Dale Brown - Puppet Master

“Why?”

“Just do it.” Tolevi reached beneath the seat, making sure his pistol was still in place.

“What’s going on?” asked the butcher’s brother from the back.

“I’ve seen that van before,” said Tolevi. It was similar to the one he’d been thrown into the other night. It might even be the same one.

Thousands of trucks like that. Even here.

They circled the block without seeing anything particularly exceptional. Starobeshevskaya was a sleepy village no matter what time of day it was.

But that van… surely it was the same one the Russian Spetsnaz had used.

“Go down by the power plant, then take me near the prison,” he told Dan.

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. I just have a feeling.”

“A feeling?”

“If you don’t want to know the answer, why do you ask the question?”

Nothing exceptional was going on at either the jail or the power plant that Tolevi could tell; the guards looked half asleep, just as they had the other day. The Starobeshevskaya municipal building looked almost deserted — also the way it had looked the other day.

I’m really letting my emotions get the better of me. I have to relax. I’m so close to pulling this off that I see devils in every shadow.

He had Dan drop him off two blocks from the bar. The stroll calmed his slight case of nerves — as did the pistol, which he’d slipped under his jacket.

The bar was open, but the only patrons were two old crones sitting in a corner playing some sort of card game. A young woman was behind the bar, slowly drying glasses and setting them on the counter. She shrugged when Tolevi asked if she’d seen the deputy mayor.

“I just got here,” she told him. “Maybe he was here, maybe not.”

“Doesn’t he come in every day?”

“Have you tried his office?”

“That’s where I’m going next.”

The van was gone. Tolevi went inside to look for the pimple-faced assistant, but he wasn’t in. Neither was the deputy mayor. In fact, he had a hard time finding anyone in the building, on any of its floors; it wasn’t until he reached the third floor that he found someone, and he was a maintenance man.

“Say, I’m looking for the deputy mayor,” Tolevi said.

The man barely looked up from his mop.

“The deputy mayor,” repeated Tolevi. “Would you happen to know if he or his assistant is in?”

The man made as if he didn’t understand, even though Tolevi was speaking Ukrainian. He tried again. This time the man shook his head and pointed to his ears.

“You’re deaf?” asked Tolevi.

The man pointed again, then nodded.

No wonder you got the job, Tolevi thought as he went back downstairs.

He was just coming out of the building when the first Gaz drove up. Four Russian special forces troops, dressed in black uniforms with no insignias, hustled from the vehicle and began running to block off the street.

Tolevi backtracked quickly, going through the door and then running down the hall to the nearest trash can. He dumped his pistol there, then ran to the entrance on the west side of the building, hoping to get out there without being noticed.

The way was clear. He put his head down and went out, walking briskly toward the sidewalk and then turning to the left. As he did, a second Gaz sped down the road in his direction, stopping at the intersection behind him.

Tolevi slowed his pace slightly — he didn’t want to seem as if he was in a hurry to get away — and crossed the street. He could hear boots scraping and some instructions being barked, but no one accosted him as he reached the next corner and turned. Curious about what exactly was going on, he considered turning around and going back, but that was foolish; the Russians would not like bystanders. So instead he walked two more blocks, then turned to the south and made his way back to where he had left Dan and the butcher’s brother with the car.

Dan wasn’t there.

Damn it.

They had arranged to meet a few blocks away if there was trouble. Tolevi turned around and headed in that direction, but he saw another Russian military vehicle parked in the intersection a few yards from where Dan would have been. So he went back to the bar, figuring it was the best place to pick up gossip and hoping that he might find the deputy mayor there. But the bar was now empty; even the bartender was gone.

He decided to help himself to a drink while he considered what to do. Leaving two five-hundred ruble notes on the bar — about twenty dollars U.S. — he took a half-full bottle of vodka and a glass and sat down at a nearby table. He was just pouring himself a drink when a pair of Russian soldiers, all in black and wearing balaclavas covering their faces, rushed in. They looked over the place quickly, then came to him, pointing their AK-74 assault rifles at his face.

“Just having a drink,” he told them in Russian.

“On the floor,” barked one of the men.

He started to get up but was apparently moving too slowly for the men. One of them grabbed him and threw him to the ground. He started to protest, but a sharp kick in the small of his back knocked the wind out of him. He felt his wallet and identity papers being lifted from his pocket.

Another man came into the room.

“Let him up,” said the man after a few moments.

Tolevi got to his knees, still trying to catch his breath.

“Mr. Tolevi, again,” said the bearded Russian colonel standing behind him. It was the same man who had questioned him after the raid on the butcher’s shop. “When I told you to leave Donetsk, I had something much farther in mind.”

“I was never very good at geography,” said Tolevi.

The remark earned him a swift kick in the stomach. His reaction — to grab the colonel’s boot and twist him to the ground — earned him a nozzle strike to the temple, dropping him to the floor, unconscious.

Massina looked up from the computer screens and scanned the small room he had created.

Is this what my work has come to? he asked himself. Is this what I want to do?

But there was no time for introspection, especially on such complicated questions. People’s lives were at stake — including, and especially, his people, people he had put here.

So the only question to ask was: How do I help them?

Tolevi woke up on a cement floor in a dark basement. He knew he’d made a huge mistake — very possibly a fatal one.

Never be a wiseass. First rule of business.

He turned over to his chest. His hands and feet were free.

Good sign or bad? He had no idea.

Managing to sit, he looked around, eyes slowly adjusting to the dimness. The wall nearby was laid-up stone. There were pipes and a very dirty casement window across from him.

Two red eyes stared at him from a short distance away. A rat.

Lovely.

He stomped his foot. The eyes didn’t move.

“You’re a brave little thing, huh?”

Tolevi took several steps before it scooted to the far corner.

An overhead light flicked on before Tolevi could reach the window. He shielded his eyes as a pair of boots came down the steps. He turned toward them, unsure what to expect.

A man — dressed in black, one of the Russians — came about halfway down and leaned over the staircase.

“Who are you?” Tolevi asked.

The man turned and went back up without answering. The light flicked off; the door at the top closed with a slam.

“Let me out!” yelled Tolevi in Russian. He went to the stairs and started up, not sure exactly what he was going to do.