Episode 2 #6
“MC7 has some questions for your father, Sevastyan,” Raska said, falling for Sevastyan’s gambit. “We think he might have been a bad boy. Or at least an uncommitted one.”
“For the hundredth time, Raska,” Anton snapped. “I told you my mission was a long-term one. I told you I was embedded in the wrong program. The US government moved the contract to Stanford. But you and management wouldn’t let me follow.”
“You just wanted to move for your pretty, precious American wife.”
“A wife you picked for me. Mikhail’s own damned daughter.
How much more in pocket could I be? Jealous isn’t a good look, Ras.
I sent in the evidence. If you wanted me to have eyes on that project, you needed a new agent or you needed to let me move.
I had the credentials. I had the recommendations.
You all left me in that dead-end posting, teaching freshmen the damned periodic table. ”
Raska glared at Anton. “Maybe. Maybe not. Let’s check.”
Steel pressed against the side of Sevastyan’s head. He stopped breathing. He didn’t need to try to turn his head to know what Raska was doing. It was written across his father’s face. Wide eyes, half-parted mouth.
His mother was holding a gun to Sevastyan’s head.
“What’s blowing our son’s brains out going to prove?” Anton roared, jerking against the steel holding him to the table.
Raska pushed the gun so hard against Sevastyan’s head that he had to give way, his head tilting. “Did you sell us out to the Americans?”
Anton screamed in frustration. His fists tightened and his arms strained against the cuffs.
“Raska, again. Check the damn records. Get Vitchi in here. Going double agent wasn’t my idea, it was his.
I passed on exactly what this office ordered me to pass on.
Drivel. Codswallop. Noise. Agents who had already been moved.
I wasn’t in a position to know much and they knew it. ”
“Vitchi is gone.”
Anton’s eyes darted around the room, looking for something to hold on to. “Then whoever took his place.”
“Let me rephrase. MC7 no longer answers to the government. The program was closed.”
Anton’s whole body froze.“Then why are we here? Is this decommissioning? ”
“We’re here because of me.” Raska preened. “Someone else made an offer.” She nodded toward the one man Sevastyan had picked as being her equal or more. He looked vaguely Baltic in ancestry but Sevastyan could have been wrong. The man had one of those faces that could come from a thousand places.
Anton looked between Raska and the heretofore other power figure in the room. “Who made an offer?”
“The Merchari. Solutions for hire. If you need it, they can get it for you. If you want something gone, it will be gone.”
Anton closed his eyes and breathed slowly, visibly collecting himself. “We swore an oath to Russia. I swore an oath to Russia.”
Raska leaned forward on the table. “It’s not like the government is losing in this deal. And that loyalty of yours is still in question.”
Raska tapped her gun against the side of Sevastyan’s head.
Ow.
Anton glared. “Raska. You know I’m loyal to Russia. You know what I’ve done for our country, what I gave up. What I’ve been giving up. How could you . . .”
His father was going to talk himself into getting both of them killed. Raska had never cared about patriotism, unless it was getting her something. Enough of this.
“Shut up, Dad.” Sevastyan knocked Raska’s gun away from his head and stood.
He turned on his mother, still pushing the gun away.
“You can shoot me from two feet away as well as right next to me. Good grief, woman, I’ve been on planes and in cars for twenty-four hours.
” Sevastyan stretched and then crossed his arms. “First time we’re all in the same room in sixteen years and this is what you two do? ”
Raska glared at Sevastyan but the gun stayed low and to the side, not pointed at anyone in particular. The Merchari representative moved across the room out of direct range.
Sevastyan tilted his head to the side and snorted through his nose. “Really, Mama? You think Da isn’t loyal? Or maybe you’re just scared he won’t be loyal to the Merchari? It’s not like you’ve given him a chance. Cut the bullshit.”
Sevastyan turned to Anton. “MC7 has been privatized. Mama merged it with private contractors. They’re wrapping up loose ends, ending missions that aren’t focused on the new objectives.
There are still . . . missions.” Sevastyan rolled his eyes toward Raska and made a waffling motion with his hand.
“It’s just not government. But it’s also not always not. It’s . . . private.”
Anton swallowed, still looking between Sevastyan and Raska. “Private?”
“We solve problems for people with the money to have them solved, sometimes for Russia, or at least Russians. Sometimes for friends. Of Russia.” Raska put her gun away.
“And the governments and people who hire this private service can always answer honestly that they did nothing.” Sevastyan snorted.
Anton’s hands curled back into fists. “I’m not turning against Mother Russia.”
“Russia is mother and Mother is Russia,” Sevastyan retorted. He gave Raska a long, steady look. “Even if she’s a psychotic bitch.”
Raska reached for her gun.
Sevastyan raised an eyebrow at her. “Do that and Anton won’t tell you about the pharmaceutical shipment coming out of Alaska.”
“Sevastyan!” Anton snapped.
Sevastyan shrugged. “Bargain with something, Da. You’re an idiot. We all know you’re loyal to Russia. Mama wants to know if you’re loyal to family. If you’re useful.”
Anton growled. “It’s not like she’s loyal to me.”
“No, she’s the queen bitch,” Sevastyan said.
Raska drew her gun and jammed it into the base of Sevastyan’s throat. “Call me a bitch again.”
“Queen bitch.” Sevastyan grinned. “Did you not hear the queen part?”
She smirked.
Sevastyan turned back toward Anton, ignoring the gun against his throat. “Think about it, Da. The money is good. You have skills the Merchari need. You’ll be home.”
Anton gave Raska a measured look. “I’m done with undercover. I miss home. I miss my son. I even miss your psychotic ass, though right now I can’t remember why. I want to drink kvass and eat pirozhki without looking over my shoulder. Promise me that, or you might as well shoot me now.”
She sniffed. “Kvass and pirozhki? You’re a cheap date.”
“Russia—home—isn’t cheap.” Anton sagged in his chair.
“And you work for me?” Raska kept her gun against Sevastyan’s throat but her eyes were on Anton.
Anton nodded. “All you had to do was ask.”
Raska slunk toward the table, her gun dragging down Sevastyan’s chest and leaving his body at the level of his belt. She leaned down to Anton. “No other conditions?”
“Don’t get me put in fucking prison.”
She laughed, swirling her gun around her finger. “Don’t worry. Merchari don’t end up in prison. We shop in them.”
Sevastyan grabbed the gun from Raska’s hand and slipped the safety on, handing it back to her. “We don’t kill useful friends,” he snapped at her. “You taught me that when I was seven.”
She laughed, and poked him in the arm with the muzzle, then grabbed him by the hair and kissed him on the cheek.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a bracelet dripping in emeralds and rubies, dropping it into her hand. “Don’t wear that in New York for a few years.”
She held it up to the light and laughed, then patted his cheek. “Such a mama’s boy, Sevvy.”
He grinned at her. “It will go with that dress you bought in Barcelona.”
Sevastyan
Sevastyan took Anton to a hotel across the city. On the way, they detoured to a pharmacy. Anton looked around him, lost and out of his depth. Sixteen years away from your homeland would probably do that to a man.
Sevastyan clapped his father on the back. “I got this.”
He grabbed general wound care products and first aid and paid for the items, then they walked on to the hotel. Sevastyan spoke to the front desk, slipping the girl behind it a hefty tip to get kvass and pirozhki sent up to their room.
Anton dropped down onto the edge of one of the beds, sighing heavily.
Sevastyan laid out the medical supplies. “Come on, let’s get you showered. You need new clothes.”
“I should check my bag.” Anton looked around the room, lost and confused.
“You don’t have one.” Sevastyan patted Anton gently. “Come on. I’ll get some things delivered. You won’t need anything right away.”
“I—okay.” Whatever meager adrenaline his father had been running on had run out.
He was childlike in his confused stupor.
Not only had he been snatched from his life, fake as it was, but he’d been dragged back into a country where nothing was quite as it had been and yet everything was supposed to be familiar.
Sevastyan had moved between regions often enough to recognize the struggle.
Nothing was quite wrong but also nothing was quite right.
Distances were off. Light switches looked different and were in different places.
The air and the water tasted different. The sun was in the wrong place in the sky.
And on top of all that, Anton was bruised, battered, and likely coming off the drugs used to subdue and transport him.