SOMEWHERE OUTSIDE ZVENIGOROD, RUSSIA
It had taken Milesch Popov two years to find the weapon he now held in his hand. He had been watching an American documentary on modern-day gangsters when he first saw it-the Thompson ZG-51 Pit Bull. The.45-caliber pistol was the rage with all the high-level crime kingpins in East L.A. While lesser wannabe gangsters were running around with their nine millimeters, classy, more self-confident original gangsters were fully strapped with Pit Bulls, complete with a depiction of the notorious dog.
Popov had an engraver give the Pit Bull on the pistol’s slide a huge set of balls. Then, carved right in front of the animal, was the outline of a naked woman on her hands and knees with a huge set of tits covered by the letters O.G. for original gangster. What Popov lacked in class, he definitely made up for in creativity.
As he pulled back the slide of his Pit Bull to chamber a round, Popov made a mental note to invoice Stavropol for this recent purchase of custom ammunition. After all, it was a legitimate expense, one which Popov couldn’t imagine conducting his business without. The armor-piercing rounds were made from hardened machined steel that had been hand-dipped in Teflon. With his enemies relying more and more on heavily armored cars and bulletproof vests, complete with titanium trauma plates over their hearts, he needed every advantage he could get.
The armor piercing rounds had become his signature and though they did seem a bit of an overkill for what he was about to do, he had modeled his career on the old Russian proverb,while fame travels slowly, at least notoriety travels fast. The runaway orphan from Nizhnevartovsk had learned much during his short time in this world.
The missing general had been easier to find than Popov had expected-though he wouldn’t inform his current benefactor of that fact. No, he would let the famous General Sergei Olegovich Stavropol believe that he had moved heaven and earth to track down his quarry. In reality, it had been as simple as driving to certain shops in and around Zvenigorod, making inquiries.
After having examined the empty grave at the hunting lodge, Popov had decided to operate under the assumption that General Anatoly Karganov was indeed wounded, but not dead. Either he had escaped under his own power, or someone had helped him. Under the circumstances, Karganov would not have been able to return home. It would have been too dangerous. In fact, if his injuries were serious enough, he might not have been able to travel very far at all.
At the very least, Karganov probably would have needed some sort of medical attention. With this in mind, Popov had visited not only every physician, but also every veterinarian within a fifty-kilometer radius. Popov had a way of making most people, especially hardworking law-abiding citizens, feel uncomfortable around him. Maybe it was his slightly repugnant, street-savvy demeanor or the way his eyes held you in their gaze and never let go that made most people automatically assume he was a special investigator or some other State law enforcement officer. Not one soul bothered to ask him for identification. His suit alone, hell, even his shoes, cost more than what most of the people in the Odinstovo area saw in an entire year. Whoever he was, Milesch Popov was important and conveyed the distinct impression that failing to cooperate with him brought with it a slew of undesirable consequences.
When the physician and veterinarian trail went cold, Popov moved to the next item on his checklist-stores that sold any type of medical supplies. He left no stone unturned. If a shop carried anything that even remotely resembled what he was looking for, he paid them a visit.
It was at the end of a very long day, when most of the shops were preparing to close, that his efforts appeared to be finally paying off. “Dobri vyechyer,” he said in an officious tone to the aging shopkeeper, as he scanned the provincial pharmacy’s scantily stocked shelves. “Do you sell bandages?”
“Da,” replied the old man, pointing to where the bandages were.
“And antibiotics?”
“Da,” repeated the old man as he came around the counter to help direct his wealthy young customer.
“How about antiseptic?”
“We’re all out,” said the man as he shook his headno.
When Popov asked him why he didn’t have any antiseptic on hand, the shopkeeper explained that a young woman had come in and bought all that he had. She had also bought several boxes of bandages, and a healthy amount of antibiotics.
Immediately, Popov’s interest was piqued and his questions began flowing.Did the shopkeeper recognize her? No, he didn’t.Was she local? No, she was definitely not local.What did she need the medical supplies for? She didn’t say.Do you know where she is staying? No, but he did direct her to the market around the corner where she could buy food and order firewood.
And, without so much as a ‘spaseeba,’ Popov was out the door and headed toward the localriynak.
The woman who ran the market prided herself on being well informed on everything that happened in their small village. In other words, she was an insufferable gossip. It took very little for Milesch Popov to coax out of her the location of the dacha where the old woman’s son had delivered the order of firewood. It was only three kilometers away.
Popov hid his car up the road and picked his way by foot through scrawny trees with bare, claw-like branches to the dilapidated house. Above the poorly shingled roof, small tendrils of smoke rose into the sky from a rusting stovepipe. In the driveway sat a lone Lada hatchback. As Popov approached it, he withdrew his stiletto and slashed both of the Lada’s front tires. Returning the knife to his coat pocket, Popov maneuvered himself closer to one of the dacha’s rear windows to get a good look inside.
In his thin, Italian calfskin loafers, his feet were beyond freezing, but when he saw the man propped upright in a small metal-framed bed with his head wrapped turban style in a long white bandage, Popov was suddenly infused with a surge of warmth.
He crept a safe distance away from the house, withdrew his cell phone and dialed. Stavropol answered on the third ring.
“I have found your package,” said Popov.
“Where?” asked Stavropol, the moan of a ship’s horn discernable in the near distance.
“Out in the countryside.”
“I knew it,” purred Stavropol. “Listen carefully. I’m going to give you an address. I want you to put the body into the trunk of your car and drive it-”
“There’s a small problem.”
“I paid you to find a body, not problems. Now I want you to put him in your-”
“He’s alive,” interrupted Popov.
“What do you mean,he’s alive?”
“Alive -as innot dead.”
“That’s impossible,” snarled Stavropol.
“I was just looking at him. He’s got a bandage around his head and he’s sitting upright in a bed.”
“Are you sure it’s him?”
“Would I be calling you if I wasn’t? He looks just like the picture you sent me, so either it’s him, or he’s got a double with a very bad head wound.”
“Head wound,” reflected Stavropol. “Damn it. Is he alone?”
“I don’t know. I only took a quick look through the window. I think there might be a woman in there with him,” replied Popov.
“I want you to find out for sure and then kill them both.”
“Kill them both?”
“Don’t act so unsettled, Milesch. I know you’ve killed before. That’s why I chose you.”
“Our deal was only that I find him,” responded Popov.
“That’s when we thought he was already dead.”
“Well, killing him and anyone else who’s with him is going to cost you more.”
“How much more?” asked Stavropol, not surprised that Popov was asking for more money. Had Stavropol been closer, he would have done the job himself, but he couldn’t risk losing Karganov in the time it would take him to get there. Stavropol waited longer than he should have for Popov to respond and when he didn’t, he said, “Popov, are you there or not? What’s going on?”
Alexandra Ivanova pressed the silencer of her nine-millimeter Walther P4 hard against the spot where Milesch Popov’s left ear met his skull. The steel tube felt like ice to him, but that was only part of what made him freeze. He was absolutely amazed that anyone could have snuck up behind him. He had been so careful. Or so he had thought.
“You’ll have to call them back,” said Alexandra. “Drop your weapon and hang up now.”
Stavropol’s voice could be heard coming from the cell phone, “Milesch? Milesch? What’s going on there?”
Popov didn’t move. He just stood there in shock.
“No second chances,” said Alexandra as she readjusted the angle of her silencer and then pulled the Walther’s trigger.
There was the sound of a muffled cough and then Popov roared in pain as his earlobe was torn from his head in a spatter of blood and pink tissue. Both his weapon and the cell phone fell to the ground as his hands shot to the left side of his head, frantically searching for what was left of his ear.
Stavropol’s voice could still be heard shouting through the cell phone, “Popov! Popov! What’s happening?”
Alexandra shattered the phone with a bullet and then gave Popov a quick kick to the back of one of his knees, knocking him down. As he clutched desperately at his ear, the snow running red with his blood, Alexandra retrieved his Pit Bull and ordered him to get up.
“Over to the car,” instructed Alexandra, waving her Walther in the direction of the Lada. “Hands on the hood. Let’s go. Legs spread apart-wide.”
Popov did as he was told, the blood running down his neck, staining the white collar of his expensive dress shirt. “I don’t know who you are-” he said as Alexandra tucked the Pit Bull underneath her jacket at the small of her back.
“Zamalcheetyeh!” Shut up!, she ordered as she used her free hand to pat Popov down for additional weapons. She found the stiletto and tucked it in one of her pockets. She also found his State Inspector credentials with the name Leuchin, as well as a wallet with a driver’s license under the name Popov.
“As the man you were talking to was calling you Popov,” said Alexandra as she removed his handkerchief from his front pocket, “I’m guessing this State Inspector identification is a fake, and looking closer at it, a rather bad one at that. Turn around.”
“I’m going to fucking kill you, you bitch!” spat Popov.
“You had your chance and you blew it, remember? Now, take your coat off.”
“Yob tvoyu mat!”
“Fuckmy mother?” asked Alexandra as she pointed her weapon at Popov’s kneecap and fired. “No, fuck yours.”
Popov fell to the ground screaming. “You bitch! You fucking bitch!”
“Per-ee-staan haameetca,” Quit your complaining, she said. “I only grazed your knee. Now get up and take off your jacket.”
Popov struggled upright and did as he was told.
“The suit coat as well. Good. Now throw them both off to the side.”
When Popov had done what Alexandra had asked, she balled up the handkerchief and threw it at him. After he had dabbed his ear and then tied it around his wounded knee to stem the bleeding, Alexandra waved her pistol in the direction of the cottage. “Inside,” she commanded. “Let’s go.”
Popov led the way while Alexandra followed several paces behind, her Walther pointed right at the base of the man’s spine.
They entered the small ramshackle dwelling via the kitchen door. Alexandra waved her pistol at a lone chair against the wall and said, “I want you to sit down over there and don’t move.”
As Popov sat down in the chair, he watched Alexandra cross to a large, cast iron stove. She deftly flicked open the grate with the toe of her boot. The fire inside had burned down to almost nothing but glowing embers. She threw in another piece of wood and kicked the grate shut. With her pistol still trained on Popov, she put one hand on the door jamb and looked into the dacha’s other room to check on her patient who had just started to come around.
Satisfied that he was okay for the moment, Alexandra returned her attention to Popov. “So,” she began, “you must be my repentant husband.”
Popov pretended that he didn’t know what she was talking about, but the look in his eyes was confirmation enough.
“That’s what you told the old lady who runs theriynak, isn’t it? We had a fight, I left Moscow to think about things for a while, but you couldn’t stand us being apart any longer and wanted to find me so you could make it up to me? She bought it at first, but after you left she began to worry. What if you were coming here to do me harm? Little did she know how right she was,” said Alexandra as she removed the Pit Bull from underneath her jacket, released the magazine, and ejected the chambered round.
“Armor piercing,” she remarked, as she picked up the lone bullet and rolled it between her fingers. “Who the hell are you, Mr. Milesch Popov?”
Popov just stared at her as she placed his pistol and its ammunition on the top of a faded hutch resting atop an old sideboard near the stove.How could a woman so beautiful be so vicious? he wondered.
Long slim legs, narrow waist, ample chest, full lips, green eyes, and shoulder-length blond hair indeed made Alexandra Ivanova beautiful, very beautiful, but that beauty had often times been as much a hindrance to her as it had been an asset. Because of those startling good looks she had had to work harder than most to earn the respect of her peers, both in the Russian Military and then later at the FSB. Too often, she was seen as just a pretty face. Her male superiors had always coveted her and she was constantly fending off their advances. More times than she cared to remember had she given herself to a man only to be betrayed in the end. They had no desire to relate to her as an equal, they only wanted to possess her as a thing, an object. She eventually decided that if given the chance, people will let you down every single time. There really was no one she could trust.
Though this attitude made for a very lonely personal life, she much preferred being in control and keeping people at a distance than opening herself up to the hurt that would certainly follow from allowing someone to get too close.
“You are going to tell me everything I want to know,” she said as she kept the gun trained on him while she filled a kettle of water and placed it on the stove to make tea for herself and her patient. She had been standing outside in the cold waiting for Popov to show for quite a long time. The fire in the stove had nearly gone out and her toes were frozen completely through. There wasn’t much that she hated more than the bleary Russian winters. It was no wonder that the death toll from alcoholism soared during this time of year.
“Who are you and what are you doing here? Who were you talking to on the phone? Who sent you here?” she demanded.
“If I tell you, they’ll kill me.”
“If youdon’t tell me,I’ll kill you,” replied Alexandra, squeezing off a shot from her silenced Walther that splintered one of the chair’s wooden slats right between Popov’s legs.
He flinched and his hands instinctively went right to his crotch. He hid one behind the other and began extricating the knife hidden behind his belt buckle.
“Hands!”
“You’re crazy. You know that?” said Popov, trying to buy more time.
Alexandra fired two more rounds into the chair, shaving off one of the legs and causing Popov to topple over onto floor.
“Yob!” Fuck, he yelled when his shoulder slammed into the floorboards.
Alexandra didn’t notice that the man failed to reach out with both hands to break his fall.
“That’s it,” she said. “I’m going to kill you right there if you don’t tell me something of value in the next thirty seconds.
“Who the hell are you?” said Popov as he stared up at her.
“Twenty-eight, twenty-seven,” continued Alexandra.
“All right, all right,” offered Popov. “I was hired to find out what happened to General Karganov.”
“It sounded to me like you were hired to kill him and me for that matter.”
“Originally, I was hired just to find his body.”
“By the people who killed him, correct?” demanded Alexandra.
“I have no idea who killed him, or tried to kill him I should say.”
“Bullshit. Who hired you?”
“Please. Can’t I at least sit up?” pleaded Popov. It was a voice he had not heard himself use in a long, long time. It was the voice of the pitiful, defenseless orphan, but here he thought it might work. If she thought he was defeated, broken, she might let her guard down. It only had to happen for an instant. That was all he needed and she would be dead before her body hit the floor.
“I will tell you what you need to know,” continued Popov. “I just want to sit up so I can stop the bleeding.”
Alexandra nodded her head and stepped back, well aware that she had already fired six of her eight shots. She didn’t want to waste any more ammunition.
Alexandra set two teacups and saucers on the edge of the sideboard. She placed a tea bag in each cup and then walked slowly backward to the stove for the kettle, never taking her eyes off Popov.
She poured the boiling water into the first cup and as she began pouring it into the second, she heard her patient stir in the other room. He let out a long, struggling moan as if he was having trouble breathing.
Alexandra was so intent on the noise emanating from the other room that she failed to pay attention to the teakettle. As the lid fell off, the scalding spray of hot water caused her to drop it and with a startled cry, snatch her burning hand to her mouth as her gun fell to the floor. It was an opportunity Popov had to take advantage of.
No second chances, he thought to himself as he shot out of his chair and went straight for Alexandra’s throat. Before she knew what was happening, he was on top of her. He swung his right arm like a hammer, crashing it down onto her forearm with a force that reverberated throughout her entire body. Popov then swung the back of his left hand in a wide arc toward her face.
Even in the dull light of the kitchen, she saw the glint of the blade coming at her. Without enough time to raise her arm in a defensive block, Alexandra simply turned her head down and offered her attacker her face, rather than her throat. As unthinkable as the bargain was, it was the only thing she could do to save her life.
The blade cut into her scalp just above her temple. Hot blood rolled down her cheek and she spun her body away from Popov. As she continued to move, Popov continued thrashing at her with his blade. She put up her arms to defend herself and in a matter of seconds he had slashed her leather jacket to ribbons. In the scuffle, her gun was kicked across the floor, and she had no idea where it had gone.
Popov was in control and he knew it. Like a cat who had cornered a field mouse and was playing with it before the final coup-de-grace, he drove his beautiful blond captive into a corner of the small kitchen and wondered if maybe killing, at least her, at this point was a little premature. Surely she could be good for something else before she died. If she was good enough, maybe he’d even give Stavropol a discount on her murder.
He decided that the old adage of an eye for an eye very much applied to this situation. He would need to start by cutting off one of her ears. She would scream her pretty head off and it would be messy, but in a very perverse way, Popov thought it would be fun. In fact, it would be like the snuff film one of his underworld colleagues had once shown him. Right at the height of the action, the moment of greatest passion, the greatest pleasure, that’s when he would kill her, but not before then. The buildup would be a sensually excruciating game of foreplay. He was growing hard just thinking about it-pumping the seed of life into her as the spirit of life oozed out of her.
The gun, Alexandra thought.Where the hell was that goddamn gun? She had to find it.
Her eyes swept left and right across the floor and then finally spotted it, sticking out from underneath the kitchen table.
She needed to draw Popov’s attention away from the table, and so she raised her hands in a classic martial arts fashion.
Confident in his advantage, Popov laughed and said, “Do you mean to do me harm, little girl?”
Alexandra hoped to unbalance him by stirring the hornet’s nest. Clenching and unclenching her fists as if she was limbering up to really go at it she said, “I don’t know if your face could be any more ugly, but I’d like to give it a try.”
She had hit a very raw nerve. Though Popov might appear vain, he was incredibly insecure, especially about his face. “You don’t like it?” he asked. “You’d better get used to it as it is the last face you are ever going to see. In fact, before you die, I think I would like to finish what I started. I’ve only given you a little kiss with my knife. Soon, you two will become much more intimate and then we’ll find a mirror together and decide whose face is more ugly.”
Alexandra swung at him and caught nothing but air as Popov easily stepped back from the punch and laughed. She swung with her other arm and missed again, encouraging more laughter from Popov. “You’re actually not as fearsome as I thought you’d be. Especially not without your gun.”
“Passhol v’chorte,” Go to hell, she spat, as she put her hands back up in a traditional boxer’s stance. She moved her head and shoulders from side to side, looking for an opening.
“Is this supposed to intimidate me?” asked Popov.
Alexandra didn’t bother answering. She threw an obvious jab with her right hand that Popov easily parried away. He was about to say something else when seemingly out of nowhere Alexandra landed a left cross, followed by a right hook. Obviously, Popov knew nothing about boxing and one of the sport’s most popular three-punch combinations.
As an added measure of security, Alexandra lined up and kicked the stunned Popov in the nuts with everything she had. His eyes rolled up into the back of his head and he doubled over in pain. The forward weight was more than his injured knee could bear and he fell hard onto his side. Alexandra moved around him and dove for the kitchen table and the gun lying just underneath.
She was less than a foot away from it when she felt Popov’s hand grab her leg. He was clawing his way up her body, desperate to get to the gun before she did.
She was beginning to think that all was lost when the fingertips of her left hand touched the long metal tube of the weapon’s silencer. Alexandra struggled beneath Popov, using her free hand to slap at his head and shoulders.
Millimeter by millimeter her fingers slid down the weapon, brailling its features until she could finally feel the trigger guard and knew the butt of the pistol was almost in her grasp. As she was about to close in on it, Popov grabbed the silenced Walther, struggled to his feet and aimed it at her head. “I’m beginning to think that you’d might be more fun dead,” he said, wiping the blood away from where Alexandra’s left cross had caught him in the mouth. “What do you think?”
“Kooshi govno ee oomree!” she replied.
“Oh, I do plan on dying one day, but I don’t plan on eating any shit before it happens.”
“Guess again,” said a man behind Popov, who then whacked in the side of his head with an antique bedpan.
As Popov hit the floor, the Walther discharged, its silenced round ricocheting off the kitchen’s iron stove before exiting through the leaded glass window above the sink.
Though Karganov had succeeded in ringing Popov’s bell, the young Mafioso had been hit much harder many times before in his life. He quickly shook it off, and spun on his haunches to train his gun on the injured general. Karganov knew he was beaten. “Bliad,” Russian forShit! was the last thing that escaped his lips before Popov drilled a round right between the man’s eyes.
Minutes later, the fog of gun smoke still hung thick in the air. Alexandra Ivanova had no idea if the ringing in her ears was from her own screaming over the loss of General Anatoly Karganov, or from the deafening roar of the Pit Bull as its.45-caliber armor-piercing rounds raced out of the barrel and tore through the flesh of the onetime orphan from Nizhnevartovsk, and now lifeless Moscow crime figure, Milesch Popov.