Second Strike

CHAPTER 45

^{DALE CITY, VIRGINIA,}

^{AUGUST 16, 12:55 P.M. EDT}

Bulkvadze brought five men.

Ten. That’s how many Bor had told him to bring. Against one man. Ridiculous. Bulkvadze felt foolish while composing the team. Each looked at him as if he were crazed when he told them there would be five of them. To kill one man. It was insulting.

Bulkvadze couldn’t blame them. They were professionals. They’d proven their capabilities and worth. None were novices. Each had several kills to his credit—some even in the United States.

They were promised fifty thousand dollars apiece, ten thousand in advance. The amount quelled any grumbling. Bor had advanced one million dollars, with the balance of four million to be delivered upon verification of Garin’s death. The shooters’ share plus Bulkvadze’s hundred-thousand-dollar finder’s fee would come entirely from Abkashvili’s four million. Of course, Abkashvili would know nothing about the one million Bulkvadze kept for himself.

Bulkvadze had a clear view of where the action would occur. He was comfortably seated in his black Mercedes S600 with tinted windows in the parking lot of the B complex. The entrance to Garin’s basement unit in C complex was directly in front of him, down a gradual decline seventy yards away. His seat was racked all the way back to accommodate his large frame. It was as if he were in a movie theater. Only the popcorn was missing.

From his vantage point Bulkvadze could see each of his five shooters. Two of three primary shooters were deployed behind SUVs at forty-five-degree angles to Garin’s door. The third primary shooter was deployed behind a large Dumpster directly in front of and fifty feet away from Garin’s door.

The two secondary shooters were behind a row of hedges that separated the B and C parking lots. They were standing almost equidistant from Bulkvadze’s car and Garin’s front door. From their relaxed stances it was clear they had concluded, quite reasonably, that they would soon go home forty thousand dollars richer for doing nothing more than driving out to Dale City, Virginia.

There was no foot traffic in the vicinity. The stifling heat and humidity had chased the residents into their air-conditioned apartments.

The five men were visible to any B Complex residents who might happen to look out their windows, but Bulkvadze was unconcerned. People generally didn’t look out their windows unless there was a loud noise or a bright light or they were expecting someone. Most were looking at TVs, computer screens, phones, kids, or stoves. A parking lot and hedgerow couldn’t compete.

The five had, nonetheless, assumed poses of nonchalance, feigning scrolling through their mobile devices. A bit irritated, Bulkvadze thought their poses appeared somewhat less than random. Then again, he’d been on a number of crowded city streets where it seemed everyone was walking with their heads angled down toward their phone screens.

Bulkvadze’s own phone rested on the seat next to him. He would record Garin’s death and provide the recording to Bor for verification.

Although he was in no particular hurry, Bulkvadze preferred to get the matter over with. The longer Garin remained inside, the greater the probability that a patrol car would make a run past the complex or someone might pay Garin a visit. According to Bor, Garin rarely stayed in one place for long, but Bulkvadze was prepared to stay in place for as long as it took.

And it didn’t take long. The heads of all three primary shooters jerked upward from their screens simultaneously. They must’ve heard a noise in Garin’s apartment, Bulkvadze thought, or the sound of a doorknob turning. They placed their phones in their respective pockets and almost in unison pulled out their weapons and aimed them at the door. The secondary shooters pulled out their weapons also, holding them at their sides.

Bulkvadze saw the door beginning to open and the primary shooters tensing, weapons held at eye level. The doorway was black for a beat; then the blackness was broken by a gray T-shirt.

Bulkvadze raised his cell phone above the dash of his car and began to record the imminent demise of Michael Garin. The primary shooters each edged out from behind their respective hides in preparation for taking their shots. Natural human competitiveness made each want to claim credit for the decisive shot.

A second later, Bulkvadze saw the face from Bor’s phone appear in the doorframe. What followed was a blizzard of gunfire and movement Bulkvadze’s brain found impossible to process.

Before any of the primary shooters had even squeezed their triggers, Bulkvadze saw the bodies of the two who were at forty-five-degree angles to Garin’s door quake and their heads repeatedly whiplash, as if struck several times by a heavy object—the impact of multiple semiautomatic rounds to the torso. A fraction of a second later both collapsed to the ground. A fraction after that the back of the third primary shooter’s neck exploded outward, expelling a mass of blood, tissue, and bone displaced by a 9mm round to the throat from Garin’s SIG.

Bulkvadze could see the raised pistols of the secondary shooters shift sharply from left to right, searching frantically for Garin. The search by the shooter to the left ended when the lower half of his face was blown away by a powerful round from an unknown direction. By the time Bulkvadze turned his attention to the last remaining shooter he was already falling to the ground. At least his body was falling to the ground; Bulkvadze saw no evidence of a head.

The elimination of Bulkvadze’s kill team had consumed all of six seconds. He sat frozen in disbelief for several more. Then his chest began to heave. As he tried to catch his breath, he noticed that he had dropped his phone.

Bulkvadze scanned the scene in front of him, looking for Garin. The apartment door was still open. He wasn’t standing in the entrance. Nor was he anywhere in the C Complex parking lot or on the expanse of grass adjacent to it.

Bulkvadze’s nerves felt like exposed electrical wire. He put his car in gear, his head swiveling about searching for the target, half expecting his windshield to shatter in a hail of gunfire. He fought the urge to go screeching down the drive, out of range of any weapons. Instead, he drove away at the posted speed, past the bodies strewn about the parking lot, and turned onto Minnieville Road, where he accelerated gradually until the complex shrank and vanished in his rearview mirror.

“Bring ten.” That’s what Bor had commanded. “If you fail, I will kill you.” Bulkvadze had taken Bor’s money, disregarded his command, and failed to kill Garin. That had to be rectified. Right away. Or soon Bulkvadze’s massive body would be lying in a parking lot with his head somewhere nearby.