Allegiance Burned: A Jackson Quick Adventure

by Tom Abrahams

  “Is the baby rescued?”

  “Uh, let’s just say there’s no Andy Garcia there to save it.” My dad dug his hand back into the bowl of popcorn.

  “But it never really happened, right? The baby wasn’t really hurt?”

  “No, it didn’t happen. The director put there to represent how horrible he thought the Imperial Regime was at the turn of the century.”

  “Innocent people weren’t killed by the soldiers, then?”

  “I can’t say that,” he said. “There were a lot of people killed during that revolution. Then after the revolution, when the Bolsheviks took over, they killed people too.”

  “The people getting killed for what they believed then killed others for what they believed?”

  “Yes.” He picked up the remote and set in on his knee next to the bowl. “That’s how it typically works, Jackson. Violence tends to keep people in power and remove them from it.”

  “That’s not what happened in America?”

  “No,” he said, “that’s what makes our country so special. Power is transferred from the loser to the winner without violence. That doesn’t happen in a lot of places.”

  “I hate violence, Dad,” I said. “I just don’t understand it. I mean, self-defense is one thing, but hurting people because they don’t agree with you is wrong. Hurting people because you both want the same thing, because you want money or power or control of things, is wrong.”

  “Son,” he said, his hand pausing in the bowl, “violence should never be the solution. People should be able to resolve their differences, seek control, earn money, and win power without hurting others. However, violence has plagued us since Cain killed Abel. Sometimes it’s just the way the world works and violence is a necessary evil. Sometimes there’s no avoiding it.”

  I was surprised to hear my dad rationalize violence. Of course, at the time, I wasn’t mature enough to understand my confusion. My dad, my saint and hero, a man who liked guns but despised hunting, was telling me that violence could be justified as a means to an end.

  Sometimes...violence is a necessary evil. Sometimes there’s no avoiding it.

  He pressed play on the remote and the Al Capone henchmen run off, leaving Kevin Costner’s Elliot Ness and Andy Garcia’s Giuseppe Petri alive amidst the carnage on the steps.

  ***

  The crowds on the Potemkin Stairs are sparse. From the top of the steps, they appear to be a series of wide landings, deceptively hiding the one hundred and ninety-two steps. Beyond the steps is the Black Sea and the Port of Odessa, framed by the large trees populating either side of the stairs.

  To my left is the Duke de Richelieu Monument, a bronze statue honoring the city’s first mayor. To my right, a couple of hundred yards away, are police and paramedics responding to the park. Incredibly, despite the large pack on my back and the desperation I’m sure is evident on my face, nobody pays me any attention.

  I shrug the pack and start down the steps to the first landing. There’s a woman selling hand-bedazzled wooden crosses. She’s gripping one by its bottom, holding it out to me as though she’s exorcizing a demon.

  “Ви захочете купити?” she asks me if I want to buy one, telling me it’s a good price. “Це - гарна ціна!”

  “Ні дякую,” I tell her, no, but I need her help finding someone. I surprise myself at just how much Ukrainian I remember. I haven’t used it in so long. “Я потребую вашої допомоги.”

  “Я не дивлюся будь що.” She hasn’t seen see anything, she says, she’s too busy with her business. But maybe, if I were to buy something, she could help. “одна рука миється інший.”

  I ask her how much one of the crucifixes costs and then pull out a five dollar bill, which more than covers her price. I describe Bella and ask the woman if she’s seen her.

  “Висока жінка. Гарна жінка,” she holds her hand above her head and tells me she’s seen a tall, pretty woman. She points down the steps toward the port entrance, suggesting she went that way.

  “Дякую,” I thank her and then hand back the bedazzled crucifix, suggesting she sell it again to someone else.

  Bounding down the steps, three or four more peddlers offer me their homemade goods, calling after me as I pass by them with smiles and waves. Scanning the groupings of tourists, I don’t see her. At the bottom of the steps, I turn around to look for her one more time, just in case the woman was wrong. From this vantage point, the landings disappear and the steps seem continuous up to the statue. No Bella.

  Across a narrow street is the entrance to the port. It’s a slim, cream-colored building with large glass panes across the length of its facade. Beyond the building is a road leading to the main passenger terminal and a tall hotel at the end of a lengthy dock. Ships line either side of the dock, a huge white cruise ship is moored to the right.

  Before I walk into the cream-colored building I hit redial on a burner phone. It rings twice.

  “Jackson?”

  “Bella, where are you?” I turn around, looking for her. She’s nowhere. “What happened? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she says. “I mean, I’m not fine. But I’m not hurt.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m not sure,” she says. “I’m in a hotel lobby.”

  “Hotel lobby?” I swing back to look up the steps. “You’re not at our hotel are you?” If she’s there, we’re toast.

  “I…uh…I don’t know,” she sounds distracted, disoriented maybe. “I just wandered here. I don’t remember it. I can see the ocean.”

  “Okay. Just stay where you are. Find somewhere to sit down. I’ll be there in a minute. Don’t talk to anyone.”

  “Jackson?”

  “Yes?”

  “We’re going to die, aren’t we?” Her voice is even, no hint of expression or fear. She’s stating a fact as much as she’s asking me a question.

  “Not if I can help it,” I assure her. “Now stay there.”

  I walk purposefully through the wide opening of the cream colored building, past Uzi-wearing armed guards, and straight for the back entrance. There’s an equally wide doorway on the back side of the building that leads to the main terminal building on the dock. With both hands gripping the straps of my pack I march through the opening and back into the morning sun, and merge into the throngs of cruise passengers making their way to the vendors on the Potemkin Stairs. A couple passing me on my left is speaking Spanish. There’s German from an elderly man speaking to what I imagine is his adult daughter or mistress.

  My head’s down, and I view the spate of black socks and sandals as the Europeans shuffle by. After they pass, my attention turns to the two-story terminal building, which looks like the bridge of a large ship, to the monstrous Hotel Odessa, which towers a dozen or more stories above the end of the long dock.

  It’s a gleaming white building the locals hate. My bet is that’s where I’ll find Bella.

  ***

  I slog through the rotating door and a blast of air conditioning greets me in the lobby of the Hotel Odessa. The cool air is almost immediately replaced with the stale stench of lingering cigarette smoke. To the left of the expansive, two-story foyer is an arrangement of chairs and tables.

  In a high back, red leather chair, chewing on her thumb, is Bella. Her knees are together and she’s leaning on them with her elbows. The burner phone is on her lap. She’s rocking back and forth, staring at nothing in particular.

  I sit in the chair next to her, dropping my pack onto the floor. “I’m here, Bella.” She hasn’t noticed me. “Bella?”

  She snaps her head around, her eyes blinking rapidly. She stares at me before saying, “Jackson?”

  “I’m here, Bella,” I reach out to touch her hand but she flinches. “You’re okay.”

  “I’m not okay, Jackson.” Her eyes regain focus and bore into mine. “Don’t keep saying that. That’s twice inside of six hour
s that I’ve been in the middle of a gunfight. People are dying. I’m not equipped to handle this.”

  “First of all,” I grip her hand tightly enough that she doesn’t pull away again, “that wasn’t a gunfight. I shot them. They didn’t shoot back. You were never in danger of being shot.”

  “I don’t buy that,” she says, shaking her head. “That guy, whoever he was, he would’ve killed me. I’m kicking myself for not seeing this, for not recognizing immediately that he wasn’t Dr. Gamow. I’ve met Dr. Gamow before.”

  “Yeah,” I let go of her hand and slide onto the edge of my seat, “but you told me you had no recollection of what he looked like. You can’t blame yourself for that. You can’t blame yourself for any of this. It is what it is.”

  “It is what it is?” She looks puzzled. I notice her complexion is sallow. She’s lost her color with the exception of the dark circles underlining her eyes. “What does that mean?”

  “I mean that I knew what I was getting into here. Sir Spencer wouldn’t involve me if it didn’t involve death and deceit. I assumed there would be plenty of both.”

  She doesn’t respond, her gaze aiming into the distance again.

  “Wanna hand me the burner phone?” I nod at the phone in her lap. “I don’t think you need it.”

  She blinks to attention and hands the phone to me. “It’s not the burner. This belonged to the guy you killed.”

  “You say that like it was a bad thing.”

  “It wasn’t a good thing, was it?” She glares at me with the same disgust reflected in her tone.

  “Sometimes violence is a necessary evil. It was kill him or risk him killing you. You said he would have killed you, and you’re judging me for protecting you?”

  “Whatever, Jackson. I’m not judging anyone. I don’t know what to do. We’re gonna get killed. Or we’re gonna kill more people. Or both. This whole thing is a horrible mess that I never intended.”

  She’s not making sense. Then again, she’s not accustomed to bullets flying at her face. I get it.

  I flip the phone over in my hand and look at the screen. It’s a Blackberry. “I didn’t think people used these anymore.” The screen glows to life with a push of the power button.

  “You know I never intended this, right?”

  “What I know,” I say, my attention shifting from the phone, “is that you’re freaked. You’re frightened. You’re probably in shock. And you’ve lied to me from the beginning.”

  There are no notes on the home page on the phone. The email’s empty too.

  Her eyebrows scrunch together. “How do you know I lied to you?”

  “For starters,” I say, “you admitted it. Second, there’s no way people would be killing for some process that lets submarines talk to one another. It wouldn’t happen.” I find the call list on the phone and start scrolling. There are at least two dozen calls made within the last couple of hours, all but the last one to and from the same number.

  “You’re right,” she says, the color in her cheeks slowly returning. “It’s not only about the subaquatic communications.”

  “Then what’s it about?”

  “I was being blackmailed.”

  Curve ball.

  “What?”

  “Dr. Wolf was blackmailing Nanergetix.”

  Major league curve ball.

  “Why?”

  “He knew that what he’d discovered was a valuable military tool, and the closer he got to perfecting the process, the more he wanted to be compensated.”

  “What did you do?”

  “At first, I tried to reason with him. Jackson, he was well paid. I made sure he knew that his compensation package was far greater than anybody else would be willing to give him.”

  “He didn’t buy it?”

  “No,” she said. “He demanded even more, as in nine figures more.”

  “Like one hundred million dollars?”

  “Like one hundred million dollars.” She resumes chewing on her thumb.

  “Obviously you weren’t going to pay that,” I say.

  “Obviously,” she says, “but he played hard ball. He started shopping the technology right out from under us.”

  “Wait. So you won’t bend to his demands, and while working in your lab, using your equipment, and your money, he blatantly tries to sell your process to somebody else?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “We have corporate counterintelligence people,” she says as though she’s talking about the typing pool. “They informed me of Dr. Wolf’s intentions.”

  “That’s why he separated the pieces?” I ask. “For money?”

  “He didn’t do it to insure his safety,” she says. “He did it to protect his financial interests.”

  “We know there are two lists on those hard drives,” I recall. “One of the drives, and we don’t know which one, is fake. And it doesn’t matter anyhow, because we have almost nothing to go on. Mack gave you an empty drive. After we check out whatever’s on this phone and then maybe the lead you have in Germany, we’re lost.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” she counters. “Based on what my people found, there are four or five pieces out there. I’ve got one of them. If we find one here, somewhere, and then one in Germany, that’s three.”

  “How is it again that you have a piece?”

  “It was pulled off of Wolf’s computer,” she says. “An IT guy found it in a deleted encrypted file. Wolf wasn’t careful enough.”

  “And the rest of the pieces?”

  “People have them,” she says. “As I’ve said before, Wolf gave them to people he apparently trusted, people who’d hold onto them without too many questions. He had a lot of global connections.”

  “We’re going to steal these pieces then? They’re not yours anymore, right?”

  “Technically, no,” she admits. “Legally yes.”

  “Possession is nine tenths of the law.”

  “Right....” She puts her head in her hands. “It’s dangerous. These are not all good people we’re talking about.”

  “‘Good’ seems to be an incredibly relative term right now,” I postulate.

  “Isn’t it always?”

  I lean back in my seat and fold my arms. “Why are you telling me this? You could have kept this from me. I wouldn’t know any different.”

  “I’m telling you,” she says, lifting her head, “because you might be the closest thing I have to someone I can trust. The more I think about Sir Spencer, the less I believe he’s actually trying to help me.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. He suggested you hire me, why would you trust me if you don’t trust him?”

  “You came after me when those guys took me,” she said. “You didn’t have to do that. There was nothing in it for you. You’ve killed people for me. I shouldn’t be bothered by it. I should be thankful.”

  “That’s not entirely true. If I help you get what you need, then Sir Spencer helps me disappear. He uses his resources to give me a new life. I’m in this for myself more than anything. Don’t make me out to be a saint now. I’m neither that nor a devil.”

  “You believe him?” She’s as skeptical as I am.

  “Believe what?”

  “That he’ll help you start over, free of all of this?” She waves her hands at the room around us.

  “I have no choice. I can’t keep running from hiding place to hiding place. It’s worth the risk on the off chance he actually follows through. In the meantime, I get to experience all of this.” My arms wide, I force a smile.

  Bella laughs, then plops back against the leather seat. “I don’t have a choice either.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My father left me this empire I’m ill-equipped to run the way he did,” she says, her gaze distant. “There are subplots within the subplots, schemes within schemes. Within secrets there are more secrets.” She blinks and looks back to me. Her eyes are welling. “My father wasn’t a good man,
” Bella says, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes with the knuckle of her left index finger. I offer her a napkin, which she takes. “Nobody makes billions of dollars seeking sainthood. I’m not naive, Jackson. The money in my bank account is bloodstained.”

  I’m surprised she’s being so candid. She must feel trapped, exhausted, both...

  “However, I have no choice here,” she sniffles. “My father entered into agreements with people who do not care that he’s dead, that he was shot point-blank on live television. I inherited the mess at Homestake, I didn’t seek it out.”

  “You’re doing the best that you can,” I offer, saying something because I feel like I should. “It’s not easy, right?”

  “No,” she laughs through her tears. “It’s not easy. But what am I going to do? Wolf is blackmailing us, then he gets killed, and no sooner than that happens, Sir Spencer is at the front door offering his help.”

  “He came to you?”

  “Yes,” she nods. “He came to me. He told me that he knew about the blackmail attempts by Wolf, because he’d been approached as a possible middleman.”

  “He likes to be the middleman.”

  “So I’ve heard,” she says. “He knew some of the players. He said he had resources to track down the missing pieces of the process. And he said all he wanted in return was a finder’s fee.”

  “How much?”

  “Twenty million,” rolls off her tongue as if it’s twenty cents, “give or take.”

  “Oh, is that all?”

  “It seemed fair for the access he was offering. I’ve been running this company for eighteen months. I can handle the day to day. I’m good in the board room and with investors. Long term corporate vision? I’m awesome. But get into this corporate espionage stuff and I’m lost. I’m not my dad. Looking back, I’d have been better off paying Wolf what he wanted before all of this happened. ”

  “Someone made your decision for you.”

  “How’s that?” She runs her fingers through her hair. “What decision?”

  Someone killed him,” I say. “Someone put you in this position before you could change your mind and pay him, right?”