“We both know there isn’t much time for a chat,” Turner said curtly. His eyes were full of anger.
“You are a hard man to kill. Mr. Turner, is it?” Petrov responded.
“Who sent you?”
“Now that is a difficult question indeed.” His tone was mocking, and it only served to piss Turner off. “What if I told you I don’t know?”
“I’ll kill you,” he said.
“Ahhh.” He paused for a moment to consider the operative’s answer. “And if I tell you who it was, then what?”
Turner’s eyes were hard, but there was no emotion in his voice. “I’ll kill you quickly.”
“You know, Mr. Turner, it is nothing personal.” He spit some blood onto the floor and looked back up at him. “Like you, I am just doing my job.” The assassin was in pain, but the words were said with a clinical detachment.
“Who sent you?”
“I cannot tell you that. I would if I could, but I cannot.”
Trent looked toward the laptop sitting on the bed and then back to the Russian. He had already assumed he wouldn’t know who his employer was, but he needed to be sure.
“So, all the information you have is on that computer?” he asked.
The operative didn’t expect an answer without applying some pressure, but it never hurt to ask. He stood up and walked into the bathroom to turn on the shower. He grabbed a hand towel and came back out, before turning on the clock’s radio. The DJ had just cackled his familiar laugh. Turner remembered Elliot Segal from when he was much younger, and the talk show DJ put on a song that made him crack half a smile. It was a remake of “Man of Constant Sorrow” recorded by the Charm City Devils. He turned up the volume and thought about how apropos the soundtrack was.
Petrov watched him appraisingly as he approached. “Are you feeling a little dirty, Mr. Turner?” he asked, now eyeing the towel. His tone was mocking.
Turner glowered at him and picked up a pen that was on the desk. A smug look replaced the pained expression on Petrov’s face. Turner shoved the pen into the wound above his collarbone, ready to mask his screams of pain with the towel. The assassin only let out an angry grunt.
“Who hired you?” Turner asked calmly as he slowly withdrew the pen.
Petrov would know this wasn’t the first interrogation this man had conducted. He braced himself for the pain. The Russian had been in this type of situation before.
Turner tilted his head sideways and studied the Russian. Petrov smiled. His bloodshot eyes reflected the look of a madman, and he let out a maniacal laugh.
“I told you. I cannot give you the answer.”
The operative jammed the pen back into the wound and twisted it around. The Russian grunted again and looked down at the object that was digging into his skin. Turner had to admit he was impressed with the man’s tolerance for pain.
“I’ve been a big fan of your work,” Petrov said. He was now sweating profusely, and his breathing seemed more pained. “Until now, of course,” he added. He squinted his eyes like he had something to say that would be of interest.
“Spit it out,” Turner said.
“You should be more careful. That man I killed — Ryan — he didn’t know what you had gotten him into, did he?”
Turner twisted the pen around a few more times in anger, but this time the Russian didn’t make a sound.
“Aren’t you concerned someone might hear me scream?”
Turner walked behind the Russian and said, “Dead people don’t make noise.”
He put his hands under the assassin’s chin and snapped his neck with a swift counterclockwise motion. He looked down at the man who had killed his brother and took a deep breath to regain control. He searched Petrov and emptied his pocket litter onto the desk.
The vibration from his XHD3 drew his attention. He pulled the device out of his pocket and read the response from Heckler.
Finger,
I’ll have a cleaner take care of the room within the hour.
Etzy wants you to pick him up tonight. I’m trying to secure some assets to cover your back. You need to stand down and wait for help. We can’t afford to lose this kid. Wait to hear back from me before moving in. I’ll send you the details in another message with some photos we downloaded from the FBI’s servers.
Heckler
The operative’s eyes were drawn to a folded-up piece of paper he had pulled out of Petrov’s pocket. He unfolded it carefully and read the two words the Russian had scribbled in pencil. “Soller.” “Potomac.” His heart raced as he looked to the dead man. This man was somehow connected to the senator’s son and Etzy Millar. He hoped the assassin’s laptop would yield some answers.
Turner decided he would get some dinner while he considered his next move. By the time he finished eating, it would be dusk. Losing Millar wasn’t an option, and regardless of what Heckler had said, he knew he didn’t have the luxury of waiting around for help. The hacker was their only chance of figuring out what was going on, and they weren’t the only ones looking for him. His motivation grew as he contemplated finding the Russian’s employer and finishing the job.
Chapter 27
The droning sound of computer fans filled the subterranean den the men referred to as The Dungeon. The area was bathed in a surreal, high-tech glow from the dual-monitor computer workstations strewn about the long, rectangular room. Columns of smoke rose from several ashtrays, sucked away by vents at regular intervals. The room had a door at each of its short walls, and its main entrance was guarded by attentive Russian ex-military, each armed with an AK-74 assault rifle and a sidearm.
The inhabitants of the work space had formed cliques. Several Russians faced across from one another on the right as you first entered the room from the hallway, with three other distinct groupings staggered to either side as you approached the door at the other end. These individuals represented the Kozlov Bratva’s hacker brain trust in the United States, the technology arm of the Russian mafia’s largest faction. They were all seasoned computer hackers. Some were brought over from the motherland and Eastern Bloc countries, while others had been recruited in America.
The door at the far end of the room served as the gateway to the operation’s primary Command-and-Control servers, or C&C servers as they were known in tech circles. They were the computers that commanded the Bratva’s various botnets, providing instructions to the compromised machines. C&C servers were the Internet’s version of a mafia boss: they directed their cyber assets with absolute authority.
There had been some complications in Switzerland six weeks ago, but Pavel Kozlov felt everything was back on track. He was now confident that the primary objective of their operation hadn’t been compromised. Some assets were lost, but the man responsible, an operative known as The American, had paid the ultimate price for his interference. There had been a new development, however, and the Bratva leader was under pressure as they readied for the final stage of execution.
Dimitri Sokov, who reigned supreme over the hacking division, was in the server room when the Bratva leader called.
“I want the hacker dead,” Kozlov barked in Russian.
Sokov winced. “It will take time before I can find the one who did this.”
“Make an example of him. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” He bit his lip and looked over at the man standing next to him. “I will have the guards take care of the matter here, in The Dungeon, in front of the others. Mikhail is in the server room with me. I will inform him of the problem.”
“Good,” Kozlov said, before he ended the call.