Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2018 15:54:45 -0700 From: Jeff Foster Subject: Zek Ch. 3 Greetings friends. Thanks to those of you who have written. Your encouragement means the world to writers like me. One more short chapter to help establish Zek's backstory. Chapter 4 will see some sexy bits! Don't forget to support Nifty! http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html Ch. 3 It was about 5am as they neared the city of Novosibirsk. Rusty pulled the sleigh over into a copse of trees where it couldn't be seen. "Wait here," he told the boy then set off on foot to explore the outskirts of the city. He spent his time looking for telephone poles, needing a phone for his extraction. He found an apartment building and leaned back into the doorway of a store across the street. He watched the apartment building as one after another of the apartment dwellers trudged off to work. Some wore the clothes of working men but a few had briefcases and suits, walking to the bus for the trip into the city. On the second floor, the light in small bathroom window went out. Rusty watched closely. The light in the window next to the bathroom went off and a few moments later, a man in suit carrying a briefcase exited from the front door of the apartment building. After the man had walked down the block and turned the corner, Rusty slipped inside the building's front door and he walked quietly up to the second floor. He found the apartment with the recently extinguished lights and rapped softly on the door. After receiving no response, Rusty picked the lock with hair pins he had found in the bathroom of the old farmhouse. "Bingo," Rusty thought to himself when he found a phone. He called an international toll free number. "Amalgamated Paper how may I direct your call." "I need 53 sheets delivered to 21220 Albina Ulitsa" replied Rusty. The order for 55 identified Rusty to the operator, and "sheets" was code asking for an emergency ex-filtration. The address told her where he was. If the call had been an actual customer with an actual order, the operator would have sent the call back to the US and to a real salesman who would take the order. "We can deliver that for you in a half-hour. Look for van number 2. Will that be acceptable?" asked the operator. "Tell them to hurry and there will be two people there to pick up the order." Rusty grinned to himself as he hung up. His control officer was going to shit! In the time it took Rusty to lock the apartment, walk back to pick up the kid and return to the building, a delivery truck, a large red 2 painted on the back door of the vehicle, was waiting outside. Rusty bustled the boy into the cab, swung himself up and slammed the door. The driver looked surprised but said nothing, grinding the transmission as he shifted into first gear. The truck began the quick drive to the US Embassy in Novosibirsk. After a brief stop in at the Embassy, Zeksmol found himself alone with Rusty on a small jet headed for the United States. Upon landing, Rusty and the young Russian left the aircraft. A van was waiting for them at the bottom of the steps. Rusty walked past the van and driver yelled, "Hey I'm supposed to take you to headquarters. Where are you going?" Holding Zeksmol's small hand, Rusty shouted over his shoulder, "I need a shower and a nap. I'll check in tomorrow." "But..but...," the man stumbled on his words. Rusty continued walking, ignoring the man's calls for him to stop. Rusty had been one of the Agency's top performers for years - his intelligence, dedication and 95.5% success rate allowed him a certain amount of liberty with his superiors. They learned this when they found one of his first case officers bound, naked, and hanging from the top of the CIA flagpole. The note tied around his neck stated that he would quit the next time the agency tried to have some asshole control him. This episode put him on a first name basis with the Director and that held a great amount of sway. The Director knew agents like Rusty Savage were a rare and desirable breed. He worked hard to keep happy the few the agency had. After the executive jet had executed its take-off and was cruising at 40,000 feet Rusty asked the kid in Russian "How are you doing kid?" "You have been speaking English!" the kid shouted in return. He was wide eyed and wondering what he had gotten himself into. After the terrifying take-off from Novosibirsk, Zeksmol had a million questions. "Yes. I am American" Rusty replied in Russian as it was the boy's only language. The boy's questions rushed out, rapid fire like a machine. "But you were in the gulag. Where are we going? Why did you bring me with you? Why am I on a plane? What will become of me?" The boys stopped only because he began hyperventilating` Rusty decided to be straight with the boy. Zeksmol had been instrumental in helping Rusty escape and he felt it only fair to tell the boy. He explained to the boy that he was an agent for the US government and had been in Russia on a mission. A drunk driver had crashed into his car, leaving Rusty unconscious. Rusty woke after the police had arrived on the scene and he was arrested because he had no form of identification. Rusty refused to answer questions from the police so they shipped him off to the gulag for a week or two to pressure him to answer their questions. Stunned the boy asked, "What will become of me?" "I can't turn you over to my superiors, they will just send you back". "No, I can't go back there!" the statement reverberating in the small enclosure created by the executive jet body. In the brief period he had been free of the men and guards at the prison, Zek had come to value his freedoms. He liked the sleigh ride, he liked being able to eat when he wanted and he especially liked taking a bath! He couldn't go back after enjoying that luxury. Thinking of the hungry look he received from the man when he stripped naked, the boy looked at him hopefully. "Can I stay with you?" "NO"! snapped Rusty causing the boy to cringe. He sighed deeply and began pacing and talking to himself. He knew that the minute he rescued the kid from the toughs back at the prison he was going to take him home. He just didn't know what he would do with him after he returned home. He recognized that if he did this through official channels, no one would ever agree to let a 40-year old, single man keep a 13-yeqr-old Russian boy, an illegal immigrant Russian boy to boot! Rusty had no family of his own to speak of. His parents died when he was younger and he had no siblings. He had few friends; working undercover for a government agency did not make for developing relationships outside the agency. Rusty had to think about how having a kid underfoot would affect his life. Was he ready for that? After spending time with the boy and observing the cool reserve he showed during and after the escape, he saw potential in the boy and maybe a little bit of himself. It was easy for him to imagine the Russian kid following in his footsteps. He chuckled at the irony of a Russian boy, co-opted by the US, to fight against his homeland. He and the Director, in a moment of honest reflection, had spoken about retirement and how they could insure continuity of the agency. They wanted the best trained agents going out into enemy country and had been kicking around the idea of getting orphans and beginning their training when they were as young as Zek and even younger. Rusty decided he would contact the Director through other than official channels and see what he would recommend. He looked at the boy, a tear building in front of one of his ice green eyes, ready to fall and slide down his delicate cheek. "Do you understand what you are asking Zeksmol?" "If you stay with me your life will never be the same. You'll have no friends. All your time will be spent alone. Never having a home, your movement will be constant. Is this what you want?" he asked, eyebrows raised. Considering the boy's eyes intently he continued, "You will train hard, pushing your body to the limits. Pain will become something not to be feared but to be accepted and endured. You will run until you drop. Each morning you will spend your time learning science, languages and history." "Will I do all of this with you?" asked the boy. "Yes, with me, yes. You will do things you never dreamed of. You will learn to kill." The man said, a look of serious concern on his face. "Becoming a master of the use of guns, knives, and explosives, you will kill. Presented with a pencil or a hammer, you will use these things to kill. You will learn to make explosives from everyday things you find. Learning to survive on your own in the wilderness and in cities will be taught to you as well as mathematics and geometry so that you can shoot a man from a mile away. You will learn to become invisible." "Can you do all that?" The boy did not hesitate. "As long as you are my teacher, I will do all that you ask me too." And so began Zeksmol's transformation from cute little Russian orphan to Zek the killer.