Thank you to everyone for reading.
Special thanks to purdys pal. Even amidst writing your own story and real life goings on, you found time to give me a hand.
Chapter 4
The crashing of the lamp against the wall drew Anatoly's attention away from the seething man across the room.
"Feel better?" Anatoly asked calmly, turning back to keep a wary eye on the man who was now close to hyperventilating.
"No! I do not feel better!" the man ran a shaky hand through his thinning hair. He managed to take some deep breaths and bring his emotions somewhat under control. The man turned to the dented bureau behind him, reaching for an open pack of cigarettes. With one hand he shook a smoke out and put it between his lips while the other hand skittered from one pocket to the next of his city uniform coveralls until he found the bulge that became a Bic lighter. After three failed attempts to flick a spark into a flame, he angrily threw the lighter the same direction as the lamp.
"Damn it!" he bellowed.
"Calm down," Anatoly walked towards the man, pulling his own lighter from his suit pocket and instantly had a flame ready under the dangling cigarette. The man sucked on his cigarette, pulling the calming nicotine into his lungs.
After several puffs, the man moved to sit on the edge of the sagging twin bed. He waved the cigarette in Anatoly's direction, "You come here with more papers, telling me to wait. The woman should be dead, her grandchildren crying over her grave. Then I could leave this place." He gestured again, sneering at the drab, grey room around them.
"This place, yes it's ugly and loud people fill the hallways," Anatoly shrugged one shoulder. "But your grandfather," he paused for emphasis,"he would have been happy to have such luxuries, no?"
The man hung his head, sniffing with shame. "My grandfather, he was a good man. He did not deserve to be sent to prison."
Anatoly nodded. He found it difficult not to laugh at the blubbering man. Had his grandfather been a Canadian spy caught in Russia, he would not have survived thirty days, much less thirty years. Anatoly had a hard time understanding how Canada managed to remain a free country with such a lackadaisical justice system.
"You were named after your grandfather, were you not?" Anatoly kept his voice calm and quiet. He hated this coddling, necessary though it was. He wanted to hit the man, yell at him, anything to stop the snivelling.
"Yes," the man nodded vigorously. "But when the newspapers reported on his death, so close to his prison release date, all the people we thought were friends, turned on us. My father couldn't handle the stigma of being the son of a Russian spy and killed himself. My mother changed our name and I became Peter Brayson. But in here," Peter pounded on his chest, over his heart, "In here, I am still Pyotr Brabovich."
Anatoly almost sighed with relief. It had been a close call, but he knew he had managed to keep Peter from rushing out and finishing his job prematurely. "So you agree? The Gouzenko woman should be made to pay for every moment your grandfather wasted in prison? Good! You have fear on your side; and soon you will have her begging for your forgiveness with tears running down her face, yes?"
"Yes!" Peter smiled and slapped his hands on his knees with enthusiasm. "I will follow your plan, and when the time is right and she is begging for me to let her go, I will show the same regard as her father gave that file of names, and end her life."
Anatoly nodded his approval. "I'll let you know when the time is right, and then you can finish what the Gouzenko family started. Soon, you can return to Canada and hold your head up high."
Peter Brayson wiped his arm across his teary eyes, "You have helped me get close to the traitor's daughter. This janitor's job," Peter pulled at the arm of his uniform distastefully, "has allowed me access to city computers when I work at night. I would never have known how to look for Tatiana Gouzenko without your help. I will do as you say." Peter smiled gratefully at Anatoly.
Anatoly moved to the slum apartment's door, glad to be leaving.
"I know you will," Anatoly said softly as he closed the door behind him. He looked forward to the time he would be rid of this mental case.
Anatoly took his eyes off the road ahead long enough to flip open his ringing cell phone.
"What?" he barked out.
"You were right, sir," the unctuous and gravelly voice replied. "Westen showed up at the warehouse on the docks."
"He didn't see you, Fyodor? Any of you?" Anatoly asked.
"No, sir. We were several blocks away, watching through the security camera feed."
After stopping for a red light, Anatoly excitedly switched his cell phone to his left hand, "What did he do?"
"He wasn't happy with what he found, that's for sure," Fyodor sounded excited too. He was revelling in the knowledge that he had information his boss wanted to hear.
"Tell me, damn it!" impatient and momentarily blinded by his anger, Anatoly almost jumped the light. The pedestrian in the crosswalk yelled an obscenity and held out his middle finger. Anatoly waved the annoying man on, turning his attention back to his phone call, "Tell me exactly what Michael Westen did."
"He came into the warehouse alone, just like you said he would," Fyodor quickly reported.
"Yes, yes. Then what?" Anatoly was impatient for details.
"He found the rags from his friend's bloody shirt and the cut ropes we used to keep that loud mouthed baboon still," Fyodor snickered. "He held onto them as he searched in every corner. He found nothing and became very angry. He threw that precious treasure we had left for him across the warehouse."
Anatoly laughed. He felt better than he had all day, "Good. Good work, Fyodor," he happily moved along with traffic when the light changed to green. "We have upset our spy friend. We left nothing else for him to find at the warehouse. So after he wasted his time with a fruitless search, where did he go?"
There was an uncomfortable pause over the phone line. Anatoly grew angry again, "You were supposed to follow him."
"Yes, sir," the Fyodor begged for understanding. "Anton, he tried, sir. But after five blocks a pretty girl in a black convertible cut him off and… sorry sir, but Anton lost Westen."
Anatoly smacked the steering wheel with the palm of his hand, "Glenanne! I warned you he may keep her close, protecting her."
"Would this not be a case of her protecting him, sir?"
"I warned you the girl might be involved!" spittle gathered in the corners of Anatoly's mouth. He rubbed at the headache starting to grow behind his right eye. "I am almost at the house now. I want to see the footage of Westen at the warehouse for myself."
"You are almost back? This is good," Fyodor sounded relieved. "Nicolai, he does not like the American. He never shuts up and is driving Nicolai crazy. And Sergei, he refuses to be left with the man."
Anatoly did not usually suffer fools for long. However, he did not have legions of good, trustworthy men to choose from. He had five; five low paid men whom he had smuggled into the US in the belly of a freighter.
"Tell Nicolai to put tape over the pain in the ass' mouth," Anatoly sighed.
Sam Axe was difficult. He would not answer the simplest of questions without a snide remark, he laughed at things that weren't funny, and every ten minutes he demanded to be given a beer. At first the Russians thought it was the result of the concussion, but even after they tried using Sam's broken wrist as a means to tame him, Sam only became louder in his desire for an ice cold beer to bring down the swelling. Anatoly had to agree with Michael Westen on one thing, holding Sam Axe was not worth the trouble.
"Michael," Fiona's voice sounded slightly garbled through the speaker phone of his cell.
"Yes, Fiona?" distracted, Michael drove his Charger around the corner faster than he intended. His cell phone started sliding across the passenger seat from the momentum. He grabbed for it and caught it before it could slide down the far side of the seat. The interruption caused his left hand to give the steering wheel a slight wiggle, not much, but enough that Fiona in the car behind noticed.
"You need to invest in Bluetooth, Michael."
"I'll get right on that. Thank you," Michael looked at the dash of his car. There was no place to set the phone down where it wouldn't continue to slide away from him. He was forced to hold onto it and use the back of his hand as a guide for the steering wheel.
"Yes, I'm sure you will. But that's not why I called," Michael was sure if he looked in his rear view mirror he would see Fiona laughing at him. He made a point of not looking.
"Enlighten me, Fi," Michael changed lanes without any incident.
"How sure are you that your friend Anatoly will send someone into the warehouse to check on your little message?"
"If he can't do it himself, he'll send someone, Fi," Michael was confident of that. "He's been in a frozen wasteland for seven years planning his revenge. He'll need to know what I left for him."
"Well then, shouldn't we be heading back to the warehouse? We lost our tail over thirty minutes ago. That was the only place Marcus' guy had time to follow Troshev's vehicle to. We don't want to miss our one opportunity to follow the Russians back to Sam."
"We're already on our way," Michael closed his phone and dropped it into his suit jacket pocket. His right foot dropped down onto the gas pedal. There was a growl as 375 horsepower came to bear; the vehicle surged forward, racing around yet another corner. This time there was no wavering; the black car held its line and only picked up speed as Michael drove back to the warehouse at the docks.
