Quaranteam: Phil’s Tale
Chapter 26
November 19th, 2020 (evening)
It was just a few minutes before midnight when Phil and Linda were woken up by Violet’s shaking hand. “Boss, Chief, you both need to get up,” the woman said to them.
“What’s going on?” Linda asked before he got a chance to say anything.
“Niko called in a code yellow from Odysseus,” Violet said.
“Bullshit,” Linda said as she hopped out of bed, reaching over to grab some clothes, as she and Phil both slept in the nude, although Phil had been sleeping with a sleep apnea mask for years, but nothing else. “Niko knows better than to get people out of bed for anything less than a small disaster.”
“Well, this is probably a small disaster then,” Violet said with a shrug. “Niko sounded shaken, and you know her as well as I do, boss. She’s practically unflappable.”
Phil took the mask off his face and groaned. “Yeah, okay, let’s go see what all the noise is about. Are we going to them?”
“They’re coming to us,” Violet said. “They’ll be here in a few minutes.”
“If Andy’s coming over this time of night, shit’s breaking off somewhere. Must be urgent.”
“Who’s coming?” Linda asked.
“Niko, Andy and Lexi, their new security person, who’s ex-CIA.”
“Well, at least it’s all people we can talk in front of.” Linda pulled on some black slacks and a black shirt. “Okay, babe, you wait here. We’re going to sweep the car and once we’re sure it’s fine, we’ll wave them on up to the house.”
“Linda, it’s Andy,” Phil said. “We don’t really need all the security rigamarole, do we?”
“Phil, sweetie, it’s only because it’s Andy that we’re even allowing this late-night visit in the first place,” Linda said. “Normally, this time of night, I’d tell whoever it is it could wait until morning, but Andy’s earned our trust. I know he’s one of your best friends, and we’re bending all sorts of security rules to let him come see us this late, in person, unplanned. So, you be a good boy and wait up at the house until we send them through, okay?”
“Yes Linda,” Phil grumbled, grabbing a Lupin the 3rd t-shirt, as well as some sweatpants, as he headed to take a quick shower. Once he was done with that, he headed out front. He moved to sit down on the steps of his front porch and watched in the distance as the gates opened, allowed a single car to come in, then closed behind it, before the two women searched the car very thoroughly, taking turns sweeping both the vehicle itself and the occupants. He could respect Linda’s need for scrutiny but hated the fact that his life had devolved to the point where a friend calling him for help in the middle of the night could be seen as anything other than a friend in need.
Eventually, the two women hopped into the car, and Phil took that as his cue to get back inside of the house. Linda didn’t like him being outdoors without security, even when it was on his own property. She was paranoid, sure, but her paranoia had kept him alive and well, and he was going to continue to trust that.
He moved into his house and headed to his cluttered living room. Any day now, Phil had expected his staff to finally just decide to organize everything for him, but until they did, he would continue to live as he always had, where there were stacks of books, comics, manga and trading card game cards of all sorts—Pokémon, Magic: The Gathering and Endless Empires, the three most notable, but at least half a dozen other failed TCGs like Shadowfist and Netrunner—strewn haphazardly around the place, having been just brought over from his old house when they’d all been moved to lock in within the New Eden grounds. But there were two open couches, and a couple of large armchairs, all of which were clear enough for people to sit, mostly pointed towards Phil’s truly embarrassingly large television set.
Linda came in first followed by Lexi, Andy’s new chief of security, with Andy, Niko and Violet out in the hall for a minute. Phil looked over at Linda, who sighed giving him a little shrug as she moved over to whisper in his ear. “Don’t panic, but Andy knows at least something about Niko’s background is fishy. I don’t think Andy cares all that much, but Niko’s a little shaken by it. They’re talking it out. Don’t. Panic.”
He’d known Andy long enough to know not to panic. What Phil was going to do, though, was mix himself a stiff drink. He knew he didn’t want to go too hard, because Phil was also aware he couldn’t handle liquor all that well, but he still poured himself a few fingers of premier Japanese whiskey—Yamazaki single malt aged 12 years—as he turned to look at Andy moving into the room, shaking his head with a little laugh. “Okay Andy, you woke me up and I know you wouldn’t do that without some serious reason, especially since I’m bringing the family over to your house in...” He glanced at his watch, checking the time. “Fifteen hours. What’s so important that it couldn’t wait a day?”
“I think maybe Gregor Vikovic is being held hostage,” Andy said, as Phil felt his breath catch in his throat. “Maybe it’s Covington and his people, maybe it’s the Russians trying to get a foothold into New Eden, I don’t know. But I do know that when I talked to Gregor less than an hour ago, he was clearly talking to me under duress.”
“Are you sure, Andy?” Niko said. Phil could tell she was a bit shaken by the fact that Andy had figured out something he wasn’t supposed to, but also that she was certainly surprised about how forgiving he’d apparently been about her keeping secrets from him. That was just the kind of guy Andy was—if you were hiding things from him, and you had a good reason, he wasn’t going to be mad about it long term. That took a lot of getting used to, but was something Phil had never taken for granted, especially with how much he had to hide from Andy on a regular basis. “I was there too, and he mostly just sounded tired. Maybe we did wake him up.”
“Start from the beginning,” Linda said, her tone all business. She knew at least a little bit why Phil had tensed up. Gregor Vikovic had been providing them with intel about what was happening behind the Iron Curtain regularly. In fact, he was nearly the only source of information about what was happening within Russia, and Phil’s first thought was that maybe the Soviet Secret Police had sent someone to silence him for good, although if Andy and Niko had talked to him, that didn’t quite align with their methods of problem solving.
“Earlier tonight, I got a text message from Gregor’s phone saying, simply, ‘HELP ME.’ I texted back, ‘Who is this?’ because I didn’t recognize the number and reply came back almost immediately saying ‘GREGOR.’ I texted back, asking what he needed help with, and he started to type a reply but then stopped. I waited a little bit, and when I didn’t get a response, I sent a follow up, only to get no response to that. Then I called the number, and got Gregor’s voicemail, but when I went to leave a message, it told me the voicemail box was full.”
“Odd, but hardly this level of concern, Andy,” Phil said to his friend as he moved over to one of the big empty lounge chairs, slumping down onto it. That said, Phil’s danger sense was already starting to flare up, much like he expected Andy’s was. The idea of someone like Vikovic having a full voicemail didn’t make any sense. It took a lot of messages to fill up a voicemail box, and someone with as much business in play as Vikovic wouldn’t ever want to have someone hear that message when dealing with him. If anything, it sort of hinted at the idea that Vikovic had been off the grid for a bit. The last time Phil had talked to him had been over a week ago. Certainly enough time to fill up a voicemail box.
“So, we went over to Gregor’s house,” Niko said.
“Did he look fine?” Linda asked.
“We never saw him,” Andy replied, moving over to sit down on one of the couches, before Lexi sat on one side of him and Niko sat on the other. “They didn’t let us past the gate. He claimed that he’d given that phone to his daughter Sonya, and that she must have been playing a game or something.”
“You said the incoming message on the voicemail box was still him, though?” Phil asked, wondering if they’d caught what he’d just heard.
“Yep,” Andy said, tapping his temple, confirming that he’d caught it too.
“If he gave the phone to his daughter, why wouldn’t she change the outgoing message?” Niko said, having caught it as well.
“And we’re not even at the part that made me really nervous,” Andy said as he took Niko’s hand and interlaced his fingers with hers, something that seemed to take the edge off for her at least a little bit. “And it’s not something that anyone else would’ve caught. Right before he sent us on our way, he told us he ‘takes too much joy in the game of poker.’ But the night we were playing, he specifically told me, ‘Fun has no place in poker.’”
“That feels a little flimsy, Andy,” Phil said to him. ‘Flimsy’ was being generous. It felt like the sort of obscure clue that only made sense to people in murder mysteries. But Phil had gotten a long way in life by learning to trust Andy’s hunches, and if Andy said he was feeling a hunch here, Phil knew that he would be dismissing it at his own peril. He wasn’t saying he didn’t believe Andy, only that he didn’t know if there was enough for them to act on.
“I know how it sounds, Phil, but trust me when I tell you this—the idea of Gregor Vikovic taking joy in poker goes against literally everything I saw of the man during poker night,” Andy said, concern writ large on his face. “He was all business, all the time, and fun never entered the picture, not once.”
Andy’s description lined up with Phil’s own impression of the man, that Vikovic was very Russian and didn’t take joy in fun and frivolity. Vikovic’s joy had come from getting the better of others on deals, and from screwing over what enemies he’d left behind in Russia. Poker was something that smelled too much like luck to feel like it belonged inside of the Russian’s wheelhouse.
“Anything else?” Linda asked. Phil could see Linda was caught somewhere between wanting to believe Andy but also her desire for nothing else to go wrong in New Eden. The lockdown had been intended to solve problems, and instead, it had felt like they were just turning over one rock after another to uncover an endless collection of worms, maggots and writhing bugs. But even Linda’s wanting to see this as just someone being unavailable looked like it was fading, especially as they continued talking.
“I was talking with Nathaniel Watkins not too long ago, and he mentioned that Gregor had canceled on their lunch meeting, but that Gregor didn’t call himself, and his wife Katrina called instead, which Nathaniel said had never happened before,” Andy said. “It’s a lot of little things, but I think it adds up to something.”
“It is odd that both times, nobody’s seen Gregor,” Linda said, but there was a certain amount of exhaustion in her voice that implied this should be Somebody Else’s Problem. Not that Linda didn’t like solving problems herself, but just because she’d clearly had an assful of this mess being dropped in her lap. “I don’t know if we’re talking full Red Alert level of panic, but it’s certainly something we should be keeping eyes on. Maybe we can talk to the mayor about doing a wellness check on him tomorrow?”
“You know,” Niko said. “If it really was his daughter, why not just send us a message from that phone now saying everything is fine? That seems like a very easy way to solve the problem. The fact that they didn’t do that does make all this feel just a little bit more off. What do we know about Gregor Vikovic?”
Linda grabbed a tablet from one of the tables scattered around the room, tapping it to bring it to life, before making a handful more taps. Phil knew his baby didn’t know how to leave work in the office, and so she generally always had her tablet around within arm’s reach. It had been by the bed last he’d seen it, so, clearly, she’d brought it out to the living room when he’d gone to take a shower. “Let’s see... Gregor Ulianich Vikovic, dual citizen of Russia and the United States. Gained US citizenship in 2005. Most of his money comes from shipping, as the owner of Vikovic Import/Exports, as well as the owner of a small fleet of cargo ships.”
“Small?”
“It says here only, like, eight.”
“Eight cargo ships are not a small fleet, Linda,” Niko said with a laugh. Phil saw the scowl Linda had shot her subordinate, but it was clear that people liked to be reminded that Linda could be human after all and had gaps in her knowledge about certain things. Phil did find himself wondering how Niko had picked up knowledge about international shipping, though, although Linda’s lack of concern seemed to imply she came by it fairly. “Those things are huge, so that means he’s doing massive international business, moving things in and out of all sorts of countries. I imagine a lot of that got shut down what with the two viruses going around.”
“So, remarkably no,” Linda said, scrolling through the tablet. “At least that’s not what it says here. He’s been moving containers back and forth, and while a lot of them are sitting in ports around the world, automated loading and unloading systems have made most of it pretty painless, and the guys he’s got working the ships just don’t get off them at any point, so they’ve been running mostly without incident, although it says here there was one ship that was nearly lost at sea. One guy lived long enough to get it to throw anchor just offshore near the port of Los Angeles, and he sent a reclamation team in to remove the bodies and sanitize it down, to get it back to work, this time with paired up crew and partners. There’s even some press release he put out saying ‘business never sleeps, so neither do we.’ It sounds like he’s even making inroads, trying to set up in-country shipping, with a team of truck drivers, each of whom gets their own partner. The immunity numbers aren’t great, but it’s better than nothing, and they’re mostly staying inside their trucks, so maybe it’ll work. Nobody’s really sure at this point.”
International shipping had mostly been on hold, but Vikovic had insisted that it really wasn’t as difficult as everyone was making it, and he’d been transporting things during the entire shutdown, just with as much automation and as little as possible. Supposedly Vikovic had even been paying hazard pay out of pocket for inspectors who were willing to come and check containers to make sure they matched what they were said to contain or at least claim that they did. Phil had his doubts about whether or not the chambers were actually being inspected, but without proof, it seemed like it wasn’t worth the hassle to push back. But his business was, at least, moving forward somehow.
“Wait,” Violet said. “You said they’re just leaving shipping containers in the ports?”
“Yeah,” Linda said. “Customs is incredibly short-staffed, and so are truck drivers, so there’s been a lot of trouble in getting goods moved around.”
“Which means a bunch of those containers are going unchecked,” Violet said. “So, say, you were smuggling in Russian hitmen or spies...”
“...it would be a great fucking way to do it,” Linda finished for her. “Shit, that’s a good thought.” She tapped away at the screen more, checking on some of the containers Phil had told her about earlier, seeing only some of them even had people claiming to inspect them. Some were moving without even claims of inspections. “There are thousands of containers laying in ports all across the country right now. No way we would have time to check them all, even if we wanted to.” Linda looked at Andy. She didn’t want to tip their hand that Phil had been talking to Vikovic every now and again for his opinions on Russia. Phil wanted to keep plausible deniability in case things went south. “You’ve talked to Gregor more than anyone here. You think he’s capable of smuggling in foreign operatives?”
Andy shrugged. “I certainly don’t know him well enough to make that call. He certainly didn’t strike me as the type of guy who wanted to go back to Russia again any time soon, though. I asked him about it over the poker game, and he said he wasn’t sure if he went back that Putin wouldn’t just have him killed on general principle. I thought maybe he was joking, but Gregor said he and Vlad were ‘going in different directions,’ so maybe it’s not Russian military.”
“Hey Phil,” Niko said. “Did your Mrs. McCallister mention how she and her friends managed to get back into the country?”
“I didn’t ask,” he lied, but in truth, the exact details were still somewhat fuzzy to him. He’d heard a couple of different stories about how it got done, but at the end of the day, all he really cared about was that it got done. The particulars? Those could wait until he had what Mrs. McCallister was promising in his hands. That wasn’t just the important thing; it might’ve been the only thing that mattered at that moment. The idea that Mrs. McCallister had found a way to reassign people without the man in the link having to die? That was a game changer. That was the sort of breakthrough they’d been looking for over the last several months. Phil didn’t even much care how they got it, just that they did. “I was hoping you might do that. Why?”
“Because containers like that are a good way to move people internationally discretely, assuming you plan for it properly,” Niko replied. Clearly she felt like Andy had earned enough of their trust to include him in conversations that were had behind closed doors on the base. Phil supposed he couldn’t blame her—they were engaged to be married after all. “Maybe Gregor wasn’t in the human trafficking business before but took it up once the pandemic hit. that briefing we got last week?”
Linda nodded. “Right right.”
“What briefing?” Phil asked, genuinely confused what his partner and Niko were talking about. “I wasn’t in any briefing.”
“Phil. Honey. As hard as this may be for you to believe, you are not aware of everything that’s going on with this damn virus right now. Last week, Niko, Violet and I were all in a briefing given by the General informing us there’s something of a humanitarian crisis going on, with loads of people trying to flee the countries that aren’t reacting to DuoHalo very quickly. No men, just containers of women, being managed by women, all trying to escape to a country where they can get some protection, and to get the Quaranteam serum.”
“Oh fuck,” Andy muttered, a sentiment Phil found himself agreeing with whole heartedly. And Phil could understand why they’d kept it from him. It would’ve only added more pressure to his need to find ways to repartner people, or speed up the mass production of the serum, even though they were at full clip now already, and had been for almost a month.
“Fuck is right. Some of the less developed countries are looking at even higher fatality rates than it’s being reported, and women are fucking scared,” Linda said, moving over to slide herself to sit on the arm of Phil’s chair, her hand running through his jet-black hair calmingly. “And it’s not just the countries you would think it would be, either. Places like Saudi Arabia, , Spain, Sweden... lots of people are convinced their governments are going to collapse. For the first time in a long time, the world is looking to us to lead them out of this mess.”
“Even if all that’s true,” Andy said. “Why would Gregor want to draw attention to himself, then? The messages, the ducking out of regular get togethers...”
“Maybe one of his business partners turned on him,” Violet suggested. It was certainly a theory that merited some consideration, especially since many of the Russians hadn’t seemed to be doing very well, or to think very highly of Vikovic.
“Or maybe the house has been taken hostage,” Niko countered. That idea was even more terrifying and the last thing Phil wanted to consider, but it seemed too implausible. Besides, who would even have gotten onto New Eden’s grounds and do such a thing?
“Or maybe, just maybe, we need a whole shitload more intel before we jump to any conclusions,” Linda said, raising her hand, as if trying to calm the whole thing down. She was right, and it was also likely that she had access to a lot more information than she felt comfortable revealing in front of Andy, no matter how much Phil trusted him. “But you’re right, Andy. All of this does add up to something strange going on over at the House of Vikovic.
“Agreed, we definitely need to learn more,” Andy said. “But I didn’t want to let it go without bringing it up ASAP.”
“Speaking of ASAP things, Andy,” Phil said to him. “Since you’re over here, maybe you can go and hit Evie McCallister’s place tonight, before you crash for the night? I can give you the directions, and you can tell me what happens. She’s been getting pretty anxious, which means I think it’s been a while she dosed last from her husband. The sooner I have proof this rewiring sperm of Sergei’s works, the better off I’ll be.”
Andy turned to look at Linda. “Is the place secure?”
The blonde Captain nodded. Despite the fact that nobody seemed to be keeping an eye on the place, Phil knew that Linda had the place bundled up tighter than Fort Knox. “I’ve got a couple of my best girls sitting on the house, making sure everything’s copacetic. They don’t know why, but they know nobody goes in or out without my say so.”
“So how about I stop by tonight, pitch Watkins to her, explain how it’s all going to work, then, as long as she agrees, I can bring Nathaniel by tomorrow before the party, so Niko will have all the samples to give you there, and everything looks like we’re just going about our lives, being normal people,” Andy said.
“You know, you fell into this spy business very easily, Andy,” Phil said in iration. He’d hoped that Andy would be capable and that he’d handle cloakroom politics well, but his friend had been even better than that. Dealing with black book ops, keeping secrets from people, hiding information—Andy had fallen into it all quite naturally.
“I write about a Druid Gunslinger for a living. You know how complicated my plots get. People are just like that, only harder to read.”
Phil nodded. The thing he was most worried about was Mrs. McCallister losing control of herself. The escape from her husband had been some time ago, and while he assumed she might have a little bit of extra leeway considering how early a version of the serum she got, he didn’t want to risk her being too out of control that she did something to hurt herself or others. The longer they waited, the more likely that possibility became. “Plan sounds good, although , Evie’s going to be skittish, especially since she’s nearing the break point for not having her fix.”
“How far into the cycle is she?” Niko asked Linda.
Linda shrugged, not because she didn’t want to give a specific answer, but because she didn’t have one. Their information on Mrs. McCallister’s escape had been extremely limited, and they were almost flying blind in several ways. “Seven, eight days maybe. She’s not at the ten day make-or-break point, but she’s not far from it. Getting her reassigned to Watkins sooner would be better.”
“Fine fine,” Andy said. “Tonight, I prep her, tomorrow we get her reassigned to Nathaniel, and tomorrow night, you have your blood work so you can start seeing what this variant is like.”
Everyone rose up from their seats, and there were hugs all around, something they’d been doing a lot more lately, as if they’d taken the privilege for granted before. “Stay safe, first and foremost, Andy,” Phil told him. “If it’s between the reassignment sperm and your life, you win that every day, got it? This shit is not worth risking your life over.” He wasn’t entirely sure he meant that, but he felt like he should. Andy was one of his best friends, and while they were talking about something that could redefine the way the serum worked, Phil had to believe if they didn’t get it here, they could get it elsewhere. Otherwise what kind of friend would he be?
“Got it. I’ll see you tomorrow, brother,” Andy said. “You’ll have your answers soon enough.”
“And I’ll have an update about Vikovic for you at the party tomorrow, Andy,” Linda told him. “You scratch our back, we scratch yours.” Violet moved to escort the Rooks back to their car, Andy and Phil exchanging a fist bump before they did.
As soon as Andy, Niko and Lexi were out of the house, Phil turned to Linda, all business, knowing things had definitely gone south. “How much more information can you get right now without leaving the house?”
“Some, but not a lot,” she said, immediately reaching for her tablet. “So we’ve got cameras at most of the major street intersections in New Eden. Perks of being a military base as much as it is a town. Let’s see here.” She tapped and loaded up the cameras around Vikovic’s house. “Nothing unusual coming or going, looks like. We’ve got SUVs going in and out of the house, but thermal makes it pretty clear Vikovic isn’t in any of them, and we don’t have cameras inside his house. Let’s see here. I’ve got some automation stuff that’s in early stages, just in keeping track where movers and shakers are in New Eden. Let me run a search and see what I come up with.”
The server’s processing symbol came up, and spiraled around for a minute before it gave off a pleasant chirp and returned a result. “What’s it say?”
“Last known clip of Vikovic on the base cameras was… huh..”
“What’s that?”
“The last known clip of Vikovic on the base cameras is on the evening of the 10th,” Linda said, loading up a clip of the Vikovics driving up to their home, the gate opening and closing behind them. “And based on the body temps shown on the camera, he looks like he was in a shouting match with his wife in the back of their car.”
“Christ, that was the day Veronica Delacruz was killed,” Phil said, shaking his head. “Andy said he suspected Covington was involved, but I wonder if any of the other card players knew about it. Covington’s got his little gang, and in for a penny, in for a pound, so they had to know it was their necks on the line if he gets caught. Maybe Covington told them?”
“Sure, but if so, why would Vikovic tell his wife? Unless we think Vikovic’s wife was in on it…”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Phil said. He snapped his fingers as a thought occurred to him. “You know what might, though. If Covington’s wife found out, and if she called all the other wives of the men involved in the poker group.”
“Why not call someone at Andy’s house then?”
“Because Andy’s the interloper, and nobody knows what side he’s on,” Phil said, standing up and pacing a little bit. “That actually makes some sense. Covington kills Delacruz, or has her killed, and then calls the others to put them on blast, basically. And one of them mentions it to his wife, or has his wife around when the news goes out. Or maybe just Mrs. Covington calls the other wives herself and tells them about it.”
“What about Watkins, though?” Linda said. “He was at that game, and Andy’s been in with him a bunch lately.”
“Maybe the Watkins have an understanding. Maybe Mrs. Watkins didn’t get angry at her husband, or decided just not to make a major stink about it,” Phil said. “From what Andy’s said, she seems like one of the most rational women in this whole damn town. Vikovic’s wife? She struck me as the sort of fiery temper who would fly off the handle with any provocation and go all salting the earth levels of retribution all over the place. That might just be what this is.”
“Wait, you think Vikovic’s being held hostage in his own house?”
“I think it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility that Andy may be right, and that Vikovic just might have been trying to send an S.O.S. from his house, and got caught in the process,” Phil said. “I did speculate something like this was possible in early reports I made about the serum, where a group of women became disillusioned with their primary partner, and decide to take things into their own hands.” He tapped her screen, which was frozen on the image of the Vikovics heading into their house, the gate closing behind them. “I bet that’s what’s happening here.
“Do we tell Andy?” Linda said.
“And get him worried about a bunch of speculation?” Phil shook his head. “The thing about Andy I learned a long time ago is that he gives me more credit than I’m due. If I tell him, I think something might be happening, he’s going to convince himself I told him that it is happening. So I try not to worry Andy when it’s just things that might be, could be, maybe. Until we know for a fact they’re holding Vikovic hostage, we play it by ear. You put together a group to do a ‘wellness check’ on him first thing in the morning, and if they don’t let them in, or give you any guff, you put together an infil squad to find out what the fuck is going on in that house of theirs.”
“Whatever it is,” Linda sighed. “I bet it ain’t good…”