Storm Rising

by Ronie Kendig

  “But if he’s regressing . . .”

  “Yeah.” Iliescu roughed a hand over his face. “We have a ton of trouble. We should meet. Make a plan.”

  “Think it’s that bad?”

  “I . . .” Dru moused over to the other file. Pulled up the dossier on Viorica. Then he eyed the video again. “I’m worried about someone he seems to have paired up with.”

  “Paired up?”

  “An assignment. He’s acting as protector.”

  “Female?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s your problem right there. The protective instinct is one of the strongest, especially in a soldier—maybe the primer’s heightened factor isn’t limited to danger to himself but also applies to this woman. I can speak from experience that a soldier’s definitely in a state of vigilance when protecting an innocent child or woman.”

  “This woman doesn’t meet the ‘innocent’ qualifier.” Dru huffed. “Meet me at the tarmac. We can figure out how to handle this en route.”

  “To where?”

  “Cuba.”

  “Seriously?”

  “It’s that or . . . you know what I have to do if he goes active.”

  * * *

  UNDISCLOSED LOCATION NEAR CUBA

  Wearing sweatpants and a blue long-sleeved shirt with the American Air Force logo on it, Iskra knew her time and options were limited. She sat quietly at a table in a conference room with a tray of cafeteria food. Though she’d tried to read the patches on the security team, she hadn’t been able to figure out what secure location they’d come to.

  “How’s your leg?” the pale-eyed American asked, sitting in the chair facing her. He’d showered, too, and wore a black shirt and tactical pants.

  “Fine.” She had bigger concerns now. “I’m worried.”

  “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “Noble words.” She smiled, toying with the edge of a napkin. She cleared her throat, mind pinging since she’d lain in that MRI tube, wondering, thinking. “If I have a tracking device”—it galled her that Hristoff would microchip her the way people did their pets—“you have to leave it alone.”

  He cocked his head to the side, brows knotted. “What?”

  “It is for the best.” She scooted the sloppy potatoes around the tray with a spork. They must really be worried she was a threat to give her useless plastic utensils. She was tired. Of running. Of doing horrible things to survive. Of fighting for freedom.

  “Is that what you want? To stay tagged?”

  “If you don’t leave it alone, he’ll follow the signal to where it stopped. He’ll come. He’ll kill everyone in this facility.”

  “Let him come—if it was there, it’s already been neutralized. He won’t find this place. It doesn’t exist. And besides—don’t you think he’s already en route, after I took you from him?” His voice was hard-edged as he shifted closer. “V, what’s the relationship between you and Peychinovich?”

  “You called him my lover.”

  “And you can’t say that without recoiling.” He leaned in. “The way he roughed you up—I saw his manhandling in the elevator.” He studied her. “You aren’t his lover.”

  She folded her arms, wishing she could bury herself in the clothes that were too big. “It does not matter, R—” She grunted and touched her temple. “I refuse to call you that.” Amused by the word that popped into her mind, she asked, “Do you know Russian?”

  “Nemnogo.”

  She sat back, surprised that he knew how to say “a little” in her language.

  He shrugged. “I asked a friend. Read a book.”

  She laughed at the absurdity of learning a language by reading a book, but then realized which of his friends had probably taught him the words. “The woman in the room.”

  He nodded.

  “She does not like me.”

  “She’s been through a lot and wants to protect her team. We all do.”

  What would it be like to have people who looked after her not because she was a possession but out of loyalty or friendship? He cared about the people he worked with. Understood their history. Their wants.

  “As do I.” Lesya, her assistant in Russia. More than anything—even her own life—Bisera. “The book, where is it?”

  “Secure.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “V, I—”

  “Why do you call me that?” She needed a rapport with him, one that built trust. That convinced him he could share secrets with her.

  He eased back with a sigh, probably noticing the way she detoured the conversation. “Viorica is an assassin who works for Peychinovich.” He narrowed his pale eyes at her. “The woman sitting in front of me is not that person.”

  Her throat tightened as she wondered—was it possible someone saw her? The real her? No. It was a job, just like her using him now. “I am that person,” she said, the ache within churning. “Do not think anything can happen here.”

  He sat forward again. “Happen? Like what?” He traced her jaw.

  At his soft touch, Iskra drew up, breath snatched from her lungs.

  “Like that?”

  She smacked his hand away. Shoved to her feet. He didn’t move, just smiled up at her, and Iskra noted the way the guards outside the room jerked to the ready.

  He came and stood in front of her. “I apologize. That was out of line. I knew better.”

  “Then why do it?”

  “Because . . .” He ran a hand down the back of his neck. “Look, maybe things are crazy beyond recognition here. We can’t be . . . open. But . . .”

  Of course they couldn’t. It’d get them killed or betrayed.

  He shrugged. “We’re here. Together.” His eyes widened and he looked down. “We both . . .” He seemed to swallow words that had gotten ahead of him.

  Weirdly enough, she could taste what he didn’t speak. Sweet words of temptation. But right now she had to draw him to her side. “Why was your team after the book?”

  “Honestly?” He leaned back against the table. “I’m not sure.” Palm on the table, he considered her. “They said it needed to be found, that it was dangerous in the wrong hands—Peych’s. Yours. That we had to stop you from getting it.”

  “So . . .” She tried to make the two sides of this man align. He’d been told to stop her, yet he was helping her. “Why did you . . . ?” It had been startling to watch him protect the entrance to her room. She’d never seen anyone do that. Most took aim at her, not for her. “In the medical room, you stopped them. Why?”

  “Had my orders.” His answer seemed to bother even him. Like he didn’t believe it or used it to mask the real one. “I made a promise to protect you.”

  “You”—she shook her head slowly—“never made me a promise.”

  “To myself.” He folded his arms, biceps straining the shirt. “Not real sure why. Maybe it was the way you outsmarted me in Greece. I had to one-up you.”

  “By protecting me?”

  “If you died here, how could I one-up you later?”

  She couldn’t tell if he was serious. But did it matter? Nobody had ever protected her, unless under Hristoff’s orders.

  “Why did you go after the book?” he asked.

  “I was ordered to.”

  “Peychinovich.”

  She shrugged. “Control of an artifact that holds great secrets. A contact said it was worth a lot. Hristoff insisted I find it.” Lies were built on truths, da?

  “That why he was at the hotel? To see if you had it?”

  It struck Iskra that despite the threats from Veratti, despite the rage Hristoff felt when she’d failed the Cellini mission . . . he wasn’t worried about the book. He’d asked about it, da, but he did not press her. He wasn’t concerned. “He already knew I had it.”

  Vasily. Was that why Hristoff had killed him, besides thinking she’d slept with him? That was how Hristoff knew she was in Istanbul. The poor, weak fool.

  “You okay?”

&nb
sp; Pulled back to the moment, she shook off the weight of those thoughts. “You don’t know anything about the book? I’m supposed to believe that? Or is it like this ‘secure’ location, and you just won’t name what you know?”

  He spread his arms wide. “I’ve told you what I know about the book—its name and that it might contain information about some wars. It’s rumored to list the outcomes.”

  “But you won’t tell me what you know about this facility.”

  He squinted. “How is that important to the book?”

  “Just exploring what level of trust we have.” She cleared her throat, deciding to give him more information in the hope of buying more points with him. “The Book of the Wars is believed to be a holy text, so it includes other things.”

  “Like?”

  “I’ve heard”—careful, Iskra—“it is even said to have writings from Saint John.”

  Face screwed tight in confusion, he repeated the name. “John?”

  “The apostle who wrote Revelation.”

  He grunted. Cocked his head in thought. “Guess that makes sense. Our team thinks there are wars in it that haven’t happened yet.”

  “Wait—so you do know more than you’ve told me,” she challenged.

  Smirking, he huffed.

  “What?”

  “There is no way I believe you’d go after this thing just to make Peych happy. You said you aren’t his lover, so what makes you risk life and limb to secure this thing for him?” He shook his head, scratching his jaw. “Doesn’t add up. There’s more.”

  “I went after it because it’s an artifact that will . . . buy me time.” She could admit that, right? Now to distract him. “Look, I cannot read the text—it’s in multiple languages—but what I’ve told you is true.”

  “Now who knows more than they’re admitting? So, what else?” He crossed his arms. “I’m not budging till you come clean.”

  Anger churned through her that he could figure her out so easily. It scared her. And yet drew her in. Nobody knew about Mitre. She’d kept it that way on purpose. “There’s this”—fear clogged her, shutting out the threat by Veratti’s man—“my friend”—liars went to hell, didn’t they?—“told me that what John wrote . . .”

  Nerves cramped her stomach. How could she make this not sound ridiculous? What Veratti’s man had told her, what he’d ordered her to find out, it bordered on absurd. How could she tell the American in a way that convinced him when she wasn’t convinced?

  “What are you nervous about?” he asked.

  Iskra pivoted, only then realizing she’d started pacing. She returned to the table. “You’ll think me crazy.”

  “I already do.” He laughed. “You escaped across the rooftops of Istanbul with me.”

  “Okay.” She had everything to lose, but here went nothing. “Before Vasily died, he told me the book mentions a place,” she muttered, twisting the cords of this revelation tightly, “called the Pearl of the Antilles. It hides the location of a secret organization that creates a super-army.”

  His expression darkened.

  Did he not believe her? “Makes sense”—she again threw his words at him—“since Saint John had revelations about Armageddon.”

  He unfolded his arms, intensity radiating from his expression.

  “What?” Her heart raced.

  He rapped the table. “This information about the location and the super-army—that’s in the book?” He looked like he’d had a revelation of his own

  “I believe so. As I said, Vasily told this to me.” She touched his hand. “Why?” Why did he look like that meant something to him?

  He pushed to his feet.

  “Please!” Iskra stood as well, relieved when he stopped, but she didn’t dare scare him off by rounding the table. “What did you figure out? I gave you what I know. I crossed a line I shouldn’t have. Will you now do the same?”

  His jaw muscle popped. He tapped the table again. “Pearl of the Antilles?”

  “Yes.” Her heart tripped over the way he said it.

  He tugged out his phone. Thumbed something into it. Then turned it to her.

  Iskra drew closer. Saw the image of a blue and gold sign that read U.S. Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and below it, Pearl of the Antilles.

  Unable to breathe, she waited for an explanation.

  “It’s here—not this facility, but across the water. Not twenty minutes.”

  Dumbstruck, she almost didn’t register him heading for the door. “Where are you going?”

  “To get the book.”

  “They’ll let you have it?”

  “I won’t give them a choice.”

  “Runt!”

  He gripped the handle. Glanced at her. “You know,” he said, “I don’t like that name when you say it either.” He winked. “I’ll be right back.”

  Her worlds were slipping and colliding into one another, like continental plates shaking her to the core. Vasily had said the book mentioned the Pearl of the Antilles. Then Veratti’s man gave her the word pearl in connection with the facility. What were the chances all that would explode into one massive coincidence called this nearby base?

  U.S. Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay. The umbrella base that shielded a more nefarious one. The same one Vasily and Bogdashka said housed a treacherous organization called Netherwood, an entity with answers about her brother. And the Neiothen, that super-army. It all linked back to the Pearl of the Antilles. The scroll.

  How had Veratti known the facility’s name?

  Vasily had warned her to stay under the radar. Said that if Netherwood learned she was looking for them, she’d end up dead. And now she sat in the belly of the beast. With the book! And Veratti awaiting her word. Bisera’s life in the balance.

  She let out a strangled cry.

  I have to get out of here.

  Spork in hand, she carved a line into her arm, drawing blood. “Hello?” She waited for the guards to turn. “I . . . I think I need help.”

  * * *

  There was no freakin’ way this was happening. A super-army?

  His thoughts crashed and burned at that term, but a buzzing in his head said this had to be something. No way Iskra could know where they were. And for this place to be mentioned in the Book of the Wars?

  He used his secure phone. Made the call.

  “Leif,” Iliescu said, sounding relieved—and nervous.

  “You said you found stuff about my missing six months, right?”

  The silence on the other end gaped.

  “Stuff you suspected but couldn’t prove. About me and my team. You said everyone died except me and Guerrero.”

  “I didn’t tell you that, Leif,” Dru said quietly. “You brought Guerrero back. He died on the surgery table. Remember?”

  Why was it all so confusing? Didn’t matter. Back on track. “What you’ve found, does it entail a super-army?”

  “Why would you think that?”

  There was no conviction in the question. Dread pooled in Leif’s gut. He pinched the bridge of his nose “Dru. Why did you want the book?”

  “I didn’t. I was told to put a team together to locate and retrieve it.” A nervous laugh. “Where is this coming from? It sounds a lot like the third degree. Why are you interrogating me?”

  Because there were still too many questions. “We’ll talk later.” Still too much uncertainty in the director’s answers. More than ever, Leif needed that book. Needed to see what was in it. Find out if Iskra was telling the truth.

  He made his way into the quarters where his team had been bunked and found them grabbing rack time.

  Mercy came to her feet. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Where’s Cell?”

  “In the communications tower,” Baddar said.

  “Yeah, he’s apparently too good to hang with enlisted now,” Culver drawled, his arm hooked over his eyes. He lifted it and craned his neck to see Leif. “Why? We done being bored yet?”

  “Anyone know whe
re that book is?”

  “Heard they were keeping it in an airtight container in the research lab,” Mercy said.

  “Where’s that?”

  “I’ll show you,” she volunteered.

  Saito sat up. “They give you the report on her MRI?”

  Leif shook his head.

  “She’s chipped,” Saito said. “Several healed fractures, too.”

  Neither intel piece surprised him. “Why’s that important?”

  “Maybe speaks to her mind.” Baddar shrugged. “I have many break in my leg and arm. Because I not give up easy.”

  Leif nodded.

  “Runt.” Baddar rose and stood near Mercy. “I am concerned for this woman.” He placed both hands on his chest. “She is dangerous. I see what she do to some men once. Her heart is dark. Very dark.”

  The dossier on Viorica proved that. But the experience he’d had with the woman locked in that conference room didn’t. And his instincts were raging when it came to her and this book.

  Though a quick visual scan of the guys provided the pulse on this situation, he nodded. “Noted.”

  He trailed Mercy out through the corridors, well aware of how personnel gave him a wide berth. Crazy, what he’d done. Staring down that Glock at his own band of brothers. He’d never done that before. Then again, he’d never had to protect a target like that. But something was off about the whole thing.

  The super-army she’d mentioned . . . it was a long shot. A leap. One he couldn’t get to coalesce in his mind yet. It was like having all the specs on a bomb about to detonate and not knowing what order they should go in. Maybe that was why he’d been so focused on her.

  There were things happening in him that he couldn’t explain. Too many. Like the vehement conviction to protect her. Or the way he’d seemed to step back into himself only when Culver entered the hall and said Iliescu was involved.

  Mercy pivoted and stopped.

  Leif checked their surroundings. No door. No lab. “What—”

  Hands on her hips, auburn hair curled around her shoulders, she touched her forehead. “Okay.” She shuffled. “I know this isn’t my place—”