“All right. Have it your way. I can play hardball too.”
Chapter 2
Brooklyn, New York, was in many respects exactly the same as Alaska: It had a colorful cast of exotic animals, the natives were eccentric though in general tolerant, and the scenery could be breathtaking.
“So you got on the wrong plane?” said Karl Grinberg. The special agent was an expert on the Russian Mafia and, in times gone past, the KGB. “I would’ve thought the taxis gave it away.”
“They have taxis in Alaska,” said Fisher. “It’s just their drivers actually speak English.”
“Old joke, Fisher. If you really do have to catch a plane, get to the point.” Grinberg glanced up at the waitress, motioning for more of the muddy dregs they claimed was coffee. “I for one have to get some work done today.”
“Here’s the thing — you figure Borg would miss?” asked Fisher.
“Never.”
“You think he would work for the Russian government?”
Grinberg started to laugh.
“That’s funny?”
“Well, Borg
“So he would?”
“No fuckin’ way. He hates the Russians.”
Borg was, of course, Russian. He was also one of the top four or five contract killers in the country, and he’d been tracked as the probable shooter in Fisher’s bank parking lot. Through a rental car, no less.
“How about if it were a renegade group, old-line commies or something?”
“Only thing he hates worse than the Russian government are Russian commies.”
Fisher leaned back in the seat as the waitress poured the coffee into his cup. He reached into his pocket and took out the digital photo from the bank’s surveillance camera, which Doar had politely faxed to him.
“That him, you think?”
“Jeez, Fisher, if you can even ID this as a human being you get points.”
“I don’t think it was really Borg.”
“Not if he missed.”
“Well, he might have been paid to miss. Thing is, I don’t have much time, and I want to track him down.”
“You’re out of your mind. He’ll chew you up.”
“You have an address?”
“I can give you a couple of hangouts. Fisher, seriously, Borg’ll have you for lunch.”
“Hope the food’s better than here.”
Rostislav had been a duke of Moravia in the ninth century, but why he had given his name to a social club in Brooklyn was unknown, even to Grinberg. Nor had the FBI special agent supplied Fisher with much information about the club itself, except for the obvious.
Then again, Fisher would have gone in through the kitchen anyway, especially when he saw the only thing between him and the open doorway was a barbed-wire fence. He scaled it, flashed a laser pointer at the video surveillance camera to blind it, and then walked in, nodding at a man in checked chef pants who was sipping a drink near the burners. A kid with some kitchen garbage and a large knife turned near the door but froze as soon as he caught sight of Fisher’s Bureau ID, which he was holding out in his hand.
That, or the pistol in his other hand.
The kitchen opened into a dining room on the left and a hallway to the right. Fisher went to the right, pushing open the second door on the left and entering the bar. There he found himself eye to eye with a six-foot-six bartender who had a blackjack in his left hand.
“Magnum,” said Fisher, holding the.44 Ruger under the man’s nose. “I’m just here to talk.”
The bartender said something in Russian regarding Fisher’s ancestry.
“Actually, I was adopted,” said Fisher. “Borg, I need a word.”
A dozen eyes in the dimly lit room were blinking at him. For a second Fisher feared his Hollywood entrance had been totally wasted on a collection of Mob honchos.
“
“Guy you tried to kill.” Fisher stepped past the bartender, his pistol still aimed at the man’s head. That probably didn’t bother Borg much, but the hit man wouldn’t kill Fisher without giving him a chance to clear up the slur on his reputation.
Then, of course, he’d kill him.
“No one I try to kill lives,” said Borg. He was short, five six or eight at the most, and looked more like an out-of-work accountant than a paid killer, undoubtedly one reason he was so successful.
Fisher pulled out the photo of his would-be assassin. “This son of a bitch wants me to think he’s you. He used one of your pseudonyms and a credit card from a job you did to rent a car. That’s the license plate. You can run down the paperwork yourself.”
Fisher slid the paper along the bar.
“There was another hit a few days back near D.C., not quite your style,” said Fisher. “I thought you might have some ideas about who did it.”
“Why?”
“For one thing, I think it was probably this asshole,” said Fisher. “And for another, I hear you’re a nice guy who always cooperates with federal agents.”
Borg snorted.
“Looked like an accident,” said Fisher. “Like a guy got out of a tub and slipped. But it was definitely a hit.”
“Don’t know him.”
“Dead man’s name was Bonham. Mean anything?”
“Accident thing remind you of anybody?”
Borg shook his head.
“Well, all right,” said Fisher. “I’d like to stay for lunch, but I have to get going.”
As Fisher was talking, the bartender had started sidestepping toward the end of the bar. He was now about two feet from the door.
“You know, the thing that pisses me off is the paperwork involved if I shoot this thing,” said Fisher leveling the pistol. “I mean, I shoot one bullet, I empty the gun, just about the same amount of work. I shoot you or I shoot everybody, I still have to fill out a fistful of paper. Kind of pisses me off, you know what I’m talking about? At least the bullets make nice big holes.”
The bartender stopped. Fisher pushed up the panel at the far end and walked toward the door at the front of the room that led to the street.
“You decide you know who that is, let me know. My number’s on the paper,” he said. “Thanks are not necessary.”
Chapter 3
Within two hours of their conversation, Jemma Gorman had managed to tug her connections hard enough to get a terse directive sent directly to Howe, designated for his eyes only: COOPERATE w/TSK GP.
It was signed by the head of the Air Force.
