The ZWD Trilogy (Book 1): Zombie World Dominance [The Destruction Begins] (11 page)

“I
have just about £420,” said Sheref.

“I
have over £615,” said Zeyad. “Do you both have their IDs, passports and travel
visas?”

Sheref’s
face fell. “I do not have my passport. It’s at my home.”

“With
everything going on with the creatures I don’t think a missing passport will
make much of a difference now,” said Assem.

Zeyad
said, “I am going home to pick up my family before we leave Luxor. It is only a
few kilometers off the main road to Cairo. It won’t take long. My wife has several
cousins that live in Cairo. They are all married, and have children. Maybe we
can meet up with them. Together we can try to come up with a plan to stay
alive.”

Zeyad
turned the car towards his home. It would only take twenty minutes to get there
and then back to the main street. He turned down the street he lived on. As
they approached Zeyad’s home, what they saw was unsettling.

He
spoke in a quiet, choked voice, and tears were forming in his eyes. “Oh, no. See
the house on the corner? That’s my house!”

There were
creatures standing in the shade of his house. There were bodies lying on the
ground as well, and the front door was standing open.

“Oh,
my God,” said Zeyad. “That is my wife, and my oldest daughter! I remember what
they were wearing when I left for work today. There is so much blood…
so
much blood… They’re dead. Where is my other girl? Does anyone see her? Help me
find her. If she is alive we must find her!”

“Zeyad,
look over there at the side of your house. Is that your daughter?” said Sheref.
That body was horribly mutilated as well. The three men could see that there were
at least a couple of the creatures inside the house as well. “We need to get
out of here,” Sheref continued. “We need to go now!”

“Zeyad,
I am so sorry about your family,” said Assem. “There is nothing that we can do
for them now. We need to go to Cairo as we planned. Do you want one of us to
drive for you?”

“No,”
said Zeyad. “I need to get past this. We need to get to Cairo. Let’s not waste
any more time.”

With
nothing but bad news behind them, they started driving towards Cairo as fast as
Zeyad’s car could take them. The Cairo-Aswan Road followed the Nile River to
Cairo. The Nile wandered through the country towards the sea. The highway to
Cairo followed the winding Nile they were driving as fast as they could away
from Luxor.

They
were on the run from the creatures, running to Cairo. They knew that they would
be safer there. After all, the military was in Cairo. They would know what to
do.

All
they had was hope.

Moscow, Russia

Saturday,
August 16, 2036

Three affluent
couples had just enjoyed a night of ballet at the Московский
Художественный
Академический
Театр (Moscow Art Academic Theater) in Moscow’s
theater district, located on Tverskoy Boulevard.

The friends
had regularly attended many theater and other social events together. They were
Boleslav Nikolayevich Volkov and his wife Evdokiya; Ivan Ilyich Konstaninov and
his wife Tasha; and Vyacheslav Ivanovich Orlov with his wife Dunyasha. They
always had a good time when they were together, and this night was no
different.

The three
wives were always clustered together, talking about fashion or shoes or purses,
or the newest home décor, or where they wanted to go on holiday next year.

The three
men were co-owners of an international import-export business. Because their
chosen line of work was paying off so generously, their lifestyle was
extravagant even by the standard set by the Russian elite. They lived in the finest
homes in the best neighborhoods of Moscow. Their private security detail
chauffeured them in the very best foreign luxury cars that money could buy.
They were invited to the most prestigious events, all around the world, were
friends with the power brokers and leaders of Russia, and ate in the most highly
rated restaurants. Whatever they wanted, money was no object to their obtaining
it.

However,
life had not always been like this for them. They grew up together on the same dingy
grey street. Their families had been poor, their parents always working to make
ends meet. The three boys were left on their own, with school taking up most of
their day. It was after school when they tended to get into trouble.

When
they became teenagers, the three young men began a life of crime by breaking
into other people’s homes. They took anything that they believed could easily be
converted to cash. It wasn’t long before they learned that, for the most part, their
neighbors were as poor as they were. They didn’t own much that was of any
value.

To
make real money, they had to go into the neighborhoods where the wealthier people
lived. Consequently, they would have more to steal. What they took would be
worth more when they fenced it.

At
first, they got caught more times than they got away with their break-ins, but
as they matured, they got smarter. They took on partners to do the burglaries
for them. They had others to fence what was taken. By having others to take the
fall when they got caught and making sure they always had an alibi, it was the partners
that went to jail, not the three at the top.

As
their crew grew, they made more money. Eventually, their pack of thieves grew
into a large organized crime group in Moscow. After many years, they had become
what they were now: the owners of a (mostly) legitimate international
import-export business.

As the
business grew, others who had money found that, for a price, The Three, as they
were commonly known, could acquire anything what they wanted or needed. The Three
obtained the items that the rich wanted. Many of their orders were for items
that were unavailable or illegal in Russia.  

Their
lives had taken a turn for the better. To anyone who looked into their
business, it appeared to be legitimate. They were invited to parties that only
people of power and influence attended. They bought lavish homes. They owned
top-of-the-line cars. Eventually they married into well-connected families, and
they became part of the Russian elite.

The
three men had made it big. To a casual observer, they were Russian elite. To those
who knew them, they were three of the biggest thieves in Russia. Those who did
know them also knew that they were not be crossed. If anyone came against them,
they either wound up missing for good or were found gruesomely murdered somewhere.

Boleslav
was the leader of the three. He was the one who called the shots. He was a
rather unimposing man who had no memorable qualities. He was short; only about
1.65 meters tall. He had always kept himself in good shape. He weighed just
under 81 kilograms. As Boleslav grew older, he started to enjoy the finer
things in life. He attended the opera and the ballet. He ate in the finest
restaurants. One advantage of doing this was that he became acquainted with a
better class of people that he could work his game on. He could either just out-and-out
rob them, or he could start working people with crimes of intelligence.

He
referred to the people on whom he ran his new ruse as marks. If the ruse was
set up correctly, he could work the mark over and over — for
years,
if
he set it up right.

If he
robbed a rich person, they would get better security, which would block
Boleslav from going back for a second robbery. He was perfecting a new way to
rob people. He would set the mark up in a number of ways which would encourage
people to pay him for his discretion. For example, he might introduce a married
man to a woman who would give the man sexual favors that the mark could not
find at home. For enough money, Boleslav would look the other way the next time
they met again at the ballet or the opera, while Boleslav conversed with the
mark and his wife, smiling all the while. Or Boleslav might work a mark to
reveal information about his business or banking so that he could make
withdrawals. These ruses could be run over and over again, paying for Boleslav’s
silence for years.

As
Boleslav traveled in more refined circles, he met the love of his life,
although he did not know it at the time. He became attracted to the principal
dancer of a leading Russian ballet company. Little did he know that the
principal dancer was working him. She had seen him as he attended a number of
ballets in which she was performing. She saw him in his private box located
stage right, just above the stage. Evdokiya Zharkova was the lead female dancer
in the Moscow Classical Ballet. She towered over Boleslav at 1.72 meters tall.
Her body was well muscled, but she still weighed 82.5 kilograms.

At the
age of thirty-two, she was beginning to lose her place in the spotlight. She
wanted to find a place where she could live after the ballet was done with her,
like so many other performers who had aged out. She saw Boleslav at many of the
opening nights of the ballet, and he returned many times during the run of each
ballet. He was with many couples, but she never saw him with a woman.

The
reason Boleslav did not take a date to the ballet was he was working. A date
would slow him down. Evdokiya would always be with the cast as the ballet
patrons left the theater. She always made it a point to worked her way near to
Boleslav as he came down from his private booth.

As
time went on, they became friends. They started seeing each other shortly after
that. Boleslav never realized it, but
he
was being worked by Evdokiya as
her
mark. Like his marks, he did not see it coming until it was too
late. Their love for each other was quick, and while he fell for her just as
she’d planned, she also fell for him.

In
Russian tradition, a couple of means would see each other for several years
before they were married, but Boleslav and Evdokiya married after just eight
months of dating. Anyone who was a member of the elite, sophisticated, rich, or
people of means was invited to their wedding. The gifts were over the top for
the social elite. It was an event where each invited family attempted to outdo
the others in the cost or rarity of their gift. For the wedding of Boleslav and
Evdokiya, things were no different. The gifts were stunning. The wedding was a
show of wealth, and the reception lasted for hours.

What
was different was that the gifts that were given was not only from those who
were invited. Boleslav met privately with each person on whom he had run a
ruse. He handed an envelope to each of them with instructions to open it in the
privacy of their homes. Each envelope contained a short letter that Boleslav
had written by hand, releasing them from the ruse that he had run on them. He
stated that from this day forward he would not continue with the embarrassing
information that he had on them. For some of them, Boleslav had run the ruse or
blackmail for many years.    

Ivan
Konstaninov was Boleslav’s right hand man. It was his job to collect monies
that were owed. He would also enforce penalties for being late or short in the
collection that was owed. They lived four houses from each other when they were
growing up in the slums, and they quickly became close friends. Many of the
robberies that they committed were done together. Many times when they were
caught they spent time in the same jail or prison. Unlike Boleslav, Ivan was a
tall, heavy person. When Ivan was 24 years old, he stood 1.87 meters tall.

Unlike
Boleslav, Ivan Konstaninov married his school sweetheart. Tasha was not
unattractive, but she was no trophy wife either. She was of average height and
weight. They made each other happy. She knew what her husband did for a living.
She was all right with it, as long as she did not have to go to work. With her lack
of education, she would have to work at a menial job. There were many of them
in Russia but none of them were attractive to her.

Boleslav
and Ivan had met Dunyasha in one of their stays in prison. They quickly became
close friends. Dunyasha was the largest of the three of them, a full 1.93 meters
tall and weighing in at nearly 99 kilograms. When they met, he already had a
wife. They lived in a rundown slum like the others, but theirs was on the other
side of Moscow from the one in which Boleslav and Ivan had grown up.

Moscow
had no shortage of slums. As things became more difficult, more and more Muscovites
grew poorer and poorer. The slums did not move; there were just more of them as
the economy tanked.

None
of the three couples had any children. For some, it was by choice; others were
unable to have children. Being childless was a good thing for men of their
profession. Children would hold the men back from some of their enterprises. If
one of them was so unfortunate as to be arrested, or as some people would say,
they became a temporary resident of the state.

At any
rate, the ballet was over, and they walked out of their private booth at the
theater onto the street cloaked in darkness. The night was still young, and the
weather was mild for this time of year in Moscow. As they walked out of the
theater, Boleslav spoke to his two business partners.

“Gentlemen,
I cannot think of when I have had such an enjoyable time with my beautiful
wife. I can’t believe how many seats were vacant. It was unusual for such a
renowned dance company to have its theater so empty. Ivan Ilyich, what did you
think about tonight?”

“I
believe that you are right, Boleslav Nikolayevich. I have not enjoyed myself
with my bride in such a long time. We need to start doing this more often
again. I miss the old days when we would take our wives out for a fine evening.
If the theater keeps having so many seats empty, it will not last very long. Let
me see — this theater has 1,300 seats. If I had to guess, there were as many as
250 seats empty tonight. Charging 10,000 rubles a seat, they took a big
financial hit. Would you agree with me, Vyacheslav Ivanovich?”

“Ivan,
I think that the only thing you do all day is calculate how much something
costs or how much someone will make or lose. But you both are right. We need to
do more with our wives. If we don’t start taking care of our women, they might decide
to leave us for someone who will give them the attention that they deserve.”

Dunyasha
laughed, “You crazy old man! You have been my husband for over 30 years! Why
would I change now? Who would take me?”

As the
men continued to talk, Evdokiya was walking with her husband, holding his hand.
She looked into his eyes and asked him, “Boleslav, my darling, if you love me
so much, why are you planning to take me home so early? The weather is good.
Why don’t we walk to Café Pushkin? It’s just down the street. We would enjoy
the walk, and a pastry with coffee. We don’t get to spend much time with you.
It would be a lovely way to end the evening.”

“That
is a good idea,” said Boleslav. “It’s not often that the weather is so mild at
this time of year, and you are right — pastry with coffee would be a wonderful
end to the night. Let’s walk with our wives tonight and have a treat with them
before we go home.”

“If my
wife wants to go, then we go,” said Ivan. “We have an early meeting tomorrow,
but if we do not stay too long, we can go.”

“Thank
you, Ivan. What about you, Vyacheslav? Do you want to come with us?”

“Boleslav,
you are welcome to go, but I really should go home and get some sleep. I have a
big day tomorrow.”

“Vyacheslav,
be a good sport,” said Dunyasha. “We have not been out together in a long while.
Please go for me. This will be a treat for all of us.”

“Very
well, Dunyasha, for you, my love, I will go, but only for a while. You are
right, this will be a treat for all us. We work hard, and we do not get out
often enough. I’ll tell my driver to park at the café.”

The
three couples started off walking down Tverskoy Blvd towards Café Pushkin. The
men walked in front of the ladies, in the old Russian tradition. They crossed the
street that ran in front of the theater. The three businessmen continued to talk,
mostly about work, and the wives were talking.