Aristocratic Thieves

by Richard Dorrance

  Chapter 32: Out of the Country

  Plouriva’s nerves were about shot. She slumped down in the truck seat and closed her eyes. Her only thought was, “If we get caught and sent to prison for life (the best sentence to be hoped for), it’s not on my head. I did my part. I got the stuff out of the compound.” Roger still was stoked. A divvy can’t have the Divvy Sense bonging away inside him continuously for five hours without it doing something to the old nervous system. The bonging had stopped and the adrenaline rush was subsiding, but his nerves were raw. Hameed seemed calm and steady, and a slight smile embraced his face. He thought this whole thing was amazing, and was sad it was coming to an end. He thought about a strange place named Charleston, South Carolina, United States of America.

  Now for the next steps in the caper, masterminded by Henric and Constantine. Roger wondered if these would be executed simultaneously or sequentially. They had to get to where the objects would be removed from the museum crates and loaded into the computer crates, and the museum crates hidden. Then the computer crates would be loaded onto the trucks and head for some port location. Roger would be taken to the airport, where he would meet Gwen, and they would board a plane for the forty minute flight to Helsinki. Plouriva would be reunited with Little Jinny Blistov, her lover, who just would have finished his last and final meal of good old Russian grub. Peter and Pater would be grouped with Plouriva and Jinny, the four of them to be smuggled out of their homeland by Henric and Constantine, and sent on some unknown route in some unknown method of conveyance that ultimately, at some unknown time in the future, would end up in Charleston, America’s most beautiful town, and their new home.

  All these thoughts purred through all those heads, each person spinning the various permutations of known and unknown factors and variables in different ways that suited each individual temperament. This went on for forty minutes, when the driver of the lead truck turned off the road and drove through a metal fence and into the compound of a military base. Ahead of them was a large hanger surrounded by a lot of Quonset huts. The massive doors of the hanger were open, and the convoy entered through them. All eight trucks fit inside.

  The heist crew tumbled out of the cabs and stretched, the drivers killed the sound of the monster engines. Roger looked around and saw, over in the corner of the hanger, three men sitting at a table: Constantine, Henric, and Jinny. They got up and came towards the crew. Jinny went up to Plouriva and gave her a kiss. Who knew the depths of sentimentality existing in that short squat body. Constantine asked Little Boss how things went.

  Little Boss said, “As usual, good.”

  Henric asked Roger how things went, and Roger said, “So far, so good.” Roger was a little nervous, being as how he was inside a Russian military base that for all intents and purposes looked active. In the far distance he saw a couple of large, camouflage painted planes. But Henric wasn't nervous at all, so Roger took that as a cue.

  Little Boss finished talking with Constantine and went over to Peter and Pater. He said something, and they headed back to the trucks and the crews. At the far side of the hanger Roger saw a long row of large steel containers. He recognized these as the type that go on the super-container ships. Constantine motioned the group back to the table in the corner of the hanger. He spoke matter-of-factly, asking Plouriva and Roger how they were doing. Plouriva said she was sorry all the fun was over, and Roger said he always had wanted to enlist in the Russian air force. Jinny got both jokes and smiled at his best friends. The two Russian big boys acted like this was a day at the office. In the distance Little Boss rang up the crews and they began the intensive work of shifting the goods from the museum crates to the containers. Apparently Henric and Constantine had eliminated the computer crates from the equation.

  With a glance at Henric and Constantine, Jinny described the next steps. A car was waiting near the hanger with a driver who would take Roger to the Saint Petersburg airport. Jinny looked at Roger and told him Gwen was there, waiting for him. Their flight to Helsinki left at 7:05am. During the forty minute drive from the Hermitage compound to the military base, Roger had decompressed out of his Divvy Sense and back into his normal sense, a transformation left him beat. He had performed in his super-excited Divvy Sense mode for five hours, and now he was shot.

  Jinny looked at Plouriva and told her they would be leaving Saint Petersburg with the containers, along with Peter and Pater. He waited a moment before he said, “Plouriva, we’re going to be IN one of the containers.”

  Constantine and Henric waited patiently for Plouriva’s reaction. Roger, whose ears had perked up with Jinny’s statement, also looked at her.

  Plouriva was dead tired, but not dead. Her brain was working, and just about every neuron in it ignited when Jinny said they would be traveling container class. She didn’t overreact, but calmly organized her thoughts and chose her words carefully. Her brain divided her thinking into two compartments, one of which analyzed the logistics of the news, while the other analyzed a variety of options all of which would result in agonizing discomfort to her man, Little Jinny Blistov. The compartment focusing on the travel logistics won the battle for control of her speech, and she asked Jinny how long they would be in the container? He said the trip to the container port terminal was only about an hour, but then it would take another hour or two to process the containers into the terminal and drop them off at their waiting location. She sensed something unsaid in Jinny’s statement, and sent a telepathic communication to Jinny. It demanded the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

  This unspoken communication was received loud and clear by Jinny, who had come to love this thing that Plouriva and he were able to do. He thought it made them special as a couple. The fact that the unspoken communication also was loud and clear to Constantine, Henric, and Roger didn’t diminish his appreciation one bit. Nor was his appreciation diminished by the fact that now he had to tell Plouriva the remaining travel logistics. Even in the face of potential annihilation, Jinny remained cool, for the simple reason that he was in love. He loved Plouriva, and he would love her even if they shared a stone cell in Siberia, which still was a distinct possibility. So he told Plouriva that the four of them would be in the container for the duration. That was how they would be smuggled out of the country. He punctuated this statement with a wry smile and by raising his hands off the table in a gesture of, “That’s the deal.”

  The other compartment of Plouriva’s mind, the one plotting Jinny’s torture, desperately tried to assume command of Plouriva’s speech function, but the first compartment maintained control, and she said to Jinny, “What exactly do you mean by the ‘duration’?” He quickly explained, with a loving look on his face, that they would have to stay in the container until they reached their new home. “And how long is that, exactly, Jinny?” He wanted to answer, but there was something about Plouriva’s body language that had frozen him. It may have been the body language resembling a tightly coiled spring. Constantine, Henric, and Roger were enjoying the drama of this little play, but with this new development in Plouriva’s demeanor, Constantine thought it wise to intervene. So he spoke up, saying the container only would stay at the Saint Petersburg terminal for forty-eight hours. It would be loaded onto a ship then, and be on its way. He said this matter-of-factly, similar to the way experienced military commanders issue orders to troops; orders that will take them into battle. Constantine said the ship was heading straight to the States, with no stops in other countries. Plouriva didn’t respond immediately, because the second compartment in her brain had shifted its focus from how to inflict pain on Jinny to how to inflict pain on Constantine. Again it was warring with the first compartment for control of her speech function. Constantine said the cross-ocean trip was about four days.

  Compartment one of her mind assumed control, enabling her to ask, “Is Charleston the first stop?” The coiled spring body language remained in e
ffect, and now was directed at Constantine, who sensed it pretty damn strongly. He tried to keep his eyes locked on those of Plouriva, but he couldn’t, and his formidable countenance faltered.

  He looked down at the table and said, “Well no, not exactly, the first stop is the terminal in Savannah, Georgia.” He quickly looked up and said that stop would only last twenty-four hours, and THEN they would be on their way to Charleston.

  Neither Jinny nor Constantine nor Henric nor Roger dared to do the math. But Plouriva did the math: two days at the Petersburg terminal plus four days crossing the ocean plus one day in Savannah plus one day at the Charleston terminal. Let’s see, how does that add up? She would have to spend eight days locked in a shipping container with three other guys, one of whom at some strange point in her life she had been in love with, but whom now she hated and despised and whom she very actively was plotting to torture in ways that would make even the American CIA tremble. And with two strangers, gay to boot. Wonderful. After she strangled Jinny long about day three, she THEN would face either two guys having sex, or the breakup of THEIR love relationship and the murder of the weaker of the two by the stronger of the two. And THEN she would be alone in a shipping container on the high seas with a strange gay murderer and two bodies. Wonderful.

  Plouriva considered a full meltdown right then and there, but when she looked at Jinny and saw a loving composure on his face, she decided to forego the meltdown and just go with the flow. What’s another eight days of being uncomfortable, at the end of which she would be in a strange but supposedly beautiful place, with the man she (formerly) loved. How much more uncomfortable could this container be than suffering temperatures of minus ten degrees in mid-April, here in St. Petes? The coiled spring of her body language released its tension, a change much appreciated by the others at the table. They felt the tiger had decided not to eat them that day.

  Plouriva sat back and asked questions. Is there enough air for four people for eight days? What kind of toilet was in the container? What would they do for light? What type of firearm would she and Jinny be given (implying that Peter and Pater would not be given firearms)? Does the container have satellite TV communications capability, including BBC News? Has anyone told the two dudes about this? No? Well, who exactly was going to do that? What are the ground rules during the eight days for sex? Meaning sex with others and sex with self?

  Now that the tension on the spring had been relieved, Jinny and Constantine took turns answering her questions. The team was back in sync and they were moving on. Peter and Pater would have to lump the discomfort issue. Of course, they could choose to stay behind in Saint Petersburg if they wanted to. Henric spoke up and said maybe that wasn’t so, because if they stayed behind and got caught, they certainly would crack under pressure and name names, and then where would the team be? The others saw this point, especially Constantine, who said yeah, right, they’re going whether they like it or not. He got up and crossed the space of the hanger to where Peter and Pater were helping with the loading. Jinny and Roger figured that was a done deal.

  While the loading was going on they discussed the distant future, meaning Charleston. What a change of perspective. For how long had the team been locked into dealing with all things Russian? For them to realize this phase of the op was over was incredible. They didn’t want to jinx anything by displaying hubris, given that four of them would remain on Russian soil for another full day, but the temptation to start thinking of Charleston was inescapable. What was the Charleston plan? What would the team do on the day the container opened and out popped Plouriva, Jinny, Peter, and Pater (assuming there were no bodies to be unloaded)? Roger and Jinny looked at Constantine and Henric, thinking, 'When are these guys going to show up in Charleston, with Helstof, Slevov, and god knows who else?'

  Quickly it became apparent that thinking that far ahead was of no practical benefit, so everyone stood down from future think and came back to the present. Constantine came back to the table with Peter and Pater. They looked at Jinny and Plouriva, and Jinny and Plouriva looked at them, and the four of them began circling around each other psychologically, like new dogs in the neighborhood meeting the old dogs of the neighborhood for the first time. Constantine saw this, and cut through it immediately by issuing orders. “Roger, your car is outside the hanger on that side. The driver is waiting, and so is your wife. Go. Henric, please go and oversee the loading. It is going well, but the trucks have to leave here by 4am. Make that happen, thank you. You four, come with me. I will show you your container, and you will see it’s quite nice. It contains a case of vodka, and that will help you get through the not so nice parts of the trip. Come.”

  With these commands everyone stood up and shook hands. No one spoke because everyone knew they had performed well. They now knew they were a team, and could look forward to the Charleston portion of the game. Roger nodded goodbye. Plouriva took Jinny’s arm with one hand and saluted with the other. Peter and Pater bowed, a mannerism the others could not place and filed away to be explored further in Charleston. Constantine took a cigar out of his breast pocket, lit it, and waved with a smoky hand. Henric took Constantine by the arm and walked him away, pouring words into his ear. As Jinny and Plouriva walked towards their condo of the immediate future, Jinny just smiled and smiled and smiled. He was on his way to his beloved Charleston.

  Gwen sat under the raw fluorescent lights of the Saint Petersburg airport. She had found a corridor that was less busy than the main terminal areas. The benches were hard and the backs were poorly designed. While looking for food she noticed there was a vodka seller’s booth every 100 yards or so, and she was tempted. Ultimately she decided that worry was better than a hangover on a plane. And that was what she was doing….worrying. She and Roger had been separated for thirty hours, but they were some of the worst hours of her life. She knew what Roger was doing, and that he loved his Divvy Sense, and she knew he was having fun using his Divvy Sense. But my god, how she feared something going wrong. It’s one thing to conceive a plan, commit to a plan, fool around with a plan. It’s very different executing a plan. Gwen was tough minded, but waiting there in the Saint Petersburg airport, knowing what was happening just a few miles away; this was hard to take.

  Which is why she issued a very loud squeal that drew the attention of more than one Russian road warrior when she saw Roger walking down the terminal corridor towards her. She saw he was walking tall and relaxed, and with his inherent poise of southern dignity intact. This told her more than any set of words could that things were OK. She started running towards him, but caught herself, and slowed to a fast walk. Her eyes though, remained on his face, hawk like, until her arms surrounded him. She buried her face in his shoulder, just for a minute, before raising it to be kissed. Roger didn’t disappoint her. He kissed her the way she wanted to be kissed.

  Things were different a few hours later when they checked into the Helsinki Intercontinental Grand Hotel. Things there were a bit boisterous. Once again there was thunder, under the covers.