Free Blank Slate (A Kyle Jackle Thriller) by Zack Hamric

recessed lighting scattered throughout. I took a second to admire the interior of the boat-heavy on the teak and varnish and laid out the way an offshore sailboat should be-everything securely stowed, a galley that would let the cook strap in during the roughest weather at sea, and electronics in the nav station that would rival those on a boat twice her size. It just seemed right to me, nothing I could really consciously remember, but somehow at a much deeper level, I knew I was home.
    Four in the morning and the doors had finally closed on the Platinum Club and the last cop had left. It would be a night they wouldn’t soon forget, Dimitri thought ruefully-one of his bouncers in the hospital with a concussion, another in surgery trying to repair the sliced tendons in his hand, and cops poking their noses everywhere.
    It must have been one of the damn customers that called 911 during the fight-Dimitri usually preferred to solve his own problems in a way that left few witnesses and no cops. He rubbed his chest and winced-it felt like that big bastard had broken his sternum when he smashed him with the head butt on the way out the door. All that had come before was easy; what was to come next was much more difficult. He had to explain to his boss Sergei Popov how he had failed him. He hoped he would live to see the sunrise.

CHAPTER 11

    Dimitri had good reason to worry. Popov had already heard from his sources in law enforcement exactly what had happened. Sitting in his home on Fisher Island, Popov reflected on how his fortunes had taken him from a god-forsaken outpost in the Ukraine to this luxury penthouse in one of the wealthiest enclaves in America. Fisher Island was only separated from the end of South Beach by the turbulent waters of Governor’s Cut, but it might as well have been on a different world. Private, with fewer than three hundred residents and accessed only by a ferry, the clientele read like a Who’s Who of movie stars and the uber-wealthy. Popov was able to cultivate a persona as just another nouveau riche Russian without having to answer many questions from overly inquisitive neighbors.
    Twenty years before, he could have only dreamed of such a life he mused as he considered the vagaries of fate that had landed him on these shores. The fall of the Soviet Union had brought chaos and with that came opportunity for those bold and ruthless enough to seize it. Popov had been a career soldier who after years of struggle was finally promoted to the rank of Colonel-General in the Ukrainian army.
    He might have eventually ended up in the Ministry of Defense until he committed career suicide by sleeping with the wife of the mayor of Kiev. She certainly had been a fine piece of ass, squealing in bed like a street corner whore, but in retrospect, it probably was not such a good idea. In a different time or if the cuckolded husband had more connections, Popov might have simply disappeared forever.
    Fortunately, Popov had a few connections of his own and rather than disappearing or being forced to resign in disgrace, he was marked as unreliable and sent to a dead end command with responsibility for the maintenance and security of the nuclear weapons stockpile. Boring work until the early 90’s when the Soviet Union dissolved, leaving the Ukraine as the third largest nuclear power in the world.
    Over the next few years, these weapons were gradually returned to Russia for decommissioning and Popov made connections in the conventional arms side of the business. Bt the year 2000, he was illegally exporting surplus weapons systems ranging from submarines to tanks into trouble spots all over the world from the dark depths of the African continent to the tin pot dictators in South America.
    He was a wealthy man, but even the seemingly endless supply of weapons from the former Soviet Union was beginning to dry up-he needed to find another product to export. The answer came to him like a bolt out of the blue one evening while