As they went deeper into the garage the young woman handed Semion back his jacket. He slid it on while looking at the covered cars. He could tell by their shapes and the Bugatti and Pagani logos that these weren’t just cheap Lada’s, and they certainly weren’t being driven by the guests in this weather. He guessed they were part of someone’s collection. At the end of the garage was a shiny checkerboard covered floor with an immaculate and fully equipped automotive workshop.
They stepped into the circle of light.
“Good evening, Semion,” a silky and strong voice said from the shadows. The woman in the red dress came forward.
Even in medium heels she almost looked Semion in the eye. He thought her light, but not-quite-blonde hair was short enough to mean business but long enough to still be considered pretty. Her dress was tailored just tight, low, and short enough to draw an eye, but not enough to raise an eyebrow. It was also red enough to overpower any other nearby dress. Her accoutrements were perfect, with expert yet subtle makeup and jewelry that was expensive but not overly large. She also wore a small jeweled pin shaped like a twisted ribbon that supported whatever cause was popular that month. At the center of the pin was the same oval logo from the ballroom. Semion guessed she’d had just enough work done to turn fifty-two back to forty-two, but even on New Year’s Eve made sure she stopped just short of being a knock-out. He knew her to be exactly what her appearance screamed. She was a very successful politician.
“Gloria, so nice to see you,” he said as he stepped forward to take her hand and air kiss her on both cheeks, “Such a lovely party. You do know how to impress your guests. How is your daughter? She is at Dartmouth, yes?”
“Yes Semion, she is. Thank you for asking,” Gloria said, “Her final year, God willing.” She crossed her fingers for effect.
Semion beckoned behind him and said, “I don’t believe you’ve met my daughter. She heads up my interests here in the states.” As the brunette stepped to his side he said, “Katia, this is the new US Deputy National Security Advisor, Gloria Bekker-Myers.”
Katia moved in very close to Gloria and took her hand firmly as she looked up at her. In perfect English with a hint of Manhattan she said, “Katia Mogevich, my father’s told me so much about you.”
“I’m sure he has,” Gloria said as she retrieved her hand and took a half-step back. Gloria had to work to break away from the young woman’s smoky stare. She looked the pretty girl over and then turned to Semion.
Reading Gloria’s face Semion said, “Da, her mother was a model.”
Semion didn’t introduce the asset standing in the shadow behind him and Gloria didn’t acknowledge him.
“Semion,” she said, “I must say it’s rather unusual for me to be seen with you in public. It’s not advisable.”
Semion ignored that and asked, “Do you have it?”
“I could have arranged for you to get this tomorrow,” Gloria said, and flapped her fingers as an expressionless aide in a simple dress stepped from the edge of the shadow. She handed Gloria a large envelope.
Gloria held it out to Semion, but Katia took it and opened it.
As Katia flipped through several bound pages Semion swept an arm in a long arc across the garage behind him and said, “I didn’t know we shared a love for kolymagas, Gloria. Looks to be a most impressive collection.”
Gloria smiled, touched his arm, and said, “Thank you. You’ll appreciate this, in a few weeks I’m taking delivery of a custom Russo Baltique,” she was careful to pronounce the Russian SUV properly, “You and Katia should come for a ride this summer. We’ll take the doors off and head out to the cape.”
Gloria swept her foot across the oval logo set into the center of the checkerboard floor, it represented the non-profit organization that bore her family name. “Of course,” she said with a big smile, “officially these are all my foundation’s cars.” She leaned closer to Semion and said, “Why do you think I need to keep having these God-awful charity events?”
The door at the far end of the dark garage opened and then closed again.
“Da, perfect,” Semion said. He turned and whistled two short notes.
A faint clicking started in the darkness, and then grew louder. The clicking was joined by panting, and a few seconds later a pair of enormous mounds of moving brown and black fur trotted into the circle of light, their toenails echoing on the polished floor.
They were the largest dogs Gloria had ever seen.
Semion patted his hip and the two behemoths split up and stopped on either side of him. With a slight flick of his wrist the dogs sat. Their basketball-size heads came up to Semion’s waist.
“These are my babies, Gloria,” Semion said, “Caucasian Ovcharka shepherd dogs from my winter home in the Urals.” As his big hand disappeared into a pile of fur surrounding the flat face of the dog on his left, he said, “This is Tuman.” He tugged at the fluffy ear of the dog on the right and said, “And this is Graf.”
The dogs didn’t react. They just sat there and panted, and drooled with their shovel tongues bouncing.
“Fog and Thunder,” Katia said, without looking up from the papers.
Semion studied Gloria’s face and said, “One hundred and ten kilograms of impressive wolf-hunting aggression, are they not? They require a strong hand as they can be quite vicious, especially around strangers. The Ovcharka is notorious for not listening to a command to stop attacking. They will, on occasion, just keep biting and ripping until well after their opponent is dead, no matter what their master tells them. Of course Tuman and Graf here are quite well trained, mostly.”
“They are beautiful,” was all Gloria could manage.
Almost twenty years ago Gloria had given a teary-eyed speech at an ASPCA fund raiser where she revealed a traumatic childhood event involving a large dog. She had dabbed at her eyes and politely refused the chairwoman’s offer of a tissue as she patted a little golden Labrador. She had explained to the riveted crowd how she had worked hard to overcome her fears, and had become a true dog lover. The speech had hit CNN and won her first congressional election race. The tears were orchestrated bullshit but the fear of large dogs was plenty real. She gave Semion’s tough little bitch of a daughter some credit for doing her research.
Gloria smiled, and took a breath. These vipers were getting her ire up but she reminded herself she had handled enough snakes to know how to put slimy serpents back into their basket without getting bit.
Still, she couldn’t stop staring at the two grizzly bears watching her dispassionately with their dark oval eyes. They looked hungry, and somewhere deep inside her a six year old little girl was screaming.
“This document only covers the cleanup efforts,” Katia said, “And is barely a cover page. Most of the report is missing or redacted.” Katia waved the papers in front of Gloria and said, “Nothing of any use to us.” To her father she said, “Its govno, Batya.”
“Hold on,” Gloria objected with a raised hand, “Let us not forget who supplied you with the original report in the first place, which I procured at great risk thank you very much. I’m the one who handed you solid proof your accelerator formula finally worked, and it had worked on someone in Pembury.”
“I need the entire report, and all referenced reports,” Katia said, ignoring Gloria’s protests. She fixed Gloria with a look that the new Deputy National Security Advisor had to admit was pretty good. “I need the concentrations, timelines, aliasing components, environmental factors. Thoroughness is essential, madam deputy,” she said.
Gloria noted with some satisfaction that a little Russian accent had crept back into Katia’s polished voice.
“I can’t get anything deeper than summary reports without it being noticed,” Gloria said flatly, “I work in the West Wing for Christ’s sake, we don’t trifle with details like that.”
Gloria dug into her mental toolbox of carefully crafted hard-ass looks and pulled out one of her classics to use on Katia.
After enduring a
long moment of the women’s posturing duel, Semion said, “I think we need a better understanding of our relationship.”
He raised a finger and in one fluid motion the asset pulled a silenced pistol and fired. There was a small snap and simultaneous thunk from one of the metal tool closets behind Gloria, followed by a tinkling as the empty shell casing bounced on the polished floor.
Gloria’s aide clutched her throat with both hands and made faint convulsive sucking sounds. She dropped to her knees. Her elbows flapped as if she was trying to fly away, or pump the blood out of her drowning lungs. She was staring at Gloria and mouthing something as a dark stain spread down the front of her dress.
One of the dogs licked his chops loudly.
Gloria looked down at the line of black splatter running up her dress. She had her hands out as if to catch the aide but didn’t move as the woman fell forward. Blood flowed from under the aide and spread out on the checkerboard floor, obscuring Gloria’s foundation logo.
Semion stepped over the woman and took Gloria’s shaking hands. They looked small wrapped in his.
The normally polished politician looked at him with wide eyes that were unable to look away.
He said, “Gloria, my little reebyohnuk, you have no idea what you’re dealing with. My accelerator formula is the next step in soldier evolution, and quite possibly human evolution. It will eclipse any human invention before it, and ensure peace and order for generations to come. My government lacks the vision to see its true potential. Your government lacks the will to see it through to completion. Both have become ineffective. I built this program through shed blood and plundered fortunes the depths of which you can’t even conceive. I brought in the best and have given them everything they need, and we are poised to unlock the formula’s secrets. We just need to GET THE FUCKING THING TO WORK!”
Semion nodded to the asset who then spoke calmly into his phone.
Semion fixed an errant strand of Gloria’s hair and continued, “A spoiled, ungrateful little ex-senator who fancies herself a glorified security guard isn’t even a small shiska in the road. I put you into this new position you love so much and I can just as easily remove it, and everything you hold dear.”
As Semion spoke the asset knelt to retrieve his spent shell casing. Noticing a drop of blood splatter on his custom boots he took out a handkerchief and carefully wiped it clean. He stood and took Gloria by the arm.
Semion’s look softened and he said, “Have no fear my dear. We will soon arrange to drop the ‘Deputy’ from your title and you will be the new National Security Advisor. Perhaps that will afford you the latitude required to be more helpful. In the meantime continue to be smart, but I need the rest of those reports.”
Katia took her father’s arm and before they turned to leave Semion said, “My comrade will make sure you get home safely, and don’t worry about this mess.”
The asset led Gloria away into the darkness as the huge bodyguard came into the circle of light with a roll of plastic, a spray bottle, and a roll of paper towels. He smiled an ugly smile as Tuman and Graf started to lick up the blood.
Chapter 5
Around two in the morning Mimi and Ben couldn’t keep their eyes open and stumbled off to bed, leaving the parents, Kelcy, and the pups to tend the fire. The snow had started again and the wind had picked up. It whistled through the eaves and produced a low creaking from somewhere in the old farmhouse.
The wintery sounds gave Aila a chill and she snuggled into the pillow. She pulled the blanket up to her nose as she spooned her hips back into her husband.
She reached out from under the blanket and carefully picked up her wine glass. It had been filled and emptied often during the evening and she was seeing it through slightly fuzzy eyes. After downing what remained she set the empty glass a few inches out of the way on the coffee table so she could stare into the slowly dwindling fire. She was mesmerized by a bright spot at the bottom, just under the last intact piece of firewood where the shifting white heat slowly cut squares out of the log. She stared, and tried to guess the temperature at that very spot.
From deep in the loveseat Smudge groaned and readjusted, and poked her head out from under the blanket. She dug around for her little chicken plush toy and in the process uncovered Aila’s feet.
“Chilly,” Aila whined as she wiggled her toes.
Smudge grabbed the blanket and carefully covered her feet again, making sure to tuck it in under Aila’s heels. She gave them a pat when she was done.
“So,” Dan said, shaking his head at the two of them and finally broaching the subject that everyone had been avoiding for the past hour, “Ben wants to go up to Hamish’s?”
Kelcy stretched her feet out from under her blanket, flexing her tartan slippers in front of the fire. She said, “You should let him go, Dad.”
After a few seconds of quiet Dan said, “That’s it? Oh, okay, he can go, thanks Kels.”
Aila said, “Mimi says he’s ready.”
Another few seconds of silence ticked by.
“Okay, thanks dear,” Dan said, “Wow, Hogan woman short on chin wagging, that’s a first.”
“It’s beautiful there,” Aila said dreamily as the last log collapsed on itself and a hot ember rolled to the front of the fire screen, “Do you remember our honeymoon, back when we had nothing but each other, dear heart?”
“So our eleven year old is going off to find love in the romantic great white north?” Dan asked.
“We’ve all been up there, except for Ben,” Kelcy said as she spun in her blanket to face him, “We rave about how awesome it is, and the Hamish stories Mimi tells are his favorites. Of course he wants to go, it’s a friggin’ dog lover’s paradise and he’s totally into everything canine. The pups would love it, too.”
Both dogs nodded.
“The canny canine cop caught the cagey criminal,” Aila whispered to the fire, “We’ve been promising we’d all go when we had the time…never enough time.”
Kelcy sat up and said, “Spot, your elbow’s digging into me.” She moved the grumbling dog over a few inches and continued, “But it’s more than that, Dad.”
“Yes it is,” Aila added, and then fell silent again.
Dan looked down at his tipsy wife and shook his head again. “How’s that Kels?” he asked.
“He misses Papa,” she said, “They used to do all kinds of things together…hike, fish, build things, break things. Papa taught Ben a lot. You’ve been awesome about that stuff lately, but no offense Dad you weren’t around much when he was here at the farm with Papa for all those summers. And Uncle Hamish is kinda like a bigger, louder, more sweary version of him.”
“All good points,” Dan said, “But send him by himself? Sorry pups, you know what I meant.”
“You guys let me go up there alone when I was a kid,” Kelcy said.
“You were hardly a kid. You were thirteen,” Dan said. He wasn’t too far behind his wife in the emptying wine glasses department and had to count carefully with his fingers, “Which was only two summers ago, and since when did Ben getting to do something earlier than you not result in you pitching a fit?” and then to Spot he said, “Hey useless dog number two, would you please go put another log on the fire?”
Spot looked over at Dan from his comfortable place in Kelcy’s lap.
“And don’t give me any of that I’m afraid of fire crap,” Dan added, pretending to sign by wiggling his fingers.
Kelcy pushed Spot’s rump off of her. She got up from the couch and asked, “Does anyone need anything?” as she rubbed her backside and headed off towards the bathroom.
Smudge shook her head, and Aila held her wine glass up but Dan took it from her. “No, we’re good,” he said, and then added “Hey, bring me a water, please.”
“Every party has a pooper, that’s why we invited yoo-per,” Aila sang, still staring into the fire. “Both of your kids were created up there, Daniel,” she said, “Or don’t you recall our spring vacations? It’s a mag
ical place, and a boy that’s been through a year like he has should get to go to a magical place for a little while.”
Kelcy returned and handed the water bottle to her dad.
Spot nosed open the fire screen and chucked in a few logs using his paw-hand. He bumped the screen closed again with his rump and returned to the couch next to Kelcy. He spun around a few times, kneading his paws in the blanket before plunking down with his head in her lap and giving Dan a look.
“Well done, useless,” Dan said, “Look, I want them to go, really I do…I just don’t know. What about school?”
“Dad,” Kelcy said, “The same reason I don’t pitch fits anymore is the same reason Ben’s ready to go up north. You must have noticed this year’s done something to us. All of us. With these pups, and what we’ve been through together. We’re older. Smarter I guess. Sometimes I think whatever happened to these little guys has rubbed off on us. I don’t care about stupid things anymore, and neither does Ben. When’s the last time you had to remind him to shower, or brush his hair, or do his homework…or pulled me off of him?”
Aila turned and looked up at Dan. Although a little foggy, her look read She’s right. We’ve seen it, haven’t we?
Kelcy was trying to figure out if it was the wine and champagne, of if they really hadn’t noticed how far her brother had matured. She had started out the conversation thinking she was laying a foundation of the obvious to prep for the big pitch, but the parents really aren’t around Ben as much as she or Mimi were.
“You guys should see him at school,” she said, “He’s the most popular kid in his grade and no one messes with him anymore. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but my pain in the ass little brother has actually turned into a non-loser. He’s always been book smart in a massively geeky kinda way, but now he’s ten times sharper than most of the kids in my grade even. His teachers have pretty much given up and let him work as far ahead as he wants to. And it’s not just book smarts…he kinda just, I don’t know, gets stuff.”
The Glasgow Gray: Spot and Smudge - Book 2 Page 3
