The Atlantis Cipher

CHAPTER TEN

Bodie led the way out of the window and down to Pantera’s rear lawn.

Pantera fretted all the way. Bodie had never seen him like this, but then Bodie had never seen a man whose family was being threatened before. Pantera checked and rechecked the visuals despite knowing they were out of line of sight. Even as they flitted back toward the hedge he stopped and again rechecked.

“Jack,” Cassidy growled. “You’re acting crazy. The more you dick around, the worse our chances are.”

Pantera knew it, and shook his head. Bodie led the way over the hedge and back to the car and then buckled himself in. Winter Park was a good drive away.

“Hit 192 and then the turnpike.”

“I don’t know what the hell that means.”

“Just drive.”

Cassidy twisted in the passenger seat from which she’d had to kick Pantera to the back. “I’m guessing you got about forty-five minutes to tell us the background on this. Then, we’ll decide whether to help you or not.”

It was a hard ultimatum, a gravel road of a choice. Bodie knew without any doubt that he couldn’t refuse to help a mother and child in danger, but Jack Pantera wouldn’t be too sure about that. Pantera hadn’t seen Bodie for many years and had then betrayed him.

“Oh hell, it was the worst choice of my life. In the end, though, obviously, it was no choice. If you had kids you would both know that. Doesn’t matter who you are. The president of the United States. The worst gangster in New York. The newest dictator in Africa. If you’re human, you’d do anything to keep your children safe. Anything.”

“Why don’t you explain it from the beginning, Jack?” Bodie said, keeping the road both ahead and behind in his sights.

“You just keep checking we’re not being followed,” Pantera said. “And I’ll explain. Maybe a year ago, this big fellow came to see me. I was practically retired, living off our ill-gotten gains, as you know. I was passing you — what? — maybe two jobs a year by then?”

“You were severing ties,” Bodie recalled.

“Yeah, but the right way. Over time. Allowing my name to fade. I didn’t need anything more. But this fellow — he cornered me in the Walmart parking lot, of all places. You know, the one off Turkey Lake Road? Anyway, it was early one Saturday. It was quiet. He pulled up alongside, handed me an envelope, and stared like he was studying something dead under a microscope. Those eyes.” Pantera shuddered. “They’d seen death. They’d seen murder. And they would again. Sometimes you just know. Sometimes you can see a man’s face and you know he has not one moral bone in his body and that killing you or your family wouldn’t even register on his radar.”

Cassidy nodded, tight-lipped. “I’ve fought a few. Even in the ring. Had to put them down real quick.”

Pantera nodded. “This life-or-death situation registered with me immediately. The fellow just sat there, waiting. I opened the envelope and my heart fell through the floor…”

Bodie saw tears glistening on Pantera’s face through the rearview.

“It was a photo of Eric. And one of Steph. They were taken inside our old home.” He paused. “This home. Winter Park. They were both asleep on the sofa, the TV playing in the background. Someone had broken in and taken the photo so shamelessly. So blatantly. They just didn’t care. These people, I knew, would kill with no inhibition.”

Bodie kept his eye on the time. They were fifteen minutes from Winter Park and the more he heard Pantera talk, the faster he drove.

“Then the man spoke. Russian accent. Told me without being asked he was a member of the Bratva. He said there was something like a suffer-and-kill order out on you, Guy. He mentioned the job you took — which I remembered — and then explained what had happened to the old man. He said they wanted you and would watch me closely until you were dead. They said if I delivered you then my family would survive, but if I didn’t—” Pantera swallowed drily. “Well, then he showed me pictures of what they did to another family that upset them. It was… horrific. I folded, Guy, I folded and I gave you to them.”

Bodie saw the truth of it all in Pantera’s eyes, in his choked voice. He saw the terrible gravity in it too. The guillotine hung over them, just waiting for the favorable time. There was no way out. He felt the anger at Jack simmering below the surface, but he also saw with perfect clarity the man’s reasoning.

Cassidy looked over at him. “I’d say our chances against the Bratva are even less than against the CIA.”

“The CIA?” Pantera looked confused for a moment but then let it go. “I’m so sorry I betrayed you, Bodie. I ran it all through my head time and time again, a thousand times. I keep remembering when we first met — you were so green. Easy pickings, really. I taught you the body-language thing all over the West End, remember? How to tail a mark. We even practiced on a mews house in Knightsbridge that night. I haven’t forgotten any of it, Bodie. I just can’t believe I fucked up so badly.”

Bodie agreed with the man but shrugged it off for now. “Get ready. We’re five minutes out.”

“The satnav will get you close,” Pantera affirmed. “But not to the door.” He didn’t need to elaborate. Bodie knew Jack would never program his own or a family member’s real address into the GPS and create an open invitation to a thief.

“Quickly,” Cassidy said. “Which job was it, Jack?”

“You’re asking in case I lose my memory in the next five minutes?”

“Don’t be silly. It’s in case you get shot to death.”

“Oh, that’s all right, then. I’m guessing you only did the one job in Miami recently?”

Bodie remembered it well. “The word ‘Bratva’ was certainly never mentioned.”

Pantera sighed. “I know, mate, I know. It was never mentioned to me either when I offered you the job. Nothing came up in the checks.”

Bodie knew that if the Russian Bratva were living lavishly in Miami then they certainly wouldn’t shout about it. Sometimes a criminal organization was a victim of its own cunning. And sometimes, he thought, they make others pay for it.

“We always tried to be better,” he muttered. “Thieves yes, but better. We changed our ways to victimless crimes. We stop being so solitary, so antisocial. We try to be real members of the real world. And look where it gets us.”

“Right here.” Cassidy looked out the window. “Racing to save a little kid on a dark night. With an asshole in the back seat.”

Pantera said nothing. The GPS announced their arrival.

“Where?” Bodie asked.

Pantera pointed. “Seventh house down there. White window frames. Oak tree in the front. Double garage with a horseshoe motif.”

“All right. I suggest we move fast but stay hidden. We don’t know the situation and we have no time. Ready?”

They exited the car and found cover near a dense row of trees and bushes. The greenery ran the length of the road, so Bodie found the place where it pushed up against a strong fence and made his way along, avoiding tree roots and climbing the odd branch. As he walked he whispered to Cassidy.

“I don’t fancy running from the Bratva my whole life, Cass.”

“Ditto.”

“We may have to resteal that statue and make amends. I know they have a code of honor.”

“Easier said than done. You know who bought it?”

“Pantera said they killed him.”

“I know. But his family still has the statue, yes? They’re worse. Violent. Crazy.”

“Nevertheless, the Bratva do have this odd code of honor. We’ll discuss later, but I feel they will appreciate the gesture.”

Cassidy pursed her lips, never trusting, always questioning. By now they were opposite Pantera’s old home and stopped to take a look.

The place stood in darkness save for a single light in the downstairs living room. The property was large, with all rooms facing the road, four across the top floor and three across the bottom. Bodie noted that the garage was attached to the house. All along the road in both directions cars were parked.

He didn’t like it. “No telling who’s watching. The place is highly exposed.”

“I know,” Pantera moaned.

“You chose it?” Cassidy asked.

“No! Steph chose it. I couldn’t exactly state my reasons for dismissing it at the time.”

No shadows crossed the burning light. Bodie calculated the risk of a quick dash to the front door against the time they’d lose sneaking around the back. “I’m thinking we bring the car up, storm the house, and get the hell out of here.”

“Unfortunately,” Cassidy said, “so am I.”

“If they’re watching the front they will be watching the back. We don’t have a few days or hours to recon, to plan. We could go in tomorrow dressed as workmen, but Jack… they may know we’re coming by then and be ready.”

Pantera would have to make the final call on his family. “They’ll hate me for it either way. Hate me forever. Eric, my son — he’s such a good lad. Small for his age and works hard at school. He’s a little hero, taking on the big boys at soccer and”—Pantera allowed a grin that completely transformed his face—“winning, more often than not. Scoring. Running circles around them. I can’t let them take him. I say go. Do it now.”

Bodie nodded. “I agree.”

And then their outlook, and their world, changed. A pair of dark-gray SUVs came screaming around the corner, engines roaring and tires squealing. They powered down the road before slewing to a sideways halt in front of the house.

Doors flew open, slamming back against their hinges, and four men jumped out of each vehicle, leaving the drivers behind the wheel. The men carried automatic machine guns, fully exposed, and raised as if ready to fire. They wore no head gear. Bodie could see their faces clearly, their tattoos, and it reminded him of the Mexican prison.

“Bratva,” Pantera whispered in dismay. “Oh hell, no.”

“Shit.” Bodie struggled with it.

“We can’t let them take my family, Guy!” Pantera was highly emotional. “We can’t!”

Bodie stared Cassidy in the eye. “We won’t. You ready, Cass?”

“Hell yeah.”