Read Online Dead of Night by Randy Wayne White - Free Book Online
Authors: Randy Wayne White
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lighting inside, where employees wore masks and plastic gloves. They turned raw coral and seashells into vitamin pills that cured all kinds of diseases.
“We have thirteen employees, ferried in and out every day,” Mr. Earl said, “Dr. Stokes has a personal staff of three, counting me. If I find a top security person, we can hire more people. Your call.”
Dasha barely heard, she was so focused on what she was seeing. They were digital photos set to music; scenes from two green islands rimmed with sand beneath vodka-clear water that darkened incrementally as the bottom dropped away, jade green, forest green, turquoise, then purple, showing that the islands were actually mountain peaks, anchored solid and alone in a blue tropic ocean.
Golden beach and rain forest. Heat. Jesus. No wonder Dasha had to wait so long for an interview. She sat there in a hotel suite with a dozen tough-guy strangers, some wearing their black berets and camo, others dressed the way they imagined secret agent types would dress—black sport coats, black shades—all applying for the same job, but none wanting it more than Dasha.
Jungle waterfalls. A jungle river, steam rising ...
Dasha had grown up outside Chernovo near the Volga River, which flowed south toward the Chechen border when the stinking ditch wasn’t frozen. She was one of five children born to a single mother who couldn’t afford to buy coal in a slum so cold that, between October and May, Dasha learned to identify neighbors by their eyes and whatever bit of nose their scarves left unprotected. Months went by, she saw only bits and pieces of her own body. Never naked all at once.
Sitting in the Vegas hotel room, seeing photos of the island—palm trees, coral mesas beneath blue water, sun-bright sand—she thought to herself, I’d kill to get his job.
Turned out, that was part of the deal.
Dasha, the ideal choice.
Of the couple thousand Soldier of Fortune types strutting around Vegas, she saw two, maybe three, people who had the look. Who’d been places, done some jobs. If you served in the military on the Chechen border, you learned to know the real ones at a glance. Operators. The others did their Hollywood hero impersonations. “When I shoot a man, he stays shot,” she heard some guy say one night, sitting, drinking martinis with Aleski at the pool bar.
They’d looked at each other and rolled their eyes. Aleski said loud enough for the whole room to hear, “Raspizdyay kolhoznii! Pizdoon!”
Stupid redneck! Fucking liar!
They both laughed and laughed.
They’d worked as interrogation specialists, Russian military. Dasha had also been recruited and trained by national intelligency, the FSB, or Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti. Made some money on the side feeding information to Chechen separatists before Dasha got sick of the gray winters, the gray architecture, the gray pasty faces of Russian men, and said fuck it. She was out of there.
Aleski was her operative partner. Played good cop to her badass cop, which wasn’t an act. He’d never put a move on her, never asked for anything, but was always there. Sexually, he had some kinks—the man liked being watched. Otherwise, Aleski was like a stray dog that followed the first person who walked by and didn’t try to kick him.
After Mr. Earl showed her the photos, he told Dasha about the unique security problems of owning isolated islands that, legally, were part of the Bahamas, but also had to interact with government con men from Cuba, only thirty miles away. The dried-up man asked how she’d handle certain situations.
“Create redundant cells to protect water, fuel, and mobility,” she told him. “Those are the necessities. All security problems can be reduced to those three things.”
“What about food supply? Water’s important, but people got to eat, too.”
Dasha replied, “Food is fuel. Water, fuel, and mobility—see how I compartmentalize them? If I make sure they’re secure, your islands will
“We have thirteen employees, ferried in and out every day,” Mr. Earl said, “Dr. Stokes has a personal staff of three, counting me. If I find a top security person, we can hire more people. Your call.”
Dasha barely heard, she was so focused on what she was seeing. They were digital photos set to music; scenes from two green islands rimmed with sand beneath vodka-clear water that darkened incrementally as the bottom dropped away, jade green, forest green, turquoise, then purple, showing that the islands were actually mountain peaks, anchored solid and alone in a blue tropic ocean.
Golden beach and rain forest. Heat. Jesus. No wonder Dasha had to wait so long for an interview. She sat there in a hotel suite with a dozen tough-guy strangers, some wearing their black berets and camo, others dressed the way they imagined secret agent types would dress—black sport coats, black shades—all applying for the same job, but none wanting it more than Dasha.
Jungle waterfalls. A jungle river, steam rising ...
Dasha had grown up outside Chernovo near the Volga River, which flowed south toward the Chechen border when the stinking ditch wasn’t frozen. She was one of five children born to a single mother who couldn’t afford to buy coal in a slum so cold that, between October and May, Dasha learned to identify neighbors by their eyes and whatever bit of nose their scarves left unprotected. Months went by, she saw only bits and pieces of her own body. Never naked all at once.
Sitting in the Vegas hotel room, seeing photos of the island—palm trees, coral mesas beneath blue water, sun-bright sand—she thought to herself, I’d kill to get his job.
Turned out, that was part of the deal.
Dasha, the ideal choice.
Of the couple thousand Soldier of Fortune types strutting around Vegas, she saw two, maybe three, people who had the look. Who’d been places, done some jobs. If you served in the military on the Chechen border, you learned to know the real ones at a glance. Operators. The others did their Hollywood hero impersonations. “When I shoot a man, he stays shot,” she heard some guy say one night, sitting, drinking martinis with Aleski at the pool bar.
They’d looked at each other and rolled their eyes. Aleski said loud enough for the whole room to hear, “Raspizdyay kolhoznii! Pizdoon!”
Stupid redneck! Fucking liar!
They both laughed and laughed.
They’d worked as interrogation specialists, Russian military. Dasha had also been recruited and trained by national intelligency, the FSB, or Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti. Made some money on the side feeding information to Chechen separatists before Dasha got sick of the gray winters, the gray architecture, the gray pasty faces of Russian men, and said fuck it. She was out of there.
Aleski was her operative partner. Played good cop to her badass cop, which wasn’t an act. He’d never put a move on her, never asked for anything, but was always there. Sexually, he had some kinks—the man liked being watched. Otherwise, Aleski was like a stray dog that followed the first person who walked by and didn’t try to kick him.
After Mr. Earl showed her the photos, he told Dasha about the unique security problems of owning isolated islands that, legally, were part of the Bahamas, but also had to interact with government con men from Cuba, only thirty miles away. The dried-up man asked how she’d handle certain situations.
“Create redundant cells to protect water, fuel, and mobility,” she told him. “Those are the necessities. All security problems can be reduced to those three things.”
“What about food supply? Water’s important, but people got to eat, too.”
Dasha replied, “Food is fuel. Water, fuel, and mobility—see how I compartmentalize them? If I make sure they’re secure, your islands will
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