by S L Shelton
“The couriers?” Bellos asked. “On a tactical mission?”
Harbinger flashed him a warning glare.
“Yes, sir,” Bellos said stiffly before exiting Harbinger’s room.
He stared at the door a moment after Bellos had left and wondered if he was being too soft on the man. Bellos reminded him so much of Jonathan…and Jonathan was one of the few people he had ever allowed himself to care about.
He leaned back on his groaning bunk and placed his head against the stone wall of his small cell. He could have had any room in the ancient structure as his own, but Harbinger lived as his men lived, ate as they ate, and fought as he expected them to fight—just as he had been trained as a boy.
Besides, the smaller room was easier to heat than any of the larger spaces, and his large frame lost heat at an alarming rate.
“I fucking hate the cold,” he muttered as he closed his eyes.
As he drifted off, he saw Jonathan’s face. The memory tugged at his chest, bringing with it—as all strong emotional responses did—rage.
Project Gold Rush: 1980s
Harbinger stood at attention in front of Father’s desk; blood was still running from a cut on his brow.
“Your brothers aren’t here for you to protect,” Father said. “They are here, as you are, to learn how to control the incredible gift you boys have been given.”
“Yes, Father,” Harbinger replied stiffly, calmly.
Father looked at Harbinger, measuring his response. “You do Jonathan no favors by interceding on his behalf,” Father continued after a moment. “You won’t be there to save him in battle. You are trained to be solitary creatures for a reason. You are animals that must be secreted away from everyone.”
“Yes, Father,” Harbinger replied. He then recited the pertinent portion of their credo. “We are animals, bred to lead and kill. The secret is in our bones.”
“Jonathan doesn’t have what you and the others have,” Father said after a moment. “We’ll be returning him to the Institute in hopes of rekindling the fire he was bred with.”
Harbinger’s chest contracted. The Institute—the place where all the boys had begun their education—was without hope of reprieve; they suffered daily torture, beatings, brainwashing… It was where they’d first learned to kill without remorse. Jonathan had barely made it out with his sanity. Had it not been for Harbinger being there every day to help talk him through the trauma, they would have “recycled” him then—Jonathan had no hope of surviving the experience a second time.
“Father,” Harbinger pleaded. “I’m certain that if I were to have one-on-one training time with Jonath—”
“It has been decided,” Father replied, clipped. “Perhaps he will return worthy of the family.”
Harbinger could feel the blood boiling behind his eyes and breathed out in release. The beast within is a slave, not a master, he thought, recalling a verse of his and his brothers’ nightly prayer. When the master no longer controls the slave, both will perish.
“Yes, Father,” Harbinger said after a moment of cleansing breath.
“Now go see Mother about those wounds,” Father said as he looked away.
“Yes, Father,” Harbinger replied. “Order received and understood.”
As soon as Harbinger was out of sight of Father’s office, he sprinted toward the infirmary. There, Mother was tending to an instructor. Harbinger stopped rigidly at the door and stood at attention until he was addressed.
“Yes?” Mother acknowledged him without looking up.
“Father directed me here for wound care,” Harbinger replied. “Reporting as directed.”
“Very well,” she said. “I’ll be with you as soon as I’ve tidied up some of your handiwork here.”
The trainer flashed a sneer at Harbinger, sending a surge of pride through him. Fear and frustration from an adversary are your greatest reward. He recited another passage of his nightly prayer to himself.
When Mother was finished with the trainer, she nodded Harbinger over to her.
“Thank you, Mother,” the trainer said as he left the room with a backward glance.
Mother shot him a disapproving glare before turning her attention to Harbinger.
“Harman,” she breathed out in disgust. “You aren’t here to hurt the trainers… They are here to hurt you.”
“Yes, Mother,” Harbinger said before looking up. “Mother?”
“Yes, Harman?”
“Did you know Jonathan is being sent back to the Institute?” Harbinger asked.
Mother looked up sharply, a concerned crease on her brow. “When did you hear that?”
“Father just told me.”
She pulled his broken finger straight without any noticeable response from Harbinger before she began to splint it.
“If Father is sending him back, there must be a good reason for it,” Mother replied, but Harbinger could tell it troubled her as well.
“He won’t survive,” Harbinger said quietly, testing the boundaries of their relationship.
Mother chewed on the corner of her lip as she set about stitching the lacerations on his face.
“It’s not good for you to be so attached to your brother,” she said quietly. “You know we started with forty of you. Only twelve are left.”
“Yes, Mother,” he replied unconvincingly.
“Still,” she said after a moment as she placed a clean bandage over his brow wound. “Maybe I can find a better placement for him.”
Harbinger smiled. “Thank you, Mother,” he said, unable to contain his gratitude. “I know he’ll improve if given the chance.”
“Not a word of this to anyone,” she cautioned.
“Oath given,” he replied and then recited, “A secret entrusted is in my bones. My life before my bones.”
She smiled and nodded. “That’s right, Harman…the secret is in your bones.”
four
Saturday, January 29th
8:35 a.m.—Antwerp, Belgium
I woke to Kathrin tracing circles on my chest with her finger. I turned my head after blinking the sleep from my eyes to see her chin resting on my shoulder, her eyes closed. I stared at her for a few seconds and she began to grin, but she kept her eyes closed.
“It’s Saturday,” I whispered. “We should sleep in.”
A soft, fake snore echoed from the back of her throat. “Shhh,” she hissed with a grin. “I’m sleeping.” Then she tweaked my nipple between her fingers.
I laughed as she returned to her mock snoring.
“Seriously,” she said more loudly. “I’m trying to sleep over here.”
“Sorry,” I muttered and rolled away, showing my back to her.
She crawled up behind me and draped her arm across my side, increasing the volume and cartoonishness of her snore.
I shook my head. No sleeping in this morning.
When her hand began crawling up my chest, like some sort of disembodied appendage, I remained quiet and let her play. But after a moment, her fingers began to rudely explore my mouth and nostrils—all as she continued to feign sleep. I pushed her hand off and rolled over on top of it, tucking her wrist under my arm.
“Easy enough to escape,” she said, unimpressed with my defensive move.
She pulled several times but was unable to extract her trapped hand.
“Cheat,” she whispered and leaned over to kiss my cheek.
When I turned my head to receive it, she brought the other hand up sharply as if to slap me. My hand responded of its own accord, blocking and then trapping the slap.
Kathrin’s eyes opened in surprise, seemingly impressed.
“That’s not bad,” she said. “Did they teach you that in the CIA?”
“No,” I said with a smug grin. “I knew how to fight off lustful groupies before I joined the CIA.”
“Lustful groupi—?!” She extracted her hand from under my arm and slapped my shoulder.
When I didn’t attempt to block it, she did it ag
ain more forcefully.
“Hey now,” I said, grabbing her wrist. “Someone’s gonna get hurt.”
“You bet you are, mister,” she said rolling over on top of me and straddling my hips. She began slapping me with her free hand. “Why don’t you teach me some of your fancy CIA groupie evasion combat moves…huh? Huh?”
One of her slaps caught my ear, so I reached up and grabbed her free wrist. She struggled briefly to free it and then wriggled her groin against me before leaning forward slowly to kiss me. After a long, lingering caress with her lips, she pulled back few inches and stared at me—I saw something aggressive in her eyes.
“Show me what you learned,” she whispered.
“What?”
“Your fighting,” she said with a grin, her eyes still holding that intense…something. “Show me what you learned.”
To hell with that, I thought.
I rolled over on top of her, pinned her arms above her head, and said, “Jujitsu first,” then proceeded to kiss her repeatedly.
“No!” she squealed playfully. “Is this how the CIA trained you?”
I laughed. “It makes for awkward situations in a group setting, but we are a tight-knit group.”
Without any warning, she kicked her legs apart, freeing them from mine before very deftly drawing one leg up between us and threading it under my arm.
For a brief flicker, I thought we were about to engage in very bendy sex. But that notion died quickly as she lifted her other leg and then locked them behind me.
“Don’t do something you’ll regret,” I cautioned her.
She powerfully raised her hips and back from the bed, flipping me to the floor.
I didn’t see that coming.
I lay on my back, staring up at her from the floor. Still on the bed, lying on her side with her head resting casually on her hand, she smiled. “Sorry. Can you show that to me again? I don’t think I got it the first time,” she said playfully, her foot bobbing back and forth in the air like a teenage girl on the phone with a boyfriend.
“I think maybe Nick hired the wrong instructor for me,” I replied as I stretched out on the floor.
“Nonsense,” she replied, taunting. “You fall better than anyone I know.”
“Think of all the fun we could have had for the last six months if you had been my trainer.”
“Oh, yes!” she said, her eyes wide with glee. “We could spend all day making each other sore, then all night soothing each other.”
We both laughed as she leaned over the edge of the bed to be closer to me. I mistakenly thought she was going for a kiss, and I leaned up to meet her.
“Seriously,” she said, her smile remaining but the intensity returning to her eyes. “Show me what you learned.”
I was torn. I did like the partnership we had shared last year, but it was difficult to look into the eyes of a lover and see her as a sparring partner.
“Okay,” I said, relenting to her obviously genuine desire. “As soon as we find a place to work out, we can start.”
She laughed gleefully, rolling on her back, clapping her hands and kicking her feet in joy. “I know the perfect place,” she said.
When her outburst had subsided, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and put her bare toes on my chest. She was a sight of angelic beauty in all her naked splendor.
“But can we wait a while?” I said, grinning. “I’m currently enjoying the view too much to think about anything else.”
She jabbed her big toe into my ribs and then hopped out of bed. “On your feet, soldier!” she said with false brass and bravado as she walked toward the bathroom. “We have a mission!”
I watched the perfect globes of her buttocks sway as she walked away. Once she disappeared through the door, I breathed out a satisfied sigh.
“If I must. The view has suddenly grown dreary anyway,” I moaned.
She poked her head around the doorway and stuck out her tongue before disappearing again.
“Breakfast, then work!” she yelled from the bathroom.
While she was out of the room, I quickly grabbed my phone and checked for messages and updates. Bellos’s phone still hadn’t popped up on my detection grid, and the only messages were from Nick, each asking for an update.
“Are you going to stay on the floor all morning?” Kathrin asked from around the corner.
“Just checking my messages,” I replied before tapping out a new text to Nick.
“Nothing of significance to report this morning. Waiting on new identity.” Both statements were true—I had just neglected to tell him that I had a phone number for one of Harbinger’s men and that I had Storc working on uncovering who was funding the couriers.
We dressed in sweats before going to the kitchen to prepare breakfast. As I walked in, she pulled a box of cereal from the cabinet and shook it at me as an offer to share. I just shook my head and reached into the fridge for eggs and bacon. She stuck her tongue out at me as she poured the Mueslix into a bowl.
“Don’t come crawling to me when you are seventy with two hip replacements and rheumatoid arthritis,” I muttered.
“If I have two hip replacements, I’ll be walking,” she said as she poured the milk. “And at seventy, I think I would be able to still kick you in the ass.”
She raised her foot behind her as if to do just that.
“If you say so,” I muttered after staring across the counter for a beat, trying to locate a spatula.
She shot me a nervous look as she walked past me and punched me in the shoulder playfully as she headed to the living room.
“Where’s your spatula?” I asked, closing the drawer.
“Check the drawer by the sink,” she said.
I moved over and opened it. No spatula. There were batteries, knives (including a mean-looking hunting knife), a tenderizing mallet, and a cell phone.
Hmmm.
“Nope,” I yelled and looked in the drawer next to it—empty.
Hmmm, again.
I pulled the café curtain aside from the opening below the sink and found a box with kitchen implements. I dug around for a moment and located what I was looking for.
“Found it,” I said stiffly. “Under the sink.”
She immediately appeared in the kitchen and threw her arms around across my back in a strong hug. “You can see how much I cook,” she said, kissing me on the back of the neck.
After she released me, she reached below the sink and pulled the box out, placing it on the counter.
“Let’s put this stuff where it belongs,” she said. “Now that I have a personal chef, we’ll be using it more.” She winked at me and began to put the kitchen tools in drawers as I turned on the stove.
“If you think I’m cooking for you, you’re insane,” I said, setting the cast iron skillet on the burner. “Not after the way you treated me this morning.”
She winked at me, but she lingered in the kitchen after putting away the utensils in the empty drawers.
“Don’t forget your mush,” I muttered.
She waved her hand dismissively. Why the charade, Kathrin? You aren’t fooling me. You must know that by now.
I made my eggs and bacon, making sure to add extra bacon for Kathrin. I knew as soon as she smelled it, she would want some. I loaded my plate up and went into the living room to eat next to her. As predicted, her meal had been reduced to soggy mush after she’d kept me company in the kitchen while I was cooking.
“So where are we going to work out?” I asked before shoveling a fork full of egg into my mouth.
“I have a surprise for you,” she said, smiling her devilish smile—the intensity had returned to her blue eyes.
I nodded and crunched down on a piece of bacon. As expected, Kathrin helped herself to several pieces from my plate.
“Hey!” I said, playfully smacking at her fingers. “Mine.”
Her fingers snuck over to my plate three more times, taking broken pieces at first, then finally snagging half of what wa
s remaining.
When we were done, she insisted on taking the dishes into the kitchen, grabbing at my plate as I rose from the sofa.
“I’ve got it,” I said in protest, grasping the edge. “I’m more than capable of taking care of my dishes. Besides, I have to clean the skillet.”
“After,” she said as she pulled my almost empty plate from my hands. I snatched the last piece of bacon just as she turned.
I shook my head as she disappeared into the kitchen. You are being so obvious… Please don’t be a bad guy, I thought with dread. I don’t think I could handle that.
She motioned me toward the front door, and I reached for my coat.
“You won’t need that,” she said over my shoulder.
I shrugged and flipped the two deadbolts open. Kathrin followed me through the door but then grabbed me by the collar as I started down the stairs.
“Where are you going?” she asked and released me before walking around the banister.
“Uh. Just warming up my legs,” I replied sheepishly as I turned and followed her.
She opened the door across the hall from her apartment without having to unlock it. Unlike the front door on her apartment, this unit had no shiny new bolts on it. She swung the door open into the darkened space and reached around the doorframe to flip on the light switch. What the light revealed was a space, the equivalent of two apartment units, with no interior walls. Only a central line of three support timbers interrupted the openness of the large, almost cavernous space.
I whistled. The echo from the bare brick walls on the opposite end bounced my tune back toward us. The space was about half the size of a basketball court. The wood plank floors looked worn smooth, and aside from a punching bag hanging from a timber in the far corner, the room was completely empty.
“Your own private gym!” I exclaimed. “I don’t guess your uncle is going to make much on rentals.”
She looked at me slyly as she began a stretching routine. “He wasn’t using it, so I moved in,” she said.
“Nice uncle,” I muttered.
“Not always,” she said, turning her head around sideways, stretching her neck.
We spent the next two hours discussing the finer points of defensive and offensive stances. I would show her something, and then she would mimic it. She was a very quick study. Occasionally she would ask, “What if you did this?” or “How would it work if this happened?” but for the most part, she watched, listened, and duplicated my movements.