Turbulent Sea (45 page)

"Hell, Ilya." Eddie wiped his mouth with his sleeve, shaking a little after seeing his friends dead. "Pavel Demidov was here, too, along with Ivan and Klaus."

Continuing down the hall, Ilya peered quickly into the kitchen. Ivan and Klaus lay on the floor in pools of blood, with two men standing over them. One was a stranger and the other was Pavel Demidov, Nikitin's trusted bodyguard. Ilya was certain he was privy to the workings of the human trafficking ring, the one Nikitin had been careful to keep Ilya away from. This assignment was the one time that Ilya's reputation for protecting women and children had hindered him. Nikitin often sent him on errands, or just out of the room so he could talk to this man—Pavel Demidov. He had found his traitor.

The man with Pavel started to turn, and Ilya threw the knife, spinning as he did so and yanking the gun from Eddie's hands to fire three rounds into Pavel's left eye. Both men dropped, and Pavel's gun hit the tile with a clamor. Ilya waited a heartbeat, listening, and then handed the gun back to Eddie. "Make certain they're dead, but don't make a sound. And collect their weapons. We may need them. Get my knife, wipe it on his shirt and give it back to me."

He wasn't about to leave his weapon on scene, or risk leaving evidence if he could help it. He'd always been a ghost at a kill sight; he couldn't afford to let this one be any different.

Eddie nodded and hastily bent over the bodies while Ilya made his way to the den. The door stood wide open as if in invitation. The room had obviously been checked and dismissed. A small gas fire lit it and threw flickering light over the deep wood panels. He moved around the desk toward the small closet. The door stood open there as well, several coats hanging. The closet was very narrow, barely allowing the hangers to fit between the back wall and the front.

Ilya stepped inside and knocked in the prearranged pattern. The back wall was a false steel panel Ilya had designed to fit most standard hall closets. The one in this house by the front door had been too large, but the den unexpectedly had a smaller room which served their purposes perfectly. Staying behind that thin steel panel with its wooden front required endless patience, nerves of iron and the ability to stand for long periods of time.

Ilya didn't hurry, although Eddie hissed a warning at him. He didn't want to make a sound as he stealthily pulled the false back away to reveal Nikitin and Brian flattened against the wall. Both men were soaked with sweat, and Nikitin held a gun, rock steady in his fist.

"Let's go," Ilya said softly. "Stay close to the wall. Make no noise."

Nikitin indicated to Brian to follow Ilya to the door of the den. Brian was trembling almost uncontrollably, but he did as Ilya said, sliding one shoulder along the wall, maintaining contact and staying as close to the bodyguard as possible.

At the door. Eddie handed Ilya the knife and dropped back to guard the rear. Ilya slid the knife into his boot and pulled his gun. There was no silencer on the barrel, so once he fired, he'd bring everyone down on them, and they were severely outnumbered. He hoped they'd make it out clean, but he needed the firepower just in case.

He made his way back toward the kitchen. They'd have to go out the back to avoid the stairs, but no self-respecting assassination team would leave the back open as a means of retreat. They would be walking into their enemies' hands.

He heard Brian gasp when he saw the carnage on the kitchen floor. Glancing back with a hand signal for silence, Ilya glimpsed Brian shoving his hand against his mouth, his stomach obviously rebelling.

Nikitin put his hand on Brian's back. "Don't look. Just follow Ilya out. You'll be all right," he said encouragingly, his voice a whisper. "Prakenskii is the best."

Ilya glanced at Brian's white face. Beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead, but he kept moving, trying not to look at the blood and gore on the floor.

Brian swallowed hard and nodded. He reached up and, for one moment, clasped Nikitin's hand. Ilya looked away, feeling he'd caught a sad, intimate moment that was too private for witnesses.

He heard movement and held up his hand, signaling the others to stop. He continued forward, to the back door. Behind him, Brian crouched down against the counter, Nikitin blocked his body with his own, and Eddie placed himself in front of his boss. No one moved, no one breathed.

Ilya listened for movement again, trying to get a sense of how many he was up against and where they were. Again he held his hand up to emphasize that no one move. He had to risk drawing fire in order to get positions. They couldn't wait; the rest of the team that had been searching upstairs in the house would be coming in behind them. They'd be caught in a squeeze trap, with no way out.

The door was a no-win. Once he was through it, every gun would be on him. They expected the door to be used. Ilya went from a crouch to a sprint, leaping and going through the window feet first, gun firing in the direction of the voices he'd heard. He landed and rolled, watching for the flashes of return fire even as he scrambled for cover.

He knew the exact layout of the backyard. It was essential in his business to be familiar with any potential battlefield in or outside a house. It was three feet to the relative cover of brush and an additional two feet to the large boulders placed artistically around the waterfall that flowed down a small stream into a large pool.

Four flashes and a long howl told him he was facing at least five. He felt it then—that stillness in him—the trained warrior taking over. No emotion, only the killing machine that had been developed at such an early age. His vision changed—widened—then tunneled as he saw in targets. Systematically he took them out. Dylan was losing soldiers tonight.

He shot one after another, using kill shots, no mercy, kill or be killed. There could be no mistakes, no mess-ups, not when so many innocent lives were at stake. He wasn't trading one human trafficking ring for another. If he could shut the ring down before they managed to get started, he would do it.

He fired fast—one, two, three, four, five. The fifth shot took out the man who had been wounded. Ilya cleared the area in less than forty seconds and was back to the kitchen, yanking open the door and signaling the others into the night.

"They're coming right behind us." Eddie warned as they ran for the nearest car. "I heard them running down the stairs."

Ilya slid his hand along the visor, dropped the keys into Eddie's hand, grabbed him by the collar and thrust him into the car behind the wheel. He spun around and fired several shots at the door to keep what was left of the assassination squad back.

"You're driving, and do exactly what I say when I say it. Brian, backseat with Sergei. Stay down at all times, and I mean down. They'll be coming after us." He slammed the door behind Nikitin and dove into the front passenger seat. "Go. Get moving."

Eddie shoved the gear into reverse and stomped his foot on the gas pedal. Tires screamed, and they swerved, straightened, and crashed into the gate. The gate crumpled and burst open, so that they emerged backward onto the street, hit the curb, jumped the sidewalk and then Eddie got control and managed to put the car in gear to go forward. Bullets rained on them, hitting the windshield, the doors and the sides of the car.

Ilya leaned over and stomped his foot over Eddie's. The car fishtailed down the street with Eddie cursing every inch of the way. Ilya didn't let up at the corner, forcing Eddie to run the stop sign and shoot them in a wider turn into oncoming traffic before he straightened them out again.

Ilya glanced over his shoulder. "Everybody all right?"

Nikitin nodded. He kept one hand on Brian's back, holding him down. "Who are these fuckers?" the Russian boss demanded, his face tight with anger.

"None of Tarasov's family could have orchestrated this move against you. A couple of the cousins were left alive, but they don't have the balls to try to take you out." Ilya didn't want to give up the information on Dylan before he was certain he got the names and locations of Nikitin's network of human traffickers.

Ilya tossed his phone to Nikitin then steadied his gun with his other arm, waiting. It wasn't easy to shoot out of a moving car the way they portrayed on television. "Pavel Demidov was a traitor. Whatever he knew of your operation, the competition knows. They'll try to kill everyone. You're going to have to call your people and tell them to get undercover fast. He'll have exposed them all. I need time to find out who's behind this."

Nikitin glanced behind them at the two cars moving through traffic at high speed. "Just get me out of this, Ilya, and I'll…" He abruptly switched to Russian to finish his sentence, saying, "I'll kill every one of them and their families. Find out." He kept his hand on Brian's back, his body shielding the guitarist, who had been pushed to the floor.

He was furious. Ilya could hear it in his voice. Nikitin was many things, but he wasn't a coward. He would never tolerate an attempt on his life without brutal, bloody retaliation. There would be a bloodbath the likes of which few had ever seen the moment Nikitin knew who was trying to kill him. And from the way Nikitin was covering Brian, it would be worse for whoever was trying to kill them, their bad luck to catch Brian in the cross fire. Nikitin's feelings for the man had to be real, and that made him all the more dangerous, because if it was true—Brian was probably the only person in the world Nikitin had genuine feelings for.

Ilya needed him to make those calls. He needed numbers—and names if possible. Pavel Demidov had always been Nikitin's right-hand man in the human trafficking operation. Ilya didn't dare even glance at the Russian boss. He needed to appear concerned only with keeping him alive, but inside, everything stilled. It was now or never that he would get the information they had waited so long for.

Nikitin flipped open the phone, and while Eddie took the car screaming around another corner, weaving in and out of traffic, the Russian made his calls, warning his associates one by one to lay low, put everything on hold, until they could find and remove the threat to their network.

"Coming up on our left," Ilya warned Nikitin calmly. "Eddie, don't evade. Sergei, stay low. Just keep up the speed, but hold the car steady until I say otherwise, then you're going to pull hard to the left."

Eddie nodded his understanding.

Ilya watched the big Cadillac barreling down on them, the calm, centered place inside of him seeing every target, every detail of the night itself and the traffic around them. A small pickup truck swerved, suddenly aware of the drama taking place on the highway, recovered and hit the brakes to allow the Cadillac to move into position. Gun hand braced, Ilya centered on the driver, ignoring the guns flashing, and very deliberately squeezed the trigger.

"Now, Eddie, clip it hard."

Eddie swerved into the larger vehicle, bounced off, recovered and kept going. The driver of the Cadillac slumped over the wheel, the deadweight of his foot on the gas. With their car sideswiping the caddie, the larger vehicle spun out of control, slamming into the guardrail, breaking through it at high speed.

"They're gone," Nikitin said, looking back, satisfaction in his voice.

"Get down." Ilya hissed the order between his teeth. "Eddie, take the exit and head down toward the river."

"My concert's in an hour," Brian said. "Sergei, I have to be onstage in an hour. Everyone's going to be freaking out."

There was silence. Ilya glanced back at Nikitin and saw the stunned look on his face. He was used to violence, Brian wasn't, and in that moment, Sergei realized how shocked Brian really was. "It will be all right," he promised.

"Why are they doing this?" Brian asked. "I don't understand why they're doing this, Sergei."

Nikitin rubbed his back, all the while looking out the window, watching the other car fishtail down the exit ramp after them. "I don't know, but we'll find out. Just stay down where you'll be safe. I don't want anyone to see you."

Ilya didn't point out that Pavel Demidov had known Brian was in the house, and since he had, then chances were good Dominic Dylan had been told at the very least that Brian was a good friend, or worst case scenario, that he was Nikitin's lover. Nikitin had always been discreet about Brian. Ilya had guessed at the relationship for a number of reasons. Nikitin had been different since he'd met Brian, definitely mellower and much happier. His aura had changed, and around Brian, sexual colors had grown stronger.

"Okay, Eddie, start slowing down. Stay ahead enough to keep them from getting a good shot, but make sure they follow us."

The road ran along the fast-moving river. It had rained often and hard, and the river was swollen, threatening to breach the banks. In some places the road had a bit of water across it where the current splashed up over the sides.

"They're on us, Ilya," Eddie confirmed, glancing in the rearview mirror. "Not tight, but they're coming, about a curve or so back."

"We want a clear stretch without any witnesses or bystanders that can get hurt," Ilya said. "We should be coming up on a turn that will take us under the bridge. They'll lose sight of us. Slow down, let me out, and keep going."

"No, no, that's not a good idea," Nikitin objected. "We shouldn't separate."

"I'll take out the other car without a risk to you or Brian. Eddie can take you up the road to the exit back to the freeway. You should be able to see from up there. If I take out the car, come back and pick me up; if not, get clear." He tapped Eddie on the shoulder. "Here. Pull over right here."

Eddie shot a quick questioning glance over his shoulder at Nikitin, but he was already stomping on the brakes. Ilya bailed out of the car almost before it stopped moving. It was ironic that he was saving the life of the man he knew he would eventually have to kill. Nikitin had no compunction about killing his enemies, and there would be no quitting undercover work until he was dead. At the same time, Ilya wasn't going to allow Dylan to take over the trafficking network. He knew eventually someone would step in and fill the void once he'd taken down Nikitin, but he hoped to slow things down for a long while.