Well, he still had some time left in the States. He got up and walked over to the girl who had smiled at him.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I need someone to spot me for another set of bench presses. Maybe you would be willing to help me?”
“I’d like to. I don’t know if I’m strong enough.”
“You won’t have to lift much. When I’m on my last rep, you’ll only have to pull the bar with a couple of pounds of force. Believe me, you’ll be able to do it with one hand. Maybe even one finger.”
“Maybe you’d be able to do it with one finger,” she said, laughing. “I’ll need both hands.”
“You will be surprised how easy it is.”
As she stood up, Shrini introduced himself. She told him her name was Sonia.
“Sonia? That means golden in Hindi. And you certainly are golden.”
She laughed. “Are you looking for someone to spot you or to hit on?”
“No,” Shrini said, smiling broadly. “Even if you were some smelly guy I would’ve asked for help. Believe me.”
“Sure you would.”
“Yes, of course. I wouldn’t lie to someone so golden. Come on, help me out.”
Shrini led the way back to the bench and showed Sonia where to stand.
“All you need to do is wait until I ask for help. Then use one hand to guide the bar back to the rack. I’ll do most of the work, you will only have to help a little.”
“I hope so,” she said, laughing. “This looks heavy.”
He made a face. “This? Two hundred and twenty-five pounds? That is only sixty pounds more than I weigh.”
After positioning himself back on the bench, Shrini firmly gripped the bar and jerked it off the rack. With each repetition he cheated a bit, letting the bar bounce off his chest with each explosion of breath. Usually, he only did a set of six repetitions with that weight. Having Sonia watching him, he went past that. On his eleventh press both arms started shaking and the bar started to sink towards his chest. Sonia reached to help him.
“No, no, not yet,” Shrini forced out, his face red.
With a grunt, and arching his back, he got the bar moving back up and was able to push it back on to the rack.
“That looked difficult,” Sonia said.
Shrini quickly sat back up. Exaggerating a look of dismay, “That? That was nothing.”
“It was nice meeting you, Shrini.” She hesitated for a few seconds, then, “I guess I’d better let you get back to your workout.”
“I enjoyed meeting you too.” Shrini held out his hand, and smiled a bit inside noticing she seemed reluctant to let go of him. “Of course, the least I can do for your help is to buy you a drink later.”
“Sure, I’d like that.” She blushed slightly. “I have to admit, I’ve noticed you here the last few times I’ve worked out.”
“I noticed you too,” Shrini said as he tried to remember if he had ever seen her before. He found himself smiling a bit more on the inside when he noticed the subtle change in her expression, the way her smile became that much more bold. Yes, he was going to miss this country. But he was going to enjoy it while he still could.
*
Viktor Petrenko ignored the heaviness in his arms as he threw two left jabs and a right uppercut. The two jabs hit the heavy bag solidly, the uppercut lifted the bag half a foot. He stepped back and threw the same combination, making sure to concentrate on his footwork and the acceleration of his body as he let loose with the uppercut. He had been at the bag for over forty minutes, maintaining the same pace as he threw his combinations. Almost all of his punches hit solidly. The few that didn’t brought a thin brutal smile to his otherwise vacant expression.
He had been boxing most of his life. When he was eleven he was enrolled in the Soviet youth boxing program. While punishing and powerful, by age eighteen it had been determined that he lacked the speed to be an elite boxer and he was dropped.
Boxing had been his one true passion. There was something exhilarating about connecting a punch to your opponent’s ribs and feeling his body lift from the ground as his breath was simultaneously pushed out of his lungs. Later, when Petrenko became a chief interrogator for the KGB, he was able to experience that feeling many times but it was never quite the same. Now he had to settle for punching a heavy bag. At least most days.
There was a knock on the door and Yuri Tolkov walked into the boxing studio that Petrenko had set up in his home’s basement. Petrenko ignored him and continued to hit the bag for another ten minutes before straightening up and removing the leather wraps from his hands. With pale, almost translucent blue eyes, he examined the hard calluses that had built up over his knuckles throughout the years. He grabbed a towel off a hook, wiped some of the sweat from his arms and neck, and sat at a small table in the corner where a bottle of Pravda Vodka was chilling in an ice bucket. After pouring himself a glass, he acknowledged Yuri.
“So?” he asked.
Yuri approached, stopping four feet away from Petrenko. “I spoke again with the Arabs. They have agreed to let us appraise the diamonds.”
“I don’t like this. How did they get my name?”
Yuri shrugged. “They claim they got it from Ekhardt.”
“Ekhardt? That German bastard. What’s he doing giving those Arabs my name?”
Yuri shrugged.
“I don’t like it. This could be a sting operation. Perhaps FBI?”
“I don’t think so.” Yuri smiled, showing off badly discolored teeth. “I checked. One of the Arabs is on the FBI’s ten-most-wanted list.”
Petrenko considered that for a moment. “These diamonds are supposed to be uncut, correct?”
Yuri nodded.
“Then we will have them appraised.”
Yuri turned to walk away, then hesitated. “Why don’t we simply steal them?” he asked.
“These Arabs might have more they want to sell us.” Petrenko showed a thin smile, the type of look you might see on a rattlesnake before it strikes. “Don’t worry, we’ll steal them with our price.”
Yuri had his hand on the doorknob when Petrenko stopped him.
“Remember,” Petrenko said. “Tomorrow morning we have business at that market. Bring Sergei also.”
Yuri nodded and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him. Petrenko poured himself another glass of vodka and sipped it slowly.
6
During most of the ride back from New Hampshire, Dan found himself seething over Joel punching him in the face. The guy was a hothead; he knew that about his friend, and here he was planning a bank robbery with the guy? The thing was, Dan was an only child, and over the years Joel had taken on the role of an older brother, at least in some ways. If you’re going to tell an older brother something he thinks is crazy, he’s going to do whatever it takes to snap you out of it, right? That’s what Dan needed to convince himself of anyway – as well as remembering that, when push came to shove, he could count on Joel. By the time he arrived home, he had pretty much accomplished both.
After leaving the car in the driveway, Dan walked into his house through the side door and found Carol sitting alone in the kitchen. From the redness around her eyes and nose it was obvious that she had been crying.
“You’re home late,” she said.
“Sorry, I was talking some stuff over with Joel.”
“You weren’t just drinking beer and playing backgammon?”
“No. I had one Bud. That’s it. We were trying to work out some business ideas.”
“You come up with any?”
“Too early to tell. We’ll see.”
“What happened to your cheek?”
Dan grimaced as he lightly touched the swollen area around his cheek. “I slipped getting into my car and smacked my face against the door, if you can believe it.”
Her eyes shifted away from him. “There’s some macaroni and cheese in the oven,” she said.