Free Expiration Date by Eric Wilson Page A

an air conditioner rattled without zeal. “You act like you carry the world on your shoulders.”
    “Russian men have a need for greatness. We are born with this.”
    “In Cuba”—the man puffed his chest and grabbed his crotch—“we are born with other needs.” He guffawed, dropping into the overstuffed couch. He tapped a cigarette from a pack on the cushion beside him, lit up with extravagant pleasure. “So, amigo, I have found the information you asked for. The man you are seeking, he lives in Fort Lauderdale. I’m sure, at his age, he wishes only to be left in peace.”
    “Peace. Everyone wants peace.”
    “It’s a noble thing. We have enough trouble in this world,
sí
?”
    “It’s a false peace if it comes without cost.”
    Juan’s chuckle turned into a cough. He waved through the cigarette smoke, as if this could cure his congestion. “Do you want the man’s information?
Aquí …
Here. Does this satisfy your request? If so, we have money to exchange.”
    Dmitri took the offered CD. At the corner table he made space for his laptop by shoving aside a stack of local newspapers and a half-eaten bag of Cheetos. He opened the only file on the disk, scanned the contents, felt a surge of triumph.
    “So,” Juan said from the couch, “I think you owe me another five thousand dollars. American greenbacks, of course. None of your Russian play money.”
    Play money? He mocks my motherland
.
    Dmitri folded his laptop. “Da. You’ve done an excellent job. Speak to my partner to arrange the payment, and he’ll tell you where to go.” He pretended to place a call, then stretched his phone toward Juan. Aimed it toward his ear.
    “Hermano, I thought that you—”
    “You can go to your grave!”
    With a thumb pressed over the keypad and an index finger on the powerbutton, Dmitri Derevenko triggered a hidden mechanism. At close range, a .22-caliber bullet exploded from its chamber, slammed through the Cuban’s shaved skull. His eyes went blank even as his head keeled to the side. A final burst of brain activity brought his arm to his mouth, thus crushing the cigarette against his lips. The burning object popped free from his fingers. Landed on the cushions.
    Beside the glowing ember, Dmitri set a copy of the
Orlando Sentinel
. When tongues of flame began licking at the corpse’s baggy black jeans, the Russian stepped into the hall to remove the smoke detector’s battery. He shook his head.
    Arson. A dead illegal alien. Another botched drug deal, or so it would seem.
    Nothing more than a footnote in Orlando’s unsolved case files.

    With the quiet of a passing ghost, Asgoth floated down the apartment stairway. Midnight was behind him, the cold morning hours moving in to oversee this undertaking.
    He crossed the empty street. Faced the fenced locomotive.
    Misfortune and grief to all but the innocent
.
    The decades-old curse hissed in his thoughts, reminded him of the other times he’d tried without success to strip this train of its wealth. Concerns about any Brotherhood involvement fanned the fire of this latest endeavor. He was convinced the treasure should belong to him; by rights, it was his to possess.
    Rasputin in his travels had accumulated relics from the Holy Land, religious objects capable of stirring the Romanovs’ fervor. After the priest’s murder, whispers of a hidden chamber swelled and then faded as zealots and treasure seekers failed, one by one, to turn up any evidence that such a hoard existed.
    The lost chamber became known as Tmu Tarakan.
    In Russian the name referred to any place of desolation.
    “Which is where I am now,” Asgoth spoke to the silent park. “And the key to the chamber is on this train.”
    He took a step toward the mechanical monster. In the moonlight theantique Finnish headlamp was a glowing eye filled with malevolent warning; the front grate was an iron mouth set firmly against any intrusion.
    Asgoth circled to the back where the tender car hooked to the engine.