- by Austin S. Camacho
It was the conversation with his woman that had
drained Hannibal. Cindy had received a block of stock as part of her
law firm's public offering. The stock had exploded and overnight, she
was wealthy. She didn't seem to notice that Hannibal, a working stiff
private investigator, was not comfortable with the dramatic
difference in their economic levels. Now she wanted him to help her
pick out a million-dollar home.
Meanwhile, Hannibal felt at home in his low-end
apartment building in a five-room railroad flat. He was part of a
real neighborhood and didn't think he would desert his neighbors even
if he won the lottery. He sighed and shook his head.
If he had any sense, he would be heading into his
apartment, but he needed to record his hours and expenses for the day
and that meant getting into his office on the other side of the hall.
As he unlocked his office door his foggy mind was busy berating him
for not proposing to Cindy as he had planned to do, just before he
learned of her windfall.
He had gotten as far as buying a ring. He had chosen
the words he would say. But by the time he had gathered his nerve she
was thrilled by the news of her sudden wealth. At the time it seemed
that news would overshadow a proposal. Besides, what did a rich woman
need with a husband? And, what did he really have to offer her?
Now he was telling himself that the money didn't
matter, that she respected him for who he was and what he did, not
for what he had.
That is why he was all the way into the room before he
realized that he was not alone. A man sitting at his desk was
pointing a pistol at him.
"Close the door behind you," said the man in
a thick, Eurasian accent.
Chapter -1-
Hannibal kept his eyes on the stranger as he pushed
the door closed. He could almost feel his irises widening, adjusting
to the darkness. The man behind the automatic had military-short
hair. His tight, angular face looked as if someone had assembled it
from a number of flat planes. The eyes were a sharp, piercing blue,
like ice chips set into the ruddy face. This man would think nothing
of killing Hannibal. The silencer attached to the barrel of his nine
millimeter Browning Hi-power said that he might even get away after
doing so.
"Remove your coat," the stranger said.
Hannibal considered the situation and decided that if this fellow
wanted him dead he already would be, so he had nothing to lose.
"Say please."
The stranger smiled then, a cold, hard smile, and
leaned back in Hannibal's chair. "Please."
Well, the man was at least being respectful. Hannibal
pulled off his coat and hung it on the coat rack beside the door.
"Now, with your middle finger and thumb lift that
Sig Sauer out of its holster and set it here on the desk. Please."
This man was very calm and well controlled. A
professional, not like the amateurs Hannibal dealt with earlier. That
knowledge put him more at ease. He might die tonight, but not because
of a jumpy gunman having a careless accident. Hannibal watched those
hard blue eyes as he reached under his right arm and pulled his gun
free of its holster. He placed it carefully on his desk in front of
the gunman. Interesting, Hannibal thought, that he was left-handed
too. With a nod, the other man turned on Hannibal's desk lamp. After
a second he waved the tip of his barrel at Hannibal's face.
"They are truly hazel, just as your file said."
He would be referring to Hannibal's eyes. But what
file was he talking about? Hannibal had no police record, except of
course as a past officer. He had never served in the military. And
not many people could get into his old Secret Service jacket. Now he
was more curious than worried.
"Look, I hope you won't consider this rude, but
this is my office after all. Just who the hell are you?"
The stranger motioned Hannibal into the guest chair.
"I am Aleksandr Dimitri Ivanovich. And you are Hannibal Jones,
the self-described troubleshooter, born in Frankfurt of an American
soldier and a German mother. Six years New York City Police
Department, three of them as a detective. Seven years in the Treasury
Department's Protective Service. Licensed investigator in Washington,
Virginia and Maryland."
"Okay, so you've done your homework,"
Hannibal said, unbuttoning his shirtsleeves. "Obviously you're
not just some casual burglar."
"Of course not. Do I look like a thief? It is
important that you know who I am, so that you will not make a foolish
mistake. I am in fact a professional assassin."
"Really," Hannibal said. "Killers don't
usually open up so easily. Freelance?"
"I do not simply work for the highest
bidder," Ivanovich said with an air of indignance. "I work
for what you would call the Red Mafiya. The Russian mob. So you see I
am in my way a troubleshooter as well."
Hannibal sat forward, his mouth suddenly dry. The
shadows behind Ivanovich seemed to grow taller and more menacing.
Hannibal's mind raced back through his most recent cases, searching
for an enemy who might be in the position to place an assignment in
this man's hands. Then he considered Russians or Eastern Europeans he
might have offended while doing his job. Ivanovich allowed him all
the silence he needed to consider and reject every possibility.
"I give up. Who sent you? Why are you here?"
Ivanovich surprised Hannibal with a charming smile,
although the gun's muzzle never wavered. "No one sent me here. I
have come to your office for the same reason most people do. I need
your help."
"My help? At gunpoint?"
Ivanovich lifted a photo album from under the chair
and placed it on the desk. He slid out an eight-by-ten
black-and-white photo and turned it to face Hannibal.
"This is Dani Gana, a wealthy Algerian, or so I
am told."
Hannibal took the face in. The man was darker than
Hannibal but his features were not African. He was aggressively
handsome, wearing a day's growth of beard and the kind of
self-possessed smirk that women are drawn to and men want to slap off
any face they see it on. Hannibal would have disliked him right away
if someone other than a hired killer had presented the picture. He
raised his eyes back to Ivanovich.
"I won't find your target for you."
Ivanovich shook his head. "I already know where
he is. I want to know who he really is, where he is from, where his
fortune came from, and why he is in Washington."
Hannibal crossed his legs. "So you just want me
to do a background investigation on this fellow. And no one is paying
you to kill him?"
"No."
"Then what makes him a person of interest for you?"
"His relationship with Viktoriya Petrova."
Hannibal took his time standing up in order to avoid
any threatening movement. He found his curiosity piqued despite
himself, and felt confident that he was in no real danger as long as
he didn't get too close to Ivanovich.
"There's a woman," Hannibal said. "That
means there's a story. How about some coffee?"
Ivanovich nodded, his lips pressed together. He looked
uncomfortable, maybe more so than Hannibal. After all, Hannibal had
had guns pointed at him plenty of times before. But Ivanovich looked
like a man who had rarely asked anyone for help and didn't like doing
it at all.
Hannibal took the coffee carafe from the machine on
the table beside his desk and headed toward the kitchen at the other
end of the five-room apartment that served as his office. Its rooms
formed one long space unless the pocket doors set in the walls were
pulled together to separate them. Ivanovich followed. As Hannibal
filled the carafe, he asked, "You have a relationship with this girl?"
"Viktoriya and I have a long history."
Ivanovich stood, stiff as a wooden soldier, in the
doorway to the kitchen. He held his gun close to his ribs, pointed at
Hannibal's chest. Once the carafe was full, Hannibal turned to face
him. "What has the girl to do with the man whose picture you
showed me?"
"They are engaged to be married."
Hannibal nodded and headed back through the apartment,
passing the bed in the room beside the kitchen. "So why aren't
you with her now?"
"There are times when one must lay low,"
Ivanovich answered, stepping around the heavy bag hanging from the
ceiling in the middle room. "This is one of those times."
They continued past the small table in what Hannibal
sometimes referred to as his conference room and into his office. He
poured the water into his coffee maker, wondering how close the
police might be to finding Ivanovich.
"Well, you must have been watching this guy for a
while to be able to get that picture of him," Hannibal said.
"Yes," Ivanovich said, pulling an airtight
canister from a shelf behind Hannibal and handing it to him. "I
was simply observing him, but as it turned out the FBI was watching
him also. I was spotted but escaped before the agent could call in backup."
Hannibal poured beans into the grinder side of his
coffee maker. It was a custom blend of Kenyan, Colombian, and
Guatemalan coffees prepared for him by The Coffee Mill in Rehoboth
Beach. It was much better than his captor deserved. He hated the fact
that the proposed case was beginning to interest him.
"So the FBI is also interested in this Gana,"
Hannibal said over the whine of the grinder. "Is he Russian mob too?"
Ivanovich paused at the same moment Hannibal did to
enjoy the fresh aroma that the grinder ripped from the beans. Then he
said, "I do not know. But Viktoriya's father was, before he
died. Nikita is no longer there to protect or advise her. She lives
with her mother, Raisa, now. She seemed secure there until this Gana
appeared in the city two months ago and leased Raisa's second home."
"Also in the District?"
"Yes. Both are in Woodley Park."
"Nice," Hannibal said, pouring his coffee.
"He must have plenty of cash to be staying up there. It sounds
like your Viktoriya will be well taken care of." He looked at
Ivanovich who nodded with a thin smile, so Hannibal poured a second cup.
"Perhaps." Ivanovich accepted the cup and
returned to Hannibal's desk chair. "But I fear he may have come
by the money dishonestly. If that is true, he could have worse
enemies than the FBI. And if someone is out there who wants to hurt
this man, Viktoriya could be hurt in the process. I will not allow
her to be put at risk."
Hannibal stood at his desk, considering this enigmatic
assassin and his request. Ivanovich was asking Hannibal to take a
case he was sure he would accept from a different client and maybe
from this man if they had not had this entire conversation at gunpoint.
"You really love her, don't you?"
"How could that matter to your investigation?"
"It has to do with your motives," Hannibal
said. "You must be desperate to be here, talking to a black
detective because you figure I can help you find out the truth about
a rich African foreigner. But why would I take your case? Do you
really think you can force me to investigate at gunpoint? I could
walk out that door and just keep going. Or, I could call the cops and
let them come in here and yank you out. Why on earth would I invest
any of my time and energy into helping you stalk this girl who
doesn't appear to need help or to be interested in you at all?"
Ivanovich's voice deepened and became a bit harder, as
if he wanted to be very sure that Hannibal understood him clearly.
"Because, my arrogant friend, I have very competent associates watching Miss Cintia Santiago, associate at Baylor, Truman, and Ray and daughter of Reynaldo Santiago who lives upstairs from you. My associates are invisible, obedient, and deadly. If you fail to find the answers I need about Dani Gana, your beloved Cintia Santiago will die."
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