“Very thoughtful of you,” Dan said, “but I think I’ll take my chances.”
Dan got in his car and waited until Resnick pulled his Buick out.
A blue BMW drove past Joel Kasner’s house. It continued another hundred yards before pulling over to the side of the road. Petrenko got out of the front passenger seat, stretched, looked around and was satisfied with the location. Nobody was going to hear the gunshots. Still, this would have to be quick – ten minutes at the most. No matter how isolated the location appeared he didn’t want to risk a local cop stumbling upon them. If that happened, the cop would have to be taken care of and he’d just as soon make this as clean a job as possible.
He cracked open the magazine of his 9mm Beretta, checked that it was loaded and slid the magazine back in place. Yuri got out from the driver’s side while two other Russians emerged from the back. Yuri moved past them and took a bolt-action ten-round rifle from the backseat. The other two Russians carried sub-compact snub-nosed pistols.
Shrini was taken out of the trunk and cut free. They gave him a minute to rub the cramps out of his legs and arms. Then Yuri and one of the other Russians dragged him to his feet.
“You are going to do precisely as I say,” Petrenko said, moving so he was less than a foot from Shrini. He showed Shrini his Beretta. “If you fail to do so I will put one of these bullets in your head.”
“I need water,” Shrini said, his voice raspy, barely a croak.
“Later.”
“No, you had me in a hot car trunk for over two hours.”
Petrenko put the barrel of his gun against Shrini’s ear. “I said later.”
“Go ahead. I’ll die anyway without water.”
Petrenko, annoyed, barked out a command in Russian. One of his men searched the backseat and brought out a bottle of water. Shrini emptied it in seconds, his hands shaking while he held the bottle to his mouth. Half of the water ended up going down his shirt.
“That is the last time you disobey me,” Petrenko said, trying to maintain his patience. “Now you will walk to your friend’s front door-”
“He is not my friend.”
Petrenko put a hand up to his face and shook his head. Slowly, as he fought the impulse to blow Shrini’s brains out, he continued, “You will walk up to his door and call for him.”
“How am I supposed to walk? I don’t have my crutches, and look what you did to my foot.”
“You’ll find a way.”
Shrini took several hops and collapsed on to the ground. “I can’t do it,” he cried.
“Then crawl.” Petrenko aimed his gun at Shrini’s head. “I have lost patience with you.”
Shrini made a decision then. If he was going to die, he’d just as soon see that peacock die first. He crawled. When he got to the front door, he pulled himself up into a standing position. One of the Russians positioned himself by a window. Petrenko and Yuri moved so they were on one side of the door, the other Russian stood on the opposite side.
“Now,” Petrenko ordered.
Shrini started pounding on the door. “Peacock, open up!”
There was some noise from inside the house. To Shrini it sounded like someone was running up and down a staircase. The Russian standing by the window nodded at Petrenko, then aimed and fired. The ricochet from the glass took off the tip of his nose. Then a shot fired from inside the house took off the rest of his face.
Petrenko stared blankly at the dead man’s body before realizing what had happened – that the window had been installed with one-way bullet-proof glass. His face slowly transformed into something not quite human as he knocked Shrini aside and tried kicking down the door. The steel-reinforced door held, his knee didn’t. Grabbing his injured knee he barked out orders to Yuri and the other man to get the car. Both turned and ran towards the road, both men keeping low to the ground so they wouldn’t be targets from inside the house. Petrenko watched them disappear behind some bushes. As he started to straighten up, Shrini grabbed him from behind, his forearm pushing hard into Petrenko’s throat.
In the position Petrenko was in all he could do was flail harmlessly. There was no way he could break Shrini’s chokehold. The strength of this person surprised him. As the world started to darken on him he fell to one knee, then the other and finally on to his stomach. As his head was pushed to one side he saw Shrini’s leg stretched out and realized that Shrini was lying crisscrossed on top of him, probably so he could brace himself.
Petrenko still had his gun. He moved his arm slightly from his side and pointed the gun where he expected Shrini’s injured ankle to be and then started firing until he heard the sound of a bullet hitting bone. There was a muffled scream. The grip around Petrenko’s throat loosened enough for him to break free. Gasping for air, he lifted his gun arm and shot Shrini two times in the eye.
Yuri arrived with the BMW. Petrenko pushed himself to his feet. Coughing, his face a deep purple, he ordered Yuri out of the car. “You,” he commanded the other man, “drive through that wall!”
The man looked at the house and then at the rifle barrel Yuri had trained on him. He shifted over to the driver’s seat, revved the engine and floored the gas, aiming the BMW to the left of the front door.
The car made it halfway through the house, both front wheels blowing out on impact. The Russian, though, trapped by the front airbag, was easily picked off by Joel with a single shot from his
AK-47.
The car had knocked a large hole through the wall. Yuri charged through it, firing his rifle. Joel hit him once in the shoulder and again in the chest, but before Yuri went down he got off a round hitting Joel in the hand. The bullet blew off two of his fingers and sent his AK-47 clattering across the floor.
“Motherfucking cunt,” Joel swore as he stared at the bloody stumps where his fingers had been. When he looked up he saw Petrenko through the hole. The Russian fired once at Joel, hitting him in the thigh and sending him falling on to his back.
“You fucking zhid,” Petrenko swore. “You’re going to steal from me?”
He squeezed his body through the opening in the wall. As Petrenko made his way forward his injured knee seized up. When he recovered he found that Joel, still lying on his back, had a forty-five caliber pistol aimed at him.
“I was carrying two guns, asshole.”
There were three gunshots, all rapid-fire. Petrenko looked with mild surprise at the three red dots spaced out along his chest. Then he fell over dead.
Joel looked down and saw he was bleeding badly from his thigh. Commie son of a bitch hit an artery. He took off his shirt, and using his teeth, ripped off a strip of fabric. Wrapping it above his wound and pulling as tight as he could, he tied his makeshift tourniquet. He sat for a moment, trying to build up the strength to stand. He got halfway to his feet and then blacked out.
The two detectives found nothing in Dan’s storage locker. Resnick told his partner to meet him at the car, waited until he left and then pulled Dan aside.
“I can’t let you get away with this,” Resnick said.
Dan didn’t bother responding. As Resnick looked at him, the muscles along his jaw hardened until his face looked carved out of stone.
“I’m going to keep searching until I find something. Even if I don’t find any concrete evidence I have to make you pay for this. I can’t let you skate with one woman dead and another critically wounded.” Resnick paused, sucked in his breath. “Do you have any idea what type of animal Petrenko is?”
“I never heard of this Petrenko-”
“Let me educate you then,” Resnick said, giving Dan a cold stare. “He used to torture people for the KGB. Over the years we’ve found bodies dumped in the ocean that have been skinned head to toe. There’s no doubt in my mind Petrenko did them personally, but he’s smart and I’ve never been able to tie him to any of them. If I arrest you and get your name in the papers, he’ll go after your family. Even if we assign a police detail to protect them, he’ll get them. The guy is as relentless as he is sadistic.”