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29

Shrini arrived at the Middlesex Diner shortly before eleven. After driving around the parking lot so he could look for Petrenko and satisfy himself that the Russian wasn’t there, he parked and hobbled to the diner’s entrance. He still hadn’t gotten used to the crutches. It was slow going and by the time he got to the cashier’s station he was winded. He knew it was partly due to the adrenaline pumping through him. This was a bold move he was making, but to succeed in life you have to make bold moves. Dan could act meekly if he wanted, but
he
sure wasn’t going to!

One of the waitresses showed him to a table and he ordered coffee and an egg-white omelet. He checked his watch. It was seven past eleven. The numbers seven and eleven struck him. They were a good sign. The strutting peacock was going to crap out, not him.

The anticipation wore on him while he waited. His food was brought over and he nibbled at it, every minute or so straining his neck to look out the window. He checked his watch. Eleven twenty-eight. He told Petrenko what would happen if he wasn’t there on time and he meant it! His fingers tapped the table as he waited. It was now eleven thirty-two. He started to get up but indecision slowed him. Crossing his arms, he decided to give Petrenko ten more minutes.

When those ten minutes vanished he got up and paid the cashier. He took a step towards the door and froze. He couldn’t walk away. It wasn’t just the money. He had to make sure that peacock got paid back. His face flushed as he told the waitress he’d like to sit back at the table and have another cup of coffee.

At twelve thirty he gave up. Petrenko wasn’t coming. For some reason he must’ve thought Shrini’s call was a crank. Dejected, he gathered up his crutches and hobbled towards the diner’s entrance. The steps leading out were tricky. He had to hold the crutches with one hand while he held the railing with the other, all the while hopping on one foot.

When he got to the bottom of the steps, he readjusted the crutches under him. He took several steps to the curb and then stopped to position one of the crutches more comfortably under his armpit. Right before the blow to the kidneys he sensed the two men behind him, but he didn’t have time to react. The blow paralyzed him. For several seconds he couldn’t breathe. His knees buckled, hot tears flooding his eyes.

They grabbed him from both sides. A car swung around, the trunk popping open. He was tossed into the trunk. This all happened within five seconds from the time he was hit. He tried to struggle and claw his way forward. Something hit him hard on the side of the head. Then blackness.

Pain brought him back to semi-consciousness. Every part of him seemed to throb with pain. While he wavered in his semi-conscious state, he had the sensation of spikes being driven into his broken ankle. Every few seconds there would be a dull thud followed by a jolt of pain shooting through him. One horrific jolt knocked him back into consciousness. His eyes opened to catch Petrenko swinging back a golf club. He started to scream as Petrenko drove the club into his unprotected ankle. The pain exploded inside him. At some level he knew his eyes were open, but the room flickered on and off into darkness. Sort of like a light bulb crackling on the edge of blowing out. Barely, he maintained consciousness.

“Our guest has woken,” Petrenko announced.

Behind Petrenko stood three other Russians, all looking on with mild amusement. Shrini’s arms were pulled tight over his head, his feet dangling, barely touching the floor. Something cold and hard bit into his wrists and he realized he was handcuffed, probably to a pipe. He looked down and saw that his injured ankle had swollen to the size of a large eggplant, its color an unnatural deep, darkish blue. The sight of it made him light-headed. As his eyes started to roll up in his head, Petrenko grabbed him by his hair, jerked his head up and slapped him hard across the face.

“No, I do not think so,” he said. “For now you’re staying awake.”

When Shrini’s eyes could focus again, he saw the corners of Petrenko’s lips turn up into a dull smile while his eyes remained vacant. Then Petrenko’s hand wrapped into a fist, and in a blur, threw a quick jab catching Shrini hard in the ribs.

Time seemed to hold still as he tried to gasp in air. For a long moment he didn’t think he’d be able to, not with the way his stomach muscles were convulsing. Then somehow he started breathing again. Labored, but he was breathing.

“No more,” Shrini tried to say.

Petrenko tapped him again in the ribs. A sharp, jagged pain ripped through him.

“Please,” Shrini forced out, tears streaming down his face. “Don’t hit me again.”

“No?” Petrenko asked. “And why not?”

“Believe me, I’ll tell you everything. Just don’t hit me again.”

“You’ll tell me everything, huh?” Then in a low, menacing voice, “Where are my belongings that you stole?”

“New Hampshire.” Shrini gave him Joel’s name and address, his words spilling out of him.

“Everything of mine is there?”

Shrini nodded.

“Why?”

“He took it all. There was nothing we could do.”

“Who else was part of this?”

Shrini shook his head. “This peacock has everything of yours. Isn’t he enough?”

Petrenko picked up the golf club, settled into a golf stance, and slowly brought the head of the club back.

“Fore!” he hollered good-naturedly. One of the Russians behind him snickered.

In a breathless, frantic burst, Shrini told him all about Dan.

“That makes three of you,” Petrenko said. “What about the other three?”

“There were only two others.”

Petrenko eyed him suspiciously. “The newspapers claimed there were six of you.”

“They’re wrong. There were only five. The other two are dead.”

Petrenko raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “Is that so?”

“Kasner killed them both.” Shrini stopped, the pain throbbing through his battered ankle choking off his words. When he could, he added, “The person shot outside the bank was one of us.”

“Who helped you from inside the bank?”

Shrini gave Petrenko a confused look.

“Don’t act dumb now. Someone inside the bank helped you.”

Shrini shook his head.

“No? Then how did you find out which safety deposit boxes I owned?”

“My friend hacked—”

Petrenko tapped him on the ankle with the golf club.

“Names!” he demanded.

“Dan Wilson hacked into the bank’s database,” Shrini said, grimacing as tears welled up in his eyes.

“And the security system?”

“He rigged the software so it would be disabled during the robbery.”

“This bank manager, Craig Brown, wasn’t involved?” Petrenko asked with some disappointment.

“No.”

Petrenko stroked his chin, considering what was said. He had to admire the execution of the bank robbery. This Dan Wilson could be useful and for a moment he thought about forcing Wilson to work for him, but decided against it. The man had tried once to steal from him; he couldn’t be trusted. More importantly, a message had to be sent. Wilson and his family had to be taken care of and it would have to be bloody. First, though, he would retrieve his belongings and take care of this
zhid
up in New Hampshire. After that, he’d take his time with Wilson and his family.

He told Shrini that he was going to go on a ride with them. “If you make any noise or do anything to upset me I will leave pieces of you along the highway.”

Shrini nodded weakly.

The handcuffs were taken off and Shrini was thrown on to his stomach and hogtied. Yuri Tolkov started to push a soiled rag into his mouth, but Petrenko stopped him. In Russian he told Yuri that he didn’t want to risk Shrini choking to death during the ride. “He might be useful for now. Later we’ll dispose of him.”

Two of the Russians carried Shrini to a blue BMW sedan that had been stolen hours earlier and dumped him into the trunk.

30

The two detectives were in his basement. Resnick had already taken down several of the ceiling tiles so he could look in the space above them. Now he was walking around the room tapping on the wood paneling. The younger detective was sweating heavily as he searched through boxes that had been stacked in a corner.

Dan told Resnick that there were no hidden compartments. “If that’s what you’re looking for,” he added.

Resnick didn’t bother acknowledging him; he simply kept up with his tapping.

Dan checked his watch. It was two thirty-five. They’d been searching the house for almost three hours now and still had the garage and shed to go through. So far he’d been lucky – both Carol and the kids were out – but how much longer was his luck going to hold?

With that thought, a car pulled into the driveway. He knew it had to be Carol. Without saying a word, he went up the basement steps and reached the front door at the same time as his wife.

“You have someone over?” she asked.

“Let’s talk outside.”

As he led her outside, her face grew pale and drawn. She didn’t bother looking at him, instead she stared at Resnick’s Buick and the way it was parked so it had Dan’s car blocked in.

“The police are here, aren’t they?” she asked.

“This is nothing to worry about—”

“They think you were involved in that robbery,” she said. The look she gave him stung worse than if she had slapped him. “They’re searching the house right now.”

“It doesn’t mean anything—”

“What do you mean it doesn’t mean anything? They’ve been going through my dresser drawers, going through everything I own! I’m going to have to wash all my clothes.”

She stopped. Her face scrunched up as if she were about to start bawling. “Have our children been home?” she asked.

Dan shook his head.

“What if they had been?”

“They haven’t, okay? Look, this will all be over soon.” He tried to meet her eyes, but had to lower his gaze. “They’re only doing this because I worked on the security system.”

“You have to tell me the truth,” she said, her voice dropping so it was barely above a whisper. “Look at me.”

He forced himself to meet her eyes.

“Were you and Gordon involved in the robbery?”

“This is ridiculous. How could you even ask me that?”

“For the sake of our children you have to tell me the truth. Dan, please, tell me the truth!”

“I’ve already told you the truth. How many times do I have to say it? Jesus Christ. I’m a software engineer, not a criminal. This is all just nuts.”

Her mouth started to move, but she swallowed back whatever she was going to say. Nodding slightly, she looked away from him and went inside.

“Where are they now?” she asked.

He indicated towards the basement. As if on cue, rustling noises came from there. She turned towards the basement door, took a few steps and stopped. As she stood frozen her body seemed to shrink inward. She looked so frail and tired that it brought a lump to Dan’s throat. Almost as if she were moving in molasses, she started again. Dan followed her down the stairs.

Resnick gave her a short nod when he saw her. The other detective tried to say something innocuous and turned away when he saw the look Carol gave him, his voice trailing off into an unintelligible mumble. Carol stood silently with her arms folded tightly across her chest. Dan stood off to the side and watched.

When they were done in the basement, they next searched Dan’s workroom, then the garage and finally the shed. When they were done, Resnick walked the backyard searching for any possible hiding places.

“Are you satisfied yet?” Dan asked.

“No, not yet,” Resnick said. “Do you rent any storage space?”

Carol’s reaction gave the answer away. “Go ahead,” Dan told her. “It doesn’t matter. Tell them about our storage locker.”

She bit her lip as she looked at Resnick. “Two years ago we rented storage space in Andover,” she said.

“What for?”

“To hold some extra furniture. At the time we were thinking of buying a bigger house.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because the company I was working for shut their doors,” Dan said. “We thought we were going to make millions. We didn’t.”

Resnick gave Dan a hard look. “I’d like to see that locker.”

“No problem, I’ll take you there.”

Dan reached over to squeeze Carol’s hand. She pulled away and turned her head so she wouldn’t have to look at him.

Maguire moved alongside Dan. “You can’t blame her,” he said.

When they got to their cars, Resnick suggested Dan ride with them. “In case we find something, your wife won’t have to pay to have your car towed back.”

“Very thoughtful of you,” Dan said, “but I think I’ll take my chances.”

Dan got in his car and waited until Resnick pulled his Buick out.

A blue BMW drove past Joel Kasner’s house. It continued another hundred yards before pulling over to the side of the road. Petrenko got out of the front passenger seat, stretched, looked around and was satisfied with the location. Nobody was going to hear the gunshots. Still, this would have to be quick – ten minutes at the most. No matter how isolated the location appeared he didn’t want to risk a local cop stumbling upon them. If that happened, the cop would have to be taken care of and he’d just as soon make this as clean a job as possible.

He cracked open the magazine of his 9mm Beretta, checked that it was loaded and slid the magazine back in place. Yuri got out from the driver’s side while two other Russians emerged from the back. Yuri moved past them and took a bolt-action ten-round rifle from the backseat. The other two Russians carried sub-compact snub-nosed pistols.

Shrini was taken out of the trunk and cut free. They gave him a minute to rub the cramps out of his legs and arms. Then Yuri and one of the other Russians dragged him to his feet.

“You are going to do precisely as I say,” Petrenko said, moving so he was less than a foot from Shrini. He showed Shrini his Beretta. “If you fail to do so I will put one of these bullets in your head.”

“I need water,” Shrini said, his voice raspy, barely a croak.

“Later.”

“No, you had me in a hot car trunk for over two hours.”

Petrenko put the barrel of his gun against Shrini’s ear. “I said later.”

“Go ahead. I’ll die anyway without water.”

Petrenko, annoyed, barked out a command in Russian. One of his men searched the backseat and brought out a bottle of water. Shrini emptied it in seconds, his hands shaking while he held the bottle to his mouth. Half of the water ended up going down his shirt.

“That is the last time you disobey me,” Petrenko said, trying to maintain his patience. “Now you will walk to your friend’s front door—”

“He is not my friend.”

Petrenko put a hand up to his face and shook his head. Slowly, as he fought the impulse to blow Shrini’s brains out, he continued, “You will walk up to his door and call for him.”

“How am I supposed to walk? I don’t have my crutches, and look what you did to my foot.”

“You’ll find a way.”

Shrini took several hops and collapsed on to the ground. “I can’t do it,” he cried.

“Then crawl.” Petrenko aimed his gun at Shrini’s head. “I have lost patience with you.”

Shrini made a decision then. If he was going to die, he’d just as soon see that peacock die first. He crawled. When he got to the front door, he pulled himself up into a standing position. One of the Russians positioned himself by a window. Petrenko and Yuri moved so they were on one side of the door, the other Russian stood on the opposite side.

“Now,” Petrenko ordered.

Shrini started pounding on the door. “Peacock, open up!”

There was some noise from inside the house. To Shrini it sounded like someone was running up and down a staircase. The Russian standing by the window nodded at Petrenko, then aimed and fired. The ricochet from the glass took off the tip of his nose. Then a shot fired from inside the house took off the rest of his face.

Petrenko stared blankly at the dead man’s body before realizing what had happened – that the window had been installed with one-way bullet-proof glass. His face slowly transformed into something not quite human as he knocked Shrini aside and tried kicking down the door. The steel-reinforced door held, his knee didn’t. Grabbing his injured knee he barked out orders to Yuri and the other man to get the car. Both turned and ran towards the road, both men keeping low to the ground so they wouldn’t be targets from inside the house. Petrenko watched them disappear behind some bushes. As he started to straighten up, Shrini grabbed him from behind, his forearm pushing hard into Petrenko’s throat.

In the position Petrenko was in all he could do was flail harmlessly. There was no way he could break Shrini’s chokehold. The strength of this person surprised him. As the world started to darken on him he fell to one knee, then the other and finally on to his stomach. As his head was pushed to one side he saw Shrini’s leg stretched out and realized that Shrini was lying crisscrossed on top of him, probably so he could brace himself.

Petrenko still had his gun. He moved his arm slightly from his side and pointed the gun where he expected Shrini’s injured ankle to be and then started firing until he heard the sound of a bullet hitting bone. There was a muffled scream. The grip around Petrenko’s throat loosened enough for him to break free. Gasping for air, he lifted his gun arm and shot Shrini two times in the eye.

Yuri arrived with the BMW. Petrenko pushed himself to his feet. Coughing, his face a deep purple, he ordered Yuri out of the car. “You,” he commanded the other man, “drive through that wall!”

The man looked at the house and then at the rifle barrel Yuri had trained on him. He shifted over to the driver’s seat, revved the engine and floored the gas, aiming the BMW to the left of the front door.

The car made it halfway through the house, both front wheels blowing out on impact. The Russian, though, trapped by the front airbag, was easily picked off by Joel with a single shot from his AK-47.

The car had knocked a large hole through the wall. Yuri charged through it, firing his rifle. Joel hit him once in the shoulder and again in the chest, but before Yuri went down he got off a round hitting Joel in the hand. The bullet blew off two of his fingers and sent his AK-47 clattering across the floor.

“
Motherfucking cunt
,” Joel swore as he stared at the bloody stumps where his fingers had been. When he looked up he saw Petrenko through the hole. The Russian fired once at Joel, hitting him in the thigh and sending him falling on to his back.

“You fucking
zhid
,” Petrenko swore. “You’re going to steal from me?”

He squeezed his body through the opening in the wall. As Petrenko made his way forward his injured knee seized up. When he recovered he found that Joel, still lying on his back, had a forty-five caliber pistol aimed at him.

“I was carrying two guns, asshole.”

There were three gunshots, all rapid-fire. Petrenko looked with mild surprise at the three red dots spaced out along his chest. Then he fell over dead.

Joel looked down and saw he was bleeding badly from his thigh.
Commie son of a bitch hit an artery
. He took off his shirt, and using his teeth, ripped off a strip of fabric. Wrapping it above his wound and pulling as tight as he could, he tied his makeshift tourniquet. He sat for a moment, trying to build up the strength to stand. He got halfway to his feet and then blacked out.

The two detectives found nothing in Dan’s storage locker. Resnick told his partner to meet him at the car, waited until he left and then pulled Dan aside.

“I can’t let you get away with this,” Resnick said.

Dan didn’t bother responding. As Resnick looked at him,the muscles along his jaw hardened until his face looked carved out of stone.

“I’m going to keep searching until I find something. Even if I don’t find any concrete evidence I have to make you pay for this. I can’t let you skate with one woman dead and another critically wounded.” Resnick paused, sucked in his breath. “Do you have any idea what type of animal Petrenko is?”

“I never heard of this Petrenko—”

“Let me educate you then,” Resnick said, giving Dan a cold stare. “He used to torture people for the KGB. Over the years we’ve found bodies dumped in the ocean that have been skinned head to toe. There’s no doubt in my mind Petrenko did them personally, but he’s smart and I’ve never been able to tie him to any of them. If I arrest you and get your name in the papers, he’ll go after your family. Even if we assign a police detail to protect them, he’ll get them. The guy is as relentless as he is sadistic.”

Dan’s color drained a few shades. “I don’t appreciate this type of threat, Detective.”

“It’s not a threat. I’m telling you what will happen for a fact.” Resnick looked away as he rubbed his jaw. “I know he had other items besides money in those boxes. I know him well enough to know that. My guess is those items would send him away to prison for the rest of his miserable life.”