The Handler Read online

  He entered a narrow alley and stepped past a man in rags standing by a barrel fire. The man had intelligent, yet leery eyes. He wore threadbare black jeans, a grey shirt, and a baseball hat.

  “Hey, American,” the man said in English. “I can tell by your eyes and your walk. I used to be Army till they gave me the Alpha Charlie.”

  Chuck was suddenly alert. Was this a trap? No, they couldn’t have known he’d turn into this alley.

  “Nice fire,” Chuck said. He kept going down the alleyway. At the corner, he reached into his back pocket and set the transponder on a ledge.

  “Anchor clanker.” The voice was lonely as if the man was talking to his fire.

  Chuck walked back past the lost soul to where he’d entered the alley. He peeked around the corner. He didn’t see anything at first, so he waited a couple of minutes. Then he returned to the barrel burner.

  “So how did you end up here?”

  The man prodded his fire with the skeletal frame of a burnt-out umbrella.

  “I was going to live the good life in Malaga after the war. Hang out at the beach, drink cervaza, and get some good loving…” The man’s eerie voice drifted down the alley.

  Chuck peered around the dark corner and gazed down the street for another minute. Then someone a block down lit up a cigarette. In that moment, Chuck saw the faces of two men standing under an awning.

  “You pull an all-nighter, you live for morning,” the barrel burner said in a mournful voice. “But the night’s better than the day.”

  They’re keeping their distance, Chuck thought. Waiting.

  He looked back at the man. The guy threw a heap of trash into the drum, and a corkscrew of sparks rose in the gloom between the high walls of the alley. Flames leaped above the round rim and the glow casted a gyrating shadow against the stone wall. The distant shriek of a stray cat pierced the night.

  Chuck was walking back to get the transponder when the man said, “Haven’t been back to the States. Sure would like to stay clean. I could use some help if you could spare a Euro.”

  Chuck stopped by the barrel fire for a moment and looked into the defeated eyes of the ex-pat. “Money? What you need is a new set of clothes. You need to look presentable if you’re going to make money.”

  The destitute man looked at Chuck with skeptical eyes. “Man.” He shook his head. “What I need right now is money.”

  “First you need some new clothes.”

  The vet narrowed his eyes; his face took on a shade that matched the ashes of the barrel fire. “I don’t need no clothes. I need cash.”

  “Wait a minute.” Chuck went back to the corner and scanned the street. The glow of a cigarette told him that the two men were still under the awning. They were keeping a safe distance from the transponder, but Chuck knew that they would get curious and investigate if he didn’t start moving again. He jogged back to the homeless guy.

  “Look, what’s your name?” Chuck said.

  “Josh Brown.”

  “Okay, Josh. I’ve got an offer for you. All you need to do is switch clothes with me and I’ll give you two hundred Euros.”

  “Two hundred!”

  “Are you interested or not?”

  “Hell, yeah. You can have these rags.”

  “And I’ll need you to deliver a message for me.”

  “A message? No way, man.”

  “Keep your voice down.”

  Chuck pulled the cash out of his wallet and handed it over. “Quickly, give me your shirt.”

  The vet folded up the money and clasped it tightly in his fist. He pulled the black shirt over his head.

  When Chuck took off his jacket, the vet eyed his handgun and his knives, but didn’t say a word. Chuck slipped the man’s thin cotton shirt over his head. The smell repulsed him. He almost gagged, but held it in.

  Taking a deep breath through his nostrils he said, “Now, about the message.”

  “No, man. I’m outta here. I ain’t getting mixed up in your business.”

  Chuck grabbed the man’s greasy hair and pulled his face towards him. “I’m afraid you already are. In a few minutes some men are going to be walking by here. If they ask about me, I want you to point down the alley and say you saw the American and he went that way. That’s it. You got it?”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “That’s good. By the way, if you don’t do as I say, I will be back and our next visit won’t be so friendly.”

  “Okay, man. I’ll do it.”

  Chuck stopped at the edge of the firelight and shoved his empty gun under his belt. “I’ve gotta run, and you’ve got a message to deliver.” Chuck looked at the man and smiled. “Vaya con Dios, my friend.”

  Then he turned to go.

  At the end of the alley, he picked up the transponder device between his thumb and finger, and started walking. After three blocks, he spotted a taxi. He waved it down and got in.

  “That way,” Chuck said.

  After a mile, Chuck handed the cabby a double fare. “Take that next left. I’ll get out there.”

  As the cab took the corner and pulled over, Chuck pushed the tracking transponder between the seat cushions. “Gracias,” he said.

  Chuck closed the door, and the cab drove away. He started jogging in the opposite direction.

  After a few blocks, he walked past a closed café where a line of cured ham legs were hanging on thick hooks in the window. The display of ham hocks was designed to entice pedestrians to drop in, but now in the dead of night they brought other things to Chuck’s mind. He pushed the morbid thought out of his head. Past the brick building, he turned into a dark parking lot. A few feet in, a dumpster sat flush against the brick wall of the restaurant. Chuck flattened himself against the bricks between the dumpster and the corner of the building and looked down the street. The cab he had been riding in was idling at the curb a block and a half away.

  The hum of an approaching car got his attention. He turned to look and saw headlights appear in the opposite direction. He climbed into the restaurant’s trash dumpster and buried himself in the fleshy rubble. When the sound of the passing car faded, he peeked over the dumpster’s rim. The car had pulled over a block and a half down and was now next to the idling taxi with its windows down. The low voices of the men carried through the air; something about when they find him they’ll kill him. The cabbie begged for mercy, but Chuck couldn’t make out everything that was said. He sank back into the trash and waited. Then he heard the loud grumble of a truck. And it wasn’t far away.

  The sound was moving closer. Chuck tried to jump out of the dumpster, but it was too late. The arms of a trash truck hooked its claws onto the dumpster. Chuck’s stomach sank as the trash bin, with him in it, was lifted five feet above the ground.

  He quickly tunneled down towards the bottom of the rubbish pile as the bin continued to rise. He grasped for something to hold on to. But the smooth metal surface of the dumpster offered no toe holds. He scratched the surface of the metal box, but felt himself sliding forward. Then with a last jerk of the hydraulic arms he was dumped into the back of the trash truck along with the day’s leftover grub. He fell into the dark receptacle along with a ton of food and the other waste that was in the dumpster. Then the grinder of the trash compactor sparked to life and a metal slide started moving forward. It started to shove the trash into the trash compactor compartment of the truck. Chuck realized that the frag grenades in his pockets would detonate if he was crushed. He didn’t mind if this was how he was going to die. He figured it was a risk of his current occupation, but it bothered him that the truck driver might go with him if this thing blew.

  Chuck frantically dug his way out of the rotting pile as the slider inched closer. He pushed the putrid trash to the left and the right as he clambered out of the rubble. He got to the top of the mass of debris just as the metal slider was about to shove him into the compactor box. Grasping the upper edge of truck’s bed he pulled himself out of the grinding death trap. Clutching the
side of the truck, he hung over the side for a moment, then dropped to the ground.

  The trash truck jerked to a stop. The driver jumped out of the truck and ran around the vehicle shouting, “Permanecer fuera de la basura! Tiene suerte de estar vivo. Get out of here!”

  Chuck ran into an alley, and after a minute the truck moved on. In the darkness of the cobbled old street, Chuck put his hands on his waist and took a couple of deep breaths. He scanned his surroundings as he did.

  Then he walked out to the main road. The street lighting in this part of town was non-existent and the three story buildings that crowded the narrow street prevented the moonlight from entering into this gouge of the city. Chuck walked past a stinking sewer grate and several store fronts. In a few of the stores, dim interior lighting bathed the display showcases in a depressing blue-green light. Chuck stopped at a store where a mannequin modeled men’s slacks, a loose-fitting shirt, and a light vest with large pockets. The clothes looked a little on the big side, but nevertheless, Chuck took off the putrid shirt he was wearing and wrapped it around his elbow. He then put his elbow through the ten-by-ten display case shattering the window. Chuck closed his eyes and turned his head away from the downpour as it cascaded around him. He flinched as he put his hands to his ears, anticipating an alarm, but it didn’t go off. Then he opened his eyes, reached into the storefront, and quickly yanked the clothes off the plastic mold.

  Chuck gathered up his new clothes, which smelled much better than the rags he had been wearing, and headed down one of the many alleyways that fill the ancient city of Barcelona, Spain. There in the dark depths of the Gothic alley he made a quick change of wardrobe. He gathered his gun and grenades and stuffed them in his new vest and smiled. These new clothes would serve him well. He was going to need a fresh look for what he was about to do.

  CHAPTER 9

  Mediterranean Sea

  North of Lloret de Mar

  Standing on the bow of his gleaming white yacht and leaning against the railing above the port-side anchor, General Lazar tapped numbers on his encrypted cell phone. He held the phone to his ear with short, thick fingers and waited for Sergeant Gonzales to answer.

  A breeze rose off the dark waters and shook Lazar’s thick, graying black hair.

  “Gonzales here.”

  “This is General Lazar.”

  “What do you want?” he said.

  “Is that how you talk to a Soviet general?”

  “I run this town, not you,” he said, arrogance dripping from his voice.

  “You think so, huh? Well, we both know the truth,” Lazar said as he stroked the gleaming metal of the railing on his yacht. He controlled the rage that was growing within him. “Tell me, what have your men have found out?”

  Gonzales cleared his throat. “Very little. We’ve had some false reports. One was at a condo complex; the other at a museum. Nothing came of either of them.”

  “I want to know where he is—Now!”

  “You do know who you’re dealing with, don’t you?” Gonzales asked.

  “I don’t care who he is.”

  “Oh, really. Well, our intelligence division notified me that the man you are after is Chuck Brandt, better known as the Ghost. At one time he was the world’s foremost assassin.”

  Lazar absorbed that for a moment. “I’m afraid of no one. He’s like every other man out there. He’ll be taken care of by morning. My men are coming to town to do the job. What I need from you is let them do their work undisturbed.”

  “Do you think that’s easy for me? Don’t you think people ask questions when I put out vague and mysterious orders?”

  “Your job is to make sure my men are free to carry out their work. If they run into any trouble, you will answer for it.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “When Brandt’s body washes up on the beach, you can brag about it on the way to the coroner’s office.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Nice talking to you, Sargento.” Lazar hung up. He furrowed his bushy eyebrows and looked back toward the yacht’s stern. The Ghost, huh? Yeah, he’d heard of him. Maybe this job was too big for Mika. Maybe he needed a backup plan. A little extra insurance. Yes, it was time to summon Alexi Stanlovsky, Russia’s most famous man hunter.

  ***

  Four miles north of Lloret de Mar on the Mediterranean Sea, a red 42-ft. Ducati cigarette boat came alongside the Volga. While the deck hands exchanged lines and tied the speed boat to the yacht, Lazar wearing sunglasses in the dark of the night, waited impatiently for the job to be done. As he sat there he thought of the historic meeting between Napoleon and Tsar Alexander 1 that took place in 1807 on a raft in the middle of the Neman River, a waterway that flowed along the border of Lithuania and into the Baltic Sea. The men had met where the river skirted the town of Tilsit to sign a peace treaty. While Lazar wasn’t here to sign a treaty, what he was about to do would help advance his cause. The man he was meeting with, while immensely dangerous and talented, was not a great man like himself. He was simply a hired gun. An assassin. In that sense, this meeting was nothing like the meeting between Napoleon and Tsar Alexander. Nevertheless, the man was of pure Russian blood, and at the moment Lazar was reminded of that historic meeting because these were the kinds of thoughts great men always had.

  Alexi, the assassin and two black-clad men carrying SR-3 compact assault rifles climbed aboard the Volga. Standing at attention Alexi said, “General Lazar, it is an honor to meet you.”

  Lazar stood up. He took off his sunglasses, revealing steel-grey eyes. He noticed the effect that seeing his eyes had on Alexi. It was the startled look, the sense of awe that people experienced when in his presence. It always happened when people met him for the first time. They never failed to sense his greatness.

  “I have a job for you. Standard wet work.”

  Alexi nodded.

  “I need results and I will tolerate nothing less than victory or death.” Lazar kept his eyes on the brawny blond man dressed in black. “I need you to exterminate Chuck Brandt.”

  Alexi’s eyes shifted for a moment, but Lazar wasn’t worried. Alexi had an impeccable track record and had been trained by Russian Special Forces. He would get the job done.

  “Alexi, this is a great opportunity for you, an opportunity to bring honor to our homeland.”

  Alexi rubbed his freshly shaven chin and stared out at the smooth black sea for a moment. Then he said, “Yes, I will bring down the Ghost. His time has come.”

  Lazar smiled. He slid his sunglasses back over his eyes and gestured to the deck hands to throw off the lines.

  CHAPTER 10

  Heading toward the city lights, Mika rode the tender to the Volga through the night into Lloret de Mar. Lazar had ordered him ashore to tighten the noose on the man who had disrupted the general’s master plan. Mika had scouted the nearby coast all day looking for the man who had taken Maria. The man who was making him look bad. His thin form sat tall and rigid. The cold eyes on his hatchet face focused on the darkness. He ignored the driver, not even acknowledging him.

  Mika took it personally that this brazen man had dared to interfere with Lazar’s agenda and that he had the audacity to return to Lloret de Mar after doing so. The man was operating right under their nose. They never learned. Back in Grozny, at least they hit and ran. This one here, this rat, was begging for death. Mika would shoot him below the nose and let him smell it from the inside-out.

  Mika thought of Lazar. The man constantly talked about his wife. He liked to brag about her heritage. He said her bloodlines ran back to one of the great flashpoints in Russian history. Mrs. Lazar’s great-grandfather had been Trotsky’s most-prized agent in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. He died a glorious death in what Lazar called one of the great events in the shifting tides of world history. As the tide of Communism rose, millions perished, and Mrs. Lazar’s great-grandfather had nearly helped Trotsky hijack that history. It truly was impressive.

  When the sh
ore boat slid to a stop on the shore of Costa Brava, Mika stepped out onto the sand and walked up the beach.

  Under a bent palm tree along the promenade, he approached a big plain-clothed police officer with a waxed mustache. The man’s eyes radiated disrespect, and Mika managed to control his contempt for Sergeant Jose Gonzales’ demeanor.

  “You spoke with the general?” Mika said.

  The sergeant’s hand brushed his belt holster, and his fingers stretched around the handle of his pistol. “This is Costa Brava. You Russians can’t just show up and act like you own the place. This is my land. My people. Killing and kidnapping will not be tolerated. You might be able to get away with that in Chechnya, but not here.” His fingers shook with suppressed rage.

  Mika smiled. “Sargento, I have two shooters with night vision and their crosshairs on you right now. If you do anything stupid, they will do what they are trained to do, and your wife will be left a widow. But don’t worry. She’ll only be a widow for a few hours because that’s how long it will take to exterminate her and the rest of your family.”

  “You filthy bastard.”

  “Oh, it gets worse. We already have her, and you don’t want to know what we’ll do if you refuse us. However, I promise you that when death finally comes, your wife will welcome it.”

  “You touch her, you’re dead. You got that? You’ll be a corpse.”

  Mika smirked. “Listen to me, Sargento. We can do this real easy. You let us take care of our business tonight, and we’ll return your family untouched by morning. No problemo. It’s that simple.”

  “If my wife has one scratch, I’ll cut your heart out.”

  Mika touched his long neck with his long, bony fingers. “It sounds like we have a deal then.”

  Gonzales’s nostrils flared. He looked coldly into Mika’s eyes. “Don’t forget where you are. This is a peaceful land. People come here to relax and have fun. They don’t like murder and death. You do your business quietly, and I’ll watch your backside. But I’m warning you, Mika, you touch my wife, and you’ll never have a moment’s peace. I’ll come after you and I’ll settle this. I’ll finish you.”