Chapter Twenty-Eight

Two weeks had passed and the day had finally come. Rushing out to the jet, Gabriel held his breath as the hatch opened and the staircase was put under her feet. He had never seen anyone so beautiful. She emerged into the crisp air wrapped in a delicate pink sweater with her golden locks around her face and her blue eyes set on him. Briggy.

She ran down the stairs to him, eyes brimming with tears. He met her with a strong, loving embrace, pulling her up to his face and kissing her with the passion of a million missed moons. He felt alive again with her there, like his blood had finally begun to pump through his steely veins again.

Anatoly had given Gabriel the day off. “Take care of her,” he had said. “Make sure that she gets situated before this all goes down.”

And even though he didn’t know the city well, Gabriel had an entire day planned for just the two of them.

Plus, since Anatoly had arrived back from Atlanta, they had worked every day making deals, preparing deliveries; and tomorrow, he was scheduled to head to South Florida for the major deal there with the last of Anatoly’s personal stash of guns from the Sochi buy.

Briggy wiped her eyes and whispered I love you in French. Her beautiful lips found his again, kissing his full mouth and holding him close. Finally, he put her down, and he motioned for the bodyguards to get her things.

As he walked off the tarmac with her, he noticed a man in window of entryway. It was a startlingly familiar face. Agent Lee.

He didn’t make contact with him, just let him know that he was heat he was watching, and suddenly, just as he intended, Gabriel’s joy had been stolen.

***

Gabriel knew that it was time to tell Briggy. After she had moved into the apartment with him, after dinner and after intense love making, he knew that one thing still had to be handled. Everything within him told him not to send for her. But where was reason when a man was lonely? Having been deprived for so long of human contact, he could not help his desire to be with her.

Then there was the issue of Anatoly and his own intense affair. Every moment that he wasn’t working, he and Renee were together. Everyone noticed it, but no one had the balls to say anything about it. He guessed that it didn’t matter much to the Vory as long as the money continued to come in, and they didn’t marry.

Anatoly and Vasily talked about the code often, discussing men that he’d never heard of or ever imagined knowing. Anatoly knew them all - the ones no one knew were Vory and the ones that the FBI posted on every bolo around the country.

When Gabriel first began this adventure, he might have used the information, but the deeper he got, the more he found no desire to go digging in the family business. He saw the Medlov men for what they were, and he finally understood why everything had happened.

So much of what his father had taught him was true, only so much of it wasn’t. It left him in a fury that often kept him up at nights and made him constantly hate himself.

He knew that his father had hated Dmitry, but as he infiltrated the organization, he saw that his father had been jealous of his brother’s power, very much like he would be of Anatoly if he were a real Vor...if he were a real Medlov.

Briggy came out of the shower wrapped in a towel and crawled into bed with him. Her long blonde locks were pulled into a ponytail and her face free of makeup. Gabriel snapped out of his daze and glanced up at her. Touching her face, he adjusted his head on the headboard and turned off the television.

“What’s bothering you, sweetheart,” she asked, straddling his naked body.

“I have something that I need to tell you.” He looked her in her eyes and smiled. “Over a midnight snack that is. So, get dressed. Let’s go get some ice cream.” Gabriel thought about what he was doing. If everyone on the council’s business was bugged, he was certain that his own place might be. He could not get caught slipping up. With Agent Lee in Memphis and the drug bust looming, everything mattered.

“Alright,” she said, wide-eyed. “I’ll get dressed.”

***

Before the sun could rise, Anatoly, Gabriel and Vasily were off on the jet headed to Miami to prepare for the drop. From what Anatoly had told Gabriel, no one wanted him on this job. It was too dangerous and a cardinal sin to allow a boss to do any grunt work. But Anatoly insisted that he showGabriel the ropes.

By breakfast, amidst a beautiful seventy-degree day, the men were at the balmy docks exchanging money for the last of his precious shipment of military-grade weapons.

Anatoly had called in advance for an additional thirty men because of the shipment size and because of problems that they had previously with Igor. Likewise, the Cubans had done the same.

From the outside, it may have looked like overkill, but Anatoly never bet small. He had learned from previous ambushes to take nothing for granted. It was a lesson that he was currently trying to teach Gabriel for future jobs.

A tall, Cuban man by the name of Adolfo with startling hazel eyes and a dark, mesmerizing tan stood with Anatoly smoking a cigar and talking about the Riviera while Gabriel and Vasily saw to the loading of the shipment on a freight boat off the shore.

Evidently, Adolfo was the eldest son of Diego, the restaurant owner that Anatoly had visited with Destiny a few months back. Adolfo was a fearless man with dominating features, a strong jaw, muscular build, piercing eyes, deep voice and a thick Cuban accent. While he was born in Miami, he had spent his entire life fighting for his father’s cause. The men under Diego and Adolfo’s charge were very much against the Castro regime and funneled their brothers out of the country as well as aide to their families who were still in Cuba.

The guns were used to ensure their safety and to fight the war that silently continued between the sons of Cuba who wanted their people free.

Dmitry and Diego had been friends and business partners for many years. Moneys were often transferred for various causes and meet and greets took place in distant locales to serve both of their purposes.

When Diego retired from his post and stepped aside, he had tapped Adolfo to take over. He had done so happily and provided new energy and enthusiasm in recruiting men and resources.

Adolfo and Anatoly had become friends of sorts. They both knew the perils of serving under the command and then taking over the reign. Not many young men of their age had been accountable for such a terrifying responsibility, but they both had taken on their charge with fervor.

Gabriel watched the men all day, learning from them through their conversations that he had not been the only ones to have a hard father, a hard existence or many trials and tribulations. They all shared in the experience, each one taking something different from it.

When they were done, they set a date to come back to Miami and just hang out. Anatoly happily introduced his cousin and told him that Adolfo would be doing business with him in the future.

Adolfo seemed to like Gabriel, which surprised him. And like every experience with the Medlov men, Gabriel sincerely felt more in his element with them than with the DEA.

The flight back waslaxed. Anatoly popped a bottle of champagne to celebrate, and the men had dinner in the confines of the jet alone, enjoying conversation that didn’t center on guns or the mafia. For that evening, they were just guys hanging out after a long day at work.

***

Oleg came into the office of his chemical plant on the outskirts of Memphis and hit the table, knocking papers to the floor. Yuri, his partner in crime, was already there waiting to figure out what they were going to do now that things had gone so terribly wrong.

With Anatoly and Gabriel handling the last load of the shipment to the Cubans today, there was no way to cut out their take. Now, they were faced with paying the Columbians out of their own money to a tune of $6 million dollars in cash in less than four days.

They had sent a group to highjack the load from their boss, but when the hired men arrived and saw how heavily armed both Adolfo’s men and Anatoly’s men were, they promptly cancelled the operation.

No one takes on Anatoly Medlov. That was the word that was sent to them only an hour ago, after they thought that they were rid of the troublesome boy and his entourage.

“Do you have six million dollars?” Yuri asked, rubbing his cold hands together. The arthritis in his body only seemed to flare more under stress, which lately was often enough.

“It will be very hard to acquire in four days. Between the two of us, I’m sure that we can liquidate and pay, but it puts us in a very complicated situation, brat. How are we to explain it away to banks, to IRS, to anyone?” Oleg shook his head and stared out the window at the men working below.

“Something has to be done,” Yuri said in shock. “We must call the Columbians and ask for more time.”

Oleg took a heart pill and drank the glass of water on the table. His hands shook. “There is no way to reverse this. The drugs are already on the way. We made a promise...It will surely get back to the council...to Anatoly...my God, it will get back to Dmitry in Prague, and we will surely be finished.”

“This boy...no...this council and its rules are going to be the end of us. We must do something about it. We must re-organize,” the man pleaded. “There must be someone we can hire to do it. With the boy out of the way, there will be less focus on us. We can blame it on any number of people. Then we can have time to fix it with the Columbians and cover our tracks.” Yuri sat back in the chair and brainstormed.

“Anatoly informed us that he and his men must leave for three days. They won’t return until the meeting the morning before the drop. That will be our only chance to hit him. It will be costly. There might be other sacrifices, but we must do it.”

Yuri didn’t care nearly as much for the other 14 council members as he did for his own life – not even their own sons ho sat on the council with them.

“But who will stand against Anatoly?” Yuri asked with his shoulders shrugged. He leaned against his cane.

“We have two days to find someone and one day to prep them. Let’s go for someone not local. I’ll call my brother in Chicago and see what can be done. He stands to lose a lot of money in this as well. He can send down an untraceable favor.”

“Well, we must. We have gone too far now, brat,” Yuri conceded.

***

Gabriel got off the jet and nearly collapsed. The weight of the world was on his shoulders. It had taken everything in him to hide the job from Agent Lee, who was lurking around waiting for a signal, and Briggy had begged him to reveal his true identity to Dmitry before Anatoly found out who he was. “They will find out, Gabriel,” she had warned. “They always do.”

He was shocked at how forgiving she had been of his deception. She had cried for hours, holding on to him, asking him what he was going to do, if he was going to have to leave her, pledging her love and utter devotion. All those things had only made him worry more. He loved Briggy. He knew it deep inside of himself, and he knew now that bringing her here might have cost him her life as well.

“Are you alright, brat?” Anatoly asked, hitting him on his back. “Let’s go to my house. Renee’s cooking.”

Gabriel tried to get out of it. “Can’t. I promised Briggy...”

“Call her. Tell her to get ready and Vasily can go and get her,” Anatoly said, not taking no for an answer.

The drive over to the house from the private airstrip was a short one, but still Gabriel had sweated through his clothes and was now ringing wet. Flushed red, he sat in the back of the car, looking out of the window and contemplating suicide.

“Are you sick?” Anatoly asked finally.

“Sometimes the plane messes with me,” he said, explaining his anxiety away.

Anatoly reached down into the side of the car and pulled out a bottle of vodka. “Here, this gets rid of jet lag.” He smiled but looked at him curiously.

As soon as they arrived at the mansion, Gabriel separated from the men and went to Anatoly’s office. He prayed to God literally for an answer. He couldn’t stomach the idea any longer of being a traitor. Only now, he wasn’t sure which side he was deceiving.

He ran through the tapes quickly, looking for anything that might tell him where the drugs were.

Anatoly walked into he office a few minutes later and closed the door. “I know when something isn’t right in my own camp, Gabriel. I know when there is a problem,” he said, stuffing his hands down in his pockets past the guns that were shining in their holsters.

Gabriel turned around and faced him in the chair. Taking a deep breath, he wiped the sweat from his head and was about to confess to everything and beg for Briggy’s life when he heard the replay at Oleg’s office.

“Hold that thought,” Gabriel said, turning up the volume.

They both listened to the entire conversation. With each statement from the men, Gabriel’s heart lightened a little more. He finally, finally had found someone to take the fall. Resting his head on the desk, he laughed out loud and looked up at Anatoly, who was standing in shock and confusion.

“And you’re happy about this why?” Anatoly asked, completely refocused on his council members instead of Gabriel’s strange behavior.

“Because I’m right,” Gabriel said, revealing the dimple in his jaw as he smiled. “Because my hunch was fucking right.”

Anatoly smiled. “You’re a lucky bastard.”

Walking over to the monitor, Anatoly sat on the end of the desk. “Rewind it. I want to hear again,” he said, looking at the door as Vasily came in with a gun in his hand.

“Everything alright, boss?” Vasily asked, looking at the two of them confused.

Anatoly smirked. “Everything is fine now. Put gun away. It seems that Oleg and Yuri are planning to assassinate me. Apparently, they’ve gotten involved with the Columbians and a nasty little $6 million coke deal that they can’t afford. Gabriel found out for us. And he seems happy about it.”

“There is no telling who else knows about this,” Gabriel said, instantly covering his tracks. “For all we know, the feds could be listening to the exact same thing, because they don’t clean their office.”

Anatoly gazed nonchalantly at Gabriel and nodded. No expression was on his face. “Let’s let them plan this entire thing. And when we get back from Royal’s little reunion, we’ll deal with them.”

“You don’t want to deal with them now?” Gabriel asked.

“No.” Anatoly shook his head. “No, I don’t. I want to go and have dinner with the girls and relax. Like I said, we can deal with them when we get back. Tomorrow, we go to Jamaica.” Hitting Gabriel on the back, he stood up and rounded the corner of the desk. “Let’s go eat, brat. Enough with these old-ass men and your hunch.”

As Anatoly disappeared back out of the office, Gabriel let out a sigh of relief. He looked up to the ceiling and made the sign of the cross. “Thank you, God,” he said aloud as he stood up.

He had to figure out a way to get a copy of this tape to Lee and get this entire investigation under his control right then.