“I’ve forgotten how exciting things get when you’re around,” Madhuri smirked.
“I like to keep things hopping. Where are you hurt?”
“All over…” she smirked. “Arm…so much for my tennis game.”
“You were never very good anyway,” John said. “Hang tight.”
Madhuri forced a smile. “Hangin’,” she said and squeezed her eyes shut. John wiped a tear from her cheek.
“I tried to contact you with my cellular from the car, but the line was dead,” Nikita said, “I got here as soon as I could.”
John did not hear her as he stood and faced Lydia, “Hello Amber,” he said coldly.
She refused to meet his eyes.
“That is not her real name,” Nikita informed him.
John stepped closer, grabbed Lydia by the throat, and pressed the barrel of the Magnum to her forehead. He thumbed the hammer back.
“John?” Nikita whispered.
“You used me!” John snapped with such rage both Lydia and Nikita recoiled.
Lydia finally looked at John, “Yes I did,” she said flatly. “And if Wildman was in my place she would have done the same thing.”
A chill cut through him. Maybe she did.
John let the hammer slide back into place and lowered the weapon. In the distance sirens wailed.
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“Move it butt-plug,” Lt. Kurt Burton barked, smacking Forrester in the back of the head. Burton and three other officers removed Lydia and the CSIS man from the living area and directed them into waiting cruisers. John sat somberly on the couch with Nikita at his side. Their fingers laced together between them. Doctor Yen-ping sat before him with her black bag between her knees. Bonita had already taped up his chest and wrist and had started to clean off the many wounds on his face. Madhuri had been given a shot of insulin and was sent on ahead by ambulance. Bonita suspected she should be on her feet within a couple of days. The bullet from the Semmerling just grazed the inside of her left arm above the elbow. An uniformed Mountie entered and whispered into St. James’ ear. She nodded, then looked at John and shook her head.
“I told you I left him in the backyard,” John said lethargically, “I thought he was dead. I hit him in the head with an axe.”
“Well,” St. James said in that tone of voice that pissed off John, “he couldn’t have gone very far. I have people combing the area. I’m going to leave an officer here when we leave. Just in case.”
“I feel so much better knowing that you are looking out for my safety,”
John replied flatly.
Bonita swallowed a chuckle.
“Ah, yes,” St. James grunted. She faced Nikita. “Major Triska, there are some people from your Embassy waiting back at my office. I believe they have a few words they would like to share with you.”
“Da.” Nikita looked apologetically at John. “I have to go now. I promise I will see you again before I heave for home.”
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John nodded absently.
Nikita kissed him softly on the cheek, picked up her cane and followed St. James out the door.
*****
Midsouth 7 Medical Facility
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
06:41 hours 28 August, 2020
Scowls of darkness smeared across the morning sky, a beacon of the coming storm. Quietly by the window John sat, absorbing the power Mother Nature flexed. Behind him on the hospital bed Madhuri slept. The soft peeping sound of the monitors were occasionally obliterated by the grumbling in the sky.
Miezlaiskis and Forrester had been charged with murder, kidnaping, rape, treason, possession of a narcotic for the purpose of trafficking, plus several dozen other infractions. It would be a long and colorful trial, as well as a media circus, but both should go away for a long time. Stryker agreed that John would not be involved with the media coverage of the trial. He was too close.
“I have something better, more newsworthy,” he told Stryker. What bothered John the most was the disappearance of Raymond Smyles. There was no trace he had ever been at John’s.
The ugly man just vanished.
In the corridor beyond Madhuri’s private room an elevator bell rang, accompanied by a dull flash of lighting over Lake Ontario. John turned his head slightly and listened. Two sets of foot falls. The heavy one was the Officer St. James left here on John’s insistent. The second walked with a cane.
John turned back toward the window as the door opened. “Hello Nikita,”
he said. In the distant thunder rumbled through the chilled air.
“How did you know it was me?” she asked.
“The sound of your cane on the floor in the hall.”
“Well now,” Nikita conceded. She was impressed.
Lightning cracked.
With a low grunt, the overweight Mountie returned to his dull posting. 197
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“May I?” the lanky Russian asked.
“Sure.”
Thunder rumbled.
Nikita quietly slid a chair over and sat down next to John. “The girl sleeping?”
“Her name is Madhuri,” John said.
“I am sorry,” Nikita scolded herself for the faux pas. “Madhuri.” She knew John had not left her bedside since the day after she arrived. “What did the doctor say?”
“She wanted to keep her here until they get her sugars under control. Madhuri has a very delicate system. She went too long without insulin. All Smyles fed her were jelly doughnuts.”
“Does she not wear an insulin patch?”
“She’s allergic to the adhesive and uses needles.”
Nikita nodded and followed his gaze out the window. A flicker of lightning illuminated the skyline. “Pretty city.” Thunder rumbled somewhere. “How is the arm?”
“It’ll be fine. Dr. Yen-ping said I should have full use back soon,” John said. His eyes did not leave whatever he was focused on. “I’m lucky with my chest. It’s only a minor fracture.”
“That is good, Johnny.”
“Don’t!” John snapped at her. The sky flashed and roared. Nikita’s eyes widened with surprise. John looked away for a moment, then met her eyes again. “I’m sorry. Please don’t call me that.”
“As you wish.”
A moment passed between them. John cleared his throat. “How was your debriefing?”
“Not fun. Moscow was not very pleased that I disobeyed orders and sought you out, but they did realize that we had a leak somewhere.” She combed her fingers across her brush cut. “Also, St. James can be, how do you say it? A total bitch?”
“That’s how I’d say it,” John smiled. A jagged ripple of light darted across the sky.
Nikita placed her hand on his arm. “It is good to see you smiling.”
“Debriefing took all week?” John asked, not sure of what he was trying to avoid.
“Nyet. I spent the last two days researching Cathy Wildman’s reports.”
The sky grumbled.
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“Why?” John asked, unsuccessfully keeping the edge from his voice. Nikita removed her hand and faced John directly. “Listen John. After Vladimir called Forrester he suspected that your CSIS man was on the take so he also contacted Cathy, but died before he could give her the data disk. I believe he knew her life was going to end that night.”
“You think the disk is still hidden?”
Nikita nodded, “Da.” A flicker in the sky briefly split the clouds. “I think Vladimir told Cathy where it was hidden and she was on her way to retrieve it when somebody stopped her.”
Fat rivulets began to pelt the glass as John looked at the woman beside him. “Are you sure about this?”
“Vladimir asked Cathy to meet him at Kieran Crudup’s Estate. Now why would he want to do that? Crudup is a major player in the Canadian underworld. Would that not be the last place an on-the-run narcotics agent would want to meet a con
tact? In the very den, as it were, of the vipers he was fleeing? Your RCMP suspect Crudup’s involvement in over 70% of all the Ink trafficking in this country. He is also been known to operate a clearing house for contract assassination and white slavery.”
“I know who he is,” John said, following her train of thought. “The problem is that the cops could never put together a case against him. Crudup has been brought to trial a few times but never convicted. Evidence misfiled, witnesses change their testimony or disappear altogether. A real bad guy.” He looked at Nikita. “You think Crudup has his fingers in the Group’s pie?”
Her eyebrows knitted for a moment as she pondered the term. “Da. I believe that by going to Crudup’s place of operations Vladimir gave us the key to the whole mystery. He figured it out, and so did Cathy. That knowledge cost them their lives.”
John closed his eyes for a moment. Wheels within wheels.
“One of Cathy’s covers was that of a high priced prostitute who freelanced for Crudup.” Nikita pressed on, “From the reports I read, she used that cover several times during the investigation.” She touched his arm with the tips of her fingers. “Doctor Yen-ping told me that Cathy did not completely trust St. James,” Nikita’s voice tightened, “I do not think that Vladimir and Cathy’s deaths should go unavenged.”
John met her gaze. “Do you know what you are saying?”
“Da. Yes, John, I do.” Their eyes remained locked as Nikita continued, “I believe the key is at Crudup’s estate. The key to who is involved and how they are manipulated by the Group. The key to where the Ink is stored and 199
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how they ship it into my homeland. I have to find it John, and I have to end it before their oath destroys any more lives.”
Nikita stood and placed a hand on John’s shoulder. “Pozhalusta, think about it. I need your help.” She placed a card on Madhuri’s night table. “Here is a secure number that you may reach me at. No one must know about what we have talked about, especially St. James.” Nikita gently squeezed his shoulder, “Proshchai,” she said softly and left the room. The sky suddenly split open and an icy rain pelted down on the city.
“I don’t believe her,” Madhuri declared from her bed.
“I do,” John replied. His eyes suddenly focused somewhere far away.
“But I agree. She’s hiding something.” John stood and watched lightning flash and strike the CN Tower. “There was one question she didn’t ask me. One question nobody asked me and I don’t understand why. Unless somehow somebody already knew the answer,” he turned and faced Madhuri. “What was I doing at Crudup’s that night? How did I just happen to be in the right place at the right time?”
“I don’t understand,” Madhuri said.
“They all knew that my presence there was just simply a twist of fate. Therefore, whenever I was involved everyone just went through the motions.”
John brushed a lock of hair from Madhuri’s eyes. “There is more to this story than what Nikita believes. She may not know it, but she’s as much out of the loop as we are. My gut tells me only two of the people involved knew the full scope of what’s happening. You and I don’t know. Nikita doesn’t. Smyles and Lydia Miezlaiskis thought they knew but didn’t. I don’t think St. James knows. We are just pawns on someone’s board. Catherine knows and so does the one behind it all.”
Madhuri missed the reference. “You told me it was a group of ten people,”
she said, “not an individual.”
John let it slide, “I don’t believe it’s a group. Not anymore. It may have been once, but not anymore. Not for a long time. A group wouldn’t have made the type of blunders they have. Their actions have been too wild, too personal.” John turned back toward the window, “But I think Nikita is on the right track.”
“So what are you going to do?”
John stared out at the changing sky, “What I have to do.” For her.
*****
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Nikita, I’m not cut out for this plan of yours. I can’t even fire a gun straight. He turned over the card she gave him. We saved each others lives, so we owe each other in a way we may never understand.
But most of all I’m doing it for her...
He punched in the number.
... I’m doing this for Catherine.
“Da.”
“I’m in, but we do it my way.”
*****
“We can’t find him,” Burton reported.
St. James looked up from her desk and brushed away her reading lamp.
“Is he not at his house-or train set-or whatever it is he lives in?”
“No ma’am.”
“He may have returned to Vancouver with his friend, or might be here in the city at the CWN offices,” St. James suggested.
“I’ve checked all flights to, or connecting with Vancouver. He didn’t. The CWN doesn’t know or won’t tell me his whereabouts. I’ve also learned that his friend, Madhuri Sahni, had checked herself out of the hospital and she too is missing.”
“I don’t like the sound of that. Do you think he’s up to something?”
“I’m not sure, but Constable Chaykin said Major Triska visited both Riel and Sahni at the hospital just before they both disappeared.”
“Where is the good Major now?”
“Her Embassy said she returned to Moscow the day before yesterday.”
“Fine. Keep me posted.”
“Yes ma’am,” Burton nodded slightly and left the office. St. James dimmed her reading light and leaned back in her chair. They wouldn’t!
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The Kieran Crudup Estate
South of Sudbury, Ontario, Canada
21:21 hours 01 September, 2020
“The air is cool,” Nikita Triska said and shivered as she stepped out into the night.
John Riel gently closed the car door behind her, “Are you ready?” he whispered.
They both glanced up toward the dark building in the distance.
“As I shall ever be,” she replied.
“Lets do it.”
Nikita remained one step behind as they approached the building. The huge oak doors automatically swung open as they reached the landing. A tall man in a tuxedo blocked their access.
“Yes?” he droned, making them feel as welcome as intestinal parasites. John tossed the lackey his car keys. This must be Eulon Rae.
“Tell this Mr. Crudup of yours that Mister Isaiah Smallcock is ‘ere to see
‘im,” he commanded with a thick English brogue.
*****
“Jezz Nikita, where the hell did you get that name?” John had asked her when she presented him with the cover. “Isaiah Smallcock,” Nikita told him,
“and yes, that’s his real name, is a member of the British underworld. He 202
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controls the Ink trade in England, Wales and parts of Scotland. His wife’s name is Anita.”
*****
“Yes sir,” Rae touched an intercom and whispered into it. After a moment he turned back to John and Nikita. “This way please sir.”
Rae lead the couple down a dark hall and into a brightly lit office. “Your passports please,” he asked, holding out his hand. John and Nikita handed them over and the tall man placed them on the desk. “Mr. Crudup will be with you shortly,” he said taking their coats. With a slight bow he left. Nikita studied the office. Crudup likes to live high. The spacious office was furnished quite lavishly. There were items of questionable taste displayed gloriously around the office. Positioned strategically in the middle was a huge oak desk with two overstuffed leather chairs before it. Hanging on the wall behind the desk was a painting of a phallus-shaped ice sculpture.
Nikita raised a mocking eyebrow.
“Marvelous is it not?”
John and Nikita turned around at the sound of the voice and found a short fat man with pig-like eyes standing in the corner.
“The male sex organ,” the fat man said. “It has been the driving force behind man’s conquests throughout the ages. It represents man’s passion and man’s power,” he eyed Nikita briefly. “Man’s superiority.”
“It is also the point where all men are not judged equal,” John injected bluntly. “You must be Crudup.”
A tad miffed, Crudup stared at John. He was not accustomed to being interrupted, especially in his own domain, but Smallcock was someone he did not want to mix it up with.
Crudup smiled generously and held out his hand. “You must be Mr. Isaiah Smallcock,” he said. “And who is this vision?”
Ignoring the hand, John motioned toward Nikita, “My executive assistant, Ms. Tina Trisk.”
Crudup kissed the back of her hand, “Beauty.”
Nikita tried very hard not to show her contempt.
“Please have a seat,” Crudup offered, stepping behind his desk. He dropped 203
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into his huge leather chair.
John and Nikita sat in the overstuffed chairs. John noticed the depth of the chair forced them to look up at Crudup, giving the fat man a psychological advantage.
“First things first, Mr. Smallcock. Where did you get my name?” Crudup asked picking up the passports.
John snorted in mock offence. Nikita was right. First question.
“Jerry Folan gave it to me. I would say about three months ago in London.
‘E told me you are the man to see.”
“Mr. Folan?” Crudup pondered that for a moment flipping through the passports. Folan was one an alias of Jefferson Stein. “Well traveled I see. Did he tell you anything else?”
“No,” John answered evenly.
Crudup thought for a moment then cracked a wide smile. His fat cheeks almost hid his bloodshot eyes. “Good, good. What do you need?”
John looked at Nikita. She retrieved a note book from her blazer pocket and flipped it open. “Five ‘undred million in Ink.”
Crudup’s brows shot up, “Well that’s... in pounds or dollars?”
“Dollars,” she answered, “American.”
“That’s a lot of shit.” He rubbed a few of his chins. “I assume, of course, that you have made arrangement to ship it all back to England.”
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