Psycho Within Us (The Psycho Series Book 2) by Chad Huskins

sighed.  “Look, I gotta be outta here in like ten minutes.  So could you just not…?”
    “P-p-please…please, I have money!  Lots of it!  You see what I can afford!  I can pay you!  I can pay you enough to…to…to fix your face!” he rushed to say.  “T-to run away from these people at Interpol!  Enough m-m-money to find these men from Bangladesh!  I can gi—”
    “ Money to find them,” said the gunmen.  “Meaning you don’t actually have anymore info about where they are, and you don’t know how to find them?”
    “I-I-I didn’t mean—”
    “I’m just tryin’ to be specific here.  Do you know where these men are, right now, right this very instant, or not?”
    “N-not right this—”
    “So you’re tryin’ to buy yourself some time.”
    “N-n-n-no—”
    “No?  You’re not trying to buy time?  You don’t wanna live?”
    “I-I mean da!  Da!   Yes!   I mean…I can help you.  I can…I can help you.”  Remember your training , Zakhar told himself.  Breathe .  Just breathe, and stay calm .  Remember your training .  You were a soldier .  Zakhar’s tears stopped at once, he dammed them up and bit his tongue to reinstate control.  He listened to the gunman take a few footsteps around to his right side, then around to his left.  “Th-there’s money.  Thousands of rubles in my drawer, as well as other currencies.  U.S. dollars, too!”
    “Which drawer?   Where?”
    “My armoire,” he said, breathing a sigh of relief.  I have him thinking rationally .  “Top drawer.  It’s in a large steel suitcase.”
    “In case you eve r had to hit the road fast, huh?”
    “Yes…yes, it’s true.  Everything you’ve said.  It’s all true.  But you said you don’t care about the merchandise, so you can take the money.  It’s all yours.” No more stuttering now.  Zakhar was back in control, and he believed the gunman was on track, too.  His tone sounded more equitable now.
    “Steel suitcase.  Top drawer.”
    “ Da .”
    More pacing from behind.  Then, the gunman started speaking again.  “Ya know, in Derbent, I got a hold of this one fucker named Andrei.  Andrei Ankundinov,” he laughed.  “He wasn’t a brother to Dmitry or anything, not even blood, but he was family through marriage some kinda way.  Anyhow, Andrei was into boostin’ cars, like me.  He’s the one I approached first when I started to peg which Ankundinovs were which—they’re not quite like Johnsons or Joneses over there in Derbent, but the last name is popular enough.  I hooked up with Andrei, found out he was an alcoholic, an’ I know the quickest way to an alcoholic’s heart is to buy the rounds, drive him home an’ don’t tell the rest of his family.
    “So I did just that, an’ enough times that he introduced me to some o’ his pals.  In less than two months, I’d already met everyone involved in Northeast Siberian Shipping, even if I hadn’t shaken their hands.  Got invited to a poker game—that was the first time I heard your name bein’ tossed around.  Along with a bunch o’ other bullshit about La Eme and The Court of Lepers.  But I took note, and kept playin’ my cards.  Later that night, though, Andrei was all set to head to a neighborhood outside o’ town, to do a dead-drop and a pickup for some cats owed him and his family money.  That night, as he was hopping in his Jag, Andrei said, ‘You come with me, Yank.’  That’s what they called me for the three months I was in Derbent: The Yank .
    “I rode with him outside o’ town, and this is when I made my move.  See, it’s not always about rushing the moment, or trying t o force a moment to happen.  Nah, see, sometimes it’s about waiting for that right moment.  This was that night.  This was that moment.  Andrei was shitfaced drunk, I mean just fuckin’ hammered, and so I took the wheel for most o’ the drive.  I pulled over under the pretense that I needed to take a piss, an’ I knew