Although the hour was not late, especially by local standards, the number of cars with tinted windows drew attention in this otherwise quiet neighborhood. The vehicles each came to a stop in front of the house. Car doors opened and men got out of the backseats. None of these men was Latino. Instead, they looked norteamericano or, perhaps, European. Each carried a small bag or suitcase as though they had just arrived from the airport. As each passenger climbed out of an automobile, he hurried, head down, inside the house as though fearful of being seen.
The few locals who had not tired of speculating as to the meaning of these events had varying opinions as to their significance. Señora Valequez, age eighty-six, was certain she was witnessing one of the drug deals featured almost nightly on the TV news and wanted to call the police. Juanita, her married daughter with whom she lived, cautioned that those who interfered in such business frequently met with violent ends. Señor Hermez, from next door, noted that, from what he could see, the men were not members of any local gang he recognized. He was certain there was a plan afoot to move the Guantánamo Bay detainees to Puerto Rico. After all, didn’t the Anglos send much of what they did not want to Puerto Rico since the US territory had no say in national politics?
As the last of the cars disgorged its single passenger and pulled away, equally wild guesses faded along with curiosity.
Inside Number 23, a dozen men were gathered, an assemblage somewhat larger than the downstairs room could comfortably accommodate. The men were all middle-aged and large. They looked hard. Many had scars, noses that had not been set properly after being broken, or gaps where teeth should have been. None of them had mustaches, beards, long hair, or any other tonsorial or grooming feature that might attract undue attention. A polyglot series of conversations was going on at once, the principal languages being Russian or English, although several other Slavic dialects were represented.
The man who called himself Pedro descended from the stairs and the voices died like a CD being turned off in mid-recording. He edged his way through the already tightly packed crowd, making his way to a table on which a laptop computer had been attached to a projector. Acknowledging greetings with a simple nod of the head, he went to the back wall and pulled down a screen, then turned to face the assembly.
He raised his voice and began in English, “May I have your attention!”
The request was unnecessary. The only sound was the straining of the air-conditioning unit in a losing battle with the increase of heat generated by so many bodies in such a small space.
A man’s face flashed on the screen, its grainy quality suggesting the photo had been taken at a distance. It was replaced by another view of the same person.
“This is the man,” Pedro said. “You will want to study his face so as to remember it.”
A hand went up somewhere in the back. “What else do we know about him?”
“He has been professionally trained. He succeeded in killing the man we sent to Iceland.”
A murmur of concern circled the room. “Professionally trained by who, military? Intelligence?”
Pedro held up his hands for silence. “It does not matter. What is important is that he be taken care of quickly. He poses a serious threat.”
Pedro knew these men cared little for his cause. They were veteran Spetsnaz, Russia’s equivalent of Navy SEALs or the Army’s Delta Force. The breakup of the Soviet Union had sown chaos among the armed forces. Equipment left unrepaired, payments late or not whole, and scarcity of rations and supplies all brought disillusionment with the military. Some of the elite forces were assigned civilian duties, such as fighting an increasingly violent criminal element and protecting the country’s leaders against attempts to dismantle the government by assassination. Many of the special forces quit in disgust at working under police bureaucrats. There were jobs providing private security for Russia’s newest elite, the capitalist businessman. Some worked as mercenaries, finding lucrative employment training troops in African civil wars. Others simply hired out their weapons and abilities, never asking why their new masters were in need of both.
Money, not causes like GrünWelt, interested such men.
“We will pay five hundred thousand dollars to the team who rids us of this man,” Pedro announced.
The offer was greeted by cheers and whistles.
“I have killed presidents of countries for less!”
“This man must be very hard to kill indeed.”
“How will we claim the prize as the killer, bring you his head?”
“His balls would be easier!”
“You alone would know the difference between one man’s balls and another’s.”
Only the last question drew a response. “Each of you will be assigned to a team, just as you were in the Army. Each team will be assigned to a specific geographic site where we know this man is likely to be… .”
The plan was similar to the way Spetsnaz had operated its programs of assassination of enemy political leaders in the past.
“I want to be assigned to wherever his woman is! There he surely will be, sooner or later,” a man in front said.
The comment brought jeers and hoots.
“You do not even know if he has a woman,” someone remarked.
“Such men always have women, frequently several.”
Pedro let the increasingly ribald comments continue for a few moments before signaling for quiet again.
He held up a glass jar with a number of folded slips of paper in it. “These pieces of paper have numbers on them. Each number corresponds to a number on an envelope. Each envelope contains a location. The paper will be drawn from the jar by each team’s leader as soon as I read off the names of the members of each team. You are not to discuss your location with anyone not on your team. That way, if one group should fall into the hands of local law enforcement, they will know nothing. Do you understand me?”
There was general nodding of heads and affirmative words until one man, perhaps slightly older than the others, asked, “Only one team will get the money. The multiple number of teams makes the odds against that being any one team. If I wish to gamble, I will do so in a casino.”
There was grumbling agreement.
“I have thought of that. Each team will consist of four men, four teams. The leader of each team will receive one hundred thousand dollars in whatever currency he wishes when he leaves here tonight. That money may be divided however the team desires. That should at least pay your expenses.”
There was a wave of indistinct voices with a tone of approval.
Pedro picked up the jar, holding it in both hands as he offered it to a man whose left eyelid drooped under a scar running from his left eyebrow to the right part of his chin. “Anatoly, you pick first.”
An hour later, only the four team leaders remained in the house. The increase in the efficiency of the air-conditioning was noticeable. The four men lounged in canvas chairs, tossing back shots of vodka.
Anatoly was studying the slip of paper he had drawn. “This is strange. Why would my target be at this place?”
Pedro made an exaggerated gesture of putting a finger to his lips. “We are not to discuss the various locations.”
Anatoly wouldn’t quit. “I’m not discussing any specific location. I’m just saying this one is peculiar. Some of the men in my team may question if they are being given a fair chance at the bounty you have offered.”
Rather than quarrel, Pedro got clumsily to his feet to peer over the other man’s shoulder. “This is the location of the organization that sent the little man to Iceland in the first place. Had they not done so, the Americans would never have sent our friend Peters there. If the target knows who first was in touch with Karloff, he will go there.”
Anatoly drained his glass of the clear liquid at a gulp. “‘If’ is a word we do not like in our business.”
Pedro collapsed into his chair. “You are not being paid to like it, but to act on it.”