Anatoly Medlov (12 page)

With shades on in the dead of night to hide his tired, red eyes, he pulled his exhausted body out of the back of the black town car and out into the rain. With luggage in-hand, he walked past the doorman.

“Good evening, Mr. Medlov. Happy to have you home,” he said with a smile.

“Happy to be home, Oliver,” Gabriel said, taking off his shades as he entered the lobby.

Running his hand over the elevator button, he sank into the corner and waited to arrive at the penthouse. It was then that he thought about how his place had been ransacked by Anatoly while he was Moscow.
Prick.

As the elevator chimed and the golden doors swung gracefully open, he grabbed his key and unlocked his door expecting the worse. The click of the lock unhinging made his heart constrict. He didn’t mind killing people much, but he hated messy houses. However, it was a complete surprise to find everything in order. Anatoly had promised that if he checked out, his home would be restored. He guessed that the little shit had kept his word.

Throwing his bags on the floor, he closed the door behind him and peeled out of his jacket. He took a deep breath, savoring the smell of his home – a mixture of expensive leather and cleaning products.

Walking slowly from room to room, he checked to see what all had been misplaced, discarded, destroyed. He could find nothing. In a way, he was relieved. While it did not take away the feeling of being invaded, he was glad that the most important things had not been abused – pictures of his mother and his father. He stopped by his bed and looked down at the nightstand to see a picture of him when he was four with Ivan, sitting by the Christmas tree at his mother’s home in Manhattan.
Those were happy times.
That was before he found out what his father was and vice versa. It was amazing to him how blissful ignorance could be, how it could shelter one from being forced to actually live and plug into reality.

He set his keys down beside the framed photo of his father, slumped on the side of his bed and wiped his tired eyes again. Checking his watch, he realized that it was already well past nine o’clock at night.

What he really needed was a shower. He had been traveling for days. The clothes he had on reeked of airports, cigarettes and Russia.

This had been his first trip to Moscow. He had prepared for it for many months, and in his mind, he knew exactly what he was going to say to the men who had murdered his father. Several times, during their many discussions in the short period of time, he thought about just shooting them and getting it over with for all of them. But that would have been too easy.

Walking into his bathroom, he casted off his clothes in the corner and stepped into the shower. Rubbing his hand over the cold surfaces of the shiny knobs, he tned on the hot water and let it soothe his tired body. Hot steam rolled off his skin, carrying with it the scent of a long day. In a daze, he ran his hands over his body, over his tattoos, washing some of the excess ink into the water.

“Shit,” he said, realizing that his marks were fading.

It would be necessary now to avoid too much soap until he could get to his faux tattoo artist at the shop. The thought mildly disgusted him, and he quickly washed and stepped out into the cold air.

With a towel wrapped around his waist, he stalked into his bedroom, grabbed a pair of jeans and slipped them on, along with a gray t-shirt and a pair of worn boots. Hair still wet, he checked his phone and realized it was time to get to the massage parlor for his meeting. After slipping on a skull cap, he dashed back out into the rainy evening.

He loved Manhattan best at night. It was unlike any other place in the world. Full of life. The people here did not care about weather or time. They roamed through the city going from one destination to the other with ease.

As he bundled up in his leather coat, he took in his surroundings, thinking of what it might be like to just be a guy with a normal life. A couple passed him, holding each other close and avoiding the rain with their large umbrella. They seemed happy. While he didn’t know them, the look on their face portrayed peace. That was something he had been without for most of his life.

Being raised by a mother with trust issues and a father who was by all accounts socially dysfunctional, he had spent most of his life seeking something. Peace was a word that was foreign to him. He had no recollection of what real happiness meant, what really family was supposed to be or what simplicity entailed. His life was a mirage of bad memories, even though he had been the recipient of more money than most and privy to a world that most thought only existed on television. There was supreme nothingness in what he had found. He didn’t belong – not to the Vory, not to the government.

Ducking into a shabby store-front massage parlor out of the rain a few miles away from his penthouse apartment, he took off his jacket and stomped his feet on the mat.

A small Asian woman escorted him through the small lobby lit by red light bulbs and decorated with faux plants to a small room with a massage table. Quietly, she closed the door after him and locked it. Digging into his pocket, he took out a thumb drive and placed it on the table across from him and sat down in the corner on a small stool.

Minutes later, the door in the back of the room opened and a tall Chinese American man appeared. Agent Lee was a middle-aged cynic who lived for his job with a no-nonsense, permanent scowl and a cop-style crew hair cut to match. He locked the door behind him and quickly got to the discussion.

“How was Moscow?” he asked, grabbing the thumb drive and stuffing it down into the inner pocket of his wool coat.

“Cold,” Gabriel replied. “But also productive. I passed the test. I am who I say I am. I’ve got a meeting with the entire Medlov family in Prague at Dmitry’s home in one week.”

“Impressive,” Lee said, sitting across from him. “And what of Anatoly.”

“Oh,” Gabriel smiled. “He hates my guts like we thought he would. The only problem that I can possibly see is Royal. The wife is a real piece of work.”

“How so?”

“Well, she obviously doesn’t trust me. I guess her history with my father doesn’t help. But I have to win her over. I get the feeling that her opinion of me will determine just how long I live.”

“She’s supposed to be dead, you know.” Lee put another thumb drive on the table and slid it across to him. “But she’s small fries. She’s never been involved in anything illegal, but faking her own death, from what I can tell. And it’s going to be nearly impossible to get her back to the states and from under Dmitry’s protection to do anything useful on her. At this point, I would just try to stay on her good side. Any mention of drugs at all?”

“Not one mention of anything illegal, but I’m sure that’s what the meeting is for.”

“How long do you expect them to keep you there?”

“As long as they want. I don’t get the feeling that these men function on the same timetable as the rest of the world.”

“So, how do we keep your cover concrete is the question? Since you left Russia, there has been a serious investigation on all your background with the New York families and inquiries from some of the oldest and more notable mob figures from all sorts of families from half way across the world.”

“What can I say? I’m popular.”

“Let’s keep it that way. We’re wiring more money for you. You need to be a little flashier. We’ve also got a back story for you on a few murders you were involved in last year. You can read through the thumb drive when you get time. Your place has been bugged, tapped, everything else since the break in. You’ll need all new computers and everything. Remember to be extra careful. No communication with anyone who is not involved with the Medlov family and only communicate through me from here on out until you’re pulled from undercover.”

“I know the drill. I don’t think we should treat Royal with kid gloves though. I’m telling you, I have to get her on my side.”

“Well, what would you suggest?”

“I was reading her file, and she’s an orphan right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, since I’m supposed to be an identity hacker, I need to pull a few strings and get some information that would definitely be sealed.”

“Regarding whom?”

“Royal, of course.” Gabriel pulled a piece of paper from his back pocket and passed it to Agent Lee. “This is what I could come up with myself, but I need more.”

Lee looked at the paper and then folded and put it away. “Is this all?”
“This may be what I need to win her completely over and break through the barriers to really get the family to trust me.”

“Or it could prove you’re a cop.”

Gabriel smiled. “I would think that it would prove that I’m the latter. Trust me, I’ll be convincing, but I need it before I go to Prague.”

Chapter Seven

Agosto heard his phone ringing from across the office. Cutting his conversation off with one of his subordinates, he quickly jetted through his door and grabbed the phone from across the desk before it could go to voicemail.

“Lieutenant Agosto, Memphis Police Department,” he said, pulling the phone’s cord towards him to cut the static.

“Hi, this is...well, my name isn’t important, but I have important information regarding Anatoly Medlov for your ongoing investigation, if there is one.”

Agosto looked around his office through the glass doors to make sure that no one could hear him speaking. Reaching his leg out, he caught the end of the door with his foot and closed it. Lowering his voice, he moved over to his seat and grabbed a pen and paper.

“Go head,” he said, waiting for the woman to continue. Whoever was calling was doing so from a blocked number.
Dammit
.

“You may or may not already know this, but Anatoly Medlov is running a large amount of guns through your city. They are from a big deal that went down in Sochi, Russia during the Olympics earlier this year. And he’s filtering all the money through art.”

“What kind of drugs. What kind of guns? Who’s the art dealer?” Agosto asked, trying to place the woman’s accent. He wrote down on his pad.
Female. Race unknown. Accent questionable. Possibly east coast.

“I’m not sure of what kind. But I think that quantity is important. He dropped off a shipment to a group of Jewish men in Istanbul a few months ago and since then he’s been selling them in bulk to the largest bidder.”

“Where is he housing the guns? Who’s been some of the largest bidders?”

“Not sure,” the woman huffed. “I don’t know much, but I can tell you this. They are in the city of Memphis.”

“Well, the city is pretty big. Do you have an idea of where he might be storing them?”

“No, but I’ll try to find out.”

“Any other information?”

“Not right now. He’s pretty tight-lipped, but I’m telling you, he’s the head of the Medlov family not Dmitry. And he’s right under your nose.”

Agosto looked up from his paper. His suspicions where correct. “How do you know all of this?”

“I can’t give you that either. I’m not trying to be killed anytime soon.”

“Well, why are you doing this?”

“The usual. The whole
woman scorned
bit,” the woman said in a condescending voice. “The bastard has it coming to him.”

“I hear ya,” Agosto said with a grin. “So, what’s your name? Maybe you can come and we can talk, or I can meet you. Some of the information you’re giving me is out of my jurisdiction. So, I’ll need to pass it on the FBI.”

“No deal. I just want him to know what it’s liked to be caged like an animal. I’ll get you what I can when I can, as long as it doesn’t come back to me.”

“Maybe you can answer one more question for me then.”

“Okay,” she said, holding her breath.

“Is Royal Stone still alive?”

The woman laughed and hung up the phone.

Agosto put the phone down on the receiver and sat back in his seat. Biting his lip, he quickly wrote down more notes on the pad under his pen, scribbling quickly, then pulled the piece of paper off the sheath and put it in his pocket.

A million questions crossed his mind, but in his time on the force, he had learned to still them in order to move from a clue to an actual bust.

There was a knock at his door that interrupted his swirling thoughts. Looking up, he saw Cory. He waved him in and kicked his feet up on his desk.

Cory, a friend and subordinate of Agosto’s and the former undercover for the first undercover Medlov investigation, came in and closed the door behind him. With a file in his hand from his current case, he pulled a seat out and sat down.