Rocky Mountain Valor

by Jennifer D. Bokal

  Nikolai Mateev.

  His skin was the color of old paste, his face little more than a skull covered with withered skin. He sat on the sofa, a shriveled and diminished man.

  Yuri was having second thoughts. Maybe coming here for help had not been the wisest choice.

  Nikolai asked, “What happened?” Despite his shrunken appearance, his voice was strong and commanding, his stare still piercing and keen.

  “The police came at dawn,” Yuri said. “They raided the house. I stabbed one and ran over another—he might be dead.”

  Ilya cursed under his breath. “Every cop in Colorado must be looking for you.”

  “You brought the laptop with you?” Nikolai asked.

  “No, otets, I did not.” Otets. Sire. Father.

  “Where is it?”

  The laptop. It held all Nikolai Mateev’s personal and professional information. The otets had brought it with him from Russia and given it to Yuri for safekeeping. He’d hidden it behind the wall of an upstairs bedroom. It might stay hidden forever, but if not the encryption would take weeks to process. Yet that answer wouldn’t be acceptable, not to Nikolai, at least.

  “It was destroyed,” Yuri lied. “Last week.”

  “What did you do with the computer afterward?” Ilya asked. Like Anatoly, he was large and pale. The only difference was that Ilya had light hair, where Anatoly’s was dark.

  “After?” Yuri echoed.

  “After you destroyed the computer, what did you do with it? If you left it in the safe house the FBI will have pieced it back together by now.”

  Yuri wiped a hand across his sweaty neck. “I threw it away—out of town, past the airport about two miles. There’s a road and I just threw it out the window.”

  “I know where that is,” said Ilya. “You took me there once. It’s where you picked up the shipment of heroin.”

  “Yeah,” said Yuri. Let him think what he wants. “That’s the place.”

  “What if you led the police here?” Anatoly asked.

  “I’m resourceful. I made sure I wasn’t followed.”

  Ilya asked, “If you’re so resourceful, then why did you come here?”

  “I need a passport, and money.” Sweat dampened Yuri’s back and his shirt clung to his skin. He’d have to do more than leave Colorado. After this, he’d have to disappear. Maybe go somewhere in South America—Argentina, perhaps.

  “You’re sure about the computer. You destroyed it...” said Nikolai.

  “I smashed it to bits with a hammer and then drove the debris out past the airport.”

  “That wasn’t your job,” said Anatoly. “What if you were seen on the road, maybe by a state trooper? There could be an alert out for you.”

  Nikolai waved away the FSB agents’ concerns. “Unfortunate things happen, and this will all end well. You know what to do.”

  Yuri exhaled. He’d held on to his luck, after all.

  “Thank you...” he began.

  From behind, strong fingers gripped his throat, making it impossible to speak—or even breathe. Yuri clawed at the hands, but the grip tightened. Tighter. Tighter. His lungs burned. He pitched backward, slamming both him and Anatoly into a wall.

  His throat collapsed. Blood pounded in his ears. As death came to claim him, he heard one last voice.

  The words were muffled and indistinct. With the last bit of life, he strained to make out what was being said.

  “Call him,” Nikolai said.

  Him who? Yuri tried to speak, but fingers were clamped hard on his throat, choking off his words—his life.

  “What do you want me to do with Yuri?”

  Nikolai replied, “Dump his body out past the airport and find that damn computer.”

  And then Yuri’s luck ran out.

  * * *

  Always on the lookout for cops, Anatoly kept his eyes on the rearview mirror as he drove. It wouldn’t do to get pulled over, since his identity papers were false. But more than that, the police wouldn’t look kindly at the corpse Anatoly had stowed in the trunk.

  Streetlights hung over the interstate, turning the world an artificial orange. It burned into his corneas and filled his vision with dancing dots. He would’ve preferred the dark.

  “That’s it,” said Ilya, who sat in the passenger seat. “Take that exit there.”

  Anatoly pulled on the steering wheel and the large sedan veered off the highway. A sickening thud came from the trunk as Yuri’s body shifted with the movement.

  “Are you sure you know where you’re going?” Anatoly asked.

  “Yuri took me here once, before he had to stay in that house and guard the computer. Said he meets street dealers way out here. Nobody ever bothers him.”

  “Why would he dump something as important as Nikolai’s computer in a place where dealers rendezvous?”

  “What would they care about some more garbage?” Ilya asked. “To them, it’s nothing.”

  “But why all the way out here?”

  His fellow Russian was silent for a moment. “Because he knows the place.”

  It had been a guess at best, Anatoly knew. At worst, because of Ilya, they were on a fool’s errand. When they returned empty-handed they would have to deal with Nikolai’s wrath.

  Anatoly didn’t want to be the next corpse in a trunk.

  “Turn there,” Ilya said. “On the left.”

  The headlights illuminated a dusty track that seemed to disappear into the night. He followed the road through the darkness. At one point, Anatoly had been a well-respected FSB officer. He had status. Women. Not a lot of money, though, and that had been his downfall. Greed.

  The lust for more rubles had put him in the service of a deranged old goat who sent him out in the middle of the night looking for something that was impossible to find.

  Not for the first time, Anatoly wondered why he didn’t quit. He had money now.

  But he knew the answer. Nikolai Mateev was not a man you loved, but feared.

  “Up here,” he said. “Right after the rise.”

  The car crested the hill. The body rolled in the trunk, a hollow thump, like a melon being dropped on a hot street.

  “Here,” said Ilya.

  After sliding the gearshift into Park, he unlocked the trunk with the push of a button. “I’ll get rid of Yuri. You find the computer.”

  Anatoly didn’t wait for Ilya’s response. He stepped into the night and exhaled, his breath appearing as a frozen mist. Only August, he thought, and already the nights were cold. He opened the trunk and a light came on.

  Anatoly hadn’t felt sadness in years, and he didn’t feel a shred of remorse for having killed Yuri. After all, it was his job. And still Anatoly couldn’t help but think that Yuri had been unwise to believe that Nikolai Mateev might help.

  Looping his arms under the cold shoulders, Anatoly dragged the body out of the car, then to the side of the road.

  He met Ilya as they both came out of the dark, heading for the car. Ilya’s breath caught in a cloud of frost. “It’s not here.”

  Anatoly wasn’t surprised, and yet a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature crept up his spine. He glanced around at the miles of nothingness; they could almost be on the moon.

  He knew how Yuri worked. It was the same with drug dealers everywhere. He’d picked an out-of-the-way spot to meet distributors, where goods were traded for cash, and there were no street cameras to accidentally record the transaction.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. What do we tell Nikolai?” At least Ilya was smart enough to be scared. “What if Yuri left the laptop at the house? What if the police found it?”

  “And if that’s the case,” said Anatoly, “we are as good as dead.”

  * * *

  Ian sat in his home office, next door to the gues
t room where Petra was staying. The screen on his desktop computer cast the only light in the darkened room. He stared at the monitor yet saw nothing beyond color. The shower in the guest suite had stopped running hours ago, and he imagined that Petra had gone to bed. Alone. Without him.

  What would she do if he went to her room? If he kissed her again, stroked her hair, her skin, pulled the sheet from her body...

  Damn it. Since when did he push himself on women seeking his protection? Even if that woman was his ex—and there was definitely unfinished business between them?

  No. It was best to view Petra only in a professional manner, their past notwithstanding.

  He turned his thoughts from all things Petra Sloane and focused on the computer. He opened a remote program, one that was running on the RMJ’s secure server. It was trying to access the information from the flash drive. Lines and lines of code—all ones and zeros—marched across the screen. He snorted. Even his powerful program had failed to break the encryption. Then again, the Russians were among the top tech experts in the world, and Ian knew enough to be patient.

  He then opened the Denver Mustangs website and brought up a picture of the team’s owner, Arnie Hatch.

  A stocky and balding man in his late fifties, Hatch wore slacks and an oxford shirt with a blue-and-orange tie. The shirt collar was too tight, and Arnie’s thick neck sagged over the fabric. He sat on the edge of a practical wooden desk. Stacks of files and papers towered around him. At his back, a wall of windows overlooked the playing field. Much like a busy but humble ruler, Hatch kept a watchful eye on his kingdom.

  Ian had never met Arnie Hatch in person, but that didn’t mean he knew nothing about the man. More even than his players, Arnie was the most famous man in Denver.

  Born to a teenaged mother in Chicago, Arnie had moved to Colorado after buying a small interest in a company that refined shale into natural gas. In the mid-1970s an oil embargo hit and the price of shale oil went sky-high. Arnie sold his interests, making himself rich. Then the industry went bust and he purchased back the company for a fraction of its original value. After that, his company began mining uranium.

  Now he was the richest man in the state.

  A more advanced search turned up an email account for Hatch. Ian opened up all the messages. With his clearance, it wasn’t necessarily illegal. And in truth, where Petra was concerned, Ian wasn’t worried about niceties or legalities. Besides, he’d offered to help her for one night and he’d do everything in his power to prove her innocence.

  He scanned the subject list. Joe Owens’s name appeared more than once. In an email thread with the Denver team’s coach, Ian learned that Joe’s problems dated back to last season. Hatch had ordered several drug tests, all of which came up clean, and both owner and coach were at a loss for the change in Joe’s conduct.

  There were also romantic emails between Hatch and Joe’s estranged wife, Larissa. The two had traveled to Europe over the summer, which was a badly kept secret, and Larissa now lived in an upscale penthouse paid for by Hatch.

  In short, Joe Owens was a problem for the wealthy businessman. But there was nothing damning—nothing to connect Hatch to the attack.

  What if Petra was right? What if everyone in Denver did love Joe Owens? What did that mean for her? Ian sat back, pinching the bridge of his nose. There had to be something...

  He reread the list of emails, a long, blurry line. Then he noticed something and looked back. A message dated two days prior was from Hatch to the owner of the Kansas City Cyclones, Kyle Berg. The subject line read Confidential Trade.

  Ian opened the first message.

  From ArnieHatch@CMfootball.com

  To Bergk@KCCyclones.net

  8/19

  2:43 PM MST

  Kyle,

  I’d like to set up a call to discuss the upcoming season’s roster. I’m interested in Roberts, the tight end. You can have Joe Owens in return.

  Arnie

  From Bergk@KCCyclones.net

  To ArnieHatch@CMfootball.com

  8/19

  6:56 PM CST

  What’s the catch? Joe Owens was last year’s championship MVP. Why let him go?

  Berg

  From: ArnieHatch@CMfootball.com

  To: Bergk@KCCyclones.net

  8/19

  5:57 PM MST

  Kyle,

  To be honest, there’s a QB I want from the Canadian Football League who will work better with our running game but signing him sends me over the salary cap. Taking Joe off my books would free up a lot of money. Cutting him is a breach of contract and I’d be out the money anyway. I can trade him until the end of this week. It’s a great deal for you.

  Arnie

  From: Bergk@KCCyclones.net

  To: ArnieHatch@CMfootball.com

  8/20

  9:00 AM CST

  I’ve done some research and have to say that Joe has too many problems off the field. He’s a good player but an extreme liability. I’m going to have to pass on the trade. Thanks anyway.

  Hatch had then forwarded the entire thread to the coach, including a curt three-line message.

  I have to do something about Joe. The drug tests we arranged haven’t turned up anything. Stay tuned for updates.

  That message was sent on August 20 at 2:00 p.m., less than twenty hours before Joe Owens was attacked. There was probably enough evidence for Ian to go to the police with what he had found.

  Then again, Hatch would lawyer up. Once the lawyers discovered that Ian had hacked into the system, none of the emails would ever be considered in the case, making the prosecution of Hatch nearly impossible. No, Ian didn’t want Petra tangled up in a legal web that he personally helped to weave.

  At the same time, Ian could smell the guilt coming off Hatch, like a rotting fish at the edge of the water. There had to be more and he owed it to Petra to find out what it was.

  He shut down Arnie’s email and pulled up Joe Owens’s cell phone records from the carrier’s site. He quickly scanned the contact list, looking for anything that caught his eye.

  The final entry. Y.K.

  Ian’s vision cleared, his brain no longer fatigued. Y.K. Yuri Kuzntov—Comrade One. Or maybe Ian was confused. Because what were the chances that the most popular player in the league could be mixed up with a Russian national wanted by the FBI?

  He opened up the contact and searched for texts. Within minutes, Ian was looking at an exchange from ten days prior.

  Joe: Can you hook me up?

  Y.K.: No

  Joe: Srsly?

  Y.K.: On house arrest

  Ian’s heart skipped a beat. House arrest? As in not leaving a house—like the three Comrades? He read on:

  Joe: I just need a little. I can come to you.

  Y.K.: Can’t help you out

  Joe: You’re the only one, man. My special juice is making me crazy. W/o you ima wreck.

  Well, that clinched it. Y.K. was obviously providing Joe with drugs. Yuri Kuzntov was a drug dealer. There were too many coincidences for this to be chance.

  Using the contact number for Y.K., Ian found the phone. It came up as a pulsating green dot on a map filled with blue highways, green pixelated forests and yellow plains. And yet the location couldn’t be right.

  He compressed the image again and again.

  The phone had been left in the middle of nowhere—two miles east of the Denver airport. And if the time stamp was accurate, which Ian believed it to be, the phone had been stationary for more than an hour.

  It could be that Yuri had dropped his phone. But what would a Denver drug dealer be doing miles away from anything in the first place? Yet Ian knew what he was likely to find. It wasn’t a person, or a missing phone, but a body.

  And if Ian did find a dead Russian—one with ties to Nikolai Mateev? It could be Ia
n’s way back in to the case and eventually to Mateev. Then again, if he was right, Petra was in more danger than either one of them might have guessed.

  Chapter 5

  Petra lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling. The sounds and smells of the house were soothing and familiar—bringing her back to a time when she had dared to hope for love, not to merely work. At the same time, Joe was everywhere. His bloodied body was the shadowy form in the corner. His face was the reflection off the TV screen. His labored breathing was her own shallow breath.

  She wondered if she really had attacked her client. Maybe they had argued, and if so, about what? She tried to imagine the feel of the knife in her hands. Her fingers gripping the wooden handle as the cold steel blade did its cruel work. Had she really wielded it?

  Or was Ian right: did she lack the fortitude to kill?

  And even if she wasn’t involved, if she couldn’t remember what had happened, how would she ever prove her innocence?

  Which brought her back to the original question: if not Petra, then who had attacked Joe Owens?

  She heard a sound, just a whisper of movement outside her door. Petra’s breath froze in her chest. “Ian?” she murmured to the night.

  The door slowly opened. He materialized from the darkness, a shadow made whole. “Ian?” she said again. “Is that you?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was just doing some work next door. Hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “I wasn’t asleep. I just heard you walk by.” She toyed with the idea of leaving well enough alone. Then, without much thought, she continued. “There was so much blood. It was everywhere.” She lifted her palms and stared at them, despite the dark. “I can still feel the blood on my hands.”

  “It’s tough to see what you saw, to go through what you did,” he said. “It may be a while before you can sleep well.”

  “Might be,” she said, if only because the silence was too much to bear.

  In the quiet, she could hear her own thoughts—questioning her guilt, taunting her weaknesses. “Late to be working.”

  “You know me. Once I find something important, I can’t let it go. Like a dog with a bone, I suppose.”

  But not her. He had let Petra slip through his fingers without a second thought. Then again, now wasn’t the time to be petty. “What’d you find?”