Mishenka stared at her for a moment then turned to Zeleny, his annoyance showing in his face, “you need to keep her on a short leash.”
Anika’s face flushed and she turned to glare at Zeleny waiting for his response. He looked at her face then back to Mishenka, “I don’t think that’s really needed,” he quickly said.
Mishenka sighed and shook his head, “there are no room for mistakes so you better be right.”
Anika’s jaw clenched as her eyes lobbed grenades at Mishenka, her hands gripped in fists with the canister wrapped in one.
“Do you have plane tickets for us?” Zeleny asked.
“No plane, you go by car. I have driver take you tomorrow morning.”
“Where are we going?” Anika followed with.
“You’ll meet Constantine at the Sherbrooke airport after having the canister removed on the way,” he replied to Zeleny.
“I thought we were flying,” Zeleny’s confusion apparent, “so what about our agreement?”
“Things changed. The villa is raided,” the blunt reply held in the air in the long pause after.
Anika’s jaw went from clenched to agape as she stared in disbelief. She turned to Zeleny and blinked in a loss for words. Zeleny’s eyes narrowed and his face tightened, “we had an agreement. What are you going to do instead? Where are we supposed to go?”
“I have warehouse in Vancouver you go.”
“The whole point was for us to be in Europe, closer to home,” Anika managed to finally find her voice.
“Yeah, Vancouver is farther from where we need to be,” Zeleny added.
Anika looked at Zeleny, her eyes pleading with him, her hands started to shake. Mishenka pushed his chair back from the table as he said, “I have file on Warehouse, you see it not bad.”
Zeleny turned and looked at Anika and noted her pleading eyes but turned back to Mishenka and said calmly, “sure, might as well see what it is.”
Anika felt herself steeling to move as Mishenka began to stand. She glanced at Zeleny quickly then back to Mishenka whose portly frame had turned and walked away from her to a file cabinet. When his back turned she jumped up from the chair and bolted for the office doors. She stopped at the table in the corner long enough too grab the shoulder bag and sweep the cash off into it then slid the bag over her shoulder and ran out the doors.
Her footsteps were soft as she ran down the corridors of the warehouse and soon she was bursting out the man door onto the sidewalk. Her eyes scanned up and down the street and she saw a vacant cab coming. She ran to the street edge and waved down the cab who pulled to the curb. She yanked the rear door open, jumped in and slammed it behind her.
“GO!” she barked at the chubby middle eastern driver who obediently obeyed.
The cab pulled away from the curb and headed down the street, “where to ma’am?” the driver asked over his shoulder.
Anika thought for a moment a she tried to remember what Mishenka had said. After a long pause she slowly replied in English, “Donovan Medical on I think 75th avenue.”
“Sure thing,”
Anika rode along and stared out the window as the canister rolled around in her hand. She would glance down at it then stare at it for periods lost in her thoughts. As she played the previous hour back in her head she suddenly snapped back to the moment and reached her hand up to touch the strap of the shoulder bag. The corners of her mouth turned up slightly at the contents.
Her gaze landed on the driver’s cab license in front of her and she his name to herself, “Girish Pedraja”. The radio had blared Hindi top chart songs the whole ride but she only then became aware of it.
“How much farther?” she called over the music.
“Your stop is about a block away ma’am,” he called back.
After a minute the cab pulled to the curb and Anika asked, “how much do I owe you?”
“45 dollars 65 cents.”
She opened her wallet and handed Girish fifty dollars. “Keep the change.”
“Thank you ma’am. Have nice day.”
“Yeah I wish. Not much of a chance of that at this point.”
She opened the door to the cab and stepped out into the street. The sun was still low enough to be hidden by the surrounding buildings, the wind caught her hair and blew it into her face. She adjusted the shoulder bag then slid the canister into her pocket. Her steps were purposeful as she climbed the stairs to the Donovan entrance. Her eyes were drawn to the atrium and she gawked at it as she entered the building.
She brushed against another person as she gawked which startled her and she looked over to the person and quickly said, “excuse me.”
The reception desk sat past the atrium and she soon was standing before it, “Doctor Franklin Rose?” she asked.
The receptionist tapped at the keyboard in front of her then replied, 19th floor ma’am.”
She nodded in acknowledgment then walked to the elevators and entered the first to open. The doors opened and she walked out into an elevator hall with a directory listing on the wall. She scanned the list and found Doctor Rose’s office and headed quickly for it. The doorknob turned and she entered the office to find it dark with the lights off.
Zeleny jumped at Anika’s sudden movement and he could only watch as she jumped from her chair and ran towards the office doors. Mishenka was rummaging in the file cabinet and did not hear her leave as he mumbled to himself. Zeleny’s eyes opened wide as her watched Anika take the pile of cash from the table into the shoulder bag then run from the office.
The click as the doors closed caused Mishenka to turn, “where did she go?”
“She said she had to pee,” Zeleny replied quickly.
Mishenka turned back to the open drawer then pulled a file out and dropped it on the table near Zeleny who picked it up and began to flip through it. He stopped on the picture of the outside and the file fell to the table and he looked blankly at Mishenka.
“Not bad huh?”
“That warehouse is on a pier next to a cannery. Why would I want to be on a pier?” Zeleny’s expressionless face and flat eyes showed his disinterest.
“It’s what I have,” Mishenka shrugged, “it’s that or nothing.”
Zeleny looked down at his watch then stood up and folded the file shut and said, “it’s eleven and our ride is supposed to be here. I better go get her so we can get to the doctor.”
“So no Vancouver?”
“I couldn’t convince her for all the vodka in Russia,” Zeleny smiled and chuckled.
“I’ll have the car pick you up in the morning,” Mishenka said as he walked around the table towards Zeleny.
They walked side by side along the table and Zeleny made sure to keep himself between Mishenka and the table in the corner to try and obstruct his view as much as possible. He then let him go in front and out the office doors so he could follow and close the doors. His heart was beating hard in his temples as they walked down the corridors. They stopped by the bathrooms and Zeleny knocked but heard no reply.
“She probably is waiting outside,” he said then motioned to the man door.
They opened the door to have the bright light blast into the dim lit interior. Out onto the sidewalk and they looked back and forth but did not see her.
“I bet she took a cab,” he said as he turned to Mishenka.
“Make sure you keep her on a tight leash, like I said, she wild one.”
Zeleny looked over his shoulder and saw Tesar and Praza pulling up to the curb, “my ride.”
“This needs to be done right so don’t let her get emotional and fuck this up,” Mishenka said as he held out his hand.
Zeleny shook the hand and replied coolly, “don’t worry, I’ve got her under control.”
Zeleny walked to the curb as the car came to a stop, both front and rear driver side windows broken, “Where the fuck have you two been? You’re late,” Zeleny glared at them as the car stopped. “What the fuck happened to the windows?”
Praza pulled up to the curb on the deriver’s side and stopped. As he opened the door to climb out he replied, “maybe ask teacher Tesar, it’s his fault. He had to fuck with people.”
Zeleny shook his head as Tesar got out of the passenger seat and walked around the car. “The little shit asked for it. Scared little bitch tore ass out of the parking lot and sprayed gravel everywhere. The bikers were just as pissed.”
“Whatever, just get in and let’s go. Anika’s headed to Donovan so we have to get there now,” Zeleny demanded.
Praza walked to the passenger side and climbed into the rear seat while Zeleny into the front passenger. Tesar got in and drove them through the city.
“What’d Mishenka say?” Tesar asked as he stared at the road ahead.
Zeleny watched the city pass out the side window for a couple blocks before he said, “he wants the canister out of the country by the weekend, tomorrow really.”
Tesar looked over at Zeleny then at Praza in the rear view mirror. His eyes back on the road he sighed and said, “that figures. He better have something lined up.”
“That’s where we’re going now,” Zeleny replied flatly.
Tesar had to go around a double parked cab to an open spot where he stopped on the curb and let Zeleny and Praza out and said, “I’ll park in the garage and meet you up front.”
Anika walked into the empty surgery prep room and pulled a chair out from a table. On the table was a hospital gown, long fuzzy socks, and a plastic bag for her clothes. She looked around the room to try and spy any cameras but saw nothing that blatantly screamed camera.
She took the shoulder bag from her shoulder and slid it into the bag first then laid her wallet atop it. She set the canister in one of her shoes as she set them on the chair. Her clothes off and in the bag she put the gown on then the socks and grabbed the canister. She took a couple deep breaths then straightened her back and walked out the door to the operating room.
Zeleny waited for her with the doctors and she was soon laying on the table in the middle of the room.
“You have the item?” Doctor rose asked her.
She held her hand out with the canister and Doctor Rose took it gently from her. He held it between two fingers and rolled it around as he looked closely at it.
“This shouldn’t be hard to implant, it’s not terribly large. I was picturing something much larger when you said canister.”
“That’s nice to hear. Can you just make it as painless as possible?” she asked as Doctor Howard moved the anesthesia cart by the operating table.
“Surgery is rarely painless,” he reminded her.
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I do. Like I said there will be pain but I will try to implant it in a place that should reduce it as much as possible.”
Doctor Howard fit the iv into the back of Anika’s right hand then connected the saline line. She screwed the syringe with the anesthesia into the fitting just behind her wrist then looked up to Doctor Rose, “ready when you are.”
Zeleny stepped to the side of the table, held her hand and leaned over and kissed Anika on the forehead, “I’ll see you in a little bit,” he said softly.
Doctor Howard and Rose nodded at each other and Howard pushed the plunger on the syringe and drained it into the iv line. Anika felt the surge of the anesthesia enter her veins and the light began to fade from her vision. In a moment she was out and the heart rate monitors began to slow quickly then held a slow rate.
“Is that normal?” Zeleny asked.
“None of this is normal, and not very legal. The anesthetics cause one not to feel pain, thus it slows the body’s systems down, hence the lower EKG reading,” Doctor Rose replied.
Zeleny let go of her hand and stepped back from the table as the doctors moved in to work. He chose one of the chairs along the wall and sat down to wait for them to be done.
It was a long procedure and he found himself dozing off to the constant sounds of the medical equipment. After two hours the doctors finished the procedure and were cleaning up. The clinking of the tools on the trays brought him out of an extended blink and he looked over to the clock on the wall and notes the two thirty time. The doctors cleaned up their tools and moved a number of things to a locked cabinet in the corner before Zeleny stood and stretched after sitting for the majority of the surgery.
“How is she?”
Frank turned and looked at Zeleny. “She is fine, it will be about an hour before she wakes up. If you want to wait outside we’ll let you know when she wakes.”
“I’ll sit here if it’s all the same to you.” Zeleny said then snapped his head to the side to look at the movement he saw out the corner of his eye. Tesar was waving at the window to which he raised a finger then turned back to the doctors.
“That’s fine, we have to get cleaned up and remove the tools and instruments. We will check back shortly.” Doctor Rose said as he and Doctor Howard pushed carts around, locked the cabinet in the corner, then left the room.
Zeleny plopped down in the chair he had been in before and stared at Anika in laying on the table. His mind flooded with various options for their future but they all came back to the fact that they were still in North America. His eyes began to roam around the room and he noticed the mirrors lining three sides of the room against the ceiling. They had a tilt out towards the room and he was just able to make out a figure in one panel where they were back lit.
“Who are you?” Zeleny growled.
A long and drawn out pause ensued and Zeleny found himself shifting in his chair as he waited. Then a voice came on over the speakers hidden in the ceiling panels, “that is not your concern. Do as we say and you will have what you want.”
His head dropped to the side and he stared at Anika’as still form, his jaw tightened and he replied, “no. I have already been fucked with enough today I don’t need anymore. We were supposed to get a villa in the south of Italy but no, that isn’t happening. The only other option is a shit hole in Vancouver.”
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