Page 34 of No Reason to Trust

The door opened one last time, and a young guy darted into the room. He leaned against the wall, nodding at the older man and all the other men.

Jake was surprised when the older man appeared deferential to the new guy. He nodded at the young man and sat up straight. Finally said, “Thank you for joining us, Petrov. We’ll welcome your advice on our job two days from now.”

“Is why I’m here, Alexei,” Petrov said.

“Good,” Alexei said. “So we begin.” He looked around the room, and it seemed as if he caught every man’s eyes. “We will speak English today, tomorrow and the following day. Our contact is not Russian. He won’t speak our language. So we’ll have to use his. Is that clear to everyone?”

He looked around the room, and every man nodded.

“Good,” he said. “So. First on the agenda. What do we do with the man from the FBI?”

The men began to murmur, but they were speaking softly. Livvy hoped the cameras would capture the words.

“Okay.” Petrov looked around the room. “No one else willing to speak up? When do we kill him?” he asked. “When he walks into the office? Or after we’ve spoken to him and negotiated with him?”

“I say when he walks in,” one of the younger men said. “As soon as he’s in the office and the door is closed, we kill him. Two shots to the heart while he’s still sizing us up.”

“That has the disadvantage of us not hearing his proposal,” Alexei said. “Maybe there’s something we can get from him.”

“That was not our orders,” Petrov reminded him. “The orders were to shoot him immediately. We want to avoid the mistakes our brothers in Brighton Beach made. They allowed the woman to leave, and Rostoman sent his son to do the killing. But the woman was able to manipulate the kid. Kept him in front of her. And when they got to the door, she took him down before he could kill her. We don’t want a scenario like that here. If we fail at this job, our contact will not be happy. He will stop giving us information on the shipments that are arriving. If we can’t divert the merchandise, our profits will drop. Which means all of us make less money.”

The men looked around the room. Many of them appeared leery of Petrov’s orders. Finally, another man spoke. He was older than the rest -- possibly the same age as Alexei. “We should take this man somewhere, so we don’t have to clean up the blood in the office. You know the police have tools they can use to find bloodstains, even if it has been cleaned up. No reason we should be targeted, but better not to be caught by technology. Take him down to the Gowanus Canal. Tell him you want him to see one of our operations. Once you’re there, kill him. Throw him into the canal.”

The men all looked at one another, not sold on the plan. Finally, one man said, “How many men will we need to subdue one man?”

Petrov scowled at him. “We are notsubduinghim,” he said. “We’re showing him our operation. Getting his advice. When we reach the canal? Boom. It is done. We shoot him and he goes over the railing into the canal. Problem solved. Our contact is happy. We get tips about shipments coming in. Everyone wins.”

“Except the guy who gets killed,” one younger man muttered.

“Sergei.” Petrov swiveled to face the younger man. “Are you unhappy with the plan to kill this agent?”

“Not if he deserves to die,” Sergei said. “But we know nothing about him. Just that a man in a faraway city says ‘you kill this man,’ and we kill him? Are we acting as assassins for this American?”

Petrov stared at Alexei and gave him a nod. Alexei stood up. “Sergei, this man tells us when a valuable cargo is arriving. Tells us what is on the ship and where it will be. All we have to do is wait until the middle of the night, black out the cameras, and take cargo. Bingo! Money for us no one has to work for.”

Sergei stood up. “Maybe instead of being the assassins for hire for this man, we should be working for our money.”

Alexei stood as well. “Sergei, do you no longer want to be part of group? No longer make enough money to keep that wife of yours happy?”

“No, Uncle,” Sergei said, falling back into his chair. “I want to be part of the group. But your contact is using us to kill this man. A man, who, as far as we know, has done nothing wrong.”

“We don’t know what he’s done,” Alexei said. “Maybe hehasdone something wrong.”

“Then why aren’t the American authorities doing something about it?”

“Poor Sergei, the delicate flower,” another man said. “Will killing this man hurt your feelings?”

“Of course not,” Sergei said. “But it doesn’t feel right. I thought we were honorable men. Not hired killers.”

Another man stood up from one of the couches. “Come, Sergei. Let’s go outside and talk.”

Sergei stared at the man. “So you can kill me?” he said. “No, thank you.”

Livvy looked over at Jake. “Do you think we can save that kid?” she asked. “Because I think we’re looking at a dead man walking. I doubt he survives this day. And he would be a good source of info about the Bratva.”

“Yeah,” Jake said, still staring at the screen. “Maybe we need to get over to that building and follow Sergei home. Try to recruit him. Or at least get him away from this group. Because right now? That kid’s days are numbered. Only because he didn’t want to kill an innocent man.”

“We can wait in that fast-food place across the street until Sergei comes out. Follow him until we’re sure no one’s on his tail. See if we can flip him.”

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