Citadel Of Fear

“Money, money, money, muh-nee…” Tokaido howled tonelessly. “Money!”

“Akira?” Kurtzman asked.

“No, these guys are good, really good.” Tokaido stared at the lines of code scrolling down his massive main screen. His cursor moved across the streams like the planchette of an Ouija board. “This is going to take a while.”

“No, Akira, I mean—”

“Could you shut up?” Wethers finished.

Tokaido gave Wethers a vaguely hurt look and shoved in his ear buds. He went back to examining data and began nodding his head. Without thinking his lips started moving. “Money, money…”

Kurtzman stared at Wethers helplessly. “Phoenix still at Luffy-Land?”

Wethers cracked his first smile of the day, and it had been a long day. “Word is they’re getting us T-shirts.”

“Didn’t know it was a franchise.”

Wethers considered the file they had compiled on their subjects. “Mrs. Gazinskiy raised herself some ambitious boys, if not bright ones.”

“Phoenix has put the Gazinskiys to work. They’ve put out the word that Propenko is alive, very pissed off and wants either payback or to get paid.” Kurtzman grinned. “Now we wait to see who comes knocking and whether they’re carrying checkbooks or more automatic cannons.”

“They’ve worked with less,” Wethers pointed out.

Kurtzman was very well aware of that, but Kaliningrad was a bad neck of the woods to get caught in.

The exclave was very nearly a militarized city-state and while Phoenix could run roughshod over the local criminals, if police and military got involved they would be met with an overwhelming force that would take a very dim view of them if they were captured. Calvin James would stick out like a sore thumb. They had snuck him in under cover of night, but if he stepped out in daylight it would be like a unicorn sighting. The Kaliningrad oblast was one very white wood.

Wethers knew exactly what the Stony Man cybernetics chief was thinking. He was thinking it, too. He was also trying to think positively.

“Plus, the bad guys absolutely got shut down in Sweden. Propenko is claiming to have killed some people and escaped. He is the only solid lead they have to work with at the moment. Whoever hired him will be very interested in debriefing him.”

“Which may include torturing the living hell out of him and his new friends.”

“There is that, but Propenko has a very heavy reputation. I think there is a decent chance they might even rehire him, and his new friends.”

* * *

Kaliningrad, Luffy-Land

CALVIN JAMES REPORTED from the roof. “We’ve got company. A limousine and she’s riding low. I’m saying she’s armored. Two SUVs riding escort on the limo’s twelve and six.”

“Copy that,” McCarter replied. “It’s showtime.”

While Phoenix had waited, they had checked on the apartment Propenko had been renting. Nothing was missing, but the Russian reported that someone with a fair degree of skill had searched the place. Propenko had filled a bag with clothes and guns and gear.

Kaliningrad wasn’t exactly the fashion capital of Paris or Milan, but he’d bought the most expensive off-the-rack suits available for Phoenix Force. McCarter, Manning and Propenko looked decently dapper and decidedly dangerous. McCarter had decided to stay with the three-man team he had presented to the Grazinskiys and to keep James and Encizo as unseen aces in the hole.

The limo pulled to a halt outside. Two men each jumped out of the backs of the SUVs and one man raced to open the limo’s door. A man about six feet tall and nearly five feet wide emerged.

Propenko grunted as he peered through one of the boarded-up windows.

“Someone of note?” McCarter asked as he peered through his opening.

“Gospodin Gaz,” the Russian affirmed. “Minor mafiya royalty.”

McCarter had operated with and against Russians many times and this was far from his first time operating on Russian Federation soil. He knew a fairly extensive range of Russian words and phrases. Gospodin Gaz roughly translated into “Mr. Gas.”

McCarter considered the brutal, Mack-truck-built man emerging from the limo. “Glorified bagman,” he mused.

“Correct. Gaza has moved far up food chain from simple collections.”

McCarter was fairly certain he didn’t want to know but asked, anyway. “Why do they call him Mr. Gas?”

“Back in day, when collection proved difficult? They send Gaz. He comes with a can of gasoline. Perhaps for place of business. Perhaps for house. Perhaps for you.”

“Nice,” Manning commented.

“He did five-year stint in Siberian maximum hard-labor colony. He ran it for four and a half.”

McCarter eyed Propenko. “You two have run into each other before?”

“We are acquainted.” The Russian blew cigarette smoke and shrugged. “Gaz also known for loyalty and dealing square. Sometimes he is called in as third party during difficult negotiations.”

McCarter watched the Russian mobster, flanked by his five men, lumber up the steps. None of the guards wore tracksuits or gold chains. They dressed well and smelled more ex-military than musclemen or hammerheads. Save one, who was smaller, wiry like a terrier and seemed as agitated as one.

“So this could be a positive development.”

Propenko lit himself a CCCP. “Perhaps.”

The doorbell rang.

McCarter glanced at the brothers Gazinskiy. They sat forlornly on a couch. The ladies of the establishment had been sent home and the hammerheads had been carted off to a non-licensed infirmary that dealt with these kinds of situations. Ilya wore a neck collar and the shattered remnants of Artyom’s septum were held together by medical tape. McCarter nodded at Artyom.

The nasally impaired gangster got up and went to the door. McCarter and Propenko went to the bar. Manning stayed off to one side and smiled at Artyom.

“Not one word,” Manning warned.

Artyom flinched and answered the door. Gaz’s men flowed into Luffy-Land, forming a skirmish line. Gaz ignored the Gazinskiys and walked up to the bar. Propenko slid the pack of cigarettes down the zinc bar. “Let us speak English.”

Up close, Gaz was a very ugly man. Someone had flattened his nose the way Manning had flattened Artyom’s, but he had never had it fixed. His thick-fingered hands were red and scarred. The mobster’s ugly face was blotched from years of heavy drinking. His thick, gray hair was Soviet-era cosmonaut. He smiled to reveal yellowed, crooked teeth and shrugged as if the matter was of no importance. “Sure, Nika. If it pleases you.” He lit a cigarette. “You look good.”

“You look as I remember you.”

“I will take this as compliment. Piles are killing me.”

“Too much easy living?” McCarter asked.

The Russian eyed McCarter.