The Israeli man frowned. Wasn’t Anya his daughter? What could a child offer to the multi-million dollar decision? However, he didn’t dare voice his concern. Everyone knew how Dmitry Medlov felt about his only daughter. Quietly, he waited for the girl to answer her father’s summons.
Within minutes, Anya walked into the room with a doll in one hand and book in the other. Dressed in a simple pair of jeans and a Tinker Bell t-shirt, she walked over to her father. “Mary said that you wanted me,” she said, eyes traveling over to the other man in the room. She gave him a distrusting look that sent chills up his spine. Evidently, the girl didn’t care for strangers.
Dmitry bent down and picked his daughter up. Kissing her rosy cheeks, he walked with her in his arms over to the table. “Pick your favorite ten and then we’ll send the rest with this nice man,” he said, sitting her on the table beside the pile.
“Just ten?” she asked, looking at all the sparkly stones.
“Just ten,” Dmitry repeated. He ran an adoring hand over her angelic face. “Be quick about it, please. Daddy has other things he has to do.”
Anya turned and looked at the stones, putting down her doll for only a second. Picking up the biggest ten that she could find in the pile, she handed them to her father and then picked her doll back up. “Can I have ice cream, papa?” she asked as he set her down on the marble floor.
Dmitry looked at her shirt. “It looks like you’ve already had some,” he said, pointing out the smudge of chocolate on her shirt.
“Mommy said that I can’t have anymore, but I wasn’t full yet. Can I have some now?” she asked again. “I did a favor for you, picking out your diamonds. All I want is something to eat.” She did not blink or smile. However, her argument for deserving more dessert was compelling.
The Israeli man watched on learning something new about his boss even as he handled his child. This family believed that nothing came free. A favor for a favor, no matter how small.
Dmitry smiled and nodded. He always loved negotiating with his princess. She would be a formidable force once it was time. “Fine, you can have one more serving of ice cream. Tell Mary to fix it for you.”
As she headed back to the door, he stopped her. “Anya, did you forget to say something?” He put his hands on his hips and waited.
“Did you?” she asked, opening the door with her small hand. Leaving Dmitry alone with his guest, she closed the door behind her quietly.
Dmitry seemed nothing if not pleased with the girl. Turning back to the man, he pointed at the ten that she had selected. “Leave those ten and take the rest to be sold at the store in South Beach.”
“As you wish,” the man said, picking up everything but the ten diamonds that Anya had picked out and placed them carefully in the titanium case.
Another knock on the door drew Dmitry’s attention. “Mary, I told her that she could have some more ice cream. It’s fine.”
“It’s me, boss,” Vasily said.
Dmitry looked over at the Israeli man motioning toward the door. “The men will see to your arrangements for the night at the Peabody,” he said as Vasily walked in past him.
As soon as the man was gone, Dmitry sat down on one of the upholstered fine satin chairs by the table. “Did you find her?”
“Yes,” Vasily said, wiping his tired eyes. It had been a long trip, although no one cared. He yawned and leaned against the table nearest the door.
“Well, where is she?” Dmitry asked, frustrated that he had to probe.
“In the trunk,” Vasily answered. He shrugged at his boss cutting his crystal blue eyes at him. He quickly explained. “She’s a handful. I had to improvise. You told me to bring her here whether she wanted to come or not. Well, she didn’t want to come. I found her working in a tire shop in Keyes. Evidently, her parents didn’t want her at the farm. So, she hitchhiked to the farthest place that she could get before she ran out of cash. The place was a real hell hole. She should have been glad to come back.”
Dmitry ignored the rest of the Intel. “She’s in the fucking trunk right now?” He stood up and walked towards the door. “Take me to her.”
Out in the garage, Vasily popped open the trunk of Dmitry’s white Bentley to find Roxie duct taped and tied down with rope. Dmitry bent down to the woman, whose eyes grew wide with fear at the size of him, and snatched the tape off her mouth. He was about to apologize for his man’s treatment of her when she interrupted.
“Ouch!” she screamed. “What the fuck! Where am I? Am I back in Memphis? Did Cane send you?” Her eyes were wild with fear and anger. “What do you want from me?”
Dmitry looked at Vasily. “What’s that smell?” he asked, trying to ignore Roxie and wishing that he hadn’t taken off the tape.
“I pissed in your fucking trunk! You mother fuckers can’t just kidnap someone.” Taking a deep breath first, she screamed out. “Help! Someone help me!”
“Please be quiet,” Dmitry said, voice low. He massaged his temples.
“Help!” she screamed again. Her shrieking voice carried through the garage and wounded Dmitry’s ears. “Someone help me!”
“Please…” Dmitry took a deep breath. “Stop yelling.”
“Help!” she screamed again. “Someone, please!”
“Shut! Up!” Dmitry growled. His voice boomed and scared her. Oddly enough, it wasn’t even a scream, but his baritone was so forceful and so deep until the base sent chills through her spine.
Immediately, Roxie quieted down.
Gathering his composure, Dmitry put his hand on the side of the car and tried to speak in a low, calm voice. “Cane couldn’t have found you if you had hid under his ball sack. I sent for you.”
“Who are you?” Roxie asked, looking between him and Vasily. “And what do you want with me?”
“That depends,” Dmitry answered.
“On what?” she asked, trying to raise her head to talk to him.
“Are you going to stop screaming? If not, I’m going to leave you out here until you start to stew in your own urine. However, if you behave and keep in mind that there is no reason not to, then Vasily will take you someplace where you can have a hot bath, fresh clothes, and something to eat.” He raised his long index finger. “In exchange for that kindness, I want to know what you saw the night before you fled the city.”
Roxie’s face changed and Dmitry knew right then that she knew a hell of a lot more than she should have.
“I’m waiting,” he said irritated.
“How do I know that you won’t just kill me as soon as I tell you?” She rolled her eyes. “Uh uh. I gotta get something out of it.”
“How about a chance to get out of the trunk, you rude little bitch,” Vasily snapped.
“That’s enough, Vasily,” Dmitry ordered. “Roxie, that’s your name right.”
“What difference is it to you? Last time I checked you didn’t need to know a person’s name to pop a cap in their ass,” she screamed.
Vasily shook his head. Like he had told his boss, she was a handful.
“Roxie,” Dmitry said, heaving a deep sigh. He pointed his long finger at her. “I don't have time for this shit. Okay, so don’t take my kindness for a weakness. Tell me exactly what you know right now. If you’re worried about Cane, I can assure you that he’s the last of your worries.” His eyes narrowed. “But you do need to worry about me. You have some information that I want, and I get what I want. Do I make myself clear? You’re in the back of a Bentley in my garage. If I wanted you dead, you’d be in a hole out in the desert that I just spent time and money extracting you from. Now, if you want to push me, then I’ll just hand you back over to Vasily and he’ll harvest your organs and sell them so that I can recoup my money.” That last part was a joke but Roxie didn’t find it to be funny.
Just then the garage opened and Nicola, Anatoly, and Gabriel came pulling in from the trip out to Cane’s house.
Dmitry looked up and waved them over as they got out of the SUV.
&nbs
p; “What’s this?” Anatoly asked, looking at the girl with a stone face.
“This is Roxie,” Dmitry said, cracking a smile. “Evidently, she has bigger balls then the men that we pick up. Won’t say a word…yet.”
Nicola walked up to the truck with a bottle of water and his flak jacket thrown over the side of his shoulder. He instantly recognized her. “You found her!” He said, amazed at Dmitry’s abundant resourcefulness.
“Who are you?” she asked, still fidgeting in the back of the trunk.
Nicola caught a whiff of her urine and bucked his eyes. “I’m…I’m Nicola Agosto,” he said, stepping back a few feet.
“So you brought me back here?” Her eyes blazed with fury. “All you had to do was answer the fucking phone when I called the first time.”
“Better late than never, right?” Nicola said, reaching to pull her out of the truck.
Dmitry stopped him. “No, not until she tells us what we want to know. Now it’s about principle.”
Nicola let go of her bound hands. “Well…” He waited just like the rest of them.
“It’s here, okay. I still got it but…” She paused and huffed.
“What’s here?” Nicola asked.
“I have the real jump drive with the recording of the cop, the politician, and Cane meeting earlier that day, and I recorded Twist getting shot by Cane that night on my phone. It’s all on the fucking jump drive.” Wiggling again, she growled in frustration. “I have to piss again.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Nicola said astonished. She really was the key to the case. “Where is the drive?”
Roxie cleared her throat. “In me?”
“Excuse me?” Nicola said with a frown.
“In me. I use a plastic receptacle like the drug mules do to keep it up in my pussy. I knew it would be my only chance at staying alive, so I keep it close.”
“On that note, I’ll leave you gentlemen to it,” Dmitry said, turning and walking back to the entrance of the house. “You men come and see me when you’re done.” He threw up his hands.
Gabriel couldn’t help but laugh. With his balled up fist to his mouth, he hit Nicola on the shoulder. “You can fish it out if you want to, but I’d use gloves though.”
“Let her up,” Nicola said to Vasily. “She told us what we wanted to know.”
Vasily cut his eyes at Roxie. “You help her out. I went and got her.”
Shaking his head, Nicola pulled the little woman out of the back of the Bentley and stood her up on her own two feet. However, two much time in the car had her nearly too weak to stand on her own. Grabbing her before she collapsed, Nicola picked her up in his arms.
“Don’t bring her in the house,” Anatoly said, walking away.
“Well, what am I supposed to do with her?” Nicola screamed out.
Gabriel passed him the keys to the SUV.
“Take her to the stash house. Let her get a bath, some clothes, and food and then Gazelle, the girl who runs the house, will put her back on a commercial plane to Oklahoma. Don’t forget to get your precious jump drive from her,” Vasily said, headed back towards the house. He was absolutely exhausted. All he wanted was something to eat and a bed for himself. But Anatoly quickly stopped him.
“Turn around. You’re going with him,” Anatoly said, stepping in front of Vasily. “You did a good job, and I appreciate it, but I need one more thing. Well, two things actually. At the stash house, there is one dead body of a cop that I need you to get rid of and there is one man still alive that I need you to mirror.”
Vasily dropped his shoulders. “Boss, that’s going to take all night. I’m exhausted.”
“Get something to eat and grab a nap there then.” He hit Vasily on the shoulders. “Just get it done tonight. Tomorrow will be too late. And Nicola and I have some things to handle. He’s going to drop her off, we’re going to regroup and go back out to finish this shit. I’ve got a fucking wedding the day after tomorrow.”
“Da da, boss. I’ll do it,” Vasily said obediently. “But I’m not getting in the car with her.” He looked over at Roxie as Agosto loaded her in the back of the SUV. “I’ll drive another car.”
“What you don’t like the smell of piss?” Winking at Vasily, he turned and walked into the house with Gabriel who was waiting at the door.
35
Late in the afternoon, a young black man in his early thirties with dreads pulled back, wearing a navy polo shirt and pair of crisp dark jeans rang the doorbell of the stash house and waited with a techy backpack thrown over his arm. Without a word, Nicola opened it quickly, stepped out to make sure that no one was following him, escorted him inside, and then closed the door behind them.
“I’m Rah,” the man said, taking off his shades and replacing them with black thick-rimmed glasses. He offered his hand.
“Agosto,” Nicola said, shaking it.
“Yeah, I’ve seen your work online,” Rah said flatly.
“Don't believe everything you see on TV. Come with me,” Nicola said, leading the man down the long corridor passed the bodyguards who sat in the living room watching television to the office at the end of the hallway. Opening the door to the study, he pointed at the computer on the large oak desk. “The jump drive is already in the computer. From what I’ve been told, the laptop is not traceable. So, you can do your magic without it being traced. How long will it take?”
Rah sat down behind the desk, opened the MacBook Air and typed in his password. “I’ve worked on this computer before. From time to time, Dmitry or Anatoly has me leak something to media when they want someone to know something.” He didn’t elaborate any more than that. “With regard to the information on the drive…” He tapped his fingers on the desk as he contemplated something. “How far do you want it to go?” He turned his lip up.
Nicola shrugged. “Well the ass beating that I gave DeMario went at least nationwide.” He huffed in frustration of the thought. “Can you match it? I need every major network, all social media…the works.”
“Can I?” Rah smiled arrogantly. “I can make you popular in Egypt by midnight. They’ll be begging you for interviews in New York in an hour.”
“Just give me thirty minutes to give a friend here the heads up and you can make me famous in Calcutta for all I care,” Nicola said, turning to walk out. He stopped abruptly. “Can I get you anything before I go? Water? Red Bull?”
Rah didn’t look up from the computer. He was already typing. “Nope, thanks. I’m good.”
Leaving Rah to his Internet magic, Nicola headed to the dining room where the weapons were being brought up from the basement, unboxed and loaded on the elaborate rectangular table.
“Don’t scratch the wood,” Gabriel ordered, passing off a long, black zipped bag to Boris. “Take this and get in position. Don’t let anyone out the front.” He passed the other bag in the corner to Maurice. “Are you good with sniper rifles?” he asked, pausing before he placed it in his hand.
“Are you trying to insult me?” Maurice asked, snatching the bag. “I’m a fucking Marine, dude, not a DEA agent.”
Gabriel smirked. “Don’t let anyone out the back. There are no windows so they only have a couple of options. Whoever built this place was a real idiot, but it works in our advantage today since Nicola plans to go all Sparta on their asses.”
Nicola walked over to the table and looked at the sniper rifle it the open hard case. “How did you get your hands on a Stealth Recon Scout?” he asked impressed.
Nicola didn’t know it, but Gabriel’s second love in life was hard-to-get, high-powered sniper rifles; the first love was a secret to everyone accept him. He gave a big bright, toothy smile and walked over the weapon. With his hands on his hips, he sighed. “Well, the short answer to your question is, we stole a few thousand off the back of a secured train coming through Chicago. But the real question is why? You see, the SRS is the most versatile sniper system in the world. It is nearly a foot shorter than conventional sniper weapons, maintains ½ M
OA or better accuracy and can easily be adapted to individual missions, like yours, where you need to change the weapon’s caliber and length. This bitch can shoot 50 yards or one mile. So the question is who wouldn’t have one?”
Maurice rolled his eyes. He had heard the speech literally a hundred times before.
“The Medlov family specializes in getting the shit in built that your local gun man can’t even pronounce yet and all of it is completely un-fucking-traceable. We’ve got these and Hard Target interdiction rifles and anything that you can possibly dream up in our arsenal for just this little mission alone.” Gabriel picked up the weapon and passed it to Nicola. “Now, I wouldn’t recommend this one for you for this evening’s party but in the future, I suggest that you take it out for a dance. You might like it.”
Nicola held the sleek rifle in his hands and looked it over. It was portable and lighter than most sniper rifles, but he was nowhere as giddy about it as Gabriel was. “You really get a hard on with these things, huh?” Nicola asked Gabriel, passing it back.
“Dude, I’m toting a boner right now,” Gabriel said with a wink.
Nicola stepped back a few inches. “Nice to know. So, what would you suggest that I take with me tonight?”
Gabriel walked over to the far corner where stacks of weapons were piled on a dark gold satin upholstered chair. “This is the SRS Covert, purposefully designed for police and military snipers needing ultimate conceal ability. It's the shortest sniper rifle in the world with a quick caliber conversion feature. So you have the option of either suppressed subsonic ammunition or full-power standard ammunition with ½ MOA accuracy. Now each hard case has the six magazines, attached bipod, scope, suppressor, and secondary kit.” He picked up a case of smaller, machine guns. “When you get a chance to get up close and personal, we have two options. This one is your standard Israeli Mini UZI SMG.”
“These are self-explanatory,” Nicola said, knowing he would need both.
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