The Traveler (28 page)

“Yes, it is an exact model of the first doorway. It works, I know.”

The Russian smiled wider as he rubbed at his gleaming black beard. He knew the large man was telling the truth because he had seen something few ever saw—he saw the tattoo. This time he patted the man on his shoulder as he made eye contact with one of his men.

“I admire you, my friend, to overcome so much and to be so forthcoming in regard to my inquiries. I salute your past, and I have planned for you a brighter and far less frightening future.” With one last smile the man known as Mr. Jones, aka Alexi Doshnikov, left the basement as he whistled an old Russian folk song.

Julien watched him go and was expecting his bonds to be cut. That was why he wasn't expecting the send-off that he did finally receive. The plastic bag fell over his head and face and was pulled tight.

The last thing Julien ever saw was the light dimming as the world slipped away in the distorted and obscured view of the plastic bag.

At thirty-one years of age, one of the youngest survivors of a cursed event that claimed the lives of over six million members of his race, had finally succumbed to time and the new brutality of the modern world.

BROOKLYN NAVY YARD

Will eased the picked lock from the back of the old building and pushed the door open. He stopped and listened for movement and heard none. His eyes went to the front and he saw Jason Ryan as he advanced into the darkened warehouse. In the diffused light entering the renovated building from the outside, both could see the hundreds of pallets of plastic-covered, newly made boxes. They were flat and the area must have housed over a million of them.

Jason used the muzzle of the Glock to indicate a stairwell. Will saw one also on his end. Both men made their way to the stairs opposite each other and eased themselves into the darkness. Mendenhall reached the top and saw the trapdoor. The broken lock was a clear indication that the men on the roof more than likely didn't lease or own the property. Will used his elbow to ease the trapdoor up, hoping a loud squeak didn't follow its opening. His eyes quickly fell upon the two men standing at the false facade of the building and they were not even attempting to hide their presence. The colonel and Farbeaux must have disappeared into building 114 and that was the reason they were so casual and indifferent.

Before Mendenhall could react, the door was pulled from his hand and the muzzle of a small automatic weapon was pressed against the top of his head.

“Tell me, little groundhog, do you see your shadow?” the voice said with a thick Russian accent.

“God, I hate smug assholes with witty little sayings,” Will mumbled as he was roughly pulled out of the trapdoor space by the collar. He straightened and saw the stockless version of the world-renowned AK-47 leveled at his chest with two unnaturally large and bearded men smiling at him.

“Oh, look, little groundhog has a roommate,” said the second man as he nodded toward the far end of the green-painted roof. Will frowned as he saw Ryan, who was also being pushed out of that side. He was then poked in the liver and pushed toward the two men taking pictures with a telephoto lens. “You may stop that, Victor, we may have another source of information—well, two actually,” the man said as he nodded at the weapon-wielding man and Will was pushed toward the skylight where he met Ryan. “These two don't seem to be very good at their jobs,” the man finished and the other seven men who had appeared on the roof laughed. The man examined the intruders' two Glocks, and eyed closely the strange cell phones. He pocketed the phones and handed another man the weapons.

“This is embarrassing,” Jason said as he counted his way to the conclusion that they stood no chance at fighting their way out of this one. He looked down and over the side of the building and saw that there were no witnesses on this side of the navy yard. He felt his hope dwindle further when he saw Flushing Avenue on the other side. No, the only way was to jump over the side and fall into the busy street, dodging a fifteen-foot-high fence in the process, only to die in the street below instead of on the roof.

“Well, you'll have to excuse us, we've had a hard few months,” Mendenhall said as his eyes fell on the fifteen-foot elongated skylight. His eyes went from there to Jason, who also spied the escape route. He closed his eyes and shook his head as he tried to remember just where the warehoused pallets had been stacked.

“Call down and have the van brought around.” The man in charge gestured to Will and Jason. “We have some questions to ask. You don't mind coming with us, do you?”

“Actually, we'd rather not,” Will said with his hands raised as he stepped forward at the same moment Jason did, and then they both high-stepped into midair and gravity did the rest.

The eight Russians were so stunned they actually laughed for a moment at the stupidity of the two Americans. They briefly exchanged looks and then stepped to the broken glass and looked down in time to see Ryan and Mendenhall scrambling from the palletized boxes far below, hopping from one stack to the next lowest. The small man with the horrid face tattoo stopped, looked up, and shot the men the finger. With a wide smile he saluted and jumped to follow the black man, but not before finding out that he had hurt his backside when he jumped. He cursed and limped after the black man yelling and asking a running Mendenhall, “How come you never hurt yourself?” The Russians broke for the trapdoors on both ends.

Before, the Russian leader, who was still standing and watching his men scramble after the two escapees, didn't realize anything amiss. The cell phones they had taken from the two Americans that he had placed in his coat pocket became a reason for major concern as both cell phones simultaneously, and on orders from Europa 1,700 miles away, issued a destruct order to the phones after she had received alternate DNA prints on the Event Group–issued cell phone marvels. The internal charge was not enough to cause an explosion, but plenty large enough to burn through the memory card and the processor. Both phones immediately started to melt inside the man's pocket. He hurriedly ripped the two phones free and tossed them onto the roof of the building. He hissed as melted plastic stuck to his hand. The brute in charge of the surveillance detail angrily looked at the man who had the camera around his neck.

“Get that to Mr. Jones,” he said in angered Russian. Then he jabbed a finger into the chest of one of the larger killers. “Get the ground team and bring them back!” the leader called out.

The cell phones had melted to an unrecognizable glob of black plastic and the man angrily kicked at their smoldering remains.

*   *   *

Will smashed through the front doors with a limping Jason close behind. They both felt naked without their pistols as they frantically looked around for an easy escape route back to the main drive of the shipyard.

“Look, that van!” Jason said as he and Will broke for the white-panel van sitting in the small drive beside building 111.

They were fifteen feet from the van when its sliding door opened and three more men spilled out of the interior and each had a large handgun.

“Jesus, what is this, the Kremlin parking lot?” Will said as he skidded to a stop.

“Through the fence,” Ryan yelled when his eyes fell on a break in the chain-link. He pushed Will forward toward the bushes that covered most of the fence. Both men vanished just as four of the eight Russians broke through the front and back doors of the building and gave chase.

Jason was almost struck by a passing car that honked and swerved out of the way at the last second as they crashed through the fence and bushes. Will let go of Jason's collar and they both saw that backtracking to the safety of where their people were was impossible from this side of the fence.

“In there, we have to get to a phone,” Jason yelled as he started running, favoring his bruised ass. Will saw the sign above the doorway of the small and nondescript building.

“Brooklyn Social Club,” Will read as he ran after Jason.

The three men and the bearded brute from the roof broke through the bushes and the fence in time to see the two men scramble into the small establishment on a smaller side street off of Flushing Avenue. The four men split up with two going to the front and the other two to the back of the small, nondescript white building.

Jason and Will had trouble adjusting their eyes to the darkness of the room. They saw several round tables with older men sitting at them. Some were playing cards, others just sitting and speaking in low tones. Jason, out of breath, turned and saw the bartender standing and staring at the two harried men. The bartender concentrated his glare on the smaller man with the sickening tattoo on the right side of his face.

“This is a private club,
gentlemen
.” The emphasis had been placed on the last word.

“We need your phone.”

The eyes went to the larger black man. “You don't hear so good?” the bartender asked in his Brooklyn accent.

Several men at a nearby table were younger than the older ones they had first seen inside. The older men in the darkness in the back of the room continued to play cards without much notice to the visitors. The younger men in running suits and others in nice sport coats took another view entirely of the interruption to their day.

Will swallowed when he realized just what sort of club they had stepped into.

“Boy, you just have a sixth sense for getting us into this stuff, don't you?” he said to Jason out of the side of his mouth just as the front and rear doors opened and their pursuers joined them.

The younger men at the farthest tables tensed but remained seated when the four dark-haired men came in. Some of these young Turks looked to the back and the others at the front of the club. All eyes watched the confrontation without comment, with the exception of the burly little bartender.

“As I told these two, this is a private club.”

The man leading the well-dressed charge into the club turned at the front door and smiled at the bartender. He was also out of breath.

“We have no wish to intrude,” he said as he dismissed the bartender and approached Mendenhall and Ryan, who stood their ground defiantly. “We just came in to help you with your vermin situation. We shall remove them and be on our way.”

All the men, twenty plus of them, with the exception of the nine old men who continued to smoke cigars and play cards, along with another two who sat in the far corner playing checkers, exchanged looks at the funny accent of the bearded man in the black silk suit and shiny shirt. The gold chains around his neck were fully exposed to show off their glory.

“You do that outside,” the bartender said as his right hand vanished beneath the counter.

“Gentlemen, I am Captain William Mendenhall, United States Army; this is Commander Jason Ryan, U.S. Navy. We really need to use that phone,” Mendenhall said as he looked from the men sitting at the tables and then back to the bartender.

“Now, now, does this man look as if he's in the U.S. Navy? Has the navy's standards fallen so low as to recruit men such as this?” the Russian said in perfect English as he slowly advanced on the two men in the middle of the room. The men at the tables remained silent as they took in the situation. “We will not bother you further,” the man said, slightly turning his head toward the beefy bartender as he gestured for his three men to take the two outside. “Come, we have much to discuss.” He tried to take Mendenhall's arm and the captain pulled away.

“Don't touch me, Russian.”

This caught the attention of the men in the room. Even the older men stopped playing cards and looked up at what was happening. Several of their eyes went to the older men playing checkers. Even they had stopped and were watching the scene unfold.

“Come, come, let's not make a scene. We have a few questions and then you can return to your commander, whoever he is.”

“Thought you said these men wasn't in the army or the navy?” the bartender asked.

“Friend, please mind your own affairs, before something bad happens to you,” the Russian said as his three men encircled Ryan and Mendenhall.

“Something bad?” the bartender asked with a wry smile etching his face.

“Do you have a hard time understanding English, my friend, or do you only understand that lost tongue of Mama Mia Italiano?” The man laughed and looked at his men as they joined him.

Before the Russians knew what was happening every younger man had risen and had produced handguns before the Eastern Bloc mob could even blink and drop their silly grins. The bartender charged the sawed-off twelve-gauge pump shotgun and leveled it at the bearded leader. The bartender looked to his right at the table where the old men sat playing cards, and then finally to the two gentlemen who sat and watched from their interrupted checker playing. All sets of eyes were on the Russians, who had suddenly started to deflate. An old man in a green sweater and old fedora placed his checkers down on the board and then slowly nodded at the bartender.

“As you can see, Russian, we speak both languages rather well. And while we have no love for some of our more aggressive federal authorities, never think that relates to boys in uniform, ever.” The bartender pointed the barrel of the shotgun directly at the Russian's head. Will and Jason had to admire the fact that the bearded man never blinked; instead he looked bemused. “You two better make for the door before these boys and us have a serious disagreement.” The bartender nodded toward the front of the building.

“You don't know what you're involving yourselves in,” the leader said as his men wondered if they stood a chance if they resisted the Italian's orders.

“We know exactly what it is we're involved in, Russian,” the bartender said as if the word was a bad-tasting cheese. “For years we've noticed. You boys go about things in a not very professional manner.” The shotgun became the main focus of the Russian's attention. “Now you two get to runnin', these boys are going to sit and have a drink while we explain a few rules we have in this particular area of town.”