The Handler Read online

  Sanctioning this man would take luck and something more. Alexi was no fool. He knew the man was a professional. Only a professional would have attempted to do what he did. Your typical mercenary wouldn’t go near this job, but Alexi would be well paid, and he would succeed.

  Coughing up some phlegm, he leaned over the railing and spit it into the water that glowed green under the exterior halogen deck lights. He watched for fish and thought about what kind of bait would appeal to a man like the one who had taken Lazar’s daughter.

  Then he saw a rowboat tied up to the shore boat.

  Alexi drew his handgun. The round was already chambered.

  He flicked his cigarette into the water and cried out, “Search the decks!”

  ***

  Chuck rappelled down the side of the yacht with his makeshift belay line. Then he ran to the stern of the yacht, untied the bowline, and jumped into the Volga’s shore boat. Grabbing the end of the rope, he wrapped it around the tender’s wheel and locked it in place. Turning the keys in the ignition, he quickly started up the big engine, which growled and pumped out exhaust. Pushing the throttle forward he pointed the boat out to sea. Once it got going he dived out of the fast moving tender and quietly swam back to the rowboat which was drifting in the dark away from the stern of the yacht. Once he climbed aboard the small boat, he put oar to the sea. Rowing quietly, he navigated towards the shore and the stone house on the coast where Maria was waiting for him.

  Gunshots crackled in the direction of the unmanned tender that was racing out to sea. Chuck smiled as he heard men on deck cursing and a loud voice bellow, “Get him, men. Get him in your sights. Do not let him get away.”

  Chuck rowed parallel to the shore for some time in the cover of the dark of night before he slipped into the little cove where Maria was sleeping. Just before he entered the cove, he took one last glimpse at the lights of the yacht anchored two miles to the south and watched as the helicopter that had been resting on top of the Volga screamed into the sky and flew out to sea.

  CHAPTER 14

  In a glow of deck lighting, Lazar stood on the empty helicopter pad of his yacht, facing Mika and Alexi. Lazar heard the gentle sounds of water splashing against the hull below, because the two men in front of him were smart enough to keep their mouths shut.

  The general stalked back and forth on short, thick legs. He moved slowly with his big hands behind his back. He looked from Alexi to Mika, rage flaming in his eyes.

  “What in the hell happened!” Lazar said. He glared at Mika, whose cruel face showed a trace of the bloodlust that Lazar had admired in him back in Chechnya.

  Neither man responded.

  Lazar clenched his fist behind his back. “I will not tolerate failure. I will answer it with a bullet in the back of the head.”

  Neither men flinched. Their faces were as hard as stone. Their lives had been full of death and these words did not shock them. These were men whose histories could be charted by trails of corpses.

  “How was a man able to board this yacht?” Lazar yelled.

  Mika was the first to speak. “We had a man on watch. He saw no sign of anyone.”

  Lazar approached Mika. With a thick hand he reached up and firmly squeezed his neck. “I expected better.”

  Mika gasped for breath. “Dimitri was on watch,” he rasped. “I beat him unconscious for failing his duty.”

  Lazar released Mika’s neck. He gestured towards Alexi. “If it weren’t for Alexi, we could all have been slaughtered.” Lazar felt the blood pool between his fingers.

  He made a dismissive gesture and stalked across the helicopter pad a couple of times. Then he walked up to within an inch of Mika’s face.

  “You know what kind of man you’re dealing with now,” he said. “Don’t fail me again.”

  Mika wisely kept his mouth shut.

  Lazar continued. “I want Brandt to eat a bullet before the night is over. Bring me his head.”

  Alexi nodded and Mika looked at him with a snarled nose.

  Heads Up: Thank you for reading this far! The next book in the series, ROGUE OP, is now available on Amazon. Grab a copy today. Now back to THE HANDLER.

  CHAPTER 15

  Lazar stood with his hands on the fourth pillar in his yacht’s salon. Each of the six pillars was a work of art, a hand-carved narrative in rare Amazonian wood, not unlike the totem poles of Southeast Alaska, but far more intricately detailed. The main difference was that Lazar’s pillars captured the glory of war. The average person would think of them as no more than artistic inlaid wood carvings of incredible detail surpassing many of the great art works in the world. To Lazar, however, their artistic value was secondary. What mattered most to him was what they represented. The images taught lessons of victory and defeat, lessons that were as much a part of his soul as they were artwork on his ship. Here was Alexander the great at The Battle of the Hydaspes River against the King of Punjab in India. Here was Napoleon leading half a million troops into Russia, most of which would die in the ruthless winter. These were cautionary tales. They were all cautionary tales, every one of them, but also tales of immeasurable opportunity.

  Lazar walked to the third pillar and put his hand on the Amazonian wood. Here was Caesar commanding his troops in Gaul. Here was Hannibal crossing the Alps. Here was Scipio in the battle of Zama, ordering his Roman heavy cavalry into victorious battle. These pillars were the brainchild of Lazarian genius. However, they captured but a sample of the immense knowledge that, combined with his superiority, had given him untouchable prowess his whole life.

  He turned and walked to the table, where his artifacts were spread out, his precious artifacts that should never have left Peru. Naturally, he thought of the great Pachacuti, the glorious Inca warrior chieftain who conquered so many ethnic groups and states. That is what it meant to be a great man. This is what it meant to be Son of the Sun. Lazar poured whiskey into a silver cup and placed the cup inside the skull of Chuchi Capac, the leader of the Colla Indians of Bolivia. Pachacuti had humiliated Chuchi Capac in defeat. Now Lazar, another genius of war and master of victory, had taken the prize. And when his own daughter had endeavored to steal it from him, destiny sprung it back into his deserving hands. He held up the skull that was encrusted with gemstones and gold. With a straw, he sipped the whiskey from the silver cup within the skull. This was not the blood of the enemy, such as the Inca kings drank from the skull, but soon he would be drinking the blood of Chuck Brandt. This ritual reminded Lazar that he himself was the symbol of victory. All his life he had proven as much. Even when they’d locked him away, like Napoleon returning from Elba, he had escaped, and now he was engaged in an epic operation that would change the world and brand his name upon the soul of posterity.

  But for now he must weigh the solution to the problem that was complicating his plan because he knew very well that the smallest details could spell defeat for the negligent. Alexander the Great had proven that again and again, as had Caesar, as had Gustavus Adolphus, as had Frederick the Great—as had General Lazar. Even if his own name was not yet emblazoned upon the heavens yet, it soon would be. It wouldn’t be long before his name would not only be spoken with the same respect as Caesar’s—but with more. The gears of the machine had only just begun to grind. Therefore, it was essential that no sand got in the gears. He had spent two hours during which the calipers of his brain measured every eventuality and forecasted a dozen complications that could arise along with responses calculated to turn such eventualities to his advantage.

  Lazar slid open the glass door of the yacht’s salon and walked out on deck. He took a deep breath of the night’s air. He recalled the night nine years ago when he had escaped from an insane asylum in Siberia. Three years earlier, Minister Peter Volsky had presided over a show trial and personally handed down a pre-arranged sentence of seventy years of incarceration. It was worse than a death sentence.

  As Lazar walked toward the bow of the Volga, he recalled the scandal. He remembered what it
was like spending three years of his life in an asylum for allegedly exhibiting symptoms of psychotic disorder and megalomania. He was also convicted by an illegitimate military tribunal of treason, including conspiracy to carry out a coup d'état. Before his incarceration, he’d made death threats against the previous president. His bizarre behavior was fabricated in various reports, and two generals testified that he had also threatened their lives. Prior to his trial, a small-minded FSB shrink offered an alternate diagnosis. He offered the opinion that Lazar suffered from narcissistic personality disorder due to his obsession with personal greatness, power, and vanity. Lazar had claimed that it was his destiny to seize power in Russia. The fact that he would say this openly, they testified, confirmed his mental deterioration. This was the claim of the prosecution, but it was all for show. His fate had already been sealed. The trail was a sham. His guilt was a foregone conclusion in their eyes.

  For three years he was incarcerated. He was locked into solitary confinement and put into a sensory-deprivation chamber. He was treated with shock therapy, drugs, and brainwashing. Finally, he killed his three doctors and escaped. He took with him the severed hand of one of the doctors, a symbol of victory that he sent to Minister Peter Volsky, the man who had condemned him to the asylum.

  As he remembered the pain and humiliation from his imprisonment, the encrypted cell phone in his pocket rang. He retrieved it quickly.

  “Who do you think you are?” an angry voice said. “I want my wife and children returned. Your men had their chance to get him, but they failed.”

  “Lower your voice when you talk to me, Sargento Gonzales. Don’t forget who you are talking to.”

  “I could have your yacht stormed by the Coastal Patrol within thirty minutes.”

  General Lazar stretched his thick, short legs as he leaned over the rail and looked down at the anchor chain that stretched down toward the seafloor. “But you won’t because you’re not that stupid. First, I don’t own a yacht. Second, I won’t be on any yacht. Third, you could die within thirty minutes. More to the point, your family could die within five.”

  Gonzales’s voice began to shake with anger. “You have one last chance to take care of this mess.” He took a deep breath. “My men have reported movement at the old stone vineyard. Do what you need to do there, but I don’t want to find any bodies in the morning.”

  “We have a deal. I’ll bury Brandt far from Lloret de Mar. Now, where is he?”

  “You should be able to see it from where you are anchored. It’s tucked in a cove surrounded by a dried-up vineyard.”

  “It’s dark, Gonzales.”

  “Get out a piece of paper. I’ll tell you how to get there.”

  Lazar wrote down the directions. “He better be there.”

  “I want my family released immediately.”

  “If your information is correct and we get Brandt, then your family will be returned to you in the morning.”

  “Morning? You’re a psycho. You know that? I want them tonight or I’m coming after you.”

  Lazar was quiet for a moment. “Would you like your wife back to you with two fingers or three?”

  “If you touch her…”

  “Speak like that to me again and I will take them all off. That’s assuming I get what I want. If I don’t…” Lazar burst out in laughter. “My men will come for you.”

  ***

  North of Lloret de Mar

  Five gunmen in night vision gear exited a van and crept through the woods. They emerged from the tree line and stood overlooking the vast terraced vineyard that surrounded the lone home perched above the sea. Mika motioned for Alexi and the others to follow him down the hillside.

  Shoulder-high rock walls surrounded the terraces and the men vaulted them in the darkness with ease. As the men descended towards the dwelling, boots crunched gravel, and loose rocks fell to the terraces below.

  Halfway down the hillside, the hard-breathing men came upon the home. With stucco walls and a slate roof, the house was built like a fortress.

  Black-clad figures stacked up single file along the wall, facing the front door, automatic pistols in their hands.

  Mika gestured and two of the men went around the back. He kicked open the rough hewn front door and the remaining men poured in after him.

  Mika proceeded down the tiled hallway of the rustic home. He stepped up next to an interior door and shoved it open. The men charged in, taking up positions. One of them fired a burst, but there was no return fire.

  They returned to the hallway. When they kicked open the second door, two men slipped in, ready to kill, but it was empty. They moved down the hall to the next doorway.

  When Mika’s boot came in contact with the thick wooden door an explosion ripped through the house. Mika was thrown against the far wall of the hallway. The house shook and windows shattered.

  At that moment the trap door in the hallway popped open and suppressed gunfire filled the air. Chuck Brandt’s face appeared behind the barrel of his Glock. He cut down two men with a burst of gunfire at their knees. One of them screamed in agony. The other dove out of sight.

  Brandt let the heavy trap door close above him. Like a panther navigates a tree at night, he descended the steep, built-in ladder with ease. Working efficiently in the dim light, he snapped the big padlock shut and hopped off the ladder and onto the rough-hewn planks of the landing. Staying calm in spite of his adrenaline, he stepped through another square hole in the floor. At the bottom of the shaft, he emerged into the passageway that ran underneath the house. He shut the door behind him and gave the firewood stack that he’d positioned earlier a shove. The wood tumbled into a pile against the door, pinning it shut.

  Chuck grabbed Maria’s hand. “Let’s go,” he said. He moved quickly even before his eyes adjusted to the darkness.

  Running down the hillside, they leaped from one terrace to the next. Glancing back, Chuck saw two gunmen appear. He knocked Maria down and took cover as both gunners opened fire, bursts of gunfire pinging off the rocks.

  Chuck swung his Glock over the stone wall and saw that a gunman was leaping down the terraces in pursuit. Chuck squeezed off a couple of body shots and watched the man hit the ground hard and then roll off a ledge, falling five feet to the terrace below.

  Muzzle flashes of a second shooter drove Chuck down behind the terrace wall. He judged that the second assassin was forty yards up the hill. Chuck waited just a moment, then rose and planted a few silenced shots into zones where he’d seen the flashes.

  “Stay down,” he whispered to Maria. Crouching low, they scurried along the base of the terrace. After about fifty yards he stopped, figuring he was a safe distance from his last known position. He took Maria’s hand. “This way.”

  They crawled past the dead grape vines and climbed down several stone walls.

  When they came to the bottom of the vineyard, they faced a slope that was too steep to climb down.

  “We have to slide,” Chuck said. “Stay loose. Buckle and roll when you get to the bottom. Go!”

  “I can’t.”

  “Come on, Maria. You have to do this. I’ll catch you at the bottom.”

  Chuck slid down the steep slope on his back side. Near the bottom, his shoe caught on something and he began to roll. He slammed into a protruding rock so hard that he felt his rib cage crushing. He couldn’t help but groan.

  “Are you okay?” Maria cried.

  “I’m fine,” he said suppressing another groan. “Your turn.”

  Chuck heard Maria sliding down toward him, and he braced himself for impact. She crashed into him, smashing him against the protruding rock again, but he deflected her so that she slid on past without hitting the hard obstacle. He then rolled down the rest of the hill after her.

  “You did it.” Chuck’s voice cracked as waves of pain washed through his ribcage. “This way,” he said, his Glock leading the way as they continued on. Carefully they climbed down a rugged chute between two cliffs and headed towards
the beach.

  When they stepped onto the sandy coastline, Chuck’s heart slammed in his chest. “The boat,” he said. “It’s not here.”

  At that moment, lights hit them from three different sides, blinding them.

  “Drop your gun, Brandt,” a voice commanded.

  Nine black-clad commando figures surrounded them. A couple of the goons grabbed Chuck from behind and handcuffed him. A tall, thin man walked up to Brandt and said, “You’re dead.” He looked at Maria. “You come with me.”

  The man wrapped his skeletal hand around her arm and started to walk away.

  Maria tried to pull her arm free. “No!” she said as she fought against the cruel-looking man, but she couldn’t break free. “I won’t go back.”

  Chuck let that sink in for a moment. Won’t go back? Maria knew these men?

  A man stood five feet behind Chuck with a sawed-off shotgun, so he didn’t move, but he yelled at the man who was pulling Maria. “Take it easy with her.”

  The man stopped and shot a threatening glare in Chuck’s direction.

  “Don’t hurt her,” Chuck warned. “I never forget a face, especially one as ugly as yours.”

  “Take a good look then.” He smiled. “My face will be the last thing you see before we bury you alive.”

  Chuck was pulled down on his knees by a brawny guy with blond hair. He received a blinding kick to the back of his head that left him stunned and face first in the sand. As he was pulled back up, he spit sand at his captors. Now a couple of the thugs used his face to practice their flying kicks. He ducked many of them, which resulted in bursts of laughter from the vermin who stayed out of sight behind the beams of light.