St. Petersburg Nights
Chapter 13: Uneasy Nights
By Natasha Shaitanova
Disclaimer: I don't own the Harry Potter series.
"Sasha Mishkin?"
Attention in the room shifted to the owner of the house, who smiled graciously in return.
"Yes, hello, Harry. I see you remember me from Moscow?"
Suddenly, everything made sense. Harry thought about how it was that Malfoy always seemed to be a step ahead—and how he had left the messages on Mishkin's machine about Yalta.
"Bastard," he hissed, "Were you ever an agent at all? Where is the real Mishkin?"
"Quite unavailable."
And with that, the owner turned away from his captives to speak in rapid Russian into his cell phone.
Gorozin and Lucius chose that moment to grab the tied up agents and drag them over to the mute Rosalind. Noticing who was dragging him, Harry had another double take but kept his mouth shut. The MIA has long suspected that casket had been empty.
After looking over Rosalind and ensuring she seemed to be unhurt, Harry turned his attention to the rest of the room. He took a moment to study Zabini and Malfoy, where they stood ignoring the proceedings. He hadn't really seen either since school days; Malfoy since sixth year.
Harry would be lying to himself if he fancied there was some significant change in appearance, but he couldn't help but notice that Malfoy was…off. He looked perhaps sullen, perhaps annoyed, it was difficult to tell.
The quiet tension of the room was disturbed yet again as a pair of camouflaged men came in carrying Elizabeth Montgomery, conspicuously unconscious in her silence. She, too, was dumped unceremoniously next to the other three prisoners.
"I do hope you have the appropriate facilities for your guests, Shaitanov?" pretenses aside, Lucius addressed the owner by his real name.
"If you mean dungeons, then no," Shaitanov sat comfortably in his lounge chair and sipped the tea that the house elf dutifully replenished, "I am sure we can find appropriate accommodations in the basement, however."
Gorozin nodded, "Well, they are all here, they are all in a stupor. Now is as good time as any to relocate them."
"And questioning?"
"Can wait until after they've had time to mull things over," Gorozin nodded to Lucius, "And now would be a good time to set up the contact with England."
"Alright," Shaitanov clapped his hands and pressed a button on his pager, "Tiffy, take young Misters Malfoy and Zabini up to their rooms. Gentlemen, we have a few things to discuss."
Draco did not bother engaging in much of a discussion as he and Blaise were led upstairs, despite the other's efforts. He waved a lazy goodbye at his old friend and closed the door behind him when they finally reached the guest bedrooms.
Not bothering to study his surroundings, Draco plopped down onto the bed and threw an arm over his eyes.
His father was alive. He was here. He was involved.
No, Draco was not getting his money and getting out. He groaned as he realized just how involved he suddenly was in whatever scam the businessmen were plotting.
Draco did not trust his father. He did not trust Gorozin. But above all, he did not trust Shaitanov. The prisoners they had acquired were no small load—two MIA agents, one of whom happened to be none other than Saint Potter, the daughter of the Minister of Magic, not to mention MagiComp Chairman, and the old woman, whom Draco did not recognize but could bet was on the same scale of importance.
He rolled over and tugged the covers over his body, blocking out all thought.
Harry carefully memorized each corridor and turn they took as they were dragged down to the basement by the same camouflaged men. Whether or not he would ever get a chance to use this knowledge, Harry tried not to consider. If he operated on the crazy presumption that they had a chance, maybe he could just find one.
It did not take long until they came to a long barren corridor, with numerous steel doors along the walls. They were shoved through the first on the right and left to stand in the middle of the room as the door was slammed shut behind them.
Dark. Cold. Harry really could not see a difference between this, what was it, storage space? And dungeons. Perhaps Shaitanov meant that there would be no rodents sneaking around, ready to bite as soon as they showed signs of fatigue.
"Dean?" Harry called into the darkness as he tried to regroup his new charges.
"Present," the voice sounded off slightly to his left and soon the hand on his arm reassured Harry of his position.
"Elizabeth?"
"I've got her," Dean's voice echoed slightly as it reverberated again the walls of the room, "She's still out."
"Alright, Rosalind?"
"She's been silenced. Ms. Cox, if you hear us, bang twice on the floor."
Twin thuds came in short succession, almost conveying the ire of the director by their intensity.
"Ok, everybody good then."
The statement was cursory, Harry knew, since their situation was anything but good. Taking the chance to speak, however, without a hysterical Elizabeth to worry about, Harry tapped Dean on the shoulder, "What do you suppose they want us for?"
"Could be anything they wanted, really," Dean, true to his training, kept despair out of his tone, "They've got all the leverage they want over MagiComp with Elizabeth, over MIA with Rosalind…and us, maybe, and with everyone together over the ministry."
"Ok, thinking logically…" Harry paused a moment before continuing, "Lucius Malfoy is central to the corporate scandal back in England, since he is the party that owns the MagiComp shares that they are trying to push out. But I can't see this all as an attempt by him to just wean out a few galleons out of the company."
"Well, he wouldn't need hostages for that," Dean too sounded decidedly puzzled, "And that doesn't account for Shaitanov and that other Russian guy."
"So…I can't believe that they would want money…"Harry trailed off. It was possible that everyone was involved for the large sums at the end of the exchange. He just didn't want to believe it was so simple.
"Look, they are gonna question us tomorrow, ya? That'll probably be independently, tied to a chair in the middle of a freaky empty room, but we might still get some information. Let's just wait until then before any more guesses."
With that, conversation ceased in the room as the occupants tried to uneasily catch a wink of sleep by leaning against the cold concrete walls. Needless to say, success was limited and rampant thoughts reigned.
"How do we get word out?" Gorozin assumed his self-assigned role of conductor between Shaitanov and Lucius, both men too stubborn to compromise.
"We could pay off a cheap contact to go to the Prophet," Lucius sounded dubious.
"Maybe something a bit flashier?" Shaitanov scratched his chin, "We could take photos and email them to all major European TV stations, along with a typed statement of demands."
"We are not going to keep this quiet?"
"No way," Shaitanov snorted, "Your ministry will want to keep it quiet. That's exactly why we won't. We want everyone to know who we've got and what we'll do if they don't bend. Imagine the pressure the people of England will exert on the government to rescue their war-time hero?"
"Pressure the Minister with his daughter and the population with their hero," Lucius stared into his empty cup, "It makes sense. It can also wait until tomorrow, when we get the photos and write up some pretty, cliché lines for the reporters."
"I'll start on those lines tonight," Gorozin volunteered, "We have to keep a fast pace if we want to pull this off. No time for anyone to pause and think."
The three nodded and departed to their various rooms for the night, knowing fully well that when their opponents did stop and think, it would be every man for himself.
Draco spent several fitful hours under the feather covers, before rolling out of bed at 2AM. Still in his slacks and navy shirt from the previous evening, he did not bother with a jacket or shoes as he slipped out of his room.
Wandering through the halls of the mansion, Draco tried to look for something distinguishing upon its walls, something that branded it unique to the owner, or to the location. He thought back to the multitude of Malfoy portraits, dark arts artifacts, and other such perfectly cliché objects that graced his old home and knew how they fit, how they defined it.
Here, he saw a beautiful house, a perfectly furnished salon, a tastefully decorated staircase flight. What he did not see was a home.
There were no photos, no personal trinkets. Everything was impersonal to the point of a sales display. He found it hard to believe that someone would live here without leaving the merest trace of their presence.
Draco walked out onto the balcony of the second floor and stared out over the moonlit grounds. He could hear the tide in the distance and the salty breath in the night air was unmistakable. Every now and then, Draco would see a guard cross the grassy acres in their patrol routes, but everything seemed to be quiet, in order.
Or at least, that was until he felt a heavy hand descend upon his shoulder and force his to twist around. Stumbling backward and away from his assailant, Draco found his back pressed against the stone railing of the balcony, immediately breathing hard.
"You Malfoy?"
Draco stared at the enormous figure of the local Head of Security and resisted a gulp, "Yes."
"You back to room," the captain growled in no uncertain terms, "Now."
Draco wondered vaguely if he was expected to jump off the balcony as his route back before the captain moved aside to clear the doorway. Cautiously, Draco walked past him and rushed back up the stairs to his room, careful not to slam the door.
Locking the door behind him, Draco mentally berated himself for reacting like a chastised schoolboy, caught misbehaving. On the other hand, he hardly wanted to get on bad terms with the bear-sized man.
Morning came slowly for Harry as time could not be told in the dark, windowless room and his watch had been confiscated. He slumped against the concrete wall and floor, pretending to nap (although there was no one around to see and be fooled by the pretence).
Finally, after hours of meaningless mental conversation and a hundred theories on the psychology of their captors, Harry heard the footsteps of at least two guards down the hallway. Instantly alert, he poked Dean in the ribs to waken the drowsy agent.
"Time for questioning," he whispered.
The door slammed open and the occupants of the room were momentarily blinded by the light of fluorescent lamps from the hallway. Harry could feel an iron hand clamp around his upper arm, pulling him to his feet. Eyes shut against the glare, he allowed himself to be tugged out of the room.
His hands were immediately handcuffed and Harry did not get a chance to recover from his momentary blindness as he was shoved through a door right across the hallway. He was dragged to the middle of the new room and pushed down into a chair. Harry vaguely wondered if they were going to tie him to it, but apparently his captors were satisfied with his current blinded, drowsy, handcuffed state well enough.
"Good morning, Mr. Potter."
Harry suppressed a groan: his most hated part of any mission.
A/N: Finally. I realize that an update was long, long overdue, but I was a bit too involved with my other story. Anyway, please REVIEW! Thanks a million :)
-NS