Red Scare (The Postmodern Adventures of Kill Team One Book 3) Read online

  RED SCARE

  Being the Third Part of The Postmodern Adventures of Kill Team One

  By

  Mike Leon

  Copyright 2017 by Mike Leon

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Author, except where permitted by law.

  Cover art by Jessica Safron

  Some additional illustrations by Rachel Lang

  PLEASE SEND ALL COMMENTS, QUESTIONS AND DEATH THREATS TO:

  [email protected]

  This book is dedicated to everyone reading it while slacking off at a chicken-shit job they hate.

  JUST ONE MAN

  “Has the organization grown so soft? So soft that one man, one lone man, can send the entire organization scampering into holes?” - War Against the Mafia, Don Pendleton

  INT. THE FRAMING DEVICE - NIGHT

  This situation got out of hand really fast. Sid questions what went wrong as he yanks on the chain clamped around his right wrist to see if he can get any give out of it. Nothing. The forged steel links don’t stretch a single molecule.

  “You like that?” says the obnoxious little worm the Russians call Danny Velour. He ties his long ponytail into a bun and little flecks of spittle shoot from his mouth onto his fluffy pink bath robe as he spits out more stupid words. “We call it the framing device. Little inside joke here at the studio.”

  “Fuck you, cunt fungus,” Sid says. The thing he’s chained to looks like a repurposed bed frame, hung vertically from the ceiling of this room, stripped of wheels and equipped with shackles which have been both clasped around the frame and welded. His hands and feet are shackled to the frame. Sid is effectively mounted in the steel fixture, and he has no idea how he’s going to break free. Not yet, anyway.

  There are others here in this dank place—wherever it is—some kind of large cellar. It stinks like mildew and the joists above them are dark with age. There are women in dog cages lined up along the stone walls. Most have only blankets to keep them warm. And yet they are not the most peculiar occupants of this room. There are also the things lurking in the shadows...

  “We will have the answers we seek,” says the unknown man who seems to be calling the shots. This enemy is bizarre, even by Sid’s regular standards. He is a tiny man, bald and sporting a devilish little goatee. He wears a red button down shirt and a long fuzzy olive drab scarf with tiny gold stars pinned to it. He has no accent, but he works for the Russians. That’s always unsettling. The ones with no accent are usually the most highly trained, and therefore the most dangerous. “We are stronger than Kill Team One and we are certainly stronger than a bland imitation like you.”

  “You run this freak show?” Sid says.

  “We ask the questions here, imposter.”

  “Yes. We ask the questions,” interjects Igor Volchenko. The Russian mob boss stands behind the scarfed man like a cowardly bitch. He is tall and robust for an old man. His hair is snow white and his fancy clothes are disheveled. His satin tie hangs loose around his neck.

  The only other mobsters in the room are two lackeys—grunts, mooks, or what Lily Hoffman would call redshirts. One is a meaty middle-aged man holding a 7.62x54mmR Pecheneg machine gun—an unsuitably gigantic gun for indoor close quarters fighting. The other is a musclebound bruiser with a featureless black mask covering his entire head. He is a moving wall of hairless man, clad only in a leather jock strap and gloves. Sid is particularly interested in this man. This may be the man he wants to torture the most of all of them, but that remains to be seen. Then there’s the matter of the others. Sid still can’t figure them out. He only knows there are seventy seven of them ogling him right now, and even if he breaks these chains he’ll have to fight his way through them all with no weapons. They look too alive to be zombies and they’re too different to all be clones. What are they?

  “Where is Katya?” Volchenko demands.

  “Unchain me and I’ll take you right to her,” Sid says with a malicious grin. The freak with the goatee punches him in the guts. It actually hurts, which is impressive. This douchebag is a problem.

  “You are helpless here,” the freak says. “You will tell us what we want to know now, or we will flay the skin from your bones until you do. It is your choice.”

  “Better deal. You leave Volchenko in here with me for five minutes and then, when I kill you, I’ll leave enough pieces that your friends still have something to bury.”

  “Nyet, monster,” Volchenko says.

  “I’ll show you a monster, Igor. I’m gonna tie you down and use you as a toilet for as long as it takes you to die.”

  “Such unbreakable will. So bold.” The syndicate boss’s eyes light up in bewildered frustration. “For what? Some whore that can be replaced?”

  “She can’t be replaced.”

  “Ah, I have hundreds of whores. They are like American expression, dime for a dozen, yes?”

  “Lily was better than that. And you killed her. And I’m going to kill you.”

  48 HOURS EARLIER

  INT. CHILLZ ULTRA LOUNGE - NIGHT

  Sid scans the inside of Chillz Ultra Lounge and counts the security personnel. There are three bouncers by the front door and one near the bathrooms. Those guys are marked by yellow security shirts and are unarmed. Posers. Mall cops. Warm bodies of security theater and nothing more. The phenomenon has perplexed Sid since he began roaming America on his own, and he has given up trying to understand it. Then there are two guys in cheap suits sitting at a table in the back corner looking about two decades older and angrier than everyone else here. They’re definitely the actual muscle.

  The rest of the club is just a collection of annoyances on display. Flashing colored lights spin in patterns. People crowd every space, making it impossible to get anywhere without pushing through them. The floor is wet. The music is not metal, and is therefore bad. As Sid sees it, the only redeeming qualities of Chillz Ultra Lounge are the scantily clad women, which are abundant, and the gross volume of the sound system, which will make it easy to do his job without drawing any attention.

  The job is simple. In brief, this Russian gangster named Sergei walked into the Black Omen last week and roughed up Lily’s friend Yvonne. Yvonne told Lily she’s been hiding from Sergei ever since she escaped from the international sex trafficking syndicate for which he works. Lily then asked Sid to go kill Sergei. She said she would pay him in blow jobs. Plural. So here he is at Sergei’s nightclub.

  He slides through the crowded dance floor quickly, using a combination of brute force and ninja stealth techniques. Sneaking past the men at the corner table undetected seems like a waste of time, so he simply walks past them into the back doorway which they are obviously supposed to be guarding—to anyone paying attention. They get up from the table and follow him.

  Beyond the door, Sid finds a stairwell. It’s the standard two flights joined by a landing. He dashes up to the next floor before the goons even make it to the doorway. They are worthless as sentries.

  Upstairs he finds another small hallway with one closed door guarded by a single musclebound giant. The big guard immediately turns to glare at him inquisitively. Sid waves at him and smiles.

  “Hi,” Sid says. “I’m here to kill Sergei Krymov. Is he in right now?” He sidesteps to his right and presses his back to the wall next to the doorway he just came through.

  “Wh-What?” the guard stammers out in humored confusion, as if he thinks this is some kind of joke. The
other two guards emerge through the doorway, passing Sid in their rush. He pulls a KA-BAR knife from under his loose black hoodie. The knife is a foot of blackened steel sharpened to a razor’s edge and wrapped in shrunken leather around the grip. He buries the blade in the first guard’s spine, then stabs the next one through the jugular. Neither man ever saw it coming.

  The giant blocking Krymov’s office door pulls back his jacket to go for his gun as Sid dashes toward him. Sid reaches into the open jacket and takes the gun instead. The giant dies still grasping at an empty holster as Sid stabs the KA-BAR up through his jaw and into his brain.

  He takes a look at the gun. It’s an FNX-9 with a laser sight and flashlight on the rail below the muzzle—exceptional for something found on a common thug. Sid stuffs it in the waistband of his camo pants. Islamist lunatics blew up his van and apartment last week and his arsenal went with them, so any weapons he can scoop up while he’s out will help rectify that issue. He keeps moving.

  The office door is a hardcore security measure: reinforced steel, reinforced hinges, three dead bolts. Sid isn’t kicking that thing down anytime soon. It’s unlocked though, so he crouches next to it, whips the door open and glances around the door jamb.

  Sid recognizes Sergei Krymov right away, even without ever having seen the man before. It’s one of the great benefits of hunting someone with a tattoo on their face. The mafia honcho reclines back in a padded leather office chair with his striped trousers bunched up around his ankles. A girl with puffy blond hair and a sparkly blue micro skirt is vigorously bobbing her head up and down on his penis. Behind them, green and indigo lights flash through a wall of one-way glass overlooking the nightclub dance floor.

  Sid curses as he hurls the KA-BAR forward. The big knife is already stuck in Krymov’s guts before Sid makes it to the K in fuck. He didn’t count on there being a girl here. The girl lurches up from Krymov’s crotch and smacks her head on the KA-BAR’s heavy handle. Sid slams the door closed behind him as blood sprays her in the face and she begins to scream.

  Krymov clutches at the knife protruding from his chest and heaves grotesquely as Sid leaps over the girl. He plucks the knife away from Krymov and slashes the man’s throat to finish him off, then reaches back and snags a handful of the girl’s blond hairdo. Her legs go for the door, but her head stays with Sid and she ends up sprawled on her back. He pins his boot down on her chest as he inspects the rest of the room.

  He sees a liquor cabinet stocked with numerous bottles, a small leather sofa next to a matching chair against the corner, and a desk with three LCD panels standing next to a computer tower. The LCDs display the CCTV feeds from all the cameras in the club. That’s what he was looking for.

  Sid stares down at the girl as he wipes his knife on Krymov’s pants. She’s a gaunt little thing, boney in the face, and with layers of makeup caked over pockmarks. Her bare breasts are disproportionately large for her tiny frame.

  “Don’t kill me!” she cries. “I don’t know anything!” Tears make inky black trails down her bloody cheeks as she clumsily tugs at the flimsy blue tube top wrapped around her hips to cover herself. Her skirt is so short it could double as a headband. Even Lily doesn’t usually dress so provocatively and she’s a total...

  “You’re a whore!” Sid says, finally realizing what he probably should have figured out as soon as he saw her. The whore does not confirm or deny his accusation. She only continues sniveling and cowering at his feet. Her eyes are wide with terror and dart chaotically in a way that is unique to a person hopelessly at the mercy of a madman. He moves to a question he desperately wants answered. “How much does it cost to fuck you?”

  “Why are you doing this?” the whore whimpers.

  “I had a problem with that asshat in the chair.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Somebody told me I’m a hollow man.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m a spook, a ghost, a bogeyman. Look, the only reason I haven’t cut your throat is that you don’t know the answers to any of these questions. Do you really want to keep asking?”

  The whore eyes him precariously for far too long.

  “You’re not real bright, are you?” Sid says. “I’ll walk you through it. I don’t usually leave witnesses. Witnesses are loose ends and loose ends are bad. But if you don’t know my name, or where I came from, or why I was here, or anything about me, then you can’t help anybody find me, so you’re not really a loose end. Are you?”

  “No,” the whore feebly responds.

  “Then I don’t have to kill you. So back to my question... what does it cost to fuck you?” He has wanted to know since he found out Yvonne was once a prostitute, but Lily refused to ask her about it.

  “I don’t want to. I— I—feel sick.”

  “I don’t mean right now. I mean just for reference purposes.”

  “A—A hundred. A hundred a half hour.”

  “A half hour!?” That’s twenty times what they paid him at GameStop!

  “Sergei keeps most of it.” She winces wistfully.

  “Not anymore.” Sid looks at the mangled body in the office chair. It only just stopped squirting blood. He steps over to the surveillance desk and kicks the PC tower. The heavy box clatters to the floor and the whore hops back in surprise. Sid punches his KA-BAR through the tower case and pries back the shell covering the machine’s innards. Then he pours lighter fluid in and on the tower from a bottle he kept in his pants pocket. It isn’t as effective as thermite, but it will have to do.

  “What are you doing?” the whore asks, as Sid takes the lighter out of his pants pocket.

  “You should leave now.” He flicks the lighter and a ripple of blue flame spreads across the surfaces of the computer and floor around it. The fire reaches his height quickly and begins to scorch the ceiling. “If anyone asks you about this, you weren’t here. You saw nothing.”

  EXT. MALIBU BEACH - NIGHT

  Dmitry Fedosov banks hard right and a spray of salt water fills the air. The hooker behind him squeezes his body and squeals as the WaveRunner™ comes about behind the big white pleasure boat that is their only point of reference in the endless darkness of the night sea.

  “Fedsy!” she shrieks. “Don’t do that! You’re gonna mess up my hair!” Her name is Sheena. She’s a tall and leggy girl, very top heavy. Her hair is long and curled and styled and does indeed look like it took a long time to put together. Too bad.

  “You know I’m going to mess up your hair later anyway,” Dmitry says. He twists his head around to smile in her face over his shoulder. She sticks out her tongue in defiance. Dmitry laughs. He lets her back up the ladder to the aft first so he can get a good long look at her aft as she climbs. Then he ties up the WaveRunner™ and follows.

  The deck of the Princess Kitty is no quieter than the WaveRunner™. Loud European synth-pop comes from a boom box sitting on the dark stained wood planks next to a long plastic lounge chair where two bikini clad women sit drinking colorful mixed drinks out of tall martini glasses.

  “Fedsy, when’s it my turn?” one of them says. Her name is Lisa, if Dmitry recalls correctly. The girls’ names are not important to him. He only asks for them thin, white, and big breasted, when he calls the escort service—and he does call an escort service. Dmitry isn’t nearly stupid enough to touch those smack shooting disease infested import whores the syndicate brings in from Eastern Europe. These girls have class.

  “As soon as I have some refreshments, kukolka,” Dmitry says. He sits down between them on the chair. “Vlad! Bring me my briefcase!”

  Vlad is a burly stack of man, six six and nearly three hundred pounds. His size is inversely proportional to his intelligence, but Dmitry likes it that way. He’s just smart enough to follow orders without thinking about them. He climbs down from the top deck of the split level boat carrying a leather briefcase which he hands off to Dmitry.

  “Good. Good. And mix me another mojito.” Dmitry spins the little brass tumblers
on the briefcase to unlock the lid and then pulls it open in his lap. It is packed to the brim with pure white cocaine. “When was last time L.A. had this much snow? Eh, ladies?” The girls laugh. Dmitry snorts a fistful of coke. “In morning, we all go to Disneyland, yes?”

  His suggestion is met by a succession of cheers from the escorts. This is the life.

  “Boss,” Vlad says, emerging from the cabin with a cell phone in his outstretched hand. “Phone call. It’s Nikos.”

  Nikos Petrovich is Sergei’s other number two, a humorless piece of shit with no concept of class or decency, who constantly belittles Dmitry for being too soft. By mutual intention the two of them do not have any phone conversations that are not absolutely necessary. Dmitry takes the phone and puts it to his ear. “Yes?”

  “Where are you?” Nikos says.

  “Why does it matter?” Dmitry snorts back.

  “We have been calling you for hours. Sergei is dead.”

  “Nyet! How?”

  “We don’t know anything yet. Volchenko wants to see us both.” He means Sergei’s boss, Igor Volchenko, the head of the entire Obshchiy Syndicate. “Be at his place by noon tomorrow. You know where it is, yes?”

  Of course he knows where it is, and he does not like Nikos talking down to him. “I will see you there,” he says, and ends the call. Dmitry has followed Sergei’s orders for half a decade in one capacity or another. He didn’t like the man all that much. Sergei was unstable and ill-tempered and relentlessly vindictive, but he kept business running smoothly. If Sergei Krymov is dead, there will be a shake up, and shake ups are very dangerous in this line of work.

  “Vlad!” Dmitry says, closing the lid on the cocaine stuffed briefcase. “Take us back to the dock.”