Avilov chuckled. “I have no desire to relocate to Costa Rica, Dimitri.”
Dimitri’s response was immediate. “Nikolai, you must come. Pavel wants you there and it is the only place you will be safe. Once Apocalypse begins -”
Avilov rolled his eyes. “Dimitri, don’t tell me you believe this Operation Apocalypse nonsense of Pavel’s is going to work. It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. Surely Pavel has lost his mind.”
“I assure you, he has not. And the pieces are already beginning to fall into place. Dr. Zander has joined us at the compound and he has begun his research. It is only a matter of time before he completes it. And once he does you will not be safe here. Not for long.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
Dimitri sighed. “I had hoped you would not say that, Nikolai. Pavel has given me explicit instructions. I am to bring you to Costa Rica or I am to shoot you.”
Avilov was both shocked and appalled. “Why would Pavel say that? After all we’ve been through? We were fellow soldiers back in the old days and we have been friends and business partners ever since. It’s ridiculous. Completely ridiculous.”
“You know Pavel. He sees things in black and white. Either you are with him or you are against him.”
“What about you, Dimitri? Do you think this foolhardy plan of his is really going to work? And even if it does, what will he gain? Revenge on his rivals back in Moscow? It’s asinine, Dimitri. I can see it. Surely you can, too.”
“It is not my place to question my superiors.”
Avilov smiled. “True to your nature, like always. And spoken like a true Soviet soldier. Unfortunately, the army you serve, and the one Pavel reveres so much, died countless years ago. It’s time for the two of you to give it up and move along.”
He turned to a nearby table and poured himself a shot of tequila. He offered one to Dimitri, but Dimitri, who was not fond of alcohol, declined it.
“What are you going to do if I refuse to come with you to Costa Rica?” Avilov asked.
“What I was ordered. I will shoot you in the head.”
Avilov sighed. Clearly, he did not like what he had heard. But then again, who would?
“And how are you going to do that, Dimitri? Right now, as I see it, there are twelve people in this room, nine of which are loyal to me. At the same time, there is only one person here who is loyal to you. As such, I would advise against doing anything rash. The odds are against you.”
The tenseness in the room had increased dramatically. The nine people he had referred to, who were his personal assistants and bodyguards, moved closer in anticipation of Dimitri’s response. In the meantime, however, Dimitri remained unaffected and he smiled briefly at the young woman who was standing at his side. Her name was Olivia Livingston. She was a freelance agent so Dimitri didn’t know too much about her, but even so he had enormous faith in her abilities. Over the past few months, she had completed numerous assignments for him, some quite challenging, and she had done an excellent job each time.
“What do you think, Ms. Livingston?” he asked. “Are the odds against us?”
“Not at all,” she replied.
It was over before it began. As fast as lightning, Dimitri turned on the guards who were nearest him. He took the first down with a punch to the throat, then took two more down by grabbing them by the hair and smashing their foreheads together. Two more put up a bit of a fight and one even pulled a knife and slashed it at Dimitri, but a second after the knife was revealed it was knocked to the side and its wielder was lying face down on the floor at Dimitri’s feet.
In the meantime, Olivia dispatched the remaining four guards and she did it nearly as fast and nearly as easily as Dimitri had done. A kick to the chest took down the first, a knee to the stomach took down the second, and a punch to the face took down the third. The only one who put up any semblance of a fight was the fourth. He charged straight at Olivia but received nothing good for his efforts. She grabbed him by an arm, dropped straight backward onto the floor behind her, and launched him across the room. He bounced off of the far wall and fell flat onto his stomach. He was clearly winded by the fall but he tried to climb back to his feet anyway. His effort was futile. Olivia, who had jumped back to her feet the minute she had thrown him, darted straight past him, ran up the nearest wall, then went across the ceiling directly above him. She only made it a step or two before gravity caught up to her and pulled her down but she had timed her move perfectly. She came down feet first right on top of him. He was knocked unconscious immediately upon impact.
Seeing the battle was over, Dimitri turned to Avilov.
“I regret doing this, Nikolai, but you give me no choice.”
He pulled his pistol from his jacket, aimed it at Avilov’s forehead, and squeezed the trigger.
Chapter 32
There were a lot of things that made Kiana nervous. Pop quizzes in math class were the worst, and pop quizzes in history weren’t much better. But nothing made her more nervous than bringing a boy home to meet Michael for the first time.
She had done it a few times over the years and it had never gone well. Michael was one of the nicest men in the world the majority of the time, but he was completely different when boys were involved. When they were, he transformed into a beast and seemed to have only one concern on his mind: chasing them away as fast as he could. The incident with Steven Harrington, the one where he had told Steven he had a bullet with his name on it, had been the worst but there had been others that had been nearly as bad, including one time with a boy named Roger Richardson who had been so intimidated by Michael he had actually tried to flee from the house, but had forgotten to open the door first and had nearly given himself a concussion when he ran headfirst into it. And if that wasn’t bad enough, as he was laying on the floor rubbing the side of his head where it had made impact, all Michael could say was, “Damn. I think you knocked the door off of its hinges.”
All Kiana could do was shake her head and grimace.
So she was nervous, but at the same time she really liked Jacen and she really wanted to introduce him to Michael so she decided to take up Christine’s offer regarding dinner (the one she had made while they were en route to Chiang Mai). And she had to give Christine credit. Christine went all-out and made an amazing meal, with fettuccine Alfredo as the main course, and a huge bowl of Caesar salad, a loaf of bread, and grilled prawns on the side. The prawns were so soft they melted in Kiana’s mouth and the fettucine was so creamy Kiana could have eaten a bucket of it. But the best thing about having Christine present wasn’t the wonderful food she had made. The best thing was the fact she watched Michael like a hawk and kept him in line the entire time.
“So, Jacen,” she said. “Tell us a little about you. Kiana says you’re going to Stanford next year.”
Jacen sat at the dining room table next to Kiana, directly across from Christine and Michael. “I am. Stanford offered me a baseball scholarship and I’ve always wanted to go there since that’s where my dad went, so I jumped all over it. I looked at a couple of other schools including Washington and Oregon, but to be honest Stanford was always my first choice.”
“What position do you play, boy?” Michael asked.
Christine shot him a quick, stern glance.
“I mean,” he said, correcting himself. “What position do you play, Jacen?”
“Shortstop. Kiana said you played shortstop back in your day, Mr. Cruise.”
“I did. What’s your batting average?”
“.450.”
Michael didn’t say anything but he looked pleased. He knew .450 was a good batting average. Actually, it wasn’t a good average, it was a great average.
“Dad,” Kiana said. “Jacen got drafted by the Padres last year. They even offered him a big signing bonus.”
Michael raised an eyebrow. He was clearly interested in that. “Is that true?”
Jacen nodded. “But I turned it down. I’ve always wanted to go to college and i
t means a lot to my dad, so it was a pretty easy decision. I still want to play pro ball someday, don’t get me wrong, but I’m going to wait until after I get my degree.”
“What if you get hurt in the meantime and you can’t play pro ball?”
Jacen shrugged. “Then I guess that’s just the way it goes. I really want a degree from Stanford. To me, it’s more important than playing pro ball. Maybe I’ll regret the decision later and a lot of my friends think I’m being silly and should take the money but that’s what I’ve decided. I’m going to Stanford.”
Michael nodded and he was clearly impressed, but true to his nature he wasn’t going to give a boy, even one as nice as Jacen, any credit, at least not yet.
“What are you going to study?”
“I haven’t decided yet. I’ve always liked math, so I might try something like engineering or accounting but I’m not really certain.”
“You’re still young,” Christine said. “There’s no reason to rush your decision.”
“That’s what my dad always says,” Jacen said.
“What does your dad do?” Michael asked.
“He’s an accountant. He works at a big firm in downtown Seattle.”
“What about your mom?”
“She left us when I was young. When I was five or six, I think. She lives in Florida now. I only see her on occasion, usually for a couple of weeks during the summer and sometimes at Christmas.”
“Do you have any siblings?”
“No.”
“So it’s been just you and your dad all of these years?”
“Pretty much.”
Michael shot a quick glance at Kiana, then looked back at Jacen. “So then you probably know what it’s been like for Kiana and me. We’ve been a two person team for a long time now, and it’s been a pretty good team. There have been a few rough spots, here and there, but overall we can’t complain. As such, we don’t really need anyone coming along and interfering with the team.”
Christine placed her glass on the table and turned to him. It was clear from the expression on her face she wasn’t pleased with what he had just said. “Excuse me? Then what am I? Am I not a recent addition to the team?”
Michael’s eyes got big the minute he realized his mistake. “I mean, we only make additions on occasion. When needed.”
At that point, Kiana was actually starting to have a little fun. She was still nervous, since things were only going so-so, but at the same time, thanks to Christine’s comment, she could tell she wasn’t the only one at the table who was doing a little sweating. Michael was clearly worried about what he had said and he kept shooting quick, nervous glances at Christine to try to figure out if she was upset at him, and, if so, how badly. At one point, he even slipped a hand onto her knee. Christine didn’t say anything but she crossed her arms and it clearly looked like she wasn’t happy at all (in reality, however, she hadn’t been mad at all, and she later told Kiana she had just pretended to be so she could keep Michael off guard and in line throughout the remainder of the night).
As such, dinner was actually quite pleasant and it seemed to get better and better as the night progressed. Jacen and Michael exchanged baseball stories, and Michael told him about the time when he had been a sophomore in high school and he won the district title by hitting a grand slam in the bottom of the fifth inning (over the years, Kiana had heard the story so often she could recite it line by line herself if needed), and Jacen told Michael a few stories of his own, and overall they started to get along quite well. When dinner finished, Christine proposed they play a game so they cleared off the table, got a deck of UNO cards from the closet in the hallway (Kiana instantly had flashbacks of the game of Ultra 7 she and Jacen had played a few weeks before), and they played for a couple of hours. It was a good time but the highlight of the night, at least as far as Kiana was concerned, was when Michael took a break to get himself a soda from the kitchen, then came back with not one soda, but two. At first, Kiana thought the second was for Christine, but instead Michael handed it to Jacen.
“I thought you might be thirsty.”
“Thanks, Mr. Cruise.”
“You can call me Michael.”
Kiana’s jaw nearly hit the floor. She couldn’t believe it. Michael had never let a boy call him by first name before. She shot a quick glance at Christine who responded by smiling and winking at her.
About an hour later, Jacen said he needed to head home so he thanked everyone for dinner, then Kiana walked him to his car in the driveway.
“I thought you said your dad was a beast. He seemed pretty nice to me. For most of the night anyway.”
“I’m not certain what’s going on right now. Maybe he likes you.”
“I hope so. I like him. And Christine, too. Thank her again for the wonderful dinner. It was delicious. My dad and I aren’t too good at cooking so it’s rare I get a meal like that.”
“I will.” For a brief second, Kiana thought about giving him a kiss goodbye but decided against it because she wasn’t sure if Michael could see her through the front window and since everything had gone so well up to that point she didn’t want to do anything that would run the risk of ruining things. “Drive carefully.”
As soon as he drove off, Kiana turned and darted back into the house. She could hardly wait to hear what Michael and Christine thought of Jacen. When she got to the living room they were both sitting on the couch, side-by-side, watching television. She plopped down on the cushion next to them.
“Well. What’d you think?”
Christine wasted no time giving her assessment. “He’s dreamy, in every way. You found a good one, Kiana.”
“Thanks, Christine. I really like him. He’s so sweet and courteous.”
They both turned to Michael, who was busy flipping channels, like usual trying to find the day’s sports scores. Either that or he was trying to find a rerun of his favorite show, The Walking Dead (he had seen every episode numerous times but he never got tired of it).
“Well?” they asked, in unison.
“He seems okay,” Michael said.
Kiana was ecstatic. She couldn’t believe it. ‘Okay’ was (by far) the highest rating any boy had ever gotten from Michael.
“So you won’t have any problem with me seeing him again? In the future?”
She and Christine waited anxiously for his response.
“I don’t see any problem with it. Remember your curfew, however.”
He was silent for a few seconds before he continued. “There is one thing about that boy I don’t like, however.”
Kiana’s heart stopped. Things had been going so well. What was he going to say? What was it he didn’t like about Jacen?
“He’s a lousy UNO player. He didn’t win a single game all night.”
They all laughed. Kiana was relieved. If that was Michael’s only criticism of Jacen she was in good shape. She wished them both goodnight, then hopped up and headed for her bedroom. As she passed Christine she stopped just long enough to look down and say, “Thank you.”
Chapter 33
A lot of days are significant in a person’s life and, as such, they are remembered forever. Common examples include the day a person graduates from high school, the day he or she gets married, and the day a child is born. October 24 was a significant day for Kiana. But unlike the examples given above, it wasn’t significant for a good reason.
October 24 was the day she got shot.
It started like any normal day. She woke up at 6:00 am, spent an hour in the bathroom getting her makeup and hair just right (it wasn’t easy since her hair wouldn’t cooperate), spent twenty minutes picking out what clothing to wear, went to school, fell asleep in math class (and again in history), met her friends for lunch in the school’s cafeteria, and spent the majority of the lunch break talking about boys. They all wanted to know how the dinner had gone with Jacen and Michael. Regardless, things didn’t get interesting, at least as far as Kiana was concerned, until the afternoon,
when she was walking from one class to another. Her phone buzzed and it was a text from Beckman.
“Report to headquarters immediately.”
Like always, Kiana instantly wondered what it was about. It had been a couple of weeks since her last assignment, the one to Chiang Mai, so she was hoping Beckman had a new mission for her. At the same time, however, she hoped it wasn’t an extensive one that would keep her away for too long since she had already made plans with Jacen for the following night. They were going to catch the new Spider-man movie and she was really looking forward to it.
Regardless, she immediately headed for her car in the school’s parking lot. She had just opened the door when Michael called to make certain she had gotten the message.
“Beckman wants us there ASAP. I’m already en route. Avoid I-5 right now, it’s a mess. Some type of accident blocking several lanes.”
“Did Beckman say what she wants?”
“She’s got a new assignment for us. But like usual she wouldn’t give any details until we get there.”
Kiana arrived thirty minutes later. She went a back way, using side streets to avoid I-5 like Michael had recommended, but even so traffic was tough. Michael and Christine were already in Beckman’s office when she arrived, sitting at their customary places across the desk from her.
“Good, Kiana, you’re here,” Beckman said. “Thank you for coming.”
“Sorry about the delay.”
“No problem. I already started the briefing but I can bring you up to speed quickly. I need the three of you to do an exchange. The man you will be meeting is John Harrison, one of our informants at a company called Jergensen, Inc.”
“I’ve never heard of it,” Michael said.
“It’s located in Portland and manufactures various products, mostly cosmetics.”
Michael raised an eyebrow. “Cosmetics?” Clearly, he was curious why an agency like the USIA would have any interest in a cosmetics company. Kiana was curious, too.
“We don’t think it’s really a cosmetics company. We think it’s a front for an arms manufacturer. Or at least the Portland division of it. The parent company, and its main headquarters, appears to be in New York, but it has branches throughout the US to better distribute its goods.”
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