Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
Amerikanski, Nikitin thought with disgust as he watched the two fornicating on the balcony through camouflaged binoculars. Almost as bad as the Russians.
He’d found a photograph of Chloe Mason on Facebook.
Amazing, the Americans. But now he knew what she looked like and that bitch up there fucking someone was Chloe Mason, his best chance at finding out what happened to his men.
He was here, hidden in the lush bushes forming a barrier between the buildings and the sea, reconnoitering her apartment, which had its curtains drawn, when there she was, two floors down, fucking some unknown man.
He’d parked down at the beginning of the strip known as Coronado Shores, which he’d reconnoitered on Google Earth.
He’d seen right away that there was a good observation post right about fifty meters from the building, across the road that ran along the peninsula.
This area—this Coronado Shores—was rich man’s territory.
Nikiten served the vory and he knew how the rich liked to live.
But no Russian vor worth his salt would allow a thickly landscaped strip separating the road from the beach to exist. Or if is existed, it would be patrolled day and night by guards.
Foolish Americans, so trusting.
He watched this Chloe Mason’s face as she was being fucked from behind, observing her every move, every expression. Trying to figure out what kind of a woman she was, how she could cost him two good men.
The man fucking her. That had to be it. He had to be this Mike. Nikiten watched to get a glimpse of his face, but for the moment, his face was buried in Chloe Mason’s shoulder. But he was strong, unusually broad-shouldered, thickly muscled, though not tall.
Like the prostitute’s description.
Was this the man who had cost him two good men?
Nikitin pulled out his iPad from his backpack. The Americans were so lousy at some many things but they were superb at high tech. Still, whenever brainpower was needed, you had to look to Russia.
Nikitin entered his login and password, took a picture of his thumbprint on his iPhone and sent it all off.
Forty seven seconds later, Pirat was online. Nikitin had an open account with him. Just talking to Pirat was ten thousand dollars an hour. He’d like to keep it down to a quarter of an hour.
What do you need?
Schematics of a building in Coronado Shores, San Diego, California. La Torre. Names of owners. Particularly owner of third apartment from left fourth floor.
After a minute and a half, he had the schematics and the names of all the owners of record. The owner of the apartment who was at this moment fucking Chloe Mason—Nikitin lifted his binoculars to check. The man had stamina. The owner of the apartment was one Michael Keillor.
A photograph filled the screen. Dark brown hair, light blue eyes. A hard, even brutal face.
Nikiten started to type in a request for intel, but facts were already scrolling down.
Michael Keillor. A former Marine, Force Recon. It was like a slap to the face. A warning that a formidable enemy had just crossed his path. A tiger instead of a cat. Americans were, yes, a soft people. But not its soldiers. Force Recon was Special Forces. Spetznaz.
Yes, this man could certainly have taken Lyov and Ivan down, if he had weapons and the element of surprise.
The data scroll continued. After leaving the Marines Michael Keillor joined the San Diego Police Department as a member of the SWAT team. Nikiten knew they were the tactical officers of the police department.
And now he was a partner in a security company, RBK Security Inc.
Ex soldier, former policeman, now owner of a security company. Nikiten felt his senses sharpen, exactly as if this were the moment before going into battle.
But no soldier goes into battle blind.
Intel on Chloe Mason, owner of a property in the same building.
While he waited for Pirat to search his databases, Nikitin lifted the binoculars to his eyes once more.
The couple were straining, clearly at the end of sex.
Did people not realize how ridiculous they looked in the throes of sex?
The woman’s mouth was open, eyes closed.
Both their bodies were bathed in sweat, visible from here.
It was disgusting.
The display changed and he put down the binoculars and looked at the screen.
Chloe Mason, age 28, adopted at age of five by Rebecca and George Mason of Boston. Attended Catholic boarding school in London from the age of 14 to 18. Degree in English Literature from London City College. Sister of Harry Bolt, partner in RBK Security, Inc.
Once was coincidence, twice was a pattern.
RBK Security.
He reached into his pocket to write down the address and froze.
Nyet!
He scrabbled in his leather jacket, desperately trying to find a hole in the lining because…because this was impossible. Maybe in the other pocket. No.
He ripped off his jacket as if it were on fire, ran his hands through the two outside pockets again, the inside pocket, over and over again. Carefully inching his fingers along the lining just in case, all the while knowing that it wasn’t there.
The thumb drive. The thumb drive with the entire auction data—photos, statistics, measurements. Doctor’s certificates. And above all, the names of those admitted to auction. Doctors, lawyers, CEOs, all in a blind auction bidding to buy prepubescent girls.
That thumb drive contained dynamite and if he lost it, his life was over. And the ending would not be pretty. The vory were not known for their mercy.
He kept that drive on him at all times. Where—
And suddenly, he knew. The whore Consuelo had it. He’d taken his jacket off for the interrogation, no use getting the leather wet. Somehow the thumb drive had fallen and she undoubtedly had it. He’d left her lying on the floor in her own vomit. She’d have seen it, picked it up.
All the information in the drive was encrypted but there was no way he could be without it when the ship landed with the girls.
The data was necessary to set up the auction.
There was at least ten million dollars’ worth of intel on that disk, maybe more, depending on how the auction went.
It was to be an anonymous online auction, but they couldn’t organize it without the data on that fucking thumb drive.
The girls at the Meteor, at his insistence, had been injected with a tiny RFID transmitter, under the guise of vaccinations against STDs. There was a way he could track them all on his cellphone but it would be time-consuming to download the data and then scroll through to find Consuelo.
Pirat charged in quarter hour segments. Nikitin still had seven minutes. He uploaded the code for the RFIDs, the login and passwords and asked for him to check for Consuelo.
Pirat was fast. Inside a minute, he had an answer.
He was expecting her to be at the Meteor but instead he got the message:
RFID tag # 3701 at 1147 Birch Street. Morrison Building.
Where in building?
He typed.
He stared at the answer in shock.
Company called RBK Security.
It all went smoothly, much more than she expected.
Consuelo had stared at the blank wall in front of her with the plaque stating RBK Security next to it for long moments, starting to panic, when it whooshed open and a smiling, kindly woman in an elegant suit and cropped, gray hair stood on the other side.
“Call me Marisa,” she said in a slightly accented voice and Consuelo felt immediately better.
It was a busy place, a rich place, where rich successful people did whatever it is they did. Consuelo had no concept of the outside world. She’d been a whore since her virginity had been auctioned off and before that she’d been groomed to be what she was now.
She never even saw much of the outside world. When she walked in, it was as if walking into another universe, a better one.
One where women weren’t half-naked and on display like meat at a butcher’s shop. And where the men weren’t glassy-eyed with alcohol and lust, almost sub-human in their desires, like animals with money.
This was her daily life and she realized how impossibly deficient of everything that made life meaningful it was. The only saving grace was solidarity with the other girls, but since the Russians had come with their harsh new regime, they avoided each other. They couldn’t help each other.
Everyone knew what had happened to Consuelo. No one could have helped her, so they avoided her. She’d walked out of the Meteor this morning without meeting anyone’s eyes.
Here it was so different. Everyone was busy with something that mattered, valued for what they were, what they knew. She eyed everything greedily, simply absorbed into her pores the cool, calm atmosphere where no one was buying anyone else.
This was going to be her new world. It was either that or die.
Marisa walked her across this enormous lobby that smelled fresh and clean, and not of perfume and alcohol, down a corridor and stopped in front of another blank wall.
A green light flashed on a camera above the door and it whooshed open. “Come in,” a deep voice said.
This was it. This was her last refuge and her last hope.
She looked across another large space at two very large men, standing. For a second, she wondered why they were standing and then it hit her like a blow.
They were standing for her.
As if she were a lady.
She stopped, heart pounding, knees suddenly weak, fighting back tears.
Everyone waited patiently. Marisa by her side, the two large men in front of her. She drew in a deep breath and continued walking until she stopped right in front of the big shiny desk.
Both men watched her, faces blank, eyes on hers. Neither of them eyed her breasts or her legs, they looked her straight in the eyes. It gave her permission to look right back.
One of the men looked…familiar, though she knew she’d never seen him before. Dark blond hair, light brown eyes, almost golden in color, skin a light gold. Familiar, yet not. And then it struck her.
“You’re Chloe’s brother!”