Authors: Jared Paul
The front door was unlocked and opened into a long hallway
. Just inside Jordan found a pair of leather suitcases. A series of canvasses were leaning up against the wall next to them. The paintings were set in different times and places; Renaissance Florence, Revolutionary Paris, Victorian London. All of them had a pair of phoenixes flying together burning up in the air over the cities. Jordan thumbed through them until he heard a thud from the adjacent room.
Vladimir
Shirokov came bustling in, carrying a pair of big canvasses under either arm. When he saw Jordan Ross he looked glad to see him.
“
Ack! Excellent. I was just going to come out and ask. Could you help me with carrying these to my car? I know it is not in your usual job description but I will tip you.”
Shirokov
set the paintings down and took out a twenty dollar bill and gave it to Jordan.
“You don’t know who I am do you?”
Not paying attention, Shirokov was busy trying to stack the paintings in a way so that he could carry them all at once.
“What? Are you the new guy?”
Jordan glanced down and realized he was wearing the same black pajama outfit that the security personnel. Even still, it was impossible that Shirokov had not heard the grenade detonating or the ensuing gun battle. Shirokov was muttering in Russian, French and English. His movements were quick and nervous and he seemed completely preoccupied inside his own mind and couldn’t be troubled with any external stimuli.
“No. I’m the guy that killed your guys.”
“You don’t work for the company?”
Shirokov
was slowly coming around. This stranger in his front hall was somehow out of place. Shirokov’s eyes dropped to the .38 and then rose to meet the stranger’s gaze. He stared at Jordan Ross. Jordan Ross stared back.
“I know you from somewhere.
Your face is familiar.”
“We’ve never met before.”
“Are you sure? I could swear that I know you from somewhere.”
“You know me from hell. I’ve come to take you back.”
Shirokov was either the most authentic cold-hearted bad ass on the face of the planet or he was certifiably insane. He waved a hand at the muddy stranger brandishing a gun at him like he was a buzzing flea.
“Ack. If you were going t
o kill me you would have already. I have plane to catch. If you’ll excuse me.”
The Russian boss gathered up the paintings again and moved to go but Jordan blocked his path. No, it was not insanity or ruthlessness.
Shirokov was putting on a brave face, but he was unmistakably terrified, and not of Jordan. Someone or something had put such a dread in him that he had barely taken notice of the warzone on his front lawn.
Bollier’s
words came back to Jordan.
Someone much higher up is pulling the strings that’s a thousand times more dangerous. Listen! The scope of this thing is so much bigger than we thought.
Shirokov tried again to get around Jordan but he would not let him pass.
“Whoever you are, you are being very rude. Either shoot me or let me go.”
In his mind’s eye Jordan saw Sarah in the station wagon, reaching up with her arm to shield herself from the oncoming SUV. Jordan cocked the .38.
“I can’t let you go.”
Jordan aimed and pulled the trigger.
At his arraignment Vladimir
Shirokov came in on crutches, wearing a walking boot.
Minutes before the police arrived to detain him, an anonymous assailant broke onto his property, killed a dozen security guards, and shot
Shirokov in the foot. When the FBI questioned him about the incident Shirokov said nothing. The same went for their inquiries about his connections to the drug bust on Riis Landing, a prostitution racket spanning six states, a dozen murders, and a sprawling gambling empire spanning two continents. Shirokov made no statements. He gave them nothing.
The state-appointed attorney entered a plea of not guilty for his client. Due to the extraordinary nature of
Shirokov’s criminal activities, and the high probability of flight risk, the state of New York asked the judge to set Shirokov’s bail at a prohibitive level. The judge agreed and made it three million dollars.
…
Special Agent Clemons was kept in a medically induced coma for several weeks after the wound he suffered during the FBI sting. The doctors assured detective Bollier that this was a precautionary measure and that he would be fine. She visited dutifully every day, straightening the get-well cards and freshening up the flowers that other well-wishers left in his room.
As much as she was concerned for his health there was another reason she checked in each day first thing when visiting hours opened. Agent Clemons had access to files and funds that she did not and would be instrumental for the state’s case against
Shirokov. They were safely tucked away in the jungle of paperwork in Clemons’ office, but Bollier had grown paranoid. The FBI building was supposed to be completely secure but that hadn’t stopped the Russians from abducting her there. Shirokov clearly had powerful connections. What was to stop them from breaking in and stealing the case files?
More than anything, Bollier wanted to be the first person that Clemons spoke to when he woke up. On a brisk morning in April the doctors deemed that he had fully recovered and brought him out of the coma.
When he came too, someone was squeezing Agent Clemons’ hand. His eyelids fluttered open and he saw Leslie Bollier looming over the side of his bed. It took some effort to speak but he made due.
“How… how long was I out?”
Immediately she brightened up and clutched his hand in hers.
“Oh thank God.
You were in a coma for about a month. I was so worried. Do you remember what happened?”
“Russian asshole shot me. I didn’t notice until the fight was over. How did we do?”
“Better than you could have possibly hoped for, the DEA found the heroin in the hull of the ship. Something like 800 million dollars’ worth. We killed seven of them and arrested 22 more.”
Agent Clemons managed a weak smile.
“That’s great Les. Any of them flip?”
Bollier wasn’t sure how much excitement she should subject him to but felt it was necessary.
“Yes. Thanks to our… mutual friend… we got one of them to talk.”
“Fantastic. Where is he now?”
“Who? Jordan?”
Agent Clemons tried to nod his head but the motion made him nauseas. He whispered a yes.
“He’s holed up in his condo.” “Jordan got to Shirokov’s compound and made sure he couldn’t get away. Got there just ahead of the SWAT team.”
“How’d he get to him?”
“That’s another problem. He had to uh… work his way through a bunch of security guards in order to get access to Shirokov’s house.”
“How many of them?”
“Eleven.”
The number made Agent Clemons wince. Not for the first time he wondered if unleashing the lethal weapon that was Jordan Ross on the Russians was worth all of the blood it was going to cost in the long run.
“My precinct assigned a pair of detectives to work the case. I’m sure that he was careful and didn’t leave any evidence that could get back to him, but you never know.”
“Right. So that’s it? We won?”
Bollier bit her lip.
“Well. With
Shirokov it certainly appears so. He’s going to be tried this summer for a full volume of felonies. But it’s bigger than him now. Jordan said he had a car packed for a long trip. It looks like somebody tipped him off we were coming.”
“So what happens now?”
“The whole case pretty much hinges on Uri Grigoryev’s testimony. We’re keeping him under lock and key, but I don’t know. Nothing feels safe anymore. Those pictures that you showed me have me questioning everything and everyone. There’s too many coincidences. Too many holes. Detective Castillo has been missing long enough to presume he’s dead. What if Shirokov had a hand in it? It seems like he’s not afraid to bump off anybody. Plus yesterday afternoon he got out on bail.”
“How much?”
“Three million.”
Had he been able to Agent Clemons would have whistled in astonishment.
“It’s not so much the fact that Shirokov has that kind of money to throw around that scares me, but that he’s willing to spend it so openly. He has to know that’s going to come up in court but he did it anyway. I don’t like it. That kind of brazenness tells me that he’s got some trump card to play. Someone could be protecting him. Grigoryev says that there’s some kind of mastermind pulling the strings from overseas, someone that Shirokov alone speaks to, and only over the phone. Supposedly even he doesn’t know the guy’s name. Maybe after we convict Shirokov he’ll be willing to talk.”
“Maybe. Let’s take it one super-villain at a time, detective.”
“I guess. Listen. I wish I could say I come here just to catch up and see how you’re doing. But I wanted to talk about the stuff in your office; the corruption evidence, the state senator, the dirty cops, all of it.”
“What about it?”
“Is it safe? I mean I know it’s a federal building and everything but look what happened to me.”
Agent Clemons thought about it for a second before answering.
“It’s safe.”
“How can you be sure? With what
Grigoryev has been telling me who knows how deep it goes.”
Agent Clemons calmly repeated itself.
“Trust me, Les. It’s perfectly safe where it is.”
Although detective Bollier still had her doubts she let it drop. She trusted Kyle’s judgment.
…
When his bodyguard
Vitaly Krupin came to pick him up from Sing Sing, Vladimir Shirokov commanded him to drive straight home to his gothic German mansion. He told Vitaly to wait in the Lincoln Continental and he hobbled inside on the crutches, shedding his clothes. Even with his handicap he was naked by the time he reached the second floor landing. Shirokov wrapped his cast in a plastic bag and ran a hot shower. For almost thirty minutes he soaked himself over and over.
He had only spent a week in Sing
Sing before he produced the funds to make bail but it had been vile all the same. Shirokov scrubbed his entire body several times over, trying to wash the smell of jail off that he was convinced had seeped into his pores. He took extra attention to wash the skin beneath his tattoos. Shirokov had seven-pointed stars on his knees, elbows and hands, a rose in the center of his chest, and an elaborate burning red phoenix on each arm that were his own design. Shirokov despised many things about Sing Sing but nothing quite so much as the hideous body art of its inhabitants. The Neo-Nazis were the worst of them. Horrid swastikas, barbed wires, ship anchors. He was a tattoo artist himself and would have been ashamed to create such atrocities, let alone sport them on his skin. They were of such a poor quality that Shirokov somehow felt that merely by approximation his own tattoos had somehow been sullied.
The first day in the yard one of the skinheads caught him curling his lip up at a cross tattoo on his wrist and called him a dirty Jew. In the brief scuffle that followed
Shirokov broke the man’s pelvis and jaw using the crutches. Had Shirokov stayed much longer the Nazis would have become a problem. But he was free. In the grand scheme of things three million dollars was a small price to pay for freedom.
After he finished the third round of washing
Shirokov dressed and went out to the car, a spring evident in his step even with the crutches.
“Take me to library,” he ordered
Vitaly, who stepped on the gas with a gusto that said he knew better than to dawdle on the way to his boss’ favorite stop.
In order to celebrate his release
Shirokov allowed himself a treat by checking out a novel, The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler. Growing up Shirokov had been a fan of the Humphrey Bogart films based on the character but had never taken the time to read any of the books.
Shirokov
read faster than anyone he knew. After a few short hours he was nearly half way through the story, when a disturbing thought occurred to him that was inspired by the plot. Right away Shirokov yelled and summoned Vitaly, who came rushing in to the studio chewing a pretzel smothered in cheese.
“Start car, Vitaly. We must go for drive.”
“Where now?”
“Pick up Leonid first and then drive to Greenwood Cemetery.”
Vitaly
almost asked why they would go to such a place, especially when the sun was going down but he thought better of saying anything.
...
Shirokov chain-smoked cigarettes in the backseat of the Continental, reading and blowing the smoke out of the window. The evening sky was clear and the stars were visible through the stripped branches of the trees in the cemetery. Spring was coming on but the greenery had not yet returned. A cool wind, more reminiscent of winter stirred the air but Shirokov kept the window down. After a week in prison he would have found even the open air in Antarctica fresh and invigorating.
He finished the last page of the novel and turned it over to read the back cover.
Shirokov concluded that Chandler had been a very bright man, who probably could have done amazing things in his life. Why anyone would choose to squander such talent making up stories was a mystery to him. Although, he could sympathize as a painter, but only if the creative process was sacred. Anyone could tell a story. Telling it well was probably an art form, if an art form that was beyond his understanding.
The two burly bodyguards had been digging for nearly two hours when
Vitaly came and tapped on Shirokov’s window, which he had since rolled down.
“
Avtorityet
. We found something.”
“Show me.”
Vitaly helped his boss out of the car, supporting his weight until he could take over. When Shirokov was upright with the crutches he followed the bodyguard over to an open grave. Below in the rich black earth Leonid was shoveling dirt out of the pit. Just like Vitaly, He was covered in a thin sheen of sweat that would probably give him the chills come morning.
“What is it?”
Shirokov asked.
Leonid tapped the shovel on something metallic sounding just beneath the dirt. He helped
Vitaly down into the grave and they unearthed a bronze casket. To Shirokov’s eye it was not the most expensive casket on the market, but not far off. Vitaly looked up at his boss and gestured at the box.
“You see. They buried him.”
“Open it,” Shirokov commanded in a tone that would entertain no argument.
It took a while but eventually the two of them used a pair of crowbars to jimmy the lid loose. The tail lights of the Lincoln were bathing the scene in an eerie red glow.
Fog rolled over the heads of the tombstones. Shirokov plodded a step forward on his crutches and peered in to have a look. The movement of his shadow cleared the way and illuminated the name and inscription on the headstone.
Here lies Jordan Ross: Loving Husband, Doting Father,
Honorable Soldier.
With a pair of grunts Leonid and
Vitaly lifted the upper half of the lid open. Shirokov gasped.
“Son of the bitch.”
The casket was empty.