Chasing ivan 2 1, p.10
Chasing Ivan - 2.1, page 10
“By killing Ivan shortly after coming to office, you would eliminate the only witness to your crime, and begin your tenure with a dramatic win, a win that would prove your past naysayers wrong and cause your future opponents to think twice. Strategically, it was brilliant. Admirable, even. You outwitted the President, the Senate, and one of the most notorious criminals of our time.”
Rider swapped his mask of indignation for one of pleasant indifference, a core item in the wardrobe of all career politicians. “If that were true, one might say it reflects the kind of operational mind this country needs at the helm of the CIA.”
“One might. But not me.”
“But not you…” Rider chewed on that a moment, and then said, “Well, it’s been interesting listening to the imagination of a disgraced and traumatized former agent, but as long as you’re where you are and I’m where I am, this story will never amount to more than that. Unless you have evidence, of course?”
I shook my head and steeled myself for the smug smile to come—the last I ever intended to see. “You’re where you are, and I’m where I am, and traumatized though I might be by the brutality of DC-league politics, I’m not naive enough to think that I could win that fight without a smoking gun. I’m also not corrupt enough to switch over to the dark side, not yet anyway.”
“So?”
I left him hanging for a minute. Gave him the experience of operating without air. It was a victory of sorts, albeit transient and minor. “So . . . I’ve decided to get out while my self-respect is still intact. I’ve decided to resign.”
That yanked the mask right off, exposing the complete package. Stretched lips, raised chin, and triumphant eyes.
I turned and walked for the door, an old life behind me, a new one ahead. As my hand hit the big brass knob, I spun about again. “Of course, since I figured out that you set Ivan up, you can be certain that he will too. Enjoy the rest of your life, Director.”
Epilogue
“Even after my own experience, I still can’t believe Michael shot you,” Emily said. “He was such a gentleman.”
Jo had just exchanged her hospital gown for her civilian clothes and was finally headed for the door when Emily surprised her. She’d walked right into her room, accompanied by a doctor whose lab coat read Lawrence Danton, M.D.
Jo had assumed that Emily was back in London, having heard that her physical wounds required little more than bandages and antiseptic. It was her psychological wounds that Jo had assumed would take time mending.
In answer to Emily’s question, Jo unfastened the blouse buttons she’d done up just minutes before. Pulling the fabric aside like a wounded Superman, she exposed the center of her chest. Four weeks of top medical care had no doubt facilitated rapid healing, but the scar on her breast bone still appeared plenty angry. Perhaps it always would. “It looks bad, but I was incredibly lucky.”
“You were unbelievably lucky,” Doctor Danton said. “I just read through the notes on your chart.”
Jo had been blessed no less than four times by her count. First when the bullet expended most of its energy drilling through the Mercedes’ seat. Second when it hit her bony sternum rather than her soft flesh. Third when the shock knocked her out so she appeared to be dead. And forth by avoiding head strikes and disfigurement when Michael dumped her from his moving car. The scrapes on her back and buttocks were severe enough to require skin grafts and a month-long convalescent stay. But thanks to her leather riding clothes, those were just flesh wounds, as the professional soldiers say.
“Doctor Danton took care of me when they brought me to the emergency room,” Emily said, her voice unexpectedly enthusiastic. Whatever mood-altering medication they’d given her, Jo wanted some. “We came to ask you about the man who saved me. Nobody seems to know who he is or what happened to him.”
“Why are you asking me?” Jo asked, prevaricating. This was slippery territory.
“The police linked our cases through Michael. He brought me to the yacht show and took you away. Since the valet said you had a gun on him at the time, we know you were trying to stop him, just like that man was trying to stop Andreas, or Ivan or whatever his name is. We know you told the police you don’t know anything, and for some reason they appear to have lost all interest, but we were hoping you’d tell me. Girl to girl. Given that shared scars are a special kind of bond.”
Jo knew the police had lost interest because they’d been ordered to. But she’d have expected Emily’s father to use his clout to get answers. Perhaps he had things he considered more important on his plate. “Why do you want to know about him?”
“To thank him, of course. I owe him my life.”
Jo was a bit slow on account of the pain medication she’d been taking. But she put it together now. Emily had been speaking in first-person plural. We came to ask you… We know… We were hoping… And her tone, her lively, joyful tone. “Are the two of you dating?”
Emily reached down and took Dr. Danton’s hand. “The day that necklace punctured my trachea was the luckiest of my life,” she said.
Well stone the crows, Jo thought. Given all the time she had to kill while confined to a recovery bed, Jo had spent hours worrying about Emily’s post-traumatic psychological condition. She hadn’t reached out herself for fear of what she’d find, fear that Achilles’ sacrifice would have been wasted saving someone who no longer wanted to live. Still stalling for time to think, she asked, “Does this mean you’re not going back to London anytime soon? The papers report that it’s soon to be an Aspinwall town.”
“Home is where the heart is. Will you tell me about him, please?”
Jo wasn’t sure what to say. She knew Achilles had resigned, but little more. The rumor mill was far less active in The Agency than in almost every other institution, but people were still people, and gossip was a force all its own, as irrepressible as the American people themselves. Some said Achilles refused to work for Director Rider, others that he’d been fired. “So you’re happy?” She asked Emily.
“The happiest I’ve ever been.”
Jo wasn’t sure that would last, but it was clear that Emily meant it. “Well that’s all the thanks he’d ever want.”
“But who is he? Where is he?”
“I honestly don’t know where he is. As for who, well, he’s the guy who comes calling, when good people like you are in need.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Dear Reader,
THANK YOU for reading the Chasing Ivan! I love to hear from readers, and welcome your thoughts. You can reach me at tim@timtigner.com.
If you enjoyed this novella, I’d greatly appreciate your sharing a link to my website with your friends, so they can get their own free copy. timtigner.com It’s only through such little acts of kindness that authors without trust funds are able to survive.
With best regards,
Please click her to leave a review on GoodReads.
The Achilles story continues in 2016 with
PUSHING BRILLIANCE
Links to Tim Tigner’s other thrillers:
Tim began his career in Soviet Counterintelligence with the US Army Special forces, the Green Berets. That was back in Cold War days, when "We learned Russian so you didn't have to," something he did at the Presidio of Monterey alongside Recon Marines and Navy SEALs. [Redacted text here.]
With the fall of the Berlin Wall, Tim switched from espionage to arbitrage. Armed with a Wharton MBA rather than a Colt M16, he moved to Moscow in the midst of Perestroika. There he lead prominent multinational medical companies, worked with cosmonauts on the MIR Space Station, (from Earth, alas) chaired the Association of International Pharmaceutical Manufacturers, and helped write Russia's first law on healthcare.
Moving to Brussels during the formation of the EU, Tim ran Europe, Middle East, and Africa for a Johnson & Johnson company and traveled like a character in a Robert Ludlum book. He eventually landed in Silicon Valley where he launched new medical technologies as a startup CEO.
Breakthrough medical technologies sometimes bring tremendous power and great financial reward. Tim's thrillers take you into that world. When the fortunes and dreams of powerful people are on the line, they tend to do whatever it takes to thrive. Their victims pile up until heroes emerge, people with the courage, skills, and resources required to fight back, overcome, and survive.
Tim grew up in the Midwest, earning a BA in Philosophy and Mathematics from Hanover College and then a MBA in Finance and a MA in International Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. He now lives with his wife Elena and their two daughters in Northern California.
Tim Tigner, Chasing Ivan - 2.1
