Brothers in Arms

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Nikolai Razin was not a well man. At one time he’d been a bare knuckle boxer, and had broken every bone in his hands. Now, he could barely move his fingers, but the frequent doses of morphine helped. Now, he had men to fight for him. Now, he liked to watch them break other people’s fingers.

But the longing remained. His youth had been a hard, brutal, fleeting thing and now he wanted it back. That impossibility bred anger and hate in him, the kind that festers and sours. The highlight of his days was recognizing fear in another man’s eyes, the tremble in their shoulders. He had honed a stare, the unblinking, unnerving gaze of a madman that could agitate even the bravest of men.

And he had honed the team he surrounded himself with like a knife edge is honed on a whetstone. He had grinded them. Sharpened them. Molded them with violence and longing and more — with reward. With sadism. With a cruel love.

Zanko was his meanest, his most potent. Maxim, his stealthiest and most intelligent. Viktoriya, his most beautiful and resourceful.

The four of them sat around Razin’s big table with the wall-size picture window at his back, the Russian night falling and the deep-red sunset washing their faces with blood. Out there, madmen and killers might walk. In here sat the men and women who controlled them.

Razin spoke first as was protocol. “Tell me, Zanko, what have you found in Iraq?”

“Ancient Babylon.” Zanko spread his arms expansively, ever the showman. “The city of sin. Debauchery. Murder. Greed. All the good things in life. The place where every bad thing began and criminals were invented, no? Ha, ha! They say Saddam Hussein built a palace overlooking the ancient ruins of Babylon. But he didn’t have the cunning to search for what we have found. If he did…” Zanko shrugged his muscle-bound shoulders. “Perhaps he would still be in power.”

Maxim spoke little, but when he did, it was usually fast and to the point, like the strike of a snake. “Did you find the swords?”

Zanko picked up several rolls of paper from the floor. He placed them on the deeply polished surface, sorting through until he found the right one. “We think the swords are there, and next week we should know more. But…” He jabbed the paper and the table urgently. “We found the original pit. The one from which Babylon was forged. That is what we found, my happy friend.”

“And inside the pit?”

Zanko gave them a grin like a cartoon shark. “You are all invited to come and look, of course.”

Razin tapped the table, reigning in Zanko’s zeal. “And the other site?”

The huge Russian held out both hands, palms up. “Insanity.”

“Zanko?” Razin’s tone held a note of warning.

“Seriously, my old friend, I mean what I say. It is impossible to describe. Imagine the size and breadth of a foundation that once held a tower reaching all the way to the clouds. But no swords at that site. Yet.”

“The Devil’s Tower.” Viktoriya breathed in her super-smooth, silky voice. “The tower of stone. Who’d have thought it once actually existed?”

“They existed,” Zanko corrected her. “That’s the wonder of it. The legends state that these towers were erected by almost every ancient civilization. Could they all be wrong, moyo sladkaya? And collectively, what do they mean? What do they form? We…” He patted his mighty chest. “I, Zanko, will find out.”

Viktoriya curled a lip in distaste. “Moyo sladkaya? Be careful, Zanko. The last man who called me his ‘sweetheart’ ended up wearing his guts as a noose.”

“The doorway to the Gods?” Razin speculated. “The seven swords that were part of the saber dance on Alexander the Great’s deathbed? I remain skeptical. We will see. And the writings you have found, are they a positive match to what the westerners found in the three tombs?”

“It’s being checked,” Zanko admitted. “With all the secrecy — it is not an easy match to make.”

Razin accepted with a nod. “And so now…now on to more mundane things. The man who raided our yard. Killed our men. He must pay for the devastation he brought to us. What has been done about him and his associate?”

“Matt Drake is part of a covert American agency with maybe a dozen operatives. Officially, they handle special response and recon around the world.” Maxim was reading from a prepared sheet. “If we strike at one we strike at them all. They are regarded as a ‘first strike’ team. Highly skilled.”

Zanko guffawed. “I promised to smother the little man with my armpits. I promise it again. I will not wash them until the job is done.”

Razin didn’t take his eyes off Maxim. “Do we have him yet?”

The man’s eyes glittered with intelligence and malice. “Within seventy two hours.”