The Hard Stuff

by David Gordon

  During her first caper with Joe, her real mission had been, ideally, to steal a sample of the virus for the Russians while also helping to insure that Joe and the others succeeded in taking down Adrian, whom they feared as much as the CIA did. Instead, the virus had been destroyed along with Adrian and his cell. Good enough. Her bosses in Moscow were satisfied and they didn’t ask any questions. Case closed. She was safe. Or at least she felt safe sitting in her local café, reading a newspaper in Cyrillic, until Heather sat down across from her.

  “Good evening, Yelena. Do you know who I am?”

  Yelena’s eyes flickered with surprise for just a split second, then went calm again. She sipped her tea.

  “You look vaguely familiar.”

  “I should. You and your friend Joe ruined my and my husband’s plans recently. And then you helped kill him.”

  “You’re here for revenge?” Yelena asked. “Then why aren’t you shooting instead of talking?”

  Heather shrugged. “Don’t be mistaken. I am very good, but you are better, I think. You could kill me in a fight. But you won’t do it here and now, will you?”

  Yelena shrugged noncommittedly. “We’ll see.”

  “And then there is Joe to consider,” Heather continued. “And our mutual plans for tomorrow. So for now I am just here to talk.”

  The waiter appeared and Yelena ordered two teas in Russian. He brought them in glasses. Yelena took a cube of sugar from the bowl and put it between her teeth. “So talk,” Yelena said.

  Heather dropped a cube in her tea and stirred. “The people I work with have connections to US intelligence, but they also speak to Russian intelligence. Money is the universal language, don’t you think? Like religion and love.” She licked the spoon. “Anyway, my friends told me about your friends in the SVR. But I was thinking, what if I talk to them myself? What if I tell them that it was you who cracked the vault at the perfume lab, you who had possession of the virus for days and who could have stolen it or taken a sample anytime? What would happen? My guess is they’d bring you home and that would be the last anyone saw you.”

  Yelena sipped her tea, letting it melt the sugar between her teeth. Heather went on.

  “On the other hand, if your friends in Brooklyn, maybe even some in this café, found out that you were spying for Moscow all along, then New York would be even more dangerous for you than Russia.”

  “Sounds bad for me,” Yelena said. “But you have a solution.”

  “I do. Give me Joe.”

  “Give him?” Yelena listened carefully, sipping tea as Heather spoke.

  “I need the deal to go through tomorrow. So nothing goes wrong till then. And as long as we get away clean with our diamonds, you and your pals can have the dope to sell for yourselves. But once we make the trade, you are going to kill Joe for me, while I watch. That way I will avenge my husband’s death. And I will also have the pleasure of watching you kill the man you love.”

  Yelena laughed abruptly, her tongue full of sugar. She swallowed. “I don’t love Joe. We work well together. In several ways. That is all.” She shook her head. “You are a true romantic, I see. A drama queen. All this love and revenge. You’re still a very American woman after all.” She put her empty glass down. “As for me, I don’t love anyone but myself.”

  Heather smiled and sipped her tea. “Then I was wrong. We have no problem after all.”

  *

  In the morning, Joe met Yelena for breakfast. She had syrniki, farmer’s cheese dumplings with jam and sour cream and tea. Joe had a Turkish coffee. A text from Cash came while they were eating: Found 3 fixing. He’d spent the night with Liam and Josh, hunting for cars that suited their purpose—fast, reliable, and as inconspicuous as possible. When they spotted one, they’d break in, ideally by using a device Cash had that searched and found the remote frequency to unlock it, but picking it if need be, then driving it back to Reliable Scrap, the wrecking yard out near Jamaica that he used as a cover for his car-theft operation. Normally, when he and his cohorts took a vehicle, it was driven back there, chopped up immediately, and vanished into the gigantic maze of junk and auto parts. Other cars, special orders, were hunted and stolen on request, provided with new VIN numbers and fake paperwork generated by Uncle Chen, and shipped to his clients overseas, mostly wealthy mainland Chinese.

  Cash and the others had found three cars they liked—a black Audi sedan, a dark-blue two-door Saab, a sleek, green four-door Lexus, all late models, but nothing over-the-top flashy—and were out at Reliable this morning, tuning them up, adjusting shocks and fuel injection systems, and, of course, switching out the plates with other parked cars. As long as the state matched, people rarely looked at their own license plates, so it was unlikely to be reported soon, and a stolen car with legit plates and no visible damage to the locks or windows could easily pass unnoticed, unless a cop took the trouble to run it through the system for some reason. They would not be in these cars long enough to worry about that. If they were stopped during this caper, it would be too late to worry; they’d have bigger problems.

  “I tried you last night,” Joe said to Yelena as they headed out. Joe paid at the register and dropped a tip on the table.

  “You should have left a message,” she told him. “I turned my phone off to go to sleep early.”

  “It’s just as well,” he said. “I crashed early, too.”

  They walked a few blocks to the Grandmaster Chess Shop. As the little bell over the door tinkled, a dozen heads turned, found nothing of interest, and returned to the boards over which they were bent. The small room was packed with tables holding chess boards, chairs, shelves full of chess sets and related items, books, timers, portraits of Russian chess heroes. The glass counter displayed some especially valuable sets. Three games were in progress, with more people looking on: all men and all old. They sipped tea as a samovar wheezed in the corner. The air was thick with smoke. A younger man with a thick, black beard, thick, black-framed glasses, and a lot of colorful tattoos was moving the dust around with a filthy feather duster. The old man behind the cash register ignored them, smoking his pipe and reading a Cyrillic book of poems. People referred to him as the Grandmaster, but whether he had really been a champion once or just worked in this shop, Yelena had no idea.

  While Joe watched, Yelena went to the counter and chose a pewter knight from a set. It was very unusual, intricately designed to resemble a Mongol warrior.

  “Excuse me,” she asked the Grandmaster. “I want a knight like this,” she told him. “But larger. A special order.”

  He put his book down and removed his pipe. “That would only come as a set,” he said, smoke oozing out of his mouth like cartoon speech bubbles while he talked.

  “Fine,” Yelena answered. “Show me the samples.”

  He nodded and stood. “Mitka,” he called to the young man who silently took his place behind the counter, and then to Yelena: “This way.” She and Joe followed him through a door marked PRIVATE and into an overcrowded storeroom. It was twice as dusty as the front and ten times as packed, with shelves to the ceiling full of more chess stuff. Clenching his pipe between his teeth, he pulled back one of the shelving units, revealing a hidden door, and slid it open.

  “Shut it behind you,” he said and led the way through. Joe pulled the shelves back into place and shut the door behind him. They stood in utter darkness while the Grandmaster hit a switch and the fluorescent lights buzzed on. Now they were in a much cleaner, sparser room, with a table in the middle and more crates and boxes on metal shelves. He put his pipe back in his mouth and relit it as a vent in the ceiling sucked away the smoke. “What do you need?” he asked between puffs.

  “Four handguns, automatics, preferably Sig 9s, Berettas, or Glocks,” Joe said. The Grandmaster began pulling down boxes and laying them on the table. “Two automatic assault rifles, with scopes. Ammo.”

  Pipe clenched in his teeth, puffing like a choo-choo, the Grandmaster efficiently unpacked a selection of weapon
s and laid them on the table. “Rifles,” he muttered through his teeth. “Pistols. What is this?” He dug in the bottom of a crate. “Ah, knives, too, if you like them.” He opened a box in which a row of wicked combat knives were displayed. Joe chose a small throwing knife with a four-inch triangular blade and hefted it in his hand. He handed it to Yelena.

  “A gift,” he said.

  She smiled. “Spasibo.”

  “Ammunition,” the Grandmaster said and laid down boxes of cartridges. “Want to test?”

  “Please,” Joe said and he and Yelena began loading the weapons.

  “This way.” The Grandmaster opened a door across from the one they had come through. This one led downstairs, where a shooting range was set up, complete with targets. Soundproof tiles covered the ceiling and walls. He handed them ear covers and safety glasses and put on his own. “Go ahead,” he said as he shut the door. “No one can hear us down here.”

  Side by side, Joe and Yelena fired, trying the different guns, making choices. Neither spoke, except to point out minor defects: a pistol that pulled left, a rifle that needed cleaning. Then they would turn together toward the paper men and rapidly shred them.

  “We’ll take these,” Yelena told the Grandmaster. “With ammo and extra clips.” He nodded, smoking. Then, with a sly grin, she added, in Russian: “And I need a couple of special items, too, if you can.”

  32

  They met in the dark street. Joe and Yelena drove the Lexus, Joe behind the wheel, wearing a white button-down and jeans, Yelena, all in black, holding the velvet sack with the diamonds in her lap beside her gun. An hour before, Liam and Josh, driving the Audi, had installed themselves on the rooftop of the multistory parking garage, prone with rifles, and had noticed an armed man in a hooded sweatshirt in a similar position up the block. That was to be expected; they would both take the same precautions against a double cross, and Joe assumed that Felix’s sniper had spotted his men as well. Juno and Cash were in the Saab, parked discreetly out of sight around the block, monitoring police frequencies and waiting. This part of Joe’s plan was, he hoped, not expected, and they’d been careful to park well away. Even if for some reason they were seen, there was no reason to assume they were a part of this deal, which was going down out of their view.

  Joe and Yelena cruised down the narrow street, abandoned now after work hours and lined with sleeping trucks. He stopped halfway and blinked the lights. Immediately, another car pulled out, blinked its lights back, and stopped, facing them about twenty feet apart. Felix drove, while Vlad held a large duffel stuffed with sealed kilos of heroin. As agreed, Joe and Vlad got out, holding their items for exchange, while Yelena and Felix followed close behind, each with a gun drawn: a standoff. If either one tried anything, the odds of both dying were high and impossible to predict, which was the closest they could get to safety.

  “Nice to see you again, Joe,” Felix said with a grin. “No point in pretending now.”

  Joe smiled back. “Hello, Felix.”

  “I assume Carlo is dead?” Felix asked.

  “I assume so, too. As I hear Sherm and his boys are.”

  “Really?” Felix asked. “That’s too bad. But maybe not so bad for us. Now we are both untraceable.”

  “Then let’s take care of business, before some dog walker wanders by and you feel obliged to kill them, too.”

  Felix laughed and nodded at Vlad, who unzipped his pack. In the glaring headlights, Joe could see the bricks of heroin. He loosened the cord on the pouch and held up the diamonds, which seemed to dance on his palm as the streetlight bounced over them.

  “Beautiful,” Felix said, as Vlad zipped his bag and set it on the ground before Joe. “It’s been a pleasure, Joe.”

  Joe pulled the cord tight and handed over the diamonds. “Anytime, Felix. Take care.” Yelena watched, gun still drawn, while he hoisted the bag, which was a lot heavier than it had appeared in Vlad’s arms, onto his shoulder and loaded it into the rear of the car. Then, just as Felix was getting back behind the wheel, a blond woman stepped out from where she’d been crouching beside a truck.

  “Joe,” Heather called, and Joe turned to her, trying to recall her face. He stepped aside to give Yelena a clear shot at her. “Yelena,” Heather said then and smiled. Yelena had turned her gun on Joe.

  In a flash Joe reacted. He went for Yelena’s throat, choking her with one hand while the other reached for her gun. But she fired twice point-blank into Joe’s chest, and he dropped, blood bursting through his white shirt. He collapsed in the headlights, head twisted. Blood trickled from his mouth.

  “So long, Yelena,” Heather shouted as she ran for the car where Felix and Vlad waited, diving into the back seat. Before the door was shut, they were reversing rapidly back down the block. Yelena watched, unmoving, as if stunned by the retreating headlights, while Felix jerked into a three-point turn, threw it into forward, and was gone. Immediately, she dropped her gun and kneeled over Joe, staring at what she’d done.

  “The sniper’s gone,” Josh’s voice spoke in her earpiece. “All clear.”

  “Here, too,” Juno said.

  “It’s clear,” Yelena whispered. Joe opened his eyes, then smiled up at Yelena, teeth bright red. She helped him sit up and he spit out a broken capsule and a mouthful of red goo.

  “Yuck,” he said. “That tastes like crap. Couldn’t you get cherry flavor or something?”

  “This looks more realistic,” she replied. “You have to suffer for art.”

  The button-down shirt he wore was shredded, and you could see the thin metal plating Yelena had strapped to his chest with leather bands. Next she had filled condoms with blood for homemade squibs and taped them on. When she fired the blanks into him, she had pressed the barrel right to his chest. Although there were no projectiles, the charge was enough to blow the squib and burn a hole in the shirt, creating a realistic gunshot—or realistic enough for their needs.

  Now, as Felix drove away, Juno and Chase would follow, tracking them with the tiny crystal transmitter Juno had hidden among the diamonds, which now showed up on Juno’s laptop screen. The range was only a block or two, but they would not start moving until Felix passed them at the corner, and they did not have to maintain visual contact. Liam and Josh would trail from even farther back, ready to step into position when Felix and the others went to ground. Meanwhile, Joe and Yelena would stash the dope and then meet the rest of the crew for a final surprise assault to retake the diamonds.

  Yelena lifted Joe’s shirt from the back and unstrapped the plate. He grabbed the gun and, as they rushed back to their car, both were grinning. They had pulled it off. Everything was going according to plan. If they were two very different people, they might even have hugged. Then the law arrived.

  PART IV

  33

  That morning, at the CIA’s field office downtown, Agent Powell got a call on the secure line. It was Pat White. White had been a CIA asset for years, ever since the agency had run across evidence tying the New York mobster to money and weapons supplied to the IRA and to arms smuggled through those channels, some leading back eventually to PLO camps and Hamas training sites as well as far left groups in Europe. Rather than turn this over to the FBI and other counterespionage agencies for investigation and prosecution stateside, the CIA had recruited him and, since White, despite his international reach, rarely left his patch on the West Side, he worked with the New York office and Powell, in time, became his handler. White fed Powell intel—the time and location of a meeting between the heads of a Mexican drug cartel and Central American paramilitaries, the new identity just acquired by a Chinese industrial spy—and Powell protected White, warning him of sting operations to avoid, feeding domestic agencies info on his rivals, and even tipping him off about defectors in his own ranks, like Harry Harrigan, who was promptly disappeared.

  Then, a few weeks ago, Powell had started pressuring White to find a weak spot in Gio Caprisi’s organization. White bucked. Gio was not an enemy. If a
nything he’d been an ally or at least a genial colleague, and the gang war that might erupt were Gio to go down and leave a power vacuum could do him much harm and little good. But Powell was adamant. He told White that Gio himself was not necessarily the primary target. He was looking into FBI corruption and the possibility of a former Special Forces solider who’d pulled black ops for the CIA and others, now gone rogue and working for the mob.

  In the end, Pat had to come across. So far, he had used his position masterfully to protect and increase his power. Despite the small size of his crew, the pacification of his old stomping grounds, and the general dwindling of the Irish mob in New York, he had remained a force to be reckoned with. But he was walking a tightrope, balanced between two underworlds: spooks and gangsters. If the truth came out, he would tumble into the net and be the next rat caught and killed.

  So, the way Pat saw it, he had no choice. He was in his usual booth at the diner, in the back by the window, reading the Daily News sports page and eating the runny sunny-side up eggs, extra crispy bacon, and slightly burnt toast with real Irish butter that Gerald made for him special and served to Pat himself, walking from the kitchen in his apron with his plate and leaving the thermos pot of coffee. Although the river was a block away, the sun seemed to bounce off the water and ride the breeze to light his window. His sports book had come out way ahead on the game last night, so he was in a fine mood when Liam, his “nephew”—actually the son of a cousin back in Ireland—reported in as instructed to keep him in the loop and told him that the final exchange of diamonds for dope was going down that night. He ran through the plan with him to be sure it was safe and sound, then told him what a fine boy he was and wished him luck and to be sure and mind what Joe told him. Then he grabbed his pack of Pall Malls—he still had the unfiltered straights in the soft pack ordered special when his people smuggled in untaxed cigarettes from out of state or from the Indian reservations—and headed out for a smoke in the alley, where he called Agent Powell and told him what he wanted to know. He loved his nephew and hoped it turned out okay for him, but he felt no guilt or remorse. The way he saw it, he had no choice.