Moscow Mule (A Thom Hodges Romantic Thriller Book 1)

by Owen Chance

  “I will make sure America backs your plan to neuter NATO,” Sullivan said flatly, quietly, without trepidation but with resign in his voice. He was only 35 years old, and about to become a traitor to the country he’d sworn to serve. Plankov reached out his hand to shake Sullivan’s, but the American ignored it. As Plankov got out of the car, he instructed the driver to take their passenger back to the hospital. When the car pulled away, Sullivan pulled his phone from out of his back pocket. As it had done a thousand times before, it had butt-dialed someone. And though no one appeared to be on the other end of the line, the call was still active. Abi Adam’s voicemail had been recording the conversation between Plankov and Sullivan for the last 15 minutes.

  2.

  As Sullivan drove back to the hospital, Trey and Petrov slid into a booth in the back of a small, dark bar in the Calle San Bernardo neighborhood on central Madrid’s north side. Tucked in an alley beside a Franciscan monastery, it had only two other patrons: both old men perched upon stools at the bar, playing Keno with two empty glasses of beer in front of each of them, even though it was only one in the afternoon. As they nursed their third beers, a TV above the bar aired coverage from the upcoming NATO summit, but the volume was so low nobody could hear it. The barkeep walked over to their booth. Petrov ordered them two beers, and they didn’t speak until the barkeep dropped off their drinks and told them to wave if they wanted more.

  Trey took a drink of his beer and sat it down. “We thought you were dead.” Petrov cocked his head a bit. He knew Trey was American, and that he had no choice but to trust him, but, “Who are you even?” Trey laughed, “Fair question. I’m Trey Stevenson, and like your boyfriend, I work for the C.I.A. Thom is my best friend.” Recognition flashed across Petrov’s face, and Trey continued, “I’ve been in Moscow for the last week under the cover of an astrophysics graduate student in his second year of studies, but running espionage for the C.I.A. director back in Washington.” Trey took a sip of his beer, “Neither Thom, nor Ambassador Anderson know. When Anderson told the director he thought the embassay had a mole, she sent me in to find out who using an off-site server at one of our safe houses. Turned out, they needed me to be a honeypot in order to find a new angle on Foreign Minister Plankov.”

  The barkeep dropped a bowl of cashews off at their table and then went back to scrolling through his phone behind the bar. One of the old men at the bar yelped jubilantly, holding a Keno ticket up in the air. Nobody paid Petrov and Thom any mind, so Petrov finished his beer and Trey continued, “I worked my way into Plankov’s bedroom, and well, here we are.” Petrov spit some of his beer through his nose, and it stung like hell. Trey laughed, “I know, I know. After this assignment, the Agency owes me. You haven’t known serving your country until you’ve had that goat’s cock in your mouth.”

  Despite themselves, they laughed, laughed until they were both crying. Gaining composure, Petrov said, “I can’t believe Thom doesn’t know you’re here! Or that you’ve been in the same city as him for the last week.” Petrov narrowed his brows, “I need to get to Ambassador Anderson. How are we going to pull this off?” It was a good question, and Trey had been giving it every thought since Petrov had stumbled into his hotel suite and he had recognized the Russian, presumed dead, but here in Madrid, very much alive. “Tomorrow night there’s a costume ball at the Edificio Carrión for the NATO delegates. If we can keep you under wraps until then, I think, I pray, we can get you to the ambassador.”

  3.

  Alcocer pushed the button to take them to the fourth floor of the warehouse, and Thom fidgeted nervously. He had reason to be nervous, as he, as the world, needed this plan to work. And the plan wasn’t one of the new intelligence gathering, all networked and accomplished from behind a computer at Langley or in Moscow or London. No, this plan was rather old-fashioned spy craft. As the elevator came to a stop and its doors opened, Thom suddenly let out a cute hiccup, like that of a toddler, and began singing “Baby love, my baby love, I need you oh how I need you. But all you do is treat me bad. Break my heart and leave me sad.” At this, Señor Alcocer doubled over he was laughing so hard. “I can’t help it!” Thom complained, and they made their way to Paco’s door.

  Paco was bent over the same bench where they had left him, and as they walked in, the craftsman turned on his stool and held the thinnest, finest piece of glass above his head. Thom walked closer and Paco gave it to him. Thom twirled the expensive toothpick between his thumb and pointer finger, and suddenly gasped, “It’s beautiful.” Paco smiled and nodded knowingly. He knew he’d done good work. “Gracias, gracias.” What Thom held in his hand resembled, nay, was just like the finest toothpicks the finest bars use in their drinks. He could barely see the wiring on the inside, and if you didn’t know what it was, you would think it was merely some ridiculous piece of functional modern art. Paco raised a finger in the air, and turned back around. “I thought it might look odd if only one of the toothpicks looked like this, so I made you more.” He handed Thom a small box, full of beautiful glass toothpicks with pieces of thin wire inside of them, exact, even if non-functioning, replicas of the one containing the audio surveillance equipment.

  Thom’s eyes watered, and he threw his arms around Paco’s neck. “I can never thank you enough, my friend. You may have just saved the world.”

  4.

  After the doctors examined her husband, checking his vitals and explaining that should his condition continue to improve he would be free to leave the hospital the following morning, Abi Adams excused herself, realizing suddenly that in the rush of the morning she’d not stopped to pee. In a spotless and bright white marble bathroom just down the hall, Abi pulled her phone out of the slim orange leather clutch she carried. She had several voicemails, but her eyes zeroed in on the one from Sullivan Andrews first. Why would he call her when he was still in this very hospital, she presumed? Surely he wasn’t proposing a tryst while her husband and his best friend woke up from the anesthesia? With the tip of her simply, but impeccably manicured finger, Abi pressed the message and held the phone up to her ear.

  She recognized immediately the two voices on the message, of course. Her husband’s chief of staff, Sullivan Andrews, with whom she’d had a silly and stupid affair. And the other man, Dimitri Plankov, the foreign minister of Russia, who had visited her house in Washington so many times and who, she had just found out, was trying to blackmail her husband into treason. As she listened to their conversation, she realized Grant Adams wasn’t the only man the Kremlin was trying to use. And it became quickly, shockingly clear to her how they were trying to blackmail Sullivan. What could she do?

  She almost dropped her phone in the sink as the door opened to the ladies’ room behind her, startling Abi. “Hello, Mrs. Adams,” Natalie Summers, Ambassador Anderson’ long-time personal aide, said to her, entering the restroom, “How are you holding up?”

  5.

  “He-, hello, Natalie.” Abi slipped the phone back into her bag and washed her hands, “Grant is doing well, thank you. He should be released tomorrow.” As Abi took a paper towel from the wicker basket beside the sink, Natalie smiled, “I’m so glad to hear that, Mrs. Adams.” Abi thought to give the woman a hug, but decided against it, smiling and nodding her head in thanks on her way out the door.

  Natalie reached into the pocket of her slacks and pulled out not her official State Department iPhone, but a secondary phone, unmarked and containing only one phone number in its contact book. She pressed call and held the phone up to her ear. “Mr. President,” she said, “They’re suspicious Adams was poisoned. If we’re going to make a move, we need to do it now.” There was a pause as Natalie listened. “Da, da, anything for Mother Russia.” She snapped the phone shut and slipped it back into her pocket. Natalie Summers was a Russian spy, as she had been since the age of 7, when she left the name Antonina Plankov on a train platform next to her parents and brother, Dimitri Plankov.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  1.

 
President Meredith Myers perched on the edge of a bed in her bedroom at the great La Moncloa Palace, the residence of Spain’s prime minister. Myers and Prime Minister Antonoli were friends, and though she lived in the White House, after all, her stays at the Palace never ceased to amaze her. In her bed, kings and queens, prime ministers and presidents had all slept for centuries. Her husband, too, had loved visiting Madrid, and for the first time since his death, since this was the first time she was alone, really, President Myers put her head in her hands and allowed herself to weep.

  Allowed herself to weep, that is, for exactly 45 seconds. “Pull it together,” she puffed to herself, “You can’t do this. Not here. Not now.” And she did. Myers straightened out a wrinkle in her trousers with the palm of her hand and stood up. Outside of the palace, her motorcade was waiting to take her to the hospital where her vice president was recovering from a stroke. She knew he’d be fine, but something about the whole ordeal unnerved Myers in a manner she could not yet pinpoint.

  Abi Adams was waiting to greet the president when the motorcade pulled up to the hospital’s side entrance, where the whole of the surgical ward was now cordoned off in preparation for President Myer’s impending arrival. “Good afternoon, Madame President. Thank you for coming early, it means the world to Grant and me.” The women hugged, and Myers said, “Please, Abi, today of all days, call me Maddy.” The two had known each other for a long time. Though of different generations, they were both sisters from Harvard’s illustrious Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, both went to law school at Duke and both went into public service. Though Abi was of a Southern aristocratic family and Myers of middle class Midwestern stock, there had always been a fondness between the two women rare in the upper echelons of federal government.

  “Okay, Maddy,” Abi smiled and wrapped her arm through the president’s. They walked into the hospital, both unsure of what was about to unfold.

  2.

  “Maddy,” Vice President Grant Adams said, rising up in his bed and taking the president’s hands into his own, “Thank you for coming. And please, forgive my forgoing the normal formalities, but we have a crisis on our hands and I need to tell you about it right away.” The president looked at him credulously. Maybe, she thought, it was the drugs still wearing off. But his speech was clear, even if rushed and filled with worry. “Abi, can you get Ambassador Anderson and Sully,” Adams asked, and Abi left the room, quickly returning with the two men behind her.

  “What I have to tell you isn’t easy, Madame President. But the air needs to be cleared. We have reason to believe the Russians caused my stroke this morning.” Again, she looked at him in shock, but this time spoke, “Grant, I think you’re very tired because as you know, we’re about to announce a new peace strategy with…” He held up his hand to stop her, “I’m sorry, ma’am, but you’re wrong. Let me explain.”

  Grant Adams told President Meredith Myers everything. About the affair with his nanny, about how the Russians were holding it over his head to blackmail him, and how the blackmail seemed harmless until they needed to put the mechanisms in place to take back over the countries of the former Eastern Bloc. He told her how the Kremlin had assassinated their own ambassador to the United States, and then an G.R.U. agent who was working with Ambassador Anderson, both of who had suspected Adams was compromised. Anderson nodded, and Adams continued, “You see, Maddy, the Russians are trying to gut NATO so they can invade the nations on their eastern border. Vasily and Plankov have wanted this ever since they stepped foot inside the Kremlin. Probably before. And who knows if they’ll stop there.” Myers sat on the edge of her vice president’s hospital bed, clearly taken aback, as anyone would be.

  Abi Adams cleared her throat. “Honey.” She paused. “And Maddy. Sullivan and I have something to share, too.” Sullivan turned as white as the starched sheets on the hospital bed. Abi told them all about her own affair with her husband’s chief of staff, and how the Russians were trying to use him now, too, but he was only acting in order to protect her and the administration. Adams glared at his friend and most trusted advisor, “Sully,” he asked, “Is it true?” Sullivan nodded, though he didn’t need to. Adams knew it was true, and though he’d been through hell and back already over the last few hours, his heart threatened to break into a billion tiny pieces. But just then, Abi squeezed his hand, which she hadn’t let go of all while telling her story. He looked up at her through his moistening eyes and saw in her both the greatest love and the deepest regret. They had both cheated. And their dalliances had been disastrous for reasons they could have never foretold. But they — Vice President Grant Adams and his beloved wife Abigail — they would be okay.

  The state of the free world, however, was much more tenuous.

  3.

  The Museo Nacional Del Prado is a crowning jewel of Madrid, a museum rivaling the Louvre in Paris or the Met in New York, but even more beautiful, perhaps, for the views it afforded of the Parque de El Retiro, often cited as the most pristine of city parks in the entire world. The Prado was also host, at this moment in time, to a grand costume ball welcoming the delegations of the NATO summit. Plus Russian President Vasily and Foreign Minister Plankov, who had, despite their resolute non-membership in that organization of independent but allied states, strong armed an invitation alongside an audience with many of the NATO leaders themselves.

  Given the mission of NATO to ensure peace and the current exhibition of the Prado’s finest early church works depicting Genesis, the theme of the evening was “Eden.” And in the grant tradition of Spanish costume balls dating back to the twelfth century, everyone was in costume. Security agents and waitstaff, dignitaries and their partners walked the halls of the museum masked as every animal imaginable. Though Grant Adams was still in the hospital, his wife Abi, a gazelle, stayed close to Ambassador Anderson, a puma, and President Myers, a grand lioness. “Look,” Myers whispered to Anderson and Abi, pointing at Vasily and Plankov, who held court on the other side of the gallery dressed as a bear and a warthog, respectively, “I’m surprised they’re not snakes.”

  One story below the gallery, Thom and Alcocer were disguised as waiters. Or rather, waiters in tuxedos with tiger masks covering their faces. They snuck a tray of drinks into the restroom and began placing their finely-tuned glass toothpicks into each cocktail. For Foreign Minister Plankov, they had requested a double vodka martini with extra olives, just as he always ordered, and now slipped the olives onto the toothpick with the microphone in its core. Just as Thom slipped the toothpick into the martini glass, another pair of waiters walked in and the two duos startled one another. Thom stared hard at the taller of the entering pair, a man in an ill-fitting tuxedo that still was able to show off his chiseled physique. As Thom’s gaze made its way up the man’s body, it came upon the face, masked behind the face of a koala, but still the icy blue eyes were visible, vivid even, even in the dim wattage of this basement bathroom.

  “Pe-,” Thom shook his head, then hiccupped, “Petrov, is that you?” The man lifted the mask from his face, and Thom could see clearly now that it was Petrov, quite risen from the dead. Thom smiled, but the smile quickly faded, and he lifted his hand, slapping Petrov hard across the face. “How dare you?” he spat as his hand made stinging contact with Petrov’s cheek, “How dare you run away and leave me thinking you were dead.”

  Instead of hitting back, Petrov brought his hand to his face, holding his cheek, and then the other to Thom’s face, where he lifted the American’s mask and leaned in to kiss him. And Thom, without hesitation, allowed the kiss, kissing Petrov back more deeply, more passionately than he’d ever kissed anyone before. Señor Alcocer and Trey, who had entered with Petrov, each turned away, allowing the two lovers this sweet, albeit brief, reunion.

  4.

  Ambassador Anderson, per the protocol of courtesy, walked over to greet President Vasily and Foreign Minister Plankov, though of course every step laid his heart heavy with disgust. Here were two men plotting the upheaval of internati
onal peace as the world knew it, and here he was about to greet them warmly. He was in Eden, after all, so he had to greet the snake of Satan without allowing the reptile to bite.

  “Good evening, Mr. Ambassador,” President Vasily said, extending his hand. Taking it, Anderson replied, “Good evening, gentlemen,” nodding, too, to Vasily’s wretched henchman, Plankov, who nodded back not unkindly, but bemusedly. A waiter approached and offered each man a drink. He wore a tiger mask, and Anderson looked at him quizzically, but it was hard to see in the soft light of the main gallery. Anderson and Vasily each took a minty Spanish pisco sour, one of their host’s county’s most beloved springtime cocktails. Mint breaks through the icy ground of winter, and signals the coming spring. As Foreign Minister Plankov reached for his own pisco sour, the waiter spoke softly in a horribly imitative Spanish accent, thankfully unnoticed by the Russian leaders, “Excuse me, Señor Plankov, but the chef asked us to bring you a vodka martini with extra olives.” Plankov smiled, “Just as I like,” took the martini and raised his glass first to the waiter, then to Vasily and Anderson. When the waiter smiled and turned to leave, recognition flashed across the ambassador’s face like a jolt of sudden energy.

  Anderson returned to Abi and President Myers, leaning in close to whisper, “Thom is here. I don’t know what he’s up to, but something’s afoot.” Anderson’s excitement manifested in his slip into an antiquated form of speech, a holdover from his blue blood mother, without a doubt, which did not escape him now. One of Myers’ aides came over and leaned into the president’s other ear. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said, “It appears I need to run to the embassy to take a secure call with China.” Anderson gave Myers, one of his oldest friends, a hug and Abi said, “Would you have time to drop me by the hospital? I’m afraid I won’t be of much help here tonight and Grant and I could really use some time to talk.” Myers smiled, “Of course, Abi.” Abi, too, gave Anderson a hug and the two women walked toward the gallery’s central stairwell, flanked by Secret Service agents.