The Hunted

32

It was called the Tsar's Suite. At an enormous five thousand square feet, it was furnished with rare and wondrous antiques, loaded with marble and teak, and crammed to the rafters with a staggering array of personal luxuries. Two separate baths, either one big enough to swallow and wash a squadron of sweaty horses. An entire wall of picture windows overlooking the glorious Moskva River and Moscow's twinkling lights.

The sumptuous dinner had been prepared by a four-star chef and delivered by three waiters who hung over the table, willing to cut the meat and spoon-feed the thoroughly spoiled customers. Whatever they wished for, a dollop landed on their plate, delivered by a gold ladle. A sip of wine and the crystal goblet was instantly topped off.

By ten, the chief of staff and his mistress were stuffed and sated, slightly lightheaded from the wine and champagne, ready to retire to the sumptuous pillow bed in the gargantuan bedroom. The chief dispatched the waiters with huge tips.

Tatyana was cradling a snifter of sherry and staring wistfully out the window at the sky full of stars. "This was a wonderful idea," she said.

"Isn't it?"

"The most romantic thing we've ever done."

"What can I say? I love you."

"I love you, too."

"Do you?"

"Of course. I love you, love you, love you."

He stared across the table at her. "Will you marry me?"

"I would love to."

"You're sure?"

"Yes. Just… obviously not right now."

"Why not now?"

"Yeltsin needs you. The country needs you. I won't be a distraction from your important work."

"I can handle it. After all, we see each other at work."

They had been through this same argument a hundred times, a conversation they had rehearsed so often it was stale. A brief loving glance at her paramour. "But I'm not sure I can. We've been through this. In case you haven't noticed, darling, I stay pretty busy, too."

His elbows landed on the table. "You're sure there's nobody else?"

"Absolutely," she snapped. She fell back on her usual defense, a deep pout. "Now you're acting like a jealous idiot."

He reached into a pocket, withdrew a photograph, and casually tossed it across the table. "Recognize this guy?"

She glanced down and didn't flinch or so much as squint. "No."

"Look again. You're sure you don't know him?"

She picked up the picture. "Who is he? He looks sort of cute."

"Nobody. Just thought you might. Until yesterday, he was a star striker on our national soccer team."

"Was?"

The chief began playing with a small fork. "That's right, was. Seems he experienced a terrible accident. Collided with another player and broke his leg. Also destroyed ligaments in his knee… actually both knees, I'm told. Then somebody ran over him with cleats and broke his nose and kicked off an ear. Poor fellow. Such a rough sport. His soccer career is definitely over."

Tatyana gripped the photograph a little harder.

Her boss said very amiably, "Just thought you might know or at least remember him."

"I'm not a soccer fan. Why should I?"

"It seems he went to the same elementary and gymnasium as you. Same small village. Same age, too."

"What's his name?"

"Sasha Komenov."

"I have a vague memory of the name." A well-feigned expression of dawning recognition. "Oh, yes, I think I do remember. A chubby little boy covered with pimples. Obviously, he looks different now. We were all so young back then."

Her boss swallowed a deep sip of sherry, then bit down hard on his lip. "How about a little music before we retire, dear?"

"Something romantic would be nice." She sipped carefully from her sherry, trying not to vomit. Poor, poor Sasha. She stared out at the city lights and tried hard not to imagine how her boytoy looked with a blown-up nose and only one ear. She failed miserably. The image just wouldn't disappear.

Her boss moved to the entertainment console, gritted his teeth, punched play on the tape machine, and waited for the sound of romance to start.

A moment later came the sounds of Tatyana and her freshly disfigured Sasha thrashing in the sheets and prattling away about what a disgusting, nauseating dork her boss was.

Tatyana spun around. She and her boss looked at each other for a moment, he with his eyes narrowed into betrayed slits, she unable to close her mouth. The damning tape droned on.

Tatyana screamed, "What in the hell is that?" She knew damn well what it was. Disaster. Her apartment was bugged. Some nosy-body had been listening and, worse, recording. But for how long? Who? How sloppy had she been, how much dirt was on those dreadful tapes?

She quickly ended up with the one question all lawyers ask at a moment like this: how screwed am I?

"That?" he answered, jerking down the volume. "Oh, just the sound of you being fired."

"What? You can't."

He smiled. "Yes, I definitely can. Listen, it's fun. I'll do it again-you're fired." He pushed stop, and they stared at each other. Then, once more, because he loved the sound of it, "You're fired."

The snifter of sherry tumbled out of her hand, landed on the marble floor, and crashed into a thousand tiny shards. An apt metaphor to what was happening to her life. She bounced out of her chair, stamped a foot, and said, "Don't be a fool. Without me, you won't last two minutes. I've been carrying you for three years."

"I won't deny it."

"While you and your pal Yeltsin have been keeping the vodka industry afloat, who do you think's been keeping the office running?"

"Won't deny that, either. You worked like a dog."

She tried a smile. "Look, darling, we can get past this."

"I already have. I hired your replacement this afternoon. A real clever young fellow with endless energy and an incredible knack for organization. He'll be happily seated behind your desk in the morning."

"You bastard."

"You bitch."

She grabbed her coat and began stomping for the door. She threw it open with a loud crash and immediately three men in blue uniforms lunged at her. They spun Tatyana around and slapped cuffs on her wrists. She tried screaming and thrashing, but it had no effect, and she soon stopped.

Her boss watched with fierce satisfaction, then mentioned to his former lover, "Ooops, did I fail to mention there's a second tape?"

A second tape? She was suddenly sure she was going to become sick.

"I turned it over to our new attorney general. It's you talking with your crooked friends about all your illegal schemes." He mocked her with a loud laugh. "Hey, you know what else? Maybe I failed to mention that your stooge Fyodorev was also fired and arrested this afternoon."

"You lousy bastard."

"A postcard from prison would be nice. Be sure to let me know where you land." So many of them were gathered in such a tight two-block circumference, it resembled a convention of killers. There were strutting pros with big-league experience, an all-star team of deadly assassins. A clutch of third-rate mobsters ambling for their first kill. And a sprinkling of ambitious young amateurs hoping to get lucky. It was every man to himself, or herself-a few women's suffrage types were lurking in the shadows as well.

They hung out in parked cars and vans, smoking and sipping coffee, eyeing Nicky's hideout, waiting for a break. Going inside was ill-fated stupidity. This had been tried rather unsuccessfully by one bold idiot before he was driven off by a furious hail of bullets. About twenty of Nicky's bodyguards were in there, armed to the teeth, guarding their turf. Poachers weren't welcome. A few snipers were perched on rooftops, fighting off the cold. The apartment building across the street from Nicky's holdout, a real dump, had suddenly experienced an unaccustomed flood of subleases. Responding to loud knocks on the doors, the inhabitants found themselves confronted by tough-looking men shoving thousands into their fists for what was promised would be a brief dislocation. The far side of the hall, the one that did not face Nicky's safehouse, couldn't draw any interest at any price.

The street had only one coffee shop, a cramped, neglected little place run by a chubby old babushka with a million wrinkles and a toothless smile. She was suddenly rolling in customers, nasty-looking sorts who demanded coffee day and night. She struck a deal with a sandwich and soup joint six blocks down. She imported their goods, tripled the price, and made a killing. To date, she was the only one making a killing, literally or figuratively. She quietly rooted for Nicky to last another few weeks.

Late on Tuesday evening, a new car joined the party, a big, shiny black Mercedes that slid to a curb and idled for hours. Instantly, a dozen hungry sharks took note of this latest entrant in the Nicky sweepstakes.

Throughout the night, the car never budged from the curb. At four in the morning, four men stepped out. They stretched and looked around. All were dressed in nice suits, wildly out of character for this game.

A moment later, a fifth man embarked from the car and stepped out onto the curb. Short and fat, he wore a double-breasted blazer with a hundred gold buttons that sparkled in the moonlit night. He stretched his cramped legs, looked around very briefly, then waddled off in the direction of the coffee shop. The four men followed at a discreet distance, an obvious deference to their boss that marked him like a whale swimming among minnows.

Golitsin ran in the wrong circles. He had no clue that photos of him with a million and a half bucks painted on his backside were circulating throughout the city's heavily populated underworld. Later, the city coroner would find it impossible to discern exactly which of nearly a hundred bullets fired in the willy-nilly hailstorm was the precise cause of death. The five through the heart were certainly candidates, though the ten in the brain had the odds in their favor.

Six of those ten, however, were fired from different guns, different ranges, and different angles. Unfortunately the shattered brain gave up no clues as to which bullet struck first, or indeed, which produced the most lethal damage. Frankly there was too little brain left to consider. So much of it was scattered on the concrete, bits and pieces too small to scrape up.

The logjam was settled after an intense three-day bombardment of whispered threats and intense pleadings, when one of the shooters secretly offered to split the reward fifty-fifty-of the many other offers that poured in, nothing was over a third.

Three-quarters of a million dollars!

The coroner's last troubling doubt instantly vanished in a cloud of certainty.

The third day in his self-imposed bunker was the one that got to Nicky. Three days and two nights of sitting in the same pitch-dark room, cradling his gun in his lap, counting down the hours and wondering when it would end. Three days of waiting for the inevitable. His own bodyguards made an occasional foray. Day and night, Nicky could hear them out there, exhorting one another, loading up on booze and dope, trying to stoke up the nerve.

Early on the second day there had been a chaotic rush at the door-a stupid, clumsy attempt with bodies bashing against the reinforced wood. Nicky emptied his pistol and smiled blissfully at all the satisfying howls and screams.

Later that same night, a second attempt. Smarter this time. Well, slightly more sneaky, anyway. One of the idiots crawled up to the door, planted a hand grenade against the wood, pulled the pin, then scuttled away for his life. Nicky became dismayed and depressed by the stupidity of his own handpicked bodyguards. It was a miracle he had survived this long. Anticipating them was child's play. Everything in the room-the furniture, the mattress-everything was piled up against the door. The pile of junk absorbed the blast and shrapnel nicely. When the boys showed up, Nicky emptied his pistol again. Another lovely chorus of screams and howls, and Nicky laughed long after they had retreated back to their refuge.

They were through being careless and stupid. No more suicidal rushes, no more dragging bullet-riddled corpses down the hall and trying to figure out how to dispose of them. Now they were trying to wait him out: if he snoozed, he was dead. They took shifts and listened for his snores. There was no food in his room. The bathroom was across the hall so water was a problem, too. But there was heroin and cocaine in abundance. Nicky pulled a fresh snort every hour. Every fourth hour, the needle slid back into a vein. He sat on the floor, pumped up on dope, erupting with delirious chuckles that echoed down the hall.

His best friend's corpse was three feet away, bloated like an overinflated balloon. The smell was intolerable, but Nicky's nostrils were so crusted and blocked up with white powder he had no idea.

Late on the third day the idea took root in his exhausted, drug-addled brain. He thought about it more, and liked it more. No, he loved it. In a lifetime of great ideas, it would be such a grand finishing touch. Long after he was gone, they would still be admiring his final masterstroke. His last finger at all of them.

He reached over to his friend's dead hand and pried the flash-light out of the rigor-mortised fist. He found a piece of paper and pencil and scribbled a brief, perfunctory note.

Holding the note in one hand, he put the pistol in his mouth and without a moment of hesitation blew out the back of his head.

His bodyguards waited an hour before they drew straws. They dispatched the losers first, frightened scouts who scuttled past the door and prayed Nicky didn't blast them to pieces. Everybody had heard that last shot an hour before. The debates and quarrels were noisy and fierce, but they just weren't sure.

Nicky was so clever, so diabolical. It wouldn't be beneath him to fake his own suicide just to lure a few more of them into his sights.

Finally, they tiptoed down the hall, broke the door down, and crashed inside. Somebody flipped on the lights. Between the rotting corpse and the fact that Nicky had used the floor as a toilet, the stench was like a dropkick in the nostrils. They pinched their noses and eased over to Nicky's body against the wall.

The note was gripped tightly in his dead hand: "I, Nicky Kozyrev, claim the five million dollars for my own death. You pricks figure out which of my many bastard kids are first in line. Send it to him. Or her. I don't care."