go,” Jake whispered. “We need to get the hell out of here.”
21
Jake and Zaiga got down to street level and tried to blend in with the protesters as they drifted back toward the Roma Hotel. To Jake his associate still looked in shock, so he took her hand in his, keeping his right hand available to draw his weapon if necessary.
“What do we do now?” she said, her lips just a few inches from Jake’s ear.
He didn’t have a good answer for her. They had each just killed Russian spies working on Latvian soil. This was bound to bring some heat from Moscow. Trying to think logically, Jake thought perhaps that was what the Russians wanted. But maybe they were trying to accomplish that goal by killing Ivan Bragin and blaming his death on the Latvians. Moscow needed their Archduke Franz Ferdinand moment.
Jake pulled her along the outer edge of the rabble rousers, trying to keep out of the view of any cameras. When they reached his hotel, Jake went in and waited for an elevator. That’s when he saw the tail, a shorter man with a black wool hat. He had to be the third Russian—the driver from the other night. And he headed across the wide lobby toward Jake and Zaiga.
Once the doors closed on the elevator, Jake hit every button so the Russian on the ground level wouldn’t know the floor where they were getting off.
The two of them got to Jake’s room and Zaiga sat on one of the two beds.
“Did you see the man following us?” Jake asked her.
“What man?”
Crap. What was he going to do with a damn-near catatonic intelligence officer? This Russian would know she was involved with the death of the two SVR officers, and would have to retaliate against her eventually. Was that his problem? Yes. He had insisted on the meeting with Aleksei. It was more than likely true that Zaiga had been burned to the Russians anyway, but she had not done anything to warrant her own death. Until now.
“Zaiga, you have to disappear,” Jake said.
She turned to Jake, cocking her head to the side like a confused puppy. “Why?”
“Because the Russians know you were involved with the death of two of their own.” Jake shoved everything into his small bag and slung it over his shoulders, shifting the bag to his back.
“We will deport them,” she said.
“That’s not gonna help. They will send more after you. You’ve been playing them for a while and they have a file on you with images.”
“How do you know this?”
“I just do, Zaiga. It’s what I would have done.”
Tears suddenly escaped from each eye and her mouth contorted like she had sucked on a whole lemon.
Jake stepped closer to her and considered his options. Agai
nst his own better judgment, he slapped her across the face.
Zaiga shook her head and jumped to her feet. “What the hell.”
“Don’t make me do it again,” Jake said. “You need to get your shit together or you’re dead. You understand me?”
Her face was red, but it would not be bruised. Jake had taken a lot off of his power when he struck her.
Jake continued, “This has become real. From now on you either kill or be killed. Do you understand?”
She nodded her head. “I did not hesitate.”
Now, instead of slapping her, Jake took her in his arms like a father does with a daughter who has just lost a boyfriend. Then he pulled away and wiped her tears from her cheekbones.
They needed to get the hell out of Riga. Jake found his phone and texted the flight crew for the jet he had on standby at the airport. A few seconds later he got a response. They could be ready within an hour. The crew would meet him at the private terminal.
“Where will we go?” Zaiga asked.
“Don’t worry about that,” Jake said. “But we need to move now. Did you ever meet the driver?”
“Yes, of course. He is a shorter man who always wears a black wool hat.”
“That was the man downstairs in the lobby.”
Jake went to the door and looked out the peep. Then he quietly opened the door and stuck his head out for a quick view in each direction.
“It’s clear,” Jake said.
He pulled Zaiga out into the corridor and considered his options. They couldn’t take the elevator. By now the Russian would have called in a few friends. Then he remembered the second bank of elevators that went from the ground floor to only the third floor where the hotel restaurant was located. But there was also a stairwell next to the elevator. That could work.
Jake hurried down the main corridor and then took a passageway across that cut over toward the second stairwell. They silently went down those stairs to the ground floor.
Stopping at the bottom, before opening the door, Jake hesitated for some reason. Would the Russians know about this stairwell? Could they have found out this soon?
Pulling his gun out, Jake gave Zaiga a look to hold tight. He slowly opened the door and poked his head out and back. It seemed clear. That corridor led to the main lobby to the right, and toward a back parking lot to the left. It was a good thing Jake had studied all exits when he got to the hotel, something he always did with new places.
“Go left,” Jake said. “It leads to a parking lot out back.”
Jake went out first and kept his gun at the side of his right leg, and then Zaiga rushed out behind him and moved quickly toward the back exit. He backed his way down the corridor. Just as they almost reached the back exit, the Russian with the wool cap appeared at the far end of the hallway. He immediately raised his gun and started shooting, the cough of his silenced gun almost silent from that distance. But when Jake returned fire, the report from his 9mm echoed sharply through the hollow space.
The Russian pulled back behind the wall, which gave Jake and Zaiga enough time to push through the exit into the darkness of the back parking lot.
“Are you all right?” Jake asked as the two of them ran through the parked cars.
“Yes.”
“You know the Old Town, right?”
“Of course.”
“Bring us to the Daugava River.”
She acknowledged and ran ahead of Jake. The Old Town in Riga was a concentrated collection of old buildings connected by a series of narrow streets and even narrower passageways, which in the old days had been designed for pedestrians, horses, and carriages.
As they ran through the streets, turning at seemingly random times down side roads, Jake was already turned around. There was no indication here of north or south, east or west. Soon they exited the Old Town and came to the major river that cut through Riga.
Zaiga flagged down a taxi and the two of them climbed in the back.
“Airport,” Jake demanded. Then he looked back and saw the same car that had pulled away with the two potential assassins the night before—a black BMW—turn sharply onto their street a few blocks back and started after them. What the hell? How had they caught up with them? Jake racked his brain.
“What’s the matter?” Zaiga asked.
“Somehow they found us.”
“That’s impossible.”
Or was it. “Let me see your phone,” Jake said.
“Why?” She handed her phone to Jake.
He looked through the phone and saw that a simple app had been running keeping track of their position. Jake considered disabling the app and dumping it from her phone, but that might not have been the best idea. Of course if the Russians had more sophisticated tracking devices they could still track her phone based on her GPS signature.
“Did you ever leave your phone unattended?” he asked.
She thought hard but wasn’t coming up with anything. “I don’t think so.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Jake said. “They could have paired with you by just being in close proximity. They knew who you were, so I’m guessing they’ve been tracking you for a while.”
“What do we do?”
Jake checked out the car tailing them and realized they were not trying to catch them. With a BMW verses a Ford taxi, they could have run circles around them by now. He looked at the phone again and smiled.
“We’ll leave it on for now,” Jake said.
“Why?”
“It’s better if they don’t know that we know.”
“I see.”
Her disposition had gotten much better, Jake thought. Perhaps the adrenaline rush was sustaining her now.
Jake checked his phone and he had gotten a text saying the flight crew was on site and ready for him.
“How long until the airport?” Jake asked.
“Five minutes.”
He texted that to the crew and got back a smiley face.
When they got to the main terminal, Jake and Zaiga got out and he paid the driver. It took everything within his power to not look at the BMW that had pulled over to the curb about a block back.
They got into the main terminal and Zaiga asked, “Where are we going?”
“Do you have your passport?”
“Of course. Why?”
Jake glanced up to a sign that directed passengers to the private terminal area.
“What about our weapons?” she asked.
“Don’t worry about that.”
As they walked through the main terminal, Jake would occasionally stop to talk with Zaiga. But in reality he was using this as a ruse to glance back and make sure the Russians were still coming. The man with the wool cap was now with two other men—the backup team, Jake thought.
A long corridor led them to a smaller building used by private aviation. Security here was almost non-existent, since only those on the private list could fly through this area. Jake’s name was on the list with his Austrian persona. And he vouched for Zaiga.
Moments later they walked out onto the tarmac and came to the billionaire’s jet. Waiting for him at the door to the cabin was the woman whom he had first met some six months ago when he had taken his first flight on this jet with the Italian priest. Since then he had traveled all over Europe in style.
“What is this?” Zaiga asked.
“This is our ride,” he said. And then Jake walked up the steps and took a tall glass of rum from the flight attendant.
“Who do we have with you, Jake?” the flight attendant asked.
“She’s a friend.”
“Will Karl be coming?”
“Afraid not,” Jake said. “He flew commercial back to Estonia earlier today.”
“I see,” the flight attendant said, and then she closed and locked the cabin door behind them. “Would your lady friend like a drink?”
Jake glanced at Zaiga. “I think she could use a tall vodka.”
“With soda water,” Zaiga said.
; “Absolut or Grey Goose?”
“Absolut.”
Jake took his normal seat and pointed for Zaiga to take a seat across from him.
The flight attendant handed Zaiga a large vodka drink. Zaiga thanked the woman and took a long sip.
“Do you always travel like this?” Zaiga asked.
“I wish,” he said. “It’s a recent phenomenon.”
The flight attendant came back and asked, “The pilot would like a destination.”
Jake said, “Vilnius.”
The tall Spanish woman nodded and went to the cockpit.
“Vilnius?” Zaiga asked.
“Yep. I believe Vilnius will be ground zero.”
22
Tallinn, Estonia
Karl Adams stood at a window overlooking the outer edge of the city’s Old Town. He wore only a pair of long, black boxer briefs that looked like bike shorts. A lot had happened to him in the past week, and he wasn’t sure how to process it all.
When he heard Kadri approach from the en suite bathroom of her bedroom, he turned his head and observed her perfect body. She too was only wearing her undergarments, but her shorts were silky, red, and with lace at the bottoms, barely covering her fine athletic butt. It was easy to see her as a college swimmer, he thought.
She nuzzled her bare breasts against his muscular back and then kissed his neck. “What are you thinking?”
Good question. “Just about the last week. Especially from the time I was taken and my short time with my father.”
“Why didn’t you tell me your father was in the spy game?”
“As I said, he hasn’t really been in my life.” He had told her about his mother, which was not a problem, considering she was dead now. And he knew very little about his father. The woman who raised him, his mother’s sister, kept everything from him.
“What’s bothering you about him?” she asked.
Karl turned and looked down at her perfectly round breasts. She was a beauty. “You really want to know?”
She nodded her head.
“Somehow, he finds me on this isolated island on a lake, at night, in a fog and rain storm. We nearly get killed making it back to the Estonian side. And he acts as if it’s no big deal. Like he’s just gone to the store for milk and eggs.”