Cold As Ice: Novel (A Kristen Conner Mystery Book 3) (27 page)

PART THREE

Things are not always what they seem;
the first appearance deceives many;
the intelligence of a few perceives
what has been carefully hidden.

P
HAEDRUS

52

VLADIMIR ZHEGLOV THOUGHT about his situation as he drove with Sergei Teplov in silence. In decent weather the drive was maybe four hours. With icy snow on the roads they had been driving that long and were only a little more than halfway there.

Chicago made sense. Send someone who knows the Bear by sight to make sure the right guy got shot. Geneva didn’t make sense. Why send an American citizen on the run from the law to an unfamiliar city when Moscow could direct local talent to sweep away problems there? Local talent would be faster, cleaner, and more effective.

It was obvious. Medved was disposable to Pasha. He, Vladimir, was disposable to Teplov and whomever Teplov answered to. He was good at what he did. But so were a lot of others. It didn’t help that his boss had screwed up a major operation.

He grew up with Boyarov in Moscow. He’d never had reason to doubt him before. But he was certain that Pasha knew the score on where he stood and what his options were. Pasha had doubled down on a losing hand and done the one sure thing to save his skin. He’d set up his own capture—and of his lifelong friend. Vlad replayed the arrest. No doubt. Pasha was planning to break the oath of
molchaniye
. There was no greater sin in the Russian
bratva
. Boyarov knew he would be a hunted man the rest of his life and his death would be horrific and fabulous as a warning to anyone else who thought of betraying the family. What had the Americans promised him? Immediate protection, money, and a new identity. But Pasha knew as well as him that you could never trust the Americans to keep their word. There were officials on the take—or ripe for blackmail—at every level and in every department of government.

Pasha was smart. He wasn’t turning himself in just to look over his
shoulder the rest of his life. He probably had a tidy sum of money and another identity squirrelled away somewhere. The first chance he got, he would escape the clutches of the Americans, no matter what their assurances and guarantees, and set up a new life on his own terms. It might take a year before they were done questioning him, but Vladimir knew that Pasha had a backup plan that would let him roam as a free citizen again.

Vladimir wanted to hate his friend for his betrayal, but was he so wrong? It would probably work. A little cosmetic surgery and he could settle anywhere in the world with a decent backstory. That kind of thinking was why Pasha had come so close to seizing the title of Pakhan from Genken.

My wagon was hitched to Pasha. Teplov and his handlers don’t know me. I’ll do the business in Chicago. Nazar must die. But it might be time for me to disappear then. The problem is I’ve been too loyal. I haven’t made disappearing plans.

He sighed.

“What?” Teplov asked him.

“Nothing. Just tired.”

“Take a nap. You’re going to be busy tomorrow. You need to be in top form.”

“Don’t worry about me. Just tell Sadowsky to do his part.”

“He will, don’t worry,” Teplov said as his phone buzzed.

“Yes?”

Vladimir noted that he kept the phone tight to his ear. He wasn’t going to let Vlad overhear any more conversations. He watched Teplov out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t trust him. But what choice did he have at the moment?

There were always choices . . .

53

BETWEEN THE TAG team of ice and salt, Chicago roads take a beating during the winter. Most of the potholes are filled in by the time the next winter rolls around.

I’m on a gurney in the back of a rectangular ambulance that looks like a meat wagon, bouncing my way to the ER at Advocate Christ Medical Center.

They have wrapped my waist so tight in compression bandages that I feel sorry not only for those Victorian or Edwardian or Elizabethan or whatever-era-it-was ladies that had lace corsets tied tighter than a boa constrictor on a fat pig—but for the actresses that play them as well. If this is what a Spanx waist cincher feels like, no thank you, no matter what the years do to my waistline.

No one will tell me how bad I’m hurt. My current state of mind tells me this is going to end up being much ado about nothing.

Apparently my EMT, his name card says Thad, has enough certificates to allow him to administer a sedative. He has let me know this several times. I think he is disappointed I won’t let him inject me with a syringe full of Ativan that he has prepped—“just in case.”

I need to be alert. Scratch that. I need to at least be awake. Too much is going on with the Keltto case—I didn’t get a chance to let Blackshear know that Levin’s car and Levin’s face can be seen on security cameras at a time that makes it possible but not likely he was in my mom’s neighborhood at the time of the murder.

Why am I even worrying about the Keltto case? I just got shot by a Russian hit man. I guess Reynolds was wrong when he said we should be concerned but not overly. I’m guessing he’s going to feel quite guilty about misdiagnosing the situation. I shouldn’t feel so happy about that. I wonder if Deputy Director Robert Willingham will personally
apologize to me that the FBI was wrong about there being a contract to kill me. He’s good at that stuff. I’ll probably accept the apology and thank him for it.

It feels like we go airborne before landing on pitted, ice-crusted asphalt with a bam. I can feel the jarring from hitting another pothole deep in my core.

I look over at Thad. He is watching me with a hopeful gleam in his eyes. He wants to stick that needle in me. People like to say some people become cops because they get to carry a gun. I’m sure we have a few nut jobs in CPD. But I think I’ve just discovered why some guys become ETs.

54

ZHEGLOV KNEW TEPLOV had something to say. He decided to wait him out instead of asking. He sat up straight in the passenger seat of the Cadillac CTS they were driving down to Dulles. He wouldn’t speak first but at least he’d let Sergei know he was awake.

“We’ve got a problem my friend,” Teplov finally said fifteen minutes later.

“Chicago?”

He just nodded. The two men nursed their thoughts another slow twenty miles. It was snowing hard and the wind was whipping it around in a white mist to limit visibility to maybe fifty feet. Teplov had slowed down. He probably realized it would not be a good thing to end up in a ditch with me.

“Just when I think we have New York under control, the man who set the city on fire decides to light another torch. Chicago is now officially in flames.”

“Med?” Vladimir asked.

Teplov just nodded again.

“It’s funny how things happen,” Teplov said reflectively. “You do everything in your power to shield yourself from outside enemies. Even with RICO, the NSA eavesdropping on American citizens, and all the technology in the world to stamp us out, the US government can’t do much to curtail our activities. We’ve made sure of that with our generous gifts. We’ve never been stronger. So what happens? We destroy our work from the inside. We go to war with ourselves.”

“No problems, only solutions, right comrade?” Zheglov asked with a half-smile.

“You are right,” Teplov said with force, not picking up the irony in Zheglov’s question.

“Okay, Vladimir. Your job has gotten harder. Sadowsky sent three men to the detective’s apartment to set a trap. But the Bear got there first. He shot the detective and killed one of Sadowsky’s best men.”

“Is she dead?” Vladimir asked.

“She’s alive for now. No one knows how bad she’s hurt. But Med got away.”

“And the Bear killed one of Sadowsky’s best men,” Vlad added with a chuckle.

“It’s not so funny, my friend,” Teplov said. “Another soldier was arrested. Apparently the Bear beat up the doorman where the detective lives and someone found him and called the police. The police showed up as Sadowsky’s man was getting out of the building. He walked right into their hands. The third
torpedo
escaped.”

“But the Bear is on the loose again,” Zheglov said, laughing harder now.

“You find this funny?”

“Not at all. But I am amazed at the Bear. We all underestimated him.”

They plodded along in silence. This time Vladimir spoke first.

“So why am I going to Chicago? You said it is on fire.”

“The Bear.”

“Sadowsky’s men can handle it.”

“I still want you there. I’m losing confidence in Sadowsky by the minute. I want to make sure the Bear is dead. I’ll feel better with you there.”

“The police are going to be all over this and all over Sadowsky. I still need a weapon and some wheels and some Intel. How does that all happen now?”

“I told you before, I can’t call Sadowsky back to change plans now. You won’t be going anywhere near him. He’s got a guy for you to meet. You need to work with what we’ve got and be extra careful.
Speaking of careful, we’ll throw our phones away before we get to Dulles. I’ve got a couple prepaids we can use to stay in touch. No more names.”

Zheglov nodded in agreement. He looked at the bleak winter nightscape and smile. No way was he going to trust Sadowsky . . . nor Teplov. If Teplov was losing confidence in his men right and left, then undoubtedly, whoever he worked for had lost confidence in him as well.

Who was Teplov anyway? Who did he work for? If he was a real player, Vladimir figured he had cost his masters millions of dollars on the PathoGen fiasco with Frank Nelson. There were twenty-one billionaire oligarchs that controlled a third of the Russia’s wealth. The money was a drop in the ocean, but rich people got rich and stayed rich because every ruble and dollar mattered to them, including the interest.

The richest oligarch was Putin. That made him both president and Pakhan of Russia. Surely he wouldn’t be involved in a bioterrorism plot. He might approve of someone else’s initiative or he might not. Probably not. He needed American money.

The real point was you never knew who you were really working for or how stable their hold on power. Teplov was nervous. He was in trouble. This was Pasha all over again.

Zheglov decided he’d land in Chicago, meet with whoever Sadowsky had set up for him. If nothing else, it got him away from the heat in New York. Maybe he’d stay in Chicago until the fires burned down—or he ran out of money.

He had squirrelled away enough money away in a safety deposit box to live on for maybe a year. He had been a loyal soldier in the
bratva
and hadn’t thought enough about himself and his future. Those days were over. Time to think like Pasha.

What about Medved?

Leave him alone? Find him and kill him?

That would be one way to raise money if he could bypass Teplov and talk to the right guy. Had to be Luytov.

Killing the Bear could be worth another year of cash.