Tom Callaghan - A Summer Revenge

I expected to meet Saltanat inside, but the stairwell to the upper floors was empty. Perhaps she’d gone ahead to check the layout of the building, but I decided not to follow her. I didn’t want to get shot in a moment of nervous enthusiasm.

After the ten minutes we’d agreed upon, I sent a missed call to Lin, the signal that she was to make her way into the building’s lobby and announce that she was expected. Since we didn’t know what floor Boris was on, she’d pretend to have no English, show the guard the phone number Boris had used to call me, get him to give her the apartment number and then make her way up. Once she was in the lift, she’d text the apartment number to both Saltanat and myself, and we’d be there when she arrived, waiting to make her grand entrance.

There were too many variables, but I didn’t know what else we could do. Maybe Boris wouldn’t be there; maybe Natasha was kept somewhere else; maybe there would be too many men with guns; maybe maybe…

I waited, my stomach bubbling with nerves and fear. Finally, after a couple of years of waiting, I got the message from Lin. Apartment 310. I knew she’d also sent the location to Saltanat, but without hearing from her I didn’t want to move. The minutes crawled by like a badly wounded man looking for cover or a place to die. My heart sounded like a temple gong in a deserted monastery in the mountains.

And then finally, just as my patience collapsed and I was about to text Saltanat, my phone rang. Saltanat’s number.

“ Da? ” I said, “ Kak dela? ”

But it wasn’t Saltanat who answered me.

“You really must think I’m stupid, Inspector. Perhaps the quality of people you’re used to dealing with back in your little city has lowered your standards?”

Boris’s voice was amused, the tone of a man who knows he holds all the face cards in a game of his own design. At that moment my anger was overwhelmed by a sense of failure.

“Why do you think the door at the side entrance was so easy to open? For once Ms. Umarova’s famed caution seems to have let her down. I’ve had men stationed there for the last two days and nights. She walked in; they took her as easy as trapping a wolf in the winter when it’s hungry.”

“And where is she now?” I asked, my voice taut with rage, fear. I swept the stairwell with my gun, peering into the shadows, wondering if someone was going to loom out of the darkness, the last person I would ever see.

“No need to concern yourself with her, Inspector. Surely Ms. Sulonbekova should be your primary concern. After all, she is the key to great wealth for both of us, wouldn’t you agree? I’ve always thought that gold trumps love, at least for anyone with any sense. But in this case I think there’s enough to go around, don’t you?”

I know the sensible thing was to let caution and common sense replace anger. Saltanat may have been a stone-cold killer, but then so was Boris. All of which meant that I’d be dead the moment Boris thought it gave him an edge. I had to assume Saltanat was incapacitated or dead, unable to help. This one was going to be down to me.

“You want me to come to you?” I asked, the uncertainty in my voice only a little exaggerated.

“I’m sure we can relax over a drink, some zakuski ?”

Boris chuckled at my surprise.

“You’re not the first Kyrgyz I’ve had dealings with, Inspector. I know your countrymen’s fondness for little snacks, even if I don’t share it.”

We believe that anyone who drinks without also eating is little more than a barbarian, and I was happy to find that Boris fitted right into that category.

“Where are you?” I asked, not wanting to betray that I knew his location.

“Apartment 310,” Boris said and paused for effect. “But I think perhaps you already knew that.”

I heard the line go dead.

I felt around the stairwell for a light switch, saw the gray concrete steps rising to the next floor. The unpainted metal rail was cold against my right hand, my left free to keep my gun raised. My footsteps raised small clouds of dust with each tread, and I noticed that the dust on the stairs above me was undisturbed. It was a puzzle I didn’t feel like solving right at that moment.

I reached a fire door with 3 crudely painted on it, so I guessed I’d reached the floor I wanted. And maybe the end of the road as well.

In contrast to the spartan stairwell, the corridor beyond the door was carpeted in a dark brown chosen to hide the dirt. The walls were tiled to a meter above the floor, and after that pale blue paint took over. It was as impersonal and professional as a hit squad.

I walked past door after door, all identical, with the same spyhole set at the same height in each. It felt like a recurring nightmare, one in which the monster is invisible but you know it’s waiting for you, and it’s hungry. The sound of my heart was loud and fast enough to be a machine gun, and my knees ached with the effort of moving them forward.

Finally I stopped at the furthest door on the corridor. Apartment 310. The same as all the others on the outside. Completely unique on the inside, and not in a good way.

I decided not to ring the bell, thinking it might give the wrong idea. Instead, I tapped the wood with the barrel of my gun. It sounded competent, reassuring. I was less certain I’d be able to say the same for my voice. Basic fieldcraft says you don’t stand in front of a door when there’s a man on the other side ready to put a bullet through the wood, so I stepped to one side and assumed Boris had done the same. After a moment I saw the door handle turn, and the door swung open.

“Glad you could join us, Inspector.”

I walked into the apartment, making sure that everyone saw that my gun was hanging by the trigger guard from my forefinger. Not pointing a gun at someone almost always helps defuse the situation. Of course, if you’re mistaken the consequences don’t always work to your advantage.

Boris was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, one arm wrapped in what almost looked like a tender gesture around Lin’s neck, the way young men in my country pull their girlfriends close to them, both tender and possessive. The gun at her temple ensured she stayed close to him. The way they were standing meant that his chest and stomach were shielded by her. I could appreciate his caution. No one runs any risks when there are millions of dollars for the taking. I could see the terror in Lin’s eyes and wondered where Saltanat was. Tied up in one of the bedrooms? Dead on the bathroom tiles?

“You know the routine, Inspector. Put your gun on the floor.”

I did as I was told, pushing it away with my foot for good measure. I heard the metal scrape against the tiled floor, like fingernails on glass. The weight against my toe reminded me how much I was risking, but there was no turning back.

“I take it you have the access card? It would be more than foolish to come here without it.”

I stared at him, willing my gaze not to drop.

“First of all, where’s Saltanat? And Natasha?”

Boris pulled an expression that could have been regret or simply satisfaction. Either option didn’t look promising.

“I’m afraid I’ve rather misled you there. To be honest with you, I’ve no idea where your Uzbek accomplice is. Oh, she arrived in the building all right, and I used her phone to call you, but she was rather sharper than I gave her credit for. Which is why one of my men is dead and another is in a coma. A very resourceful woman, Ms. Umarova.”

I looked around the room. Virtually unfurnished, a couple of cheap plastic chairs, a pile of sleeping bags in one corner. Boris clearly wasn’t here on a luxury holiday. He was ready to move out at a moment’s warning.