The Gambit

by Allen Longstreet

  Ian didn’t respond. I heard faint static through the phone. I hoped I hadn’t scared him off.

  “Hello?”

  “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I was just still in shock.”

  “About?”

  “She was right.”

  His voice sounded distant again, like he was out of it.

  “Who was right?”

  “Rachel Flores—my goddaughter.”

  My jaw dropped.

  “She’s your goddaughter? My God. I’m so sorry about everything that has happened.”

  “Me too,” he said. “Trust me.”

  Disgust began to settle in throughout my body. Veronica helped kill Owen and Rachel’s mother in the same day. I was glad that I wasn’t working that day, because if I was, I would have probably pulled out my gun and killed her in front of everyone. Her body count just grew higher each passing day. Everything she touched eventually rotted away, just like her soul had long ago.

  “Lucas, Lucas, are you there?” Ian asked frantically. I had zoned out.

  “Yes,” I answered. “Anyway, what was your goddaughter right about?”

  “How you feel about Veronica.”

  “How does she know who I am?”

  “I told her,” he responded nonchalantly.

  “Are you out of your mind? You do realize I work for the most covert agency in our country, right?”

  “I do.”

  “Then why on Earth would you tell her who I am?”

  “Because she asked for my help, Lucas. Her parents are dead, and she isn’t even twenty-four yet. I’m surprised she called me this soon, considering what happened to her. She has nothing left but me.”

  His explanation placated my temper.

  “What was it she needed your help with?”

  “Getting in touch with someone like you,” he replied without hesitation. “In reality, she ultimately needs your help, not mine.”

  “How so?” I asked.

  “I can’t say it word for word right now, but it involves Veronica. She, and whoever she is with, wants her gone too. The night before Owen died she called me and said she had found a massive piece of the puzzle we have been trying to solve. So, whoever she is with, that person must know a lot, just like you.”

  The seeds of imagination began to take root in my mind. Was Ian referring to what I thought he was? Rachel wanted her gone like I did, and that could only mean one thing. I was debating on what to say. Rachel was young, and I had a family. I had children, and that changed everything. Whatever I chose to do, I had to be very careful. It was obvious that Ian wasn’t going to give me any details, if he knew any at all to begin with.

  “Lucas?” he butted into my thoughts.

  “Yes,” I answered absentmindedly.

  “I had asked her, just before we got off the phone, ‘what if he doesn’t want to help?’. Do you want to know what her answer was to that question?”

  “Yes,” I said. I felt like I was in a trance.

  “She said, ‘If he even knows a smidgen of what I do about Veronica Hall, then he would be more than willing.’”

  My stomach dropped, and my heart began to race. Rachel knew just like I did. She knew that Veronica was behind all of it, and that the blood of Owen and her mother was on her hands. I had taken an oath to defend this country, from enemies foreign and domestic, and after Owen’s death, my options were limited. Sure, the information I faxed could be used in Ian’s article, but that wasn’t how I was trained. That wasn’t my style. Just because we wrote articles about something bad that was going on, didn’t mean it just disappeared overnight. We needed people like me to go in and stop it at the source. Rachel must have had a similar idea, and I knew deep down, that she was right…I would be willing to help her.

  “Ian,” I blurted out, jarring myself from my thoughts.

  “Yes?”

  “Give her my number.”

  Besides two stops at the gas station and one to get food, we had been in the car for ten hours. My legs were beginning to cramp. I was sitting between Briana and Grey. Natasha was driving, and Viktor was in the passenger seat. A few times I had napped against Grey’s shoulder, and Briana did the same on mine. Much of the drive was silent, and I couldn’t keep the aching feeling in my stomach at bay. Someone was missing from this car…and the thought of his name almost brought me to tears. I missed the sensation of his warm hand interlaced with my own.

  When I wasn’t staring at the passing trees, I just closed my eyes and tried to nap. When my eyes were closed, he was with me—it was just like my dreams. I could hear his voice. I knew if he was here, he would most likely scold me for agreeing to Viktor’s plan. He would tell me to write my story and to avoid the risk. I smiled at the thought, because I would tell him this was his payback for going along with Grey’s plan.

  But Owen wasn’t here. That wasn’t reality. The reality was that he wasn’t here to see the pain I was in from him not being around. He wasn’t here to ease the aching I felt in the center of my chest, which never seemed to subside. Neither my mother nor father were here to console me. I just prayed that one day this pain would dissipate, but I was doubtful.

  The address we had was for McLean. Grey said that we were only a few minutes away. I was glad because I wanted to stretch out my legs. I had talked to the man named Lucas on the phone, and just from his voice I knew something that Ian could have never conveyed. Lucas knew Veronica, much more in depth than I did. It was evident in his tone. I could practically hear the suppressed rage behind every word.

  Viktor told me to relay to Lucas that he thought a hotel would be too dangerous. Our faces had been too many places. He felt it was just a matter of time before the CIA tied Briana and Grey in with me. Although hesitant, Lucas said we could stay in his basement. He also had a three car garage that Viktor could park the car in. I was nervous about trusting this CIA agent to begin with. What if he was just deceiving Ian in an attempt to catch me? After everything I had been through with Owen, I wasn’t inclined to trust anyone. The evidence Viktor showed us was concrete, and it only made me realize further how corrupt our government truly was. Lucas’s voice though…that was something no actor could pull off. I knew he felt the same as I did about Veronica, and that was without ever having met him.

  The scenery changed once we got off the highway. The streets were narrower and lined with suburban homes. All the lawns were perfectly manicured, but a few were beginning to brown. Winter was slowly creeping in. Some of the homes had entrances where part of the roof was supported by pillars—similar to what you would see in a mansion. As hard as it was for me to live with, I knew my life would have been different without the money my father left behind. I would have remained in Hialeah with Briana for far too long. I probably wouldn’t have even gone to college. I would have traded it all for him.

  I would have done the same for Owen and my mother, too.

  “This is it,” Viktor announced. “We’re here.”

  “Which one?” Briana asked.

  “That one,” he pointed out of his window. I ducked down beside Briana to see out. It was a two-story house made of red brick. There were many windows facing us, and a few of the rooms on the first floor had their lights on. The walls of the house were lined with shrubs and other greenery. In the left side of the yard was a massive, old oak tree. Behind the shrubs were lights that illuminated the sides of the house. It looked like the CIA paid well.

  “What did he say again?” Viktor asked, turning around in his seat to face me.

  “All he asked was that we don’t ring the doorbell,” I said. “It might wake up his kids.”

  He nodded in response, mulling over my statement.

  “You said he doesn’t know anything about who is with you, right?”

  “Yes, all he knows is that I am with four other people.”

  He turned around and chuckled.

  “I can’t wait to see his face when he finds out he just let Viktor Ivankov into his house.”

>   Natasha let out a stifled laugh, and Viktor began to slowly accelerate into the driveway. He had a three car garage, and we parked right in front of one of the bay doors. He turned the car off and popped open his door.

  “Hopefully we aren’t walking into a trap,” Grey said. He voiced my concerns without me having to bring them up. Natasha glanced at him as she was about to step out of the car. “I’ve been thinking the same thing,” she admitted. Briana pressed her lips together and shook her head as she popped open our door. She must have been concerned too. I slid out from my seat in the middle and stretched out as my feet hit the pavement. I knew they were all worried. They had reason to be. Lucas was a stranger who I had just talked to on the phone once. I had second thoughts myself, but I knew Ian wouldn’t have steered me in the wrong direction. Lucas gave him information. He willingly gave Ian another piece of the puzzle, turning his back on his employer. My gut said everything would be okay.

  It had to be okay…because I didn’t think my reality could get any worse than it already was. As I finished stretching out, I noticed everyone staring at me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “We are waiting on you to lead the way,” Viktor replied. “You were the one who talked to him.”

  I nodded and led everyone up the entranceway. There was monkey grass lining its edges all the way to the stone steps of the porch. My heart began to pound in my chest. We walked up, and I held my clenched fist hesitantly in front of the door, and I knocked three times. I didn’t knock too hard because it was almost eleven o’clock, and he mentioned having kids.

  The light that spilled out from the peephole went black, and a moment later the door swung open. In the dim lighting of the foyer, many of his features were obscured. He was of average build, and his hairline was receding. The wisps of brown stuck out in the light. He wore a thermal long-sleeve shirt and pajama bottoms. He glanced around nervously at us and opened the screen door.

  “Come in,” he whispered. He held open the door and we filed in one after another. “Try to walk lightly, the kids are asleep.”

  I nodded and waited behind him as the rest of us made it inside. He closed and locked the door behind us. “Follow me,” he instructed and led us down a hallway with cherry oak floors. Lucas and his wife had good taste. The farther we walked, the more we saw. We entered a kitchen with granite countertops and tiled-rock floors. It reminded me of my mom’s house, but it wasn’t decorated as tropical. Just the thought of her caused the ache in the center of my chest to radiate outwards. It felt like flames were searing my insides, but I had almost become accustomed to the sensation since that day. I knew I would be feeling it for a long time.

  Lucas opened a door and led us down the stairs into a basement. He flicked on a light as he rounded a corner, and it took a few seconds to take it all in. It was fully-furnished. The carpet was off-white, and there was a massive, black leather sectional in the center of the room. A flat-screen of gargantuan size was on the wall across from the sectional. There were two love seats along the short side of the sectional of the same color. The walls were painted a deep burgundy. It almost gave it a look like this was a theater. There were two doors along opposite corners of the room. I assumed there was more than just this. Once the last of us had entered, we all stood there awkwardly. Lucas motioned to the sectional with his hand.

  “Please, take a seat.”

  We all sat down. I saw Natasha on the other side nervously glancing around the room. Viktor and Grey kept stern dispositions, as to not show fear of this man. Briana was elbow to elbow with me. Judging by Lucas’s expression, he felt just as awkward as we did.

  “Are any of you hungry?” he asked. “Would you like something to drink? Tea? Lemonade?”

  “Actually,” Natasha blurted out, “which way is the bathroom?”

  “It’s that door right there,” he said, pointing to the far corner.

  She stood up without thanking him.

  “I would love a glass of lemonade if you don’t mind,” Viktor added with a smile. I glanced over at him with an annoyed expression. Why were they being so rude?

  Lucas nodded with a halfhearted smile and headed for the stairs.

  “Sure, I’ll be right back,” he said.

  The moment he was almost up the stairs, Viktor stood and walked away. I turned around, confused as to where he was going. He opened the door opposite to the bathroom Natasha was in. I saw a light turn on and heard his footsteps growing fainter. Within about ten seconds, he returned, turning off the light and closing the door behind him.

  “The exit is through there,” he breathed heavily as if he had ran throughout the rest of the basement. “I unlocked it.” Natasha sat down just a moment after him. “I found these in one of the drawers,” she announced, holding up a silver pair of cuticle scissors.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I gasped in shock.

  Natasha glared back at me with the most serious expression I had ever seen on her face. Her black eyes were empty.

  “Viktor and I didn’t make it two years on the run by trusting strangers.”

  I swallowed hard, and her words hit me in the gut. The way hers and Viktor’s minds worked was not crafted by chance—it was by practice. This was their reality, and it had been for two years. They were always prepared for the worst, even in seemingly innocuous situations.

  Lucas’s footsteps sounded as he descended the staircase. I saw Natasha clutch the scissors within her palm to conceal them. He rounded the corner with a glass of lemonade, and I could hear the pieces of ice clinging around inside. He walked over and handed it to Viktor.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “You’re very welcome.”

  But were we welcome? We were sitting defenseless in the enemy’s home. I was staring at the face of a man who worked with the same people that had been chasing me and Owen across the eastern seaboard for the past two weeks. Doubt and suspicion darted around my mind.

  “So, Rachel,” Lucas began, sitting on the oversized ottoman in the middle of us. “I was told by your godfather that you might be in need of my assistance.”

  “Yes,” I answered, nodding nervously. “He told me you worked for the CIA.”

  “I do.” His voice was solemn. “I have been there for almost ten years.”

  “That’s a long time,” Viktor said. I turned to him to see the same stern face he had when he first sat down. He was distrusting of him. Lucas seemed to take notice, and his eyes squinted from being scrutinized by Viktor.

  “It is,” he responded calmly. “The past year, though, has felt longer than the first nine combined.”

  “Was that because of Veronica? Or because you couldn’t handle the guilt of knowing you were helping destroy this country?” Viktor jeered. I turned to him with my mouth agape. How brash he was being. Lucas snorted and nodded his head slowly with pressed lips.

  “A little bit of both, actually,” he admitted. “I am ashamed that I sat on the sidelines while all of this went on, but you wouldn’t understand how trapped we were. If we defected, we would be dead men—”

  “Better to die with some integrity,” Viktor interjected, “instead of just letting them use innocent civilians as pawns.”

  I saw pain in Lucas’s eyes. Viktor was testing his will, and it was visibly hurting him.

  “That is exactly why I contacted Ian,” he said. His tone rose in frustration. “I served three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, all for what? To watch the people that sent me there attempt to dissolve our freedom?”

  “That was a pointless war built on lies,” Viktor sneered.

  “Viktor,” Grey scolded. “Stop this.”

  Lucas’s face contorted. He was becoming angry.

  “That’s not the point!” he yelled, and then tried to suppress his voice. “I didn’t create the lies, did I? I thought I was doing something good. I thought I was protecting our freedom from terrorists, and then after some time in the CIA I realized it was all for profit. You don’t have a
clue what I have been through. I have watched my brothers die beside me in battle, and many of my friends and I suffer from PTSD. Do you know what it’s like not to be able to take pictures with your family? I can’t handle seeing a camera flash anymore.”

  Viktor’s face softened from hearing his statement.

  “The point is, I took an oath to protect the constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic. The terrorists are a stone’s throw away from us. Do you know how badly I wanted to just kill her myself? Could you imagine sitting twenty feet away from her in a control room for three months straight?”

  “No,” Viktor said. “I could never.”

  Lucas calmed down, and his heavy breathing subsided.

  “If only you knew how much I am risking by having her in my house,” he said to Viktor, nodding in my direction. “I am risking the safety of my wife and kids by agreeing to help you all, but I have to. I despise Veronica with every cell in my body.”

  “So do I,” I spoke up.

  “Me too,” Viktor added.

  Lucas nodded and looked around at all of us.

  “I can tell you both do,” he said, turning to look at me. “I was told by Ian that someone you were with had a massive piece to the puzzle, as he referred to it. Do you have it here with you?”

  I glanced over at Viktor, and Viktor turned to Lucas.

  “Yes, I do,” he responded. He slid off his backpack and unzipped the laptop slit. He pulled it out and turned it on. A moment later, he put the flash drive in a USB port. I saw the images open. He stood up and handed Lucas the laptop.

  “Hit the right arrow key to go through them all,” he instructed.

  I watched Lucas’s eyes flicker as he clicked through the images of the shipping containers, and with each passing second his face scrunched up more.