by Darcy Fray
Fletcher walked to the back row and took a seat at the station next to Gordon.
“Any idea how to get this damn thing to work?” Fletcher asked, futilely tapping away at the keys.
Gordon was so wrapped up in his own thoughts, he hadn’t even noticed Fletcher’s approach. He glanced over, understanding immediately that this was the man his father had said he could trust with his life. His presence was already a comfort.
“Just enter in the code from the slip of paper they gave you,” Gordon replied, with a smile. Gordon had no idea what to expect from his Veritas contact, but Fletcher’s humorous introduction was certainly a welcome surprise.
“I see they didn’t award you that Nobel for nothing.” Fletcher entered the code in the login window and opened the browser. He navigated to eBay and entered the search word “airsickness bags.” Fletcher had a collection of over twelve hundred barf bags from two hundred and three different airlines. There were a few Russian airline bags he would still love to acquire. When in Rome.
“So, I’m new to this whole thing. You know who I am, but do I refer to you by your number? Should I keep looking at my screen?” Gordon inquired, with his eyes locked on his monitor. Gordon’s experience with clandestine meetings was limited to what he’d seen in the cinema, and films never seemed to address these awkward introductions.
“I’m Fletcher, Fletcher Crisp. And, yes, just keep surfing along. I myself am looking to add to my airsickness bag collection. eBay. My Russian’s not so good. Thank God for pictures.”
“I collect physics jokes,” Gordon replied with a straight face. Gordon began collecting jokes on his twelfth birthday. He found that all kids loved jokes and it was an easy way for him to start a conversation or to be accepted in a group of kids that otherwise might have found him odd or standoffish. To this day, he still pulled out his favorites at cocktail parties. Never one to talk about the weather, jokes had always functioned as his icebreaker of choice. Everyone liked an excuse to have a good laugh.
“Let’s hear what you’ve got,” Fletcher replied, as he admired a vintage Pulkovo Airlines sickness bag.
“A six-year-old boy spots Albert Einstein walking down the street and decides to try out his favorite joke on him: ‘Mr. Einstein! Why did the chicken cross the road?’ To which Einstein replied, ‘My young burgeoning mind, zee question does not have a definite answer. Vether zee chicken crossed zee road or zee road crossed zee chicken depends on your frame of reference.’” Gordon chuckled. He felt like he got a little closer to perfecting Einstein’s heavy German accent every time he told the joke. He stole a glance in Fletcher’s direction. No reaction.
Fletcher failed to see the humor in Gordon’s joke. “I’m more of a ‘horse walks into a bar’ kind of joke guy.” He had spent his entire career surrounded by some of the toughest men on the planet and now everywhere he looked, he was surrounded by nerds. Harper often liked to remind him that “nerds rule the world.” Perhaps, but armed with jokes like this, it would be a short reign.
“Observations are observer-dependent.” Gordon typically unleashed his jokes at university functions and cocktail parties and was unaccustomed to having to explain their punch lines.
“Is that the punch line?”
“Observations are relative...dependent on the point of view of the observer. Did you find the men responsible for my father’s murder?” Segues had never been Gordon’s strong suit. He never understood the need to ease people into a different conversational subject.
“I’m afraid I don’t have any information for you. We operate in a way that prevents a person from knowing too much about any one thing. I can assure you that someone is dealing with it, but my mission is to secure you and find Dr. Dmitry Zoltov, hopefully with your assistance. There’s rumor of another disappearance. Mexico this time.”
“Same circumstances?”
“Yes, small village of fifty-six people, blue light.”
“We need to follow up on a lead I have. There’s a man here in Moscow named Konstantin Chekhov who is a lonsdaleite collector.”
“Is anyone following you?”
“I haven’t seen anyone, but it’s not exactly something I’m accustomed to looking for. The driver’s side window on my car was open this morning, but nothing was missing.”
“You must not return to the motel or your car when you leave here. Did you leave anything in either of those places?”
Gordon held up the laptop. “This is all I have left.”
“I’m afraid I’ve been instructed to take that from you.” Fletcher shifted his gaze from the screen to meet Gordon’s probing stare.
“It’s all I have left of my dad.”
“I assure you that anything personal of your father’s will be backed up to another drive.”
“I know my father trusted all of you and that means a lot to me, but he’s dead. It was one of your people that drove me to the farmhouse and for all I know they led whomever it was that murdered my father directly to us. I’m keeping the laptop,” Gordon replied, surprised by his steely resolve and confident tone. Where has this guy been hiding the last 23 years?
“Listen, I get it, but if that drops into the wrong hands, we’re looking at a serious problem. I’m not letting you out of my sight from here on out. I’m afraid we’re going to be bunking together as well. How about you let me transport it back to the hotel? It’s within walking distance of here -- the Ararat Park Hyatt. You’re going to make a left when you hit the sidewalk and the hotel is about half a mile down the street, on the north side. I’m going to follow you from a distance. I need to make sure you aren’t being followed. Clear?”
Gordon nodded his head.
“Hop to it. We’re in suite number 524. I’ll be right behind you.”
Gordon arose, with the laptop in his right hand.
“Ahem, the laptop. Leave it on your seat.”
Gordon ignored Fletcher’s directive. If anyone wanted to gain his trust from now on, it would need to be on his terms.
Fletcher shook his head as Gordon walked away. He admired the kid’s chutzpah. He would have done the exact same thing given the circumstances.
Gordon exited the cafe and made a sharp left turn. The snowfall had resumed and the temperature was falling with it. The rush of ice cold air felt good against his wounded cheek. It helped to clear his busy mind. As he traversed the sidewalk that was full of shoppers and business people going about their daily business, Gordon walked with a peace he hadn’t felt since arriving in Russia.
Fletcher tailed Gordon from a safe distance. He scanned the road, the sidewalks, the rooftops and the windows in the surrounding buildings. Nothing caught his eye. He hoped Gordon wasn’t going to be even more difficult to manage than he had anticipated. After all, he was fully aware of the complexities of dealing with young intelligent types. His thoughts turned to Harper and his paternal instinct kicked in. You’re safe now, kid.
•••
Gagarin, Russia - Batkin Residence
From behind the couch, it appeared that Dr. and Mrs. Batkin were settling in for an uncustomary evening of snuggling on the couch. The TV was tuned to the popular Russian sitcom, Intern, and the room was warmed by a cozy fire burning in the rustic fireplace at their backs.
But all was not as tranquil as it seemed. The canned TV laughter was a little too loud and the Batkins were sitting a little too still.
The view from the front of the couch told a different story altogether. The Batkins’ wrists and ankles were bound with duct tape, and their mouths were sealed shut too. Both Dr. and Mrs. Batkin’s eyes were wide open, frozen in a moment of eternal terror. The blood had begun to congeal around the bullet holes that marked the center of each of their foreheads and the end of their lives.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A Divorce
Five Months Earlier - Undisclosed Location
DMITRY AWOKE TO the squeaking sound of the rusty iron wheels, as the bearded man rolled the old hospital bed into his
room. His ears had grown accustomed to the solitude of his captivity, and what he may have once considered a minor annoyance now felt like a full-on auditory assault. He defensively covered his ears with his hands as he looked at the diminutive figure lying lifelessly on the bed across the room from where he lay.
It can’t be. Dmitry rubbed his eyes in disbelief; surely his dehydration and starvation were playing tricks on his mind.
The bearded man pushed the bed to the wall directly opposite Dmitry’s cot, then made his way back to the door. Just before exiting he remarked casually, “I believe you two know each other.” It was the first time the bearded man had spoken to him. His gravelly baritone was rougher than sandpaper on a sunburn.
Dmitry glanced at the inanimate figure on the bed. Could it be? The sheets stirred and his fellow captive turned to meet his gaze.
Her creamy white complexion had been replaced by a deathly pallor and her moon-sized hazel eyes seemed to have recessed into the back of her sockets. The warm, easy smile that had once lifted his spirits on the darkest of days -- gone. His burdened heart fell to the pit of his stomach. Was it love or pity that he was feeling? He couldn’t be sure.
“Sarah?” Dmitry inquired, taken aback by the fragility of his own voice.
She nodded, imperceptibly. His English Rose.
He had expected to feel different upon their reunion. Love, not pity and confusion. Where has it gone?
At that moment, Dmitry’s sartorially refined captor entered the room carrying a serving platter and one tall glass of ice cold water.
“I see the two of you have been reintroduced. I have special treat for one of you,” he said, lifting the silver dome off the serving platter. An English roast. The heavenly smell of buttery carrots, crispy potatoes and fall-off-the-fork beef sent a rhapsodic shiver from Dmitry’s head to his toes. Elated, he laughed aloud, almost uncontrollably.
“Only one of you will dine this evening and I’m afraid to say, the other will not...ever again,” he said as he carried the tray to Sarah’s bedside. “Ladies first.”
“No,” Dmitry shouted, not so much in protest of the ultimatum, but in protest of the pecking order. Why should she decide their fate? Once the object of his affection, Sarah was now just another obstacle to overcome. He wanted to survive desperately...at any cost. He turned away from her, too ashamed and frightened to see her reaction.
Their captor smiled, lifting the glass to Sarah’s cracked, parched mouth. He allowed a single mouthful of water to enter before asking, “More?”
Sarah turned her vacant gaze away from Dmitry to meet that of her captor. Fully depleting her energy reserves, she forcefully spat the water back in his face.
“The lady hath spoken.”
The man rose from her bedside, carrying the serving platter to Dmitry, who managed to sit upright under his own steam. It was the most he had moved in a week. He readily accepted the platter and buried his face in the dinner like a jackal to a corpse. Before he finished the meal, Sarah had passed.
The human mind deals with trauma in mysterious ways.
The first few weeks after her death were the roughest. As Dmitry’s captors slowly re-introduced him to the pleasures of modern comforts -- regular meals, warm showers, clean clothing, a room to call his own -- his mental clarity returned, forcing him to face his savage behavior. At first, he could barely muster the energy to speak, eat and move, too ashamed and despondent to even attempt to take his own life...but, slowly, day by day, his perception shifted.
When his body had strengthened enough, they moved him to a remote underground facility which housed a lab that far surpassed any other he had ever seen. They accommodated his every request, no matter the cost. His progress was fast and productive. His old ego emerged, the one that had long hungered to be acknowledged for his work in theoretical physics. His peers had once ridiculed his Dusha theories, but that would all change.
In a bizarre twist of fate, he came to resent the time he had spent with Sarah. It had been time away from his work. Work that would change the world.
•••
Moscow, Russia - The Conservatory Lounge & Bar
The Conservatory Lounge & Bar sat on the tenth floor of Moscow’s Ararat Park Hyatt, a contemporary luxury hotel in the heart of the city. With floor to ceiling windows, the lounge offered expansive views over Red Square, the renovated Bolshoi Theatre and the Kremlin. The crowd was fashionable and the alcohol flowing.
Melanie Johnson sat at the bar next to self-proclaimed American music impresario Scotty Grazier, who, although in his late forties, dressed like the much younger artists he managed.
“Yeah, so first I was like, ‘Do you know who I am?’ and then, you know... I’m a former Marine, so I told the guy I would kick his ass if he didn’t hand over the microphone.”
Melanie was so thoroughly unimpressed, she could barely muster a response. “Did he?”
“Did he what?” Scotty threw back his fourth shot of Moscow’s own high-end Kauffman vodka, oblivious to the thread of his own meandering monologue.
“Did he hand you -- never mind.” Melanie looked around the room for a savior. She had come for one reason only, to reconnect with Fletcher, but at this point, anyone would do. Though attractive, Melanie was ten to fifteen years older than most of the other women in the room. She immediately regretted not opting for the shorter skirt and lower-cut top. She’d have to dig herself out of this hole.
“Please excuse me, but I have an early morning.”
“Yeah, sure.” Before the words had even exited his mouth, he had already moved on to his next victim. A Russian model, available by the hour...perhaps the language barrier would work in his favor this time.
As Melanie walked back toward the lounge entrance, she felt a finger gently tap her shoulder.
“Leaving so soon?” asked a gravelly voice in a familiar English accent.
Melanie turned to find Fletcher standing behind her with a reluctant-looking, yet boyishly handsome, guest in tow.
She almost exploded with delight. “Fletcher!”
“Allow me to introduce my friend --.” Fletcher looked back at Gordon. They hadn’t discussed names in the room. In fact, they hadn’t discussed much of anything. Once they made it back to the hotel safely, Gordon had lapsed into an uncommunicative state. He would need time to mourn his father’s death, in his own way. Both men were exhausted, but neither could sleep. Fletcher decided a field trip to the bar was in order, and Gordon acquiesced.
“Jerry. Jerry Cosby.” Gordon offered his hand to Melanie.
“Nice to meet you Jerry Cosby. Ouch,” she exclaimed, pointing to the two jumbo-sized Band-Aids covering his cheek.
“Shaving accident,” Gordon replied with a warm smile.
“I didn’t see you on the flight.”
“No, I flew in a few days ago.”
“Are you a spy, too?” she asked, giggling suggestively.
Gordon did not yet have a drink in hand, which thankfully prevented him from spraying it all over her face.
Fletcher, amused by Gordon’s shell-shocked reaction, interceded. “The spies will return with drinks in hand. Why don’t you grab us that table over by the window? Chardonnay, right?”
“Yes, please,” Melanie responded, flipping her hair back suggestively as she sashayed her way through the buzzing room.
Fletcher grabbed Gordon’s arm and directed him toward the bar. “For a guy who collects jokes, you certainly don’t have a very keen sense of humor, mate. The spy thing was a joke. Women love spies, James Bond, that kind of thing. Shaken, not stirred. Get the picture?”
“Sorry. She caught me by surprise.”
“I’ll say. What’s your poison?” Fletcher asked, waving the bartender over.
“I would kill for a Yoo-hoo right now,” Gordon replied, dead serious. He had picked up a Yoo-hoo habit at Caltech and was craving the sugary kick.
“A what who?”
“Yoo-hoo, it’s a chocolaty beverage.”
/> Fletcher rolled his eyes as he turned back to the bartender who was patiently awaiting their order. “Two gin and tonics, a glass of the house chardonnay and an empty coffee mug, please.”
Gordon regarded Fletcher with a quizzical expression on his face.
Fletcher pulled the bag of jumbo sunflower seeds from his cargo pants pocket. “Seeds.”
“Odd habit,” Gordon said, smiling.
“Says the kid who orders a Yoo-hoo at a bar. Just one and we head back up, okay? Don’t say anything stupid at the table.”
“So what’s my backstory?”
Fletcher looked Gordon up and down. “Dressed like that, I would say a freshman English lit major.” He was wearing the uniform... tweed jacket, gray flannel trousers, white shirt and maroon tie.
Gordon looked down at his clothes and laughed. “And you?” he asked playfully as he considered Fletcher’s wardrobe...cargo pants, black polo shirt, trainers and a pullover. “P.E. teacher?”
“Well, look at that, you do have a sense of humor.” Fletcher slapped him on the back and handed him a gin and tonic. “Cheers, mate.”
Fletcher extended his glass to meet Gordon’s. The kid was definitely odd, but endearing. He wondered what Harper would think of Gordon. Her boyfriends had been few and far between, and Fletcher was beginning to worry that he was the reason she had problems establishing long-term relationships.
“I get the feeling you don’t get out much,” Fletcher said as he nudged Gordon away from the lively bar back toward Melanie’s table.
“I’m not much of a bar guy. Actually, I spend a lot of time with whiteboards and computers.”
“Really?” Fletcher made no attempt to curtail his sarcasm. “If there’s one thing you need to learn tonight, it’s to never leave a pretty lady waiting in a bar full of men.”
The two men pushed and shoved their way through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd. The table by the window was occupied -- but not by Melanie.
She was nowhere to be seen.
•••
Moments Earlier - The Conservatory Lounge & Bar