by Tom Barber
At the safe-house, standing beside Henderson’s body, Archer froze in disbelief.
Sitting beside Marquez, Palmer held the phone to her ear.
Listening.
Thinking.
‘OK, got it,’ she said, ending the call and pocketing the phone.
‘Everything OK?’ Marquez asked.
‘No.’ She looked at the female detective. ‘Not at all.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Pull over for a second. We need to talk.’
At the safe-house, Archer still hadn’t moved.
Because his call hadn’t ended yet.
‘Answer me, Dean. Do you have the bitch and Archer?’ the female voice repeated. ‘I just took care of Bashev. He’s gone.’
Archer didn’t make a sound, unable to believe what he was hearing.
Who he was hearing.
‘Nicolas?’ Karen Casey repeated. ‘Are Archer and April dead yet?’
FORTY SEVEN
Standing in the sitting room of her 19th Street East Village apartment, Karen Casey stopped pacing for a moment, her phone clamped to her ear.
‘Nic? Talk to me.’
‘He’s next door,’ Henderson finally replied, his voice sounding slightly strange, almost hoarse. ‘He’s gone.’
‘The girl?’
‘She’s still alive.’
‘We’re running out of time,’ she said, looking around her apartment. ‘Lye him and bring her with you. We’re out of here.’
‘OK. Where should we meet?’
‘Where do you think?’ She frowned. ‘You OK? You don’t sound right.’
‘Throat’s a bit sore, that’s all. The chemicals.’
‘Whatever. Get moving. I’ll see you at the docks.’
With that Karen hung up, looking around what had been her home for the past year, her late husband almost finished dissolving in the tub and his blood scrubbed away then bleached off the floor.
Her real name wasn’t Karen Casey; it was Sasha Bilic. She’d grown up in Moscow but had paid all the money she could scrape together for a passage to the United States seventeen years ago, seeking a different life. She’d been brought in to the New York docks with a load of other young women, but instead of the bright new future they’d hoped for, they were immediately shunted into the sex trade, no documents, no passports; disappearing without trace.
However, Sasha had known that was what was likely to happen and she’d been prepared. That first night, she’d killed her first client, taking the four hundred dollars she’d found in his wallet and then making her escape. That was how she’d made money her first year; she capitalised on her good looks, pretended to be an escort, lured someone to a motel room and then pulled a weapon, robbing them. What were they going to do, go to the cops and tell them they’d been fleeced by a hooker?
She’d zig-zagged her way to Pittsburgh doing the same kind of shit, searching for an opportunity when suddenly, fate had intervened; she’d held up a client and taken his money, but this time she’d been tracked down. However, the guy who found her wasn’t after retribution. Instead, he’d wanted to make use of her. That man had been her client’s boss and her late husband, Vladimir Bashev.
And he’d offered her a job.
It turned out Vladimir was a member of the Prizraki, an organisation with considerable prestige among the Red Mafia underworld. He’d been sent to Pittsburgh from Baltimore with a handful of men to stake their claim in the city. The FBI had destroyed Mafia presence in Pittsburgh a year or so earlier and the Prizraki were ready to fill the gap they’d left.
However, they weren’t the only gang making moves. One of the major steel mills was being used as cover for a big trafficking operation by the Suki, a rival Russian gang. Bashev had lost two of his best guys to them already, and he knew he had to assert his authority and fast. He was also aware his Pittsburgh operation was being watched by the bosses in Moscow and he needed to impress them. Taking over that lucrative steel mill operation would achieve that.
Female involvement in Russian gangs was almost unheard of, a fact Bashev decided he could make work for him. The Suki would never guess that Sasha could be Prizraki.
So she’d become a hit-girl for the Russian Mafia.
In the eight years she’d worked for the gang, Sasha had either killed or assisted in the death of twenty three Suki; as cover, she adopted the name Karen Casey, using a Prizraki contact with Bashev’s help to create an entire set of fake documents, including a social security number, DMV profile and birth certificate. Pittsburgh PD had no idea what was taking place right under their noses and the FBI had moved on, considering their work in the city done now they’d eradicated the Mafia presence. Or so they’d thought. The bodies of Sasha’s victims were never found, buried deep in unmarked graves, most of them still alive when they were put into the coffins; the Prizraki tradition.
Karen’s big moment had been when she’d taken out the head of the Suki. Her fellow Prizraki had realised she was the only one of them who stood any chance of getting close to him and even then it had been a massive challenge with enormous risks. However, she’d shown her commitment to the cause, befriending one of the Suki member’s girlfriends and slowly infiltrating the gang. She’d gradually built up their trust, becoming a familiar face, her good looks helping her ease her way in. Then she made the ultimate commitment, getting several Suki tattoos, all of which helped admit her into the heart of their club on the South-Side where she was given a job as a waitress. That place was the centre of their operation and finally, after many months, she had access to the old man.
As soon as she killed him and back-up took care of the rest, the Prizraki had quickly moved in and seized the steel mill trafficking operation. Although Karen’s services were then no longer needed, she’d earned enormous respect by then, her dedication and ruthlessness acknowledged by all the men around her. She was also romantically involved with Bashev by the end of the Suki operation, and with his help had turned her attention to the trafficking side of the business; she started cherry-picking the very best of the girls that came in through the mill and put them to work in the city, making a huge amount of money very quickly from her high class escort service. The relationship between Vladimir and Karen had intensified and they were granted permission to get married, only allowed due to Bashev’s status in the organisation.
However, Vladimir had baggage, a kid from a previous relationship who he’d neither wanted nor cared about but had been forced to house after her mother had died. Leann was as quiet as a mouse and no trouble, the only reason he still kept her around, but he’d gladly handed over the responsibility of her upbringing to Karen, who’d quickly spotted her potential. She’d forced the little bitch to work in her business as soon as Leann reached her fifteenth birthday. Vladimir hadn’t objected but was adamant the cops’ attention didn’t swing onto him in case she got busted, so Leann Bashev became Leann Casey.
Life had been very, very good. They lived in a great house, had money rolling in and everything was going well.
Then December last year had rolled around.
It had started like any other. Karen had arrived home, dropped her bag and went to the kitchen to grab a bottle of wine. She’d walked into the sitting room to see her husband standing there looking at her. He hadn’t said anything, which she’d thought was odd. Unlike his daughter, Bashev was a talker.
Before she could speak, something had hit her hard over the side of the head, knocking her to the floor. She’d woken up some time later in total darkness, hardly able to move. It smelt stale and dank, and was strangely quiet. As she’d moved her head and opened her eyes, her heart started to pound with fear and confusion as she gradually orientated herself and realised what her husband had done.
He’d buried her alive.
Inside the safe-house, Archer hung up quietly, staring at the phone.
‘What’s wrong?’ April asked.
‘It’s Karen,’ he said quietly. ‘I
t’s Karen Casey.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘It’s Karen Casey. That was her answering the phone. She was asking if you and I were dead yet.’
‘Karen? It can’t be. She’s Leann’s mother.’
Putting the phone down, Archer thought for a moment, looking over at Henderson. The dead man was lying on his back but in their fight, his sweater had ridden up.
And Archer could see the edge of a tattoo.
Moving over, he pulled it up, looking at the man’s skin. As he looked, he suddenly had a flashback three days earlier to Karen Casey’s apartment. When she’d been making some tea for him, she’d reached up to take a cup out of a cupboard and he’d caught a glimpse of a tattoo on her lower back.
Henderson had an identical one on his chest.
Hauling the sweater right up, Archer saw he also had two stars on his shoulders. Taking the man’s phone, he snapped a photo of the tattoo then messaged it to Ethan’s email at the Bureau, calling him as soon as he’d sent it. While he waited for Ethan to answer, things started to drop into place.
Leann’s arrival in the city last year with her mother; members of the Russian gang starting to disappear around the same time. Leann trying to escape from her life of prostitution.
Archer’s arrest on Friday, just after he finished talking to Karen.
Henderson and Tully showing up on the Upper East Side bar to get April, minutes after she’d called Karen asking for help.
The Prizraki have only lost one man in the past few years, Hendricks had said earlier.
Their top guy.
‘Arch?’
‘I just sent you a photo,’ he said. ‘It’s of a tattoo on Henderson’s chest. I need you to find out what gang it’s from.’
‘Wait.’ Pause. ‘I know that already.’
‘How?’
‘Massaro sent over a Russian Mafia file earlier for a point of reference. That’s a gang tattoo from a crew called the Suki. It means bitches, literally, in Russian.’
‘That’s their gang name?’
‘Apparently it was given to them after the Second World War. When the Soviet Union needed more men on the frontline during the war, Stalin offered a pardon for any prisoner who fought. A load stepped up but then Stalin went back on his word once the fighting was over. These guys were thrown back into their cells; the guys who hadn’t fought, following the strict Thieves Law of not joining the military, dubbed them bitches, or Suki. I guess these guys kept the name.’
‘Henderson, Tully and Lister are from Pittsburgh. Is there anything about the Suki there?’
‘Let me check.’
Pause.
‘Yes. The FBI cleared the city of Mafia activity in the 90s. However, a bartender from a South-Side club came forward a few years back and offered up information in exchange for police protection. He said he worked at a Suki club; they’d been in town for some time, filling the space the Feds had cleared.’
‘Why did he need protection?’
‘This goes back a decade. Two days before he turned informant, the Suki boss was killed in a back room at one of their clubs. The bartender said he only saw one person go back there just before the old guy was killed.’
‘Who?’
‘A woman; late twenties or thirties, worked as a waitress at the club. Had Suki ink on her arms and lower back. The guy said the Suki had just found the old guy’s body when members of a rival gang broke into the place and opened fire. The bartender split through a back door, and went to the cops the next day. Pittsburgh PD moved on the club, but the place was deserted, no bodies, no blood, nothing. The grandchildren of the dead Suki boss had also disappeared too, wiping out his blood-line. No-one ever found any trace of them.’
Archer looked down at Henderson, the tattoos on his torso still visible from his pulled-up sweater. ‘How many grandchildren did this man have?’
‘Three. Two boys, one girl. Teenagers at the time, apparently. Mikhail, Seva and Ninochka.’
‘Michael, Sebastian and Nina,’ Archer said. ‘Henderson, Tully and Lister.’
‘Those surnames must be fake. If it’s them, they must be brothers and sister.’
Archer swore quietly. ‘Did this informant have any idea who wiped out that Suki faction?’
‘Yeah. He said only one other gang would have this much of a vendetta against the Suki, and it went back decades. Pittsburgh PD never found any evidence of them in the city though and haven’t since.’
‘Who are they?’
‘The Prizraki.’
Trapped in that dark coffin eleven months ago, her oxygen quickly running out, Karen had fought a major panic attack, terror racing through her veins like pure heroin through a junkie’s bloodstream.
She’d had no idea how deep she’d been buried but knew there was only one way out and that was up. The soil above her would have been thrown back over the coffin once she’d been laid in place, which meant it was likely loose, not packed hard. She was a slim woman and luckily for her, the wooden box was large, designed for a man, probably another of her husband’s victims. Burying people alive was one of his specialities.
After a struggle, and fighting the claustrophobia which was threatening to swamp her, she managed to slowly work her sweater over her head. Panting hard from the effort, she then pulled part of it back down to protect her nose and mouth from being filled with soil in case she ever managed to breach the wooden lid. Drawing her legs up tight, she started to push up as hard as she could with her knees.
The lid felt completely solid, unmoving as she pushed at it, the sheer weight of soil above her holding it down, but she persevered, using all the strength she possessed. Her leg muscles were soon screaming in protest but she didn’t stop, knowing it was either get out or suffocate to death.
She lost track of how long she’d been pushing; it was getting unbearably hot and she was fighting for breath, feeling sweat pouring down her skin and claustrophobia about to overwhelm her when suddenly she heard the lid above her creak.
She renewed her efforts, feeling the wood move slightly as it started to give way, all the weight of the soil waiting to pour down over her.
Then it had shifted.
She’d carried on pushing, forcing the lid up slightly.
Karen had lifted her hands over her sweater to protect her nose and mouth, but the soil had poured down in a relentless stream over her body and legs, trapping her and packing her in tight. Unable to move her legs and only just able to breathe in the tiny pocket of air her hands and the sweater provided, she forced an arm upwards, working it through the loose dirt, feeling the suffocating weight above her as it pushed against her stomach, her air almost gone. She managed to start shoving some of the soil into the lower portion of the coffin with her right foot, giving her some wriggle room.
Her body covered with earth, Karen spent what seemed like an eternity working her fingers through the cold earth, using all of her strength to push her arm upwards and every ounce of will she possessed to avoid hyper-ventilating from fear. Knowing she was close to suffocation, she suddenly felt all the resistance against her fingers disappear, replaced by glorious space and cold air. They hadn’t buried her too deep.
Her hand had breached the surface.
With renewed hope, she quickly started to scoop handfuls of earth to one side. Pushing up with her legs, stamping down on the earth and using it to lever herself up, she’d finally been able to force her way out of the coffin, finally erupting through the earth and sucking in oxygen like a drunk with his first drink in years, lying in a field in the middle of nowhere. For a few minutes she just lay where she was, unmoving, just getting her breath back and sucking the cold air deep into her lungs.
She was still alive.
‘When was the last time the Suki were here in New York?
‘Not for a while. They were run out of town. Same as in Philadelphia, Boston-’
‘And Pittsburgh,’ Archer finished.
‘That’s right.’<
br />
‘What happened at the club in Brighton Beach? Did they apprehend the men down there?’
‘They didn’t get there in time. Three got shot; we think it was Henderson and Tully. We’ve got them on camera abducting the last guy; the bartenders are saying he’s the leader.’
‘Do you have a photo of this man?’
‘Hold on. I’m sending it now. It came from Massaro.’
‘OK,’ Archer said, ending the call. Opening the picture, he looked at the image of the man, immediately seeing the likeness.
He turned the phone so April could see the image.
After a moment or two she looked up at him, shock on her face.
It was unmistakeable.
Finally seeing how it all fit together, he thought back to the conversation he’d just had with Karen. She’d said meet me at the docks, thinking she was talking to Henderson.
But which docks, West or East?
Redialling Ethan, Archer started speaking the moment he answered. ‘I need you to trace the GPS on Karen Casey’s cell.’
‘What’s her number?’
Archer did a quick check on the cell then passed over the nine digits.
‘Which way is she going, Ethan?’
‘She’s heading east on East 19th.’
Ending the call, Archer rose and reloaded the pistol he’d taken from Henderson.
‘What are we doing?’ April asked.
‘Karen’s going to the East Side Docks. I need to get over there and stop her right now.’
‘That might not be so easy,’ April said, standing by the window. ‘Look.’
Moving alongside her, Archer looked down at the street.
‘Oh shit,’ he whispered.
The two cars carrying the Latino gang members hunting him down had just screeched to a halt outside the building, blocking off their exit.
FORTY EIGHT
Once she’d made it out of the coffin, it had taken Karen all night to get back to the centre of Pittsburgh. As soon as she’d figured out where she was, she’d collect-called Leann, instructing her to come get her. The girl had been stunned when she’d seen her step-mother covered in soil, scratched and bloodied, her hair wild and her face filthy.