by James Bruno
"Why are we here, of all places?" an angry and fatigued Colleen demanded. "Look at us. We look like a couple of bums. In the restaurant wall mirror, she looked at her scratched face, leaf-infested hair and torn dress.
"Nobody will think of looking for us here," Innes replied.
"Well, I've got news for you, Mr. Flying Walenda, there are no guest cells at Alcatraz prison. We can't stay here."
Pot-bellied middle-aged men in baseball caps with cameras slung from their necks, walked with families in tow, their frumpy women scolding hyperactive children who were o.d'd on sugar products. Some took long sideways glances at Innes and Colleen, seated at a corner table.
"I can't stand it! I want a hot bath, a hot meal and to be free from pursuing killers!" Colleen hissed. "People must think we escaped from the zoo." She self-consciously tugged at her hair to get out bits and pieces of debris.
"Look! You think I don't want the same things? You think I like this? And as for what we're doing here, what safer place can we be right now but in jail? Nobody will PERMANENT INTERESTS
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think of finding us here. At 5:00 we'll take the last ferry back and then hightail it out of the city."
"Great. Bonnie and Clyde on the lam yet again."
"Okay, Miss Gratefulness and Cooperation. I'm open to suggestions. I suppose you've got some brilliant idea to return us to our nice and cozy former lives?"
"No." Colleen pouted and sulked. "Where next then?"
"New
Orleans."
"What?! That's got to be 2000 miles from here!"
"2300, to be exact."
"That's it, Bob." Colleen rose. "I'm going back to D.C.
I can't take it any longer. Better to take my chances there.
I'll go to the media, to the courts. I'll fight it out that way."
"Nobody'll believe you. They'll take you for a crackpot, the ditsy moll of the spy and traitor, Robert 'Vladimir'
Innes."
She plopped back into the chair. In her exasperation, she sought answers. "Why New Orleans? Why?"
"They'll go after Jalbert. At the party convention. It makes sense. They'll stop at nothing to hold onto power.
Look what they're doing -- correction, trying to do -- to us.
Look at Mortimer, Wheeler. And the murders of the Russian SVR guys, there's a connection. American political bigshots making deals with mobsters in order to rake in enough cash to sway the election in their favor. The mobsters rake in cash from drug deals that the political bigwigs make possible and protect. Take that several steps further. Kill and maim those who get in the way.
Somebody's got to break it open, expose it, make the guilty ones face the music."
"And that's us."
"Right."
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"I think you misunderstood when I told you that you were like some hero of yore. You're taking it much too literally."
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CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Something about the archaic decor of the FBI safehouse flat made Lydia nauseous. Whether it triggered painful memories of what passed for modern Russian house trappings or accentuated the increasingly frequent bouts of morning sickness she'd been getting, she could not say.
She wanted to tell Wentworth. Oh, how she wanted to!
Nothing focused one's thoughts more on the need to plan for the future than having a baby. But she would await the right moment. Get through the final travails that would be required to destroy Yakov and his partners in evil first.
This was the important last hurdle to freedom and a normal life.
"…we've been very, very pleased with your assistance thus far, Miss Puchinskaya…indispensable role in bringing these characters to justice…"
She managed only to half-tune in to what Berlucci was saying. A house in the woods. What color should the nursery be? Oh! Pink flowers and bunnies if a girl, blue with cartoon characters if a boy!
"…we're very close to bringing this case to closure…it'll be big, very big. Some of the most powerful figures are involved…"
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Wentworth touched her hand. It broke her spell. She stared into his gray eyes, a good soldier's eyes. Eyes that reflected directness and integrity. He'll make such a wonderful father. So loving.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
She smiled warmly. In his presence she felt as if they were enveloped in a warm aura of love. She couldn't lose him. It was their destiny to spend the next hundred years together. It was God's will.
"Yes. I'm fine," she assured him.
"We want you to return to Yakov and find out what his next moves are. Find out what he's doing with Dennison and any other government officials. Only you can do it.
Only you. Lydia? Can you do it?" Berlucci looked at her with concern.
Lydia smiled, but was crying. She looked again into Wentworth's eyes and rubbed her tears away. Turning to Berlucci, in a barely audible voice, she answered, "Yes."
Gorygin detested much about his work. Climbing up the career ladder to become New York Rezident required countless meetings with innumerable sleazebags in too many unsavory locales. A family man, he loathed his occasional meetings with Yakov in the Lambda Cinema in Greenwich village. He hated pornography, and homosexual pornography made him positively ill. Despite sitting off in a remote corner of the theater, and despite his averting his eyes from the screen, the sounds emanating therefrom made him sick. He always tried to rush these rendezvous.
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Yakov arrived with Dimitrov some fifteen excruciating minutes later. Colonel Rokovsky, from the Washington embassy Rezidentura, sat uncomfortably next to Gorygin.
"I'll be brief," Gorygin began. He signaled to Rokovsky, who produced a leather satchel from which he pulled an envelope. From this he took out a stack of enlarged black-and-white photos.
"You know this woman, I presume?" Gorygin said. He shined a small flashlight onto the photos.
The pictures were of Lydia entering and exiting the apartment building containing the FBI safe house, of Lydia kissing Wentworth in a restaurant, of Lydia receiving instructions from FBI agent Hanks in Rock Creek Park.
Yakov's eyes were wide. He scrutinized each photo with studied fascination.
"The building has an FBI safe house. They use it to surveille our embassy. We've known about it for years.
The man in the park is an FBI agent. The man she is kissing is--"
"Malandrino's security man."
"Colonel Rokovsky can provide you with more details.
I wanted you to be aware that one of your informants may be informing on you."
Yakov's jaw tightened. He looked straight at the antics on the screen, but was clearly focused elsewhere.
Rokovsky, on the other hand, joined his boss in staring at the floor and shuffling his feet impatiently. A gay couple across the aisle was making out at an increasingly vigorous pace. Gorygin always liked to know his contacts' sexual orientation and weaknesses. It helped him assess them as intelligence assets. Yakov was an enigma, however, never letting on any interest in either sex.
"So, comrade, I leave this information with you to act on as you please. Obviously, our interest is self-protection.
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Your bad sources become our bad sources. I cannot afford to risk my people and operations over them. Goodbye."
He and Rokovsky couldn't rise and depart the place fast enough.
"Dimitrov, what do the Afghans do to traitors in their ranks?" Yakov asked softly.
Dimitrov smiled and merely nodded.
"You know what you have to do. So do it! And bring me a piece of her so that I know that I do not have to concern myself about her any longer."
Bob Innes and Colleen McCoy were greatly on Dom Berlucci's mind, the more so since the Director had asked for a status report that afternoon. With so muc
h on his plate -- Yakov, Malandrino, Lydia, not to mention the hundreds of other cases the Criminal Investigations Division was working on at any given time -- Berlucci had simply not paid that much attention to the runaway State Department pair. Karlson was fidgety. When the pressure was on and the anxiety level rose, the FBI Director became jumpy. His leg shook nervously, he toyed with pens, letter openers; his mouth puckered. He jumped from his desk and padded in circles around his office. Berlucci saw the telltale signs immediately.
"Lots goin' on," Karlson began after Berlucci took a seat. "Big stuff. One slip in the chain and… Well, we aren't goin' to slip, are we Dom?"
"No,
sir."
"We've got Russian espionage on the agenda. We've got mafiosi. Most important of all, we've got a political scandal brewing that'll make Watergate look like amateur PERMANENT INTERESTS
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hour. It's all gotta be handled with finesse, Dom. With keen attention to detail."
Berlucci nodded. Karlson liked him, trusted him. He used his investigations chief to bounce ideas off.
"Those two kids from State. I've been resisting White House and State Department pressure to bring them in."
"There's absolutely no evidence to link them with the Russians. They're good officers. Selmur and Dennison are using them as scapegoats or as diversions from their other woes. We lost them in San Francisco."
Karlson puckered and his leg began to shake. "What happened?" he asked tersely.
"Two pro hitmen were after them. Cubans. We got them. But Innes and McCoy evidently thought that our men were also assassins. They jumped out a church window."
Karlson stopped pacing and gave a long, incredulous look at Berlucci.
"We've got the California field offices out trying to track them down. We've sent a general alert to all the other principal field offices."
"We need those kids, Dom. If the White House guys, or whoever it is, find them first and has them killed, they'll be able to say that they got two 'dangerous spies' on the run.
They'd probably plant guns on the bodies to prove their point. Besides, Mr. Innes knows a lot that we don't about all of this muck. And he knows more about how Dennison thinks than any of us do."
"Malandrino's beginning to cooperate. He's already given us a wealth of information on Yakov's start here and where he's going, his contacts, m.o's, subordinates."
Karlson resumed pacing the room. He made a brushing motion by his ear as if a fly had been annoying him. "Bah!
That's all well and good. My great-granddaddy fought in 348 JAMES
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the wars against the Sioux nation. He used to say, 'Listen to a turncoat, but don't trust him.' You keep Malandrino talking. But I always get a queasy feeling dealing with bad guys like him. Maybe I'm in the wrong business. Maybe I'm gettin' old. I don't know. We'll need really credible witnesses in a court of law to back up the evidence we're gathering. Make sure nothing happens to those kids."
"You think they know what Yakov and his buddies are planning next?"
"Could be. At least an idea. I'm not sure we do."
"I've got the Russian woman sniffing around."
"Watch out for her too. I don't want a bunch of dead informants in this case."
"Where
do
you think Yakov will hit next?"
"Ongoing criminality out there among the various mobs doesn't worry me so much as the criminality in the White House. You keep your resources on Yakov. Find out what he's up to. Control Malandrino. But if I had to guess where to anticipate trouble next, I'd guess New Orleans."
"The party convention. Jalbert."
"You got it. Oliver Stone couldn't top this one."
It was just off Fifth Avenue. She couldn't resist. Lydia entered Baby and Thee Boutique. All she could do was sigh. Darling Victorian prams, imaginative crib mobiles made of wood, lambs wool blankets of soft colors, and dolls and more wooden toys, cute bassinets, music boxes playing lullabies. Together they beckoned her into an entirely different world from the one she had been in. So pure and warm. The miracle of creating another human being to nurture into goodness. This was what she wanted most now.
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She fingered hand-knit booties and tiny sweaters. She lovingly caressed a life-like baby doll, and admired a rustic wooden picture frame. She imagined a photograph of her, Chuck and the baby filling it. She turned it over. "Made in Russia," said the label. Lydia's thoughts turned to her mother and father, good friends and loved ones. It seemed like centuries ago. How selfish and naive she was. Seek fame and fortune in the West. Leave loving relations for the harsh, cutthroat societies of Europe and America. How silly, and tragic, she was to want to leave Russia. But the harrowing, nightmarish journey would soon end. And she would be free, to spend the rest of her life with the man she loved, free to raise children in a better world.
A hard object against her kidney startled Lydia from her dreaming. She jumped away and turned.
"Oh, pardon me!" said a thirtyish redhead. "I'm afraid I've done much too much shopping today." She smiled apologetically as she pointed to her tote bag stuffed with a cornucopia of baby things. A baby-pack frame sticking out of the bag had poked Lydia.
"Ohh. When is yours due?" asked Lydia.
"Still eight more months. But I can't wait to prepare for when we are three."
"Me
too."
Lydia continued her browsing. She inspected soft crib bedding and organic Pampers. And a baby hair care set of tiny brushes and combs, of ribbons -- blue or pink. She ran her fingers slowly through the delicate bristles. Nothing was finer than an infant's hair. Like wisps of heavenly clouds.
She felt a jab in her side again. Smiling, she turned to talk once more to the redheaded woman.
Dimitrov's cold, hard face confronted her. Lydia's heart stopped. Her head spun. It is one of the miracles of the 350 JAMES
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human brain that, in moments of extreme danger, it can process multiple thoughts at supernatural speed. In this nanosecond or two of utter menace, Lydia's mind soberly commanded her to protect her baby. At all costs.
Including by killing the threatening predator.
Time stood still. Dimitrov didn't flinch. She heard a click. In his hand, the ex- Spetznaz operative held a gleaming commando's knife. He had turned counterclockwise a rotary catch in the front. She stared at the object that she knew was meant to end her life at that moment. Four small barrels revealed themselves. A trigger formed one-half of the hand-guard. She looked up at the Russian. He smiled coldly. Steel caps on his teeth added to his unhuman appearance.
A shot shattered the tranquility of "Baby and Thee."
Lydia crumpled to the floor as one .22 caliber bullet tore into her ribcage.
Women began screaming. In various stages of pregnancy, they scrambled for the exit, knocking down displays of talc and oil, dolls and dollhouses, bassinets and bottles.
Lydia closed her eyes. A lightning bolt of pain shot through her side. Baby and thee. Baby and thee. Your baby will be forever lost. You will be forever lost! a voice within her screamed.
Summoning a primitive strength, Lydia forced her eyes open. Above her, Dimitrov re-turned the rotary switch on the knife to lock the trigger. He then reached down and pressed the blade tip against her belly.
"Nooooooo! My baby!!" she shrieked.
The crash of metal against bone filled the room.
Dimitrov wavered. He appeared dizzy. From behind, Lydia saw the redhead, holding the remnants of an PERMANENT INTERESTS
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aluminum baby-pack. Pieces of it crumbled down Dimitrov's head and neck.
Regaining himself, the ex-commando lashed rearward, catching the woman in the upper chest. Blood sprayed.
Her eyes were wide, her face in shock. She clutched her chest and fell backward.
Dimitrov stood erect and took a deep breath. His thick, black leather boots locked Lydia i
n a taut grip at her waist.
He calmly reached down again with the blade. It gleamed from the overhead fluorescent lights. The gleam momentarily blinded Lydia. Was this indeed how the end would be? A gleaming light to guide her away from the pain of a tortured life? But what about her baby? Are unborn babies guided outward as well?
She shook her head. Frantically, she thrashed about the floor with her hands. Her fingers clutched something. She thrust it upward. At that moment, Dimitrov's crotch became the unwelcome recipient of twelve inches of wooden baby crib mobile. Lydia removed it and slammed it harder on target.
The 190-pound Russian bent over. The blade fell to the floor. He clutched his groin with both hands. The normally expressionless face was the definition of hurt.
Lydia rose. Blood oozed down her left side. She picked up a nail invoice sticker from a nearby cash register and held it to Dimitrov's temple. A crazed, wild look seized her face as she proceeded to cup Dimitrov's other temple with her hand, for better resistance when she forced the nail into the man's brains.
The sound of approaching sirens echoed from the concrete city outside Baby and Thee.
Dimitrov jerked his head back. His eyes locked onto Lydia's. Two primordial beasts gripped in a death embrace.
Abruptly, he leapt up. He let out a bellow. He snatched the 352 JAMES
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gun-knife from the floor. Like a wounded bear, he lumbered away, lurched forward and bolted out of the shop.
Lydia fell unconscious. There was no gleaming light this time.
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CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
July in New Orleans reminded the Iraq War veteran of the southern Tigris marshlands. Though a native of the bayou, Roger Jalbert sometimes felt queasy in the heavy humidity and stagnant heat of his home state. It reminded him painfully of the past, the buddies he'd lost to the insurgents during two consecutive two-year enlistments as a Navy Seal in Iraq. Of his own brush with violent death in the marsh delta while on special ops. Tiny bits of IED
shrapnel still surfaced from his left thigh and calf as another aching reminder of that period of his life.
" Laissez les bons temps roulez! " he declared before twelve-hundred party stalwarts at the Moriol Convention Center. "Good times will return to America. It will return because of the peace and prosperity that President Roger Jalbert will bring to this country. America wants leadership. Honest leadership. The old ways of doing things must end. A new wind of change is sweeping this nation. And, with your support, it will sweep into the nation's capital and fill the White House with fresh, clean air. With your support, we will all ride that wind to victory on November 5!"