Ganglands: Russia: Russia (2 page)

‘If you’re the best that “pure Russia” has to offer,’ retorts Lena, ‘I’d rather be a mongrel.’

The boy nods slowly, an amused smile creeping over his face.
He turns as if to walk away, then wheels back and gives Lena a shuddering backhanded slap across the face.
Her head snaps back, her cheek on fire.
Before she can react, he punches her, sending her sprawling to the floor by the carriage door.

The carriage swims in front of her eyes.
Dimly, Lena realizes that her nose is bleeding, and that she is not going to see Alexei tonight after all.
The blond teenager laughs.

‘Don’t look so clever now, do you?’

The bull-headed man shoves him out of the way, his face contorted with rage.

‘Think you’re better than us, you mongrel bitch?’ he snarls.
‘I’ll show you who’s in charge!’

The last thing Lena sees is the giant skinhead standing over her, his fist drawn back, then his arm comes down and everything goes black.

2. Round One

As the bell rang for the first round, Alexei realized that he was in deep trouble.

His opponent came charging out of his corner, catching Alexei off guard with the ferocity of his attack.
The other boy was a few centimetres taller than Alexei, and he knew how to make his extra reach tell, moving in behind a series of powerful jabs.
Alexei had spent half of his sixteen years learning to kickbox – spending hour after hour sweating in the gym, working the bags, trading punches and kicks inside the ring.
He’d never been in better shape.
And still he knew, as he backed away towards the ropes, that it wasn’t going to count for anything tonight.

As the two fighters traded blows with one another, there were shouts of encouragement from the meagre audience.
Although rows of chairs had been laid out across the gym, a match between two local kickboxing clubs hadn’t proved much of a draw. Friends and family, mostly, and Alexei was a long way from the majority of his.
Only his uncle and Lena were with him in Moscow, and Stepan was visiting an old friend that evening.

Concentrate, Alexei!
he urged himself.
The sheer aggression of his opponent was forcing him on to the back
foot. Alexei’s plan had been to stay calm and wait for his opponent to over-commit, but that seemed impossible with the other boy swarming all over him, snarls of effort emanating from behind his mouthguard with every punch.

Struggling to defend against a vicious body shot, Alexei never saw the roundhouse kick coming, only felt the impact as it rattled his skull.
As he shook his head to try and clear the fog from his mind, Alexei saw his trainer, Ruslan, wince in his corner.
Sensing an opening, Alexei’s opponent redoubled his attack, his punches carrying even greater weight now.
Alexei tried to bob and weave out of the way, but it felt as though every movement set him on a collision course with his opponent’s fists.
Even though they had only been fighting for a minute or so, Alexei found himself desperately wanting the bell to ring and the round to end.

He tried to throw a couple of punches back, but they were wild swings. His defence was unravelling, he knew.
Another kick caught him in the side, and it became difficult to breathe.
As a thumping right connected with Alexei’s jaw, he felt his world begin to spin, and then suddenly the referee was standing between them, waving his arms.
The bell rang, and Alexei’s opponent strode back to his corner with his arms aloft.
Dazed, Alexei allowed the referee to check him for signs of concussion, before walking slowly back to his corner.
Ruslan gave him a consolation pat on the back, and removed Alexei’s mouthguard.

‘Tough fight.’

‘No shit,’ replied Alexei.
‘You weren’t the one getting hit.’

His trainer barked with laughter.
‘OK, so you took a beating tonight.
You’ll be back.
Might even land a punch next time.’

Alexei touched a tender part of his face, wincing.
‘What happened, Ruslan?’ he asked despairingly.
‘I’ve been training harder than ever. Why did I just get my head kicked in?’

Ruslan scratched the stubble on his cheek.
‘What do you want me to tell you?
You’re a nice boy, I wish I had more like you.
You train hard, you have a good technique, but you lack …’ The trainer tailed off, searching for the right word.
He banged his chest over his heart.
‘Fire.
That boy you fought tonight, he wanted to kill you.
You?’ Ruslan shrugged.
‘You just want a good fight.
No fire.’

‘That’s all you’ve got for me?’ Alexei said, with a sideways glance.
‘I haven’t got enough
fire
?’

Ruslan nodded.
‘And use your uppercut more.
When you throw that punch, Alexei, it’s a thing of rare beauty.
And I’ve seen a few in my time.’

As he stepped down from the ring apron, Alexei shielded his eyes from the glare of the lights and looked out over the sparse crowd.
The girl he was looking for wasn’t in her usual position in the back row.
Lena didn’t enjoy watching him fight, Alexei knew, even when he won, but she turned up anyway because she knew that it mattered to him.
It was one of the reasons he loved her.

Ruslan followed his gaze.

‘Looking for someone?’

‘My girlfriend,’ replied Alexei.
‘She was supposed to be watching me tonight.’

‘Maybe it was better for you she didn’t turn up,’ the trainer guffawed, slapping Alexei on the back.
‘She sees that fight, maybe she goes home with the other guy.’

‘Thanks, Ruslan,’ Alexei said sourly.

He walked moodily back to the changing rooms and showered, the cascade of warm water soothing his aching limbs.
Afterwards, checking his reflection in the mirror, Alexei saw that his face was puffy and red – he’d be sporting some impressive bruises by morning.

He was towelling his hair dry when he heard his mobile ringing: probably Lena complaining that her feet were sore from wearing high heels, Alexei grumbled to himself, or some other great modelling trauma.
But when he dug his phone out of his kitbag, he saw that the number was withheld.

‘Hello?’ he said, frowning.

‘Alexei?’ Not Lena.
A man’s voice – a Westerner. ‘Alexei Zhukov?’

‘Yes.
Who is this?’

‘Do you speak English, Alexei?’

‘A little,’ Alexei said cautiously.
‘Who is this?’

‘My name doesn’t matter right now,’ the man replied. ‘You need to go to the hospital in Presnya immediately.
Someone you care about has been badly hurt.’

With a lurch to his stomach, Alexei thought back to the empty chair at ringside.
‘Not Lena?’

‘Just go to the hospital, son.
We’ll speak again afterwards.’

‘Wait!’ Alexei cried.
‘How do you know all this?
Who are you?’

There was a pause on the other end of the phone.
‘Consider me a friend,’ the man said finally, and then ended the call.

Alexei hurriedly stuffed the rest of his things into his kitbag and raced out of the locker room.
On the way out, he knocked into his trainer – Ruslan shouted something after him, but Alexei didn’t stop to apologize.
He crashed out through the doors and on to the street.

The hospital in Presnya wasn’t far from the kickboxing gym, but Alexei wasn’t going to waste a second.
He hailed a passing cab and leaped in the back.
As the car negotiated the late-evening traffic, Alexei prayed that the phone call had been some kind of sick practical joke.
He’d turn up at the hospital and make a fool of himself by frantically asking for someone who wasn’t there, but it would be all right, because as long as Lena was OK Alexei didn’t care what happened.
God, please let it be a joke
, he thought to himself.

The hospital was an imposing modern building set back from the road.
As the taxi pulled up outside the entrance, Alexei stuffed a ten-rouble note into the driver’s hand and scrambled out.
Running at full pelt through the automatic doors, Alexei nearly crashed into the reception desk.
A nurse looked up from her computer with surprise.

‘Yes?’

‘I’m looking for my girlfriend,’ Alexei panted. ‘Lena Saroyan.
Is she here?’

‘One moment.’ The nurse tapped the computer keys as she checked her records.
‘She’s in surgery right now.’

‘Surgery?’

‘I’ll get a doctor to come and explain everything to you,’ the nurse replied.
‘In the meantime, if you could please wait over there.’

She pointed to the waiting room, where a handful of relatives were sitting expectantly for news of their loved ones, their faces drawn and pale in the weak strip-lighting.
They kept glancing warily back to the other side of the waiting room, where an imposing black man was sitting on his own, his arms folded.
Alexei paced across the floor, trying to ignore the horrible thoughts about Lena his mind was conjuring up. As he muttered to himself, he became aware that the black man was watching him with a coolly impassive gaze.
Annoyed by the scrutiny, Alexei was about to confront him when a doctor appeared and drew him to one side.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Alexei.
‘What’s happened to Lena?’

‘Your girlfriend was attacked on a metro train this evening.’

‘Attacked?’ echoed Alexei.
‘What … what do you mean, attacked?’

‘A gang of youths beat her up – very badly, I’m afraid to say.
Lena sustained some internal injuries that demanded we operated on her immediately.’

‘How is she now?’

‘We’ve staunched the internal bleeding, but she also
suffered severe head trauma.’ The doctor paused. ‘Lena’s in a coma right now.’

‘But she’ll wake up, right?’ Alexei said desperately.

‘There’s no way we can predict anything at the moment,’ the doctor said sympathetically.
‘For the time being, she’s stable.
Would you like to see her?’

Alexei nodded.
Numbly, he felt the doctor take his arm and lead him through the hospital to a small room on the third floor.
Nothing could have prepared Alexei for the scene within: his girlfriend stretched out on a bed, her eyes closed, her body hooked up to a mass of machines via a complicated system of tubes.
A heart monitor bleeped monotonously in the silence.
Seeing Lena lying there, Alexei was overwhelmed by emotion: grief at the bruises covering the girl’s face, and an icy rage for the people who had inflicted them upon her.
Trying to fight back the tears, he sat next to Lena’s side and gently held her hand.

Alexei had no idea how long they sat together in that tiny room. Eventually the doctor returned, and told him in a low voice that he had to leave Lena until the morning.
Reluctantly, Alexei let go of his girlfriend’s hand and left the room.

In the corridor outside, he was surprised to see the black man from the waiting room standing by a water cooler, his hands folded behind his back.
The man nodded at him.

‘How is she?’ he asked.

‘What the hell is it to you?’ snapped Alexei.

The man seemed unfazed by his reply.
‘Dark times require friends,’ he said, in a deep American baritone.

Something clicked in Alexei’s head.

‘It was you!’ he exclaimed.
‘You’re the guy who phoned me!’

The American extended a hand.
‘Allow me to introduce myself: I’m Darius Jordan, head of Trojan Industries.
We have a lot to talk about, Alexei.’

3. Recruitment Drive

Alexei stared at the man’s outstretched hand.

‘What do you mean, we have a lot to talk about?’

Jordan glanced around the hospital corridor.
‘This isn’t the best place to discuss business.
Why don’t you take a walk with me?’

‘Why don’t you get the hell out of my face?’ snapped Alexei, reddening with anger.
‘What’s it got to do with you, anyway?’

There was a polite cough behind him.
Alexei turned round to see a bespectacled man in green surgical scrubs politely interject himself between Alexei and the American.
‘Mr Jordan?’

‘Mr Karpin.’ Jordan shook the man briskly by the hand. ‘I hear that the surgery went well.’

‘As well as can be expected, given the circumstances.
The patient is lucky that you are paying for her treatment.
The facilities here are among the best in Russia.’

‘The surgeons too, I hear.’

The bespectacled man smiled.
‘Very kind of you to say so.
I have another case to attend to now – but be assured we’ll be doing everything we can for Lena.’

The man walked away, leaving Alexei in a state of
complete confusion.
Why had a complete stranger paid for Lena’s treatment?

‘I’m not rich, you know,’ he confessed to Jordan. ‘I don’t know if I can pay you back.’

‘Not monetarily.
This place doesn’t come cheap, let me assure you.
But maybe there’s other ways we can work together.
If you’ll come and discuss it with me …’

‘Talk here or not at all,’ Alexei insisted.
‘I’m not leaving Lena alone.’

‘I understand completely,’ the American replied, unruffled. ‘Perhaps you’d be better off not knowing after all.
I’m sorry to have troubled you.’

He turned to walk away.

‘Wait!’

Jordan stopped and looked back, his eyebrow raised quizzically.

‘I’d be “better off not knowing” what?’ asked Alexei.

‘Trojan has certain information about what happened to Lena that I thought you might want to hear.
Information you might not get from the authorities.’

Alexei’s eyes narrowed.
‘Then how do you know about it?’

‘It’s my job to know these sorts of things.
Listen, Alexei, I know it’s difficult to take everything in right now.
I wish this dreadful thing hadn’t happened to Lena, and that you and I hadn’t had to meet in these circumstances.
All I’m offering you is a chance to understand what’s going on.
The rest is entirely up to you.’

‘And if I don’t come with you, what happens to Lena?’

Jordan spread out his palms.
‘I’m a businessman,
Alexei,’ he said.
‘As long as Trojan Industries has a reason to be in Moscow, I can take care of Lena.
But if we can’t do business, then that’s a different matter.’

Jordan turned on his heel and strode away, not waiting to see if Alexei followed him.
Alexei glanced back at Lena through the shuttered window of her room, then jogged down the corridor after the tall American.
Jordan didn’t acknowledge him when Alexei caught up – something about the man’s manner suggested he was used to people obeying him.
They walked in silence back down to the main entrance.