Into the Lion's Den (30 page)

“Stop! We will settle the score with him later! Take Ivan out,” he yelled and the other man did as he was
ordered.

'Only one left,' I thought

“If Repin is half of what you told me, there would be no hole in this Earth deep enough as to hide you,”

I said, still spitting the blood on the floor. Whose one's? I don't know.

“Shut up, little fucker!”

“Do you realise that you're next? She only cares about money.”

He jumped on me and put one of those Rambo knives out and yelled. “Shut up!”

“The second time you could do nothing. Getting old? I know now why you got this job.” I truly wanted
to end everything.

He knocked me down once more, getting all dirty with the blood freely flowing from me. Funny but I
wasn't hurting anymore and there were so many bright lights dancing around. I believe he shouted something like

“how do you want it? Your neck or your right hand amputated? Do you want to live?” and I think I said: “kill me.”

I'm not sure, I heard a big detonation and I passed away, relieved that it was going to be over soon.

I woke up two weeks later, in a private hospital just to start the nightmare of surviving or living.

The security man couldn't believe his eyes: An emergency signal from one of the top members in the organization. He looked up the code and location and it was from Mr. Repin's boyfriend and from the house in London. “Shit!” he cursed loudly, getting his own mobile phone to warn his superior. “If the boy was playing with it, Oblomov will kill him.”
Malchenko couldn't believe his bad luck. He had tried with Massaiev but the man was in Bucharest, working per his cousin's orders and he should speak with Yuri Rimsky, who was taking care of the boy probably painting or working at the market, trying to sell a sorry porcelain dog to an old American tourist lady. Yuri Rimsky didn't answer his phone nor anyone in the house seem to be there. The boy's phone was off. “Better be on the safe side, if something happens to Guntram, Constantin will kill me very slowly,' he decided before dialling Gregory Kalashov's number in London.

'The question is, do I call Constantin or not?' Better not. I'll get Oblomov; he's with him in New York.'

“No, leave Constantin out of this till you speak again with Kalashov Probably it's nothing and if there's something going on, Kalashov should be able to deal with it. The Order wouldn't be so crazy as to attack us so bluntly.” Oblomov said after he was briefed.

“Their man in Tbilisi is dead along with his family. Lintorff is very corporative in his thinking. He blames us and he will go against us.”

“He wouldn't dare.”

“Why not? He's furious with us. He lost a lot of money to save his positions in Central Europe. Morozov nearly provoked a default in Poland and Romania.”

“Mr. Malchenko? One of my men went there, but he found nothing out of the ordinary.” Kalashov said respectfully, still uncertain of the outcome of his investigation. He was perfectly aware that he was walking on thin ice as the original order of “speak with the bodyguard or the boy,” had not been fulfilled.

“Did he speak with the boy or his bodyguard?”

“No, they're gone to Bath for the day. The little idiot forgot his mobile phone. The lady who spoke with him, told him that the ringing had driven her crazy the whole afternoon.”

“Lady? As cleaning lady?”

“No, very elegant woman, with a real emeralds necklace, brunette and tall. Nothing cheap at all. ”

“Shit!” Boris swore very loud when he realised that the only woman with such description was Olga Fedorovna. “Get a team and raid the house. Now!”

“Raid the house?” Kalashov repeated incredulous. “Mr. Repin's house?”

“Take a minimum of ten men to enter there; full equipment. I'm flying to London now. Whatever happens, no police at all. It's internal.”

“Should we not wait for you?”

“NO! Move your ass before Repin kills us all for being such idiots!”

“But if…”

“I take full responsibility. Move now, and take whoever is there alive! No deaths at all! Mr. Repin will want to have a word with whoever is in his house!” he shouted before slamming the phone against his desk and dashing for the door.

Kalashov men were nervous. Raiding the big boss own house was a very bad idea, even if it was one of his most trusted henchman's order; Malchenko in charge of the Smolensk territory. Being family didn't make you immune to his well-known wrath and sadism. The seven men, including Kalashov looked at each other when Malysev finished to nullify the security system as indicated by Malchenko.

“Where is the fucking security team?” One of them mumbled.

“Sounds very bad. We go in and we shoot to kill.” Kalashov whispered as they entered through the dining room door to the garden.

Very fast they secured the first floor and found two men in a bathroom. One of them fired first but he was killed in no time, and the other surrendered himself. “Wait, we're with Olga Fedorovna Repin!”

“Shit!” One of the men cursed.

“Where's the boy? Guntram.”

“In the cellar, with Stephanov. It wasn't my idea, she forced me!”

“What did you do?”

“Stephanov did it. Killed the bodyguard and tortured the boy. She ordered it!”

“Malysev get that woman! The rest, follow me.” Kalashov ordered

The gory sight of the boy on the floor, lying in a pool of blood, nearly dead was a very bad omen for all of them. While the men took Stephanov away, just hurt in the shoulder, Kalashov frantically thought what to do. A simple doctor wouldn't do as the boy was stabbed and obviously in shock, bleeding profusely. “We take him to St.

Catherine's in East London. They won't ask questions.”

“He won't make it. We need an ambulance.” The man trying to stop the bleeding protested.

“No police at all. This is more serious than we thought. Besides, he's almost dead. We're only covering our asses when Repin starts to kill people. Shit! He liked that boy a lot!”

Kalashov paced the sterile hospital waiting room. The doctors had taken the boy to surgery six hours ago and none of them had come to tell a thing. The poor lad had been tortured and raped for over five hours and they had been especially vicious as Olga Fedorovna was determined to make him suffer. 'But the vixen was clever enough as to run away after she saw my man. I have no idea of where she could be.'

“Kalashov!” Malchenko greeted the tired man. “How is he?”

“I don't know Mr. Malchenko. In surgery. They're trying to close his wounds, I suppose. I've seen no doctor so far.”

“Do we trust this place?”

“Belongs to us. Always takes care of my boys. They're good doctors. It's the best I can do.”

“I know. Thank you. Mr. Repin will be here tomorrow at noon.”

“We missed the wife. I'm sorry.”

“I'm after her. The others?”

“Secure in one of the houses. Lost one and there were two more bodies inside the house. My people are cleaning it.”

“The service, where were they?”

“It seems she sent them away for the day. The butler had the day free.”

“Mr. Kalashov?” A good looking woman dressed with green fatigues asked him. She was carrying a small cap on her hand. He nodded and she continued. “I'm Dr. Emily Harris, the surgeon. I treated Mr. de Lisle.”

“Is he…?” Malchenko asked already waiting for the worst.

“No, no. He's in the intensive care unit. It was a long and complex surgery, sir as his stab wounds were very deep. We had to remove the spleen and part of the liver as they were damaged beyond repair. It was a miracle the knife didn't touch other organs.”

“Will he recover?”

“It's hard to say at this point. My main concern is his heart as he suffered one heart attack during the surgery. We weren't aware that he suffered from a previous heart condition. There was no time to make any kind of pre surgery tests.”

“Guntram has nothing of the sort!”

“The cardiologist has just assured me that he suffers from heart failure due to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Perhaps it went unnoticed because the symptoms are very easy to overlook. It's one of the leading causes in young athlete’s sudden death. We managed to stabilize him, but he's in a pharmacological coma because of his brain injuries. He was severely beaten and has a skull fracture. Fortunately there's no brain swelling so far and we hope the coma will prevent further damages and reduce the stress from the pain. We estimate that we would need a minimum of five to seven days before we try to remove the sedation.”

“Can we see him?”

“No, I'm afraid not. Visiting hours start tomorrow from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. He's in a critical condition but stable, and that already gives us hope, gentlemen. If you'd excuse me.”

“What are his chances?”

“He's on life support systems. Perhaps you will have to make some serious decisions. Is there anyone from his family we can contact?”

“How many chances?”

“I can't give you a prognosis, but in his case the recovery ratio is less than 50% I'm sorry.”

“Thank you,” Malchenko whispered, feeling bad for the young boy. 'He's only twenty years old and never made troubles! I have a long list of people that I would love to see in his place!'

“What do we do?” Kalashov asked.

“Nothing. We wait for Repin and Oblomov. It's their call now.”

The flight had been a slow torture for Constantin. Boris had called him and just told him to return to London, that there had been an accident and Guntram was seriously hurt. “How badly hurt?” “I don't know. He's in surgery. We can't speak now, cousin. Trust me.”

Ivan Ivanovich knew something more as he had been permanently speaking over the phone in German, but he had told him that he knew nothing about Guntram's condition, a blatant lie in his opinion.

He couldn't wait to have his flight plan approved and took the first commercial flight back to London.

He hoped that Lintorff had not been in one of his killing spree days, looking for revenge for what had happened in Tbilisi just a week ago. He had never given the order and the mess with the Polish Bonds was not his fault at all. He had tried to speak with him, but Lintorff was so furious that he didn't want to hear him, shouting that he had disgraced their agreement.

Only five hours more to fly.

Oblomov was feeling something akin to remorse. Everything had turned out has he had always expected it would. He had told countless times to his stubborn friend that Olga would sooner or later take matters into her hands. Guntram was indeed a dangerous competition for her. She knew about the boy and how Constantin treated him as if he were like a real mate—taking him out publicly, meeting their common friends, living with him in London—

not the type of relationship you have with a lover. His friend wanted the divorce, paying her the stipulated sum in their prenup and send her away, ruining her plans to finally control the organization.

'I never expected she would do it this way. She caught us unaware. A fast and decided strike, exactly as she's. Massaiev was away, his man was alone to defend Guntram, the service was on their free day and the remaining ones were sent away, the bodyguards were in league with her or dead. The bitch used the house even, knowing that that would be the last place we would be looking at. She bided her time very well.'

'Lintorff swears he has nothing to do with this and I believe him. It's neither his style nor Pavicevic's.

How does he tell it? “I don't take the trash out for other people, Ivan Ivanovich. Rest assured I will have my revenge for Schäffer, but on my terms and with my own people.” I need to convince Constantin that this was an inside job, Olga and someone else, but who? If Constantin attacks him because of Guntram, we all are dead. Lintorff will return the fire with everything he has. He's very paranoid.'

'I have to catch her before Lintorff does. I'm sure he wants to know her reasons and see if he can get something out.'

“Who is here, Friederich?” Konrad von Lintorff asked his butler, totally dumbfounded. It was more than 10 p.m., on a Sunday, certainly not the time a lady would call at a single gentleman's door.

“Madame Olga Fedorovna Repin, Sire.” Friederich said with a deep disgust lacing his voice.

“Are you certain?”

“Yes, your Excellency. She says that it's most urgent that she sees you. The lady arrived in a cab.”

“This is most importunate.” He complained as his much needed day off had been finally ruined. First Oblomov, spoiled his dinner, shouting vulgarly on the phone that he had betrayed their gentlemen's agreement by helping Repin's wife to personally attack him in London—probably the woman had destroyed a valuable painting making the Russian explode—because of “that incident in Georgia”. He had had troubles to keep his temper down at the suggestion that He, the
Hochmeister
of one of the most powerful remaining brotherhoods was somehow involved in the marital problems of a couple of crazy Russians; that He would be in league with a petty adventuress to commit a felony and finally that He was using something as low, beneath his rank and breed, as women gossips to direct his actions.

“Keeping a woman waiting is not what I have taught you, Konrad,” Friederich interrupted his musings and brooding.

“Yes, you're right. Tell one of the drivers to have a car ready for her. We can't kick a woman out, can we?”

“Even if she's not a lady,” Friederich finished the conversation, making the Duke softly smile at his former tutor's diplomatic way of agreeing with his views. 'I swear he's related to the
Fürst
von Metternich.'

“I'll see her at the library. Tell the maids to go to bed.”

On Monday morning, Malchenko stopped his cousin before he would ram into the ICU. “Wait Constantin, you can't enter till the afternoon. It's only one hour. We need to speak. There's nothing you can do for him.

It's in God's hands.”

“Good evening, Madam. What do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” Konrad said, deciding to keep the conversation to the minimum.

“Good evening, Duke. I'm most obliged that you accepted to see me with such a short notice. I apologize for my rudeness.”