To Russia With Love (Countermeasure Series)

by Aubrey, Cecilia; Almeida, Chris

  “What did you do? Block his porn?” he teased with a cocky smirk. Instead of a chuckle or laughter, Dmitriy shot him a resentful look.

  “You really want to know? This,”—Dmitriy pointed at his own face—“is because of you.”

  Trevor immediately went on alert. His pulse beat wildly, a loud drum in his ears. Does Mikhailov know why I’m here? Did Tomlin get wind I was hired and alerted Mikhailov about a foreigner heading to Russia? The “what-ifs” swirled in his head until Dmitriy’s next words pulled him back from the abyss.

  “Indirectly. I left you unattended yesterday. Uncle Vladimir didn’t quite like that.”

  Trevor let out a long breath of relief. His anxiety spike was a knee-jerk reaction. It was clear that he would be in much rougher shape than Dmitriy by now if Mikhailov knew of his connections and what he’d been commissioned to do. “And he let Sergei beat you? A member of his family? Just because of that?”

  Although the treatment Dmitriy had received was appalling, in reality Dmitriy had been damn lucky he was family. Considering what Trevor knew about Sergei and Mikhailov, had it been anyone else, he or she would’ve received a treatment of the definitive kind.

  Dmitriy scoffed and continued to give Trevor details on what had transpired earlier. “Fucker. I’ve been helping his cause for a long time. I have information he would pay a lot to keep under wraps. And this is how he treats me?! His sister’s only son?!” Driven by anger, he didn’t realize how telling the details were. Sergei would probably beat him to a pulp if that little talk ever reached his ears.

  By having access to all the information the network carried, Dmitriy had become a valuable commodity, dead or alive. In that part of the world, with his connections, it didn’t take much to sign your own death warrant. Poor guy was between a rock and a hard place and didn’t even realize it.

  Dmitriy continued on a roll, ranting about his uncle and Sergei, spilling Mikhailov’s plans to dive heavy into the world of online fraud. He expounded on Mikhailov’s dealings with smaller gangs specializing in phishing and hacking, similar to the group that had hacked into a major online gaming network and stolen thousands of user files not long ago. No wonder Mikhailov was so obsessed with the data stored in the server. That mainframe was the ultimate online fraud tool—a con artist’s golden egg.

  By taking such a forward approach toward online fraud, Mikhailov would be ahead of the game in the digital age and, if successful, he would become the top dog in all of Russia. The decrypter would play a huge part in jumpstarting his success, giving him access to decoding credit card information, PINs, and passwords stored in those files. Holy shit!

  Trevor’s face must have reflected his convoluted thoughts because, in that very moment, Dmitriy seemed to realize he’d been talking way too much, for far too long. His mouth snapped shut and he pushed from his desk. Standing, he stared at Trevor. He opened his mouth and snapped it shut again, raking his fingers through his hair as he began to pace the room.

  A heavy bang hit the door and the sound of the locks turning reverberated down the stairs, startling them both. Dmitriy rushed up the stairs, leaving Trevor alone in the room. Sliding the chair closer to the foot of the stairs, Trevor overheard Dmitriy and the guard arguing in Russian.

  “They are here.”

  “What do you mean? Who is here?”

  “The Tambov. They had balls. They are outside the gates. And they are amassing numbers.”

  “Shit. Does my uncle know?”

  “Of course he does! Sergei was the one who spotted them.”

  “I need to see this.”

  Suddenly, silence engulfed the room. There had been no slamming of doors, no clicking of bolts. Trevor pushed out of his chair and crept up the stairs. At the top, he tested the handle and confirmed the heavy metal door was unlocked. In their haste, they had forgotten protocol. Cracking the door, Trevor looked around, but they were nowhere in sight. Whatever was going down had to be huge to make them leave without any thought to possible punishment for their neglect.

  Trevor didn’t have to be slapped in the head to know that the perfect opportunity to wipe the mainframe clean and to find a way out of the mansion had just dropped in his lap. As he ducked back in the door, a loud boom sounded from the front of the mansion, followed by screams and running feet. A rapid succession of pops echoed from out front. Gunshots! He froze and, within seconds, filtered through the different scenarios in his mental Rolodex.

  The words exchanged by Dmitriy and the guard, the knowledge that Mikhailov had been playing with fire, taunting his rivals by stealing their money from under their noses—all pieces combined helped him reach the most plausible explanation. They were at war.

  Pavel Zarev must have caught wind of who had hacked his account. Shite! The whole situation had become a total clusterfuck. The one thing Trevor had never counted on was firepower.

  Without any other options, knowing that there would be hard consequences to what he was about to do, Trevor spoke clearly so Cassandra could hear him, “Mí-ádh! I will love you always!” He prayed the message reached her loud and clear.

  Confident she would follow their plans to the letter, Trevor rushed downstairs to finish what he had started. It was now or never.

  *****

  “Mí-ádh!” The shock of hearing the Irish word for bad luck was like a death grip, freezing her and all thoughts, holding her hostage for a split second before she exploded into action. Cassandra raced around the room, shutting everything down, locking windows, pulling curtains closed. Blocking all emotion, she kicked into autopilot. She had a job to do: run.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Bloody Hell!

  TREVOR HIT THE BOTTOM OF the stairs and rushed to Dmitriy’s computer. The ricochet of gunfire echoed from the open door. It sounded as if the confrontation was getting hairier by the minute.

  Considering the computer room’s location and its importance to the organization, chances were someone would soon come looking for the same data Trevor was trying to delete. Without much thought, he retrieved the micro thumb drive from the hem of his pants. “My lucky charm,” he murmured. As he connected the device to Dmitriy’s computer, he made a mental note to carry the same device with him on any future jobs.

  Trevor saved the finished decrypter’s source data he had worked on to the thumb drive and initiated the installation of the software used by all US government offices to erase confidential data from their computers. It guaranteed that no trace of the data could be restored once deleted.

  More shots fired. Not just handguns. Rapid fire indicated heavy armory was at play. “Bloody hell! Come on! Come on!” he growled at the screen, watching the progress bar.

  Trevor let out a huge sigh of relief when the process completed without a hitch. His eyes darted between the staircase and the screen while he scanned through the software’s configuration and checked all necessary options to run the highest level of deletion possible. He then added a password to the program’s preferences, ensuring that only he had authorization to terminate it. Once that was set, Trevor selected the mainframe as primary target and the backup storage as secondary.

  He was about to run the program when the pounding of approaching feet reverberated at the top of the stairs and Dmitriy came running down, a crazed look on his face, wielding a gun in his hand. Adrenaline jacked into Trevor’s system as he tapped a finger, one single key press, initiating the destruction process. The deal was sealed, there was no going back. “Ivanov! Zarev’s gang is attacking! We need—” He stopped mid-sentence as Trevor turned in the chair to face him. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  The flush of excitement coloring Dmitriy’s face turned a brighter red and his eyes grew wide as his gaze shifted from Trevor to the screen. “What are you doing?!” His eyes grew tight around the corners and narrowed as he began to stalk toward Trevor.

  Trevor eyed him warily; from the awkward way Dmitriy held the gun, he was positive the man had never handled one before. He pr
obably preferred his fingers on a keyboard, not on a gun’s trigger. Trevor had been like that once. That was, until Cassandra burst on the scene and forced him to develop his marksmanship skills. Now he was just as comfortable with the gun as he was his keyboard.

  Going on instinct, Trevor shot for more time. “I assume you don’t want the data taken by whoever is raiding the house? Right?”

  Understanding seeped into Dmitriy’s alarmed expression when he drew even closer and saw the data destruction software window displayed on the screen. File names scrolled at a rapid clip.

  “You are so dead! Stop it, now!” Dmitriy pressed the gun to Trevor’s temple, his face distorted with anger as he twisted the muzzle like a screw into Trevor’s skin. “I said to stop the process!”

  Trevor sat motionless, ignoring his request. Dmitriy expelled a shaky breath, pushed past him, and began to type commands, clicking buttons as he tried to abort the program. The progress bar on the screen continued to inch forward at a fast rate. “Stop the fucking process. Now!” His eyes bulged and spit flew out of his mouth with each furious word as he shoved Trevor’s shoulder.

  Trevor raised his hands from the keyboard and shook his head. “Sorry. No can do.”

  Dmitriy’s expression fluttered between anger and helplessness. “Why? Why are you doing this? He’ll kill you!”

  Dmitriy was a brilliant network engineer but, when it came to his uncle, he was naïve. “Yep, and he’ll kill you, too.” Trevor paused for effect. “You know that, right? Remember the beating you took this morning? Just for leaving me alone?”

  In the span of a second, a dozen different expressions skipped across Dmitriy’s face, and Trevor knew he had gotten his drift. “Mikhailov won’t even bother to do it himself. Without blinking an eye, he will turn you over to Sergei again. You know I’m telling the truth. Deep inside…you know.”

  Anger bled into Dmitriy’s eyes and he burst out, waving the gun, “This is your fault! You caused all this! Your actions are the reason Zarev is retaliating against us and now you’re deleting the files?!” Suddenly, the muzzle was pressed against Trevor’s temple again and Dmitriy hissed through clenched teeth, “I should kill you myself!”

  “Your uncle ordered me to steal the money from Zarev. It was your uncle who provoked his anger, not me.” Trevor watched Dmitriy closely. “My goal is to retrieve something your uncle stole from my employer.”

  Dmitriy’s eyes clouded with uncertainty and his hold on the gun relaxed, easing the pressure against Trevor’s temple. “What do you mean?”

  Trevor sighed deeply. “The decrypter he stole. I was hired to find and delete it.” The commotion above ground grew louder; from the sound of it, it was creeping closer to them. Trevor looked at Dmitriy straight in the eyes. “Dmitriy, we don’t have time for a pow-wow. Join me. I’m your only chance. If you stay, you are dead either way. I have connections. I can give you a chance at a new start away from your uncle. A normal life. No threats. No beatings. Just let me finish what I need to do. You have to decide now!”

  Gunshots and screams could be heard topside, moving closer and closer. It sounded like Zarev had brought a whole arsenal to annihilate Mikhailov’s gang for good. “Fuck it! You need to figure it out. Now! As soon as the data destruction is complete, I’m out of here, with or without you,” Trevor pressed. “I’m not sure how I’ll get out of here with a bloody war raging outside, but I’ll sure as hell find a way! Do you really want to face Mikhailov after this?”

  Dmitriy hesitated for a second before he blurted out, “Okay. I’ll help you.” Squaring his shoulders, his voice hardened. “But Tatiana comes, too.”

  A grin quirked the corner of Trevor’s mouth and he shook his head. “About freaking time. Fine. She comes with us.” Dmitriy exhaled a long deep breath of relief and his hold on the gun slacked.

  Standing, Trevor drew close and clapped Dmitriy on the back. Distracted, Dmitriy didn’t react when Trevor twisted the gun from his hand, disarming him before he knew what hit him. “I better hold on to this. I think we are both safer if I handle it.”

  Trevor slipped the gun into his waistband. “As soon as the process is finished, we’re getting the hell out of here. You lead the way to Tatiana.”

  Buzzing with nervous energy, Dmitriy watched the progress bar on the screen with Trevor. “I know a way out. There’s a big tree in the back. It grows close to the back wall of the property. We can use it to scale the wall. There’s a ravine on the other side. It’s part of a park. Once over, we can hide in the bushes.”

  Trevor shook his head. “No. We have to put as much distance as possible between us and the mansion. Where does the park exit? To a busy street? Transit?”

  Dmitriy nodded. “Yes.”

  At that moment, the bar displayed 100 percent completion—erasure success. The mainframe and backup unit had been fully annihilated. The data Mikhailov lusted over, blown to bits.

  Another series of shots rang out. “That was too close for comfort. We need to go, now!” Grabbing the USB stick from the computer, Trevor rushed to the stairs, Dmitriy on his heels. He nudged the door and peered outside. “All clear,” he whispered, and darted down the hall with Dmitriy close behind.

  “This way! Shorter!” Dmitriy hissed, tugging at Trevor’s arm and dragging him through a detour to the kitchen.

  “We gotta be quick!” Trevor reminded him in a rough whisper. That detour needed to be a grab-and-run operation. Sporadic gunfire sounded from somewhere in the house. Soon, the police would come knocking or one of the gangs would cry uncle. Whatever the case, they needed to move their asses before that happened.

  Dmitriy entered the kitchen at a run, skidding across the floor, his head turning left and right, searching. A cutting board with sliced vegetables and a discarded knife sat on the large wooden table. It appeared as if the women had been caught by surprise in the middle of fixing lunch. He glanced at Trevor, panic in his eyes. “Where is she?” He yelled in Russian, “Tatiana! Tanka! Where are you!”

  “Dmitriy! Here!” a soft voice cried out in stuttered words filled with fear. Dmitriy immediately dropped to the floor and extended his arm under the table.

  “Tatiana!” Dmitriy grabbed her outstretched hand and pulled her tight against him, shushing her as she broke down in uncontrollable sobs. “It’s okay. Don’t cry, Tanka. We’re getting out of here.”

  “No! They’ll kill us.”

  Losing patience, Trevor took Tatiana by the shoulders, looked her directly in the eyes, and spoke to her in perfect Russian. “Tatiana, you have to trust us. We need to get out of here now, or we will be trapped. If we do not find a way out of here right now, we are all going to die. Do you understand?” He felt the weight of Dmitriy’s glare on him, surprise and accusation in his eyes. Trevor shrugged a shoulder.

  Dmitriy’s whispers of comfort and Trevor’s words finally pierced Tatiana’s fear and her expression hardened as she stood straighter, brushing at the tears on her cheeks. “I am good. I am good.”

  She was a determined little thing, and Trevor could see why Dmitriy was drawn to her. Trevor turned Tatiana around and urged her to follow Dmitriy, whispering, “You can’t make any noises. We don’t want to call attention to ourselves. Dmitriy will lead the way. I will be right behind you, covering your backs.”

  Loud voices came from the end of the hall. Trevor’s pulse quickened. Pulling the gun from his waistband, he pushed them to the double French doors leading to the backyard. “Go, go!”

  Dmitriy grabbed Tatiana’s hand and tugged her behind him. Popping his head around the door jamb, Dmitriy scanned the perimeter then gave Trevor a curt nod. “Clear.”

  Once they slipped out the back door, they followed Dmitriy’s lead, running through the property to the back garden wall. Just as they reached the half-moon bench at the base of the old English Oak, they heard two men yelling at each other from the distance and the sounds of doors being opened and slammed shut.

  “Where are they? Did you check the rest of
the mansion?”

  “They were not seen at the front. Someone opened the door.”

  “Maybe Dmitriy took him to safety.”

  “Call Sergei.”

  “He won’t like it.”

  “Doesn’t matter, he will tell us what to do.”

  The two men rushed back toward the front of the mansion, their conversation fading as they moved deeper into the house. Trevor’s stomach cramped with anxiety. They needed to get out of there quickly. Mikhailov would not leave one stone unturned while searching the property. And once he figured out that his files were gone, Dmitriy and Trevor would be at the top of his shit list, bumping even Zarev, who currently reigned supreme.

  That thought triggered a memory. Boris’s reaction to Zarev’s name during the interview. Was Boris playing both sides? Were the files he wanted for Zarev? Was he the catalyst to Zarev’s violent retaliation? All those questions spiraled in Trevor’s head. If Boris wanted possession of the information in Mikhailov’s documents so badly, why would he provoke an attack knowing Trevor was in the mansion trying to secure them for him? It didn’t make any sense. But then again, clashes between gangs were a common occurrence. Could this be a simple coincidence? Filing those uncertainties for later, Trevor herded the couple forward.

  “How do we get up there?” Trevor pointed to the top of the solid stone wall.

  Dmitriy’s eyes slanted to meet his look of concern and a smug smile curved his lips. “I spent part of my childhood here. I have used it many times to sneak to the ravine for boyish adventure.”

  Dmitriy brought Tatiana’s hand to his lips for a kiss and jumped up on the stone bench. Using the knots on the rough tree bark and the faults in the old stone wall as makeshift steps, Dmitriy shimmied his way up, one foot at a time, until he reached the top. Swinging a leg over, he straddled the wall and gestured for Tatiana. “Come. You can do it.”

  Tatiana followed his example while Trevor kept guard of the perimeter, each movement, each new pop making him jumpy. The sounds of the bloody confrontation taking place in the house were eerie to his ears—surreal, even.