Krokodil

by Dustin Stevens

  At first glance, Viktor looked disheveled, his steps uneven as he opened the front gate and headed towards the door. Behind him Pavel walked with both hands balled into fists, his standard issue glower more deep set than usual. He remained a couple feet back from Viktor as they made their way forward, Sergey able to almost visualize how much Pavel wanted to explode on his unwanted charge.

  Sergey waited until they were out of view before taking a seat behind his desk and waiting for them. He had given Anya explicit directions to remain out of sight for the morning, telling his butler to escort their visitors up the moment they arrived. At best the conversation that was about to take place would be heated, at worst a complete donnybrook.

  Given the circumstances, and what he’d just seen coming up the front walk, Sergey honestly couldn’t tell which outcome would be preferable.

  It took three full minutes for Pavel and Viktor to make their way up the stairs into his office, though the voice of Viktor long preceded them. Sergey could hear him stumbling around the house, bumping into items, his boots stomping against the hardwood floors. Repeatedly he berated the butler, calling for vodka and wine, demanding food after their journey. More than once Sergey wanted to jump up from his chair and go storming down the stairs after his nephew, but forced himself to remain in place. There was already enough bad word of mouth surrounding the Blok’s out there, he could ill afford to add to it by rumors of family infighting.

  If something needed to be done, it would be done quietly, far away from any curious eyes or ears.

  Pavel was the first to enter, knocking softly on the door to the office and waiting for permission from Sergey before pushing through. He walked in and stood to one side of the desk, every muscle in his body coiled, a mountain of pent-up rage, his entire being strung as tight as a guitar string.

  “Good morning, sir,” he said, his hands balled up and resting atop his thighs. He glanced down at Sergey just a moment before shifting his gaze to the wall above him, his jaw clenched.

  A moment later Viktor spilled in, the smell of booze hanging around him like a cloud. A black dress shirt hung untucked from his skinny frame, a rumpled black trench coat over it. His hair was disheveled and his eyes bloodshot, looking to still be entrenched in a bender several days in the making.

  “Uncle,” he said, coming to a stop beside Pavel, and running both hands back over his scalp, attempting to force his hair down into some form of normality.

  Sergey could feel contempt well within him as he stared at his nephew before shifting his attention to Pavel. From this point forward the young Blok was nothing more than a liability, a hazard to be hidden out of sight at all times, kept away from any serious business discussions. His handling of Baja the last few months had long had Sergey leaning in that direction, but his appearance this morning, his physical state, had sealed the decision.

  “How was your trip?” Sergey asked.

  Pavel pushed an angry breath out through his nose, a simple gesture meant to relay his displeasure, before nodding. “We arrived safely. Thank you for making the arrangements.”

  Reading between the lines, Sergey could surmise that Viktor had been a pain in the ass from the minute they left.

  “Were there any problems?”

  “No,” Pavel said. “The arrangements were clean, our identities never questioned, in Mexico or in Hong Kong.”

  Sergey nodded. His question had been aimed more to let Pavel know it was okay to speak freely about Viktor, but knew his enormous employee would never do so, mindful always of the pecking order.

  “What happened in Mexico?” he asked. Already he had received multiple reports on the incident, complete overviews covering everything from the evacuation to the apprehension by enforcement officials. He wasn’t as much interested in what the men before him had to say, but to see his nephew’s reaction.

  The politics of a family business meant that he couldn’t simply pluck away a problem person like a weed, casting them aside so that the rest of the organization could grow. He had to set a trap, allow for the individual to do something foolish, to overstep boundaries, to do something that would cause the other family members to excuse the action.

  His brother had been gone the better part of a decade, succumbing to cancer long before his time. In his stead his wife, Sergey’s sister-in-law, controlled their interest in the organization. To simply do away with Viktor, no matter how warranted the action may be, would be a stroke of disrespect to both his sister-in-law and his brother’s memory.

  “When word came in that the DEA was coming,” Pavel said, “we followed the protocol you laid out for us.”

  Beside him, Viktor raised a hand, taking an uneven step forward towards the desk. “What happened was the first time a little trouble showed up, we tucked out tail between our legs and ran away like cowards.”

  Sergey felt a flush of heat rise to his cheeks, noticed Pavel’s fists grow a little tighter, but kept his attention on Viktor. “And how would you have handled the situation?”

  “Like a man!” Viktor bellowed, stepping forward and pounding the side of his fist down on the desk. The combined sounds of the outburst rang through the office, setting Sergey back an inch, pulling Pavel closer, ready to pounce should the need arise.

  Bitterness flowed into the back of Sergey’s throat, the taste acerbic on his tongue, as he regained his bearings, staring back at Viktor. His mind shifted to the .38 revolver stowed in the top drawer of his desk, within easy reach, almost daring him to draw it and take aim. For just a brief moment he allowed himself to envision the sight of his blood spattered nephew flying backwards through the air, landing in a heap on the floor, the last little bit of air wheezing from his lungs.

  “Are you saying I am not a man?” Sergey asked, letting the rage show in his voice.

  Again Viktor pounded his fist down on the desk, the deep boom sounding out in the room. “I’m saying we should have fought! We built this business by taking what was ours, not running and hiding! Not asking for permission!”

  Unable to stop himself, Sergey rose to his feet, pressing both fists down into the top of his desk, prickly heat running the length of his body beneath his maroon track suit, sweat threatening to burst through at any moment. His eyes receded into tiny beads of black, his head glistening beneath the overhead light.

  “Listen right now you little shit,” he spat, “we didn’t build a damn thing. I built this business from the ground up, forty-five years of toiling away, day after day, to make this what it is. You haven’t done anything. If it was up to you, this whole thing would have gone down in some wild west showdown last night.”

  “No, Uncle,” Viktor said, leaning forward, his posture matching Sergey’s, “my father built this into what it is. He was the driving force. Since his death, you’ve done nothing but tread water.”

  “Tread water? Are you an idiot?” Sergey spewed back at him, spittle hanging from his bottom lip, dripping onto the desktop beneath him. “Who do you think the architect of Krokodil has been? This stuff would have been on the streets years ago, but your father wouldn’t hear of it.”

  Viktor’s face twisted itself up into a mask of self-righteousness and rage. “No! That is not true. It was all his idea to begin with, it’s just taken you this long to do anything with it.”

  “You want to call us cowards,” Sergey said, leaning forward further, continuing the attack, “the only coward here was your father, replaced now by you.”

  There were no more words between them. In one swift movement Viktor snatched his right hand up from the desk and swung it across Sergey’s face, his fingers connecting with cheek, the sound of skin slapping against skin ringing out in the room.

  The blow stunned Sergey a moment, his body snapping back more from surprise than pain. He could feel the outline of Viktor’s hand on his face, the spot tingling with each beat of his heart. His jaw dropped open as Viktor loomed before him, finger stretched out, pointing towards his chest.

  This was
the moment he’d been waiting for, the opportunity he had hoped might present itself since they first arrived. He wasn’t expecting an actual physical assault, though that worked just as well as anything he could have imagined.

  Rotating his head at the neck he turned to Pavel and nodded once, a short upward movement no more than an inch or two in length. A look of unbridled pleasure passed over the cross features of the enormous man, his right hand appearing beside his shoulder and driving itself forward, a quick, spring loaded action practiced thousands of times over the years.

  The shot caught Viktor just behind the temple, Pavel’s massive fist covering most of his victim’s face. Sergey watched as the light blinked out of Viktor’s eyes, his face going blank, his entire body falling slack. Head and shoulders leading the way, his form was lifted into the air, hanging a long moment before being dumped onto the ground, his body contorted into a heap. There was no sound from him once he hit, no movement of any kind.

  Sergey watched him fall before circling around his desk and staring down at his nephew. His intentions were never to get physical with the young man, but Viktor himself had broken that barrier first. Even better, he had done it front of a witness. Sergey could now bring his nephew home, stash him far removed from the front lines, and there was nothing anybody could say against him.

  He shifted attention up from the unmoving pile of black clothing, the smell of blood and vodka in the air. “I bet that felt good, didn’t it?”

  The corners of Pavel’s mouth peeled back in a stilted smile that looked out of place on his face. “I have been waiting years to do that.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  All told, it took just over ten hours for the Trans-Siberian Express train to deliver me from Moscow to Vladivostok. The further into my journey I got the less crowded the train became, the final two hours being spent with just a fraction of the original crowd. Most riders got off at a small town not far from the big city, using the Express as a form of modified commuter rail. Along the way we picked up a handful of strays here and there, but it was readily apparent even to me that the destination was a far less attractive place to be than the origin.

  Ten minutes on the ground confirmed just that.

  The smell of the sea filled my nostrils as I exited the train station, a dull, drab building made exclusively from grey stone. In the distance I could hear the sounds of ships in dock, see the flashing lights mounted on high, guiding vessels into port.

  Using the cover of my private compartment, I had stripped out of my jacket and shirt, putting on the polypropylene provided to me by X. Sized large it was a bit snug in the shoulders and around the middle, a harsh reminder that I was no longer twenty-eight and the size he remembered.

  Not wanting to stand out too much while still out in plain sight, I put the shirt and sport coat back on, the three layers warm almost to the point of discomfort. The ski cap I kept stowed away in a pocket, waiting until I was closer to my chosen target before sliding it on.

  At such a late hour, the city seemed to be quieting down for the night, by far the most movement coming from the docks to the south. Bathed in halogen light by banks of overhead bulbs, the entire area was as bright as noon, activity flourishing.

  After an initial glance I kept my attention aimed away from it, careful to protect my night vision. With the shoulder bag over one arm and briefcase in hand, I walked five blocks from the train station, passing rundown storefronts and decrepit eateries, none with more than a few small clumps of people inside.

  Those I did see were huddled tight together, dressed in heavy clothes, their moods somber. Nobody seemed to even glance my way as I slid by, just another faceless stranger in the city.

  Using the windshields of parked cars and the front glass of buildings, I walked slowly, scanning my tail. Content that nobody was following me I flagged a taxi down and gave him an address five blocks from my first intended target, reciting the location Pally had given me a few hours before.

  Talking it through with him, we agreed that the residence would be the best place to start. There was no way Blok would be at the production site this time of night, and showing up there first would only alert him to my presence. The odds were overwhelmingly good he already knew I was in country, or at least en route. The faux plane ticket to Kiev might have gotten him to let his guard down a bit, but that would only work in my favor for so long.

  If I started with him, there was a chance, however slim, that I could get to the production site and raise hell before anybody could warn them to my presence. If I went to the warehouse first, there was no way somebody wouldn’t tip him off beforehand. Doing so assured that he would either have an army waiting for me or disappear into the night, neither of which I was especially fond of.

  I had the taxi drop me off near what appeared to be a family restaurant, making a series of grunts and emphatic gestures to grab his attention and get him to slow. The man shook his head in complete disgust as I counted out the forty rubles for my fare, added another ten to the pile for him, and stepped out into the cold night air.

  My foot had barely touched the sidewalk when he zoomed off, a flash of tires smoking and taillights blazing, making sure I knew he did not appreciate my presence or my business. I played the part of an innocent foreign rube until he was gone before turning a hard right and heading off in the opposite direction.

  Not once in my life had I ever been to Vladivostok. I was depending entirely on the directions Pally had given me a couple of hours before, telling me exactly where I should get out of a cab and how far I should travel to reach my destination. If any part of him wanted to do me in, this was his chance, leading me into a certain trap, no way of knowing for certain that I was wrong. I could only bank on the fact that I had always done right by him, and pray he would return the favor.

  One block past the restaurant the street lights behind me faded, a quiet neighborhood taking its place. From what I could see through the darkness the street was lined with older, stately homes, all constructed more than fifty years before, comprised mostly of brick and mortar. Their exteriors appeared strong and imposing, even more so by moonlight, with towering trees dotting their yards. A handful had lights visible through the front windows, a few more with the reflected images of televisions at play dancing off of them.

  Somewhere in the distance a dog barked, setting off two more in response. On the opposite side of the street an elderly woman shuffled along, her hands shoved into the pockets of her coat, gaze aimed at the ground.

  My heels clicked against the sidewalk beneath me as I gripped the handle of the briefcase in my right hand, rested my left along the strap of my bag. Relieved of most of its cargo, the case was considerably lighter than when I’d first picked it up. The shirt inside it I now wore, the hat stowed in the pocket of my jacket.

  Both of the Mark 23’s were wedged along the small of my back, handles pointed out towards my hips, noise suppressors resting against my butt. It had made for an uncomfortable ride in the cab, sitting with ramrod posture, but it was worth it. Either one could be extracted in less than a second, already loaded and ready to be fired.

  The Garra II was slid into the front pocket of my slacks on my right side, my stronger hand. The blade was still folded shut, most likely only to be employed in the event of an emergency. That left just the phone and the spare magazines in the briefcase, packed tight against each other in the bottom of it to prevent sliding around and making costly noise.

  One by one the houses filed by on my right, my gaze flicking to the side at every third one to check the numbers. Four long blocks fell away as I walked, letting the feelings I had suppressed long ago come to the surface.

  The first time I ever laid eyes on my wife was in a genetics class my junior year of college. I was in there out of basic student obligation, looking to fill a core requirement after my first three choices were already full. She was there as a pre-med student, taking the course as an elective, hoping it would be useful in her future c
areer in medical research.

  Far and away the most beautiful nerd I had ever seen.

  Her name was Elizabeth Spence, and she hated me from the start. Some couples like to brag about how they knew the moment they met that they were going to spend the rest of their lives together. We liked to joke that if she’d had her way, we never would have even had a conversation, let alone a child.

  It took me more than six months to get her to say anything to me that wasn’t laced with arsenic, another three before she would even consider a date.

  By graduation we were engaged. Three years later, we had a daughter named Alice.

  Having had five years to dwell on it, there was a thousand things I did wrong along the way, a million more I would change if given the chance. I never would have gone into the Navy, would have told the DEA to stick it the minute they came sniffing around. Not once would I consider moving them to the southwest, leaving them alone for long stretches of time, nobody to protect them in a hostile environment.

  Of course I couldn’t change any of those things, and I’d had five long years, sixty months, two hundred and sixty weeks, to have to accept that. When most people make mistakes, they have to change jobs, move to a new city, at worst declare bankruptcy. My mistakes cost me my wife and daughter, the last two women I will ever love in this world.

  The last of the numbers dwindled down on the buildings beside me, depositing me alongside a two-story brick home framed by a front porch extended between two wings stretching out to either side. Easily the largest house on the block, it encompassed the lots to either side of it, a series of obvious additions made to it over the years, stretching the home to look like it included a dozen bedrooms, just as many others serving various purposes.

  A black wrought iron fence encompassed the grounds, a gate with a simple latch standing at the end of the front walk leading up to the door. Briefcase still in hand, I let myself in and strolled along it, noting two windows with lights on, both on the second floor.