Consequences Unforeseen

Moscow - 12th June 1991 - Farewell Aleksandra

 

Moscow – 12th June 1991 – Farewell Aleksandra

Douglas watched Aleksandra move across to the door with a mixture of sadness and trepidation playing in his head. He glanced back at Fraser and saw only anger and regret in his boss’s hooded eyes.

Silence, normally a feature of comfort for these two old souls felt heavy and unnatural to Douglas in these few slow motion seconds as he heard the hallway door click shut with finality. Aleksandra was gone; she had not once looked back.

The tap in the sink unit of the room’s personal bar area began to drip with a rhythm of its own design and chased the silence away. To Douglas it sounded like a drum pounding in his head until he realized uncomfortably that it was his own heartbeat he was feeling and hearing.

When he could stand the incessant tap on the aluminum sink no more he rose and used the short walk to the bar to deepen his breathing, calm his thoughts and slow his heartbeat to its normal level. Some primal instinct was at play here and his level of adrenalin could be tasted on the back of his throat.

Fraser looked up as the movement pulled him back to the present and he spoke again for the first time in what seemed like a huge chasm of time. It had been mere minutes of course.

“You don’t look so good Bill, and I’m afraid that I’m not going to make it any better for you.

This shit with the PM is not what we needed right now and you and me, even although we have done fuck all wrong, are not exactly flavors of the month in our professional circles.”

These last two words he accented with a feigned upper crust English accent mimicking the falsely acquired tones of the “elephant in the room” the new British Prime Minister Joe Minor.

Douglas took a seat on one of the bar stools, but maintained his silence. He encouraged Fraser to continue with an open body posture and ‘come to me’ motion of his hands.

The gesture was not lost on Fraser, who continued,

“Most of it you know, so I’m no’ going to bore ye’ with the repeated facts. You an’ me have a unique ability to cut to the chase, as they say. So here’s the bottom line.

Since Gorbachev basically ignored him over the warning he offered up, and the Americans have upstaged him by sending Matlock to speak directly to Gorbachev, the idiot has ordered us to stand down completely and cancelled the entire fucking operation.

Your current assignment, laddie, is now officially over. Ye’ can go back to Japan and fuck yer brains out till yer heart’s content!

Oh and by the way, ye’ll not have any more future assignments under my direction, because I told the bastard to fuck off.

He wasn’t best pleased wi’ that sentiment, so I will not be continuing in my ‘current role’ either.”

Once again, ‘current role’ was said in the same fake and almost falsetto voice of the PM. It made Douglas chuckle to himself and he felt his Uncle John begin to rumble in the beginning of an outburst of impotent vehemence. Douglas shut him down before it could begin. He needed a clear and uncluttered head for the time being.

He said nothing, and Fraser, now on a roll, continued,

“Now interestingly enough, there’s a twist to this entire thing if you have a mind to continue your love affair wi’ Gorbachev.

For once, the Americans seem to be ahead o’ me in this little game of chess, and they tell me that a certain Mr. Brookhall has been courting you in Tokyo, and in that ‘other life’ you lead there, he’s got you involved in some business dealings that have diverted you away from your original cover assignment.”