Chapter Thirteen: Ghosts from the Past

Saturday, May 27th, 1995…I arrived at the studio. I went in and found the guys in the band, along with Zack. They were both shocked and pissed off that I showed up.

“What the hell happened?” Jimmy asked.

“It’s a long story, but I’m here now,” I said, standing there in tattered clothes that smelled of fish.

“Well, we’re all finished recording. You’re just in time for the final touches on mixing. I recorded your bass parts. But I guess you can still play on the tour,” Jimmy scolded.

The studio engineer handed me a mockup copy of our album on CD. There it was, ‘Modicum of Success’ by Modicum. Catchy title. I opened up the jacket and looked inside. The guys all had credits for their contributions and Jimmy was credited with Guitar and Bass. But as a joke they credited ‘Touring Bass - Just Some Guy…Sometimes.’ I thought it was pretty funny.

After a week of celebrating and jamming, we started our tour of Japan. The tour was a hit. The album dropped on June 30th and the rest is history. Life felt pretty normal for a good while. Until one day, about halfway into our tour, we had a few days to do some sightseeing before the next show, so I visited a Taoist temple. While I was meditating, I found myself floating in a cloudy abyss. Suddenly, Li appeared in front of me. Our astral bodies interacted with one another.

“Guy! Guy, I’ve been trying to reach you,” Li said.

“You have?” I asked him, puzzled.

“Yes, your mind has been cluttered and I couldn’t get through to you spiritually. You must be in a relaxed state now,” he explained.

“Yeah, I am. I’m meditating in a temple. Sorry, I’ve been under an incredible amount of stress these past couple months.”

“I understand that, but there's something you need to know,” he warned, “I have a great sensation that you will be facing a powerful adversary in the near future.”

“I will?”

“Yes. Not immediately, but soon. I have an awful feeling that your head is not on right and that you need to get your mind, body, and spirit in alignment in order to survive this fight.”

“I understand,” I replied, “I’m back with my old band right now. We’re on tour, but it won’t last much longer. I promise when it is that I will find a way to prepare myself.”

“That’s fine,” Li continued, ”you are not in any immediate danger. Just be wary. You’ve survived all those past threats because you were ready for them at the time. But this is different. I wouldn’t be getting telegraphed images of doom if this was something you could handle at the moment.”

“Thank you master. I won’t take your warning lightly,” I said, as the clouds around us darkened and we both faded away. I knew I had to find some way to clear my head once I was finished touring.

The remainder of the tour went well, though I couldn’t quite shake Li’s warning. I knew that I got lucky back at the crypt with the Jiangshi. I had to get my shit together if I was facing an even tougher foe. When the tour ended, I told the guys I needed to move on again. At this point, they’d come to both expect and accept that it was the way things would be with me. I wouldn’t see those guys again for several years.

After the fun and success of the tour with Modicum, Mr. Iwatodai offered to drop me off anywhere in the world. So I had him helicopter me into Inner Mongolia. I wanted to continue my ‘tour’ so to speak of Asia, but I needed to avoid China at all costs.

I met some Mongolian Hippy guys that were cruising around in a van while I was walking down the road my second day there. They barely spoke English but we got along just fine and they drove me around for ten days before dropping me off at the border of Russia near Uvs Lake. By the time we parted ways I had started to grow my first full beard.

I wandered the Steppes of Russia for weeks, firmly putting my survival skills to the test. There were no physical threats other than the occasional brush with harsh environment. But my mind, body, and soul truly aligned out there. When I reached the Western Steppes, I felt like a new man. I must’ve looked the part as well with my new hermit-like beard. The only evidence of my past existence was within the memory of my own mind. The loneliness of the wilderness, my only friend. And with that refreshment, I decided to make my way back into Europe. My destiny awaited.

On a foggy late summer evening, just after the sunset, the road ahead looked spooky. I was making my way through the forests of Samarskaya Luka National Park when I noticed a shadowy figure standing up the ridge directly ahead of me. My eyes adjusted for a moment before a full sense of dread fell upon me. Svetlana!

“Hello, Guy,” Svetlana said casually, “Did you think that if you could enter Mother Russia and I would not notice?

I stood there in shock. The last person I would have expected to see out here in the wilderness was Svetlana, even if it was Russia. Was she here to kill me? Of course, she was. I made a fool out of her by escaping from that hotel room. Not to mention the Mafia wanted me dead in the first place. Was she the threat Master Chen warned me about? I had to think of something fast. I got myself ready to make a sudden attack if she even moved an inch.

“So how did you find me way out here?” I asked.

“Here? Was merely luck, combing the areas outside western Russia,” she replied, “But if you’re asking how we knew you were in our backyard, it’s because we’ve been trying to track you down since the incident in Rome. We lost track of you for a while after we learned of your arrest in Cairo. But when our Yakuza informants learned you were publicly active in Japan, we watched carefully for a time. When we were sure you were out on the Asian frontier, we used a process of elimination to narrow your location.”

They’d had tabs on me off and on for the last year. It was to be expected but I was far too careless. At any point in time an operative of theirs could’ve found and killed me. Especially out there. Hmm, but I wondered…why was Svetlana alone?

“So, I guess you wanted to confront me yourself? Is that why you and you alone came out here?” I inquired.

“Hahaha,” she laughed, “You haven’t figured it out? I’m the only one here because everyone else in my organization is too scared to get too close to you. Since you survived a direct altercation with me, they think you’re nearly invincible. Which you might be, and this is the real reason I’m here now.”

Huh? Real reason? What’s she up to?

“By now you must surely realize that I’m not here to kill you. I would’ve made a strike by now. I must confess, I have deeply, and passionately, fantasized killing you more than once since we last saw each other. But that's not what I want now.”

There was that famous coldness of Svetlana.

“Well, get on with it then. Why are you here?” I asked pessimistically.

“I have a job offer for you. A final job offer.”

“A job? What could you possibly need me for?”

“For your skills. You and I are the only ones within the organization capable of carrying out this job. If you agree and are successful, we will cease all further attempts on your life. We’ll also leave your little friends alone,” she stated as she held up Robbie’s pager.

“Leave them out of this Svetlana!”

“Agree to my terms and I will.”

“Okay, what’s the offer?”

Svetlana slowly and cautiously approached me and explained.

“Someone’s been stealing from the Mafia. It’s not a rival organization and we have no reason to believe it’s from inside. A few months ago, a number of small jobs were foiled by a mysterious assailant. Then last month, a major operation was hit. He killed several of our men.

We assume it’s a he. No one involved that survived even saw him. It’s a total phantom.”

“So how do you propose we catch him?”

She slowly moved in closer with her guard let down. She put her hands on my shoulders and lowered her voice to a whisper, “Together, I'm sure we can find a way.”

I shrugged back away from her as she attempted to kiss my neck. “Svetlana, I’m not falling for that again,” I said.

She pouted, “But we could be so good together.”

“I’ll take you up on the offer, but that’s it. I’m done with all of you Russians after this.”

“Fine,” she scoffed, “but I will need you to come with me to Belgrade. My employers are planning a trap for our adversary to spring. They are waiting for me to arrive with or without you by the end of the week.”

I determined that this must not have been a trick because she had by my count three separate chances to attack me during our conversation. I relaxed a bit, but now I had the offer to consider. It sounded like a pretty good deal. Help the baddies take out a baddie and then stop the flow of baddies that were out looking for me. With my luck and knowing the Russians, their baddie would end up being a goodie. But I couldn’t just let Robbie and Jess get killed over me.

“Fine, I’ll do it,” I agreed, “But can I have some time to cut my hair and shave first?”

“Of course. The beard is not what makes the man. The man is what makes the beard,” she said as she smiled.

So, I traveled to Serbia with Svetlana and met with the higher ups within the Russian Mafia who were planning the trap. They put me on the phone with Robbie. He and Jess were being held at the hideout in New York. He told me they were being treated well and I was assured they’d be let go when this mess was over.

“I’m sorry you two got drug into this Robbie. I’m gonna do all I can to get us out of this mess.”

All that was known of the thief was that each of his four victims so far were killed the same way. With a swift slash to the throat. No one saw anyone come in or out of either location where the jobs were disrupted. The men were killed, and the goods were taken.

Svetlana’s boss chose Belgrade as the site of the trap because he wanted to use his personal river yacht on the Danube to attract the thief. Myself, Svetlana, and four other men would be escorting a shipment of stolen diamonds to the yacht and wait to see if the thief showed up. He seemed to only be going after the goods once they were in the mob's possession, so he must be keeping tabs on the group and that's how he knows where to go and when to be there. The boss wouldn't be present of course as it might get dangerous.

The cool evening set in on the night we set the trap. Our men had just received the suitcase of diamonds and were carrying it down to the port with one man handcuffed to the case while me and Svetlana awaited their arrival. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Was smooth, just like any other old job. No suspicious characters, no other boats creeping around us. I checked the upper and lower decks myself and no one was on board, not even the normal crew. We wanted to ensure we were in control of the situation, so it would only be the six of us.

It needed to look convincing, so the men walked in a triangular formation around the man with the suitcase on their way down the dock. We didn’t want it to look like we were setting a trap by making it too easy. Once on board, the man with the suitcase went to the lower deck and the rest of us scattered about the ship before we set sail. The trip would take several days from our current location to Vienna. There was no trouble leaving port.

The following day, I was on deck drinking coffee and thinking about how funny it was that I was once again in service to the Russians. I knew I had to succeed in this mission, or I would be monitored and hunted by them for the rest of my life. Who knows where my journey would take me after though?

I finished up my coffee and went below deck. On my way to the bathroom, I came across a horrific scene. The mobster who had been carrying the briefcase was laying there on the floor, dead, in a pool of his own blood! His arm was severed off by the slash of a blade and the briefcase was missing! I scrambled, shouting at the upper deck.

“Svetlana! We've got a problem here!”

Her and the other guards rushed down to me. No one had seen or heard anything. We weren’t even sure when this happened. Everyone scattered and checked every nook and cranny of the boat. No one and nothing was found. Not even a clue. We were in the middle of the river!

After arriving in Vienna, we explained to Svetlana’s boss everything that had transpired. No one ever found the briefcase or the arm. He was shaken to his core. He told us that he had gotten calls from two other mafia depots and that both sites had been hit within twenty-four hours of the boat incident. Someone was hitting the mob all over Europe. He declared that this menace had to be stopped at all costs. Told me to forget about my freedom, if I solved this mystery and caught or killed the thief, he’d make me a rich man. Money’s nice, but I didn’t care about that. I just wanted to face down this new challenge and stamp it out.

The new plan was merely to protect assets. It was all hands on deck and we were on red alert. No movement would be made until the threat was neutralized. Every warehouse, dock, and safehouse belonging to the mob went on lockdown and the big guns were brought out. Svetlana and I were sent with fifteen men back to Moscow. The Russian Mafia’s precious metal supply was taken to a twelve-story building and locked up on the top floor. Men were posted at every exit. We knew at some point this daring thief would come after it. I could feel it in my bones that he just wanted the challenge.