"I must admit, comrade director, that I had second thoughts when you told me who it was that you wanted. I cannot imagine anyone having a use for this animal," the warden said, as they passed through another metal door, the slam as the warden closed it behind them echoing along the empty corridor.
"I have no use for him. Most likely he will be hunted like wild game, but that is not your concern."
"Yes, sir," the warden replied and handed Turov a thin olive green folder.
From there they walked in silence, twisting and turning through the prison corridors. On either side of them were white metal doors that marked the entrances to cells. Each door had a three inch by six inch slot through which prisoners would put their hands to be handcuffed, all now closed for the night. Occasionally they passed a larger open room where bored guards sat watching fuzzy television sets no bigger than Turov's open palm. The guards all stood suddenly and saluted as they passed.
After descending a switchback of a staircase that led into the facility's basement and walking another one hundred yards Turov could feel the heat from the incinerator, hear the constant roar coming from the end of the corridor. The warden approached a white door, unlocked the hand slide and barked an order. "Get up, filth! You have an appointment!"
Seconds later a pair of hands appeared through the slide and the warden removed a set of handcuffs from his belt, ratcheting them around the man's wrists before unlocking the heavy door and pulling it open. From the darkness within the cell a skinny man with a dark complexion emerged. He appeared to be hairless and was wearing a black and gray striped jumpsuit and matching hat that sat atop his bald head. Looking him up and down, Turov was surprised that someone would pay so much for his freedom, but his instructions had been clear. The mysterious, disembodied voice he had come to know as Levent Kahraman wanted the Chechen child killer, Ruslan Baktayev.
Turov couldn't imagine why anyone would want such a man. The only assurance he had asked for was that whatever Kahraman's purpose was, it would be fulfilled far from the borders of Mother Russia. Kahraman had agreed, the money had been real and the deposit untraceable, so it was Baktayev that Kahraman would get.
Unwinding the string that bound the olive green folder, Turov opened it. Inside was a dossier and a mug shot. He ignored the dossier and looked closely at the photo and then at Baktayev. It was hard to believe he was looking at the same man. Eight years inside the living hell that was Fire Island had a tendency to change a man. Although Baktayev did not appear to have ever been a heavy man, there were marked differences in his face; his skin was sallow and his eyes sunken, obvious signs of malnourishment. His clothes hung from his body like rags from a scarecrow. The warden pushed the man's chin up revealing the words Cut Here tattooed across his throat in Russian. This was the man Turov was looking for. He gave the warden a curt nod signifying his approval.
"Assume the position," the warden ordered.
Baktayev turned his back and bent over in silence.
The warden grabbed his handcuffed wrists and pushed them upwards into the air, holding him in a stress position. Pushing the prisoner forward in the same position all the way up the stairs, the warden made his way back to the door they had first entered, Turov following closely behind. Just before reaching the exit, the warden pushed Baktayev into a side room containing only a plain government issue desk, a telephone and two metal folding chairs. The warden shoved Baktayev into one of the chairs where he sat looking up at the two Russian officers, his eyes burning with hatred.
"So tonight I meet Allah?" he asked, his voice almost joyful.
The warden spat at the prisoner. "The only afterlife you will meet, you filth, is the angry souls of the fathers whose children you murdered."
Baktayev smiled as the spittle ran down his face, the toothy grin revealing a set of black teeth.
Turov walked behind the desk and picked up the telephone. Pressing several numbers, he waited for an answer. Baktayev and the warden listened as someone picked up on the other end and a voice gave instructions. After a few brief exchanges, Turov hung up and nodded at the warden who walked over to a tiny closet door, opened it and removed a small black package. "Get in," he said to Baktayev as he unrolled the package on the floor, revealing it to be a body bag. He pulled a knife from his uniform and made three small cuts near the head of the bag. "Get in, now."
Minutes later Turov and the warden emerged from the prison with two guards following them, the body bag being carried between them. They walked through the deepening snow to the front gates, which the warden ordered them to open. None of the guards even looked up as they passed; their orders were obvious. At Turov's boat, the body bag was carried aboard by the two sergeants who'd arrived with him and placed at the very front, where all three pairs of eyes could be on it as they made their way back across the lake.
Lastly, Turov withdrew a white envelope from the breast pocket of his crisp uniform and handed it to the warden, who opened it, peered inside and nodded before turning to walk back to the prison without a word. "Soblyudaite subordinatsiyu!" Follow the chain of command! Turov ordered, not letting the warden's disrespect slide this time. The warden froze in place, turned on his heel and saluted, a terrified look on his face. Turov flashed a sideways smile and scoffed as he boarded the vessel. Had the warden really thought their business arrangement made them equals? He'd find out soon just how wrong he was.
Chapter One
The sound of his own footfalls and the occasional whish of a vehicle passing over the wet pavement were the only sounds Declan McIver heard as he jogged through the old neighborhoods of Northeast Roanoke. Constructed in the 1960s and 70s, the streets were lined with one story brick ranches and split foyer homes on postage stamp lots, most featuring well-manicured lawns. The occasional work truck sat dormant along the curb in front of its owner's house and once in a while a dog barked from behind a fence as he passed by. The dense clouds threatened rain and the crescent moon was visible only with the occasional break in the gloom. Silver birch trees lining the main road rustled slightly in the early spring breeze and the air smelled of damp hydrocarbons from the well-traveled asphalt.
At just shy of six feet tall, with dirty blonde hair, icy blue eyes and a closely trimmed beard sporting flecks of grey, Declan was a common sight to anyone who lived nearby. Although he purposely varied his routine, anyone who paid attention would recognize him as a regular that jogged through the flower-named streets, whether he chose to do it in the pre-dawn hours or shortly after nightfall, as he had tonight. He was in top physical shape for a man of forty-one years and his rugged but handsome looks fit in nicely in the working middle class area.
His daily run was more than exercise; the five or six miles a day served as an escape, a time when he could work through the trials and tribulations of his life as a successful business owner. His company, DCM Properties, was his dream come true, but it was not without its headaches. Under the DCM banner, he'd been buying, fixing and selling distressed commercial properties for a decade and had become moderately wealthy doing so.
Making a mental note of everything he passed and turning his head slightly to look back in the direction he'd come, Declan cleared his former six o'clock position as he turned right, making sure he wasn't being followed. To all but the most trained observers, his seemingly paranoid technique wouldn't be noticeable. He had good reason for being cautious; sixteen years on the hit list of a half-dozen terrorist organizations dictated certain behavioral differences from the average person.