“Yep,” Nick said. “They’re going to get pissed that we send them so much business.”
“Maybe they’ll thank us.”
“I’m not telling you a damn thing,” Dmitri said.
“You already did, dumbass,” Nick told him. “You have no clue where Nonna is. Your ‘associate’ has her, and you told him not to tell you, didn’t you?”
Dmitri was uncharacteristically quiet.
“You knew I’d be coming for you.”
Dmitri smiled.
Nick sat on the edge of the desk and looked over at Anya. “But he didn’t know you’d be here,” he said.
She nodded.
“So you were able to take care of the first line of defense,”
She nodded again, a little slower this time, concern creeping over her face, realizing what Nick was getting at.
“So where’s the second?”
Dmitri stirred and reached into his shirt pocket. Nick hopped off the desk and pointed his gun at the man, but Dmitri didn’t hesitate. He pulled a cell phone out of his shirt pocket. It was a small, silver device. Not an iPhone but not far off, probably a Russian version from the same blueprints.
A green light at the top glowed brightly. “They’ll be coming in the front door any second now. They heard everything you said, ‘dumbass.’”
Nick fired from his standing position and Dmitri’s wrist exploded. The phone flew across the room, hit the wall, and fell to the ground. Dmitri yelled and clutched his ruined hand to his chest.
“Nice shot,” Anya said.
“No it wasn’t,” Nick replied. “I missed.” He fired again and Dmitri fell backwards, a round hole in his forehead.
“Oops,” Nick said.
“I assume you were done talking to him.”
Nick shrugged. “He wasn’t saying anything I wanted to hear, anyway.”
“Time to go,” Anya said. She didn’t seem fazed by the death of a madman.
“In a second,” Nick said. “Before you came in, Dmitri said that Nonna was with an ‘associate.’ What does that make you think?”
Anya crossed to the window and looked out carefully. “That Dmitri’s not working alone. So? Can we go now?”
“If he has an associate, then he’s not the top.”
“No, that fool wouldn’t be the top,” Anya said. “He’s medium level. Does his own thing, but there’s somebody higher up that keeps things going.”
“Keeps the jackals in line, you mean,” Nick said. “Makes sure they don’t eat each other.”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“So who’s the top?”
“Could be a couple of guys, not that many,” Anya replied. “All senior, all well protected. You won’t be walking in to see them unannounced. Oh, look at the time. Let’s go,” She said.
“Then I guess I’d better find out who he is and send him an invitation,” Nick said as he went to the desk. His jaw felt on fire, and he wished he had some ibuprofen. Or Scotch. He started rifling through the papers on the desk.
“Can you do that someplace else?” Anya asked, words rushed. She kept an eye out the window. “If somebody’s coming, they’re not going to be far away.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Nick said. “If you saw the name of his boss, would you know it?”
“Perhaps,” she said slowly.
“You look, I’ll watch for friends,” Nick said. They traded places quickly. Nick poked the drapes over the windows back and looked to his left. Dmitri’s office overlooked the side yard, and he could see the street in front of the house if he pressed his head against the glass. So far it looked quiet.
Anya glanced through the papers on the top of the desk. Apparently she found nothing to her liking, as she swept them all to the floor and opened the top drawer.
“Need another gun?” she asked Nick, holding up a small pistol.
“No. Focus,” Nick said as he glanced out the window. He watched in dismay as a black car screeched to a halt in front of the house. Four doors opened and four men jumped out. They all rushed out of sight towards the front of the house. Their excitement overrode their brains, Nick thought. They should have sent somebody around the side of the house.
“We’ve got company,” he called out. He ran to the side of the room and scooped up the bloody phone. He held it by two fingers before wiping it on Dmitri’s shirt. He stuck it in his pocket.
“I found something,” she called back. She had the second drawer open and was leafing through a brown binder. Nick saw long rows of numbers, like a ledger.
The front door slammed.
“Now, Anya,” Nick said.
“Hold on!” she said.
He opened the sash and jammed his hand into the window screen. It popped out and fell several feet to the ground.
“Got it,” she said as he turned to her. She put the ledger back in the drawer and closed it. She ran to the window and swung a leg outside. Nick grabbed her arms and she swung the other leg out. She dangled against the side of the house, Nick supporting her weight, for a second before he let go and she fell the remaining few feet. Nick didn’t wait. He swung out the window, grabbed the sill for support for a second, and dropped down. He landed in a small bush and kicked his way out quickly. Anya was already running towards the alley behind the house.
Nick followed as he heard shouts in the house. By the time the first man shoved his head out the window, they were gone.
Chapter 31
Anya laughed as they entered her apartment. “That was fun,” she said. “My heart hasn’t raced like that for a while.”
Nick was not as amused. “Yeah, well, we aren’t any closer to Nonna,” he said as he sat down heavily on her couch. He felt his world start to close in on him. Less than a day before he was supposed to pick his daughter up and leave for their new life. Her new life, outside of the orphanage.
“Don’t be an old woman,” Anya said. “We now know who Dmitri reported up to. If his partner has Nonna, then Alexander will know who it is.”
“Alexander?”
She nodded. She walked over and sat near him on the couch, legs folded demurely under her. Nick’s knees always hurt when he saw somebody sit that way. “Alexander Bocharova,” she said. “One of the oligarchs who run the city. He’s in charge of this section of Rostov. Seems quite logical, really. We probably could’ve just gone straight to him instead of killing Dmitri.”
“No, we couldn’t,” Nick said.
She shrugged. “Yeah, maybe not. Doesn’t matter. We have his name now and I assume you have his number on Dmitri’s phone.”
Nick had forgotten about the cell phone he’d lifted from the mobster. He took it out of his pocket and pressed the large circle at the bottom. The phone sprang to life. It had been left on and had plenty of battery left. He noticed it didn’t have a password. Nick flicked over to the contacts section, the one with the icon in a shape of a head.
The letters were Cyrillic. He sheepishly handed the phone over to Anya.
It only took her a moment to find him. “Here we go, Alexander. I’m surprised he didn’t put in a fake name.”
“Same reason he didn’t password-protect his phone,” Nick said. “He knew he was too smart to lose his phone or have somebody take it from him. If you’re that smart, you don’t need passwords or fake names.” He shook his head.
Anya harrumphed and held out the phone to him. “Do you want to call Alexander?”
Nick was surprised. “Just like that?”
“Well, I figure you have two ways of doing this. Either sneak into his headquarters, kill the highly-trained bodyguards sprinkled throughout the building, and beat the information out of him.”
“Or?”
“Or call him and ask for an appointment. If he says no, then you can attack him.”
Nick thought about it for a moment, then shrugged and took the phone. “Guess it can’t hurt to ask nicely. He might just want to get me out of his city.”
“He probably does, since yo
u’ve been killing his people.”
“Or maybe he wants to make an example out of me,” Nick said thoughtfully. “Like Dmitri tried to do.”
“I hope not,” Anya said. “It didn’t end up well for Dmitri and it probably wouldn’t end up well for Alexander, either.”
The phone rang. Nick looked down at the one in his hand. It was silent, motionless. Nick felt a vibration in his pocket as his other phone rang again.
“You’re a popular guy,” Anya said.
Nick set Dmitri’s phone down on the couch and reached into his pocket for the one Andrei gave him. “It’s probably your cousin, asking what happened.”
But it wasn’t. Pyotr’s voice came through the speaker and he wasn’t happy.
“So you told me you were going to kill Dmitri, and then we find Dmitri dead in his house, a nice big hole in his head to match the one in his hand and the other in his side,” the detective said. He was almost yelling and Nick held the phone away from his ear. Anya heard every word and gave Nick an evil grin. Pyotr continued, “So, by all accounts I should arrest you.”
“So why are you talking to me instead of putting handcuffs on?” Nick said.
Pyotr said something in Russian that sounded like a swear word. “Is Anya with you?” he finally said, after several moments of sputtering.
“Yes.”
“Give her the phone. I wish to speak with her.”
Nick pressed the phone to his chest and whispered, “He wants to talk to you.”
She held out her hand. “Good. I want to talk to him as well.”
“Why?”
“To keep your ass out of jail, of course,” she said without a smile. He handed the phone to her and she got up. She cleared her throat and spoke into the mouthpiece. As she did, she turned her back on Nick.
He watched her from the couch for several minutes as she talked to Protr. She was animated, gesturing with her hands as she paced her apartment. Twice she glanced at Nick, but she was speaking in Russian so she knew he couldn’t understand her. He just sat there on the couch, feeling like a squirrel watching a bank robbery. He could see what was happening but had no idea what was really going on.
She crossed over to the window looking out over the courtyard between the large apartment blocks. She stood there, back to Nick, one arm crossed in front of her chest, the arm holding the phone resting on her wrist, and talked low, urgently, into the phone. Nick was tempted to get up and go to her but her posture was tense, so he stayed where he was.
Eventually she finished the conversation and clicked the phone off. She continued to stare out the window quietly, then turned to Nick.
“Well?” Nick asked.
She chewed her lip. “He wants to arrest you for the murder of Dmitri. I think I talked him out of it for now, but he knows you did it.”
Nick stood up and walked to her. “Thank you for that,” he said. “I’m sorry I put you in the middle of it.”
She stepped back. “That was a stupid move,” she said. “You shouldn’t have told him what you were going to do.”
“Anya,” Nick said, “If Dmitri ended up with a bullet in his head, Pyotr was going to come to me no matter what I told him. I didn’t have much to lose. I wanted to shake the tree a little and see what fell out.”
Anya shook her head. “Perhaps,” she said, “but it was like you were taunting him. ‘I’m going to kill Dmitri. Come arrest me.’”
“I had to do that, to see if he was on Dmitri’s payroll.”
“And now you know he isn’t.”
“Yes, which means he’s not on Alexander’s payroll, either.”
“Probably. But that doesn’t mean you can just go and pop Alexander in the head.”
“I don’t plan on shooting Alexander,” Nick replied. “But I do need information out of him and I don’t want some cop watching my every move.”
She smiled a bit, finally. “Well, you’re welcome.”
“What did you say to him? You spent a lot of time talking to him.”
She shrugged and wouldn’t look him in the eye. “Just talking him down. He was quite angry.”
“Did you make any promises?”
She laughed. “Not about you, no. But you’d better behave yourself. You’re on his list now.”
Nick looked at her sideways. “Not about me? What did you promise him?”
“I didn’t promise him anything,” she said, and laughed. It sounded strained. “You’re a worrier. He’s off your back for now. Just go with that and do what you need to do.”
“I’d better call Alexander,” Nick said. “I need to meet with him today.”
“Do you want me to do it?” she asked.
Nick shook his head. “Thanks, but this is something I need to do myself. I assume he speaks English.”
She nodded. “I’m sure he does,” she said. “If I remember correctly, he has several legitimate businesses. He’d need English for them.”
Nick grabbed Dmitri’s phone, scrolled to Alexander’s name in the contacts list, and pressed the Call button.
It was answered on the second ring by a woman. A middle-aged woman, by the sound of her voice. She sounded pleasant enough, if not overtly friendly.
“Zdrastvoytya,” Nick said. “Do you speak English?”
She switched effortlessly to English. “Yes, of course. May I help you?”
“I’d like to speak with Mr. Bocharova, please,” Nick said. He gritted his teeth at the submissive tone in his voice, but he knew he wasn’t going to get past Alexander’s filter without it.
“He’s in a meeting right now,” the woman replied automatically. “But I’d be happy to give him a message.”
Nick took a deep breath. “My name is Nick Wallace. I’m an American in Rostov to adopt a baby girl. I’ve had problems with some people in one of his, um, businesses that I would like to talk to him about.”
There was a pause. “What kind of problems?” the receptionist asked. He could hear light clicks of keys being pressed on her end.
“My daughter has been taken and I need to get her back. I’m hoping Mr. Bocharova can help me.”
“His associate couldn’t help you?” she asked politely.
“No. He wouldn’t tell me, and now he can’t.”
“Oh?”
“Unfortunately, he’s dead.”
The clicking stopped. “And what did you say your name was?”
“Nick Wallace.”
“Mr. Wallace,” she said, “I believe Mr. Bocharova’s meeting just concluded.”
Chapter 32
Anya turned the car off and they sat in silence, listening to the clicks as the engine cooled. Once the air conditioner shut off, heat coursed through the windshield and sweat quickly beaded on Nick’s forehead.
They were in a small, tree-lined parking lot in front of a three-story glass office building. It was an ornate building, with a curving passenger drop-off in the front that circled around an area of colorful flowers. The windows were glazed, effectively hiding all activity inside.
They sat in the back row of the lot, where Nick thought they’d be out of sight of curious eyes. He and Anya glared at each other.
“I trust we won’t have an incident,” Nick said.
“I just think I should come in with you,” Anya replied. “You don’t know what you’re getting into. Alexander could take you out as soon as you walk through the door.”
“Which is why I don’t want you coming in,” Nick said. “No sense in both of us getting killed.”
“But—“
“Quiet,” Nick said. “When I’m in there I want you someplace safe. Find a spot and wait for me to call. Got it?”
“Yes, sir,” she replied, sticking her lower lip out.
“And no cavalry. Or even cabaret,” he said.
She didn’t smile. “Be careful. Don’t make him angry. He’s more powerful than you know.”
Nick sighed and opened his car door. “Will do. I’ll be courteous and respectful. I jus
t hope he doesn’t make me blow his head off.”
He turned to get out of the car.
“Hey!” Anya said.
Nick turned back. “What?”
“You armed?”
He pursed his lips. “Hmm, yes. That probably wouldn’t go over very well with them, would it?”
“No. Leave them here.”
Slowly, sadly, Nick put the two Glocks in the glove box of Anya’s car. He felt naked without them. Then he thought of Dmitri’s cell phone in his pocket. That would probably go over even worse than the guns. He popped it into the glove box next to the guns.
“Your cell phone is on, right?” he asked her.
Anya checked quickly. “Yes,” she said.
Nick sighed. “Good. OK, wish me luck.”
Anya flashed a smile. “Good luck,” she said. “See you soon.”
He mounted the steps with a feeling of dread. He wasn’t afraid of Alexander as much as concerned about what the man would tell him about his daughter. If this boss wasn’t interested in playing ball, there wasn’t much Nick could do about it, especially in the few remaining hours he had left. He prayed Alexander would cooperate. The thought “take pity” flashed through his mind, but Nick chased it away quickly. He wasn’t here for pity. He was here to get his daughter back.
And, dammit, he would. His back straightened as he pushed his way through the glass doors.
There was a metal detector in front of him. Alongside it stood a man in a black suit, hands clasped in front of him. Behind a console next to the detector sat another man, ready to look into anything Nick brought with him.
Nick thanked Anya for remembering the guns.
The standing guard motioned Nick forward with a terse wave of his hand. Nick stepped up to the man who, without smiling, spoke in Russian. Nick flashed his ID. The man glanced at it, then down at a sheet of paper in front of him. He said something in Russian. Nick assumed he was asking about who Nick was there to see.
“Alexander Bocharova,” Nick said simply.
The man looked up at Nick, studied his face, looked down again at the paper, and made a check mark about halfway down the sheet. He pointed to the metal detector.
Nick stepped through the detector, then waited on the other side as the second man scanned the image. He must have passed because the man waved him through. The first guard fell into place beside Nick and said, “I show you.”
Worth The Risk Page 21