Chapter 2

The second man had some identification in his wallet, but it was nothing special. He had a Russian-sounding name, but a lot of good Americans had that, so it was meaningless data at the moment. The only money he was carrying was all American, so he very easily could have been a run-of-the-mill hood. I pulled him back until he was completely on the porch so that I could close the door.

At last, I could spend some time with my captive. He was back to normal now, so I pulled him into the kitchen. I searched him and found no more than I did with the guy on the porch. I leaned him against the wall and said, "Okay, Boris, I am sure that you can speak enough English to understand me. I plan to question you about what is going on. Rest assured, all of that stuff you may have seen on TV about how cops question suspects has nothing to do with me. You have no rights as far as I am concerned, and I will cause you more pain than you can imagine if you do not answer my questions completely and truthfully. That will be your only chance to live through this little session.

"The first question will be easy because I want to discover just how good your English might be. I hope that it is better than mine because that will make things easier for both of us. Okay, here it is: Is Boris Spatsov your real name?"

Well, good old Boris was acting true to form: he spat at me. I was expecting it so he missed. "Oh, my dear Boris, that was your first mistake. You have answered the real question that I was asking, but you have also made me even more angry with you."

It was not easy, and I thought that he was going to break the table before I finished, but I managed to drag him up onto the table and lay him on his face. I fastened his arms and legs to the four table legs with more of the plastic ties. I cut his clothes away so that he was completely naked. I could tell that I was breaking through his assumed air of toughness because he started to sweat. It was just past noon by now, so I stopped long enough to fix myself a sandwich and a cup of coffee. I made a point of letting Boris see me eat, but I never offered him anything, even a glass of water.

Once I had finished eating, I returned my attention to Boris. I said, "Boris, if I have to kill you, and you make that look like a very likely option, you will never be found. I will slit your belly and weight your body before dumping you into the lake. Nobody but me will ever know what happened to you."

I refilled the coffee pot and returned it to the stove to heat until the water boiled. "Boris, you may wonder why I am heating water until it boils. Well, it is intended for you. Do you know what boiling water feels like? I can assure you that it is very painful. In fact, I have heard of people spending 10 years in prison for pouring boiling water onto another person. Actually, I have never done it, but we may soon find out just how painful that can be."

Boris looked at me and said, "My real name is Boris Spatsov. I am an American citizen, and I know that you cannot do this to me."

"Well, Boris, we will soon find out what I can and cannot do to you. My first experiment will be to pour boiling water into your ass crack. You do realize what will happen, don't you. The boiling water will run down your ass crack and over your ass hole. You may not notice that event because you will already be screaming in pain. From your ass hole, the water will run down to your balls. Of course, the water will have cooled a little bit by then, but probably not enough for you to notice the difference.

"From your balls, the water will run down your cock. I don't now about your balls, but I expect that you will feel the water on your cock. I expect that you will piss by this time, maybe even shit some, as you react to the pain. Well, don't concern yourself about that. That will give you a measure of revenge because I will have to clean it up. I expect that you will be in such pain by then that you will not even notice when I clean it up."

"For God's sake, don't do that to me! What do you want to know?"

"Well, for starters, why did you and your friends try to kill me this morning?"

"I don't know. I was just following orders."

That was the kind of answer that I was expecting, so I did not even comment. By this time, the water was boiling vigorously. I picked up the pot and turned back to Boris. "Last chance, Boris. Either answer my question or get you first experience with boiling water on your ass."

"Okay, okay! Please put that pot down." I put the pot back on the stove where it immediately returned to boiling. I turned back around and gave Boris a questioning look. He said, "I heard the boss say that you might have talked to your friend Andrew Hatfield before he was killed, so you had to be killed before you acted on the information."

"All right, that was about what I expected. Now, let us try another question since you did so well with that one. Who is your boss, and where can I find him?"

"Oh, my God! I can't tell you that. I'd be wearing concrete overshoes if they ever found out that I had told you that."

I didn't say anything. I just turned back to the stove and picked up the pot of boiling water. I started to walk toward Boris with that pot in my hand, and he broke completely. I put the pot down and he proceeded to tell me the whole story. There were a number of fits and starts in Boris' telling of the story, so I will summarize it here.

The Russian Mafia had been contacted by somebody in the Iranian government to supply terrorist groups in the USA and Canada with weapons and explosives. These guns, etc. would come through the port of Halifax and be moved about the continent by the Russian Mafia. The material would we delivered to several distribution points, and the terrorists would take over from there. The goods headed to the USA would be moved by truck through New England to the distribution points. Boris didn't know where these distribution points were, and he did not know what was to be done in Canada. That information would have to come from somebody else, maybe the boss.

The Boss was located in a penthouse apartment in Boston, at least for now. Once he was sure that the information leak had been plugged here, he would return to NYC. His name was Alexei Vasily Vladovich. That seemed to me to be an unlikely name, but I did not speak Russian, so I could not know for sure. It really made no difference as long as he was using that name in America.

I had spent nearly two hours questioning Boris, so it was getting late, and there was still that mess in my front yard to clean up. I went out to the boat and picked up my cellphone from the tackle box. I called Det. Bains to report what had happened in my yard. I would wait until he showed up to give him the information I had gotten from Boris. That was too sensitive to give out over the cellphone. Det. Bains promised to show up within half an hour, so I took the time to shower and dress. By the way, I had also told Bains that Boris would need some new clothes.

Bains showed up as promised and the morgue trucks were right behind him. They picked up the bodies and Bains had even brought somebody to clean up the spilled blood. Now, that was a friend.

A second cruiser had come to pick up Boris. They had the regulation orange prisoner jumpsuit for him to wear. Boris was not all that happy about going to jail, but he accepted it to the alternatives I offered him. Once everybody else had left, I told Bains what I had learned from Boris and asked his opinion on how to proceed. Neither one of us had any confidence in Homeland Security, but we had no better ideas.

Bains heard me out and called his contact in Homeland Security. That functionary simply did not believe his story, and Bains hung up in disgust. Shit!!! Det. Bains had no further advice, except that I should take a long vacation until this blew over.

Dammit, I couldn't do that. There were too many innocents who could be killed by the terrorists while Homeland Security was fiddling and fooling around. Besides, if I slipped up, the Russian Mafia could pop me off, and I had no interest in that happening. It looked like it was up to me to protect myself, and maybe I could stop a terrorist bloodbath while I was about it.

The key was those weapons. If I could destroy them, I would certainly discommode the terrorists, and I might break the trust the Iranians had in the Russian Mafia. To do that, I had to capture and question Alexei Vasily Vladovich. That meant that I had to catch him in Boston: if he got to NYC, he would have too many guards.

I had a hunch that I was going to need a gun that could not be traced to me, so I liberated that Colt .45 to become my optional gun when I had to remain hidden from the cops. Certainly, with Andy dead, nobody was going to need that gun more than I did. I figured that I had done all that I could do at the camp, so I packed up and drove back to my condo in Boston. When I got back, I called my office and talked to Alice Horton, my secretary. I asked her to contact Andy's lawyer to make sure that he knew of Andy's murder. Frankly, I wanted to cut myself off from connection to the camp or to Andy, for that matter.

The next morning I dropped by my office to see what there might be that I could not ignore. In a way, I was happy that I had nothing to distract me; one the other hand, I still needed jobs to pay the bills. I was going to have to work something out on that. That afternoon I went by the Prince Hardin hotel where Alexei Vasily Vladovich was currently occupying the penthouse.

Before going in, I stood outside and counted the floors in the building. There were 37 of them, so I was going to find out how to reach the penthouse without attracting too much attention. My first action was to visit the bank of elevators in the lobby. There were six elevators grouped together and one elevator off to one side in a relatively inconspicuous place. I ducked into the elevator when no one was looking and saw that the elevator had only one button, and it was marked "37." There was a place for a key beside the button, so I figured that the button was a dummy. This elevator was going nowhere without the proper key. My next problem was to get the key long enough to make a copy. I made a note of the name of the maintenance company who took care of this elevator and left the building.

Sunday, I was dressed in casual clothes and carrying a small tool box as I approached the main desk at the Prince Hardin hotel. I spoke to the clerk, "Hey, Buddy, where is the elevator that's on the blink? And hurry it up! I'm missing the Patriot's game, and I am pissed off about that."

"Sir, who are you? We don't have an elevator that is not working properly."

"Now don't give me a hard time. I've got 50 bucks ($50) riding on this game, and I want to get home to finish seeing it! I got a call at home to rush over here to check out a report of an elevator not functioning properly. Something about an elevator to the penthouse."

"I have heard nothing, though I have been on duty for only 20 minutes. The elevator you are talking about is the one around that corner." He pointed to the nook where the elevator could be found, and I walked over to it.

I pushed the call button and the door opened. The passenger compartment was right where it should be, and I walked in. The door closed, but I immediately pushed the button to open it back up. I stormed over to the desk and demanded the key to operate the elevator.

"Look, Buddy, nobody told me that this was one of those elevators that required the special key. I left my keys at home because I never expected to need them. Let me borrow your key so that I can fix the fucking thing."

"Sir, I can't do that!"

"Okay by me, but there ain't no other way for me to check out the elevator. Either let me borrow your key, or I am going home, dammit. I want to see the end of the game, and I don't have time to go home, get my keys, and come back. That's it: take your choice!"

"Oh, very well. Humph, you don't have to be so disagreeable. Here's the key."

I took the key and went back into the elevator. Once the door closed, I quickly made an impression of both sides of the key in some special clay that I had in the toolbox. I ran the elevator to the top floor and found that it took about 17 seconds to reach the 37^th floor.

The door opened automatically, and there was a goon standing there acting as a guard. "What the fuck are you doing here?" he asked me in a very disagreeable voice.

"Cool it, Man. I'm doing a routine maintenance check on the elevator. I'm headed back down in a few seconds." I closed the door and headed back to the lobby. I waited about 15 seconds and stalked back to the desk. I handed the key to the clerk and said, "There never was a problem. Some fucking clown up there tried to use the elevator to get to the lobby without the key. He thought that all he had to do was to push that dummy button. You can damned well bet that your accountant will be getting a hefty bill at the end of the month for wasting my time! Maybe if the cops don't see me, I can see the last quarter of the game, at least!" I stalked out of the hotel as if I were really pissed off. Actually, I was feeling pretty good because I had a way to make a duplicate key. I had also seen the entrance to the penthouse, and that was going to make things a little easier.

I drove back to my condo and actually did see the last quarter of the game. The Patriots beat the Jets 43-10. That was the perfect cap for a perfect day!

I started planning for my next visit to the penthouse. The first thing I did was to open my gun locker and pull out the custom made air pistol. It was a .375 caliber copy of a conventional air pistol, but made of souped up parts and materials. I have a friend who is an excellent gunsmith, and he had done several jobs for me. I use this air gun for special jobs. I have not had to use it yet, but I expected to on my visit to the penthouse. In fact, I would be disappointed if I don't get to use it.

It works from an air bottle carried at my waist and holds 50 copper plated steel spheres in the magazine. As long as the air lasts, the gun with fire a bullet at 900 feet per second. That is fast enough to kill a human at 250 yards, but the escape of the air is below the speed of sound. That means that they gun is practically silent as it shoots. The air bottle is good for 1,000 shots at full capacity, and I carry one magazine in the gun and four more in the pouch at my belt. Furthermore, the gun has an excellent compensator on the muzzle that virtually eliminates muzzle climb with a fast shooting rate.

The gun has a selector switch which lets me select normal semiautomatic fire or fully automatic fire in three-shot bursts. That latter option lets me compensate for the relatively low diameter of the bullet. I can't imagine a case when three hits won't kill any man not wearing armor.

In fact, now that I know that the hoods use armor piercing bullets, I have to assume that they wear body armor. Logic requires it! I will probably wear my body armor when I visit the penthouse, but I wonder how much good that will do me.

A bit of research told me that Tuesday was the night with the lowest occupation rate in the hotel. Therefor, I planned to make my visit on Tuesday. Every little bit of an edge will help!