Condemned

by John Nicholas Iannuzzi

  At the corner, smoking a cigarette, was Sascha Ulanov in a pair of jeans and a black tee-shirt. As the TransAm approached, Sascha made eye-contact with the driver.

  “Looks like our boy,” said Santiago.

  “Appears that way,” said Castoro, driving slowly. A car behind the TransAm sounded an impatient horn. The light at the corner turned red. Castoro brought the car to a stop at the corner, lowering his window.

  “Excuse me,” he said to Ulanov. “Which way is Brighton Beach Avenue?”

  “You’re going in the right direction,” said Ulanov, moving toward the TransAm. He gestured straight ahead. “You got something for me,” he said into the car.

  “Right here,” said Santiago, handing an envelope containing ten thousand dollars in marked bills to Castoro.

  “Keep it low,” said Ulanov

  Castoro raised the envelope only to the bottom of the window opening.

  Still bent forward, but looking and gesturing toward the elevated trains over Brighton Beach Avenue ahead, with one motion, Ulanov snared the envelope and stuffed it into the neck of his tee-shirt. He stood. The traffic light turned green. The car behind the TransAm sounded its horn angrily several times.

  “Get the fuck out of here!” Santiago said urgently. “Get the fuck out of here!”

  Castoro glanced at Santiago, quickly stepping heavily on the gas at the same time. The wheels of the TransAm chirped the car forward. Santiago ducked down in his seat as they crossed Avenue Z. “What’s up? What happened?”

  Santiago leaned over and took the radio from beneath Castoro’s seat. “Mother Hen, Bird Dog One. Come in” he said excitedly. Castoro was half watching the road, half watching Santiago.

  “Mother Hen.”

  “Our friend Tony Balls is walking toward the pigeon in the black tee-shirt.”

  “You serious?”

  Castoro looked in his rear-view mirror. He saw the tall, broad figure of Tony Balls nearing the corner of Avenue Z and Ocean Parkway. “I’ll be damned.”

  “God is good,” said Becker. “Good work, Bird Dog One. Continue moving away from the subject.”

  “Roger.”

  As he drove away, Castoro saw Tony Balls’ reflection in the rear-view mirror stop near the man in the black tee-shirt, appearing to be asking directions.

  Carlisle Barracks, PA : August 11, 1996 : Noon

  Mulvehill sat at a small table in the Rec room in the barracks, reading a magazine devoted to guns, ammunition, and shooting. Geraghty sat with Hardie on the couch, watching a videotape of The Godfather, Part I. Geraghty had his feet up on the magazine-strewn coffee table; Castoro was on assignment today in Manhattan. Santiago was in the bathroom, brushing his teeth.

  “I never get tired of watching this tape,” said Geraghty, stretching his arms above his head.

  “I don’t know how you can watch that bullshit,” said Mulvehill, standing, walking to a small refrigerator. “It glamorizes the Goombas, which sends the wrong message to the public. Makes them, the Goombas, seem like they really have things together, like they know what they’re doing, when we know that they’re really a bunch of assholes with a phony set of rules and regulations—which none of them pay any attention to nowadays, anyway.”

  “It’s only entertainment,” said Hardie, “like that Star Trek show you like. It’s not real.”

  Mulvehill glanced at Hardie. “Who the fuck asked you to join into this conversation?”

  Hardie shrugged. “Just a friendly remark.”

  “I think the guy has a valid point,” said Geraghty.

  “Pound some salt up your ass.” Mulvehill said. He looked at his watch. “It’s noon,” he announced loudly. “Time for a beer.” He stood and walked to the refrigerator. “Want one?” he said to Geraghty.

  “One thing we always know around here is noon time,” Santiago called from the bathroom.

  “You want one or not?” said Mulvehill.

  Geraghty shrugged. “I don’t want you to drink alone.” He rose and took a bottle of beer from Mulvehill. “Want one?” he said to Hardie. Red shook his head. “Want a beer?” he called to Santiago.

  “Too early for me, noon or not.”

  “You’re going to brush your teeth down to nothing,” Mulvehill called out to Santiago.

  “Cheaper than the dentist.”

  “Last night I was freezing my ass off again,” said Mulvehill. “And while I’m tossing and turning, and I began thinking of Lou Castoro—which you got to admit is a pretty miserable thought to have—I was thinking about that son of a bitch at home last night, warm and toasty in a civilian house, and here we are, freezing our asses off on an army base, because the foreman asshole won’t turn the heat on.”

  “Coming from you, that’s subversive, anti-government sentiment,” said Geraghty.

  “I may be a company man on some things,” said Mulvehill, “but it’s our asses that are freezing here. I called the Boss at home early this morning, while you guys were still asleep. I told him I thought it was time—”

  “For the electric blankets?” called Santiago.

  “What’d he say?” said Geraghty.

  “He said, okay.” Geraghty and Santiago cheered. “First, he said, send Marty over to the Base Superintendent’s Office one more time to find out if they’re planning to put some heat in this joint.”

  “It’s a waste of fucking time. They’re not about to turn the heat on,” said Geraghty.

  “If they’re not going to turn it on today, then, okay, we’ll go this afternoon and buy some blankets—as long as you didn’t change your mind about paying,” he said to Hardie.

  “Didn’t change my mind,” said Red.

  “You really want me to go and check with the Base Superintendent about the heat?” said Geraghty. “You know he’s not going to turn it on by tonight.”

  “The Boss said you should go, so yeah, we’ve got to do it by the numbers. If nothing has changed—and I doubt it has—we’ll go this afternoon. Enough of this stiff upper-lip shit. Take Santiago with you to the Office, so he gets to know the lay of the land.”

  “You’ll be here alone with—”

  “He’s not running anywhere,” Mulvehill said with a thin smile. “You’re not running anywhere, are you?”

  “You never know,” smiled Hardie.

  As soon as Mulvehill finished his statement about buying the blankets, and directing both Geraghty and Santiago to go to the Base Superintendent’s office, Red’s mind began to race. Why would he send both Geraghty and Santiago away? he thought to himself, leaving me alone with him? He wouldn’t have done this on his own. Supervisor Becker must have instructed him on this. Jesus! This doesn’t sound right.

  “Bullshit. You’re not running anywhere,” said Mulvehill. “Even you aren’t that dumb.”

  “You sure?” said Geraghty.

  “Sure, I’m sure he’s not dumb enough to try to escape.”

  “No, about us going?”

  “Yeah, sure. Piece of cake,” said Mulvehill. “Stop at the ‘PX’, grab some beer.”

  Geraghty rose from the couch, stretched, took a long pull on the neck of his beer, then took his leather windbreaker from a hook near the door. “C’mon,” he called to Santiago.

  “I’ll be right there,” Santiago called back.

  “I’ll wait in the car.”

  “Pick up some cigars, too,” Mulvehill added.

  “Can you pick up a bunch of candy, O’Henrys, Almond Joy, and those Jolly Rancher things?” Hardie asked. “Here’s some dough.” He handed twenty dollars to Geraghty. “Buy the chief a couple of good cigars instead of those cheap ropes he smokes.” He handed Geraghty another ten.

  “Get the really good cigars they’ve got there,” Mulvehill said. “Te Amos.”

  “See you in a little.” Santiago said, grabbing his jacket and going out to the car.

  Mulvehill sat on the couch, watching the twelve o’clock news on TV. “You know,” he said, taking the cellophane from a cigar. �
��I did a lot of thinking when I was freezing my ass off last night—” Hardie watched as Mulvehill lit his cigar, the flame leaping from the match with each draw of his breath. Mulvehill took the cigar out of his mouth to inspect the lit end. “Yeah, I figured, why fight nature? That’s why I said to the Boss, what the hell would be so wrong with us having a couple of them electric blankets—especially, if Hardie is paying for them?” Mulvehill laughed.

  Red said nothing. He was just listening, his eyes never leaving Mulvehill.

  “Your offer still stands, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Hey! You know what’d be a great idea. Let’s you and me go to the mall now. We’ll get the blankets and surprise the boys when they get back,” said Mulvehill. “That Base Super is never turning the heat on by tonight.”

  “Just you and me?”

  “Yeah, why not? We can go and come back. They’ll be surprised as hell when they get back. The mall’s only what—fifteen, twenty minutes away?

  “You and me, alone in the woods?” Hardie said.

  “I don’t think you’re going to jump me, are you?” He looked at Hardie with a confident air. “Besides, escaping won’t exactly be an escape. You’ll be as vulnerable to the drug scumbags who are looking for you as a turtle without a shell.”

  “The only people looking for me are ones that you all encouraged by putting me in this God-forsaken place that you’ve got me in.”

  “There was a contract on you. You heard what the A.U.S.A. told the Judge in court.”

  “That was all a load of horse manure,” said Hardie. ‘Just an excuse for putting me in solitary to make me look like I’m a snitch.”

  “Yeah, like the Government has been wasting all this time and effort protecting you because it’s horseshit,” said Mulvehill.

  “Maybe we ought to wait for Geraghty and Santiago, so they can pick out the blanket color they like,” said Hardie.

  “You kidding? Come on,” Mulvehill said abruptly. He stood and looked at Hardie.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea to go right now.”

  “It was your idea. And now it’s become my idea. On your feet!” Mulvehill said forcefully. He stood facing Hardie, his legs spread, a determined look on his face.

  Hardie looked around, thinking he might need a defensive weapon. Maybe, he thought, he could pick up a branch for a walking stick. Maybe there’d be something in the car.

  The road leading away from the barracks was long and straight, cut through a forest of dense trees that stretched for acres on each side of the road. Once through the fenced perimeter of the Base, the road and the canopy of climax trees continued unabated. Hardie was in the front passenger seat of the Government vehicle. His hands were handcuffed together. He had checked the backseat quickly as he entered the car. There was nothing there he might be able to use to defend himself. He gazed out the side window as they drove through the forest.

  “Sorry about the cuffs,” said Mulvehill, “Regulations. Supposed to be behind your back. But, that’d be too uncomfortable a position for you to sit.”

  “No problem,” said Hardie. “Am I going to keep these things on when we’re in the mall?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m not going to be parading you in front of all those innocent citizens at the mall in handcuffs—although I should. You’ve got to be able to get your hands in your pockets to pay for the blankets, right?” Mulvehill laughed.

  “If I’m going to walk through the mall without any handcuffs, why the hell do I have to wear them in the car?” Red definitely did not like what was happening. Not at all. If regulations meant anything, Mulvehill shouldn’t have taken him without at least one other Agent with him. Worse still, he thought, Mulvehill was too much a regulations guy to be taking him on this trip alone, unless he had received specific instructions from Becker to do so. Which meant that this whole thing was being orchestrated from New York.

  “I can give you the answer in one word—rules is rules.”

  “Regulations also require at least two of you to accompany me if I’m outside the barracks, right?” said Red.

  Mulvehill neither answered, nor turned his head. He concentrated on the road. The car proceeded around a bend, descending downhill through the forest. Mulvehill’s window was open. A damp, forest smell filled the car.

  “I’ve got to take a piss,” said Mulvehill as the car approached a large rock formation, almost twenty feet high, on the right side of the road. He slowed the car onto the shoulder of the road, stopping a few feet from the rock face. “You got to go?” he asked Hardie as he opened the driver’s door. The motor was still running.

  “No, I’m okay,” Red said apprehensively.

  Mulvehill walked toward the large rock formation, stepping behind it to be hidden from the road. “What’s the matter, you don’t want the trees to see you?” Hardie called out. Mulvehill didn’t answer.

  From the side of his eyes, Red saw something moving in the shadows across the road. Staring into the forest, Red discerned two shadows, two men, moving now into the open from behind large trees. They were both carrying rifles. Deeper yet in the wooded area, Red saw an off the road vehicle. The two riflemen moved forward toward the road, toward him. He glanced toward the rock. Mulvehill was not in sight.

  “Mulvehill,” Red shouted. There was no answer. He glanced back at the men with the rifles. They were still advancing. Red ducked down in his seat, reaching forward with his manacled hands to push open the door handle. A shot rang out, a bullet splintered the front windshield as Red rolled out through the open door and fell to the ground. He struggled to his feet. Another shot exploded behind him, and a large chunk of a tree above his head burst away. He bounded upward and forward into the forest, running in a zig-zag fashion, behind trees, deeper into the forest.

  He heard shouting in a foreign tongue. And more shots. Although Red ran as fast as he could, it seemed as if he were running in slow motion, excruciatingly slow motion. The foreign language echoed in the void of the forest. What language was that? he wondered, thinking of what Money had told him about Awgust and some people in the Flash Inn. “Who gives a shit what language it is. Run!” he screamed aloud to himself as he bounded between trees.

  Further back in the woods, Sascha Ulanov aimed along the barrel of his rifle at the fleeing figure in the woods. He fired again. Behind, and to Ulanov’s left, Uri Mojolevsky, fired another shot. Sascha took careful aim into the woods, cursed in Russian, and fired. Uri fired again as well. Sascha stared into the fastness, growling something in Russian to Uri. They both saw that the fleeing Red Hardie continued moving away from them. Sascha said something as he ran after Red. Uri turned and ran back toward where the vehicle was parked. He began shouting and waving his arms over his head.

  The motor roared to life, the vehicle turning and driving toward Uri. He jumped into the passenger seat of a dark green Jeep Cherokee that bounded out of the woods, across the road, and back into the forest in the direction that Red had run. Uri leaned out the window and fired again.

  Mulvehill stepped out from behind the rock where he had been crouched. He walked toward the middle of the road, took the 9 mm pistol from the holster on his hip, and aimed at the Government vehicle. He fired several shots into the body of the car, one through the window. From the woods, he could hear shots and shouting, and the straining sounds of an engine echoing through the trees.

  Mulvehill took out a radio and flipped on the power. “May Day, May Day,” he shouted excitedly into the mouthpiece. “Being attacked. May Day! On the road to the Base. May Day. Do you read me?” he screamed. “Come in, for Christ’s sake. Do you read me?” Mulvehill jogged to the far side of his car and dove to the ground, crawling around in the dirt on his hands and knees to dirty his clothes.

  In the woods, the ground suddenly dropped away steeply before Red Hardie. He struggled in the densely overgrown bushes and between tightly growing trees, descending into some kind of valley. As his hands were still in ma
nacles, Red was not fully balanced as he ran. He aimed himself into the trunks of trees, bouncing his shoulders into the trunks to keep from falling as he dropped deeper into the overgrowth. He could hear the growl of a vehicle chasing him. The voices spewing the foreign language were angry, shouting harshly. Red had an excruciating ache in his left side. He could hardly move forward. There was a crashing sound of the vehicle descending into the valley behind him, speeding through and breaking branches as it plunged. Red leaped forward with terror.

  Mulvehill stood up and looked at his clothes. Not dirty enough, he thought. He lay down on the ground again and wriggled on his belly in the dirt. “Does anyone read me. This is Special Agent Mulvehill, D.E.A. I’ve been attacked on the road between the Base and town, South Road. We’re being shot at. May Day, May Day.”

  “Where are you, over,” said a voice on the radio.

  “Oh Jesus. I’m on the road from the Base to town; we were going to town. South Road. Near a huge boulder on the east side of the road. Need help. Hurry. Shots, assassins.”

  “Roger. We read you. We’re on our way.”

  Mulvehill studied himself in the rear view mirror of the car. He reached down and picked up a rock, flat, about the side of a baseball. He swung his arm and hit himself in the forehead with it. “Jesus Christ!” he exclaimed aloud, “take it easy. Don’t break your own fucking head.” He scooped up some dirt and rubbed it over the lump he had just inflicted on his forehead. He could feel some blood trickling down.

  Hardie was at the end of his energy. In addition to the gnawing ache in his side, he could hardly breathe. Ahead, he saw that a huge tree had fallen in the midst of the forest. The ball of its roots had pulled a great mass of earth out of the ground, leaving a deep excavation under the root ball. It extended into dark shadows. The thrashing noise behind him sounded closer, more threatening. He jumped down into the hole under the fallen tree, crawling in as far as he could under the root ball. The crashing and cursing of someone thrashing through the woods came closer. Hardie forced himself to stop panting and gasping for breath.

  Two men, shouting in a language Red did not recognize, were quite near now. Hardie was perspiring profusely. The earth was dank, moist smelling. He thought that soon he would be part of that earth. If this guy above found him in the hole, he would be shot and left to rot, right where he was, to be eaten by worms and maggots, to spend eternity in the belly of little insects in a hole in the middle of a forest. He wedged himself further under the root ball.