Nikolai, page 5
“And then you’re stressing yourself out because you don’t have an explanation, and it’s killing you because, of all the people here, you should be the one who would have known. Or so you thought.”
“Yes, exactly.” He looked at her and around them several times. “It almost makes me think you’re in the investigative business—or at least know humanity better than most.”
She snorted. “I definitely know humanity, starting with multiple brothers.” She gave Nikolai a smile. “You can bet life with them has never been easy, but it’s always been something to remember.”
He smiled. “I kind of felt that way about Eric too. I would have said we were like brothers.”
“And yet I’m sure you’ve felt something different this last little while.”
“Yeah, he was more arrogant than usual,” Nikolai muttered, “held more disgust for humans in general, including those around him. I finally told him to ease up. That was the only argument we ever had,” he admitted. “Then he told me to stop being such a prick and to own up to the fact that everybody here was half of what we were, and, if I wasn’t so righteous, he would be talking to me more too. I never understood what he meant by that, and now I’m sitting here wondering if I didn’t miss a clue.”
“Sounds as if maybe you did,” she noted in a sympathetic tone, “but then you weren’t looking for a clue. Why would you?”
“No, and still I should have been,” he admitted. “Honestly I need to talk to somebody, but I’m not sure how to get a hold of him. I’m not even sure if he’s the right person.”
“I don’t know who you’re looking for, but Mountain might know. Hell, I might even know,” she suggested.
“He’s somebody I worked with in Europe,” Nikolai began. “He was pretty big in the military over here. I doubt he’s got anything to do with this, but …”
“What’s his name?” she asked, with a sinking feeling.
He looked at her, shrugged, and said, “Mason.”
“Ah, why don’t you talk to Mountain about it? He could probably make it happen. And, if you think there’s a purpose for it, maybe he would do it.”
“I don’t know, but I feel as if I’m in a spot of trouble, and, if anybody could help me right now, it would be him. I met him on a couple overseas deployments.”
“Then call him,” she urged.
“I don’t know how to get a hold of him,” Nikolai said.
“Talk to Mountain. I think he’s pretty good friends with him. Although I could be wrong.” She frowned. “Maybe that was Magnus. Although, if Mountain feels a justification for it, I suspect he could put you in touch with just about anyone.”
“Maybe… we’ll see.” Nikolai gave her half a smile. “I might have some way to do it on my own.” And, with that, he stood and said, “Get warm.” Then he quickly disappeared.
Day 2 Late Morning
Swearing to herself, she quickly contacted Mason via text. He’s looking for you. Nikolai. He knows you, thinks you might be the one to help him out.
Help him out how?
Yeah, that would be between you two.
He called her and, in a low voice, asked if she was clear to talk.
“I’m in the dining area, and I’m all alone.”
“That area always has eyes and ears, so don’t ever believe that.”
“No, I get that. I was explaining where I am.”
“When did he say this?”
“A few minutes ago.”
“What’s his last name?”
“No idea,” she replied cheerfully, “but he knew you. Told me how he’d done several training missions with you in Europe.”
“Nikolai, huh? … Oh, six-two or so, blond, blue eyes? Scar on the right side of his chin?”
“Yeah, that’s him.”
“Damn, I didn’t know it was that Nikolai. If it’s him, then I definitely know him. I’ll call him.” And, with that, he hung up.
She stared at the phone, shaking her head, wondering if Nikolai would come back and talk to her or if this was a done deal for the night. When she looked up, Magnus strode toward her. He sat in front of her and said, “Something happened, and I don’t know what.”
“Lots of things happened, but I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” she replied.
“Why don’t you fill me in?” She explained about the ski trip and what they’d found.
Magnus nodded, explaining that he’d sent the others out to the campsite, since he was tied up here. Then she’d explained about Nikolai wanting to talk to Mason, and, at that, Magnus’s eyebrows shot up, and then he laughed. “That figures. It seems as if Mason’s getting to be pretty-damn popular.”
“I haven’t seen the man myself in a couple years. The way our comms connection here sucks, it’s not always that easy to get through, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t connect. I did tell Nikolai to talk to Mountain though.”
Magnus smiled at that. “That’s another good call,” he agreed, and, to that, she didn’t say anything.
She looked around and added, “I sure hope dinner is out soon.” She tried to stifle a shiver. “I got a chill out there again.” Immediately he frowned at her. She shrugged. “I’m fine. It’s just that waiting for dinner now is putting me on edge.”
“You could go ask for a bowl of something hot, if they have it.”
“You also know that they don’t appreciate it when you interrupt them with special requests, right when they’re trying to get a meal out.”
Almost immediately he smiled. Since her back was to the kitchen, she didn’t know what was happening. Magnus laughed. “Somebody obviously noticed.”
Sure enough, Emily turned to see Chrissy walking toward her, carrying a hot bowl of soup. Placing it in front of Emily, she smiled. “No, we don’t do this all the time, so consider it a one-time deal. Don’t tell anybody.” Just like that, she was gone, leaving a very happy Emily behind.
*
It didn’t take long to connect, and that alone surprised Nikolai. When he finally did speak to Mason, he immediately greeted him with, “I’m in trouble.”
Silence came on the other end for a moment, and then Mason replied, “Hello, Nikolai. It’s been a long time.”
“Yeah, it has been, and I am in trouble.”
“I did hear about some of it,” he began. “So, this guy who’s been missing?”
“Eric. Yes.”
“A friend of yours, right?”
“Yes,” he replied cautiously, “but there are friends, and then there are friends, and apparently this is a friend I didn’t really know. Not well enough anyway.”
“Explain.”
For the next few minutes, Nikolai gave Mason a firsthand accounting of what he thought his relationship with Eric had been. Then Nikolai added more at the end. “I should also say that I haven’t had a whole lot to do with him in the last few years, and, when I saw him this time, it surprised me how much he’d changed.”
“In what way?”
“More arrogant, more dismissive of the people around him, more dismissive of life. I don’t know. He didn’t look as if he played well with others anymore.”
“That’s probably because he didn’t, I’m sure. Life gets to be a little too easy for some people, and I think they get careless and stop giving a crap about what other people think or do or say. As long as it doesn’t interfere with their world, they allow it to be, but the minute it does impact their world, they can’t handle it.”
“That’s a good description of where Eric was at.”
“I have heard from a few people on the base,” he shared, “and, just so you know, the investigation is ongoing. However, I don’t have too much in the way of information yet.”
“No, as of my last briefing—unofficially, of course—I heard that they may have found Eric’s hiding place, a makeshift campsite, his hideout, but it’s most likely where he had been staying.”
“I did hear that today too,” Mason confirmed, “but I have yet to talk to Mountain himself.”
“Right, well, anyway I want to tell you that, if you have any influence in this godforsaken place… I didn’t do anything wrong, and I’m bound and determined to help sort out what the hell Eric was up to and how much damage he’s caused to the people here. Something is … not broken but revved up may be a better word for it, as if Eric was finally doing something that he thought was worth his while. Yet, when he got here, he was the same incredibly arrogant, dismissive person I hadn’t seen in a very long time.”
“When did you see that before?”
“When we were in training. He could do everything, and I mean everything. He was so much better than anybody else. People both loved and hated him,” Nikolai shared. “And that made for a very difficult lifestyle for him sometimes because a lot of people didn’t have any patience for his brand of mockery and disgust.” Nikolai sighed. “Anyway I wanted to let you know that I’m innocent, that I’m cooperating, and that I’m doing my own investigation here as well.”
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Mason warned. “An awful lot of investigating is going on right now. I don’t know that they’re very close to finding any answers because of the nature of the problem, but I’m sure you probably know by now that Mountain is also looking for his brother.”
“That would be one Teegan Rode,” he stated.
“Exactly.”
“Yeah, I knew that.”
“Did you ever see any interactions between Teegan and Eric?”
“Interactions?”
“Yes, as in talking, laughter, mockery, anything that would spell trouble?”
Nikolai sat back and thought about it. “I don’t know that it necessarily spelled trouble, but Eric was very much of the opinion that Teegan was a green kid, still wet behind the ears.”
“He was, in a way, but that wasn’t his fault. He was young and hadn’t had a chance to learn and experience that much yet, is all.”
“I know. I know, but, for Eric, it wouldn’t have mattered. That still would have been something Eric would have been pretty mocking about.”
“Doesn’t seem to be a very nice guy.”
“Eric didn’t used to be such an asshole, honestly. … He was good to work with, before all this mess. So the fact that he had become such an asshole in this situation is kind of disturbing because that wasn’t him before.”
“Maybe not, but sounds as if it’s him now.”
“And yet, I swear to you, that’s not the man I knew before.”
“Okay, yet you can’t think of any conversation or anything between Teegan and Eric?”
“Oh, wait, hang on a minute,” he murmured. “Some sort of betting was going on.”
At that, Mason let out a hard breath. “You mean, about staying outside long enough without getting killed and that type of thing, more the workings of daredevils?”
“Yeah, a bunch of that kind of talk was going on. I’m not sure if Eric was part of that, but I definitely remember Teegan laughing about a bunch of it.”
“Yeah, he would, but I would hope he wouldn’t rise to the bait.”
“Around here though, what that’s like?” Nikolai asked, with a cautious tone. “If you don’t rise to the bait, they’ll try harder and harder to get you to give in.”
Silence came on the other end, and Mason finally responded, “Look. You do your investigation but keep Mountain in the loop. That’s the only way to keep your ass clear of trouble.”
“Is he the one running this? What about Samson and Ted?”
“Yes, they are running the more overt investigation. Don’t forget a CO’s on top.”
“We never see him much, especially lately. I’m not sure he comes out of his room at all anymore. The colonel is more of a mystery than this place.”
“I’m pretty sure he thinks this assignment is a punishment, and he’s just putting in his time, until he’s done,” Mason noted. “All I can tell you is, you have to keep your nose clean right now, particularly while everybody is under so much stress about your supposed good friend because everybody’ll be looking to you for answers.”
“They already are,” Nikolai admitted. “I don’t have any to give, but it doesn’t stop them all from looking at me as if I can give them the winning lottery ticket numbers or something,” he replied bitterly.
“And speaking of which,” Mason asked, “did your friend leave anything behind at the base? Was anything left for you, a note, a message? A favorite something or other? Anything?”
“No, and that was one of the reasons why I knew that something must have happened to him because he didn’t say anything, coming or going. He was here one moment, and then he was gone.”
“So that wouldn’t have been normal behavior?”
“It wasn’t normal behavior from a few years ago, but remember. I hadn’t seen him since then. I had talked to him occasionally. We chatted every once in a while, but definitely a distance grew between us. And he did say something about, if I wasn’t so righteous, he could have brought me in on some deals over time. But, when I laughed and reminded him that his kind of deals weren’t my kind of deals … Eric gave me that same mocking attitude, as if to say, Poor me, and then he was gone again.”
“That’s the problem of course. We’re all wondering what kind of deals he was involved in on this assignment and how much those deals impacted his disappearance. Yet he didn’t disappear. Apparently he stepped out and stayed out.”
“And see? That’s the part I don’t get.”
“Believe me. That’s what none of us get. What was the reason? What was the advantage? How did hanging around the base, yet not being a part of the base, benefit him?”
As the two of them thought about it, finally Nikolai reluctantly added, “It allowed him the anonymity to do anything he wanted. By distancing himself from the others, he just did his thing.”
Mason sucked in his breath, followed by a sigh of sorrow, as if his worse thoughts were voiced. “That’s what I was thinking. Now comes the tough question, and I need you to be as clear and as honest as you can be. Would Eric turn around and kill somebody, regardless of the team, regardless of what was happening? Would he do it for money? Would he do it for the thrill? Would he do it just because—”
Absolutely no hesitation came in Nikolai’s mind, as he immediately interrupted, “He would… yes, absolutely, and I’m pretty sure he’s already done it.”
“Any proof of that?” Mason asked.
“No, I don’t have any proof,” Nikolai stated, “none at all, but we were at a separate training session—this one was in Alaska,” he added. “Two men died during the training.”
“Which happens,” Mason conceded. “I wish to God it didn’t, but we all know that, every once in a while, things go wrong.”
“Yeah, things went wrong all right, but, in both cases, Eric was there. He told me how the trainees were idiots, and how all he had to do was prove it to them, and how that had been as easy as pie. When I asked him if he’d done anything to kill those men, he looked at me in his most mocking way. He told me that he didn’t have to, that they were idiots. All he had to do was give them the opportunity to hang themselves, and they would have done it.”
At that, silence came on the other end, and Mason finally spoke. “Okay, give me details on that trip. We’ll need to look hard at this friend of yours and confirm any information that can be found in his history. We must find it and find it fast.”
“Why?” Nikolai asked. “Eric’s dead and gone. He can’t give us any more answers.”
“Oh, he’ll have answers, if only to help understand the mind-set of a killer who doesn’t give a crap,” Mason noted, with a sharp tone. “Remember. Lots of people have died at that base this session, and we need to know how much, if anything, your friend had to do with it.”
“To start with, stop calling Eric my friend,” Nikolai said, “and I’ll start digging into the past and get you as much information as I have. I don’t even think a lot of it’s on record because he was there, but often on secret missions for his own team. I’m not even sure that Eric would consider what he did as being wrong. I think he would consider it fair game, and God help us if he did have anything to do with the deaths here. That is not something I want on my shoulders.”
“It isn’t on your shoulders,” Mason declared. “That’s never been on your shoulders. It’s on Eric’s.”
Mason may have said it, but Nikolai knew in his heart that he was as much part of it as Eric was.
Day 2 Dinner
Emily looked from her soup, as Nikolai raced back in the dining room. He saw her, stopped for a moment, then determinedly walked toward her. He sat with a thud across from her and leaned closer. “I spoke to Mason.”
“Oh, good,” she replied. “I’m glad you got through so quickly.”
He nodded. “As I mentioned, we’re acquaintances. I didn’t realize that he might have anything to do with this place.”
She gave him a wry look. “Not a whole lot Mason doesn’t have a hand in,” she noted. “Whether he likes it or not, he gets tapped for a lot of troubleshooting.”
Nikolai nodded at that. “He’s asked me to dredge up information from Eric’s past that I know about, but I never really said anything about,” he admitted. “I did report something to my CEO at the time, but it was completely dismissed as being ludicrous. But now I need to get some paper, pen, or maybe even a laptop would be better.” He looked at her intently. “Do you have anything?”
Frowning, she nodded. “Yeah, I have a laptop.”
“Good, that’s a good place to start.
“Do you want a hand with jogging your memories, writing it all down?”
He hesitated and then nodded. “If you’re up for it, but it could be ugly.”
“Hey, everything I’ve seen so far has been ugly,” she stated. “If this gives us a head start on anything, I’m all for it. Besides, your friend is gone.”
He winced. “I know it’s a long shot, but any chance I could get you to not call Eric my friend anymore?” She was not surprised at his request. “I’m starting to realize I didn’t know this man at all.”
