Alexei frowned, running a hand over his face. It took him another second or two before his brain finally placed the identifying call ID. That’s when all traces of sleep disappeared and he sat up in bed, accepting the call.
“Dvorkin,” he said.
He expected it to be Sean on the other side of the line, using his cover from London—why, Alexei had no idea, they hadn’t been notified of Sean going into the field this week—but the voice that answered didn’t sound at all like he was from Brooklyn.
“Alexei Dvorkin, I presume?”
Alexei flipped off the sheet covering his naked body and slid out of bed. He kept the apartment set to 70 degrees Fahrenheit to save on energy costs, a habit instilled by his father after they immigrated to America on a generational refugee asylum request. The apartment building’s attending computer turned on the lights at the first hint of movement without him needing to voice the order. He grabbed a pair of jeans off the floor and yanked them on, not bothering with underwear for the moment.
“Da. Who are you? Where is Riley?” he asked, remembering at the last second to use Sean’s cover identity.
“I understand your CEO is unavailable, and that you are the next person in line with decision-making authority at your company.”
Alexei double-checked that the call was being recorded by his bioware as he slipped out of his bedroom. The apartment’s second bedroom was directly across the hall from his, and he palmed open the door, the computer turning on the lights for him.
“What the fuck?” Staff Sergeant Kyle Brannigan swore as he flailed into a sitting position.
Alexei hand-signaled his younger brother to be quiet before pointing at his ear and giving the sign for trouble.
“Still not hear name,” Alexei snapped irritably. “Give me name or put Riley on the line.”
Kyle stared at him for a second before his green eyes narrowed and he got out of bed to yank on some clothes. Both their names were on the apartment lease, but Kyle rarely stayed there anymore. He lived with Jamie now, and only came back when Jamie was away with his father on the campaign trail. With the number of eyes focused on the Callahan family, Kyle couldn’t stay at the condo alone unless he wanted to draw unwanted attention. So he’d come back to the apartment to bother Alexei and brood on the couch like he was teenager instead of twenty-nine. Alexei was a year older than Kyle and suffered through his little brother’s pining only because Kyle brought a bag of coffee as an apology every time.
Not like Alexei would ever kick Kyle out, but the coffee was a nice gift.
“Get an uplink,” the man ordered brusquely.
Alexei scowled and strode into the living room, pressing his hand to the scanner taking up half the small control panel embedded in the wall. The equally small flatscreen located to the right of it snapped on, linking to Alexei’s call. Kyle came out of the hallway right as the uplink connected, and Alexei held up his hand in a stop gesture at his brother out of view of the video feed.
What he could see on the other side of the line made him clench his jaw in anger.
A long conference table with an opaque screen embedded in the top dominated the room. At the head of the table sat a man he assumed was the speaker, but Alexei’s attention was drawn to the person sitting to the man’s right. Sean sat rigidly in his chair, staring across the table at a man and a woman in ruined evening wear rather than at Alexei. The right side of Sean’s face, including his eye, was heavily bruised and swollen. No blood that Alexei could see, but that didn’t mean anything. Still, the fact that Sean was hurt had anger burning through Alexei’s mind, hot as fire.
“All right, Riley?” Alexei asked.
Sean had his left hand flattened over the terminal in front of him, data pulled from his bioware linking with the computer for the call. “Fine,” Sean said, lips barely moving.
“Mr. Miller and his dinner partners will continue to be fine as long as things work out between us,” the man who’d initiated the call said.
Alexei wrenched his gaze away from Sean to meet the stranger’s eyes. “You lucky am not in New Miami right now.”
The man was older, possibly in his fifties, and darkly tanned, with thick black hair barely going white at the temples. The bulk he carried on his frame was due to indulging in too much expensive food instead of hours at a gym. Large gold rings on his thick fingers flashed in the light as he tapped them against the conference table. They matched the gold chains around his neck in gaudiness and monetary value. Scattered around the room were a couple of bodyguard types who kept their eyes on the table and not the uplink.
“My name is Christov Antonovich,” the man in charge said.
Alexei waited a beat, but when nothing else was forthcoming, he raised an eyebrow. “Am supposed to know you?”
A muscle twitched in Christov’s face. “Your co-worker here name-drops Stanislav Pavluhkin with a casualness that can be dangerous and yet, you don’t know who I am?”
His name was Russian, but he didn’t sound Russian. When Alexei’s family had emigrated from the refugee city in the Ukraine to Boston, they’d had the option to resettle in cities with a larger Russian-American community, but his parents had declined. Alexei didn’t know why until he was older and finally clued into the fact that those communities sometimes weren’t the safest places to be.
The Russian mafia had long arms, after all, and it had been entrenched in America for centuries.
“Was deployed. What I care for trash street gangs when in sandbox?” Alexei retorted.
“I’d be very, very careful with how you describe my brigada,” Christov said tightly. “I have your company’s CFO, after all, and one of your potential clients as my guests. Though after tonight, I somehow doubt the Wolcotts will be willing to do business with you.”
Alexei pressed his hand against the wall, glaring into the camera. “Then talk. I listen.”
“I’m willing to consider this all a misunderstanding for an introduction to Mr. Pavluhkin. He’s a difficult man to reach, even for those with my reputation.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Alexei saw Kyle disappear back down the hallway, out of view and sound pickup. Alexei hoped he was calling into headquarters. “You get introduction, I get Riley. That your deal?”
“I don’t think I need to impress any further upon the Wolcotts how much their business is not desired in New Miami after tonight. So, yes. That is the deal.”
On screen, Sean didn’t react in any way to the conversation at hand. Alexei ground his teeth, wondering why in the world Sean hadn’t just phased his way out of danger before it got to this point. But then he remembered London and the spy work they’d done to grab Stanislav’s attention. If Sean was refusing to get clear of the threat, that meant something else was going on, something the MDF couldn’t afford for Alexei to ruin.
Fucking hell, but he hated spy work.
The director should have told us, he thought furiously to himself.
“I come tomorrow. Give you contact information, you give me those three. Alive,” Alexei stressed. “Send location to this number.”
“You’re not in any position to—”
Alexei cut the uplink, swearing loud enough and long enough that Kyle stuck his head around the corner, light brown hair sticking up in all different directions from his interrupted sleep.
“<
“<
“<
Alexei glanced at the chrono on his wrist, 2346 shining brightly through his skin. He rubbed hard at his eyes until he saw spots. “<
“<
Alexei didn’t argue, if only because he knew Kyle was right. Getting woken up and having to talk his way out of a tight spot without any relevant intel, in English no less, was not something he enjoyed. Alexei dodged past Kyle and returned to his bedroom. It took less than a minute for him to change into a clean uniform and lace up his boots before re-joining Kyle in the living room. His brother had the code-keys for Alexei’s car in hand, and they locked up the apartment behind them.
The Washington, D.C., megacity burned against the night sky as they drove through the urban valleys between skyscrapers. The drive to the Arlington district, where the MDF was headquartered, was quicker than usual because of the late hour. Cities never slept in this day and age, and traffic could appear in the dark hours before dawn, but luckily, they encountered no delays on the street.
They scanned their way through security at the perimeter of the base, and Kyle took the quickest route to the subterranean parking garage located under the main building. MDF headquarters consisted of three connected buildings: Medical, Building Two, which housed the R&D labs, and the main building where all command decisions were made.
Once in the sublevel, Kyle parked as close as he could get to the secured elevators and the two got out of the car. A minute later they were stepping into the first elevator that opened when a familiar voice echoed through the sublevel.
“Hold the doors!”
Alexei pressed his finger to the sensor circle that would keep the doors open as Madison Chan, Alpha Team’s demolitions specialist, sprinted their way. Her long black hair streamed behind her as she ran to catch up, sliding into the elevator seconds later.
“Thanks,” she huffed.
“Do you know if we’re the first ones to arrive?” Kyle asked her.
Madison shrugged, hiding a yawn behind her hand. “No idea. Got woken up about an emergency and then recalled. That’s all I know.”
“Is Russian mafia problem,” Alexei said.
Madison looked up at him, a frown on her pretty face as she yanked a hair tie off her wrist and swiftly knotted up her thick hair. She was the youngest and shortest on the team, even if at times she could be the loudest. A die-hard cable stream junkie, Madison consumed shows and movies the way most people consumed food—like they needed it to survive. Alexei always thought it was due to her growing up in Los Angeles, still the entertainment capital of the world, that made her binge-watch shows whenever she got the chance.
“Are we talking about the Pavluhkins or something new?” she asked.
“Little of both,” Kyle replied. “Alexei took a call from Sean in the guise of his cover from January, except it wasn’t Sean. It was some asshole down in New Miami.”
“Christov Antonovich. Still Russian mafia problem,” Alexei said.
Madison groaned as the elevators opened up on the ground floor receiving lobby. “Shit. Why weren’t we informed?”
“Good question,” Katie said from where she waited nearby in front of a different bank of secured elevators. “That’s what we’re going to find out.”
Like them, Katie was in uniform, her long blonde hair twisted up into a tight bun at the base of her neck. Alexei glanced at the elevator control panel, seeing she’d already requested one, so she couldn’t have been waiting very long. As metahumans, they had access to nearly all the restricted levels of the base, and those included the command levels located far above them.
“Is Jamie flying in for this?” Kyle asked as the elevator door slid open.
Katie shook her head. “No. I was told he’ll be briefed on the situation, but they aren’t recalling him.”
“He won’t like that.”
“I know.”
The four of them stepped into the elevator and Katie leaned down for the retina scan. Seconds later the elevator started to rise.
“Why’d they send Sean to New Miami?” Madison asked more as a general musing since it was obvious none of them had any answers.
Alexei was curious as well. He didn’t know why Sean had given Antonovich his number for an extraction when Alexei wasn’t his emergency contact. Agents working out of the intelligence division had a different set of protocols to signal when their cover was compromised or burned and they needed an extraction. Calling Alexei wasn’t in Sean’s protocols.
Alpha Team hadn’t worked much with Sean in the field since the January mission in London, but that didn’t mean they didn’t interact. Sean had sat in on their briefings and debriefings around the few jobs they’d taken to keep Stanislav happy, but he rarely went into the field with them for those missions. Likewise, Alpha Team had been kept updated on Sean’s missions on a need-to-know basis.
They were assigned to completely different divisions, but that hadn’t stopped Alexei, like everyone else on the team, from getting to know Sean a little better. Alexei had made it a point over the past few months to track Sean down in headquarters and share a meal with him if their schedules allowed it. For the most part, Sean was a nice guy. Dedicated to his job, sure, but they all were, and Alexei didn’t see that as a detriment.
For all the meals they’d shared at headquarters, they hadn’t yet managed to meet up after work. Alexei was deployed with Alpha Team more often than not when Sean was free, and inevitably, whenever Alexei had downtime, Sean was off on a mission of his own. The only time Alexei had seen Sean outside of work was the night he’d gone to Sean’s apartment back in January. He’d dropped by to make sure the agent wouldn’t report Kyle and Jamie to the brass for being in a relationship against regulations. Jamie had trusted that Sean would keep quiet, and so far, he had. Alexei had reluctantly followed his captain’s lead in continuing to trust Sean, something that didn’t come easily to him, but he’d been working on his prejudices.
His interactions with Sean since January had been mostly positive. Alexei liked the agent’s dry sense of humor; liked hearing him laugh. Alexei honestly wouldn’t have minded spending more time with Sean if their schedules allowed for it, which had surprised him when he first realized that over a late lunch one day with the older man.
For the most part, Alexei didn’t like spies. Before coming to the MDF, he and Kyle had been with Strike Force, the top Special Operations Forces group in the entire United States military. They’d run a lot of classified missions with a lot of different agencies, but the CIA had been his least favorite even before a double-agent’s betrayal. He and Kyle had survived the mess in Geneva all those years ago only because they’d been turned into metahumans during the attack. Everything that came after Geneva only reinforced why Alexei wanted nothing to do with spies.
Yet here he was, staring down another mission full of them, in order to save one.
The four got off on Level 36, walking past the command nerve center that monitored, in real time, major active missions the MDF was overseeing. The night shift was just as busy as the day shift because there was always daylight burning through the hours somewhere in the world.
Their usual conference room was open; beverage options were prepped on the side table with a carafe of synthcaf and a couple cans of the energy drink Zing! Considering the hour, everyone lined up to make a cup of synthcaf, with Katie muttering under her breath about how she’d have preferred tea.
“<
“<>” Katie said, mouth twitching with a smile.
Coffee was a luxury most people couldn’t afford, which made Alexei grateful his brother was in love with Jamie. Admittedly, Alexei was grateful for other reasons—it got him an apartment all to himself most of the time—but the perks of being friends with a billionaire were fucking amazing.
It didn’t take much to make Alexei happy food-wise. He had hazy memories of his early childhood in a campground of refugees in the Eastern European contested region before ending up in a refugee city in t
he Ukraine. Food and water were rationed and doled out by aid groups, and it wasn’t uncommon for people to bribe the volunteers with whatever they had to get more sustenance. Alexei had hoarded food growing up, even after being granted asylum in America with his family when he was eleven years old. He never really kicked the habit until he joined the Army, where cleanliness was just as important as how well you took orders. Hiding rations in his bed was something he learned to stop doing within the first few days of Basic Training.
The door slid open, and Alexei looked over his shoulder as the last three members of their team arrived. Annabelle Brown, Donovan Williams, and Trevor Sanchez stumbled into the conference room and made a beeline for the synthcaf. Alexei got out of the way and carried his cup with him to the conference table, choosing a seat at random.
He placed his left hand on the opaque screen spanning the tabletop, waking up the terminal. Tapping his wrist against the import sensor, Alexei downloaded the recorded call off his bioware and the location that had come through from Sean’s number by way of Antonovich during the drive to base.
Alexei flicked the data into the center of the table, watching as a holographic globe of the Earth snapped into view. “Ceres, pull location.”
“Private villa located in New Miami’s East Shore neighborhood,” the MDF’s smart building AI informed him in its crisp, female-designed voice.
“Ooh, tacky Russian-American mafia. I bet the inside of his mansion is covered in gold leaf,” Madison said as she plopped down in a seat across the table from Alexei. “Can you get us a picture, Ceres?”
“Been watching too many reality shows,” Trevor told her through a yawn.
“It’s called reality for a reason.”
Ceres relegated the map to a different position before pulling up an aerial view of the villa in question. Perched on the edge of a manmade beach, with a solid-looking security wall surrounding the premises, the villa took up a great deal of space in a city clinging to what land remained after the sea levels rose. That was enough to tell Alexei they were dealing with money and weapons, a dangerous combination.
In the Shadows (Metahuman Files Book 3) Page 3