Chapter Twenty-five: Beach Date
Abarrientos, Casa Roja Province, Costa Luna
9 November 2013
1505 hours local time
Abarrientos was a picturesque resort town located ten miles from San Isidro de Pepever and yet lay in a completely different province of Costa Luna. Abarrientos was in Casa Roja Province, the province almost directly across the strait separating Costa Luna from Costa Estrella. It was a locally popular tourist destination, flocked by Luneros, Estrellanos and other Caribbean nationals alike, with the occasional foreigner from outside the region who was looking for a place that wasn't too touristy. Of course, there were little if any tourists on the fine white sand beaches of Abarrientos right now as there was a travel advisory in place over the entirety of Costa Luna, but that didn't stop both Luneros and Estrellanos from coming to the beach, soaking up some sun, and trying their very best to ignore the conflict happening in Santa Corazon between Andres Valderama's Loyalists and Magnus Kane's Socialists.
But speaking of Magnus Kane, the man himself was in Abarrientos as well, taking advantage of the relative seclusion of the town's beaches to conduct business not really part of what could be considered as "running a rebellion/invasion force" in a country that he had not yet fully captured. His personal bodyguards kept watch over him and his friend, the Russian middleman Yelena Abashina. The two of them talked over drinks as they reclined on towels over the hot sand. "Have I ever told you that my mother is actually Russian as well?" Kane said to Abashina in good if accented English.
"Really?" Abashina asked. "I did not know that!" she said, also in good and almost accent-less English.
"Yes, it's true!" Kane insisted. "My mother, she is the daughter of the Soviet general Nikita Zoranovich Dragovich. General Dragovich was a decorated hero of the Great Patriotic War. He helped eradicate the last vestiges of the fascist threat to Mother Russia in the German Arctic bases in the close of the war. General Dragovich then became the commander of one of the Soviet Union's premier chemical warfare divisions, a position which he attained through his close friendship with Nikita Khrushchev. General Dragovich, my grandfather, also assisted the North Vietnamese during the war against America and helped North Vietnam counter the Americans' chemical agents. Then Grandfather was sent to Cuba, where he met his untimely end. At least that's what Mama tells me. Nothing, I just thought it would be interesting for you to know that I am also Russian, in mind and spirit if not exactly by blood."
"Yes, I was indeed interested to find out about your ancestry, Mr. Estrada," Abashina said.
"Please, I've already told you this many times. Call me Johnny," Kane insisted. "Mr. Estrada is my father, may he rest in peace."
"Ah, finally!" Abashina exclaimed. "The drinks are here. I got us a couple of Bacardi mojitos."
"Mojitos! I love that drink!" Kane said loudly. He accepted the glass offered to him by the waitress, and he took a moment to look at the waitress' derriere before turning back to Abashina. "A toast, then, to our new business relationship!" he said, raising the glass.
"A toast," Yelena repeated. She sipped a little on the glass while Kane drained his drink in three large gulps. He laid the now-empty glass on the small wooden table to his right and said, "It's getting hot out here, isn't it? What do you say the two of us take a little dip in the water? The water, you know, she beckons to me, especially on a hot day like this."
"Or we could just stay here and get drunk," Yelena offered.
"Yes, that is true," Kane pondered, "but I would really like to go for a swim right now. Unless there's a reason why you wouldn't want to get that beautiful body of yours wet." Kane then began stroking the tanned skin on Yelena's hips, slowly caressing his fingers on the smooth and sandy skin of the Russian.
"Sure," Abashina finally agreed. "Why not? I would love to go for a swim as well." However, while Yelena's outward appearance showed only cheerful aloofness and interest to Kane's moves, inside she was roiling in emotion. Did Kane know that she was wearing a wire? Or was he simply taking precautions? Either way, the wire that she had hidden in the strap of her bikini top would not work in the water, and both she and her FSB handlers knew it.
"Fuck!" the lead FSB agent muttered from a good distance away. "This bastard is smart."
Abashina's FSB support team were monitoring the conversation between Yelena and Magnus Kane from the concealment of a van disguised as a repair vehicle for a local cable television company. An agent was even playing the part of an electrician doing his best to fix the cable, and his high vantage point also allowed him a very good position to watch over the proceedings between their "sparrow" and the would-be dictator of Costa Luna. "They're headed for the water," he reported to his superiors in the van below. "Kane's goons are clearing out a space just for the two of them."
"Artyom, can you still see them through the periscope?" the lead agent asked his second-in-command.
"Stand by," Artyom, the second-in-command, said as he manipulated a joystick connected to the computer terminal in front of him. The "periscope" that they were talking about was actually a video camera mounted inside the siren of the cable repair van. It could rotate 360 degrees and look at almost anywhere that its operator wanted it to look, but this time the periscope could not even see where Kane and Abashina had gone.
"I have nothing, sir," the second-in-command finally replied after manipulating the joystick a few more times to try to sneak a peek at the two.
"Chyort," the lead agent muttered. "Volodya, see if the parabolic microphone can hear them," he ordered to the agent pretending to be an electrician.
"Roger that, comrade," Volodya replied. Then, casually, like it was the most ordinary thing for an electrician to do, he brought up the parabolic microphone (a contraption with a microphone receiver in the middle of the top-mounted plastic dish apparatus and a pistol grip for activating and turning off the mike), pointed it at the spot where Kane and Abashina were now apparently "conducting business", and then he pulled the trigger. "Colonel, are you receiving this?" he asked the lead agent.
"Negative, Volodya," the lead agent replied. "All I'm getting is the sounds of waves and water slapping against each other."
"I think I can read lips if that's what you want me to do, sir," Volodya offered.
"Ah, just leave it, comrades. Kane wins this round." The lead agent then took off the headphones from his ears with more than a little disgust and frustration and threw the pair at his own computer terminal. "Goddamn it!" he shouted.
"What I am about to offer you, Yelena, is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," Magnus Kane said to Yelena Abashina once they were in a secluded spot of coastal sea. "Aside from being the first president of the soon-to-be-formed United Socialist Republic of Costa Estrella and Costa Luna, I am now about to become the biggest distributor of drugs in this little patch of the Caribbean. I have bought out the majority stake in the Halcon Syndicate's properties and interests in Costa Luna, and now I control both the import and export of narcotics in this country. And you, my dear, are about to become in charge of handling the movement of my drugs, our drugs, in and out of Costa Luna. And you will also see to it that all of the money we earn from this enterprise goes into my pockets and my pockets only, but of course you will have your share. No more middlemen, especially Santiagano middlemen! The cash, my cash, now goes from my businesses straight into my wallet. But of course, our initial agreement still stands. You will still get a seven-point-five percent share of the profits, and that's just for taking care of my finances. I have a lot more business coming your way, my dear, and even though I may not know what they are just yet, I know for a fact that they are all good."
"I did get that impression when you mentioned being president of this, what did you call it again? The United Socialist Republic?" Abashina said.
"Soon I will become the most powerful man in the Caribbean," Kane continued. "And if you accept my very generous offer, you will have the privilege of working with him. So, Senorita, what do you say?"
"If the senor so says, then I accept his kind and generous offer," Yelena replied.
"Maravilloso!" Kane exclaimed. "Well, then, let us do business!" And he leaned back into the water and began to float on his back in a starfish position. And then he thought of one more thing, and he righted himself up and said, "One other thing you should know, though: Some of the business we are about to engage in will be bound to become personal. I just thought that you should know that."
"I know what you thought, Senor Kane," Abashina said, "but as long as you don't think it more than once, I'll be happy with doing business with you."
"Please, Senorita, the name Magnus Kane is only for use in the outside world," Kane smiled. "Here, you can call me Senor Estrada."
Yelena Abashina, now wearing a white full-length cotton skirt, walked into the lounge of the hotel adjacent to the beach where she and Magnus Kane had just conducted business and sat down on one of the two massive circular couches inside. Beside her, the FSB lead agent sat down beside, leaned in, and said in a low whisper, "Don't worry about Kane. We'll get him next time."
At the same moment, two women who were more or less Abashina's age went into the lobby and sat down on the other circular couch opposite Abashina and the FSB agent. Yelena recognized one of the women as looking remarkably like the once-again-exiled Queen Rosalinda of Costa Luna. And the other woman bore an uncanny resemblance to one of those American Hispanic singers, Selena Gomez or Demi Lovato or something like it.
The woman who looked like the American Hispanic singer held up something that looked like a leather wallet. Yelena had only enough of a glimpse to see a badge that possibly had a symbol resembling that of the United Nations before the woman closed it and said, "We're from the Princess Protection Program, comrades." She then turned to face Yelena directly and said, "Your brother Vyacheslav would like to talk to you in the restaurant across the street." Having said that, the two women now stood up and left the lobby as quickly as they had entered it.
"What's going on, Yelena?" the lead agent asked. "I thought your brother was named Nikolay."
"Yes, he is," Abashina replied. "And he would be most definitely not in Costa Luna right now. But I know who they're talking about. I'll talk to him myself. Don't bother getting backup for me, I can handle him."
"Are you sure about that?" the agent asked her.
"Of course I'm sure, Adam," Abashina said. "If I get into trouble, I'll shout 'Rape!' and then you can move in."
Leon Vladimir Argus, who at the age of twenty-two years already believed that he had done and seen it all with the Princess Protection Program, now found himself witnessing something that was making him reconsider that dearly held belief of his. What he was seeing right now was also making him question the notion that he was the only one among Team Mooney who understood the vagaries of modern fashion.
Vyacheslav Ilyich Klimov was in the middle of the process of putting on the olive-drab dress uniform blouse of the Army of the Russian Federation over his lighter olive button-down long-sleeved shirt. Eight shiny medals in two neat rows of four were prominently displayed on the uniform's left breast, and they jangled against each other as Vyacheslav buttoned up his uniform and began walking towards Leo.
When Vyacheslav was close enough to hear him, Leo asked him, "What are you, an army officer or a model?"
"Do not hate the player, comrade," Vyacheslav replied. "Hate the game."
"I hate the tailor," Leo muttered as he followed Vyacheslav to a nearby table and sat down beside him. As he sat down and began to read the menu, Leo saw out of the corner of his eye Carter Mason and Rosie Fiore entering the restaurant and taking a table that would give them a great view of both the restaurant door and Leo and Vyacheslav's table. However, they didn't give any indication that they had seen either of the male Team Mooney agents as they sat down and made their orders.
Just a few moments after that, Yelena Nikolayevna Abashina entered the restaurant. She looked around for a moment before she finally saw Vyacheslav and Leo, who had raised his arm to get her attention, and she began walking to their table. "Brace yourself, Slava," Leo said. "Looks like your girlfriend is angry."
"Why do you think I'm wearing my uniform?" Vyacheslav replied.
"All right," Yelena said as she sat down on the third seat in their table. "Can someone tell me who cooked up this crazy scheme of meeting in a restaurant just a stone's throw away from where Magnus Kane is?"
"Vyacheslav suggested it," Leo replied.
"We've just turned up some new intelligence on Magnus Kane, Yelena," Vyacheslav said.
"Is that intelligence admissible in a court of law, Slava?" Yelena retorted.
"Look, Yelena, fuck that," Leo said. "Our agency doesn't exist officially, so we wouldn't even be allowed to set foot inside a court if it came to that. Anyway, what Slava meant to say is that your boy Magnus Kane just beefed up his own criminal organization by taking over all of the clubs operated by the Halcon Syndicate in Costa Luna. Also, he's begun picking off mob bosses who wouldn't toe his line and cutting them up in his mother's hacienda's kitchen."
"Remember those two girls who told you to come here?" Vyacheslav asked. "One of them found a mobster's finger on the gas range!"
"Look, guys, I understand your concern for me, I really do," Yelena said. "Especially yours, Vyacheslav. But I am this close to taking down Magnus Kane. The FSB has just approved Stage Four of my operation to commence."
"And what exactly does this Stage Four of yours entail, if I may ask?" Vyacheslav asked.
"What does it matter to you, Slava?"
"Kane has killed people just because they wanted just a tiny bit more of the cut than he felt that they deserved, and that's with actual and proper criminals like him," Vyacheslav replied. "What do you think he's going to do to you when he finds out that you're a Russian FSB agent sent to bring him down? My point, Yelena, is that the world you've just entered is very, very dangerous, and if you don't die while you're inside, it can still eat you up when you get out. I know this guy, also FSB, who was inserted into a Mexican cartel that had ties with the Tambovskaya Bratva from St. Petersburg. He managed to help the Mexican federales bring down this cartel, but when he got back to Moscow, they found out that he had become an addict during his time inside. Turns out that one of the tests of loyalty that the cartel had on its people was that they should inject themselves with cocaine whenever they were asked. The man eventually killed himself just ten weeks ago, but Yelena, my point is that I don't want the same thing to happen to you. I don't want to become a junkie that's grown dependent on this shit just because you wanted to prove to a man who's both a notorious cartel leader and a convicted war criminal to boot that you're dedicated to his cause."
"Vyacheslav, I appreciate your concern," Yelena said, reaching out and holding Vyacheslav's hands. "I honestly really do. But I am now in too deep in Kane's organization to back out. I have to whatever it takes to show him that he can trust me so that in that way I can bring him down."
"See, that's the thing, Yelena," Leo interrupted. "Magnus Kane is being funded and supported by the Russian Ultranationalists. Their forte is in making the criminal records of anyone connected with them disappear. It doesn't matter how they do it: deleting files, burning papers, killing people like witnesses and whistleblowers; they'll do it if it removes any trace of criminal involvement on the part of their friends so that said friends can then honestly say that they're not hiding anything when they come to face the courts."
"The Russian Ultranationalists?" Yelena asked in surprise. Now that was something that she did not expect to hear from her boyfriend or his friends. "Are you fucking kidding me? How could you possibly know that?"
"A few days before Magnus Kane was broken out of prison, Lavrenty Konstantinovich Timofeyenko visited Kane at Isla de los Penitentes and they talked about, well, something," Vyacheslav said to Yelena. "Look, we didn't have audio of what they talked about but the mere fact that Lavrenty Timofeyenko, one of the highest-ranking Ultranationalists out there, was in contact with Magnus Kane tells us that there must be something going on between them. And just a few days after Timofeyenko visited Kane, over one fucking hundred Ultranationalist fighters came over here to Costa Luna to train Kane's boys, the fucking Ejercito de la Revolucion Socialista. And some of those Russian Ultranationalists also helped Santiago fucking San Antonio bust Magnus Kane out of prison, and they also helped Kane's troops overrun and occupy the Emerald Palace as well as capture Queen Rosalinda. Sure, we managed to get the Queen out of there, but the fact remains that the Ultranationalists are here in Costa Luna. And we've been very lucky that they haven't picked up on us or the rest of the PPP just yet. They do what they want and kill anyone who stands in their way."
"Wait a minute, Vyacheslav," Yelena said, holding up her hand. "Do you mean to tell me that you have photo intelligence on Lavrenty Timofeyenko?"
"Yeah, why?" Leo asked. "Do you want a picture of him or something?"
"Bozhe moi!" Yelena exclaimed. "FSB's been after this fucking rat bastard for over five years now, ever since we tagged him as one of the masterminds of the Domodedovo bombing! We've never had so much as a picture of the asshole as apparently 'Lavrenty Timofeyenko' is not his birth name. We literally have nothing on this guy, and I mean nothing!"
"And let me guess: now you want everything that we have on Timofeyenko," Vyacheslav interrupted her. "All right, fine, Yelena, you can have that. You can even disseminate it to the rest of FSB if you like. Just promise me, promise me, Yelena, that you'll get out of this alive and well."
Yelena took hold of Vyacheslav's hand once again. "I'm sorry, Slava," she said. "But you and I both know how Kane works. That's a promise that I unfortunately won't be able to keep."
"Goddamn it, Yelena, why do you always have to make this very difficult between the two of us?" Vyacheslav said.
"Oh, and just a friendly reminder, Yelena," Leo added. "If you want to go ahead with your Stage Four then you better make it quick because the UN is already in talks with the PPP to raid Kane's holdings here in Costa Luna."
"I'll keep that in mind, Leo," Yelena said with a smile, and then she stood up and kissed Vyacheslav on the lips for what seemed to Leo like the longest time and to Vyacheslav like the shortest, and then Yelena finally walked away from their table and out of the restaurant. Yelena walked up to an SUV, the same one that had picked her up after the fiasco with the Sons of Sinaloa, and got in the front passenger seat. The driver, the lead FSB agent, asked her, "So what did your boyfriend tell you?"
"So you finally found out about him, huh?" Yelena asked back. "All right, Adam, who told you? Was it Irina? Or Daniil?"
"It was Artyom, actually," the lead agent replied simply.
"Ugh, the blabbermouth! I am seriously going to sew his mouth shut when I get back!"
"Anyway, before you get to sewing Artyomka's mouth shut, what did your boyfriend tell you?"
"If we want to bring down Kane as soon as possible, I need Lubyanka's approval for me to proceed to Stage Four," Abashina replied. "The UN is planning on moving against the bastard soon."
"Abashina, you know how dangerous Stage Four is and what it entails for you!"
"I know the risks, Adam," Yelena said. "I should, because I conceived Stage Four myself. But the fact remains: if we want Kane now, we must go ahead to Stage Four."
"All right, fine, Yelena. I know a friend who has a friend who has a friend in the UN. I'll see if I can convince them to delay their commando raid against Kane until Stage Four is done. Then, and only then, perhaps Lubyanka may finally approve of Stage Four."
"Thank you, Colonel. That means the world to me."
"Anything else that your Army boyfriend told you?"
"Da, Adam. I think we may finally have a picture of Lavrenty Timofeyenko in our hands," Yelena replied.
"Finally," the lead agent said. "Thank God for that. A picture to finally put beside the name… About fucking time as well. The rat bastard has managed to elude us for too long already. Not anymore. If what you say is true, and what you're about to give us is an actual photo of Timofeyenko himself, then it won't be long before we finally get our hands on him. I am honestly looking forward to greeting Timofeyenko myself in the name of the FSB, of course."