He circled several blocks on the map. “I don’t know where he lives or where his offices are, but if you want to disrupt his business, concentrate in here.” Most of what he circled was within walking distance of the Hotel Rostov, and included the orphanage and Crazy Boris’s.
Nick studied the map. He began to get an idea of where he would start. “OK, thanks. I can take it from here.” He paused. “But you know, a photo of Dmitri would be nice. Do you happen to have one?”
“I’m sure I can find one,” he said. “We like to know who the competition is.”
“Thanks.”
But Andrei wasn’t finished. “You need to be very careful, Nick. Dmitri has many men working for him, some as crazy as Maxsim was. You can’t go charging in there like a Cossack.”
“I don’t plan to go charging in anywhere, not when Nonna is at risk,” Nick replied.
He stood up. Andrei stood with him. He folded up the map and handed it to Nick. “Good luck, my friend.” He snapped his fingers. “I just thought of something. That gun I gave you won’t help you much.”
Nick pulled out his new Glock. “No worries. I upgraded.”
Andrei looked impressed. “OK, then, I guess you don’t need help from me.”
“No, I’m good,” Nick replied. “Actually, you can help. Can you please call Anya and tell her what happened? I don’t want to talk to her, she’d probably try to talk me out of my plan.”
“Are going to start shooting them?”
“Nope,” Nick said. “I have a better idea.”
Five hours later, Nick finished his third cup of coffee at the café. He sat outside on the sidewalk, chair tilted so the front legs were in the air, back against the brick wall. The café was on the west side of a relatively busy street in Rostov, across from several shops. It occupied the ground floor of a dingy three-story building in the middle of the block. Most of the tables were inside, but a single line of dented metal tables lined the sidewalk outside the large windows, under a faded blue awning. Nick had chosen an end table and was currently several feet away from any other paying customers, which was exactly how he wanted it.
The weather was warm, which made coffee an odd choice. But Nick wasn’t in the mood for soda and the café didn’t serve beer. So coffee it was. The brew was decent. It was reasonably strong and the caffeine kick kept him alert.
The same waitress had filled Nick’s large ceramic mug all three times. She was short, thin, with close-cropped blonde hair and a tattoo of a butterfly on her shoulder, which Nick caught a glimpse of every time she bent over. Her smile widened as Nick tipped her generously after each fill. He knew she wasn’t about to say anything to the owner about the man sitting outside for hours, drinking coffee and watching people.
He watched as pedestrians rushed by, in a hurry to get somewhere or at least attempting to give the impression they had to be somewhere. He watched as couples meandered slowly up the street, standing in front of the windows at the electronics shop or furniture store across the street. Later in the afternoon he watched as kids with backpacks ran along the street, done with school and anxious to get home. He watched as two men in suits walked into the furniture store.
Eyes narrowing, Nick lowered the front of his chair to the ground and leaned forward, elbows on the table. He could see through the glass as the men went to the back of the store. They moved deliberately. They were not shopping.
The waitress stopped by with a refill but Nick stood up and waved her off. “Spasiva,” he told her. She looked disappointed. He dropped a final tip on the table, pushed in his chair, and walked across the street and into the store.
A chime rang softly in the back room but nobody came out to greet him. The men had disappeared, apparently with the owner of the store, into the back. Nick moved around the showroom, casing the business and keeping an eye on the back. He was the only shopper.
After a few minutes three men emerged from the back room. The two men in suits flanked another man, who looked angry and afraid at the same time and who was obviously in charge of the store, but not in charge of the visitors. He was saying something softly to the men. Softly, but urgently. They had the look of people who didn’t give a damn what he had to say.
Nick studied their suits. Slight bulges off to the side where one would store a gun. One of the men had a bulge on the other side of his suit. A bulge that Nick assumed to be a payoff. A man in a place like this, with very few customers throughout the day, wouldn’t have many large bills on hand. Therefore his protection money was made up of small bills. Bills that would cause a nice bulge in a suit.
Nick stayed off to the side as the three men walked towards the door. The two suits barely gave him a glance, and the third man was too preoccupied to look at him. He talked fast in Russian and Nick had no hope of catching anything he had to say.
As they neared the door one of the men turned towards the shopkeeper and said a few words in a deep voice. Whatever he said seemed to stop the man in his tracks. He stared at them as they adjusted their suit coats and walked out.
Nick headed towards the door. The shopkeeper turned to him with a tentative, fake smile and asked if he could help Nick. At least, that’s what Nick figured he asked.
Eyeing the suits, Nick brusquely replied “Nyah zhnyoo” to the man without looking at him. He left the shopkeeper alone in his store, arms hanging limp at his side, a surprised look on his face.
The two men stopped in the electronics shop. Nick walked past them, not looking, and turned right a few steps beyond, into an alley. He knew from his reconnoitering earlier in the afternoon that there were three shops with small storefronts in the alley. Tiny one-person businesses that couldn’t afford a spot on the street. One looked to be a tarot card reader. Heavy orange curtains hung over the window, and a picture of a hand holding several cards was painted on the door. Further down the alley hung two more signs, but Nick wasn’t interested in them. The two men would never make it that far. He looked towards the end of the alley and saw it was stopped prematurely by a high chain link fence with barbed wire across the top. Good. Nobody was getting out that way.
The door was recessed, with about two feet of protection from the street. Nick pressed himself in the doorway and waited. He hoped nobody was planning to leave the shop in the next few minutes or there would be two surprised people in that doorway.
He waited, breathing shallow, ready for the two intruders. He supposed he should feel guilty for planning to attack them without provocation, but he was too keyed up. Besides, they had been provoking him for days now. Anyway, he wasn’t planning on doing any killing. Not them. Not yet.
He heard footsteps and low voices in the street, and tensed. The two men came into view not more than three feet from Nick. One was talking and gesturing to the other with his right hand. The other had turned his head to look back at the street. Nick went for the talker first.
Neither one saw him until it was too late. Nick’s right fist came out of the doorway hard and fast, impacting squarely with the first man’s jaw. It cut him off in mid-sentence and he grunted hard as he fell. Nick wondered briefly if the man had bitten his tongue. He hoped it was not bitten all the way through, as it might hinder things if Nick needed information from the guy.
The other man jerked his head towards Nick instinctively as his partner went down. Nick stepped left and brought his hand up in a quick jab to the man’s throat. Nothing hard enough to kill him, just incapacitate briefly. The man forgot about his partner as his hands went to his throat. He gagged and bent forward. Nick stepped forward and dropped him with a right to the temple.
Nick looked around quickly, but nobody had witnessed the attack. He grabbed one man by the back of his shirt collar and dragged him across the alley. He propped him up against the brick wall and went back for the second man. When both were leaning against each other, backs to the wall, Nick stuck his hand inside the suit coat of one of the men. He pulled out a thick envelope. Opening the flap, Nick smiled slightly a
s he saw a stack of rubles.
One protection payment that was never going to make it to its destination.
Nick stuck the envelope in his own pocket and went back to work on the men. Only one had a cell phone. Nick opened the back, took out the battery, threw it into a drain, and placed the phone back in the man’s pocket. He then stood up, brushed his pants off, and casually walked out of the alley. He went back to his café, sat in the same chair, waved to the delighted waitress, and waited.
He figured the men had two options. First they’d try the cell phone. When that didn’t work they’d have a choice: either go straight to the boss’s office to fess up, or go the other way and find a dark bar to discuss next moves. Their decision would tell Nick a lot about how much fear they had of the big guy. Dmitri obviously fancied himself a tough guy, but did his minions think the same way?
The only potential snafu was if they had a car. Nick could easily follow them on foot, especially if they were still wobbly, but if they got into a car he was lost. It was a chance he knew he had to take. If they shook him he’d just come back the next day with Anya or Andrei, and a car.
He waited nearly an hour and began to wonder if he had hit the men harder than he had intended to. The sun sunk lower in the sky behind him and the shadow of his building stretched across the street. Nick could see the entrance of the alley and was fairly confident the men wouldn’t be looking for him. The last thing they’d suspect was that the mugger would hang around to watch them stumble away.
He watched as a few people came and went. No alarms were raised, which Nick had counted on. The two men looked like drunks huddled together. Nobody was going to get involved with them.
He sipped a coke slowly. No more coffee for him today. Three large cups was enough, but he still wanted the caffeine. He took one of the bills out of the envelope and handed it to the waitress. When she reached into her apron for change he just waved his hand. Dmitri was feeling quite generous that day. The waitress said “Spasiva” with a smile and touched his shoulder before leaving.
Finally he saw the two men emerge from the alley. They moved slowly and one, the talker, rubbed his jaw. The other had his phone out and angrily punched buttons. He held the phone up, probably trying to get a signal, then gave up and thrust the phone back in his jacket pocket in disgust.
The two men stood there talking as Nick finished his drink in several large gulps. More gesturing and obvious disagreement. Finally one threw up his hands in surrender and they began to walk back the way they had come, past the stores they had already entered. They walked unsteadily, weaving on the sidewalk. Nick gave them a block before he slowly stood up, stretched, and headed after them.
To Nick’s relief, they continued on foot for several blocks and he was able to follow at a discreet distance, stopping several times to allow them to get further ahead.
They left the main thoroughfare and headed into a residential area of large houses. Nick had never been to this part of town before, and was impressed with the size of the houses and the yards. The men turned into a gated enclosure and walked up the steps to the house. Nick walked quickly by on the other side of the street, focusing in front of him. The yard was ringed by a wrought-iron fence, and hedges completed the secrecy. He glanced at the house and saw an imposing three-story structure. High eaves, steep roof line. It kind of reminded him of the old Addams Family house. He half expected to see bats flying around the upper stories.
Sunlight reflected off glass nestled behind iron bars. All three stories were barred. The inhabitants liked her privacy.
He kept moving, trying not to appear too curious. The houses turned into shops two blocks away. He stopped at a grocery store and bought a package of granola bars. Munching them one at a time, he walked back to the house. The men had been in there for perhaps fifteen minutes. He figured it would take at least that long for them to explain what had happened and for Dmitri to mobilize.
Nick walked up the steps of a duplex across from the house. There weren’t any lights in the windows of the duplex, so if his luck held he’d be able to squat there for a while. Peeking through the door, he saw steps up to the second floor, with hallways to the main floor rooms on either side.
He went in and sat on the stairs. He could see the house across the street through the glass in the front door of the duplex. Leaning back, elbows on the wooden steps, granola bars by his side, he waited and watched.
And nothing happened. Fifteen minutes went by, then thirty. An hour after he sat down, Nick knew his attack wouldn’t provoke a response.
Time to poke the hornet’s nest a little harder.
His phone rang a few minutes later, unnaturally loud and shrill in the silent duplex. He stood up and walked out the door, hitting the talk button on the phone before it could ring again.
It was Anya. “Hi, Nick,” she said. “I just got home from work. I brought home some leftovers if you’d like dinner.”
He glanced up at the house as he walked past. It will still annoyingly quiet, and he had the feeling nothing more would happen that evening. “Sure, that sounds great. I can be there in about...” he did some rapid calculations in his head. “In about twenty minutes.”
“OK. Where are you?”
“Outside Dmitri’s house.”
“What?”
“Well, technically it’s probably his office, and I haven’t actually seen him yet, but I’m pretty sure it’s where he does his dirty work.”
She whistled. “I’m impressed. How did you find it so quickly?”
“I beat up two of his men, stole their money, and then followed them here.”
There was a long silence, then a sigh. “You really don’t care about Russian laws, do you?”
“Today the only law I care about,” he replied, “is the one that says I get to take my daughter home soon.”
“Unless you end up in a Russian jail.”
“I have no intention of doing that.”
She paused, then said, “So, what do you intend to do?”
By this time Nick was twenty yards past the house and walking away. He stopped, turned, and looked back. “I’m going to borrow a few of Dmitri’s things, and then trade them back for Nonna’s freedom.”
“Nick, he’ll never go for that.”
The door to the house opened and two men came out. They walked down the steps and, without a backward glance, turned right and headed away from Nick.
“He will, Anya,” Nick said. “He just needs the proper motivation.” He checked his watch, then his free hand went to one of the guns in his pocket. “You know, I might be a little delayed. Make it about an hour, around eight o’clock. And then tomorrow we’ll go to the orphanage and I’ll introduce you to Nonna.”
Anya hung up and sat in silence for several long moments, staring down at her hands in her lap, breathing heavily. Finally she wiped her eyes, turned her cell phone back on, and dialed a number.
Chapter 25
The bodyguard moved slightly to the left as the water bottle flew past his head and slammed against the wall behind him. Water flew everywhere, soaking his shoulder and the side of his neck. He ignored the wetness and returned to his original position quietly. He waited, hands clasped in front of him.
Dmitri’s guest wasn’t as composed, probably because the water bottle had been aimed at his head. Pavel gulped loudly and sweat had formed on his upper lip. He didn’t say a word – the enforcer had been around long enough to know at least that much
As quickly as he lost control, Dmitri regained it. He sat down behind his desk, bad leg stretched out in front of him. It was late and the damn thing ached like a sonofabitch. He looked at his watch. A little past seven. He was now late for dinner with two executives from a cement conglomerate who were interested in a loan. They could wait; they needed him more than he needed them. But Dmitri knew their patience would only last so long, so best not to make them wait forever.
He glared at the hapless messenger. “So what the hell happe
ned? How can one American keep putting my enforcers in the hospital?” The insinuation was obvious.
Pavel licked his lips before replying, an act which did not go unnoticed by Dmitri.
“He came out of nowhere when we were in an alley,” Pavel replied. “We weren’t expecting him. He hit Nicolai—“
“You weren’t expecting him?” Dmitri exploded. Only his leg kept him from rising and towering over the young, scared enforcer. “You were carrying my fucking take from the day, and you weren’t expecting him?” Damn newbies. This kid was next to worthless but Nicolai had been good, which was why he put the two together and entrusted them with thousands of rubles. He had lied to Pavel, of course. It was only a small portion of his daily take, but Dmitri was careful not to let on exactly how much he made.
The object of Dmitri’s rage squirmed uncomfortably in his chair. “We haven’t had any trouble lately, so—“
“Shut up!” Dmitri roared. Pavel flinched and quieted, looking at the ground in front of him. Dmitri hadn’t warned them about the attack on two of his other enforcers earlier in the day. In hindsight, he had to admit to himself, that was probably a mistake. One that had now cost him several thousand rubles and was making him late for dinner.
Damn Americans.
“Where’s Nicolai now?” he asked.
Pavel looked relieved to be on to a different line of questioning, and the words rushed out. “They took him to the hospital. He couldn’t walk. I think his knee was broken. I got hit in the head, but otherwise I’m OK.” He turned his head so Dmitri could see the oozing bandage over his temple.
Dmitri waved his hand dismissively. The man’s relative good health was only temporary. “But the money’s gone,” he said, getting back to important matters.
Worth The Risk Page 16