Chapter 44

November 19^th, 2020

When he moved into the master bedroom, Andy saw that most of the girls had already turned in for the night. Sarah, Emily, Fiona, Moira, and Niko were already in bed asleep, but Aisling was still awake somewhere else in the house. He wasn’t pleased by that, but at this point, his options were limited, so he needed to adapt as best he could.

He reached into the pile and tried his best to just shake Niko, and apparently, he was successful because nobody else moved, even as he gestured silent for Niko to follow him out of the room. “Andy?” she whispered. “What’s–”

“Get up. Get dressed,” he whispered back. “Tell you away from the others.”

She looked at him in surprise, but slowly worked to extract herself from the pile of bodies that had been warm and waiting for him to crawl into it. He didn’t say anything, but he could tell the look on his face had Niko more than a little confused. But she moved to get up and pull on clothes, although partway Andy waved at her, pulling at his shirt as he mouthed the words ‘dark colors’ to her. She put the shirt she’d been about to tug on back in the dresser and grabbed a black shirt instead. Once she had it on, the two of them moved out and into the hallway, closing the door behind them.

“What’s going on, Andy?”

“One sec, Niko,” he told her. “We need to get Alexis up too, and I don’t want to have to tell the story twice.”

“Andy, what the hell is going on?”

“That’s what I’m hoping we can find out.”

The two of them walked down the hall and knocked on Alexis’s door. Once the door opened, Andy saw Alexis standing there, with Jenny sitting on the bed, the two of them having been catching up, obviously.

“Hey Andy, what’s up?” Lexi said to him.

“You up to doing some bodyguarding?” he said. “I know we had talked about letting you have a few days to get adjusted, but I think I may be about to do something ... something truly very stupid, and I want to be as smart and safe about it as I possibly can.”

“Let me get a gun,” the Latina woman said, as if he’d asked her to change her shoes.

“What’s going on, sir?” Jenny asked.

“Hopefully nothing,” Andy said into the room. “But at this point, an overabundance of caution seemed warranted.”

In the room, Alexis pulled a shoulder holster on and tucked a large caliber handgun into it, offering Jenny a comfortable smile. “Good,” she said. “You’re already starting to think like you need someone looking out for you. It’ll make my job less difficult moving forward. Let’s go draw up a battle plan. Niko, he tell you what’s going on yet?”

She shook her head, looking over at him. “He said he wanted to wait until we were together so he could fill us both in at the same time, but I’ve never seen him like this before.” The two of them started walking with Andy, as he headed downstairs into the main living room. “Andy, what the fuck is going on?”

“If we’re lucky, we’re about an hour away from you telling me I got you both worked up for nothing, but if we’re not, you’re going to be glad I was being extra careful. Sit, both of you.” The two women sat on one couch and Andy sat down on the footstool opposite them. “About twenty minutes ago, I got a text message from a number I didn’t recognize, and the person on the other end of the line claimed to be Gregor Vikovic.”

“Did you call him?”

“Naturally. No answer.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Niko said.

“Sure, but it went to voicemail and the voicemail box was full.”

“Odd, maybe, but–”

“But nothing,” Lexi said. “You said this Gregor guy was a businessman. You sure it was his voicemail box?”

“His voice on the outgoing message, so seems like yes.”

“What did the text message say?”

“‘Help me.’’”

“Yeah, that’s not ominous, in any way, shape and form,” Niko said.

“I asked what he needed help with, but he never answered, and nobody answered the phone when I called it,” Andy said. “Like I said, straight to voicemail.”

“So, what stupid thing are you thinking of doing?” Lexi asked him.

“I want to head over to Gregor’s house, knock on the door and ask to speak to him.”

“It’s eleven o’clock at night, Andy,” Niko said. “You’re nuts.”

“I agree, it’s a terrible idea,” Lexi said. “We don’t know the terrain, we don’t know the house, we don’t know the people.”

“And yet,” Andy said with a slight smile, “one way or another, I’m going to do it. But I thought I’d offer you two ladies the chance to come along and protect me while I’m doing it, so I don’t look like a complete idiot.”

Lexi sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose with two fingers. “You’re sure we can’t talk you out of this?”

“Someone’s asking me for help, Lexi,” Andy sighed. “Does turning them down sound like something I’m likely to do?”

“Fuck,” she grumbled. “No, no it doesn’t. Alright. Shit. Okay. What we’re going to do is this, then. Niko’s driving, you’re in the back seat, and I’m sitting next to you. You do not get out of the car unless we both tell you it’s safe to get out of the car. That a fair enough compromise?”

“Guess we’ll see when we get there,” Andy said, standing up again. “You probably want to go and get yourself a weapon as well, Niko.”

“Yeah, let me go and do that. Both of you stay here,” she said, getting up and walking to the stairs. Niko had converted one of the spare bedrooms into a mini-armory, and installed a lock on the door so that only herself and Alexis could open it.

“Tell me about this Gregor guy. He was one of the people at the poker game, right?” Lexi asked him.

“Right,” he said. “He brought Sarah over here after the game. She said that he seemed like a nice enough guy, but that he also could’ve been a Russian mobster or oligarch. His home had about a dozen women in it, and it’s only a short drive away.”

“You know much else about him?”

Andy clicked his tongue. “Not really, no. I tried doing a little bit of research on all the poker players after the game, but it’s amazing how private rich people are.”

“You don’t say,” Alexis said with a soft laugh. “Can I see the messages?”

“Sure,” he said, unlocking his iPhone before tossing it over to her.

She glanced at the message, but there wasn’t much information to be gleaned from the very short conversation. “All in caps, I see.”

“After the ‘What do you need help with?’ message, I saw the three dots meaning he was typing a message back before that stopped and disappeared,” Andy said. “That’s why I prodded him again, and got no response.”

“Would you say you and this Gregor guy are friends?”

Andy shrugged but shook his head. “Not really? I barely know the guy. I’ve only met him a handful of times. The most time I ever spent with him was the poker game, and after my performance there, I’m unlikely to be asked back, not that I’d have much interest in going anyway. Although, when Gregor brought Sarah over the next day, he did seem delighted that I’d put the screws to Covington.”

“And we’re back to this Covington prick,” Alexis sighed. “Is he really enough of a bastard that he might have done something retaliatory against Gregor?”

“Covington’s certainly capable of it. That asshole has less than zero scruples. You can ask Piper about that.”

“Wouldn’t Gregor see that coming?”

“Maybe,” Andy agreed. “But he might have also thought he was impervious to whatever kind of blowback Covington might have planned for him. Then again, Gregor lost at poker in the same hand that Covington did, so I don’t know why Covington would be all that mad at Gregor over that. Also, that was nearly a month ago. If he was going to do something, he’d have done it before now, wouldn’t he?”

Alexis shrugged as Niko walked back in the room, pulling a leather jacket on to help conceal the shoulder holster she’d put on as well. “Revenge isn’t something you rush into, Andy,” Alexis said. “Back when I was with the CIA, we were much more concerned with sending the right message than sending it too quickly. Too much haste gets spies caught.”

“Alright then, I guess let’s head over to Gregor’s house...”