4 Rainy Days and Monday (11 page)

She raised her eyebrows.

“Like what, exactly?”

“A thick, yellow envelope. Manila folder. A large dossier. A thumb drive. Anything like that.”

Her eyes darted back and forth, trying as much to figure out what Calvin was speaking of as much as trying to remember an envelope.

“No. I do not recall any contact whatsoever with Gabriel. Jake was undercover as much to get away from his father as to catch criminals. When we got him back, someone was busy programming him to kill his father. I don’t see where there was much opportunity for President Vine to manage to give Jake a gift, or whatever. Why?”

He shook his head.

“Nothing. I saw a folder when I was working with President Vine. It is missing now. That is all.”

“And this Lars fellow? Is he someone I have to worry about? Should we be worried?”

Calvin looked distracted. He looked away.

“Are you sure you haven’t seen a manila folder?” he asked.

She waited to respond. He looked at her, his eyebrows raised.

“I am
positive
,” she said slowly.

“Ok,” he stood up, dusting off his pants and headed for the door. “My work is done here,” he announced.

She grabbed him by his shoulder as he passed.

“Wait. You didn’t answer my question.”

“What?”

“Should we be worried?”

He pressed his lips together and stared at her for a moment, his eyes lingering on her abdomen.

“You should always be worried,” he whispered.

He pushed past her and into the entry. She heard him grab his coat from the rack and exit without another word. Behind her, the front door slammed shut.he turned in time to see Frank standing in the hall, his pistol in his hand.

“What did he want?”

She shook her head. Shrugged.

“Did you put my lasagna in the warmer?” she asked, changing the subject. She did not want him to be overly concerned. He was struggling enough as it was.

He shook his head, a smile playing at his lips.

“No. Macy ate it.”

Three Steps from a Nightmare

L
ars stepped through the set of doors, leading them onto a balcony that overlooked a large, well-lit laboratory. He barely noted the place. He was focused. This was a formality for him. He needed to see Andronicus.

“They must have spent billions on this place,” Dr. Forsythe noted behind him. He had been making inane comments like this since they had arrived. How big the house was. How secluded. He had heard of Dr. Spreckles and was looking forward to meeting him.

Lars wanted to run his dagger through the good doctor’s tongue and shut him up.

Giselle had said nothing. She was willing and complicit. Lars found himself admiring her determination and motivation. Her mother had been right about one thing. Giselle could be a perfect weapon.

He was the one wielding her now.

If she only knew the power she possessed, he was not positive that he could manage her the way he had so far. He was counting on her ignorance, the depth of the memory wipe, and the continued application of Sychol to keep her subdued. If she ever discovered her true destiny, God help them all.

“This way,” Violet ordered Forsythe.

She grabbed his elbow and led him off toward a secure room at the end of the hall. Giselle followed.

Lars scanned the room for his nemesis.

“Comrade!” a voice boomed from below.

How could I have missed him
? Lars thought.

“Good to see you, friend,” Lars returned.

“Come, I have a bottle of Kaufman flown in from Los Angeles. Funny how America continues to get its hands on the best Russian vodka!”

Lars would rather have U’luvka, a Polish vodka preferred by his royal lineage, but he kept his mouth shut.

“Excellent,” he said.

“I will take these two down to the lab,” Violet announced.

He nodded to her. His mouth was dry, his lips parched. He turned seventy next week. Not that anyone would celebrate. He was almost a decade removed from his treatments. Looking at Andronicus, he was stunned by the difference. They were only five years apart in age, but the man looked twenty years younger.

I am getting too old for this
, he alleged. His access to the age-reversal treatments would be impossible to resume now.
Wishful thinking may retrieve some years from your body, but the memories would be the same
, Lars thought.

He gathered himself and descended the winding stairs down to the first level.

“Come. Walk with me. I have a room for us, old friend,” Andronicus said, his voice unusually chipper.

Lars followed him, noting the other man’s lumbering gait.

Andronicus was built like a mountain with legs. His neck was thick and scarred, his head shaped like a cantaloupe. His bald head shone in the light. Appearances could be deceptive. Lars knew the man had preternatural speed and agility for a man his size.

Lars was aware of how he probably appeared.

He had worn his old uniform. One that he had worn before Dak To. He had been an officer in the GRU Spetznaz, long before anti-terrorism, before Spetznaz battalions had been created. He adjusted his burgundy beret, the pride of his uniform. Funny. It was the only thing that still fit.

Andronicus turned back to him, his eyes appraising him.

“You are still lithe, my friend. How do you keep in such remarkable shape? We are old men, you know.”

Lars kept his eyes ahead.

“I kill people for a living, remember? It takes a lot out of a man,” he quipped. It was a veiled threat. They both knew it.

Andronicus laughed, his eyes lighting up.

“Here, come in. Shut the door,” he said as he lumbered around a huge desk.

Lars shut the door as Andronicus poured two crystal tumblers half-full of vodka from a strangely shaped glass bottle with a chrome, fluted cap. A cigar smoldered in an ashtray near the edge. Its pungent smoke filled the room.

Lars sat on a large leather sofa across from the desk.

Andronicus handed him his tumbler.

It smelled like freshly cooked bread. A good Russian winter grain. He inhaled its scents and Mother Russia came roaring back to him.

Grey streets, laughing at parties. Sleeping with girls with their wool stockings still on. His collection of French caps as a boy. His father’s clandestine religious practices. His mother’s scolding tongue. His sister’s death at the hands of a mob of hungry workers.

The horror and home of his youth. His entrance into the army. His commander yelling at him as he trudged through muck and mire. As if they would ever fight another battle on a Western front.

Funny how thoughts of home could make you ache with longing, cringe with disgust and fear simultaneously
, he thought bitterly.

“My father said you were a fierce warrior,” Andronicus said, breaking Lars’ thoughts.

“Your father was a good man. And a terrible liar.”

Andronicus laughed, his cheeks red, his nose enflamed.

He has been drinking a lot,
he realized
.

“I must say, I am glad you brought the girl.”

“You have something for me. I believe that was the agreement.”

“Yes. I will get you the file as soon as we are finished.”

Lars sipped the vodka. The clear, clean liquid stinging his cracked lips and burning all the way down his throat.

He looked up at Andronicus who had sat back down on the desk. It creaked under his weight.

“You are wondering why my son defected, aren’t you?”

“The Brotherhood can be persuasive. I am surprised they trusted him once they figured out who he was.”

“He had inside help.”

“Swane?”

“Who else? Rodman was destined to be a puppet from the beginning. No one else has the family ties or the money to resist the Consortium.”

Andronicus swallowed his tumbler of vodka in one quick swig. He wiped his mouth with the back of a pudgy hand.

“So how can I know I can trust you, then?” he asked.

“I brought you the girl, didn’t I?”

Andronicus shrugged.

“A small thing. Between old friends, it is but a small thing.”

“I have let you live. That should be enough.”

Andronicus laughed without mirth. He turned and refilled his glass.

“You are brave, comrade.”

“I am simply a realist. I do not think you brought me here to discuss Calvin. You know he is not even technically my son.”

Andronicus smiled thinly, the cigar smoke slowly rising up around his head like a cat nuzzling his form.

“You are perceptive. I have never been able to get one over on you.”

“You should stop trying,” he said, handing Andronicus the empty glass as he drained it. He could feel the effects of the alcohol working in his blood, in his brain, in his limbs. His nose was already numb.

“How long have you been playing both sides?”

He was too wise to be stunned.

Of course Andronicus knew.

“Always. I have been true to only one. Me.”

Andronicus nodded, sniffed. Turned and re-filled Lars’ glass.

He handed it back to Lars.

“I should not drink so much,” he admitted.

“You should drink your fill. I have a tale to tell that will require a good drunk to digest.”

Lars nodded.

“What trouble are you stirring now, brother?”

Andronicus looked past his shoulder, his eyes wistful. Lars turned to look behind him. A poster of a Russian woman holding a loaf of bread in one hand and a Russian flag in the other graced the wall, its faded edges curling. Lars looked back at the younger man.

“Svetlana was my first, you know?”

“How long had you known my sister?”

Andronicus blinked, the alcohol slowing his movements.

“I knew her before you went off to the army. She brought me fresh milk every day.”

Lars chuckled, remembering his younger sister always working hard. Their mother had been so proud of her. Their father had been inconsolable when she died.

“She talked about you often.”

He nodded.

“I asked her to marry me,” he said.

Lars did not know what to say. He did not believe he had ever seen Andronicus emotional. Lars knew ViVeri were devoutly patriotic in order to hide their true passion. He had no idea that they could love. He had believed it past their capabilities, against their nature. The only thing they loved more than themselves was the idea of rising again to be true rulers.

Andronicus sighed, his eyes cloudy and far off.

“I have a decision to make, comrade.”

“You have my permission to defect. I will not stop you,” Lars added. He absently scratched at a scar running lengthwise down his forearm.

It was the truth. He had worked on such divided loyalties for so long, it no longer mattered. After being programmed, Lars had decided he was a free agent. He desired the same thing Mr. Galbraith sought: balance. He wanted neither side to win.

“We are both too old for this. I honestly did not think I would live long enough to see this day.”

“This is about the girl, isn’t it?”

He looked at him without emotion.

“Does she know she has the power to abolish and to heal?”

He shook his head.

Andronicus looked away again and stared at the poster.

“It is better this way, then.”

“How did you find out?”

Andronicus smiled without humor.

“We have the doctor that helped develop the device. He intends to use its powers in reverse. To destroy instead of to enhance.”

His voice sounded sad. Disappointed. Tired.

“What are you going to do?”

Andronicus shrugged, took a long drink of vodka, and smacked his lips.

“I think I will destroy the world.”

“If anyone can, it would be you, comrade.”

Andronicus licked his lips and smiled.

“This is true.”

∞

Giselle fought through the fog in her head. She had faculty enough to put one foot in front of the other. She had enough presence of thought to obey the commands shot at her. She stared at the back of the woman’s neck in front of her, entranced by the tattoo there. The dragon raised its three heads, shooting fire.

A word was there. She could not read it. It looked like old Slavic text. It held a power. She could see it radiating from the characters like heat coming from blacktop in the summer.

She felt someone next to her.

It was Gary.

His presence both calmed her and made her angry. Something inside made her want to strangle the man. Yet, she knew he was here to protect her.

“She needs some rest. Look at her, she is thirsty.”

“We are all thirsty, doctor,” the woman said. Her voice was condescending.

The room came into better focus. It was a large room with several tables and raised beds like a hospital.

“Bring her over here. They already have the equipment ready.”

“Where are the surgeons? Shouldn’t they already be here?”

“Keep quiet, doctor. You are here for one reason only. You need to concentrate on your subject here. She needs to be prepped for the surgery. They will be ready for her soon,” the woman claimed.

Giselle almost panicked then.

Surgery!

She felt the need to run. To flee. Where? Where was she?

Then, she remembered. This was all part of the plan.

Someone would say the word. Someone would take the chip. The false chip that had been planted there.

In her mind, she saw the dragon breathe fire, rear up on its hind legs and pummel the warrior and tear his shield from his hands.

“Of course. Can you get her some water, though? Just enough to wet her lips?”

The woman rolled her eyes and mumbled something under her breath.

Gary led her to a bed by her elbow.

He did not know. If he did, would he let her do it? Would he try to rescue her?

A fire burned in her stomach, a drum beat in her head, and she could feel a sparkle in her fingers. It reminded her of a time so far away.

She had been a child, covered in warm quilts and a fuzzy blanket. A cold winter night in a drafty house. She would run her fingers along the fuzzy blanket, little arcs of lightning crossing between her skin and the fibers of the blanket in the dry air. She would watch this wondrous display for almost an hour before succumbing to sleep.