The Mafia Trilogy (49 page)

Arkady turned away from the door and started walking down the hall again. Darwin followed.

“He agreed. We handed him pliers and told him to take out as many teeth as he could, because that’s how we feel about informants—they shouldn’t talk right after what they’ve done.” Arkady stopped in the hall and slapped Darwin’s arm. “Can you believe this guy? He took the pliers and started pulling his own teeth out. Blood was pouring from his mouth. We were taking vodka shots and having a real party at this point. After he was done, he tossed the pliers away, screamed as loud as he could and showed us his broken and bleeding gums. The guy’s fucking mouth was shattered.” Arkady banged the wall beside him with his hand. “I’ll tell you, that’s a will to live.”

“Did he make it to the hospital?”

“You serious? Fuck no. After that little demonstration, we added the weights to the chains and dropped him hard onto the cone’s top, slicing it right through him all the way to the top of his fucking head. He almost got cut in half.” Arkady didn’t laugh. His face had grown serious. “That’s what happens to informants. Nobody rats out the brotherhood.”

“You want to know something?” Darwin asked. He waited until Arkady nodded. “We got in that taxi, drove to the airport, flew to Toronto and came here. In all that time, I have not taken a fucking piss. Where can I take a piss?”

Arkady smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “Down the hall. It’s the last door on your right. When you’re done, meet me right here.”

“Got it.”

Darwin stepped away and almost placed his hand over his mouth to keep the stomach acids in. He hit the bathroom door, ran for the toilet and threw up almost nothing, his stomach heaving as it clenched. He hadn’t eaten since the morning before his talk in Carson’s office. He flushed right away, urinated and then washed his face and hands. To add color back to his face, he got in the pushup position on the floor, lifted his feet up on the counter and did five inverted push-ups at a forty-five degree angle.

He left the bathroom and joined Arkady who hadn’t moved a foot. The tour resumed as if it hadn’t stopped.

Arkady opened the door to the room on the left. What Darwin saw was a different kind of shock to his system.

Am I ever going to get used to what these Mafia lowlifes do for entertainment?

A woman, who appeared to be high on drugs, was chained to a bed, naked. Four different men straddled her with two of them forcing their genitals into her at the same time, the other two men stroking themselves, no doubt waiting their turn.

“That’s Lisa. She gets all the drugs she wants for free and my men take turns relieving their stress. She services about twenty men a day here. I’m sure she’d be happy to take care of you later. Just let me know and I’ll introduce you to her.”

Arkady shut the door and headed to the next door, the room with music. Inside, two women, both on their knees, were performing oral sex on two men covered in tattoos. One of the men looked up and nodded at Arkady who shut the door.

“If you’re looking for something quieter, more intimate, you can always take one of the women who works for us and find an empty room. Lisa and Mona are two of the best. We have dozens of women coming through here all day. Some are getting off work, others heading out. They come here to pay their protection dues and get high. Our hottest girl holds the record of fifty-five customers in a twelve-hour period. After that, she came back here to do fifteen more men in our warehouse. Not bad for a day’s work. She bled at the end, but isn’t that what Alice Cooper said, ‘Only women bleed’?”

Darwin followed Arkady to the last door on the left. Arkady turned to him before they entered the room.

“You’re not queasy, are you?”

Darwin shook his head, afraid to speak. He was horrified that humans even existed like the vermin he stood beside. What those women were going through was atrocious. He had to do something soon. Killing Arkady was out of the question. Darwin wasn’t a cold-blooded killer. He’d killed before, but always in self-defense. Did he have enough to tell the FBI? Could the tour alone have all the Russians in the building rounded up and arrested and taken to jail for dozens of years?

No way. I don’t have enough. I have to play this game a little longer. See it through to the end.

Arkady stepped aside and Darwin moved into the room. He willed his eyes to close, but they remained open.

Strung up on chains with hooks imbedded in his skin, an Asian man was bleeding in dozens of places.

“Ivan here is slowly killing this member of the Triads. He attacked our men and disrespected one of our women. She’s still in the hospital having surgery to correct the smashed orbital bone around her eye. He broke her face in half. No one does that to our girls.”

Oh, but you can gang rape them yourselves. Like that doesn’t do any lasting damage.

“This is called, ‘death by a thousand cuts.’ Ivan spends the day cutting the Asian’s flesh, piece by piece. He bleeds, it clots, and Ivan cuts again somewhere else. The process is slow, the cuts painful and agonizing. Imagine the last week of your life being slowly cut apart—hell would seem appealing.”

Darwin nodded again.
I have to start speaking. Better yet, I have to get out of this building.

“What ahh …” Darwin paused. “What’s next? Can we go get something to eat?”

Arkady smiled at him. “You just saw the Judas Cradle and this man here bleeding all over the floor and you’re asking about food. I like that. You’ll fit in well here.”

Arkady led him back to the stairs and up to the room where he’d been asked all the questions about the cube and horse. Before they entered the room, Arkady turned to him.

“The Bratva have decided to let you in. While we were downstairs, they have set up the initiation ritual. After that you will be given our commandments and sent out on your first job. Your time has come. Only enter the room if you’re prepared to go all the way.”

Darwin moved past him, grabbed the doorknob and stepped into the room.

Over thirty men lingered along the perimeter of the room, leaning against the walls. No one sat at the table. There was one chair that he guessed was for him.

The light in the room was off. A candle had been lit and burned strong on the table.

On the table by the candle were a human skull, a gun, and a dagger.

The dagger made him falter. He stopped and stared at it, a renewed fury growing inside. He hated knives. The threat of a knife made him lose his mind.

He knew the initiation would involve the dagger, otherwise it wouldn’t be on the table. He was already trying to find a way to get rid of it. He couldn’t possibly run now. He’d seen too much. He was stuck in the Russian lair as white-hot rage boiled in him. There was no possible way he could fight the amount of men in the room and make it out alive.

What the fuck do I do now? I’m doomed.

Chapter 21

Carson Dodge drove his car hard, leaving Jacksonville as fast as he could. The last thing he wanted to do was tell Rosina that Darwin had left his office and disappeared. Carson only hoped Darwin had shown up at the safe house where Greg and Rosina remained hidden.

As he drove, he cursed the Bureau, cursed the system, and cursed the men he worked with. How could they let Darwin walk away? The Bureau was so intimidated by the Russian Mafia that sometimes they would charge members with lesser crimes to get them off the streets for a few years instead of taking bigger risks to go for the bigger fish.

He recalled a case where two men had offered weapons to two undercover agents. A meeting had been set up. Once a deal was made, a delivery date established, and the proper amount of vodka drank, the two suspects offered a bigger item for sale: a dirty bomb. The heat had gotten too high. The threat to the agents had grown exponentially. The order came down to arrest both men on the weapons charges. Getting a dirty bomb into the States could have consequences no one wanted to face for the sake of an arrest. Both Russian brotherhood members spent three years in jail, got released and flew home.

Three years.
Carson shook his head.
That’s
nothing for these guys but another tattoo of honor.

Greg had insisted they use the same safe house where Rosina and Darwin had been situated before Gambino came after them. No one would expect them to stay there. Carson was the only contact they had with the Bureau office in Jacksonville and Carson was the only one who knew where they were, other than Darwin.

He made the last turn and started up to the gate. Two men stepped out of the shadows. It was nearly midnight. Shift change had already taken place. Carson wondered who he’d have to deal with to get inside.

He pulled up to the gate and lowered his window.

“Carson Dodge, here to see Greg Stinsen.”

“ID please,” the guard said as he stepped close to the vehicle, his hand on the butt of his weapon.

Carson detected movement in his mirror. Another guard had exited the woods and stepped up to his trunk with the third one staring in at him from the passenger side.

He reached inside his suit jacket slowly and pulled out his Bureau ID, handed it to the guard, who walked away and entered a little booth.

Crickets sang in the bushes and a light breeze rolled over his forearm as he rested it on the door. After several moments, the guard stepped out of the booth and nodded at his men. The gate began to open.

“Special Agent Dodge, Agent Stinsen is waiting for you. Go on up.”

Carson took his badge back and drove through the gate. When he looked in his mirror, the guards at the gate had disappeared.

Good, as it should be.

“Bit late for a meeting,” Greg said. “Everything cool?”

Carson stepped through the door, past Greg. “We need to talk. But not with Rosina.”

Greg nodded. “She’s in the other room watching a movie, trying to keep her mind off everything. She’s worried sick about Darwin. Where is he?”

“Gone.”

Greg stepped back. “Gone? What are you talking about?”

“Take me somewhere private where Rosina can’t eavesdrop.”

“Outside then. We’ll go out the back door.”

Greg shut and locked the front door. He led Carson through the house and onto the deck.

“You want a beverage of some kind?” Greg asked.

“No, thanks.”

They sat opposite each other at the patio table.

“What happened? I thought you were going to tell Darwin about the Russians.”

“We did. Darwin wanted no part in it. He wouldn’t meet with them working for us. He claimed it was all some kind of dumb luck that he survived as long as he had.”

“He’s partly right and he’s not trained to do undercover work. Frankly, I’d be scared for him if he met the Russians, especially if they thought that he was working for us.”

“I know, but we discussed this. If he ignores the problem, it won’t go away. The Russians ordered him brought to Arkady or executed. He became too big a problem for them. Have you heard from him?”

“No, nothing. When did you last see him?”

“I brought Special Agent Mike Keans and Victor Ivanovich in to talk to him. I think we pushed too hard and scared him. He walked out of my office mid afternoon. No one has heard from him since. This really sucks.”

Greg was smiling as he looked up at the stars.

“What are you smiling about?”

“You,” Greg said and turned to face him. “A week ago you were trying to find Darwin to kill him and now you’re trying to find him to save him, and both situations are eating away at you.”

“Cut me a break. I didn’t have all the facts. Let me ask you something. Do ants sleep? Can a horse vomit? What color is a hippo’s sweat when they’re upset?”

“What?”

“Answer any one of those questions.”

“As far as I know, ants don’t sleep.”

“What about the horse or the hippo?”

“I have no idea.”

“There, because you don’t know the facts, does that make you an idiot? Are you to be laughed at?”

Greg looked skyward again. “Tell me?”

“Horses are not able to vomit and a hippo’s sweat turns red when they’re upset.”

“Wow, that’s something. Didn’t know that.” Greg turned his chair to face Carson. “What’s next? What do we do?”

“Nothing, really. We have no leads on Darwin. Arkady has disappeared. No one knows where either one is. Our two undercover agents in Toronto have nothing for us and won’t report back for a day or so. We have nothing.”

“Darwin is a survivor. Don’t sweat it. I’m worried about him, but if there’s nothing we can do, then have a drink with me.”

“I didn’t come here to drink.”

“Don’t move,” Greg said and got up to enter the house. He came back with two glasses half-filled with an amber liquid.