Marked Man II - 02 (21 page)

It made the most sense then for Ruslan to be the one to light the fuse. The chemist had warned Shirokov to keep back twenty yards at least from the composition. Depending on how fast the fuse burned, Ruslan might be able to sprint away in time, but he might not. There was no way to test this and they had only the one fuse to spare. Ruslan was eager to prove his worth, and was rather cheerful compared to the other Russians, who were nervous. Ruslan had nothing to be nervous about. One way or another he would be freed that day. Any uncertainty Ruslan may have had was quashed by the seven figure sum Shirokov arranged for his nephew, which was deposited the previous Thursday in a distant relative’s name.

Shirokov watched the guard tower in the southwest corner of the yard. There were two bought and paid for guards inside, patrolling with automatic rifles bearing sniper scopes and ostensibly watching over the inmates like shepherds. At exactly one thirty both would be stricken with an overwhelming need to smoke a cigarette and leave their post unattended. At the same time Sing Sing’s electrician would cut the power to the outer fence. He had contrived an ingenious technical malfunction to explain the glitch. If he did his part correctly the electrician would be able to retire comfortably to any destination on earth.

Aside from the explosion the primary obstacle was the next closest guard tower, one hundred yards east. Shirokov had gone to trial an absurdly wealthy man. But Solomon and the other attorney’s fees were exorbitant, and the vast majority that remained of his fortune had gone towards arranging this daring escapade. There were only so many millions to go around and he did not have anything left to bribe more guards. If the honest ones in the east tower got wind of what was happening, the Russians would have a very long dash indeed to the river, with nowhere to run for cover. Shirokov eyed the tower warily and then the faces of his men.

“Alright. This is last time for questions. Is anybody confused about roles?”

None of them spoke up. They seemed subdued, their confidence shaken by the light rain and the long odds.

“Comrades! You must smile. What is this long faces about? Today we are leaving this place. Dead or alive, we will be free men. Eh? Eh?”

He slapped big Anton and Leonid on the back. He laughed as he hugged Ruslan and Boris and Yakov. Their spirits seemed buoyed by his zeal, if only a little bit. That might be enough. A discouraged, frightened army stood no chance on the battlefield even with overwhelming odds in their favor.

Over the top of Boris’ shoulder Shirokov saw the two guards leave the southwest tower.

“That is signal. Ruslan. You are go.”

Before he went Shirokov embraced him again. He whispered into his ear.

“
Jusqu'à la prochaine fois
.”

Ruslan took the bag of flash powder, the fuse, and the lighter and broke away from the circle. He ducked his head down as he was walking into the wind and the mist. Despite the rain the Aryans were playing baseball with two full teams. As Ruslan trudged along the third base line a couple of them whistled at him. They were still as of yet afraid to challenge him directly, but Ruslan was a quiet inmate; a sign that the Aryan Brotherhood and all true fools took to indicate as weakness.

“Look at this painted Russian monkey,” the shortstop cackled.

Ruslan stopped in his tracks for a split second and glanced over at the diamond. Shirokov thought he might have a stroke if he picked this time to fight with the Nazis but then he allowed himself to breathe again when Ruslan started walking. The closer that Ruslan got to the southwest tower the thicker the mist became. By the time he reached the designated spot where its stone foundation met the fence, it was practically a downpour. With his hand out collecting the drops, big Boris fretted.

“Oy. Aye. What do we do? We are going to die. We are going to die,
avtorityet
.”

“
Silencieux
!” Shirokov hushed him. He had faith in Ruslan’s desire to be free. That was the surest wager that a man could place. When a hurdle stood in between a man and his freedom, the hurdle was always going to lose. And yet the weather was the hand of God, and God had a long-standing unblemished winning streak going.

The skinny Russian knelt down at the base of the tower. He placed the bag of flash powder in the appropriate spot, then stuck the wick in one end and began to walk away. Ruslan flicked the Zippo lighter several times but the flame would not take. Giant brutish raindrops kept interfering and snuffing it out. Ruslan stopped and glanced around the yard for a moment. Shirokov thought that he might panic and run but Ruslan made his way back to the flash powder and began taking off his clothes.

On the baseball field the Aryans stopped playing to watch. Ruslan was a few yards behind home plate, bent over in the corner and getting naked as if preparing for a train. A couple of them started approaching from behind.

“The fuck is this crazy painted monkey doing now?”

Ruslan laid his polyester orange pants and shirt over the wick to protect it from the rain. He lifted the edge of his shirt up, then snapped the lighter. Once, twice, and then on the third it caught. Ruslan stood up and turned around to discover three Aryans converging on him.

“SEEG HAIL! SEEG HAIL!”

He mocked them as he screamed and shot his hand out in the old Fascist salute. The batter and the catcher and a few of the Aryans on the bench all got up then, and started to surround the cornered Russian. Ruslan tried to run around their flank but they caught him and threw him back into the center of the ring that was enclosing. From the benches Shirokov watched in awe.

“What is he doing,
avtorityet
?”

“He makes spectacle of self. So they will not look at his clothes.”

“But how will he…”

The report cut Yakov’s question off as he was flung to the ground along with Shirokov and the others.

Slowly, Shirokov rolled over and got to his knees. He surveyed the yard. Smoke was billowing everywhere. The explosion had knocked everyone within two hundred feet of the tower onto their backs. As for Ruslan and the Aryan baseball players, there was no sign of them except for bits and pieces of red scattered all over the field.

Paviel had warned Shirokov that so many ounces of the flash powder was unnecessary for the desired effect, but Shirokov insisted on ingesting as much of the compounds as his stomach would tolerate. As he groggily pushed himself up onto his feet Shirokov thought to himself that should he survive the day he would defer to the experts going forward.

Waving through the smoke, Shirokov squinted in the direction of the corner tower. Part of the foundation of the tower had been torn off, but more importantly the inner fence had been shredded. A hole fifteen feet wide had been blown open by the blast. “Get up! Get up you fools and run!” He yelled to his men, still rolling on the ground. Shirokov took off running towards the hole in the fence. Leonid and Anton and the others were soon up and straggling behind. From the south tower a warning boomed over the loud speakers.

“Stop. Get down on the ground and put your hands on your head. If you resist we will fire.”

Shirokov’s response to the threat was to run faster. By the time he reached the hole the guards in the east tower were peppering the area with sniper fire, but because of the smoke they did not have a clear view to shoot. The bullets twanged and ricocheted off the ground.

Twenty feet of scorched grass and dirt stood between the inner and outer fences. Shirokov reached this and began searching frantically for the marker. If all had gone to plan a red tag would indicate a weak point in the fence, where several links were partially snipped by a bulb cutter in the middle of the night by one of the bribed guards.

“Do you see it? Does anybody see tag?” Shirokov screamed to his men, who were also searching with their hands. The smoke made seeing a painful and difficult proposition.

“
Avtorityet
I found it!”

Shirokov followed the sound of Anton’s voice. The red tag was there, intended for tying garbage bags together. Together they pushed on the weakened links but the fence did not give.

“Leonid! Here!”

The giant came hustling over and told them to get out of the way. Leonid backed up a couple of yards and got a running start. Just as he was about to hit the fence a sniper’s bullet struck him in the back of the neck, but Leonid’s momentum brought him through the fence. His body collapse through on the other side. The hole was just big enough for him to pass through.

Shirokov came through next. He had no time to honor his fallen comrade with anything more than a thank you as he stumbled over his colossal corpse. Yakov, Anton and Boris all pushed into the hole and out the other side, ducking from the fatal projectiles whistling by just inches over their heads.

Knowing that the inmates were free of the yard, the guards in the east tower we now aiming for head shots. The Hudson River curved in and met the land just around the bend of a narrow road winding around the yard. It was one hundred fifty, perhaps two hundred feet to the water but a monstrous northerly wind had blown the smoke away and the guards had clear shots.

As Shirokov ran he winced each time he heard a round land. The bullets spiked into the concrete, shooting up spurts of rock and earth. Shirokov never looked backwards. He kept his eyes always on the river. The speed boat was waiting at the curve, ten feet from the shore.

He was not the fastest of his men. That was Boris, who despite his size turned out to be quite a capable athlete. Boris was five yards ahead and would have reached the river first if he had not been struck down by a sniper. Shirokov gasped when he saw him buckle forward, a puff of red mist issuing from the back of his skull. He never made a noise. Shirokov leapt over him and took the lead. As he dived for the water he heard Yakov shriek from behind him as he was hit in the spine by a bullet.

The cool blue water came as a refreshing shock. All at once Shirokov felt the slimy residue of confinement washed from his skin. He was a new man. Beneath the waves, he kicked towards the boat with a vigor he had never known. When he came up he felt as if he had been baptized a second time.

Luka Gusin and another one of his lieutenants helped Shirokov out of the water. The other man went for the wheel. He wanted to dart away immediately, but Shirokov commanded him to wait.

The slowest runner of the group by far was Anton Askokov, but it was a handicap that turned out to be lucky for him. As they were heading for the river the guards had been firing at the big targets and the leaders out in front. They were confident that they could hit Askokov in due time, but by the time it came the shooters were forced to pause and reload.

Huffing madly like a pregnant goose, Askokov had his hands splayed out towards the boat. Shirokov cheered him on.

“Jump Anton you must jump!”

He did a cannonball dive into the Hudson River. As he swam for the speed boat Luka and the other man got their rifles and provided over by shooting back at the guards. Horns were wailing all over the prison. After what must have seemed like a 400 meter dash in the Olympics to him, Askokov reached the stern of the boat and Shirokov yanked him up with his own two hands.

“Go now! We have him!” Shirokov yelled and the boat took off.

Sniper bullets cut into the water harmlessly, falling short as the vessel sped away. Once he was sure that they were safely out of range, Shirokov lit a cigar and waved good bye to the Sing Sing Correctional Facility forever.

“
Bon Voyage
, Charlie Browns!”

After they sank an overzealous Coast Guard boat they were in the clear. Luka piloted the vessel. When he asked Shirokov where to go he replied with a question.

“Tell me. Has any of you gentlemen been to Connecticut?”

Chapter Twelve

All was peaceful at the Walsh cabin for a couple short days.

Shannon and the suspended Detective Bollier passed the day indoors for the most part, making up for lost time. During the day the suspended Agent Clemons and Jordan Ross sat out on the deck, sun tanning while they schemed ways to find Jordan’s sister and implode Shirokov’s vast criminal enterprise. In the evenings they drank beer and played gin rummy with meat on the grill. The antipathy between them had evaporated in the August sizzle.

Without his white shirt and black tie buttoning him up Agent Clemons turned out to have a maverick streak and a wicked sense of humor. He kept on working even with the suspension, or maybe in spite of it. Agent Clemons earned Jordan’s respect as he worked the angles, culled sources, and called in favors even though it could irreparably destroy his career if he was found out.

After a few days together on the deck Agent Clemons saw Jordan Ross in a new light as well. He was no longer a mindless Scotch Irish hooligan, or a dull instrument. His keenness to kill Russians was balanced by a demure streak forged in the Army. For a man that had lost his wife and kid Jordan was in fact remarkably level headed.

One night when they were almost out of beer Agent Clemons asked him about the accident. Jordan told the story lucidly. He admitted his memory was suspect due to the concussion and the traumatic nature of the events, but Jordan remembered a great level of detail. The picture his daughter Emma had been drawing just before the SUV hit. The argument with his wife Sarah about his swearing and her always complaining of being too warm. As hard as it must have been for him, Agent Clemons was struck by how lovingly he recalled them. Jordan still remembered the good times with his family when they were alive. During the course of his career in the FBI Agent Clemons had dealt with many people who had lost loved ones to violence, and he had never seen anyone preserve their happy memories as well as Jordan Ross.

When he was finished Agent Clemons asked the truly difficult question.

“So what will you do once they’re all dead or locked up?”

Jordan tipped his beer back until there was nothing left in the bottle. He burped.

“The hell if I know. Maybe I’ll take your job.”

They shared a laugh and called it a night.

...

The next morning the hard-won peace in the cabin was shattered when Shannon discovered the .22 in the medicine cabinet. She flipped out. Jordan and Agent Clemons were in the study reading when Shannon burst in and clapped the gun on her father’s desk.

“What is this?”

Jordan looked from the gun to Shannon.

“Are you asking literally?”

“You KNOW what I mean stop treating me like a baby. What’s it doing in my house?”

Jordan felt tempted to tell the doctor that if she wanted to be treated like an adult then she would have to start behaving like one, but he did not.

“It’s for protection.”

“From what? I thought this was over. Leslie told me they were all in jail, but I come back here and I find you two hiding out and then there’s a gun hidden in the medicine cabinet next to the dental floss. I went grabbing for the floss but I found this. Don’t you realize that I could have been shot?”

In an attempt to save Jordan Agent Clemons broke in.

“Shannon, the safety’s on. There’s no way that you could have been shot. And I doubt that you would have put it in your mouth believing it was floss.”

“Don’t! Don’t make fun of me you know I don’t like it.”

“I didn’t mean too, Shannon. Look, why don’t you sit down and we can all talk about this? Where is Leslie anyway?”

“She’s taking a nap and I don’t feel like talking about this. I want it out of my house. I don’t like guns. I don’t feel safe around them. Did you know that you are 39 times more likely to shoot a family member than an intruder if you have one laying around like this? Did you? There aren’t any more are there?”

Agent Clemons and Jordan looked at each other for a split second and then broke the eye contact before she could notice.

“One or two,” Jordan answered her.

“More than one gun in my house?!”

The absurdity of the argument struck Agent Clemons in the chest and he let his carefully cultivated polite veneer slip.

“Don’t be ridiculous Shannon there were at least four hunting rifles here already.”

“THAT’S DIFFERENT. Those are for hunting. Hunt. Ing. Handguns are for killing people, not animals. I don’t want them here. I don’t feel safe.”

Jordan scooted forward in the armchair and folded his newspaper up. He did it the same way he had seen his father do a hundred times before he was about to explain some other concept that he and Mary were still grasping with as children; the birds and the bees, or gravity, or how all those atom bombs were necessary to keep them safe from the Soviets.

“Look. I understand you’re upset. I just think you need to sit down and talk to us before you make any rash decisions. You should know what’s going on first.”

“Is everything alright in here?”

The two men had never been more relieved to see Bollier. She’d snuck into the study while everyone was absorbed in the squabble. Doctor Walsh turned, hands on her hips and shot an accusing glare at her on-again and off-again and on-again in an endless loop girlfriend.

“You. Did you know that Jordan brought guns? He’s hiding them all over the house!”

“Yes I knew, Shannon.”

Bollier said it calmly. This tack flustered Shannon. She was expecting for Bollier to raise her voice, deny everything, and try to talk her down. Nothing seemed to upset her more than wanting an argument and not getting one. Jordan’s parents were the same way; it was just another wrinkle in that broad, diverse landscape of stubborn-assed Irish sentiments.

“You knew.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re ok with this. That’s it. I want to know what’s going on. If you’re going to hide out in my family’s cabin and use it as your… your… own glorified personal gun rack then I have a right to know why.”

This was unfortunate. Jordan had hoped that during their trysts Bollier would have won Shannon over, clearly she’d just distracted her and avoided the topic entirely. For a minute nobody said anything and then Shannon threatened to throw them all out unless someone told her what was going on. In the end Bollier finally got her to lower her voice, sit down, have a drink and hear them out. It took some time, but Jordan thought that near the end of the story Shannon was coming around.

But Shannon had either gotten smarter or more cynical. She saw straight through the play, into the marrow.

“You don’t even care. This isn’t about us, you’re just using me for my cabin,” she hissed at Bollier with an acid that surprised Jordan. Shannon got up and stormed from the room.

“Shannon. No. Calm on, it’s not like that. Shannon!” Bollier tried to get her to stop but it was no use. Eventually she followed her out into the living room, where Shannon found the glock over the mantle. Then she found the other .38 by the tea. Bollier trailed after Shannon, begging her to understand as she visited each room in the house, rummaging through drawers and closets until all of the guns were found. She put them all together on a pile in on the kitchen table and then called her guests in.

“Attention everyone. I have found all of your oh so cleverly hidden weapons. They’re all here on the table. If these aren’t out of my house in 15 minutes then I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Eyeing the stockpile of weapons, Jordan noticed that she’d missed the Kalishnikov underneath the pool table. Bollier tried to touch Shannon’s shoulder but she pushed her away.

“I am not joking. I want these guns gone. And you. You! I should have known better. You always have to be sneaky about what you want. If you just had asked me HEY I’m running for my life can I use your cabin I would have let you, but NO you’ve got to pretend that you still love me and. I’m tired of your mindfuck games. When you showed up in my office all I wanted was to, but. No.”

Shannon’s monologue was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell ringing. She pointed a finger at her three guests.

“That’s probably old man Reed. I’ll get it. You three don’t go anywhere. I am not done with you yet. And get rid of those guns.”

When Shannon left to answer the door the three musketeers gathered around the table smothered with guns. Bollier spoke.

“She always does this. Always has to be so dramatic.”

“You need to get a leash on that little…” Agent Clemons said.

“Bitch. She’s a little bitch, Kyle it’s ok you can say it.” Bollier finished for him. “Don’t worry. We’ll put these in the Jeep for now out of her sight, I’ll calm her down, and by dinner time it will be like nothing even happened.”

A shotgun blast echoed from the living room.

Terror seized the trio by the throats. Instantly they started scooping the weapons off the table. Bollier got ahold of an Uzi and a glock, Agent Clemons scored a .38 and a .22 and Jordan got the M4 rifle and a .38. The three of them checked the weapons and then rushed into the living room, which had been repainted since their last visit only a minute ago.

Shannon was lying in the open doorway. Standing outside on the path was a familiar tubby, Kenny Rogers looking man with a shotgun.

Jordan’s eyes grew wide and he screamed the name of his child’s killer.

“ASKOKOV!”

He charged straight for the doorframe, firing in such a blind rage that he missed badly with every single shot. Askokov scurried out of Jordan’s line of sight and took shelter behind a wide tree in the front yard. Jordan squeezed off two rounds at him and then dived back inside just in time to avoid a hailstorm of bullets that would have cut him down.

Jordan landed next to Shannon, who was bleeding out onto the parquet floor. She hiccupped a mouthful of blood.

Agent Clemons and Detective Bollier rolled the couch over and took cover behind it. The windows were shot out in short order by the Russians, so they returned fire in fits and spurts, ducking back down every other second to avoid being hit. Bollier was a solid markswoman, but she had never used an Uzi before. It felt wild and unwieldy in her hands like an angry cat clawing to get free. She sprayed at the trees but did not have a realistic hope to hit a Russian. Agent Clemons did his best with the two small handguns but the men outside were much more heavily harmed.

In order to survive they needed their vigilante. Bollier yelled over the eruptions of gunfire.

“Corporal! A little help here!”

Jordan was still on the ground, watching in shock as Shannon seeped away into the nooks and crannies in the wood.

“MISTER ROSS!”

The detective’s desperate plea shook him. Jordan scrambled over to the couch and tried to fire the M4 but it jammed. He needed more firepower.

“I’ll be right back. I promise I’ll be right back.”

Jordan ran from the living room to the basement stairs to retrieve the AK-47, leaving Bollier and Agent Clemons behind to fend for themselves. But once Jordan got to the basement he’d forgotten where he put it. Knowing that Shannon was beyond medicine had hit Jordan with the weight of an anvil. Knowing that it was Askokov, Anton Askokov in the flesh made it completely surreal. Jordan stumbled around desperately trying to remember. Where was the gun? Where was it? God damnit where was that gun?

On the upstairs floor Agent Clemons caught a glimpse of a familiar face peeking out from one of the trees. He jumped down to reload.