The Tears of Odessa (An Atlas Hargrove Thriller Book 1)

by Ryan Schow

  “But until then…”

  “You’re my dog, Atlas Hargrove.”

  Atlas handed the phone back to the blond, gave a curt nod, then looked out the window at a night so black he saw only night. Overhead, high in the sky, there was a blood moon. Was this a sign? He couldn’t be sure.

  “He’s on board,” the blond told Leopold while gazing unblinkingly at Atlas.

  When she said good-bye, Atlas turned his attention first to the beefy man beside him and then to the driver—a guy whose look was one hundred percent former spec-ops.

  “Why me?” Atlas asked. “Why not any of these guys?”

  The blond said, “What exactly do they look like to you, Mr. Hargrove?”

  “Muscle.”

  “And what do you look like?”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Cira,” she said. “What do you look like?”

  “I look like a nobody,” Atlas said. “Well, maybe a beat-up nobody.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And her?” he asked, nodding to the girl in the seat behind him. “What’s her story?”

  “Kiera is a tagalong. A former defector headed home to get her sister. She’ll be with us on the flight over.”

  “The flight over to…”

  “Saint Petersburg,” Cira replied. “I told you this.”

  “Russia, not Florida.”

  He turned and appraised Kiera with new eyes. The woman didn’t look at him or Cira. She simply stared ahead as if there wasn’t a thought in her mind. He glanced down at her hands, perfectly crossed from what he could see in the darkness.

  “If I put you in a coffin and pushed your eyelids shut,” he said, “no one would even suspect you were still alive.”

  “Knock it off,” Cira said.

  “Let her speak for herself,” Atlas replied.

  “She doesn’t speak English, so give it a rest.”

  “Do you have any ibuprofen?” Cira handed him three Advil from her purse. He dry-swallowed them, then turned back to Kiera and, in Russian, said, “Even a doll in a toy store has a voice. Where’s yours, matryoshka?”

  “What did you say?” Cira asked.

  “He’s taunting her,” the lean man next to him said.

  “Stop it!” Cira barked.

  Turning to the thug next to him, in Russian as well, Atlas asked, “What’s your name, comrade?”

  “Boris,” he replied.

  “Good to know,” he said, waiting impatiently for the Advil to kick in.

  Before closing his eyes and centering himself, he turned to Kiera one last time. She leveled him with those cold, dark eyes. Just like before, not one single thing in her expression changed.

  “Looking at you,” he said in Russian, “I suddenly have a hundred unasked questions. But even if I asked each one in your language, I bet every answer would be the same: silence. Am I right?”

  With that, she simply looked away, returning to her default position.

  “I’m done asking you to stop,” Cira said, not so authoritative this time.

  And with that, he faced forward, rested his head against the seat, and closed his eyes, praying all the while for his headache to pass.

  Chapter Fourteen

  LEOPOLD WENTWORTH

  One week earlier. Leopold Wentworth could torch this entire op. One misstep, one bad call, and the job would go belly-up. But if he could get the right players in the right places at the right time—if he could get them to play well with each other—then chances were good he could both support his new asset and hedge this completely insane bet of his.

  Men like Leopold were certainly not risk-averse, but his track record for success in this new venture wasn’t stellar. Last year, his maiden op had hit the skids right out of the gate. It was a blue-ribbon shit show in every sense of the word. Fortunately, his assets weren’t lost. He learned plenty, though. Mainly he learned that he’d been understaffed and his assets were still amateurs. Enter Atlas Hargrove. The homicidal loose cannon, the proverbial pinch hitter.

  Managing the Russian situation with tactical precision was critical. Unfortunately, Atlas was unpredictable at best, a bull in a china shop at worst. If he went off the deep end and blew this op, not only would Leopold be in hot water with NorCal State Prison, he’d have the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the State of California, and every other law enforcement agency—both state and federal—itching to stick his head on a pike. That was why his future depended upon the success of this one phone call.

  Before making the call, he cracked open a bottle of Courvoisier XO Cognac, let it breathe. When he was ready, he poured the amber-colored spirit into a crystal tumbler over a large, single cube of ice, then took a long sip to settle his nerves. The twenty-five-year-old spirit had aged well, really highlighting the iris flower and candied orange notes, as well as the smoky sweetness of what tasted like a crème brûlée.

  “She’ll answer,” he mumbled to himself. “She has to answer.”

  Drawing a mammoth breath, releasing it slowly, he summoned all his strength, confidence, and force of inner purpose. The moment he picked up the phone and dialed the number he had been specifically told not to call, he felt a thousand butterflies in his gut take flight.

  “You have no choice,” he told himself as the line rang through.

  Six months ago, when he first called and requested a specialized asset, he had been vehemently rejected. Monarch Industries was a myth among his social circles, the ghost you only saw in your peripheral vision. For a long time, he hadn’t even been sure they were real. But then he’d found the right person, made the right offer, and bought himself a phone number.

  “Having this number does not ensure anyone will answer your call,” his contact had said, handing him a slip of paper in exchange for an obscene amount of money.

  “We’ll see about that,” he had replied, taking the number.

  Leopold was many things, but where he truly shined was in opening doors everyone else said were closed, locked, and without a key. The proof was in the pudding, the same as it was with any self-made man. He’d started in cryptocurrency. Everything evolved from there. In his initial public offering, his blockchain company had raked in three billion dollars, taking the ten million he’d invested in this company and turning into a healthy nine digits. His cut had been two hundred and seventy-three million and change. It wasn’t the billion he’d dreamed of, but he was no baby millionaire either.

  As he approached his fiftieth birthday, with everything material he could want and more money than he could spend in a hundred lifetimes, he found himself considering other more altruistic pursuits. Those higher interests led him to make what some would call “erratic decisions.” Erratic to them was calculated to him. Leopold was wise to the shifting tides of the cryptocurrency market, and he knew dozens more blockchain companies were coming online, but rather than cashing out everything, he’d liquidated some of his assets and opened up a dozen off-shore accounts. With this seed money, he’d started his sideline operation. The first thing he’d done was track down Monarch Industries’ phone number. The second thing he’d done was pray they took his call, for their services were critical to his asset infrastructure.

  When he made that first call, he was told he had the wrong number. When he started to speak, they hung up on him. He dialed back, told them who he was—his real last name—but before he could finish, they hung up again. After ten more calls and one colorful exchange, he stopped calling. Perhaps he had the wrong number. The next day, someone reached out. A woman.

  “We looked you up,” she said. “You own a blockchain company.”

  “Among other things.”

  “Cryptography and data storage is a long way from this world.”

  “Making money hand over fist in a world you’ve been in for too long can also get awfully boring. That’s why I’m branching out.”

  “We don’t take private money,” the woman said, unimpressed.

 
“My money spends the same as anyone else’s,” Leopold explained. “It’s not an exclusive thing.”

  “Well, our services are very exclusive,” the woman said. “And money is not our stock-in-trade.”

  After a short, pointed conversation where the mystery woman—who later introduced herself as Isabelle Norwood—spoke and Leopold listened, he began to understand. When he got it, he really got it. Monarch was in the business of starting and winning covert wars. Meaning their assassins were not for sale to the public. Yet he needed one very badly. In the end, he failed to reach his objective. Now today, this call, Atlas Hargrove, Russia, and this mission.

  “Leopold,” the familiar matronly voice said, “as I live and breathe. Why in the world are you calling me?”

  “Hello, Isabelle,” he said. “I missed you.”

  “You miss deadlines and dentist appointments, not people. Not if you’re smart.”

  “When it comes to you, I’m not smart. Did I say I missed you?”

  “You did,” Isabelle purred, unenthusiastic. “I distinctly remember lecturing you about patience, and about not calling. That was you, was it not?”

  “It was,” Leopold said, his voice even.

  “Has your memory failed you since we last spoke? Do you have Alzheimers, perhaps, or some other degenerative disease?”

  He offered a conciliatory laugh. “The soundness of my memory is one of my finer attributes. I understand why you lectured me on patience. I also know you were hoping the message would stick, and I assure you, it has.”

  “Yet it seems we’ve had a breakdown in communications. Shall I clear it up, or has the discomfort of this call served as a reminder of the very first thing I said to you?”

  “I’m still aware of what you said,” he said.

  “Congratulations, then.”

  “I wouldn’t call you unless it were absolutely necessary.”

  “That arrangement of words tends to precede vast displays of generosity. At least, from my former life, this is what I learned. I trust you have a give that outweighs your ask. Or am I being too presumptuous?”

  “You and I are on the right page,” he said, his excitement soaring. Had she just given him the tiniest little opening?

  “Tell me what you need, Leopold,” she said, her voice betraying her age. “But then tell me what you’re willing to give for it. And don’t be coy, or hesitant.”

  He wasn’t mistaken. They were negotiating!

  Swallowing hard, he said, “I need an asset that’s ready to move now, one that’s stable and reliable. I don’t need a full-blown Manchurian Candidate. All that business with programmable alters and multiple personalities…it just seems too complicated for me right now.”

  “You want a hammer, not a scalpel,” she confirmed. “Someone who operates out in the open with brute force rather than in the shadows with precision.”

  “Is that possible?” he asked.

  “Perhaps.”

  He paused for a moment, unsure of what he just heard. “Really?”

  “I have someone who has the training, but not the programming,” she said. “You gave me the ask, Leopold, now I want to hear the give.”

  “Tell me about this asset.”

  “She’s a girl.”

  He let out a sigh. “Girls are so temperamental, so demanding these days.”

  “This one will not be a problem.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Twenty-five. She’s combat-ready, but not quite ready for open society.”

  “I don’t need an infiltration, or an escort, just a backup,” he said. “How long has she been in combat training?”

  Isabelle laughed, not at the question but at the ignorance of the question. She was looking at him as if he should have known this already.

  “All her life,” he mumbled.

  “She doesn’t even have a formal name. I would have given her one had I decided to hand her over earlier,” she said, as if this were a giant inconvenience. “So are we talking about rental or acquisition here?”

  “You tell me,” he said. “I mean, I’d like to acquire her, but only if you stable her and at some point in time socialize her.”

  “If we do that, it’ll be on your dime,” she said. “And I’m going to want to rent her back from time to time.”

  “Only if we agree on an appropriate split, a compensation agreement for death, and specific reparations should she be unable to perform her intended functions as a result of your mission.”

  “I can live with that,” she said.

  “Name your price.”

  Again, she laughed, which was a message for him to offer first. When he was about to suggest a figure—hesitant as he was—she interrupted his train of thought, saying, “Before the number leaves your mouth, Leopold, please understand that if your figure is too low, you will not get another ask, no matter the revised give. Are we clear?”

  “Crystal,” he said.

  When, at last, he spoke the amount, he added two million dollars to his previous offer, then prayed to God Isabelle didn’t hang up on him.

  “That will be acceptable,” she said after a moment, as if the number were anything less than extremely generous. “When will you come for her?”

  “How does right now sound?”

  “Now will be just fine.”

  “Where is the nearest private runway, and can you either deliver her there or send me a car so that I may fetch her myself?”

  “For your give, my friend, I can send you a car.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  LEOPOLD WENTWORTH

  Leopold’s plane landed at a private airstrip just outside Blacksburg, Virginia. A black on black Range Rover with tinted windows was waiting to pick him up. The driver held the Range Rover’s back door open for him. He climbed inside and buckled up. He was disappointed that Isabelle wasn’t there to greet him, but she wasn’t the kind of woman to wait around on a runway for a guest to arrive, so he fought back the urge to be offended.

  “How was your flight?” the driver asked.

  “Brilliant,” he replied. When you say things are “brilliant,” people tend to leave you alone. The driver was no different.

  He was quickly but comfortably driven to one of the area’s many ridges where he was told Monarch Industries’ primary facility was located. The building was state-of-the-art, something you’d see in Silicon Valley, except very private. It was actually built into the side of the ridge.

  When he saw Isabelle Norwood, he was quite surprised. She appeared to be in her early to mid-sixties. She was a handsome woman. Her voice, however, was just as pinched and gravelly as it had been on the phone.

  “I see you expected less from our institution,” she said with a grin. “In that, I am pleased to have disappointed you so early.”

  “As am I,” he said, offering his hand.

  She shook his outstretched hand with a firm grip. “I trust you brought the give?”

  He showed her a briefcase, then said, “I must first see my ask.”

  They walked through a long, sterile corridor, past multiple rooms, some with small glass observation windows in the metal doors, others with nothing but a number stamped on a flat utilitarian door. Down the hall, he heard screaming. When they reached the source of the noise, Leopold saw the group training that was underway. It was some sort of martial arts instruction.

  “Each asset is proficient in hand-to-hand combat,” she said. “They know and understand formal weapons—knives and guns—but they’re also highly trained in the art of improvisation, in case they need to complete a mission in locations where having weapons is impossible. I have a confession. Your particular asset is not as developed as we’d like for our regular clients. You are different, though.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, trying not to be upset.

  “For the purposes of our usual clientele, she is not quite there. But for you, this simply means she will have a few minor limitations.”

  “How long do
your assets typically take before they are considered ‘there’?” he asked.

  “They are never fully there. Not to our standards, anyway. Then again, we seek nothing less than perfection, and that, dear Leopold, is an unremitting pursuit.”

  “If I wanted to kill the president?” he asked, testing the waters.

  “Ninety percent of our assets could do so in their sleep. But we are not creating assets to kill our president. Rather, we are creating assets for the CIA and other off-the-books agencies. What they do with them is up to their discretion, and completely out of our hands. Which is to say, we don’t have rent-to-own options with them. Only with you, my sad, sad case.”

  “I’m not sure how to take that,” he said.

  “It wasn’t a compliment.” She waved a dismissive hand. “Black budgets are drying up. No more Iraqi oil to sell, no more Afghan poppies, or cocaine from South America. The Chinese have fentanyl, kids are indiscriminate junkies, and our current president doesn’t like war. It’s a perfect storm, which is why you’re even here.”

  “That is unfortunate for those industries who rely on war for profits,” he said, not a jab, merely a fact.

  “Which is why I say your timing is perfect.”

  If Monarch was relying solely on black budgets and war to fund their operations, they were completely hosed under the current administration.

  “Either way, I’m happy we were able to reach an agreement.”

  “As I was saying, your asset does not fit into the ninety percent category,” she said. “She’s merely a brute-force asset. Expendable. High tolerance for pain and above-average healing.”

  “You said that already,” he replied. She smiled but said nothing. “She almost sounds inhuman.”

  “In many ways she is. To get right to the point, she is stubborn but reserved. It’s an unpredictable combination that can, at times, be distressing.”