by Steven Gore
“Why would he give it up?”
“Too many enemies at home and age, probably. He’s in his early forties now. But don’t underestimate him. Gravilov keeps him close because he believes Razor is still at the top of his game. And Gravilov’s life depends on him.”
“He sure looks the part, with his face twisted like that, his nose angling off to the side. When I saw him in London I felt like reaching out and straightening it.”
“Not a good idea. It would be the last thing you ever did with that hand.”
Gravilov’s Mercedes was already parked by the time Ninchenko and Gage arrived at a spot on the street with a view of the Grand Domus Hotel.
“I wish we had the van,” Ninchenko said. “We’re kind of exposed sitting here.”
Gage glanced over. “If anybody pays attention to us, feel free to kiss me. I won’t tell your wife.”
“I’m not married.”
“Good. I think Alla is looking for a new boyfriend.”
“It won’t be me. She’s already complained that she keeps picking the same type over and over, first her ex-husband and now Matson, and I don’t think I match the profile.” Ninchenko nodded toward the hotel entrance. “It looks like the wire transfer went through.”
Gravilov and Matson were walking down the hotel steps, preceded by the driver and followed by Hammer, carrying Matson’s luggage.
“We just need to babysit Matson until he gets on the plane,” Gage said, “then put our plan into effect to rescue Alla.”
“Which plan was that?”
Gage looked over. “I was afraid you’d ask that.”
CHAPTER 72
I n the early evening, Hixon One was reclining in his car listening to a motivational tape about how to succeed in small business and watching the entrance to Matson’s London flat. Rain was ticking lightly on the windshield. He cracked the window open as a defense against his damp breath condensing on the windshield and blocking his view. His eyes flinched when an occasional gust sprayed droplets through the gap.
He watched as a red cab drove toward him, then stopped in front of the building. Matson stepped out, dragging his luggage behind him. Hixon One saw him hand the driver a few bills, then wave off the change. As the driver rolled up his window Matson turned away, then spun back, knocking on the side of the cab. The cabbie rolled the window back down, listened for a moment, then handed something to Matson.
Hixon One sealed up his car, jumped out, and hustled across the street. As soon as the cab switched on its roof light, he raised his hand and whistled. The cab pulled over and the rear passenger door popped open. Hixon One got in.
“Bloody dismal out, eh?” the cabbie asked. “I’ll bet it’ll rain like this all the way through Christmas.”
“It’s good for the taxi business.”
“So they say. Where to?”
“St. James Square.”
Hixon One waited until the cabbie turned onto Knightsbridge for the long, straight run to Piccadilly. “Any good fares?”
“Mostly short, except for the last one, that American. But at least this shift will end with a good long ride tomorrow morning.”
“He reserved you?”
“And paid extra. For 8 A. M., all the way to Heathrow. I imagine he didn’t enjoy soaking outside of Paddington Station waiting for a cab earlier tonight.”
Hixon One rode the last few blocks to St. James Square in silence. He hopped out, waited for the cabbie to swing around the square and shoot out the other side, then hailed another taxi back to his car.
As Matson climbed into the cab in front of his building the next morning, Hixon One took up his position outside terminal one at Heathrow. An hour later, Hixon One trailed Matson from the curb to the British Airways first-class check-in. Hixon One bought a refundable ticket on the same flight and trailed Matson through the security checkpoint, then called Gage.
“He’s taking the British Airways 10:40 for San Francisco,” Hixon One said.
“Stay with him until he gets on the plane. I don’t want to take a chance of him escaping onto a flight somewhere else.”
“Why haven’t we heard from her?” Ninchenko asked himself aloud for the fourth time in an hour. Gage thought he heard more in Ninchenko’s voice than just concern for an operative.
It was 3 A. M. Gage and Ninchenko were stationed on the hill to the west of the dacha from where they could look down on the top of the menagerie, Alla’s window, the fountain, and the entrance to the mansion. Two of Ninchenko’s men, Maks and Yasha, had kept watch on Gravilov’s apartment until they were sure he and Hammer were in for the night, then took up positions in the bushes along the dacha’s fifty-yard-long driveway.
“Slava sounded nervous when I told him we may have to go in after her,” Gage whispered.
“He’s not looking for a war with Gravilov and he’s afraid what we’re doing here may start one.”
Gage’s phone rang. It wasn’t Alla.
“Graham? This is Viz. Scooby came through customs a minute ago. He’s in line for a cab, all fidgety, like a man on the run. Should I stay with him?”
“Just long enough to see whether he heads down to SatTek to get the low-noise software. A hundred says he goes home instead of paying the ransom.”
“No way I’ll take that bet. Not on that scumbag.”
Gage rang off and turned his attention back to the mansion.
“Alla thinks that all Gravilov left here are Razor and the androgynous one,” Gage told Ninchenko.
“No need to waste the extra manpower. It wouldn’t cross Gravilov’s mind that Matson would send someone to rescue her.”
Forty-five minutes later, Viz called to report that Matson’s cab had turned off from the freeway away from San Jose and was now heading toward Saratoga. “You were right, the little weasel went home.”
Gage spotted movement at the entrance to the mansion as he ended the call. Light from the interior illuminated Razor’s profile as he lit a cigar, the lighter flame giving his pale, distorted face an orange glow.
Ninchenko slowly shook his head.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Gage said. He then hoisted on his backpack and withdrew a semiautomatic from the waistband of his pants. “We’re way, way too old for this.”
“Don’t worry old man, my young helpers will be right behind us.”
“To follow us in or carry us out?”
Ninchenko laughed softly. “Probably both.” He then called Maks and Yasha and told them to seal off the entrance to the property.
Gage and Ninchenko snuck down the hill, their path through the forest intermittently lit by a last-quarter moon. Halfway down, Gage glimpsed Razor again, the glowing tip of the cigar in his left hand rising and falling. They paused and watched him pass behind the fountain in front, then work his way toward the pens and around the western wing of the house, passing under Alla’s window. He disappeared around the back and reappeared a few minutes later, walking around the eastern wing. He walked up the driveway, then back, and began another circuit.
Hooves thumped as Gage and Ninchenko continued down the hillside until they reached the rear of the pens. They stopped moving, but more of the animals alerted to their presence. Bird wings fluttered. Gage sensed the sniffing of a hyena, nose pressed into the chain-link fence three feet away. A wild pig snorted, then scraped at the ground as wolverines began to pace. A slight breeze off the river brought them the smells of fresh straw, dirt, and the odors of animal waste.
Gage looked up toward Alla’s window, hoping her phone was on vibrate, then pressed “send.” The phone rang four times, then stopped. A low-wattage light flashed in Alla’s room. He called again, let the phone ring once, then disconnected.
They waited until Razor completed another circuit and walked up the driveway, then Gage signaled for Ninchenko to head toward the rear of the mansion. As Ninchenko crept forward, angling past the western wing and around to the back, Gage set about to create enough chaos to keep Razor away from the
house long enough for Ninchenko to slip in and rescue Alla without engaging in bloodshed that would provoke the gang war Slava wanted to avoid.
Gage shoved the gun under the waistband at the small of his back, then slid off his backpack, removed bolt cutters, and worked his way along the front of the pens. In the darkness, he nearly stumbled over a rake. He felt for the lock on the antelope pen, then carefully slipped the jaw around the shackle and pressed the cutter arms together. The cheap Ukrainian metal parted in silence. Gage twisted the lock free, opened the gate, then moved on. He passed on the wild pigs, then opened the peacock and deer pens in turn.
Gage waited for the animals to realize they were free, but they didn’t catch on, so he worked his way back past the antelope pen and retrieved the rake. He felt the length of it. It was heavy like a medieval pike, with a dozen clawlike steel tines. He slipped inside and side-stepped along the fence until he spotted two moonlit eyes fixed on him. A slight breeze disturbed branches above, then moonlight fell on four more eyes and horns pointing skyward. The eyes followed Gage as he tried to sneak behind them, then disappeared into blackness as they turned away from the moon. Gage glimpsed the silhouette of a set of horns, guessed where the rump was, then gave it a whack. The startled antelope led a charge of the four-member herd away from Gage. Using a double-handed grip, he swung the rake in wide arcs until all of them found the open gate.
But the delay had been costly. As Gage followed the charging animals into the gap between the front door and the fountain, he spotted Razor running down the driveway-and Razor spotted him.
The antelopes scattered, leaving Gage without cover and facing Razor, now crouched six feet away with a semiautomatic in his hand. The expression on Razor’s face suggested puzzlement, rather than fear or rage, as if it didn’t make sense to him that the Matson he’d observed had it in him to organize a rescue.
Razor pointed his gun at the rake and then at the ground, signaling Gage to drop it. Gage bent forward as though in submission and slowly lowered it. Razor’s head snapped to his right at the sound of thudding feet in the woods, mistaking the running of panicked animals for more attackers. Gage yanked the rake upward, catching Razor’s wrist with the tines. The gun spun free. Razor neither recoiled nor dived for it. He simply reached under his coat and emerged with a Russian combat knife.
Gage didn’t think he could get to his gun before Razor got to him, so he kept him at bay with the rake. He heard the crash of Ninchenko kicking in the back door, then the rat-tat-tat of an automatic weapon, followed by two gun blasts, then a third.
The war Slava had hoped to avoid had begun.
Razor charged inside the arc of the swinging rake. Gage ducked, then threw an uppercut at the man’s twisted nose. Razor’s hands involuntarily rose to his face. Gage crouched and threw a right cross into the base of his rib cage. Razor grabbed and hugged Gage like a punch-drunk fighter, then gouged at his back with the knife. Gage’s body told him he was being hit, while his mind told him he was being stabbed. He dropped to the ground and wrapped his arms around Razor’s knees, then rolled, twisting him from his feet, his arms flailing as he fell. Razor’s legs kicked and shook but his torso flopped like a rag doll along the ground. Gage heard him grunt, then felt the spasms of his body’s uncontrollable jerking until it finally went limp. Gage yanked Razor’s lifeless left arm behind his back, then saw that his head lay propped at an awkward angle. Gage pushed it to the side and saw the knife handle and half of the blade sticking out of the dead man’s neck.
A window exploded, followed by Alla’s screams.
Maks and Yasha ran up as Gage picked up Razor’s gun. He pointed toward the front of the house, and they followed him inside. He signaled for them to secure the first floor, then he snuck down the long foyer toward the back of the house until he reached a closed door. He pressed himself against the wall beside it, pushed it open, then dropped to a crouch and ducked his head forward into what turned out to be the kitchen. He spotted Ninchenko’s legs to the left and a stocky body curled in a pool of blood on the opposite side of the room, a nearly bloodless bullet hole centered in the man’s forehead.
Gage crawled toward Ninchenko, propped against the stove, eyes closed. Ninchenko struggled to raise his gun hand in response to the sound of Gage’s movement.
“It’s me, amigo,” Gage whispered, then pressed Ninchenko’s hand back down. He saw two holes in Ninchenko’s jacket, one below his left shoulder and one in his lower chest.
Ninchenko opened his eyes a fraction, then tilted his head upward toward Alla’s room. Gage nodded, then pushed himself to his feet.
Gage met Maks and Yasha in the foyer. He waved them toward the kitchen, saying Ninchenko’s name.
Alla screamed again as he ran up the stairs.
He followed the screams up the next flight and toward an open door at the end of a hallway. Gage peeked around the doorjamb. Alla stood on a chair in the far corner, swinging a lamp at a squat woman in a tracksuit who was grabbing at her.
“ Nakonec! ” Alla yelled, looking across the room at Gage.
An androgynous, slug-shaped woman turned toward the door. Alla swung the lamp high in the air and brought it down on the top of the woman’s head and she crumpled to the carpet.
“Finally!” Alla repeated, this time in English, then jumped down from the chair and kicked the woman in the ribs.
Gage ran over and pulled her away.
Alla struggled against his grip. “Let me go.”
“We don’t have time for you to get even. Ninchenko’s hurt.”
Gage tied the woman’s hands with the lamp cord so she couldn’t get to a phone to warn Gravilov when she regained consciousness, then they dashed down the stairs and to the front of the mansion, where they spotted Yasha easing Ninchenko into the backseat of a car. Maks ran from the direction of the menagerie carrying Gage’s backpack and bolt cutters, and Razor’s knife.
Gage and Alla got in on either side of Ninchenko in the backseat while the others jumped into the front. Gage unbuttoned Ninchenko’s jacket, then reached inside, pressing a palm against each wound.
Maks called ahead to the hospital as they sped through the countryside. By the time they neared the city limits, Ninchenko lay slumped in the seat, motionless, his skin ghostlike in the dashboard lights.
CHAPTER 73
A white-coated doctor waited in the darkness just off the grounds of the Dnepropetrovsk Clinical Hospital. Maks stopped the car and handed a roll of bills to the doctor, who then followed the car to the emergency entrance.
The doctor snapped orders in Russian, then spoke softly to a nurse as he walked into the hospital. Gage and Alla followed behind as orderlies lifted Ninchenko onto a gurney and raced him down a grimy pale green hallway into pre-op. They watched through an open door as his clothes were cut off and he was rolled into the operating room.
“What did the doctor tell the admitting nurse to put in the record?” Gage asked Alla.
“That Ninchenko was in a car accident. Internal bleeding.”
Gage leaned back against the wall as an elderly couple shuffled by, carrying clean sheets and towels and containers of food. Bleary eyes spoke of a long journey on Soviet-era streetcars and of a hospital too poor or too corrupt to meet even the most basic needs of its patients.
“What happened outside of the dacha?” Alla asked.
Gage shrugged, then looked over. “Let’s just say Razor gave his life for the greater good.”
She smirked. “Self-sacrifice didn’t seem to be his game.”
“I think he surprised himself.”
“You surprised me,” Alla said. “I had no idea you were coming until the phone vibrated the second time.”
Alla fell silent as a nurse passed by, then said, “Stuart wasn’t coming back, was he?”
Gage shook his head. “And we needed to move in before Gravilov figured that out.” He turned away from the wall to face her. “I didn’t tell you before because I was afraid you’d panic and try to
take them on yourself.”
Alla stepped forward, pulling Gage’s shoulder farther away from the wall.
“What’s that?” She ran her fingers over red smears on the paint, then showed them to Gage. “This is blood.”
Alla pulled Gage around until his back was to her.
“He slashed you. Can’t you feel it?”
She reached up with both hands and grasped his collar, pulled his coat down, and dropped it to the floor in one motion. Blood on his shirt circled the wounds.
“It just feels bruised,” Gage said, reaching around to probe his back. Alla pulled his hand away.
“Wait here.” She strode down the hallway, returning a minute later with a pouting nurse with a large mole on her cheek, who led them to an examining room. Gage removed his shirt, then the nurse cleaned the wounds.
“How bad is it?” Gage asked.
“They’re about two inches across and about a quarter-inch deep,” Alla said. “It looks like he was stabbing at an angle.”
Alla spoke with the nurse in Russian, then said, “She wants to stitch them.”
Gage reached into his wallet, withdrew a twenty-dollar bill, and held it up. “Tell her I want a new needle, unopened surgical thread, and a course of antibiotics. German.”
Alla translated.
The nurse smiled, accepted the money, and left the room. She returned a few minutes later and laid out the items for Gage’s inspection. Both the needle and thread were sealed in plastic. She opened the box of antibiotic tablets to show they hadn’t been tampered with.
“O-kay?” she asked in English.
Two hours later, the doctor emerged from the operating room wearing a bloodstained smock. He and Alla conversed briefly in Russian near the swinging doors. After he walked away, Alla turned toward Gage with a quick smile and a thumbs-up.
“What did he say?” Gage asked as she approached.
“The first thing was that he wanted to know when he’d get the rest of his money.”