"I know why you are here." Ludkovich nodded.

  "And why is that?"

  "You are here to clean up, to clean house. Time is up for some resources, correct?" Ludkovich waited for a reply. Preacher waited for more. "But I don't understand the timing. Why now?"

  Well, this was an interesting development. It seems this mobster had figured quite a few things out. Very astute.

  "So who was your target inside Lefortovo?" Ludkovich brought his fingers together and weaved them together with his forefingers pressed to his lips.

  "My, you have spent some time on this. Figured it all out."

  "Not all of it."

  "Lev Petarik. Do you know him?"

  "No. But I recognize the name from the six prisoners you executed in the yard. That was quite a scenario you put together to get into Hell on Earth. All to get one man?"

  "Yes. Took months to track him down."

  "Amazing. And which one of the four you killed in that hotel room was your target?"

  "Maybe it was two of them. Maybe all four. Maybe none." Preacher was matter of fact.

  "You must be his greatest weapon." Ludkovich smiled.

  "No. Just a mission." Black Angel leaned in, his elbows on the table.

  “Wait. Please," Ludkovich raised his hands. "I know you can easily kill me and my men. It is evidently what you do. But you need to ask yourself two things first. Why are you still alive? And why am I still alive sitting here across from you? Neither one should be, yet here we sit.”

  Preacher coiled again. Maybe this was it. Maybe this was the man who could and would actually kill him. Only one way to find out. He was within a baby’s hair of exploding when Ludkovich unloaded on him. It wasn’t a punch or kick or bullet. It was much worse. And it meant he would not die today as he’d hoped. It was a word, just one name.

  "Marta."

  After an intravenous injection of heroin, users report feeling a surge of euphoria (“rush”) accompanied by dry mouth, a warm flushing of the skin, heaviness of the extremities, and clouded mental functioning. Following this initial euphoria, the user goes “on the nod,” an alternately wakeful and drowsy state. Users who do not inject the drug may not experience the initial rush, but other effects are the same.

  Chapter 19

  Black Angel balled his right hand into a fist. This kill would be painful for the target.

  "Wait. Don’t." Ludkovich sat back with his hands up. "You have to wonder how I know her."

  "I can wonder about that later."

  Preacher exploded up and forward. The table between them came up with him and then came crashing down on Ludkovich. He kept moving forward bowling the mafia leader over and moving past him to the doorway where he dove to his left. He slid past the stunned female cook standing over a stove toward the two bodyguards who were both pulling guns from shoulder holsters. Preacher was within a foot and quarter of a second of delivering a vicious blow to the first when the shout came from the dining room.

  "No guns. No shooting." Ludkovich’s order changed Preacher’s motion. Instead of striking the large man in the neck, he delivered a chopping blow to his chest and pivoted to kick the other in the midsection instead of the bridge of his nose. The blows allowed the men to absorb the force and respond with their own attacks, which they shouldn’t have.

  When the guy on the left came forward, Preacher pivoted again to deliver a knee to the man’s right leg which instantly obliterated cartilage and tendons. The bodyguard on the right took this moment to begin a kick with his right foot. Preacher was already near the floor so he adjusted his momentum to the left as the boot came toward his head. It glanced off his shoulder and kept going so Preacher immediately followed the rising boot and leg with is left hand carrying the man’s leg into the air as he rose. The movement caused the fella to fall to the floor where Preacher proceeded to stomp on his chest, cracking ribs in the process. But he did not kill them. Something had stopped him.

  Marta.

  He rose back to his feet and looked at the cook in her kitchen. Something in her eyes was not right. A door to the right led somewhere. If he had to guess, it probably led to more guards he would have to incapacitate or kill before finding his way out. He was turning toward the exit when Ludkovich spoke from the dining room doorway.

  “You can run, leave. But then you will not get any answers.” Ludkovich’s nose was bleeding. A cut was starting to bleed over his left eye. “And you want to hear this Lance."

  How the hell did he know that name? Preacher was ready to blow and take the world with him.

  "How do you think I got here, got to where I am?" Ludkovich asked.

  "From your barrage of hints, I assumed Papa put you here. And now he is taking you out. You have outlived your usefulness. It happens."

  "Nope. Not Seibel. I've never met him."

  Preacher got a quizzical look on his face. His procerus tugged at his eyebrows. Then he figured it out. "Marta. She put you here." And it all became clear. She had built up a few networks during her years of running wild through Europe. Ludkovich was one of her operatives. "I can see it now. She tore down a few or your obstacles and paved the way for you to move up the mob's ladder."

  "Yes. She removed many barriers."

  "And why do you think she did this?" Preacher looked at the guards still on the floor. Ludkovich stepped forward into the kitchen.

  "She keeps her reasons to herself."

  "Kept."

  "I'm sorry?"

  "She kept her reasons to herself."

  Ludkovich staggered. "Are you saying?"

  "Yes. Last year in New York. An explosion. She lived for several hours after, but did not regain consciousness. She is gone."

  "I am sorry."

  "Why?"

  "Why am I sorry?" Ludkovich asked.

  "Yes. How did you know about me, about her and me?"

  "She told me almost three years ago. She mentioned a young man and described you to me. She said only that he, that you, would be a chameleon, a killer, a human hurricane. She said if this man ever came to me, I was to help him."

  This was touching, moving. A Russian mob heavy told to watch out for Marta's boyfriend to come around some day and offer him assistance, salvation. Preacher cracked up.

  "What is it?" Ludkovich asked.

  "So you are saying that Marta, the fiercest, most brutal thing most humans will ever encounter, asked you to help me."

  "Yes. It is that simple."

  "And is it that simple that she was fooled by you, that she did not know your past?"

  "My past?" Ludkovich now had a quizzical look on his face.

  "Do I have to do this?" Preacher shook his head.

  "Do what?"

  That was it. Black Angel picked up the gun from the counter and turned lightning fast to put a bullet through each of the guard's heads. He then turned his aim on the cook, who was more than a cook, and did the same to her. In the next moment, he was down the hall and out into a garage where three men waited with guns pulled. Their fingers were too slow on their triggers and each received multiple bullets from a rolling, diving ball of fury.

  After checking the exterior doors and windows, Black Angel returned to the kitchen and Ludkovich who was now holding a gun.

  "Come on Steve, put that down before you get hurt." Black Angel walked right up to the ultra deep-cover CIA operative and snatched the gun from his hand. "Let's go."

  Yuri Andreovich Ludkovich was actually Stephen Rainier Torrence from Spokane, Washington. He was placed in service as a Russian CIA operative 19 years earlier. His goal was to infiltrate the mob and work his way up to a mid-management level. Marta, working under the blind directive of Geoffrey Seibel, elevated Torrence to the mob's upper echelon. And during the process, he became the mob collector for the extreme gambling debts of a politician who just happened to hold the office of President of the Russian Federation.

  It was brilliant, a marvelous operation; unrivaled in recent history. A CIA operative had the Russian President in his pocket. And yet, this operative's name Steve Torrence – Yuri Ludkovich appeared on a list handed to Lance Priest nearly a year ago. It made no sense.

  Wait. It did.

  Preacher just saved this resource's life by wiping out all witnesses. Torrence's cover was still intact. He had blurted out information about Marta and Seibel in front of the guards and cook.

  Ludkovich wanted Preacher to take action. He knew that Preacher would kill everyone in this safe house once Marta's name was uttered. Ludkovich was a prisoner of sorts.

  Damn. A mystery wrapped up in an enigma. Black Angel to the rescue.

  ----------

  "Porcelain protocol and olive wine." Preacher spoke the code in German into a payphone.

  "Green grass, red linens." Came the reply. Also in German.

  Preacher hung up the phone on a street corner in Moscow. He knew the process for tracking down his field mentor was still in place years later. Just over 1,194 miles to the southwest, Mikel Fuchs hung up a payphone in a train station in Vienna. The senior operative agreed to come to Moscow and do a little high-level babysitting for a few days.

  Chapter 20

  She was running, nearly limp-free. The moon in the night sky lit her way. It was so vivid. So real.

  She raced across on open field and then through trees. She came to a road and hit the dirt to avoid the spray of headlights from a vehicle approaching, her heart pounding.

  She stayed flat on the ground until it passed and was up and across the road and into another treeline. She moved through the woods like a wolf hunting prey. She came to an obstacle, a tall fence. She assessed the situation and then scaled the fence, snagging her shirt on the barbed wire at the top.

  She breached to top, dropped ten feet to the ground on the other side and raced into a thicket of trees.

  She was nearly home. Her home for now.

  No need to wake. This was no dream.

  Chapter 21

  Saint Petersburg, Russia April 4...

  He was beside a river, a canal really. Running, racing for all he had. His feet floated across the grass of the park. He was gaining on his prey up ahead. Behind him, he could hear the trample of footsteps. He was both the chaser and chased.

  Overhead, the moon lit the night sky. Streetlights provided fountains of manmade light spilling down on empty streets and expanses of grass and gravel underfoot. The woman trying to evade him just 30 meters ahead now, had burst from the safety of her hotel minutes earlier. It was a mistake. Not so much the running, but the drawing of attention. She had reacted badly when presented with orders passed through a bellman.

  The woman should have stayed calm, walked to the elevator and gone up to her room to await further instructions from the Black Angel. Instead, she bolted from the boutique hotel's lobby and ran west on Ulitsa Pestalya to the canal where she crossed on one of the countless bridges in Saint Petersburg, Russia. She followed the canal north and then crossed the street into the Summer Gardens. Preacher was enjoying the short tour they were taking through the Venice of the North. Even at a few minutes after midnight, Saint Petersburg was beautiful, truly striking as cities go.

  The runner, Tanya Rusak, was one of two women on the list. She was number nine. The last name.

  Rusak was not all that important from what Preacher could tell. She was a double agent, a courier of sorts between official and unofficial entities in Moscow, Odessa and Saint Petersburg. Yesterday, Black Angel followed her to the Leningradsky train station in Moscow and drove the 380 miles northwest in a stolen Peugeot to wait and watch as Rusak got off the train at Moskovsky Station in Saint Petersburg.

  The overnight train brought the courier into Saint Petersburg at 5:40 a.m., just before the sun found its way to the eastern horizon and the Black Angel descended into shadows for the day. Now, 17 hours later, with injected opium coursing through his veins and Marta with glistening hair flowing, gliding effortlessly beside him, he delighted in the moment. This particular moment was perfect as so few were these days. He reached out to take her hand but she only giggled and shook her head. He laughed at her and exploded ahead as if he had been standing still the moment before.

  He caught up with Rusak and danced beside her like a clown in a circus ring. The smile still on his face. Rusak, a middle-aged woman closer to 50 than 40, could not respond to the speed. Black Angel looked back over his shoulder at the approaching group of three men. A screech of tires a block away sounded like it was coming this way.

  In the dark with the brim of his hat keeping light from his features, Black Angel was a shadow. He stepped closer to Rusak. They had 30 seconds or so before the following group arrived.

  “Tanya, you should not have run. You were in no danger.”

  “Who are you? What do you want from me?” The double agent gasped for breath as she heaved.

  “I only have one question for you. You must answer honestly and immediately.” He stepped closer but kept his head bowed. It was menacing. “Why have you betrayed your homeland?”

  Rusak could only stare at him. The look on her face transformed from quizzical to fear. "What?" she asked.

  It was her eyes. They were honest. There was no lie behind her words. She was not a traitor, not a double agent. Black Angel looked around. He knew immediately. This was a trap.

  “I have no time to chat. I will see you again, soon.” Black Angel turned toward the approaching trio of men and decided on the one on the right. He burst forward, closing the gap in seconds. Ten feet apart, he jumped into the air and dealt the man a vicious kick planted in his chest. The guy's head snapped forward from the collision.

  Black Angel rolled to his right and sprinted into the darkest portion of the Summer Gardens. Seconds later, several silenced shots were fired after him. But they weren't bullets. He recognized the distinct noise made by the firing of tranquilizer darts. Damn.

  Seconds after that, the two remaining men were joined by two others on foot and two cars taking opposite routes around the perimeter of the park. The men communicated via radio. One stayed with Rusak, the other three gave chase into the dark.

  He made it to the dead center of the beautiful park. A flame burned in a small square concrete box. No tourists were around as the Black Angel raced through the scene, now traveling from south to north. He hugged the shadow of a set of tall manicured bushes as one of the cars giving chase crossed his path 100 yards ahead. He considered diving under the bushes to watch the followers and see which one he would pick off for a little interrogation.

  But lying down right now just felt wrong. He needed to move, to divide and conquer and then find out who the hell these guys were. He raced across the lawn. At one point he got a little too close to an overhead light and he heard four spits from behind him. One of the darts whizzed by just feet away. He veered left, away from the light while keeping to his northerly course near the edge of the park.

  Behind him, the four men spread out to cover more ground. The car that passed seconds earlier slammed on its brakes and turned around in the center of the street, returning to intercept him.

  He picked up his pace and raced across the street to an embankment next to another of the endless, endless friggin' Saint Petersburg canals. This one bordered the Letniy Sad property, formerly the summer palace of Peter the Great. Running next to the canal, he thought of the lack of planning that brought him here in this moment. He had let Rusak lead him to this open public place surrounded on all sides by water. Not smart. So he stopped and sat down in the shadows next to the frigid water.

  He waited like a snake in the grass, only deadlier. He pulled out his silenced weapon and knife and breathed slowly while looking up to the beautiful, wondrous stars. The drugs in his system were being flushed with his exertion and adrenaline. He could not see her face any longer. The billions of stars in the clear night sky were no comparison to her, well, at least the memory of her.

  Twenty seconds later, a man approached on foot. He was on the street above the embankment. He slowed to peer down into the canal. Moments after he passed, a shadow burst from the dark and pulled the man down toward the water. His grip so tight around the man’s neck no sound could escape. The radio in the guy's hand was snatched and kept. Next to the water, the Black Angel lay across the man’s body, keeping him facedown while the knife’s point caressed the skin of the man's neck.

  “We all die brother. Are you ready?” The voice a whisper.

  “No, please no. I only do a job. I only work for hire.” The man’s plea carried an accent from Eastern Europe, sounded Polish.

  “But you do the work of a killer do you not?” There was no answer this time. “So you can take life, but not give your own, is that it?”

  “No please. I do not know you. I will tell no one.”

  “Who do you work for tonight?” The whisper deeper now.

  “I don’t.”

  The knife pierced skin. “Quickly now, I have several other men who can tell me what I need to know. You mean nothing to me.” A vehicle raced by on the street above. “Nevermind, what is your name?”

  “Jacob.” The man sputtered.

  “Goodbye Jacob.” With that, Black Angel rose and delivered a violent blow to the base of Jacob's skull. An incapacitating blow, not a kill. The lucky man had not seen the Black Angel's face.

  He rolled off and ran along next to the water, staying in a crouch. He reached a bridge and pressed himself against the stone wall. Above him, a couple out for a romantic late night stroll talked casually. From here, his options were to move up onto the street, which would put him in view of those searching for him, or he could slip into the frigid water and either cross or travel with the flow to the west which led to the Neva River just a few hundred yards away.

  He closed his eyes and listened. As he did, he attempted to summon Lance and his vision from above, but he wouldn’t come. Damn heroin.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24