The Backup Asset (5 page)

Vernon Blackburn rarely left his office at 5.00PM sharp. He felt uncomfortable busting through the gates among the masses of blue-collar, younger employees. Most engineers rarely went home on time. He felt almost embarrassed making his way through security at the exit and waiting in line after several exempt employees, but today he just had to get out of that office. He couldn’t breathe in there . . . He’d tried to open the window, dropped the thermostat setting to 68 degrees, but nothing helped. He had to get out.

As he climbed behind the wheel of his Jeep Grand Cherokee he took a deep breath, the first deep breath he’d been able to take in more than an hour. He was ready to go home.

He started the slow commute, lined up behind several other cars crawling out of the parking structure in the five o’clock rush. A few minutes later, he picked up speed, driving eastbound on Virginia Beach Boulevard. Then he approached the stoplight at the corner of Virginia Beach and 460. If he took a right turn, that would lead him to I-264 then I-464, on the road to his home in Chesapeake. A left turn would take him to his favorite bar on Lafayette, the 1700 Somewhere. Nope, he was going to go home this time, he promised himself. He preselected for the right turn and set the blinker on, waiting for the light to turn green and letting his mind wander.

The car behind his Jeep honked twice, startling him. The light had turned green and cars were zooming past him. On an impulse, without any thought or concern for the fast-moving cars coming from behind, he cut all lanes and made a left turn, pedal to the metal, among screeching tires and a concert of angry honks. Once he made it out of the intersection he slowed down, resuming his normal, calm driving demeanor and rubbing his forehead furiously. All right, just one drink, just one, he promised himself again. Maybe this promise he could keep.

His watering hole of choice was a bar aptly named 1700 Somewhere. The owner, retired Navy, had rebranded to military time one of the world’s most famous excuses for a drink. This time it was 1700 right here where he was, and he needed no excuse. The blue light of the bar’s neon sign looked inviting in the darkening dusk.

He parked his Jeep on the side of the building and went straight inside. Vernon was a regular; the bar was almost empty, and the bartender didn’t wait for any order. He filled a glass promptly with double bourbon on the rocks and placed it on a napkin in front of him.

Vernon liked this familiarity, this sense of belonging that comes from being a regular in a place, any place. It almost felt like home in a twisted kind of way for the mentally weary, exhausted man in search of a break between work and family.

He held the glass with both hands, playing with it and making the ice cubes clink in the liquid as he swirled the glass gently. He cherished this moment, the furtive moment when he still had a drink in front of him, still having something to look forward to before resuming the dullness of his daily existence.

He looked at the familiar walls, decorated with identical clocks showing the time in various places of the Earth, labeled neatly as if the bar were some kind of special operations room at the CIA.

The walls wore the patina of time gracefully. Still showing traces of the era when smoking was permitted indoors, those walls were a living memory of the times when people were allowed to gratify their senses with more than just alcohol.

He almost didn’t notice the woman taking a seat to his left at the bar. He felt her scent first, a fine, expensive hint of French perfume. He decided it was French, but he wasn’t really sure. That’s what French perfumes smelled like in his mind: discreet, classy, and almost arousing.

Vernon turned to look at the woman, making eye contact with her for a split second. She wasn’t the typical barhopper looking for action. She was neatly dressed in a tight skirt and silk blouse, and her high-heeled shoes looked expensive.

She didn’t shy away from the eye contact; he did. But before looking away he had noticed the beginning of an inviting smile on the woman’s perfectly glossy lips.

She touched his arm gently to get his attention.

“Hi,” she said, almost whispering. “I’m Michelle.”

He turned to look at her, surprised. In the rare occasions he had started conversations with women in bars, he had initiated them, not the other way around.

He was relatively attractive, in his early forties, wearing his six feet even quite well and enjoying the artistic looks given by his brown hair, almost at shoulder length, and a neatly trimmed beard. Most people took him for an artist, actor, or musician rather than an engineer, a laser electro-optics engineer no less, holding a PhD in laser applications.

Vernon enjoyed his bohemian appearance a lot and cultivated it carefully, ever since that day in junior college when Samantha, a long-legged dazzling blond two years his senior, had invited him to take a hike because, according to her, nerds never got laid. He let his hair grow that fateful, abstinent summer, combing it back and growing a beard that gave him an early air of maturity. Samantha acknowledged the improvement the following fall by becoming the second notch in his belt, standing proof that artists got laid a lot, even if nerds didn’t. After all, his looks got him all the action, not his student ID card.

“Vernon,” he replied, turning toward the stranger. They shook hands. “What can I get you?”

“Whatever you’re having,” she murmured, smiling and touching his arm again.

He gestured the bartender who executed promptly, placing new drinks in front of them.

They clinked their glasses and laughed quietly, in an unspoken greeting.

She looked at his left hand holding his glass.

“I see you’re married,” she probed, pointing at his wedding band.

“Yes, I am,” Vernon said.

“Will your wife be joining you later?”

He almost groaned loudly. He didn’t need any of this shit.

“Listen,” he said in a rigid tone of voice, “I’m not exactly asking you what you’re going back home to, all right? I’m actually not asking you anything whatsoever.”

“Fair enough,” she replied unfazed, touching his thigh. She squeezed it gently, a couple of inches above his knee, in an unmistakable invite.

He looked her straight in the eyes, searching for a confirmation. She didn’t blink, didn’t avert her eyes. He waved at the bartender, gave him a twenty to pay for the drinks, and grabbed Michelle’s hand. She followed him without hesitation as he took her behind his SUV, parked on the darkest side of the parking lot. He slammed Michelle against the wall, hidden from view by the Jeep, and searched her eyes again. She smiled.

He kissed her passionately, almost angrily, holding her with one arm and gently caressing her breast, almost in contradiction with the strength of his kisses. She replied, searching for his belt buckle with probing fingers. He pulled her skirt up and lifted her on his hips, pushing her against the wall, and she responded, clasping her hands behind his neck to hold on. Then he ripped her panties and penetrated her with an urgency he hadn’t expected to feel for a complete stranger.

A few minutes later, Vernon set her down and zipped up his pants. He avoided her eyes, focusing on his boots instead.

“I’m sorry…” he mumbled. “You probably deserve much better than this.”

“Vernon,” she said, reaching out to touch his face.

He turned and left, ignoring her call. He hopped in his Jeep and drove away, managing to avoid any eye contact with Michelle.

“Damn fool,” he admonished himself bitterly as he took the highway to Chesapeake to go home.

Vitaliy Myatlev sat in front of his computer, in the comfort of his home office housed in the Kiev villa. Almost two weeks had passed since Piotr Abramovich had called and invited him for a visit to the Kremlin. Almost two weeks of anguish, of sleepless nights, and careful planning.

Abramovich was famous for throwing people in the depths of Siberia for lesser shortcomings. Myatlev knew he couldn’t hide forever in his Kiev fortress, and there was nowhere else he could go. Abramovich had already run out of patience and had called him again, reminding him in a firmer tone of voice of his standing invitation. He had continued to sound friendly on the phone, but that friendliness could change on a dime. The Russian president was notoriously unpredictable and easily offended.

Myatlev had spent the past weeks moving assets, waiting for bank transfers to complete, organizing his vast operations to be led from outside Russia, and preparing for the worst-case scenario. He hoped Abramovich hadn’t learned of his activities, but Myatlev was no fool. Abramovich’s internal state security, the all-feared FSB, was everywhere, and even Myatlev’s Kiev residence was not as secure as he liked to believe.

Myatlev had a long history of facing terrible odds fearlessly and coming out of dire situations unscathed. The KGB in his earlier career, followed by his years of service as an intelligence officer, had taught him how to sense danger and prepare for it. Then he had applied all he had learned in the emerging post-glasnost capitalist economy, building his fortune. Business had proven to be just as treacherous to navigate as foreign intelligence had been. That’s why he always had a back-door exit built into his plans. He always prepared for the worst-case scenarios, and he always survived.

This time he wasn’t so sure. He was missing critical information. What if Abramovich had his home in Moscow under surveillance, waiting for him to show up? The FSB could arrest him the moment he’d walk through that door. What if the FSB had already raided the place, opening his safe and turning his secrets into incriminating evidence, enough to put him away for the rest of his life? There was only one way to find out.

“Ivan?” Myatlev called his bodyguard and assistant, who came promptly.

“Boss?”

“I need you to help me with something.” He paused, thinking what amount of information would be safe to share with Ivan at this point. The less he knew, the better off he’d be.

“Yes, sir,” Ivan acknowledged.

“I need you to go to the house in Moscow and bring me some documents.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m going to trust you with some very critical information, Ivan, I hope you will not disappoint me.”

“Nyet, Vitaliy Kirillovich, you can count on me,” he replied, addressing his boss with the utmost deference, by his given name and patronymic

“I will give you the combination to my safe and trust you to bring everything in it to me, right away.”

“Your safe, boss?” Ivan looked confused, almost scared. The man, an ex-Spetsnaz, who didn’t hesitate to kill with his bare hands, seemed flustered at the thought of opening his boss’s safe.

“Yes, Ivan, I trust you,” Myatlev said. “Am I wrong to trust you?”

“N–no, sir, nyet.”

Myatlev stopped for a second, thinking of the best way to do this. If he was right in his worst fears, Ivan was never to be heard from again. He hesitated a little, thinking whether to send Ivan on his personal jet, the Citation X. If worst came to worst the twenty-million dollar plane would be gone, confiscated by the FSB immediately after its wheels touched down on Russian soil. On the other hand, if he sent Ivan on a commercial flight he could be caught leaving the country with his documents, and those were enough to compromise him and start a shit storm, even if one hadn’t already started yet. Ivan’s life and the plane were the risk he had to take to ensure he could return safely to Moscow.

“I’m going to send you on my plane, and you can leave as soon as possible.”

“Thank you, boss, consider it done.”

“Bring me everything you find in my safe. Don’t read anything, don’t open anything, just grab it all, and bring it to me, understood?”

“Yes, sir. I will leave now.”

Myatlev told Ivan how to access the safe and gave him the code, making him repeat the information. He tapped his empty glass with his index finger, and Ivan replenished his Stolichnaya dutifully before leaving the room.

He leaned back in his chair, feeling some relief. Soon he would know. But he wasn’t safe here either, not entirely, although he was in a different country. Ukraine had been an independent country for many years, but the Russian president had armies of separatists operating within the Ukrainian border, a border that was becoming more irrelevant, especially after Crimea.

“Who am I kidding?” he muttered between two rounds of cursing that would have made career sailors jealous.

He got up from his desk and went to the safe in the corner of the room. He opened it and took all the papers out, sorting through them. A small pile went back into the safe. A larger pile accompanied him to the terrace, where Myatlev personally held each piece of paper as it burned, ashes blown by the wind staining the spotless white of the fresh-fallen snow.

Jeremy Weber sat in front of the TV, pretending to watch the Orioles clenched in a death match against the LA Dodgers. His mind wasn’t in the game though; every minute or so he checked the time on his watch, wondering when his son would come home.

Michael, his sixteen-year-old son, had been pretty good about respecting the rules for being out on a school night. Never after eight; that was the rule. Two long hours after that 8.00PM had come and gone, Jeremy was trying to remain calm and think positive. He could be making out with some girl and forgot the time. He could be hanging out with friends and didn’t care to come home.

Jeremy found it hard to think positive though. In his experience as an FBI agent, he had noticed that all family member accounts in cases of missing persons, homicides, kidnappings, or other tragedies started with the simple statement “he didn’t come home last night.” In this case, he was the family, the only family his son had.

He checked the time once more, then speed-dialed his son’s cell. Again, it went straight to voicemail. He stood up, grabbed the untouched glass of scotch from the coffee table, and poured it in the sink. Then he grabbed his work laptop and powered it up.

He watched the Data Integration and Visualization System login screen load. His special-agent status gave him unrestricted access to the most powerful search tools available to the FBI. The DIVS compiled and cross-referenced data from the most used databases, allowing him a single-point access for any search.

He set the parameters of the search, but DIVS returned zero results. Michael wasn’t in the system, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was OK. It was time for some legwork, time to hit the streets.

He put his weapon holster on, checked the ammo in his gun, then put on a down jacket and packed its pockets with two spare clips for his Sig.

Noises came from the hallway as he opened his front door. Two uniformed officers were dragging his son out of the elevator, kicking and screaming. He stepped back and allowed them to enter, speechless. His son, his Michael, was high as a kite, his glazed-over eyes throwing fiery glares while drool was dripping out of the corners of his contorted mouth.

“Hey, Weber,” one of the uniforms said, a guy looking vaguely familiar, “thought I’d do you a solid and bring him here instead of lockup.”

“Yeah, yeah, much appreciated,” Jeremy managed to say, shaking the officer’s hand.

“Will you be OK from here?”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll handle it.”

Jeremy closed the door behind the two officers and turned to look at his son.

“Michael—”

“I hate you,” his son yelled, then pounced and hit him in the chest with both fists. “I hate everything about you!”

Jeremy held his son tight against his chest, ignoring the punches and the muffled screams.

“I wish you were dead, you hear me? Dead! Why aren’t
you
one of those feds who get killed on duty, huh?”

“It’s OK, son, calm down, it’s OK. It’s the drugs. What did you—”

“Ha! I know! ‘Cause only the good guys die . . . Assholes like you stay here fo’ever, makin’ my life hell!”

“Tell me what you took, Michael.”

He screamed from the top of his lungs, an unnatural sound resembling the shriek of a dying animal.

“Ev’ything! Ev’ything I could get my hands on, that’s wha’ I took!”

He was starting to slur, and that made Jeremy worry. He looked at his pupils again, dilated to the size of his green irises, glossy and fixated. They looked like they were made of glass, unnatural. He could feel his son’s rapid heartbeat get even faster and saw sweat beads form on his forehead.

“We need to get you some help,” Jeremy said, putting Michael gently on the sofa.

“We need you to die!” Michael wiped the drool of his mouth with his sleeve. “Should have been you who died, not Mom!”

He stopped, frozen in place, the pain hitting him in the gut. Almost seven years after his wife’s death, the pain felt just as real and intense as if it were yesterday. Maybe his son was right. He had thought the same thing many times, but he couldn’t dwell on it now. There wasn’t any time.

He pulled out his phone and flipped through some contacts, finding the one he needed. It was almost midnight, but the man was a doctor; he’d understand.

The conversation took less than a minute. Jeremy sat on the sofa, next to his son, now curled up in the fetal position and breathing heavily.

“Listen, Michael, you need medical attention. There’s an ambulance on its way that will take you to a rehab cen—”

“Go to fuckin’ hell, and never come back!”

Maybe I’m already there
, Jeremy thought bitterly.

“You’ll stay there until you recover and I gain the confidence you’ll never do this to yourself again. I’ll come visit.”

“Fuck yourself…” Michael mumbled, exhausted, his face buried in the sofa pillow.

It was almost 2.00AM when the ambulance finally left, taking Michael to the ER for stabilization, then to rehab. The EMS crew members sounded reassuring, saying they didn’t think the episode would lead to any permanent brain damage.

Jeremy watched the ambulance turn the corner and disappear. Then he curled up on the sofa and sobbed, long, breathless sobs stifled in the pillow that still carried his son’s scent. After a few moments, he slowly rose. Grabbing his keys, he headed out the door to the hospital. It was going to be a long night.