“You just insinuated that I’m some kind of whore,” Garcia said in English, jiggling the tip of the screwdriver to make her point. “Is that what you meant to do?”
Maxim shook his head. Raul raised his hands. Bowen turned outbound, keeping an eye on the other fighters at the gym just in case any of them carried a sense of misguided loyalty. No one even looked up.
“No… no, I didn’t… mean that at all,” Maxim said. “You know… you guys can’t be doin’ shit like this if you’re cops.”
“Well ain’t you a bona fide rocket surgeon,” Thibodaux said. “We’re not your average cops.”
“But they are cops?” Maxim nodded, as though he’d won some debate. “And you’re a cop? Right.”
“Don’t you worry about what we are.” Thibodaux cocked his head so he could look directly at Maxim Ortega with his good eye. “You ought to be concentrating on what you are, and from where I’m standin’ that’s a guy with his cajones balanced on a flathead. Amazing what kind of damage a screwdriver can do in the hands of an angry woman…”
“About Petyr,” Garcia said. “Where would we find him?”
“I got him set up in a fight.” Maxim’s eyes flicked back and forth, searching for some kind of ally. No one else in the gym seemed to know or care that a beautiful Cuban woman was a fraction of an inch from emasculating one of the owners.
“A fight?” Bowen said over his shoulder. “Here?”
“It’s not that kind of fight,” Raul said. “Petyr needs some quick cash so we obliged him, that’s all. The fight’s unsanctioned, so it can’t be at a regular gym. Gotta be underground. We got an agreement with a guy in Chinatown.”
“Who’s he fighting?” Thibodaux asked.
“It’s a mismatch,” Raul said. “More of a spectacle, which means a bigger purse. More money for Petyr.”
“And coincidentally more money for you,” Thibodaux said, turning his good eye so it looked directly at Raul. “I ask you again, who’s he fightin’?”
“That’s still up in the air,” Maxim groaned. “I thought I had a guy but he chickened out when he found out it was against The Wolf.”
“I’ll fight him then.“ Thibodaux laughed. “That would sure enough be a mismatch.”
Raul shook his head. “No way,” he said. “You’re taller, and from the looks of you, you got better moves, but no one wants to see a mismatch that don’t look like a mismatch.” He nodded toward Bowen. “How about him. His face looks like he’s used to getting beat on.”
“That’s a good idea,” Maxim whispered. He looked at Garcia, brown eyes pleading. “Come on, chica,” he said. “What say you take the screwdriver away from little Maximus and we talk some business? I’ll forgive you for comin’ in here and throwin’ around your weight, and you forgive me for bein’ rude.”
Garcia stabbed the screwdriver back through the credit card machine.
“Damn!” Maxim said, nearly collapsing against the counter. “That. That right there is why I ain’t married.”
“Boxing or grappling?” Bowen said, turning around to face them now they were talking business.
“It’s whatever you want it to be, man,” Maxim said. “You box?”
“A little,” Bowen said. He saw no reason to bring up the fact that he was an Army boxing champion.
“Okay,” Maxim grinned, the color flowing back into his cheeks. “We got ourselves a mismatch and you got yourselves Petyr the Wolf. I’ll draw you a map of where to meet up tonight. It’s kind of… complicated.”
Chapter 42
“Bank to the right!” Feliks Zolner snapped as Davydov brought the Cessna buzzing over Needle Village, just meters above the corroded-metal rooftops. They were close enough that Zolner could see the fresh caribou hides that hung, bloody, flesh-side up on banisters and clotheslines. Stubby-legged village dogs looked skyward, barking and howling in protest at the noise.
Yakibov grunted from the rear seat, his face pressed to the window. “I only see a couple of men,” he mused. “It is mostly women coming out of the houses to look at us.”
“The men will be out hunting at this time of year,” Zolner said.
“Ahhh,” the former Spetsnaz commando said. “That is a fortunate development—”
Zolner glanced over his shoulder. “I was under the impression you have a wife and daughter,” he said.
“What can I say?” Yakibov shrugged. “I enjoy the benefits of travel—”
“There they are, boss,” Kravchuk said from directly behind Zolner. “This side of the plane, eleven o’clock.”
“Come around for another pass,” Zolner said, his voice calm as he pressed his forehead against the window. His eyes focused on his quarry, who now rode an ATV toward the edge of town at a right angle to the airport. From five hundred feet up, the surrounding tundra looked basically flat, but Zolner knew there would be dips and rolls to the terrain — places to hide. “Never mind,” he snapped at Davydov, pointing the blade of his hand toward the gravel airstrip off the nose of the airplane. “Get me on the ground, immediately!” His eyes back on the fleeing ATV, he spoke to Kravchuk. “Pass me the rifle when we land.”
Zolner did not have to look to know that his spotter was busy sliding the CheyTac from its padded case, inserting the loaded magazine and removing the lens covers on the scope. Zolner would simply need to put a round in the chamber, acquire his target, and calculate a firing solution.
The ground was not yet frozen, so the ATV was basically confined to a packed trail leading away from the village. For a brief moment, as Davydov brought the Cessna out of his downwind approach, the ATV and the airplane were moving in the same direction. Zolner looked at the airspeed, did a quick calculation and decided the ATV was doing no more than fifteen miles an hour — a mile every four minutes.
The Cessna’s wheels squawked on the gravel runway two minutes from the time the ATV had left the last of the village road.
“Stop here!” Zolner shouted, reaching back for his rifle with one hand as he flipped the latch with the other. He shoved the door open with his hip. As large a man as he was, Zolner sprang out of his cramped seat backward, the moment the plane came to a stop. He threw the big rifle to his shoulder and put the crosshairs of his scope on Doctor Volodin’s back.
“Twelve hundred meters, boss,” Kravchuk said, looking through a laser rangefinder. “And moving away. Now twelve ten…” He stood beside the airplane, just behind Zolner’s left elbow.
“Perfect,” Zolner said, counting the clicks as he rotated the top turret of his scope.
“Wind is steady at—”
The roar of approaching ATV engines drowned out Kravchuk’s words. Zolner considered firing anyway, but at over three quarters of a mile, if he shot without the correct firing solution, he might as well be pointing at the moon.
Yakibov opened fire with his Kalashnikov, taking care of the two men coming up on ATVs. A series of thwacks pinged off the metal fuselage of the airplane, followed later by the report of a rifle. The people of Needle clearly knew they were not friendly visitors.
Zolner cursed as he watched Volodin grow smaller in his scope. Instead of firing, he spun toward the sound of the oncoming gunfire.
Davydov had his pistol out and took cover behind the rear tires of the airplane. Fuel began to drip from bullet holes in the wing.
“Where are they?” Zolner said, spotting a man with a rifle as soon as the words had left his lips. He brought the scope up to his eye and set the crosshairs over the man’s chest.