One Week Ago.
Pavel Nikitin tightened his core, shifted his weight and drove his fist deep into Adam Goldmann’s liver.
Goldmann wheezed and hunched over as far as his restraints would allow. By now the pain was numbing. Despite the fact that Nikitin’s fist carried a disturbing amount of force, as if it were a concrete pendulum being dropped from the highest rafter of the old warehouse building, Goldmann was content to receive the blows. It was what would come next that frightened him. He had no delusions that it was going to get worse. Much worse.
Pavel Nikitin was an artist. A master of administering pain. Goldmann had seen his work in the past. At the time, he felt pity for the poor soul in the chair. He remembered praying that he would never find himself on the receiving end. But he knew his time would come. No one can run forever.
Nikitin had honed his skills over a lifetime. Anyone who set eyes on him could see that his education came from personal experience. The scars on his face, arms and hands were a roadmap through a brutal past. His large stature, square jaw and piercing eyes may have been a prerequisite for someone in his profession, but there was one feature that set him apart — a mound of scar tissue where his left ear had once been.
It was his calling card. A main tenant of his folklore.
There were many stories about how Pavel Nikitin lost his ear. Passed around the seedy corners of the underworld, each iteration morphed into something further from the truth.
It was generally believed that Nikitin was born in the gulag. A product of rape, he was delivered in secret and kept hidden in sewage tunnels under the camp. It was there that the rats gnawed off his ear.
As he grew, he would emerge under the cover of darkness to prey on unsuspecting prisoners. Legend had it that he would drag his victims underground and feed on their blood to acquire their strength.
Through the early nineteen-eighties in the Soviet Union, many families lost loved ones to the prison camps. Dozens of men and women disappeared, never to be heard from again. There was no explanation. No recourse. The Kremlin routinely denied that the Stalin era camps still existed, never mind acknowledging maleficence within them. For many, the idea of a soul-sucking demon child was as good an explanation as any.
While Nikitin reveled in the absurdity of his reputation, there was some truth to it. He was, in fact, born in the gulag. His mother, the wife of a mid-level mafia boss named Stan Nikitin, was imprisoned after her husband was killed for violating one of the postulates of the organization’s code. Forbidden from marrying or having a family, the couple married in secret. The priest promptly turned them in.
The assassination of Nikitin’s father fell to an ambitious young KGB officer named Olezka Sokolov, who himself was rising through the ranks of the crime syndicate. After Nikitin was born, it was Sokolov who took him in.
Separating from the KGB under less than amiable circumstances, Sokolov was forced underground. He devoted himself to the acquisition of power. And it didn’t take long.
Through extreme brutality, Sokolov rose to the head of the organization. But he didn’t stop there. To send a message to
all that might oppose him, Sokolov murdered the heads of the ten most powerful criminal organizations. Not only in the USSR, but throughout the world. China. Columbia. The United States. It was a bold move that would make him one of the most feared men on the planet.
Sokolov had a knack for sending messages that were never dared forgotten. Nikitin knew this better than anyone.
As Nikitin matured, he became invaluable to Sokolov. An exceptional student driven by an insatiable bloodlust, Nikitin’s own brutally surpassed even that of his guardian. It was the reason Sokolov took his ear. A lesson in humility, he called it, but Nikitin knew it was a warning.
The truth was, Sokolov’s fear of challenge was unfounded. Nikitin was as loyal as they came. He lived by the thieves’ code. He believed in it. Especially when it came to Sokolov.
But he didn’t begrudge Sokolov his assertion of dominance. Just the opposite. Nikitin relished it. It was what spawned his own habit of collecting the ears of his victims. And the collection was extensive.
The practice wasn’t rooted in some emotional hang-up. It was just fun. Sure, maybe the first time was motivated by a subliminal need to even the score. But it became a deliberate tactic to strike fear into those who would consider crossing them. Each time a body washed onto shore or was pulled from a shallow grave, the missing left ear would tell the world all they needed to know. Pavel was here. After all, every artist must sign his work.
Goldmann knew all of this. It was what fueled his fear. Death, he thought, was inevitable. Whether by hand of Nikitin, Sokolov, or old age. But the thought of being mutilated, before or after, didn’t sit well with him.
He didn’t have a chance to dwell on it. As the plastic bag slipped over his head, Goldmann gasped, sucking the thin plastic film toward the back of his throat. His body convulsed
and his vision began to blur.
He envisioned his death and the desecration of his body. It was different than he thought it would be. More welcoming.
Then Nikitin yanked the bag from his head.
Thick, delicious air filled Goldmann’s lungs. The sensation consumed him and he wondered if that was what it felt like to be born.
“What are you waiting for?” Goldmann panted. “Do it already.”
Nikitin said nothing.
Since Goldmann had been removed from the trunk and carried into the abandoned industrial building, Nikitin had not uttered a single word. There would be questions, but not by him.
Goldmann wasn’t stupid. Far from it. His intellect was the reason he was able to elude Sokolov and his dog for the past two years. He knew why Nikitin was keeping him alive. Just as he knew who the approaching footsteps belonged to.
Sokolov had arrived.
Nikitin straightened his posture as the footsteps crescendoed and stopped behind Goldmann.
“I trust you’ve made our guest comfortable,” Sokolov said.
“Very comfortable,” Nikitin replied.
To Goldmann’s ears, their gruff voices and thick Russian accents were almost identical. If Nikitin wasn’t standing in Goldmann’s line of sight, he would have sworn Nikitin was talking to himself.
Sokolov circled around Goldmann and peered down at him.
Goldmann met his gaze. They even look the same, he thought.
Although older and less grizzled, Sokolov had the same hulking stature, jagged jaw, and piercing gray eyes as his ward.
“I’m hurt,” Sokolov said. “You never said goodbye.”
Nikitin smiled, displaying a row of chipped teeth.
Sokolov leaned forward. “You should know, your family was very upset with you. Your own wife cursed you as she took her last breath.”
“That’s a lie,” Goldmann said.
“Maybe, maybe not.” Sokolov pulled several creased photographs from his pocket and held each to Goldmann’s face, in succession. “Look at her face. Even separated from her body, you can see the anger. This anger was for you.”
Goldmann swallowed hard and tried to fight the tears. The images of his dismembered wife and children were worse than he imagined. But he forced himself to look.
For two years he tried to prepare himself for the moment when he would come face to face with their deaths. All the while, resisting the urge to blame himself. He knew if he fled, Sokolov would kill them. But he also knew that if he returned, Sokolov would kill them and him.
Sokolov tossed the photos on Goldmann’s lap and grabbed his jaw, pressing his cheeks into his bottom teeth. “Now. Where are my diamonds?”
“I don’t know,” Goldmann said.
Sokolov let go and nodded to Nikitin, who swooped in with a wide hook to Goldmann’s nose.
Blood exploded onto his face and lap, spattering the pictures.
“If you want to live, you will give me better answer than this.” Sokolov said.
“You think I’m an idiot? I know you’re going to kill me no matter what I say.”
“Don’t get me wrong mister Adam Goldmann, I will cut off your hands and your feet. You must suffer, yes? But I will make sure you live. All you have to do is tell me, where are my diamonds?”
“I told you,” Goldmann said. “I don’t know.”
Sokolov shook his head and motioned to Nikitin once more.
Nikitin made a show of unsheathing a slender fillet knife and slowly walked behind Goldmann. With his left hand, Nikitin grabbed the top of Goldmann’s ear and pulled outward.
“Wait, wait,” Goldmann pleaded. “It’s true, I was going to run off with the stones. Okay, I did run off with the stones. At least, I thought so. But when I opened the case, it was empty.”
Sokolov laughed. “This is bullshit story.” He shifted his gaze to Nikitin.
“No, no, wait!”
Nikitin brought the knife down with incredible speed. In a flash, Goldmann could feel the searing pain and the warm blood pooling on his shoulder and running down his left arm. Goldmann wailed.
“Sixty million dollars,” Sokolov yelled. Droplets of saliva freckled Goldmann’s face. “You will tell me where they are. Or you will know pain.”
Nikitin reached over Goldmann and handed Sokolov the floppy slice of flesh and cartilage. Sokolov tossed it onto Goldmann’s lap.
“I swear it.” Goldmann shook his head vigorously in an attempt to avoid passing out. “Someone switched out the case after I left Israel. I’m telling you the truth. I didn’t have any contact with anyone except for my security detail. It must have been one of them.”
“What are their names?” Sokolov asked.
“I don’t know.” Goldmann winced as the words came out of his mouth. He had come to learn that Sokolov was not fond of them.
“Take his other ear,” Sokolov ordered.
Goldmann twisted in the chair. “Please—“
“And then it will be your eyes and then your balls,” Sokolov growled. “We can do this all day, yes?”
“Look,” Goldmann said. “I hired the team through Techyon. I don’t remember all their names. One of them was a woman. Her name was Haeli. I don’t know if that was her real name. That’s all I remember. You’ve gotta believe me. You know I have no reason to lie.”
“Shhhh,” Sokolov put his finger to Goldmann’s lips then patted him on the head. “I know.”
Sokolov walked around Goldmann. His even-tempoed footsteps began to recede back the way they had come. Without a break in his stride, Goldmann could hear Sokolov call out from the distance.
“Da, Pavel. You may kill him now.”