Rasputin's Shadow

38

I was back at Federal Plaza, feeling on edge and antsy. Not a great feeling, especially when it’s coming up on one in the morning and I’m still at the office instead of annoying Tess with my alleged snoring.

On one level, it felt like the game had been played out, and we’d lost. Our mystery Russian-who we’d all started referring to as Ivan-had Sokolov and had pulled back into the shadows. Maybe that was it. Sokolov seemed to be what Ivan was after. Now that he had what he wanted, maybe they were gone for good. But if so, it left a lot of unanswered questions. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t help feeling that this was just a lull before the real storm.

As you’d expect, everyone was burning the midnight oil on this. We’d had three incidents with a total of eleven deaths in less than seventy-two hours. No one was going home just yet. I’d texted Tess to say I didn’t know when I’d be back and not to worry. That last bit was, of course, kind of pointless. By now, she knew it meant we were dealing with something seriously nasty and worrying was entirely reasonable. But what else could I say?

Information was streaming in from various corners. All five of the dead Russians, as well as the one at the hospital, were confirmed to be part of Mirminsky’s outfit. The Sledgehammer had lost seven men, with another out of action and in custody. We’d picked up a couple of calls informing him of this, but rather than going ballistic over it as you’d expect, he seemed oddly subdued. This lined up with the unexplained reverence he showed toward Ivan.

I wanted to know how we’d missed tracking the other two bratki, the ones who’d been at the real meet with Ivan. We’d put as tight a lock on all of the Sledgehammer’s comms, and yet Ivan was still able to get through to him and arrange for his escort. Our surveillance guys were reviewing all the video, audio, and data from Mirminsky’s club to try to figure out how Ivan had bypassed us. Ultimately, I doubted it would lead to anything. The key, as it always was, was Sokolov. Which was what the more intriguing bit of information that came in was about.

A background search on Leo Sokolov-or Lev Sokolov, to use what would have been his real Russian name according to our resident guru Joukowsky-didn’t turn up much. His prints were clean. The little on record confirmed that Sokolov lived a straightforward, uncomplicated life. Then the search threw us a major curveball: it kicked up a Lev Nikolaevich Sokolov who was born on the same day as our Leo, back in 1952-but who died nineteen years later. Which could be an incredible coincidence. Or, and this was far more likely according to my finely honed detective intuition, Leo-our Leo-wasn’t really Leo Sokolov at all. He’d somehow got hold of Lev’s birth certificate and used it as a breeder document to get himself a social security card and build a fake identity from it.

Which threw everything into question.

Leo Sokolov wasn’t really Leo Sokolov at all.

JONNY ARRIVED AT THE chop shop on Cross Island Parkway fifteen minutes after he’d broken into the metal locker. Shin was already there, leaning against the double doors, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette. He was dressed in a tattered old tracksuit and faded sneakers, with the hood of his top almost obscuring his entire face.

As the van turned onto the lot, Shin slapped one of the big doors three times with the flat of his hand. They both swung open with the grating sound of metal being dragged over concrete, then Jonny drove the van straight into the large space inside. Shin followed on foot and the doors immediately creaked shut behind him.

The chop shop was a twenty-four-hour operation. At present, there were four guys remodeling a Porsche Panamera and a Bentley Continental, readying them to be shipped out to Moscow or Beirut, where they would end up with new owners who weren’t particularly bothered that their new cars had been stolen from someone a couple of continents away.

As Jonny jumped down from the cab, one of the crew working on the hot cars pointed at the van with his wrench.

“Hey, Jonny, nice wheels. You want us to drop a five-seven-two and some nitrous tanks in it? Or just fix your eight-track player?” He cracked up, as did his friends.

Jonny’s face didn’t even crease into a smile.

“Jachin’s dead. Some Russian gaejasik took him out.”

The laughter died instantly.

The team’s top dog, a muscle-bound Kkangpae called Bon, wiped his oily hands on a cloth and walked over toward Jonny.

“That’s rough, man,” he said, running a finger along one of the bullet holes in the front windshield. “So what are we gonna do?”

“Something, that’s for sure. I don’t know what just yet. Meantime, I need to figure something out.”

Shin appeared from behind the van, causing Bon to sneer.

Bon said, “With that?” Meaning Shin.

“Yeah,” he told him. “Now, get back to work. I’ve got to take care of this.” Then he remembered his bike. He fished out his keys and chucked them to Bon. “I need someone to bring back the Kawa. It’s on 169th. The alley by the Laundromat.”

Bon spat to one side, shrugged, and headed back to the Bentley. “No problem.”

Shin approached Jonny and pulled down his hoodie, revealing a crew cut atop a skinny, haggard face.

The sight surprised Jonny. “What the hell is wrong with you? You look like shit.”

“I’m living off fucking food stamps, man. Fucking PhD’s not even good for wiping my ass.” He shook his head ruefully. “They keep feeding me the same dog shit that I’m overqualified. No jobs. No teaching posts. Nothing. Why? ’Cause I’m overqualified. How fucked-up is that?”

He looked close to tears.

“So lie,” Jonny told him. “You can’t live like that.”

“It’s Nikki, she…”

Jonny spared his old school friend the humiliation of having to admit that he was pussy-whipped within an inch of his life. “You could come back to work,” he told him. “This new guy we’ve got takes twice as long to scan and code an RF key, and then when he’s done, half of them don’t work.”

“I promised Nikki, man.”

“It’s good money.”

“Maybe I should. I don’t know.” Shin didn’t sound very convinced. He nodded toward the van. “What’s this worth?”

Jonny’s eyes narrowed.

“I’ll let you know when you tell me what it is.”

Jonny gestured for Shin to follow him through the van’s rear doors. Inside, he opened the metal storage box and moved back to sit on a wheel arch while Shin moved in for a closer look.

The postgrad went quiet for a moment as he examined its contents, then he let out a long whistle and turned around.

“Mwuh-ya yi-gae, Jonny. Where’d you get this? Area 51?”