The Spy Devils by Joe Goldberg (top rated books of all time .TXT) 📕

“Congratulations, Bridger. The deals you were concerned with have been canceled.” Bridger could sense Taube was trying to piece together the Spy Devil operation. “So, it was all a deception. You had nothing.”

“Not nothing. It was invigorating to listen in on your meeting of your conspirators. Thank you very much for that. There is just nothing like the sweet sound of criminals admitting to their crimes. I felt refreshed.”

“So you have Nikola.”

“We are enjoying his company.”

“Is he alive?”

“Alive and rather chatty,” Bridger answered.

“Where is he?”

“In due time, Serge.”

He could hear the rage in Taube’s voice.

“I will not be arrested if that is part of your plan. The judges I have in my employment will make certain I stay free long enough. The president will be worried that I would make a deal and testify against him. I can say some unpleasant things. I will be appropriately treated.”

“They probably don’t want you around anyway, knowing what you know—much like your family, I am sure. Maybe this is a good time to retire, Serge. Take your old bones to someplace warm and enjoy the scenery.”

“Retire? Me? Could you retire?” When Bridger didn’t answer, Taube continued. “I thought so. I will go to Cyprus, or someplace away from the U.S. and the U.N.—and you.”

“Cyprus. Good choice. Warm and sunny. You could take up fishing.”

Taube laughed.

“Fishing? My business is just as good wherever I live. If the president stays or goes is irrelevant. They are all corrupt. They will make the deal with me.”

“Probably,” Bridger said.

“Oh, it is certain. The Chinese will pay, despite the current difficulties. The Russians and the Ukrainians, too. The Iranians, maybe. There are always customers. I will prosper. And it is not as if I do not have information and details on mysterious Bridger and his Spy Devils. The world should know. Think of the headlines around the world.”

“That would be a mistake, Serge. Good-bye, Serge.” Bridger hung up and tossed the phone into the Danube.

A few hours later, Serge arrived at Nikola Tesla airport escorted by Stanko and the security entourage. His line of four SUVs drove onto the tarmac and up to where his large private plane was waiting. Sporting dark sunglasses and a casual manner, Taube stepped out of his SUV and looked around.

It was a beautiful day, despite the ruinous events of the morning. A flight attendant waited at the top of the stairs with a drink. Ground personnel started transferring his baggage from his vehicles to the cargo hold of the plane.

Taube walked to the stairs. As he was about to ascend, something flew by him above his head. He looked up just as the Devilbot released a 9mm round into his forehead before disappearing into the sky.

21

Bondar Battalion-1

Kyiv, Ukraine

When he was a child, nothing gave him greater pleasure than shooting the rabbits and squirrels that made the mistake of wiggling through the wire into his family’s vegetable garden. After school or work at the Cooperative, Bondar grabbed his Tula TOZ-8 Bolt Action .22 caliber rifle and went on the hunt. The rifle was a gift from his father on his seventh birthday and the only thing he kept from his childhood.

He would wait behind a small lath fence he constructed with sticks and twigs twisted horizontally across some wood. Invisible. Patient. They would come. When they did, he never missed. His mother would cook them for the family dinner.

You try to steal from me, then I will kill you.

It was a way of life in the rough coal-mining Donbas region of Ukraine. A tough industrial area of long-suffering tough people, the Donbas existed in an endless swirl of controlling entities. The Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate and the Turkic Crimean Khanate until the mid-late 18th century. The Russian Empire. The Soviet Union. Nazi Germany. The Soviet Union again. Ukraine after independence in 1992.

His birthplace was always fighting another war.

His father was a hard-working man, with a modicum of intelligence, whose body was trapped in a coal factory by the Soviet system. He wasn’t a bad man, just weak—too weak for Bondar. His mother was a teacher and, by necessity, stronger, wiser, and much smarter.

Bondar knew as a child that he would never work in the coal factory or anyplace else where others told him what to do. He would not be weak. He was driven to be rich and powerful. He would not join others by becoming a corrupt politician working in the corrupt system. He would build his own business empire and control the corrupt politicians.

It took ruthless years of working with like-minded men like Vlasenko, but he achieved his goals. Rich. Powerful. Untouchable.

“Those Kirkwood assholes are assholes. Chapel called and left messages. Then sent me texts,” Bondar proclaimed to Ira. “Deceitful. Treacherous. Untrustworthy. If I acted like them, I would be as dead as Anton by now.”

He took a large drink from a crystal tumbler full of a clear liquid. On his ornate wooden desk, a three-quarters empty bottle of Beluga Gold Line vodka was within arm’s reach.

Ira didn’t laugh.

“He wants me to give him the case! Never! That is for the future. Our future!” he slurred as he rocked his chair from side to side.

As he leaned back in his chair it made a creak that echoed off the Ukrainian oak-paneled walls. Rotating, he looked at a cherry wood case affixed to the wall. Inside was his cherished Tula SKS rifle. Staring at the worn finish, nicks, and dings on the stock brought back memories of cold Ukrainian winters. Snow-covered fields. Chasing his prey.

Ira sat cross-legged on the corner couch. Her eyes followed his to the gun. She hated it. She was upset. The only signal of her annoyance was the click click click of her deep burgundy polished fingernails on her left hand.

They were safe within the walls of their residential apartments, which occupied the top floor of Bondar’s five-story Ukraine Investment and Holding Company building. It was located behind and adjacent to Bondar’s Ukraine