Dimitri Driven

  Contents

  DIMITRI

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  Chapter 1 Him

  Chapter 2 Him

  Chapter 3 Her

  Chapter 4 him

  Chapter 5 Her

  Chapter 6 Him

  Chapter 7 Her

  Chapter 8 Him

  Chapter 9 Her

  Chapter 10 Him

  Chapter 11 Her

  Chapter 12 Him

  Chapter 13 Her

  Chapter 14 Him

  Chapter 15 Her

  Chapter 16 Him

  Chapter 17 Her

  Epilogue Her

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  © Alice May Ball 2019

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.

  Any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, or to any actual events is purely coincidental.

  All the people portrayed in this story are over the age of eighteen, and entirely imaginary. If you think that you know some of them, or that you may be one of them, then you should consider writing fiction yourself.

  Cover Design by Signs of Desire for TzR Publishing

  Chapter 1

  Him

  CHRISSY LELAND IS BRIGHT, bouncy, and smart. Beautiful, in fact. A man would be crazy or half dead not to see it. But she’s not the one. She can’t possibly be. From my seat by the café window, I’ll catch my first real glimpse of her any minute now. The café is right by the bus stop she gets off at to come to the university.

  Warm by the steamed window in the December morning, in the hubbub and clatter of the busy breakfast service, I’m about to begin the operational phase of my last assignment for the ‘Firebird.’ He said that it was perfect timing for my retirement.

  I’m not certain that I’ll retire completely, but I won’t work for him and his shadowy cabal anymore. That’s good enough for me. It’s a few months before I’ll be forty, I have options. But I have only two days to get this done and get back to Russia. And, however innocently Chrissy came to fall into the frame, her appearance has totally fucked up my plans.

  My coffee cup is raised, ready to sip, when she steps down from the bus. The photos and fragments of video that I have seen have not prepared me for the glow of her open, innocent beauty.

  Under an unzipped hooded down jacket with a long red scarf, she wears a loose tee-shirt and jeans. The soft colors and simple clothes highlight her beauty and charm.

  Then I’m shocked. She dashes straight to the window. My window. Under the T-shirt, her full and round breasts billow and bounce in a way that I can’t take my eyes off of. The chill outside pricks her nipples to attention and I’m fascinated.

  She stares right in my direction. I don’t breathe until I see that she’s checking her look in the glass, straightening her hair and looking at her lipstick. Turning her head as she pulls her cheek with one finger. She seems to be looking straight at me as she puckers, pouts, and pulls her lips in, and then pops them out. There’s a trace of sadness in her pretty eyes that makes my heart ache.

  As she turns to leave, I realize that my coffee cup is still halfway up to my lips and it isn’t hot anymore. That’s my second clue that this assignment is not going to go like the rest.

  My breath is hot, and I’m feeling tight in my pants. She is sweet and definitely hot. The way she moves, her bouncy energy, makes me think of all kinds of things. Startling things that are all a long way outside the bounds of the mission.

  Then, as she leaves, the rolling, sway of her hips makes me almost sputter the lukewarm coffee out again.

  That’s the third sign.

  A sense of what’s in store for her makes me want to protect her. A powerful urge sweeps through me like a blast of hot wind. It makes me want to run out onto the sidewalk and grab her. Take a kiss from those perfectly-imperfectly painted lips. See the shine in her bright eyes as I seize her by the shoulders, grip the top of her hair in my fist, stroke her throat, and steal the kiss from deep in her soft, wet mouth.

  Long experience prepared me for being attracted to the subject of a mission or assignment, but I never felt anything like I feel for her. Not ever, in fact. Not for anyone.

  She will be in classes until 4:15 so I have the rest of the day for final research and preparation.

  Chrissy is certainly not a balding, stocky, and middle-aged Russian banker, and I know from the background files that the target definitely is.

  I don’t ever question the details of an assignment. I do what I’m paid to do. I’m not prepared to risk the fallout of ceasing the wrong person, though. Especially not on foreign soil.

  At 4:22, I watch from behind the dark windows of my SUV as Chrissy skips out of the university and down the wide stone steps. She hurries across the lawn, past the fountains, already about two minutes late for her shift. As she comes nearer, I see the fresh glow of her cheeks. The pictures in the dossier don’t do her justice. Her bright eyes and full red lips are having more of an effect on me than I’m ready for.

  I never saw anyone look so beautiful through a gunsight.

  She waves at a couple of people on her way. At the stoplight she waits, looking around impatiently. I guess they give her a hard time in the restaurant for her timekeeping.

  People dash by in front of me, obscuring my view.

  As soon as the ‘WALK’ light is on, she hurries across the street toward me. The nearer she comes, the more gorgeous she is. The harder my pulse hammers. This could be inconvenient.

  Chrissy has passed me now. It’s another block-and-a-half to Sidewalk Jam where she works.

  Quickly, I unscrew the sight and the barrel, and clip off the stock from the Barrett M107 sniper rifle. Fit them precisely into the case. Dismount the tripod. Then I slide the case and the tripod into the truck vault I’ve had fitted in the SUV.

  I slip out of the car, lock it behind me and head off after her. No need to rush, I know where she’s going. I’ll take a table in the section of the restaurant next to hers. Keep an eye on her as she works her shift. It’s only two hours today.

  Somebody switched the identifying details in the dossier when the brief for the assignment was coming to me. Not many people could have done that, and my suspect list is only two names long. One of those is the actual target. I’ll find him later.

  To make sure I don’t leave a dangerous loose end, I have to find out why this art student and talented part-time musician was chosen to take the place of the target. I hope that after I’m done, I won’t have to eliminate her as well.

  But I have to be prepared. Things go the way that they go.

  The restaurant is an open space with hard surfaces and full-height sliding glass doors. It’s loud and echoing. Tasteful and discreet white and silver tinsel and decorations are draped on the walls.

  I take a table by the window, facing in, so the light is behind me. If she looks over, she’ll see my silhouette.

  This is not somewhere I would choose to eat. Too noisy and fashionable for my taste, but I order a pasta course. I’ll be here for the two-and-a-half hours of Chrissy’s shift, so I need to look like a customer.

  I have the solo diner’s standard equipment of a newspaper and a tablet. It seems almost risky to be reading her dossier and all of the accompanying material on the tablet while she’s just thirty feet away from me. Someti
mes less. It gives me a tingle, a risky buzz. She’s making me want to take chances. I need to be careful of that.

  I read from the tablet while I take a leisurely time over my plate of surprisingly good pasta. In the data that I’ve been able to dig up on the real, intended target, I find Igor Borotchenko. No pictures, but a definite data trail. He is in DC posing as the legal executive from a little-known private Swiss bank. He operates a pipeline of illegal money out of Russia and the ‘Stans, through Switzerland and the Cayman Islands, to Miami, DC, Alaska and somewhere in California.

  My assignments only tell me who and when, never why, but I suspect that the association of oligarchs whose money he’s been playing might have lost patience with his highly creative accountancy.

  Three times she comes within two tables of me. I have listened to recordings of her voice, mostly on the phone. Hearing her speak for real, I hear a warmth and a softness that takes me by surprise. She’s quiet in a way that grabs my attention. A way that makes me want to listen.

  When it’s almost time for Chrissy’s shift to be over, she shocks me again, when she stops at my table.

  A smoky undertone to her voice arouses me.

  “Is there something else I can get you?”

  “Black coffee. And the check.” Looking in her eyes, I’m getting two kinds of thrill. I shouldn’t be talking to the target. She shouldn’t be talking to me. Everything about this seems wrong.

  But it feels wrong in a way that feels too good.

  She comes back with coffee and a delicious spark in her eyes. I want to leave an oversized tip. I don’t, of course.

  No point if she won’t be here to spend it.

  I have a plan ready. I’ve picked a spot between here and her Metro stop. It’s right in front of a small hotel. The hotel of the kind that rents rooms by the hour.

  I’ll put an arm around her waist and jab her skin with an epi pen that I’ve had modified. As I do, I’ll pull her arm over my shoulder. As the fast-acting sedative kicks in, I’ll walk her up to the hotel desk.

  The clerk is used to couples arriving where one or both is highly intoxicated.

  Then I’ll take her up to a room for as quick and painless an interrogation as I can give, to get what I need from her. The sad thing is, she probably doesn’t know any of what I need. I have highly advanced interrogation techniques for recovering lost and ignored memory, and for getting a subject to uncover facts that they don’t realize they know.

  I’m sure she has no idea that she’s even been put in this position, but she will have been chosen for a reason.

  It would take a deep interrogation to find it, though, and that could take a long time. And I don’t have a long time.

  By the time I get outside the restaurant, my plan is already blown. She’s met with two friends and they’re walking, practically arm in arm. I have to stay back, maintain visual contact and stay unseen. Who would’ve thought all of my training and experience would be strained this hard by a young American student?

  I follow the group from half a block behind. I’m ready to turn, drop to tie a shoe if I have to. They head into a bar. A bright place called Bar-Dash-Bar on a busy corner.

  If I go in behind them, she could notice me. But if I don’t, I run the risk of them being in a place with multiple exits.

  A coffee bar is on the opposite corner of the street, facing the bar Chrissy is in. I have Bar-Dash-Bar covered, unless there’s a back entrance.

  I have to duck behind my coffee cup when I see the three girls standing near the bar window, looking this way.

  Finally, something goes right for me. Chrissy comes to the side door. She calls and waves to her two friends as she opens the door, and she steps out. Crossing the street this way. I have to turn out of her line of sight. I’m ready to step out of the coffee bar when she passes.

  She heads briskly down the main street, back the way she came. The sidewalk is wide and there’s almost nobody else on it. I’m walking on the outside of the sidewalk, she’s on the inside, near the quaint old storefronts. An unusual noise makes me turn, fast, to see a black Hummer mount the sidewalk. It’s headed this way.

  It’s aiming for Chrissy.

  Chapter 2

  Him

  I LEAP TO TACKLE her out of the way with my heart in my mouth. I hardly get to her in time. Her face turns. Like we’re in slow motion, her eyes open wide as her body twists to face me. Colliding with her, all I’m thinking about is getting her clear, making her safe. My body is already thinking of something else, though.

  As I bundle her into the doorway of a store, I get my arms around her, so I shield her from the impact of the fall. There’s hardly space for us both but I have to get her out of the path of the Hummer’s big tires. Now I want to pull her near, wrap her close.

  The Hummer’s tires smoke and screech as it stops just a few feet past us.

  Holding onto her, I search her face. “Are you okay?”

  She looks puzzled and maybe alarmed. But not hurt. I breathe a long sigh of relief. Holding my hand up like a stop sign to warn her, ‘Stay there,’ I then put a finger to my lips. She nods. Feeling her agreement stirs me. I crouch low and duck out of the store doorway.

  The Hummer is almost against the storefronts. The driver’s door bangs against a window, opening just enough for a man to drop out, into the narrow gap. He hurries down the narrow space with a gun drawn. I’m behind the Hummer, out of his view. I’m low enough to get a hard jab in his kidney.

  He buckles forward and I yank back his gun hand to and break his grip. He’s down near the ground and I drive a kick, hard, under his ear. I check that he’s not moving as I stand up quickly by the side of the Hummer. I have his gun raised at my shoulder, in case more men come from the other side.

  No-one does so I drop the gun in my pocket and grab Chrissy’s arm.

  I ask her again, “You okay?”

  Wide-eyed and silent, she nods. Quickly, I pull her up. Pulling like it’s a command. She obeys. I race her out, over the unconscious man, shielded in the tight gap between the Hummer and the buildings. She’s peering up into my face, panicked and confused. I want to think she’s grateful to me for saving her, but if she is, I can’t see it.

  I hustle her quickly to the corner and turn. In front of us are the golden lights of a big, glittering hotel driveway.

  She holds back, turning when I slip my arm around her waist. As I lift her arm over my shoulder, her head turns. I press my prepared epi pen against her neck. Her lips softly part and her eyes roll back as the drug goes in.

  I get her, stumbling, up to the hotel lobby and by the time we’re inside, she’s unconscious. I lower her softly onto a deep, mustard couch. A doorman in a big mustard coat with purple cuffs and lapels eyes Chrissy then looks at me suspiciously.

  The best cover is to make someone help. “Please,” I call to the doorman, “Help me. I think she’s unconscious. Please, can you call an ambulance?”

  The doorman comes quickly. “What happened?”

  I shake my head, looking anxious. “I’ve no idea… I tried to make sure nobody put anything in her drink.” I look up at the doorman, “Please, help me. Call an ambulance.”

  “Honestly?” he says, “This time on a weekday night? You’d be way faster if you take a cab.”

  I nod, grateful. Anxious.

  The doorman shoves his way through the glass doors, blows his whistle smartly and waves his white and purple glove. A cab pulls up and he helps me to get Chrissy inside. He refuses a tip.

  The cab heads for the hospital. After four blocks, I make a fairly convincing impression of drowsy noises from a drunken girl. Then some heaving sounds.

  I tell the cabdriver, stop here. “I think she’s going to vomit.” I don’t have to tell him twice.