Chapter 3

Tuesday came when it was expected, and I finished my preparations for my visit to the penthouse of the Prince Hardin hotel. I left home at 9:00 o'clock and had no trouble finding a place to park at that hour. I was already wearing my working outfit under a conventional pants and shirt. Beside a few other gadgets, I was carrying my air gun and that Colt .45 I had picked up at the camp. The Colt was more for its intimidation effect than for anything else. I was planning to use the air gun for most of my shooting because it was so much quieter in operation than the Colt.

I walked into the hotel just as if I belonged there and waltzed up to the special elevator. I went in and inserted my homemade key. It was a little stiff in operation, but it worked, and that was what was important. About half-way to the 37^th floor, I stopped the elevator and removed my outer clothes to give me more freedom of movement and allow easy access to my gadgets and extra ammo. I released the elevator and let it continue to the penthouse.

I was already holding my air gun ready for use, and I fired one shot into the goon guarding the entrance. I shot him in the head because I figured that he probably was wearing body armor. I checked him after he fell, and, sure enough, he was wearing the armor. He also had one of the Russian pistols in a holster on his belt. I pitched the gun onto the pile of clothes I had left in the elevator and made my way into the hall.

I looked carefully for surveillance cameras and found four of them. It was quite possible that somebody had already seen me, but I figured on making life as hard for them as I could. I took careful aim and shot each of the cameras to junk. That was going to give me away to whoever was watching, but it was going to make it much more difficult to track me.

I moved to the first door and opened it. Damn, what an anticlimax! This was a vestibule for two bathrooms. One was marked for men and the other for women.

Okay, time to check the first room on the other side of the hall. This was a formal dining room, and it was empty. There were two other doors exiting the room, and I could not afford to ignore either one of them. The one on the right opened into a tiny room that was a serving room for the dining room. This room had a dumbwaiter probably leading to the floor below, but it was too small for a human to fit inside, so I ignored it.

The other door from the dining room led to a small bedroom with a bathroom and a closet off it. This room was obviously used, so it must be one of the rooms occupied by the bodyguards. The only other door led to the hallway, so I was covered for those two rooms.

My next door was the one opposite the room that I just left. This was also a bedroom with four twin beds in it. Three of the beds were occupied by men watching a sitcom on a TV hanging on the wall. I did not hesitate. One of the men turned toward me when I opened the door, but I shot him and the two other men before they could react to my presence. Dammit, where was the security that I was expecting. Could it be that these men were so sure of their safety that they were not concerned about keeping watch. If they worked for me, they would be without a job about now!

I checked that there was a closet and a bathroom opening from this room. The bathroom also served the adjacent room. That room was the control room for the surveillance cameras. The dunce working there was reading a girlie-magazine and beating his meat! He obviously had not looked at the display screens since I had reached the penthouse. There were four screens showing nothing but snow and two other screens showing a bedroom and a sitting room. I put a bullet into him from the airgun and he slumped into his seat. Yes, I know: I should have let him finish jacking off before I killed him, but I was afraid of running out of time.

The bedroom showed two real babes dressed in absolutely nothing and entertaining an elderly man who was no better dressed. I figured that this must be the boss and his two "mistresses."

The other camera showed two men in the sitting room smoking cigars and also watching TV. My God! This was the epitome of sloppy security. How could the boss put up with this sort of slovenly work? Oh, well, I was about to make the whole question moot in a very short time. They must have been depending on the single elevator to keep them safe. Well, that and the surveillance system.

I was no longer worried about the surveillance system, and there were only two bodyguards in circulation as far as I could tell. On the other hand, I needed to check the last room to make sure that there were no surprises headed my way.

The last room that I had not seen turned out to be another bedroom. One bed was mussed, but there was no one in the room. I checked the two doors and found one to be the expected closet and the other to be a bathroom. In fact, there was a man using the shower. I put a bullet from the airgun through the glass door before I reached in and turned off the water. Yes, I was one of those people who hated to see water wasted.

Okay, I had been damned lucky so far, probably because of the amazing arrogance of the Russian Mafia people. Now was the time to take care of the two men in the sitting room. I went to the door and eased it open. The door was about half open when a third man walked in from the bathroom. He was still adjusting his pants as he came into the room. Dammit, he saw me! I was bent low when I opened the door, and that was probably why he reacted the way he did. Maybe he was the smartest of the bodyguards.

He shouted something in a language I could not understand, but I guess that it was Russian. He drew a pistol from a shoulder holster and aimed at me. I had switched to automatic fire and put two of the three steel balls into his head. Ah, his head exploded just exactly the way the watermelons do on TV.

The other two men had drawn their guns by then and were firing at me. The noise was almost deafening. I idly wondered if the people on the 36^th floor could hear the noise. If they did, I hoped that they attributed it to a TV program.

Shit, those were armor piercing slugs! I tried to use the door as a shield, and that was almost futile. The bullets came plowing through the door almost as if it were not there. Of course, it was a hollow-core door. There were only two thin pieces of wood or plastic surfacing on the door so that almost any bullet could have penetrated. Nevertheless, it was damned scary the way those bullets came flying through that visually solid door. The problem was, the bullets were also coming through the much more solid wall, albeit slowed a mite by the extra material that they were punching through.

Well, my luck was holding, but I had no idea how long that was going to last. I had not been hit yet, but I was likely to be hit before long just because of statistics. Those guys were throwing enough lead my way that I should be hit pretty soon.

I had slammed the door to keep them from seeing me, and that was all that was protecting me at this point. I lay on the floor to present as little as possible as a target, but I was beginning to worry.

Since my air gun was virtually silent, they had never heard any shots from me, and they must have assumed that I had been hit early in the exchange of bullets. Anyway, for whatever reason, one of the Mafia men came to the door and opened it to look for my body. That was all I needed to put three bullets into his crotch. I did not know how much of his body was covered by armor, but I was willing to stake my life on him not having a protected crotch.

Apparently I was correct. He let out a yell of extreme pain and fell through the doorway. He was not dead yet, but he was in no condition to do any fighting either. The other man had been crouching behind his chair, but he stood up to see what had happened to his companion. That was the opening I needed, and I poured three bullets at his head. I don't know how many hit, but at least one did because his head exploded in the classic ripe watermelon fashion.

I stood up, marveling at my luck, and went to the door that I knew led to the boss' bedroom. Naturally, the door was locked, but I had no trouble kicking it open. When I did, a bullet whizzed past my head. The boss was the one with the gun, and he was shaking like a leaf in a rainstorm. I jumped back, but he fired two more times with no more success than with the first shot.

Suddenly, I heard a grunt of pain, and the gun fell onto the floor. I could see it lying out of reach, and I moved as fast as I could to kick it well beyond reach of the three people on the bed. One of the women was holding a shoe with a spike heal as if she was about to swing it again. I yelled at her to stop because I was afraid that she might kill the old man before I could question him.

The woman sat back away from the man, but she still held onto the shoe. I moved to a position where I could cover all of the people on the bed, and I asked the woman with the shoe why she had helped me.

"The old bastard was going to kill us as soon as he got bored with us. In fact, that was what he said before he started amusing himself with us earlier this evening. We are both whores one of his men picked up from the street, so nobody would miss us if we disappeared. I have been looking all night for a way to escape, and you look like a man who will help us do that."

"Yes, Ladies, I will be happy to do that, but first I have some business with this guy. I need to question him, so I will make a deal with you. If you keep an eye out for anybody else who might show up, I will make sure that you both get away from here with a whole skin and maybe some money. They both agreed, so I had them dress and move to the other room. That was the only entrance to this room.

Actually, I knew that I did not need their help, but that kept them busy and out of my hair while I questioned the boss. He was already naked, so that made things a little easier. I bound his wrists behind his back and dragged him into the bathroom. I cut some strips from a towel and tied his wrists to the shower head in such a way that he was bent over at the waist. This positioned his ass under the shower head so that water would fall directly on his ass when I turned on the water. I planned to threaten him much as I had Boris Spatsov.

I turned on the cold water and let it spray over his ass and drip onto his balls. That was uncomfortable, but was not going to cause him any injury. I didn't say anything for a couple of minutes while I let the water run. Finally, Alexei couldn't take the suspense any longer and said in perfect English, "What do you plan to do with me?" Well, that answered my question about how good his English was.

I said, "You are going to tell me everything you know about the terrorists and the agreement with the Iranians. If you don't, I am going to boil your ass and balls with the hot water from the shower. Hell, I might just do it anyway for the fun of it!"

"You don't dare! Such things are not allowed in America!"

"Oh, you think so, huh? Well, I guess that I should tell you that I have no connection to the police, FBI, CIA, or any other law enforcement group. You ordered me killed on the chance that I might know something about your deal with the Iranians. The truth is that I know a hell of a lot about the deal, but I want to know more. If you are lucky, you will live through my questioning, but I may just decide to Hell with you, and scald you to death with the hot water. What do you think of that?"

"Fuck you, ass hole!"

"My, my, your command of English and of American vernacular is quite impressive, but not enough to save you from some pain. Let's start with a little hot water on your ass." The shower control was one of those lever valves so that I could go from hot to cold to hot just by moving the lever a little bit. I pulled the lever to maximum hot water and waited for developments.

It did take about 15 seconds for the hot water to start flowing, and it did not take long for Alexei to start yelling in pain. Of course, the water was only at about 140°F, but that was hot enough to be painful, especially on the parts of Alexei's body that were hit directly by the hot water. The two women could not contain their curiosity and ran into the bathroom to see what I was doing to Alexei. They approved and begged me to let them stay to watch. They broke me down and I agreed since their watching my back was just make-work.

I let the hot water run for about 30 seconds before I shifted back to the coldest water available. By now, Alexei's skin had become sensitized and either extreme in temperature was painful. He still howled in pain and actually started to cry. The women made fun of him, and that helped my plan. I asked Alexei, "When was the first shipment delivered to Halifax?"

His answer repeated his first, so I cut on the hot water again. This time I let it run for more than a minute, and I could see Alexei's scrotum start to turn red. Man, that must have hurt, because he yelled for a short time, but quit when his throat got too sore. I cut back on the hot water and switched to cold. I said, "Alexei, this time when I turn on the hot water, I won't turn it off until you answer my question. When was the first shipment delivered to Halifax?"

This time he was silent for too long, so I turned the hot water back on and just let it run. His yells of pain were now only whispers, but I could still hear him when he said, "April 14^th of this year."

"Ah, Alexei, that was more like it. Have any more shipments come in since then?"

Silence, so I reached in to turn on the hot water. He felt the temperature change and said, "Four more shipments."

Now that I had broken through his resistance, it was rarely necessary to turn on the hot water again. I found out that five shipments had come in so far, and four more were scheduled. I got the names of his contacts in the USA, Canada, Russia, and Iran. I also extracted the addresses of the five warehouses that had already received arms and the four more that were scheduled to arrive later on this year.

No, I do not trust my memory all that much, so I was recording everything Alexei said about the arms. Once that subject was exhausted, I asked him about other Russian Mafia operations. According to him, they were also heavily into the drug trade in Canada, though they were having trouble countering the threat of the Mexican mobs in the USA.

All told, I spent nearly three hours questioning Alexei, and I got enough information to keep Homeland Security busy for years. The problem was that they were not going to believe a lot of what I had, and most of it could not be used as evidence because of the way I had obtained it. Hell, I didn't know how I was going to handle disposition of the boss, but that problem was solved by one of the women. She had picked up the boss' dropped pistol from the bedroom floor when she got dressed. Considering what she was wearing, it was a wonder that I had not noticed it. We three were in the bathroom, and she asked if I was through questioning him. I said I was, so she pulled out the gun and said, "Well, Mr. High-and-mighty, you were going to kill us when you got bored with us. Too bad for you that it won't happen that way. I am bored with you, so goodby!" With that, she shot him in the head and produced the watermelon-effect. I had to be happy with that because he was now no problem.

While I was about it, I had gotten from Alexei the information about where he was hiding his money. Some of it was in various banks, especially those with Mafia connections, but there was a big stash here in the penthouse. Specifically, it was stored in two chests hidden in his closet.