Gray Shadows: Russian Historical Thriller

Chapter Ten

Nikolai punched the number into his phone, and Olga picked up right away.

“I have something to ask you,” Nikolai said.

“Not about my promotion, I hope. I’m beginning to suspect you’re just envious that I’ll be making more money than you. Male ego problems?”

“Maybe, a little of that,” Nikolai said. He was a little taken aback by Olga’s harsh tone, but decided this was no time to argue. He had a job to do. “What is Denis Fedorovich’s last name?”

“Petrenko.”

“That’s what I suspected.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Nikolai paused, then told her everything he had discovered about Denis Fedorovich and his company. Olga listened without interrupting him, so Nikolai could not tell what her reaction was to all this new information.

“Now that you know all this,” Nikolai said. “Can you promise me not to accept his job offer?”

“Promise you?” Olga said. “I don’t know if you’re telling me all that because you want to protect me, or because you’re jealous of my promotion. Let’s face it: I make more money than you do, my schedule is easier, and I get better job offers and promotions. You are just a servant, nothing else. And there’s one more thing. I’m moving out.”

“You’re what?” Nikolai did not expect this reaction from Olga. “Moving out?”

“We both know that our relationship is not working, so why waste any more time on it. It’s better if I just move out.”

“You don’t want to wait till I come back so we can talk about it in person?”

“There’s nothing to talk about. Nothing you can say will change my mind.”

“All right,” Nikolai said. Olga’s words hurt, and he still loved her, despite all the recent problems and disagreements. At the same time, he felt a sense of relief. Olga was right. She was saying exactly what Nikolai had been thinking for a while but never had the courage to bring up. “I’m sorry things did not work out for us.”

“Just like that?” Olga said. “You’re giving up that quickly? I knew you never loved me. I’ll leave the key on the kitchen table.”

Before Nikolai could say anything else, Olga clicked off. For a moment, Nikolai contemplated calling her back but decided not to. What could he tell her? That he used to love her but the social and political circumstances of their changing country and of their lives erased his love for her? Or erased the person Olga used to be? All that would sound like pathetic excuses, especially over the phone. It was better just to let her move out and have a longer conversation in person, after Nikolai got back to Moscow, if Olga would even want to have such a conversation.

Nikolai closed his eyes for a second, exhaled, and put the phone away. Then, he stepped into the warmth of the office building, climbed up the steps and stopped outside of Pyotr Alekseevich’s office. The door was open, and Nikolai could hear the director’s agitated voice.

“Yes, I got the report,” Pyotr Alekseevich was saying. “The numbers are incredibly high. Yes, of course, we’re checking. We’ve been checking day and night since we got the information from MENDAX Environmental Group. Yes, they are our new consultants. And no, we can’t find the source of the problem. It may be a leak in one of the underground pipes. Yes, of course, we’ll keep looking. We are looking.”

Nikolai stepped into the office. Pyotr Alekseevich stood by the window, tapping a pencil on the glass. Isolated from the outside world by her ear buds, Natalya was at the computer, typing busily.

“Problems?” Nikolai said.

Pyotr Alekseevich turned to him and nodded. “Serious ones. We got the environmental report, and it shows high contamination of soil and water, and that means a major leak in the pipeline.”

“But isn’t the pipeline new?” Nikolai said.

“It is. But things can happen even with a new pipeline,” Pyotr Alekseevich said. “Especially if somebody wants them to happen.”

“You’re thinking sabotage?” Nikolai said.

“I’m not ruling it out.” Pyotr Alekseevich said. “But whatever the reason, we can’t even find that leak. That’s really bad news, especially just before the board meeting. The government could just close us down, and auction off our assets.” He shook his head, then walked over to Natalya and tapped her on the shoulder lightly. She pulled out her ear buds and looked up.

“I need to go back to the oil field,” Pyotr Alekseevich said. “Could you please stay here and work on these documents?” He handed her a folder.

A moment later, Nikolai’s phone buzzed. It was Vanya.

“Your guys are here,” Vanya said. “Can you come to the front gate to help me identify them? There’s enough manpower here to take over a small country, so you’d better make sure these guys are on our side.”

“You’re learning fast,” Nikolai said. “I’ll be right there.”

A minivan was parked outside the main gate. Nikolai nodded to Vanya and walked out of the compound to the van. He greeted the driver, a dark-haired young man, but did not recognize him.

“Mind if I look inside?” Nikolai said.

“Go ahead,” the driver said and opened the passenger door.

Nikolai leaned in. He saw Andrei, his buddy from training, and Viktor, Centurion’s computer expert, next to Andrei. He recognized the other four men as well. Nikolai greeted them, stepped away from the van, motioned for Vanya to open the gate, and walked back inside the compound.

“Anatoly sent our computer guy, too. Mind if he takes a look at your system?” Nikolai said.

“But we have Oleg,” Vanya said.

“As they say, two heads are better than one,” Nikolai said.

Vanya shook his head. “Right. I know what you’re doing. You don’t trust anyone, do you?”

“Trust but verify. Anyway, why don’t you have Viktor check the network, and you take the guys to the hotel. Meanwhile, I’ll talk to Andrei, my replacement,” Nikolai said. “Once you’re done at the hotel, bring them back, and we’ll chat.”

“All right. I guess I’m no longer in charge.” Vanya opened the door of the van and climbed inside. Two young men jumped out, and the van took off towards the hotel.

Both men were dressed in thick dark-colored parkas, big boots, and fur hats, but even in these similar outfits, the differences in their appearances were starkly obvious. Andrei, Nikolai’s replacement, was short and stocky, with dark curly hair. Viktor, the computer expert, was tall and slender. As he came out of the van, Viktor adjusted his fashionable rimless glasses and pulled on his gloves. He worked hard and was well-compensated for the late nights and the long hours, and that explained his expensive tastes, in his outfits and in his choices of exotic vacations. He loved spending time somewhere on warm beaches in Turkey, Spain, or Greece, and his affinity for warm weather was indicated by his tanned face, a sharp contrast to the infinite whiteness around them.

“Not my favorite climate,” Viktor said. “Next time you have computer problems, can you have them in a Monaco casino or somewhere in the Mediterranean?”

“I’ll do my best,” Nikolai said.

“I bet Nikolai doesn’t mind this job, despite the freezing weather,” Andrei said. “Guarding a young girl. What a cushy assignment. I bet she’s pretty, too.”

“Not my type,” Nikolai said. “Let’s go chat while Viktor checks the network. I want to tell you more about Natalya and this whole assignment.”

“I hope the computers are someplace warm,” Viktor said. “I hate this cold.”

The three of them walked inside the security office. Nikolai handed Viktor a piece of paper. “All the network passwords are here. Make sure to destroy this information after you’re done.”

“Yes, boss,” Viktor said. “I’ll eat it, just like spies do in the movies.” He chuckled. “I’ve got all I need, so just give me an hour or so.”

Nikolai and Andrei stepped outside and started walking the perimeter of the fence. The weather was freezing cold, as always, but at least the wind had died down, allowing Nikolai and Andrei to talk without blowing snow blinding them.

“I’m listening,” Andrei said, putting his gloved hands deeper into his pockets. “Tell me all I need to know.”

“In a minute. First, tell me how you’ve been,” Nikolai said. “I haven’t seen you for a while. Busy?”

“Pretty busy,” Andrei said without looking at Nikolai.

“What assignments have you been on? Worked with anyone I might know?”

“I’ve been away, you know,” Andrei said.

“Away where?”

For a moment Andrei was quiet, with only the crunching of their footsteps on the snow breaking the silence. “I’m not too proud of what had happened,” Andrei finally said, “but Anatoly told me to make sure you know. Just in case.”

“What is it?” Nikolai wondered if Andrei got himself into some legal trouble over a client.

“I just couldn’t get my life back on track after my wife died. I started missing work, then got into drinking, and everything was just falling apart. If it weren’t for Anatoly, I don’t know where I would be right now. Probably dead. Anatoly pretty much forced me to get into rehab for alcohol. He saved my life.”

“I’m glad you’re better, Andrei,” Nikolai said. Of course, Nikolai remembered the car accident that killed Andrei’s wife, but he also remembered Andrei getting back to work after it, and then Nikolai got so involved with his own work and with Olga that he lost track of Andrei. Now, he felt a twinge of guilt. Andrei was not a close friend, but he was a colleague, and Nikolai should have at least called him on the phone.

“I’m, too. It was tough for a while.”

“I am sorry to hear it,” Nikolai said. “Anatoly always told me he was keeping you busy, and I never questioned him. I just thought you were working.”

“That’s fine,” Andrei said. “We all get busy, and Anatoly knew more than anyone else in the company since he’s in charge. He’s a good guy. He left it up to me to tell you what really happened. So, now you know.”

“How are you now?”

“Much better,”Andrei said. “I’m fine. It’s all in the past. I learned how to handle stress without drinking, so you don’t have to worry about me. What about you? Are you and Olga married? Any kids yet?”

“No to both. That’s not happening. As they say, our life is like a fairy-tale: the further we go, the scarier it gets.”

“I thought you really liked each other. What went wrong?”

“Olga is great. It’s me. I have a hard time adjusting to all these changes, to her new career, to the fancy functions she attends. And our job, as you well know, is not too conducive to family life.” As soon as Nikolai said these last words, he regretted them. Andrei was doing just fine with his family life until his wife died. “I’m sorry, Andrei. I was just talking about myself. I didn’t mean to include you in that statement. Sorry.”

“I know what you meant, buddy. Don’t apologize,” Andrei said. “How’s your recovery going?”

“I’m pretty much back to normal. The wounded leg aches once in a while, but not enough to prevent me from doing what I need to do.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Andrei said. “So, we’re both back to normal now. That’s good to know. And it’s good to see you again.”

“You, too.”

They were almost half-way around the compound. The street lamps were all working, and the cameras were glowing with their tiny green lights.

“So, tell me about this Natalya and what my job is,” Andrei said.

“Natalya’s pretty smart and hard-working, despite what her dad led me to believe,” Nikolai said. “She has an English degree and works as an interpreter for Pyotr Alekseevich, the company’s director.”

“And why does she need a bodyguard?”

“Up until now, she really did not. It was just her dad’s way to have somebody watch over her and keep her out of trouble. Since money is no issue for him, he contacted our company, and I got the job. But now that the situation around Pyotr Alekseevich is getting pretty tense, some extra protection for Natalya couldn’t hurt.”

“Makes sense. Is she easy to work with?”

“Not too bad. I’ll introduce you as soon as I show you something.”

Nikolai led Andrei around the perimeter of the fence, past the security building, past all the office buildings, and to the area where he and Vanya had discovered the tunnel. The two lamp posts had new lights in them now, and they were shining down on the stack of metal roof panels and the fence beyond them.

“See these roof panels?” Nikolai said. “There’s a tunnel under them.”

“A tunnel? In this freezing ground? Any idea how long it’s been here?”

“I couldn’t tell by looking at it, but the panels here are recent, so I’d venture to say that the tunnel hasn’t been here for too long. I bet it’s a gift for the board meeting.”

“Anything inside there?” Andrei asked and came closer.

“Nothing.”

Nikolai shone his flashlight around the panels but could not spot any signs of recent activity, then came up to the fence and peered at the other side. In the permanent darkness that was Upper Luzinsk’s Arctic winter, it was hard to discern much. The three trees that he noticed before were still there and still as straight as before, and there were no discernible footprints or tire tracks in the snow. Of course, even if somebody had been there, on foot or in a vehicle, all the traces would have been erased by the previous night’s snowfall.

“As far as I can tell, everything is the way Vanya and I had left it, so I don’t think anybody has been here,” Nikolai said. “Of course, they don’t need to come here now. It’s a getaway route, and there’s nothing to get away from yet. So, that’s what I wanted to show you. Shall we head back?.”

“And who are they, these people who made the tunnel? You don’t have any leads, do you?” Andrei said.

“None,” Nikolai said. “Hired help, as Anatoly calls them. Contract killers.”

“I figured that much,” Andrei said.

They stepped away from the fence and started walking back.

“What’s going on here?” they heard Natalya’s voice. “We’re all preparing for this big meeting, and you’re going for walks? Nothing better to do?”

She was walking towards them, a big white scarf wrapped around her, her long fur coat almost touching the snow. Her hands, thick mittens on them, were swinging freely, adding to a glamorous and carefree look. To Nikolai, she looked out of place in this not-so-glamorous town and in stark contrast to his and Andrei’s serious mood.

“We were just checking on these roof panels,” Nikolai said. “Vanya thought somebody was trying to steal them the other night. The real question is what are you doing here, Natalya? And how did you know we were here?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t know. I was bored, so I just followed you guys here.”

“Doesn’t Pyotr Alekseevich need your help?” Nikolai said.

“Not now. He’s meeting with some regional bosses, and they all speak Russian.”

“All right. Please don’t follow us again. It could be dangerous. But since you’re here, let me introduce you to your new bodyguard, Andrei.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” Andrei said.

Natalya smiled. “You look like you’ve been in this job for a while,” she said to Andrei as the three of them headed back to Pyotr Alekseevich’s office. “You don’t seem as uptight as Nikolai here.”

“Appearances can be deceptive,” Andrei said.

“Maybe so,” Natalya said. “So tell me, how did you get into this job?”

“First you tell me how you got a job here. Isn’t this a boring place for a young pretty woman? All darkness and snow, and not even a movie theater for entertainment?” Andrei said.

“A job is a job, and this one pays well. Many times more than a similar job in Moscow if I could even get one there. Not many people want to come all the way here, you know.”

“Like you really need the money,” Nikolai said.

“I don’t want to take my dad’s money anymore. I want to make my own and spend it the way I want to,” Natalya said. “After this job is done, I’m going to Cyprus. Warm water, sunny days, the beach. I want to learn scuba-diving.”

“Sounds nice,” Andrei said. “How long are you staying here?”

“As long as I need,” Natalya said. “Now tell me about yourself, Andrei. How did you become a bodyguard?”

“Do you really want to know or are you just making conversation?” Andrei asked.

“I really want to know. I’ve never met any bodyguards before, besides you and Nikolai, and I’m curious.”

“All right, I’ll tell you,” Andrei said. “I was planning to go to college to study engineering but didn’t get enough points to get in, so, like all other young guys, I was drafted into the military. While serving my two years, I kept reading engineering and math books in the little free time that I had. I was really determined to get into an engineering school. But then something changed, and I lost interest in all that.”

“Why?” Natalya asked. “What happened?”

“The 1991 August coup happened and it changed everything. The division I served in was sent to the Russian Parliament building where President Yeltsin was working on a plan to resist the coup. At first, when our division got called to the building, I thought we were supposed to support Yeltsin, bring democracy back, and all those lofty kinds of things. I was proud to be there even though the orders were not clear: they told us to surround the building and just maintain order. Still, that made sense to me: thousands of Yeltsin supporters gathered in front of the building, everyone was agitated, and when nerves are on edge in a big crowd, all kinds of dangerous things can happen. So, I completely understood and accepted the assignment. But as the day progressed, I saw the conflict between the coup leaders and Yeltsin get more and more serious. And I also realized that the orders we got were from the coup leaders, not from Yeltsin’s group. By the evening, there was talk of storming the building. And do you know what that meant?”

“What?” Natalya asked.

“It meant that we, the soldiers, would have to shoot our own people, Muscovites like us. There was no way I was going to do it. The military is supposed to protect its people from external enemies, not shoot them. And, of course, you know what happened next, right?”

“Sure,” Natalya said. “I was little but I remember how happy my parents were when the soldiers and all the tanks sent to the Parliament disobeyed their military orders from the coup leaders and joined Yeltsin’s defenders.”

Andrei nodded. “Yes, and that’s exactly what we did, with all our tanks.”

“When we heard the news, we were all cheering and eating ice-cream. My mom always told me that the support of the military was the deciding factor in the outcome of the coup. If you guys weren’t that brave, who knows where we would be now.”

“In Siberia, probably, in some labor camp,” Andrei said. “Working all day for a bowl of soup.”

Nikolai chuckled. “And now we’re even farther than Siberia, but at least we are working for money.”

“But I still don’t understand how that coup made you want to become a bodyguard, Andrei,” Natalya said.

“I’ve always thought of myself as a patriot, but I only realized what that really meant during those days and nights of the August coup. Before, I was thinking about myself, my engineering studies, my future. I was limited to my own world and did not even know it. And when I was at the Parliament building, with all those people around me who came there out of their own free will because they wanted to see a better future for our country, I felt that I needed to protect them, to defend them. I was ready to die for them because of the ideals they had and of the hopes they were trying to fulfill. Not their own little individual hopes, but hopes of the whole country. It was at that moment that I realized that protecting each person or even just one person is the highest form of patriotism. To be a patriot, you need to believe in what you’re defending and know what or who you’re defending. The job of a bodyguard, protecting one specific client from harm, felt like the ultimate form of patriotism to me.”

“Deep stuff,” Nikolai said, and he meant it. Many of the things Andrei was saying were things that Nikolai felt himself. He just never took the time to put them in words.

Natalya was quietly listening.

As they were walking towards the building, they passed by some old tree stumps next to a patch of young trees.

Andrei stopped. “See these stumps?”

Natalya and Nikolai stopped as well.

“Sure we see them,” Natalya said. “What about them?”

“Life of a bodyguard is just like these trees. While you’re young, you’re high above the ground, the sun shines on you, gives you warmth, but then, there’s a point in a bodyguard’s life when he gets cut down.”

Andrei patted one of the stumps. “And somewhere deep inside, life leaves holes, just like these ones.” He picked at the rotten wood inside one of the stumps. It crumbled in his fingers.

“So, are you saying that you are like one of these stumps?” Natalya said.

“Not yet, but my time will come. One day, I will be too old to do this job, and I will be thrown aside, like these stumps. That’s life. But you know what’s worse than these stumps? It’s what’s not here, what we don’t see. It’s the young guys who perished while doing their duty, on the job, and not even an old stump was left to remind others of their big sacrifice. Life is a little more stable now, less dangerous even for bodyguards, but remember the nineties?”

Natalya nodded. “What about the nineties?”

“All through the nineties, there was so much crime, so many deaths of bodyguards who were killed while protecting their clients. And the newspapers did not write about these guys. There were no elaborate funerals or memorial services, no fancy monuments, nothing. Don’t you agree, Nikolai? You know how most clients treat their bodyguards.”

Nikolai shook his head. “But Andrei, it’s a job, the clients don’t owe us anything beyond the contract. It’s a dangerous job, but we chose to do it, so we really shouldn’t expect any extra gratitude or extra attention. Our job is to be gray shadows of our clients, unseen and unheard, remember?”

“Gray shadows or not, we are still people. And unlike shadows, we get hurt, we bleed and we die,” Andrei said to Nikolai, then turned to Natalya. “Sorry, I got a little too philosophical here. You must be freezing. Why don’t we go back inside.”

“Good idea,” Nikolai said. “Pyotr Alekseevich is probably back from his meeting and looking for you, Natalya.”

As Nikolai watched Natalya, accompanied by Andrei, head towards Pyotr Alekseevich’s building, he wondered if he had misjudged her. Sure, she was a little immature but she did not seem to be out of control or evil, like her dad made him and Anatoly believe. She was just young. But, like Nikolai’s grandmother used to say, youth is a drawback that goes away with time. Natalya had plenty of time to become more mature and more serious.

When the heavy door slammed shut behind Natalya and Andrei, Nikolai chuckled, remembering Natalya’s words about the sunny beaches of Cyprus. That image was especially appealing here and now, in this frozen Arctic darkness. Nikolai braced himself for another burst of cold wind and headed to the security office where Viktor was working on the network.

“Did you find anything?” Nikolai asked him.

“Yes. Somebody infected the system with a variation of the JS-67 virus.”

“What does it do?”

“Slows down the computers by taking up hard disk space, network storage space, and memory. There are a number of JS-67 versions. Some are malicious and can steal data and corrupt the system, others are just pranks.”

“Which one do we have?”

“I’ll have to run some more checks back in the Moscow office but this one looks pretty harmless.” Viktor took the flash drive out of the computer. “All I need is here. I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

“What’s its origin? Did it come from the Internet?”

“No. The system has all the latest anti-virus software, with firewalls and automatic updates enabled, and JS-67 has been around for a while, so it would have been recognized by the anti-virus software and blocked from entry into the system. Someone put it in on purpose.”

“But who would do that? And why?”

“Who has network passwords?”

“You, me, and Pyotr Alekseevich, the company’s director,” Nikolai said.

“You think he could be doing something?” Viktor said.

“Pyotr Alekseevich? Definitely not. Why would he?” Nikolai said. “He’d be hurting his own company. Plus, he doesn’t seem to know that much about computers.”

“Who does computer work around here?”

Nikolai shook his head. “Of course!” he exclaimed. “That was really dumb of me. Oleg, the local computer guy has all the passwords, and he has been working on all computers. He seems to be really good at making them speed up.”

“So, he knows how to find the virus and how to remove it,” Viktor said. “He probably also knows how to put it in. You need to talk to him. He knows more than he lets on.”

“I will call him and Vanya right now.”