The Altar Of Bones Part 36

Ry 's hand was idly caressing her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, then toying with the green-skull amulet she'd worn on a chain around her neck since Budapest.

"A prison in Tajikistan," he said after a moment. "I was on a mission there, Operation Containment we called it. Trying to put some kind of dent, no matter how pathetic, in the flow of Afghan heroin into Russia. One night things went all to h.e.l.l, and we ended up having to bust one of the smuggling rings on the fly. But the wrong guy got killed, and I got hauled in by the local cops and thrown into a jail cell that was already packed like sardines in a can with forty other men. Sasha was the youngest, just a kid, and he ... He had this heart tattooed on his forehead."

"I've seen vors vors with teardrops and daggers on their faces, but never a heart. Why that?" she asked, because prison tattoos always had a meaning. with teardrops and daggers on their faces, but never a heart. Why that?" she asked, because prison tattoos always had a meaning.

"Because of what they'd done to him. They'd turned him into a s.e.x toy for any man who wanted him."

Zoe closed her eyes, not sure she wanted to hear any more now, but he went on, "In a Tajikistan jail they make the ink for the tat by burning the heel of a shoe and mixing it with urine. They'd made Sasha use his own shoe and p.i.s.s. They even made him pay off the tattoo artist by ... well, you can guess."

Zoe nodded, swallowing around the thick lump in her throat. "But how did he end up in such a place? His father's a scientist, a professor at the university here."

"Drugs. He got himself hooked bad on the poppy juice, and then he got it into his head that he could finance his habit by doing his own smuggling. He got caught trying to drive a vegetable truck full of two hundred kilos of heroin across the border."

She felt Ry shrug in the dark. "I don't know. I guess I felt sorry for the kid, so when I escaped, I brought him with me."

Zoe thought it was probably a lot more than that, but she let it go.

"He wasn't in very good shape, so I had to bring him all the way back home here to St. Petersburg. Soon as he could, the first thing he did was get that heart taken off his forehead. They had to dissolve his skin with magnesium powder to do it. It must've hurt like h.e.l.l."

She turned her head into Ry's chest and kissed him, relishing the rise and fall of his breathing beneath her lips. "Ry? Are we going to get out of this alive?"

Every other man in the world would have lied to her then, but not him. "Either we take Popov's son out tomorrow, or he takes us out."

"If I have to, I'll give him the bone juice. But only if I have to."

The arm he had wrapped around her back tightened its grip. He kissed the top of her head. "Do you think you can find the nightclub again?"

"Yes. But why-"

"Sssh." He put his finger against her mouth. "If you make it through this and I don't, I want you to promise me that you'll go to Sasha. He'll take care of you. He'll see that you get back home."

She shook her head. "If you don't make it, then I don't want to either."

"Yeah, you do. n.o.body wants to die."

She thought suddenly that she could feel a heat coming off the amulet where it lay between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She sat up, pulled off the chain, and held it out to him on her open palm.

"If this really is a fountain of youth, then maybe if we drink from it, Popov can't hurt us. Can't kill us, at least. One drop and we could live forever-"

"No." He curled her fingers around the amulet and pushed it away from him. "No."

"Okay, then." She shrugged, pretending not to care, but she was shaking inside. From temptation, and a terrible fear. n.o.body wants to die n.o.body wants to die.

She looked down into his hard face. "I don't know how you do it. How you've lived this kind of life for so long."

His face didn't soften then either, but he said, "I don't know if I can do it anymore. If there is a tomorrow after tomorrow, and another tomorrow after that, then I want all those days and nights to be full of moments like this." He reached up and cupped her cheek, his fingers wiping away tears she hadn't known were there. "I want you."

She leaned over and kissed him, softly at first, and then the kiss turned hard, and this time as they made love, she tried to make herself remember every moment of it.

They fell asleep in each other's arms.

RY CAME AWAKE suddenly and sat up. The moon had risen, filling the room with a silvery light. He reached for her, but she was gone. suddenly and sat up. The moon had risen, filling the room with a silvery light. He reached for her, but she was gone.

Then he saw her standing in the bathroom doorway, wearing one of his T-shirts. A man in a black jogging suit stood close behind her.

He had the blade of a knife pressed to her throat.

47.

LIGHT FLOODED the bedroom with the flip of a switch, and a second man came through the door. He, too, was dressed in a black jogging suit and Adidas athletic shoes-the uniform of a the bedroom with the flip of a switch, and a second man came through the door. He, too, was dressed in a black jogging suit and Adidas athletic shoes-the uniform of a vors vors in the Russian mafia. Only this guy had jazzed his up a notch. Three gold chains and an enormous gold baptism cross hung around his neck. in the Russian mafia. Only this guy had jazzed his up a notch. Three gold chains and an enormous gold baptism cross hung around his neck.

"I like your look, dolboy'eb dolboy'eb," Ry said to him in street Russian. "Real cla.s.sy. Do you plan on being buried in it?"

"You're the d.i.c.khead, d.i.c.khead. I'm the one with the gun, so shut up and get dressed." The vor vor tossed a duffel bag onto the floor. "In these clothes, not your own, and be quick about it. The tossed a duffel bag onto the floor. "In these clothes, not your own, and be quick about it. The pakhan pakhan does not like to be kept waiting." does not like to be kept waiting."

Ry shook his head slowly back and forth. "I'm not doing a thing until you tell that rutting goat over there to take his knife off my woman's throat."

"Grisha, take your knife off her throat."

"But, Vadim-"

"Do it."

Grisha gave the other man a sour look, but he lowered the knife and took a step back. His black eyes focused on Ry, a sneer curdling his mouth. "Move, b.i.t.c.h," Grisha said, and slammed the flat of his hand into Zoe's back so hard he sent her sprawling.

Ry came off the bed, hard and fast, but he was stopped cold by the poke of a gun barrel in his belly.

Vadim brought his face right up to Ry's, so close Ry could see the blackheads on his nose and smell the boiled cabbage on his breath. "One more inch and you die. One more f.u.c.king word out of your mouth and you die."

"Ry, don't don't."

Zoe scrambled to her feet and held up her hands, palms out. He could see the fear in her eyes and knew it was for him. To get his hands on the altar of bones, Nikolai Popov would need Zoe alive and cooperating, but if Ry started looking as if he was more trouble than he was worth, he'd get a bullet in his head.

"I'm all right, Ry, really. He didn't hurt me." She bent over to pick her bra and panties from off the floor, but Grisha grabbed her arm. "Put on what we brought you, and nothing else."

For a split second longer, Ry thought about trying to take the other man down, gun or no gun, but that was the testosterone talking-he could feel it, pumping along with the hot blood through the veins in his neck.

He raised his spread hands and backed up a step. "Okay, okay. I'll shut up and get dressed. But I want her left alone."

Vadim smiled, showing off the diamond chips embedded American-rapper-style in his two front teeth. "We won't kill her unless the pakhan pakhan says kill her. Then? We kill her." says kill her. Then? We kill her."

THE CLOTHES IN the duffel bag were more black jogging suits and Adidas shoes, along with a couple of cheap parkas and some wool hats and gloves. the duffel bag were more black jogging suits and Adidas shoes, along with a couple of cheap parkas and some wool hats and gloves.

"Don't we get any bling to go with our new outfits?" Ry said, once they were dressed.

Vadim dangled a pair of handcuffs from his left pointer finger. "This is the only 'bling' you're gonna get, except maybe for a bullet in the head. So shut up and put them on."

Ry snapped the metal bracelets around his wrists. Either they only had the one pair of handcuffs, he thought, or they didn't consider Zoe much of a threat.

It was snowing, the dark streets deserted, but a chauffeured black Mercedes SUV waited for them at the curb, engine running. Grisha opened the back door, shoved Zoe inside, and climbed in after her. Then the Mercedes suddenly shot forward before he'd finished shutting the door.

"Hey!'

Ry started to run after the car-not so easy to do on a street packed with snow and with your hands in cuffs. It was pointless anyway. All he could do was watch as the red taillights grew slowly smaller until they turned onto the Pevchesky Bridge and disappeared into the darkness.

Vadim came up beside him, wheezing from that little bit of a run. He had his gun out again and this time he looked as if he really might use it. "What are you doing, asking to be shot? The pakhan pakhan said come in separate cars." said come in separate cars."

"Then where's ours?"

"It will be here when it gets here. Now get out of the f.u.c.king street before you get run over by a snowplow."

They waited, then waited some more. This wasn't good. Why separate cars?

Vadin fished a Bic lighter and a pack of cheap Russian cigarettes out of the jacket pocket of his jogging suit. He lit up, took a deep drag, then coughed up half a lung.

"Those things'll kill you," Ry said.

"f.u.c.k you."

A snowplow crunched by, and lights came on in the apartments across the street. Vadim began to jiggle up and down on his toes. His lips and nose, even the tips of his ears, Ry noticed, had turned blue with the cold.

"What?" Ry said. "The pakhan pakhan doesn't pay enough for you to buy a coat, not even a cheap-a.s.s parka like this one you gave me?" doesn't pay enough for you to buy a coat, not even a cheap-a.s.s parka like this one you gave me?"

"I'm from Siberia. In Siberia this is not cold. In Siberia this is spring."

Ry's nerves were on the screaming edge by the time the second Mercedes SUV showed up.

Their driver made a U-turn and drove off in the opposite direction from the one Zoe's car had taken, and for the first time in his life Ry felt literally sick with fear. Not so much because he knew he could be riding to his death-although that was not a pleasant prospect. But what would happen to Zoe now if she had to handle what was coming on her own?

Their driver took them through a dizzying maze of streets lined with decaying palazzi of long-dead merchants and n.o.blemen, mixed in with fitness clubs, espres...o...b..rs, and a Porsche dealer. Trying to ditch a possible tail, Ry supposed. Not that they needed to. Sasha's security men had positioned themselves well back to keep from drawing attention to themselves, counting on the GPS in the heel of Ry's boot to let them know if he and Zoe were on the move. A brilliant plan, except that Popov had antic.i.p.ated it, and now the boot was still back at the apartment, while he and Zoe were now headed G.o.d knew where.

Every ten minutes Vadim lit up another foul cigarette, filling the SUV with a greasy yellow cloud of smoke. Eventually the eclectic neighborhood gave way to blocks of crumbling Soviet-era apartment buildings and rusting factories. The snow was coming down hard, stacking up on the windshield faster than the wipers could flick it away.

About an hour out of St. Petersburg, they crossed a set of railroad tracks and ran out of asphalt. They were deep in the country now, lurching over frozen ruts through a wasteland of pines and rocks.

Ry was beginning to think he'd fallen into some existentialist h.e.l.l, then out in the middle of nowhere they came upon an old cemetery. The driver slowed and turned down a narrow lane, lined on both sides by the cemetery's tall stone walls. They drove for about a mile, and then the lane dead-ended in front of the ruins of a large brick building.

"Once we get out, take yourself and the car up to the farm," Vadim said to the driver, as the SUV crunched to a stop on the fresh layer of snow.

The frigid air felt good after the smoky stuffiness inside the Mercedes. Flakes, soft and thick as down, fell from a black sky overhead, but Ry's internal clock told him it would soon be dawn.

He thought the brick ruins were once a slaughterhouse because of the bronze sculpture of a bull that stood guard next to the building's wide, arched doorway. A lone, bare lightbulb cast just enough light on the yard for him to pick out the remains of what looked like a cattle chute sticking up out of the snow and a rusted-out hay baler.

There was no sign of the other SUV, nor of any living thing. And, worse, no other fresh tire tracks in the virgin snow.

Oh, man, O'Malley, this isn't good. This is not good at all.

Vadim poked him in the side with a Beretta. "You speak good Russian for an American. Do you know the word grokhnut grokhnut?"

Literally it meant "to bang," but it had another meaning as well. "If you were going to shoot me," Ry said, "you'd have done it by now."

Vadim grunted a laugh. "Does it comfort you to think so?" He pointed with his gun. "Go over there, beneath the light."

With Vadim close on his heels, Ry walked toward the wide, arched entrance into what had probably been the slaughterhouse's bleeding and gutting area. A long time ago fire had destroyed part of the roof and blackened the brick walls, but as he got closer, he could see someone had pulled an old, turquoise trailer house inside and set it up on cinder blocks.

"That's far enough," Vadim said, and Ry felt the burn of cold steel in the side of his neck, the wash of hot breath against his cheek.

Ry stood unmoving, the gun at his head. A long moment pa.s.sed, and then another. They seemed to be waiting for something-but what? It was so eerily quiet, you could almost hear the snow falling.

Here, the stench that permeated the air around the ruins was more p.r.o.nounced, the old, sour smell of blood and rotting entrails, overlaid by a newer, more pungent stink-like a combination of cat pee and rotten eggs.

He had a good view of the old trailer house now, and the litter of KFC tubs and pizza boxes around it. But he also saw empty cans of paint thinner, stripped lithium batteries, used coffee filters, and empty cold-tablet blister packs. Propane canisters with blue, corroded valves were stacked up on one side of the trailer's front door. On the other, a pile of rotting bags full of ammonia nitrate.

In other words, everything you would need to make methamphetamine.

A crank lab was usually a hive of activity, but at this one there wasn't a tweeker in sight. Yet although the place looked deserted, Ry knew it wasn't abandoned, because under the low aluminum roof of the trailer's patio extension, he could see two picnic tables loaded with row after row of mason jars filled with cold-medicine tablets soaking in muriatic acid.

And those babies are cooking all right. He could actually see the fumes rising in waves out of the open mouths of the mason jars. One spark, and this whole place could blow to smithereens One spark, and this whole place could blow to smithereens.

"Nice little meth lab you all going on in there," Ry said.

Vadim was silent for a couple of beats, and the gun at Ry's head didn't waiver. "I am beginning to suspect you are mussor mussor. I think you know that word, as well, huh? How do you say mussor mussor in American?" in American?"

"Garbage."

Vadim laughed, because it was also Russian-mafia slang for "cop."

"I thought you would know it."

At that moment, Ry heard what he'd been hoping, praying for-the steady hum of a powerful car engine turning down the lane from off the main road, the crunch of tires over snow. He felt Vadim stiffen behind him.

"Now, mussor mussor," said Vadim, "it is time for you to die."

Ry started to spin around, throwing up his arm to knock the gun away, but he was too late. His head exploded in a white, hot flash, and then there was nothing.

48.