“No, she’s not,” Busch responded. He was sitting directly across from Michael, his chair reclined halfway back.
“Yes, she is, and she is going to blame me…again.”
“She is not going to have a fit…or at least another fit. The worst is over—she already ripped me apart.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m glad she ranted and raved. I’m used to it. It’s the silent treatment that’s worse. That’s when I know she’s really upset. Besides, what could she say? Once I explained the situation with your newly found father being kidnapped…”
Michael looked at Busch; he was at a loss for words, concerned that Busch had told Jeannie the truth. After all, this was supposed to be a secret.
“I know what would have happened: you would get over there, get yourself in a world of hurt, and need my help. Then I would have to jump on a plane, ride in a coach seat, no plasma screen TV, no leather recliner,”—he indicated his surroundings—“and come find your sorry ass to pull it out of the fire. So I figured…” Busch paused a moment, leaned forward, his elbows resting upon his knees, and looked directly at Michael. His jovial self vanished, replaced with a serious look. “We save your dad together or we don’t do it at all.”
Michael looked at him, nodded, and smiled.
Susan walked up the aisle toward them.
“Besides,” Busch continued, glancing Susan’s way, “who’s going to referee you and Miss Snap-a-Fit?”
“What do you mean by that?” Susan glared at Busch.
Busch rose from his seat, rising to his full six foot four height, his blond hair skimming the ceiling, and smiled down at her. “Nothing.”
Busch walked toward the back of the plane and into the galley, astounded by the stock of food and beverages. Drinks of every taste and style, food ranging from steak and pasta to candy and cake. Bypassing all of it, he opened up the bar, poured himself a fancy-looking Scotch, the name of which he had never heard before, and grabbed four sandwiches off a silver platter. As he turned to go back to his seat, he came face-to-face with Susan.
“Help yourself,” she said as she looked at his overflowing handful of food.
“Thanks.” Busch smiled back.
“Look, this is a nine-hour flight, I was hoping we would get off to a better start,” she said with her hand on her hip.
“I’m sorry,” Busch said. “I didn’t mean anything by Miss Snap-a-Fit.”
She awkwardly tried to squeeze by his large frame and as she did—
“My condolences,” Busch said.
She looked at him questioningly.
“On the loss of your husband,” Busch said in all sincerity, his head bowed.
Susan looked up at him, surprised at the comment. It took the anger out of her. “Thanks,” she said as she poured herself a glass of red wine.
“Just so you know, that guy sitting up there”—Busch nodded his head toward the front of the plane, looking Michael’s way—“The one you accused of having no idea what it is like to lose someone…He lost someone.”
Susan’s expression softened.
“Almost a year ago. He watched her steady decline, watched her slowly die.” Busch finally looked back at her; he pursed his lips, waited a moment, and then headed back toward the front of the plane, leaving Susan to her thoughts.
Busch stood over Michael. “You sure I can’t get you anything?”
Michael looked at Busch’s handful of sandwiches and laughed. “No, I’m good. What were you and Queen Chill chatting about?”
“Just the weather,” Busch said as he sat in the leather lounger, happy that someone had designed an airplane seat able to accommodate his body so comfortably. He tucked his drink in the armrest cup holder and inhaled his sandwiches.
“I’ll bet she likes her weather cold and rainy,” Michael said.
Busch turned his head and looked back at her. “I don’t know. Sometimes the people who scream the loudest are the ones who are the most scared. They hide behind a facade of steel and anger.”
“Aren’t we suddenly sympathetic,” Michael said with raised eyebrows.
“No, just experienced.” Busch looked at Michael, letting his point sink in to his friend. He reclined his leather chair all the way and was asleep before Michael had a chance to ask him who was covering his bar back at home.
Susan took a seat in the leather chair next to Michael. “Can I get you anything?”
“I’m good, thanks,” Michael said as he looked out the circular window down over the vast ocean.
“We’ll be landing in about eight hours.”
“What time is it now?” Michael asked.
“I don’t know.”
Michael looked at the watch on her wrist. It was a Patek Philippe, small diamonds around the scratched face.
“It doesn’t work,” she said as she saw where his eyes were trained.
“Okay,” Michael said. “And you wear it because…”
“It’s my lucky watch. Peter gave it to me before we got married. I never lost a case since then.” Susan looked at the watch. Michael could see her suppressing her emotions. “Even after it stopped working.” She suddenly perked back up. “We’re scheduled to land around six a.m.”
“Thanks.”
“Listen, I wanted to talk to you.” Susan spoke softly, as if she was in confession. “I’m sorry about my comment earlier.”
Michael tilted his head. “What do you mean?”
“About not knowing what it’s like to lose someone; I didn’t realize.”
Michael turned to Busch’s sleeping form, realizing what his friend had been talking to Susan about at the back of the plane.
“How long were you married?”
Michael turned away, not wanting to answer. He rarely spoke about Mary to anyone except the Busches and Genevieve, but realized he had nowhere to hide from Susan for the next eight hours and reluctantly turned back. “We were married almost seven years.”
Susan nodded, her eyes respectful.
“She was my best friend.” Michael didn’t know why he was continuing to speak, especially to a woman who had slapped him twice in the last five hours. “We had just gotten our lives on the right track. It was cancer; I tried so hard, I did everything I could to save her. Sometimes, our hardest just isn’t enough, though.”
“I don’t know the circumstances, but you can’t blame yourself.”
Michael shook his head. “I don’t. The cancer just ate her up, so quick. There was nothing they could do to stop it. It just sometimes makes you wonder why some people live so long and others, for no reason, are cut down in their prime.”
“Yeah,” Susan said quietly, looking away.
“I guess you know what I’m talking about.”
Susan nodded. “Peter’s death made me realize you can’t live life as a routine.”
“You have to live in the moment,” Michael said, more to himself than Susan. It was as if they were both talking to themselves. Michael continued, “When you look at the person you care about, you have to really look at them; you can’t allow your mind to be somewhere else. You can’t be talking about someday when.”
“Our someday never came.”
Michael looked up and met Susan’s eye. “We don’t live forever.” Michael looked away. He didn’t know what he was feeling but whatever it was, he grew uncomfortable, buried it deep, and tried to run from a conversation that was making him feel the pain of being alone. He sat up in his chair, the tone of his voice changing. “When we get to Moscow, we’re going to need a car to get to Red Square by ten a.m.”
Susan was taken aback by Michael’s abrupt change in direction. “I have a car meeting us at the airport. It will be at our beck and call for however long we need it.”
“And you know these people from where?” Michael continued with an almost interrogating air.
“Martin secured them.” Susan matched his tone as she squared her shoulders, the conversation continuing its downward spira
l.
“Can they be trusted?”
“Can you?” Susan asked as if she was cross-examining him.
Michael looked at her. “Why don’t you stay in your hotel? I’ll call you, keep you updated.”
“I’m not flying all the way to Moscow to sit in a suite and eat room service. In fact, I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m paying for all this, what do you think it means?”
Now Michael was pissed. “You can turn this plane right around if you think I’m going to work this way. I told you before we left, if you could bring money to the table and had contacts, I would appreciate them as they would at least help remove some of the obstacles. As I recall, you said fine, that you would stay out of my way. Now its sounds to me like you’re pulling the ‘my money, my team,’ routine.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize this was how thieves worked.” Susan looked at him, her heart closed up, her tough demeanor back.
Michael tried his best not to explode. “Really, well, I guess—”
“I can’t leave you two alone for two minutes, can I?” Busch stirred in his chair and slowly opened his eyes.
Susan stood, glared at both of them, and stormed off to the back of the plane.
Susan had lived a life of privilege, rarely knowing what it was to want. She was the child of Midge and Malcolm Newman, parents who found their careers and social lives the focal point of their existence. Susan was merely an afterthought, a hanger-on, an inconvenience to their routine. Though an only child with absentee parents, she was never alone. She was waited on by a revolving door of European nannies, some caring, some not, all short-term. She had made it a goal with each one to learn their native language to the best of her ability and had acquired a grasp of five tongues by the age of twelve.
In place of love there were gifts, shopping, and an unlimited allowance, all a substitute for Midge and Malcolm’s disconnect from their daughter. Susan wanted for nothing; the only thing known less than affection in the Newman household was the word “no.” Susan grew up never being denied a single request, and learned quickly never to tolerate it in her own life. When she was faced with a problem, she would simply conquer it through obstinance, sheer will, and a “never say die” attitude. It made her spoiled, ruthless, and cold, and completely unaccustomed to failure.
Educated by the finest private elementary school then shipped off to prep school in Connecticut, she grew tenacious and distant, finding her only comfort through achievement and self-advancement.
She attended Yale, where she excelled not only in academics but also women’s crew and the swim team; her record in the two-hundred-meter individual medley stood for eight years before it was broken. She continued right into Yale Law and found herself at the Boston DA’s office two days after graduation, sitting across from one Peter Kelley. When she first saw him, it was as if her eyes had remained closed her entire life. He was handsome and charming and the perfect counterbalance to her frenetic personality. While she would charge through her day with a “take-no-prisoners” mentality, he would bring a more subtle approach. But no matter the situation or problem, they would both arrive at the same outcome: success. While Susan had learned early to project an air of confidence and superiority, it was but a thick facade built up since childhood. With Peter, there was no need for walls.
And so it was after two dates that she planned a surprise weekend. Dinner, a movie, breakfast. It filled her with an excitement that she had never known, an anticipation that she had never tasted before. All of it left shattered when she found he was off to Utah to ski the slopes of Deer Valley, his first vacation in two years. He offered to cancel but she insisted he go.
Susan drove out of the city garage disappointed but thankful for the two days off; she would sleep, eat, and sleep, but like all of her plans for the week, these, too, wouldn’t come to fruition. She hadn’t made it beyond the city limits when the call came. Cindy Frey had lost her mother and wouldn’t be able to handle her Monday morning trial. Susan was assigned her first solo prosecution at seven p.m. on Friday, with a nine a.m. start come Monday. Sixty hours to mount a case, sixty hours until failure, for she knew that she wouldn’t have enough time to formulate a successful prosecution of a case she wasn’t familiar with.
She turned her car around and headed straight back to her office. She walked up the stairs with a heart filled with fear and a mind filled with uncertainty. She had longed to solo, had fought for the chance to lead but not under these circumstances. She had no time to prepare, no help to strategize, nowhere to turn but an empty office. She unlocked the door to the DA headquarters, flipped on the light, and stepped in.
And there was Peter, waiting for her, his suitcase and ski bag on the floor. He saw the panic in her eyes, walked up to her, took her gently by the wrist, and placed a cherry Lifesaver in her hand. She looked at it, uncomprehending.
“Put it in your mouth,” Peter said.
She did as he bid and smiled in complete confusion.
“When you get to court on Monday, as soon as you feel the nerves tangling up, pop one in your mouth.”
“Does it have some power that I don’t know about?”
“No.” He smiled. “But they taste good.”
A laugh escaped her lips as she chewed the Lifesaver.
“Everyone has a talisman, a lucky charm, a rabbit’s foot.” Peter gently took her wrist again and turned it over. He had somehow slipped it on without her knowledge. “Consider this your rabbit’s foot.”
Susan stared at the diamond face, at the sweeping second hand of the elegant watch. And somehow she felt it coursing through her, not luck, not some special power imbued by the timepiece; she felt renewed confidence. But it wasn’t the watch that imparted her newfound determination, it was Peter. He took her mind away from the nerves, allowing her to refocus and realize that she would get through the weekend of cramming, she would get through her first trial.
So they got their surprise weekend, though not as Susan anticipated; it was better.
Susan had found in Peter someone who truly loved her for her, who showed his affection through unspoken glances and tender hands upon her cheek. It was all so foreign. It was something she had never felt in all her life, in all her years. It was love.
And it made her blossom; Peter brought out the best in her, awakening a warm, affectionate person who had lain dormant all her life. With Peter she was complete, she was at her best. She was happy.
She had opened her heart, she had opened her soul, and they had become one. But since his passing, she remained adrift, without focus, her heart shattered into pieces with a bitterness that wouldn’t fade. Her emotions ranged between self-pity and anger, and she had no way to channel them.
Now, alone in the world, she found her only solace in work and looking out for Stephen Kelley. While she was devastated by the loss of her husband, she felt an even greater pain for Stephen. No parent should ever be preceded to Heaven by their child; it was the proverbial Chinese curse, outliving your heirs to walk the earth in paternal anguish. She had watched as his will to live slowly subsided. He had buried his wife and his son and was slowly slipping toward a frame of mind where she feared he might join them by his own hand. As a result, she had remained by his side; even when he fought to be alone, she endeavored to be close by, to look after him, to protect him from himself.
Now, after seeing Stephen’s safe room, the pictures of Michael, a son whom Stephen had never acknowledged to anyone, she wondered how well she really knew the man. The room was like a shrine to a life missed, a life that could have been. She did not know if he kept the room out of guilt or out of honor. But everything else aside, she hoped that the memories, photos, and articles he had maintained on Michael would convince his long lost other son that, despite giving him up for adoption, Stephen never stopped caring.
Chapter 21
The three-by-three polished chrome door opened with a heav
y click, the cool air of the refrigeration unit escaping into the large room. Dr. Skovokov slid the cadaver on its stainless-steel tray back into its cold, preserving confines and closed the door, sealing the body for another day. Skovokov turned around and looked about his recently refurbished medical facility. Only two colors present: white and chrome. It was a pure, clean environment, no contaminants, negatively pressurized. The lab carried the usual medical facility odors of bleach and disinfectant. Nothing would mar this hyper-clean world. It was reconstructed per his specifications on two floors, the quality uncompromised by the three-month construction timetable. It contained all of the latest medical equipment: high-speed supercomputers for DNA fragmentation and analysis, electron microscopes and fiber optic cameras for internal examinations. The lower level contained a state-of-the-art operating room, adjacent to an observation theater that possessed the capacity for an audience of thirty. The dual-level facility rivaled Johns Hopkins, Cern, and the Mayo Clinic in its resources; no cost was spared, no technology forgone. It was everything a medical researcher, an explorer of the human body’s mysteries, could dream of.
Vladimir Skovokov looked out at his lab from under dark eyebrows that stood in sharp contrast to his shock of gray hair. His face was pock-marked, scarred from a bout of German measles in his youth, but his appearance was of no concern to him; he placed no value on beauty, only the mind and its creative capabilities.
His life had come full circle. Forty years earlier he stood in this same city, in this same lab, a young doctor of renown pursuing medicine for the greatest, most powerful nation on earth. He was a man of privilege in a country without privileges. He was afforded the finest living accommodations, a generous salary, a car, and a constant supply of personal necessities; there was no standing on a breadline for Skovokov. He was provided with unlimited personnel, unlimited financing, and unlimited access not only to all things Russian, but all things global. The KGB was at his beck and call. If there was a medical breakthrough in Europe or the United States, he only had to point them in the direction and he would soon have all of their research, all of their knowledge, and if he required, firsthand instruction: they had kidnapped more than one lead scientist, tapping their minds before depositing them in Siberia for their remaining years.
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