David Morrell: The Spy Who Came for Christmas

He saw a shed and was tempted to hide behind it with the hope of ambushing his hunters. But there was too great a risk that he wouldn’t see them in time to react. Hitting a target in the chaos of a gunfight was difficult enough during the day, let alone at night amid the falling snow. Plus, under the circumstances, how well could he shoot? Using his injured arm to try to hold the baby under his coat, he would need to fire one-handed. The cold might make him tremble, throwing off his aim. In addition, there were bound to be several targets. Could he hope to surprise all of them?

Yes, I’ve got plenty of reasons to keep going, he decided.

On his left, he saw a walkway that extended between low buildings. Feeling the baby kick again, he veered in that direction. But at once, he reached a wooden wall.

Frantic, he pawed along it and found a gap that was wide enough for him to squirm through. As he crawled, his knees felt the hard edge of a board under the snow. The moment he was safely on the other side, he raised the board and covered the hole.

Finding himself in a courtyard that was eerily lit by the city’s ambient light, he studied the low adobe walls that surrounded him. A few snow-veiled lamps glowed in partially glimpsed houses. Hazy shrubs were strung with Christmas lights. The falling snow made the night seem blue, reflecting just enough illumination to reveal a few footprints that came from some of the houses.

Kagan kept moving. He reached a lane where he encountered yet another choice of which way to go. He had the impression of being in a maze.

The baby must have sensed his agitation. When he looked to the right, he felt it kick again, and he headed in that direction.

On each side of the lane, faintly glimpsed decorations glowed beyond fences made from upright wooden tree limbs wired to horizontal poles. From the Santa Fe newspaper, Kagan had learned that the locals called them coyote fences. In the old days, their purpose had been literally to keep out coyotes, and even today, coyotes were a common sight on the outskirts of town.

Kagan thought of predators. Hunters.

But it would take more than a fence to keep these particular hunters out.

“Paul, what do you know about Brighton Beach?”

“ It’s next to Coney Island, in Brooklyn, sir. It’s also the U.S. home of the Russian Mafia.”

“ That’s correct. In 1917, a lot of Russians immigrated there to escape the Revolution. In the 1990s, so many more Russians went there after the Soviet Union collapsed that they started to call it Little Odessa. Quite a few were gangsters who used to belong to the KGB or the Soviet military, where they learned skills that make them especially dangerous.

“ It’s possible to romanticize Italian mobsters to the point that we think of them as Marlon Brando and Al Pacino in The Godfather. But Russian gangsters are in a class of their own. ‘Sociopathic’ doesn’t begin to describe them. They have no scruples, no shame, no code of honor. They’ll do anything for money. There’s no line they won’t cross and no limit to their brutality.

“ An Italian gangster might suddenly feel patriotic and refuse if, say, Middle Eastern terrorists offered to pay to get a bunch of rocket launchers or a dirty bomb into the United States. But Russian mobsters’ll take the money, do the job, and just get out of the way when the explosions start.”

“ Cole, watch the window,” the boy’s mother said. “Warn me if you see your father coming back.”

Obeying, the boy stared into the semidarkness. Christmas lights outside the front door reflected off the snow and revealed that the lane was empty. He heard his mother pulling suitcases from under the bed in the master bedroom. He listened as she opened drawers and removed clothes.

Cole pushed his glasses closer to his eyes, working to keep his vision focused. Tension nauseated him. Even if he did see his father returning home, what good would that do? he wondered. He could shout to warn his mother. So what? The doors were locked, but his father had a key. In the end, they wouldn’t be able to stop him from getting inside. How would his father react when he saw the suitcases filled with clothes?

I won’t let him hit her again! Cole thought.

He limped to the rear of the living room and turned right to go down the hallway. At the end of the hall, he peered to the left, into the master bedroom, where his mother leaned over the bed. She was too busy packing to notice him. He turned to the right and entered his own bedroom, where he reached behind the door and gripped the baseball bat that his father had given him for his birthday in September. Not that the gift mattered. Lately, his father seldom found time to play with him.

Quiet, he returned to the living room, opened a closet next to the front door, and took out his coat. Its zipper made a clacking noise against the side of the closet.

“ Cole?”

His fingers cramped on the coat.

“ What is it, Mom?”

“ The suitcases are packed. I’m a little more tired than I thought. We won’t be able to leave for an hour or so, until cars are allowed on Canyon Road. I’m going to lie down.”

“ Are you okay?”

“ I just need to rest. Let me know when it’s ten o’clock. Or if you see him coming back.”

Cole tightened his grip on the baseball bat.

“ Don’t worry, Mom. I’m here.”

Raging, Andrei charged through the smoke of the snow-smothered fire. People gaped toward the commotion behind him. The second German shepherd was growling now, the boy crying, the parents and the dog owner arguing loudly.

The bystanders formed a wall that Andrei rammed through. He made no pretense of using his cell phone. If people thought he was talking to himself, it no longer mattered that he attracted attention.

“ The target’s gone!” he shouted into the microphone hidden under his ski jacket’s zipper.

“ Gone?” The accented voice bellowed through Andrei’s earbud.

“ The crowd shielded him! He ducked away!” Andrei stared furiously ahead, but he didn’t see any disturbance in the crowd, no sign of anyone shoving people aside or rushing forward.

Pyotyr, where did you go? he thought urgently.

“ The package!” the voice yelled. “Everything depends on getting it back! This is your fault! You vouched for him! You assured me I could trust him! You hooyesos, bring back what he stole!”

Andrei bristled. No one insulted him. From his earliest years on the streets of Grozny, he’d learned that disrespect could never be tolerated. If anybody other than the Pakhan had called him that…

Breathing quickly, he scanned the buildings on the left side of Canyon Road. They formed a wall. But to his right, several galleries had walkways between them. That was the only escape route.

His two teammates ran up behind him.

“ Over there!” Andrei yelled, too hurried to recall the code names they’d been given. “Mikhail, take the first walkway!

Yakov, take the second! I’ll take the third!”

They rushed forward, ignoring the alarmed looks people gave them.

As the snow kept falling, Andrei raced along the third walkway. Christmas lights blinked in a gallery window. He passed a side door that was open, hearing a woman complain, “…almost knocked me over! What’s the matter with people? This is the one night we ought to slow down. It’s Christmas Eve, for God’s sake.”

Andrei ran into a back courtyard, where a man and woman stood in front of a flickering display of Santa’s reindeer and sled. They looked angry about his intrusion, as if this wasn’t the first time they’d been startled tonight.

“ I’m with the police! Did a man run through here?”

“ That way!” The woman pointed toward a lane. “Scared the hell out of us.”