by Robert Berke
"What is it?" the Captain asked looking over Sharky's shoulder the monitor that had the heat and audio data displayed.
"What do you have?" the commander asked, suddenly becoming very interested in Sharky's idea.
"Listen," Sharky said, holding a set of earphones up so both of the men could listen at once.
The men heard a distinct pattern. "Dun duh duh dun dun, duh duh." Shave and a haircut, two bits. The pattern repeated over and over. Sharky pointed to the microphone which had picked up the pattern and then looked to see if there was a heat camera in the same general area which he quickly spotted. He scanned the area between the two devices as the two experienced officers followed his gaze.
"They're over here," Sharky yelled over his shoulder with absolute certainty. He was already in full sprint towards the semi truck that was stuck in the traffic near the Jade East loading bay before he finished speaking.
"Do not approach the vehicle son." The Captain barked at Sharky in a tone that suggested the order must be followed. Sharky stopped in his tracks as the Captain approached him and put a hand on his shoulder. "We don't know what we're dealing with here, kid. Leave this to the pros."
Several of the CIA agents were already scoping out the truck.
In the parking lot at SmithCorp, Gonzales surprised his two colleagues. "I'm going to take the car and take care of some other business." He said. Then addressing Cruz, he said, "Go with Julian and try to get to Latham and get a handle on the situation and work on that cover story. It's going to have to be real good. Smith is clearly not familiar with the covert aspect of covert operations. I'll find you later." Cruz fished in his front pocket and handed Gonzales the key to his car. Gonzales saluted a stiff military salute toward Josey Cruz and Julian Waterstone and headed off alone toward Cruz's car.
"Go figure," Julian said to Cruz as he led him to his car. "I guess I'm driving."
They watched as Gonzales drove out of the parking lot, both curious to know where he was going, but both also wise enough to know that they would never know the answer to that question.
Gonzales drove up Central Avenue to New Karner Road and then onto the Washington Avenue extension. He rolled into the parking lot at the Daughter's of Sarah Nursing Home and entered the building. The receptionist acknowledged him and he spoke to her gently, playing on a hunch. "I'm a friend of Alice's. She said you have a resident here who speaks Russian. When I told her I speak Russian she said it would cheer her patient up to have someone talk to her in Russian. I was in the neighborhood, so I thought I'd stop by. Is Alice here?" He knew damn well she wasn't. Her body was still in the trunk of Cruz's car, now parked in the parking lot outside.
The receptionist told him that Alice had not been in for several days but that she was sure it would be okay for him to go in to talk to one of the residents. She gave him a little clipboard and asked him to fill out a visitor card as she began flipping through a written log of residents to see who the Russian speaking patient was. When she saw the name, she knew immediately who Gonzales was referring to. It had to be Mrs. Oronov in Room 318. "Oh," she said, looking up from her book, "I'm sure she meant Mrs. Oronov. She always spent a lot of time with her. In fact, until last week, I don't think she ever had any visitors."
"Did someone come to speak Russian to her last week too?" Gonzales asked, pleasantly surprised that his hunch had paid off so quickly. He had come to the nursing home because it was the only other place that the CIPs had associated with Alice and he sensed there may have been something to learn there. He just didn't know what yet.
"Yes," the receptionist said, "her son made a special trip from Russia just to see her. Alice told me that she responded very well when her son was here, but otherwise, she's really in bad shape. We actually already released her personal effects to her son."
"May I see her?" Gonzales inquired.
"Let me call her duty nurse." The receptionist answered. "We're on back up power and everyone's going crazy."
The duty nurse came to the front desk and looked over Gonzales and then looked over his visitor card. Everything appearing to be in order she led him back to Mrs. Oronov's room giving him instructions all along the way. Don't touch the equipment, press the red button if she appears to be in distress, don't say or do anything to agitate her, speak quietly and slowly, don't expect her to respond. "I'll be at the desk if you need me for anything," she concluded as she directed him into Mrs. Oronov's room.
Gonzales glanced around the little room keeping an eye on the door. He hoped he might find a listening device, a message drop, maybe a phone number, something, anything that would give him a lead to Vakhrusheva. If this was the meeting place between Alice and Vakhrusheva, he would find something. He just had to be careful not to appear too obvious in his searching the little room. It got easier after he figured out the duty nurse's pattern. She was checking on him in regular intervals. He made sure that when she was checking he was sitting down and speaking in Russian to Mrs. Oronov.
He had nearly given up when he heard heavy footsteps in the hallway. He quickly sat on the little stool near Mrs. Oronov's bed and began reciting children's rhymes in Russian, quietly, near her ear. The duty nurse appeared in the doorway with a man who Gonzales recognized immediately as Vladimir Vakhrusheva. He knew he was recognized also, though Vakhrusheva did not betray any signal of that fact.
"This is one of our new volunteers, Marcus Gottlieb," the duty nurse said to Vakhrusheva. "Mr. Gottlieb, this is Mikhael Oronov, Mrs. Oronov's son. You should give them some privacy," she said to Gonzales signaling for him to leave the room and let mother and son speak alone in private.
"No, no, no," Vakhrusheva said, with no attempt to disguise his heavy Russian accent at all. "Please, let him stay, my mother don't talk too much anyway. Is better if he stay."
The duty nurse shrugged her shoulders. "You can pull the curtain if you want some privacy." She said as she left the doorway.
The two men locked eyes and a long silence ensued between them, each man making a million mental calculations and trying to do so faster than the other.
"Your mission is a failure." Gonzales said simply, in Russian, though the words were chosen very carefully.
"It is only a matter of time for us," Vakhrusheva replied, also in Russian. "We still have Ashkot. We'll get the code. Even if you and I kill each other right here in this room, there will still be players on the field. I may have failed to obtain the code, but the mission continues with or without me. You know that."
"Why did you come back here? You know Alice is dead, and this room is clean." Gonzales inquired.
"The mission that brought me to this place is over for me. My colleague either has the targets or not. My part is done. But I have another mission to accomplish. This is a mission I assigned to myself after having been here the first time. It is one of the benefits of acting freelance," Vakhrusheva said humorlessly.
"Your brother was a remarkable man, Vladimir. He penetrated our intelligence deeper and faster than anyone I've seen before or since. He died bravely and unapologetically. His commitment to his mission was unfaltering. He left that mark on my psych for all these years."
"Those are kind words, Gonzales. I do not think you are apologizing and that is good because I am not forgiving. It is not in my constitution to give a damn about your conscience. Nor do I expect you to give a damn about mine. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some private business with Mrs. Oronov."
"You expect me just to leave and let you walk out of here?" Gonzales asked.
Vakhrusheva answered with his own question. "Will you gun me down in cold blood in the name of your mission?"
"Of course."
"Then that is what you will do. But please, give me a moment of privacy first." Vakhrusheva asked again. "Wait outside the door. I can't get out any other way. This is a last request from a man who is already resigned to his fate."
Gonzales surveyed the room again and was confident that Vakhrusheva could not escape other than t
hrough the door. "Five minutes," he said as he stepped out of the room. He watched over his shoulder has Vakhrusheva pulled the privacy curtain closed.
Mere moments later he came bursting out of the room yelling, "Nurse, nurse! She's stopped breathing please help."
The nurse barked some codes into the microphone on the counter for the nurses station and ran into the room.
"We should leave now, Mr. Gottlieb." Vakhrusheva whispered into Gonzales' ear. The two men walked rapidly to the front of the nursing home and out the front door.
"We'll take my car," Gonzales said, making sure that Vakhrusheva could hear him releasing the safety latch on his handgun. Gonzales lead Vakhrusheva towards Cruz's little sedan.
"I am your prisoner," Vakhrusheva responded with far too much confidence for Gonzales' taste.
Cruz didn't like being a passenger in someone else's car, especially one that smelled so horribly of cigarettes. Julian drove Cruz as far as he could before the gridlocked traffic completely prevented him from moving any further. Cruz decided that it would be far faster, and far better for his lungs, if he just jogged the next few miles to the mall. He excused himself and took off on foot down Route 7, grateful for the unseasonably cool air. Julian turned on the radio hoping to find some news or information, but every radio station gave him nothing but static. His cell phone, though fully charged, showed no bars.
He decided to see what others were saying about the strange breakdown of all of the communications systems. He rolled down his window and motioned to the driver of the car next to him. "Hey, buddy," he yelled out his window, "what's going on here?"
The man in the next vehicle rolled down his window and said, "I don't have any idea. I've got no radio, no cell signal, nothing. I've never seen anything like this. I just hope my wife knows how to start the generator, cause her mom's on a respirator. Maybe something from Knolls or SmithCorp or something. I just don't know."
"Well, let me know if you find anything else out. I'm going to walk up a little ways and see if I can see anything." Julian said, for the first time contemplating the awful damage that an electrical and a communications shut down would cause. He began walking up the street and several other people had also gotten out of their cars to try to see what was going on.
He approached a man who was walking in the opposite direction. "Any idea what's going on?" He asked.
"Well the word is that there's some kind of activity at the Latham Circle mall, but there's like six accidents between here and there. The whole circle is shut down. Some guy told me that it probably has something to do with that SmithCorp helicopter that's been circling around and that there's another helicopter on the ground. Apparently the cops don't know what's going on either. They said that none of their radios are even working. They said even air traffic control is down."
"Oh, man," Julian said as the implications of what Smith had done started to sink in. "You think its terrorists?" Julian asked, knowing full well that it wasn't.
The man shrugged his shoulders, "I don't know man, I just don't know."
Julian saw his story coming together.
Cruz was fortunate enough to be able to hitch a ride on a motorcycle that was zigzagging its way through the parked cars and arrived at the mall far faster than he expected to. He flashed his credentials at the guard posted at the entrance who let him into the parking lot. He headed directly for the helicopter. He immediately recognized the local CIA field operations commander and gave him a closed-fist-over-his-head signal to let him know he was there. When he got close to the helicopter, he could see that Dr. Bayron and Hermelinda were safe and sound and in the custody of the CIA. He did not make small talk.
"Get these two back to SmithCorp ASAP. Smith's got communications and electricity and god knows whatever else shut down for miles. He won't turn it back on until these two are back. Get them in the chopper now." Cruz ordered the commander.
"They need to be debriefed." the commander said.
"Debrief them later." Cruz insisted.
"There's still a perp out there, and I intend to find him." The commander said.
"Your involvement was only for search and rescue. Your mission here is complete." Cruz stated.
The commander squinted his eyes and gave Cruz a very scathing look. Cruz did not flinch. He had no rank or authority over the commander, but he had called this job and it was his prerogative to call it off.
Cruz knew he was losing the stare-off and did not want to waste any more time. "Look," he said, "apprehending the perp is a far lower priority than maintaining the covert nature of my operation. I have no idea what the story will be to cover this, but we can't afford to make it any more difficult. You can keep the parking lot locked down as long as you have to, but those two," he pointed to Dr. Bayron and Hermelinda, "those two need to get to SmithCorp. As soon as they get there, Smith will stop the communications shutdown and with your radios and phones working, we can hand this part off to the local police. But those two need to get back."
The commander nodded. It was not a concession on his part, but an acknowledgment of the trust he placed in Cruz's judgment. The commander also knew that the odds of apprehending him was virtually nil. The commander pointed to the helicopter pilot and then made a circular motion with his hand signaling the pilot to start the engine. The commander marshaled Bayron and Hermelinda onto the helicopter and instructed the pilot to take them to the SmithCorp Building. As soon as the commander was clear of the blades, the chopper was in the air.
The commander came back to Cruz. "I hope you know what you're doing, scout," he said to Cruz. "If I'm going to back up your field decision, and you know I will, I just want to be confident I'm on the right side."
"I appreciate that commander," Cruz replied. "Did you get anything from them before I got here."
"Only that the perp had an accent."
"Russian, maybe?" Cruz asked.
"No," the commander answered. "Guyanese, if you can believe that."
"How about the truck?" Cruz pressed.
"Absolutely clean. Built from parts with different VIN numbers all over it. Stolen plates, no fingerprints, no registration. Whoever it was sure knew what he was doing."
"Well, do your due diligence I guess," Cruz said. He already knew what the commander knew. The perp was gone.
Bobby wasn't so sure he would escape the dragnet covering the mall parking lot. He felt trapped like a rat with no line of communication to Vakhrusheva. He wasn't sure whether the doctor had glimpsed his face when he turned around in the aisle of the store. He was uncertain as to how Vakhrusheva would react when he found out that he had lost the targets. Would he too end up with a bullet in his head like his former partner? He sat in his little car and blew cigarette smoke at the ceiling watching the purple-grey whirls and wisps as they danced in the air. His reverie was broken when his car radio suddenly came to life and started playing a pop classic from his favorite station. He pulled out his phone and was overjoyed to see four bars. He immediately called Vakhrusheva.
When his phone rang, Vakhrusheva knew it was Bobby with either good news or bad. To Gonzales, however, it signaled the fact that Smith's tantrum had ended and that meant that Dr. Bayron and Hermelinda had been safely returned to him.
"Answer it." Gonzales demanded.
"No. You know that I will not compromise my mission."
The phone continued to ring.
"Give it to me." Gonzales persisted.
Vakhrusheva began to pass the phone to Gonzales with his left hand, the one that still worked reasonably well. Just before handing it off, he crushed it in his grip, dropping the broken shards and pieces in Gonzales' lap. "Did you expect otherwise, Marco?" He asked, intentionally seeking to convey his disrespect by using his first name.
Gonzales' face went flush for a moment and then lit up with a large grin. "No, Vladimir, I would have been disappointed if you hadn't."
The two men rode along in silence. Heading North on the 90 along the Hudson and then into
the Adirondacks. Gonzales parked near a clearing. "Get out," he ordered.
Vakhrusheva complied in silence.
"You know I have to kill you," Gonzales said matter-of-factly as he drew his gun from his coat pocket.
"Would I stand a trial? Kidnaping? Espionage? Spend the rest of my life in jail? Lie in a nursing home hooked to wires and tubes and pumped so full of drugs that I wouldn't know whether I was alive or dead?" Vakhrusheva said.
"That is not a fate either of us would embrace." Gonzales replied honestly.
"I have a gun, you know. It is in my right coat pocket. I could have pulled it and it would be me pointing a gun at you. I could have pulled it on you at the nursing home or in the car. I could pull it right now and you and I could enjoy a little Mexican standoff. You are Mexican aren't you?"
"I haven't claimed a country for many years," Gonzales answered. "Neither of us serve a country any more, do we?" He used his gun to direct Vakhrusheva around the car and into the clearing.
"Do you know why I didn't draw it, Marco? Do you know why you are not looking down the barrel of a Makarov pistol right now?" He paused for a moment while Gonzales contemplated the question.
Gonzales was curious to know why Vakhrusheva was not doing anything to prevent his imminent assassination.
"I didn't draw it," Vakhrusheva said in answer to his own question, "because this finger does not bend."
He held up the index finger of his right hand and pointed it as if it were a gun. "I cannot pull a trigger." He looked sadly at the twisted index finger of his right hand.
"This finger, broken many, many times, is now arthritic. It does not bend. So why do I carry a gun?" Vakhrusheva asked rhetorically. "Because you are now the only one who knows that besides me, and I intend to keep it that way.
"I am obsolete, Marco, and so are you." He continued. "Our mission is over. You choose your curse: will you waste away like Mrs. Oronov, or preserve yourself in a box like Elijah Smith?"
"I do not distract myself with mind games and philosophy, Vladimir." Gonzales answered.
