Dark Watch

The plate glass window overlooking the warehouse exploded in a rain of silenced gunfire. Bullets impacted all around the room, sparking off the metal furniture and tearing gouges from the cheap paneling. With the reactions of a cat, Ludmilla threw her body over Isphording, shielding him until she could unholster her own weapon. She twisted off him as a figure loomed in the shattered window frame. Around his face the gunman had wound a checked kaffiyeh like those favored by Palestinians. He spotted Ludmilla and raised his assault rifle to his shoulder. She fired first, and Isphording saw the Arab’s head literally come apart. Blood and pink clots of brain matter sprayed the wall next to him in an obscene Rorschach ink blot. Another Muslim gunman took his place and raked the office with his assault rife. A chunk of Ludmilla’s arm was blown off, and then she caught two more rounds to the stomach. She managed a low keen of pain as she fell to the dirty linoleum surrounded by a spreading lake of her own blood.

The attack had been so lightning fast and savage that Isphording was too stunned to move. The smell of blood and gunpowder overwhelmed the small office. The attacker, who must have been the one that killed Zayssev, entered the room. He stepped over to Ludmilla’s crumpled body, using a foot to turn her corpse so he could better see her wounds. “Nice shooting, Mohammad,” he said in Arabic to the gunman at the window. The terrorist leader unwound the kaffiyeh from his face and glanced at Isphording. His features were sharp and dangerous, and his dark eyes blazed with hatred. “I know you speak my language,” he said to Isphording, continuing in Arabic. “You did work for the late Chairman Arafat, hiding money that should have been spent fighting the Americans and the Jews.”

“The others are all dead, Rafik,” Mohammad reported from outside the office. “The building is ours.”

“Did I not tell you someone would try to free this pig from prison?” Rafik gave Isphording such a superior leer that the lawyer couldn’t stop his bladder from releasing. “All we had to do was wait.”

Rafik snicked open a switchblade knife, its keen edge glinting in the fluorescent light. “Now, let’s talk about the money.”

17

RUDOLPH Isphording never gave much thought to the people whose money he laundered. He’d insulated himself from his clients so they were nothing more than pass codes on bank account ledgers or vague signatures on legal documents. He had always considered himself a numbers man, a person most comfortable behind a desk protected by a paper fortress. Now the evidence of what he’d done was sprayed across the walls of the office and pooled under Ludmilla’s body. He couldn’t bring himself to look at the carnage that had been Yuri Zayysev’s chest.

Rafik had been called out to the warehouse before asking the lawyer any questions. Mohammad watched him from the office doorway, his eyes looking like chips of obsidian. Isphording could see that the Palestinians were maneuvering a ramp to the back of the trailer to unload the armored van. The Russians who’d snatched him had taken great pains to make sure no one had been injured or killed. He felt certain that Rafik and his thugs wouldn’t be so scrupulous. Isphording’s entire body trembled like he was in the grip of an epileptic seizure.

The terrorist leader called out for Mohammad to join him for a moment. He pinned Isphording with a menacing glare and stepped out onto the warehouse floor.

Minutes crawled by, allowing the lawyer’s fears to kaleidoscope in ever more horrifying thoughts, so when the sound penetrated his mind, he wasn’t sure what he heard. It sounded like someone was calling his name, but the voice was distorted and wheezy, like they were a great distance away or it was coming from a dream. He turned his eyes toward the doorway. No one was there. He looked around the room. Ludmilla lay faceup, her clothes sodden with blood.

“Isphording.”

He heard it again, and had he not been turning his head to check on Zayysev he never would have believed the Russian’s lips had moved. By some miracle Zayysev was still alive. He was ghostly white, and blood continued to drool down his chest like crimson molasses. Isphording felt hope surge inside him like a dose of adrenaline.

“Keep them talking,” Zayysev mumbled, his eyes flickering from shock.

“What?” the lawyer whispered urgently. Mohammad or Rafik could be back any second.

“Tell them anything they ask. Just keep them talking.” Zayysev’s voice was so faint Isphording had to cup a hand to his ear and tilt his head to hear him.

“I don’t understand,” he pleaded.

“More of my men are on the way…” Zayysev’s voice trailed off. His eyelids fluttered and rolled back into his skull as he fell unconscious once again. How he had survived the multiple gunshots staggered the imagination.