Full Black - Brad Thor [111]
The Old Man looked at Nicholas and then back at Harvath. “Okay,” he finally said. “Tell us what you’re going to need.”
CHAPTER 47
LOS ANGELES
The home of Yaroslav Yatsko, the ex-FSB agent, sat in the Hollywood Hills above Sunset Boulevard. It was pink stucco with a small, mosaic-studded swimming pool and hot tub that spilled its warm water into the pool like a waterfall. The landscaping was lush and thick. It was early evening and no one saw Luke Ralston when he magnetized an alarm contact point, jimmied a window in the back, and let himself in.
The house was empty, yet the smell of sour Russian cigarette smoke lingered in the air. Yatsko had been here and, judging by the packed bag sitting at the foot of the bed in the master bedroom, he was planning to come back.
Ralston searched the bag. It included some clothes and a few toiletry items, but that was all. Yatsko appeared to be getting ready to go to ground. There was probably a safe or a cache of some sort in the house with money, a weapon, and maybe even a few fake IDs with matching credit cards. Ralston was going to need some extra cash and he had no problem taking it from some two-bit Russian hood.
Lavrov had made some phone calls, trying to quietly pin down Yatsko’s whereabouts. The former FSB man had been seen briefly at several of his businesses, before disappearing for the rest of the afternoon. The man probably had a bunch of loose ends to tie up before falling off the grid. Ralston was glad he had managed to get to the house before the Russian disappeared for good. Now, all he had to do was wait.
After selecting an item from Yatsko’s impressive baseball memorabilia collection, Ralston found a seat and made himself comfortable. Less than two hours later, he heard a car enter the drive and pull around to the garage at the side of the house.
As the garage door went up, Ralston made his way to the window and watched as a black BMW turned around and backed into the garage. Yatsko was alone. That he was backing into his garage made no sense unless it was a security measure of some sort. Ralston stepped into the hallway off the kitchen near the door that led into the garage and made ready to welcome the Russian home.
The BMW rolled into the garage and its ignition was turned off as the garage door descended. Moments later, Ralston heard a door slam shut, followed by footfalls and then a code being punched into an alarm panel in the garage. When the door into the house opened, Ralston waited until the Russian had stepped all the way inside before swinging the bat.
It connected squarely with the Russian’s knees, and he screamed in agony as he collapsed to the floor.
Ralston pulled out a pair of plastic restraints from his pocket and quickly zip-tied the man’s hands behind his back.
“You’re dead,” Yatsko yelled through his clenched teeth. He had a thick accent. “I don’t know who you are, but you are dead!”
“That’s right,” Ralston said. “You don’t know who I am and you’re the one who’s going to be dead if you don’t shut your fucking mouth. Where’s the safe?”
“That’s what this is?” he groaned. “A robbery?”
Ralston kicked him hard in the side. “Where’s the safe, asshole?”
“Bedroom.”
Despite the man’s size, Ralston grabbed him by the collar and dragged him across the wooden floor to a hallway on the other side of the living room.
“Which one?”
“The last one,” said Yatsko. “On the left.”
Ralston dragged him into the bedroom and let go of him. The walls of the room were lined with fabric-covered panels. An ugly, overly large four-poster bed took up way too much space.
“Where?” demanded Ralston.
“Wherever you go, I’ll find you,” said the mobster. “I promise you.”
“The only thing I want to hear out of you,” said Ralston as he cranked the bat back and swung it hard at the man’s broken right kneecap, “is where the safe is and how to get into it.