Deadly Crossing (Tom Dugan 2) (9 page)

“What now?” Yuri asked.

“Put those two in the pantry, out of sight,” Nazarov said, nodding toward the Kairouz woman and the cook. “And tape Tanya up and carry her to the van.”

He looked around at the blood on the floor.

“And get some tape on Anatoli’s hand so he’s not bleeding all over the place and then clean up this blood. Use some bleach; there must be some around here somewhere.”

“What about her?” Yuri nodded at the blond girl they’d called Cassie.

Nazarov thought for a moment. Arsov had been clear; no one was to see their faces. He shook his head. “She saw my face. We’ll take her with us.”

Chapter Eight

Club Pyatnitsa
London, UK

Arsov sat and drummed his fingers against his desk. He’d expected to hear from Nazarov by now, but he didn’t want to call him if he was still in the middle of the operation. The simpleton would probably find snatching Tanya challenging enough without a distraction. He comforted himself with the thought that even Nazarov couldn’t screw up such a simple mission.

His thoughts turned to his friends outside. They would expect him to move at some point, and if he just slipped away and left them sitting there, they would figure things out sooner or later. Besides, even these amateurs couldn’t be so inept as to think they could tail him in a BT van without being spotted. They must have a chase car somewhere nearby, and it would be good to smoke that out as well. Arsov punched the intercom and summoned Victor from the bar. Twenty seconds later, the bartender stuck his head into the door to find Arsov undressing.

“Yes, Boss,” Victor said, obviously confused.

“Get in here and change clothes with me,” Arsov said.

***

“We have movement,” Harry said from the driver’s seat.

“I have him.” In the back of the van, Anna watched on her monitor as a cab pulled up in front of the club. Moments later Arsov walked out the front door and climbed into the cab.

“He’s moving,” Anna said. “Call Lou and give him the plate number. The cab should pass him in the next block.”

“On it,” Harry said.

***

Arsov climbed into a cab several blocks away. His exit through the kitchen of the Italian restaurant had gone more smoothly this time, after he apologized for his earlier deception and explained to the cook that it was all really a matter of the heart. His jealous wife had hired a private investigator to watch him, making it difficult for him to slip away from his club to meet his mistress, and so he needed a way to enter and exit the club unobserved. The cook had smiled and nodded at the story, his understanding and future help assured by the gift of a hundred pounds to compensate for his ‘inconvenience.’

It was working out well. Victor had orders to have the cab drive about aimlessly for an hour or so and then to go to Arsov’s apartment and stay there. The chase car would no doubt sit on the apartment, and the van would likely remain at the club. He’d hesitated at leading the pursuers back to his own apartment and briefly considered having Victor lead the pursuit to his own place, but quickly dismissed that idea. Victor likely lived in some shit hole, and he wanted the deception to be realistic. Besides, there was little of value in his own apartment he couldn’t abandon if necessary, so the risk was minimal. And while his bumbling pursuers were chasing ghosts, he’d go deal with Tanya, find out who these people were and what she’d told them, and then return to take care of them as necessary. After all, he knew just where to find them.

Outside the Kairouz Residence
London, UK

Dugan ordered the cab to the curb and shoved money over the seat, exiting the cab without waiting for change. The taxi stand had been empty when he got there, and he’d had difficulty flagging down a cab. Evidently his British Telecom repairman’s uniform didn’t mark him as a prospective customer. A dozen cabs passed him before he caught one discharging a passenger and jumped into the back before the cab pulled away.

He’d had the cab stop at the entrance to the long drive leading to the back of the house, knowing that Gillian was likely in the kitchen with Mrs. Hogan. He rushed up the curving drive and stopped short at the sight of a black panel truck pulled up near the kitchen door. As he watched, the door opened and a large man in a ski mask walked out with a bundle over his shoulder. Then he saw the blond hair. Cassie!

Dugan slipped the Glock from his waistband just as another masked man emerged, speaking and pointing toward the panel truck. Dugan racked the slide on the Glock to chamber a round, and the men’s heads jerked toward the sound in unison. They found Dugan in a shooter’s crouch, the Glock steady on the center mass of the man giving the orders.

“Hold it right there, assholes,” Dugan said. “Put the girl on the ground gently, and then both of you move away slowly and lay face down. Now!”

Dugan felt a tremendous jolt on the back of his skull, and his world went black.

***

Nazarov looked at Ivan, standing over the unconscious American, holding a bloody landscaping stone he’d obviously picked up from the flower bed.

His man shrugged. “I didn’t know what else to do. You said no shooting.”

“
Da
. You did the right thing,” Nazarov said.

“Should I kill him?” His man gestured with the rock.

“No, my orders were clear. We weren’t to kill anyone. Leave him. Let’s just get the girls in the truck and get the hell out of here.”

Holding Warehouse
516 Copeland Road
Southwark, London, UK

Arsov sat at a battered desk in the office warehouse, seething as he stared across at Nazarov seated on a threadbare sofa. He suppressed an urge to scream. When he spoke, his voice was calm, almost conversational.

“You continually exceed my expectations, Nazarov. For instance, I knew you weren’t the brightest fellow around, but I never expected that you were quite this stupid and so completely incompetent.”

“It wasn’t as easy as you think—”

“Yes, I’m eager to hear how six large men had difficulty subduing two middle-aged women? Go ahead, please. I’m all ears.”

Nazarov glared. “We got Tanya back, didn’t we?”

Arsov erupted. “You fucking idiot! Yes, you got Tanya back AND some girl who’s likely Kairouz’s daughter. And in the process, you assaulted two other British citizens. What part of ‘low profile’ don’t you understand? A large part of our success here hinges on the fact that no one cares about these foreign girls. Even these people realize that, or they would have gone to the authorities by now. But things are a bit different now, aren’t they? You’ve kidnapped a rich Brit, and I seriously doubt they’ll hesitate to go to the police. This girl’s face will probably be all over the media by this time tomorrow. How could you be so stupid?”

“I had to grab her. She saw my face.”

“Which, from what you told me, would never have happened if you’d left her happily up in her room with her headphones clamped on her head. She’d have wandered down some time later and found the other two tied up, and that would have been the end of it. They couldn’t report anything about Tanya, so at worst it would have been a home invasion by persons unknown.”

Arsov sank back in his chair and glared at Nazarov, who wisely said nothing. After a long moment Arsov spoke.

“Well, I’ll have to figure out something. We can’t turn the girl loose, and she is a looker. Maybe we can get her out of the country and use her elsewhere. In the meantime, we have to take care of these damned
Spetsnaz
and the American. They seem to be the driving force, and with them out of the way, I suspect the authorities will give up in time, no matter how connected this Kairouz might be. We’ll spread money around to hasten that result if need be.”

Nazarov smirked.

“I don’t think the American will be much of a problem for a while. I had Ivan brain him with a rock.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was trying to tell you before. He showed up at the Kairouz place when we were loading the girls. I had Ivan on lookout, and he got behind him and smashed him with a rock.”

“Where is he now?”

“W-we left him. He hadn’t seen our faces, and you didn’t say anything about snatching him. But we didn’t kill anyone, just like you said.”

Arsov buried his face in his hands and struggled to control himself.

Chapter Nine

Offices of Phoenix Shipping Ltd.
London, UK

Alex pressed the intercom button. “Yes, Mrs. Coutts.”

“I’m sorry to disturb you, sir, but there’s a Nigel Havelock on line one who insists he must speak to you. I wouldn’t have bothered you, but he seems quite upset and says it’s about Cassie.”

“Very well. Thank you, Mrs. Coutts.” Alex reached for his desk phone.

“This is Alex Kairouz. What can I do for yo—”

“Mr. Kairouz, thank God. Cassie’s been attacked. We were—”

“Attacked? What the hell are you talking about, Havelock? If this is your idea of some sort of sick joke—”

“It’s no joke, sir! We were video-chatting a few minutes ago, and a man in a black ski mask burst into her room and dragged her from her chair. The laptop was pulled out of position, and I couldn’t see anything after that, but it sounded like he dragged her out the door.”

Alex sat stunned.

“Mr. Kairouz, are you there?”

“Yes, yes, Havelock. The police—”

“I called them straightaway, sir. You were my second call.”

“Good, good,” Alex said absently. “Thank you. Now I must go.”

“Of course, sir. If you could only—”

Alex hung up and started for the door. “Mrs. Coutts,” he shouted, “have Daniel bring the car around straightaway.”

M/V Phoenix Lynx
Port of Southampton, UK

Nigel Havelock heard the line go dead and resisted an urge to throw his cell phone over the side of the ship. Instead he put it in his pocket and tried to assess his options. He had none really; there was no way in hell he was going to sit here idly while Cassie was in danger. The train would get him to London faster than a car, and he didn’t have the cash for an eighty mile cab ride in any event. He ran back into the deck house to have a word with the second officer, and then to his cabin to change. Five minutes later he rushed down the gangway and out to the street to flag down a cab for Southampton Central Station.

Kairouz Residence
London, UK

Halfway down Alex’s street, they encountered an ambulance speeding in the opposite direction, lights flashing. Alex swiveled in the back seat of the Bentley, momentarily torn between following the ambulance and continuing home. But no, he had no way of knowing if the ambulance was connected to events at his house, and he needed to find out what was going on. As they approached his house, there were several police cars parked on the street, colored lights flashing. Daniel pulled into the drive and was immediately confronted with yellow crime scene tape stretched across the drive between two trees. He brought the car to a stop, and Alex scrambled from the back.

“Hold it right there, sir,” said a uniformed constable as Alex ducked under the tape. “No one’s allowed beyond the tape.”

“This is my house.” Alex attempted to push past the policeman.

The policeman put a firm hand on Alex’s chest. “Right, sir. That would make you Mr. Kairouz, then?”

“Of course I’m Kairouz. Now get out of my damned way. I want to see my family.”

“Very good, sir,” the policeman said, his hand still in place. “I’ll just escort you to the house. Detective Sergeant Grimes will fill you in.”

He removed his hand, and Alex shot toward the house, forcing the policeman to run beside him to keep up. As Alex rounded the turn of the drive, he saw Gillian outside the kitchen door, talking to a man in civilian clothes who was writing in a small notebook.

“Gillian!” Alex rushed to her and wrapped her in a hug.

“Alex, thank God you’re here. They’ve taken Cassie and Tanya as well.”

Alex released her and stepped back, his hand still on her arm. “Taken Cassie? Who?”

“That’s what we’re trying to determine, sir,” the man in civilian clothes said. “I’m Detective Sergeant Grimes of the Metropolitan Police, and if you’ll just step inside with Constable Hawkins here” — he nodded at the uniformed policeman — “I’ll finish taking Mrs. Kairouz’s statement, and we’ll try to get this sorted.”

“I’ll do nothing of the sort.” Alex put a protective arm around Gillian’s shoulders. “I’m staying right here with my wife.”

Gillian nodded, and Grimes started to protest but then seemed to think better of it. He looked at Constable Hawkins and jerked his head toward the drive, and Hawkins nodded and headed back down to the perimeter tape.

“Now, Mrs. Kairouz,” Grimes began, “you say you’d never—”

Gillian faced the policeman and brushed back her hair, and Alex saw an ugly bruise below her ear along her jawline.

“My God, Gillian. You’re injured.”

“It’s nothing,” Gillian said. “The bastards slapped me and Mrs. Hogan around a bit, but nothing serious. Tom’s injury was much more serious. He got a nasty crack on the head.”

“Thomas? Here?” Then he remembered the ambulance. “Is he… is he… all right?”

“Mr. Dugan was apparently clubbed from behind with a rock,” Grimes said. “He was groggy but conscious when we arrived, staggering around the back garden. The paramedics don’t think it’s too serious. However, they transported him to hospital for x-rays and scans. He may have a concussion.”

Alex nodded, and Grimes waited a moment to see if he would continue; when he didn’t, Grimes turned back to Gillian.

“Now, Mrs. Kairouz, this Russian girl …” He glanced at his notebook. “Tanya. You say she was taken along with your daughter. What was her relationship? Also, I’ll need her address so we can notify her family.”

Gillian hesitated for the slightest moment. “Tanya was Cassie’s friend and our houseguest. To the best of my knowledge she has no family in this country.”

Grimes nodded. “Fair enough, but I’ll at least need her surname. Can you give me that?”

Gillian looked shaken. “Ah… no. I’m afraid I can’t. She’d just been here for a day or so, you see. She told us, of course, but it was some unpronounceable Russian name that I didn’t retain.”

“Perfectly understandable,” Grimes said. “Just how did Tanya and your daughter become friends?”

“Ah… well, they… ah—”

“What has all this got to do with anything?” Alex demanded. “This is a waste of time. We need to get on with finding them.”

Grimes slowly closed his notebook and slipped it into his coat pocket, then cocked his head slightly as he stared at Alex.

“With all due respect, Mr. Kairouz, things aren’t quite adding up here. Normally in a situation involving a family of obvious wealth, I’d treat this as a kidnap for ransom. However, we have this mysterious Russian girl no one seems to know much about, and the cook let something slip about ‘bloody Russian bastards.’ He paused. “And then there’s this American Dugan found staggering around your back garden with an unregistered handgun. Fortunately he retained the presence of mind to drop it when ordered to, but that could have developed into a very bad situation.”

Alex looked down and said nothing.

“If you expect our help, Mr. Kairouz, we have to know what’s going on.”

Alex looked at Gillian.

“Best call Anna,” she said, and Alex nodded, pulling out his cell phone.

“I have to make a call, Detective Sergeant Grimes,” Alex said. “Then I suggest we all go sit down in the house and wait. There’s someone you need to meet.”

St. Ignatius Hospital
London, UK

Dugan saw Cassie’s inert body slung over a man’s shoulder, moving through a fog. He tried to run toward them, but his legs wouldn’t move.

“Cassie!” he cried, then jerked awake. He was in an unfamiliar bed in a dimly lighted room, and he saw a silhouette at a nearby window, framed against the night sky and lights of London.

“Easy,” Anna said as she moved from the window to his bedside and took his hand.

“Where the hell am I?”

“St. Ignatius Hospital. You took a nasty blow to the back of your head, but you’re going to be all right.”

“Is Cassie okay? I saw—”

“Cassie and Tanya were both abducted. Obviously Arsov’s work. We’re—”

“Abducted? Shit. I have to get out of here.” Dugan began to sit up.

“Easy, tiger,” Anna said, hands on his chest pressing him back down on the bed. “You took quite a pounding. They’ve done all the scans, and you appear to be all right, but they’ve been waiting for you to wake up to do some follow-up. I’ll pop out to the nurse’s station and let them know. Do NOT get out of that bed while I’m gone. Is that clear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Dugan said, and Anna left the room and returned in less than a minute.

“How long have I been here? Was anyone else hurt?” Dugan asked when she returned.

“You’ve been here most of the day, and Gillian and Mrs. Hogan were knocked about a bit, but not seriously injured. Mrs. Hogan evidently got a piece of one of the kidnappers with a kitchen knife.”

“Good for her.” Dugan started to push himself up in the bed.

“Hold on.” Anna reached for the bed control. There was a whirring sound as Dugan’s head elevated.

“Better?”

“Much,” Dugan said. “Now what’s the situation?”

Anna sighed. “Evolving, I guess would be the best way to describe it. A Detective Sergeant Grimes was the officer at the scene, and he wasn’t particularly happy with our freelance activities or with your possession of an unlicensed handgun. However, between my association with MI5 and Alex’s contacts in government, there won’t be any repercussions on either score. The Clubs and Vice Unit of the Metropolitan Police are now officially involved, though recent events haven’t exactly enhanced my relationship with them either, I’m afraid. Gillian is in a state of depression and hardly talks. I’ve never seen her like this. She obviously blames herself for Cassie’s abduction. Alex is at the other extreme. He alternates between black silence and rage, and he’s calling in every favor anyone in government ever owed him. He must have contacted at least half a dozen MPs and senior government officials. He’s succeeding in raising awareness, but is simultaneously stirring up quite a bit of resentment among the Metropolitan Police. In short, and to use one of your colorful American expressions, it’s a complete cluster fuck.”

“What about Borgdanov and Ilya?”

“I had Borgdanov with Lou watching Arsov’s apartment, and Ilya stayed with Harry on the club. The one piece of positive news is that the police have taken over those stakeouts, so we’re not spread as thin. That said, there’s been absolutely no movement by Arsov, so I’m beginning to think he may have given us the slip. I sent Harry and Lou home to get some rest, and the Russians are doing the same in our apartment. We have a meeting with the Clubs and Vice Unit tomorrow to plan and coordinate a city-wide raid on suspected Russian mob operations.”

“That’s it?”

“For the moment. We’ve also got pictures of Cassie up all over the media and will soon have pictures of Tanya. We didn’t have any of her, but Ilya remembered that Tanya said they had taken her passport. He suggested that if they had her here working ‘legally,’ that she had to have some sort of entry paperwork, and we found some. We figure they must have used one of their ‘trained’ girls who looks like Tanya to pose as her for entry purposes, using Tanya’s real passport. We found an entry permit with a passport photo, and we’ve posted her picture on the media beside Cassie’s. Ilya had another photo of Karina, and we’re giving that to the media as well; by the late evening news, their pictures should be everywhere.”

Dugan looked doubtful. “That might have unintended consequences.”

“We thought of that, but Arsov already knows we’re looking for all three girls, so we didn’t think we had anything to lose. Going public doesn’t change that, it just makes it more difficult for him to hide or transport them.”

“That’s the best option, I guess.” Dugan glanced toward the door. “Why do I have to see the doctor, anyway? I feel fine.”

“I suppose they want to make sure you know who you are and where you are and that you’re not loopy.” She smiled and squeezed his hand. “At least not any loopier than normal.”

“Very funny,” he said and returned her squeeze. “I’m overwhelmed by your sympathy.”

“Well, the shaved patch and stitches might garner you sympathy in some quarters, I suppose.”

Dugan reflexively put his free hand to the back of his head and probed at the bump. “I vaguely recall a little of that. I think they used staples, without any anesthesia I might add. You Brits don’t seem to be much on painkillers.”

“Stiff upper lip, Yank. It builds character.”

“Yeah, well, my character’s just fine, thanks. Now where the hell is that doctor? I want to get home, crowded though it is.”

“Oh yes,” she said. “There is something I forgot to mention. It will be a bit more crowded than you realize, I’m afraid. We’ve added a houseguest.”

“What? Who?”

“Cassie’s boyfriend, Nigel, showed up at Alex’s house while the police were questioning everyone. Evidently he saw Cassie’s abduction while they were video-chatting and phoned the police straightaway. He also called Alex.”

“Smart boy. But why is he at our place?”

“Because it was patently obvious to anyone with eyes that he has no intention of leaving with Cassie still in danger. And it was equally obvious to me that the poor boy is extremely uncomfortable in Alex’s presence, so I invited him to our place and put him on the couch. The major didn’t fit on it very well anyway, and Ilya can’t fit on it at all. He barely fits on the bed in the spare room. I moved the major into the spare room and bought an inflatable mattress for Ilya and put it in the living room. I think everyone will be more comfortable, but we won’t have much privacy for a while.”

“Sounds real friggin’ cozy,” Dugan said. “I can hardly wait to sit around in our jammies and tell ghost stories by candlelight.”