Removing the Wool

Deal with the past and move on. We have bigger fish to fry."

Yekov slammed the phone down in disgust and pressed the intercom on his desk.

"Yuri, ask Agent Berbitov to come in here. No bullshit, here now."

Yekov drummed his fingers, and looked up as Berbitov entered noisily.

"You rang?" Berbitov mumbled.

"I want Nojovski officially classed as a rogue spear. It’s been too long."

"So we’re using Yank terms now?"

"We don’t have a term for what Nojovski is, so yes, we’ll make do with the American phrase. This is Class 4 classified, so if anyone outside this room becomes aware of the situation, you’ll be the first to take the fall. Is that clear?"

"Good to know I’m being given an option. You tell me, then warn me, so that I have no choice but to say yes."

Yekov grinned slyly. "I know you Ivan. I know you’re fed up working Narcotics, and when it comes to sorting out Nojovski; there is nobody else better qualified. You’d have said yes the second I mentioned his name."

Berbitov stood silently, before a quiet smile spread across his face.

"I’ll see what I can do."

He turned and left the room.

Yekov picked up the file containing Nojovski’s details, and placed it in the bin. He lit a single match, and threw it in after the file. He smiled sadly as he watch the data burn.

"It didn’t have to go like this Dimitri. We killed your wife to make you focus, but still you tried to make sense of a senseless world. From one Ukrainian to another, let me help make it clear."

**

Nojovski looked at his watch. 4 minutes and the next shift would be piling off the bus, eager to get in out of the rain and pile round the steaming coffee machine. 4 minutes to prove the nagging thoughts that had been building in his mind since Katie… had gone.

He shook his head, and walked stealthily towards the hallway marked "Maintenance".

It was a little known fact that if you want to know something about a computer system, you don’t go to the top - you go to the bottom. That is, you don’t go to the person who has the highest security clearance, you go to the person who makes the security clearances. The low level IS Technicians who spent their days making paper planes wouldn’t have the impenetrable offices, the flash cars with their alarms, or the highly trained security guards.

Nojovski clicked open the door to Maintenance using a single paper clip, and walked inside.

He headed over to the desk when he suddenly stopped in his tracks. There, in front of the terminal, was something he had not accounted for. The technician. Nojovski hid in a dark aisle of racking, and watched the problem type slowly at his terminal. He did a quick recon of the surrounding area, before climbing the nearby racking. Once at the top, he pulled out a small pair of binoculars to have a better look at the technician. He was in his late thirties, with a definite beginning of a beer belly. He looked very tired, and several empty crisp packets were lying around him on the floor. This was a guy from the last shift, who for some reason, hadn’t gone home. Dimitri focused on the man’s hands, and let out a small chuckle.

The man’s watch had stopped on 5:54am.

**

Berbitov’s hand stung. It was that numbing stinging that he knew would still be with him in the morning.