KERRI'S WAR (Volume 3 of The King Trilogy)

CHAPTER 25

        Geneva. Same day. Six P.M.

A cold drizzle fell on Lentz as he exited the front door of his office building. He extended his black umbrella, hurried to his black Mercedes c240 parked at the rear of the building, threw his briefcase and umbrella onto the front seat, then followed both into the car. He drove onto an east bound lane of Quai du General-Guison, continued almost two kilometers, then slowed as he prepared to turn left onto Quai Gustave Ador. A sudden and violent jolt thrust the back of his bald head against his head rest. He hit the brakes and glanced at his rear view mirror to see the large stainless steel grill of a truck, inches from the rear bumper of his Mercedes.

"Shite!" he shouted, annoyed that his car was likely damaged, and that his beloved Friday evening was ruined. He hurried from his car to examine the damage.

The colliding vehicle, a red International 4200 flat bed tow truck, was driven by Sergei Tarasov. Accompanying him was Dmitri, his twin brother. Both were six foot five inch blond haired giants. Now in their late thirties, the Tarasov brothers were guns for hire, now living on the fringe of obscurity and the law. They had been Soviet Army specialists in the act of covert killing, earning their bones in the Chechen Wars. Their birth place was Minsk, formerly part of the U.S.S.R., now the capital of Belarus. Their home was now in Munich, in southern Germany. The giants exited their truck and approached Lentz.

"Look what you've done!" Lentz shrieked, glaring in anger at the compressed rear of his Mercedes.

With cat quickness Dmitri moved to capture Lentz in a tight bear hug, then jabbed a syringe into his right buttock. The methohexitol worked quickly, robbing Lentz of consciousness. Dmitri smirked as he held Lentz in a vertical position while walking him to the right rear door of his Mercedes. He opened the door and deposited his victim inside. The brothers hurried to hoist the Mercedes onto the flat bed, and secure it with chains. They started their long drive by heading east on Quai Gustav Ador.

After six hours of non stop driving they stopped in front of a massive metal sliding door of what appeared to be an empty red bricked warehouse in Munich. Surgei honked twice and the door opened. Within sixty seconds, Lentz was moved to the cab of the tow truck, his Mercedes was removed from the flat bed, and the brothers were on the road again. Inside the warehouse was a fully equipped and very active body shop. A crew of four men, working feverishly, completely dismantled the Mercedes, crated the parts, and shipped them to Moscow.

Surgei drove the red International until he brought it to a stop in front of of a large decaying wooden barn located on an abandoned farm, near Bad Reichenhall, sixty kilometers south east of Munich.

The turn around took fifteen minutes. The brothers used the tow truck to haul an aging mustard colored Russian ME-8 helicopter from the barn. While Surgei deposited the truck in the barn, Dmitri gave Lentz a booster shot, then carried him and his briefcase to the helicopter. Seconds later, Sergei, a skilled pilot, flew the craft into the night sky.

Makhachkala, Russia.

Lentz, conscious but groggy, his hands and legs securely tied to the musty single bed on which he laid, turned his head to scan his surroundings. He saw a twenty foot by twenty foot room with one small window, unpainted concrete block walls, and a wood raftered ceiling. A rusted metal door guarded the entrance. The only source of light, in addition to the window, was a single light bulb, hanging from a black cord and swaged from the wall through one of the rafters. A rusting metal table sat less than a foot from his left shoulder. He shivered, even though the air was warm and humid. He was still dressed in his black silk suit.