Then his burner buzzed. Shafer. They hadn’t talked in more than a day.
“Ellis.”
“Evan’s threatening to walk.”
Wells wasn’t entirely surprised. His son was headstrong and surely hated having FBI agents watching him. Especially since Wells hadn’t told him much about the threat.
“You told him to sit tight?”
“He said he has to hear it from you.”
“I’ll call him.”
“In person.”
“You told him that’s not possible?”
“Of course.”
“Make him stay, Ellis.”
“I can’t make him do anything. He’s a grown-up. It gets worse. Our friends are watching me. Our private friends, not the public ones, capisce?”
Meaning Duberman’s operatives, not the CIA.
“They come at you?”
“Not exactly. More like that they wanted me to know that they could find me. I don’t know if it means they think we’re close.”
“I’m on the way to see the Russian.” Wells kept his voice steady. “So you need to take care of this.”
“I’ll tell Evan you’ll call him as soon as you can.”
“And I will. But if there’s heavy hand-holding required, you need to make yourself useful. That means getting on a plane to see him, talk him down, you do it.”
“All right.”
“But make sure nobody’s watching. Let’s not give anyone a road map to that safe house by accident.”
“Save the tradecraft lessons, John.”
“I’ll let you know if my new friend tells me anything.”
“Don’t piss him off too much, okay? Files say he has a temper.”
“Got my knee pads right here, Ellis.” He hung up before Shafer could answer.
“Everything okay?” the driver said.
“Perfect.” Wells stared out as dusk fled and the road sank into black.
The BMW drove an hour before turning onto a dirt track. Stands of fir and pine dotted the hills around them. Wells sensed that when the sun rose the land would be pretty. After a few minutes, the sedan turned onto a paved driveway that ran between twin lanes of spruce trees. What looked like a model of the Arc de’Triomphe straddled the road ahead.
The BMW passed beneath the arch, crested a low rise. Buvchenko’s mansion lay in the dale below, tall and wide. Imposing. A Russian armored personnel carrier sat out front, its 100-millimeter main gun pointed at the road. The BMW drove past the mansion and finally parked beside a windowless concrete building. It was either a badly designed garage or a firing range. Wells figured on the latter.
Mikhail Buvchenko waited outside, a pistol strapped to each hip. He was a giant, well over six feet tall. He had hugely defined muscles that came from hours lifting weights every day, augmented with pharmaceutical help. He reminded Wells of a Slavic version of the movie star The Rock.
Despite the midwinter chill, Buvchenko wore only sweatpants and a black T-shirt that stretched tightly over his deltoids and biceps. His head was shaved and the skin of his face unnaturally smooth. His eyes flickered like he was watching a movie no one else could see. Wells detected a slight theatricality in the pose. Kowalski sold his clients Swiss urbanity to go with their AKs and rocket-propelled grenades. Buvchenko offered the opposite. I strong like bull. Buy my guns, you will be, too. Good for business, as long as he remembered he was only posing.
Buvchenko reached out, squeezed Wells’s hand, the grip just short of bone-crushing. “John Wells.”
“Mr. Buvchenko. Pleasure to meet you.”
Buvchenko smirked. We’ll see about that.
“You have your own range.”
“Ranges. Indoor and outdoor. Please, come with me.” He led Wells around the side of the building. “So Pierre Kowalski sent you to me. Very nice of him.” Buvchenko’s accent was almost absurdly thick. Verrri nus ahv heeem. Again, Wells sensed that the Russian was exaggerating for his own amusement.
“He’s a good guy, Pierre.”
“You weren’t always so friendly.” Telling Wells he knew their history.
“I’m more of a people person now.”
Behind the building’s back wall was the outdoor firing area, a concrete patio lined with sandbags and fronting an open field. An earthen berm a couple of hundred meters away marked the end of the range, which was lit by a bank of halogens.
Along the left and right edges of the field, signs marked the distance every ten meters. Wells didn’t get them. Then he saw the buckets of golf balls. Buvchenko had built himself a combined firing and golf range. Cute. A dozen men stood around, smirking and smoking.
The range had several firing positions, all empty besides one in the center, where a Russian 12.7-millimeter Kord heavy machine gun had been set up. The Kord was comparable to an American .50-caliber, a mean, lethal-looking weapon, belt-fed, with a long black barrel. Wells didn’t know why Buvchenko had brought him here. But the presence of the Kord and the audience suggested he wouldn’t like the answer.
“Ever fired a Kord, John?”
“Only an NSV.” An older version.
“The Kord is far superior. You’re about to have a treat.” Buvchenko whistled. A few seconds later, a horse trotted around the corner. The rider slowed him, walked him over to Buvchenko and Wells. A gelding, its eyes rheumy and its roan coat flecked with gray.
“As it happens, both the horse and the rider are named Peter.” Buvchenko tapped the horse on its flank. It took a half step back, tilted its head, regarded him warily. Buvchenko grunted a command in Russian, and Peter the rider led Peter the gelding over the sandbags. Wells saw now that a stake with a metal ring attached had been planted a hundred meters away, in line with the Kord’s firing position.
He and Buvchenko watched in silence as the two Peters reached the stake. The rider hopped off, loosely tied the horse to the ring. He scattered a half-dozen carrots on the ground, gave Buvchenko a lazy salute. Buvckheno yelled, “Go,” in English, and the rider walked off range. Wells expected the horse to be nervous, but the carrots had distracted it. It nosed at them, then picked one up and crunched away.
“There are two ways to do this,” Buvchenko said. “If you’re more interested in the Kord’s performance, you just open up on old Peter. On the other hand, if you feel like a challenge you can fire a couple in the air. I promise you he’ll take off. And that knot won’t hold him.”
“No.”
“Da.”
Wells shook his head.
“Mr. Wells, am I to understand that you’re too good to shoot a horse?” Buvchenko drew the pistol on his right hip, held it loose at his side. “He’s eighteen, you know, he’s had a long life. Now he’s just taking up space. A gelding. Can’t even breed.”
He stared at Wells like his eyes could bore through his skull. Wells stared right back.
“Put a bullet in his brain, it’s more humane than a slaughterhouse. Look at him, eating carrots. He won’t even know.”
“Those steroids, they turn your balls into jelly beans, don’t they, Mikhail? All the Viagra in the world and you can’t get it up.”
Buvchenko raised his pistol. “I count to ten. Then either the horse dies, or you do. One. Two—”
“Let me help. Ten.”
Buvchenko looked genuinely surprised.
“Wahid, ithnan, thalaatha, arba’a, hamsa, sitta, sab’a, thamania, tiss’a, ’ashra.” One to ten in Arabic. Wells raised his fingers as he counted, pronouncing as carefully as a kindergarten teacher.