Pavel gulped again, and nodded.
Dmitri sighed. “Leave us,” he said. “Go change your bandage and wait for Mikhail.”
Pavel stood up abruptly. He winced slightly, nodded to Dmitri, and walked out. He limped, Dmitri saw. So he wasn’t as healthy as he said.
The door closed behind him and Dmitri turned to Mikhail. “This American is annoying me,” he said.
Mikhail nodded.
“Tomorrow I want you to follow Boris and Sasha on their rounds. Keep back so the American doesn’t see you. Tell Oleg to do the same with Vitaly and Leonid.” Damn, those were the only enforcers he had left. They’d have to work hard to get the money, but he paid them well to work hard. He briefly considered sending Mikhail and Oleg out on their own to visit his shopkeepers, but quickly dismissed the idea. Getting the American was now his top priority.
Mikhail nodded again. Dmitri knew that if the American attacked either of his remaining teams, Mikhail or Oleg would easily take care of him. Surprise worked both ways.
“What of Pavel?” Anton asked.
“He’s no longer of use to me.”
“He’s young,” was all Mikhail said in protest.
“He’s stupid,” Dmitri countered. “He doesn’t have balls. I can only teach so much.”
Mikhail nodded again, impassive. Only his eyes showed his feelings.
Shortly before eight o’clock, Nick rapped lightly on Anya’s door. He heard a rustle inside her apartment, a pause as she scoped him out through the keyhole, and the scrape of the chain being released.
The door opened and he caught a blur of color before Anya was on him. She flung her arms around him and buried her head in his chest. When she raised her head a moment later he felt wetness through his shirt.
She wiped her eyes and then looked at him sternly. “Don’t do that! You could’ve been killed attacking Dmitri in his own office. Then your baby wouldn’t have a papa.” She hit him on the shoulder, hard. It stung. He winced slightly.
“Who are you and what have you done with Anya?” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“The Anya I know would tell me to go in there after Dmitri and take no prisoners.”
“Well, maybe the new Anya thinks there’s a time for not taking prisoners and a time for being careful so you don’t get shot, idiot.” She grabbed his collar and pulled him into the room. “Now get out of the hall so the babushkas next door don’t see you.”
She closed the door behind them. A fantastic smell permeated her apartment. “Wow, what are you cooking?” Nick asked.
“Kotleti,” Anya replied. “Kind of like meat balls. I thought you might want something heavy after attacking bad guys.”
“Oh, stop it,” Nick said. “I didn’t get in. He left with some other guys. I have it under control.”
“The hell you do!” Anya shot back. “Dmitri’s bad. You need to watch out what you do to him. He’s crazy.”
“Bullshit,” Nick said. “He’s a bully. He’s used to people wetting their pants in front of him. I know his type.”
“Just be careful. You push him too hard and bad things will happen.”
“Bad things have already happened. Now he’s going to make it right.”
“God, you men,” Anya said with a heavy sigh. “Come in and have some kotleti and tell me what happened.”
They walked into the kitchen. The meat simmered in a pan, sizzling lightly and making Nick’s mouth water. Noodles boiled on the next burner.
“You really are an awesome cook,” he said.
Anya blushed. “Thanks,” she said. “It’s nice to have someone to cook for. Now set the table, please.”
Later, their stomachs comfortably full, Anya leaned back in her chair. “You and Dmitri keep escalating this,” she said. “You seem to think he’s going to reach a point where he says, ‘Just get this crazy American out of my sight!’ But he’s more likely to say, ‘Kill the bastard.’ He’s not sane, Nick.”
“I know that, Anya,” Nick said. “But my options are kind of limited, now, you know? I can’t reason with him and I need his help to get my baby back.” He winced as he said those words, knowing full well how unlikely he was to see Nonna again. His chest hurt just thinking about it.
“He’s going to try to kill you,” Anya said. “You know that, right? Nobody stands up to Dmitri.”
“You seem to know him pretty well.”
She shrugged. “Stories. The guy’s ruthless.”
“I’ve run into ruthless people before, Anya,” Nick said. He absent-mindedly ran his fork through leftover gravy on his plate, making little furrows where the white porcelain showed through for a moment before the liquid seeped back. “More people that I care to admit have wanted me dead.”
“From the war?”
He nodded. “That, and after.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “Oh?”
He continued to look at his plate. “Well, you may have noticed that I have a habit of sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong.”
Anya giggled. “Really? I never would’ve thought that.”
Nick didn’t smile. “Yeah, I have a habit of pissing people off. Usually bad people,” he said as he continued to make designs in the gravy. He finally looked up at her. “But you know what? They haven’t gotten me yet. And some of them were pretty nasty.”
“I’d like to hear about them,” she said.
Nick shook his head and put the fork down. “No, you wouldn’t. Some things got pretty bad.”
She reached across the table and put her hand on his. “Yes, I would, Nick. I want to know more about you.” She gave his hand a squeeze.
Now he did smile. “Well, maybe later, when this is done and I’m holding Maria in my arms, I can tell you some stories.”
“Maria?” Anya pulled her hand back, a confused look on her face.
“Oops,” Nick said. “That slipped out, sorry. Yeah, we plan to name her Maria Christine when we get home.”
“That’s a nice name,” Anya said. “Does it have significance in your family?”
“No, it was one of the few names we could agree on,” Nick said. “It took a long time to come up with that one. We ended up yelling it out the back door several times. You know, like calling her to come home for dinner after playing outside with friends all day. That was the one that rolled off my tongue the best.”
They laughed together, then he looked down again. Quiet, thinking.
“You’ll get Maria back again,” Anya said.
Nick nodded and wiped at his eyes. “Damn right I will. But can you do me a favor, please?”
“Of course.”
“Call her Nonna. She’s not Maria Christine until I get her home.”
Nick stretched out on his back on Anya’s sofa and pulled the blanket up to his chin. His feet hung out over the other side and his shins pressed painfully into the high arm of the sofa. He knew he’d eventually end up sleeping on his side with his knees drawn up into his chest, but he wanted to at least start the long night stretched out so he wouldn’t be so stiff in the morning.
He reached up and turned off the lamp next to the sofa. The room darkened slightly. They had closed the curtains but light snuck in around the edges. Living in a large complex with hundreds, if not thousands, of other families made darkness a luxury. Silence, too, he thought as he listened to people moving around and talking, voices muffled but audible, in the adjoining apartments.
Kind of like the Marines, he thought. Never a quiet moment. He raised his legs to ease the pressure, then put them back down again in a slightly different spot. It didn’t help a whole hell of a lot. His left knee started to throb.
He heard a rustle in the room. He looked up as Anya sat down on the edge of the couch. Her hip pressed up against his.
“You don’t have to sleep on the couch again, Nick,” she said softly.
Nick’s heart sped up. He said, “I think I’d better.”
“You need your sleep. You won’t ge
t it here. Come to my bed.”
“I’m not so sure I’ll get it there, either.”
“We won’t do anything. You know that. I know that.”
Nick thought about it. He trusted Anya enough to know she wouldn’t push herself on him. It was the height of passion thing that had him worried. On the other hand, he was so keyed up about Nonna that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get it up anyway.
“OK, thanks, that’d be good,” he said. She stood up and gave him room to swing his legs off the couch. He got up and followed her into her room. He had glanced in one day but had never really studied her bedroom. Now it was too dark too see much. He smelled vanilla and noticed a candle burning in her dresser.
She followed his gaze. “I love candles,” she said unapologetically. “I’ll blow it out before we fall asleep so we don’t burn the place down.”
They awkwardly climbed into her bed, she on the side by the window and he by the door. The bed wasn’t large, somewhere between a twin and a queen, and he knew they wouldn’t be far apart from each other for the next eight hours.
And he realized he was fine with that. A little physical support was what he needed right now. And if Kelli wasn’t there, he just had to do what he had to do to make sure he was ready for what came the next day. He felt better.
Anya grabbed a small stuffed animal off of her pillow and hugged it in front of her as she turned on her side and faced him, one arm crooked under her ear. She was in a light t-shirt that rode up her neck, but not much else. Nick wondered if her heart was thundering as loud as his.
“This is my pal, Cheburashka,” she said, wiggling its ear. It looked like a brown bear with large round ears. Or maybe a monkey.
Nick shook its paw. “Nice to meet you, um…”
“Cheburashka,” she said, pronouncing it slowly. “He was my favorite cartoon as a little girl. In the show, he tumbles around a lot and is best friends with a crocodile.”
“Well, how can you not like that?”
She pushed the animal at Nick’s face playfully. “Be careful what you say about Cheburashka,” she said. “You don’t want him biting you in the middle of the night.”
Nick smiled as she hugged the animal to her chest again. They lay next to each other silently for several moments. Nick’s eyes began to droop as his body relaxed in the warm bed. His heart slowed.
“So what’s your plan for tomorrow?” she asked. Her voice was low, sleepy, her breath warm on his face.
“I’m going to visit the orphanage,” he said. “If Dmitri doesn’t totally have his head up his ass, I’ll be able to play with Nonna.” He decided not to tell her he was going to pay another visit to Dmitri first.
Anya giggled. “That’s a funny saying,” she said. “I’m hoping his head is not in his ass as well, for your sake and for Nonna.”
Nick kissed Anya on her forehead. “Thank you, Anya,” he said. “Believe it or not, that’s one of the nicer things anybody has ever said to me.”
He woke up several hours later. Early morning sun was streaming through the bedroom window and the candle was still lit. They were spooning, facing towards the window, and his arm was over Anya’s stomach. His hand rested on hers.
Anya’s hair was in his face. He breathed it in for several minutes, savoring the warmth of her scalp and feeling the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest. He smiled. He was ready for anything.
Chapter 26
Nick was back on his perch in the duplex an hour later. At that point he didn’t care if somebody came down the stairs and saw him. He’d just deal with it when it happened.
Within thirty minutes a car pulled up to the house. It was long and black. Nick couldn’t see the make but knew it was high-end, one of those cars that the owner doesn’t drive himself.
The rear door opened, and after a few seconds a thick, dark-haired man stepped out. He moved slowly, and Nick’s pulse quickened as he realized it was Dmitri. He pulled out the photo Andrei had given him. Yep, it was definitely the sonofabitch. Dmitri limped into the house, with one bodyguard following a few steps behind him. A house guard opened the door for the two men and they stepped inside. Nick looked at his watch. Eight o’clock exactly. Punctual bastard.
There were at least three men inside, Nick knew, and probably more. As he watched, two men arrived on foot. This time nobody opened the door for them. Rank and file, Nick thought.
Several minutes later two more men showed up, then two more. They all looked the same: hulking, with dark suits. Now was definitely not the time.
Nick sat on the side of the stairs for another hour, not moving. At one point a heavy, older woman clomped down the stairs, carrying a large bag. Nick heard her coming and moved out of the way. She walked past without looking at him, rheumy eyes on the dirty wood in front of her. Nick opened the door for her and stood aside as she passed through silently.
He thought about Kelli and Danny. He’d been thinking about them a lot lately, trying to figure out what they were doing at that exact moment. Oregon was ten or eleven hours ahead. Maybe they were having a late dinner now. Chicken nuggets, or perhaps mac and cheese, which were two of Danny’s favorites. Perhaps they were thinking of him, wondering what he was doing. He grimaced. Good thing they had no clue what he was up to. He suddenly felt very lonely. God, what he’d give to be eating mac and cheese with them right now.
After nine o’clock the men started leaving. First two, then one, then two more, then one. The first three went one way, the last three the other. There was about a minute lag between each team of two and the one behind them.
Nick smiled in the deserted foyer of the duplex. They took the bait. They were all out looking for him, protecting their money.
Now it was time.
The guard sat on a bench on the porch of the house, relaxing. He obviously wasn’t expecting anybody. Nick walked past the gate, looked in, stopped, looked closer at the guard, looked down at the map in his left hand, appeared to make up his mind, and opened the gate.
The distance from the gate to the porch was about twenty yards. Nick used all of it looking confused, consulting his map, looking left and right as he walked up to the house. He knew the guard was watching him, so he was careful to appear hapless, innocent, a muddled tourist.
He gave the guard his most disarming smile as he got close. The man was standing now, machine gun at his side but not yet ready to use it. He gazed at Nick, more curious than anything else.
“Excuse me,” Nick called out in English. “I’m looking for the GUM department store.” He was nowhere near the store, and the guard started to laugh.
The guard walked down the three stairs, adjusting his gun so the barrel pointed to the ground. He had a look on his face that said, “Stupid Americans.”
Nick had chosen a destination to his left, which made it towards the guards’ right. The guard made a comment that sounded derogatory, and pointed to his right.
With his gun hand.
His eyes shifted right to follow his hand, and at that precise moment Nick’s right hand, which had slipped into his pocket, came out with the Glock.
The guard didn’t see the gun as it smashed into the side of his head. Nick caught him as he fell, and quickly dragged him into the bushes. He pocketed the Glock and unslung the man’s machine gun. It was a Czech SA.26. Nick looked at it appreciatively. Old, but reliable. Another upgrade.
He checked the magazine, slung the gun, and walked in.
Dmitri looked up sharply as the door swung open. He had left explicit instructions not to be disturbed. He didn’t like disruptions when he was angry, and he was angry now. He started to speak, to release some of his anger on the hapless bastard who dared walk in on him.
His words died in his throat when he saw the stranger. The man was dressed in drab clothing but Dmitri immediately knew he was a westerner. Almost as immediately, he realized it was the American. The one named Wallace.
And he had a submachine gun. His guard’s submachine gun.
&n
bsp; Dmitri was instantly livid. How dare the American barge in to his private quarters with a gun! He stood up, pressed a button under his desk. The man didn’t notice.
The American had a second gun, a pistol, which he brandished as he stepped forward. “Sit down,” he commanded softly. Those two words were enough to ensure that Dmitri remained standing.
Dmitri studied Wallace. He wasn’t what the Russian expected. He was larger, for one thing, and harder. Most Americans, especially ones adopting Russian children, were soft. This one wasn’t. And he appeared calmer than most men Dmitri encountered. His eyes, while angry, were calculating.
Dmitri wasn’t concerned. The man would soon learn to fear him.
“What do mean, barging into my office like this?” Dmitri asked, in a conciliatory tone. He had to stall the man for several minutes. Mikhail had been paged when the alarm went off and would be on his way back now.
“You have something I want. And I have something you want,” the man replied. “Let’s trade.”
Dmitri laughed. “You steal my money, attack my men, walk into my office with a gun, and propose to trade my money back to me?” He laughed again. “I must admit, you have balls the size of watermelons.”
The man shrugged. “Perhaps. But I want my daughter, and then I’ll leave you in peace.”
Arrogant prick. Like it was his decision to make. Dmitri felt his anger rising. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with, friend. I can easily have you killed.”
The man shook his head. “No, you can’t. You’ve tried, and the only thing that’s happened is that I’ve sent a lot of your men to the hospital. Let’s just call it even and go our own way.”
Dmitri’s face turned red and he fought the rage building inside him. This man needed to learn respect, dammit! He knew the rage would win soon enough. He just hoped Mikhail would arrive quickly.
“I don’t make deals with Americans,” Dmitri seethed. “You have no honor, you break your word.”
“You don’t know me,” Nick replied. “I’ll keep mine.”
“You peasant!” Dmitri exploded. He leaned across the table and glared into his intruder’s eyes. “You won’t make a deal with me! The only deal you get is that I’ll buy you a nice grave here in Rostov, and in that grave your bones will turn to dust!”
Worth The Risk Page 17