Page 24 of Volatile Waters

CHAPTER SIX

Behind the Curtains

Does it matter how change takes place, as long as there is change? From my own experience, I’d have to say yes. The next ripple I was about to cause in innocent lives would be everlasting.

Kirill, Adrian, and I quietly rowed a small boat across a lake to observe the address Mrs. Thompson had provided. We didn’t need to use our cellphone flashlights. The moon was shining the way and reflecting off the water.

At the dock, we hid the boat and ourselves off to the side behind some shrubbery. It was about ten PM, and the only noises were Harold on his cellphone and a loud but muffled TV inside the home. Harold’s lake house was a solitary house. Lights were on in the basement, which was partially underground, making it easy to see two young men, Timothy and Junior, sitting on a large, dark, L-shaped couch, watching the blaring TV. There were snack wrappers and fast food bags scattered about. Timothy, who was seventeen, was not being ill-treated. Harry, thirteen-years-old at the time, was playfully popping candy into his mouth, laughing at the movie the two young men were watching.

Harold was pacing the wooden decking outside the basement’s sliding doors leading to the lake. He growled into his cellphone, “These are not the guys to toy with for your career. They’ve already killed one son. Yours will be next. I swear it.” He angrily tapped on his phone’s screen, hanging up on one person and calling another. “It’s me.” He rubbed his stressed face. “I can’t get him to cough up cash or the certificate… No, I know we can’t hand over Whitney, but I figure they only want to make money off her… No. You already paid for Marina, so I’ll offer them five-hundred K for Whit… Okay. Good to know you’ll match me if needed—”

Yes, good to know.

“—but there’s more… Summers reminded them about her Russian certificate… But he threatened it can lead back to them… Yes, he thinks he’s untouchable with his career to hide behind… Yep, a damn fool is right. Did you read the paper? I know! Tim on drugs? I’m a dealer, and even I know that would never happen… Yeah, that’s why I’m calling. Can you get one that looks real?”

Not appreciating their efforts to save young lives, I only focused on the trickery and snarled.

Harold continued, “When can you have it by? That’ll work. No, why would they? Your son has nothing to do with this… Well, they don’t know that! No, I still have him hidden… You know Tim, smart little bastard… Yeah, he’d do anything for his little sister, and that’s what I’m afraid of. He didn’t put up a fight when he saw me coming. I suspect he ordered his father to hide Whit.” He plopped into a patio chair and rubbed his face again. “Okay, I’ll call Yury now.”

After working his phone again, mine vibrated in my pocket. Kirill had to muffle a laugh as Harold, frustrated, hung up when I didn’t answer. Harold went back inside and said something to the teenage boys before leaving. Once he was driving away in his Mercedes, I was free to make noise. Retrieving my cellphone from my pocket, I returned the missed call. Harold answered on the first ring. “Hello?”

“American.”

“I have an offer for you—”

“Where’s the boy?” I asked while staring at Timothy through the glass. It was imperative to see how far Harold would take his lies—his disloyalty to my father.

“What? I don’t have him. He’s at a facility—”

“I’ll kill Marina.”

Silence, then, “Okay. I have him, but be reasonable. That kid has nothing to do with this…” The liar proceeded to offer me a birth certificate—the imitation of the one my family gave him years ago—and five-hundred thousand to leave Whitney in Connecticut.

To go along with the ruse, I accepted the offer. “Double the price.”

Harold exhaled relief. “Done.”

After discussing the wire transfer and birth certificate to be delivered in one week, I waited for the two boys to fall to sleep. The TV still blaring, I snuck up to the house, slid the sliding glass door open wide enough to reach my arm inside, and planted a bug behind the nearest piece of furniture which happened to be a little table holding a bowl for keys.

For the following week, my men went to American ‘strip clubs’ while I stayed back in my hotel room and listened in on conversations. Naked females were a part of my daily job. Watching them swing from a pole, faking being aroused and wanting men to gawk at them wasn’t appealing to me.

Due to my recording device, I listened as the two young men, Timothy and Harry, became very close in a short amount of time. They spoke of sports and cars while playing video games, but what held my attention was the subject ‘Little Treasure’, the nickname Timothy had given to his sister, according to conversations. The young man, Timothy, spoke with a knowledge far beyond his years, far beyond what a normal teenager would comprehend in his situation, and was very aware of his parents’ mistreatment toward his ‘Little T.’

Harry, even being raised in such an environment as a drug trafficking ring, was also quite observant for his age. “Is that why you let my dad take you?”

Timothy, chewing on popcorn, offered, “I treasure one life more than my own.”

“Why?” asked the astonished kid while he made noise, digging into a popcorn bowl.

“That’s what you do when angels appear out of thin air.”

On my hotel room bed, I shook my head. He knows Whitney was illegally adopted. His mother was never pregnant. I was surprised to be envious that Whitney had someone watching over her. The closest I had was Kirill, who I believed hated me.

Timothy went on to explain, “My parents suck, and she is the sweetest girl. Someone has to look out for her. She has a best friend, but he’s still too young for the job.”

“He? Her best friend isn’t a girl?”

Timothy beamed. “Link is a good kid. He lives across a lake we live on.”