Worth The Risk

by Richard Gustafson

  “What’s that?”

  “Kelli talks about it all the time. Generally eighty percent is the norm and twenty percent are outliers. So with her computer security, she concentrates on the twenty percent initially. Once they are taken care of, she goes after the twenty percent of the twenty percent, and so on.”

  She looked confused. “So what does that have to do with anything?”

  “Well, the theory is that eighty percent of people are good, and twenty percent take advantage of the situation to do what they want. Look at Nazi Germany, for example. Hitler really had no problem finding people for the Gestapo and SS. Most of the Germans were good people, just misled. But a subset, probably twenty percent, really got into it and willingly did things they couldn’t normally do in civilized society.”

  She looked doubtful. “I think more than twenty percent of the Nazis were murderers.”

  “Perhaps, or it may just seem that way because a few did so many horrible things. And of course you have to take into account the twenty percent of the twenty percent.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Oh?”

  “Yeah, those are the real badasses. The ones who are just waiting for an opportunity to chop somebody’s head off. The Maxsims.”

  Anya nodded. “You may be right. I guess I’ve never thought about it much.” She looked at him sideways. “So where do I fit?”

  Nick laughed. “Not sure yet, but I’m pretty sure I’d put you in the eighty percent. You have a good heart.”

  She shook her head sadly. “You don’t know me very well, then. I’ve done some dark things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Nothing I’d care to share, honey, sorry.” She saw his look and laughed. “I haven’t chopped anybody’s head off, if that’s what you’re thinking. “

  “I’m glad. I’ll sleep better tonight.”

  “And where do you fit?”

  “Ugh, don’t ask.”

  “No fair! I told you.”

  Nick thought about it for a long time. “I like to think I’m part of the eighty percent, but have spent most of my time with the twenty percent, or even the twenty of the twenty.”

  “The, what do you call them, the badasses?”

  “Yep.”

  “How did you handle them?”

  “Usually lethally,” Nick said. He drummed his fingers on the table absently as he thought about his part. How did he really handle them? Probably not very well, in hindsight. Like the insurgents who ambushed his team in the northern Iraqi mountains. The Americans lost six men in an intense, moving firefight before the enemy melted away. The insurgents thought they were safe, until the Americans tracked them down in a narrow ravine. Nick’s squad leader trekked to the top of the ravine while Nick and his men kept the enemy pinned down. It didn’t take long for the helicopters to show up and blast the hell out of that ravine.

  “Well,” he finally said. “If we weren’t shooting at each other, we tried to talk to them.”

  “How did that go?”

  He shook his head. “Not well, generally. We were infidels on their land. They didn’t want to talk, they wanted to fight.”

  “So then you fought them?”

  Pause, then “Yes.”

  “And killed them?”

  A longer pause. “Yes,” Nick said quietly.

  “That really bothers you, no?”

  Nick nodded.

  “Good.”

  He looked at her and she smiled back.

  “If you’ve done dark things, and it bothers you, then there is hope.”

  Chapter 20

  Nick groaned and sat back from the computer monitor. Kelli’s e-mail glared at him from the screen.

  “Where Are You?” blinked the subject line. Underneath it, the body read, “Made it back home safe. I tried calling you at the hotel but no answer. Please reply when you get this. Love you! Me.”

  Nick looked around the internet café. More like an internet classroom, really, since the computers were placed on long tables, roughly five feet between monitors. Nick sat in the back row so nobody could see his screen. Not that he had much to worry about, since there were only two others there at nine in the morning, and they weren’t paying any attention to him.

  He leaned back, crossed his arms, and thought about how best to proceed. He knew he’d have to talk to Kelli sooner or later but had hoped things would be resolved by then. Perhaps they were, but sleeping on Anya’s couch last night made Nick realize they probably weren’t.

  It was a bad night. Once Anya left and Nick turned the lights down, his anger left and the guilt and sadness hit. He felt terrible about Katie, and Scott, and especially Galina. She deserved none of what had visited her in her last days.

  But when he thought about Nonna, the tears and sadness left him, replaced by resolve. Galina’s death wouldn’t be in vain, he promised himself. He was going to get Nonna out of Russia no matter what.

  The wave passed. He spent the next two hours thinking, planning.

  Anya got home late, with a dinner for Nick from the restaurant. He dug into the steak gratefully, because he had only eaten some bread earlier in the evening and didn’t want to venture out to hunt and gather dinner. He wasn’t afraid of running into Maxsim’s cohorts. He just didn’t want them to follow him back to the apartment and place Anya in danger. So he waited and thought and listened to his stomach growl.

  They talked while he ate, but this time about nothing in particular. Andrei had stopped by the café for a few drinks, as he usually did, and inquired about Nick. Anya just said that Nick had called and said he had some trouble at the brothel, but hadn’t gone into details. She told Nick that she didn’t want to lie to her cousin, but was OK withholding information. Nick could tell him later.

  But he had to tell Kelli now. He wasn’t about to start keeping secrets. Like Anya, he wasn’t too concerned about withholding information, at least for the short term, but this was too important not to share with his wife.

  But he didn’t want to do it via email. So his reply was simply, “Are you home? I’ll call.” She replied within a few minutes. He sighed, got up, and went to the front of the room.

  A geeky-looking kid with zits and spiky blond hair sat in front of a computer. Nick glanced at the screen as he walked up. The guy was playing some kind of war game. The kid saw him, grimaced, paused the game, and turned to Nick.

  “Yes?” he asked. No smile, his brain was obviously still in the middle of his game. He spoke in English, though, so at least he remembered Nick.

  “Telephone?” Nick asked.

  “Da,” the kid replied. “To America?”

  “Yes.”

  The kid pulled out a pricing sheet and pointed to a section labeled Phone. “Two hundred rubles connection,” he said. “One hundred rubles every minute.”

  Nick did the calculations in his head and whistled. Several dollars just to dial, and a few more each minute. But he didn’t have much of a choice, not if he wanted to do it right.

  “Da,” he said as he nodded.

  The kid held out his hand. “Now,” he said.

  Nick peeled off a thousand rubles and handed it to the man. Enough for eight minutes, which should be plenty of time to get chewed out by Kelli.

  The kid grabbed a cell phone, dialed the number Nick gave him, and handed the phone over. He went back to his video game as Nick shuffled a few steps away, phone to one ear and finger in the other.

  Nick heard a series of clicks, then a tone as the phone rang half a world away. It only rang twice before Kelli answered.

  “Hi, honey!” Nick smiled broadly as he heard his wife’s voice. It was tinny, but no matter how stressed he got, Kelli had a way to calm him down.

  “Hey, babe,” he said. “How was your flight back?”

  “Ugh, long,” she replied. “But before I get to that, there’s someone who wants to talk to you.”

  He heard her say, “Danny, daddy’s on the phone!” There was a pause, then she said to Nick, “
Here he is.” Nick could hear her hand the phone to their son, replaced by the sound of quiet breathing. Nick could barely hear it through the connection.

  “Hi, Danny!” Nick said with excitement in his voice. Danny got more out of the tone of the voice than the actual words.

  “Hi, daddy,” Danny replied, calmly.

  “How are you?”

  “Happy!” Nick knew this was just a stock answer. Danny tended to respond that way when asked how he was. It wasn’t ideal, but better than a blank look.

  “Good!” Nick replied. “I’m happy, too!”

  There was a pause, then Nick heard softly, “Bike ride McDonalds?”

  Nick laughed. Danny’s favorite activity was riding his three-wheeled bicycle two miles to McDonalds with Nick to split a small fry and drink. “Bike ride McDonalds?” was typically the first thing out of Danny’s mouth if Nick was home when he got off the bus on school days.

  “Sorry, buddy, but daddy’s on an airplane ride. I’ll be home soon, though, and we can bike ride to McDonalds then, I promise.”

  There was a pause, then Danny said, “Bye bye, daddy.” He could hear Kelli take the phone.

  “Hi,” she said. “He misses you.”

  “I miss him, too. How was your flight?”

  “Long,” Kelli said. “Rostov to Moscow, Moscow to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Chicago, Chicago to Portland, then the drive here. I felt like I’ve been traveling forever! After you get home I want to stay home and nest for a while.”

  Nick forced a laugh and said, “Deal.”

  “How are things with you? I tried to get you at the hotel yesterday.”

  Nick closed his eyes; here it comes. “Yeah, I haven’t been there much.”

  “No?”

  “No. There’ve been…complications.”

  He heard an intake of breath, silence over the connection, then, “Talk to me.”

  “Nonna is fine and the adoption is still on,” he said quickly.

  “But…”

  “Well, we’ve had some trouble with a few locals,” he said. He didn’t want to bring up the obvious mob connection just yet.

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Well, Scott got involved with a few local troublemakers. There was an…altercation at a club a few nights ago. A few of their guys got hurt.”

  “I assume you were involved.”

  “Yes. Scott needed help.”

  He heard her sigh, then silence.

  “It gets worse.”

  More silence.

  “Scott’s dead,” Nick said.

  Still more silence, then she said softly, “Oh, my God. What happened? Was it the fight? How did he die? Oh, my God!” Her voice ended up much louder than it had started.

  “We knew the other guys worked at the brothel down the block from the hotel. You know how hot-headed Scott can be. Well, he went to the brothel after the fight. He was looking for trouble, and he found it.”

  “Oh, my God,” she said again. “That’s horrible. How’s Katie taking it?”

  Nick paused, then said, “Well, that’s the other part of it. Katie went after Scott. They caught her and raped her in the brothel.”

  Kelli suddenly started crying. “I feel sick, Nick. Hold on, I’m going to sit down.” He heard some rusting, and Danny said in some consternation, “It’s not OK!”

  “It’s OK, honey,” Kelli told him. “It’s all good.”

  No, it wasn’t.

  She came back on the line. “OK, Nick, you need to tell me everything.”

  So Nick did. He decided not to leave anything out, what was the point? Kelli didn’t interrupt. She just listened, although he did hear her swear softly when he told her about Katie’s rescue.

  About halfway through his story, the kid tapped Nick on the shoulder and pointed to his watch. Nick pulled out another thousand ruble note and handed it over without stopping the story. The kid held up five fingers, made a fist, and help up five fingers again to signify Nick had ten minutes left. Nick nodded and went back to talking

  “So,” he said as he started to wrap up, several minutes later. “I talked to whoever works with Maxsim. I told him I want this to be over with.”

  He paused. When Kelli spoke, her voice was a bit hoarse. “Do you think he’ll listen?”

  “I don’t know, which is why I’m not staying at the Rostov. I don’t want to take any chances.”

  “And who’s this chick you’re staying with?”

  “Anya. I met her and her cousin a few nights ago. They’re good people.”

  “I’d feel better if you stayed with her cousin. Actually, I’d feel better if you stayed in another hotel.”

  “I don’t want to risk writing my name down and producing papers. Who knows if those damn key ladies are all working for Dmitri. And as for the cousin, Andrei is a nice guy but he’s into stuff, too. Anya is a safer option.”

  Kelli sighed.

  “You trust me, right?” Nick asked.

  “With Anya? You fooling around is the least of my worries right now, Nick. You just killed a man, for Christ’s sakes! And who-knows-what might be after you. I just want you to get Nonna and get the hell out of there.”

  “So do I, Kelli, and this is the best way I know how.”

  “You should’ve called the police when you had the chance.”

  “I know that now,” Nick said and sighed. “I honestly thought I could walk into the brothel, reason with Maxsim, and get Scott and Katie out without the cops complicating things. I was afraid they might jeopardize the adoption.”

  “I love you, but you’re way too optimistic.”

  Nick thought about Anya, who had said he was naïve. Once is a fluke, twice is a trend. He sighed again.

  “I just can’t believe you got yourself into this, Nick,” Kelli said. He could tell she struggled to keep her voice even so Danny didn’t get upset. “You aren’t in Russia to fix the world’s problems, you’re there to get our baby girl!”

  “I know, honey.”

  The kid ambled over and held up two fingers. Nick nodded.

  Kelli continued. “I know you want to protect people, and I love you for that, I really do. But there’s only one person I want you to protect, and that’s Nonna. Got that? Just bring her home!”

  “I will honey, I promise.”

  Kelli paused, then said, “I’m serious, honey. An orphanage is no place for our daughter.”

  “I know, Kelli. She’ll be home in a week or so, and we’ll never have to deal with these people again.”

  “Just do what you have to do. And Nick?”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “Keep in contact. I need to know that you and Nonna are safe.”

  “I will.”

  “But don’t tell me what you have to do to get her out of there. Especially if it’s messy. I don’t want to know. But you have to get her out of there.”

  “I know, honey. I will. Nonna is worth any risk I have to take.”

  Kelli paused, and Nick was pretty sure she was crying. “I love you very much, and I know you’ll do the right thing,” she said.

  “I have to go, babe,” Nick said. “My time’s up. I’m going to go see Nonna now.”

  Kelli sniffed. “Give her a big kiss from me,” she said.

  Nick smiled. “I will, babe. And in a week you can kiss her yourself.”

  “I really miss you. Be safe,” she said, and was gone.

  Nick handed the phone back to the kid, who saw the tears in his eyes but didn’t say anything.

  Chapter 21

  Nick’s cell phone buzzed as he neared Anya’s flat. The original song had been some disconcerting Russian jingle. It didn’t take Nick long to change it to a basic ring.

  It was an unknown caller. He was tempted to ignore the call, but after a moment clicked the Talk button.

  “Da?” he said. It would be tough to identify a voice from one word.

  “Nick?” The voice was American. Nick relaxed slightly.

  “Hey, Tom.�
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  “Thank God I got you,” Tom said. “Listen, I’ll be quick. There was a cop here this morning, asking about what happened at the brothel.”

  “What happened at the brothel?”

  “Don’t be coy, you bastard. You know damn well what happened at the brothel. I read your note. Trouble is, the cops seemed to find more bodies there than you mentioned. Any idea what happened to them?”

  “No.”

  There was a pause. “OK, then, but this cop is interested in talking to you. He wants to interview everybody who knew Katie and Scott.”

  Nick saw an empty bench ahead of him. He sat down on one end and said, “How’s Katie, anyway?”

  “She’s fine, considering. Pyotr, the cop, said she’s in the hospital but is out of danger. She’s going back to the states in a few days.”

  Nick shook his head. “I assume the adoption is off.”

  “Of course the adoption is fucking off! Who are these animals, anyway?”

  “Tom, you’re on an unsecured line.”

  “I don’t care! I know Scott shouldn’t have messed with them, but they went way too far. And now you can’t even stay at the hotel.”

  “I’ll be fine. What did you tell this guy?”

  “Pyotr? Just that you were out, and that I’d tell you to call him when I saw you next.”

  Nick sighed. “Thanks for covering for me, Tom. I owe you one.”

  “I don’t think so, if you took out a few of the bad guys yesterday.”

  “Unsecured line, dude. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Tom sighed. “OK, whatever. Anyway, Pyotr wants to talk to you.”

  “What’s his number?”

  Tom read it out. Nick typed it into his phone, thanked his friend, and hung up. He sat on the bench, thinking, for a long time. Finally he sighed heavily, put the phone in his pocket, and got up.

  Anya was washing dishes. She turned to him with a smile when he opened the door, plate in one hand and wash cloth in the other. She looked the picture of domesticity.

  Her smile faded when she saw his face. “What is it?” she asked.

  “Cops are sniffing around the hotel,” Nick answered as he took his wallet and phone out and tossed them on the table. He grabbed a water bottle from the fridge and cracked it open.