Page 6 of Dark Chains: First Link
What if no one answered? What if the phone on the other end was turned off, or the person who usually took Losham's calls was not in the room?
It was the middle of the night on the island, which meant it was late morning in Los Angeles, where the other immortals were supposedly based.
"Losham?" A male voice answered, sounding mildly surprised. "Is everything all right?"
Mattie's heart slammed against her ribs.
This was it. This was the moment that would determine whether their plan would materialize or burst into flames, incinerating them.
"This is not Losham. This is Doctor Dimitri Volkov. Also present are Doctor Konstantin Petrov, my girlfriend and lab assistant,Matilda Johnson, and eight enhanced soldiers who are offering to help us escape from here. We need your help."
There was a long moment of silence that was so dense it could have its own gravitational pull.
What was happening on the other end of the line? Was the guy still there?
"Do you know who you're talking to?" The man sounded cautious but not hostile.
"I don't know who you are, sir," Dimitri said. "But we know that you and your people are immortal, same as the people of this island, but unlike them, you are the good guys."
A chuckle came through the speaker, brief and dry. "That about sums it up. My name is Onegus, Doctor Volkov. May I ask how you got Losham's phone?"
Onegus. It was a Scottish name, and Mattie could hear the trace of a Scottish accent. It wasn't thick, more like a hint of flavor that surfaced in certain vowels and disappeared in others.
"We borrowed it from him," Dimitri said. "We will return it before he wakes up, and he will never know it was missing."
"So, he's alive." The man sounded relieved.
It seemed that the clan needed Losham. He was useful to them, which meant they had a vested interest in keeping him in his current position of authority.
That was leverage, or at least context.
She would think about what it meant later.
"Yes," Dimitri said. "We wish him no harm."
"Good, because we need him." The response was blunt. "Just make sure to erase your call from the record."
"We will."
Petrov scribbled something on his notepad and angled it toward Dimitri, who glanced at it and nodded.
"Given that you are asking for help and the phone has to return to Losham soon, we don't have much time. I need to get a few more people on this call, and it will take me ten to fifteen minutes to assemble my team, so I can probably call you back in about twenty. Is that okay with you?"
"Yes, but you are correct about the time issue." Dimitri glanced at his watch. "It's two-thirty in the morning here, and the phone needs to be returned before four."
An hour and a half. That was all they had. An hour and a half to convince these other immortals that their story was real, their intentions were good, and their plan, which even Mattie had to admit sounded insane, was worth pursuing.
"Then we should hurry up," Onegus said, and the line went dead.
Dimitri lowered the phone and stared at it for a moment, then placed it on the nightstand.
"He didn't hang up on us," Mattie said. "That's encouraging. And he didn't sound alarmed or angry. He was polite."
"That's your takeaway?" Petrov set down his pen and crossed his arms. "A man representing a secret society of immortals just learned he's being contacted by the enemies of his enemy, and your first observation is that he didn't hang up and he was polite?"
"Well, yeah. What else am I supposed to deduce from the little he said?" Petrov could be so annoying sometimes. He was a good guy, but his Russian sarcasm was grating on her nerves. "He said he needed to assemble his team to talk to us. He seemed to be taking us seriously."
Petrov considered this, then conceded the point with a grunt.
