Fires of Kiev Page 25

  Kostya’s fists clenched at his side. What kind of man would use their influence to protect a killer?

  For the atrocities at Maiden, Stas should hang; but Fire of Dawn’s plan of launching a missile eclipsed the Vlasenkos’ previous sins. Kostya had to do everything he could to stop the launch.

  “I didn’t have a benefactor to help me create an impressive resume, to invite me to the right parties, and to insinuate me into Washington society,” Petro complained. “But we’ve been doing our part, as well. You heard that we will have the encoder ready.”

  “Yes, I have,” Stas said. He laughed. “I can’t wait until you call the President of the United States with a missile pointed at his balls. The leader of the free world will squawk out orders to NATO in support of Novorossiya.”

  “You have a big night, tonight, no?” Vlasenko teased. “My men have everything set for you. Tomorrow you will come with a big smile on your face.”

  “I’ll have a big smile because I’m coming.” Stas laughed. He moaned raunchily, which caused more laughter between the speakers.

  “I envy you, my brother. Meredith is one very nice prize,” Vlasenko said. “If you weren’t here, I’d take her to my bed.”

  Meredith. Suddenly, Kostya struggled for control. How does Stas know Meredith? Why are they offering her to him?

  “She’s nice, that’s true,” Stas whispered loudly. “But she’s too uptight, you know? Sometimes I want someone I can tell what to do.”

  Have they already hurt her?

  The men laughed.

  “We’ll get you a nice accommodating mistress as soon as we are established in Donetsk. In the meantime, you can keep tapping her ice, eh?” Vlasenko said. He chortled at his own joke.

  Kostya’s muscles tensed as he imagined strangling the smiles off their faces.

  “You just wait, Petro,” Stas said. “You will have a woman giving you trouble before long.”

  “We’ll argue about that when I see you in a few hours.” Vlasenko groaned.

  “Yes, brother. Tomorrow, we’ll enjoy the dawning of New Russia together.” Stas ended the phone call and addressed the guard sharply. “Where is Kostya now?”

  “He’s sleeping,” the guard said. “Four hours after working twenty-four straight.”

  “Wake him after I’m gone,” Stas said. “I don’t want to distract the little Russian.”

  Where have I heard that tone of voice?

  Kostya heard the ratcheting of the elevator car door and quickly tucked himself in a corner by the elevator shaft. If he were lucky, he might catch a glance as the open car lifted past his floor. He wanted a peek at the face of the murderer who escaped him in Kiev when he was Spetnaz, and the man who had his filthy sights on Meredith. He heard the motor engage and the metal squeak as the car was pulled up. Kostya saw the lights on the car’s interior ceiling begin to rise and Kostya focused on the familiar occupant’s face.

  Scott Jackson.

  Chapter 35

  It’s impossible.

  Scott was a simple-minded social climber who had his eye on politics. He was so involved in winning friends and influencing people he had lost the greatest prize of all, Meredith. But, Stas’s familiar voice rang in Kostya’s ears. Echoes of insults, disparaging everything Ukrainian—Stas had to be Scott.

  Yet, how was it possible that a fugitive murderer had become a senior aide on Senator St. Claire’s staff? “Our American benefactor has influence in many places.” Kostya’s mind flashed to Senator St. Claire’s fundraiser in Washington. Meredith’s speech had infuriated Scott because a major contributor walked out.

  Arthur Lennox.

  Perhaps Senator St. Claire’s election fund wasn’t the only thing he was supporting. With as much wealth and power as Lennox had, he could set Stas up with a new identity, high recommendations, and a false resume of experiences. He could even become a senator’s aide.

  In return, the new government would give Arthur Lennox an advantage in winning contracts to rebuild after the war. The Lennox companies were poised to make billions in Novorossiya, if the missile launched.

  At that very moment, Stas Vlasenko was on his way to Kiev to blindside Meredith with his true identity and with his plans for the future—her future. Kostya’s stomach turned at the thought of it. And he wasn’t there, but it didn’t mean there was nothing he could do.

  His heart cried over Serhiy’s death and for Olena. They had been so welcoming to him and Meredith. It was encouraging, though, that they were setting up a radio to monitor UHF lines. It meant he was on the right track. And now he knew the Vlasenkos wouldn’t be able to monitor the feed until later tonight. He needed to get word out about Stas Vlasenko.

  Sliding down the ladder to the control center, he headed to the encoder and the radio he would hook up when it was time to send the enabling codes.

  “What, you can’t sleep?” the guard said in Ukrainian.

  “Nah,” Kostya responded simply. “I need to get this done.”

  The guard harrumphed and leaned back to read the newspaper he had brought.

  Kostya set the commands on the keyboard and started the packet loop immediately:

  Scott Jackson is Vlasenko’s brother—Meri in danger.

  ****

  “I can see why Hitler retreated,” Ben said, blowing on his hands and rubbing them together for warmth.

  “Huh? What are you talking about?” Will looked puzzled as the two men walked up to the front door of the Melnyks’ house.

  “Operation Barbarossa. You know, Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union? The southern front went right through the farmlands around here. The cold forced the Germans to retreat.” At Will’s blank look, Ben shrugged his shoulders. “Sorry, that’s my eidetic memory kicking in again.”

  Will smiled. “As long as you have room in there for a few missile facts and silo blueprints, we’ll be good.” He knocked firmly at the door and shoved his hands into his jacket. “It is pretty cold.”

  The door cracked open and a gray-haired woman answered. “May I help you?”

  “Hi,” Will spoke in poor, but understandable Ukrainian. “We’re looking for Olena Melnyk.” She opened the door a little wider, revealing several people quietly sitting, a few eating, but all wearing somber colors and speaking quietly. He was sure this was Serhiy’s family.

  “I know this is a difficult time,” Ben said, “but she said we could come if we needed help.” Ben spoke Ukrainian like a pro, even though he had only studied Russian before the plane ride.

  “You are spies?” she asked. The woman narrowed her eyes on them.

  Both men rebuffed the title. “We work for the United States government,” Will answered. “We’re investigating a rebel group here in the Ukraine.”

  “This group shot Serhiy, yes?” Although she barely topped five-feet, she stood tall so she could ask the question while looking them in the eye, as they stood two steps down on the porch.

  “We think so.” Will nodded solemnly.

  “Olena is in the barn with the radio,” she said. “She wanted to do everything possible to catch Serhiy’s killer before he got away. She’s been waiting for you.”

  Ben and Will thanked her as she eased back and shut the door. “She’s on the radio,” Will said, slightly stunned. “Her husband was just murdered.”

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go find her.” Ben stepped off the porch.

  They trudged through the snow, down to the Melnyks’ barn. Ben nudged Will and pointed to the bloodstained ground on the side of the barn. Will’s stomach dropped and a wave of nausea passed over him.

  “Oh no,” he said.

  Ben stood, trying to pay respect, to a man he never met.

  “We have to get in there and see what Olena has set up for us.” Will nodded and they slid the barn door across. On the opposite side, a door, surrounded by scattered hay on all sides, hinged up from the floor. The men carefully walked across the barn to the door.

  “Mrs. Melnyk?” Will ca
lled. “Olena?”

  After a moment, a head popped up from below the floor. Mrs. Melnyks’ curly blonde bob was held down by a pair of headphones that she had slid temporarily off one ear. “Hurry down, you two. I think I have something. I’m Olena, but I guess you know that. And you are Ben and Will, yes?” She pointed to each man when saying their name. “This is our secret place for missions.”

  The underground room was a bunker with supplies to last a long time. Cans and packets of food were stacked on shelves across from containers of fuel and blankets. There was a kerosene heater that had been lit, and a bed and small table. On the bed lay a middle-aged man with a gray beard and hair. His shoulder had been expertly bandaged up, but there were rags soaked with blood in a pile by the bedside. Hearing the visitors arrive, the man sat up.

  “Forgive me for not rising. Welcome to our bunker,” he said in fluent English.

  Ben was the first to speak. “Dr. Melnyk, I presume?” he said with amazement.

  “But, we thought… I mean, we were told that…” Will’s mouth was open with surprise.

  “That I was dead? Ha! They’ll have to do better than that to kill me.” Then imitating Monty Python in a queer Eastern European way, he said, “It’s but a flesh wound.”

  “It will be an open flesh wound if you’re not careful, Serhiy.” Olena spoke in Ukrainian, obviously comprehending the men’s conversation in English. She lowered the earphones.

  “You’ll please forgive him. I had to give him some painkillers when I dug out the bullet and stitched him up. He can be such a baby.” She crossed the concrete floor covered with braided rag rugs. Carefully she raised a blanket and propped a pillow for her husband. “Serhiy, you must rest.”

  Once Serhiy was settled, Olena sat back at a desk where several radio components had been set out. She slid on her earphones and spoke to them a little louder than she needed to because of the muffled sound in her ears.

  “I’ve been scanning the UHF band trying to find anything abnormal. I want to show you something I’ve found.”

  Ben and Will came around to face the monitor and tuning controls. “Here,” she pointed to the monitor. “This channel keeps broadcasting the same code over and over.”

  “What does it mean?” Will asked.

  “I don’t know, but it has to be something. It’s certainly not random.” Olena pushed her headphones onto her neck, her face flushed with excitement. “Do you think it’s something important?”

  Ben was already pulling out his laptop from his backpack and opening up the copy of the algorithm that Kostya had extracted from the computer chip he had snuck into the United States.

  “Mrs. Melnyk, I’m positive it’s important.” She glowed with pride in her discovery.

  In the meantime, Ben was punching the repeated code into his computer. He started the algorithm and almost immediately the message was decoded.

  “What the hell?” he thundered, switching to English. “Will, we’ve got a problem.”

  Will leaned over to look at Ben’s computer. “Scott is a Vlasenko? Holy shit.”

  Was it a message? Is everything all right?” Olena pumped her fist with excitement.

  “Yes, it was a message from our colleague who is being held near here,” Ben answered fluently. “He just sent some information about Will’s sister.”

  “From Kostya? What did he say about Meredith?”

  “He said Meredith is with Vlasenko’s brother and is in danger,” Will said.

  “Stas Vlasenko,” she remembered. “That’s a name I haven’t heard for a while.”

  “Do you know him?” Will asked.

  “I know of him.” She smiled weakly. “Actually, he’s pretty infamous for his ruthlessness during the Kiev riots a couple years ago. When the protesters started to conflict in their ideas, some of the more radical groups started taking prisoners and killing people. Stas openly claimed killing at least twenty.”

  “Twenty people?” Ben furrowed his brow in disbelief. “Why didn’t he get arrested?”

  “By the time the protests were over, there was so much to sort out. Stas disappeared in the meantime, but the government has been looking for him ever since.”

  “I think I know where he went,” Will muttered. “How could we not know who he was?”

  “Where has he been?” Olena asked.

  “He’s been one of the lead aides in my father’s Senate office, and he’d been dating my sister.” Will slapped his forehead and ran his hand through his hair. “And now she’s become part of his master plan to rule the world.”

  Olena took off the earphones and stood up. “I have a few things I need to do, but you boys are welcome to stay as long as you need. I’ll bring dinner down around six, so don’t worry about the M.R.E.s, but there is fresh fruit and drinks in the refrigerator.”

  “Thank you, Olena,” Will said. “We will probably keep this as a home base until we can end this thing.”

  She nodded and disappeared up the stairs, closing the trap door behind her.

  “It looks like Kostya was able to send out the message, but it is questionable if he could receive anything without bringing attention to himself.” Ben continued to study the monitor.

  “Hmm.” Will thought looking over his shoulder. “He programmed a packet to transmit over and over using the algorithm. That probably means he has the chip working.”

  “Yeah, but he’s sitting down there with a missile ready to launch and Meredith is in Vlasenko’s arms,” Ben muttered. “We’ve got to ask what would Kostya be thinking right now?”

  “First of all, he’d know that Meredith wouldn’t fall into Scott’s arms that easily.” Will defended his sister. “Second, if he’s enabled the missile, he’s got to have a plan.”

  “A plan that no one knows about and no reasonable way to communicate it.” Ben stood up and stretched his back. “He knows it’s a one-man show.” He pulled out the maps that Kostya had drawn of the encoder chip and started studying them.

  Will went across the room and sat at the table. He took out his phone and dialed TRUST headquarters. Ethan answered almost immediately.

  “Do you sleep anymore?” Will asked.

  “Sleep is overrated. I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” Ethan answered. “What have you got?”

  “I need you to do a search on Vlasenko’s brother, Stanislav, a.k.a. Scott Jackson.”

  There was a silent beat on the line while what he said sank in. “You’re kidding, right? Meredith’s Scott?”

  “Well, he’s not hers anymore, but yes.”

  “How is that… There’s no way…” Will could hear the keyboard keys clacking as Ethan worked his magic with the databases.

  “Okay, here’s just a basic bio—Petro’s younger brother is a Stanislav Vlasenko, known as Stas. He seems to be the troublemaker of the pair, which is difficult to believe considering Petro is trying to set off a nuclear bomb, but he is suspected of a gamut of nastiness culminating in the murder of at least twenty political prisoners during the Kiev protests. Pursued by police and other agencies after that event, he disappeared. Six-foot-one, blond, blue eyes, off-the-charts intelligence scores. Fluent in Russian, Ukrainian, English, French, and German, conversational in Farsi and Mandarin Chinese.”

  “His description matches Jackson. But how in the heck did he get to Louisiana and into my father’s Senate office?” Will wondered.

  “I’ll do some digging and see what I can come up with, but it doesn’t look like anyone has made the connection between Stas Vlasenko and Scott Jackson until now.” Ethan paused while his keys clicked. “Does Meredith know?”

  “Not yet,” Will breathed, more concerned than he let on. “I just hope when she finds out she can do something about it.”

  Chapter 36

  Meredith slipped on the gown with a strange sense of déjà vu. Everything was identical to the dress she had worn to the fundraiser. She ran her hand over the lace strap and thought of her original purchase, made in one of the most exclusive
boutiques in the D.C. area. She had gowns that would have functioned for the event, but she wanted more: sexy, beautiful, maybe a little bad—something that communicated her need for some attention.

  She had struggled to make the pieces fit between her and Scott before they fell apart. If she were a little more accomplished, or beautiful, or attentive, if she knew the right people or attended the right events maybe Scott would love her.

  At that time, she thirsted for a connection so deep that it saturated the marrow of her bones and enriched the blood flowing in her veins that was never there with Scott. She didn’t know what she needed until Kostya showed her. He fed her and she feasted, he rained upon her and she was immersed.

  He loved her and she was home.

  Reflected in the mirror, she ran her hand along the curve of her dress, smoothing it down her hip and releasing it into the flare of the skirt. Her image, prepared for someone—not Kostya—was flat and lifeless. Kostya was the breath that would stir pink into her cheeks and bruise her lips with color. He was air. He was life.

  A firm knock startled her out of her thoughts and she faced the door. One of the black-clad men spoke efficiently. “Dr. St. Claire, we are ready for you.”

  “Thank you.” She automatically used good manners, although they were hardly deserved after the last several hours of captivity. Tonight, she was someone’s doll, dressed up to play with, and she already felt used. “Will I need a coat?”

  “No, ma’am. Everything is set up in the hotel.”

  She glanced at the mirror one more time and followed the guard out the door. They walked to the elevator and silently ascended to the twenty-first floor, the top of the hotel. The doors opened up to a large ballroom framed by plaster arches and ornate moldings. Meredith slowly surveyed the space. Shiny wood floors reflected light from the windows that wrapped around, showing the lights of downtown Kiev from three sides. A table, near the center of the room, was draped in white tablecloths. The flames on two tall candles danced, flickering light on gold-rimmed china and crystal set for two. A red rose was placed across one of the settings. Running her fingers along one of the chairs, she skirted the table and approached the windows.