At Midnight

by Blair Babylon

  He leaned forward, pushing his plate toward the center of the table so he could interlace his fingers on the edge. “Yes, sometimes it is about loyalty, and sometimes it’s about a teenager who thought he had doomed himself and his family,” he nodded at Valerian, sitting across the table from him, “to death for bungling an operation so badly that the police had found out. Maybe he thought death was the honorable thing to do. When he found he didn’t have enough honor even to kill himself correctly, he disappeared instead.”

  That was his explanation: when the police came, he thought that he had screwed up and so he had run, not that he was a traitor.

  It was all lies.

  Piotr cocked his head to the side and smiled, showing his straight, white teeth. “What is honor worth in rubles?”

  “What is the price of a man’s soul?”

  “Ah, the reflexive property, so zero equals zero.” Piotr leaned forward, too, steepling his fingers in front of himself. “I’ve always liked you, Raphael. You reminded me of myself, when I was younger. I’ve taken over the Ilyin Bratva, the entire operation, while you’ve been gone.”

  “I heard. Congratulations.”

  “And you’ve been busy, too.”

  Raphael shrugged. “I’ve been a bodyguard, hiding in obscurity. I’ve done nothing of note.”

  Piotr’s smile widened. “That’s not true, is it?”

  “I was employed by Wulfram von Hannover. I can get a letter of recommendation if you like.”

  “Valerian doesn’t want you to be my bodyguard. He wants you to be an integral part of the clandestine activities that the Ilyin Bratva coordinates with Geneva Trust. That requires managerial skills and business acumen. Doesn’t it, Valerian?”

  His father hadn’t said more than a few words during the whole supper, no doubt preferring to keep himself and the bank out of any storm. “The intent of this meeting was to, hopefully, restore Raphael to his rightful place in our organization.”

  Raphael did not react, but he was listening closely.

  Our organization, his father had said.

  Interesting.

  Piotr’s smile grew. He seemed more than amused at the conversation. The deep laugh lines around his blue eyes and unwavering grin seemed almost mirthful. “I have dozens of men who could facilitate a heroin shipment through a port where the customs officials have already been bribed and only need to stay bribed. What do you bring to the table that they can’t, Dieter Schwarz?”

  Raphael blinked at the name ringing in the air.

  When he looked up, his father’s expression was almost unchanged, other than a quick glance at Piotr Ilyin and the thinning of his lips that indicated he might be repressing confusion.

  Raphael said, “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “You do know what I mean, Wachtmeister Dieter Schwarz.”

  That name again, but this time with his Swiss military rank equivalent to Sergeant, too.

  Piotr knew.

  Raphael studied his hands and breathed, trying to buy time.

  Piotr removed a folded paper from the pocket inside his suit coat. “You have been a busy lad since you disappeared, haven’t you? One just needs to know where to look.”

  The paper flopped open on the table.

  Dates.

  Dieter Schwarz’s military records, commendations, and honorable discharge.

  The name Wulfram von Hannover.

  Addresses in Rolle, London, Chicago, and the American Southwest.

  Dates for his marriage to and divorce from Gretchen, and her appallingly recent birthdate. Raphael drank whiskey older than that.

  A notation that he had taken a first-class Bachelor of Science degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science in Economic History and Geography, and a Master’s in Business Administration from the London Business School.

  The incorporation details for the Swiss holding company Rogue International Security, AG, with both Dieter Schwarz and Raphael Mirabaud listed among the principal investors and operators.

  Piotr tapped low on the paper. “That was your mistake. The corporation for Rogue Security is the only place I’ve found that ties your names together. We researched all the principal investors in your company, but we couldn’t find significant papers on this elusive Dieter Schwarz, a citizen of Switzerland, who had sprung into being in the military at the age of eighteen with no past. Nice military record, by the way. Very impressive. Maneuvering a heroin shipment through an Italian port must have been a walk in the park for you. After we got your new name, working backward was easy, or so my IT people tell me. When we traced him, certain legal documents bearing your name came to light.”

  Piotr’s hackers shouldn’t have been able to find the names on the incorporation papers. Layers of shell companies should have prevented it. Blaise Lyon and Wulfram’s attorneys had assured Dieter that the investors’ names would be shielded from any inquiry or probe.

  Yet, there they were.

  Cold air blew down from an air conditioner in the ceiling.

  Piotr dug his knife into his steak, slicing off another piece of meat. He paused with it halfway to his mouth to say, “You don’t think that I would let an unknown person shepherd a large heroin shipment through customs on merely the word of my banker, do you?”

  Valerian looked down at his plate.

  Raphael asked Piotr, “What do you want?”

  Piotr sat back. “That’s quite the question, isn’t it?”

  “It’s a very specific question.”

  “I think you know the answer.”

  Yes, he did.

  Raphael stared at the smears of blood and meat on the porcelain plate in front of him. “All of it. You want all of it.”

  Piotr leaned forward, looming to Raphael’s side. “Every last man, all the records, every last drop of intel. Your men at Rogue Security work for me now.”

  Raphael couldn’t look up, couldn’t even lift his eyes to look at his father to see if he’d known this was going to happen.

  Piotr continued, “From what little we can gather, you’ve put together one of the deadliest mercenary armies in the world. It’s not large, but it doesn’t have to be because each of those men is a force multiplier.”

  People, Raphael mentally corrected Piotr. Each of his people was a force multiplier. A small but significant number of his operators were women. Evidently, Piotr hadn’t realized that.

  Piotr’s voice lowered, but it still rang in Raphael’s ears. “As of this very minute, Rogue Security is now wholly owned and operated by the Ilyin Finance Corporation and its affiliates.”

  The bratva had incorporated. How modern of them.

  Raphael asked, “Will they know?”

  “I think it would work better if nothing appears to have changed, don’t you?”

  “Agreed.” So, he would lie to his Rogue Security operators, every day. Flicka and Alina would continue to be held hostage for his compliance. He would convey orders to Rogue Security, but the type of missions they would be running now would be vastly different. “I’m not sure they’ll do it.”

  “I’m sure they will,” Piotr said. “I’m sure that every last one of them will remain in your employ, or you and they will find life very uncomfortable.”

  Raphael sucked in a deep breath of stale air. “Right.”

  “You see, Raphael, I’m willing to overlook your prior mishap when you were a teenager, as the story is that you ran when you realized you had screwed up so badly. Making a gift of Rogue Security would not be enough to save a traitor, but if this story is correct, if you convince everyone around you with your exemplary work that you have always been a loyal member of the Ilyin family, we do not need to revisit it. You understand?”

  “I understand.” Very well.

  “I must admit, the gift of a private army is very convincing. It could make me forgive almost anything in the past. After all, the police raids that night and later cleared the deadwood out of the Ilyin Bratva hierarchy and allowed
me to take over. If you had been the police informant, I suppose I should thank you, but I would still have to make an example of you, you understand. Whatever the true story, though, the important part is what you are bringing to the table and that from this day forward, you are a true and loyal member of the Ilyin Bratva.”

  Raphael said, “Yes. You have my word on it.”

  As Raphael looked up, he caught an expression on his father’s face—a line between his eyes and one silver eyebrow lower than the other—that seemed like confusion mixed with disturbance.

  Perhaps he hadn’t known about Rogue Security.

  Perhaps he didn’t realize what else he was offering to Piotr Ilyin when he offered him his son.

  Maybe he hadn’t anticipated that there was any way Raphael might survive this evening, and he was disappointed.

  Piotr beamed at Raphael, his blue eyes sparkling with good humor. “I look forward to working with you.”

  About the Money

  Raphael Mirabaud

  Sometimes, it isn’t.

  Sometimes it is.

  On the ride home, the car wound through the nearly empty streets of Geneva. It was after midnight, and they drove through the financial district toward the larger avenue that would take them around Lake Geneva to the Mirabaud estate.

  The bright square of a streetlight ghosted through the car, illuminating Valerian’s pensive expression. He pressed his fingertips together in front of his chest and asked, “You incorporated your security company in Switzerland?”

  Raphael knew what was coming. “The corporate tax rates are significantly better than in the U.S.”

  “In which canton did you incorporate?” Cantons are the member-states of the Swiss Confederacy.

  “Zug,” Raphael said.

  “Of course. Zug has the lowest tax rates of all the cantons.”

  “Yes.”

  “Geneva Trust has a branch in Zug for that very reason.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “You must have had to deposit a significant sum in a Swiss bank to satisfy the requirements to incorporate here,” Valerian said.

  “Yes.” Raphael looked out the car window at the dark city. Most of the buildings were black monoliths, looming in the night.

  “Which bank did you use?”

  And there it was.

  “Ladnier-Zern Trust,” he admitted.

  Valerian touched his chest and grimaced as if in pain.

  Sharp fire raced through Raphael, an urge from when he wore a hotter head. I couldn’t open an account at Geneva Trust, my father. You would have found me. You would have found a way to bring me back here, me and everyone I loved, and hold us all hostage to do your dirty work or as a terrible gift for Piotr Ilyin. I’m still not sure I won’t find Alina’s and Flicka’s broken, bleeding bodies in your house, directly before one of these brutes puts a bullet in my head, except that Piotr Ilyin wants Rogue Security. Therefore, I will betray the men who trusted me so much that they left their jobs and their countries for Rogue Security. I have tried to prevent exactly this scenario for years. It was why I left Flicka and broke both of us because I knew you would threaten her to get to me, and then you would kill us both.

  Cool vapors trailed over Raphael’s skin.

  Despite the paperwork that had lain on the supper table, he was no longer Dieter Schwarz, the honorable man built of alpine ice. Raphael hoped that Dieter Schwarz lay dead in an ice cave in the Alps somewhere, because he would have been disgusted at what Raphael had become.

  Raphael said, “It’s only thirty thousand Swiss francs, but we can certainly move the account if you think it’s worth it.”

  “I do, indeed,” Valerian said.

  Because it wasn’t just about the money.

  Because it was about loyalty to the bank and the family.

  Raphael had no loyalty to anyone except Flicka and Alina.

  Raphael

  Flicka von Hannover

  Sometimes, we didn’t talk.

  When Raphael came home that night, Flicka was already in bed, though she wasn’t asleep. She rarely slept when she lay in bed, sometimes dozing, sometimes sleeping for a few hours until she lay awake again, not moving so that she wouldn’t wake Raphael. If she got up, he’d wake up and not sleep until she was back in bed with him.

  That night, she was sitting against the padded headboard and propped up on pillows, reading a French Vogue she had found in his mother’s sitting room.

  The Mirabaud estate was sadly devoid of reading matter except for the musty tomes that had filled the first-floor library. Flicka didn’t feel like reading Cervantes in the original seventeenth-century Spanish. She wanted to read a nice, small-town romance novel where the girl finally gets the guy she’s been in love with for years, after he’s come back from the military or making his fortune or something. She loved those. The parents and best friends were always so nice and funny. Stories about long-lost high school sweethearts were her favorites.

  Flicka missed her friends so much.

  But she hadn’t found a single paperback in the mansion, just gilded volumes and first editions that were worth more than some of the yachts anchored beyond the dark windows and velvet drapes, out in the rippling water of Lake Geneva.

  The expectation probably was that people would read modern fiction on phones and tablets, except they wouldn’t let her have a phone or a tablet.

  Seriously, she would kill someone for an e-reader.

  Raphael came in and leaned against the doorway, his suit jacket slung over one shoulder. He stared at the floor.

  Flicka asked, “What happened?”

  He shook his head without saying anything.

  She rested the magazine on her legs, scared. “Should I get Alina?”

  He shook his head. “You’re both safe for now, I think.”

  “Okay.” She folded her hands on the magazine. “Are you safe?”

  He shrugged. “Probably better than before.”

  She nodded. “Do you want to talk about what happened?”

  He shook his head again. He laid his coat across the back of a chair, pried his shoes off with his toes, and crawled up the bed to wrap Flicka in his arms.

  Beside her ear, his heart thudded in his warm chest under his shirt, and the thick muscles of his arms held her tightly. He rested his chin on top of her head.

  “Raphael?” she asked, wanting to know what the hell had happened.

  “Yes.” His voice was a little out of breath. “Yes, I’m Raphael.”

  She tried to get him to talk, but he kissed her. There was wine on his breath and desperation in his gray eyes.

  His mouth and hands possessed her, covering her skin with warmth and pressure. He slid between her legs, using his tongue and lips to make her squirm, but he pulled back, gently teasing her until she was begging him to let her come. She whispered his name and pleaded with him, a mindless thing he utterly controlled.

  After that, there was no more talking as he sank into her, holding her, and his lovemaking was so slow that she thought maybe the next day would never dawn.

  Afterward, in the dark, Raphael whispered, “I need the phone number for a contact named Basch Favre that was in my phone before we smashed them in Paris. Do you remember it?”

  She did. Of course, she did.

  An Emissary

  Flicka von Hannover

  A proposition and a revelation.

  The next day, Flicka was on edge every time someone walked by the door to their suite, even though Raphael had assured her that nothing would happen that day. She took an extra-long trip to the park just in case she might be able to find an opening to grab Alina and dart away into the crowd, but the Russian guards’ eyes followed their every move. When she went to drink from the water fountain, several of the guards followed her, and others moved closer to Alina, watching around them.

  Flicka strolled around Alina and the other children playing on the slides and swings as snow fluttered through the late November air
. Alina had good clothes now, thick tights, a warm coat, and fluffy gloves, and she loved playing outside in the cold.

  Walking around the playground kept Flicka warm enough to deal with the Swiss weather. She’d spent the summer in the sun-scalded desert of Las Vegas and was living in Geneva, Switzerland for the alpine winter. Something was terribly wrong with that.

  Well, yes, something was terribly wrong, and she had to find a way to escape from it.

  After the park, it was back to the Mirabaud mansion for more hours of tedious terror, always suspecting that the next footsteps outside the suite’s door might result in the doors being kicked in and bullets spraying the room.

  She practiced silent scales on the electronic piano while Alina napped, then worked on some pieces she knew from memory. Heck, let’s face it, she knew hundreds of pieces from memory, maybe thousands. She ran through some quickly, just letting her fingers remember, and then worked on the Prelude in G-Minor by Rachmaninoff to make her mind stop tearing itself to bits.

  Flicka didn’t know how she had lived like this for over a month. The human body and soul could adapt to anything.

  Afterward, as she sat on the floor with Alina, playing with dolls that were talking to each other in simple French sentences, a quiet knock pattered at the doors.

  Murderers would probably knock more forcefully.

  Without standing up, Flicka called, “Come in!”

  Sophie let herself in and stood in the doorway, leaving the door open behind her. Her hands climbed over themselves, and she stared out the tall windows at the fog-covered sun.

  Alina asked, “Grand-maman?” and waddled over to hug her.

  Sophie patted the toddler hanging on her leg and said to Flicka, “You have a visitor. I think you should talk to him.”

  Confusion blew through Flicka.