Twisted lives, p.18
Twisted Lives, page 18
As was her routine on days that ended at the station, Beats began the commute home with All Things Considered playing on her phone and dinner on her mind. By the time she reached her grocery store, she’d have caught up on current events and selected one of the hundreds of recipes she had pinned to a Pinterest account arranged by protein and prep time.
Since it was late, she went with a chicken enchilada recipe that tickled her taste buds but didn’t require a grocery store visit. Her culinary anticipation vanished, however, the moment she opened her door. Her apartment smelled of smoke. Cigarette smoke.
Chapter 39
Fried Fish
BEATS WAS GLAD she wasn’t hauling groceries as she entered her home. They’d have ended up on the hallway floor as she drew her Glock and dropped into a shooter’s stance.
She detected no movement beyond the wafting of disturbed smoke caught by light leaking through the blinds. Reassured but not convinced, Beats stood still for a moment and listened. Nothing. Slowly, silently, carefully she made her way to her bedroom, then the bath. No one. She was alone.
The source of the smoke was no mystery. A burned down cigarette sat on the center of the kitchen counter. Its message would have been unmistakable even without the light blue Cyrillic printing on the butt. Mess with Meski and we’ll smoke you in your sleep.
Beats locked her door and unlocked her phone. She opened a rarely used app and selected the first of three images. It displayed a feed of her apartment as seen from a camera concealed on the far wall pointing toward the front door. The next but last set of motion-activated recordings began roughly four hours earlier at 1:33 and then ended at 1:40. The stills showed either a woman or a small man in gray sweatpants and a gray hoodie wearing big sunglasses, a large Covid mask, and clear surgical gloves.
Before watching the intruder’s activities, Beats opted for a calming glass of wine. Eight-dollar California Cabernet from Trader Joe’s. She poured four ounces into a stemless glass and was about to dump the rest into a Wine Squirrel so it would stay fresh when her eyes came to rest on the aquarium.
The cigarette had not been the primary message. It had only been the signature, lest there be any doubt. Her fish were all missing.
Beats felt sad and mad and scared all at the same time. The bastards.
She froze for a few seconds, staring at the lifeless tank with a Glock in her right hand and a glass of Cabernet in her left. Not a good combination. Not a good situation.
Had they been flushed or fishnapped? No need to guess. The video would show exactly what the intruder had done.
Beats’s security app gave her 24/7 recordings for a week, and motion events for a month, on every camera at her address for $99 a year. That was why she had three cameras, two in the big room and one in the bedroom. Triple the coverage for the same storage cost.
She returned to her computer with her Glock, glass, and wine bottle, then began to watch.
The Russian agent in the gray hoodie slipped something into her pocket as she entered. Beats froze the feed and magnified. It was a lock picking gun. A simple mechanical tool that brute forced the correct pin combination by barraging them while the cylinder was under pressure.
After a quick reconnaissance run of her modest apartment, the intruder zeroed in on the fish tank. It was beautiful and eye catching, with a dozen colorful fish, each a different species, with live plants and a fancy fake coral cavern.
The hooded figure studied the tank for a minute, then nodded and went to the kitchen where a wall blocked Beats’s view of what was happening. Twenty seconds later, the Russki popped back into sight holding a sieve and a strainer.
By then, Beats was certain that the intruder was a young woman. She wasn’t chesty, but she definitely had boobs and more hip than shoulder.
Beats watched her scoop out each fish and her snail, then disappear back into the kitchen with a sieve full of her suffocating friends.
What was the Russian word for bitch? Remembering Meski’s performance, she said, “Alexa, what’s the Russian word for bitch?”
“The Russian word for bitch is sooka.”
Had the sooka dumped the fish in the trash? The garbage disposal? The freezer? Beats didn’t feel like searching for their tiny corpses, so she fired up the security feed that showed the kitchen and got her answer. They’d been murdered in her microwave.
“Sooka!”
While the fish were frying, the sooka pulled a pack of Cyrillic-labeled cigarettes from her pocket, lit one without placing it to her lips, and set it on the counter. Ten seconds later, the killer was gone but the fish were still spinning.
There were no security cameras at her apartment complex, and the Russki had been a pro. She was gone—but her message remained. It was a repeat of the question Vitaly Meski had posed about seven hours earlier: “How crazy would a cop have to be to put herself between the Bratva and a million bucks a month?”
Beats still did not have an answer. She did, however, have an email address.
Chapter 40
Pileup
ALMOST EVERYONE has a nightmare phobia. A stressful situation made virtually unbearable by an uncontrollable, illogical, nervous reaction that’s nearly impossible to extinguish. Arachnophobia, the fear of spiders, is common. So is musophobia, the fear of mice and rats. Acrophobia, the fear of heights, is another widespread condition, as is its cousin, aerophobia, the fear of flying.
I suffer from none of those.
My hot button is claustrophobia, the fear of enclosed spaces. I’m not talking elevators or even MRI scanners. Those don’t raise my pulse a single beat. No, my claustrophobia only kicks in when I’m confined to a space so small that I can’t freely move my arms.
As with many who have acute phobias, mine has an origin story. One from my youth. Claustrophobia wormed its way deep into my brain during a camping trip. My most memorable as a Cub Scout.
My fellow Scouts and I were goofing around during the downtime between dinner and the big bonfire when Angus Whipple zipped me inside my sleeping bag. I’d agreed to that part. It wasn’t malicious. The sin crept in when he caught sight of the big brass safety pin I used to hang my lantern from the tent. He used it to secure the zipper in place. This was the same tough, brown canvas and flannel sleeping bag now in my Jeep, by the way. Not some flimsy polyester sack.
At first, Angus laughed his ass off as I floundered about, but eventually my screaming scared him. He got scared. I was too angry, he later claimed. Too violent.
So he left me.
He went off to make s’mores with the other scouts and forgot all about me. Chocolate can have that effect on people. It’s been scientifically proven.
Once I figured out that I was alone, I really began freaking out. I became certain that I was going to suffocate. I stopped shouting. Stopped struggling. I started to roll instead.
Mr. Rogers—our scout master, not the television host—had the tent nearest the campfire. I aimed myself in what I thought was his direction and rolled like my life depended on it. Took the tent right along with me, skinny metal stakes and all. Except, I didn’t roll his way. I’d gotten all turned around in my anxious delirium and started downhill in a different direction.
On the one hand I was very lucky. I didn’t hit any big trees at speed. On the other hand, instead of rolling into the ring of stumps surrounding the campfire like a comic actor entering from stage left, I rolled right into Kittywumpus Creek.
Let me tell you, if you’re already frightened half out of your mind from fear of suffocating in a sealed sleeping bag, finding yourself suddenly submerged in cold streaming water does not improve your mental state. No, not one little bit. Fortunately, Kittywumpus was only a few inches deep at that location, so in fact my situation could have been much worse.
That technicality did not calm my panic at the time.
What saved me was the unzipping of my bag, an act that probably happened mere seconds after I first sloshed into the frigid flow. The blessed purr of that zipper capped off a memory which to this day looms larger than other entire years of my youth.
The rescue—from potential drowning, suffocation, or heart attack—occurred so quickly after my splashdown because I landed mere inches from Bobby Borer and Dave Taylor, who were washing their mess kits in the creek when I crashed the scene. I suspect that moment looms large in their memories as well, albeit filed under a very different category.
I thought of Dave and Bobby as I opened my eyes. Actually, I didn’t open them so much as they flew open the way eyes do when slumber is disturbed by something fearfully shocking, like a smoke alarm or a shattering window. In my case, it was the memory of Wang’s Mercedes spinning after a needle prick.
From that instant on, the fear-inducing shocks piled on one after another, like cars crashing in a dense freeway fog. The first impact on my mental bumper was the fact that I couldn’t see anything. Not a single photon of light. In fact, the only way I knew my eyes were open was by feeling the flutter when I blinked.
The second realization followed the first like the trailer behind a truck. When I batted my eyes, I crinkled my face and that act made me aware that I was breathing through an oxygen mask. One of those plastic cups the flight attendants always demonstrate. I could feel its contours along with the elastic straps holding it snug.
The impact that compacted and compounded the whole panic pileup before setting it ablaze occurred when I felt about with my hands. That started out deceptively with an encouraging find, like spotting that light at the end of a long tunnel only to learn that it’s a train.
My fingertips felt padding. I wasn’t in a car trunk or concrete cell; I was on some sort of mattress. Most likely a hospital bed, I reasoned, given the oxygen mask. But when my hands explored further, feeling for the edge of the bed or perhaps the button that would summon a nurse, I found that the padding wasn’t just beneath me. The bed had walls. Very short walls. Walls that ended in a low padded roof.
I wasn’t on a bed. I was in a coffin.
Chapter 41
Tales from the Crypt
CLAUSTROPHOBICS HARBOR NO GREATER FEAR than being buried alive in a coffin. The stress imposed by the combination of helplessness and a slow, wasting, isolated death is virtually unbearable.
I consider myself a tough guy, both physically and mentally. Look at me or talk to me and you’ll likely share that impression. But I honestly believe I’d have gone insane then and there were it not for two things. One, I would never give up on my children. I will literally fight for them with my last breath. Two, the oxygen mask. It gave me hope.
You don’t bury your enemy alive and also take measures to ensure that he doesn’t suffocate. If Wang wanted to torture me, he’d have roused me for the burial. Therefore, he had a plan for me that didn’t end in this coffin. Well, maybe it did, but there’d be some action first, and action meant opportunity.
I’d pictured the buried-alive scenario dozens of times the way people do when their imaginations test the outer limits. I’d always imagined myself finding some means of digging out. Granted, in those scenarios, I’d been nailed in a crude pine box that had gone into a shallow grave, whereas I was, at the very least, sealed in a solid, proper coffin.
That put me in a considerably worse starting position as far as escape was concerned. Worse than the worst situation I had ever imagined. Wang got full points for that. In the revenge department, the princeling was a stellar overachiever. Strangling Tanya had been only the beginning.
But I was going to beat him. No way would I let that weasel win.
The trick was going to be preventing a crippling panic. I had to ward off an anxiety overload that would blow my brain’s circuits and leave me mentally paralyzed. That would be a constant struggle. There’s waiting and then there’s wondering if someone is going to unearth your grave before you suffocate.
Was I underground? It was pitch dark and silent as a grave.
Did I even want to know? Yes. Yes, I did. The more information I had, the better I could prepare for whatever was to come.
I spent some time methodically transitioning out of panic mode and into a puzzle-solving mindset. I visualized it happening. The black, viscous ooze of panic yielding to mental steel.
I’d like to say that I became calm, cool, and completely rational, but in truth I was struggling to keep my mental feet two steps from the edge of insanity. Once I was there, I began exploring with my arms and legs. I did this gently, lest I kink my oxygen line or break some other important apparatus.
I was indeed inside a proper coffin. A rectangular box with plush padding on all six sides. The tube from the mask disappeared into the mattress beneath me, presumably to an external tank. With my limited range of motion, I felt nothing besides the mask, the tubing, and the padding.
I latched onto the idea that I’d be unearthed any minute. That the tank at the end of the tube had to have a finite capacity. Surely Wang had done the calculation. Or so I thought until I sensed a change.
It wasn’t much of a difference, just a tad more effort in drawing each breath. But that tiny nudge was all it took to catapult me out of self-calming mode into Get-me-the-hell-out-of-here-now! mode. This was dangerous. Discovering that the walls around me were rock-solid would inflict the stress of hopelessness.
Nonetheless, I had no choice.
I squirmed until I had both my palms pressed firmly on the underside of the lid and my forearms were as close to perpendicular as I could get them, then I activated everything all at once. Triceps, shoulders, pecs, and a big exhale of breath. A million bench presses attempting to pay off all at the same time.
The lid flew open.
The coffin had been sealed, but it had not been locked or buried.
Feelings of euphoria flooded over me, along with diffused light. The most welcome light of my life. I’d probably only been awake for a hundred seconds or so before escaping, but fear had expanded that minute to endless proportions and seared their memory on my brain beside my daughters’ births and my wedding.
I sat up quickly but paused while poised to rip off the mask. Was the whole morbid setup devised to protect me from a toxic environment?
My coffin had been placed in what appeared to be a bedroom temporarily converted to a detention cell. It had wood laminate floors, plain white walls, and a new-construction feel.
The bare window was covered with what looked like opaque plexiglass. It let in light but gave me no clue as to what was out there beyond open sky. The door handle had been removed and replaced with a metal plate. The alterations were professional, but not prison grade. They were meant to detain me for days, not months.
I was still wearing my clothes, but my pockets had been cleaned out and my shoes and leather jacket were nowhere to be seen.
Besides the coffin, which was a basic but solid oak construction, the only objects in the ten-by-ten room were a cheap plastic bucket with a lid, a plastic bowl with a lid, and a 1.5-liter bottle of water with a colorful Chinese label I couldn’t read. I did not see a hidden camera, but assumed one was concealed in the air vent.
The bucket contained a roll of toilet paper. The bowl was filled with plain white sticky rice. I drank a third of the water, ate all the rice with my fingers, and made use of the bucket. Then I sat down on the coffin lid to contemplate and wait.
A base conclusion wasn’t hard to come by. I was in a prison cell. Being clean and light and dry and spacious, I supposed it was cheery as prison cells went, aside from the fact that the only furnishing was a casket.
Beyond that, I concluded that I was being softened up for a demanding negotiation. My message to Wang had lauded my skills and promised my willing usefulness. Given his extreme response, I figured he’d decided to leverage it to the max. You give some people an inch and they take a mile.
Either that or Wang really was hell-bent on elaborate, demonic revenge. As if strangling Tanya and framing me for her murder weren’t enough.
While wanting more than that pound of flesh was an extreme response, it wasn’t entirely unpredictable. I was dealing with a very spoiled man who was reminded of Felix Sparks every time his one good eye glimpsed his scarred face in the mirror. I needed to bear that in mind going forward, wherever that may be.
As a Federal Air Marshal, I knew a thing or two about interrogations, which were a lopsided form of negotiation. Detainees were typically given an hour or two alone in a room not unlike the one where I was now. The vacuous solitude was designed to soften people up by getting them thinking about the realities of five or ten or twenty years in prison.
Based on that psychology, I bet myself it would be two hours before Wang’s interrogator came through the door. I lost that bet—twelve times over. Judging by the muted pattern of light coming through my window, Wang let me stew for a full 24 hours.
I was also wrong about the person who ultimately opened my door. Shockingly wrong.
Chapter 42
Out of the Box
I WAS VERY HUNGRY by the time the three bolts securing my door slid aside. I’d received nothing to eat or drink since discovering and devouring the bowl of sticky white rice the previous evening. Then again, no one had come to clean my bucket either, so that wasn’t an entirely bad thing.
Spicy food scents strong enough to overpower the bucket stench had taunted me on several occasions. Someone had been cooking in fairly close proximity to my door. Either that or my captor piped in the smell to torture me.
I rose from my seat on the coffin lid and stood tall as the first bolt slid back, psychologically bracing myself for what was to come. I expected to see the man I’d spoken with on the phone. The man who had opened the Mercedes door and injected me with knockout juice. I expected him to be holding a handgun and backed by at least one other guy who was similarly armed. But again, I was zero for two.
The person opening the door was neither a man nor accompanied. She wasn’t even armed. She was, however, familiar. It was Maylin, the flight attendant Wang had assaulted and I’d thought I had rescued. Apparently, I was wrong about that as well.
