Ally
Detective Miguel Rubio paused at the half-open door. The dawn sunlight blasting in through the naked windows reminded him that he hadn't gotten any sleep. The title on the door warned that he wouldn't get any anytime soon.
The Chief of Police of Oak Valley wasn't an open-door policy kind of guy, and when you were called to his office it wasn't for kudos.
Rubio's normal bravado vanished; he took on the demeanor of an awed subordinate. It was only part bullshit. "You wanted to see me sir?"
"Siddown, Detective."
Rubio stepped smartly into the room and took the nearest chair. His boss, Captain Ramirez, was already occupying the other chair. Ramirez sat slumped forward, looking exhausted. Rubio saw a spread of reports on the desk. Chief wasn't the type to read much out of officers' field reports, but when the shit hit the fan he demanded they be on his desk double-quick anyway. And occasionally, he demanded revisions.
The Chief remained standing, turning away and looking out over the plaza.
"No goods, no green, no goons, and no girl. What the hell happened, Detective?"
Ouch. So it was going to be a whipping after all.
"I did the best I could with what I had. Which turned out to be not much of anything."
"Your CI." Confidential Informant. "Why didn't we know about her?"
"She only came to me two days ago. And she only told me about the exchange yesterday afternoon."
"Yesterday."
"Yes sir."
"Sounds like bullshit to me."
Rubio shot a glance over at Ramirez. Either the Captain didn't know where the Chief was going, or wasn't going to be any help.
But Rubio held steady. He knew he'd covered his tracks. No one even knew who his informant was, much less when, or even if, Rubio had started working her. "Sounded like bullshit to me too," he agreed. "That's why I kept it informal, in case things didn't pan out. After all, the media's giving the department enough shit about chasing ghosts already." Actually, what the media had been giving the department shit about was the Chief's tendency to chase special programs while basic services were stretched thin.
"Well, Detective, one thing's for sure -- the way you played it, things didn't pan out."
The truth hurt -- more than the Chief knew. It had all seemed too good to be true. Angela Barrett had wiggled her way into the pants of the newest hotshot in the Russian Mafiya. She'd found recordings of incriminating conversations. She'd scored the time and place of a huge stolen-cars-for-cash deal -- one that tied a string of unsolved high-profile auto theft incidents together as a single criminal effort with international implications.
And then she'd taken it all away. Her relationship cooled, the recordings evaporated, the cars weren't where she'd said, the buyers hid behind a layer of diplomatic immunity, and she helped the seller slip away.
Too good to be true, indeed. That kind of deal never happened. It was fucking stupid. That kind of action leaked out over days or weeks through layers of middle men who as often as not had no idea who they were really working for. Angela's deal was the kind of shit that only happened in the movies.
Right down to the superhero swooping down from the sky to stop the bad guy from getting away.
Well, almost.
Rubio didn't believe the superhero aspect. Maybe Angela was twisted over her mom getting whacked, and maybe she had an unusual supply of urban climbing gear and a flair for the dramatic, but all this shit the uniformed officers had spouted about her flying off into the night was just their inexperience talking. And the witnesses' statements about the hit-and-run downtown a couple of days earlier, they were just examples of ordinary people embellishing to inflate their own egos. He'd seen it a thousand times before. Never trust an eyewitness.
The more he thought about the whole Angela situation, the less he believed any of it. Eighteen-year-old girls don't just drop in on organized crime leaders and start fleecing them of information. Okay, well, sometimes they did, but not girls like Angela. She was the poster child for naivete.
Which was exactly it. Girls like Angela? No such thing. Nobody was that sheltered anymore, that *good* anymore. Rubio's instincts had told him she was playing an angle from the beginning. He'd dismissed it as some kind of misplaced revenge for her mom, mixed in with some spite for her new father figure, the pervert-saint Detective Noel Aquino. Man, had Rubio been sucker-punched. Either Angela had quickly fallen for her target after going under -- and considering how young, good-looking, rich, and dangerous Dino Sinclair was, how could a girl who'd never left the suburbs *not* fall? -- or just as likely she'd planned the whole thing as payback.
After all, superhero or not, Angela Barrett a.k.a. Sapphire had been captured by none other than Detective Miguel Rubio. If it hadn't been for that bleeding-heart Aquino, she'd be behind bars right now. And the city would be a much safer place. Oak Valley didn't need costumed nuts scurrying around in the shadows stirring up shit. But of course she couldn't see that -- she could only see Rubio as her enemy, maybe even as part of the bigger problem. No doubt she grew up on a steady diet of TV shows and movies about corrupt cops and rampant violent crime, and now she was acting out her fantasies. Of course she'd want revenge -- not just against her mom's killers, not just against criminals, but against the police, and Rubio himself.
It was so obvious now. She'd come to him on purpose. She'd pulled him into this just to ruin him. And she hadn't done it alone. Rubio had done his fair share of damage to the Russian Mafiya empire -- only natural that Moroshkin would put his lieutenant on a campaign to marginalize a fast-rising results-producing police detective. And Detective Aquino probably had a hand in it too -- he was soft on the girl, and he'd also taken a snubbing from Rubio, deservedly so.
They were all out to get him. He should have seen it coming.
The way Angela had taken great photographs, but nothing that actually put Dino *inside* the chop shop.
The way she'd gotten close to him, but didn't get any information to pin him down.
The way she'd scored that smoking-gun recording and promised lots more, only to end up with nothing.
The way she'd somehow been seen with Dino's hotshot car thief, *twice*, when he'd *almost* been caught.
The way she'd suddenly produced details about the Impossible Deal, but only at the last minute, and only after pressure from Rubio to produce or be cut loose.
The way she'd insisted she be the only one there when it happened.
And the way she'd disappeared as soon as it fell apart.
Shit, Rubio even had three days' notice that she was going to disappear on him. The fucking eviction notice was right there on the front door.
How did he not see this coming?
"Fuck!"
"What?" The Chief's sharp question yanked Rubio back to the present.
Fuck -- did I say that out loud? I guess I did. Fuck.
"I'm sorry, Chief. I'm just... pissed off. At myself." When you didn't know which way to lie, sometimes a little bit of the truth was actually the best route to take.
But only a little bit. If his superiors had any idea just how early he'd been hooked and how far he'd stuck his dick out, he'd be lucky if they let him chalk tires downtown.
"That's good. You should be." Chief uncrossed his arms. "But don't be too hard on yourself. After all, this girl, this... *Sapphire*... she didn't give you a lot of time to react. And she's obviously been planning this for a long time -- to humiliate you *and* inflict a million-dollar pinch on organized crime with one blow... I'll be honest, it surprised even me."
Rubio felt his blood boiling. Bad enough to make a fool of yourself, but to make such an average girl look like some kind of vigilante/criminal mastermind? He might call this the lowest point in his career, if he hadn't already been humiliated in front of a half-dozen TV news cameras just two months earlier... by the *same* *girl*...
Chief planted his hands on his desk and leaned forward. His brow suddenly accordioned and turned red.
"So do everyone a favor, get your shit together, and get this fucking wannabe wonder woman off our streets."
Rubio's fist clenched. He hardly needed the Chief's permission to make sure that little bitch Angela regretted messing with him, but if it meant he didn't have to do it in his spare time, so much the better.
"I'm on it, Chief." He stood and saluted, high on anger and relief.
"Just one thing, Detective."
"Yessir."
"Captain Ramirez has pointed out your strong record for closing cases with convictions, often under difficult circumstances. But he's also reminded me of your tendency for media attention. That's the last thing we need now. So keep it quiet. I don't want this little princess coming up as a topic of conversation, and I especially don't want any more of her wrecking-ball antics on the news."
"I'll do what I can," Rubio demurred.
"No stunts," Chief warned.
Rubio held up his hand like a pledge. "The next time you hear about her will be her arraignment."
"It better be."
Rubio sat in the car, absent-mindedly sucking on his Coke. He was trying not to think about how he was going to make good on his promise to the Chief. He wasn't having much success.
God, that was stupid. What the hell was I thinking? I can't bring her in -- she'll spill her guts. And are they really gonna believe that she's making it all up to make me look bad?
Maybe. You could set something up to discredit her.
Like what?
A drug habit. She's mostly there already. Just make sure she's high as a kite when you bring her in -- whatever she says will seem desperate and paranoid. You did it before.
I guess.
And if they don't buy it, it's probably not that big a setback.
Fuck that. The Chief will burn me for spite. Like he did to Williams.
You could just let Moroshkin have her. After all, he's certainly got a bone to pick with her.
That's harsh. Not to mention risky.
It'd put him in your debt.
Yeah, until she tells him she was working with me.
She won't say anything if she's dead.
Woah, that's a bit extreme. And also risky.
Nobody's gonna look at it that closely.
Noel Aquino will.
Good point. You'll just have to be careful.
Fuck that. The situation isn't that desperate anyway.
Then quit freaking out.
Plus it wouldn't look that good, even if I could pull it off. Some people actually believe she's a hero.
So give her a couple grand and put her on a bus, you pussy.
Or just convince her to do it herself.
His phone rang -- not his work phone, but his private phone. The one he gave to informants -- and women -- he wanted to keep "off the books."
He didn't recognize the number. No, it couldn't actually be *her*, could it?
"Hello?"
"Miguel, it's Angela."
Well, I'll be damned. "You've got a lot of nerve, calling me after what happened."
She sounded genuinely shocked. "Wha-? It wasn't my fault. I didn't know about the plane."
"Yeah, I'll just bet." If she'd called him to rub it in, playing dumb was a strange way to do it.
"I... I called to see if maybe they stopped it, or if you arrested anyone."
"There it is. Yeah, real funny. You got me. Was it Sinclair's idea? Or maybe Aquino?"
"H-huh?"
"Doesn't matter. Laugh while you can, sweetie. You just fucked with the wrong cop."
"Miguel, why are you acting this way? You don't think I... Ohmygod."
"You know what? Fuck you. I tried to help you out, and you threw it back in my face."
"Miguel, please, believe me, I didn't-"
She wasn't going to sucker him again with that sweet innocent bullshit. "I'm sure your mom would be proud," he said, and hung up.
Angela Barrett felt the world pull away as she hung up the phone. The rhythmic rush of traffic on the freeway up the embankment faded; the QuickMart parking lot semeed to stretch into the distance.
I'm sure your mom would be proud.
Failure overwhelmed the exhausted girl. She'd sacrificed so much to try to make a difference, and in the end she'd accomplished nothing. The cars were still gone, the bad guys were still out there, she'd burned her bridges with Dino...
And Detective Miguel Rubio thought she'd done it all on purpose.
Was he going to turn her in now? Probably. Everyone would know that Sapphire was really just Angela Barrett, a teenager from the suburbs who was now in way over her head.
I have to get out of town. I have to disappear.
No. It wasn't fair. Angela hadn't done anything wrong. She'd tried to do the right thing. It wasn't her fault it didn't work out. Maybe Miguel was just mad; maybe when he calmed down he'd see things more clearly. Either way, she couldn't turn tail and run. She had to find a way to clear her name. Both of her names. Anyway, she had nowhere to go, and not enough money to get there.
And there was still the mystery of Chris Cogan. Normal people don't just *vanish*. Last night was still blurry and jumbled, and the hammer of Glitter withdrawal was still trying to beat her senseless, but he'd said some weird stuff before he... disappeared. Like he thought she was someone else, from somewhere else. Like he was a fugitive from justice in another state, or maybe another country.
Weird too that he was more afraid of his past than he was of her. Maybe she should try to find out more about him before she went after him. Maybe after last night Dino would help.
Or maybe you shouldn't mess with him at all. You're 0-for-2.
He's a dangerous criminal. He needs to be brought to justice.
It's not your job. Look where chasing him has gotten you.
It's gotten me in trouble with the police. I have to catch him to get out of it.
And why would Dino help you after you sold him out?
I didn't sell him out -- I protected him.
If he'd been there last night instead of Crisco, would you have let the police capture him?
He wasn't there.
But if he was?
I... I don't know. Maybe. But even if he did get caught, he has those tapes, and he didn't actually do anything himself...
Why wasn't he there last night? Maybe he knew you'd rat.
He didn't even know I knew about the meet. And he wouldn't know anybody ratted anyway -- maybe the police just saw suspicious activity. They didn't actually catch anybody... And maybe he wasn't there because Crisco didn't want him there. Maybe Crisco did something to him.
Maybe Dino was hurt.
She remembered that night he'd been shot in the alley -- the way he'd healed himself.
But maybe he couldn't do that against Crisco...
A rising panic forced Angela to drop more change into the phone and dial frantically.
"Yeah."
It was Dino! He was all right! Angela tried to calm down, but her voice still had a tremble to it. "Hi, it's Angela." She wracked her brain, trying to sort out how much she should know... trying to remember what they'd last said to each other...
Dino's voice was muffled. "I gotta take this, I'll be right back." A moment later: "You shouldn't be calling me."
"Why not? I... heard about last night. On the news. I was worried about you."
His response was almost hostile. "That's a surprise." And Angela began to remember their last conversation. Dino had come to explain his twisted version of justice -- how Crisco was going to get away with murder, and how Angela should be happy about it.
Angela remembered her last words to him: "I didn't think you killed people."
Maybe calling him was a bad idea.
But things were different now. Last night hadn't gone as planned. Angela remembered Dino's rationalization that Crisco would screw up again anyway, and then Moroshkin would have to cut him loose. She wasn't sure how she felt about that if it meant Crisco would show up dead in an alley somewhere. But maybe... Dino had those recordings, maybe he was looking for a way out, and maybe if Crisco were to be captured before Moroshkin had him killed...
"Listen," Dino said in a low voice, "things are bad here. Kostya's paranoia is off the charts. He's pointing fingers at everybody." He whispered. "Even you."
Angela's heartbeat became a quickening crescendo. Fear constricted her chest.
"I can't talk now," Dino continued, less whispered. "I gotta go and try to keep things from getting out of hand."
"But Dino..."
His voice dropped to a whisper again. "Shh. You need to disappear, at least for a while. Don't call me again. I don't know if I can protect you anymore."
Kostya Moroshkin was in mid-rant when he suddenly stopped and glared at his limo driver. "Dammit, Vadim, do you do that to annoy me?" Moroshkin reached over, couch cushions shifting, placing his thick hand firmly over the younger man's, stilling the nervous fingers from stroking the car fob. Dangling keys fell silent.
"Sorry, Mr. Moroshkin." Vadim let his hands fall to his lap, leaning back into the couch, as much to deflect his boss' look as to relax.
Moroshkin turned back to the room, quickly finding his place in his tirade. "Do you have any idea how bad this makes us look? Do you have any idea what it does to the organization? And all of that money paid to the contractors, to the yard workers, to the spotters, to the patrol officers -- we will never get that back. Money wasted!"
Dino took advantage of Moroshkin's need to breathe to try to calm him down. "Shh, Kostya, it is bad luck to speak of these things." He raised his eyes to the ceiling, a reminder that the room could be bugged.
Of course, Vadim knew the chances of that were slim. Dino still had technicians sweeping key locations on a regular basis, including Moroshkin's home. Not that they'd ever turned up anything, not since the initial sweep, but it was good practice to speak in generalities and vague terms anyway.
"Besides," Chris Cogan threw in, "it wasn't exactly wasted -- it was an investment in not getting busted. I mean, we're all sitting here this morning instead of in a holding cell."
That thought only seemed to make Moroshkin madder -- not that having any of his lieutenants behind bars would be anything but a disaster, but Moroshkin wasn't the type to invest in failure -- or let a screw-up go unpunished.
"This is fucking bullshit!" he screamed, his accent thickening under stress. The man leaped up from the couch, stalking toward the door, halting halfway when he realized there was as yet no specific charge to lead. Moroshkin spun around, eyes darting from his nephew Jacob to Cogan and then to Dino.
"Who was that on the phone? Was that your girlfriend? What does she know? Was she involved in this?"
Vadim watched Dino's reaction; Dino genuflected ever so slightly, enough to show deference but not fear. "That was Bruno. And Angela's not my girlfriend; she's just a kid that doesn't need to get mixed up in all this. After Stas took a shot at me she freaked out and took off. She doesn't know anything."
Wow. Dino had always been cool under pressure, by way of professional disinterest -- he just wasn't emotionally attached to what he had to do. But ever since the attempt on Moroshkin's life, there'd been a different undercurrent to his personality. He was still mostly unflappable, but now it was a different kind of self-control, a smoldering continuous disdain, as if the bagman-turned-nightclub-manager hated life and wanted to shove his way through it as quickly as possible.
Moroshkin couldn't help but notice the different vibe, and always took it as resentment toward him for being shot. There was a time when Moroshkin had tried to win back his favorite subordinate's favor, and he appreciated Dino's newfound ambition, but for weeks now their relationship had cooled. Ever since that girl.
Dino's steady stare took away some of Moroshkin's fire, but not his heat. "I never trusted her, Dino, but I will let it go for now. More serious to me is what happened to *you* last night. You disappeared, and Crisco had to make do by himself. This was your deal, your responsibility."
Dino shot a quizzical look at Vadim before answering. "I just got out of the hospital."
"What happened?" Moroshkin asked, surprised.
"Someone messed with my car's brakes. I was on the freeway when they gave out; I had to drive the car into the sound wall to stop it, and the front tire caught on a drainage ditch or something."
Vadim cringed; he'd heard of Dino's misfortune but hadn't had a chance to pass word to his boss -- once Moroshkin got started on one of his paranoid rants, there was no interrupting him. And he'd been bitching non-stop since Cogan had called with the bad news at 7am. Moroshkin was working on his third furious hour.
"How's the car?" Crisco asked rudely.
"I don't know," Dino said, eyeing his junior with suspicion. "I wasn't conscious when I left it."
Moroshkin cast a suspicious eye. "You do not look hurt."
"I got lucky."
Vadim could tell there was more going on here than an ill-timed auto accident, but who was hiding what?
"And you, Crisco, how could you just let all that money burn?!"
"I told you, Kostya, the girl was right there. It was either save the money or save myself."
Moroshkin flashed Cogan a hot look for addressing him by his first name -- his nickname, no less -- a major breach of protocol. Only peers and favored direct reports were allowed to address him so in the company of others, and a lower-echelon soldier wasn't allowed to do it at all, at least not to the man's face.
But Moroshkin's words even more scathing than his look. "Next time, choose the money."
Cogan looked suitably snubbed, but he responded anyway. "If I had, you'd have lost both."
Moroshkin's grumble seemed to acknowledge the validity of the point.
Weird. Vadim knew Cogan was some kind of hotshot car thief, but for Moroshkin to not only let him live after such a huge loss but to acknowledge that he might have some relative value... what was going on here?
Moroshkin was already on to the next suspect. "It must have been Filip!" he bellowed. "That psuedocapitalist playboy, he set this up! Why else wouldn't he show up for the buy? I bet the money was not even real!"
"It was real," Chris Cogan said, his voice starting off harsh but quickly softening as he drew the Russian Mafiya boss' attention. "I checked it."
"And Filip had to make arrangements for the plane, that's why he wasn't there." Kostya's nephew, Jacob, a big slab of a man, currently taken to leaning against / hiding behind an overstuffed chair.
"Do not make excuses for him. And what about you?"
"Uncle! You know me, you know I would never roll over on my own family."
"I don't know anything anymore! Dino putting a woman ahead of business, Crisco letting a woman embarass him, you for once *not* fucking up something important..."
Vadim was thankful he'd had nothing to do with it... which made him wonder why he was here.
Wait a minute... That was three times now that Moroshkin had called Chris Cogan "Crisco." It was a nickname the car thief had picked for himself, and few people who mattered indulged him with it. Cogan was Dino's boy, but Vadim had heard there was friction betwen them over Cogan's reckless behavior. Was Cogan now working directly for Moroshkin? That made Dino's "accident" even more interesting...
As for Cogan calling Moroshkin by his nickname, maybe Moroshkin's disapproval had been a "don't give it away" rather than a "you're not allowed."
Vadim had expected some organizational fallout as a result of the "Filip Fiasco" -- but maybe it was really the other way around.
Moroshkin began to pace the floor. "Maybe it wasn't Filip. But there is still Bates and the Italians. They already went after Dino once when he refused to make shipping arrangements through them. Maybe they did so again. And they have been pushing their drugs more and more aggressively. Bates is a part of this!"
Jacob again tried to contribute -- perhaps with the heat on the others he felt more confident. "But we can't afford a war with the Italians, especially not now."
Moroshkin shot Jacob a snarling stare. Still, it took just a little bit of the wind out of the boss' sails. Which only pushed him from fury to frustration. "Mihail, please, tell me, how do we lose one million dollars and almost get caught by the police?"
The question went to Mihail Stepanov. A tall, slender man in his late sixties, with deep-set eyes and crooked nose, Mihail was old-time Russian Mafiya, one of the first to make a name for himself in Little Odessa in the 1970s. He'd come out west to retire. Vadim had taken Moroshkin many times to see the old man at his home, sometimes needing advice, sometimes simply asking out of respect. This was the first time Vadim had ever seen Mihail come to see Moroshkin.
Mihail straightened up with a deep breath; his speech was slow and deliberate, whether a matter of translating Russian thought to English words or done simply for effect, Vadim didn't know.
"Kostya Petrovich, please, calm down; you are going to give yourself a heart attack. You are going to give *me* a heart attack." Mihail took another deep breath, drawing the others' complete attention. "It is bad, yes, but it could be much worse. No one was arrested. The product was delivered. What you have now is a cashflow problem. Most important is to solve that problem."
Moroshkin blinked. Vadim could see the set of his jaw change. He was trying to reconcile the beast with the businessman.
"You're right, Mihail." Moroshkin's eyes narrowed; fury became focus. "Money is power. I cannot have anyone thinking I am weak, or this mess will be nothing compared to what a power struggle will bring. The others are looking for excuses. So, we need to strengthen our cash position." Mihail nodded; Cogan and Jacob did the same.
Moroshkin made a fist. "First, collections. In trying to be good citizens we have become too soft. I want no leniency, starting today. Mihail, old friend, will you go with Jacob tomorrow? Your presence will send a clear message."
"Of course, Kostya."
"Dino." Moroshkin sighed, projecting obvious disappointment. "Just keep your club going; we need the steady cashflow. And keep it clean -- the police will be looking for leverage."
"I always keep it clean."
"I know." There was a hint of disappointment in Moroshkin's voice.
"New income -- Jacob, see what the market for soft exports is like."
Jacob looked stunned. "I thought we weren't-"
Moroshkin cut him off. "Things are different now."
Dino raised an eyebrow; Vadim didn't know what Moroshkin was talking about either.
"Vadim. You are here because I need you to do a special job for me."
Vadim knew it wasn't driving -- Kostya wanted him to steal something. And he was asking him here in front of the others so that Vadim couldn't refuse. Not after Mihail Stepanov himself had offered *his* service.
But Vadim hadn't done a job in three years. Not since his father and brother had been killed on the Club DeiGlo job. Vadim's mother had made him promise to give it up lest she lose him too. Moroshkin had obliged the woman by making Vadim his personal driver.
In hindsight, he probably would have been safer if he'd remained a thief. There'd already been two attempts on Moroshkin's life, one of them very nearly successful, and Vadim had been close to the line of fire both times. Considering the current mess, another attempt was almost guaranteed.
But Mama had been insistent. Right up until the day she died. The weeks since then had been more a matter of routine than any kind of decision.
Now Moroshkin was making the decision for him. Vadim wasn't sure how he felt about that.
Cogan stepped forward, his body visibly blocking Vadim. "I'll do it, Kostya."
"No. I want Vadim to do it. He is careful." The slight was obvious; Cogan reacted like a spoiled child. "It is something that belongs to Gerald Bates; a personal item."
Vadim felt his pulse quicken. This wasn't just any job. This was a chance for a little payback.
"I'll do it."
"Excellent. We will talk more after."
"What about me?" Cogan snipped.
"You cost me a million dollars and made me look like a fool."
Cogan looked shocked that Moroshkin could blame him. "I did the best I could with a bad situation. The girl..."
Vadim smiled; Cogan was so ignorant he didn't even know when he wasn't supposed to defend himself.
Moroshkin held up a hand; Cogan shut up. "Yes, yes, you told me all about this *flying* *girl*." Moroshkin rolled his eyes in exaggerated fashion. "Anyone else would have killed you for such an insult. Ask me why I have not."
Cogan swallowed hard. "Why, um, didn't you..."
"I spent four years with the Red Army in Afghanistan. But I almost didn't survive the first month. I led a small unit on covert strikes well beyond Soviet-controlled territory -- light equipment, travel mostly on horseback, disrupt enemy supplies, track and eliminate enemy command. Three weeks in, our first supply drop was intercepted by the Afghanis. Two days later, I caught my radio operator relaying the details of the next drop. He was trying to force us to return home. We were too far in for extraction, and could not trust him not to get us killed. So I executed him."
Vadim noticed Cogan shift uncomfortably; Vadim suppressed a smile... but this was supposed to be an explanation of why Moroshkin *didn't* kill Cogan?
"Second year in Afghanistan, we were pulled back and assigned to reinforce a forward supply base. This base had developed an embarassing reputation -- the enemy seemed able to raid the base and steal or destroy assets at will. Command thought it suspicious, and believed the soldiers or even the base commander were selling or trading their equipment. But the situation was far worse than that. Soldiers assigned there swore they were being haunted by the ghosts of dead Afghani soldiers and refused to mount more than token resistance; the officers refused to acknowledge such ridiculous claims and tried to solve the moral problem through punitive measures. Morale was never high in the Soviet Army, but this bordered on mass desertion and complete breakdown of the chain of command.
"On the surface, my team was assigned there for counterattack -- seek and destroy this phantom enemy that was costing us so dearly. The real reason was of course my reputation. The execution story had been well-told and well-exaggerated throughout the Army by that time, to the point that I had supposedly killed a dozen of my own men as traitors before laying waste to the villages of the Afghanis who had turned them. I was thought of as part hero, part madman, and when I arrived at that base everyone assumed I was there to root out and execute traitors, no matter who they might be."
Vadim looked at the others; they didn't know where Moroshkin was going with this either, but they were hardly bold enough to interrupt.
"I was still young at the time and somewhat idealistic. I did not want to believe corruption was the problem. But I had heard stories and was afraid of what I might find -- and what it might do to my career. I had been thrown into the situation with no instruction, just 'go there and take care of it.' At the same time, I knew my assignment was no accident.
"I was afraid to confront the officers directly, and afraid to conduct any counter mission for fear of sabotage, but I knew I could not just sit and do nothing. I was forced to take the ghost stories seriously.
"So I set up recording devices at both sentry positions, and my sergeant and I joined the men assigned to them for the first night."
Vadim took a deep breath for patience; once Moroshkin got started with a war story, he could ramble on for a long time. Vadim hoped there was a point...
"The men were not lying -- I too heard strange hushed sounds. The next day I sent out teams to search the surrounding area; they found nothing. At sunset, the base was attacked. My men fought off the attack and managed to inflict a half-dozen casualties; one Afghani soldier, no more than fourteen, committed suicide before he could be captured.
"Meanwhile, my intelligence specialist had found something in the tapes. Voices, masked by echoes. What he managed to translate read like tactical instructions, matching up to the moves employed during the attack.
"We weren't looking for ghosts -- we were looking for echoes. We scanned the surrounding terrain from the sentry's position, and began plotting a map of significant surfaces, canyon walls and buttes. We triangulated a point over a mile away that might be an intersection of four different reflections.
"The next day, I led a team to find that point; from there we found a path through what we had previously thought to be impassable rock formations. The Afghani camp was at the base of the hills on the other side. We waited for nightfall, then swept in fast and wiped them out."
Moroshkin leaned back into the couch and crossed his arms. "So, Crisco, when you tell me that a flying girl crushed your car and nearly killed you, I do not believe you, but I also do not believe you are lying. There is an echo of truth to your story. Find it, and you will find the girl. Then I can make *her* pay instead of *you*."