Between Shadow and Soul

by M. L. Buchman

  Chapter 8

  “I was expecting a woman.” Actually, Vladimir had never expected anyone of either gender to show up, ever.

  “I’m a messenger for a woman seeking an answer to the past.”

  Vladimir nodded. It had been over fifty years, but there was no question what the quiet American was referring to. The man, who had offered no name, refilled Vladimir’s and his own shot glasses with vodka. It was nothing special. Green Mark shelf vodka—as in the cheapest on the shelf. Long pieces of salty Chechil cheese were piled on a plate in the cheap pivnaya. The bar might have been a kabak that predated the Russian revolution and not been fixed up since.

  The fact that it was inside the closed city of Polyarny should have made it impossible for the American to be here above the Arctic Circle, but he was. Vladimir had dug out his niche here as an engineer designing Russia’s nuclear submarines, a cold and lonely banishment far from the shores of the Black Sea.

  He raised his glass.

  The American raised his own.

  After a moment Vladimir offered a toast. “To women.”

  “And why we love them,” the American answered.

  They slammed back the shot in unison and each tore off a chunk of cheese. As this wasn’t about serious drinking and he didn’t know if the man was a friend, he took his time plucking and eating strands of the string cheese.

  “I’m hoping you know the missing pieces of my friend’s story.”

  “How much does she know?”

  “An arrest, a phone call, and a firebomb.”

  “So Olga survived.” He’d always hoped so even though he remembered her only a little. Sometimes he would accompany his father to his dacha by the Black Sea. He’d been four or five when he’d spent a whole summer vacation there. He remembered the blonde lady. At six he’d lost everything: blonde lady, father, and—soon enough—his mother.

  “Not by that name.”

  “Of course not,” this time he refilled their glasses, but didn’t reach for his yet. “What I remember most about her was her laugh. She had the most amazing laugh and used it often. I wasn’t used to seeing my father happy, but he was with her. I like to think I was with her as well.”

  The American sat in silence and waited.

  “You’d have made a good Russian.”

  The man’s shrug was eloquent. With that as a toast, they both knocked back their glasses.

  “I know the phone call. I had my bodyguard place it. Even at six I knew she was in trouble. I begged him to save the ‘laughing lady.’ I guess his phone call worked.”

  “She took your father’s personal boat and crossed the Black Sea through a winter storm.”

  Vladimir chewed on that one as he relished the salt from the cheese. There wasn’t much flavor to Green Mark vodka, but the salt enhanced what little there was. “I’d forgotten about that boat. It was a very small, open craft, meant for fishing or going along beaches with a picnic. It takes a brave woman to cross the sea in that.”

  “It does. She laughs less now.”

  “A crafty woman.”

  The American didn’t react at first, then nodded slowly. It confirmed something he’d only guessed at. Olga had been too…alive to be a Russian. So, she too was an American. His father’s lover had been an American spy.

  Was that what this man across from him was?

  He didn’t think so. If the American CIA was anything like the KGB or the FSB that had replaced it, then this man should feel less…trustable. Another trait this man shared with his memory of Olga.

  Vladimir topped up their glasses. They lifted them in unison, but rather than toasting and drinking, he leaned in, placing his elbows on the scarred old table.

  “My mother was sleeping with Gregor, my father’s second-in-command. I’m fairly sure that she arranged his wife’s death. Together they made up some story about father being the master of a spy ring for the United States. Funny that it was at least partly true. The purge removed many men, placing Gregor and his cronies in power. He never did marry Mother. She died a couple of years after he tossed her out. She fell asleep drunk outside an illegal bar on the winter night of my eighth birthday.”

  “And the firebombing of the dacha?”

  “Oh, she didn’t know about Olga, but the bastard who’d been his friend except for screwing his wife and killing him to get his job, did. My guess would be that Gregor wanted a clean slate.” Vladimir didn’t wait for a toast, but slugged back the vodka and hissed against the sharp bite.

  The American slumped back in his chair.

  “Not the story you wanted to hear?”

  “It’s not that. ‘Olga’ has spent a lifetime believing it was all her fault.”

  Vladimir shook his head and the room only blurred a little. “Is that why you are here, or is it about you?” At the man’s honest surprise, Vladimir decided he could like this man. “What are you regretting, my friend?”

  “I’m not sure, but I’m starting to get some ideas. You?”

  Vladimir waved his empty glass to encompass the crappy bar in the crappy town above the Arctic Circle, building submarines for a government that was no better than the one that had killed his father and a war that he hoped to God would never happen.

  The American nodded and finally drank back his own glass.

  Vladimir had doubted this man at first—as expected—but now he saw no more reason to.

  “Father gave me something the day before they executed him by firing squad. Made me promise to give it to Olga if I ever saw her again. Don’t know why I grabbed it when you contacted me, but I guess it was the right thing to do.” He reached into his coat pocket and slid a small parcel across the table.

  The American unwrapped it enough to see what was inside and brushed a finger over its worn surface. He rewrapped it and tucked it in his own pocket before refilling their glasses. He was smiling, which didn’t appear to be something he did very often.

  Vladimir raised an eyebrow in question as they both raised their glasses.

  “Know that, for a brief few years, your father was very happy.”

  That Vladimir would be glad to drink to.

  Chapter 9

  Dilya delivered the package to her library on the same day that news arrived of Michael Gibson finally retiring from Delta Force. Miss Watson approved of his choice of replacement: less of a soldier even if he was Delta, but more of a negotiator.

  After more than twenty years of service in the field and two more in command, Michael and his wife were moving to Henderson’s Ranch in Montana to have their child. She knew that one way or another, the White House Protection Force be hearing from him soon enough.

  The girl had the sensitivity to scoot away quietly. Such sensitivity in that one—she was going to be formidable indeed.

  Miss Watson forced herself to complete her row of knitting, careful not to drop any stitches.

  Inside the package, there was a card and a small parcel, roughly wrapped.

  The card was blank white except for a brief message:

  It was Sergei’s wife and Gregor.

  It wasn’t you.

  His bitch of a wife and his best friend. They had killed her poor, loving Sergei. He’d brought Gregor to the dacha once for a long-weekend October Revolution Day celebration. It was one of the few times she’d met any of Sergei’s people.

  And six weeks later Gregor had framed and killed Sergei and tried to firebomb her out of existence. He must have done it so that she could be framed as an American spy without ever being questioned about it thus casting doubt on Gregor’s accusations against his friend. Her escape—had it been known about—had been as effective as her death in damning poor Sergei.

  His wife and best friend. That was the detail she’d never known. She’d always assumed that it was something she herself had done wrong. It changed everything.

  With shaking hands, that wouldn’t stop though she ordered them to, she opened the old wrapping paper.

  The book was onl
y a little more worn than the last time she’d read it fifty years ago.

  It opened easily to where he had pressed a yellow marigold blossom that had been growing close by where they’d first made love. The first time he’d called her his Bright Flower—a nickname that had lasted for three glorious years.

  She hadn’t cried since hearing of Sergei’s death, but now the splashes marked the page.

  He had loved her like Neruda loved certain dark things.

  Somehow he’d known what she was— and hadn’t cared.

  In that tiny space between shadow and soul.

  And fifty years later he showed her just how grand a thing that was.

  Off the Leash

  If you enjoyed this, you’ll love the White House Protection Force series

  Off the Leash (excerpt)

  White House Protection Force #1

  “You’re joking.”

  “Nope. That’s his name. And he’s yours now.”

  Sergeant Linda Hamlin wondered quite what it would take to wipe that smile off Lieutenant Jurgen’s face. A 120mm round from an M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank came to mind.

  The kennel master of the US Secret Service’s Canine Team was clearly a misogynistic jerk from the top of his polished head to the bottoms of his equally polished boots. She wondered if the shoelaces were polished as well.

  Then she looked over at the poor dog sitting hopefully on the concrete kennel floor. His stall had a dog bed three times his size and a water bowl deep enough for him to bathe in. No toys, because toys always came from the handler as a reward. He offered her a sad sigh and a liquid doggy gaze. The kennel even smelled wrong, more of sanitizer than dog. The walls seemed to echo with each bark down the long line of kennels housing the candidate hopefuls for the next addition to the Secret Service’s team.

  Thor—really?—was a brindle-colored mutt, part who-knew and part no-one-cared. He looked like a cross between an oversized, long-haired schnauzer and a dust mop that someone had spilled dark gray paint on. After mixing in streaks of tawny brown, they’d left one white paw just to make him all the more laughable.

  And of course Lieutenant Jerk Jurgen would assign Thor to the first woman on the USSS K-9 team.

  Unable to resist, she leaned over far enough to scruff the dog’s ears. He was the physical opposite of the sleek and powerful Malinois MWDs—military war dogs—that she’d been handling for the 75th Rangers for the last five years. They twitched with eagerness and nerves. A good MWD was seventy pounds of pure drive—every damn second of the day. If the mild-mannered Thor weighed thirty pounds, she’d be surprised. And he looked like a little girl’s best friend who should have a pink bow on his collar.

  Jurgen was clearly ex-Marine and would have no respect for the Army. Of course, having been in the Army’s Special Operations Forces, she knew better than to respect a Marine.

  “We won’t let any old swabbie bother us, will we?”

  Jurgen snarled—definitely Marine Corps. Swabbie was slang for a Navy sailor and a Marine always took offense at being lumped in with them no matter how much they belonged. Of course the swabbies took offense at having the Marines lumped with them. Too bad there weren’t any Navy around so that she could get two for the price of one. Jurgen wouldn’t be her boss, so appeasing him wasn’t high on her to-do list.

  At least she wouldn’t need any of the protective bite gear working with Thor. With his stature, he was an explosives detection dog without also being an attack one.

  “Where was he trained?” She stood back up to face the beast.

  “Private outfit in Montana—some place called Henderson’s Ranch. Didn’t make their MWD program,” his scoff said exactly what he thought the likelihood of any dog outfit in Montana being worthwhile. “They wanted us to try the little runt out.”

  She’d never heard of a training program in Montana. MWDs all came out of Lackland Air Force Base training. The Secret Service mostly trained their own and they all came from Vohne Liche Kennels in Indiana. Unless… Special Operations Forces dogs were trained by private contractors. She’d worked beside a Delta Force dog for a single month—he’d been incredible.

  “Is he trained in English or German?” Most American MWDs were trained in German so that there was no confusion in case a command word happened to be part of a spoken sentence. It also made it harder for any random person on the battlefield to shout something that would confuse the dog.

  “German according to his paperwork, but he won’t listen to me much in either language.”

  Might as well give the diminutive Thor a few basic tests. A snap of her fingers and a slap on her thigh had the dog dropping into a smart “heel” position. No need to call out Fuss—by my foot.

  “Pass auf!” Guard! She made a pistol with her thumb and forefinger and aimed it at Jurgen as she grabbed her forearm with her other hand—the military hand sign for enemy.

  The little dog snarled at Jurgen sharply enough to have him backing out of the kennel. “Goddamn it!”

  “Ruhig.” Quiet. Thor maintained his fierce posture but dropped the snarl.

  “Gute Hund.” Good dog, Linda countered the command.

  Thor looked up at her and wagged his tail happily. She tossed him a doggie treat, which he caught midair and crunched happily.

  She didn’t bother looking up at Jurgen as she knelt once more to check over the little dog. His scruffy fur was so soft that it tickled. Good strength in the jaw, enough to show he’d had bite training despite his size—perfect if she ever needed to take down a three-foot-tall terrorist. Legs said he was a jumper.

  “Take your time, Hamlin. I’ve got nothing else to do with the rest of my goddamn day except babysit you and this mutt.”

  “Is the course set?”

  “Sure. Take him out,” Jurgen’s snarl sounded almost as nasty as Thor’s before he stalked off.

  She stood and slapped a hand on her opposite shoulder.

  Thor sprang aloft as if he was attached to springs and she caught him easily. He’d cleared well over double his own height. Definitely trained…and far easier to catch than seventy pounds of hyperactive Malinois.

  She plopped him back down on the ground. On lead or off? She’d give him the benefit of the doubt and try off first to see what happened.

  Linda zipped up her brand-new USSS jacket against the cold and led the way out of the kennel into the hard sunlight of the January morning. Snow had brushed the higher hills around the USSS James J. Rowley Training Center—which this close to Washington, DC, wasn’t saying much—but was melting quickly. Scents wouldn’t carry as well on the cool air, making it more of a challenge for Thor to locate the explosives. She didn’t know where they were either. The course was a test for handler as well as dog.

  Jurgen would be up in the observer turret looking for any excuse to mark down his newest team. Perhaps teasing him about being just a Marine hadn’t been her best tactical choice. She sighed. At least she was consistent—she’d always been good at finding ways to piss people off before she could stop herself and consider the wisdom of doing so.

  This test was the culmination of a crazy three months, so she’d forgive herself this time—something she also wasn’t very good at.

  In October she’d been out of the Army and unsure what to do next. Tucked in the packet with her DD 214 honorable discharge form had been a flyer on career opportunities with the US Secret Service dog team: Be all your dog can be! No one else being released from Fort Benning that day had received any kind of a job flyer at all that she’d seen, so she kept quiet about it.

  She had to pass through DC on her way back to Vermont—her parent’s place. Burlington would work for, honestly, not very long at all, but she lacked anywhere else to go after a decade of service. So, she’d stopped off in DC to see what was up with that job flyer. Five interviews and three months to complete a standard six-month training course later—which was mostly a cakewalk after fighting with the US Rangers—she was on-board and this chill January
day was her first chance with a dog. First chance to prove that she still had it. First chance to prove that she hadn’t made a mistake in deciding that she’d seen enough bloodshed and war zones for one lifetime and leaving the Army.

  The Start Here sign made it obvious where to begin, but she didn’t dare hesitate to take in her surroundings past a quick glimpse. Jurgen’s score would count a great deal toward where she and Thor were assigned in the future. Mostly likely on some field prep team, clearing the way for presidential visits.

  As usual, hindsight informed her that harassing the lieutenant hadn’t been an optimal strategy. A hindsight that had served her equally poorly with regular Army commanders before she’d finally hooked up with the Rangers—kowtowing to officers had never been one of her strengths.

  Thankfully, the Special Operations Forces hadn’t given a damn about anything except performance and that she could always deliver, since the day she’d been named the team captain for both soccer and volleyball. She was never popular, but both teams had made all-state her last two years in school.

  The canine training course at James J. Rowley was a two-acre lot. A hard-packed path of tramped-down dirt led through the brown grass. It followed a predictable pattern from the gate to a junker car, over to tool shed, then a truck, and so on into a compressed version of an intersection in a small town. Beyond it ran an urban street of gray clapboard two- and three-story buildings and an eight-story office tower, all without windows. Clearly a playground for Secret Service training teams.

  Her target was the town, so she blocked the city street out of her mind. Focus on the problem: two roads, twenty storefronts, six houses, vehicles, pedestrians.

  It might look normal…normalish with its missing windows and no movement. It would be anything but. Stocked with fake IEDs, a bombmaker’s stash, suicide cars, weapons caches, and dozens of other traps, all waiting for her and Thor to find. He had to be sensitive to hundreds of scents and it was her job to guide him so that he didn’t miss the opportunity to find and evaluate each one.