Coercion (25 page)

Alex felt a sudden rush of cold.  Oh, and he had been so warm, so blissfully warm.  Then something began pulling at his face.  There were voices too, but they were far in the background.  It was a strange dream.  Or was it?  Where was he?  For some reason—he didn’t know why—he decided not to open his eyes, to feign sleep like a naughty child.

His memory was returning slowly, as though his brain were thawing.  He had walked and stumbled through snow and over ice and then … and then there was this beautiful angel and her helper.  She had given him tea—yes, he remembered the tea.  He had never been so grateful for anything in his life.  And then the grand revelation came:  He was alive.  He had survived the storm and found the road.

A
contentious chord penetrated the fog, disrupting Alex’s warm-and-fuzzy.  What was that noise?  Was it, was it screaming?  The next time he heard it, his conscious senses jolted back to life like power returning after a blackout.  Alex opened his eyes and saw the low ceiling.  He looked left and right and remembered that he was in an ambulance.  He tried to sit up but found that he could not move.  He began to panic.  He took a deep breath and then looked down at his bonds.  He was strapped to a stretcher.  The restraints were tight, but nothing compared to Yarik’s knots.

The screams came again, frantic
and piercing. A woman’s screams. His angel’s screams.  Alex tried to look out the windows but couldn’t see because they had fogged up. 
Relax and focus, Alex. 
Medical restraints are designed for precaution, not confinement. 
Work it, don’t fight it
.  He sucked in his gut and pulled one forearm up across his body to freedom.  The rest was easy from there and a moment later he was on his feet.

Ignoring the head rush, h
e looked around for anything that he could use as a weapon—a scalpel, a trocar…  Nothing.  He could probably fill some syringes with tranquilizers, but there was no time for that.  His angel was in distress so he was counting milliseconds.  Half-loaded or not, he would have to be the weapon.

Alex burst out the back of the ambulance like a bull from
its pen.  The only living person who had been kind to him in this country was now suffering, probably on his account, and he was determined to make it stop.

Rounding the back of the ambulance, he instantly
absorbed the scene: police brutality at its worst.  A man lay spread eagle in the snow on the side of the road, blood coming from his nose.  Alex wasn’t sure whether he was dead or just unconscious, but either way he wasn’t in any immediate danger.  Alex could not say the same for the woman.

From where he was behind the jeep, Alex could see her kicking, clawing and screaming at two men in KGB uniforms.  One soldier was standing in the left doorway pulling her into the back seat of their jeep by the arms, while the other one worked in the right doorway to pull down her pants.  Alex was sure they were armed but saw that they did not have their weapons ready—well, at least not their guns.  He had a decision to make, and quickly.

Alex could not attack them both at the same time because they were on opposite sides of the jeep.  If he took immediate action he would be able to surprise one of them, but then he would be open to attack from the other.  What would Bruce Lee do?

Alex ran and jumped at the soldier on the left, delivering a double-kick to the side of his head and cracking it hard against the doorframe as he let out a mighty “HHoooaahhhh!”  The soldier dropped like a bagged duck.

The instant the fallen soldier released his hold on the woman, she rolled over and began pulling herself out through the jeep’s doorway, pummeling the soldier behind her with kicks as she went.  Alex used the distraction to climb over the roof and drop in from above.  He planted his feet firmly on the doorsill, grabbed the soldier from beneath the arms, and launched upward, crushing the back of the soldier’s head into the frame with the force of a launching rocket.  The soldier lost consciousness to the sickening sound of metal on bone and then collapsed back onto the woman. 
Two for two, Sensei
.

Alex
ran back around the jeep while the woman wriggled out her side and then into her pants.  She kicked the back of the first fallen soldier a few times and then stopped, sobbing and shaking.

“You better have a look at your friend,” Alex said, gesturing toward the man lying spread eagle in the snow.

“Vova,” she screamed, snapping out of her own hysteria and running over to him.

Alex checked the soldiers to be sure they were out cold.  They were.  Both would be sporting nasty bruises, but neither was bleeding.

He picked an AK-74 off the front seat and shot out a tire before piling both agents into the back of their jeep so they wouldn’t freeze.  He considered shooting a second tire, but even one would take quite a while to change in this weather and he didn’t want to overdo it.  There was no sense in provoking a
vingança
.

He emptied both rifle
magazines into the drifting snow.  Unconscious, immobile, and unarmed: only incommunicado stood between the rapists and impotence.  With a grin that was painful but satisfying, Alex yanked the microphone off the radio and then hurled it into the woods.

Confident that they were safe for the moment, Alex turned and walked toward his two new friends.  He found himself staggering like a drunk and then felt hot blood trickling down his face.  The adrenaline was wearing off quickly and his head was throbbing like a jackhammer.

The woman was using smelling salts to wake her friend.  “Vova!  Vova, wake up!”

Vova shook his head and opened his eyes with a
nasal grimace.

“Thank you, Darling.”

With the woman safe, the soldiers dispatched and Vova recovering, Alex felt the energy draining from his body like water from a flushing toilet.  First he felt dizzy, and then he felt nothing.

Victor could hardly believe where he was, or what he was doing.  It was such a radical shift in course, such an unexpected turn of events. 
His was a long list of sins, but heretofore defiance was not among them.

Vasily’s
words still rang in his head.  “Son, with Igor gone, I’m counting on you to step up.  I’m counting on you to put everything into motion, to make all our work pay off.  Victor, I need you to be the triggerman.”

And so began the rollercoaster that ended in the tropics.
  After the initial shock had run its course, the valley of fear had yielded to a mountain of pride.  This was the penultimate event of the great Karpov Conspiracy, and father was entrusting it to him.  To him!

The plan itself was perfect.  Ironically, Alex Ferris had made it so.  Sometime next month Gorbachev would visit Novosibirsk to spend a couple days shoring up the Governor’s support.  In the evenings,
he would go for his habitual horseback ride through the rolling hills surrounding the governor’s country estate.  A long range sniper shot would do the trick, and Victor’s personal nemesis would be on hand to take the fall.  Yes, Victor thought, that last point alone almost made it worthwhile, but—

“Mr. Rembrandt?  Mr. Rembrandt, are you all right?”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” Victor said, shaking his head.

“Well then, I believe we’re all set.”

Victor looked across at the banker, and smiled.  “We are, indeed,” he said, rising from the burgundy armchair.  “I think we’re going to work well together, Mr. Mulberry.”

“
’twill be my pleasure, Mr. Rembrandt.”

“Until next time, then,” he said, and sauntered out into the
buttery glow of the Cayman sun.

Victor had
kept his bolt-hole holdings at Cayman First National for three years now.  They were registered under the favorite of his false identities.  Pierre Rembrandt’s signature-access safety deposit box contained a million dollars cash, four different passports, a silenced Desert Eagle .50AE, and a supply of Medusa.  Everything a man on the run might need.

Victor’s line of work required a man to maintain the kind of insurance even Lloyds of London couldn’t offer—although to
be honest, he never thought he would need to use it.  He didn’t need to use it now; he was choosing to leave.

Once the initial thrill of
Vasily’s “offer” wore off, Victor found himself questioning some of the assumptions that grounded his life.  He was going through what philosophers would call a paradigm shift.  Looking down the long wide beach, Victor realized that a mile of white sand was all the philosophy he would ever need.

He slipped off his loafers, rolled up his Dockers,
and began walking his cares away.  As the hot sand burned the bottoms of his feet, Victor remembered a similar situation in a similar location, many years ago.  He had been sixteen at the time.  The Crimean beach was similar although the sand was not as fine.  His mother watched from afar with tears in her eyes.  Beside him walked a man with a vaguely familiar face and a startling revelation.  Victor had experienced a delayed reaction to Vasily’s words then too, but eventually he had ripped his gaze from the waves to look up at his father for the first time.  “So, why wait until now to tell me?”

“You have to understand, son,
I got accepted to the KGB Academy the same week your mother learned she was pregnant.  I was very lucky to get in, and would have lost my slot if word got out.  Fortunately, your mother and I were able to come to an agreement, and as a result, everything else has been possible.  I’ve so much to tell you…”

Victor had never really questioned
Vasily’s choice.  At the time he had just been thrilled to learn that he had a father.  Then Vasily had told him about operation Immaculate Conception and the potential to serve Russia in the United States.  In one afternoon, Victor had been given both a father and a purpose.  Thank goodness he had learned about both when he did.  Those moorings kept him afloat a few months later when his mother died tragically.

Victor’s plan had always been to leverage his secret status to his favor.  Once his father assumed Russia’s helm, he would ask
Vasily to appoint him Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Russian equivalent of the US Secretary of State, and the good life would be his.

He
had spent many a stakeout daydreaming about being MFA, flying around the world on his government jet, being wined and dined and sexed like a VIP everywhere he went.  The rulers of foreign, exotic lands would kiss up to him as the emissary of the world’s most powerful nation—and their ladies would take it from there.  They would lay their best before him, and then ask if they could do anything more.  He would have a prestigious, powerful position, and an excuse to spend the winter months abroad.

For a long time that dream had seemed perfect.  But now, Victor was starting to see the cloud that lay within the silver lining,
the tarnish on the crown.  He began to question his desire to ever return to Russia.  You see, the Minister of Foreign Affairs was a member of the President’s Cabinet.  In that role, Victor’s life would once again amount to a struggle for his father’s approval. 
Thanks, but no thanks
.

With
Vasily’s latest assignment came the realization that switching to the high-profile life of Foreign Minister would also be very dangerous.  He had never really worried about getting caught before, not until the Ferris brothers revealed his mortality.  Now he was questioning everything.  He even found himself suspecting Elaine Evans of working in cahoots with Alex.  Did he need to eliminate her as well?  Would her name soon appear on his ethereal tab?  Victor already carried around a wad of secrets that could choke a hippopotamus.  Of course the peril they evoked paled in comparison to what Vasily was now asking of him.  If he were to add the assassination of President Gorbachev to that list, he would forever live his life on the edge.

There was an
idea that had been building up in the back of Victor’s mind over the years like crustaceans on a breakwater.  With Vasily’s grand revelation, that idea began to solidify into the foundation of an alternative lifestyle.  As Victor pondered fresh possibilities, a real estate advertisement in the Wall Street Journal caught his eye.  The
Island of Emily
was a mere forty-six nautical miles from the sand where he now strolled.  It came fully equipped with a six-bedroom mansion and fifty-eight foot yacht.  The cost was a mere thirty-two million dollars.  Apparently, Emily had caught her husband with Emma, and everything had to go.

Now, Victor didn’t have thirty-two million dollars, but he did own a twenty percent stake in Knyaz AG, the Swiss umbrella corporation that owned Irkutsk Motorworks, SibStroy, and RuTek. 
Vasily had given twenty percent each to Yarik, Igor and him, retaining forty percent for himself.  Victor’s shares were only worth about half the cost of Emily now, but in a year or so, after the Knyaz had successfully launched all the new product lines, they would be worth billions. 

Unfortunately, Victor did
not yet have physical possession of the shares.  He had not been to Russia since the companies had privatized.  Although he could cure the deficiency with one quick trip home, he was not sure that it made sense to rush.  Victor had decided to discuss his situation with Mr. Mulberry before taking that trip.

Wouldn’t you know it; once he had the shares in hand, Mr. Mulberry would be willing to give him a mortgage backed by his equity in Knyaz AG.  Of course, the interest rate would be astronomical—reflecting the risk inherent in emerging-nation equity—but billionaires did not have their lifestyles affected by interest rates, just their egos.

Standing there on the scorching sand, watching the waves pound endlessly away like his father’s scorn, Victor weighed his options, and made his decision.  He would find some excuse to go to Russia.  He would take possession of his shares one way or the other.  Then, before Vasily knew what had and had-not happened, Victor would be off to Emily in a puff of green smoke.  Let the old man find someone else to kill Gorbachev.