Chapter 13 - The Iron Tide at Brighton Beach
By ten o’clock that night,
the darkness over southern Brooklyn was thick and oppressive,
smelling of dead fish,
diesel fuel,
and the salt brine of the Atlantic Ocean.
Brighton Beach,
the fortified enclave of the Russian mafia,
lay nestled beneath the elevated subway tracks,
its Cyrillic neon signs buzzing erratically against the foggy night sky.
The Tsar’s Palace was the beating heart of Dmitri Kolov’s criminal enterprise.
It was a sprawling,
three-story restaurant and nightclub lined with red velvet,
crystal chandeliers,
and mirrored columns,
where the Russian oligarchs,
corrupt politicians,
and high-ranking Vor v Zakone met to divide the spoils of their rackets.
Tonight,
the atmosphere inside the nightclub was tense,
brittle,
and suffocating.
News of the massacre on Park Avenue,
the incinerated terminal in Elizabeth,
and the sudden execution of Salvatore Varga had sent shockwaves through the Russian underworld.
Two dozen heavily armed mercenaries in leather overcoats paced the boardwalk outside,
their submachine guns hidden beneath their jackets,
guarding the perimeter against the Italian ghost who had returned from retirement.
In the alleyway across the street,
hidden in the pitch-black shadow of the elevated train line,
four unmarked black SUVs sat idling with their headlights extinguished.
I sat in the rear of the command vehicle,
watching the entrance of the Tsar’s Palace through a high-resolution tactical monitor.
Beside me,
Marco was loading drum magazines for his automatic combat shotgun,
each heavy shell sliding into the steel cylinder with a crisp,
satisfying click.
In the front passenger seat,
Santino was checking the radio frequencies of the local precinct.
“The police dispatch is dead,”
Santino reported,
turning his scarred face toward me.
“Captain Henderson pulled every patrol car out of Brighton Beach thirty minutes ago.
He claimed there was a major gas leak five miles north in Sheepshead Bay.
We have the entire sector to ourselves for ninety minutes.”
“And the financial vaults?”
I asked.
“Beneath the main dining floor,”
Marco replied,
setting the loaded drum into his weapon.
“Kolov’s private accountants have been shredding documents all evening.
They’re preparing to move forty million dollars in bearer bonds and untraceable diamonds out of the country via a Panamanian cargo ship docked at the naval yard.”
I looked down at my watch.
Ten-fifteen.
“Dmitri Kolov is not inside,”
I stated,
already knowing the truth from the surveillance feeds.
“No,”
Santino confirmed.
“Kolov fled to his fortified estate on the cliffs of Kings Point this afternoon.
He left his primary accountant,
Ilya Rostova,
and thirty mercenaries here to clean out the assets and burn the paper trail.”
I reached beside me,
picking up my heavy overcoat and pulling it over my shoulders.
“A general who abandons his men to die while he hides behind stone walls has already lost his war,”
I said coldly.
“Take the building.
Seize the bonds and the diamonds.
Every dollar that leaves that basement goes to the Carter Foundation.
And anyone who raises a rifle against you...
leave them on the boardwalk for the morning tide.”
Santino’s eyes gleamed with lethal enthusiasm.
He tapped the radio on his tactical vest.
“Strike team alpha and beta,”
Santino commanded into the microphone.
“Breach the perimeter.
Show no quarter.”
The night exploded into violence.
The two lead SUVs accelerated across Brighton Beach Avenue,
their reinforced steel bull-bars smashing directly through the decorative wrought-iron gates of the Tsar’s Palace.
Before the Russian sentries on the boardwalk could raise their weapons,
Santino’s snipers,
positioned on the roof of an abandoned laundromat across the street,
fired in perfect synchronization.
Muffled cracks echoed through the fog,
and four Russian guards collapsed instantly onto the wooden planks of the boardwalk,
their weapons clattering uselessly against the timber.
The heavy plate-glass doors of the nightclub shattered into a million glittering shards as Santino’s assault team breached the foyer,
detonating tactical stun grenades that filled the opulent interior with blinding white light and deafening thunder.
Screams erupted from the dining room as the Russian guards,
dazed and disoriented,
blindly returned fire into the smoke.
I stepped through the shattered entrance of the Tsar’s Palace,
unhurried,
untouchable,
the smell of cordite and burning velvet filling my lungs.
Around me,
the firefight was brief and merciless.
Santino’s veterans moved with surgical discipline,
clearing the mezzanine and sweeping the bar,
suppressed fire systematically putting down every shooter who attempted to resist.
Within four minutes,
the gunfire ceased.
The dining room was a ruin of shattered crystal,
upturned tables,
and overturned caviar dishes.
In the center of the dance floor,
kneeling amidst the debris,
sat Ilya Rostova.
He was a thin,
middle-aged man with gold-rimmed spectacles,
wearing an expensive Italian three-piece suit that was now stained with soot and perspiration.
Clutched in his trembling hands was a heavy aluminum briefcase.
Marco stepped forward,
snatching the briefcase from Rostova’s grip,
and popped the latches.
Inside,
stacked in neat,
velvet-lined trays,
were rows of cut diamonds,
bundles of Swiss bearer bonds,
and the master encryption keys to Kolov’s European bank accounts.
“Forty-two million,”
Marco muttered,
whistling softly under his breath.
I walked to where Rostova knelt,
looking down at the terrified accountant.
The man was shaking so violently his glasses slipped from his nose,
shattering against the floor.
“Mister Castellano...
I am just a numbers man,”
Rostova shrieked in Russian,
then switched to broken English.
“I do not shoot guns!
I do not hurt people!
Please,
have mercy!”
I leaned down,
retrieving a stray piece of paper from the floor—a receipt for the shipping container meant to smuggle Kolov’s wealth to Cyprus.
“Where is Dmitri Kolov?”
I asked softly.
Rostova gulped,
his eyes darting toward the smoldering ruins of the bar.
“He is at the Kings Point compound,”
Rostova blurted out without hesitation.
“He has his private security team,
twenty ex-special forces soldiers.
A Sikorsky helicopter is scheduled to land on his private helipad at midnight to take him to a private airfield in upstate New York!
From there,
a jet is fueled for Moscow!”
I stood up,
handing the paper to Marco.
“Midnight,”
I mused,
checking the face of my watch.
It was ten-twenty-five.
“We have ninety minutes to drive to Kings Point.”
I looked down at Rostova one last time.
“Tell me,
accountant,”
I said.
“Did Kolov mention Emma Carter before he ran to his fortress?”
Rostova shook his head frantically,
tears carving lines through the dust on his cheeks.
“No!
He only said...
he said you were a demon who wouldn't stop until all of us were dead!”
I turned and walked back toward the shattered doors of the palace.
“He was right about one thing,”
May you like
I said into the smoke.
“I will not stop.”
