Chapter Seventeen

Diego and I didn't speak for most of the trip. It was a long ten hours. Both our pride and jaws were a little sore. As we got close to Viktor's, Diego caved.

"Alright, amigo. Enough with the silent treatment. We got shit to do, and we need to have our heads in the game. Comprende?"

"Yeah, and about that old man comment, asshole. I only got you by three years and can still whip your ass, so don't forget that."

He just shook his head. If Diego and I ever decided to go at, we would both end up injured, if not dead, but we knew it would never happen.

"Check with Viktor on the status of our supplies. We don't want to get there and find out we don't have what we need. We have quite a bit in the trunk, but the more firepower, the better. We have no idea who or how many we'll be going up against," he said.

I nodded in agreement and dialed Viktor's number. It rang and went to voicemail. All I said was "call me."

Another thirty minutes passed and no reply from Viktor, so I called him again, and the call went to voicemail again. This time, my response was a little more urgent, "What's going on? Give me a call."

Something wasn't right. There were a couple of reasons Viktor would not answer the phone, and none of them were good. Another hour passed, and we were about two hours out from Viktor's place, and the phone rang. It was Viktor, and I answered.

"Hello," came the voice. It was a woman.

"Hello, who is this?"

"This is Ilyana, I am Viktor's wife," she said in broken English.

"Ilyana, this is John Hunter. Where is Viktor?"

"I do not know. He has not come home and told me to call you if he does not," she said with a concerned tone in her voice.

"Where did he go?"

"I do not know, He didn't say. He tells me to call if he does not come home." That was all she could say.

"Ok, we are coming to you. Are you home?"

"Yes, I am home. Come quickly. I worry," she said and then ended the call.

Diego only heard my side of the conversation, but it was enough to know there was a problem.

"That was Ilyana. Viktor's not home yet. He's been gone for a while and told her to call me if he didn't come home."

"Shit. What do we do now? Does she know where he went?"

"No, that's the problem. She doesn't."

"Well, no need in wasting any more time," as he pushed his foot to the floor, causing us to accelerate to 100 mph.

"I'm going to call Nataliy, as much as I hate to."

I dialed Nataliy's number, and he answered, "John Hunter, how are you, my friend?"

"Not good, Nataliy. Our friend, Viktor is missing. I was calling to ask if you know anything?"

"No. We leave Viktor alone now. I will call people and call you back." He hung up.

"Nataliy doesn't know anything,"

"Anyone else you can call?"

"I could try Global or Agent Harper, which I'm not too keen on doing."

"I think Global's your best bet. The last interaction we had with the FBI didn't go too well."

I picked up the satellite phone and dialed the number. Three rings later, Jones answered.

"Mr. Hunter, what is the reason for the late call?"

"Our friend Viktor was acquiring certain items for us and has gone missing. I was hoping you might be able to help figure out where he is."

"We haven't been watching Mr. Kreschenko, so I am unable to tell you anything at this point."

"Can you make some calls and find out if anyone knows anything?"

"Yes, but I cannot guarantee results. I'll see what I can do."

"Both are a bust, Diego. All we can do is get there as soon as possible and try to find something out. Nataliy and Jones will be checking from their ends and will get back to us if they hear anything. I think we're on our own on this one."

I decided against calling Agent Harper. I am sure he had suspicions about us. Nobody walks away from murder and federal weapons charges without someone pulling some heavy-duty strings. He was also the curious type, which bothered me. I hoped he would not start poking his nose into places they didn't belong. I didn't feel he was a threat to either Diego or me, but if he ruffled the wrong people's feathers, he might not fare too well. Organizations like Global and the Russian Mafia didn't like people getting curious about their business dealings. Both had shown me they weren't beyond eliminating those who threatened them, and I didn't want that to happen to Agent Harper. I kind of liked the guy.

With Diego driving, we arrived at Viktor's home, and Ilyana came out to greet us. She was either naive or way too trusting and didn't realize what Viktor was doing or had done in his past. I got out and introduced myself.

"Ilyana, I'm John Hunter, Viktor's friend."

She walked right up to me and slapped me in the face, which caught me off guard. "You are the fault of Victor not here. He try to help you and now he not home," she screamed.

"Whoa there. Easy. I don't know what Viktor told you, but he was going to pick up a few things for us, yes, but I don't know any more than you do."

I could tell she was mad, but she was also having difficulty understanding my English. Viktor hadn't taught her much, and now we were stuck with a language barrier. I pulled my phone from my pocket and called Nataliy. "Nataliy, John Hunter. I was wondering if you could translate for us with Viktor's wife. She doesn't speak much English, and we're trying to figure out where Viktor went."

"John Hunter, I have news for you. Viktor looking for weapons. He contacted other Russians who say BelyyaPrava take him and want money."

"Ok, Nataliy. We can't tell her that. We can only tell her we will look for him. Otherwise, she will freak out, and we can't have that."

I handed the phone to Ilyana who started stammering in Russian and then stopped talking, answering in an occasional Da or Net. After a couple of minutes, she handed the phone back to me, and Nataliy spoke, "I have told her that we are Viktor's friends and that we will look for him, but she must stay home near the phone. She is Ispugannaya malen'kaya ptichka, how you say, scared little bird."

She turned toward me and said, "Spasibo--umm--sank you." She went back to the house.

"Ok, Nataliy. She is back in the house again. What's going on?"

"The BelyyaPrava have Viktor and want a lot of money for his return. I do not think they know he is your friend. Otherwise, they kill him. We must wait. When she calls, you call me and then I translate, Da?"

"That will work, Nataliy. Until then, we wait. Hopefully, it won't be too long."

I could only think of one place in the area that was semi-safe, Viktor's cabin, and I wasn't quite sure how to get there at night. Had it been during the day, I could've found it, but mountain roads at night can be deceiving. I told Diego about my idea of finding the cabin, and he recommended we find a hotel, at least for tonight. We could go to the cabin in the morning and wait for Ilyana's call.

I pulled up the GPS on my phone and did a search for hotels and motels in the area. The closest was a fleabag motel a few miles away. It didn't matter. We needed a bed and a place to lay low for the night. When we arrived, it was shady looking, but we had both been in worse situations. The Hilton, it wasn't.

We checked in, asked for a room in the back, paid cash plus a little extra to not be bothered. The clerk was a local hillbilly type, and with an additional hundred dollars in his hand, he didn't ask any questions. We unloaded the car, making sure nobody was watching and crashed for the night. We both woke at sunrise and were starving. We loaded up the car and dropped the key at the office. Nobody was awake so better for us.

There was a little restaurant down the road, and we ordered breakfast. For a mom-and-pop place, the food wasn't too bad, but maybe a little too greasy for my tastes. As we were finishing our breakfast, my phone rang, and it was Nataliy.

"John Hunter. I have good news and bad news. Viktor is being held in a little town outside Atlanta, Georgia by BelyyaPrava. Bad news it is compound and well-protected. It is about four hours from you if you are still near Viktor's home."

"Yes, we are. Do you have any more information about the compound?"

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"Net. I do not. BelyyaPrava not happy with us at the moment. We stop helping with financial support because nephew dead and traitor in our organization. We have told them no more help until we fix problem. They give us no information. We can fix problem, but I do not want war with them, John Hunter."

"So, we're on our own then. Is that what you're saying?"

"Da, sorry, John Hunter. I can help no more on this."

"Thank you for what you have done, Nataliy. At least we know where he is, almost. I will be in contact. Let me know if Ilyana calls."

"You are welcome, John Hunter. I will call you when I know something," he said and hung up the phone.

"Diego, here's the sitrep. Viktor is being held at a BelyyaPrava compound outside Atlanta, but we're not exactly sure where. That's all Nataliy could tell me. I'm not sure a lot of other people would know except Agent Harper. The FBI tracks white-supremacist groups all over the U.S., and he might be able to give us some insight or maybe even some actionable intel. Whether he will or not, is a different story. I'll have to tread lightly with him on this one."

"Damn, bro. So, let me see if I got this straight. The Russians can't help us, Global can't help us, and only the FBI can, but we don't know if they will. This shit keeps getting more fucked up. I guess you're going to have to make that call."

"Before we do anything else, let's hit Viktor's cabin and see what we can find. I'm sure he left more there, but I didn't check the last time I was there."

We drove the backroads to Viktor's cabin and had to walk the entire mile to the cabin from the road. The rental would not have made the trek. We arrived at the cabin and searched the whole site. We didn't find anything, and then I remembered I had seen something odd in the woods about 30 yards from the house. I wasn't sure what it was at the time, plus I had the Russians breathing down my neck. That didn't help my curiosity factor. As we looked for the area I had seen, the satellite phone rang. I answered, and it was Jones.

"Mr. Hunter, I have some not so good news for you. Even with what we know, we don't know a whole lot about this compound you mentioned. We think we know where it is, and I'm sending someone to verify, but we can't risk exposure getting too close to them now. This will have to be done by you and you alone."

"I appreciate you looking into it, but I guess we'll have to find another way. We will talk later." I hung up.

Diego spotted the area I had described and looked around. If Viktor were to have hidden something here, it would be underground considering the terrain. We moved the brush around, and Diego found a handle to what appeared to be a hatch of some sort. My gut instinct told me Viktor had buried something here. After much straining, cursing, and sweating, we managed to pry open the lid to a large steel box buried for who knew how long. Inside was ten one-pound blocks of C-4 and detonators, a few pistols, a couple hundred rounds of ammo, and variety of grenades. There was a bag inside which we used to carry the stuff to the car. We now had the means to blow the front door off the compound, if necessary. It was Christmas time for Diego.

Making our way out to the main highway, headed for Atlanta, I fought with myself. I didn't want to call Agent Phil Harper asking for anything. All this call would do is spark more curiosity in him, which is something we didn't want, but we are not always given the best choices in life.

I pulled his business card from my wallet and called using my spare burner phone. I knew there was a good reason to keep it.

"Special Agent Harper."

"Agent Harper, John Hunter here." There was silence from the line for a few seconds.

"How can I help you, Mr. Hunter?" he asked, seeming distant.

"Phil, first I want to thank you for what you did in helping me get away from those bad people, and again, for not trying to have me thrown under the bus."

Again, there was silence.

"So how can I help you today, Mr. Hunter?" he asked again, and I could tell his attitude toward me was cold disdain.

"I need your help with something, and I can't discuss it over the phone."

"I'll be glad to assist you. If you can tell me the nature of your complaint, I will fill out the appropriate paperwork and consider the matter."

"Phil, this is urgent. The BelyyaPrava are holding our friend Viktor somewhere near Atlanta, and I need information."

"Our friend? I don't know who Viktor is, and I'm sorry, but I don't believe there is information I can provide you with to assist you."

Damn, he's going to be a tough nut to crack.

"Will you at least agree to meet with me, so I can tell you what is going on?"

"If you stop by our office, we'll be glad to discuss it with you, whatever it is."

In the background, Diego said, "Tell the fuckhead if he wants to know how we beat the charges, he can meet with us and I'll tell him everything. That is if he has the cajones."

Diego always had a way with words, and they didn't fall on deaf ears.

"You can tell Mr. Montoya, who I assume said that. I'll meet with you. However, if during this official investigation, I find he is lying to me, I will have both of you brought up on charges of lying to a federal agent, obstruction of justice, impeding an investigation, and any other charges I can get to stick."

I told Diego what he said, and he laughed, and said, "In your dreams, baby!" which Agent Harper heard.

"Where are you now? I will make arrangements to meet with you," he said, upset with Diego's comment.

"We are about four hours outside of Atlanta, where I assume you'll be flying in. You call us when you get here, and we'll give you exact directions. Don't worry, you'll walk away from this with more than came here with." I hung up the phone.

"Diego, you're an asshole, but that shit actually worked."

Diego smiled. "I knew it would, amigo. Those feds are so full of themselves. He was wet behind the ears when we were doing this full time. I knew he wouldn't like having his pride insulted. 'Oh, I'm an FBI agent...I'm big and tough, I went through the FBI academy,'" he said in a mocking tone and smirk on his face, "Fuck bro, it would've been like a vacation for us."

Diego was right. Harper had fallen for the bait, and I was hoping he would be cooperative, once we told him what we could do for him.

We had no intel on the compound and had to wait for Harper. We also had to wait for information from Nataliy about Viktor's ransom, if there was one. For all we knew, Viktor was dead, and they would try to get money from his wife. Their actions reminded me of the third world pirate organizations that had once run out of Somalia, another hellhole on this planet.

A few hours passed, and my phone rang. It was Nataliy.

"I spoke with Ilyana, and they want $2,000,000 for his safe return. They think he is arms dealer and believes he has money."

"Viktor? An arms dealer? Are they stupid?"

"I think stupid is too good for them. Da? I think they are idiots. Arms dealer, me, maybe. Your friend too stupid to be arms dealer. You no take offense."

"None taken,"

Yeah, Viktor is too stupid to be an arms dealer.

"So, what next?"

"They want money in forty-eight hours, or Viktor dies."

"That doesn't leave us a whole lot of time since we don't even know where they're keeping him, and even if we did, we don't know anything about the compound or numbers or anything."

"Da. That is true, John Hunter. I have no more information for you. No one is talking about BelyyaPrava. I will try more and call back."

Less than an hour later, my phone rang again, and it was Agent Harper. "Where are you?"

We are about an hour away from the Georgia/Tennessee border. We will meet you at the Hometown Inn in Ringgold, Georgia, and we hung up. Diego called ahead to book a room, and it was ready when we arrived. I texted Harper with the room number. We sat down to wait.

This was going to be fun. There is nothing like getting the third degree from a pissed off FBI agent, but we needed his help.

An hour later came a knock on the door. Diego answered, and the look Agent Harper gave him would've turned most people to stone. Diego, on the other hand, smiled and welcomed him in. Harper was not pleased.

"Mr. Hunter, Mr. Montoya, you better have a damn good reason for making me fly all this way."

"Yeah, we think it's a damn good reason."

"Go on. Help me understand why you couldn't tell me over the phone. After that little debacle with your charges, I'm not too fond of either of you. I still want to know how you managed to pull that one off and before you say anything, I did some digging into your backgrounds before all this blew up in my face. I know you served on the teams together, but I couldn't even get ahold of your full record. Someone in D.C. is protecting you, and I can't for the life of me, figure out why. That's the only reason I'm here. Something doesn't smell right, and I want to find out what it is, so don't think I'm here to help you. Are we clear?"

Diego and I had talked about what we were going to say to Agent Harper and figured the truth, minus the part about the money would be everything we would need to get Harper to help us.

"Crystal," we both said.

"So, what is it?"

"Are you sure you want to hear this, Agent Harper?"

"Of course, I do. I didn't come all this way for nothing. Why in hell wouldn't I?" His face flushed with anger.

"Because what I'm about to tell you could get you and everyone you know killed and not by us. So, now, knowing that, are you sure you want to know?" I asked, with as grave a face as I had ever had with him.

I could tell he was contemplating the truth of my statement and sighed.

"Agent Harper...Phil. Look, all we want to do is get our friend, Viktor, out of that compound. I need to know what you know about it. Where it is, how big, number of people, layout, anything you can tell me. I know the FBI collects data on all the white-supremacist groups in the U.S. and all I'm asking is for that information on this one compound. I'm not asking you to help me any more than that. We have less than forty hours to either come up with two million dollars or get him out ourselves. We don't like either option. If I tell you any more, there is a possibility that if anyone, and I mean anyone finds out you know, you'll more than likely end up dead. I most certainly won't tell anyone I told you and neither will Diego, so if you make that mistake and tell someone you know, you'll be the cause of your own death. We are not dealing with small players. These people have people in government, corporations, and connections with influential people, and that's only half of who we are dealing with."

The look on his face told me he knew I wasn't lying to him or trying to scare him.

He sighed again, "All I know is the location of the compound, and approximately how many people. Where they are located, satellites have a hard time getting composite shots with any reliability. We have some recent ground footage, but if I accessed it would set off warning bells. I have been told to back off and let it go, but I'm having a hard time with that."

"Whatever you can give us will help and here's what I'll give you. By the time we are done, you'll have a legal reason to go into the compound. I would recommend you contact ATF and maybe even DEA, knowing the BelyyaPrava, they will probably have both guns and drugs on site."

"You'll receive an anonymous call telling you something is going down at the compound. If what you said is true, by the time you convince your superiors to allow you to do anything, we will have made it possible for you to enter the compound legally and be long gone. Otherwise, we're dead men."

I could tell he wasn't sure how to handle this situation. If he didn't do anything, he would be remiss in his responsibilities as a federal agent. If he did something, he would be risking his job, trying to convince his superiors that entering the compound, based on an anonymous call, was the right decision, even after he was told to leave it alone.

"And what if you die?"

"Then you don't have to do anything. We'll be dead, and you can continue on with your career as if this meeting never happened."

"John, I'm going to take a chance here and believe what you're telling me," as he handed me a packet of information, "here's the information on the compound, including some information on the leaders known to associate with this location. It is all we have. We suspect they have about thirty to forty people living there or are in and out of there at any given time. These are rough estimates. Ever since Ruby Ridge and Waco, we have had to exercise extreme caution on how we approach these fringe groups, from a rights perspective, which sucks. If they're not breaking any laws, that we know of, there's not a whole lot we can do."

"And what if you had probable cause to go in?"

"Should I ask how you could make that happen?"

"Probably not. The less you know, the better."

"Then I'm in."