the patents were filed, Howard and his UCLA team were going to be wealthy. He smiled to himself as he walked along the crowded corridor.
His buoyant mood carried him through the hassle of collecting his suitcases from the carousel, allowing him to ignore being jostled by countless others who believed that rushing the process would somehow give them an advantage getting out of the airport.
With his valise under one arm, a case in the other, and his larger piece of luggage rolling behind him like a disobedient dog, Howard turned to the terminal’s exits and the Southern California night beyond. Had the uniformed limousine driver not chosen that moment to cough, Howard would have missed the man holding a signboard with his name on it. He approached the dark-complected chauffeur warily.
“I’m Professor Small,” he said.
“Ah, very good, sir,” the driver responded. “Let me assist you with your baggage.”
“But wait.” Howard refused to give up his grip on the luggage. “I wasn’t expecting a car. Are you sure you are waiting for me?”
“I was told to pick up a Dr. Howard Small arriving from Anchorage, Alaska.” The driver sounded like he hadn’t been in the country long.
“Any idea who hired you?”
“No, sir.”
Howard laughed to himself and spoke more for his own benefit than that of the taciturn driver. His confusion had turned to delight. “Must be the guys at the lab already spending their share of our profits.”
He turned over his two large cases and followed the driver into the night. In the glare of the airport’s loading ramp, a black limo glistened like a panther amid the battered taxis. The driver used a keyless entry system to unlock the doors, opening a rear one for Howard before securing the luggage in the trunk. The luxury vehicle glided smoothly from the curb before Howard could get himself comfortably settled in the plush interior. The inside of the car smelled of carpet cleaner and Armor All.
“You have my address in Glendora?” Howard asked through the intercom system. The dividing screen between the two compartments of the vehicle was up and Howard could not seem to lower it.
“Yes, sir,” came the quick response, and the intercom went dead.
Since conversation with the Arab driver was out of the question, Howard contemplated helping himself to a drink from the minibar but realized he’d done more drinking in the past week with Mercer than in his entire life. He thought it wise to give his body a rest for a while. Howard chuckled again. He’d had six hangovers in seven days, and not once had Mercer shown any ill effects from the alcohol they’d consumed. The man’s guts were harder than the rocks he mined.
It took more than an hour to reach the quiet development north of Los Angeles where Howard owned a modest bungalow. Between the drone of the limo’s tires, the mesmerizing lights of other vehicles, and the occasional mutterings of the driver to his dispatcher, Howard was lulled to sleep, waking only as the car pulled into his development.
Howard’s home was third from the end of a cul-de-sac butting against one of Los Angeles’ increasingly rare patches of woodland. It was a little past ten, yet the street was quiet and dark, the only light coming from street lamps and the occasional porch fixture. The limo pulled unerringly up to Howard Small’s yellow and red one-story house. The driver’s familiarity with the neighborhood should have alerted Howard, but he failed to notice it.
He stepped out of the car and looked up the street, hoping a neighbor would see him with the stretch limo, but even Mrs. Potter, who seemed to always be walking her dachshund, was tucked in for the night. The driver too scanned the street, his eyes sweeping the area with military efficiency. He recovered the bags from the trunk and followed Howard up the driveway, past the scientist’s decade-old Honda. At the door, Howard fumbled with his keys while pulling a ten-dollar bill from his pants as a tip. He turned the key in the lock and was just about to relieve the driver of the bags, when the man powered a shoulder into him, shoving him bodily into the house.
Howard fell to the carpeted floor, the wind knocked out of him. He lay wheezing as the driver dumped the suitcases in the entrance and banged the door closed with his hip. A silenced automatic was already in his hand, the weapon nearly lost in the man’s large fist. Before Howard could react, a living room light snapped on, revealing three other men, two more Arabs and a Caucasian with a silver crew cut and washed-out blue eyes. The two Arabs were standing, while the other man lolled in a soft overstuffed chair, a nearly empty glass in his hand. Even in this frozen tableau, Howard knew that the seated man was in charge and the most dangerous person he had ever seen.
On both counts, he was correct.
Ivan Kerikov set his drink on a coffee table, carefully placing the glass onto the ring of condensation that marred the otherwise clean surface. “No one was outside when you drove up?” His voice was low and menacing, with the thick guttural accent of his native Russia.
“No one saw us enter,” the driver said, crossing the room to stand at the side of one of the Arabs. The two were of a type, large and dangerous with the flat expressionless faces of bodyguards.
The third Arab was younger by a few years, early thirties, and handsome in a cruel way with thick hair and a body that was as lean and rippled as a scorpion’s. His most noticeable feature was his eyes. They were small and dark, with an inner fire that threatened to burn free at any moment.
“I told you it would be simple to capture him, Kerikov,” the young Arab said, glancing at his two henchmen for confirmation.
“Shut your mouth,” Kerikov snapped.
It was a risk interrogating Small in his own home but one Kerikov couldn’t avoid. He had heard of Howard Small only the day before and hadn’t had time to snatch him in Alaska. Nor did he have the time to establish a more private base in Los Angeles. However, there were psychological benefits to torturing a person where he felt the safest, especially in his home. Small lay on the floor, trembling like a child, his lower lip quivering so much that he had to bite down to still it. His eyes had grown huge with fear.
“Whatever it is you want,” he finally managed to stammer, “please, just don’t hurt me.”
Kerikov’s gaze didn’t soften. How many people had begged for their lives before him, he wondered. A hundred, certainly. Two hundred, quite possibly. It never got easier for him, nor did it ever get harder. In the life he’d led, torture and interrogation were simply parts of his job, as necessary and familiar as a lawyer preparing a brief.
Several long seconds passed. Howard’s eyes locked on the Russian as he levered himself out of the chair.
“I don’t wish to make this any more unpleasant than it must be, Professor Small.” There was no sympathy in Kerikov’s voice. “But you must realize the seriousness of my intent.”
On cue, the younger Arab, whose nom de guerre, Abu Alam, meant literally “Father of Pain,” left the room for a moment, returning with a large cloth bag that writhed with anguished movement. Howard clearly heard his cat, Sneaker, screaming from inside the sack. The two bodyguards lifted Howard off the floor, carrying him to the kitchen where Abu Alam stood poised over the sink with the bag. His hand flicked out and switched on the garbage disposal.
“Oh God, no, please. I’ll do anything you say. Please don’t do it,” Howard cried.
Alam ignored him, plunging his hand into the bag and removing a multihued calico male with four white paws. Tape bound each pair of legs so tightly that the cat could not defend itself, only squirm.
Still in the living room, Ivan Kerikov listened dispassionately as the disposal’s mechanical teeth stripped the flesh from the cat’s forepaws and then ground the bones to splinters. Long after the pet had died from shock, Abu Alam continued to feed the carcass into the unit, its motor loading down as it chewed through heavier concentrations of bone and gristle, until the whole animal had been reduced to a pulpy mush. Howard Small struggled against his two captors and would have screamed forever had they not tied a gag over his mouth.
Listening to the grisly sounds emanating from the kitchen, Kerikov reflected that he was too old to still be doing these sorts of interrogations. He should be retired right now, living in a beautiful birch forest dacha on the Moscow River with a study full of citations and a chestful of medals. At this moment he should be half drunk on Scotch, fucking some eager blonde the State had given him in gratitude for a lifetime of service in the KGB. Had Russia not sold out, and allowed herself to be swept aside in a sea of greed, corruption, and the slick packaging of the Western lifestyle, Kerikov wouldn’t be sitting in a shabby house in Los Angeles, trying to extract information from a man who was not even important enough to waste spit upon.
