3-What Just Happened?

3

What Just happened?

Yuri Chenkoff clicked the off button on his cell phone, hanging up on Petroff.  He moved to the dining room where Vadim, his computer man, watched the hotel’s security cameras through a hacked feed.

“He is moving in on the target.”  Yuri spoke with a heavy Russian.  “Watch the bathroom door.”

Vadim’s fingers ran across the keypad and the feed on the laptop switched to show the bathroom door, and Petroff.  They both watched as Petroff entered the room and shut the door behind him.  If everything went according to plan, one man would exit the bathroom in a couple of seconds and it would be Petroff with the flash drive.  The American would be disposed of.

Yuri was a monster of a man, standing six-six and weighing over 300 lbs.  He was one hundred percent muscle, spending long hours lifting weights and perfecting himself into the killing machine he was today. Having grown up on a back woods farm in northern Russian where the conditions were terrible, he had dreamed of a better life.

He had found his better life with the Russian government.  Having taken the first chance he got to get out of his rural purgatory, he had joined the Red Army and after a couple of, what they called ‘psych evaluations’, he was moved to Spetsnaz and into wet work.

It took Yuri very little time to realize that Freelance was where all the money was.  He made the move to private work and had been independent for the last ten years.  He was, however, getting old for a killer. Nearing forty, it had become harder and harder to keep his body in the perfect condition he needed it to be in.  Although he never could see his life without killing, he knew it was coming time to retire from the business, at least for the most part.

With that said, he had felt like a real winner when he received the tip about this list.

He had already lined up a list of buyers that were offering billions of dollars for the material.  He had put a team together and the rest was history.  Nothing would keep him from completing this mission.

It was because of all of the work he had put into this mission which caused his heart to sink as, to his surprise, he watched as the target came out of the bathroom first, blood oozing from his shoulder, and took off running.

“Shit!” Vadim said in Russian.

“Give me the full lobby now!”  Yuri bellowed and Vadim sped through the key strokes.  The lobby came up just in time to see Petroff raise the gun and fire two shots before the D.H.S Agents put him down in a hail of gun fire.

He looked away at the floor trying to gather his resolve.  Vadim shook his head.  “Not good.  That’s an abort.”

“No.” Yuri said quickly.  “Not yet.”

Vadim turned and stared.  “It is blown Yuri.  Petroff is dead and The D.H.S will have the drive for sure!”

“No!  We abort when I give the order!” Yuri’s voice seemed to shake the room and Vadim could only nod.

“Run the lobby feed back.  Show it to me again.”  Yuri said, calming himself.

Vadim did as he was told and Yuri watched the whole thing unfold again.  The target’s mad dash across the lobby.  Petroff’s emergence from the bathroom.  The storm of gunfire.  The target crashing into the silly looking fat American tourists.

Yuri smiled.  Maybe there was hope after all.  Maybe the target had made a last minute decision to stash the list.

Yuri pointed at the screen.  “I want to know everything about the Americans.  As soon as possible.”

****

Anyone who ever said they had no interest in love or marriage was lying.

Humanity as a whole was romantic and there was no real way around that.  Even the most cynical and logical still wished, somewhere deep down within themselves, that there was someone out there so perfect they would break down the walls and prove them wrong.  Josephine, though of the more cynical and logical variety, had never been one of those people.  She had always known that one day her prince charming would walk into her life and she would have the two kids a dog and a white house with a picket fence that came standard in the American love story.

Love was nothing, if not unexpected.

She had fallen for Leonard only a couple of weeks into the courtship, a surprising fact given that he was silly, sometimes childish, and almost always impractical.  Although she had never pictured herself with a guy like him, he brought a liveliness and a humor to her world that was sorely needed.  Everything seemed grey before Leo.  Now it was in color.

Even with this fact, it was still easy to sometimes wonder how she could have fallen for him.  As she sat next to him waiting to be interviewed by the Department of Homeland Security staring at the writing on one of her most hated of his shirts, she was again visited by this sense of wonder.

It was a blue T-Shirt with yellow writing on the front that read ‘Nice guys always finish… Exactly when they are supposed to.’ Followed by a big yellow smiley face winking at anyone who gazed upon the shirt and could not infer the message from the writing alone.

“I hate that shirt.”  She said as they sat at a small table in the Northwoods first floor bar area.  Everyone in the lobby at the time of the shooting had been sequestered here while the Two D.H.S agents and the local police made their rounds gathering statements.

Leo’s face went wide as he looked at her with overblown melodrama.  “I just had a guy die on me for the first time ever and you are commenting on my shirt?”

Joe felt a ping of regret.  Sometimes she had a hard time comforting others.  “I’m sorry.  Are you okay?”

Leo quickly turned his frown into a smile.  “Yeah, I’ll be fine.  I didn’t know him.”

Leo had a way of correcting himself whenever he thought Joe had been hurt, but Joe had learned better. She could tell from the extra tremor in his had he was more bothered then he had let on.

“Mr. and Mrs. Dev-e-rocks?”  The well-built D.H.S agent had made his way to them and had butchered Leonard’s family name.

“Devereux.”  Leonard corrected politely but the agent seemed miffed for a second before his partner, the well-dressed younger woman, stepped in.

“Devereux, sorry about that.  My name Eliza Adams, Department of Homeland security.  This is my partner, Barkley Samuels.  Would you mind if we asked you a few questions?” Adams was more polite, more placating.  She was using honey.

“Of course, anything we can do to help,” Leo spoke out and extended his hand.  He was always over eager with government officials, not to say that he wasn’t over eager to volunteer more information than he should to just about anyone who would listen.

Eliza sat down across from them while Barkley stood behind her and watched them.  Joe had to wonder if this was an act.  She had watched so many crime shows with Leonard that this reminded her of the good cop, bad cop routine.  She found herself wondering if people really did that in real life.  If that’s what this was, it seemed silly to her.

Eliza went through a battery of questions.  The standard stuff, who are you what are you doing here, etcetera.  When they told her they were on vacation, Leo let it slip they were officially millionaires and Joe had glared at him not wanting that to be public knowledge.  Eliza had congratulated them and even Barkley’s face lightened.  Winning the lottery was apparently a little like being a celebrity and it garnered some special respect even though all they had really done was get lucky.

 “Did he hand you anything?” The question was strange and perked Joe’s attention.

“What would he have handed us in the time it took him to knock us over and die?”  She asked, sounding a little more cold and sarcastic then she wanted to.

“It would be something small, like a computer drive?” Eliza reworded the question and Joe watched as Barkley seemed to shift uncomfortably.

Joe could tell that even that was more information than they had wanted to give.  “So, this this flash drive is what they killed him to get?”

Eliza nodded and began to answer when Barkley’s hand snapped to her shoulder and she realized she had become too chatty.  “Just be on the lookout.”

“So does that mean we are free to continue our vacation?” Leo asked, ready to be done.

“Almost,” Eliza said.  “Mr. Devereux, will you step to the bar with Agent Barkley and empty your pockets?  Mrs. Devereux, if you could empty you purse with me.”

Leo stood and walked with Barkley to the bar.  Joe picked up her purse and began to empty the contents onto the table.  Without tall, dark and mean behind her, Joe decided Eliza might be more loquacious.  “So, what’s the deal with this drive?  Was he here to sell it?”

Eliza couldn’t resist the opening.  “We believe so.  We also believe the shooter was the buyer.”

“Who was the buyer, the shooter I mean?”  Joe tried to press her luck but watched Eliza’s face close up. She realized she had said too much and walled herself off.

“I can’t say ma’am.”  She said, then something caught her eye, a small flash drive.  “What is that?”

Joe shook her head.  “Not what you are thinking.  Leo programs music onto it and we play it through the car stereo for long trips.”

Eliza was crestfallen.  “Oh, I see.”

Leo and Barkley returned from the bar ending the conversation.     

“Alright, Mr. and Mrs. Devereux.  You can go, but if you think of anything else, please give me a call.”  Eliza said before handing them both her card and moving on to the next group.

****

“I’m sorry, I got carried away.”  Eliza said when they had reached a safe distance from the Devereuxs

“Damn right, you did,” Barkley snapped back.  “These are civilians not our task force.  Do you understand that?”

Eliza could do nothing but nod sullenly.  She was slightly relieved to see the anger leave Barkley’s expression as quickly as it had come.  “Don’t worry about it.  What did you read off those two?”

Eliza shrugged.  “Well, they don’t seem involved.  The wife is quick, she picked up on the info but a lot of people are smart, and did you see that husband?  That shirt was ridiculous.”

Barkley nodded and watched them leave the lobby and head to the elevators.  “Yeah, I think you’re right… but something in my gut tells me we are going to be seeing more of the Dev-e-Rocks before this thing is over.”

TO BE CONTINUED…