Deadly Crossing (Tom Dugan 2) (27 page)

Chapter Thirty Two

St. Mary’s Catholic Church
London, UK

If anything, the conclusion of the service was the most stressful part. Father O’Malley gave a benediction and, along with the Russian Orthodox priest, moved down the aisle to bid the mourners farewell as they exited the church. The rest of the attendees waited respectfully for the family to file out first, but when they all stood, Alex collapsed. He sank back into the pew, tears streaming down his cheeks and shoulders heaving, as if physically unable to stand. Dugan and Ilya helped him to his feet and along the aisle to the waiting car.

With the family so obviously indisposed, it had fallen to Dugan to return to accept the condolences and well wishes from the exiting mourners — a feat made considerably easier by the presence of both Father O’Malley and the Russian Orthodox priest (whose name he couldn’t remember or pronounce) at his side, gently hurrying folks along if they lingered. When the last attendee had shaken hands and moved on, Dugan hurried away before either of the priests could suggest visiting the house to comfort the grieving family.

He glanced at his watch as he rushed to the car park, where Anna waited with Ilya and Nigel. Gillian and Alex would undoubtedly be home by now, and he didn’t have a clue as to what was transpiring. Other than bringing the girls to the house, he and Ward didn’t have a plan, and Dugan was starting to realize they should have given it a great deal more thought. What exactly were they going to do, say, “Surprise! Your daughter’s not dead!” and have her jump out of a fucking cake?

Anna and the others saw him coming and were already sitting in the car by the time he slid behind the wheel, Anna in the front passenger seat, and the two men in the back. Dugan reached for the ignition, then stopped and sat back in his seat. Maybe it was better to break the news to everyone separately. Then maybe Anna could help him figure out the best way to tell Gillian and Alex. Presuming, of course, Ilya and Nigel didn’t beat him to death here in the church car park.

“Tom?” Anna asked. “Is something wrong?”

Dugan shook his head and half-turned in his seat so he could see all of them.

“No. But I have something to tell you all. It’s going to sound crazy, but I need you to trust me, and you’ll understand in a very few minutes.” He paused. “Cassie and Karina aren’t dead.”

No one said anything for a long moment; then Ilya broke the silence.

“
Da
,
Dyed
. I know. I listened to the sermon. They are with God in Heaven. And maybe is true, and maybe is not. I do not know, but I am not such a strong believer. But… but I like to think the priest is right.”

“That’s not what I mean. I mean they’re both ALIVE. Not in Heaven, but right here in London. I saw them myself yesterday morning, and right now they should be at Alex and Gillian’s house.”

“What sort of rubbish is that?” Nigel demanded. “We all saw them die. I… I touched her, or one of them, anyway. If this is some sort of cruel Yank funeral humor, it’s not amusing.”

Dugan shook his head. “The guys on the ship opened the container before they dumped it and rescued Cassie and Karina. Tanya was already dead, and they left her body in the container — that’s who you saw, Nigel.”

“Why are we just finding this out,” Ilya demanded. “Why did the girls not come forward when ship docked?”

“Because they were protecting the guys who saved them. They had no clue we were close by, and the guys on the ship were ordered to dump the container, so the Russian mob would have probably killed their families if they knew any of the girls were rescued—”

“Dugan!” Anna said.“Just drive! You can give us the details on the way.”

“
Da
,” Ilya said, followed by a ‘bloody right’ from Nigel.

“I guess that makes it unanimous.” Dugan started the car.

Outside the Kairouz Residence
London, UK

Fedosov watched the car turn up the drive with the cook and chauffeur in front and the Kairouz couple in the back. So far, so good. Now if this Dugan would just show up, he could finish the job and get out of here — presuming the arrival of the black American and the women didn’t complicate matters. He slipped the headphones back on to check out the action inside the house. He heard the back door open and then a surprised gasp.

“Jesse?” he heard the Kairouz woman say. “You startled me. What are you doing here?”

Fedosov heard the hesitation in the man’s voice.

“I… I just came to pay my respects,” the man said. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” the woman said, “but why didn’t you come to the church … and how did you get in? The door was locked and the alarm set.”

“I… I just arrived and knew I’d be too late for the service. I called Tom earlier and he told me where the spare key was and gave me the alarm code—”

“I NEED A BLOODY DRINK,” said a male British voice, the speech slurred and accompanied by the abrupt sound of chair legs sliding across a tile floor.

“ALEX! Careful! You’ll fall,” the Kairouz woman again.

“Never you mind,” said a woman with an Irish brogue. “I’ll get himself sat in the study. Come along, Mr. Kairouz. There’s a good fellow.” Fedosov heard the sound of stumbling footsteps retreating, then silence.

“Tom said he was taking it hard,” the black American’s voice again.

“Yes, well, it’s difficult for all of us,” said the Kairouz woman. “Now about your—”

“Where is Tom?” the black American asked. “I expected him to be with you.”

“He’ll be along,” the Kairouz woman said. “He was detained at the church. And I’m sorry, but we weren’t expecting anyone. Can I offer you something? Coffee perhaps? I’ll ask Mrs. Hogan to brew a pot.”

Fedosov looked up to see a car turning onto the street. As it sped past him, he saw Dugan at the wheel and a red-haired woman in the front passenger seat, along with two men in the back he couldn’t see well. The car whipped into the Kairouz drive and disappeared from sight around the curve. Seconds later he heard car doors slamming and then the back door to the kitchen banging open.

“KARINA?” bellowed a deep Russian-accented voice, and then — bedlam.

Kairouz Residence
London, UK

Dugan explained the situation as the car raced toward the Kairouz house, his attempts at soliciting ideas for the best way to break the news to Alex and Gillian overwhelmed by the voices of Nigel and Ilya demanding details of the girls’ survival. By the time he pulled into the Kairouzes’ drive, he still had no clear idea what to do, and his two back-seat passengers were already opening their doors before he’d brought the car to a complete stop in front of the garage.

“Wait,” said Dugan to no avail as the men leaped from the car. He shot a worried look at Anna as she wrestled her crutches from between the seats.

“Go on,” Anna said. “Go ahead. You probably need to get in there as soon as possible. I can manage the few steps to the back door on my own.”

“You sure—”

Anna smiled. “GO!”

Dugan nodded and jumped out. He entered the kitchen to a scene of chaos. Jesse Ward and Gillian Kairouz stood stock still in the kitchen, puzzled looks on their faces. At the end of the hall, Alex stood in the door to the study, leaning against the door jamb, a glass in his hand. He could see Mrs. Hogan behind Alex, standing ready to offer support. Ilya and Nigel were in the hall, calling the girls’ names at the top of their lungs.

Dugan heard answering shouts from up the stairway, and the two men thundered up the steps, while everyone else looked on, obviously confused. And then he heard the unmistakable sound of Cassie’s happy laughter, and everything happened at once.

There was the sound of glass breaking on hardwood as Alex dropped the brandy snifter and steadied himself on the door jamb. And then the girls were down the stairs, and the hall was crowded as everyone rushed to them, hugging and kissing and clinging together, consumed with the joy of the return of their loved ones, without regard to the WHY of their particular miracle.

Dugan stood in the kitchen doorway with Ward, hoping some of that goodwill would carry over when they realized he’d delayed the moment of joy. He heard the back door rattle and hurried over to help Anna inside. She grinned at him and thumped down the hall on her crutches toward the happy reunion.

As it turned out, it wasn’t much different than having them jump out of a cake, now was it?

Outside the Kairouz Residence
London, UK

Fedosov listened to the melee in his earphones and cursed at the unexpected complication. The noise was general and of sufficient volume to be coming from several of his bugs at once, so he couldn’t pinpoint exactly where the targets were in the house. That was a problem.

Despite the fact the Chief had given him discretion in the area of collateral damage, Fedosov was no fool. This was a posh neighborhood, populated with wealthy people who wielded considerable political clout — a Member of Parliament lived only one door down the tree-lined street. A charge large enough to guarantee the complete and utter destruction of the Kairouz residence might also deal death and destruction to influential neighbors, so Fedosov had been selective in his placement of the charges in the basement. He’d placed the heaviest explosives beneath the living room and kitchen, where he might reasonably expect his three targets to congregate at some point. Smaller incendiary charges were spaced throughout the rest of the house and along the perimeter, to ensure the wreckage from the larger blasts was consumed in a raging conflagration. On the off chance any of his targets survived the initial blast, they would surely perish in the fire that followed it. It was a sound plan, all in all, but one predicated on his ability to determine when his three targets were collected together in either the living room or kitchen.

Fedosov scowled as he listened to the confusion coming from his bugs. The addition of additional voices raised in animated conversation completely overwhelmed his ability to tell who was where, and he cursed himself for not having the foresight to plant video cameras. But then again, he’d wanted to keep his footprint as small as possible, and more bugs meant more possibility of discovery.

He considered aborting the hit temporarily, but no, he’d promised the Chief it would happen today — the man expected results, and neither failure nor delay was an option. Besides, he couldn’t just leave the charges in place indefinitely. They’d be discovered sooner or later, alerting his targets and making them even more difficult to kill. He settled in to wait and hoped he could discern when his targets were gathered in one of the kill zones.

Chapter Thirty Three

Kairouz Residence
London, UK

Ilya Denosovitch had his right arm tightly around Karina’s shoulders as she hugged him around his waist. He hadn’t let go of her since she’d bounded down the stairs into his arms moments before. He knew he was grinning like an idiot, yet was unable to stop, and happy tears leaked down his cheeks, which he brushed away with the back of his left hand.
Spetsnaz
do not cry, he reminded himself, then looked at the scene of happy chaos unfolding around him.

Nigel had released Cassie at the bottom of the stairs, and she’d flown into Gillian’s waiting arms before reaching out to include a happy but confused Alex in the family embrace. Mrs. Hogan orbited the group, visibly impatient to fold Cassie in a hug of her own, while Nigel stood nearby, beaming but obviously unsure what to do with himself.

Dyed
and Anna stood looking on at the end of the hall near the doorway to the kitchen, while beyond them Ilya saw the CIA agent, Jesse Ward. Ward looked relieved, Anna looked happy, and
Dyed
looked uncertain, as if unsure it was all true. The hallway rang with laughter and a confused babble of voices until Mrs. Hogan finally received her expected hug and then pulled away from Cassie, wiping tears from her own eyes before raising her voice to address the group.

“Right then,” Mrs. Hogan said. “Into the kitchen, the lot of ya! Maybe if I put some food in your mouths, you’ll all be quiet long enough for Cassie and her friend here to tell us how this blessing came to pass. Though I’ve no doubt it was God’s own miracle, it was.” And with that, Mrs. Hogan began to shoo the happy milling group toward the sanctity of her kitchen.

Ilya and Karina trailed the crowd, smiling as they filed down the hall. If only the major were here — oh shit, the major. Ilya glanced at his watch, confirming that he was well overdue for his daily 11 AM email check. He stopped in the kitchen doorway and reluctantly released Karina, nodding her into the kitchen as he dug in his pants pocket for his smart phone.

Karina clung to him and looked up at him. “Where are you going, Uncle Ilya?”

Ilya beamed at his niece. “Do not worry, Karina. I will be near. Join the others, and I will be there shortly.”

Karina gave him a hesitant smile and joined the celebration in the kitchen while Ilya hung back in the hall, phone in hand. He’d turned his phone off during the memorial service and powered it on now, surprised by the blinking voice mail icon. His surprise grew when he accessed his voice mail and saw multiple messages from what he recognized as burner phone numbers. This couldn’t be good news. He glanced at the celebration in the kitchen and moved in the opposite direction, down the hallway and through the front door to take the call in private — unwilling to put a damper on the celebrations. Once outside, he listened to the last message and called the number as instructed.

“Ilya! Thank God,” said Borgdanov. “I’ve been trying for an hour to reach someone.”

“I suppose everyone had their phones turned off for the service—”

“Okay. No problem. I have you now. You must—”

“Andrei,” Ilya said, “they are alive. Karina and Cassie are both alive.”

“What? But you said your mission was unsuccessful.”

“It was, but somehow—”

“That’s wonderful,” Borgdanov said, “and I want to hear about it, but now you must listen closely. The
Bratstvo
bastards have taken out a contract on
Dyed
and the Kairouzes. The hit is already planned, and it will be soon. You must warn them.”

“
Da
,” Ilya replied. “How? You have details?”

“I know they have the Kairouz house bugged, and that they plan to use a bomb when they are all gathered there, so you must prevent that from happening—&lrquo;

Ilya shoved the phone into his pocket and turned for the door before Borgdanov finished the sentence.

Outside the Kairouz Residence
London, UK

Fedosov nodded as the cook’s Irish brogue came through his headphones, urging the group into the kitchen. He listened impatiently to the sounds of the happy crowd moving down the hallway, and he switched between his various listening devices to confirm their transit. Sure enough, the volume of their combined chatter rose in the kitchen as it fell in the other rooms. Soon they’d all be exactly where he wanted them.

He tensed and fingered the detonator, but he hesitated, were all three targets in the kill zone? The Chief would be livid if any survived. Should he wait a bit, to ensure everyone was there? He heard chairs being scraped along the floor, and then a woman’s voice he didn’t recognize. A British accent, youngish, perhaps the redhead on crutches?

“I propose a toast to the safe return of Cassie and Karina,” the woman said.

There was a ‘hear, hear,’ that he recognized as Kairouz, and then a jumble of other responses.

“Wait. Where’s Ilya?” a voice said. Clearly an American, probably Dugan. Good. Only the Kairouz woman left to confirm.

“He went out the front to make a phone call,” said someone. Female. Russian accent.

“I’ll go get him,” he heard Dugan respond. “We can’t have a toast without Ilya.”

Shit! Don’t leave
, thought Fedosov. And then he smiled. When everyone was gathered for the toast, he’d know with certainty his targets were all there.

He settled back to wait. How accommodating of them to arrange the signal themselves.

***

Ilya reached for the latch just as the door opened to reveal a smiling Dugan.

“Ilya, come in. We’re going to toast the girls’ return—”

The big Russian grabbed Dugan by the arm and pulled him out onto the front porch.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” Dugan demanded as Ilya dragged him down the walk away from the house.

“
Dyed
, you are in danger. I think there is a bomb in the house. I must get the others out.”

“What? Let’s go.” Dugan turned back to the house.

“
Nyet
.” Ilya tightened his grip on Dugan’s arm. “The house is bugged, how extensively I do not know, but I think the plan is to kill you and both Alex and Gillian at the same time. I don’t know why that has not happened, but I think you must stay separate from them.”

“So you go in and get them out, and I stand here with my thumb up my ass?”

Ilya shrugged. “I think is safer for the others also, if you are not close.”

Dugan hesitated, then nodded. “Okay. Get them out. I’ll stay outside.”

Ilya nodded back and ran up the walk and through the front door. He moved down the long hallway and into the kitchen. The group gathered there looked up, everyone smiling.

“Okay, now we have you, but where’s Tom?” Anna asked.

“
Dyed
will be in soon,” Ilya said. “He is smoking a cigarette.”

Anna looked puzzled. “But Tom—” She stopped dead at Ilya’s finger in front of his lips.

The group fell silent, but Ward and Anna picked up on Ilya’s hand signs and quietly scooted their chairs away from the kitchen table and rose, silently urging the others to do likewise, as they all started moving toward the back door.

***

Dugan watched Ilya disappear into the house, his mind racing. If the Russian mob was intent on killing them all in the house, there was likely someone nearby waiting to pull the trigger. It could all be done very remotely, of course, but if they’d gone to such great lengths to kill them together, they’d likely want a witness on site to confirm the deaths. That meant line of sight, which on these tree-lined streets meant close, very close.

He moved off the sidewalk and crept through the shrubbery to the edge of the expansive front yard. He found a good vantage point behind a boxwood hedge and peered up and down the street. There were a few parked cars, but all were unoccupied, so he kept low behind the hedge and moved to the side of the house. Halfway down the yard, he stopped and slowly raised his eyes above the top of the hedge to check out the side street. Sure enough, a hundred yards beyond the entrance to the driveway, a plumbing repair van sat at the curb.

He started forward in a crouching run, keeping the hedge between himself and the van, with no clear idea what he was going to do when he got there.

***

Fedosov sat listening as the ex-
Spetsnaz
announced his arrival, and then cursed under his breath at the news the American Dugan wasn’t with him. Then the conversation seemed to die. Something was wrong, but he couldn’t tell what. He sat mentally parsing the possibilities, and then it came to him. He was nothing if not thorough, and he always did his homework on potential targets.

Dugan didn’t smoke.

His fingers tightened on the detonator, and he pushed the button.

***

Dugan had just cleared the hedge and turned to exit the driveway into the street when the blast took him full in the back, knocking him off his feet. He fell face first on the drive, momentarily stunned, and then felt the hard cobblestones beneath him as rubble began to rain down, causing him to press himself to the ground and cross his arms over the back of his head for protection.

The last bits of rubble still pattered through the leaves above him when he staggered to his feet and looked toward the ruins of the house. His heart leapt into his throat as secondary explosions engulfed the wreckage in flames, and he took a step toward the house, then stopped. Ilya was there, and he had gotten them out. He HAD to believe that, or otherwise it made no difference. He turned back down the drive and stooped to scoop up a fist-sized chunk of masonry as he raced toward the van, murder in his heart.

The van rocked on its springs as he approached and someone moved about inside. Dugan reached the driver’s door and yanked it open just as a small rat-faced man slipped into the driver’s seat. The man’s surprise was short lived, and he immediately slipped his right hand toward his left armpit, but Dugan was already swinging his rock toward Rat Face’s nose. It landed with a satisfying crunch.

The pistol dropped to the floorboard of the van, and Dugan dragged the semi-conscious killer from the vehicle and threw him face down in the street, then knelt on the man’s back and raised his rock high, ready to smash the bastard’s skull. Then he stopped. He didn’t want the little fish, he wanted the boss.

He tossed the rock aside and used his necktie to bind the killer’s hands behind his back, and then stood. The man moaned as Dugan pulled him to his feet and pushed him toward the drive of the Kairouz house.

“You’d better hope no one’s dead, asshole,” Dugan said through clenched teeth, “or you’re gonna have a lot more to moan about.”