The Export by J.K. Kelly (read along books txt) 📕

smiling for his guest. “This is live entertainment, much like a traveling circus.”

“Agreed. I was trying to be nice,” Matt quipped and then asked Ray to tell him what Matt didn’t know.

“So, you’re going to fix all this?”

“I’ll try my best.”

Ray told Matt that he and his father had agreed that Ray would take the fall. They’d tell Misha the baby couldn’t be the ambassador’s – that he’d had a vasectomy years before – and that she needed to take a cash payment and let this whole thing go away. But the “Old Goat” as they referred to the blackmailer – whoever was advising Misha – wasn’t buying it.

A knock on the office door brought Matt the very late lunch of much-needed coffee and sandwiches he had hoped would turn up at some point. He was starving. Ray drank a Coke and picked at some chips while Matt inhaled everything on his plate and then reached over to Ray’s tray and took his dessert.

“What?” Matt questioned with a laugh when the young man began to protest. “Snooze, you lose.”

They hadn’t spent much time together, but Matt liked the kid. He had seen many other young men and women born into money and power. Some drank the Kool-Aid and enjoyed the easy life as a result of it. Others turned their backs on the chartered paths to Ivy League schools. Some chose to get into trouble. Ray, he thought, chose trouble like most kids. The more his parents said no and restricted him, the more he rebelled. Matt also appreciated Ray’s candor and honesty. He hadn’t displayed any behavior to indicate he was holding anything back.

Matt told him so. “This is going well. I appreciate your being so open and forthcoming.”

Ray nodded and then sat up in his seat. “Two things,” he stated as he looked straight into Matt’s eyes. “I’ll do whatever I can to get us out of this mess, but I want two things in return.”

Matt nodded, raising his head slightly to encourage Ray to continue.

“You have to take me back to the States with you when you go.”

“And?”

“You owe me a brownie.”

Matt laughed. “Deal.”

“Last three questions, and then you’re free to go,” Matt said. Ray looked as though he was ready to be back home with his friends in Texas.

“First, does your mother know that both of you were having sex with Misha?”

“No, sir,” Ray replied.

“Second, do you know a girl named Anika?”

“No, sir,” he responded. Ray’s breathing had changed, and his eye contact had wavered. It was an outright lie, but Matt didn’t let on he’d noticed.

“Third, do you have any way of contacting Misha without her family knowing?”

“Just her cellphone, that’s the only way we ever communicated. But she stopped answering my calls and my texts the day she left the Embassy.”

“Give me her number just the same, and I’ll see what I can do.” Matt stood up, extended his hand for a quick fist-bump, and then thanked Ray for his time. “Let’s sit down again later tonight, maybe over a beer, and talk about Texas.”

Matt left the room ahead of Ray to continue his tour of the facility. He’d caught the scent of game playing and lies between the young man and his powerful parents, but he knew he’d have to be patient and watch as the players responded to his moves.

Lunch with the ambassador and his family had been canceled because of the incident with the Marine, so it was agreed they’d have dinner at Spaso at six o’clock instead. After finishing a slow and probing tour of the Embassy facility, and meeting many of the local Russian workers and transplanted American diplomatic staffers, Matt hitched a ride with Sarah Wilkerson to the ambassador’s residence.

Spaso House had been built in the early 1900s by a wealthy Russian industrialist and it showed. As Sarah’s black SUV turned to pass through the fortified security gates, no doubt added when Spaso became the official residence of the U.S. Ambassador in 1933 or perhaps just after World War II, Matt sat back and felt as if he was arriving at Jefferson’s Monticello or perhaps FDR’s Hyde park in New York. Tall white columns, similar to the portico at the White House in Washington, made him feel as if he was back home rather than in this cold, hard place. Spaso was painted in a drab yellow, which made him warm to the place, but the massive satellite dish overhead on the roof reminded him again of where he was. Once inside, the atmosphere changed for him immediately. There was more red, white, and blue and a large amount of gold trim just about everywhere. All that was missing were fireworks, hot dogs and apple pie. Perhaps they’d come later.

“Dinner’s at six on the dot, so don’t be late,” Sarah said and then handed him off to a domestic staffer who led Matt to his room on the second floor in the rear of the 100-year-old building.

He’d have 30 minutes or so to unpack. Instead, he took the time to meticulously inspect every inch of the room and its contents. Russians were famous for bugging bedrooms. Whether they had done so, or perhaps his own government had, he wasn’t taking any chances. Once he felt sure the room was safe, he took a few minutes to throw his clothes in a drawer. He thought about Bella and how much he wished he was having a beer on her right now, or perhaps hiking in the foothills below the Matterhorn in Switzerland. A minute later, a knock at the door brought him back to reality.

“Mr. Christopher, it’s Sergeant Hadden,” the familiar voice announced through the door. “I’ve brought you something.”

Matt opened the door and gestured for the Marine, now dressed in civilian clothes, to come in. Hadden waited for the door to close all the way and then placed an olive-green plastic box on Matt’s bed. Opening the box, he removed a black 45-caliber Sig semi-automatic handgun, pushed the