Chapter 6

You love her
But she loves him
And he loves somebody else
You just can't win
And so it goes
Till the day you die
This thing they call love
It's gonna make you cry
I've had the blues
The reds and the pinks
One thing for sure
Love stinks

Nika slid her naked body sensuously over mine and began to give me tiny wet kisses on my chest and neck. I was aroused and tempted. She was a beautiful and willing woman, we were alone naked in bed, and no one would ever know what went on between us. The devil in me said go for it, but, in the end, the part of me that loved Isidora was stronger. I took Nika by the shoulders and gently pushed her away.

"No Nika. We can't do this."

"Trent, please." She begged. "Just give me a chance."

"Nika, I love Isidora, and if we had sex I could never face her again."

"No one would know. It would just be between you and me." She argued.

"I'd know." I responded. "That would be enough."

In the instant that we lay there, both still flush with excitement, I thought about all the implications. If I rejected Nika like this, could we continue to work together? Would she hate me or be vindictive? I also realized that I did feel some affection for her. Nika was a good friend, one I didn't want to lose. As I thought back on my behavior during the past days, I also felt a little guilt. I was in a difficult situation, and there was a lot riding on how well I handled it.

"Nika" I said softly. "I don't want to hurt you. If I weren't so crazy for Isidora, I couldn't resist you. You're smart, brave and gorgeous, just the kind of woman I used to dream about. But I'm crazy in love with Isidora, so you and I have to be satisfied with just being very good friends. Please try to understand."

Tears were forming in Nika's eyes.

"I don't know, I don't know. I'm so confused. I'm so embarrassed." She sobbed. "All I want is someone I can love who'll love me. Someone like you. Why can't I have that?"

I sat Nika on the edge of the bed and retrieved her robe, wrapping it around her. Then I sat next to her with my arm around her shoulders. She buried her face in my chest and the tears flowed. The irony of the situation hit me. I'd held Isidora in almost the same way many months ago.

"Nika, do you know what I wish?"

"No." She sniffled

"I wish there could be two of me. One to love Isidora, and one would love you." I paused for a moment; the tears were still falling. "But, you know that's impossible. I'm only one man, I only have one heart, and that heart is already taken."

"Could you really love me?" She queried.

"Yes, if I were twins, one of me could definitely love you."

Finally the tears slowed. "You don't know how hard it is for me to find someone. All the good men are already taken."

"Not all the good men Nika. You're a very special woman and you need a very special man. He may be hard to find, but he's out there."

Finally, she smiled a little smile through her tears. "Maybe, but that special son-of-a-bitch better show up soon."

Then she had another thought. "You hate me now, don't you."

"No Nika, I could never hate you. You're a good friend, and I love you as a friend. We just have to keep our love on a platonic level."

Then I thought for a minute about what I'd said. "See, I do love you, it's just a different kind of love."

Then she laughed. "I hate that platonic word."

I held her for a while longer. The tears stopped and the tension died away. Finally we both agreed that it was time to sleep. We each slept in our own bed.

Next morning, Nika was quiet as we moved around the hotel room doing our morning rituals, but soon, in the rush to get to the airport she seemed to put the previous nights events behind her and she was her old self again. I'd dodged a bullet, and I made myself a promise. I'd never be so careless with another person's emotions again.

The flight from Manchester to Atlanta went without a hitch. We pulled up to the gate in Atlanta at exactly 4:05 pm local time, and by 4:30, I was on the phone. My first call was to my cousin Garth.

"Trent you bastard. Where the hell you been?" I could hear the humor in Garth's voice, but there was an underlying tone of concern.

"I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you." I joked.

"You and what army?" Then he changed to a more serious tone. "Look, I don't understand everything that's going on, but your new girlfriend has been calling me every hour on the hour. She's frantic wanting to know about you."

This news didn't make me feel too good about my recent behavior, but Garth continued.

"What are you, some kind of cradle robber? She sounds like she's about twelve years old."

I ignored the cradle robber comment and went to the real purpose of my call. "Look, I'll probably be in D.C. soon, I'll try to meet with you, and I'll tell you more. But for now, do you have Isidora's phone number?"

Garth gave me her number, and I committed it to memory. To be safe, I also wrote it on a business card and stuck the card into the back of my wallet. As I was about to hang up I thought of something.

"Garth, how's your love life?"

"My love life? What's that about? You know my love life's in the crapper." Garth was thirty and recently divorced. The divorce was mostly a result of the fact that he liked the ladies a little too much. The ladies liked him back and that had led to problems.

"Maybe your luck is about to change. I've got someone I want you to meet."

I closed the connection before he had a chance to answer. Then, with trembling hands I keyed in the number he'd given me for Isidora. On the second ring a teen-aged girl answered. She wasn't Isidora.

"Hello, this is Trent. Could I speak to Isidora?"

"Trent? THE Trent?" Then I heard a girlish squeal in the background. "It's him, it's him! Isidora it's Trent."

Then Isidora spoke. "Trent? Is it really you?" The wave of emotion that I felt just hearing her voice almost knocked me off my seat.

"Yes, it's me lover. How've you been holding up?"

"I'm fine, but I've been so worried about you. It's been a week and you didn't call. I couldn't sleep or eat. Where are you now? Are you OK?"

I assured Isidora I was fine and promised that we would be together soon. I felt guilty that I hadn't tried to call her before, but rationalized that calls would have been difficult, maybe even dangerous until now. We talked longer than we should have, mostly just trading reassurances and saying the silly things lovers say. I finished by promising to call her again tomorrow.

"Do you still love me?" She asked.

"More than ever. Talk to you tomorrow." Then I kissed her through the phone and hung up the receiver. I thought to myself: Isidora would be happy to know that our love had withstood a major challenge, but I didn't think she'd be too happy to hear about the details. I never mentioned Nika.

My next call was to Gus. He'd given me a contact number in the States, and he'd had plenty of time to travel. An operator answered my call, and within seconds I was transferred to Gus. I explained where we were and why. When I confessed our mishap at Heathrow, he just laughed.

"You don't read the papers do you?"

"No." I confessed. "Not recently."

"Well, the guy you clocked at Heathrow was found wandering around in a daze without any ID. He reported that he'd been beaten and robbed and gave police your description. Everyone thought it was just a routine mugging until they took him to the emergency room for a check up."

Gus paused for dramatic effect. I goaded him on. "And?"

"And, when they examined him they found a plastic aerosol spray bottle full of ricin taped to his leg. 500 micrograms of that stuff, a dose about the size of a pinhead, and you'd have been dead. The British are holding him as a terrorist, and we're not telling them otherwise."

"Holy shit!" I exclaimed so loudly that people nearby stared. Nika sitting across the corridor gave me an alarmed look.

I shuddered when I thought how close to death Nika and I had come. How foolish I'd been to think he was unarmed... and he'd walked right through the tightest of airport security. Then the idiocy of it all hit me; at least they'd made sure he wasn't carrying nail clippers.

Gus continued. "There's more. Ricin is a Soviet era assassination method."

I didn't get the point. "So?"

"Basayev was assassinated yesterday. Whoever did it used ricin."

"Basayev? I don't get it." I was still confused.

"We'll brief you more on this tomorrow, but we figure Marks had a hand in it. We're also guessing that Basayev was whacked because he'd become too much of a liability."

"But why would Marks kill Basayev? That would ruin his whole oil deal."

Gus had the answer. "Not if Marks had acquired an even bigger partner, say someone in the Russian government. That could also explain the ricin. Just to be safe, we're not sharing any more info with the Russians. We don't know who might be involved."

Now I was more confused than ever. The implications were huge. Gus wanted to keep the conversation short and he'd given me plenty to think about. He told me to get the next flight to Baltimore. His people would meet us there. Before he hung up, he had one last question.

"So, tell me. How are you and Nika getting along?"

After Gus hung up I sat and thought for a while. If a higher-up in the Russian government was working with Marks, then there was a good chance that Marks knew all about our operation. I hoped the intelligence people had gotten the evidence they needed while Basayev was alive. I motioned to Nika and guided her to a seat at a deserted boarding gate. Once I was convinced we were out of earshot of passersby, I told her the news. She didn't take it well.

"Damn. That's just typical for Russia. We get rid of the little criminal only to see him replaced by a bigger one."

"We have Marks here in the U.S." I countered. "He's the biggest criminal."

"Trent, you don't understand. It's more than just one criminal. It's the whole Russian mindset that has me bothered."

"Mindset?"

"I went back to Russia and studied law just because I wanted to change things like this. The Russian people have been under the thumb of Czars, dictators and criminals for too long. It's like they don't know any other way. Sometimes I worry that it's genetic to the culture."

"Nika, look at you." I argued. "You're Russian, and you're not ready to roll over and play dead for criminals like Basayev.

"Yes, but I have advantages. I come from a privileged class, and I spent a lot of time here in the States. Even now, the average Russian lives a pretty desperate life. If he's to survive, he has to conform, and conforming means tolerating or even endorsing the abuses of those in power."

I shook my head. "Nika, you're getting too philosophical for me. I'm a simple guy. I can handle addition and subtraction, but philosophy and politics are beyond me."

She gave me a long look. "You say so, but I don't believe you."

It was time to change the subject. "Let's go find a flight to Baltimore."

We made it to Baltimore that evening, and were met at the airport as promised. Our driver delivered us to a suite of offices in Crystal City, just about a mile from the Pentagon. The name on the door said Advanced Technologies, Inc. Gus was waiting for us. He wasn't his typical frenetic self. In fact, he was quite subdued.

He escorted us to a windowless conference room and waved us to a seat.

"I've got good news and bad news. Which do you want first?"

"Give us the bad news." I replied, thinking that I'd rather take my medicine first.

"The mission has been scrubbed."

"Scrubbed?" Nika queried.

"Yeah, cancelled, finito, finished."

"What's the good news?" I asked, thinking to myself that the end of the mission wasn't bad news at all, at least not to me.

"There is no good news." Gus responded gloomily. "I lied about the good news."

"Why scrubbed?" Nika asked with a hint of anger in her voice.

"We got nothing. Basayev made a few calls to Marks, but nothing incriminating. There were a few encrypted emails we're still working on, but they're probably nothing too. Marks is just too slick."

"You mean that Marks is just going to get away with everything?" I was incredulous.

"Looks like it. With Basayev dead, we can't work this angle any more, and to be honest, now that we can't be sure who we can trust in Russia, our cooperation with them has ended." Gus paused and looked directly at Nika. "More bad news. Depending on who knows what in Russia, you could be in a difficult or maybe even a dangerous situation."

Nika's eyes widened. "The people I work for, the people who selected me are good people. I trust them."

Gus spoke in a neutral tone. "Sorry Nika. The people you work for may be good and honest, but there's the chance that those they work for may not be. If the wrong parties know about this operation they might want to silence you." Gus paused for dramatic effect. "One way or another."

Nika was angry. "I don't care if the criminals do come after me. There must be some way we can still go after Marks and whoever he's working with."

"What about the guy at Heathrow?" I interjected. "He tried to kill us, he works for Marks. There's got to be something there you could use. For Christ's sake, he came into England on Marks' private jet."

Gus gave a short laugh. "The guy at Heathrow ain't talking, and we don't know how he came into England. He's got no passport or ID. No one at customs or immigration remembers him and he's not on any cameras except in Terminal 2 where he found you."

I kicked myself for not hanging on to the passport and ID. "I saw the stamp on his passport, and I saw his Virginia license. I know Marks had to have sent him."

"We've checked the manifest on Marks jet. He's not listed."

Nika suddenly had an idea. "We have his cell phone."

Gus perked up. "His cell phone? Lemme see."

Nika fished in her purse and pulled out the phone. Gus took it like it was gold.

"This could be good. This could be very good. Let me check it out. There may still be some hope. His call log and his address book could be just what we need."

"So we're not scrubbed?" I asked.

"You're scrubbed, but maybe I can get you un-scrubbed. Let me work on this phone and see what happens."

"What do we do now?" Nika wanted to know.

"Whatever you want. Officially we're done. The driver will take you anyplace you want." Then Gus thought for a minute. "But if you still want to work on this thing, stick around and lay low. Give me a number, and if I can get something out of the cell phone I'll call you."

"I want to stay." Was Nika's response.

I was already dreaming. It was over. I'd be with Isidora tomorrow. I really didn't care about Gus or Marks or the mission. I'd have what I wanted tomorrow.

"Will you help me?" Nika snapped me out of my dream. "I need a place to stay until Gus calls."

I really wanted to be through with all of this, but I did owe Nika some loyalty. I thought about it for a minute. It wouldn't cost me anything and maybe I could kill two birds with one stone.

"Nika, I've got just the place for you to hide out."

It was a little after midnight when we pounded on Garth's door in Alexandria. I'd called and given him a little warning and his lights were on. When he opened the door, he looked at me, then he looked at Nika, then he kept looking at Nika.

"Don't you think it's a little late to be pounding on people's doors?" Garth was smiling and had not taken his eyes off Nika.

"Garth, this is Nika, Nika, this is Garth, my Neanderthal cousin."

Nika was cool, but Garth just stood there staring.

I thought it would be good policy to set things straight right from the start. "Garth, I've got to warn you, Nika isn't one of your standard floozies. She's my good friend, she's brilliant, she's a lawyer, and she's a karate expert. If you mess with her she'll probably kick your butt and then sue you."

Garth was unfazed. "Aw, you're only saying that to turn me on."

Nika just laughed.

Garth had gotten the house and the house payments from his divorce, so he had plenty of room. When I explained that Nika might be in danger and needed a secure place to stay for a little while, he got interested. He worked in witness protection, so the job was right down his alley.

I could tell Garth had a lot of questions but both Nika and I were pretty beat, so I begged off telling our story until in the morning. Garth was gracious about it and showed each of us to a bedroom. As I drifted off to sleep I thought of Isidora. I had big plans for the next day.

We were all up at the crack of dawn, Nika and I because we were still on Central Asian time, and Garth because he's naturally an early riser. As we sat around the kitchen table, I told Garth the story. I knew I could trust him, so I overlooked security considerations and told him everything. After all, he'd be taking a risk by putting up Nika, so it was only fair that he know all the facts. When I finished my story, he just shook his head.

"I knew you had a little situation going in Russia, but I never realized it was something this big. You've been a busy boy these past few weeks."

Nika laughed. "Not as busy as he could have been."

Garth gave me a confused look. I'd omitted some personal parts of the story, particularly those pertaining to Nika. I thought it best to change the subject.

"Well if you don't mind letting Nika hang out here for awhile, maybe you could do me one more favor."

"What's that? Garth asked.

"I need to go by my apartment and pick up my car and a few personal items. I'm guessing Marks has someone watching the place. I need you to cover my back while I get in and out."

Garth was in his element. "Are you kidding? I'd take a comp day to do that." He thought for a minute. "As a matter of fact I will. I've been thinking about checking out some real estate out in Western Maryland. I can help you this morning and then do that too."

So it was agreed, but before we could get too far along with our plans. Nika spoke up.

"You two aren't going to leave me here. I'm coming too."

I looked at Garth, he looked at me, and we both shrugged. The Garth turned to Nika.

"You want to look at some real estate later?"

Nika never missed a beat. "Yeah, I don't think I have anything better to do."

It didn't take us too long to spot the guy. I waited down the block until Garth pulled his black Bronco up next to the white Ford Taurus. He exited holding his badge.

"U.S. Marshall. Step out of the car."

When Garth had his man spread eagle on the ground, I made my move toward my apartment. Once inside I claimed my cell phone and my car keys. Then I went to my gun safe and dialed in the combination. I removed my USP 45 pistol and holster and two boxes of ammo. Because of my job, I was "licensed to carry" in D.C. and most adjacent states. Once I had secured the pistol, I packed a small travel bag with the things I'd need for a few days on the road.

When I exited, I noticed that Garth still had his man face down and was subjecting him to a mock interrogation. I went to my car and started it. When I was ready to roll I gave a wave toward the black Bronco. Nika partially rolled down a tinted window on the passenger side and returned my wave, and then I was on my way. I hoped she and Garth would have a good time checking out country real estate.

To make sure I wasn't followed I made my way to the beltway. Once on the beltway I drove about five mph slower than the 55 mph speed limit. With traffic whizzing by at 75, anyone following would stand out like a sore thumb. I drove a few miles and then pulled to the shoulder before an exit. I waited, checked the shoulder as far as I could see behind, then exited and looped back the other way. Anyone following would have to be in a helicopter.