Chapter 8 Alison
ALISON
August
Goddamn him.
It was three in the morning, and I was on a Coast Guard patrol boat, hanging onto the rail as a summer storm made the deck heave under my feet and then drop away sickeningly.
Three coast guardsmen with boat hooks were hauling a dark mass over the rail.
It fell to the deck and rolled to a stop under the beam of my flashlight.
A body, wrapped in chains. “You think your guy did this?” asked one of the guardsmen.
I nodded. “You were right to call me.” Technically, Caroline had been on call, but I hadn’t been about to drag her away from her kids in the middle of the night, so I’d taken it. As the boat headed towards shore, I sighed. We’d check for clues, but Gennadiy wouldn’t have left any. He never did.
I was into my third and final month of surveilling him, and I still didn’t have anything concrete.
In that time, there’d been three murders, one bank robbery, four more cases of arson, and countless gun deals I knew involved him, but I didn’t have any hard evidence.
He was too smart, too careful. He never used his own gun, the one he was licensed to carry.
The only time we’d ever found bullets from it was when he’d fired it in self-defense at Radimir’s wedding.
I was desperate. If I didn’t get a win soon, my boss would close down the operation.
I was working sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, and my only breaks were to visit Master Sun, who wasn’t doing well.
He was seventy, now, and in the hospital, fighting cancer.
It was heartbreaking: we’d sparred at least twice a week for over ten years.
He was the closest thing to family I had.
When I got back into my car at the docks, I turned off the interior light, made sure no one was watching, and then screamed long and loud, hammering my fists on the steering wheel.
Then I sat there panting in the darkness, utterly drained.
In all my years in law enforcement I’ve never encountered someone I couldn’t bring down.
I was starting to doubt myself. Am I just not good enough?
I’d never felt this way about a target. At home, I had a life-sized martial arts training dummy, and it was Gennadiy’s arrogant face I saw when I punched and kicked it.
But afterwards, when I fell into bed and tried to sleep.
..Gennadiy’s face came to me then, too. Those high cheekbones and that full, sinful lower lip.
I knew his face better than any lover’s.
I knew every tattoo on every one of his fingers.
I’d started daydreaming about what he looked like under his suit, guessing the shape of his pecs and abs from when the wind plastered his shirt across them.
I knew I shouldn’t be attracted to him. But there was something about the way his lips tightened when he scowled; the way he walked, like he was crushing his enemies underfoot.
I kept remembering the feel of him against me when he had me imprisoned in his arms. There was something about all that seething, angry power that was magnetic.
I could still feel the heat of his cock as it swelled against my leather-clad ass…
I frowned at myself in the rear-view mirror.
Focus! Viktor Grushin, the Russian cop who’d become sort of my hero, would never have been weak like this.
I’d read everything I could find on his successes: he’d busted over twenty Bratva gangs in Moscow, although the articles were always frustratingly vague on how he’d done it.
What I did know was, he hadn’t done it by moping. ..or fantasizing about his target.
I took a deep breath, then threw my car into gear. It was almost four am, too late to sleep. Might as well make an early start.
Later that day, I finally got the break I needed.
Her name was Monica Aiken, and she worked for a small freight company.
The cops had picked her up for speeding and found enough coke in her car to put her away.
She’d told them she had information that she’d trade to make the charges go away.
And then she dropped the bombshell: it’s about Gennadiy Aristov.
He’d visited their freight company and arranged to ship some crates from New York to Chicago.
They were being delivered to one of Gennadiy’s front businesses, a bathroom supply company.
They were arriving in the dead of night, and Gennadiy was meeting the truck personally.
I’d known Gennadiy was bringing guns into the city for months; I just hadn’t known how. This is it! This is how I catch him!
That night, running on two hours of sleep and bad coffee, I hunkered behind a wall along with the rest of my team and assistant director Halifax.
We were all armed and in body armor, and we had five of the FBI’s Tactical Response guys with us in full combat gear with assault rifles.
This could turn into a firefight, and we weren’t taking any chances.
Just past midnight, Gennadiy’s BMW showed up. He’d had it lovingly resprayed and polished to remove the scratch. I smirked. Waste of time, Gennadiy. You won’t need a car where you’re going.
He climbed out, together with his brother Valentin and two heavies, and they gathered in front of the building’s loading dock. A moment later, the truck turned into the parking lot. We all checked our weapons.
The truck reversed up to the loading dock. Gennadiy and Valentin lowered the tailgate and—
I sprinted out from behind the wall, heart hammering, gun pointed right at Gennadiy’s chest. “FBI! Hands where I can see them!” Behind me, the tactical team spread out, covering me.
Gennadiy stepped back and calmly raised his hands in the air.
We moved forward, slow and careful. Only when I was sure that all of Gennadiy’s gang were under control did I holster my pistol and climb up into the truck.
Six big wooden crates. I grinned at Caroline, and she grinned back at me. We got him. She passed me a crowbar, and I levered the top off a crate…
A sea of cheerful, bright yellow plastic. I blinked. Ducks. Hundreds of rubber ducks.
It’s cover, in case anyone opens the crate.
I plunged my hands inside, waiting to feel the cold metal of an assault rifle. But there was nothing, even when my fingers brushed the bottom of the crate.
Well, obviously, they wouldn’t put them in the crates at the front! I levered open the second crate. More ducks. The third crate. Same thing. The fourth and fifth. Now there was only one crate left, and a sickening realization was sinking in. Oh no. Oh, God, please no...
I pried open the last crate.
Hundreds of little yellow faces stared up at me.
I stared in raw horror. Then my heart suddenly lifted. The crates have false bottoms! I heaved the crates over onto their sides. Thousands of rubber ducks spilled into the bed of the truck and waterfalled down to the ground, forming a spreading yellow sea.
No false bottoms. No secret compartments. Nothing.
I waded through the ducks, jumped down from the truck, and marched over to Gennadiy. “What the fuck is this?!” I demanded, shoving one of the ducks into his chest.
He took the duck and examined it. “You play with it in the bathtub,” he explained innocently.
“Why would you need thousands of them?!”
He pointed to the sign on the building behind him. “It’s a bathroom supply company. We’re planning a promotion: a free duck with every purchase.”
“Why would you arrange delivery for midnight?”
Gennadiy shrugged. “Is there some law against working late?” And just for a second, the corners of his mouth twitched. The bastard was trying not to laugh.
Monica Aiken. She’d been a plant. He’d paid her to get arrested, told her exactly what to say to the cops. He’d baited the hook, and I’d swallowed it. We’d spent all our time and resources here, while the real shipment of guns was happening somewhere else.
Halifax walked over. “You and your men are free to go, Mr. Aristov.” Then he looked at me and shook his head, furious.
The next day, Halifax called me into his office for a long lecture on not leaping into action without all the facts. The bust had cost the FBI tens of thousands of dollars plus countless hours of paperwork, all for nothing. “We agreed three months,” he warned me. “You’ve got four weeks left.”
When I got back to my desk, there was a new picture on the wall. Someone had snapped a photo of me standing in the back of the truck, looking utterly crestfallen, knee deep in rubber ducks. Hadderwell and Fitch were chuckling like schoolkids. Only Caroline looked sympathetic.
Then a package arrived, addressed to me. I opened the box…
A rubber duck. There was a note, in looping, confident script.
For when you are naked in the bath – G.
I stared at the thing, my chest rising and falling as the rage filled me and threatened to overflow. He’d screwed me, seriously denting my career, either to try to get rid of me or just for fun. I squeezed the duck so hard the plastic squished…
But I didn’t hurl it across the room. That was what he wanted. I took a deep breath and placed the duck beside my computer, a reminder to never underestimate him again.
You want war, Gennadiy? You got it.