Operation Hell Gate - Marc Cerasini [21]
Icing on the cake for Georgi this night — the satellite broadcast had just ended and the Bulgarian soccer team, heavily favored in the match, had lost to the Armenians — which meant a big payoff for Georgi, who almost always bet on the underdog. He'd brewed some tea in his private samovar in celebration.
Then, eight minutes ago, the men in the long blue coats arrived and spoiled Georgi's evening. They'd come through the door silently, not speaking to anyone, not even one another. They ignored old toothless Yuri, who always sat by the entrance nursing his beer, hand extended to anyone who entered in the hope someone would spot him another one.
Without even a glance at Beru, who swayed topless on stage to some mindless hip-hop song, the men sat down together in one of the booths along the wall. With a professional eye, Georgi noted that's exactly the place he would have chosen. From that booth the men could watch the crowd at the pool tables and keep a watchful eye on Alexi near the cash register, and Nicolo drawing beers behind the bar.
Olga sauntered over and tried to engage the men in a little flirtatious banter, but failed to elicit more than a mumbled demand for a pitcher and four mugs — another bad sign.
Now the men had finished their beers and were stirring. They stood when Georgi rose from his chair behind the bar to fill his teacup at the steaming samovar. As the men approached him, Georgi turned his back to them as he sweetened his tea. He could feel their eyes watching him, and the base of his spinetingled — one of the many danger instincts he'd acquired as a juvenile delinquent in his native Ukraine thirty years ago.
In those days the dangers were the police or the KGB — a branch of the Soviet intelligence apparatus directed against Western espionage, but always eager to imprison a fellow member of the Soviet brotherhood for dealing in U.S. dollars, which Georgi and his peers in the mob did on a regular basis — how else was one to grow prosperous in a Soviet state were the national currency was worth less than the paper it was printed on?
Fortunately for Georgi, America was fertile ground for the kind of criminal enterprises he'd practiced in the old Soviet Union. So when the Iron Curtain rose and the KGB files were opened to the public, certain information Georgi had provided to the secret police came to light. That information proved damning to Georgi's rivals in the Ukrainian Mafia, many of whom were sent to Siberia. A few others — particularly nasty sorts, in Georgi's estimation — ended their lives facedown in a filthy prison shower, a KGB officer's bullet placed behind their ear, solely on the evidence he had provided.
Unfortunately, those men had relatives, friends, and criminal associates. When the truth was revealed, many sought revenge — and so Georgi was forced to emigrate in a hurry.
Here in America, he was able to start anew in a less economically repressive world. In America the police were much less of a problem, and a fascist organization like the KGB nonexistent. There were, of course, dangers. But here in America, here in Georgi's adopted country, that danger came courtesy of four young gangsters wearing dusters on a warm summer night.
Georgi shot a glance at Alexi. The bouncer seemed prepared, his beefy hand poised to reach for the bulge in his safari jacket.
Well, I certainly hope he's ready, Georgi mused, though at times poor Alexi is a little slow.
Georgi always had a soft spot in his hard heart for veterans of the Afghan war, though he despised Russians in general. Only now, at this tense moment, did it occur to him that his compassion might cause his death this night.
So be it.
With a degree of fatalism,