The Malta Escape

by Chris Kuzneski

  That had made a lasting impression on Payne.

  An act of loyalty that would be handsomely rewarded.

  Of course, Payne had learned a thing or two about business over the years. He knew that allies could become enemies overnight, and companies could be bought or sold on a whim. To make sure his grandfather’s company would be protected and wouldn’t stray too far from his family’s ideology, Payne decided to keep fifty-one percent of the company’s stock.

  That way he would always have a say in Payne Industries.

  Even if it was from a beach, thousands of miles away.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Same Day

  Tallinn, Estonia

  While growing up on a farm in Soviet Russia, Sergei Bobrinsky had seen a sketchbook filled with drawings of the city of Tallinn and had assumed the sketches had been exaggerated. But as he walked along the cobblestone streets as an adult and marveled at the sights around him, he realized that the artist had actually failed to do it justice.

  Everywhere he looked, he saw things that he couldn’t believe.

  Ancient gates as wide as dragons.

  Gothic spires that touched the sky.

  And orange coned roofs atop ivy-covered towers.

  As one of the best-preserved medieval cities in the world, Tallinn’s Old Town was the most popular tourist attraction in all of Estonia, but it was more than that for Bobrinsky. For him, this was a dream come true. Not only because it had taken him decades to get there, but because the city was filled with storybook images that seemed to be lifted straight from his imagination.

  Without a television or a library as a child, he had hungered for glimpses of faraway lands to take his mind off the grim reality he had faced every day. Most of his friends had been fascinated with America after hearing stories about blue jeans, fast cars, and soft toilet paper. But Bobrinsky had figured those things would never find their way past the Iron Curtain, and even if they did, they would be limited to government officials in Moscow.

  So he had focused his fantasies on something closer to home: a fairytale city on the Soviet side of the Curtain that he could dream about at night and draw during the day.

  Something to get him through the brutal winters.

  Something in his dreary life to look forward to.

  And now he was finally there.

  Somehow it didn’t seem real.

  With the sleeve of his shirt, he dabbed at the moisture in his eyes as his two children watched with confusion. Although he shed many a tear in private, they had never seen their father cry—even while their mother had slowly died. Yet there he was crying on a busy sidewalk.

  “Papa?” whispered his six-year-old daughter in Russian. Her name was Angelina, and she was the spitting image of her mother. Blonde hair, blue eyes, rosy cheeks.

  He looked down at her and smiled. “Don’t worry. Happy tears.”

  She nodded but somehow sensed it was more than that, so she buried her face in his side and wrapped her arms around him while giving him a mighty hug.

  His smile widened as he enjoyed the moment. “Thank you, my little princess. You always know how to make your papa happy.”

  As she continued to cling to her father, he reached out his hand and placed it on the head of his seven-year-old son. His name was Sasha. He had the same rosy cheeks as his sister but a much surlier attitude. “Come here, my little prince, and give your papa a hug.”

  Sasha pulled away instead. “I’m hungry.”

  Bobrinsky didn’t take it personally. He knew his son had been filled with anger ever since cancer had won the war. “I’m hungry, too. What would you like to eat?”

  “Ice cream!” Sasha exclaimed.

  Bobrinsky smiled. “Lunch first, then ice cream. Whatever flavor you want.”

  That was enough to keep his boy in line as they looked for somewhere to dine.

  They had arrived earlier that day at the Port of Tallinn, along with thousands of others who poured into Estonia by boat. Located across the Baltic Sea from Finland, Old City Harbour was one of the busiest passenger ports in the world, servicing cruise lines from Helsinki, Stockholm, and St. Petersburg. But unlike most visitors, who would return to their ships later that afternoon to continue their journeys elsewhere, Bobrinsky planned on staying.

  This is where they would start anew.

  The place he had dreamed about as a boy.

  Like most Russians who lived through Perestroika during their teenage years, Bobrinsky had celebrated the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 but had struggled to find his footing afterward. It wasn’t until he had moved away from his parents’ farm to the medium-sized city of Veliky Novgorod that he eventually found his calling.

  While living in a one-room apartment above a butcher shop, he had learned that a formal education wasn’t a requirement for success in this brand-new Russia. Money was pouring in from all over as the world’s economic powers tried to take advantage of the markets that had been off-limits to them until the Curtain had come crashing down. And with that cash came foreigners, many of whom were looking for Cold War souvenirs from the once-proud empire.

  So the enterprising Bobrinsky went to work, buying outdated Soviet items at a fraction of the price and then selling them to tourists. It didn’t matter if it was a coffee mug or a toothbrush. If it had the letters CCCP on it or a hammer and sickle, he could sell it for a ridiculous price. Before long, his reputation had started to spread, and he was receiving so many requests that he had been forced to hire a secretary to answer the phone while he was out scrounging.

  To him, it was the ultimate irony.

  For years, the communist party had held him back.

  Now he was making money off its carcass.

  After a while, he had realized that the supply and demand for Soviet souvenirs would eventually die, so he had slowly shifted his business model to other hard-to-find items. He knew he couldn’t compete with the prices of the Russian underworld and wanted no part of the violence that went with it, so he stayed away from drugs, weapons, and illegal contraband.

  Instead, he turned his focus to specific items like first-edition novels or antique desks—the type of things he could find at estate sales and secondhand stores, while occasionally smuggling in goods from overseas. As his business continued to grow, his goal was to do well, but not well enough to draw the attention of the crime syndicates that were growing in power.

  Still, it was a delicate dance.

  He needed to make enough money to feed his family, yet not enough to stay off the radar of the criminals who would gladly extort him for services he didn’t need. He had seen many small business owners forced to shut their doors because of exorbitant protection fees, and he was determined to prevent that from happening to him. So he and his family had moved frequently, always trying to stay one step ahead of the wolves.

  But everything had changed when his wife got sick.

  She had battled hard for nearly two years, and during that time, Bobrinsky had been forced to work, parent, and nurse, while performing all of the other duties that went with the slow, painful death of a spouse. With little time to focus on business, Bobrinsky had gotten desperate.

  In a moment of weakness, he had made a deal with the devil.

  Before he knew it, his wife was gone, his nest egg was empty, and his business was in tatters. If not for his children, he surely would have turned to the bottle like so many of his comrades. Instead, he had decided to take a chance and look for a fresh start.

  For over two decades, he had avoided coming to Tallinn. He had always assumed there was no way it could possibly live up to the magical place that he had conjured up as a child. But after thinking things through, he had a massive change of heart. He figured if there was one thing he needed in his life right now, it was a little bit of magic, so he had sold whatever he could, bought three tickets under an assumed name, and boarded a ship for the city of his dreams.

  All in hopes of leaving his old life behind.


  CHAPTER THREE

  The day of transition was slated for the ten-year anniversary of his grandfather’s death. His lawyers assumed it was merely symbolic, but Payne had chosen the date for two specific reasons.

  During one of his sleepless nights, he had determined that his grandfather had given up approximately ten years of his life to raise him—starting with the day of his parents’ death until the time of his graduation from the Naval Academy. Although he knew his grandfather didn’t view things in those terms, Payne felt obligated to give the same amount of time back to his grandfather. And that is what he had done, putting his life on hold and running his grandfather’s company until his emotional debt had been paid off.

  Meanwhile, his second reason was far more pragmatic. The ten-year anniversary would fall on a Saturday, which would allow him to complete the transition paperwork in private on the empty executive floor. Afterwards, Payne could pack his office without having to worry about a parade of emotional goodbyes that would make him feel guiltier than he already did.

  Instead, he would make the official announcement on Monday in the corporate auditorium, publicly passing the baton to McCormick in a celebratory event that would stress the smooth transition of power in order to calm the fear of his employees and to keep stock prices high.

  But before that happened, he had to make it through one last day.

  Thankfully, his best friend was there to help.

  “Get any sleep?” Jones asked as he climbed out of his sleek sedan in the subterranean parking garage underneath the Payne Industries building. Although he was six inches shorter and fifty pounds lighter than his different-colored brother, he viewed Payne as family. He knew it was going to be a tough day for him, and he wanted to be there for support.

  “Same as always,” Payne grunted as he pulled some empty boxes out of his SUV. His task was made more difficult by the designer suit he was forced to wear for publicity photos.

  “Which means none,” Jones said with a grin. He was wearing a black T-shirt and cargo shorts, his normal look during the warmer months. “I’m glad today is finally here. All of your stress has been stressing me out.”

  “Your stress? How do you think I feel?”

  “Weren’t you listening? I know how you feel. And your stress is killing me.”

  “Sorry to be such a burden.”

  “Don’t worry, Jon. I’m used to it by now. I’ve been carrying your ass since Vietnam.”

  “I hate to break it to you, but we never fought in ‘Nam.”

  Jones grimaced. “You sure about that? I distinctly remember killing a bunch of Viet Cong while rescuing some POWs. I could’ve sworn that was ‘Nam.”

  “Nope. That was Rambo in First Blood, Part Two.”

  “Shit. You’re right. That explains why I was white.”

  Payne couldn’t help but laugh. “Speaking of carrying, can you give me a hand with these? I don’t want to make two trips if I can avoid it.”

  “Yessuh, Master Payne. Whatever you say.”

  Despite the comment, there was no racial tension between the two. Wisecracks flowed freely, often at the other’s expense. The duo said whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and realized their jokes were coming from a place of love, not prejudice. In many ways, it was a refreshing change from today’s overly sensitive society. The duo never worried about political correctness with each other and simply said what they thought would get the biggest laugh.

  “As you know,” Jones said as he pulled several flat cardboard boxes from Payne’s trunk. “I’ve been contemplating some changes of my own, and I think now is as good a time as any to finally pull the trigger.”

  “Please don’t propose to me. You won’t like my answer.”

  Jones winced at the remark. “Truth be told, I’m kind of offended by that. I mean, I’m not gay and wasn’t going to propose, and yet there was something about the way you dismissed me as a potential suitor that leaves me conflicted. Keep in mind, I’ve seen some of the skanky women you’ve been dating lately, and I feel I’d be a better long-term companion.”

  “Skanky? When’s the last time you saw me with a skanky woman?”

  “Tuesday.”

  A devilish grin crossed Payne’s lips. “Oh yeah, I forgot about Destiny. She was a lot of fun. And so were her roommates.”

  “Roommates? You never told me about her roommates. I’m assuming they were guys.”

  Payne laughed. “Trust me, they weren’t guys. My examination was thorough.”

  “I’ll be damned. After all these years, my slutty ways are finally rubbing off on you. Were you just letting off some steam, or are you having a mid-life crisis?”

  Payne shrugged. He honestly wasn’t sure. It certainly wasn’t typical behavior. He was usually a one-woman kind of guy. “I haven’t been sleeping, so I figured I might as well fill my nights with a little fun. A guy can only watch so much Netflix.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not judging. Do what you gotta do to get through this. But if it’s okay with you, I’d rather not shake your hand until you soak your entire body in sanitizer.”

  “Already done.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  Payne closed the trunk of his SUV, then carried an armful of boxes to the nearby elevator. Jones got there first and slid his ID card through the security scanner before hitting the UP arrow. The doors opened immediately, and they stepped inside the glass cube that would give them an amazing view of the city skyline. Jones scanned his ID a second time—this time at the inner panel—and hit the button for the executive floor.

  The doors closed softly, and their journey began.

  “So,” Payne said, “what’s your news? Are you trying to outdo me?”

  “I don’t know about that, but as luck should have it, I was offered a life-changing proposition of my own. I would have told you about it sooner, but you have so much going on I didn’t want to bother you.”

  Sensing that Jones was serious, Payne put down the empty boxes and tried to give him his full attention—but it was tough to do because of the view. The moment the glass elevator emerged from the dim shadows of the concrete underworld and exploded into the bright daylight of the upper realm was typically the highlight of Payne’s day.

  Widely considered the best city view in America, the building’s perch on Mount Washington showcased the unique scenery of Pittsburgh, which included the confluence of three rivers (the Monongahela and Allegheny formed the Ohio), two pro sports stadiums (PNC Park and Heinz Field), dozens of hills and valleys, and over 400 bridges—many painted a shade of yellow that seemed to glow in the early-morning sun.

  “What kind of proposition?” Payne wondered.

  “Are you familiar with Global Investigations? They’re a London-based firm that’s looking to expand their business into the American market.”

  “The name’s familiar, but tell me more.”

  “They have close to fifty offices around the globe, mostly in major cities. They tend to cater to corporations, providing investigative services for those companies that are lacking the proper infrastructure, but they’re looking to branch out into the public sector. And that’s where I come in. Two nights ago they made a substantial offer to buy my agency. And when I say substantial, I mean I-never-have-to-work-again substantial. I’d be an idiot not to take it.”

  Payne was surprised by the timing but wasn’t stunned by the offer.

  He knew his friend had been looking for a way out.

  Even though it had always been Jones’s dream to open a detective agency—a goal that Payne had helped him to achieve by giving him a floor of prime real estate in the Payne Industries building, arranging the necessary credit when he was first getting started, and providing him with a well-paid office staff—the actual work was different than Jones had imagined.

  At first, he had loved his job. Absolutely loved it. He got to work in the field, investigate leads, and carry a handgun while pursuing a wide variety of miscreants. But everyt
hing had changed when Payne and Jones discovered a massive Greek treasure on one of their adventures. Suddenly, the two of them were national news, and Jones’s face had been splashed all over the local media.

  The attention had been a blessing for his agency, bringing in more clients than Jones could have ever imagined. So many, in fact, that he ended up hiring a dozen sleuths and expanding his business network across Pennsylvania. But the sudden fame and added responsibilities made it difficult for him to work in the field, which had been his favorite part of his job.

  Before he knew it, he dreaded going to work.

  Just like his best friend.

  Although his company was much smaller than Payne’s and they worked in completely different fields, they had the same damn job. Meeting after meeting, followed by endless paperwork, employee issues, budget problems, and little time for fun.

  Somehow his dream job had turn into a nightmare in less than a decade.

  “Congratulations,” Payne blurted as he gave his friend a celebratory hug. “That’s awesome news. It sure as shit beats mine.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “Of course, it does!” Payne assured him. “I was given this company on a silver platter, and all I had to do was not screw it up. But you built your agency from scratch and busted your ass for ten grueling years to reach this point. Your news is definitely bigger than mine.”

  “When you put it like that, I guess I am pretty awesome.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far, but your news definitely is.”

  Jones took a deep breath, then nodded, his expression suddenly serious. He knew money wasn’t everything in life, or else his best friend would be one of the happiest people in the world. And yet here they were in an elevator, both looking for a way out of their successful careers. In some ways, it made Jones feel like a failure. “If you were me, would you take the deal?”