River Tango: Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

            The itinerary listed the curriculum as La Cruzada: The Cross.

            Jack wondered how remedial this lesson would be since La Cruzada was probably the most basic concept in tango. Little Carl, who was actually quite tall and preferred to be addressed as Carlito, was one of the most widely respected tango teachers in The Big Apple and well known to Jack. If anyone were capable of taking biscuits and making a banquet out of this simple topic, it would be Little Carl.

            There was another reason that Jack wanted to be here. In the eleven years of his continuing education in the art of tango movement, he had yet to hear Penelope utter a single word. A pale-skinned Brit with red hair who communicated with a mime’s facial expressions, she was Carlito’s constant companion. He often spied Penelope sitting with her partner at a table at the milongas. It seemed to Jack that they were sometimes talking to each other but he could never prove it.

            Penelope’s black Siamese cat and tiny white Shih tzu dog always accompanied her to the dance workshops. Her pets sat in the corner of the studio on a light blue blanket, each sporting a jewel-studded collar conjoined to a pencil-thin chain made of miniature links of titanium. The blanket, collars and chain were handcrafted by the famous designer, Ottavio Missioni, and were worth a small fortune.

            Inside the room, the more advanced students departed and were replaced by inexperienced enthusiasts. The Amerasian woman had stayed and she now collaborated with a young Russian woman.            The secret agent noticed the Russian’s toned muscles and that her movements were that of a practiced dancer. He wondered why two experienced women were taking such a beginner’s level class but he surmised they were like him: people who knew the key to tango lay in mastering the basics and not in the learning of many choreographed patterns.

            Jack couldn’t wait to hear Little Carl repeat a phrase he used in almost every class. Carlito liked to say that tango was like math and that the key in getting from 1 + 1 to E=mc2 was in the process used to derive the answer and not in the answer itself.

            Little Carl billed himself as “Carlito” but few addressed him by that name. A Brooklyn native, the giant man did not appear to fit the stereotypical image of a dancer. His sullen face and four o’clock shadow suggested Mafioso more than mambo. However, his dedication and his wealth of knowledge ensured he would be a studio’s first choice to induct beginners into the world of tango and still provide experienced students with new insights into the dance.

            Carlito began with a simple demonstration of leading Penelope into the cross. He then explained in simple terms the history and purpose of this movement in social tango. The students practiced the movement and switched partners at Carlito’s inference.

            Jack had a difficult time paying attention as all his senses tingled with expectation of an assassin’s knife.

            The Russian woman was next in the line of rotation to Jack when Carlito introduced le doble cruzada: the double cross. The instructors performed the movement to gasps of astonishment from the class before announcing a ten-minute break.

            Jack made a dash for the restrooms located at the eighth floor stairwell outside the studio. Penelope was right behind him toting her cat and dog on their shiny chain.

            As the door closed behind them, Drago ran up the stairwell and swung his right fist hard at Jack’s jaw. The battle-tested warrior ducked instinctively and Penelope took the full force of the hit on her chin. She was knocked unconscious.

            Jack slammed his shoulder into Drago’s midsection and rammed his assailant into the sill of a large open window hoping to break his back.

            Penelope fell to the ground and the cat, named Muffy, seized this opportunity to push its partner on the chain, the sugar-white Shih tzu called Buttons, through the rungs of the stairway railing. The helpless canine fell to the length of its chain and hung suspended above ninety-seven feet of unobstructed open space.

            Drago produced a knife and smiled, his sapphire filling sparkling as it caught a glint of sunlight through the open window. He lunged at the CIA agent who intuitively grabbed the nearest object, Muffy, and thrust it into the Serbian’s face.

            Buttons was yanked back through the railing as Muffy found himself forced onto Drago’s mug. The feline clawed at the man’s nose and mouth. It dug in its hind legs and dredged furiously.

            The knife dropped from the assassin’s hand as he lurched backwards, lost his footing and toppled out the open window.

            The chain connecting the two pets zipped across the marbled floor and the cat disappeared into the open air still scratching at the man’s face. Buttons followed on the end of the shackle and caught itself on the windowsill. The fluffy-white snowball of a creature nearly broke its spine as the chain suddenly yanked on its thin, fur-covered neck.

            Its front legs taut against the window’s frame, the canine dug its nails into the smooth stone ledge, desperately trying to get traction and pull itself away from the open window. It was a hopeless maneuver of paws clambering on an impossibly slick surface but the tenacity of the little animal overcame the laws of physics and it pulled itself, and Muffy, back from the precipice. Muffy’s snout slammed against the outside edge of the window’s frame.

            When Jack regained his balance, he reached out and pulled the cat back inside the stairwell, setting it down upon the hard floor. Buttons quickly ran to it and began licking it profusely with the kind of joy only a dog can exude.

            Just then, Penelope regained consciousness and Jack quickly grabbed her left arm to support her as she rose.

            Helping her to her feet, he gasped, “My dear girl, are you alright?”

            Using the power of suggestion to make her forget Drago’s fist striking her, he said, “A man rushed up the stairwell and I fear my elbow caught you in the head. You went out like a light.”

            Thinking quickly, Jack asked Penelope if she might be low on sugar and inquired as to when she had last eaten. He hoped she would respond vocally and he would finally know if she was a mute or not.

            She looked at him with her brown eyes and nodded in agreement. Her mouth opened slightly as if she was ready to say something when her expression changed. She raised her hand to her mouth, touched a finger to her tongue and showed it to Jack: it was red with blood.

            Now he would never know!

            Penelope’s injury resulted in the cancellation of the rest of the class.

            A police officer arrived to question Little Carl about the apparent suicide of Drago as the students were putting on their street shoes, preparing to disperse.

            The Russian woman approached Jack and introduced herself as Lapushka.

            “Eet means ‘leetle paw’ een my langveech,” she said with a thick Slavic accent.

“Vee needs to talk. Not here. Come.”

            Suspicious but needing answers, Jack was obliged to follow her to the elevator. When the doors closed, she indicated that it was still not safe to talk.

            Pointing to the emergency phone and the ceiling fan, she said, “Boogs.”

            In the elevator, Agent Stueben looked directly at Lapushka. She returned his gaze with a blank stare.

            He supposed she was Caucasian but thought her slanted eye sockets indicated a Mongol heritage. She was a thin woman and nearly flat chested. Her tone muscles denoted a woman of strength and agility. She tied her short, light-brown hair in a small ponytail like a samurai.

            The two continued their staring match until the lift reached the sixty-eighth floor. The doors opened and Jack waited for her to depart first. She walked quickly to a door labeled stairway that led to the building’s rooftop. 

            He couldn’t help but admire the woman’s sure-footed stealth as she climbed the stairs up into the open air.

            He could spot tango dancers in a crowd by their walk. It takes years to learn basic tango movement while most others dances require only a few months. He spent three years just to find out how to hold a woman in the tango embrace.  After five years, he realized he barely knew how to walk to the music and had to start his education all over again from the very beginning.

            This proved beneficial to his skills as a soldier. Now he moved with balance, regardless of whether he was dancing tango, climbing a cliff or engaging in hand-to-hand combat with a mortal enemy.

            Skyscrapers towered above them like mountain peaks in the Himalayas. His combat training told him this was a good place for an ambush. He felt exposed. He didn’t trust this woman but he needed to know why Drago had tried to kill him and she might have the answer.

            “You are Zhack Stueben, no?” she asked.

            A seagull flitted overhead, riding the airways better than the best human pilot ever could: banking, dropping, hovering, eyeing the two humans for signs of food.

            “Yes.” He answered.

            “Deed you suicide Drrahgo?” she asked, fighting hard to not to crack a smile.

            He replied, “No.”

            Now it was obvious to Jack that she was definitely a Russian spy. He deduced that her accent was Siberian, not Slavic. He stared at her coldly, trying to figure out why she had lured him up here in the first place.

            She continued, “Gooood, eet vas my zhob to….suicide heeem.” She smiled broadly, “I veel takes zee credit for zat zhob zen. Drrahgo veel not be zee lahst after you,” she warned, “heeem I know, others I don’t. Een tango zee spies are everyveeeeeere.”

            With that last word, he noticed her demeanor change drastically. Crouching down she turned her back to the doorway. He looked down the stairs and saw no one coming. Her hand was on the mat of the rubber roofing. She seemed to be listening for something, yet he still could not see any signs of danger. She scanned the neighboring buildings with her pale yellow eyes.

            If it hadn’t been for Lapushka, he would have noticed the red dot on his shirt too late. The moment he did see it was the same moment the lithe body of the Russian spy slammed into his with a cat-like leap. A fraction of a second later the red brick wall of the stairwell exploded as a bullet struck it. Tiny fragments flew into the air in a pink cloud of dust.

            A second shot revealed to them that an unseen gunman had the doorway in his sights so they skittered around to the side of the parapet.

            The air suddenly filled with the sound of whirling helicopter blades as a large commercial chopper rose above the roof’s edge. Men wearing black masks and carrying assault rifles jumped out of the mechanical bird’s open hatch.  

            Jack scaled the parapet wall to an overhang where he wedged himself into a thin shadow as best he could and waited for the attackers.

            Lapushka, using the abundant roof stacks and air vents for cover, made her way towards the whirlybird and two of the gunmen.

            A lone assailant turned the corner and Jack dropped onto him from above. Agent Stueben was a master at dealing out death. Using the force of his fall he disabled his stalker with a karate chop to the neck. He landed in a crouching position with one knee forward. Grabbing the masked man with the powerful hands of a K-2 mountaineer, he slammed the body onto his extended leg. There was a loud cracking sound before the man’s frame went totally limp and rolled to the ground.

            Jack seized the would-be assassin’s rifle and poked his head around the backside of the parapet. He guessed an attacker would try to cut off his escape. He saw Lapushka leaping towards a gunman like a mountain lion diving upon its prey. She held a metal scalpel in her outstretched hand and her eyes gleamed with delight. The blade found its mark at the base of the masked man’s skull: death was immediate.

            He was impressed with the Russian. If only she had bigger breasts, he thought and smiled inwardly. His eyes surveyed the battlefield. The blades of the chopper whirled above them. He surmised that the helicopter now blocked the sniper who fired the initial shots. He saw Lapushka, now armed with a rifle, moving between ventilation stacks like a dancer, keeping herself hidden from an assailant whose gun barrel betrayed his presence behind an air vent.

            Captain Stueben was close enough to the helicopter that he could have shot the pilot but he needed to keep it between him and the unseen gunman on the adjacent building.

            A third attacker moved out from his hiding place and Agent Stueben took him out with a shot to the head.

            As soon as Lapushka saw Jack’s victim fall to the ground, she fired a shot into the cockpit of the helicopter that veered into the roof and tore through the surface of the structure.

            She didn’t lower her gun, however, when the flying machine burst into flames on the far side of the roof. Peering into the forest of tall buildings with the eyes of a Mongol archer, she held her breath and squeezed the trigger. It was an incredibly long shot.

            Moments later Jack saw a dark figure plummet from its hidden perch hundreds of yards away. It plunged down into the chasm formed by the skyscrapers of New York City’s skyline. He was impressed. Maybe, he mused, breast size was not as important as superior marksmanship.

            Lapushka looked at him, saw the wolf in his eyes and uttered a gasp of contempt.

            “I must go,” she said, glancing towards the helicopter lodged into the rooftop, “there veel be pipples asking kwvestions.”

            With those words, she slipped through the doorway and disappeared.

Note: For an in-depth look into the mind of the Kayak Hombre, read his book, available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/River-Tango-perri-iezzoni/dp/1453865527/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369366756&sr=1-1&keywords=River+tango