by Chad Huskins
Then, he watched as the sedan out front put on its blinker, then peeled off from the main traffic and parked beside the curb. The second one, the black SUV he’d watched Zverev step into, kept moving. “Huh,” he said.
Still following Zverev’s SUV, he slid by the sedan. Spencer glanced at the driver, who was trying to look straight ahead as Spencer drove by but couldn’t help glance at him. “Uh-huh.”
Spencer was two cars behind Zverev’s car, and followed behind until they stopped at the next light. “Let me take a guess,” he said to himself. He checked his rearview mirror and, sure enough, the sedan pulled away from the curb and behind him, about three cars back. “You sly, sly dogs. Done this before, haven’t ya? Or did someone give ya the heads up? Bit o’ both, maybe?”
When the light turned green, Zverev’s SUV took a right without switching on its blinker. Spencer followed, as did two other cars, and, predictably, the sedan followed them. The SUV came to another stoplight, slowed down when it was about to turn red, then suddenly turned left. Spencer was forced to run the red light, as did a large green van, and of course the sedan did, too. Then, the SUV went at a leisurely speed down a wider street, and paused in front of an Italian restaurant that was closed. Spencer slowed down. One of the guys in the back of the SUV rolled his window down, and hollered something at a random passerby, probably some bullshit story about being lost and needing directions.
Spencer smiled to himself. Zverev and his people were taking him on what was known in tradecraft as a “dry cleaning run,” an attempt to shake people following you, or to at least expose them. If he slowed down too much, they would know which car was him. However, if he sped past them, he risked getting ahead of them, which meant he couldn’t follow them.
Spencer took a risk. What’s life without them? he thought. He drove on by, feigning no interest at all in the SUV or its occupants. He pulled to the end of the street, hung a right to get out of sight, found a car pulling out of its spot along the curb and immediately zipped into its space. He received rancor from another motorist wanting on that spot, but just waved and smiled back as the car drove by.
He was now around the corner and out of sight of Zverev and his two rides, but knew what those two rides looked like, and they pretty much had to come to the end of the street eventually—if they didn’t in the next sixty seconds, he would turn around and go look for them.
But here they came, the SUV followed by a couple of other cars, and of course the black sedan. He watched them drive through his rearview mirror, saw them take a left where he had taken a right. Once they were on their way, he quickly pulled out of his parking spot and did a U-turn right in the middle of the street, sliding on slush and receiving honks all around. He went just slightly under the speed limit, passing under a green light and now only one car was between him and the sedan.
Spencer followed them through two more lights, guzzling down the last bottle of orange juice as he cruised and eyed every car. He looked at all his mirrors, making sure someone else wasn’t coming up on him. When the light changed, the SUV took off suddenly, speeding around the car in front of it and vanishing in the snowfall. Even its retreating taillights were quickly swallowed up. Spencer fought the urge to follow it. Instead, he kept his eyes on the sedan. He’d seen Zverev getting into the SUV, but…
Clever devils. He knew it in his bones. When he’d dipped around the corner, they had probably seen him and a couple of other cars slide by. Not knowing if any of them were driven by Spencer Pelletier, they had quickly shuffled Zverev into the other vehicle. The SUV was taking off to lure him. “Silly rabbits,” he chuckled.
When the other cars went, the sedan moved at a relaxed pace, went through another intersection and hung a right. Spencer made sure to always stay two or three cars back, so that he was nothing more than a distant pair of headlights in a storm, as far as they could tell.
Across a bridge, then a left, then a right, then taking a detour around a closed road, and finally into a bubbling city center. He spotted a few tall buildings; one of them had lights flickering on in windows indecisively. Power outages. They passed a large Russian Orthodox church with the onion-shaped dome of its cupola. The sedan slowed to a stop in front of a gate, which they had to buzz in with a card before gaining admittance. Then, they drove on through an awning-covered turnaround, parked, and stepped out to allow a jacketed valet to take their car.
Spencer never slowed down. He drove on by, spotted four men stepping out, and pulled around to the side of the building. He cruised for thirty seconds looking for space to park along the curb, then said “Fuck it” and parked the car in the middle of the street, directly beside a green van. The road didn’t look frequented, so it shouldn’t block traffic or attract too much attention. In weather like this, probably lots of cars got abandoned in the snow.
It was a moment while he figured out where he was, using Google Maps and then www.locationscout.com to give him the 411. The Tsarskiy Penthouses, a twenty-storey building in the heart of the city’s epicenter, was the most expensive living space in all of Chelyabinsk Oblast. The penthouse had its own website, which boasted of round-the-clock security, along with a friendly cleaning and maintenance staff, cooks, valets, a stocked bar, and more than 150 CCTV cameras. According to the website, Chelyabinsk was growing in popularity and commerce, attracting all sorts of “high-class movers and shakers” and they were proud to have such as their clientele. The company running it had a golden horse as its logo, and all over its website was colorful animation of that horse running across a burning field for some reason.
He gave a look out his window, and then stepped out of the car.
Wounded hand in his pocket, Spencer walked around the perimeter of the Tsarskiy Penthouses, holding a wrapper filled with generic Chips Ahoy! cookies and wolfing them down. He hadn’t had time to find something else to keep him warm, so he still wore Zakhar’s jacket, which was completely soaked in blood down the right sleeve. His shirt underneath was soaked, too. Had his persistent pal not dogged him so, he might’ve had time to find an appropriate alternate get-up at the hospital, but as it was, he would have to make do.
Minutes away from the heat of the Acura, his nose, cheeks and fingers were already numb. The perimeter wall was ten feet high and completely covered in snow and ice. There was no climbing over it, and no clear path in through the front. The wrought-iron gates had bars were far too close together to squeeze through. Besides that, two cameras were atop the stone pillars flanking the gate, looking down at the entrance. Spencer searched for another way.
Dead leaves scuttled and danced up onto the sidewalk. Spencer finished his cookies and tossed the wrapper, watching it get swept away by the wind. He shoved both hands into his jacket pockets to try and keep warm.
At the back of the complex, there was another gate, this one larger and obviously meant for supply trucks to come and go. There was only one camera here, facing the street. The gate here was closed, and a camera on the other side was facing Spencer. He continued walking by. There was a small door in the wall beside the gate. Spencer looked up and down the street. It was totally dead. He drew the Glock and aimed it at the lock, hands trembling. The shot echoed up and down the street. He kicked the door in quickly, and stepped through onto a footpath that led into a small park, available only to the rich sorts that could afford the suites herein.
Spencer moved quickly, lest a security guard came to inspect the loud noise. He crouched behind two big-tired service trucks with enormous ladders folded and kept in the beds. Maintenance trucks. He spotted a glass door thirty feet away, beside of which there was a black box with a red light on it. A fucking keypad. Above the door, another stationary camera looked down.
Spencer crouched for a moment in the shadows cast by the halogen lights against the maintenance trucks. He ruminated on his dilemma. The white clouds of his breath hung in the air in front of him. The cold was cutting deep into his senses, and the blood loss was probably messing with his logic ci
rcuits, or else he would’ve thought of the idea sooner.
When he finally did, Spencer could have kicked himself. He stuck the Glock back inside his jacket, then opened the bed of one of the maintenance trucks and removed one of the ladders. It took a minute for his freezing, fumbling hands to extend it, then put it up against the back of the building, which was classic brick-and-mortar, to see how high it would go. It reached just past the second storey, almost to the third. Spencer slid the ladder over to a window at the east corner of the building.
He started to climb, but on the third rung he slipped and fell back to the ground. Get it together, Spence ol’ boy, he thought. He tried once more, this time moving slowly, and not taking a step until he was sure of his grip and footing. Once at the window, he withdrew his Glock. The window was dark. He tried cupping his hands around his face to see inside, but couldn’t make out anything through the ice, fog, and darkness. He held the Glock like a hammer, struck once lightly, just to test his balance on the swing. He swung again, a bit harder this time, but it still didn’t crack the window. He finally broke it on the third try, and quickly reached it to grope for the lock.
The window slid open easily, and he clambered inside, falling over some desk and landing hard on the floor. It was warm in here. Probably not as warm as he thought, but compared to outside it felt just heavenly. He staggered around in the dark, pointing the pistol about, not knowing what threats might be around. When he finally found a light switch and flipped it on, he found he was in some sort of unused break room. A refrigerator was in one corner, and a plastic foldout table was in the middle of the floor, surrounded by metal foldout chairs and two Naugahyde chairs.
Spencer peeked out the door. The hallway seemed undecorated, and mostly utilitarian. There was a mop and roll-around bucket just sitting abandoned in the middle of the corridor. It wouldn’t be so if this were a hallway frequented by residents. Spencer figured he was in a staff-only area, a place behind the scenes for the full-time fellows who kept the suites looking nice.
No one was in the dimly-lit hall. Spencer stepped out, moving quickly with the Glock at his side. If he saw anyone, he would just have to shoot them and deal with the consequences. This late at night, there would likely be very few staff in the building, and that would mean they would all know each other very well, and would recognize an outsider at once. Not only that, but his jacket and shirt were bloodied.
He inspected doors on each side of the hall—three were locked, one was a chemical cleaner supply room, and one had a fellow at a vending machine, who barely saw Spencer’s face at all before he shut the door and kept moving down the hall. He passed a cleaning cart, looked it over for any sort of radio that maintenance or cleaners might carry, became frustrated when he found nothing of value, and kept moving.
Spencer heard running water coming from one door. He pushed it open. It led to a locker room. Steam—warm, precious, gorgeous steam—filled the air. Spencer took a moment just to lean against the wall, relishing the heat, allowing the feeling to fully return to his fingers and face. Somewhere deeper in the locker room, someone was singing. A Russian pop song that had been on the charts lately, “Novyi Russkiy,” or “New Russian.” Spencer had heard it a lot in Derbent; it was a song about those in post-Soviet Russia that had made themselves the new rich business class by criminal means. Kind of ironic, he thought. Considering who lives here.
Spencer stepped slowly into the locker room, Glock aiming around, and spotted a man behind a foggy glass door, showering in steaming hot water. Because of the fog on the door, he couldn’t see Spencer. There was a pile of clothes folded on a bench. A red blazer, which had the golden horse logo of Tsarskiy Apartments, lay neatly on top. The nametag on the blazer’s breast read Николай Громыко: Nikolai Gromyko. There was a pair of black pants underneath the blazer, neatly folded.
Without giving it a second thought, Spencer pulled his jacket off, tossed it into a nearby trash bin, and pulled on the red blazer. He secured the Glock into one pocket easily (probably a pocket meant for a radio), but the Uzi, with its long clip, wasn’t so easy to hide. He had to pop the clip out, storing the gun in one pocket and the clip in another. Hopefully, the extra bulge wouldn’t be noticed. There was a wallet in the pants, so he went ahead and pocketed that, too.
He grabbed a wet towel and threw it over his shoulder, then stepped back outside, moving with greater confidence now that he was warm and had a cover. Two staff members passed him, a woman and a man. The woman averted her gaze completely, and the man looked like he wanted to ask Spencer his name, but then Spencer cut down another hallway quickly.
At last, he came upon a floor plan mounted on the wall, meant for reference in case of evacuation. He raked his eyes over it, closed his eyes a couple times to memorize them, like looking away in flash cards, then looking at them again, closing his eyes and painting the maps on the canvas on the back of his eyelids, opening them again to fill in the gaps where his previous mind-map went wrong. He did this for twenty seconds or so, then moved on.
Stepping around another corner, Spencer came upon a wall-mounted phone. He lifted it, and dialed 9, the number in Russia usually associated with an operator. “Front desk,” said a helpful female voice.
Spencer closed his eyes, and tried to focus on his best Russian. “Yes, one of the fellows who just came in through the front ordered vodka to his room, but I think I wrote the room number down wrong. Their name slips my mind. Could you give me their room number?”
“The men who just came in?”
“Yes, there were some men who just showed up out front about ten minutes ago. There were four of them, I think.”
“Um, let me check.”
While he waited, Spencer glanced up and down the hall. An old man came walking by, slowly pushing a cart full of cleaning supplies, masking tape, duct tape, a small toolbox, a flashlight, and a brown bag that probably contained his lunch. Spencer nodded curtly to him in greeting, but didn’t smile. Smiling too big or too often wasn’t as welcome in Russia as it was in the States, he’d learned.
“Yes,” she came back. “I have those names. Metvei Lermontov, up on fifteen, suite 1507.”
Lermontov. An alias, no doubt. “That’s him. His name slipped my mind. Thank you. Wait, what’s your name again?”
“Alyona.”
“Thank you, Alyona,” he said, and hung up.
Spencer moved through the halls, following the map he’d memorized, cutting across the kitchen, which was occupied by two bored-looking cooks wiping down the ovens. He passed a cooler with a glass window, through which he spotted a 2-liter Coca-Cola bottle. He walked by it, paused, took a couple steps back and snatched a bottle from the cooler, opened it, and emptied the contents into a nearby sink.
There was a butcher knife nearby, which he used to cut a hole in the bottom very quickly, then stuffed in the wet towel he’d taken from the locker room and went back in search of the man pushing the cart full of cleaning supplies. He found him just down the hall, wiping the windows. “Excuse me, but I believe I saw that you had some duct tape? Could I borrow the roll? Thank you.” Spencer turned and cut through the kitchen once more.
The last corridor was long and dark; lights switched off to save power at night. The hall terminated at a large red door. One brawny, square-jawed man stood guard at the door, dressed in the same style of horse-logo red jacket Spencer was wearing. He looked at Spencer a little funny and opened his mouth, probably about to ask who he was, when Spencer said, “Alyona says we need to have Gregor up on twelve immediately. I know he’s in the locker room, could you go find him?” The guard didn’t know what to say to that, just held a limp hand up and stared at Spencer, befuddled, as he walked through the door. Open Sesame.
Through it, Spencer stepped out of the staff-only section and came into the main floor. Wide, white marble floors reflected the light of four giant crystal chandeliers, beneath which was a giant desk with a female worker and two security officers lounging and
watching TV. Two huge marble pillars climbed up to the high ceiling, which had a mural of half-naked people in robes—it looked like a copy of one of those old murals of antiquity that had serious religious significance. Spencer couldn’t place it, and didn’t bother trying.
He came to the elevator exactly where it ought to have been, according to his mind-map. Cameras were above each door, looking down at him like a watchful parent. The up and down buttons didn’t light up when he punched them. There was a tiny slit just above them, and he thought, Card clearance? Spencer took out the wallet he’d stolen, rummaged through it, and pulled out a card with a golden horse on it, set against the tri-colored flag of Russia. He slipped it into the slit in the wall, and the elevator buttons lit up. He tapped the button to go up. Not a second later, a soft chime went off, and the doors to his right opened. He stepped inside, and punched the button for the fifteenth floor.
Her fears crowded around her like old friends. Kaley didn’t know where they came from, but she wished they would go back. It was a sinking feeling. Something…icky. It’s him, she knew. He’s getting closer to something. Or someone. The water was churning angrily around her, though no one else saw—not the two cops standing outside, not the librarian, and not Officer Bauer. And Kaley had the vertigo, exactly as she had while on the school bus, when she’d felt pulled along those arteries and web lines that only she and Shan could detect, when she’d been pulled into Zakhar’s house to face Spencer again.
No! she thought, fighting it. I’m through with that. I’m done with him. That part of my life is over. Before, she had almost wanted to return to Russia, to check on the kids if nothing else. But having seen what effect her time with Spencer had had on her, she didn’t want to ever see him again. It was him that poisoned me, him that made me do to Laquanda what I…what I…