Wednesday, April 23, 2014

5- Eureka!


5

Eureka!

The knock on the door came and a lesser man would have panicked with the Department of Homeland Security knocking at their door, but not Yuri Chenkoff.  Yuri was a professional, he knew well enough that his alias and the aliases of his crew would hold up to the scrutiny of the D.H.S, but that it wouldn’t really matter.  They weren’t looking for them, they were looking for the flash drive.

That was most certainly not in the room.

Yuri eyed his men, Vadim, Boris, Oleg and Pavel were in the room.  Nestor, his last man was out following the couple down the hall.  Yuri was positive they were the ones with the flash drive.  Yuri noticed Vadim’s eye twitched and he gave him a hard look.

“Remember,” Yuri whispered in English so as not to be heard through the door.  “We are Russian business men here to pitch a computer program to interested buyers.  Keep it together and everything will be fine.”

The knock sounded at the door again, this time louder and accompanied by an American man’s voice.  “Department of Homeland Security, open up please.”

Yuri steeled himself then opened the door.  In front of him stood a stout blond haired American man in a suit.  Next to him was a woman who would be attractive if she stopped trying so hard to look like a man. They were accompanied by three Traverse City police officers.

“Can I help you?” Yuri said with a heavy accent.

The blond man eyed him for a second.  Yuri knew this was the effect his massive size had on normal people.  He eventually found his nerve.  “I’m agent Barkley and this is Agent Adams.  We are with the-”

Yuri cut him off.  “The Department of Homeland Security, yes I heard when you yelled it earlier.  I will ask again, can I help you?”

The woman stepped up, undeterred by Yuri’s size.  “There was a shooting downstairs.  We are investigating the incident and would like permission to search your room.”

Yuri’s eyes shifted to Adams’ and he attempted to feign fear on his face, not an easy task since Yuri Chenkoff feared nothing.  “My God, how terrible.  Of Course, but I can assure you we had nothing to do with this horrible thing.”

With that, he stepped aside and let the police and the agents pass.  They moved in and Barkley began to coordinate the search.  Adams, however, stared at Yuri’s men who all stared back with hard faces.  “What are you gentlemen in town for?”

Yuri shrugged.  “We are here to pitch our new computer software to a perspective buyer.”

The woman’s eyebrow rose as she turned to Yuri skeptically.  “You are a little big to be a computer programmer aren’t you?”[Z&M1] 

Yuri’s smile widened.  “Everything is bigger in Russia.”

Yuri bent down a little when he said it in order to intimidate the agent.  To his surprise, it had no effect.

“Can anyone corroborate your story?” She asked and Yuri’s eyes went to his men.

They all tensed slightly at the question as if waiting for Yuri’s sign, when given, would mean kill everyone in the room.

Yuri shook his head.  “I’m sorry.  Our buyers must remain anonymous.  The computer business can be one of treachery.  You understand, yes?”

Adams seemed to watch him for a second then decided to let it go.  Barkley had returned.  “Let’s get out of here Adams, there’s nothing.”

Adams nodded and the two of them left with the police officers.  “Good luck agents.  I hope you find what you are looking for.”

Yuri shut the door behind them and took a deep breath.  With that out of the way, he called Nestor. Nestor had been following the couple all day and, with any luck, would have gleaned a clue to where the flash drive is.

Nestor answered. “Yes?”

“Nestor, it is Yuri, what have you found?” He asked, his voice was all business.

“Nothing,” Nestor replied.

Yuri became agitated.  “What do you mean nothing?  You have been following them for six hours.  They have given you no clues?”

“Honestly sir, I don’t think they are what you think they are,” Nestor replied.  “I think they are just two stupid Americans on holiday”

Yuri’s fist clenched and he forced himself not to hurl the phone in rage.  “They must have it.  The way he ran to them, they must be his contact!”

“I am sorry, sir.”  Nestor said into the phone.  “In the last six hours they have gone out to breakfast, went for a swim at the beach, eaten ice cream, argued about renting Jet Ski’s, he won I think he is afraid of them, then they got ice cream again before returning to swim.”

Yuri took a few deep breaths.  “Have you learned nothing?”

“The man has very funny shirts.”  Nestor replied.

Yuri was shocked.  “What?”

“The man’s shirts, they are very funny,” Nestor said, almost jovially.  “He has a shirt on now that says ‘I’m with stupid,’ but instead of pointing to the person next to him it points to his penis.”

Nestor found this hilarious and began to laugh.  Yuri hung up before he got any angrier.  “Oleg, go to their room, break in and search it.”

Oleg’s grin widened.  He had a dark side to him that always bothered Yuri.  He had been the one who cornered the woman in the hall and almost blew everything.  Nonetheless, he was ruthlessly efficient as long as he could keep his deviant urges to himself.

 As he passed Yuri, Yuri grabbed his upper arm to stop him.  “Oleg, do not get caught.”

Oleg nodded and Yuri released him to get to his job.  They were running out of time.

****

“I am so full.”  Leo said as he held his stomach on the way back to the hotel.

Josephine knew what he was going through.  The Deveruax’s had a bad habit of over eating whenever they were on vacations.  This day had been no different.  “Tell me about it.  Why did we do that?”

“I don’t know,” Leonard said before letting an earth shattering belch go.

“Oh my God!” Josephine said as the stench wafted through the small car.

“I can’t help it!” Leo tried to defend himself and failed.

Joe used her console to roll Leo’s window down, in order to get some fresh air in the car.  She pressed the “lock” button so he could not roll the window up.  It had just started raining outside and Leo whined.  “Hey, come on!”

She couldn’t help but laugh as he and his ridiculous shirt got pelted with rain drops.  “That’s what you get!”

His eyes narrowed and he reached over towards her armpit, her most ticklish spot and she tensed, “Alright, truce!”

She unlocked his window and he rolled it up.  “Thank you.”

There was a silence as they both calmed down and her mind, as devious as it is, again brought her back to the mysterious shooting the day before.  “I just don’t get it.”

Leonard eyed her and she knew exactly what he was thinking.  He knew where she was going before she went there.  He knew she had always had a hard time letting things like this go.  She craved information, always had.  Leo had never quite let her live down the fact that she had Googled him after he had asked her out.  She couldn’t help it, she wanted to know what she was getting herself into.

“We are on vacation,” Leonard said.  “We are also not law enforcement agents.”

Josephine shrugged.  “I know, I know, but doesn’t it seem a little weird to you?  Why would the buyer shoot the seller before he had the item he was trying to buy?”

Leo considered this.  “Drug deals go bad all the time and people get shot.  I mean, it comes with the territory of being a criminal.”

Joe frowned.  “This is not a Van Damme movie, Leonard. This is real life.”

Leonard nodded.  “Got that right, there would be way more high kicks if this was a Van Damme movie.”

Joe ignored that.  “All I’m saying is that these guys are stealing national secrets, they’re not normal criminals.  I would think they would be more, I don’t know, organized.”

Leonard considered this.  “Okay, so what if the shooter isn’t the buyer?  Maybe he’s just ambushing the seller in the bathroom and maybe there is a different buyer?”

Josephine nodded.  That theory sounded better to her.  The shooter was a third party who took out the seller for what he was selling, meaning whoever the buyer was, he was still out there.

“Let’s let it go for tonight, huh?  We’ll just go upstairs and relax, no more talk of dead people?”  Leonard pleaded and Josephine had no choice but to surrender as they pulled into the hotel and parked.

As they began to get out, Josephine noticed the flash drive plugged into her radio, the one they loaded music on to listen to on the trip.  “Don’t forget the flash drive.”

Leonard shook his head.  “Nah, I just leave it in the car, it’s not like we are going to use it upstairs.”

Leonard opened his door but before he could get out, Joe grabbed his arm stopping him and forcing him to look back.  “Hold on, did you leave the flash in the car yesterday, after we had arrived?”

Leonard was confused as to why this mattered so much.  “Sure I did, why?  I don’t think anyone’s going to break into the car for a lousy flash drive.”

A cloud lifted in Joe’s head, she realized what had happened and grabbed her purse and began to dig into it.

Leonard still didn’t understand.  “What’s going on, babe?”

She ignored him and kept digging until she found it.  As she pulled it out of her purse, Leonard stopped talking and stared, realizing now what Joe and come to understand a minute ago.

She was holding a flash drive in her hand.

The flash drive.

TO BE CONTINUED….

No comments:

Post a Comment