Citadel Of Fear

McCarter once again reconsidered that Propenko had marched twenty kilometers with a hole in his leg. “That he does.”

The Russian gave McCarter an interested look. “What is plan?”

McCarter was pretty sure Propenko had a plan but the Russian was interested in seeing what his new boss was made of. “Oh, let’s just walk right in.”

“That was my plan, also.”

McCarter walked up the short flight of sagging steps. Manning and Propenko fanned out to either side to form a three-man wedge. The establishment was mafiya-owned and protected and it was the middle of the day. The door wasn’t locked and no bouncer guarded the entrance. McCarter and his team walked through the tiny foyer and entered Luffy-Land. Manning had seen the insides of bad bordellos from Bangkok to Tijuana. He looked around and was appalled.

“Oh, for God’s sake…” Manning muttered.

Propenko nodded. “Yes.”

It wasn’t just that it was a bad bordello. Luffy-Land was an affront to all five senses. If Manning had possessed a sixth sense he was pretty sure the place’s aura would be urine yellow and thrown-up lime green, and he was pretty sure he could feel it pulsing against his skin, and sticking. The smell reminded Manning of a rugby locker room if the players mostly didn’t shower but wore perfume and smoked unfiltered cigarettes.

An interior wall had been knocked down to form the main “hospitality area.” The decor consisted mostly of old torn movie posters taped over old torn and peeling paisley-pink wallpaper and old tattered couches. There were a few stolen Russian military folding tables and chairs for drinking and playing cards. Bad Russian rap with too much bass thudded from somewhere deeper in the building, and some sort of Slavic soap opera played on a big-screen TV on the wall.

Hardly anyone was around. A few of the ladies of the house sat drinking straight vodka and watching television just in case some soldier or sailor managed to sneak off base for some afternoon delight. If one’s idea of love in the afternoon were middle-aged, Baltic women’s rugby players in pancake makeup spilling out of 1980’s vintage Jane Fonda workout wear, right down to the headbands and leg warmers, Luffy-Land might just be heaven. The working girls instantly picked up on the fact that the three very dangerous-looking men were not clients. They gave McCarter and his team a few heartbeats of bored and exhausted interest before returning to the TV and liquor.

“Gazinskiy brothers, pimpin’ large,” Manning mused.

Propenko made a noise. “Yes.”

McCarter walked right up to the zinc bar. A huge, bald, sagging bull of a man in a white tracksuit sat watching a European League basketball game on a small TV. He had sleepy eyes but eyed McCarter with keen interest. His right hand disappeared under the bar. “Dah?” he grunted.

McCarter grunted back. “Ilya. Artyom.”

Propenko took a cigarette from a pack of CCCPs lying on the bar without it being offered and lit up. The bartender looked as if he might say something and then thought better of it. Manning just leaned against the bar and glared. McCarter gave the bartender a dead “don’t make me repeat myself” look. The bartender nodded again. “Dah.” He jerked his head at one of the girls. “Roona!”

Roona sighed and scratched what looked like bed bug bites. She rose with a sigh to do the bartender’s bidding. The bartender’s right hand reappeared empty. He rose and took three cans of Baltika beer out of the cold case. He looked at the trio before him, frowned and reached up for some rather cleaner glasses and poured. The music in the back of the building suddenly got louder as a door opened. Ilya and Artyom Gazinskiy emerged, accompanied by three men even larger and goonier-looking than themselves. McCarter was bemused that both men wore $$$Luffy-Land$$$ logo T-shirts and he thought about acquiring one for Hawkins. Ilya’s eyes bugged at the sight of Propenko. Ilya’s fatter brother, Artyom, fired off a stream of surprised swearwords.

Propenko snarled. “Speak in English.”

The Gazinskiy brother blinked.

“We want no one besides us to understand this conversation.”

Ilya shrugged and spoke with a thick accent. “Hey, Nika, whatever you say, man. What happened to you? I thought you are maybe being in Guantanamo, or dead. And who are these guys? Friends of yours?”

McCarter and Manning drank beer and continued to stare at the Gazinskiy crew as though they were bugs.

“Mission went very bad, Ilya. I got shot and I have lost great deal of money.”

“Hey, man. Hey!” The fat Gazinskiy held up his hands placatingly. “We all lost money! Me and Ilya? We lost friends!”

“I lie for you. Tell them you are idiot hammerheads not speaking English. You get picked up and slapped around a bit by Polish police. Then you make bail and twenty-four hours you are back in Luffy-Land dripping in beer and whores. Me? I had to kill some people and walk back. My leg hurts and I hate Poland.”

“Hey, Nika. Me and Arty fought hard. We did not give up until they turned our own damn cannons on us.”

“This I know. How you made bail when you are found at battle scene hand-cuffed to antiaircraft cannon in Poland? This I do not know.”

McCarter glanced around Luffy-Land dryly and managed a TV-worthy Russian accent. “Girls did not pass hat.”

Manning laughed unpleasantly.

The Gazinskiy brothers pulled back slightly. The Gazinskiy goon squad bristled and glanced back and forth at each other. They did not understand what was being said but they did not like seeing their bosses intimidated. Artyom was becoming both scared and angry. “Hey! Who are these guys?”

McCarter continued. “You did not make call. You were surprised. Who is bailing you out?”

Artyom stabbed out an accusing finger. “Listen! You—”

“I am listening, but I am not hearing answer.”

Ilya grew some backbone. “You don’t come into our place! Make us speak English!”

McCarter smiled without an ounce of warmth. “I already have.”

The brothers Gazinskiy blinked in unison.

Propenko’s already gravelly voice dropped a dangerous octave. “Who bails you out?”

Artyom made an unhappy noise. “We were told not to talk about it.”

“Yes.” McCarter nodded at the wisdom of this. “Who told you not to talk about it?”

Artyom threw a desperate look at Propenko. “Listen, I do not think you want to be screwing with these people.”

Propenko glanced at McCarter and Manning and spoke the truth. “I know for fact you do not want to mess with these men.”

Manning noted that Ilya was staring at McCarter, and the Russian’s brows slowly knitted as if he was mentally doing long division counting on his fingers. It had been a decent ploy, but things were about to go FUBAR. Manning smiled and punched Ilya in the throat.

Gazinskiy the Elder did a short, remarkable imitation of a seagull squawk-and-flap and fell to the grimy floor. Propenko instantly followed suit. He shot the heel of his hand forward and made a credible attempt to shove Gazinskiy the Younger’s nose into his brain. The Gazinskiy bullyboy brigade seemed to have spent more time stomping drunken sailors and looking tough than in getting in real fights; seeing their bosses fall in the space of two seconds left them hesitating for one more. It cost the one closest to Manning a kneecap. It cost the one closest to Propenko a left eye.

The last remaining goon screamed something defiant in Russian. He pulled up his tracksuit jacket with his left hand and went for his gun with his right. McCarter slapped a hand over each of the Russian’s wrists and gave him the Danish Kiss.

McCarter was happy to acknowledge the English had not invented the head butt, but he was rather insistent that they had perfected it. English soccer hooligans would have squealed in delight as a cranium of the United Kingdom met a skull of the Russian Federation and the hammerhead dropped like a cow that had just reached the end of the slaughter chute.

McCarter ignored the dancing lights as he caught motion behind him. The bartender swung. McCarter had known a lot of bartenders who kept baseball or cricket bats behind the bar. He had about one heartbeat to note that this was the first bat he had seen that had been scored with shallow, cross-hatching saw cuts and filled with several dozen safety razor blades. He stepped into the blow, caught the bartender’s wrist and heaved his sagging bulk over the bar. He kept the weapon as the barman landed badly in a clatter of bar stools.

McCarter regarded the hideous bludgeon he had acquired. “Nice hate stick, old son. You just earned yourself an appointment with your old Doc Marten, and the doctor is in.” McCarter gave the bartender his boots until the big man was reduced to twitching, bleeding and wheezing.

The floor of Luffy-Land was a sea of broken, moaning, screaming Russians. None of the girls had moved an inch or batted an eye, much less screamed. They seemed to have found the spectacle slightly more interesting than their soap opera. They watched avidly to see what might happen next.

McCarter turned to his team and held up the razor-enhanced baseball bat. “Did you see this?”

Propenko grunted. “I have seen this. In Vladimir Central Prison. It was used for rectal purposes.”

Manning gazed heavenward. “Could have gone my whole life…”

Propenko held out his hand.

McCarter handed him the hate stick. The Russian went and took a knee on Artyom’s chest. “I told you. You do not want to screw with these men. Now, answer their questions.”

Artyom bubbled and gasped around his shattered septum and the blood filling his mouth. “Listen, Nika, we can—”

“Do not talk to me.” Propenko glanced back at McCarter. “Talk to him.”

Artyom babbled. “Christos…”

“Do not talk to Jesus. These men are your god. God helps those who help themselves.” The Prison Spetsnaz officer spit on the razor club meaningfully. “Help yourself, Artyom. Help your brother. While you still can.”

Artyom Gazinskiy whimpered and began helping himself and his brother.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Annex

Akira Tokaido sang to himself. “Money, money, money, muh-nee… Money!”

Kurtzman and Wethers exchanged weary looks of mutual sympathy.

“Boy couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket…” Kurtzman muttered.

Wethers glanced over at the young Japanese-American hacker. One of these days someone was just going to have to tell him that ponytails for computer geeks had gone out of fashion. “And he has exactly as much rhythm as one would expect…”

However, Kurtzman admitted to himself, Tokaido’s instincts were correct. When you lacked a face, a fingerprint or a smoking gun—though Phoenix had rather boldly latched onto a pair of smoking automatic cannons—you followed the money trail.

The brothers Gazinskiy had told a fascinating tale and almost none of it made any sense. It would have been clear to a child that the Gazinskiy boys were tools and nothing more. No one would miss them.

Nikita Propenko was a power tool—a tool of a higher order—but even if he died badly and in public, little more would happen than a few dangerous men in Moscow drinking a shot of vodka in his name, shaking their heads and muttering “He never should have gone into Poland.”

Propenko had been offered a big fee, big enough to tempt him from his lucrative private work in Russia and its former republics. They had hired a small army of hammerheads but they had also hired a very dangerous and disciplined man to run them. The cannons had been his idea and he had enough pull to buy artillery on the black market. Anyone other than Phoenix Force would have been wiped out, captured or extracted, taking heavy casualties every step of the way. Propenko had demanded cold, hard Euros.

The Gazinskiy brothers, besides being low-rent muscle and peddlers of extremely low-rent flesh, were also low-rent cyber criminals. They had a fairly lucrative sideline running online scams in former stan-suffixed Russian republics where entire rural areas were just starting to explore the internet and connectivity.

The Gazinskiys had accepted bitcoins as payment.

The Central Bank of the Russian Federation had issued a statement stating that it considered the exchange of bitcoins for goods, services or currencies a “dubious activity.” This was a veiled threat, but both an admonition and an admission that the Russian Federation currently had almost no ability to regulate it or control bitcoin transactions.

Bitcoins were the first, real, online alternate currency and, despite many national governments trying to crack down on their use, they were still the choice of cyber geeks who wanted their transactions off the grid, as well as cyber criminals that wanted the same.

The Gazinskiy brothers had used their massive infusion of bitcoins to buy and sell drugs in Kaliningrad without the Russian mafiya “made men” above them knowing about it. Bitcoins were the currency of the cyber savvy; the technology behind them and the people running it continuing to evolve faster than governments and traditional financial institutions could adapt. The jury was out as to whether they were an abomination, the way of the future or little more than a temporary blip on the world economic radar. What they offered was anonymity and transactions at the rate of high-speed cable that left regulators scrambling.

Akira Tokaido was the kind of man who left entire intelligence agencies, state security services and militaries scrambling in his wake. This was just his game. His current problem was that he was not cracking government agencies, terrorist cells or databases; he was fighting people exactly like himself.

He was relishing the challenge.

“Money, money, money, muh-nee…” Tokaido howled tonelessly. “Money!”

“Akira?” Kurtzman asked.

“No, these guys are good, really good.” Tokaido stared at the lines of code scrolling down his massive main screen. His cursor moved across the streams like the planchette of an Ouija board. “This is going to take a while.”

“No, Akira, I mean—”

“Could you shut up?” Wethers finished.

Tokaido gave Wethers a vaguely hurt look and shoved in his ear buds. He went back to examining data and began nodding his head. Without thinking his lips started moving. “Money, money…”

Kurtzman stared at Wethers helplessly. “Phoenix still at Luffy-Land?”

Wethers cracked his first smile of the day, and it had been a long day. “Word is they’re getting us T-shirts.”

“Didn’t know it was a franchise.”

Wethers considered the file they had compiled on their subjects. “Mrs. Gazinskiy raised herself some ambitious boys, if not bright ones.”

“Phoenix has put the Gazinskiys to work. They’ve put out the word that Propenko is alive, very pissed off and wants either payback or to get paid.” Kurtzman grinned. “Now we wait to see who comes knocking and whether they’re carrying checkbooks or more automatic cannons.”

“They’ve worked with less,” Wethers pointed out.

Kurtzman was very well aware of that, but Kaliningrad was a bad neck of the woods to get caught in.

The exclave was very nearly a militarized city-state and while Phoenix could run roughshod over the local criminals, if police and military got involved they would be met with an overwhelming force that would take a very dim view of them if they were captured. Calvin James would stick out like a sore thumb. They had snuck him in under cover of night, but if he stepped out in daylight it would be like a unicorn sighting. The Kaliningrad oblast was one very white wood.

Wethers knew exactly what the Stony Man cybernetics chief was thinking. He was thinking it, too. He was also trying to think positively.

“Plus, the bad guys absolutely got shut down in Sweden. Propenko is claiming to have killed some people and escaped. He is the only solid lead they have to work with at the moment. Whoever hired him will be very interested in debriefing him.”

“Which may include torturing the living hell out of him and his new friends.”

“There is that, but Propenko has a very heavy reputation. I think there is a decent chance they might even rehire him, and his new friends.”

* * *

Kaliningrad, Luffy-Land

CALVIN JAMES REPORTED from the roof. “We’ve got company. A limousine and she’s riding low. I’m saying she’s armored. Two SUVs riding escort on the limo’s twelve and six.”

“Copy that,” McCarter replied. “It’s showtime.”

While Phoenix had waited, they had checked on the apartment Propenko had been renting. Nothing was missing, but the Russian reported that someone with a fair degree of skill had searched the place. Propenko had filled a bag with clothes and guns and gear.

Kaliningrad wasn’t exactly the fashion capital of Paris or Milan, but he’d bought the most expensive off-the-rack suits available for Phoenix Force. McCarter, Manning and Propenko looked decently dapper and decidedly dangerous. McCarter had decided to stay with the three-man team he had presented to the Grazinskiys and to keep James and Encizo as unseen aces in the hole.

The limo pulled to a halt outside. Two men each jumped out of the backs of the SUVs and one man raced to open the limo’s door. A man about six feet tall and nearly five feet wide emerged.

Propenko grunted as he peered through one of the boarded-up windows.

“Someone of note?” McCarter asked as he peered through his opening.

“Gospodin Gaz,” the Russian affirmed. “Minor mafiya royalty.”

McCarter had operated with and against Russians many times and this was far from his first time operating on Russian Federation soil. He knew a fairly extensive range of Russian words and phrases. Gospodin Gaz roughly translated into “Mr. Gas.”

McCarter considered the brutal, Mack-truck-built man emerging from the limo. “Glorified bagman,” he mused.

“Correct. Gaza has moved far up food chain from simple collections.”

McCarter was fairly certain he didn’t want to know but asked, anyway. “Why do they call him Mr. Gas?”

“Back in day, when collection proved difficult? They send Gaz. He comes with a can of gasoline. Perhaps for place of business. Perhaps for house. Perhaps for you.”

“Nice,” Manning commented.

“He did five-year stint in Siberian maximum hard-labor colony. He ran it for four and a half.”

McCarter eyed Propenko. “You two have run into each other before?”

“We are acquainted.” The Russian blew cigarette smoke and shrugged. “Gaz also known for loyalty and dealing square. Sometimes he is called in as third party during difficult negotiations.”

McCarter watched the Russian mobster, flanked by his five men, lumber up the steps. None of the guards wore tracksuits or gold chains. They dressed well and smelled more ex-military than musclemen or hammerheads. Save one, who was smaller, wiry like a terrier and seemed as agitated as one.

“So this could be a positive development.”

Propenko lit himself a CCCP. “Perhaps.”

The doorbell rang.

McCarter glanced at the brothers Gazinskiy. They sat forlornly on a couch. The ladies of the establishment had been sent home and the hammerheads had been carted off to a non-licensed infirmary that dealt with these kinds of situations. Ilya wore a neck collar and the shattered remnants of Artyom’s septum were held together by medical tape. McCarter nodded at Artyom.

The nasally impaired gangster got up and went to the door. McCarter and Propenko went to the bar. Manning stayed off to one side and smiled at Artyom.

“Not one word,” Manning warned.

Artyom flinched and answered the door. Gaz’s men flowed into Luffy-Land, forming a skirmish line. Gaz ignored the Gazinskiys and walked up to the bar. Propenko slid the pack of cigarettes down the zinc bar. “Let us speak English.”

Up close, Gaz was a very ugly man. Someone had flattened his nose the way Manning had flattened Artyom’s, but he had never had it fixed. His thick-fingered hands were red and scarred. The mobster’s ugly face was blotched from years of heavy drinking. His thick, gray hair was Soviet-era cosmonaut. He smiled to reveal yellowed, crooked teeth and shrugged as if the matter was of no importance. “Sure, Nika. If it pleases you.” He lit a cigarette. “You look good.”

“You look as I remember you.”

“I will take this as compliment. Piles are killing me.”

“Too much easy living?” McCarter asked.

The Russian eyed McCarter.

McCarter noted that the Russian seemed utterly unperturbed and didn’t ask Propenko about his new friend.

Gaz grinned but his eyes were cold. “I had plenty hard labor in Siberia. Enough for lifetime.” Gaz deigned to glance at the Gazinskiy brothers sitting obediently on the couch. The mobster waved his cigarette to encompass Luffy-Land. “Speaking of soft life, you boys going into business? I tell you, Gazinskiys not made-men. Never will be, but they are paid up. Not sure Luffy-Land is worth headache for you.”

McCarter glanced around Luffy-Land’s dubious charms. The wiry guy was mad-dogging him but McCarter ignored him. “No, but it got us a meeting with you, Gospodin.”

Gaz made a noise. McCarter had just called him “sir.”

“Call me Gaz. my friends do.”

“Offer you a beer, Gaz?”

“Always!” Gaz raised a scarred eyebrow. “Unless there is something stronger?”

McCarter went behind the bar and poured three shots of Absolut. His was barely a splash. The three men downed them amiably.

Gaz smacked his lips. “So, Nika, word is you are unhappy.”

“None of us are happy,” McCarter remarked.

The young, skinny, agitated Russian took a step out of the skirmish line. “Who is this guy? Who cares if he is unhappy? He owes us money! He owes us blood!”

McCarter gave Gaz a patient look. Gaz sighed and spoke too low for the skinny man to hear. “That is the Pan Dory.”

McCarter nodded sympathetically. Pan was an ancient Slavic honorific for “royalty.” Dory was the diminutive for the Russian given name Dorofei. Russian honorifics and given name diminutives were never mixed, except with great affection or even greater condescension. Gaz had just sneered and called the man “The Little Lord.”

McCarter began to see the situation very clearly. “He is supposed to be learning from you?”

“Supposed to be. Father ranks rather high in certain circles in Kaliningrad.”

“And Luffy-Land is part of the little kingdom his father has given him,” McCarter concluded.

“Yes. I am afraid Gazinskiy brothers earn for Dory. You have taken Luffy-Land. As I say, we have slight problem.”

“Slight problem?” Dory stalked forward. “We have big problem! Who are these pricks?”

Manning stepped forward and intercepted him.

“And who is this smiling…” Dory trailed off.

McCarter was smiling at Dory. It was the special smile he reserved for intimidating unpleasant people. The smile that convinced very bad people that he was considering killing them and the deciding factor would be the next thing that came out of their mouth.

Dory met Manning’s gaze, blinked first and closed his mouth.

Gaz started dropping knowledge. He nodded at Propenko. “You know this man, and his reputation, Dory?”

“That is Nika—”

“Yes. Well, Nika Propenko is now mercenary and now doing jobs outside Russian Federation. Things went bad in Poland, and I am thinking he call upon his new Western friends.” Gaz put his hands on his chest and made an attempt at looking personally hurt by this development. “Instead of calling on old friends and homeboys.”

Propenko dragged deeply on his cigarette. “Hard to know who to trust.”

Dory regained a tiny amount of outrage. “Propenko brings foreign mercenaries into a place I control?” He shot a nervous, angry look at Manning. “And this smiling asshole is—”