Richard Castle: A Raging Storm

In truth, only his money made him attractive to the young women who frequently accompanied him to London’s most posh clubs. A big man, standing six feet, two inches tall and weighing nearly three hundred pounds, Petrov’s had a puffy, white, and round face. At age forty-two, he was balding, although his personal stylist did her best to disguise it by combing long strains of hair from the side of his head across his naked scalp. He favored loose-fitting, hand-tailored clothes and only wore black and white because he was colorblind. This morning, a pair of handmade platinum rimmed sunglasses copied from a photograph of a bespectacled Johnny Depp sat on his nose.

His hunting partner was shorter, standing five feet, six inches, and considerably thinner. Lebedev had a full head of bushy black hair, as well as two caterpillar like eyebrows. He was both a lawyer and an accountant, two trades which served him well as Petrov’s most trusted lackey and advisor.

Shortly before daybreak, they had left the forty-thousand-square-foot manor house that Petrov had purchased from the cash-poor heirs of the Duke of Madison. Walking side by side, they had crossed the lush fields and rolling hills of the Cotswolds.

With Rasputin racing a few feet in front of them, they had entered a tall grass area near a brook and trees. It was here that Petrov had killed the first bird. Afterward, he celebrated by opening a thermos bottle filled with black coffee mixed with vodka, Kahlúa, and amaretto. Lebedev had brought coffee, too, but it contained no alcohol. As the two men drank, Petrov’s bodyguards walked in a circle around them, safely out of hearing distance as they scanned the landscape for possible flashes of sunlight — reflections from a camouflaged shooter’s telescopic gun sight.

“The Americans will be sending people to question you about Senator Windslow,” Lebedev said solemnly.

“Should I see them?” Petrov asked. “Or go to the Daria ?” He was referring to his 439-foot-long yacht that had cost one billion dollars to build and was named after his mother. He kept it anchored in the Mediterranean Sea off the French Riviera. “It will be more difficult for them to interrogate me there.”

“I think you should meet with them. Otherwise, it will look as if you have something to hide.”

Petrov chuckled. “I do.”

“I should be present as your lawyer.”

“Perhaps, it was a mistake telling the CIA about the gold, instead of my British friends,” Petrov said.

“I disagree,” Lebedev replied. “The Americans have longer arms and are not as timid as MI-6. It was right to tell them. The Americans also have more to gain by helping us.”

Rasputin, who was waiting patiently at Petrov’s feet, began to pant loudly and whine.

“You have a scent, don’t you, boy?” Petrov said to his dog. He finished his drink. “Are you ready?” he asked Lebedev.

Tossing away the remains of his coffee, Lebedev put his stainless steel cup into his knapsack and said, “I’m ready.”

Leaning down, Petrov gave his dog the command: “BIRD.”

The spaniel bolted along a hedgerow, his snout floating inches above the ground. The sound of rustlings feathers and a cry of alarm caused both men to shoulder their shotguns. Another pheasant exploded into the sky, this one much smaller and faster than the first.

Petrov fired. His shot stopped the bird in midair. Bits of feathers blew away from its breast. It fell dead.

Cracking open his shotgun, Petrov said, “I promised you the second kill, my friend, but my instincts overruled my obligation.”

Lebedev shrugged. “There will be other birds for me.”

Rasputin arrived with the dead bird clutched in his mouth. Petrov petted the dog.

“You have someone watching the Americans,” he said.

“Yes, of course. One of our best.”

Lebedev reloaded and snapped the shotgun shut.

“Do you think Jedidiah Jones has told the FBI what he knows?”

Lebedev replied, “We can’t be certain. This is why you must meet with the Americans.”

Petrov grinned. “They think they are coming to interrogate me but I will be interrogating them.”

CIA headquarters

Langley, Virginia

How many layers does an onion have? What had brought Storm to this moment?

Jedidiah Jones had called Storm back to Washington, D.C., two weeks earlier to help solve a “simple” kidnapping. But that crime had proven to be more than a kidnapping and not simple at all.

Matthew Dull, the stepson of Senator Windslow, had been abducted while he and his fiancée, Samantha Toppers, were walking near the Georgetown University campus. Four hooded men overpowered him, forced him into a van, and sped away, leaving a hysterical Toppers on the sidewalk.

When the FBI failed to find Dull, Windslow had asked Jones to bring in a “fixer” — someone who knew how to track missing persons and didn’t mind coloring outside the lines. Jones had reached out to Storm and had cashed in a favor. A big favor.

Storm had been fly-fishing in Montana when the helicopter arrived. He was a man seemingly without any cares. This was because he was dead — at least to the world. He had successfully faked his own death four years earlier and gone off the grid. He’d done it to escape from Jones and a clandestine world that had tried to kill him, not once, but several times.

There had been a time in his life — before he’d met Jones — when Storm had been just another down-on-his-luck private detective with too many bills and not enough clients. He’d spent his days and nights peeping through windows at no-tell motels photographing cheating spouses and spying on able-bodied men who’d filed false workman’s compensation claims citing “bad backs.” Storm had scraped by. Barely.

But then Clara Strike had entered his world and turned it upside down. The CIA field officer had enlisted Storm’s help in a covert operation being run on American soil. Technically, the CIA was forbidden to operate inside the U.S., so she’d needed Storm as a front man. She’d taken advantage of his expert tracking skills, his patriotic spirit, and his then -trusting nature. She’d introduced him to Jones, and it had been Jones who’d drawn him further and further into the CIA’s web. One of his assignments had gone terribly wrong. Tangiers! It had ended with Storm lying severely wounded on a cold floor in his own blood.

Jones had rescued him. Storm had survived, but Tangiers had changed him. After that, he’d decided that he wanted out. And the only way for him to quit was for Derrick Storm — the roguish private eye and conscripted CIA operative — to die. In poetic fashion, he’d gone out in much the same way that he’d come into Jones’s world. Storm had perished in the arms of Clara Strike. She’d watched in stunned disbelief as the light in his eyes dimmed. He’d reached out for her, and she had taken his hand, squeezing it for the very last time. His death had seemed legitimate because it had been as close to a real death as possible — thanks to the wizards inside the CIA’s Chief Directorate of Science and Technology. The CIA scientists had used their magic to stop his heart and show no discernible brain waves. Storm didn’t know how they’d done this. He hadn’t cared. Death had freed him.

Or so he’d thought.

Jones had brought him back by cashing in Tangiers. Storm owed his life to Jones, and so he’d returned, supposedly for one final mission.

He had now come full circle. He was sitting across from Jones in his Langley office the day after Senator Windslow’s assassination.

“I warned you this might get complicated,” Jones said.

“Yes, but you somehow forgot to mention the Russian element when we first talked,” Storm said.