Double Dealing(65)

At least I was alive. Memories came back to me slowly, and I still felt like there were some holes. I remembered the warehouse in Calais, and walking up to the Quonset hut. I opened the door and went in, and after that, all was blank until just now.

After a while I thought I could at least sit up, but I started slowly, rolling to my side and then pulling my knees underneath me, letting blood pool in my head to keep my thought processes as strong as possible. The pain increased, but not by too much, so I sat up, leaning over in a cross-legged position with my elbows on my splayed knees in order to let some of the dizziness fade away.

I was starting to think about trying to get to my feet when I heard footsteps outside whatever I was in. Instead of moving, I leaned back, trying to give myself the best ability to listen and think. It's an under-appreciated skill and one that was of vital importance for whatever I found myself in at the moment. A door rattled in front of me and opened, slate gray light filtering in. It was still blinding, and I shaded my eyes to try and diminish the dazzle.

"Ah, you’re awake. That's good — that’s very good."

I couldn't place the voice, but I could place the accent. Russian, perhaps Lithuanian. "Yeah. Do you have any aspirin?" I attempted, but I figured it was futile.

The voice came back, and I thought it belonged to a man, but maybe a very deep-voiced woman too. A shape moved in the light as the dazzle faded from my eyes, and I saw that my first impression was correct. A dapper man, maybe about sixty years old or so, wearing a slim fitting suit that looked Italian in design, but the horrific smell of the tobacco wafting in told me he was certainly from the Russian sphere of the world. The Russians never have learned how to make tobacco that didn't smell like burning sweat-socks. "Aspirin? Very funny, Felix. You should have gone into comedy instead of following in your father's footsteps."

The man stepped closer, letting in more light, and I could see some more of my surroundings. We were in a shipping container, but one that had been converted at least slightly. The floor had been covered in thick plywood, and there was minimal insulation on the walls. Considering the thick layer of snow on the hills in the narrow bit of vision I saw through the door, I was grateful. "Thanks, but it wasn’t really a joke. Who are you, and what's going on?"

"Twenty-nine years ago, your father took from Russia something that was considered very valuable. A golden crown supposedly passed to the Romani by the Great Kahn himself. While the Gypsies were unable to hold onto it, no fault of theirs to be sure, but for nearly fifty years it rested within the secure possession of the Soviet union  , and later the Russian federation. You know of this crown, yes?"

"Of course I do," I said. "It's my damn crown. Really, though, it's not as impressive as you make it out to be. It's not pure gold or anything. I don't even wear it or keep it with me, it stays at a family stronghold for safe keeping. And no, you can't have it."

The man shrugged. "That is neither here nor there for me. I don’t so much care about the trinket as I do the damage it caused me and my family."

"How so? No offense, but you don't look like you're a suffering man." I shifted around on the pallet I was sitting on, measuring the distance from the man to me, and wondering if I could get past him. I doubted it, he looked like the sort of guy who'd have a lot of security waiting outside just in case I tried something. "Besides, that was my father's work, not mine."

"Still. The man who was in charge of securing that facility, the one your father broke into and escaped, he had a family. Three children, two boys and a girl. After the humiliation of his failure, even though he was the only person to ever shoot the great Guillaume Hardy, he lost his job and his ability to put food on his family's table. Despondent, like too many Russian men, he turned to the cheap comfort of vodka. Within two years, he was a hopeless alcoholic, his children suffering while his wife tried her best to continue to keep them fed and clothed. If it wasn't for the fact that I loved my sister very, very much, her children would have starved in the winter of 1998."

"I'm guessing you’re the rich uncle of the family," I said. "Since you know my name and my father's, I can also assume that you didn't get that money through legitimate ways."

"What the rest of the world calls legitimate, men like us call boring," the man replied with a laugh. "In the aftermath of the breakup of the Soviet union  , I was able to find myself in an opportune position within the Ukraine. While there were harsh feelings against those like me who are of Russian descent, the Ukrainians needed what I had access to, especially Soviet military hardware that could give them the ability to resist those who would try to take advantage of the new nation's position on the Black Sea. So yes, my business isn’t the type that receives Humanitarian Of The Year awards from the local Lion's Club. Ironically, if I did this with government connections within the United States, I could have been elected Vice President at some point."