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“Hello?” the old man answered.
Andreas had told him the phones were tapped, but at this point Gazich didn’t care. “Andreas, it is me, Alexander. How are you?” Gazich slid his key into his office door and turned the lock.
“Fine, my friend. Are you coming to see me?”
“Yes. In fact I’m up in my office.” Gazich hit the light switch. “I have a little work to do and then I’ll be down for a drink.”
“Good. I’ll see you when I see you.”
Gazich put his phone away and looked around his office. Everything was not as he had left it. They had tried to put things back, but they were too sloppy to do it right. In addition to the slight disorder he could smell their cigarettes. They had been so arrogant they actually smoked while pilfering his stuff. Gazich continued surveying the room. There was a large wood desk with the usual stuff on top: a lamp, an old Rolodex, computer monitor, keyboard, mouse, and phone. The walls were lined
with bookcases. Gazich turned to look back at the door. That was when he noticed something. It was a motion sensor placed just above the trim board by the floor.
“Good,” he said aloud. “We can get this over with sooner rather than later.”
Gazich grabbed the two-way radio and clipped it to his belt. Next, he moved the coat rack next to the desk and draped his jacket around the top pegs. To finish it off he set his baseball hat on top and turned on the desk lamp. The radio on his hip crackled to life and a male voice began speaking in Russian. Gazich didn’t know Russian, but he didn’t need to. He knew what they were asking. Two similar radios sat in a charger on the bookcase across from the desk. Gazich grabbed one, turned it on, and set it to the same channel as the one he’d take from the dead Russian. Next, he held them within inches of each other and pressed the transmit buttons. High-pitched feedback squawked from each box, creating an extremely irritating noise.
Gazich released the transmit buttons and walked back out into the hallway. He closed the frosted glass door and inspected his work. The silhouette of the jacket and hat on the coat rack wasn’t perfect, but it would be enough to confuse them. The two-way erupted again, with an angry Russian voice yelling what Gazich guessed were curses. The Bosnian held the devices next to each other one more time and let loose a blast of feedback. As he walked to the window, he pressed the button one more time and then turned his attention to the entrance of the hotel across the street. Five seconds later two large men came tearing out the front door shoving a pedestrian out of their way. One of them was still struggling with his jacket, a shoulder holstered pistol clearly visible against his off-white shirt.
With pure professional disdain, Gazich shook his head and positioned himself for the ambush.
11
R app turned the phone to vibrate mode, dialed Coleman’s number, and stuffed the phone in the breast pocket of his coat. As he grabbed the door handle with his right hand his left hand slid around to the small of his back and gripped the handle of his Glock 19 pistol. Rapp drew the weapon and looked through the peephole to make sure no one was waiting outside his door. With the gun at the ready, he flipped the dead bolt and opened the door. A stubby suppressor added another three inches to the gun. He did a quick check of the hallway, slid the gun into a specially designed pocket on the inside right side of his jacket, and moved out. Rapp bypassed the elevator and went straight for the staircase. As he opened the fire door, Coleman’s voice came over his wireless earpiece.
“Brooks says we’re five to ten minutes out. Traffic’s pretty bad.”
“This whole damn thing might be over by the time you get here.”
Rapp had just reached the first step when he heard a commotion from below.
“What do you mean it might be over?” Coleman asked.
Rapp couldn’t answer right away. Two men burst into the stairwell one floor beneath. One of them was speaking loudly in Russian. He recognized one of them as the man who had shoved money in the old man’s shirt earlier in the evening. It was exactly as Rapp had feared. Gazich had already killed one of them, and now he was drawing these two into a trap.
“What’s going on?” Coleman asked.
Rapp waited for the two men to get to the second landing before he whispered his reply. “I think we’ve got an unsatisfied customer.”
“What in the hell are you talking about?”
“I’ll explain it when you get here.” Rapp started down the stairs. “That is, if I’m still alive.”
“Slow down, Mitch. You’re not making any sense.”
“Tell Brooks to call Marcus so he can bring her up to speed on who this Deckas guy really is, and tell him the guys in the surveillance photos are Russian.” Rapp hit the next flight.
“Where are you?”
Rapp glanced over the railing as the two men hit the first floor landing. “I’m in the hotel following two Russian idiots who are about to get killed.”
“Just wait until we get there.”
The men hit the fire door hard and burst into the lobby.
“You don’t think I can take care of myself?” Rapp bounded down the steps two at a time, now that he was the only one in the stairwell.
“That’s not what I said. You’re going into this blind with no backup. That is not what I would call a prudent tactical decision.”
