Ruthless (Out of the Box Book 3)

by Robert J. Crane

  I could see the gears spinning before she answered, my pre-emptive question throwing her off balance. I gave her a moment—felt like an eternity—to gather herself before she finally vomited it out. “We’ve been replaced as co-directors of the agency,” she said, bitterness infusing every word. “The new director just got here from Washington and he’s demanding a meeting … right now.”

  13.

  Moscow

  Natasya

  The cold of winter had settled in, reminding Natasya Sokolov of every winter passed in the service of the Soviet Union. It had been so long ago, and yet a snap of the fingers in her mind. She stared out the window onto the Moscow street, just as amazed as she had been three months ago, when Limited People—an appropriate name for that band of weasels and lawyers—had brought her and her fellows here.

  And ever since, they had been idle save for the occasional chance to play to the capitalist media.

  “Another cold day in Russia,” Vitalik said from his usual place in their drawing room. Limited People had pursued the new government rather aggressively in legal maneuverings that Natasya neither understood nor cared about. The result had been a stipend as recompense for their long imprisonment. She was left bemused by the situation: a government that proclaimed no responsibility for their predicament throwing money at them to make them go away.

  In her day, the government would have disclaimed responsibility, made her and her group disappear, and any reporter who followed up on the subject would have known they’d face the same fate. This wasn’t the West, after all.

  “‘In the midst of winter I find within me the invisible summer … ’” Leonid Volkov said from his place by the window. His beard was still long, though now it was more of an affectation. She’d been watching him for the last few months as he interacted with the gluttonous, gross press. He’d studied academics and prisoners, polished his image so that he could better preen for them. She would have viewed it as an affront, but Leonid had done the same thing before the Party meetings, always coming prepared with quotes from Lenin, Stalin and Marx for blandishment at the appropriate moments.

  Natasya waited, scanning her eyes over to Miksa Fenes. He was the quiet one, always. He sat in his place, laconic as always, looking almost as though he were asleep. He wouldn’t say anything until he had to; for a man who projected energy from his hands, his persona was remarkably lethargic. This was not a precinct that would be heard from.

  “What do you say on this fine day, boss lady?” Vitalik asked. He was focused in on her, paid special attention to the honorific.

  She stared across the opulent palace of a room, still mildly disgusted by the spectacle. It felt overwhelming, the sort of thing that would get a worker killed in the olden days. The room was almost a monument to the Romanovs and their gross excesses. “I think it’s another day we should be looking for an opportunity to escape this garish prison.”

  “I think we could walk out at any time,” Vitalik said, almost hopefully.

  “Of course we could walk out at any time, fool,” Natasya said. “But then what? Work for the ‘new’ Russian government? I’ve seen the names; they’re almost the same as the old ones. So then what? Bite our new masters—Limited People—in the hand?”

  “You think they want to be our masters?” Leonid asked carefully. He stroked his beard as he spoke; Natasya had known him long enough to be sure that he was doing it to be thought a person of careful consideration. He was nothing of the sort.

  “I think they are using us to push their agenda,” Natasya said. She looked around the room as though an enemy waited to jump out. In the olden days, there had been no hope of a private conversation, ever. Word always seemed to get out, and always to the wrong ears. After the prison, though, she now found her lips looser than ever they’d been before. It was the disgusting feeling of living in this place, with ideological enemies all around.

  This prison was worse; the walls and chains were not visible or obvious. She almost longed for the simplicity of being suspended in the air again. At least then she knew she hung in the middle of a mountain without hope or a future.

  “So what should we do?” Vitalik said quietly—so quiet he was almost inaudible.

  “We look for … opportunity.” She glanced at the window and caught a glimpse of a press car outside. They were out there by the dozens, an encampment. “I, for one, do not trust our new masters nor the supposed demise of the old ones. Whatever situation has come about that has rearranged the government as wildly as it has seems unlikely to result in the forgiving of old grudges forever.” At the very least, she was not inclined to forget hers. “I want out of this cold, this uncertainty.” She shuddered. “But I don’t want to go to the West, or to America. Somewhere warm, somewhere … not a gluttonous pig’s paradise, streets paved with oppression of—” She made a throaty sound of disgust. “I want debts settled, revenge, and to leave this frigid ice box of hell.” She pulled her arms over her chest. “Find me an opportunity such as that, and I shall leap upon it like a wolf upon a lamb.”

  There was a knock at the door, the uncertain sound of a man who’d probably never felt the touch of a woman in his life, Natasya thought. It was the knock of Matfey Krupin, the weak-kneed errand boy of Limited People. She glanced at the clock. Time was a thing she was still readjusting to after thirty years of never knowing the hour or minute. Matfey, though, he always came at the same time every day, to conduct his business.

  To feed his wolves, Natasya thought, and all the while thinking they were tame sheep.

  “Hello,” Matfey said in that light warble of his. She wanted to grab him by a nipple and twist it to see if milk came dribbling out. It would certainly not change his voice much.

  “Matfey,” Leonid said grandly, arms expansively wide. Yes, Leonid could play his role, the eccentric, the comrade academician of old. “It is good to see you this day.” He said it every day, and every day it was voltage to Natasya’s nerves.

  “Today we have six interview requests,” Matfey said, straight to business—his business, Natasya thought. She was good at looking at people through half-lidded eyes while smiling politely. It had been a vital skill for a woman in the Kremlin. “A few emails of interest as well.”

  “Of interest?” Natasya asked. She let her inflection go flat; it was as close to open dissent as she could imagine going. Of interest to whom? she left unspoken.

  “Yes, several,” Matfey said, sitting down on the couch next to her, unasked. She could break his neck right now, but beyond immediate satisfaction, what would be the point? It would be like snapping the neck of a field mouse or a bunny. She wouldn’t eat him, so it would simply be good fun. Fun could wait for a more opportune time.

  Matfey set up his little laptop computer, his little wonder of Western corruption. She watched with a thinly veiled disgust all the while, him in his little monkey suit, staring at the screen. It made its little boops and beeps while it started up. Natasya watched it all proceed with a studied disinterest. She caught Miksa watching carefully, though. He always watched carefully, though he hid it well.

  A harsh trilling filled the air just as Matfey’s little device finished its—what did he call it?—boot up? It sounded like something fun to Natasya, the prospect of ramming hers up his soft, bourgeoisie, rich-boy ass, over and over as he screamed in the night. She’d done worse to better men. He reached into his coat pocket—such a lovely, heavy coat. It looked fine and new.

  “Yes?” Matfey asked. She could tell by his tone that the caller was important, was deferred to by the little weasel. “Of course. I can be there immediately if it’s as important as you say—of course.” He was nodding along like a limp-necked thing, like he had no spine of his own. “I was just going to catch them up on their current—it’s that urgent?” He stared longingly at his little love, his little computer. She’d seen Miksa and Vitalik, men in prison thirty years, look less amorously at their first woman than this shit looked at his technological marvel. Perhaps
it had an attachment to make love to, as well. “I will be there immediately.” He stood without preamble, shoving his phone back into his pocket. “I must go,” he announced. “I must—” He started to move for his computer, and then his phone trilled again. He glanced at the screen and seemed to make a decision. “I will be back later to attend to our business,” he said, and broke into a girlish run toward the door, slamming it behind him.

  Natasya stared at the machine in suspicion. She did not trust these things, nor the men who used them. “I thought he’d never leave,” she breathed.

  “It took some doing,” came a calm female voice out of the little box. Natasya had too much self-control to yelp, but she did let out a might exhale of sharp shock at the sudden, disembodied voice.

  “What devilry is this?” Volkov said, circling around to look at the screen. Miksa held his place, staring at it from behind the couch upon which Matfey had sat while setting up his little machine. Vitalik merely stared, slightly agape.

  The screen rippled and blurred, a dark silhouette appearing in the dots and static. “I needed him out of the room so we could talk,” it—she—said, as cool as a fresh spring snow. Natasya just stared at the computer, the little technological evil, and watched it with her half-lidded eyes. This time, there was no smile.

  “Who are you?” Leonid asked, “and what do you want to talk about?”

  “I want to talk about you,” she said. “About what you want. About what you need.”

  “Aren’t you the generous sort?” Natasya asked, never taking her eyes off of it. Leonid had been ready with a reply but he silenced himself as she spoke. “Worrying about us.”

  “I don’t mean to suggest some sort of one-sided arrangement,” the voice said, calmly. She sounded … weak. Labored. As though she were having trouble breathing. “I want to hire you to do a job for me. And I will pay you … whatever you want.”

  “Perhaps you haven’t heard,” Leonid said with a half-smile, “but we are not that interested in money. Much of it has been offered to us already.”

  “That’s why I asked what you want—and need,” the voice came again. “Perhaps it might be … asylum on friendlier shores? Perhaps … Cuba?” Natasya stared hard at the screen. “Don’t worry. No one else can hear us right now. I’ve blotted out the sound on the government’s listening devices, diverted it to me. Unsophisticated things, their devices. Limited People’s have much more modern ones.”

  “Meet the new boss,” Natasya said under her breath, “same as the old one.”

  “Maybe you’d like to put a little egg on their face?” The voice was wheedling, searching out motive. “Humiliate your government? Your new friends?”

  “Perhaps we’d like both,” Leonid said quietly, “and more.”

  “Name your price,” the voice said, soft, smooth, and with a slight gasp. “I can get you almost anything.”

  Natasya stared at the machine—the box—and wondered if she should even trust it. What would the old KGB do, if this were them at work? Those men always thought the same, worked the same, acted the same. Horned dogs, all the way down to the bottom floor of the subbasement at Dzerzhinsky Square. “What do you want us to do?” she asked.

  The screen changed from its dark and splotchy view to a news program. It was an abrupt intercut, and a face appeared from a distance, a girl—nothing more—with dark hair bound back, a thick coat, hurrying down a city street while the cameras followed her. The scene cut again, and the same girl was shown—this time blurrier, as by a lower quality camera—kicking the chair out from underneath a man who was cuffed hand and foot.

  “Do you know who this is?” the voice asked. Now it was filled with cold and loathing.

  “Sienna Nealon,” Vitalik said, his voice filled with a little interest. Natasya gave him a look and he explained. “She is the head of the United States’s metahuman policing unit.”

  Natasya felt her jaw settle back uneasily. She’d heard the name. “What do you want with this girl?”

  The screen froze on the picture of this Sienna Nealon hitting the man in chains. “I want her dead,” the voice said coolly.

  “So hire an assassin,” Natasya said, waving off the voice. “Plenty of those to be had for cheaper than the quartet of us.”

  “That’s not all I want you to do,” the voice said, and something spilled out onto the screen, something black and white, with lines straight and curved, and English words all over.

  “What the hell is this?” Natasya said, staring at the bizarre picture. It looked like—

  “Blueprints,” Miksa said, speaking up at last.

  “The Hungarian gets it in one,” the voice said, almost crowing. “It’s a set of blueprints. But not just any blueprints … they’re the maps and details for the construction of Sienna Nealon’s metahuman prison, where she’s keeping almost twenty of our people in restraints day and night, under the ground.” There was a pause, and Natasya stared at the computer shrewdly. Now, this was interesting. “I want you to kill the warden.” There was a pause, and Natasya could almost hear laughter, faint, digital, over the line, “Then I want you to do for these people what was just done for you.

  “I want you to set them all free.”

  14.

  Sienna

  I walked into my office to find it really wasn’t my office anymore. That was strike one.

  My bonsai tree—lovingly cared for by me—was carelessly placed on top of a box of my stuff right by the door. Strike two.

  The man sitting in my chair was a little overweight, had sandy blond hair that was combed to one side, and probably the least engaged expression I’d ever seen. His eyes were intelligent but damned cool, and he watched me walk furiously through the door without a hint that he cared.

  I’d say that was strike three, but I’m not a bear, so staring me down in the middle of what had been—until hours or minutes ago—my office wasn’t a capital offense. Let’s call it strike two and a half.

  “Sienna Nealon,” he said, leaning back in my damned chair. He didn’t exude any smugness, which was a lifesaver for him. He was just cool, collected, almost uncaring. I’d never met anyone quite so placid in my presence.

  “Well, you’ve got my name,” I said, letting my gaze hang on my box o’ stuff. “How about tossing me yours?”

  “Andrew Phillips,” he said. “I’m the new Director of the—”

  “I know the name of the agency I head.”

  “Well, you don’t head it anymore,” he said. “You’ve been given a new post—Head of Operations.”

  “Well, that’s bullshit,” I said hotly. Of course. How else did you think I’d respond to an affront like this?

  “Interesting way to look at it,” he said, readjusting himself to fold one leg across the other knee. He was pretty flexible for a big guy. “Have you watched the news at all today?”

  “No,” I said, “I’ve been a little busy stopping a heist at the Federal Reserve and transporting a meta prisoner back here.”

  “Hrm,” he said, and picked up my remote control—mine—and turned on my TV.

  I hate cable news.

  The video footage was not good. Someone had snuck a camera into the train tunnel, and they had lots of roll of people being helped out of the subway station at Canal Street on stretchers and hobbling.

  Oops.

  “Wait,” he said, not a trace of amusement. This guy sounded like he was serious about a problem. “It gets worse.”

  The video flipped to cell phone footage of me abusing poor, helpless Eric Simmons, and I have to admit, I cringed. They showed what almost looked like a mug shot of me—taken from a still frame of that damned Gail Roth interview I did—and then switched to the panel discussion. Thankfully, the TV was muted, but I could tell by the look of the panel that it was like sharks being dropped into a freshly chummed pool.

  “Okay,” I said as Andrew Phillips flipped off the TV, “this looks bad.”

  “Oh, yes,” he agreed calmly, “it lo
oks bad. It looks bad for you, it looks bad for this agency, and it looks especially bad for the president of the United States, who has backed your actions to this point and is now facing re-election later this year with this eating up the headlines.”

  “Gosh,” I said, “I’m sorry I ate your headlines. I’ll go on a diet immediately.” He didn’t look impressed—he actually didn’t react at all to my comment. “Maybe you could spin it as being tough on crime—”

  “There’s no spinning this,” he pronounced. “You’re not going to change minds on it. It’s just a big, stinking mess that could potentially hang around the president’s neck between now and the first Tuesday in November.”

  “Hm,” I muttered, half under my breath, “usually it’s an albatross or a millstone around your neck, but a big, stinking mess? That’s—”

  “I’m sure you’re really very funny to a lot of people,” Phillips said, folding his arms over his barrel-looking chest. He wasn’t fat, just … big. Bulky. Broad. “But I also know you’ve never had to clean up your own messes.” He was lecturing me, I realized at last. That’s why it was absent any anger. “Here, in England, wherever you’ve gone, you’ve had people behind you motivated to keep secret the things you’ve done. Well, the era of secrets is over.” He let a low breath that expressed disinterest more than exasperation. “The president is tired of trying to cover for you. You are the albatross—see, I can respect your metaphor—around his neck, and I’m here to either make it so you’re not, or we cut you free.” He shrugged. “Not a threat, by the way.”

  “It sounded a little like one,” I said, feeling the tension in my jaw ratchet.

  “Let me clarify,” Phillips said. “You’re either going to get on board with the new program, or you can find a new job. Either is fine.”