The Russian toweled off, returning to his bedroom to pull on some underwear. He walked to his bedroom window and looked out at the interior courtyard. He plopped down in an overstuffed chair and admired the flowers. He had hired a professional gardener to tend to the shrubs, trees and flowers in the backyard. The gardener entered his property via a tunnel. The tunnel the gardener used was the only one he knew existed. The entrance to the tunnel was in the garage of the home behind him. A narrow staircase led down into the tunnel, traversing property lines and then surfacing inside the potter’s shed within his courtyard. From the small garage in the little ramshackle house behind his own, the tunnel was wide enough for a man to carry gardening tools. It was only a tunnel out of one-half dozen tunnels leading both in and out of his compound. When Kornev had been considering building his new home in Termez, it had been contingent on purchasing the homes surrounding it. He could come and go via his tunnels, making it nearly impossible for anyone to follow or set a trap for him.
Kornev lit a half-smoked Cuban cigar. He blew out a smoke ring that drifted lazily through the room before being sucked into the air-conditioning intake vent in the ceiling. Kornev poked a finger at his laptop, and his computer woke up and showed his e-mail program. Kornev rarely received any, and on those rare occasions when someone had sent him an e-mail, most tended to be about critical business issues. Nobody wrote Kornev to ask him how his day was or if he wanted to catch a movie. But the new message that was on his laptop was close to that. It had been sent by Tonya Merkalov, the woman he had met in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia at the Volna Hotel.
With great interest, Kornev clicked on the message and read,
Dearest Victor: It’s been so long since I heard from you. I hope you haven’t forgotten about me. But how is that possible? lol.
Kornev did not know what lol was. Probably some silly American colloquialism of which he was unfamiliar.
He kept reading, hoping the message would lead somewhere — not just a tease.
It just so happens that I am between projects, and I am bored. I would love to come for a visit and maybe we could go someplace fun. Tell me that you won’t be working, else we can make it another time. I want to have fun! Do you? Your friend, Tonya
Kornev did indeed want to have some fun. He wanted to relax, drink and smoke his cigar. The only other thing he was missing was female companionship. The woman who called herself Tonya Merkalov would more than fit the bill. Other than the single night he had spent with her a month ago, he knew very little about her. He had Googled Tonya Merkalov and looked over her Facebook account. The vivacious woman appeared to be who she claimed to be — the rich daughter of an international banker. That sounded good to him as well. Who knew, if things went well with the woman, his future father-in-law could be an international banker. He could use a man like that to launder his cash. But Victor knew he was jumping the gun. There was a very good chance that the woman who called herself Tonya was not a Tonya at all. Maybe she was a Patricia, Linda, or a Barbara — American names that belonged to spies or CIA agents. Or she could even be with the Israeli Mossad and have the real name of Dinah, Eliana, or Naomi — strong Hebrew names that belonged to Jewish women. But all of that really didn’t matter. Kornev could take care of himself. Tonya hadn’t been a problem for him a month ago, and she wouldn’t be a problem for him now.
Kornev pulled his laptop onto his lap and began stabbing his big fingers at the keys.
Dearest Tonya: It was nice to hear from you as well. For a very short time, I am in a city near Termez, in the Country of Uzbekistan. Termez has an airport. Please let me know when you are arriving, and I will pick you up. We will have lots of fun. Lol.
Kornev added the lol without knowing what it meant, but since she had used it, it must mean something silly. Silly was a disarming trait, and Kornev wanted her to feel comfortable. After all, he was asking her to fly into the middle of nowhere. That type of woman either didn’t know the meaning of danger, or she didn’t care about her safety. Or the third case, she was too naive to know that shacking up with a strange man was innately dangerous. Either way, he sensed that Tonya Merkalov was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. And thinking of knives in the drawers, Kornev decided to err on the side of caution.
He got out of the chair, went to the kitchen, and removed all the knives from the kitchen drawers and hid them.
Philippine Sea — Aboard the Hail Nucleus
Kara Ramey, Gage Renner and Marshall Hail stood motionless, dressed in workout clothes in the ship’s gym. After their meeting was over, Hail mentioned that he needed to work out. Kara had jumped on the bandwagon and said she would like to join him. Renner, who hated working out, begrudgingly agreed to join them only because the lieutenant commander had asked all three of them if he could show them something in the gym.
Kara had thought that Nolan was going to dazzle them with how much weight he could press or provide a new regimen that could shave pounds from Hail’s waistline. Renner really didn’t care what Nolan had to show them if it wasn’t too strenuous.
All three stood in line on the thick matted floor facing Nolan. Nolan was standing in front of them with his arms dangling loosely at his sides.
The lieutenant commander said, “I know you guys are wondering what I want to show you, but I first wanted to tell you that you really need to get the kids on this ship to start exercising. I know that you spend a lot of time showing them how to fly, and they work after school in the wonderful shopping mall you guys built on board, but they aren’t getting much exercise.
“We have all sorts of stuff for them to do,” Hail said defensively. “We have a basketball court, tennis court, a small soccer court, a running track, this weight room and—”
Nolan interrupted, “I know, but do any of the kids use any of those things?”
Hail didn’t respond.
“But what I want to show you is cool. I think a lot of your kids will think its da-bomb.”
“OK,” Hail said.
“I want both you and Kara to attack me,” Nolan instructed them.
“What?” Kara asked, not sure she heard Nolan correctly.
“I want both of you to attack me at the same time,” Nolan repeated. “You know — rush me and take me down.”
Hail looked at Kara, and she just shrugged back at him.
“You do know that Kara had hand-to-hand combat training in the CIA,” Hail told him.
“Yeah, I’m scared,” Nolan responded in a dry monotone.
Hail smiled at Kara and whispered to her, “When I say go.”
Hail turned back toward Nolan and he yelled, “Go!”
Kara got to Nolan before Hail had taken his first step. She reached for Nolan’s neck and, with a quick upstroke of his arm, Nolan batted her hands up into the air and ducked beneath. By that time, Hail had reached Nolan, but there was no Nolan to be had. He was on his hands and knees. When Hail looked down, he saw Nolan shoot his leg out to the side, hitting Hail’s ankles and blasting his feet out from beneath him. Hail went down and he landed on his side with a grunt. Kara had regained her balance and turned back toward Nolan, just in time to experience her feet being kicked out from under her. By the time she hit the floor, Nolan had wrapped his arm around Hail’s neck and had used his other arm to lock it up. Before Kara had a chance to do anything but roll, Nolan scissored his legs around her neck and began choking her.
It all happened so fast. The total exchange had taken less than ten seconds, and now Nolan was simultaneously strangling both Hail and Kara. Hail made some choking sounds and began tapping on Nolan’s arm. Kara couldn’t make any sound at all, and she began tapping on Nolan’s leg a tap out, as it was called in mixed martial arts, indicating, “I give up, now stop choking me.”