by Leona Lee
“Nyet,” he answered.
She shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, well, if you want me to give him a message, just let me know,” she answered, smiling sweetly.
Before she could walk away, he grabbed her arm. She stared down at his hand, and then looked up at him. “Yes?”
Staring at her, he shook his head and dropped his hand. “Never mind.”
She rubbed her arm as she walked out to her car. I wonder what the hell that was about.
By Sunday, Bethany was in a panic. She hadn’t heard from Vadim in close to forty-eight hours and while his phone was not turned off, he wasn’t picking up when she called. She paced the apartment in agitation. Deciding to break protocol, she placed a call to her handler, but it went straight to voicemail. She tossed her phone on the couch with a sigh and resumed pacing.
Monday morning, she reported to the FBI offices first thing. She was waiting outside Turner’s door when he arrived. Looking at her in surprise, he opened the door and ushered her in.
“Sit down,” he invited as he went to grab coffee. Setting her bag down, she was pacing the office when he walked back in. He handed her a cup, sat down at his desk, and waited for her to speak.
Bethany set the cup down. “I haven’t heard from Vadim in more than forty-eight hours, and I can’t reach Marci.”
Reaching for the phone, Turner made a call, but hung up after a few seconds. “I got her voicemail.”
“It was the same for me. I’m worried, Sir. Vadim said that he would stay in contact while he’s in New York and I haven’t heard from him. When I tried to reach Marci, her phone was off. Are they related?”
“I’ve no idea. Let me see what I can find out, and I’ll contact you.”
Before Bethany could respond, her phone beeped. Hoping that it was Vadim, she checked her message, frowning when she saw whom it was from. “Boris wants me to come to the club to translate something,” she told him.
“Are you sure that’s wise?” Turner questioned. “You won’t have the benefit of a full house.”
Nodding her head, she texted him back that she would be there in an hour. “Before I go, do you have anything I can bring him? We need to play this out. I’ll be careful.”
He extracted another manifest from one of the Chinese freights from a file on his desk and handed it to her to snap pictures. “See that you do,” he told her as she hurried out.
Stopping at a drug store on her way to the club, she printed out the photos. When she drove into the parking lot at the Rubicon, she saw two cars – one belonged to Boris and she didn’t recognize the other. Before she got out of the car, she pulled the knife out of her backpack and slipped it into her pocket. Pausing, she fished around for the audio recorder and turned it on before clipping it to the inside of her shirt.
Inside, she found Boris calmly drinking tea at his normal table. Faltering in her step, she took a deep breath and walked up to him.
“Dobroye utro, Boris.”
“Good morning, Bethany.”
She gave him an odd look. “You said that you had something for me to translate?”
Pointing to the chair across from him, he indicated she should sit. “There’s plenty of time for that. Tell me, how is Vadim?”
Not bothering to sit down, she smiled thinly. Here it comes, she thought. “He’s fine,” she answered cheerfully. “I got a text from him that included a picture of the New York City skyline. Made me wish I was back at Barnard.”
“Well that is at least one truthful thing you’ve said.”
“Excuse me?”
“I happen to know that the last time you heard from him was early Saturday morning.”
She looked at him. “You are mistaken.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps I am.” Rising, he walked toward the office. “Come, I will show you the piece I want you to translate. It is in my office.”
As she followed him, Bethany checked her pocket to make sure her knife was readily available as she walked into the office. She stopped short when she saw that they weren’t alone. Rushing forward, she bent down. Marci! Oh, fuck. She could see that she was still alive, but barely. Her breathing was labored, and she had been beaten bloody.
“What’s going on, Boris? Why do you have my graduate supervisor?”
“Is that what they call it now? I thought that she was your handler.”
“My what? What are you talking about? She’s my graduate school advisor at UT. And she needs to go to the hospital.”
“She will do nothing of the sort!” he shouted. Bethany looked at him in surprise. “Tell me something, Miss Michaels, was Vadim always working for you or did that only happen after you started fucking?”
“What? Boris, what are you talking about?”
Ignoring her questions, he continued, “Is that how you did it? You tempted our white fox with your charms so that he would betray his people?”
Bethany stood up as she watched Boris warily, but he had yet to move out of his chair. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Vadim has always been loyal to his people.” Marci moaned as Bethany turned to look at her. “She needs to go to the hospital,” she repeated. He laughed.
“Your handler has been very busy,” he told her, ignoring her comment. “And she has cost me much over the years. What? You haven’t figured it out by now, Malyutka?” he asked derisively at Bethany’s surprised look.
“While you were busy trying to figure out who your mole was, she was busy feeding me information, for a price. One that I got tired of paying once her usefulness came to an end.” As understanding dawned on Bethany’s face, Boris began to laugh. “I see that you get it now.”
Keep him talking, Bethany, she told herself.
“So, let me get this straight,” Bethany said slowly. “Marci has been giving you information?” At his brief nod, she asked “For how long?”
“Since she was in New York. Did you think that her coming to Dallas was by choice? She hates it as much as you do. We wanted her here before we became active. It was she who clued me in to Sasha.”
“But how?”
“She did it to protect you,” Boris answered. “How she found out, I don’t know.”
“Sasha worked for ICE; that has nothing to do with me.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “One government agency is the same as another. It makes no difference to me.”
“And Vadim? What happened to him?” Bethany asked.
“Oh, do not worry, he is still alive. He has been placed in the capable hands of New York’s finest. He was arrested for the murder of two union workers at the Port Authority. While I had long suspected that our belaya lisitsa was growing tired of the role he was playing in our enterprise, I have to admit that I did not suspect he would change sides. You must be a great fuck. How about you give me a taste before I slit your throat?”
As Boris talked, Bethany cautiously maneuvered toward the door. When he realized she had moved, he leveled a gun at her. “Move again and I will shoot you.”
“What? And miss out on possibly the best fuck of your life? Not that I would ever want to fuck you, Boris. While you may think that being called Myasnik is the worst thing anyone ever said about you, you and I know that you are nothing more than a Nekulturny!”
Boris leaped up, but Bethany was already out of the office and running for the exit. As he came around the desk, he tripped over Marci’s legs that Bethany had positioned straight out. With a roar, he pulled the trigger on the gun, firing off shots, as she reached the exit. Not looking back, she ran for her car, jumped in, and sped out of the parking lot. Looking in her rearview mirror as she drove away, she didn’t see him come out of the building.
She grabbed her phone and called Director Turner’s office.
“Sir, it’s Michaels. Vadim was picked up on murder charges. He didn’t do it. Can we get him out?”
“I received the same information and the answer is no.”
“What do you mean? He’s an asset. We can’t
leave him there.”
“He isn’t one anymore.”
“What do you mean? I was there when he was given a guarantee.”
“That all changed. The US Attorney General got involved and determined that he was too big to be given amnesty.”
“How, how did that happen?”
“I don’t know, but I suspect that Sanderson had something to do with it. They went to college together and he was angry about the demotion and transfer. I still haven’t been able to reach Marci. Have you been by her office?”
As Bethany drove around, unsure what to do next, she filled him in on what she found out at the club and that she suspected that Marci was now dead. As she talked, she could hear a flutter of activity over the phone.
“I need you to come in. Now.”
Realizing what she needed to do, Bethany headed to her old apartment building. She told Turner she would be there as soon as she could, got off the phone, and drove around the neighborhood to make sure she wasn’t followed. After parking around back, she slipped inside and went up to her safe house. She locked the door behind her and checked to make sure nothing had been disturbed.
Rushing to the closet, she pulled out two bags containing clothes for her and Vadim. In out into the living room, she pulled the TV stand away from the wall and opened a panel they had cut into the drywall. From inside she pulled out a ziplock bag containing passports and cash. Throwing it in one of the bags, she grabbed a set of car keys lying by the door and tossed her old cell phone into it. She shouldered both bags and took the stairs back down. Walking out the exit near the laundry room, she got into a different vehicle and drove off. She had a 1,500-mile drive ahead of her.
Chapter 11
When she arrived in New York City late Tuesday night, Bethany parked her car and looked around. The streets were deserted and she knew that she hadn’t been followed, but she figured that someone would figure out where she was headed. A young couple was walking into an apartment building and she sped up to catch the door as they walked inside. Turning around in surprise, they were about to speak when she smiled brightly at them.
“Thanks, these bags are killing me and I didn’t think I could find my keys.”
Not waiting around for an answer, she took the stairs to the fourth floor. Walking down the hall, she stopped in front of a door and knocked loudly, cringing as the sound echoed down the hall. She waited for a count of five, and then knocked again. As she was getting ready to knock for a third time, she heard noises from inside the apartment. The door slowly opened as she looked at the surprised and very sleepy face of her old roommate.
“Elise. I need your help.”
Opening the door wide, Elise let her in before shutting and locking the door behind her.
Bethany dropped the bags by the door and sagged onto the nearest chair as the weight of what she was about to do hit her.
“What’s going on? I haven’t heard from you in almost a year, no one will tell me anything, and now you just, show up?”
Realizing that she wasn’t going to be able to evade any of her questions, Bethany started talking and then couldn’t stop. She told Elise how she had been selected to go undercover in Dallas. About the Drobilka cartel. Falling in love with Vadim. Turning him. Her stepfather being released and his brain tumor. As she talked, a plan slowly formulated in her head, but she knew that she would never be able to pull it off without her friend’s help.
Elise sat there listening, occasionally interrupting to ask for clarification. When Bethany got to the part about her handler, she gasped.
“And you got all this on audio?”
“Boris talking, yes, and the part about Marci, and while that should exonerate Vadim from the murder charges, they took away his amnesty. If NYPD doesn’t press charges, the FBI will.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ve been thinking about this on the drive up from Dallas. The FBI would be embarrassed if word got out that one of their own was sharing intel with Russian mobsters. So, I’m hoping that if I threaten to release it, it will help Vadim. But while Boris brought up the murder charges, he didn’t actually say that Vadim didn’t do it. And then there’s the Cartel. Even if I can get him out, we’ll never be safe unless we disappear.”
“What do you need from me?”
“Information on where he is would be a good start and then I’m thinking that I need to borrow your badge.”
Chapter 12
The girls stayed up the rest of the night, talking and planning. Elise was adamant about not releasing her badge while Bethany argued over her concern about her involvement wanting to shoot for plausible deniability on Elise’s behalf.
They both fell into an exhausted sleep. When Bethany awoke, Elise wasn’t in the apartment, but there were fresh bagels sitting on the counter. Grabbing an everything bagel, she sliced it open and smeared cream cheese on it, biting into the delicious goodness. Oh, how I missed bagels, she thought.
She heard a key in the lock before Elise walked in carrying a bag. Setting it down, she grabbed the other bagel half and took a big bite.
“Okay, here’s the plan.”
From what she was able to find out, Vadim’s amnesty status had been withdrawn at the behest of Marci, based on some trumped up information she had provided. Since Sanderson was still angry, she had used his animosity to get him to contact the US District Attorney, who was only too happy to prevent yet another criminal from walking away.
Vadim was due to be transferred from the forty-ninth precinct tomorrow afternoon. If they were going to get him out, it would have to happen in the morning, which gave them the rest of the day to plan.
Dumping out the bag Elise brought in, Bethany looked through the contents.
“Do you think it will work?”
Elise shrugged her shoulders. “I can only hope so, otherwise, we will be sharing a jail cell.”
“I still think that it should be me that goes in,” Bethany ventured.
“No way. My badge. My plan. My way.”
“I still need to arrange for transport.”
“Way ahead of you,” Elise answered. She pulled out a business card and handed it over. “Call this guy. He owes me big time.”
Grabbing one of the burner phones Elise had brought back with her, Bethany called the number on the card. After speaking for several minutes in Russian, she disconnected the call.
“Well?” Elise asked.
“We’re set. He wanted me to pay up front, but I told him not until we were on board, so we haggled over the price.”
“Did you get a good deal?”
“Well, that all depends on whether we can pull this off.”
“I so want your language skills,” Elise told her as she reached into the bag for another bagel.
Laughing, Bethany reminded her, “Rosetta Stone.”
The girls spent the rest of the day going over their plan and rehearsing every possible contingency. Satisfied, they were preparing to go to bed to get a good night’s rest when Bethany’s burner phone rang. It was her transportation contact. He was departing at midnight. If they were going to make it, they would have to act now.
Bethany jumped up, grabbed the items Elise had brought back earlier, and changed. Gathering all her stuff, they left the apartment and went to the vehicle Elise had rented that morning.
When they drove over to the precinct, they were relieved to see the prisoner transport area was empty, which was normal this time of night. The girls hoped there would be a small enough staff on duty that no one would feel like checking up on Elise’s story.
Getting out of the van, Elise adjusted her badge and gun before looking at Bethany. “How do I look? Official enough?”
“You look like a rockstar.” Nodding her head, she turned and strode into the precinct as Bethany backed the van into the parking space.
Leaving the engine idling, she anxiously cast furtive glances out her rear and side mirrors. It felt as though she had been sitting the
re for an hour when the side door opened and Elise walked out. Behind her in chains was Vadim. Even from this distance, she could see that he’d been beaten. She clutched the steering wheel and fought the urge to leap out of the van to make sure he was okay.
At the side door, Elise waited while the officer loaded Vadim into the van and chained him to the ring in the floorboard. Taking the key from him, she signed off, shut the door, and got into the passenger seat as Bethany put the van in gear and pulled out of the parking lot.
“Don’t speed,” Elise cautioned. “The last thing we need right now is to get pulled over. My story won’t hold up under scrutiny.”
“What did you tell them?”
“That he was to appear before a grand jury in DC tomorrow morning,” Elise answered smugly. Bethany shook her head as she bit back a laugh.
“Would you please unchain him?”
“My pleasure.”
As Elise slipped into the back of the van, she bent down to unlock the chain attached to his hand and leg cuffs before releasing the cuffs. Leaning over the seat, she grabbed one of the bags and handed it to him.
“You’re going to want to change into something more appropriate,” she told him as she smiled.
Staring from one to the other, Vadim burst out, “Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?”
Bethany lifted her hat off her head and took a quick look over her shoulder as Vadim’s eyes widened in surprise. “Bethany, what is going on?”
“It’s a long story, but your amnesty has been revoked. We have to get you out of here.”
“But what are you doing? Your career will be destroyed. You can’t do this. Take me back. We’ll tell them it was a mistake.”
“We’re not going to do that.”
As she drove, the girls filled him in on what happened in Dallas, Marci’s role in everything, and Boris framing him for murder to get him out of the picture. Vadim stared from one to the other as they talked, shocked that Bethany had driven all the way up from Dallas and that they had arranged a jailbreak.
When she pulled into a parking lot down at the harbor, Bethany jumped out and ran around to the back to get their stuff out and pull the uniform off. Since it was considerably larger than she was, she had left her street clothes on underneath, which made changing out that much easier. Leaving the jumpsuit in the back, she met Elise and Vadim by the side door as she hugged her friend.