Following a protracted silence, the Krasnaya Mafiya enforcer called Karakurt finally asked Cramer the question that had been on his mind the past several minutes. “Robert, you are certain this man Avery was in Yazgulam?”
“Positive,” Cramer said. He noticed the pained glint in the Chechen’s eyes and understood why he asked the question. “I’m sorry, Ruslan.”
Ruslan Kheda, called Karakurt in reference to the spider tattooed on his neck, nodded and said nothing further, but the tormented expression behind his eyes spoke volumes. His near-identical twin brother was among the dead at the Yazgulam safe house.
The Kheda brothers had fought together during the wars in Chechnya and Dagestan, and later killed together for the Krasnaya Mafiya. They weren’t hardcore Islamists. Instead they’d been motivated by the cause of Chechen nationalism. When that cause became hijacked by the fanatic jihadist outsiders from Afghanistan and an insane Saudi warlord called Ibn al-Khattab, they left Chechnya and turned to organized crime.
The term Russian mafia is a misnomer. It is not a single organization with a hierarchy like La Cosa Nostra, the Camorra, or the Albanian mafia. Instead, there are numerous gangs of varying size and power. Many of these groups are made up of Armenians, Belarusians, Chechens, Estonians, Georgians, Ukrainians, and other “black,” or non-ethnic, Russians from the former Soviet Union. FSB aggressively targeted organized crime gangs, but only those of non-ethnic Russians or foreigners.
The “white” Russian ethnic gangsters are given sanctuary inside the Russian Federation and are protected by the siloviki, the former intelligence and military officers turned politicians who now rule the Kremlin. In exchange for their protection, the gangsters often perform services for the Russian special services, such as the assassination by polonium poisoning of Kremlin-critic Aleksander Litvinenko in London, or murdering a troublesome journalist like Anna Politkovskaya.
It was uncommon for Chechens like the Kheda brothers to end up in the service of a Russian gang like the Krasnaya Mafiya rather than the Chechen Obshina, which is staunchly nationalistic and maintains close ties to jihadist networks. Both brothers served as conscripts in the Red Army. Ismet Kheda served under an ethnic Russian officer and black marketer who later inducted the brothers into the Krasnaya Mafiya.
No one had quite trusted Babayev’s Uzbeks to handle the American raiders in Yazgulam by themselves, so Kheda’s brother had volunteered to lead the IMU cell there. Ruslan had wanted to tend to it personally, but Ismet, eager to prove his worth in the eyes of his brother whom he looked up to, insisted on going. Now he was dead.
Cramer wished that he could somehow give Avery to Kheda, but it was best to allow Dagar to handle it. He supposed he’d also feel some amount of remorse if Kheda did get his hands on Avery. In Chechnya, Kheda had learned and mastered some of the most gruesome ways of killing a man — Chechens are especially adept with blades — and would leave his brother’s killer castrated and mutilated, and Avery didn’t really deserve that. Killing Kheda’s brother hadn’t been anything personal, after all. Cramer thought he at least owed Avery a quick and relatively painless end, if and when it came to that.
The spider on Ruslan Kheda’s neck wasn’t his only tattoo. In the Russian underworld, tattoos told the entire criminal history of their bearer and warranted respect. Kheda’s body was covered. Prison and gang tattoos adorned much of his heavily muscled back, chest, and abdomen, along with an assortment of scars. The tattoos were crudely rendered, as proper equipment is often unavailable in a prison cell.
A red rose on his chest indicated Kheda’s membership in the Red Mafia. The stars covering both knees signified that he kneeled before, submitted to, no one. The Celtic cross between his shoulder blades marked his status as a killer, and the small badge denoted that at least one of his victims was a police officer. The row of six tombstones over his stomach represented the number of years he’d spent in Russia’s Black Dolphin Prison.
Always protective of his brother, Ruslan had kept quiet and accepted blame when falsely identified and arrested by the Chelyabinsk Militia for a murder committed by Ismet, who was four minutes younger than Ruslan. Eventually, Oleg Ramzin exercised his FSB influence to have Ruslan released.
When this business was over, Ruslan Kheda would have his brother’s name inscribed permanently into his flesh. He also hoped to add another skull. He had many of those, one for each life he’d taken. He owed his brother a skull. He owed this man Avery a killing.
The number of men Robert Cramer personally would be afraid to cross could be counted on one hand, with fingers remaining. One of these men was Ruslan Kheda. Another was Avery.
SEVENTEEN
Avery parked the Lada off Saadi Sherozi Avenue and proceeded on foot to the Barakat Bazaar. This is Dushanbe’s commercial center, located a mile east of the Varzob River, near rail yards, the National Museum of Tajikistan, a prison, and hotels. Barakat was the country’s largest outdoor marketplace and a popular stop for tourists and an essential part of daily life for locals. Shortages of food and goods were the norm in Tajikistan, making Barakat the place to go.
The large space it occupied and the heavy volume of people also made Barakat an ideal place in which to quickly disappear if necessary. Flounder had already scoped out the bazaar earlier. It had taken him nearly an hour to cover all the ground.
The market was packed with shoppers and traders. The masses of people streamed around the kiosks, tables, and stalls, forcing Avery to walk at a snail’s pace and to maneuver impatiently around them. Minibuses constantly pulled up and deposited more prospective buyers. The mixed aroma of grilled meat, tobacco, incense, and sweaty, unwashed bodies carried in the warm air.
A variety of languages registered in Avery’s ears. The place was almost a chaotic sensory overload, and upon first entering the market, it had taken him several minutes to get his bearings.
There was a moderate police presence, too. Recently, local hooligans had taken to setting the bazaars on fire. Avery kept conscious of the cops as his eyes scanned the sea of faces. It would be nearly impossible to try to keep track of someone in here. While this worked both ways, Avery had more faith in Sideshow’s combined skills than he did in that of Dagar’s thugs.
Barakat wasn’t the exotic Middle Eastern-style marketplace most tourists probably envisioned. Western food, clothing, computer games, and VHS tapes were readily available and highly sought after by the locals. Avery wasn’t surprised to pass a vendor serving pizza, French fries, and Pepsi. It looked and smelled as good as anything back home.
Avery’s pace came to a grinding halt when he came to a large group of people clustered around an art exhibit and street performers, including jugglers. No one paid attention to the big American as he squeezed his way through the crowd.
Reaper and Mockingbird were on target, too, and had been for the past two hours. Avery had passed Reaper coming into the bazaar, but the two men had not even glanced at each other and to an outside observer they would have seemed to not even notice or recognize one another.