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what they had come
for.

 
9

    Victor
checked into the Balmoral, where, as previously planned, Sacha and
Boris were waiting for his arrival. It was good to see his sons,
though he was wary of showing this too much. Odd that being the
product of a useless bastard father, he should then be so
standoffish with them, packing them off to the west for an
expensive education on the quiet. The wife had been upset of
course, but what did she know of the lives of men. The distance
would toughen them up, give them skills that would be useful when
the time came. She would wrap them in cotton wool, safe from the
outside world but this was not realistic. This was not how the
business worked.
    Things changed however.
Business evolved and moved on. They were learning how to network;
indeed it could be said were ready networking with their future
peers, ready to move things to the next level when their chance
arrived.
    Sacha had run towards him
when he entered the suite, throwing his arms round him. Victor had
patted the boy on the head. He wore his heart on his sleeve, the
younger of his two sons. Boris was more composed, accepted his
father’s hand with a manly grip and a confident expression. The
west agreed with both. They had filled out with good food but kept
trim on the rugby pitch.
    “ So what’s
new boys?” he asked, unable to find a suitable opener. That was
always a source of some awkwardness. They were, when all was said
and done, from different backgrounds, different worlds. At Boris’s
age he had been in the gulag, working on some networking of his
own. He was not well fed and did not look like a rugby player, or
for that matter know what the game was. The way things had been
back then, he would probably have eaten a rugby player.
    “ I’ve started
doing Italian and I made it into the first team at fullback.” Sacha
began, as his father nodded his approval while watching Boris in
his peripheral vision as he shrugged his shoulders and went back to
doing something with that tablet they were all so interested in
these days.
    “… and if you
mix hydrogen and oxygen in the correct amount you can make it
explode with the mother of all bangs.” Sacha was saying now. It
wasn’t that Victor had no interest in what his son was saying, more
just that he was content to listen to the boy’s voice. It gave him
the sensation all was well, with this part of his world at least.
They were out of harm’s way. At least for now.
    The rage was there again
at this thought. He knew this could be channelled, could be the
very thing that ensured the status quo remained, but that his
thoughts must be marshalled in such a way that they did not
overtake him.
    They ordered
dinner and the boys watched the new Bond film on pay per view while
he attempted to clear his mind of all obstructions. Soon this would
all be resolved. And then, all being well it would all be his. All
of it. Just keep one eye on the
prize he told himself.
    He looked again at the
boys. They had no idea what they were to inherit.
     
    ********************
     
     
    Sam Jones
hadn’t really known what to expect through in Glasgow, at the hub
of all things drug related. If she was honest, she hadn’t expected
the home of the SCDEA to be quite such a hole in the ground. Maybe
she’d expected too much, watched too many cop shows set in the good
ole U S of A but a slightly more up market location and a building
with a bit more presence wasn’t much to ask, was it? A carbuncle
opposite a car hire depot on an industrial estate was hardly a
shining beacon of law enforcement worthy of a forward thinking
country was it?
    To be fair,
most of what she’d seen of Glasgow involved nights out in bars a
sight trendier than the ones through in the Burgh, and Gayfield
Square was a similar monstrosity. Glasgow did look a lot more city
scape than Edinburgh but even so she hadn’t expected something
straight off the set of Blade Runner which it turned out was just
as well. It looked a lot