Umarov had been sitting at the bar for nearly an hour, drinking vodka martinis and throwing lousy tips at a sullen pole dancer named Cinnamon — whose black G-string did a poor job of covering her C-section scar. The only other dancer, a roundish Latina in nothing but a flimsy open teddy and a pair of red stiletto heels, ate a Big Mac and fries at the end of the bar. There was a kitchen in the back, but Aleksandra made a mental note to stick with just her drink. It was a bad sign that the hired girls wouldn’t eat from the menu.
It was midafternoon and there were less than a half dozen patrons in the place. Cinnamon hung by one arm off the pole with all the charisma of someone waiting for a bus. In a city where titty bars were as plentiful as corner gas stations, the blue-collar customers seemed more interested in a European soccer game on the flat-screen television than in any of Cinnamon’s labored gyrations. Despite the seedy atmosphere, the bartender smiled a lot and chatted easily about local politics with the Latina eating the Big Mac — as if she wasn’t naked. From the bulk of his arms, Aleksandra guessed he doubled as the bouncer during the day shift.
Following the Chechen had been easy enough. During their struggle at Zamora’s party, Aleksandra had dropped a gold money clip from a belt pouch on her swimsuit, making certain it fell right before his eyes. Umarov was known to like shiny things and Aleksandra had correctly assumed he would pick it up if given the opportunity. The clip itself was plated, but three gold ten-ruble coins bearing the head of Tsar Nicholas II were brazed along its length. Inside the hollow coins and body of the clip hid the circuitry of an electronic tracker. Even when she lost sight of him, Aleksandra could read the signal on her smartphone as long as she was within a mile of the coins.
“Finally,” she mumbled to herself. The Chechen pushed away from the bar and staggered toward the long hallway leading to the restroom without giving her a second look. He smelled of alcohol and his lap was covered with dancer dust, the telltale body glitter that had surely gotten more than one husband in trouble after he’d stopped for “drinks” on the way home from work.
She counted to twenty after Umarov shut the bathroom door, then followed him down the hall. Between the soccer game and Cinnamon, no one gave her a second look.
Relatively sure no one else had gone in the men’s room, Aleksandra waited outside for another ten count to listen just in case. Daring was good; calculated daring was more likely to keep her alive. She heard nothing but the sound of a fan through the door. Satisfied, she took a last look down the hallway behind her and, seeing no one, tried the handle. As she suspected, it was locked. Operatives like Akhmad Umarov didn’t live so long by being careless while they relieved themselves.
Restroom locks were only meant to discourage accidental walk-ins and it took Aleksandra less than fifteen seconds to quietly slip the mechanism. Drawing an H&K P7 nine-millimeter from under the tail of her loose shirt, she pushed open the door.
Inside, she eased the flimsy wooden door shut behind her, twisting the lock again. The room was small and there was barely enough space for the single urinal squeezed in between the porcelain sink and two toilet stalls. The far door was slightly ajar, but the Chechen’s feet were visible under the edge of the nearest stall, his pants pooling in a wrinkled heap around his ankles. Aleksandra had to force herself to keep from gagging at the noxious smell that hung like a biological weapon in the small room.
The Chechen coughed, the universal signal to let someone know the stall was occupied, as if his odor wasn’t already indicator enough.
Pistol in hand, Aleksandra kicked open the stall door and pointed it at the Chechen’s face. There were few things worse than facing a determined woman with a gun while sitting on the toilet.
But it was Aleksandra who froze.
What she’d thought was a warning cough had been a death groan. Dark, arterial blood soaked Umarov’s gray T-shirt — but she hardly noticed. From the pattern on the tile floor it looked as though he’d tried to put up a fight — but that made little difference to her.
Above the Chechen’s left eye, on the greasy smooth skin of his forehead was the unmistakable imprint of a double-headed eagle.
Whoever hit him had been wearing Mikhail’s ring.
Aleksandra’s heart shivered in her chest. She’d seen no one else come or go from the restroom since Umarov had gone in and there were no windows—
She dropped instantly, spinning as she fell to shoot through the wall separating the two stalls. Working on a sudden dump of adrenaline, she heard no shots but watched bullet holes appear in the metal divider as someone — the man who’d killed her friend — returned her fire. He must have been perched on the toilet for her to have missed his feet when she first came in. She cursed herself for such stupidity. Instinctively, she grabbed the dead Chechen and yanked him down on top of her for cover, shooting around his flopping arm.
Her H&K carried nine rounds, including the one in the chamber — not enough to conduct the type of gunfight Americans called spray and pray. Aleksandra had already used six firing through the stall. She was an excellent shot but held little hope she hit anything vital shooting so blindly.
She was vaguely aware that the far stall slammed open. She caught a shadowed glimpse of the other shooter as he lunged across the room and crashed out the flimsy wooden door.
“Idiot!” Aleksandra spat, as much to herself as the dead man in her lap. She collapsed back against the clammy wall, gun in hand, half expecting the shooter to come back and finish the job. She would never have left a witness alive.
Excited voices streamed in from the hallway.
Moving quickly, she tucked the pistol back in the holster over her kidney, then ripped the buttons of her shirt to expose her bra. She rubbed her hand across the Chechen’s chest, then wiped a smear of his blood on her face and exposed shoulder.
Umarov was heavy and it took all of Aleksandra’s strength to push his dead weight off her legs as the bartender peeked his head into the men’s room.
He stood in open-mouthed shock as she crawled across the tile floor toward him, blood smeared across her face.
“He… he…” She said little, letting her appearance and the dead man with his pants around his ankles tell the story. Willing her body to shake, she conjured up buckets of sniffling tears and tugged at the collar of her torn shirt in a show of horrified modesty. She’d worn her green lace bra and knew the bartender would be hard pressed to recall much for a police artist. Right now he saw her only as a pair of heaving breasts covered in gore.
“You’ll be okay,” he whispered, helping her to her feet. He passed her back to a wan-looking Cinnamon, who looked sickly pale and out of place, wearing nothing but her G-string and body glitter in the stark light of the restroom.
While the bartender and others went in to investigate the dead man with his pants around his ankles, Aleksandra slipped down the dark hallway and out the front door before anyone figured out that she was a great deal more than an innocent victim.
She had reached her rental car two blocks away by the time she heard the sirens. She put on a fresh shirt from her bag in the backseat. The bloody one she stuffed in an old McDonald’s sack before tossing it behind a palm tree. Less than six minutes from the time she’d exchanged gunfire with Mikhail’s killer, she took the entrance ramp to I-95. The man who wore Mikhail’s ring had surely murdered him — and was sure to be the one in possession of Baba Yaga. Whoever he was, that same man had just killed the Chechen she’d seen at Valentine Zamora’s party. Aleksandra calmed herself with slow, rhythmic breaths. She used her thumb to punch numbers into the disposable cell phone as she drove.