Marco Drugal stood on a building rooftop two blocks west of 108th Street in Watts, with a set of binoculars to his eyes. He had spent the last several hours watching the Block for activity, and thus far all had been quiet. He was growing restless and was preparing to go back down to the street, when the cell phone in his coat pocket vibrated. He pulled the disposable flip phone free and checked the number. It was his contact, David Two-Good. Drugal answered. “Hello.”
“Anything?”
“No sign. People leave. But no one comes.”
“Have you followed the other players?”
“Very elusive. And the police. They watch.”
“Don’t get tangled up with the local enforcement. You are to observe and report the on goings of the Block only.”
“I should act. When the others come back. Pick one from the herd. Get them to talk.”
“That would upset my boss greatly. Something neither you, nor your entire family want. Am I making myself clear?”
Drugal grit his teeth. “Yes. But I grow tired of waiting. You tell us nothing.”
“You know nothing for your own protection; and you are being well compensated for your patience. Be like a lion in the weeds, my friend. Do you understand what that means?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Have your people ready. If you see either Alex Luthecker or Nicole Ellis, you are not to confront them, speak to them, or interact with them at all. You are to do nothing. You are only to contact us, immediately. Tell me you understand.”
“I understand.”
Two-Good disconnected, and Drugal put the phone back in his pocket.
Waiting, was something Drugal was not accustomed to. Son of a KGB agent, Drugal was ex-Russian military and trained in an environment where directness and brutality were the accepted practice. If you were looking for someone, and they couldn’t be found directly, you brutalized someone who knew them until you were told where they were. It was simple, and it worked. In the United States, however, things were done differently. There were ramifications for such methods. Thus you were forced to wait. Patience, he had been told, was one of the things he had been sent here to learn.
Nation-One Security, a Coalition Properties subsidy, was not purposed to be a mercenary group like its larger, more sophisticated bigger brother, Coalition Assurance. Instead, its corporate charter designated its employees for low-level security work only, and the group provided minimum wage guards for nominal risk private businesses and homeowners groups. Ironically, it was because this employee classification was not subject to as much regulation as its larger and much better armed counterpart, it allowed for less stringent background checks on its workers. This in turn allowed the likes of Drugal, an ex-Russian soldier and heavily trained enforcer, to slip through the cracks with minimal manipulation of the system.
Drugal’s true employer was the Russian arms dealer and Oligarch Ivan Barbolin, whose reputation earned him the nickname the Barbarian. The Barbarian, a long time business partner and weapons supplier to Lucas Parks, had sent Drugal, along with a small group of associates to the United States a year earlier, in order to look out for his interests in the region, which included human trafficking. When the Barbarian received word that Parks had been unexpectedly freed from prison, he had offered Drugal’s services as a professional courtesy.
“We must continue to do nothing.” Drugal said to an approaching Andre Vasilevich, another ex-KGB hire by Nation-One and Drugal’s partner. Vasilevich, a tall, barrel-chested, twenty-four year old, sporting a military style haircut, carried a sandwich in each hand. He handed one to Drugal before he spit over the edge of the building in response.
“We are, what they say?” Vasilevich asked, in broken English. “Mall cops?”
“No.” Drugal set his sandwich down before pulling his Glock 9mm from his waistband and checking the slide of the weapon, an act of frustrated aggression. He looked at Vasilevich. “No. We are, as I believe they say, a sleeper cell.”