Chapter 30. Smerdyakov's Knight

The AKS-74U was the Standard Cold War
shortened version of the AK-47 used by
the Spetsnaz (Russian Special Forces).
A nasty little toy.

I slipped the Browning back into its holster. We were out on the deck under the camo-netting with the lobster traps. I half sat/leaned on the traps facing land with my back to the slough. She stood in front facing me with her deep brown eyes piercing through my skull. It disturbed but convinced me she could've thought I killed Casey but had changed her mind. I had to trust her. That is, if she didn't do it. If it wasn't her and it wasn't me, that left one other candidate capable of getting in and out of the boat to do the job without anyone seeing him. Yuri would most likely be lying in wait somewhere nearby if he did it.

   She paused as though thinking of how to put it in words and finally spoke, "I'm here to get Smerdyakov, simple as that. I need your help to get through to him. He knows I'm closing in on him and his..." she caught herself and stopped there.

   I was guessing what the plan could've been. They... the Bird-Dog and Ryan. The old Dog was retired but still maintained connections high up in fucking Washington DC: CIA, KGB, anywhere on both sides going back before WWII to the Spanish Civil War and on through the Cold War to the present day. The fuckers he shared with Smerdyakov... their clients. I knew he had something up here or she wouldn't have been able to draw him to the delta. “His what, Anna? You would've iced Smerdyakov in Santa Barbara but he has something here you came for. You were expecting to meet him, not me, today.”

“You’re right. If he knew the gig was up in Santa Barbara, he would disappear… regroup, you know? I knew where he would go first."

“You knew he would follow you here. Why? What has he got that you know about? Shouldn't you’ve known Yuri would be here first.”

“Smerdyakov has a cache of diamonds and emeralds hidden somewhere on the Island Estate grounds. He needs to get to them before he disappears. Ryan is there now. We couldn’t find it… could be anywhere inside or out. We need Smerdyakov alive for that and we need him to believe we have what he wants or he's gone.”
"You figure this isn't his only stash?"
"It's his largest one and he thinks I'm willing to make a deal for our lives. I don't need any of his fuckin' rocks. I want to get him. We need you and Ryan to help us get him. You've already seen what kind of army he has. Doc's the only one that knows where the stash is or I would've gladly offed him by now too."
"You're a damned good actress, Anna. I was sure I was the only thing stopping you from killing poor Larry. Who's we.. the Dog?"

Preoccupied with all these tid-bits of info, I hardly noticed the movement behind me until Anna nodded that way.

A thick Ukrainian accent from behind sent an electric bristling surge up my spine, “Mr. Kraszhinski, I now meet you,”

This was not a time for sudden movements. I turned to face my nemesis. Yuri, clothes dripping wet, leaned against the gunnels on the other side of the traps where we stood. It would have been easy to go out in a blaze of glory but any flinch towards drawing the Browning with a Yuri's gun trained on my back would have futile. If he wanted me dead, yet, I would’ve been prone in a pool of my own blood by then. I sure as hell wasn’t afraid of death as much as I was of having an incomplete mission on my scorecard at Hell’s Gate.

“You turn slow. You too, Anna. Keep your hands where I see them.”

We stood by the lobster traps facing Yuri. My mind was doing short math with a weather report thrown in... December sun on wet earth rising steam humid... He held a short version of an AK-47,... a machine pistol, AKSU-74, a toy gun that fires 800 rounds per minute... 13.33 rounds per second... less than three seconds to empty his thirty round clip... half a clip, 16.5 rounds, in 1.35". In other words, it could've torn my heart and spine out in less than a heart beat... lessee at @70 to 90 healthy beats per minute it would be one and one seventh beats... wrong... bad math. Doesn't matter, does it? After all is said and done, mine wouldn't be beating... another visit at death's door... looking for a chance to kick it in. 

   Then, I don't know where these things come from but I was compelled to forgive Anna and be forgiven by her just in case this was our last breath, “I’m sorry. I over-reacted.”

She snorted, “Really? You’re kidding… right?” 

“Yes, not really sorry… but, like you said, ‘tis the season and all that. Merry Christmas. Can you blame me if I didn’t trust you? You didn’t have to trick me into helping you, Anna.”

Yuri looked amused… like he couldn’t make out why we were so glib…. Chattering back and forth as though he wasn’t there pointing certain death at our hearts. He took command of the situation, “Shut up!”

His back was to the door to the cabin. Larry had come forward from the berths poised with a ten-pound pipe-wrench in his good hand. I thought, God Bless him, Larry might die a hero after all.

“I didn’t want to scare you off,” she assured me.

“Christmas, alright. Birthday of the baby Jesus.” I don’t know what made me say that but her reaction was more surprising.

She laughed, “You want me to bake a cake now? Or maybe just light a candle.” It was a real laugh. The kind of belly laugh that is laughed when something strikes a drunk hilarious… more than funny. It was infectious. Yuri laughed.

When she was done laughing, she sighed, like she was relieved to tell the truth, “You’re right, I’m fuckin’ using you. Now back off. We’re dead already. Right Mr. Yuri?”

I agreed, "We’re dead.” I knew these guys like Yuri had to be the roughest and smartest the Soviets could throw our way in the Cold War. So I asked, “Yuri, why did you keep sending ‘idiyotes’ to us? They were easy. Was that Smerdyakov’s idea?” I was stalling, giving Larry every chance to swing that wrench on its mark.

Yuri grinned, “You, I watch out. You think you’re so tough and smart?” There was a long and uncomfortable pause, “You know word, handler?" 
"Is that what Colonel Smerdyakov is… was." 
"Yes, was KGB.”

I grinned at Anna and then back at Yuri, “Was he trying to draw us out … you sacrifice his pawns? Shit, if I know anything about Russians.”

“I’m Ukraini.” He was almost insulted.

“Ooops, Sorry, Yuri. But it’s true. You fuckers over there don’t just play chess, it’s in your DNA…” I knew flattery wouldn’t work but I felt obliged to butter up anyone with an AKSU aimed at me. “Shit, yes. Your Smerdyakov lives chess, now it looks like he’s going to sacrifice his knight too?”

“Sacrifice knight? You mean, me? Nyet, you Americans… your politicians play, you call, checkers… two directions only… forwards and backwards… no plan... no, uh, subtleties... no end-game.” Yuri seemed amused at the banter and my offhand compliment, though disturbed at the implication he was but a knight to be sacrificed. “I make mistake about you. You smart. We send pawns and you move Queen. I thought she just a junky… a whore. But she good too, dah?” Running his gun-free hand down her opened shirt and resting on a breast, “Oh, but, so very much young.”

Anna’s eyes darted around looking for a way out… away from his hand. In sudden resignation, she smiled and puffed up her chest to invite him to enjoy the feel. He had to be stalling for reasons only he and Smerdyakov understood. He took his hand from Anna’s breast, backed away and unbuttoned his shirt without taking the AKSU’s barrel from our direction. “I show you my tits now.” His muscled torso displayed an array of tattoos.

“You mean tats?” I corrected him. So far, he’d allowed me to keep the Browning… although holstered… perhaps to tempt me to draw on him while he took off his shirt.

He flexed, “I whass her age I got these. See these pictures? They biblioteka… Passsspoort, okay?” He smiled, pointing to the building spread across his defined abs, “This is the Ukrainian Club Building of Kiev. It show where I from, eh?” His gaze glanced down on one side of his chest to the other… to pictures of two eyes with his nipples as the pupils. It was hard not to stare. There were two tombstones under his tit-eyes. A remarkable one in the middle of his chest was of a Romanov double-headed eagle, wings spread, talons stretched out in front and coming directly at you with the words in western script, Vor V Zakone.  
   “Vor V Zakone is gang. Don't like Commies. You know. Tzar bad too but not so bad. I join Brotherhood of Thieves… the Bratva. Colonel Smerdyakov sent me to Simferopol prison three times so I get these. It is very bad place ochen plo-ho… in Crimea. You know Crimea? I’m dead they find out I work for him, a Russian. A KGB… or me, I'm Spetsnaz. First ever do that. Not even Stalin do that. But we don’ do for KGB. He think ahead years all the time. Many moves like he use you. Anna, he use… and that cock-sucker up there he use too. He says the Bratva will have… maybe Prime Minister or maybe he is President of Russia someday soon. We have around our finger your President wrapped too… someday... maybe now.” 
   I was afraid he’d turn to show off his tats to us as Larry was poised behind him with the monkey-wrench but shrank back inside the cabin a bit.

Desperate to get his attention returned to me before he’d turn, I asked, “Yeh, president? President who?”

   “Russia, what you think? Smerdyakov see forward… see Soviet fall soon…” He almost spit, “Glasnost, fuck. Now we come here. It easy here. You know?”

“Why the show and tell, Yuri. Why tell me this shit?”

“I show you this, why not? You die soon. I tell somebody, you know.”
   "Oh, like a 007 movie... the reveal."
   "What, I like James Bond. He fuck lots of women." His gaze went to Anna's open shirt.

Larry came out of the cabin and pulled back for the final swing. The loose jaw of the wrench let out the distinct metallic clack. Yuri stopped in mid-sentence. He must have wanted badly to boast to us all about how the Ukrainian Bratva was taking over Russia because he hesitated just long enough. It was time to shit or go blind. I shouted, “Now, Larry!”

Whack…. It was a crack and soft-gooshy sound… hard to explain two sounds at once. Just imagine a Gallagher watermelon wrapped in a thick ostrich shell casing being introduced to a full-swing of a ten-pound pipe-wrench.

He wasn’t dead. That’s incredibly hard to do with one swing, except in movies. Yuri turned and charged into the cabin at Larry… agile, considering.

I had the Browning out of its holster by then and busted a cap between the ingenuous reversed tat on Yuri’s back of the Eagle flying away. Spine shattered, legs useless, he fell to the deck within arm’s reach of Larry’s bloodied wrench.

I walked over to Yuri and busted a cap in his brain-pan.

“Why did you have to do that!” Larry whined.

“You did good but a job half-done isn’t done, Doc.”

Anna laughed, “Well Dad, I finally see you make a kill.”

“Dad? Who are you calling Dad, me or Larry?”

Larry stood over Yuri’s body and dropped the wrench on the deck, Clank!

She kicked Yuri’s body, “You know, Ryan knew all along.”

“Knew what?”

“Saigon, I was your package, stupido.”