Here and Now

by Blake Haugen

  “Guns down, all of you,” Vanya instructed. They complied with ease. It seemed they weren’t privy to their bosses antics either. They were filed out of the building. Meijer joined the Pravdins and Sven stayed with his people. When everyone with the Pravdins was loaded into their respective SUVs, they threw the Germans the keys to their vehicles and peeled off.

  “What the actual fuck was that!” Yulian shouted when they took off. Bogdan, Kirill’s driver, had taken possession of Meijer and was on the way back to the Pravdin estate now. Vanya, Lina, and Max rode along, equally stunned.

  “It’s too stupid. It doesn’t make any sense,” Lina said, falling back into the backseat cushions.

  “Excuse me,” Max interrupted their musings to take a phone call. The others waved their approval and theorized some more.

  “They have absolutely nothing to gain from that deal going south,” Vanya mused. “Something’s not right. There’s some other vested interest here that we know nothing about.”

  Yulian punched his fist into his left hand. “Damn straight. I knew something was up when Sven acted so surprised by the yield. He should have been able to calculate that kind of discharge. Then he was looking at his dad for approval like every other second. Lina, did you catch any of that German?”

  “Just pieces. ‘No,’ ‘It’s too much,’ and ‘didn’t agree.’ Obviously a double cross in the works. Sven must have gotten cold feet. They probably wanted to shoot me or Vanya or both. But why at such risk to themselves? Murder on American soil with little resources and almost no way out. If one of us had been taken out, that room would be full of bullet holes.”

  “It’s worse,” Max interrupted. “That was your father. Victorovich and his wife have been taken from their home. A neighbor reported a robbery of the jewel shop to the police. They killed the shop boy and took a token amount of stones. The cops are on their way there, but your father says there’s no doubt it was the Germans. He wants this all taken care of before sunrise.”

  No one spoke for a few minutes. They rarely worked this close to the ground. In fact, Vanya couldn’t recall a time when working for his father had ever been this violent. This charade was absurd, and Vanya couldn’t help but feel as if he was being pulled and pushed by some force. There was no choice though. If they didn’t go through with this and take care of things before the police got involved, Lyadov and Peng’s lives could be the forfeit.

  “We’ll split up in teams. I’ll secure the shops. Yulian, go with Max to work up sources. Lina, go back to the estate to help break Meijer. They’ll need a cool head over there.”

  “With all due respect, if Meijer is crazy enough to pull this shit with such a low chance of success, it’s likely that he’ll be giving anything up at the house with Bogdan. Something tells me he hasn’t seen this plan through. It’d be better for me to search as well and run interference with any cops.”

  “Alright,” Vanya conceded, “let’s do this.” Everyone pulled over and split into their respective search parties. He headed toward his car, taking his keys from the man that had been driving it. Vanya pulled off down the road, speeding toward the expressway. There was little time. If he wanted to see Persephone and gather the information he wanted to give her, he’d have to act quickly to avoid suspicion.

  ☐

  Persephone was out of tears. She was sure she sobbed for about thirty minutes after Vanya left her apartment. She cried until it hurt. When she couldn’t do that anymore, she paced around the apartment for ten minutes, pulling at her hair. In all this time, none of her feelings had diminished. How could she let him walk away like that? After four years, the best she’d felt was in his arms just now.

  How pathetic is that? She chastised her weakness in her head. A shower didn’t help, and neither did a drink. After tossing around in bed for a few minutes, she got up to inspect Vanya’s package.

  Persephone placed the flash drive she got from Vanya’s package in her computer. The files therein detailed the logistics of a trust for Yevgeny Leonidovich Naryshkin and his parents. Persephone saw that she was listed as one of trustees and briefly wondered how Vanya had pulled that off without her permission; certainly his vast sums of money and power could provide him access to her social security number and her forged signature. A short Internet search showed Yevgeny Naryshkin was a rookie soccer player for Chicago’s professional club. He was building a name for himself and the team. From what Persephone could tell, he didn’t exactly need Vanya’s support considering his sports contract. He received it nonetheless.

  If Vanya was right about what he said might happen this evening, there was chance she would come into this young man’s life in Vanya’s stead – whatever his role in Yevgeny’s life was. It was sad. The whole thing was completely sorrowful. In slumping her shoulders in defeat, Persephone found the strength to be proactive.

  So, what are you doing about this? Persephone’s thoughts goaded her again. Was she really going to take this? Obviously Vanya had wanted to set things straight between them. There was something there. She didn’t have to accept that meeting as her last time with him. She’d protected him once, and she’d do so again, no matter the cost.

  Grabbing her phone she dialed the first number she’d programmed when she arrived stateside. “Timothy, yes. No. No, I’m not okay. I’m sorry to call so late, but I need your help.”

  ☐

  Vanya secured the shops without incident after leaving Persephone’s apartment. He went over and over all the possibilities of why things went down the way they had tonight. He had his suspicions, but he had to meet with the others to confirm them. It was now four in the morning and the clock was ticking.

  As he expected, Lina, Yulian, and Max hadn’t found anything or anyone that could lead them to Victorovich and Peng. Word from the estate said that Meijer hadn’t given up anything. Not that Vanya hadn’t suspected as much. They met up at his downtown office, thinking of ways to regroup.

  “You know,” Vanya said ponderously, “Bogdan never handles interrogations at the house. It’s messy – just like that deal that went down. That’s something you usually take care of, right Max?”

  “Yes, your father insisted that it be him.”

  “When, Max?”

  “What?”

  “When? You didn’t take a call from the time we exited the warehouse to when we got in the cars and left. Bogdan had already decided to take Meijer by then.”

  Max stared at Vanya plainly, unmoved by the revelation. He wasn’t going to make this easy for Vanya. Yulian’s eyes lit up with recognition.

  “Oh, my god, you’re fucking working for them!”

  “No,” Vanya halted Yulian with a raised hand. “He’s not working for those German bastards. He’s working with them. He’s still working for same man he’s always worked for. My father.”

  “So, what are you saying?” Yulian asked. “That uncle told the Germans to screw up this deal?”

  “No, he didn’t tell them to screw it up. He just told them to take me out of the picture. The problem was once Sven saw how truly destructive the weapon was, he didn’t want to go through with shooting me. If any of us escaped, it would be hard to beat a murder charge here. Meijer didn’t have that problem. Lucky for us, Max had a change of heart.”

  “You wouldn’t dare betray us,” Lina whispered from the corner. She hadn’t spoken since Vanya began piecing things together.

  “He was never beholden to us. Just father.”

  “That still doesn’t make any sense though,” Yulian reasoned. “Uncle still stands to lose if this deal fell through.”

  “Not if he restructured things and made it his deal. Moved Victorovich and Peng to Germany. Allowed Meijer’s firm to remain intact and stay the main supplier of the diamonds they need. With me out of the picture, Papa holds all the power. He’d be in total control again, taking back everything I took from him. That’s what it all comes down to, right Max? With me incapacitated, he’s the keeper of the keys.”

&
nbsp; “I told you he cared about that intelligence exchange with Trask more than anything,” Max said quietly, sitting stock-still on the couch. “There’s no limit to Kirill’s thirst for retaliation. I’m sure he felt that if this was how you were to learn not to disobey him, then so be it. As you can see, his revenge was hastily planned.”

  Ignoring the comment, Vanya lowered his face to Max’s. “I really don’t care about that right now. What matters is what side you’re going to be on tonight. Victorovich and Peng are your friends, too. Unlike my father, I don’t want to see anything bad happen to them. Help me find them before any harm can be done.”

  Max moved at last, bowing his head. Vanya couldn’t imagine the turmoil he faced. He wondered what his father had on him that he was controlled so completely.

  “Max, if you help me, I promise I’ll take the reigns from my father and we’ll sort this all out later. You could have let Meijer shoot me, but you didn’t. I’m not sure what it was, but you’ve already chosen a side. My side.”

  Max sighed. Vanya had never seen him look so beaten before; it was unsettling. When he thought Max would remain silent, he finally gave Vanya an answer.

  “If we go now, we should still be able to catch them.”

  Max led them to a private airfield outside the city. To preempt any takeoff, Vanya had his men park their cars in front of the small private jet in the lit up hangar. Thankfully, there were only two cars parked nearby. There wouldn’t be enough people to give them trouble.

  Two men in the hangar easily stood aside when they entered. The men gave up their weapons and the plane’s engine turned off. Its noise dissipated after a few minutes. The hatch door opened, and a stocky brown haired man emerged, using Victorovich as a human shield. He held the old man in front of him, steadying him with a hand on his shoulder, and a pistol to the back of his head.

  For all his aging and frailty, Victorovich walked down the steps with gumption. He held his head high and spoke calming words in Russian to Peng. She was also at gunpoint behind him with another member of the Germans’ group. The poor woman was clearly terrified. She shakily made her way down the stairs with her assailant prodding her.

  “You have to know this will fail,” Max spoke to the first man in disbelief.

  “We just want to leave unharmed. Let us do that, and you can have these two.” The man holding Victorovich was obviously the genius leader who’d thought up this brilliant plan. He was nervous and shaky and his apprehension bled into everyone else in the hangar. “Back away.”

  “We aren’t letting you take them out of here. Just put your weapons down and surrender. We don’t want the police involved. When you hand them over, we’ll hold you, and discuss your release with Meijer,” Vanya stated calmly. He stepped forward with his hands raised in supplication.

  “Stop! Hör sofort auf!” the man handling Peng cried. He shakily pointed his gun at Vanya. His companion winced at the sound of trepidation in his voice.

  “Look,” Vanya stayed in place as he spoke, “your partner isn’t up to this. Stopping right now is the best way you can end this amicably. Don’t be a fool.”

  The stocky man holding Victorovich must not have taken Vanya seriously. He moved the barrel of his gun from Victorovich’s head and pointed it at the old man’s foot. Without warning, he fired a shot.

  “There, now you see we mean –”

  The end of the shooter’s threat was drowned out by Peng’s piercing wail. Somehow, someway, she yanked herself from the man holding her back and rushed toward her husband who was slumping toward the ground. Vanya heard his own scream as well. He rushed toward the Lyadovs, but then there was another shot and then pain.

  Searing pain. It was in his chest and it brought him to his knees. He put his left hand to the ground to keep from falling completely. Other shots rang, but he could barely register them over the hurt. His right hand was sticky and wet and he pulled it away to see that it was covered in blood. His blood!

  Suddenly, looking at it was too much. Vanya fell to his back. The lights above on the hangar ceiling were unpleasantly bright. As he blinked to adjust, the shouting and firing around him grew more distant. Suddenly, Lina’s face was above him and he smiled. He couldn’t lift his hand to touch her face, but he was glad she was here taking care of him. He frowned as she yelled at him. Didn’t she know how much he hurt? What was she saying?

  He came to understand that she was asking if he could hear her and responded in the positive. He moved his body parts like she demanded. He felt tired though. He was floating and moving with Lina hovering over him all the while. Thankfully, the harsh lights of the hangar’s ceiling were replaced with the softer light of his SUV. Lina was still there and things were more comfortable. He just needed to sleep. Right now he hurt. Yes, he’d rest and take of everything when he woke up later.

  ☐

  “Hold on, they’re on the move again,” Timothy squinted at the LCD screen on his console and pulled the car over.

  “Are you sure?” Persephone asked. She watched the green ping move on the screen’s GPS map. She’d known that there was technology that could track locations like this, but coming face to face with it made her dubious. Everything was riding on if Timothy could give her the help she needed.

  “Yes, I’m sure; and they’re headed back to the city. We’ll be able to follow them from a distance.”

  “Not too much of distance though.”

  “Look, Persephone. From what you told me, this situation could be incredibly dangerous. We’re not going to engage if I see it as a threat to you or anyone on this team. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, I know,” Persephone nodded. Timothy held her stare for a moment and then gave his attention to the road to turn around.

  She didn’t care to understand him for one minute. Something told her that Timothy knew that, but she’d handle that when the time came. He and his two ‘agency friends’ could stay behind in the car. Persephone, however, was going to get to Vanya. If he was in any sort of trouble, and she hadn’t done everything she could to help him, she’d never forgive herself.

  It wasn’t without a price though. In return for his assistance tonight, Persephone had promised Timothy all the intelligence she’d withheld for so long. It was the last hand she could play, but it was worth it. She’d used Vanya’s contact information listed in the package he’d given her earlier. Luckily, Timothy’s people had the tools to track the number when it wasn’t in use and deemed Persephone’s information important enough to trade for. After she called him, Timothy gathered two military-looking men and tracking resources in thirty minutes. They picked her up and headed out of the city, which was were the ping on Vanya’s phone had been sitting for ten minutes.

  Now the phone was on the move again, as was the chase. Timothy’s companions drove behind them in another dark, unmarked sedan. In another fifteen minutes their little caravan would be intercepting Vanya’s ping.

  “Do you have any idea where they’re headed?” Timothy asked. “It looks like they’re going downtown.”

  “Well, there’s the Pravdin Group offices. The downtown location of the jewelry shop, too. It’s in south downtown.”

  “Wherever they’re going, they’re going pretty fast. Which one would they go to if there was trouble?”

  “Probably the jewelry shop. There would be too many people in the office building, even at this time of night; it’s pretty guarded.”

  “Alright. Give me the address.” Timothy pressed a button on the communications microphone hanging on his ear. “Chandler, we think they’re headed to the downtown location of one of their jewelry stores. We’ll maintain the tail. Go ahead and head to that address now.”

  They drove until they parked on a street that intersected with the one Vanya was currently racing down. The ping grew closer and closer to Persephone and Timothy’s position, and suddenly, three speeding SUVs whizzed by them. Much to Persephone’s annoyance, Timothy waited until the cars moved on to the next bloc
k to follow them. He let more distance grow between them.

  “Timothy, come on! We don’t want to lose them!”

  “We’re not going to lose them. I’m putting distance between us because we need to assess the situation before we make any moves. These weapons are dangerous and we don’t know what kind of havoc spooking these guys will wreak.”

  “Wreak havoc? Oh, my god.” Persephone took a deep breath. She couldn’t afford to squabble right now. She had to remain focused. After ten minutes, the ping stopped.

  “They’ve stopped,” Persephone commented immediately.

  “I know. They’re at the shop, just like you said.”

  Timothy parked down the block. A light switched on in the shop. It illuminated a curtain in the window of one of the second floor rooms. Persephone knew she’d probably only have one chance to do things her way. She gave Timothy a quick glance as he turned off the engine. Before he could open his mouth to say anything, she jumped out of the car and bolted down the street to the jewelry store.

  Timothy didn’t shout after her; she knew he wouldn’t do anything to draw attention to them. She did, however, hear his running footsteps gaining on her. After a minute of sprinting, she reached the front entrance of the shop. The stone façade was just as she remembered it. The building’s date of 1907 and the words South City Bank were cut into the stone as were fancy, Beaux Arts motifs. Light illuminated the storefront windows, but everything else was out. They must have entered through the back. Persephone rushed to the side of the building and jumped the iron fence just as Timothy reached her.

  “Stop,” he barked as he began to climb.

  “You don’t have to follow me!” she called back to him as she ran down the walkway. She reached the back of the building just as another SUV was parking by the all the others. Partially blinded by the lights, Persephone stopped in front of it and prepared herself to confront the passengers.