On the Heels of Evil

June 19, 2012, Secret Nuclear Storage Facility near the Kazakhstan border

Six armed men followed Captain Yigor Romanov as he barged into Bruzonavich’s office. He smiled when, as he walked impudently up to the Colonel’s desk, the man blanched. This is going to be amusing, interrogating this traitor.

Colonel Bruzonavich’s eyes bulged at the sight of the haughty intruders. Trembling with obvious fright, he scooted his chair back and before Romanov could utter a word, he reached a shaky hand in the center drawer.

Romanov’s eyes widened as the Colonel extracted a nine-millimeter automatic pistol and in one motion introduced the barrel into his mouth. Panicked, the Captain leapt across the desk to stay his hand but was too late. The large picture window behind the Colonel shattered, accompanied by a loud explosion. Shards of glass shot outward as blood and gore painted the wall, partially opened drapes and what little glass remained.

****

Captain Romanov strode up smartly to General Dushinsky’s desk. Looking straight ahead he saluted. “Captain Romanov, reporting as requested, sir.”

Dushinsky noticed a bead of perspiration trickle down the Captain’s left temple and cheek before he turned slightly and his right hand furtively smudged it. Dushinsky tried unsuccessfully to hold back his smile at the officer’s discomfort.
“At ease, Captain. Have a seat, please.”

Romanov reclined onto the offered seat. “General, I had no reason to believe he would take his life. We were only going to ques—”

Forcing his lips to behave, Dushinsky’s smile evolved into a tight line. He raised a hand.
“Captain please, say no more. No one is blaming you. However, you realize, your fault or not, this will not look good on your record. You would have been better served to apprehend him on a trip to the restroom or as he was leaving for the day.”

Romanov’s eyes refused to meet the General’s gaze as he nodded.

He decided to give the Captain a tiny bit of encouragement so he allowed one corner of his to lips curl. “Fortunately, you have an exemplary record until now, so I feel you can overcome this incident. Tell me, what have you found out?”

The Captain who was sitting stiffly in the uncomfortable chair, hands folded on his lap, surreptitiously swatted at another bead of sweat. “Regrettably, not a whole lot. There are a total of three nuclear devices missing, not one as we originally believed. Five million American dollars were wired into the Colonel’s Swiss account in February and another ten million in May, leaving us to suspect the Colonel delivered one and later two more devices to the buyer.”

The General already knew this. “Yes, but who is the buyer?”

Romanov shrugged and finally met his gaze for a second before moving on. “That is the question, isn’t it? There was apparently a romance going on with a tall blond, possibly foreign, woman, named Erika. She spoke Russian, but the people we interviewed said she had an accent.”

Dushinsky sat up, elbows on his desk at these new revelations. “What kind of accent?”

The Captain waved a hand as if to brush away the question. “I wish I knew. One thought it was Dutch, another said German. Two interviewees thought it might be Israeli and another said Czech. The only thing they agreed on was she was gorgeous—much too pretty for the Colonel.”

General Dushinsky leaned back and rubbed his chin. “Did his wife know he had a lover?”

“No, Yalena says not. It was a total surprise and I believe her. She did mention something interesting though.” Romanov glanced at Dushinsky. “In May, about a week before the ten million dollar wire transfer, he brought a man home for dinner. He introduced him as John Smith from Birmingham, England. What’s curious is since the Colonel didn’t speak English, he and the Englishman conversed in German. She said for a second language, he spoke it amazingly effortlessly.”