Smoke and Mirrors (26 page)

Because he isn’t the mole.

Bullseye may want Brad dead, buried in a place of shame, laid to rest without the Queen’s flag, but is that because he set Brad up, or is it merely because he’s thrilled that the Golden Boy’s best friend has a tarnished halo?

I switch tactics. “What do you know about Agent Trigger? About Daniel Roberts?” I plead softly, the muzzle of my semi tilted enough that I could blast his gun from his hand if the need arises.

He seems unsure. “Don’t change the subject. I know you two are in this together. Now drop it.”

Fed up, I blast the gun from his hand. It spins away, broken beyond repair, like his finger, which unfortunately is still wrapped around the loop. Blood sprays and he screams like a baby. I toss my scarf at him as I run by, scooping up his fallen mic and earpiece.

Alasdair’s literally pitching a fit by the time I jam the receiver into my ear. “Agent Bullseye, do you copy?”

“Agent Bullseye has his hands full right now. This is Agent Board.”

“God damn it, Agent Board! What the hell is going on? I can’t get any of you to respond!”

“No time to chat. Over and out.” My words induce more shouting, but I ignore it, sprinting up the street onto a secondary road, mindful of the sound of sirens, men yelling directions and tires sloshing headlong through the building snow. I hit the hotel I’m looking for seven minutes later, racing through the lobby and brandishing my gun at the startled concierge. “Call the police. Tell them to get to room 75. Do it!” He picks up the phone and begins dialing, while I make for the stairs and race through the dimly lit space until I reach the third floor.

I open the door to the long hallway and turn my gun into the corridor. Satisfied no one is there, I creep forward until I can pick the lock and enter room 73. The room is empty, as it should be, and I bar the door before heading for the balcony.

Reaching the windows, I unlatch one and slide out onto the iron terrace. I can hear sirens blaring and prepare myself for the jump. I balance myself and then leap, landing toe-first on the slick surface of the adjoining structure. Still out of view, I slither over the rail and peer into room 75.

Lo and behold. The mole has found his hole. Roberts is there, back to me, chest heaving, arms gesticulating wildly. Behind him is Ivan Drasnov, the very same Muscovite Mafia bastard who had been put behind bars because of Nigel and Sam.

What the hell is he doing out of prison?

A third person pops into view, and my heart nearly stops. It’s Brad. My Brad. Only this version is rougher. Unkempt in a Versace-clad way, face cloaked in stubble, hair cropped short and dyed blond, his stance like that of a street fighter.

A stance that might have looked more habitual on the younger version.

So that’s the game.

Brad finds out he has a younger brother running with the wrong crowd. A brother who, despite their long separation, decides blood is thicker than whatever.
Blood!

It hits me. Not older. Twins. One B Positive, one B Negative. Only why didn’t Brad know about him? Why wasn’t he raised by Brad’s parents in London?

I stop my brain from whirling and concentrate.

If everyone thought the real Brad died and then the tape got out, SIS would believe Brad had been a double. Everyone except C who probably knew the man in the video was Brad’s twin. So we’d be sent to take out Brad before he could take out the Russian president. C would have known I wouldn’t take the shot, at least not to kill. And Agent Bullseye wouldn’t have had my advantage. So that just left Roberts. C must have suspected the agent of being a double.

Agent Roberts was never aiming at Brad. He was the back up. And he would have killed the Russian leader if the grenadier hadn’t been quicker. Hadn’t been warned ahead of time. So here was Roberts now, trying to explain why he hadn’t done his job to the man who was most likely behind the traitor’s newly padded bank account.

Somehow Ivan Drasnov must have allied himself to the Chechen mafia. By promising them his help in their struggle for freedom, had they freed him? It certainly would make his life easier if more chaos erupted in Moscow.

But their plan hadn’t worked.

Now, he, Brad’s brother (except this was the real Brad) and Roberts were trying to find a way out of the mess they’d gotten themselves into.

I hear sirens. The police are pulling onto the street below.

Two exits are available to Brad’s friends. Three men. One out the front stopped by Brad? By the police? One out the balcony stopped by me?

My fingers are raw, gloves long since shed, so I pop them into my mouth before fitting them into the grip of my weapon. Doors are slamming below me, and the booted feet of the Russian police are pounding the frozen stairs. The men in the room have heard them. Surprise first, reasonable because police raids have never targeted this hotel. This hotel has no meaning to anyone, they believe. This hotel is a no-place.

But this hotel, this room, it means something to Brad. It’s the room where his father stayed some thirty-five odd years ago, and I only just remembered Brad telling me that he longed to visit it and see if sleeping in the same bed would bring him any closer to the man who was taken from him at such an early age.

Their voices are hush-raised; alarm not setting in, but planning sounding similar in tone. They are splitting up, nothing left as evidence, one out the front and down the stairs, one out the front and up to the roof, one out to the balcony and down the fire escape.

They will succeed, they think.

The door to the balcony opens a second later, and the acrid scent of Sobranie cigarettes fills my senses just before I meet bachelor number two. Roberts.

He whirls in surprise when he sees me. Face breaking into a grin even as his hand finds the trigger of his hidden piece. But I’m prepared and pull first, sending a bullet straight into his heart. His gun fires as his hand spasms, shooting through the fabric of his Company-issued clothing into my left hip. I flinch with the heat and sting of the bullet.

One way to make my waist smaller
. I press my hand to my side and step over him, aware that if the police find me, I’ll be up shit’s creek.

I slip out the room’s front door and make for the stairwell, hoping my guess is correct and Brad pretended to go down, leaving Ivan to go up. I hear muffled voices as I near the top and pause to listen.

“You’ve nowhere to go, Ivan.”

My heart’s in my mouth. I haven’t heard Brad’s voice in so long, but it’s not like I remember it. There’s a strange, emotionless quality to it. Flat and almost bored. I slither upward again.

The sight at the top is a strange one. Brad is standing, arms to his side, legs apart, turned away from me, facing Ivan, who is also standing, one leg up on the edge of the building, one leg on the roof, poised to jump from the top of the hotel to another lower building, not six feet away.

Neither man is armed with anything other than hateful eyes and capable hands.

When Ivan’s gaze sweeps mine for a hairsbreadth, I swear he smiles. “Ms. Brothers.”

Brad’s posture straightens a fraction of an inch, but he says nothing to me and the pain of neglect sears my soul. “The police are here, Ivan. There’s no place to go. Come quietly, and maybe they’ll give you a duvet for your cot.”

“You’ve a strange sense of humor –Brad – I am right to assume you haven’t actually risen from the dead?” When Brad says nothing, Ivan exhales though his long nose. “I must admit you had me going. I never suspected you two switched places. You sure your mother didn’t have a Russian twin? Ahh, no answer. Well, at least your father died without an itch in his pants, Russian hospitality being what it is.”

I can tell Brad is beginning to lose control, beginning after these long months and years to need an outlet for his rage. A dangerous thing with a man like Ivan. Gun or not, he has guile and a treacherous heart.

“Let it go, Brad.” My words soften his shoulders. But I’m talking as much to myself as to him.
Let go of your anger, Parker. Let go of the loss you’ve felt since he disappeared from your life without so much as a word.

Then he offers me a backward turned hand and I reach for it, stepping up next to him just as the police hit the roof screaming for us to get down on our knees with our hands behind our heads.

We do so, kneeling side by side in the snow, moisture leaking through our clothing, chilling the muscles so necessary in this land of Smoke and Mirrors. Harsh orders are shot at us. Brad has been recognized as the bomber posted in fuzzy fame down at the snow-blanketed station. I’m named as the accomplice in today’s nearly successful assassination, and Ivan’s up to his neck in post-communist kriminalnaya hatred.

All three of us are cuffed and dragged to a lower level, where at long last, the English emissary turns up and procures papers which demand our extradition to the U.K., effective immediately. The police aren’t inclined to go along with this, preferring to call upon a higher authority for verification. Longer minutes tick by, leaving Brad and me alone in our chairs with Ivan.

Darkness, dampness and depression envelop the room. I long to touch Brad, to speak with him about where he’s been, about what he’s gone through, but now is not the time. Here is not the place.

Then the silence breaks like spring ice. “I planned that day, you know, with Roberts help. It was part of his initiation period.” Ivan pauses, aware that despite Brad’s indifferent posture the agent can’t help but listen. “He hated Nigel, because he was a condescending, moneyed bastard.”

Bait still untouched, I see Brad’s knuckles whiten, and think it’s a fucking wonder he hasn’t smashed out of his handcuffs.

“I thought you might have figured it out. But then again you never were your father. Too much of your alcoholic maudlin mother in you.”

Brad isn’t going to jump to Ivan’s bait; he’s going to freaking lunge for it. I close my eyes and concentrate on getting out of my handcuffs. Two more twists of my wrist, a pop of the hairpin carefully concealed in the fabric of my sweater sleeve, and…

Ivan spurts a cackle of delight, showing a childish reluctance to let go of a bad joke. “Actually, I’m just stunned you didn’t reach for the family dueling pistol when we blew Nigel and Vasiliv’s blond bitch –”

Brad beats me to the punch, flying from his chair, hands freed a moment before I hit the door. I shove the bolt into place and jam a chair under the handle. It will give him a few extra seconds, and that is all he ever needs.

He shoves Ivan to the floor and uncuffs him with the pick hidden somewhere on his rock hard physique. Ivan wastes no time leaping to his feet, the stance of a polite businessman shed for that of a truly competent boxer.

But Brad is faster, whipping his foot out and off-balancing the Russian a nanosecond before his fist makes bone-cracking contact with Ivan’s clean-shaven jaw. I watch, one eye on the door, one on the brawl, keenly aware that, by the sound of approaching voices, Brad has about thirty more seconds.

No words are spoken, having already been said, and fist for fist, the two use up most of the room’s oxygen as they pound the shit out of one another. Twenty seconds later, Brad drops his hands in mock exhaustion, leaving Ivan to muster any remaining energy for one final punch. But a high-speed duck and a roundhouse kick from Brad’s right boot put an end to that line of thinking.

Ivan hits the tile floor and remains motionless. Skimming past Brad’s heaving figure, I lean down and feel for a pulse.

“Don’t bother; he’d dead.”

My fingers jerk away, and I force myself to stand. “Window?”

Brad grabs my hand in answer, and we run at the old, leaded piece of glass. Covering our heads with crossed arms, we crash side by side through the shattering surface, landing on crouched feet after rolling in the virgin snow. I hear shouts fading into the distance behind us, but they’ll never catch us now.

Racing through alleyways, up fire escapes and past businesses, we’re lost from all but ourselves within five turns of the second hand. Aware of our wellbeing at last, we stop and survey one another. Hip pain and tension keep me from embracing him. He’s shaking, wild looking. His hands are gripping and regripping, his eyes yearning for an answer to his unasked question.

“He’s okay. Your brother that is.”

He nods once, nerves frayed, and at last, gathers me into his heaving chest, until we move awkwardly into a nearby warehouse. Without light, his hair is dark again. Without light, his skin is tan again. Without warmth, he shivers. His mouth moves to the place between my ear and shoulder. “I needed to –”

Needed to batter, maul, maim? Understandable; it’s what I want to do to you right now, you selfish bastard.

Instead, I ask, “Did it help?”

I feel his hand trace the minimal injury at my side and suppress a wince.

Then, firm as steel, its twin, moving to encase the sides of my head, joins it. “No,” his voice sounds like the grinding of salt between mortar and pestle. “I… needed…. to… slit… his… throat.” The words are spaced for effect. “Wanted to feel my knife rip the tendons and his blood soak my hands.”

His words are harsh, even for him.
Where has he been? What has he gone through? Who is he now? Why did he leave me?

We all change in this world, sometimes over years, sometimes in a second. Sometimes for better, often for worse. “Why didn’t you?”
Slit his throat; let him cover you in his blood.

The hands are shaking again, like those gripping a jackhammer. “I don’t know,” he whispers, eyes dark with fury, face stark white with confined strain.

But I know now, relieved that this ‘sometimes’ is for the better, not worse. I change the subject to one much closer to heart. “You let me think you were dead.” The words fade with my overwhelming flood of emotions.

His mouth pauses a fraction of a second before it slams into mine, lips resolutely sealed against the entry of my tongue, a distortion of the black and white movie kisses made famous by Bogart and Bacall. We’re on the bottom floor of some computer distributor, home at this late hour only to boxes and master lock picks. It’s cold, but not freezing, leading me to believe that the electronic equipment stored in the containers surrounding us needs to be above a certain temperature.