4. CARSON

“I am thinking I need to go to England,” Maksim muses as he stirs his Bloody Mary. He takes a long swallow and lays back down on the Gulfstream’s leather sofa.

“Yeah?” I say from my seat. Unlike Maks, I like something a little more substantial than vodka for breakfast, so I’m tucking into a platter from the jet’s pantry. “Why is that?”

“They know how to drink like Russians,” he sighs. “Emily drank me over the table last night. Even at hotel.”

I resist the urge to correct him and focus on my eggs instead. Coincidentally, they’re done in the English style, creamy and loaded with butter, so even reheated they’re delicious. The sausage on the side is greasy and savory and exactly what I need to kill last night’s hangover.

Matthias will probably kick my ass in the gym when he finds out about it, but it’s worth it. I wash it down with fresh-brewed black coffee and look out the window at the summer sky. We’re flying into the past: New York is six hours behind Milan, so even though the flight is eight hours long, we’ll arrive only two hours after we left.

Not that time has a lot of meaning for people like Maks and me. It’s one of the many perks of not having to work for a living. It’s also what’s responsible – I think – for the sense of disconnection that’s dogged me over the past several months. The feeling that I’m untethered from the rest of the world.

Maks gives me a quizzical look. “Something wrong, tovarishch?” he asks, using the Russian word for friend.

I put down my cutlery on my empty plate and push the tray aside. What could possibly be wrong? I think. I’ve got everything anyone could ever want.

Don’t I?

“I’m fine,” I lie. “I just—Maks, don’t you ever get… I don’t know. Bored?”

He cocks an eyebrow. “Let go of my leg you are pulling on, Carson. Did you not take those two beautiful women to your bed last night?”

“Yes.”

“And do we not right now fly from Milan on your own jet back to New York City, the greatest city on the world?”

I run a hand through my hair and sigh. What am I talking about? When he puts it that way, how the hell can I believe I’m bored? Millions of men would trade places with me in a second. I can literally do anything I want, whenever I want, and, in a lot of cases, to whomever I want.

Maks finishes his drink and gets up to make another. I swear, the man has the constitution of a horse. He tilts the bottle in my direction and raises his eyebrows. I wave it off.

“Is it work you are looking for?” he asks. “Maybe you want to be boss again. Yes?”

“Hell, no,” I say. “I never miss the work. Software development wasn’t a career for me, it was just the means to an end.”

“What is this means, your end?”

I smile. Even when he doesn’t try, he’s hilarious.

“Sorry, I meant that I got into that field for the money. I didn’t enjoy it. After my father died, I realized that I didn’t want to be like him, to have my fate decided by other people.”

“Your papa was soldier, yes?”

“Yeah. We moved around all the time when I was a kid, from one base to another, as ordered. I didn’t want that kind of life. I always knew I was smart, and I wasn’t learning anything in college that I didn’t already know, so I dropped out and started Black Sword.”

“I have told you before, that is the awesomest name, my friend.”

“I know, I know. I went with a hacking defense system because I knew there was a huge gap in the market for it, not because it was particularly interesting. It took about six years to get it fully functional, but the second it was up and running, buyers were breaking down my door. And I guess three billion and change isn’t bad for a few years work. Plus stock options.”

“And so why you are bored here?”

“I don’t know. I guess I’m searching for a new challenge. Building my company was probably the last time I really used my mind properly, you know. After I got rich, I had a list of things I wanted to accomplish, and none of them had anything to do with my brain. First off was getting that six-pack I always wanted.”

Maks spreads his arms wide. “Mission is accomplished,” he says. “If I was the gay man, I would be up on you, like Snoopy Dog sings.”

“Snoop Dogg. And yes, thanks to Matthias and a lot of hard work. Once I had the new physique in place, all I could think of was making up for lost time with the ladies. I guess I’ve gone a little overboard in that department.”

That’s the understatement of the century.

When I discovered that women were starting to notice me, I made it my mission to seduce everyone I met who would have ignored me in high school. All the former cheerleaders, all the society types. What amazed me was how easy it all was. It’s like someone handed me the cheat codes to life and women.

“After awhile,” I continue, “I got so used to women falling for me that I started flirting without even thinking, and they started throwing themselves at me. Last night was a perfect example. They were lovely girls, but it was a foregone conclusion that I was taking at least one of them to bed. And, let’s be blunt, it’s not like I was going to be discussing chaos theory or the Fibonacci integer sequence with them afterwards.”

There was only one girl I ever really talked with, and I haven’t seen her in twelve years. I try not to think about her.

I don’t succeed, but I try.

Maks sits back in the sofa and stares out the window beside my head for several long moments. He seems to be debating something with himself, and I wonder if I’m going crazy. Looking to Maksim Orlov for life advice is like looking to a monk for sex advice.

He’s totally unequipped to answer.

“So if I am listening right,” he says, “you want something that will make you use your head and your khuy.” He uses the Russian word for – well, little head. As usual, he has absolutely no subtlety, but he’s hit the nail on the khuy.

“I guess you could say that,” I chuckle. “Don’t ask me how to put those two things together, because I don’t know.”

Maksim nods, and his expression is as serious as I’ve ever seen it, which is not at all what I expected.

“My friend,” he says. “I think I may know of something that might be what you are looking about.”

He leans close and lowers his voice to a whisper, as if we weren’t the only two people in the jet’s cabin. Antonio and Patrick, the pilots, are behind the cockpit’s soundproof door.

“You must promise that you will not talk about this to anyone. It is very important that you understand that.”

What’s this cloak and dagger bullshit?

“Fine,” I say, making the sign of the cross with a mocking grin. “I’ll take your secret to the grave… now what the hell are you talking about?”

“What I am talking about,” he says, “is the Chase.”