Chapter 7: Vanya

St. Petersburg is a city of many names. It is known as the Venice of the North because of its many canals and waterways. It is also known as the Crime Capital of Russia. In some ways this was a misnomer. Capital crime in St. Petersburg has gone down since the 1990's, and street crime, drug smuggling and human trafficking are the major remaining problems. This does nothing to change the fact that most crime is sponsored by the Mafiya, who also control over half of both state and privately owned businesses. The FSB is ostensibly responsible for keeping the gangs in check, but more often than not collaborates with them to fill their own pockets. It is said that you can buy anything in St. Petersburg, and information is one of the hottest commodities.

Even in a place like this, Yassen Gregorovich still managed to stand out. Contract killers were not to be found on every street corner, but the ones that were often worked for as little as one thousand American dollars. It was not every assassin that could command a minimum wage of three hundred thousand dollars. In advance.

Years of experience had made Yassen a very rich man. But like all rich men in Russia, he too had to pay off the Mafiya. They knew where he lived, after all – when he was in Russia, however infrequent that was. He had a love-hate relationship with the gangs; he had worked for them as a teen but once he left them for the KGB and eventually Scorpia, they quickly became an annoyance. They could be useful upon occasion, but could never be trusted to do quality work. All too often they made stupid mistakes.

The moment the jet touched down on the airstrip, the Mafiya was already watching them. All foreigners, especially ones in the oil business, were potential for profit. The MI6 manufactured traveler's visas took Yassen and Alex through security with minimum trouble; the real problems would come later, of course.

They checked into an out-of-the-way hotel, where there would be no questions asked, and Alex asked where they would start searching.

“We,” Yassen said, “will not be investigating anything. I will go and get weapons, and find out where the target is. You will stay here and try not to get scammed out of anything by the man at the front. It is not good for an English boy to be on the streets at night. The Mafiya are not easily fooled.”

Alex had looked put out, but the chill in the Russian's voice convinced him to hold his tongue. Yassen left the hotel.

Alex would leave shortly afterwards. Yassen had expected it, but he would be able to find out quickly enough if Alex did anything stupid. He had things of his own to take care of.

It was not yet fully dark, but even a man like Yassen would did not go out unarmed after sunset if he could help it. Especially with the type of business he was planning on doing. Yassen took a taxi to one of the apartments he kept under a pseudonym. After checking for explosives, he entered and pried the false back off of the bookshelf in the main room. He chose a rifle and two scopes along with a variety of shells and put them in a canvas gym bag, then chose three pistols and different types of holsters. Two of the guns went at his sides, and the third and smallest one he strapped to his forearm underneath his jacket.

He picked up one of the five cell phones and made a call. Ten minutes later, he was on foot in the heart of Khronstadsky District. Dominated by the Tambov Gang ever since the clash with Malyshev's Gang, the area was a Mafiya stronghold. It didn't take long for him to find one of the spotters, a man who strolled the streets fishing for business.

Someone was about to get caught.

Yassen left the doorway he had been watching from and stumbled into the street, swaying unsteadily as he progressed down it. His clothes would mark him as well off, and even though his features were common to many Russians, he could easily have been from a richer European country. Yassen could almost see the fisher smile. Another drunk tourist. The perfect target. He approached Yassen from the shadows.

Seconds later he was back in them, head spinning, a knife to his throat. He hadn't even seen the man strike, and now a voice was dripping ice cold into his ear: “Where is Vanya?”

Yassen had waited for the man to come close enough before catching him in a wristlock and propelling him against the wall of a nearby building. The man had been too careless in approaching him; the gangs were getting incompetent as they grew comfortable upon their success.

“I will not ask again,” Yassen threatened.

“I don't know! Who are you? Who is paying you?” The man's voice was high with fear.

“If you don't know, you are of no use to me.”

The complete lack of emotion in his captor's voice terrified the man. He had only one coherent thought left: he wanted to live. “The Hermitage! He's at the Hermitage!”

Yassen withdrew the knife, then felled the man with a sharp elbow to the temple. He could have killed him, of course, but he was not paid to take out minor gangsters. Yassen removed the man's scruffy dark jacket and replaced his own with it. Now he would blend in a little more. He would need to if he was to succeed tonight.

There is only one Hermitage in St. Petersburg. It is a grand museum, a collection of six buildings, including the Winter Palace. It is in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the world's largest collection of paintings, and is home to over three million works of art. It is also the place where a certain man known as Vanya has his office. He has two, actually; one is for his cover job, that of an assistant curator to the vast gallery of Italian art. His real work also involves art, but instead of buying it, he steals it.

In July 2006, 221 items, among them jewelry, silverware, and icons, were stolen from the museum, a total value of over 540,000 American dollars. This was Vanya's doing. He also assisted in recovering some of the items; his 'brilliant deductive reasoning' earned him high praise in the St. Petersburg Times. This was only cover-up for the real theft, of course. It was a Michaelangelo, valued upwards of eleven million American dollars, and it has yet to be discovered missing.

Vanya was not an honest man. He was the head of the Tambov Gang, making him, for all intents and purposes, the mayor of St. Petersburg and a very powerful man. Yassen despised him. For one, his operation too often gave out faulty information, and for another, his taste in art was terrible.

And his office was not the most accessible. The Hermitage was a palace, and in the days of its construction that was synonymous with a fortress. Vanya had taken full advantage of this. Modern technology had aided him considerably. And really, what better place to run a crime ring from than a world-famous museum? Security was so tight a mouse couldn't get near a painting without being detected, trapped, electrocuted and faced with a half-dozen men with pistols. And Vanya liked mice. So anyone who he didn't want to see would be much worse off, or in a word, dead. Some were even on display, discreetly tucked away into sarcophagi in the Egyptian wing.

Yassen Gregorovich was a man Vanya never wanted to see. Yassen had double-crossed him twice, and was the only man to ever do that and still be alive. Vanya was determined that the assassin would not get a third chance. Yassen was counting on the fact that he would. But it would not be easy.

The Great Hermitage was where Vanya had his stronghold. Yassen had never before met with Vanya here; normally the gangster arranged meetings in places that were more accessible. He could usually be found in one of three other offices at this time of night, when the majority of his business was conducted. Lately he had been in some trouble with the local authorities, and was forced to move operations to the Hermitage to avoid being busted at one of his other locations. Not many uninvited visitors would approach him there, and any who did probably would never get far enough to meet him.

The front entrance to the three-story building was impenetrable; there was no was short of bombing the building to access it form the air, and Yassen did not have a helicopter. But there was another option. There were always alternatives, Yassen thought. The museum is located on the banks of the Neva River; glass-sided tour boats are often lined up nearby. At nighttime, yachts often pass by, taking in the grand sight of the beautifully lit buildings. If Vanya truly was at the Hermitage, his yacht would be nearby.

There was no need for the yacht to be there unless somehow it enabled Vanya to make a quick getaway. That meant there had to be a way into the Hermitage from the yacht.

From the rooftop of a nearby business, Yassen scanned the river. He spotted the yacht almost instantly. It was not that brightly lit, and it was cruising gently up and down a stretch about a mile away from the Hermitage. Yassen scrutinized the sides and deck of the yacht with high-powered binoculars, mouth wrinkling in a slight expression of distaste. The boat was, in his opinion, quite ugly. It did not seem capable of high speed, though he knew it must be because it was an escape vessel. He saw the telltale oddities that spoke of hidden weapons, even an anti-aircraft mount. This was a special yacht, no doubt about it.

Lying on the rooftop in the cold Russian night, Yassen formed a plan. Ten minutes later he climbed down and started walking toward the yacht.

It was cold, but the man was only wearing a light jersey. The winter was much colder, after all, and would be coming fast enough. He would enjoy not having to wear five layers while he still could. He sighed and paced the deck in the shadows of the main cabin. While it was true that Vanya terrified him, it was not enough to keep him from boredom as he did his job. Soon maybe he could get a promotion, do a little errand-running for the drug rings or something. Drugs were a much higher-paying business than looking after Vanya's toys. And more interesting too.

He heard a scraping noise and lazily turned toward it, yawning. It was probably Alexei, coming up for a smoke...

His eyes widened and his mouth opened in a scream that never came out. He didn't even have time to register the fact that he had been hit before consciousness left him.

Yassen dragged the man back into the shadows and pressed himself against the cabin wall as he silently made his way around to the door. There were no security cameras out here on the deck, or mounted on the cabin eaves. Vanya must have been confident that any intruder would have been stopped by the security on the exterior. The thought almost made Yassen laugh. It had been a simple matter to pull the black fiberglass and Kevlar kayak that he had rented into the shadow of the hull and climb the side using magnetic clips. The rail had been electrified, of course, but he had been able to avoid it and the portholes and cameras easily enough.

There were most likely only ten or so people on the yacht, Yassen reasoned. If they could be taken out one at a time, silently, no one would be the wiser, and no signal would go to Vanya to warn him.

He entered the cabin quietly, using the keycard from the fallen guard. There was a room to his left; empty. Sleeping quarters, he saw. No one would be asleep at this hour. He quickly went through the extensive cabin, ignoring the signs of ill-gotten luxury and noting which rooms were occupied and how many were in them. There was a total of eleven people on the yacht. The two in the most dangerous position, where they could alert Vanya, were of course the captain and mate who were up front, steering the boat. He would have to leave them for last, however, because a change in the boat's course could alarm the others.

Two guards were alone in separate rooms; Yassen dealt with them first. They never even saw him. There was a pair of guards in the map room. Yassen felled the first from behind with a roundhouse kick to the temple and took out the next with a quick double-strike to the solar plexus and throat. He changed his mind about Vanya's taste in carpet; the thick material muffled the sound as the men fell.

In the galley was the biggest group of men. There were five of them, sitting at a table playing cards. A bottle of vodka was circulating around. Yassen frowned. Drink would dull their senses but also dull their pain. They might fight drunk, but they would fight hard if given the chance. He wished he had brought a silencer, or a tranquilizer gun.

There was nothing else for it; if they made any noise, maybe the remaining two would ignore it as part of their card game. Humans, Yassen had observed, were so easily deceived by themselves, hearing only what they wanted to hear. And if the captain and mate were alerted, it wouldn't matter that much anyway. Yassen could always use his gun then.

He entered the room quickly. The first two with their backs to him went down right away; the man sitting across from them opened his mouth to yell but was silenced immediately by a flying knife. One of the others drew his pistol, only to find it spinning across the room a split second later, to be followed shortly by himself. The remaining man managed to get on his feet, but he had no weapon. He hollered and took a swing at the assassin. That mistake cost him his consciousness, as Yassen easily slid under the wild blow and caught the man around the neck, cutting off his air supply and silencing him before swinging a vicious elbow into his temple. Good night, goon.

Yassen proceeded to the front of the cabin. In less than a minute the captain and mate were out cold, and tied up for good measure. Yassen started steering the yacht towards the Great Hermitage.

From his rooftop vantage point earlier, he had estimated the height of the yacht using simple trigonometry. Looking across at the Great Hermitage, he had noticed that the bridge over the canal between it and the building next to it was about the same height. His final clue had been the odd shape of the yacht itself – it was fashioned to look somewhat like an old-style steamboat, but it was diesel propelled. The pipes on top were not actually used for exhaust, he had noticed, but merely for decoration – or perhaps a more sinister purpose.

Looking at the controls now, he confirmed his suspicions. The steam pipe had a hatch in it, about one and a half meters down so that no one could see it from the air. Apparently it could actually blow steam, but from a machine, not the engine itself. A clever cover. Leaving the controls for a minute, Yassen took a quick trip to the pipes. Sure enough, there was a ladder leading up the one on the left side, with a hatch about three meters up.

The yacht moved silently over the water. Slowly, it turned towards the bank. Any observer on that dark night may have stared incredulously as it moved towards the small canal between two buildings. Surely it was too tall to clear the bridge which, unlike so many in St. Petersburg, did not rise! But it would just barely make it under the bridge, though it looked to be stuck with one of the steam pipes scraping the top. The boat stopped moving. It must be some drunk rich man out for a dare.

The yacht was indeed stuck, but by design not accident. Yassen quickly turned the key he had taken from the captain and pressed the buttons to open the hatch. Then he set the boat on a slow reverse course and quickly raced to the ladder. He would not be needing the yacht again.

The pipe was already scraping slowly away when Yassen reached the top rung. He used the captain's identification card against the scanner underneath the bridge, noting that only the small LED gave it away. The rest of the trapdoor, down to the painted stone, was practically invisible.

The door swung down and he moved though just as the ladder he had climbed up moved out from under him.

He was in.

Now was the time for speed; Vanya must have security cameras all over the place. Even on a night like this when he was sure to be understaffed, it would not take him long to notice Yassen. Yassen would just have to find him first.

The corridor was old, stone, and musty. Ten meters later it changed to wood; he was inside the Great Hermitage. Even though it was a three-story building, Yassen was sure Vanya's office was in the basement.

The way he had entered was not frequently used, Yassen saw. But it would have to be close enough to Vanya's office to provide the man with a quick escape. And Vanya was no Usain Bolt.

Sure enough, the next corridor he entered sent alarm signals down his spine. He was getting close. The design was now modern and utilitarian; it was sturdy, forbidding, and deadly, if the telltale holes in the wall were any sign. Automatic weapons mountings? Vanya was paranoid. And the museum management either never came down here or were terrorized into silence by the setup and Vanya's thugs. Or they quietly disappeared.

Yassen hated feeling vulnerable, but having five automatic weapons possibly tracking your every move was not something that inspired confidence. They had not fired yet, though; Vanya must not know he was here. That alone made Yassen suspicious. The gangster was a cautious man, if somewhat stupid. He must either be distracted, or waiting for him. One scenario would give Yassen the advantage, and the other would be a trap.

There was, however, only one way to find out which one was the case. Yassen went on. He saw the three men before they saw him; guard in front of a door – it could only be Vanya's office. Two were knocked down by his initial attack of a hop sidekick and the third found himself disarmed and unconscious the next second, thanks to quick chops to the temples. Yassen made sure the men on the floor did not get up, then took a key to the door. Vanya would have heard the noise, undoubtedly, but he would feel less alarmed because there had been no weaponsfire. Yassen had used this particular oversight more than once to take advantage of the gangster.

He picked up a guard's fallen keycard, swiped it, and entered the room, weapon raised and ready.

Vanya sat at the desk facing him, but that was not what kept Yassen from instantly gunning down the three armed men in the room. What did was the person sitting in the chair across from Vanya's desk. Or rather, tied to the chair.

It appeared that Alex Rider had beaten him there.

A/N: Sorry it took me forever to update. Life kind of caught up with me. I can't promise any regular updates on this, so best just to put it on Story Alert. I will finish this, though. Hopefully not in 2 years, but sooner.