The Blade

by Saul, Jonas

  “That’s what they’re expecting, though,” Carson said. “Your actions have been labeled as crazy. They think you’re fucking gone in the head.” He pointed at his temple. “They’re afraid of you. If they can have you on their team, it removes their fear.”

  “I don’t care about their fear. I care about mine.”

  The room fell silent for a moment. No one spoke as Mike retook his seat beside Victor.

  “You understand why we had Greg and Rosina reported as killed, right?”

  Darwin didn’t say anything. He just wanted to leave.

  “So that the hits on them would expire. We can’t fake your death too. They would want to see the body.”

  Darwin stood again and walked to the door. “We done here?”

  “Is there nothing we can say that’ll help you understand how dire your situation is right now?” Victor asked.

  “You have done that. I know shit’s gone bad. But when I leave, no one will find me or my wife. I’ve had a lot of people try to kill me over the last three months. I’ve been lucky, I know, but if they come, I will do whatever is necessary to remove the threat and if that means more bodies, then so be it. Maybe next time they’ll all learn to leave me alone.”

  Darwin opened the door, stepped into the hallway and slammed the door behind him.

  Chapter 17

  Darwin knew they were right. He couldn’t live the rest of his life wondering who was around the next corner. No way could he exist with that constant threat over his and his wife’s heads. But he couldn’t bring himself to work with more mobsters.

  How will Rosina feel? But how can I keep her safe with this new threat?

  He had to deal with the Reds whether he liked it or not. But he had to do it his way, not the FBI’s way, and that meant running from Carson’s office. He needed to get out of the federal building without being seen by anyone. If the Reds ever thought he’d struck a deal in Carson’s office, they’d kill him on the spot. He couldn’t trust anybody. How did he know whether or not those two agents in Carson’s office, Victor and Mike, weren’t working for the Mafia?

  He had to consider the possibility that the FBI would make him wear a wire and that would be too risky. If he had no choice but to deal with this new problem, he would deal with it on his terms and no one else’s. There had to be a greater purpose to his life, otherwise he would be dead by now. God had looked out for him. He needed help one more time.

  I’m sorry, Rosina. Trust me, baby. We’ll get through this and finally start to live as a married couple.

  He waited for the elevator. When it arrived, he got on, pressed Lobby and then changed his mind. He couldn’t be seen by anyone leaving a federal building through the front door. What if the Reds already had guys stationed out front? What if they saw him leave the building and executed him before they had a chance to talk? He needed to find an alternate route out of the building.

  The light for Parking Level Two lit up when he pushed it. The doors shut and the elevator began to descend.

  All he could think about were Mike’s Mafia tattoos. What if Arkady did decide to work with Darwin and made him go under the needle? He’d lose his mind and end up killing the tattoo artist.

  The elevator slowed and stopped. The doors opened on the lobby. Darwin leaned into the wall in the back left corner of the elevator to avoid being seen. The doors sat open for five seconds and then started to close.

  A hand shot through and stopped the doors at the last second. They opened and two sharp-dressed men got on. Both nodded at Darwin and one of the men turned to the buttons, pressing Eighteen. The doors shut and the elevator descended again. At parking level two, the doors opened and Darwin walked out between the men, turning to the right and disappearing around the concrete corner.

  Light from the elevator spilled out on the floor. He watched it from behind the corner. After five seconds the doors closed and Darwin heard the mechanism lifting the elevator to the floors above.

  That was crazy. Am I going to suspect everyone I see?

  He couldn’t live as a paranoid maniac. Just because two men got on an elevator didn’t mean they were assassins.

  Get it together, Darwin. You gotta try to keep it together.

  He slid down the wall and sat, bringing his knees to his chest. He wrapped his arms around his knees and bowed his head.

  What am I going to do?

  He could grab Rosina, run to the station and take a train as close to the Mexican border as they could get. Once across the border, they could continue south. Panama, Costa Rica, maybe even Brazil. How could anyone find them in South America? The Mafia are not gods. They don’t have super powers. If Darwin and Rosina shacked up on a beach somewhere, no one would know who they were or where they were.

  But what kind of life is that? How could he provide for Rosina? He needed his MacBook Pro to write. He needed an American address and bank account to get paid. That meant he would have a bank card and leave an electronic trail to wherever he was. Just to get food, clothing, and shelter, he would expose them to the constant threat of being murdered in their sleep. He refused to sleep with one eye open for the rest of his life, however long that would be.

  He scanned the parking lot. He thought he heard scuffling, like mice scurrying about, but nothing else.

  “Oh, Rosina, I love you so much,” he whispered. “Why did this have to happen to us?”

  When he escaped from the pine box seven days ago, he didn’t care if he lived or died that night. He was so bent on revenge that he felt prepared to die, as long as he killed as many of Gambino’s men as he could.

  When Rosina came into the picture again, life rekindled a fire he couldn’t put out. He had to save her first. That meant he needed to stay alive. Hope rose from there and blossomed to how he felt now, seven days later, ready to move on and start living again.

  Hearing about the Russian Mafia took all that hope away, just like Fuccini tried to do and Gambino almost did.

  The decision had to be made. Run with Rosina or locate the Reds and offer to work with them. But for how long? When could he get out? When would it be over? One day, one week, or one month? When was enough enough?

  He slapped his knee.

  Fuck, when will all this be over?

  Then he answered his own question.

  When I say it’s over.

  And the only way to do that was go to the Russians, find out what their interest in him was and then go to the next stage. He’d make new decisions at that point. If all hell broke out, he could find a way to kill as many as he could and run, grab Rosina and still head to South America. But at least he would have given it a try. Just running meant they’d always be running. Joining them had the potential to remove the threat.

  Rosina was safe with Greg. The world thought both of them were dead. He had to do what any good husband would do and leave her where she was safe. He had to deal with this last issue.

  He got up and stepped out of the shadows. No one was visible. He walked down the rows of cars on his way to the exit that was clearly marked. Something moved to his right. He jumped back and looked, but nothing was there.

  What the hell? Fucking mice. If any of those Russian guys see me like this, they’ll shoot me for making them laugh so hard.

  He shook out his arms and started walking again. It was warm in the parking garage. Sweat broke out on his forehead. He wiped it off and bumped the string around his neck.

  Oh, shit, I forgot.

  He lifted the visitor pass over his head and tossed it between two cars. If anyone was waiting for him outside there was no way he could join them as a visitor of the FBI.

  They won’t take too kindly to that.

  He didn’t have a death wish, but if Arkady and his thugs were coming after him, he couldn’t ignore it, hoping they’d go away. He had to face it and he would do everything he could to stay alive. As far as he was concerned, he was living on borrowed time, as he should have been dead ten times over already.


  He smiled, feeling better now that he was clear on what he needed to do.

  The exit ramp that led up was narrow, meant for one car only. The entrance had to be elsewhere and also made for one car. He didn’t want to take the stairs as that was an obvious exit. Walking out of the building on the ramp wouldn’t be expected.

  He stopped at the sound of a noise that reverberated throughout the parking level behind him. He stepped back and peeked around the edge of the wall. A woman had gotten out of her car and was walking toward the elevator bank.

  She sat in her car the whole time I walked across the parking level? What the hell could she have been doing?

  A moment later, a man got out of the same car and shut his door quietly. He scanned the area around him, and then the whole parking lot. His gaze stopped when he saw Darwin.

  Darwin yanked his head back behind the wall.

  So the employees were having a quickie. Who cares?

  He jogged up the ramp until he reached parking level one. At the far end, the sun shone through large cement holes that ventilated the parking area.

  Dress shoes clomped hard behind him.

  Why’s the guy chasing me?

  Darwin hustled down four cars over and two back, dropped to his knees, and then lay on his belly. From under the car beside him, he could see the spot where his pursuer would exit the ramp.

  Just as he expected, the man came around the corner and stopped. The bottom of his legs turned and twisted as the guy looked everywhere, evidently confused as to where Darwin had gone.

  After what felt like ten seconds, he turned back to the ramp where he disappeared.

  Either he’s gone back down or he’s waiting just around the corner to see if I surface.

  Darwin stayed on the ground for at least four to five minutes. Two cars came and went in search of parking. On his knees, he got up and looked around. Then he started walking down the aisle of cars, staying close to the cement abutment at their front bumpers, which kept him relatively out of sight from the ramp the man had disappeared down.

  Halfway to the cement holes where the sun shone through, the man popped back out.

  “Hey!” he shouted.

  Darwin ran. He had no way to explain his presence because he’d discarded the visitor pass. Talking to the man and verifying who he was would take time and mean another hour or two in the FBI building, which was something Darwin didn’t want.

  He got to the end of the lot, ran between two parked cars and hopped up onto the three-foot cement wall. The drop down to the grass was about eight feet. Beside the grass was a sidewalk and beyond that, the access road to the parking garage. The street twenty yards away bustled with activity. Getting to the street was all he needed to do. He could easily lose the guy in the crowd out there.

  He looked back and saw the man six cars behind him and advancing fast.

  In another life, I wouldn’t even be running from a federal agent.

  He felt a certain rush from being chased and having to think his way out of the situation.

  I could get used to this shit.

  Darwin swung his legs over the edge. A green electrical box sat in the center of the grass. He pushed off the wall, aimed for the box. When he hit it, he bent at the knees and let the forward momentum roll him off the top of the green box and onto the grass where he tucked and rolled. He got to his feet and looked up. The man had gotten to the edge and stared at Darwin.

  “Freeze. Don’t move. I’m coming down there. Stay where you are.”

  Darwin had to start playing the role of bad guy, even if he didn’t know what that role was. He lifted his middle finger and backed away.

  “Fuck you,” he said.

  Then he turned and ran for the street. He looked back once more, but his pursuer had disappeared.

  At the street, he had to stop to let a crowd of people go by on the sidewalk. It was a busy downtown street. He wouldn’t be able to tell if someone was watching him or not. He had no idea how to make contact with Arkady to get the sit-down over with. When they did finally meet, he would tell him that he had had a score to settle with Fuccini. Gambino brought on his own fate by coming after Darwin. If he would’ve left well enough alone, he’d still be alive today.

  If the Red Mafia were as smart as Mike said they were, Darwin didn’t feel he’d have a problem getting through to Arkady without having to play chess.

  Darwin stepped out and walked along the sidewalk with the flow of pedestrians.

  I’m in over my head. What am I doing? I should be at home with my wife, cooking dinner and wondering what movie to watch tonight, not running from federal agents and waiting for Russian hit men to come after me. This is so fucked.

  He decided to catch a cab and head back to his hotel. He would pack and get ready to meet with Rosina and together they would leave Florida and head to Mexico.

  Fuck it, I’m out of here. This is too crazy.

  It would be better to just disappear. The Red Mafia couldn’t find anybody they wanted just because they were powerful and dangerous. As long as he hid Rosina and himself well, they would never see Darwin again. Maybe after awhile the interest in Darwin would wane.

  He stepped out to the sidewalk and raised his hand to hail a cab. A checkered cab pulled out of traffic and came up to him, the passenger window down.

  “Where you need to go?” the cab driver asked.

  “The Howard Johnson’s out by the airport.”

  “Hop in.”

  He opened the backdoor and slipped in the backseat just as the door on the other side opened.

  “Cab’s taken,” Darwin shouted at the new passenger.

  A man on the sidewalk broke from the crowd and stepped up to the door on Darwin’s side, preventing him from opening it as the stranger sat down in the backseat beside him. The stranger was small and thin and wore a hoodie that covered his face.

  The cab driver looked in the mirror. “Everything okay back there?”

  The stranger produced a handgun from his pocket and tapped the driver’s shoulder with it. “Drive the fucking car.”

  Darwin tried the door, but it remained blocked. He leaned away in his seat as if moving deeper into the corner could get him farther from the stranger. He caught the hard accent when the man spoke English.

  The cab driver pulled away from the curb and joined the traffic heading south.

  “Where to?” the driver asked.

  “Just drive. I’ll tell you when to stop.”

  The man pulled the hoodie back. His head was clean shaven with tattoos on his scalp. He had a deep scar on his neck and two silver front teeth when he smiled at Darwin.

  “At last, we finally meet,” the man said.

  All Darwin could think about was the weapon. “I’m so glad you brought a gun with you and not a knife.”

  The stranger frowned.

  “I wondered how long it would take for you to show yourself, Arkady,” Darwin continued. “Do you like what I have done for you so far? Now that I’ve got your attention, how can I be of service to you?”

  Chapter 18

  “Well, looks like we fucked up,” Carson said.

  “Not really.” Mike shook his head.

  “How do you figure? The guy has no surveillance, he has no wire, no formal training, nothing. And we let him go. He’ll get killed out there.”

  “He’s made it this far.”

  “Mike, our job was to scare him. We were supposed to bring him up to speed on the people looking for him. Tell him how dangerous these people are and then offer him a sweet deal.”

  “You can see that wouldn’t have worked with Darwin,” Victor interjected. “He does things his way. He reminds me of the Lone Ranger or Charles Bronson.”

  Mike and Victor exchanged a smile.

  “We just killed him,” Carson said. “If the Reds pick him up, he’s done for and you guys are giggling like schoolgirls.” Carson got up and walked over to the window. “Just over a week ago I would’ve put a bullet in his
head myself, but I saw what he did at Gambino’s place that night. I saw the dirt all over him from being buried alive. I saw what he did with a fucking German tank. What that man did to get to his wife … I don’t know many men in the Bureau who could do better. I was wrong about him. My gut is almost never wrong. At least not that wrong.” Carson turned to the men still seated on the couch. “He deserves better. We are the authorities and yet we allowed a citizen in serious danger to leave this office. Sure we had a deal—get us inside information so we can make busts and then we’ll protect you—I can see why he wouldn’t take that. We couldn’t protect him before.” He pulled out his chair and sat hard. “We’re selfish. Use common people in the name of justice. How cruel.”