The Hunted (52 page)

“There’s no need for these threats. What do you want?”

“Let’s start with the easy one. Where’s the money?”

“What money?”

A long sigh. “Do we really have to go through this, Sergei?”

“I’m a simple retired officer with a family. I am struggling to survive off my pension. It’s not much. Perhaps we can work
something out.”

From somewhere behind his head, whack, whack, whack.

“Enough! That’s enough!” he wailed.

“The money, Sergei. Where’s the money?”

“What money?”

“Two hundred and fifty million. The money you stole, where is it?”

How did he know the exact amount? Golitsin briefly wondered. Only a handful knew: Tatyana, Nicky, and of course, the victim
knew, not that it mattered. He was rotting in prison, after all, counting the days until his return to Russia.

“Maybe,” Golitsin suggested—he squeezed his neck down, hunching his shoulders, trying to avoid another whack—“maybe if you
told me who you’re working for we can work something out.”

Whack—the ducked head and bunched shoulders were a wasted defense. It felt like six hands were slapping the back of his head.
He heard his own voice whining and pleading for them to stop.

And eventually the slaps did subside. But Vladimir allowed him no time to recover his wits. “Pay attention, Sergei. This is
invaluable advice. You’ve never been on this side of the torture rack, always the other side, watching and enjoying the show.
Fifty years of screaming victims begging for quick deaths. Are you listening, Sergei? Do you understand?”

The voice was so very cold, so flat, so casually captivating; amazing how mesmerizing a voice becomes when it controls the
pain.

How many times had Sergei heard that same droll pattern over the years as he watched one victim after another suffer and scream
their guts out, until they eventually snapped, until they signed whatever was put before them, signed anything to make the
pain stop—accusing their own mothers, sentencing their own children, confessing sins they never came within ten miles of committing.
Oh yes, he definitely understood.

He slowly nodded.

“You know how bad this can get, don’t you?”

Another nod—yes, yes, of course he remembered. Tears were now rolling down his fat cheeks.

“The pain is going to become intense, Sergei. I don’t want you surprised by it. You’re going to wish you were dead. You’ll
beg us to end it. We won’t kill you, though. You can’t feel the pain unless you’re alive. Sorry, but we need you to feel everything.”

“Wait!” Something was bothering him. All this talk about torture, and the name of this cruel man. There was a connection there,
he was sure of it.

“Why wait? Do you want to tell me where the money is?”

“Vladimir? Yes, Vladimir. Like the Vladimir who worked for me, right?”

A quick shift of the eyes to the floor. “I have no idea who or what you’re talking about.”

Golitsin stretched as far forward as he could. “He a friend of yours? Is that what this is about? I am so sorry for what happened
to poor Vladimir. He killed himself, you know. Suicide. How tragic.”

The interrogator jumped out of his chair. Turning to the other four men, he directed a finger at one and said, “Get the BP
cuff and monitor his blood pressure. He’s old and fat. We don’t want him slipping away on us.”

The man dashed off.

“Get the tools,” he barked at another, who also disappeared into the darkness. To the other two, he said, “You look bored.
Work on him while we wait.”

They moved up and the slapping began again. No punches, everything open-handed, a relentless fusillade of girly slaps obviously
meant to add shame to his pain. Golitsin wailed and screamed, all to no avail.

Vladimir walked to a corner of the large warehouse, yanked a cell phone out of a pocket, punched a number, then cradled it
to his ear.

Golitsin was being slapped silly. His cheeks, the back of his head, occasionally his ears, which really stung. He howled and
moaned, begging them to stop. Eventually, his chin sank to his chest. His head began lolling wildly with each smack.

He bit down hard on his tongue, choked back his screams, and played opossum for all he was worth. Just stop those infernal
slaps, he prayed with all his might. And after a moment, the prayers were answered. They did stop. One yelled out, “Vladimir,
he’s out cold.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Vladimir replied, sounding distracted, then returned to his phone conversation.

Golitsin fought to control his breathing and prayed they didn’t catch on. He could overhear Vladimir speaking louder now,
unconcerned about his ability to eavesdrop.

“No, don’t worry. We’ve only gotten started.” A long pause. “Look, I’ve done this before. I—” Another pause. “Nicky, you have
my guarantee, he’ll tell us everything. Everybody does. We start ripping off the body parts, and they all—” Pause, then a
nasty laugh. “I know, I know, Nicky. Look, by the time he’s got no fingers or toes, his kneecaps are pulp, he’ll spill… Yeah,
okay, you, too.”

Vladimir flipped the phone shut and returned to the scene of torture. A scream was going off inside Golitsin’s head. Nicky!
That rotten son of a bitch. That lying, thieving, betraying bastard. These were his people, he realized, and he fought the
urge not to scream and threaten these people, to unleash all the rage he could muster.

One of the boys returned a moment later with the BP monitor. He quickly slapped it around Golitsin’s right arm and tightened
it up. Then the other fellow reappeared lugging a large dark suitcase, which he set down on the floor.

“Open it. Get the tools ready,” Vladimir told him.

Golitsin heard the locks snap open and the noise of the lid hitting the cement. He didn’t want to look—he had no desire at
all to see what terrible ghoulish instruments were inside that damned case—he tried to fight it, just squeeze his eyes shut,
he told himself; ignore them and ignore it. But it couldn’t be helped. The curiosity was just too irresistible; he had to
know, had to see what they had in store for him. Slowly, ever so slowly, he cracked open his right eyelid, just a hair. A
tiny, tiny sliver, and he peeked.

Vladimir and two of his boys were bent over the now open case, rummaging through the contents, apparently deciding which tool
should lead off.

Oh, Christ. Oh, no. The bastards had bought out the entire torture store. Three or four razor-sharp saws of various sizes
and types, wicked things, so sharp and shiny. A small blowtorch. An iron, just like the one Vladimir used to scorch the hammer
and sickle on Konevitch. A slew of gleaming surgical instruments employable for everything from eyeball gouging to nut-crunching.
Golitsin could put a name and use to every instrument: a vivid picture of their exact use.

How many nights had he spent watching with sick fascination as the boys in the basement at Dzerzhinsky Square found all sorts
of inspired uses for these things? Every instrument in that case, he knew them all like a mechanic knows his shop tools.

He squeezed his eyes shut and bit his lip, but it just slipped out. A moan of fear just clawed its way up his throat, into
his mouth, and it popped right through his lips.

Five sets of eyes instantly snapped in his direction.

Vladimir smiled. “Ah, Sergei, you’re back.” With a befuddled expression, he asked, sounding mildly frustrated, “Listen, I
can’t seem to make up my mind. How would you like us to start?”

“You keep those damned things away from me.”

“Well, you see, we’re a little past that point. Come on, Sergei, I’m trying to be generous here.” He laughed and the others
joined him. “So, what will it be?”

“I swear I don’t have any more of the money.”

“None?”

“It’s gone.”

“All of it? Two hundred and fifty million?” Vladimir asked, dripping skepticism.

“Yes, it’s spent, every penny. I swear it.” Golitsin wasn’t about to hand over his fortune to Nicky, no matter what. They
could cut and slice and dice him however they wanted—not a red cent.

Vladimir bent over, studied the contents inside the case for a moment, then made up his mind and picked up a saw. “Well, that’s
too bad,” he muttered, shaking his head.

“Please, you have to believe me. I was stupid and greedy. I wasted it all on idiotic things. It’s all gone.”

Vladimir was now ten feet away. With a finger, he was testing the sharpness of the blade as he moved closer. Two of the boys
were now hovering directly behind Golitsin. They pinned his arms and squeezed his neck. He squealed but their grips only tightened.

“Where to start, where to start, that’s the big issue now,” Vladimir said. The piercing, hard, dark eyes began searching Golitsin’s
body. “Why not toes?” he asked very reasonably. “Start at the bottom, start with the little things, and slowly work our way
up.”

He bent down and pulled off Golitsin’s shoes, then yanked off his socks. The plump white toes were wiggling, trying to curl
under his feet. Vladimir carefully selected the big toe on the right foot. Using two strong fingers, he clamped the toe, poised
the saw, then looked up. “I should warn you that I get a little carried away. Once I take one, I generally get all ten. You
can answer everything, and I just can’t stop,” he warned, looking slightly remorseful. “It’s, oh, I don’t know, something
wrong inside my head.”

“Okay, okay, I have the money. Don’t… oh, please, don’t touch that toe.”

Vladimir gave the toe a little pinch. Golitsin nearly bucked out of the chair. “Switzerland. A Swiss bank,” he muttered in
a fast rush.

“You wouldn’t be lying, would you? I hate liars.”

“No, no, I swear. Switzerland.”

“What bank?”

A momentary hesitation and Vladimir suddenly had the saw pressed firmly on the flesh, right at the base of the big toe. “Lucerne
National. All of it. Every penny.”

“How much?”

“Two hundred.”

The saw bit ever so lightly into his flesh.

“All right, all right… 220.”

“You blew thirty million already?” Vladimir looked like he was ready to just whack the toe off. Nothing to do with disbelief,
just anger.

“I’m… I’m sorry.”

“I’m sure you are, Sergei. Now the hard questions.”

Golitsin couldn’t take his eyes off the saw.

“Are you ready, or should I just cut now?”

“No, please no. Ask anything.”

“The account and security code numbers. Concentrate. What are they?”

“I… I don’t have them in my head. My office. We have to go to my office.”

Whack, whack, whack.

“Oh, God, all right.” And like that, a fast rush of numbers spilled out of his lips.

As he spoke, another man, this one hiding in a back room, punched the numbers into a laptop computer, and they shot like lightning
bolts through the Internet, straight to a large mainframe in Zurich. It took two minutes before the money—225 million and
change, it turned out—was shunted into a new account, in a different Swiss bank, coincidentally only two blocks down from
Lucerne National.

The man with the computer stuck his large ponytailed head out of the doorway. He gave Vladimir a thumbs-up.

“What will you do with me?” Golitsin asked.

“Why would I do anything with you?”

“You mean you’re not going to kill me?”

“You know what? My instructions aren’t real clear on that point.” Vladimir stroked his chin and played at indecision for a
moment. “You’re broke now. A fat has-been loser with nothing to fall back on but a tiny pension and the tragic memory that
once you were rich. Should I worry about you?”

“No, absolutely not. Definitely, no. You’re right, you’ve ruined my life. I’m nothing, a sorry loser. I don’t even know who
you are,” he lied.

“Well, I’m not so sure.” The man dug a hand deep into his coat pocket. He appeared to be fishing around for something. Perhaps
a gun or a knife. “Maybe, just to be on the safe side, maybe I should—”

“No, please,” Golitsin pleaded, and words kept spilling out his lips. “I’ll leave Russia. I promise, I’ll be on the next train.
I’ll disappear and you’ll never hear from me again. Please let me live.”

The man stared at him with an impenetrable expression for a moment, then finally he shrugged his thick shoulders. “I guess
it saves the trouble of what to do with your big, fat corpse.”

Golitsin nearly groaned with relief. “Yes, exactly. I don’t want to be a burden to you.”

“Around nine in the morning the workers in the factory across the street come to work. Scream loud and hard, Sergei. Who knows,
maybe they’ll come and save you.”

The tools were packed back inside the case, and within five minutes Vladimir and his boys had turned off the lights and scattered
into the night.

After half an hour, Golitsin tried his hardest to close his eyes and float away into sleep. He so badly wanted to sleep. The
fear and terror left him drained and exhausted, but he couldn’t shut his eyes. The anger and resentment kept bubbling up.
By 9:30 the next morning, he would make Nicky pay dearly for every humiliating moment, and for every dollar the bastard stole.
He wasn’t sure just how yet. It would be slow and horrible, though. And very, very painful; he promised himself this.

He leaned back on the chair and dreamed of Nicky’s death.

The rumor started early that evening. Moscow’s underworld loved rumors almost as much as gossip, the juicier the better, and
this one took off like a rabbit with its ass on fire. By midnight it was bouncing through brothels, thug hangouts, drug dens,
was being murmured by pickpockets on the street, and becoming a consuming point of interest in the bars frequented by the
city’s syndicate chiefs, who at that hour were just starting their day.

Somebody wanted Nicky Kozyrev dead. Somebody deeply serious; serious in the way that counted most in this town, serious enough
to back up this gripping desire with big money. This was the salient point. This kept the rumor roaring all night. Five million
dollars—five million to make Nicky’s heart stop. Unconditionally, up to the assassin’s discretion, nothing off-limits, no
bounds—by bullet, by car accident, by poison, who cared? A stake through his black heart had a nice ring but dead in any form
was fine. Five million excellent reasons for Nicky Kozyrev to die.