A Life Less Ordinary Read online

  “Y-Yuri?” he managed to gasp softly, but the line went dead and he immediately dropped the phone, not caring that the screen shattered on contact with the hard floor. It was useless to him now, if the number had been discovered he’d already been tracked. The point in the call was to unnerve him, to unsettle him and make him take foolish action. When that realization hit him, he froze and turned, staring at the phone, considering. What would he do? Of course, pack a bag and flee the country; head straight back to Russia. But in order to flee the country he’d have to leave the building, and if he left the building…

  “I’d be a sitting duck.” He whispered to the blue sky outside the balcony door. That could only mean that he was safer staying here, inside the apartment. A sudden wave of nausea overcame him and he only barely made it into the bathroom before he vomited everything he’d ingested, it felt like, in the last ten years. Ten years, he thought, as he stared in the mirror at himself, could it really have been so long? Of course, in reality, he knew it had been that long. He’d felt every single day that had passed, every hour of every day and every minute of every hour. Almost down to each of his heartbeats he could remember the moment ten years ago that had changed everything.

  As he stared into his own deep purple eyes, a color bestowed on him by an extremely rare genetic trait, his own reflection, gaunt and pale, faded and was replaced by another’s face. Handsome, young, long black hair and a devilishly charming smile. His dark eyes lit up with that fire he said the doctor had given him, the same fire that only a few short months later the doctor had been forced to extinguish.

  It had been near the end of the war, when they’d taken him, the black haired man. His father had done all in his power to protect the sweet, artistic, gentle and intelligent Yuri. But, in dire need of soldiers, they had literally taken him, dragged him screaming from his father’s diplomatic residence. Despite his all his father, a Russian Diplomat, was able to do, he was not released from the service Yuri never wanted to enter. Ivan, Aleksei’s maternal half-brother, was far away in Yakutsk, fighting on the frontlines there. At the time, he had been told that Yuri’s full-brother Dmitri was far to the south near the Black Sea, also unable to help, in fact, the story was he’d been unreachable as he’d been doing covert work. Only later would he find out different. Much later. Well past the point of ‘too late’.

  Aleksei was not only an emergency unit doctor, but also an instructor of emergency medicine at the time, teaching and tutoring his students at University in London. He could usually be found weaving in and out of classes between lectures and avoiding incoming patients just trying to get back to his apartment at night. By the time Sergei, who would have been his stepfather had his mother not died in one of the first bombing runs of the war, found Yuri, it was really too late for him. Aleksei had been one of the first there, his heart aching to see the young man returned safely; but his hopes of their friendship (maybe more than a friendship) rekindling, were crushed.

  When he arrived at the diplomatic residence, he was met by two stern faced security men whom he did not recognize and they did not seem to know or expect him. He had to surrender his identification to one of the men and then wait nervously on the doorstep, fearing being shot for being a foreigner, particularly since England and Russia weren’t on the best of terms. The door snapped open and the man motioned him inside before returning to his post, not another word spoken, though he did hand Aleksei’s identification back as he passed. Aleksei scooted past them both, not giving them a chance to change their minds. He closed the door gently behind him and then jogged lightly up the stairs to Sergei’s office, expecting to see Yuri there.

  Instead, he was met with a very pale, very sickly looking Sergei, who was hunched over a glass of brown liquor, very strange because he’d only ever drank vodka, being Russian, and all. He looked up at Aleksei and the tall, slender blonde sagged back against the frame of the door he’d just entered. It was worse than he’d thought, not only was he drinking brown spirits, but Sergei Korzhakov was actually crying. Finally, Aleksei was able to move forward, to find his voice and ask the question even though the answer was dreaded.

  “Is…Is he dead, Sergei?” he finally managed, but the man only tossed back the rest of the glass and gave a snort of laughter that was from anything but amusement.

  “It might have been better if he were.” Sergei poured another large measure and drank half of it in one go. “Whatever he was before…that is what is dead. His body lives on, such as it is.”

  “You mean…he is…he is in coma?” Aleksei asked, not understanding, and for a long while (and two more pretty hefty measures of liquor) Sergei did not answer. Finally, he stood quickly, swaying and nearly falling over, his hand grasping at the mahogany desk to steady himself.

  “Come with me, but…but you must promise you will tell no one…” Sergei said, and Aleksei had to fight the urge to recoil at the reek of liquor on his breath. He nodded, but could not bring himself to speak. “I called you here because you are doctor. You are only doctor I trust to see him in this…condition.”

  They were descending into the basement now, and Aleksei stared around him, confused. He’d never even known there was a basement in this old brownstone building; he was further surprised when Sergei unlocked a steel door and led him into a sub-basement. As soon as their feet hit the creaking, dangerously unstable wooden stairs, he heard what sounded like the rattle of a chain being dragged across stone and he froze, but Sergei grabbed his wrist and pulled him on. “I…I do not understand…”

  “You will.” A third voice, familiar but softer than he’d ever heard it, spoke from somewhere in the near darkness, and an enormously tall, hulking figure emerged from the shadows.

  “Let him see, Ivan.” Sergei said to his other son, and the giant nodded, then flicked a switch that was crudely mounted, poor wiring and all, on a post at the foot of the stairs. The basement was flooded with flickering greenish, sickly fluorescent light. Aleksei caught sight of something moving much like an animal across the concrete floor, the rattling of the chain more pronounced. The creature was making for a darkened crawlspace, but the chain was too short by about four feet and it was jerked backwards by its own momentum, landing hard on the concrete. Immediately he righted himself, snarling and tugging at the chain so that it looked like he might break his dangerously thin neck at any moment.

  “Yuri…” Aleksei said the name, but even to him it did not fit this creature, this sub-human male that was staring at him now and sniffing the air like a dog might. “What…what happened to him?”

  “I will leave you to it…I have work to do…” Sergei shot Yuri one last look and then went back up the stairs, swaying drunkenly with every step.

  “Ivan?” Aleksei turned back to the giant, ready for any explanation that would make sense of what, to him, was nothing short of a tragedy.

  Chapter 3

  Ivan drank more than he had intended to, but he really didn’t care. In fact, he’d actually gotten himself drunk enough that he was out wandering the midway, though he was still sober enough to remain oblivious to the female attention he always seemed to attract. He leaned against the top railing of a wooden fence in the animal exhibits and stared up at the fireworks, for once not bothered by the explosions, which generally brought back memories of the war. Memories he’d have as soon forgotten. Tonight his mind was on his youngest brother, the sweet and vulnerable Yuri, and the night he’d been returned after his ordeal.

  Ivan had been out on a four day mission hunting insurgents in the Siberian wilderness and it was a successful mission. Full of piss and vinegar, he’d come back into camp with a broad smile on his face as he knew this would probably be the key to his release from service. Soon, he’d be on the way home, back to working for his Uncle Oleg’s crime syndicate. Life had definitely never looked better for him; but then he’d seen the face of his commanding officer.

  At first, he thought he was in trouble, but not even that faltered his mood, not like
he’d never been in trouble before, after all. It wasn’t until he found out he was being sent home for a family emergency that his happiness evaporated. Particularly when, no matter how hard he pressed, the commanding officer would not, or perhaps could not, tell him what exactly the emergency was. That, to Ivan, could only mean someone had died, and his mind immediately turned to his father and then, for some inexplicable reason, Yuri. But Yuri was supposed to be safely in London now, so he couldn’t make sense of the ominous feeling weighing down on him.

  A train ticket had been procured for him already, which was a miracle in itself as passenger trains only passed through the region every two to three months, at best. Only someone of high standing could have managed that, so at least he knew his father, a Diplomat, was still living. Not even Oleg could get a passenger train ticket for him at such short notice, even in a dire emergency. He knew he would have to take a helicopter ride to the nearest civilian depot, as only freight trains came this far east, and those were very few and extremely far between. Sometimes, if the supply line was broken, they might go six months or longer without word or supplies from the outside world.

  Ivan took the ticket from the officer, then jogged to his tent and gathered up his gear, hesitantly looking at his beloved rifle, the AK-47 he’d had since his first week of training. “Take it with you.” The officer said, when he came forward to return it. “You have more than earned it…and you are going to need it.”

  “Why do you say that, sir?” Ivan asked, but the officer waved a dismissal, and Ivan knew he wouldn’t get any clear explanation, so he walked quickly towards the helipad, a half-kilometer from the barracks section of the permanent military installation.

  Through most of the first leg of the train ride he sat in his first-class cabin and stared out the window at the bleak, early winter landscape, sleeping only a few hours each of the five days the trip took. He nearly drank the bar in the adult lounge car dry by the third night. On the fourth he had more than one complaint made against him for the noise coming from his cabin when two single women decided to bunk over at his place, so to speak. When the steward, a skinny middle-aged man, knocked on his cabin door, he opened it, completely naked, and stared down at the man, who swallowed hard and looked up at him, the blood draining from his face. “Da?”

  “N-Nothing, sir. Must…must have been misunderstanding.” He said, backing away, his hands up as if Ivan had a gun pointed at him. As he did have female company, he may have, when he thought about it, which only made him smile all the more.

  “Da that is what I thought.” He saw a woman across the hall staring at him through a crack in the window shade, and smirked when her eyes finally wandered up to meet his. He blew her a kiss and then slammed the door hard enough so that the shade flew up, naturally he’d done this on purpose, and just as he expected, she was still staring, even craning her neck a bit, so that she might see past the lower half of the door. He pulled the shade back down and turned towards the women. “Where were we, ladies?”

  When he was sated, and the women exhausted to the point of sleep, Ivan dressed himself and then settled into the faux-leather armchair across the small cabin from the bunk. He watched the young women sleeping, their bodies gracefully intertwined, hair mussed and slightly damp with sweat from their earlier work-out. After a while, seemingly driven by compulsion, he suddenly moved and looked for his coat, which was hanging by the exterior door of the cabin.

  Stealthily, he pulled an old diary-like book from his inside coat pocket and caught the pencil that fell out. The remainder of the trip was spent sketching a photograph of the sleeping women into a book he had filled with similar photos. In fact, every woman he’d ever bedded had a place in this journal or one of the other five he had stored in a safety deposit box. Occasionally, he would look through the most recent book and smile at the memories. These women had been, comparatively, two of the best he’d had in years. So, as the train rolled into the station, he drew a tiny star in the corner of the very life-like, and very detailed, drawing, closed the book and tucked it away. As was his way, he departed without so much as a goodbye, not bothering to wake the nurses, who were on leave themselves, to tell them the train had arrived at the station.

  After passing through the noisy, crowded concourse, he walked out into the cold, breathing deeply the stink of car exhaust, his ears disliking the noise, his eyes the bleak urban landscape. For all his years of service he had planned on this day, on returning to Moscow, but now for the first time in his life, he felt his confidence waver somewhat. He wasn’t sure, as he looked at the gritty, gray scenery that was downtown post-war Moscow, that this was truly where he wanted to be. When he approached the steps outside of the enormous train station, he saw the diplomatic limousine and bounced lightly down, the smile returning to his face. He knew the driver on sight, the man had been in his father’s employ since Ivan was a small child, and even now he could tell the man saw still the child he had been, rather than the man he had become.

  “Where are we going?” He asked conversationally from the backseat, but as always, the man did not hear him. His hearing had been damaged during the bombing of Moscow, the same bombing in which Ivan’s mother had been killed, incidentally. Ivan knew the route well enough to know he needn’t have asked, it had merely been an attempt to start a conversation in which he might glean why he’d been called back. They were headed back towards the diplomatic residence, his father’s home, so he settled back in the comfortable leather seat and looked out at the crowded, grim streets of Moscow.

  Ivan was out of the car and up the front steps almost before the driver could put the car in park, sparing the man having to get out in the heavy snow, which had begun to drift down as they’d crossed the swirling, polluted river that ran through the heart of the city. Not bothering to stand on ceremony and ring the bell, Ivan barged in, startling the butler from whatever he’d been doing and bringing him half-running to the door. “Oh, sir! Your father is expecting you, this way, sir. This way!”

  Ivan rolled his eyes, but only after the man had turned to go up the stairs. It was as if he hadn’t lived here his entire life, as if he did not remember exactly where his father’s study was located. Patiently he followed the man up the steep, narrow stairs, when honestly he could have run up them much easier. Slow going pained him, and most people moved considerably slower than Ivan, even when they were trying to move quickly. He knew when he stepped into his father’s office something was very wrong. He could see it in the man’s face, but there was something on the air, a scent that left him sniffing audibly, why did it smell like some sort of predatory beast had been in this very room?

  “Papa…what has happened?” He asked, moving to embrace his father, kissing both of his cheeks as his father kissed his. “What is big emergency?”

  “They…they took Yuri.” His father said, his pale blue eyes on Ivan’s own, which were a richer blue, so much so it appeared he wore colored lenses, but he did not and never had, to Ivan’s knowledge. His eyesight was perfect, so he’d never even seemed to put thought into such a thing.

  “Not…not…” Ivan was dumbstruck first, but immediately it changed to rage so powerful it nearly blinded him. His hands closed on his father’s shoulders, but he was so lost in his rage he did not see the man wince at the pain it caused him. “How? When? I thought you said it could not…would not happen…” He hadn’t meant to sound accusatory, but when he realized he had he didn’t care. He stared at his father, waiting for an explanation. When it was slow in coming, he gave the man a shake that was less than gentle, but not enough to do any harm.

  “They...Ivan, you have to understand…you have to know I did everything in my power to prevent this. I tried everything…” He saw tears in his father’s eyes and his hands dropped to his sides, shock now numbing the rage, dampening it so that it receded as flames might do in a sudden rain. “I…I was not here. I had been assured he would be safe or I would have sent him away to England sooner…or somewhere far
from Russian Army. He was supposed to leave that very same day…that is shame of it.”

  “Da, but papa…” Ivan began, but his father held up a hand to silence him and Ivan obeyed at once.

  “Dmitri caused this.” Sergei said, and Ivan’s mouth dropped open in stunned surprise. “Yuri had…fallen in love with Aleksei…”

  “Da, I know…but Dmitri…why?” Ivan asked, muttering more to himself than anything because his father wasn’t listening, he was lost in his own dark recollection.

  “I knew about it, as did you…but it seems only Dmitri did not know, did not see. I could not have warned him, you know, nature of his military career…he is most often doing covert work near Black Sea. So, over Holidays last winter…Dmitri showed up unannounced to dinner party I was hosting. He had gotten some unexpected leave, you know?” Sergei sighed, heavily, then continued. “Yuri was so accustomed to his and Aleksei’s relationship being accepted that he simply assumed that Dmitri would have no more problem with it than I do, or you do. He was ever so wrong...”

  Sergei sighed again and moved to the sidebar for a vodka decanter. After pouring them both a large amount, he handed Ivan a crystal tumbler and continued the story. “It must have been probably six months later when they came for Yuri, I suppose it took time for Dmitri to convince anyone to act on his tip. Shame of it is, as I said before, Yuri was due to leave for London that very day. I was in Switzerland, again. Damn those pacifists, they make more trouble than Americans. That was when security called me and told me military had been around looking for Yuri. I flew home immediately, getting here in twelve hours, which was just in time to find Dmitri with his right eye gouged out, howling in pain. Four soldiers were forcefully dragging Yuri into big panel van they were driving.”