Tiger (19 page)

THE HELICOPTER STAYED HIGH OFF THE GROUND,
in order to attract as little attention as possible on its trip west. Tiger was fairly sure he knew their eventual destination, and if he was right it would only be a few minutes before they arrived.

“You know where we're going?” Divine said, practically shouting over the noise inside the cabin. His words were more a statement of fact than a question.

“Sweet,” Tiger replied.

Divine nodded. “Sweet and I have some conflicting business interests,” he explained. “And our relationship has become strained recently. Something is going to happen regardless, so I might as well control what that something is.”

“I would have done the job,” Tiger said. “There was no need to involve my sister.”

“I'm not sure you would have—not the way I need it done.”

“How?”

“I need you to show your face.”

Tiger thought about this, realization sinking in. Sweet had long-time partnerships with crime families around the world, associates who would lose money if Divine managed to get rid of his rival. There would be consequences—blowback, as the Americans called it—fatal ones. If it was known that he—Tiger Klesko, son of Alexei—was Sweet's killer, blame for the incident would be placed somewhere else, somewhere thousands of miles to the east:
Piter
. The
Vory
would deny their involvement, of course, but who would believe them?

With Sweet's security team always surrounding him, a close-up killing was a suicide mission for Tiger.

“For five years I've been looking for a way to get rid of Sweet,” Divine continued, a hint of triumph already on his face. “Then, five months ago you showed up at the Ranch. Goes to show you the virtue of patience.”

So, Tiger thought, he had been doomed from day one at the Ranch. All the work he had done for Divine had been a waste. Tiger's hopes of a new life for himself had been foolish, and he silently cursed himself for not realizing it sooner.

He scanned the cabin of the helicopter. There were five of them besides the pilot—Tiger, Divine, Rachel, and two other gunmen he had seen before but never worked with. No chance for an alliance there. To the rear of the cab was an impressive array of weapons, both small arms and assault weapons, plus two grenade launchers—a backup plan, no doubt. If Tiger moved quickly enough he might be able to reach the pilot—there were several ways he could imagine bringing them all down, to end the mission before it even got started.

“I like your spirit,” Divine said, as if reading Tiger's thoughts. “But my instructions to the Ranch were clear—any interruption of our plan, and your sister will die.”

“You're going to kill her anyway.”

Instead of denying this immediately, Divine reached into a side compartment and pulled out a small stack of photographs, which he passed to Tiger. They were surveillance photos—taken from a distance with a long lens—of his sister Wally, in the company of two other teenagers, a petite Asian girl and a fit, clean-cut guy. They looked familiar to Tiger, and it only took a moment for him to realize that this same couple had been part of Wally's street crew several months earlier.

“Wallis cares very much for these two,” Divine said. “Possibly even more than she cares for you. She certainly knows them better. Once you have done this service for us she'll be released, with the assurance that if she talks, her two friends will be killed. With pain. You see? There's no reason for us to hurt your sister. You have my oath on this.”

Tiger didn't answer. His mind continued to turn, searching for a way out.

“I know,” Divine said. “You're still not on board. You're thinking there are other options, maybe even that Wallis is capable of fighting her way off the Ranch . . . especially with the help of the Glock that you stashed in the brick wall? Or the combat knife in the loose grout beneath the windowsill? You thought we wouldn't shake down the room before we put you both in there?”

Der'mo
. Shit.

“We're almost there,” said Divine, impatient now. “If you want to protect your sister, there are no options. There's even a chance you could survive it—a slim chance, I admit, but if you're half the man your father is, you might make it.”

“I'm curious,” Tiger said.

“About what?”

“What makes you so sure I will trade my life for hers?”

His question was sincere. Tiger barely knew Wallis Stoneman. Though they were brother and sister, she had been given every advantage in life, while he had been set adrift. It wasn't he that owed her loyalty, or a debt. It was the other way around. Thrown together by Divine—a smart strategy on his part—they hadn't achieved anything close to understanding or peace, much less love or loyalty. How could Divine be so sure when Tiger himself was not?

“Young Klesko,” Divine said with a confident smile. “I make bets like this every day. It's how I win.”

The sound of the helicopter's rotor changed slightly, and the aircraft began to dip toward the ground below.

The light of dusk was fading when they reached the hilltop overlooking the arms factory. Tiger followed Rachel, and Divine followed him, the man easily matching their pace despite the thirty-plus years he had on them. The overlook was exactly as Tiger and Rachel had left it days earlier—the factory was empty and dark, the perimeter fence strong and intact.

Divine had sent his other two gunmen to establish watch posts on the opposite hilltop. Tiger looked across the valley but was unable to spot them. Each of the men had taken a sniper rifle with a powerful nightscope, so Tiger knew for certain that he would have crosshairs trained on him every moment he was in the open.

“Settle in,” Divine said. They spread camouflage tarps on the ground and lay down, arranging brush around them for cover. “Now we wait.”

Two vehicles appeared at the mouth of the valley and motored to the factory gate. A security team of eight spilled out of the first vehicle—a cargo van—and Tiger could see that they were much like the team he and Rachel had spotted before. None looked older than fifteen or sixteen. They were various sizes and of different ethnicities, the only common factors being that they were all armed and looked supremely vigilant, scanning the area around the factory with their riflescopes and walking the perimeter fence in teams to be sure the area was secure.

One of the young men unlocked the factory gate to allow the second vehicle inside—an SUV with a trailer attached. The SUV entered the factory grounds and drove around to the other side, out of view. It wasn't long before Tiger learned what the trailer contained. Just ten minutes after its arrival, the sound of an engine came from somewhere on the grounds and at least two hundred lights—inside and outside the factory—came on. A
generator
, Tiger realized. The old factory had power again.

Over the next hour, four or five more trucks arrived, each of them backing up to the factory's loading dock and delivering at least a hundred crates of various sizes. Within another couple of hours, the contents of those crates became clear: the old arms factory—unused in decades—began to pulse with loud music and flashing lights of every color. The factory had become an enormous nightclub of some kind.

The music was something Tiger was only vaguely familiar with, an electronic sound with a tempo faster than his own heartbeat. The volume was insanely high, and if he concentrated he could actually feel the vibration of it thumping through the ground, all the way up at his watch post. The music echoed back and forth in the valley, and Tiger realized the genius of choosing a location like this one for a loud, massive party—the same valley geography that had made an arms factory less of a danger to the surrounding community also provided cover from curious neighbors and local police. Few settings could match this one for privacy.

“It's a rave,” Rachel said. “I'm sure they have them where you come from.”

“Quiet,” Divine hissed, and they all went completely still.

Soon Tiger could make out the sound of approaching footsteps, and a sentry from the security team below came walking along the ridge, a silenced assault rifle in his hands. From what Tiger could make out, the kid looked Asian, his long hair tied back in a ponytail. He was wearing jeans and a black, long-sleeved shirt. He walked slowly and deliberately, passing within just ten feet of the brush-covered post where Tiger, Divine, and Rachel lay low, waiting for the threat to pass.

Within a minute, the sentry had walked out of range. Tiger and the others, however, stayed very quiet after that, silently observing as the events in the valley reached their next phase. As the night grew late, vehicles of every kind began to roll into the valley—two or three hundred of them, at least—parking haphazardly on the barren ground that surrounded the factory. From each vehicle at least three or four people, in their teens or early twenties, emerged and made their way to the gate of the factory's perimeter fence.

Through his nightscope, Tiger watched as a four-man security team processed the arrivals, patting them down for weapons and setting their cell phones aside to be returned after. Each “guest” was stamped on the back of the hand. No money was exchanged. The young people were clearly excited, barely able to stand still until they were turned loose onto the factory grounds. A steady stream of them headed straight into the factory, disappearing into the cacophony of lights and music.

“This is one way Sweet keeps good faith with his soldiers,” Divine said, a hint of admiration in his voice. “He does this two, three times a year, a different location each time. Free booze and drugs for all the local kids who show up, and all of his security team have their turn to cut loose. That's the situation you'll be walking into. There will be another kind of guest in the mix—dozens of business associates from around the eastern seaboard are in there already, prepared for a meet and greet with Sweet himself.”

“At the top of the tower,” Tiger added. He remembered from the scouting mission he and Rachel had carried out days before—Sweet's security team had arrived at the site for recon, and had concentrated their sweep on the top floor of the factory's administrative wing, a tower three or four stories higher than the rest of the factory. On her own visit inside, Rachel had spent most of her time on that top floor, also.

“Yes, Sweet will be on the top floor,” Rachel said. “His own private party room.”

Over the din of the throbbing house music below, another sound intruded upon the valley—the turbine-engine thrum of a sleek, white executive helicopter, swooping in low from the east and setting down quickly in a space that had been cleared inside the factory's perimeter gate. Through their scopes, Tiger and the others watched as security men swarmed the chopper and surrounded one blond man as he climbed out, maintaining a human cocoon around him as he walked quickly to the factory and disappeared inside.

“The son of a bitch himself,” Divine said.

“He won't stay for more than an hour, if that,” Rachel said.

“Enough fucking around then,” Tiger said. With that, he stood up and left their post behind, hiking downhill.

“We'll be watching,” Divine called after him.

“I'll see you in hell,” Tiger answered.

WALLY PACED THE WAREHOUSE ROOM, UNABLE TO keep still. How much time had passed since Tiger had been taken? Two hours? Three? The day had turned to night, and the warehouse was unnervingly quiet. She knew her sentries were still in place—she could hear the heavy footsteps of one guard patrolling the hallway outside her door, and at least one other was outside her window, moving around on the fire escape landing a floor above.

Wally didn't know for sure what Divine had planned for Tiger, but he had gone to a lot of trouble to bring her there, and she assumed he had done it to gain leverage over her brother. She understood the strategic reason that Divine had brought them together—a closer bond between her and Tiger would motivate her brother to protect her any way he could, even if that meant risking his own life in some way.

The idea sickened Wally. As far as she was concerned, Tiger had already forfeited his childhood so that she could live the life of an advantaged American teen. The cycle had to end, and the only thing she could think to do for her brother would be to free herself from the warehouse and somehow let Tiger know that she'd broken out.

But how?
Wally had been looking for an opening—any sliver of an opportunity for her to make a run for it—but she hadn't found a chance. When he had whispered in her ear, Tiger had told her to search behind loose bricks on the south wall of the room. She'd done that, but every potential hiding place within the wall had been empty.

Tiger had been gone less than an hour when Wally had smelled something cooking upstairs in the kitchen. Hamburgers, maybe? She thought they might feed her—maybe a fify-fifty chance at best, but it was the only angle she saw. There was no way to get food to her other than by opening the door, and she would be ready.

So she had waited. And waited. No food. She had eventually pounded on the door, yelling that she was hungry. Nothing.

Time was flying by, and the only option Wally saw was for her to make some kind of kamikaze break for the fire escape, but she was certain there were still two guards waiting out there, both heavily armed. What good would it do Tiger for her to die without any real hope of succeeding? She stepped toward the windows to take yet another look and maybe spot a flaw in their security, but she'd done the same thing every five minutes for hours, with no luck.

And then she heard a voice from above.

“Wally?”

It was Kyle. Wally felt a hot rush of rage at the sound of his voice—if he had suddenly appeared in front of her, Wally doubted she would be able to stop herself from going after him. When she'd been caught, Kyle had stood by passively and watched it all happen, wearing a look that could only be described as satisfaction. Reliving the moment made Wally feel stupid and weak. If she hoped for some kind of revenge, she would have to be smart.

She willed herself to remain calm. She couldn't figure out right away where his voice was coming from, so she stilled herself, listening.

“Kyle?” Her voice was tentative—it was better for him to believe that she was afraid and in a weakened state.

“Hello, Wally.”

Now she could tell that his voice was coming down from the fire escape outside. Looking out the window, she thought she could see his feet on the metal grated staircase—he was sitting where the guard had been, on the landing one floor above. A window near the ceiling was broken, and his voice traveled to her through that open space.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “I'm not.”

“Everything's going to be fine,” he said. “Just try to roll with it.”

The smarmy tone of reassurance in his voice disgusted her. Her own fate was the last thing she cared about at that moment anyway.

“I'm scared, Kyle,” she said, keeping the timid tone in her voice.

“Ha! Don't bullshit a bullshitter,” he said. “But nice try.”

Playing the girl in distress apparently wasn't going to work.

“You don't think I'm capable of fear?”

“Sure. I've seen you scared—but you were even more dangerous then.”

Outside Harmony House and up at the lodge, Kyle had had a front-row seat for the Wally show. She couldn't expect him to underestimate her after all that.

“I
am
afraid—for my brother,” she said.

“Tiger is a killer,” Kyle said. “I understand you have feelings for him, but the fact is, your brother will die the same way he lived—by the gun. It's inevitable. My father chose Tiger for this job because of who he's always been.”

As he spoke, Wally thought she could hear something else: the sound of something rubbing against metal. Had he shifted a step lower on the fire escape?

“The plan to get me here—that was yours?”

“Sure,” he said, sounding proud. “From day one, it was my job to get you out in the open, preferably somewhere quiet so they could take you easily without hurting you. It seemed like a simple job, at first, but it didn't turn out that way. Your neighborhood was full of cops all the time. It halfway seemed like they were watching out for you especially. So it was my idea to come into the Ursula Society.”

“But the story you told me,” she said. “That was true, right? About how you found out about your birth mother, when your stepmother died?”

Thinking back on Kyle's “performance”—about the compelling story he'd told to trick her and lure her away—she suspected that it had not been all lies.

“Absolutely! Thank you for getting that!” he said with genuine enthusiasm. “My father and Rachel—my sister, she was here with you before—they had this idea that I should make up a really sympathetic family history, like out of some soap opera or whatever, so I could really get you on the hook. But they were wrong. Nothing is more convincing than the truth.”

“No doubt. And the bruises on your face?”

“We needed to convey a sense of urgency,” Kyle said, his voice sounding a little tight.

“The beating was your father's idea? I suppose he did that to you himself?”

Kyle didn't answer, and Wally realized she'd made a mistake.

“Well, your performance at the lodge really kicked my ass,” she said, imbuing her tone with reluctant admiration. It took all of her self-control to pull it off.

“That was the easy part,” he said, sounding more relaxed now. “You got me really hot, Wally. No acting required there.”

The thought of it turned Wally's stomach now, but she had to keep on task. She had an idea about where to take the discussion next, but she was worried it would be too much.

“What would she think about all this, do you figure?” she asked, targeting Kyle's weakest point.

“Who are you talking about?”

“Your mother. Your real one, I mean. What was her alias again? Mercy Smith? What would she think about you right now?”

Kyle didn't bother answering.

“I spent a long time looking for my birth mother,” Wally went on, “and I don't think a day went by when I didn't look in the mirror and imagine what she would think of me when we finally met face-to-face. You think about that a lot, right? What would your mother see if she looked at you right now?”

“I'm not looking for her,” Kyle said, sounding annoyed. “That was just—”

“Part of your story?” Wally said, allowing her voice to carry just a hint of smugness, as if completely confident that she possessed inside knowledge. “No, Kyle. I'm sure that's what you told your father, maybe even your sister. Like you said, don't bullshit a bullshitter—you think about your real mother all the time. You have to wonder—was she someone your father actually cared about or just one of his playthings? I remember your reaction to the photos of your father's women—you were devastated. That's why you took off at that truck stop. You were too weak to handle it—”

“Shut up, Wally,” he said, the tension rising in his voice.

“All this time and your mother hasn't shown up,” Wally kept the pressure on. “Why do you figure that is? Your father isn't so hard to find, and neither are you. So, where is she? I'm thinking there are only two real possibilities, and I'm sure you've already figured them out. Either your father got rid of her—which we both know he is capable of, don't we?—or she just doesn't give a shit about you. Huh. Which is worse, do you think?”

“You don't know what the fuck you're talking about,” he snarled. “She let me go because my father could do so much for me, more than she could.”

“Wow. Like you said, Kyle, the truth is more convincing than anything, and I'm not hearing it right now. Do you even halfway believe what you're saying?”

“You think I should listen to anything you say?” Kyle was nearly shouting now. “If you know so much, what happened to your mother? Yeah, I know all about it—about Shelter Island? She died there. I hear it was a bloody mess. And whose fault was that?”

Wally felt another wave of red-hot rage run through her, but she fought it off and kept her mind clear. Kyle's voice had sounded a little closer then, and Wally could just barely make out the sound of him on the move again, easing down the fire escape a step further. She looked up, and she could see his silhouette more fully now—his body from the waist down, three steps below the top of the window.

It was time.

Near Wally's feet was the stack of firewood that she and Tiger had used to keep the woodstove burning, and only three of the short logs were left. She grabbed the largest one and wheeled her body around, hurling the log through the window. The glass shattered with explosive force, lethal splinters showering down in every direction.

Wally lunged toward the open space in the window and there were Kyle's feet, almost exactly where she thought they'd be. She grabbed hold of Kyle's right leg and pulled with all her strength, bracing herself against the windowsill as she dragged him off the staircase into the room. He screamed in pain as his body slammed to the floor, and the two of them began wrestling for control. With her left arm, Wally wrapped his neck up in a choke hold, but Kyle was an athlete, after all, and he was strong—he started pulling violently at Wally's arms, and she didn't think she could fight him that way for much longer.

Looking at the ground around her, she saw at least a dozen large shards of glass from the shattered window, and one still had a broken chunk of the wooden pane glued to it. Wally grabbed the shard on the wooden side and jammed the sharp end into Kyle's shoulder. He screamed in pain, and blood began gushing from the wound.

“Ahhhh . . . ” Kyle howled. “You fucking bitch!”

Wally shifted the edge to Kyle's throat, pressing just hard enough to break the skin and make him stop moving.

“Stand up!” she commanded, and clambered to her feet while never letting go of the choke hold with her left arm and keeping the razor-sharp glass pressed tight against his neck. Kyle managed to set his feet on the ground and rise up with her. Wally heard a sound on the fire escape outside and she turned quickly—the guard from below was just raising his gun to fire. Wally pressed the glass harder into Kyle's neck, and he screamed.

“I'LL GUT HIM!” Wally howled at the guard like a wild animal, and he froze. Wally hauled Kyle toward the metal door on the opposite wall. It was an awkward crab walk they were doing together—Kyle was much taller than Wally, and when he stood up straight, it raised her feet off the ground, compelling her to spring free. She responded by pressing the shard against him even closer, forcing him to bend low and return her feet to the floor.

When they reached the door, Wally released the glass from his neck for just a moment, stabbing it again into the part of his shoulder that was already wounded and seeping blood down the front of his shirt. Kyle screamed so loud that her ears hurt, and soon the metal door swung open. Alabama stood there in the doorway, his assault rifle raised and pointed directly at her, the wounds on his face still oozing liquid into his bandages.

“Sure, take your shot, asshole,” Wally said to him, keeping her voice as even as she could and moving the glass back into tight contact with Kyle's throat. “But be sure not to miss.”

She could see Alabama weighing his extreme desire to kill her against the consequences if Kyle were to die in front of him. Wally pushed Kyle through the doorway and hauled him with her down the hallway to the stairs, keeping her back to the wall the entire time and struggling to keep her feet on the ground when Kyle managed to stand up too straight.

Another guard appeared at the stairway landing from above—it was the dude with the shotgun, but just as he leveled it toward her he caught sight of the glass still pressed under Kyle's chin. The guard held his ground but from the scared expression on his face it was clear he would not risk Kyle's life by taking a shot at Wally.

She kept moving, forcing Kyle onward as they charged down the stairs. Finally, they reached the ground-floor hallway. She could hear footsteps behind them as Alabama and the shotgun guy followed just out of sight, waiting for an opportunity to stop Wally in a way that wouldn't get Kyle killed. Wally ignored them and kept her focus on moving forward.

As she and Kyle moved down the hallway, they passed some ancient gas pipes along the wall—one had an old valve sticking out. Wally slowed down and kicked the valve hard, twice, before the rusty old pipe gave way and she could hear the hissing sound of gas being released into the air. They moved ahead, pushing toward the main doorway. She hoped that the leaking gas would prevent Alabama and any other pursuers from firing their weapons, since a muzzle flash might set off an explosion—or, better yet, that they
would
fire their guns and fry themselves—once she and Kyle were far enough away.

As they emerged into the parking lot, the crack of a gunshot rang out—Wally felt a strange sucking sound to her left and realized that the shot had missed her by mere inches, flashing past her ear. The shot sounded like it had come from up high, probably from one of the guards who had been posted on the fire escape. Wally began spinning Kyle in a circle as they moved, making them a nearly impossible target. The turning motion caused the glass to slide against Kyle's neck, slicing the skin just deep enough that he howled like a wounded animal. Blood trickled out of his neck now and ran down Wally's hand.