Operator - 01

by David Vinjamuri

  “Where is Yuri?” I ask, shifting my attention to Golovkin, whom I peg as the dimmest bulb in the group. His eyes dart towards the front door, confirming my intuition. I don’t wait for an answer from Arkady. “He’s not here, is he?” I spit on the floor, trying not to make eye contact with my mother as I do. “He ordered you to hold my mother and sister as hostage then left? And I suppose he told you I’d come alone without involving the authorities?” I ask, showing outrage. There’s more shifting around from the three goons, especially Petrov, who grabs me again and sticks the .44 Magnum I’ve brushed aside right into the back of my neck. Then I notice Golovkin frowning at Arkady. These men cannot have failed to notice the roadblocks at either end of Green Farms Hollow or the multiple FBI vehicles with flashing lights manning them. Arkady himself has kept his poker face after his initial reaction and is standing stock-still and staring at me.

  “You know that I’m unarmed,” I say, addressing my comments only to Arkady, the leader. “I’m taking an ice pack out of my pocket,” I stick two fingers into my jacket pocket and slowly remove a chemical ice pack. “Let me look at my mother and my sister and then we can talk.” The stunned silence in the room stretches on as I pull my arm free of Petrov and calmly walk over to my mother. With a twist I break the pack and dab it on her cheek. She looks like she wants to spit in my face and I’m actually relieved that the Russians have gagged her. When I‘ve gotten both of her cheeks good and cold, I move on to Ginny.

  “Just stay calm and don’t move,” I whisper to Ginny without moving my lips as I rub the pack on her cheeks. Then I straighten up.

  “So is this a hostage trade – me for them?” I ask. Seeing Arkady’s expression I try again. “Or perhaps you’re supposed to kill me in front of them?” Still no reaction. “Or is it kill them in front of me?” and here Arkady involuntarily arches an eyebrow.

  “Don’t you think the situation has changed? If you fire a gun in here, the FBI will knock down the door and we’ll all be dead in minutes. An American prison is still better than getting planted in an unmarked grave,” I say.

  “Let’s kill them all and be done with this,” Petrov growls impatiently. Arkady steps past me and, leaning into Petrov, hisses furiously into his ear. When Arkady steps back in front of me, he’s flushed. I’ve managed to cause a little dissension in the ranks, at least.

  “You will have the police withdraw immediately or we will kill your mother,” Arkady pronounces calmly.

  “If the FBI pulls back they’ll move just outside of your sight range and you know it. You’re bluffing. Yuri ordered you to kill my mother and sister in front of me and then bring me to him so he could finish the job personally. But Yuri was smart enough to know that I’d never walk into this kind of situation alone, so that means he set you up. He put you in a position where you’ll certainly be killed. Then there will be nobody left to tie him back to everything he’s done in this town. Do you really want to die today? Because if you touch my mother or my sister again, I can guarantee that not one of you will leave this house alive.” I stop talking to catch a breath and let the four Russians think about what I’ve said. I’m having some effect on Arkady because he doesn’t speak.

  “On the other hand, if you put down your arms and walk out of this house with me right now, I can promise that you will live and that you’ll be treated fairly. If you deliver Yuri, you might even escape with something less than a life sentence.” In fact I have no idea what the penalties are for the multiple crimes that these men have committed but I suspect they’ll never see daylight if they surrender.

  For a second – a moment that stretches to eternity – I see that I have him. Arkady knows the score. Maybe he was already wondering why there hasn’t been any traffic on the street for the last hour, or why the neighboring houses have all gone dark. Possibly he doesn’t completely trust Yuri anyway. Maybe, like me, he’s learned somewhere along the way to recognize the truth when it is spoken to him. But then, just as he seems to decide, just as I think he’s going to tell his men to put down their weapons, Oleg Golovkin, the serial killer, interrupts.

  “Don’t listen to him, Arkady! He’s just trying to save his precious little family. You know what we have to do.”

  “Oleg,” I turn to address him, keeping my tone even, “I was surprised to learn that you were in the United States. I was under the impression that recreation time at Ognenny Ostrov was limited to the prison yard.”

  “You’re not going to mind-fuck me, American soldier!” Golovkin snarls, and he reaches to pull back the dual hammers on his shotgun.

  “Go, go, go!” I yell, hoping my wire is still working, and immediately jerk my head to the left as Petrov’s .44 Magnum erupts in my ear, the bullet missing me by millimeters. Before anyone else can react, Golovkin is flung back a half dozen feet away from my mother, the tops of his legs finally hitting the dining room table as he slams back onto it with his arms spread wide. His shotgun drops uselessly to the ground, the hammers never striking. At the same instant, Pichushkin is spun around to the left, his Desert Eagle flying away from Ginny’s forehead, and his body jerks like a marionette as a .50-caliber slug tears through his heart. I assume that the boom of sniper rifles has accompanied this but I can’t hear a thing: the .44 Ruger has left me deaf for the moment. Before Petrov can fire the big revolver again, I step back and jab him in the throat with the back of my elbow. While he chokes I grab his wrist and using a pressure point, relieve him of the Ruger. Then I have a hand on top of Arkady’s MP5, pushing it away from me as I step towards him. Before Arkady can make his mind up whether to fire, I have the Ruger planted in his chest. After a tense moment of silence, he relents and releases the MP5. Without looking back, I plant an elbow in Petrov’s face as he lunges towards me from behind and he drops like a stone. Then I lock eyes with Arkady, the only other man left standing in the room.

  “Where is Yuri?” I ask. He takes a moment to register the question. He is trembling and he looks like he’s seen a ghost. Then, slowly, he composes himself. His fingers spread wide and he reaches slowly into his pants pocket.

  * * *

  I’m loitering on the porch, waiting for Alpha to call on the Blackberry. Amelia rushed in as soon as the FBI let her through and promptly kicked me out of the house. “You should be ashamed!” she said to me. I told her that the men who invaded the house were criminals, and that our mother was not harmed. “But you brought them here! Look what they did to the house!” she responded. So I told her the government would pay to clean up the mess, although I’m not at all sure if that’s true. She scoffed, “Mother will never take a handout, but that’s not the point. She’s covered in blood! How long do you think it’s taken her to get over the last time?” I thought about that for a moment and it shook me up a little. My mother is not a very sympathetic figure, so it’s always been hard for me to know what effect my dad’s suicide had on her. When I peeled the tape off her mouth as the FBI rushed in to secure the two Tambov gang members still breathing, she refused to speak to me, didn’t even make eye contact. I thought she was in shock. But I guess she wasn’t. Our reconciliation was short-lived, it seems. Mercifully, Ginny’s attitude was different; she hugged me fiercely while weeping openly. Then again, Ginny never blamed me for anything.

  Dan Menetti steps onto the porch. I don’t know if he was ever a field agent, but he looks a little out of place wearing body armor and a helmet. He takes off the helmet and runs a hand through thinning hair, then sits down on the porch swing opposite me as I lean against the railing.

  “How are you holding up?” he asks.

  “I think my mother is disowning me.”

  “Damn straight she is. You should have gotten her out of Dodge a couple of days ago,” he says, smiling.

  “She hasn’t left this town for more than twenty years. Nothing short of a nuclear warhead could dislodge her.”

  Dan looks over his shoulder at the shattered window and the .50-caliber holes in the wall. “At least you gave it yo
ur best shot. Those snipers your boss loaned us are damned impressive. Our guys say they wouldn’t have dared make that shot through a wall.”

  The snipers were Sleeper and Tweetie, the two Activity operators Alpha brought with him to Sweet Sue’s yesterday. After Dmitriev passed me photos of Yuri and his men at lunch today, I asked Alpha to have them watch my mother’s place. As I suspected, they were still in town.

  “They were firing the Barrett XM-500 with thermal imaging sights. That’s a very special weapons package your guys probably don’t have yet,” I point out. FBI snipers are no slouches; I’ve shot alongside them at Quantico.

  “I dunno. That was a neat trick with the icepack, by the way.”

  I shrug. “I needed to be sure we could tell the good guys from the bad guys.” When I dabbed my mother and sister’s cheeks with the icepack, I was marking them for Sleeper and Tweetie. The whole plan was probably a crazy gambit. But I wasn’t confident that a hostage standoff with the FBI would end up with my family intact and I also wanted to get at least one of the Tambov guys out alive. Don’t get me wrong, the FBI Hostage Rescue Team guys are top-shelf – they had a liaison assigned to the Activity and I had a chance to work with him. But when it came down to my own family, I wanted to handle things personally.

  Menetti’s mobile rings and he steps off the porch for a moment. When he comes back his face is grim.

  “I have bad news for you. The two agents we sent to take Miss Ryan home have not checked in. We called Miss Ryan’s parents and she did not arrive there. We have a GPS location on their vehicle and there’s a team en route right now. Miss Ryan’s mobile phone is not transmitting at the moment. We have a BOLO out on her for the tri-state area.”

  My stomach drops as the pieces of the puzzle start to fit together. Menetti makes the same connection I do and asks, “Did one of those goons give you a note from Kuznetsov?” It takes me a moment to remember that’s Yuri’s last name before I nod.

  “What was the message?”

  I hand the note to Menetti. It has a phone number scrawled on it. “The message was to call this number.”

  “Have you?”

  “No,” I shake my head. “I’m waiting for a call back from Alpha.”

  “If he’s taken Miss Ryan, it’s probably not the worst thing in the world to let Mr. Kuznetsov cool his heels a little. That might get him wondering how you’ll react,” Menetti observes. He doesn’t miss much. “But you have to understand that kidnapping is a federal offense. This is our show.” I nod, thinking one thing at a time.

  Then Sleeper and Tweetie appear, having stowed their gear. We chat for a few moments. It’s an odd, awkward situation. I’m glad that Alpha was willing to part with them for an extra day. I’m grateful they were as good as I remember at the critical moment. But I’m still uncomfortable. When I was in the Activity, we almost never got glimpses of each other’s private lives. They’ve seen more of mine than I want anyone to. I’m relieved when the Blackberry vibrates and it’s Alpha.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, Orion. I’m looking at an FBI flash report on the incident at your mother’s house right now, but why don’t you take me through it,” he says. I step off the porch into the front yard and walk him through events slowly, taking pains to praise Tweetie and Sleeper for the difficult shots they made that spared my mother and Ginny’s lives. Then I tell him about the note and Veronica’s disappearance.

  “This sounds like it’s personal for Mr. Kuznetsov,” he observes.

  “I think so, sir. What else could Yuri hope to gain? He must know the Tambov operation is finished and that Constantine Drubich is dead. He set up his own guys to get killed by us. I think he wants revenge for his brother, and then he wants to disappear with no loose ends.”

  “The only way to know is to make contact. Give me the number you received. We’ll set up the call and ring your phone when it’s ready. We’ll be able to trace Mr. Kuznetsov’s phone even before you connect.”

  I read Alpha the number and hang up. A moment later, the Blackberry buzzes again. It’s Sammie, who initiates the call. Yuri answers on the second ring.

  “Herne?” he asks, his voice raw like a wolf that’s lost a patch of fur.

  “That’s right,” I say. “I got your message.”

  “And your family. How are they?” His tone raises the small hairs on my neck. This guy may have the same training I do, but he enjoys his work in a way I never did.

  “They’re fine.”

  “Did any of my men survive?” We both know his men were lambs before the altar.

  “Arkady Tchayka and Maxim Petrov are alive. The other two are dead. I’m surprised Oleg Golovkin was one of yours. I would have thought you’d have higher standards.”

  “You make do with what you’re given. But you are right; he was not a good man. Very undisciplined.” He’s missed my point, of course. Whether on purpose or not, I can’t tell. “I have the girl. You know this already, yes?” He fumbles with the phone for a second and I hear a shriek of “Michael!” which is abruptly cut off. It’s Veronica.

  “Yes, you have the girl,” I sigh and don’t bother disguising it from Yuri. “What do you want?” There can only be one thing. Yuri knows exactly what happened when his associates kidnapped Veronica and he won’t make the same mistake.

  “If you come to me, I’ll let her go.”

  “So you can shoot me instead? You must think I’m a romantic.”

  “I know you’re a romantic, Mr. Herne. That’s why I like you. You’ll have a fair chance. More than my brother had.”

  “More than those little girls had? More than Mel Harris had?” I counter, my blood rising.

  “Yes. All the more reason for you to come. Alone. Do you know where the old Overlook Mountain House is?”

  “I do.” I am surprised that Yuri does.

  “Come alone. Leave your guns at home, but bring a knife. If you bring help or a gun, I’ll kill the girl. You know I’ll see them, don’t you?”

  “How do I know you won’t kill her as soon as you get off this call?”

  “You have my word that the girl is alive and I will not touch her from this moment forward if you follow my instructions. I also promise that you will have as much chance to kill me as I will to kill you.”

  “Okay,” I say. It’s insane to agree to his terms, of course. Nine of ten professionals would kill Veronica immediately after disconnecting the call and then finish me off as soon as they had a good shot. That’s the prudent course of action. But I believe Yuri won’t shoot me or hurt the girl because he wants the opportunity to kill me with his bare hands. He’s an anachronism, a man who regards his word of honor as inviolate but feels no hesitation abetting pedophiles or murdering innocent women. Or maybe he’s a pure psychopath. I don’t know. I end the call and a second later the phone buzzes.

  “You’re going.” Alpha says this as a statement of fact. I detect a note of sympathy in his voice.

  “Yes, sir. I could use some assistance if you are willing, sir. Would you run interference with the FBI to give me a clear field? The ‘house’ Yuri is referring to is on the side of a mountain near Woodstock. The weather is good up here right now and the moon is nearly full tonight. If the FBI tries to infiltrate the woods Yuri will spot them from a mile away, and then a lot of people will die. I’d prefer if they limit themselves to sealing off the area with a perimeter at one mile from the Overlook, but no closer.”

  “Do you really think you’ll get the girl out of there alive?”

  I pause to consider this. “It seems unlikely, sir, but I have to try.”

  “I understand,” Alpha says. “Hang tight for a few moments while I arrange things for you. And good luck.”

  * * *

  The Overlook Mountain House is not a working hotel, not any longer. It’s a discarded husk – built on the ruins of two earlier attempts – that sits on the gently sloping face of a mountain just a few minutes’ drive north from the town of Woodstock. The first hotel built on the
spot was a me-too attempt to capitalize on the success of the Catskill Mountain House, a bigger establishment that wooed affluent domestic travelers beginning in 1827. It was called the Overlook Hotel, and it wasn’t actually completed until well after the Civil War, in 1871. It had some early successes, notably a visit by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1873. Then it burned down in 1875, on April Fools’ Day. When it was reconstructed in 1878, the new owners called it the Overlook Mountain House. It operated through 1897, although rarely at more than half-capacity. When the owner took his life in the building, it closed for two years and was never fully opened thereafter, but was rented out occasionally to private groups. It was notoriously the site of the birth of the Communist Party of America in 1921. In 1923, just two months after the United Mine Workers revealed the secret of the Overlook House and its connection to the Communists, unknown persons burned the second structure to the ground.