Moscow Mule (A Thom Hodges Romantic Thriller Book 1)

by Owen Chance

  Plankov and Vasily perched in a corner of the gallery taking in the scene as President Myers left the ball. No one approached them, as no one was too keen to cozy up to the Russians, who were seen as an odd presence at NATO, an organization founded on the principle of fighting Russian over-aggression. Plankov stirred his martini and sipped it slowly. “Damn,” he said, “This is good. Is everything in place?” Vasily nodded. He had insisted on planning tonight himself. “The Venezuelan should make his appearance in five minutes. And with any luck, Ambassador Anderson will be dead shortly thereafter. Then the world will think Myers a fool if she doesn’t join with us in seeking peace.” Vasily smiled at his minion, who smiled back at him then finished his martini, setting the glass on a cornice from a column dating back to the third century B.C.E.

  From a storage closet a story below, Thom, Petrov, Alcocer, and Trey heard the entire conversation via the toothpick in the martini Plankov loved so much.

  5.

  Thom immediately let out a hiccup into Petrov’s ear and, started softly humming the chorus of “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” the March 1971 Aretha Franklin version, naturally, not the original Simon & Garfunkel. The four men looked to each other, and then at their feet. If they ran upstairs and sounded some alarm, it would cause mass chaos and send the Russians backpedaling without penance. But if they let the scene play out, Ambassador Anderson would surely die at the hands of a Venezuelan assassin hired by the Russians. Trey spoke first.

  “We need to do two things. First, block the only entrance to the main gallery without alerting the other guests. Second, protect the ambassador. Alcocer, you come with me. We’ll wait for the Venezuelan in the doorway to the gallery. Thom, Petrov, you guard Anderson.” The four made their way upstairs, Thom hiccupping into his clenched fist every few steps. At the top of the stairway, as the marble steps gave way to the grand gallery, Trey and Alcocer perched to one side, coincidentally near Vasily and Plankov, though Plankov would never recognize Trey in the mask that covered his entire face. Thom and Petrov surveyed the room as they entered, spotting the ambassador and walking calmly, or attempting to walk calmly, across the crowd towards him.

  As they approached the ambassador, two shots rang out behind them, and the crowd roared in fright, screams that bounced off every marble floor and every marble column and every marble statue flanking the gallery. Petrov dove for the ambassador and tackled him to the floor, guarding the American diplomat’s body with his own. A gunman masked as a peacock made his way through the crowd and pushed aside Thom to shoot Petrov in the back, before a security agent was able to take down the peacock himself.

  Guests from all the European and North American powers fled the scene, and Thom gasped in horror and pulled his lover off of the ambassador. “Petrov, Petrov,” he lightly slapped his face, “Petrov don’t do this to me again, not again, do you hear me?” But the Russian was already unconscious.

  Vasily and Plankov fled the scene, but as they turned to go down the stairs, they saw the two men who had first been shot as they tried to apprehend the hired Venezuelan. Both lay unmasked now, bleeding bright red onto the pure white marble floor. The first shot, Alcocer, the antique glass lamp expert who had no business being here but for the love of a friend in need, lay already dead, terribly still with his eyes closed. Plankov looked at the other and recognized him immediately. His lover, the American graduate student, so smart and so lithe and so worldly, was gasping for air and spitting up blood. Plankov knelt to take the boy into his arms, not questioning why he was there, in that spot, not yet. Just wanting to hold his new lover for perhaps the last time.

  Chapter Thirty

  1.

  At opposite ends of the Prado’s central gallery, two men lie dead — Señor Alcocer, the antique gas lamp expert, and an unknown Venezuelan assassin. Also at opposite ends of the Prado’s central gallery, two pietàs came to life as paramedics rushed into the room.

  Thom held Petrov in his arms, trying to stop the flow of blood coming from the upper left side of his lover’s back. It wasn’t unusual that Petrov would be unconscious given the circumstances, but Thom knew that if the bullet was lodged not in Petrov’s heart, it was somewhere dangerously close. Paramedics pulled the two apart and placed Petrov’s body on a stretcher, rushing it down the stairs and to the ambulance waiting outside. Across the gallery, Foreign Minister Plankov held Trey in his arms as the life left his young lover. The Russian cried, and though his president tried to pull him away, to get them out of there, Plankov was drawing more and more attention.

  Two paramedics pulled the two apart with the help of Vasily. With Trey laid out flatly on the floor, they were able to assess his condition. But a full assessment was not necessary. He was dead, and one of them closed the young agent’s eyes as Plankov wailed even more loudly. The grand gallery was oddly still, this young man dead and the triaging Petrov being driven to the same hospital where the American vice president sat in recovery. A sudden surge of raged adrenaline filled Thom’s body, and he leapt to his feet, almost falling backwards in the blood on the slick marble floor but catching his footing just in time. His lover might die, and his best friend, who shouldn’t have been here at all, was dead on the floor.

  “You!” Thom screamed, rushing over to the Russian president and foreign minister, “Both of you devils! This man is dead because of you! And if Petrov Lubyanka dies tonight,” he screamed between tears and the ever-present nervous hiccups that overtook him at the most inopportune of times, “I will kill you both myself.” Two security agents came over and cuffed the hysterical American, who had just threatened to kill the Russian head of state and his top cabinet official. But President Vasily didn’t want to cause more of a scene than was already unfolding, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he told the guards, “take him to the hospital.” Vasily grabbed his foreign minister and brought the man to his feet, slapping him across the face. “Get it together, comrade,” he spat.

  2.

  For the second time in less than 24 hours, the surgical ward at the Hospital Central de la Cruz Roja San José y Santa Adela was thrown into chaos. Petrov was wheeled straight into surgery upon arrival, but there were so many unknowns. Who was this man? Was he an accomplice to the assailant now covered by a police sheet back at the Prado? Were more terrorist attacks about to unfold across the city that night? Across the world?

  Ambassador Anderson and Thom arrived at the hospital not long after Petrov entered surgery. And though they could certainly answer some of the questions surrounding Petrov’s mysterious role during the shooting at the Prado, they didn’t yet know how much was prudent to reveal, to either hospital staff or Spanish authorities. They made their way to Vice President Grant Adams’ room to convene with President Myers, Abi Adams, and Sullivan Andrews.

  But before they could reach the room, a scream rang out in the quiet hospital hallway. Anderson and Thom rushed over to where a nurse stood in the doorway to a linen closet. They looked over her shoulder to see a woman lying still on the floor. It was Natalie, Anderson’s beloved and long-time aide, and she was already dead.

  The nurse stepped aside and Thom placed his hand over his mouth, hiccupping in shock. Ambassador Anderson crouched down and checked Natalie’s pulse, but he felt nothing. She had clearly taken a fast-acting poison, as in her hand was a small, empty vile and a sealed envelope. Anderson opened the latter and read:

  To Whom It May Concern: my name is not Natalie Peterson. It is Antonina Plankov. I came to America when I was a very young girl, but I was always a spy, groomed to serve my Mother Russia. Let it be known I died serving her and praying for the restoration of her former glory. In arms, A. Plankov.

  Anderson collapsed against the wall. Not only was Natalie not his trusted ally, and not only was she a traitor to the United States and his personal mission to see her as a beacon of peace in a troubled world, but she was also the sister, long-presumed dead, of Foreign Minister Dimitri Plankov. The pieces were falling into place, just as the heart began
to shatter.

  3.

  In the car, President Vasily sat quietly, staring out the window at moonlit Madrid as Foreign Minister Plankov cried into his shoulder. Much was on the president’s mind. His plan had not been ruined. Surely the Americans would be even more resolved to go along with his façade of peace in the world. But his closest friend, the man crying on his shoulder, had become a nuisance, a thorn in his side, a public embarrassment. And in his heart of hearts, Nicholai Vasily was a cold-blooded man who thought of himself as flowing with royal blood. “Comrade,” he said softly, not looking at his friend, “I am sending you to oversee operations at our communications center in Vladivostok,” a Russian outpost on the North Korean border, “an assignment effective immediately.”

  Plankov didn’t have to ask why his friend was sending him to the middle of quite literally nowhere, because he already knew: he had embarrassed the Kremlin, the whole of Russia, by holding his dead lover, his dead male lover, in his arms in a spectacle of queer emotion made public. Vasily’s phone beeped, and he read a message from his agent stationed at the hospital. He turned to Plankov, “And your sister, Antonia, is dead for shame.”

  4.

  Ambassador Anderson slipped Antonia Plankov’s note into the breast pocket of his jacket and, though in shock, led Thom on to Adams’ hospital room. In time they would mourn, but for now, they had to keep moving. A Secret Service agent let them into the hospital suite, where Myers, Adams, Abi, and Sullivan were gathered. Myers hugged Anderson as Abi hugged Thom. Mrs. Adams asked, “Are y’all okay?” and pulled up two chairs for them beside the vice president’s bed. They both nodded, and Anderson said, “Shocked. In shock. But okay.”

  President Myers spoke, “Grant has filled me in on your relationship with Petrov, Thom, and I’m very sorry.” She took Thom’s hand, “I’m giving him permanent asylum and sending in a team to extract his parents as we sit here.” Thom smiled, wiping the tears from his eyes, and giving one of his little hiccups. “Excuse me, Madame President, and thank you. I don’t know how I can thank you enough.” She shook her head and wiped away her own tear at the corner of her right eye with the back of her hand, “You’ve already given our country more than enough, Thom. We owe this to you, and to Petrov. But you understand we can’t reveal his identity? Not yet, at least.”

  Thom nodded, “Madame President, Mr. Vice President, Ambassador, I have something you need to hear.” He pulled his iPhone out from his tuxedo pants pocket. Blood had dried on one corner of the screen, but otherwise, it was intact. He clicked through a series of prompts and turned up the volume so that everyone could hear. They listened to the conversation between Vasily and Plankov back at the Prado, about their plan to frame Venezuela for assassinating Ambassador Anderson. The recording ended as shots erupted, and Thom pushed stop. For a moment, the people gathered in that hospital room, perhaps the most powerful group of people in the world, fell completely silent. Then President Myers cleared her throat.

  “This is unconscionable,” she said quietly, but sternly, “Of course we’ll gather more evidence, but we can presume they not only planned on killing you, Paul,” she said, pointing to Ambassador Anderson, “but that they also killed Andrei Popov and Vanessa Striknovik.” She paused. “And they killed my husband, too.”

  A knock came on the door, and two Spanish doctors entered. They didn’t seem to know whom to address in the bewildered group of Americans before them, so they focused on President Myers. “Madame President, we’re very happy to inform you that your young friend is going to be just fine. The bullet missed his heart and hit an artery, which caused the excess of blood. But it looked much worse than it actually was. He should be awake in an hour or so.” Everyone smiled, though wearily. Myers turned to Thom and forced her smile wider, even though her grief was growing, too. “Go,” she told him, “Be with him.” Thom followed the doctors out of the room, and the president stood. She was still wearing the evening gown she’d been dressed in for the costume ball, and the beaded bottom of her dress rapped lightly against the tile floor. She turned to Sullivan Andrews.

  “Sully, if you don’t mind helping me,” she said, “Gather the press outside. I want to address the world.”

  5.

  “We have seen another instance of hate in the name of power,” President Myers said, wearing a beautiful brown beaded evening gown and perched behind a podium the hospital was able to procure from a conference room. Reporters had been perched outside the surgical ward all day, journalists from every major news network and website and newspaper around the world, and now they reported live a surprise address by the leader of the Free World.

  “Tonight, I have received convincing evidence that the Russian Federation, under the leadership of President Vasily and Foreign Minister Plankov, failed in their plot to assassinate the American ambassador to Russia, Paul Anderson. We also believe they murdered their own ambassador to the United States, a high-ranking intelligence officer, and my husband.” She paused, steeling her breath. “All in a bid to undo NATO, and to, we fear, attack sovereign nations across Europe. I plan to take our evidence directly to the International Court of Justice at The Hague. Right now I ask people the world over to recommit to peace in times of great trouble. My country, like the Russian people, have lost a great deal in this unhinged bid for too much power. We must come together, perhaps now more than ever before. Thank you.”

  As the president stepped back into the hospital, Spanish authorities entered the presidential suite at the grand Hotel Palacio Del Retiro. Ten minutes later, President Vasily and Foreign Minister Plankov were the first to be led out in handcuffs under the glares of countless camera’s flashbulbs.

  Epilogue

  1.

  The lobby of the George Bush Center for Intelligence, the C.I.A.’s headquarters on the Potomac River just outside of Washington, D.C., shone brightly in the early July sun on an otherwise unremarkable Thursday morning. Staffers of all levels walked around the group standing to one side of the cavernous lobby, going about the business of their day, intercepting terrorist threats and preventing financial meltdowns, and many, if not most of them, mentally preparing for the weekend ahead, a weekend full of Fourth of July BBQs on quiet suburban streets or dance parties in Washington’s many gay bars along 14th Street in Logan Circle.

  Thom wore a new linen suit, crisp khaki with a light blue shirt underneath. Both were Italian, and finely cut but a tailor in Georgetown. Since selling his father’s ranch in Amarillo, Thom didn’t splurge on much, save for this suit and a restored firehouse turned luxury condo overlooking all of Washington from the southern edge of Columbia Heights. His sky blue shirt was open a button lower than he would normally wear it, but from Langley he and Petrov were headed straight to Dulles, straight to a few weeks on a beach with no cell phones and plenty of drinks served in coconuts. (He hadn’t yet told Petrov the resort hosted the finest Supremes cover band in all of the Caribbean, a group of women who played guitar and keys and sang, if you closed your eyes, just like Miss Diana Ross herself.) Beside Thom stood Petrov, his arm in a sling, but otherwise back to his normal boyish, devilishly handsome and muscled self. Under his own blazer he wore one of Thom’s old Emory University t-shirts, but even after two months with no gym — doctor’s orders — his biceps were too big for the sleeves, and the fabric stretched to cover his bulge. Back at their condo, Petrov’s parents would stay while Thom and Petrov were on vacation, hunting for their own place in one of D.C.’s Maryland suburbs, somewhere close to the university where both his father and mother would be lecturing now. On the other side of Thom stood Ambassador Anderson, wearing a thin black ribbon on the lapel of his expensive suit, and beside Anderson stood Vice President Grant and Abi Adams, both with thin black ribbons of their own.

  The group stood in silence, looking up at the Memorial Wall, 130 unmarked stars for every agent who had fallen during service to the C.I.A. since the agency’s founding in September of 1947. The newest star had been placed there this morni
ng, and though unmarked, they knew it was for Trey Stevenson, who had died in Russian Foreign Minister Plankov’s arms that night at the Prado in Madrid. Trey had been Thom’s best friend, and Thom sighed now, missing him. “Ain’t no mountain high, ain’t no valley low,” Thom sang softly, and when the others looked at him, he explained, “It was Trey’s favorite song. He always sang it at karaoke.” He tried not to cry, “God, I miss him.”

  Anderson put his hand on Thom’s shoulder, and Thom nodded. Anderson turned to Grant and Abi Adams. “We should head to Andrews,” he said, as the three were due to board Air Force Two and fly to the Netherlands, where they’d testify against Vasily and Plankov at The Hague. The new government in Russia had fully cooperated with the investigation, and the media all reported a swift and resolute verdict and punishment to be rolled out in the coming days.

  Abi Adams hugged both Thom and Petrov. Taking each of their hands, she said, “Relationships are hell sometimes.” They all, including her own husband, laughed. “But you two have something special. Don’t forget that, and don’t forget each other. Have fun in St. Martinique, and Thom.” He looked at her, “Yes?” She smiled broadly, “Make your pasty Russian boyfriend get a tan.”