Have Body, Will Guard: Teach Me Tonight by Neil Plakcy

Author:Neil Plakcy [Plakcy, Neil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: LGBT Contemporary
Publisher: Loose Id LLC
Published: 2011-06-03T21:00:00+00:00

Doppelgänger

Liam drummed his fingers on the cheap wooden table as Aidan logged in to his e-mail program and waited while the message from Richard downloaded, with the photo attached.

“We won’t get anywhere if you break the table,” Aidan said. “Chill out.”

“A boy in our care was kidnapped, Aidan. What part of this situation don’t you understand?” Liam caught his breath. “I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. I screwed up, and it’s making me crazy.”

He had been put in a reactive position, and he hated that. He also hated that anyone had gotten the slip on him, and the fact that a client he’d been hired to protect had been kidnapped really messed with his head.

“You didn’t screw up. You did the best you could with the information you had. Now we’ll make things right.”

While the photo was downloaded, Aidan went up to the counter and ordered them both cappuccinos. The espresso machine was new and shiny, and there was a constant line of customers. Liam watched as the photo gradually appeared on the screen. He was staring at it when Aidan returned with the coffees.

“That’s him,” Aidan said, pointing at the scar over the man’s left temple. “His hair was shorter, and he had more of a five o’clock shadow. But that’s him.”

“You always have a good eye when it comes to men,” Liam said.

“Too bad I didn’t get a closer look at his crotch.”

“You’d probably have kicked him there.” Liam sipped his cappuccino, the caffeine beginning its run through his system.

“If I could have gotten closer, I would have.” The laptop beeped to announce another e-mail had arrived, and he clicked the envelope.

Richard had used his image-recognition software to match the mystery man’s face to a file of KGB operatives that had found its way into the public domain after the fall of the Soviet Union. The kidnapper’s name was Murat Dvorkin, and he’d been born in Ashgabat in 1961, when Turkmenistan was still a Soviet republic.

They moved closer together to read Dvorkin’s dossier. His father was a Russian soldier who had been killed in a military operation when Murat was five years old. His mother, a Muslim woman native to Ashgabat, died a year later, and Murat was placed in an orphanage in the capital, where he lived until he joined the Soviet Army at seventeen.

“You were right,” Liam said. “He was a soldier.” He scanned the café, conscious of the danger implied by the information on the screen. No one else looked European or American; the other patrons probably worked in the neighborhood or were patrons of the bus terminal across the street. Two young guys with tiny netbooks were surfing the Internet. No one was paying any attention to him or Aidan.

Liam went back to the record. Murat Dvorkin had been stationed in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion, and when his tour of duty ended, he transferred to the KGB and returned to Ashgabat, where he was detailed to the Soviet embassy. There was a list of operations he was suspected of taking part in.

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