by Chuck Dixon
Symon nodded slowly. He picked up his own glass and drained it, eyes locked on Yuri across the table.
“Yes, this business with Levon Cade must end,” Symon said to the table.
But our business is only beginning, Yuri Baghdasarian, he thought to himself.
Gunny Leffertz said:
“Do the combat math. How do you subtract the maximum number of bad guys and still end the equation with your ass left over.”
52
* * *
Yvan pulled his BMW through the west entrance to the Florida State Fairgrounds just after dawn. Tupo sat by his side. They were following the directions relayed to them by Symon Kharchenko; directions the boss received from the American the night before.
They drove behind a long stable building to the place the American told them to park. A farm show had closed the day before. There were still wranglers here loading trucks with horses. The place smelled of animal shit and caramel corn. The rest of the park was a colorful, festive ghost town of fluttering banners and empty rides.
Tupo opened the back door of the BMW and pulled Dimi out by the arm. Dimi looked like a child in oversized sweats that still had the price sticker on them. Yvan bought them at Walmart to replace the clothes they’d cut off of their prisoner. Tupo gripped Dimi’s elbow and guided him after Yvan who was walking away from the barn buildings toward the towering amusements at the other end of the grounds.
The walk toward their designated rendezvous took them far from the car. Tupo was nearly carrying Dimi by the time they reached a row of benches that sat at the foot of a sloping water slide. Yvan studied the area for any sign of the American. There was nothing here but a shuttered beer garden standing against the rear of a large exhibition hall. The only other structure in sight was a Holiday Inn the other side of Martin Luther King, easily a half kilometer away.
Tupo sat Dimi down on the bench third from the left as directed. The big man stooped to run a hand under the bench and found a plastic bag attached with duct tape. The bag held a cell phone. Tupo tapped the send button twice.
53
* * *
Through the 30x scope the image of the trio approaching the benches before the water slide looked like a movie. Distance flattened the image to two dimensions.
On the roof of the Holiday Inn, Levon Cade lay prone atop an air conditioner housing. He swung the Model 70 slightly to the right to focus on the target bench. He looked up over the top of the rifle. The south parking lot of the fairgrounds and a long exhibition building lay between him and the foot of the slide. The lot was empty. Sparse early morning traffic drifted along this section of Martin Luther King. The rush and rumble of heavier traffic reached him from the raised length of I-4 audible through the trees behind him.
Dimi was lowered onto a bench by a guy built like a wrestler. The other guy, who looked like a Mongol warrior disguised in a designer running suit, stood scanning the surroundings with a professional eye. The man’s hard eyes met Levon’s through the scope.
The big man came up with the plastic bag that Levon planted there the night before. The cell in the pocket of his windbreaker shivered. Levon touched the button on his ear piece with a gloved finger.
“Yeah.”
“We are here. What do you want us to do?”
“No girl.”
“No girl. We have Dimi. What do you want us to do now?”
“Give Dimi the phone and walk away.”
“That is all?”
“Give him the phone. Walk away. Dosvedanya.”
Levon watched the big man take Dimi’s hand and place the phone in it. The two men walked back the way they had come, leaving their prisoner seated on the bench. Dimi raised the phone to his ear.
“Hello?”
“Jenna Wiley.”
“Was that her name?”
“Where is she?”
“That is what this is? I don’t have her. I fucked her and left her.”
“Left her where?”
“I don’t have to tell you shit.”
Levon squeezed the trigger of the rifle. The suppressor on the barrel lowered the big bore gun’s report to a cough. The sound was lost in the buzz of traffic below.
Dimi leapt when the bench shuddered under him. Wood splinters sprayed over him. A fresh hole was drilled in the top board of the bench back to his right. The whole board, heavy redwood timber, was cracked end to end from the hole that appeared less than two feet away from him.
“Where is the girl?” the voice on the cell phone still clamped to his ear said.
“She’s dead. I don’t know what happened. I woke up and she was dead. Choked on puke.”
“Because you drugged her.”
“Shit. Sure. I guess.”
“Where is she now?”
“I don’t know. Buried somewhere. Dumped. I didn’t ask. Shit.”
“Someone took her then. Give me their name.”
“Dutch. The biker you met at Cotton Lake. He took her off my hands. Did me a solid.”
“Dutch Manklin.”
“Yeah. You need to talk to him.”
Through the scope Levon trained the reticle at a point just above his target’s head. Dimi was still speaking into the cell phone. Levon had cut the audio on his end to concentrate on the shot. Dimi was looking more and more agitated as he spoke, his eyes white in mute terror.
Levon brought pressure to the trigger. In the lens’ eye Dimi’s head shifted out of view.
The bullet punched a hole in the bench back where Dimi had been a half second before.
Levon jacked in a fresh round while rising to a standing position. Far away the tiny figure of Dimi was running from the row of benches. Levon lifted the rifle and found Dimi in the scope as he was vaulting the ironing railing before the water slide area. He pressed the trigger, jacked a round, and found the target again. Dimi was hobbling at speed around the bottom edge of the water slide. Levon snapped a shot. His target kept moving until he was out of sight, the mass of the slide between them.
“Jesus Palomina,” Levon said. He leapt from the air housing leaving the rifle behind. As evidence it was clean. He wore gloves while loading it. Any investigation into its background would reveal that it was on a list of ordnance believed destroyed in a copter crash in Herat in Afghanistan.
He wouldn’t need the long range rifle any more.
Now was the time for working close.
Gunny Leffertz said:
“Where angels fear to tread. Ever hear that before? Ever hear about a place where even the angels won’t go? Well, you’re going to live there, pogie.”
54
* * *
Dimi screamed as loudly as his laboring lungs would allow him. He ran deeper into the grounds, crossing the lanes between the shacks, stalls and more permanent buildings. Fear washed the pain from him. His body was wracked with deep aches from abuse at the hands of Yvan and Tupo. All of that was nothing compared to the startling agony rising from his calf.
The bullet caught him at the arc of his leap over the fence before the water slide. It ripped a furrow through the muscle at the back of his right calf. It was bleeding steadily. His whole leg went numb. Useless. He was dragging it now, feeling the pain begin to build as nerve endings got over their initial shock.
He called out as he shambled along a twisted path. There had to be someone here. Somebody had to hear him. It was the fucking state fair. The place was huge. There had to be someone still working here. Cleaners. Security. He’d call 911 himself but he’d left the cell phone behind when he bolted.
No one answered his cries. The grounds backed up on surface streets. If he could reach one of them there would cars and people. Someone would help him. He didn’t care who. All he wanted was to get away from the maniac who was shooting at him. And Tupo and Yvan. He really wanted to get away from those two sick fuckers.
He stopped screaming then. The man after him and his former captors would hear him. They were probably already looking for him.
There wasn’t time for Tupo and Yvan to have made it back to their car. They wouldn’t leave anyway. Not until they were sure it was over.
55
* * *
It wasn’t over.
Levon was across Martin Luther King and into the ground’s parking lot. He pulled the Rover as close as he could to a fair entrance. He jerked his gear bag from the back seat and leapt a turnstile to enter the grounds.
Between two exhibit halls he stopped long enough to pull the Mariner from the bag. It was fully loaded with a plastic rack of five more twelve-gauge cartridges mounted on one side of the action. He grabbed a fistful of cartridges and stuffed them in a pocket of his windbreaker.
The cries from inside the park died away as he reached the benches before the water slide. He marked the direction of the shrieking voice. He found the splash of blood where his target jumped the railing. He was over it and following the spatters deeper into the amusement area. The target was taking a winding path, using cover. The blood trail was thinning; a collection of spots here and there as blood vessels collapsed around the wound.
The target was getting farther away as he followed the path of the waning blood trail that wound back and forth. He stopped tracking and headed on the straightest path for where he’d heard the last call for help. There was a bloody smeared handprint down the side of a corndog stand as he crossed the target’s trail again. He stepped onto a broad midway and moved along one side at a trot, ears open for any sounds. The target was close. The target would break cover soon or hole up.
Levon didn’t hear the first shots meant for him.
A jet flying low overhead on its climb out of Tampa International drowned out all sound with its passage. Concrete shards sprayed over the ground striking his legs. He turned, shotgun up. The larger of the two men who’d escorted Dimi into the park was running toward him between rows of seats set before a band shell. The man had an automatic raised in his fist, emptying it on Levon’s position.
The second man, the Mongol warrior, was not in sight.
Levon dropped and rolled under the tarp of a concession stand. Rounds punched holes in the canvas. Glass from the canopy of a food warmer showered everywhere. Levon was out the back of the stand and moving low along a narrow alley that ran behind rows of stands. It was crowded with trash bins and stacked cartons. He was coming to the end of the lane when the second man stepped into view off a concourse.
Pumping round after round into the Mariner, Levon walked toward the man. Two loads of buck took the Mongol high in the chest. throwing him backwards. A third raked his legs as he fell. A fourth tore through the air, taking out the glass in front of a ticket kiosk. A nickel-plated handgun spun from the falling man’s hand.
Levon stepped into the concourse and emptied the last round, a rifled slug, into the fallen man’s head. The man’s face vanished in a red mist. Levon slid over the counter of a concession stand. He lay on his back, reloading the Mariner, then settled down to listen.
A voice called in Russian, becoming more hushed as it approached. In the inch or so of clearance under the tarp covering the front of the counter, Levon could see a pair of feet approaching. They were in leather loafers, alligator maybe.
A hissed curse as the wrestler came into view of his fallen comrade. Levon held his breath and waited. The shadow of the man was visible through the sun-washed tarp.
Levon fired through the cloth. Three rounds of buck. He heard an agonized grunt as he rose to his feet. Levon trained the shotgun down on the big man lying in the dust of the concourse with his legs shot away. The man had fallen with his gun hand under him. He was struggling to roll and free it.
Another load of buck and a slug dropped him.
That left the prime target.
Levon reloaded as he walked.
56
* * *
He caught up with Dimi Kolisnyk at the back of the grounds.
A parking area under sheltering oaks rose from the medians that separated the lanes.
The target made it to a high fence separating the fair from a residential neighborhood. He was hobbling along the fence line trying to find a way through, dragging the wounded leg behind him.
He never heard Levon coming through the trees toward him.
A round of buck swept his legs from under him.
He lay whimpering, raising bloody hands to Levon.
His mouth opened and closed soundlessly but for a whistling whine from deep in his throat.
The next load was center mass.
It lifted him from the ground in a cloud of dust.
His body was thrown against the fence.
The next stilled his convulsions.
His hands fell to the ground.
Levon dropped the shotgun where he stood. He stripped off the bloody windbreaker as he walked back into the fairgrounds. He shoved it down in a dumpster and walked on. The flannel shirt he wore underneath was a black and red check that hid the blood soaking into it.
There were no sirens until he reached the Range Rover. By itself, gunfire alone, even inside the city limits, was not a cause for an immediate police response in Florida. He hooked a left off the lot and passed a pair of Tampa police cars whirling lights as he drove to the on-ramp for I-4 East.
He didn’t stop until he saw the first signs for Disneyworld. That meant traffic and delays ahead. He pulled off and passed a few fast food joints and convenience stores until he found a gas station with an exterior men’s room. He washed the blood from his hands and face in the sink and changed from his flannel shirt into a hoodie from a Kohl’s bag. He took the flannel shirt with him in the bag.
Levon ate breakfast at a Waffle House where he was advised that the Disney traffic usually died down a little after eleven. He grabbed a coffee to go and waited in the Range Rover until the eastbound lanes lightened up.
At long range parking at Orlando International he took the Florida plates from a car without a layer of dust on it. He waited until he was past the city of Orlando and had hooked back west toward Apopka before switching the plates.
He listened to a news and talk station on the radio the whole way. No mention of a triple homicide in Tampa. Three dead white guys wasn’t worthy of breaking news these days.
It was evening by the time he turned the Rover onto 10 West for Huntsville.
Gunny Leffertz said:
“We all think of home until the day we have to come back and try to be the man we used to be. Then home can be the worst place on earth for us.”
57
* * *
Joe Bob Wiley looked twenty years older than the last time Levon had seen him. The man sat on the edge of the great room sofa he’d been sleeping on. Slept in his clothes. For days maybe. The house smelled of fried food and stale beer.
“Wife left me. I told her to but I think she wanted to go. She won’t be back now, that’s for sure,” he said, rubbing the bristles on his face.
“You understand, this is the kind of news I had to tell you face to face,” Levon said.
“I know. I know that. Thank you.”
The men listened to the sounds of geese flying over the house for the lake. Joe Bob sat forward studying the carpet. Levon sipped the beer that the boss had insisted he help himself to.
“Is there any chance?” Joe Bob looked up, eyes red and tired.
Levon shook his head.
“Can’t even have a funeral,” Joe Bob said.
“I’d give that time. The police are still putting it all together.”
They listened to the quiet a while. Levon set down the half empty bottle on a counter and stepped away from it.
“I owe you some money,” Joe Bob said standing.
“No you don’t. I didn’t deliver.”
“To hell with that. I pay my bills.”
Joe Bob left the room and came back with a checkbook, one of those big corporate books. He leaned on the counter and wrote it out in a shaking hand. Levon stood watching him tear the check from the book ev
er so carefully. He handed the check to Levon. Fifty thousand.
“Shit, you had expenses, right?” Joe Bob said. He tried to tug the check from Levon’s hand. Levon yanked it back, folded it, stuck it in his shirt pocket.
“I covered them. Consider this my severance. We’re even.”
“You’re not coming back to work for me?” Joe Bob said. He looked relieved when Levon shook his head.
“I can’t stay here. I kicked something over down there. They won’t let it rest.”
“What about me? They said they’d come back.”
“That’s just talk. They have their own problems. You can even put that away,” Levon said. He nodded toward the shotgun leaning on the sofa.
“Well, okay then,” Joe Bob said. His right hand fluttered at his side. Levon did not extend his own.
Levon walked alone to the Range Rover past the empty dog run. He drove for the interstate and Mississippi.
He stopped twice for gas and once for Wendy’s drive-through. He got off the highway in Florence to pull up to a Walmart just long enough to stuff the endorsed check from Joe Bob into a Salvation Army pot.
58
* * *
An anonymous call led Florida state police to Trevor Lee Manklin (AKA ‘Dutch’) and Douglas Raymond Ziemba (AKA ‘Dougie’) who were both in traction at Haley Veterans. Manklin suffered from multiple fractures to his legs and a split pelvic bone. Ziemba had several crushed vertebrae and broken ribs.
Blame the sweet, sweet painkillers or just being too damned tired and pissed off, the two bikers cooperated.
The next day cadaver dogs discovered the body of a Caucasian female aged eighteen to twenty-five in a grave dug for her in the scrub pines around Cotton Lake. She was packed in quicklime to hide her scent. No coyotes had dug her up.