A quick show of hands. Eight for. One puzzling abstention. Only the blowhard against.
Lev was the man.
One hundred grand would be split nine ways; the other four hundred would go into an account of Lev's choosing. A man who smiled rarely, Lev could not wipe the grin off his face. With seven years left on his sentence, he could at least look forward to a little gold at the end of the rainbow.
And so it was that at the moment Alex placed his tray on the table and casually fell onto the hard metal bench, Lev never even turned around. Why bother? After watching and studying his target for four days, he could write a book on Alex's culinary habits. He knew Alex would quietly sip his lukewarm coffee and wait for his big cellmate. Alex liked eggs, his cellmate adored French toast. It was a routine they shared, like an old married couple. The roommate would pour and scrape his runny eggs onto Alex's tray, and the French toast would land on the big guy's before they launched into their breakfasts.
The other nine Russians were strategically situated in a rough concentric pattern, precisely in accordance with the neat diagram Lev had meticulously sketched and handed out. Lev raised a clenched fist to signal the start. Immediately the other nine launched their trays in the air, then began indiscriminately pummeling every prisoner within reach. In a claustrophobic chamber filled with sweaty, grumpy men with a strong penchant toward violence, the spark was volcanic, the result horrific. It opened with an artillery duel of hundreds of hurled trays. Then four hundred men commenced an orgy of punching, kicking, tackling, biting, hollering, shoving, and general havoc.
Lev, seated almost directly to Alex's rear, watched with quiet amusement. He wouldn't budge until the riot approached full pitch. The sudden shift from order to madness overwhelmed the guards, who shuffled their feet and watched helplessly from the sidelines. From past riots, Lev knew he had three minutes before reinforcements equipped with batons and riot gear arrived to break up the fun.
Lev slowly stood and stretched. He drew a deep breath and steeled his nerves. From his right pant pocket he withdrew a ten-inch shaft, a masterpiece of lethal perfection he had lovingly honed in the prison shop. The tip was pointy as a pin. Edges that could shave a baby's ass. The hilt was attractively bound in a coarse, fingerprint-resistant cotton fabric, a throwaway tool, a stab-and-leave-it special. And because of the commotion, a fast, quiet stabbing would be lost in the sea of violence. The odds of witnesses were about nil; the odds anyone would snitch on Lev even less.
Lev eased away from his table and through a series of short, stealthy steps quickly closed the seven feet to Alex. His target was standing now, back turned to Lev, thoroughly fixated on the raucous festivities, totally oblivious that this little party was all about him. Lev gripped the knife low. An upward thrust would be best, he promptly decided-up though the rib cage, then straight for the heart, or lungs.
But just as the blade was swinging up, something hard and powerful banged Lev's forearm. A nasty cracking sound, and the arm snapped. The shiv popped out of his fist and was instantly lost in the wild scuffle of feet. The county coroner would later note that Lev's radius and ulna bones had both snapped and shattered. Simultaneous breaks with lots of splinters. A blow from a sledgehammer might account for it. A one-in-a-million kick from one of those big-time karate guys was another possibility.
One thing was sure-the force had been a ten on the Richter scale.
Lev yelped with pain and barely had to time to look to his left. A defense of any kind was out of the question anyway. A giant with frightening speed and gargantuan hands lifted him off the floor by his head. A quick jerk to the right, another snapping noise, Lev's neck this time, and he dropped to the floor like a discarded sack of disconnected bones.
His body was jerking involuntarily but Lev didn't feel a thing. No pain, no tingling, not even a mild sense of relief as his bowels and bladder emptied.
The big man was leaning over him, looking down into his eyes. "Hey, Alex," the man asked over his shoulder, "know this guy?"
"I've never seen him before."
"He knows you, for damn sure. He was about to shiv you."
In Russian, Lev managed to croak, "Call a doctor."
The big man looked bewildered. "What?"
Alex eased the big man aside and bent down until his face was two inches from Lev's. "Who are you?" he asked, also in Russian.
"Call a doctor. Please. My body's not working."
"Give me your name."
"Can't breathe," he managed to gasp, and he was right. His spinal cord was severed; his face was turning bluer by the second as spinal shock settled in. "Hurry."
"Why me?" Alex asked.
"Money," Lev confessed.
"From who?" Alex asked, not budging, not making the slightest move to save him.
"I…" Lev tried to force a breath, but his lungs no longer functioned. "No idea."
The big man tugged at Alex's arm. "Let's go. Don't be standing here when the guards come."
"One last question," Alex promised the big man, then, staring into Lev's dying eyes, asked, "Are there more of you?"
Lev did not answer. The final act of his miserable life would not include snitching on his colleagues. He would not give Konevitch the satisfaction.
It was in his eyes, though.
Oh yes, there were definitely more killers out there. They waited until they were back in the privacy of their small cell before either said a word. They sat on the lower bunk, kicked off their shoes, and pretended for a moment that it had never happened. Benny had not just killed a man. Nobody was trying to execute Alex. Life was every bit as good as it was yesterday, and tomorrow would be the same.
Eventually, Alex started it off. "Benny, I owe you my life."
"Just protecting my investment," Bitchy grunted as though it was nothing. His face betrayed him; he was obviously quite pleased.
"How did you know?"
"Oh, that. Well, the riot. There's usually one before a killing in here."
"I meant how did you know I was his target?"
"Didn't, necessarily. Protecting my quarterback in large mobs is how I make my living. You get an eye, or you don't get a contract. Who was that guy?"
"A Russian. I never met him."
"Why'd he want to shiv you?"
"Money, Benny-somebody put a bounty on me."
"A big one?"
"Quite large, probably."
"That's not good."
"Tell me about it."
"Any idea who's fronting the cash?"
"A very good idea, yes."
"Can you make them back off?"
"Sure, after I'm dead."
"Anyone else know?"
"I have that impression. The boys who started the riot, for sure."
They pondered the walls for a moment. Benny obviously was wondering what he had gotten himself into, hooked up with a Russian with a sumptuous bounty on his head. And Alex, just as obviously, was analyzing the same issue. How had the Russians found him? After a moment, that question answered itself. Somebody in the U.S. government had tipped them off; no other possibility made sense. But why now? And why here, in this miserable excuse for a prison? He was incarcerated, awaiting trial. In all likelihood, his next date with a judge would be followed by a quick trip to Russia. He posed absolutely no threat-or none they should know about, anyway.