Krokodil

by Dustin Stevens

  I was the part that had thrown him off. He must have figured Mateo going to Yellowstone had to do with me, but my arrival, unexpected and unexplained caught him by surprise. In less than thirty seconds we could almost see the various thoughts running through his mind, from thinking maybe Mateo was nearby to my showing up had to mean he didn’t make it.

  To his credit he rallied fast, the initial shock rolling off him by the time we got to the parking lot. Within three minutes he made the journey from unaware and cooperative back to his cocksure self, complete with faux bravado.

  Diaz had tried to warn me beforehand how much it could grate on the nerves, but a quarter hour into the drive I was already starting to see how much of an understatement that had been.

  “Sure was sweet of you guys to drive all the way to San Diego to pick me up,” Carlos said, his head bobbing a bit as he talked, staring out the window. “Just felt like getting out for a drive I take it?”

  Beside me Diaz glared at him in the rearview mirror, her frown deep set, but she said nothing.

  “I mean, if you needed me to stop by the office for a chat, I would have,” Carlos added. “But this is much better. Now we get to spend some quality time together, get to know each other, then have our little discussion. I like it.”

  Once more Diaz cast her gaze at him through the mirror, but remained silent. That was the arrangement we had worked out on our way in, figuring out how to best approach Carlos.

  In the preceding months, Diaz had been forced to work with Carlos a great deal, however tenuous such a relationship might have been. Over that time they’d gotten used to each other, figuring out what buttons to push, how to try and get under the other’s skin.

  I was a complete wild card though. Carlos didn’t know me from Adam, didn’t know how long or short my leash might be, didn’t know how I reacted when provoked.

  There would be no good cop in our temporary partnership we decided, something more along the lines of bad cop/scary cop, with me playing the latter. It was a role I hadn’t taken on in quite some time, but something I figured I shouldn’t have much trouble slipping right back into.

  “Just three friends, some old, some new-“

  “Shut up,” I said from the front seat, making my voice sound as bored as possible. “You talk too damn much.”

  “Shut up?” Carlos repeated, his voice incredulous. I didn’t bother looking back at him, but I was sure he was checking Diaz through the rearview mirror. “And I talk too damn much? Isn’t that the reason you came and got me? So you could take me back, put me in that big room, making me spill my guts?”

  I rolled my head along the back of the chair to Diaz and said, “You were right. He isn’t very damn bright.”

  “Not very-“ Carlos began to protest again, his voice rising in protest.

  “Shut up!” I snapped once more, cutting him off. “This is the talk you dumbass. So shut the hell up for five seconds so we can get this over with.”

  Behind me I could sense movement, the natural reaction of any person that felt they were being attacked. I could imagine him pulling his hands in from either side and folding them across his torso, drawing his legs up tight. It was the body’s instinctive reflex, to make as small a target as possible, give an enemy as little surface area as could be.

  “Man, I don’t know who the hell you think you are,” he started again, strain in his tone. He was a man that was used to having control, being able to use his quips and braggadocio to steer a conversation. Already he was on his heels, hopefully more focused on winning the situation than the words coming out of his mouth.

  “You know who I am,” I said, keeping my gaze aimed out the front window. Beside me Diaz remained quiet, her hands locked at ten and two, attention on the road ahead. “You knew it the second you stepped out of that room. It took you a moment to place me, but you knew.”

  On the way in we’d discussed how to handle it. We knew he would probably recognize me, and that my presence would catch him off guard. The question we faced was in trying to play ignorant and work around that, or smack him in the face with it and hope it opened something up.

  Being that subtle was never my style, and Diaz seemed to operate much the same way, we opted to go right at him and see where it went.

  If nothing came of it, it wasn’t like we couldn’t find him again.

  “I, uh,” Carlos managed in the back seat, the cockiness gone from his tone.

  “Shut up,” I said again. “Don’t even try lying to us, we both saw it.”

  I paused a long moment, waiting to see if he would try a response, some blatant falsehood to attempt and reestablish the upper hand. To his credit, he remained silent.

  “That’s what I thought,” I said, nodding, letting him hear me smirk. “So tell me Carlos, why the hell did you guys send Mateo, your third in line, to find me?”

  The world outside transitioned from urban to open desert in a matter of minutes, city streets and mini malls giving way to sun baked stretches of earth, punctuated only by the occasional tufts of sage grass. A stiff wind blew in from the ocean, whipping sand along the ground, stirring what little foliage dotted the landscape.

  “Our third in line?” Carlos asked. “Man, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” I groaned, again shifting my head over to look at Diaz. “He’s really going to make us do this, isn’t he?”

  “Apparently,” she said, her voice resigned, raising her eyebrows and shaking her head. “I think I’d be a little bit more enthused to help if it was my ass on the line, but that’s just me.”

  “Me too,” I said, looking away, staring out at the side window.

  It was a pretty thin tactic, an obvious bit of bait to make him snap at, but given the situation we didn’t see where he had many options. He had brought himself in because he knew he was in trouble. Diaz had humored him the first night because she needed to know what had him spooked, but it was now time to take back the upper hand.

  If we were going to figure out what had Mateo on the run, what made Carlos jumpy, we needed to be in control.

  From the backseat, we could hear clapping. Slow, mocking slaps of Carlos smacking the palms of his hands together. “Oh, wow,” he said. “I mean, really, bravo. Quite the performance you two just put on there.

  “So let me get this straight. You guys mention Mateo, say I should be worried, then I suddenly start spilling my guts? That how this works?”

  In one abrupt movement I spun around in my seat, rising up so my knees were in the well of it, my torso pressed against the chair back. I gripped the headrest with either hand and snarled down at Carlos, his entire body recoiling into the space behind Diaz.

  “No you little shit, this is how it works. You’re supposed to tell us everything because we’re protecting your ass right now. You’re supposed to tell us everything or you can go out on your own like Mateo. You’re supposed to tell us everything or you can end up exactly the way he did.”

  I left the last part vague, wanting, needing him to at least reach for that little morsel. Beneath me I felt the car slow, just as we had planned, nothing but a lonely, desolate strip of highway visible in either direction.

  Fear flashed behind Carlos’s eyes as he looked back at me. “What happened to Mateo?”

  I met his gaze a long moment before letting a snort curl my head towards the ceiling. “The last time I saw him a nine millimeter parabellum shell had taken the entire back half of his skull off.”

  His eyes and mouth formed into three perfect circles as he stared back. “You do him?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head from side to side. “Believe me, if I do any of you guys, it won’t be that easy.”

  I was careful to use the present tense, wanting him to pick up the insinuation. If he recognized me, then he knew who I was, knew the back story.

  “Then who did?” he asked, uncertain if he believed me or not.

  “That’s what you should be worried abou
t right now,” I said. “Now get the hell out.”

  Opposite me Diaz unlocked the doors, the clicking sound of the locks releasing ringing out around us.

  “Wait, what?” Carlos asked, pushing himself down lower in his seat. “You guys can’t do that. Where the hell are we right now?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said, still glaring at him. “I told you, this was the talk. Since you’re not saying anything, this is where you get out.”

  Carlos looked at me like I was crazy, like there was a third arm growing from my forehead. Any hope he had of trying to control the situation was long past, fear splayed across his features as he looked up at me.

  “Hey man, you crazy,” he muttered. “Diaz, this guy is crazy.”

  “You had your chance,” she responded, her voice void of emotion.

  “You guys are agents, you can’t do this,” he protested, looking from me to the back of Diaz’s head.

  “No, I was an agent,” I said, leaning forward a few inches over the head rest. “But you and your boys put an end to that, didn’t you?”

  His eyes grew a touch larger as he looked up at me. I could tell he knew exactly what I was referring to, his mouth opening and closing a half dozen times, no sounds coming out.

  “Get the hell out,” I said, motioning with my head towards the door. He stared back at me, unmoving, for a long second, until I drew the Glock Diaz had loaned me from my hip holster and aimed it at him.

  There wasn’t a single bullet in the entire weapon, but he didn’t know that. All he saw was the polished steel tip of a gun aimed at his head.

  Moving slow, he reached out with his left hand and popped the door open. He stepped outside one foot at a time and shut it behind him, Diaz speeding away the instant he was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The scent of pine wafted up out of the fireplace, perfuming the entire office as Sergey Blok sat in his armchair before it, staring at the flames. Most years the Russian winter could be relied on to show up by late-November, the bitter kickoff to a season that would last at least six months, bringing with it blowing snows and Arctic chills. This year it was a full three weeks early in arriving, pulling down icy temperatures from the north, sending homeowners scrambling for firewood and boiling water based heaters.

  Being on the upper end of the social spectrum, Sergey was fortunate. He had two warehouses sitting full of firewood, product culled from the great forests on the western plains. One was exclusively for the use of his home and businesses, a cheap source of warmth that would keep his empire running through the long winter months. The other he would let sit until February, waiting until the wood had become a precious commodity, the price skyrocketing, before selling to the locals.

  The mere thought brought a smile to his face as he extended his feet out over the edge of his ottoman, the warmth of the flames licking at his toes. He kept his digits close to the fire until they could stand it no more before pulling them back and pressing them into the velvet foot stool, trapping the heat there.

  Sergey rubbed his palms over the arms and thighs of his velour sweat suit, stirring warmth in his extremities, before taking up the phone on the stand beside him. He called up the number he was seeking with a single button, the smile fleeing his face as he pressed the device to his ear and waited.

  The phone rang seven times before going to voicemail.

  Sergey killed the call and looked down at the display on the phone, the digital readout informing him it was just shy of eleven o’clock in the evening.

  “It’s noon there, dammit,” he muttered, pressing the same button to call again. “Where is he?”

  This time the phone rang six times, just shy of again going to voicemail, when the voice of his nephew came on the line.

  “Hullo?” Viktor asked, the word mumbled.

  “Viktor!” Sergey snapped. “Where the hell are you?”

  There was a momentary pause, the sound of feet shuffling barely audible over the line.

  “I’m at home, working,” Viktor replied. “Why? Where should I be?”

  Sergey again could hear his nephew moving about, the din of a door opening finding his ear. “Why the hell didn’t you answer the first time I called?”

  “I was taking a piss,” Viktor said. “I don’t carry my phone at all times.”

  The backs of Sergey’s teeth ground together as he stared into the fire. He pressed his lips into a tight line and blew an angry sigh out through his nostrils, squeezing the phone in his hand.

  For the first few years, the decision to appoint Viktor as the head of his operations in North America had proven a shrewd one. The young man was eager to prove himself, hungry and driven. He had worked long hours and brokered solid relations, taking over for the existing regime there with surprising deftness.

  In the time since though, his grasp on reality had begun to waiver. He had started to enjoy his newly acquired lifestyle a little too much, believing in the legend he was trying to build around himself.

  To combat it Sergey had tried to reassert himself. Weekly phone calls. Sending Pavel to act as a go-between. Sending Lita to Yellowstone. Slowing the arrival of the first shipment to make sure Viktor was up to the task.

  So far the combined outcome of his efforts had only served to prove that Viktor was far from capable of handling such an enormous responsibility.

  “From now on you do,” Sergey said, steel in his voice. “This is too important to mess up because I can’t reach you.”

  “Yes, Uncle,” Viktor replied, boredom, disdain, hanging from the words. “So, to what do I owe the pleasure of a midday surprise?”

  Sergey pulled the phone back and stared at it, his face twisted into a scowl. He snarled at it a moment, fighting back the urge to reach through the line and grab his nephew by the throat.

  “I’m calling to see what happened in La Jolla.”

  Another moment passed, the sound of Viktor blowing out a long sigh filling his ear. “The plan to do things quietly didn’t work. They wouldn’t deal with us. Said they didn’t trust the new model.”

  As angry as Sergey wanted to be at the news, he couldn’t say he was surprised. It was the answer he was expecting to hear, the same thing he would have said if he was in La Jolla’s position.

  “So what are you going to do?” Sergey asked, trying to keep his voice level. He didn’t want Viktor to hear judgment in his words, to have any reason to believe he was being second guessed on it.

  “I am sending a team tomorrow,” Viktor said. “I am instructing them to be as delicate as possible, but to be thorough, no matter what it takes.”

  Sergey shook his head in silence. It was exactly the answer he had figured he would hear.

  “Yes, I think that sounds perfect,” Sergey said, rolling his eyes as the words crossed his lips.

  “Thank you, Uncle.”

  A moment of silence fell as Sergey turned his gaze back to the fire, watching the orange flames curl around the charred bark of the logs, flickering upward in a serpentine pattern.

  “Okay, that is all,” Sergey said. “I was just calling to make sure everything was under control. Thank you for taking care of it.”

  “Of course, Uncle,” Viktor replied. “Feel free to call any time. I’ll be sure to have my phone on me from now on.”

  “Noka,” Sergey said, his face contorted in anger. He signed off without waiting for Viktor’s farewell, not wanting to hear one more lie, one more word dripping with condescension from his nephew.

  Sergey waited for the display on his phone to clear before pressing a second button, the line connecting. This one went straight to voicemail without ringing, the recipient most likely out of cell phone range, or keeping it off to maintain his privacy for the time being.

  Once the digitized voice informed him the caller was unavailable and asked him to leave a message, Sergey leaned forward in his chair, the warmth of the fire hitting his cheeks.

  “Pavel, this is Sergey. Call me when you get this. I need y
ou in California, as soon as possible. We have to teach somebody a lesson.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  A peculiar smell wafted out of Diaz’s office as we approached. It smelled a bit like incense, with a hint of something herbal mixed in. The moment it flitted past my nostrils I knew what it was, my mind pulled back to a time many years before. If not for the tiny pulse of mirth I felt at experiencing the scent again, my stomach would have flipped in complete revulsion.

  Beside me I could see Diaz was having that very reaction. The aroma had twisted her face into a knot, incomprehension on her face.

  “What the hell is that smell?” she asked as we drew closer.

  “You’ll see,” I said, shaking my head from side to side. “Good luck ever getting it out of your office again, too.”

  Diaz made a deep throated, guttural sound that resembled a gag as we rounded the corner into her office, the light inside already on. Standing behind the desk was Hutch, studying her bookshelves, the source of the odor sitting on the desk beside him.

  Put simply, the man looked like holy hell. Dark crescents underlined his eyes, dropping down to cover most of his cheekbones. His thin hair was matted flat to his skull and every article of clothing he wore looked like it had been wadded into a ball and stomped on a few times.

  “Hutch, how the hell do you drink that stuff?” I asked, stopping just inside the door, trying in vain to put as much distance between me and the steaming cup as possible.

  “You kidding me?” he asked without looking over. “I’ve been looking forward to this since I heard we might be swinging through town. Can’t get the real deal like it on the east coast.”

  Diaz made a face, leaning forward a few inches towards the cup and sniffing before recoiling. “You mean you actually put that shit in your body?”

  Hutch pulled his gaze away from the shelf and glanced over at Diaz, his expression stony. “I’ll have you know I never felt better in my life than when I was drinking three cups a day.”