Thief in Time

By Michael Dirubio

How did he get himself into this mess?  Kidnapped with a hood over his head?  Micahel Daivdson finds that the worst place to be is in the middle of the 2016 US elections. A retired thief has no business with politicians until he has no choice.  Keep turning the pages until the special prosecutor removes the book from your hands!

• Language: English
• Publisher: MIchael Dirubio
• Release date: Apr 17, 2018
• ISBN: 9780999773239

Michael Dirubio

Michael Dirubio is a twenty year veteran of the US Submarine Service.  Time spent in Coco Beach Florida convinced him that submarines or space craft, it made no difference, they were cool.  His debut novel Unity, is a realistic look at the manned space program and what might be possible in the near future. He is the author of 11 novels.

Book preview

For all things about the author, please visit www.michaeldirubio.com

Other eBooks and formats are available at Amazon.com and draft2digital.com

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Other works in the Thief series: 

Thief in law

Thief in Need

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Other works by Michael Dirubio:

Unity

System 112

Empire Man

Quinru California

Partners*

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*Forthcoming

This book is dedicated to my wife, Judi. Honey, the world can be a tough place, but I know you are a thousand times tougher.  Love always.

Table of Contents

Chapter One  Chapter Twenty

Chapter Two      EPILOG

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

CHAPTER ONE

The frustration level was growing for Davidson. Son of a Bitch.

Hey!  I’m starving!  Pavel!  Come on!

Each of his entreaties was difficult for his captors to hear, given the hood over his head and the fact that he was alone in this room.  His hands and feet were securely strapped to the chair arms and legs upon which he was sitting.  The wide leather wraps didn’t cut into him but they did block off circulation.  He’d been kept like this for at least four days now as best he could figure.

I’ll bet Syd’s going out of her mind. He thought about his girlfriend and her response to his kidnapping. He knew she’d have called the cops. Well, one cop in particular, not necessarily all of them.  She’d call O’Rourke.  He would help.

A sigh escaped him.  Davidson shifted, trying to find comfort on the padded chair, but all he did was to give himself cramps. Son of a Bitch!  He thought it again, but this time trying to ease the pain not his frustration.

The last trip to the bathroom hours ago was an exercise in weirdness. Two large men (he figured from the size and strength) came in the room with no words spoken; they just thrust a straw through the gash at mouth level in the hood, and into his lips.

Davidson gulped down the cold water as quickly as he could. As soon as the liquid hit his stomach, his bladder signaled to him that he needed to take care of some business.

It was tough to stop gulping the water but he pulled back from the straw and said, I have to piss.

No response from Heckle and Jekyll, they just untied him, and then helped/dragged him out of the room and down the hall.

Davidson strained for any clue as to where he was or a confirmation about who had him with no luck. 

The trio reached a doorway and Davidson heard the door click open and the unmistakable smell of urine, feces and air freshener hit his nostrils.

He stood by while one of the men worked his pants.

He never figured out how they determined which guy got the honor of holding his dick while he pissed.

Stage fright aside, he managed to empty his bladder. He could only imagine the cleanup necessary. Not my problem, he thought.

His captors no longer allowed him to be unleashed from the leather straps holding his arms and hands to hold his own junk while he pissed.  The first foray into the bathroom had resulted in Davidson immediately trying to escape when the straps were loosened.

All he accomplished was to receive an expert beating.

Body shots. Many, many, punches delivered to his ribs, back and shoulders.  They had even worked over the large quad muscles on his thighs. That was what was causing some of his cramping, he came to realize. The net effect was to take a ton of resistance out of him, he thought morosely. I’m not nearly as tough as I think.

––––––––

Davidson and the goons had returned to his room and its terrible chair as soon as he was finished. No one washed their hands, how gross!

Again he was strapped into the chair with the goons leaving him to await...something.

As soon as the straps were back in place Davidson started up again.  Pavel, come on! Four days is long enough for whomever to get here from Moscow! Let’s go! Dead air met his suppositions. The chunk of the door closing was loud through the hood.

It’s my sister’s birthday today! At least mail her a card from me! He kept it up until his vocal cords were raw.

Only silence greeted him back.  And that silence left Davidson time to think.  And time to reflect. 

Lots of reasons I’m sitting here right now instead of being with Sydney.

The main reason was his arrogance, he supposed.  Looking back on it, coming back to New York was asking for trouble.  Going to Pavel when one of his gang had gotten hurt was asking for more trouble.

Arrogant to think he could prevail upon a Russian mob doctor to fix up Ira without the doctor ratting him out to Moscow.

He should have known better.  After all, he’d worked for the Russian mob for nearly twenty years as a thief.

Michael Davidson was a thief.  He was the Thief-in-Law in fact.  That title, Thief-in-Law, was given to the Russian mob’s most successful thief.  That had been Davidson until his boss, Demetry Roybokov had tried to double cross him, and leave him and his gang for the tender mercies of the FBI and Interpol.

That made Davidson and his crew irritated.

They didn’t get mad until the mob murdered his friend Mary Spack and kidnapped his girlfriend, Sydney Devereaux.

That was when Davidson got angry.  And he got revenge.  Tripping up the mob was fairly easy as they were blinded by seven hundred million in gold and jewels from the London and Dubai jobs as Davidson pulled off his last two heists.

Demetry never saw the hook and he paid for it by getting himself arrested and thrown in jail.  Unfortunately, his boss in Moscow, Putin, didn’t like his underlings getting pinched.  Roybokov had died in jail nearly four months ago, a victim of the Russian dictator and his cronies.

Davidson had just settled into a nice retired lifestyle with his girlfriend and a stash of ill-gotten loot, when they had gotten a message from an old friend.  A friend who needed help. The police lieutenant, James O’Rourke. The same cop who’d helped him with Roybokov.

A rogue billionaire and financial wizard had killed O’Rourke’s niece.  The cop called on the thief to help him nail the bastard.

They’d done it, but in the process, Ira had gotten shot and Davidson had turned to Pavel Prokofiev- a Russian mob doctor, for help. That, in turn, had gotten him kidnapped because he was too arrogant to take basic precautions.  He’d walked out alone to see that little girl on the stoop, fake crying with a pancake black eye... Stupid!

The man figured that the doctor had betrayed him based on a few factors.  One, only Pavel knew he was in town.  Two, the kidnapping had been accomplished with medicinal grade ether.  And three, the water they were giving him was being alternated with an electrolyte solution that was keeping him lucid. All of that triangulated on Pavel Prokofiev, the doctor, as the man who had him.

Davidson had some experience with ether as a way to knock out opponents.  He’d used a bottle of it to knock out the men guarding Sydney after she’d been snatched. That had worked well, he remembered.  Just like it did on me. Davidson hated that kind of symmetry.

As for Pavel...

The lack of serious torture or even a bullet to the head meant only one thing: he was being held for someone else.

Pavel had likely sold his carcass to the highest bidder.  Hence his remark that four days was long enough for someone to get here to New York from Russia.

The rest was just frustration. Angst coming out because he was well and truly retired.  He didn’t think more crazy billionaires would need exposing.  Plus, he was just about to propose to Sydney when that fucking hood had descended on his head.

Hey, I want that ring back, you fucker! If they touched one hair on Syd’s head...

The sound of the door scraping open shut off his rant.

From the sound of the footsteps, several men were coming in the room, he realized quickly.  Tensing up his weakened muscles, Davidson readied for anything.

Here we go, Davidson thought one of his favorite phrases.

More sounds and thuds came and thirty seconds later, the damn hood was yanked off his head.

The light from the bare bulb blinded him even though it was not very bright.  It took a few seconds for his retinas to adjust but soon he could make out seven men in the room. The place itself was unremarkable. A bare concrete floor and one door, the space was barely larger than a normal bedroom. Two of the men he knew just vaguely, having only seen them once before.  Pavel’s men.  These two men (one of which was his bathroom buddy, he assumed) had been there the night Pavel patched up Ira from the gunshot. Davidson had spent two hours in a makeshift waiting room with these two guys.  He didn’t know their names but he never forgot a face.  Not with his eidetic memory.

The three other henchmen was the cliché, but Davidson applied it to the men, stood off to one side near the entrance to the door.  A portable table had been setup near the wall about ten feet from where his chair sat in the middle of the room.  Two men were behind that table sitting down and Davidson was shocked as hell to see one of them.

He wrenched his gaze back to the other three bodyguards on the far side of the table.  Two looked to be the standard Russian mob enforcer type that Davidson was all too familiar with.

The other guy...

Nicky, who the hell is he?

The question caught everyone in the room flatfooted.

Michael Davidson didn’t let anyone get traction.

Unless this guy is your long lost cousin, Nick, or very well known to someone in this room, I’m willing to bet he is FBI.  Could be CIA. Maybe even MI-5.

Sets of eyes settled on the man under scrutiny. The thin, brown haired man looked smaller next to the larger dark haired Slavic gangsters.  Even Nicholas Roybokov was bigger in stature than the last man in the row. He just didn’t look like a Bratva member.  Bratva was the Brotherhood, what the Russian mob called themselves.

Hey, Mikhail... The man started but Davidson cut him off.

Shut it you! Davidson told the suspect man. I state for the record I am not a kidnap victim and am here as a guest of friends who have played a great prank on me! Davidson took a breath and looked at the son of his former boss. Nicky just take the guy outside and don’t talk to him anymore.  For God’s sake don’t kill him!

The decision maker in the room, Mikhail, shot a glance at Davidson, then at the now sweating man, and finally settling on Nicky Roybokov who shrugged in response.

Danny, wait for us outside, Nicky directed.

Davidson didn’t smile as the man slowly edged out of the room.  The thief would be amazed if the guy was still in the parking lot when they all emerged from this room.  And he knew he was going to get out of this room, now.

Mikey... Nick started, but Davidson cut him off too.

Nick, hang on. Mikhail?  He waited on the older man wearing a slick Euro business suit and a dark rain coat.

Da?  The accent was thick and the voice rough.

Davidson breathed a bit easier.  ‘‘I assume we are not in Pavel’s operating building.  O’Rourke has that address and would have gone there- day one. If that guy is an agent, they may have this room under sound surveillance. We need a better place to talk. A secure place."

Nick Roybokov couldn’t keep the small grin from creeping onto his face. Mikhail however, could.

What do you propose, thief?

My old office on Jones Street in Brooklyn is still available. It is deserted right now.  We just haven’t been back there in two years... The thief knew he was babbling a bit, but he held his seat even though he dearly wanted to stretch and ease his muscles. 

Best part is that it is right across the street from an electrical substation. Any electronic surveillance measures are going to be fucked up.  Davidson finished and let the man figure it out for himself.

‘‘Da."

The two new bodyguards who were with Mikhail, un-did the straps, grabbed his arms and helped him stand fully. Davidson smiled and started to take a step on his own but couldn’t quite make it. 

They frog marched him out of the room which he sincerely hoped he would never see or smell again. Outside in the cool clear night air, Davidson looked around. Just an innocuous warehouse somewhere. It could be Jersey for all he knew.  There were three SUVs parked near the loading door. 

Danny was nowhere to be seen.

If that bothered Mikhail, Davidson couldn’t tell.

2 Jones Street in Brooklyn, up near the Navy Yard, the thief announced to the men.

They just divvied up into groups without any words.  Davidson riding in the back seat with the one guard sitting on his left side. One of Pavel’s men was driving.  They zip tied him into the hand hold above the door to keep him from getting frisky.  No need for that boys, I’m exhausted, Davidson thought.

Nicky drove one SUV alone and Mikhail took the other car with the last body guard driving.

The strange procession started out of the warehouse.

As soon as the car made the turn under the elevated railroad tracks and came onto Brighton Beach Avenue, Davidson knew where he was. Little Odessa. It was always the same with the Russian mob.  They lived down here, they played down here and they kidnapped down here. The Little Odessa area of Brighton Beach had a large percentage of Russian immigrants.

We’re right near Pavel’s place, Davidson realized. 

The Thief was in the lead vehicle and he asked the driver, You taking Ocean Parkway?

Yeah.  They doin work on the B.Q.E.

That told Michael all he needed to know about the two goons with Mikhail. Locals, not Moscow muscle.  Likely picked up just for this job.  That made them stupid and useless as far as Davidson was concerned. ‘‘Cut over at 4th, he told the driver. When it dead ends at Flatbush, the cross street is Ashland.  Take that. Ashland turns in to Navy st.  Just follow that until it turns into Hudson and then a left on Jones by the water."

A grunt was all he got back.

Easing back in the seat as much as he could, Davidson tried to relax. The zip ties were cutting into his wrists. It was late at night he figured, because the traffic was very light.

He had a long drive to try to figure out his play.  What the hell was Nicky doing here?

The last time he’d seen Nicholas Roybokov was in Luxembourg, three years ago.  He, Nicky and his main partner in crime, Graeme Donniger, had walked into the Luxembourg Freeport and shipped a bunch of stolen goods back to Demetry. 

Freeports are basically tax evasion warehouses.  The ultra-rich, along with the cartels and gangsters all hide assets in Freeports.  They don’t have to pay much in taxes when they ship the goods in and they can look at them all they want. This scheme works especially well with looted Nazi art. The small tax fee amounts to a bribe for the local country.

The hitch is that taxes are due when the goods reach their final destination.  Until then they are in limbo, so to speak.  Demetry was stashing his wealth in the Freeport when Davidson convinced Nick that his father was trying to kill him.  Well, truth be told, what really convinced Nicky was the fact that he was being held right along with Sydney in that pawn shop basement.  Michael had rescued Nick along with his girlfriend and they devised a scheme where Nicky would go in to the Freeport as an authorized representative of his father and ship the goods back home. 

It had gone off without a hitch.  And when it did, Demetry Roybokov was on the hook for a huge tax bill and tax evasion charges.  No one fucks with the IRS!

Davidson still thought that counted as one of his biggest jobs.  After all, Demetry had

about a billion in that storage facility.

But did it count as a thieving job if you had all the paperwork?

A bump shook him out of his reverie.  He tried to focus on Nick.  Davidson needed to stretch his legs a bit and take a run. He was a habitual runner, often logging six miles at a fast clip.  He did it for more than health.  He let his mind wonder free during his runs to think through his problems.  He could use a good run right now.  What was Nicholas Roybokov doing here?

The man was obviously a chip to let Davidson know Mikhail was perhaps a friendly. They wanted something.  That part was obvious. If the Bratva wanted Davidson dead, he would have already been found with two behind his ear by now.

What was Mikhail’s part in all this? Davidson racked his fantastic memory.  He knew a lot of guys named Mikhail.  The man in the other car was not Mikhail Argemenov, the Russian mobster.  Not Mikhail Pavelsky the fence.  Not Mikhail Brahms the muscle guy for Semilov. Who?

Well, he brought Nicky to keep me calm, Michael figured, so he should at least listen to the man.  That was why he wanted the meet to not be recorded or interrupted.  If they weren’t on the Bratva’s radar before, they might well be now. Pavel may have started a lot of ears perking and tongues wagging. Plus, he had an idea that Danny’s friends may be listening in, whoever they were.

The car proceeded on its track and was just passing Dekalb and Ashland.  Davidson could see the large hospital complex to his right.  The Brooklyn Hospital Center.  Sydney’s hospital.  Doctor Sydney Devereaux worked with the Pediatric Oncology Department doing an extensive study on childhood cancers. It was why she moved in next door to Davidson three and a half years ago.

Holy shit! I literally fell in love with the girl next door! Davidson realized in a flash. 

Sadness hit him as he knew that Sydney was physically located to his right, less than a tenth of a mile away. Her house stood on Washington Park Lane just across Ft Greene Park from the hospital.  He bet (hoped) she was asleep in their room right now.

Davidson girded himself up for the next phase of this operation.

The Brooklyn Navy Yard gave way to the few blocks of businesses up here close to the water. The water was actually the East River, and it was as dirty as it gets.

The SUVs all parked on Jones Street near the building.

The seven story Slattery Building had garage parking, but Davidson knew these men wouldn’t be trapped in the car park.

He led them all to the front entrance and typed in a code from memory.  The door buzzed them in.

The stairs were the same as he remembered.  No one spoke, but by the sixth floor some smokers were laboring allitle.

The key was still hidden in the same false brick front that Davidson and Graeme Donniger had arranged for nearly fifteen years ago.  The lock resisted but gave way and the front door opened into a wide open office space.

The musty smell and dust was bad, but there was still a couch and a few chairs in the main living room space. The boss had had his own office that was off to one side but no one was going to use that part.

Davidson still leased this spot through his catch-all fake company, Anderson Consulting.  For years as a thief, he’d laundered his money as a gas and oil field services consultant using Anderson and fake contracts to make it appear as if his money was legal. Anderson was paying the rent here and there were still lights available.  The man himself would have been at a loss to tell you exactly why he was still holding this office open. Nostalgia?

Same thing with why he still had storage units in several cities around the world holding tools, guns, cash, fake ID kits, clothes and assorted things needed for burglaries.

It was all Michael Davidson at his anally retentive best.  He sweated the details.  He figured contingencies. He improvised and adapted.  That’s why he was the best thief around. Only thieves who did those kinds of things were still around. He was just having a harder time letting go of that life than he supposed.

Nicky Roybokov gave him a quick arm around the shoulders and hug as he passed Michael on the way to a chair.  The young scion of Demetry Roybokov was not in the Bratva technically.  Being gay had a way of forcing people out of the criminal organization.

The three principles took up positions in the chairs, while the muscle boys arrayed themselves around the large room, covering any exit Davidson may spring for.

I’m not sure who you are...Mikhail?  Davidson started the conversation.

The larger man, with slicked back dark hair and a brooding air, inhaled deeply.  His coat was off and the expensive suit jacket unbuttoned. Davidson recognized the Saville Row tailor shop in London that had made this outfit.  5,000 GBP off the rack. 7500 if he’d had some alterations made.  Michael was sure some had been necessary. The larger shoulders and long arms meant that Mikhail was a nightmare to clothes shop for. He does look good in that suit, though.

And London told him some things.

Nicky was living in London.  That’s probably where they’d met, Davidson realized.

I am Mikhail Borlov, the man started in his accented voice.

Davidson recognized the last name. Any relation to Boris Borlov?

Both Nicky and the Russian smiled.  Da. My brother.

Michael took a breath and thought furiously. Boris Borlov. Russian Oligarch and Putin lieutenant.  Living and working in London.  Killed by unknown associates via polonium poisoning. I didn’t know he had a brother.

He put that last thought into a statement for his new friend.

I am the youngest Borlov brother.  Our older brother, Oleg, was killed in St. Petersburg in the 90’s. Mikhail stared hard at Davidson.  I was very young when he died.

But Boris had been killed in 2015.  Just eighteen months ago. Davidson suddenly thought he might be a little out of his depth.

I have your marker, Mr. Davidson.

That caused him to stiffen. That the Bratva wanted him dead was no big secret to Davidson. Take out the main New York branch of the Brotherhood criminal element and that was going to raise some hackles. He’d done that when he’d gotten Demetry arrested.

The Brotherhood was big on a few things besides tattoos. The first was loyalty. The second was punishing those who transgressed. Davidson could argue that the elder Roybokov had not been loyal to him, but rules tended to flow downward in an organization while leeway flew up the chain.

So the underlings would be held accountable while the big fish got passes.

Borlov reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a playing card.  Just an ordinary ten of spades with Michael Davidson written on it.

A grin wanted to break out on his face but Davidson kept it schooled.  Who’s Michael Davidson? My name isn’t Michael Davidson. My real name is Michael Davis!

He wanted to say that, but he’d been using Davidson so long he was kind of stuck with the fake name. Instead he said, How much did that cost you?

It was Mikhail’s turn to school his face.  Ten million.

How about I pay you twenty million, you give me that card and we all walk away winners.

No. I need your help, thief.

Mikey, listen to him... Completely misreading the room, Nicholas Roybokov jumped in to sway him.

Nick,’’ Davidson said patiently still watching Borlov, I know you meant well, but you have to understand. This man could kill us both right now and use the pictures of our bodies to get himself in a position to kill Putin."

He watched as the tension level went up in the room and the smile went from Nicky’s face over to Mikhail’s.

The vratch said you had some balls, thief. Borlov used the Russian word for doctor.  Pavel Prokofiev was the Bratva doctor who’d sold Davidson out to this man and that told the gangster all he needed to know about Pavel.

Call me Michael, he said, voice going flat.

Michael, have you ever seen the movie, Hero? Borlov asked out of nowhere.

Davidson searched his memory. Yeah. Jet Li. Chinese fable, filmed in glorious color?

Da. The main plot is that an assassin has to conspire with three outlaws, killing them to gain entry to the Emperor. Each death allows him to be moved closer and closer to the Emperor. He has to be close enough to kill him.

I don’t understand,’’ Nicky said.  I thought you wanted him to steal something for you?"

The Russian suddenly got up and walked around the musty couch and chairs. The thief watched from his chair as the man struggled. He doesn’t know what to do, Davidson realized.

You know Putin had my brothers killed, yes? the Russian started.  The nod from Michael kept him talking. I think you have a basic understanding of how the Bratva works, thief?

When Michael and Nicky both agreed that they did, he said, "What you don’t understand is how Russia works. And by that I mean the Russian government and the Oligarchs."

Michael listened, fascinated at the lesson.

Russia is a democracy in name only.  We have a President but it is nothing like the American system. We have ministers of various state apparatuses: defense, intelligence, trade, and so forth but these are run by quasi government businesses.

Davidson knew that Gazprom was the best example. Gazprom is the Russian state oil company.  They have a monopoly on all gas and oil exploration and drilling in Russian territories. Hell, they even retained some interests in the old USSR territories like the Ukraine and Georgia.  Gazprom is run by one man: Alexi Popov.  The multibillionaire oligarch ran the company like his personal business.

When Davidson brought up Gazprom, Borlov jumped on it.  Exactly! But what you don’t realize is that the company pays a small, very small, official tax rate.  A large cut of the profits goes directly to Putin as the leader.  Popov takes his cut and the rest flows downhill to the smaller fish.  Borlov stopped making rounds of the room and sat back in the chair. 

Jobs and favors flow out of the hands of Popov to party officials, family members and the powerful.  As long as Putin gets his cut, and the money flows, everything is fine. The man stopped to make sure Michael and Nicky were keeping up.  They were.

Putin has his hands in everything: oil, real estate, diamonds, defense contracts, banking... everything. He gave the other two men a look.  Even illegal things like prostitution and drugs.

Nicky looked a little sick to Davidson.  The kid must have known that Demetry was paying a slice back to Moscow.  How did he think the thing worked?

The Russian went on.  "You have to understand that Putin has a whole official and unofficial network of agents, spies and operatives all over the world. They watch the boss’ interest in all things. And they take action when things need to get done. It’s not just the Bratva, it’s lawyers and representatives