Dimitri Driven

by May Ball, Alice

  Without turning to look, I speak as quietly as the director. “I only just picked up the message.”

  His fingers hold my shoulder, kneading like he’s found a lost possession.

  “Oh.” He sounds relaxed. Almost amused. “Why was that?”

  “That was because I was busy being kidnapped.”

  The chill runs down my spine. I half turn my head. My eyes are adjusting to the dark.

  “You sent a man in a car to run me down.”

  The grip on my shoulder stays firm. “Chrissy, you can’t believe that, surely.” He sighs. “No, that was the Domovoy, though I’m sure he was aiming for man who is your target, too.”

  Now I don’t know what to think. And I’m standing here with a pile of pizza boxes in my arms.

  “Let me put the pizzas in the car. He’ll think something strange has happened if he doesn’t hear the car door.”

  “He’s in there?” I heard the stretch of the smile in his voice.

  He lets me open the back of the car. I put the pizzas on the seat. Absurdly, I’m worried about grease on the leather. Some kind of distraction or displacement going on in my mind there.

  I leave the car door open, but the director shakes his head. The light in the car goes out as I shut the door.

  The director has flattened himself against the wall, by the door. He stretches out his arm. With a gun in his hand. He’s watching the door as he beckons me to him.

  Quietly, I move toward him then he holds up his other hand. He wants me to stop and stay here. Where I’ll be in view of the kitchen door when it opens. Passing by the crack of the open door, I see Dimitri’s hands. I’m near to his field of view.

  Not moving at all except to adjust his grip on the pistol, the director tells me, “Call him.”

  Chapter 16

  Him

  I’VE GOT THE PARTS of the Tavor wrapped in a towel. In a tight cylinder of fluffy cotton, I’ve done what I can to protect the parts of the gun.

  It’s been very quiet in the garage. I close up the sports bag and drop her phone into my pocket. Look around the kitchen.

  Then I hear her voice.

  “Boris!” I stop in my tracks. “Boris, can you come out here?”

  I pick up the key fob in my left hand and the sports bag in my right, then shut off the lights in the kitchen.

  To get ready, I narrow my eyes. At the same time as I push open the door, I click the BMW’s full beam lamps on. In the dazzling glare, I see the Firebird, flat against the wall and I hear a clatter.

  He’s waiting for me with his arm stretched out, exactly at head height. I swing the sports bag wide and fast, but he manages to duck out of its way.

  He had a gun. But he’s dropped it. Probably because of the throwing star that’s jammed deep in his wrist. I check Chrissy, but the brights are behind her, and I can only see her in silhouette.

  I missed the Firebird’s head with the sports bag, but he’s weakened by the throwing star in his wrist. I slam a kick straight into his balls. He slides down the wall and crumples at the bottom. Even in the dazzling lights, I can make out the color draining from his panicked face. He holds his arm, but blood is pulsing from the wrist.

  “Good throw,” I tell her over my shoulder, “Are you okay?”

  Her voice is thin and strained, but I hear her say yes.

  I could retrieve my shuriken star from his wrist, but if I do, the blood will probably gush.

  Beaky and looking like a cornered bird, he looks up, collapsing around his injured arm at the bottom of the wall. His knees draw up. His right arm flaps like an injured wing.

  “I can put a tourniquet on that for you,” I tell him, reaching down to undo his belt and slip it out of the loops in his pants.

  As I take the belt, he says, weakly, “Would you? Would you tie it off and stop the bleeding?”

  I smile, “Probably not. What do you think you might have to offer?”

  “I could tell you that I was here to rescue you.” He makes a grab for his wrist, but he and I know it won’t be enough. Not to stop the bleeding from an artery. “She was assigned to kill you.”

  “Good gag. Congratulations,” I tell him, “Just like you set me up to kill her. A regular Stasi ploy, right? When a network becomes inconvenient, you just point half of it at the other half, wait for a lot of dying to occur, then sweep up, picking off whoever is left. They’ll probably be injured, so they’ll be easy targets.”

  “Will you really let me bleed to death?”

  I take the star out and look back at Chrissy. “He’s your kill. You nailed him. You decide.”

  “I don’t know.” she comes nearer while I go through his pockets. “Do you think he has anything worth taking?”

  “Brilliant,” I tell her. I would kiss her if that bastard wasn’t here, watching. And bleeding. “You are a marvel. I believe that he does.”

  I crouch in front of him. “You switched Chrissy’s identity in the target dossier for that of the Domovoy, didn’t you.”

  He just glowers back up at me. “Your time here is pretty limited,” I tell him, “You know it. This is not the time to be coy.“

  “On the contrary, Dimitri.” He manages to keep his voice smooth though I can hear the tension. “You know as well as I do that it would take two to three hours for me to bleed out.”

  “That’s right. And a pretty miserable few hours they would be, here in the garage, locked in, alone in the cold and the dark.” I look in his eye. His face is drawn and washed out in the glare of the BMW headlamps. His cheeks are hollowing. He’s blinking. He’s weakening.

  “Chrissy and I, we’re not going to stay here and watch. We’re getting out of here. I’ll tell you what might help, though,”

  I cock my head, watching him. “The Pipeline Section seems to have gone quiet. I have the sense that every phase of the DC network’s being rolled up. Now, I wondered why that might be. I have a hunch that the Domovoy has decided that it’s time to cash in. Clear out the accounts, take one great sweep, and leave, as it were, with a bag.”

  I watch him, and I look at Chrissy. I see her registering the idea.

  “I have a hunch,” I tell him, “That a large amount of money is waiting somewhere right now, ready for collection.”

  “Clever,” the Firebird says. “All right, I’ll tell you where it is.”

  “Of course you will. Do you mind waiting while I go and collect?”

  His face freezes and his eyes harden.

  “You’ll tell me somewhere I can go that I won’t come back from. Even though it means you will die, you’re not going to hand it over to me. I don’t see that in your makeup.”

  “You might hand it to me, though,” Chrissy says, coming near, “What do you say?”

  Chapter 17

  Her

  HE DRIVES FOR A mile or two, out of the area. Soon after we left, he put in a call for an ambulance. Then another to alert the CIA.

  He pulls over near the Potomac by the 14th St Bridge. He pulls the card out of the phone then opens the window to toss the phone and the card into the river.

  As he turns his face to me, the dawn is starting up over the water behind him. I’m in love with the shine in his eyes and the firmness of his lips.

  He says, “Chrissy, you’ve thrown me into confusion. You make me look at things a whole new way. You make me want things I never wanted before.”

  I reach out to him, but he takes my hand and holds it. My chest swells and I want him so much right now. “Chrissy, you are the woman I need. I didn’t even need a woman at all until I saw you. Maybe the truth is, I always needed you, but it took me this long to find you.”

  He looks into my face with a kind of wonder as he strokes my face. “I love you, Chrissy. I love you completely. I need you. I have to have you with me. Now and forever.” We move together to kiss. His embrace makes me feel whole, complete and alive in ways that I never have before.

  “Chrissy, I was due to retire after this job anyway. Although, se
eing how that all went down, I’ve a feeling there might be a more complete and permanent form of retirement waiting for me in St. Petersburg. I can contact the CIA again. I have information that I believe they’ll find highly valuable.”

  As he holds me to him, I feel the strong, deep pound of his heart. “I’ll do anything, Chrissy. Whatever it takes, my love.”

  He holds my hand in both of his.

  “Can you cope with being with an older man?”

  “I think if it’s you, Dimitri, I can cope with pretty much anything. After all, you were going to kill me. I think I’ve gotten over that pretty well, don’t you?”

  “At least I told you. Or, I told you something anyway. And I never would have done that. You were going to kill me, though, and you never breathed a word.”

  “I never was, Dimitri. I didn’t even see the message. I showed it you as soon as I did.“

  “I wonder if I should believe you.”

  “I wonder,“ I say, leaning closer, “What can I possibly do to convince you?”

  “Well, you can start by having my babies.”

  “Babies? Plural?”

  “Of course, plural. Double digits if we can make it.” We kiss, long and deep. Our hearts beat together. “Chrissy, I want to know everything about you. Tell me all about your parents and where you grew up.”

  This part could be rough. “They’re not going to take to you easily, Dimitri, I’m warning you now. They don’t take to anyone much. I seriously never really knew if they even took to me. If you can deal with that, then you’re the man for me.”

  I tell him, “My daddy works for the government. He’s an attorney in the Justice Department. Most of what he does is administrative, I think. I mean, I wouldn’t really know. He doesn’t talk to me too much about it. He doesn’t really talk to me much about anything.

  “Momma, neither. She’s a cop. She was a homicide detective most of the time I was growing up. Now she’s in counterterrorism, although she spends most of her time behind a desk. I’ve no idea whether she likes that or not. She has a version of the barbecues and cookouts that you always imagine cops having, only it’s like hers are for zombies. All of her cop buddies come over, bring their husbands—her friends are mostly women—Momma cooks on a barbecue. Nobody drinks. There’s not a whole lot of conversation. It seems like the first time everybody smiles is when they’re leaving and they all say what a great time they had.

  “When I was a kid, and while I was growing up, I went into my creative head a whole lot. I was an only child and my parents were both pretty unavailable. We moved so often I was never able to make close friends. Every time that Daddy got a promotion we would pull up stakes, move, and I would start over. New school, new kids. He started – way back when, in St. Louis. We were there, then in Virginia, then Maryland. And then to DC. But even here, he started to get promoted pretty fast, and that meant we moved all over town.

  “I felt like I spent about half my life with the cello, the other half drawing and painting. I think my creative urge was a need to communicate. Maybe I did it with pictures and sounds because there weren’t too many in our home.”

  “Now you can create our babies while you make music and art.”

  “I really do love you, Dimitri.”

  “I love you, Chrissy.”

  Our arms and our bodies wrap together, lost in each other as the light of dawn begins to rise.

  Epilogue

  Her

  CHRISTMAS TIME IN DC, and people seem ready to look up a little more often, and even scowl a little less. Everyone on the Metro today seems to be carrying a huge toy, a wrapped bicycle, or just the massive shuffling wedge of shopping bags.

  Of course, I’m hauling my cello. It’s nice that people act a little less stressed than usual, and we all are happy to make space for squeaky, excitable children, slower older folks, and passengers with bulky items. Like mine.

  The Metro is still the quickest and safest way for me to hustle across town, and at this time of year it’s nice to be out among people.

  I have to get to the National Cathedral, and I’ll go in through the main entrance at the south transept. I’m playing as the soloist for tonight’s Christmas concert. I want to be there early, because I’m going to be meeting Christopher. This will be the first live concert where he hears me play.

  His father said that they would sit near the entrance, in case Christopher started to cry or shout or make a fuss. I told him not to worry. Christopher Dimitri is the world’s most perfectly behaved baby. Especially when he’s with his daddy. It’s a little scary sometimes, but he sleeps through the night, sleeps like a baby—why do people say that, when so few babies actually do it?—and he almost never shouts or cries unless something is really wrong.

  He just makes happy little gurgling sounds all the time. All the more when he sees Dimitri, or me. Most of all, when he sees us together.

  As soon as I get inside the Cathedral, I see Dimitri with Christopher clinging to his shoulder, with a grin like a clam. He jiggles and waves his little fist when he sees me.

  Dimitri turns from talking with Archbishop Daly.

  Dimitri had no difficulty in charming my parents. He took my father out for a drink and some dinner. Well, I don’t think they had very much dinner. “Your father,” Dimitri told me, afterwards, “Your father and I drank a bottle and a half of vodka. Each, Chrissy. When I got back, I was wrecked. I was roaring. It had no effect on your father at all.”

  “Will he come to the wedding?”

  Dimitri made arrangements for us to be married on the day that papers came through for his US citizenship. Our wedding was in the little Holy Spirit Chapel, in the National Cathedral. The tiny chapel only has room for a dozen people, although we only half filled it. Sienna and Jolie came as bridesmaids, and Henrietta was my maid of honor. Dimitri’s CIA case officer acted as his best man.

  Dimitri got on so well with Archbishop Daly that he very kindly offered to officiate at the wedding for us himself.

  Can’t take that away from Dimitri, he does have a sense of occasion.

  After the Christmas concert, Dimitri drives me with Christopher strapped in the carseat. I can’t wait to take him out of the car when I can hold him to my chest – my favorite way to carry him—into our little lunch gathering at Sidewalk Jam. Henrietta greets me with a hug, and fusses over Christopher, like always.

  She still makes a show of not having forgiven Dimitri his first miserly tip.

  Jolie and Sienna come by with their new boyfriends and share an eggnog with us.

  While everybody starts to sing Christmas songs, George Michael and Abba tunes, I pull Dimitri aside. Christopher is dozing on my shoulder when I tell him the news.

  His face lights up like a sunrise. “Really, are you sure?” Then, inevitably, “Sit down,” as he pulls out a chair. I put a hand on my hip.

  “I didn’t need to sit down five minutes ago, Boris.” I’m sounding as stern as I can. I don’t think I’m sounding very stern. Calling him Boris still always gets him wound up, though. I can’t think why.

  “I have to get you home.”

  “Boris, I am not sick. I’m just going to have a baby. We’ve done it once. We’ll do it again. It’s going to be lovely.”