“Blyad!”
Frustrated, Vera Fedorka cusses and rattles on the handcuffs shackling her to the bed. Making sure that the caller can’t hear the noise, Maksimenko takes the call.
“Maksimenko here. What? Two hours ago? At his mothers house? That was expected… Not the asset? A boy, by his voice? Are they at the HQ? Did they ask about the money reward? Never mind. He has a Skoda Fabia? Got the license plate number? No? Damn, there are thousands of Fabias in Kiev… In any case, send plain-clothes agents to all the cheap hovels in town. Make sure they have his most recent photograph. No, there’s no need for patrolling the Metro… For God’s sake, because he’s from the Zone! Those guys prefer to travel in open spaces… Agree, he’s probably using a fake passport. Good. Will be there within the hour.”
He gives Vera Fedorka a triumphant glance.
“My plan has paid off. Tarasov was sighted two hours ago here in Kiev! He got the bait! The trick with Strelok’s message has worked! Am I good or am I good?”
“You are dumb enough if you leave me here like this, Dima!”
Maksimenko walks back to the bed and gives Vera Fedorka the look of a real sadist.
“I’m in a dilemma,” he says theatrically scratching his head. “What am I supposed to do… I could call Kruchelnikov, this time me waking up him in the middle of the night for a change. Or should I finish what I have started with you? Such a dilemma…”
Vera Fedorka growls like a captive animal. Maksimenko smiles at her. The woman now looks at him, begging, with full submission in her eyes.
He lies down on her and finishes within a minute. At the same moment, Vera Fedorka’s beautiful face jerks into a painful grimace. She emits a yelp, followed by a long, faltering moan.
Maksimenko gets off the bed and quickly dresses up.
“Dima,” Vera whispers, still panting. “Stay. I beg you.”
He steps to the woman, caresses her sweating body and smears the female moist all over his face.
“To remind me of you until next time,” he smiles. “That would be within exactly one hour.”
“What?!”
Captain Maksimenko glances at his watch. “Agent Fedorka, I need you back at headquarters within one hour. We’ll have a minor to interrogate. Do not be late.”
Maksimenko ignores her begging gaze. He places the handcuff key on the bed, away from her shackled right hand, yet close enough to reach it if she makes a strong enough effort, even if at the price of badly chaffing her wrist.
He can still hear Fedorka’s cussing when he shuts the door from outside.
“I love you too,” he says to himself with a self-loving smile.
29
From all the hotels in Kiev, Tarasov didn’t pick the Premier Palace Hotel because he desired all the extravaganza that the best hotel of Ukraine offered, neither to enjoy the marvelous view over the high-rise buildings of Kiev’s downtown from the room. With the curtains carefully pulled close to deny any insight to the room he and Nooria occupy, he couldn’t enjoy the view anyway.
He put himself in the SBU’s shoes, thinking that if he were to watch out for a renegade army officer crazy enough to show up in his home town, he’d look for him in the cheaper hotels and railway station rest rooms where all staff had already been alerted and briefed about his appearance and personal details. The Spirit of the City of Screams might have made him bigger—not as big as the Top and the Colonel’s Lieutenants, though still much above his former height—but his face didn’t change much. Tarasov had no doubts that many people had unexpected visitors leaving his photograph and a telephone number behind, should a taxi driver or hotel employee recognize him.
His other, even more important reason was that he knew the building inside out. For Tarasov, who had been with the Ukrainian Spetsnaz for several years before he was deployed to the Zone, being prepared for anything that might happen to rich and important people was part of his daily training — rescuing hostages, smoking out terrorists, locating and disarming bombs. The Premier Palace Hotel was one of the high-profile locations for which such plans were prepared and rehearsed regularly. He knows exactly which plans SBU commandos would follow if they’d come for him and where they might make a mistake. Keeping this in mind, Tarasov picked two adjacent rooms where he knows that the posh-looking ceiling is only half inch thick plaster, with an air-condition maintenance shaft running directly above. It could be made easily accessible with the fire axe he already took from the emergency case in the staircase, while the Top feigned an argument with a hotel employee to distract the attention of any security guard who might be watching the corridor through the hidden CCTV.
Hearing a faint knock on the door, Tarasov immediately removes the lock card from its wall case. The lights in the room go out at once, including TV and hair dryer.
“Hey!” Pete says from his chair in front of the TV. “I was watching this!”
Tarasov signals him to stay put. He quickly removes the key card from its holster to switch off all lights in the room and takes the clothes hanger that he had already placed close to the door — even the most heavily armed commando would be helpless if unexpectedly choke-held with that.
After a heartbeat another knock comes. This time it is someone drumming the rhythm of the Garry Owen song with his fingers on the door.
“Come in,” Tarasov says switching the lights back on. Nooria’s hair dryer starts buzzing again.
“Boo!” The Top emanates the strong smell of liquor as he steps in and fakes a frightening gesture. “Gotcha!”
“In high spirits, I see.”
Hartman collapses into a chair. “Jesus! In the end I was prepared to make Custer’s last stand and die with my boots on. That Aussie son of a bitch almost won our drinking competition.”
“Is he in business?”
“Bet he is. He’s an oddball, though. Most hunters brag about what they bagged. Sawyer was bragging about what he didn’t.”
“Like what?”
“Among else, he mentioned gonorrhea in Warsaw and HIV in Cape Town.”
“Gospodi, Top, how much did you drink?”
“More than necessary, less than enough… anyway, tonight he’s on the hunt again. Masha is the name of the game, or Natasha or whatever… eyes of a cat, body of a panther! I could have taken her friend, a certain Katya but she was looking too KGB to me.”
Hartman hiccups and makes a face as if he had already regretted his decision.
“I hope those hookers will not distract him from the trip tomorrow.”
“Don’t worry. I’d say he’s the kind of fellow who wouldn’t miss a boar hunt, not even for the sake of a dozen top models begging him for sex. And Jesus, the women here must all be top models because the way they look—good God!”
“Is the hotel bar still open?” Pete asks, amused. “I could use some company myself.”
“Over my dead body,” Hartman grumbles. “Anyway, what’s the plan for tomorrow?”
Tarasov pulls the table closer to the Top’s chair and unfolds a map he took from the lobby, found among brochures promoting the sights of Kiev and Ukraine. It has the logo of Chernobyl Tours on it, an agency that organized tourist trips into the Zone before it became off-limits. “We’ll drive to a village called Prybirsk. Dytyatki would be even better, but it used to be the main entry point to the Zone and the army still maintains a big outpost there. I’m not too eager to run into former comrades. So, Prybirsk is where we’ll meet Sawyer. I hope he won’t be too exhausted tomorrow morning to drive there by his GPS.”