The Hunters h-1

by Chris Kuzneski

  He offered her a drink, but she declined.

  She said, ‘And risk missing a single detail of these glorious maps?’

  That had made him smile even wider as they plunged into his collection. Instead of the customary response of tolerant boredom from young workers, the woman absolutely sparkled at his stories about the heroes of Russian rail: Yefim Cherepanova, and his son, Miron, who built Russia’s first steam-powered locomotive; Pavel Melnikov, creator of the first Russian railway; Fyodor Protsky, inventor of the first electric tram, and more.

  Finally he got to his own family’s contribution, starting with his grandfather, Bela. He showed her his most prized treasure, which he kept tucked behind a vintage railway lantern.

  ‘It is the history of my grandfather’s homeland in a single small disc,’ he said as he reverently picked up an old velvet-lined wooden box that Jasmine had originally mistaken for a magnifying glass container. His thick, stubby fingers showed remarkable gentleness as he removed the object within. The murky, butter-colored light gleamed off the coin.

  ‘Wow,’ she breathed, slowly raising her hands to her cheeks.

  Using the cover story that Papineau had organized for them, Cobb had assigned each member of his team a different group to investigate. McNutt was rooting out black marketeers who may have trafficked the gold or knew of someone who did. Garcia was hanging out with railroad software designers. Sarah kept her ears open around officials’ wives, girlfriends, and mistresses, who learned more from pillow talk than most intelligence services discovered through wiretaps.

  But Jasmine had hit the jackpot with Andrei Dobrev.

  He knew more about the railroads than their other sources combined.

  ‘Whoa,’ Hector Garcia said in their tiny office at the Moscow train station, approximately nineteen miles to the northeast of Dobrev’s apartment. He looked up from the image on his screen, an image that was being transmitted from a button camera on Jasmine’s blouse.

  ‘What is it?’ Papineau asked, coming around his desk in the unadorned guest offices the train station had supplied them.

  ‘You tell me,’ Garcia replied from his table, which was covered in computers, cell phones, modems, routers, and wires.

  Papineau leaned over his shoulder and whistled softly at the sight that bounced on the tablet screen. ‘My word!’ he marveled. ‘That’s a gold leu!’

  ‘A gold what?’ Garcia asked.

  ‘Did you not do the reading that Cobb and I assigned to the team?’ Papineau scolded.

  ‘I read it all. I just don’t remember it.’

  ‘Tragic,’ Papineau said, only half paying attention to the younger man.

  ‘It’s called the Internet Era,’ Garcia said in a defensive tone. ‘It’s knowing where to find information instantly that matters, not memorizing it.’

  ‘And if, let’s say, you were on river rapids or in a cave with no reception?’

  ‘Then I wouldn’t be worried about a leu. I’d be worried about drowning or starving,’ Garcia assured him. ‘So, what is it again? The coin, I mean.’

  ‘It’s a first-series leu,’ Papineau said, leaning in to get a better look. ‘The gold twenty-lei coin was issued in 1868. Less than five hundred were minted, so this is a rarity.’

  Garcia glanced at him, confused. ‘Is it a leu or a lei?’

  ‘Leu is singular; lei is plural.’ Papineau practically put his nose against the screen. ‘Zoom closer. I want to see it better.’

  Garcia tapped the screen to freeze the image, then slipped the live feed to the side so he could study the coin without losing Jasmine’s progress.

  Papineau studied the image just to make sure. As expected, the left profile of Carol I appeared on the front. The inscription read: CAROL I DOMNULU ROMANILORU. In English, it meant: Carol the First, Prince of the Romanians. ‘What a beautiful coin. I wonder, where did the likes of Andrei Dobrev get something like that?’

  ‘He said from his grandfather.’

  ‘I meant his family in general. How did they get a coin of such value?’

  ‘Guys,’ McNutt whispered from his perch across the street from Dobrev’s apartment.

  Papineau ignored the voice in his earpiece. He still wasn’t used to the tiny, flesh-colored communication device that Garcia had inserted near the bottom of their auditory canals. It served as both mic and speaker, and it was so precise that it could detect the faintest whisper.

  For privacy purposes, team members selected codewords — one for the mic and one for the speaker — that would temporarily deactivate their personal unit. Say the ‘mic’ word, and the microphone toggled off. Say it again, and it came back on. The same applied for the ‘speaker’ word. To prevent accidental muting, team members selected codewords that wouldn’t come up in everyday conversation. Words like pumpernickel and Travolta.

  Papineau continued to speak. ‘Perhaps it was a bribe of some kind.’

  ‘Or a very generous tip,’ Garcia suggested.

  ‘I wonder, is there any way you could check his bank records from that time?’

  ‘Guys!’ McNutt shouted. ‘Quit your blabbing and listen to me!’

  His voice was so loud it caused their earpieces to squeal.

  Papineau winced from the sound. ‘Why are you yelling?’

  ‘Why? Because you’re ignoring me!’

  ‘That’s because we’re working.’

  ‘Well, I’m working, too,’ McNutt growled. ‘And I wanted you to know that someone is coming!’

  21

  McNutt had been watching Dobrev’s apartment — and everything that happened inside — from his vantage point on a rooftop directly across the street. From there, he could also keep an eye on the hallway outside Dobrev’s door. His line of sight gave him the opportunity to warn Jasmine and the others of any unexpected visitors. His Soviet-made Snaiperskaya Vintovka Dragunova sniper rifle, or SVD, gave him a way to make those unexpected visitors go away forever.

  McNutt peered through the Barska tactical scope and explained the situation. ‘You’ve got a white male standing outside Dobrev’s door.’ He was a short, wiry, young man with a crew cut and a sour expression. He was wearing sneakers that had no shoelaces, black pants, a black leather jacket, and a faded T-shirt. ‘He must’ve come from one of the apartments.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Papineau questioned.

  ‘Well,’ McNutt explained, ‘he wasn’t at the door five seconds ago when I scanned the hall, so unless he came down through the ceiling or materialized out of thin air, I’d say he just stepped out from one of the neighboring units.’

  ‘Understood,’ Papineau agreed.

  ‘Thor Steinar mean anything to anyone? It’s written across his shirt.’

  Garcia’s fingers pounded his keyboard as he searched the Web. He skimmed the results before he informed the team. ‘Thor Steinar is a clothing designer. It seems he’s especially popular among skinheads and neo-Nazis. He has a lot of fans in Russia.’

  ‘Hold up! Thor is a skinhead?’ McNutt said, confused. ‘That doesn’t make any sense. He has long hair in the comic books. It’s even longer than mine.’

  ‘Different Thor,’ Garcia assured him.

  ‘Thank God! Because that Thor is tough to kill.’

  ‘Of course he’s tough to kill. He’s the God of Thunder.’

  ‘No shit, Hector! I know he’s the God of Thunder. I’m not an idiot.’

  Sitting outside in an SUV, Cobb rolled his eyes at the discussion that was clogging the intercom. The more he listened, the less confident he felt. It was the type of conversation one would expect at a comic book convention, not in the middle of an important mission.

  Cobb growled, ‘Knock it off! Tell me what’s happening!’

  McNutt quickly snapped to attention. ‘Thor is trying to pick the lock on Dobrev’s door. Just say the word, and I’ll take him out before he can.’

  ‘That’s a negative — not until we ID the target.’

  Dobrev heard somebody in the hallw
ay outside of his apartment. More curious than alarmed, he walked toward his door to investigate. He glanced through his peephole and saw his neighbor, a troubled youth named Marko Kadurik, trying to pick the lock.

  Dobrev opened the door. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Me?’ the skinhead screamed. ‘What are you doing with that foreigner — besides disrespecting the memory of your grandson? You know how he felt about Chinks.’

  ‘You’re drunk, Marko. Go home before I call the police.’

  Kadurik looked past Dobrev. ‘I’ll go home when she goes home — back to China!’

  ‘I won’t have this,’ Dobrev shouted.

  ‘Have what? The truth? Yury loved you, and you piss on his ideals with this filth!’

  Filled with anger and embarrassment, Dobrev slapped the young man across the face with a meaty hand. In the narrow hallway, the sound of his palm hitting the young man’s cheek was like a pistol shot. The young man staggered, more from shock than pain.

  Kadurik stared at Dobrev, who stared right back.

  ‘You may think you knew my grandson,’ Dobrev said slowly, ‘but you only knew the monster he became, not the promising young man that he once was. You, and your kind, and your unspeakable behavior — there is no excuse for you.’ Dobrev’s eyes burned with rage. ‘Leave. Now. While the only injury is to the respect of my guest.’

  ‘Your whore, you mean.’

  Dobrev went to slap him again. This time the young man was ready. He pushed the old man back so the blow fell short. Then he shouldered past him.

  ‘We don’t want your kind in our country!’ the punk yelled as he approached Jasmine. He put his right hand in his jacket pocket as he circled around her. He used profanity so offensive that she wasn’t familiar with the terms. But Dobrev was.

  ‘Enough!’ the old man boomed.

  Dobrev started toward him again, but the young man turned, revealing a fist that was now fitted with hard, black plastic knuckles.

  ‘Don’t even think about touching me again!’ Kadurik yelled.

  ‘Take those off, and never come here again,’ Dobrev said coolly. ‘Your kind is unwelcome in my home.’

  ‘My kind?‘ He sneered toward Jasmine. ‘You welcome this trash but you insult me? Our language itself is profaned coming from her filthy mouth!’

  Jasmine maintained a neutral expression. Her hands rested at her sides as the angry young man stared at her with blazing eyes. Loathing crushed whatever lust a normal young man would have felt. That was a new feeling for Jasmine — to be hated for her race rather than wanted for her beauty. Fear expanded like a balloon inside her chest and stomach. Her sensei had told her not to run from that feeling but to accept it. To ride it. To use it to her advantage.

  Don’t let it distract you from what must be done to survive.

  Mentally she knew she had command of the skill set that he had given her. But she had never had to test herself in the field. It was very different to be in a strange, dark room instead of in a bright gym with cushioned mats.

  The anger was different, too.

  This punk looked as if he wanted to tear her head off.

  He is looking down, she told herself. He is a coward — a brute. That’s why he put that thing on his hand to fight an older man and a woman. He is afraid.

  She straightened to her full height. Not swiftly but slowly, in total control. She did not take her eyes from him. She did not assume a stance. She just — stood.

  Their eyes were level now, but they were not equal. She was confident and poised. He was angry and unsure. She knew exactly what she would do if she had to. She knew, from his action, which hand would come at her and that it would be with a hooked swing. She had already scoped out her immediate surroundings using peripheral vision. The first lesson she had learned from her sensei: get out of the way. Let your attacker move past you with wild momentum. Then attack from behind.

  Her resolve was apparent. His uncertainty was equally obvious … even to him. After a moment or two more of alpha-dog huffing, he clamped his mouth shut, spun away, and left the apartment — slamming the door behind him.

  22

  The rage hung in the room for a few moments, then it evaporated. As it did, Jasmine saw Dobrev racked with shame.

  ‘I am so sorry,’ he said miserably.

  ‘There’s no need.’

  ‘I’m ashamed,’ he repeated, turning away slightly. ‘So ashamed.’

  She let him have a moment. Jasmine did not know if Dobrev knew it, but those were reportedly the very words Nicholas II said to Alexandra after he was forced to abdicate.

  When he looked at her again, his face was regretful. ‘My grandson, Yury … he held so much promise. He was named for Yury Lomonosov, the designer of the first diesel locomotive. His father thought that he would take after him. But it was not to be.’

  Jasmine was cautious, but she couldn’t help herself. She took a few steps toward the man and placed a hand on his shoulder, letting him know that she, and the situation, were all right.

  She knew from what Garcia had researched and whispered in her ear that the young man’s father, Andrei’s son, was Ivan Dobrev. Newspaper accounts and police reports said that Ivan had been a proud railroad man during the industry’s most trying time in the 1990s. Yury had been just a baby when the Russian mob, competing with the dying Soviet government for control of the railway workers, had opened fire on a picnic in the Lyubertsy neighborhood just outside Moscow city limits. Yury had survived the slaughter. His father did not.

  ‘My son was a good man,’ Dobrev said sadly, succinctly. ‘He was killed in an unfortunate incident. His mother, Dominika, lingered — but as you can imagine, she was never the same. She drank to bury her pain. She couldn’t control Yury, even when he was a child. I tried, but I was around infrequently. I found her dead one morning when Yury was eleven. We never did discover whether she simply gave up or committed suicide with the bottle. Yury was sitting by her side, reading a book about the Revolution. I can still see the cover, February and October-’

  Jasmine nodded. ‘The abdication of the tsar, and then the rise of the Bolsheviks.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Dobrev said admiringly. ‘After the ambulance came, and the police, I asked the boy to join me at the rail yards. He didn’t answer. I referenced the book. I told him that in spite of everything that had happened, he was lucky not to have to live through the time of hunger and change. I told him how we had to work with military tanks in the streets, gunfire in our ears, and the smell of acrid smoke in our nostrils. He listened, looked at me for a moment … then he spit at me.’

  Jasmine made a sympathetic sound in spite of herself. ‘He was just eleven?’

  Dobrev nodded. ‘I didn’t strike him. I grasped him tightly by the arms and asked him why he had done that. He said that my trains had caused the trouble. Ease of travel from foreign countries. The influence of foreign culture and values. He blamed that on men like me.’

  ‘Where did that come from?’ Jasmine asked.

  ‘The RNU.’

  Cobb whispered in her ear. ‘The Russian National Unity Group. Russian Nazis. Mainly young punks who embrace the label because they think it’s cool … By the way, we’re outside. Cough if you need us.’

  ‘Russian Nazis,’ Jasmine said.

  Dobrev nodded. ‘They recruit young boys to program with their mindless fervor. Yury kept getting angrier and angrier. When I saw him, which wasn’t often, his talk was increasingly spiteful and sadistic. It was this behavior that took him from me.’

  ‘What happened?’ Jasmine asked. She was speaking to both her immediate company and those listening on their closed frequency.

  Garcia pounded his keyboard, frantically searching the Web for anything related to Yury Dobrev. ‘I’ve got nothing,’ he answered.

  Andrei Dobrev took a deep breath, steadying himself before he continued. ‘Even among those united by hate, there are grave differences.’

  Jasmine sensed he wasn’t finished
and didn’t interject.

  ‘Not quite a year ago, Yury and his new “friends” traveled to Zvenigorod, about sixty kilometers to the west. Zvenigorod draws numerous foreign tourists, all seeking their destinies.’

  ‘Legend holds that the dreams one experiences in Zvenigorod foretell the future. It dates back to a story about Napoleon’s stepson, who saw his own fate while staying in a monastery there.’ Garcia and Dobrev spoke almost in unison, with virtually the exact same words, as if the former was quoting from a book that the latter had written.

  ‘The legend attracts foreigners,’ Dobrev continued, ‘and the foreigners attract nationalists. Or at least those who spit venom from behind the cloak of nationalist pride. Nazis, white supremacists, Aryans. Once a year, they all turn out en masse to show their strength. An event that quickly collapses into chaos.’

  Dobrev paused, and his eyes glazed over.

  Jasmine could see the pain in his memories.

  ‘That’s a lot of collected anger,’ Jasmine offered. She didn’t mean to salt the wound, but she knew she needed to hear the rest of the story.

  Dobrev nodded. ‘It would seem that the only thing these groups hate more than foreigners are those who don’t know how to properly hate foreigners. The Nazis feel that the supremacists and Aryans impede their cause with unprovoked violence. The supremacists and Aryans feel that the Nazis are too concerned with politics, particularly international affairs. Perhaps the only thing they agree on is that the RNU has yet to earn their respect. Insults were exchanged, and punches soon led to weapons.’

  Tears welled in Dobrev’s eyes. ‘Yury was stabbed. He did not survive. His so-called friends buried him somewhere in the forests between here and there. To this day, I do not know exactly where. I’m not even sure they know where.’

  Jasmine pointed toward the door. ‘That was one of Yury’s friends?’