She nodded. “It won’t start—again.”
“Someone coming to pick you up?” He asked.
“I called for a tow,” she said. “They should be here…eventually.”
He snorted. Time stood still when waiting for a tow truck to show up. Fifteen minutes could be an hour and a half. “You could be here a while. Why not wait in the truck and keep warm?” He threw his thumb over his shoulder toward his truck rumbling behind him.
“I don’t want to hold you up.” She smiled up at him. “I’m sure your family is waiting for you.”
“Well, there is no way I’m leaving you alone to sit in a broken down vehicle in freezing weather, so…” he drew out the last word and glanced at his truck. “You can either sit here and wait while I wait over there, or you can join me and perhaps start to feel your toes by the time the tow truck shows up.”
She clenched and opened her hands, her fingers red from the cold. Letting out a long sigh, she grabbed her purse and slowly pushed the door open. “You win—I’m cold.”
John laughed and turned to open the passenger side door for her. When she had climbed inside, he closed the door and made his way around to the driver’s side. He reached his hand across the center console. “John Holt.”
She stared at him for a second, and chuckled. “I guess we never did get around to the introductions.” She took his hand, her fingers like ice as they wrapped around his. “Charlee Finch.”
His eyes drifted to the University of Rhode Island ID on a lanyard around her neck. Dr. Charlotte Finch. So Charlee was a nickname. He liked it. He looked into her eyes, bluish gray and sparkling a bit, as if ice was melting there as well. He wondered if she was more serious like her given name, or if her laid back nickname mirrored her personality.
“So, Dr. Finch.” She eyed him with a cocked eyebrow. He pointed at her ID. “What do you do at the University?”
She lifted her ID and peered at it as if she needed a reminder of what was printed on it. “I’m a history professor.”
“A history professor who is interested in the future of terrorism?”
She shrugged. “History represents a roadmap of where we are headed. Just because I am a scholar of what has happened, and I am just as intrigued by where we are headed, and wondering if the same ‘red flags’, so to speak, are indicating where things are inevitably going.”
“Those who don’t understand the past are doomed to repeat it?”
“Something like that.” She shifted in her seat, her eyes had a glint in them as if he had turned on a switch and the bulb had reached it’s full brightness. “Can you imagine how many of the world’s atrocities could’ve been eliminated—or at least, minimized—if people had taken the warning signs from the past more seriously and implemented plans to avoid the events from happening? The amount of lives that could’ve been saved is mind-boggling.”
“An optimist?” he asked, intrigued by her outlook on life. He had never really considered how much the past provided clues that were overlooked and negated.
“Perhaps.” She glanced out the window. “My ex certainly would’ve agreed—with a less flattering description.”
“How long have you been divorced?”
“About three years.”
“Your idea or his?”
“Mine, and he is still giving me grief about it.” She sighed, returned her gaze to him, and plastered a smile on her face. “So, what about you? You’re obviously a Marine. Are you stationed here?”
Flashing yellow lights filled the interior of the truck cab. The tow truck pulled up behind Charlee’s SUV. Both of them got out of the truck and greeted the driver.
As they watched the vehicle slowly pulled onto the bed of the tow truck, John turned to Charlee. “Can I give you a ride home?”
“Oh, no thank you. I can get an Uber.”
“It’s really no trouble.”
“It might be…I live in Newport.”
“Well, today is your lucky day,” he said. “So do I.”
She glanced around as if the answer was flashing through the night sky on the tail of a shooting star. “I don’t want to put you out.”
“Well, let me put it to you this way—I’m not going to leave until the Uber gets here, and then I will end up following you across the bridge on my own way home.”
A small laugh burst from her chest. “Okay, you win. Thank you.”
Within twenty minutes, they were on the road, heading east to the small coastal town.
“Are you at the war college?” she asked as they came over the bridge and the school came into sight.
“No—not this time. I was a student there a few years ago.”
“And now?”
“And now I command a unit attached to the base.”
“More vagueness.” He opened his mouth to explain, but she smiled and put her hand up. “No, worries, Colonel. I’m guessing you’d have to kill me if you told me.”
He laughed. “Something like that.”
She directed him to her house. He couldn’t tell much in the dark, but the porch light and a lamppost next to a walkway illuminated enough for him to see she lived in an older home. White columns crossed the front porch that expanded the length of the house.
“This is me,” she said, and put her hand out to him. “Thank you so much for coming to my rescue—in various ways.”
“Not a problem.” They sat there in silence for a moment, the need to say more lingering in the space between them. John didn’t want to let her go. He was intrigued by this woman. And for the first time since his wife had died, he felt comfortable around a woman.
“I don’t suppose I can interest you in meeting up for coffee—or dinner—sometime? I’d love to get more of your take on Andropov’s discussion.”
The corners of her mouth tipped up. “I’d like that.” She reached into her bag and pulled out her cell phone. “What’s your number. I’ll text you and then you’ll have mine.”
John recited his number and a few seconds later his phone beeped with an incoming text.
She opened the door and got out of the truck. “It was nice meeting you.”
“You, too.” He lifted his cell phone in the air. “Talk soon.”
She nodded, smiled and closed the door. He watched her walk up the steps, unlock her front door, and wave before she closed the door behind her.
A thrill of excitement ran through him, quickly followed by a pang of guilt. It had been five years since Grace had passed, but he still found it difficult to move on. He glanced once more up at Charlee’s house and sighed as he pulled away.
As he drove over along Easton Beach towards Middletown where he lived, he wondered how soon he should wait to call Charlee. The rules of dating where foreign to him after all the years since he was a young buck on the prowl. Was it still considered desperate to call right away?
His cell phone rang. Excitement lit him up. He glanced at the caller ID, hoping it was Charlee. Disappointment doused him seeing his analyst, Riley, flash on the screen. He hit the answer button on his console and engaged the hands free ability.
“Holt.”
“We have a situation.”
Holt got to the intersection and flipped on his left turn signal instead of the right, which indicated the way home. Instead, he headed back toward the base. “On my way.”
Chapter Four
John watched the video feed from Lance’s headset on large screen in the makeshift TOC. The team was making their way through down 71st Street into one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Chicago. Englewood had gained notoriety nationwide with the death rate on the streets rising everyday. Locals knew to stay clear of the south side neighborhoods, even in the light of day. At night—it wasn’t unlike some of the warzones John had been in during his career in the Marine Raiders.
Sequestered in a van in the parking lot of a high school a few blocks away, John watched as the men quietly checked their gear before exiting the vehicle. They had received word fr
om the local cops that Lawrence Jackson was on the second floor, holed up in apartment 207. Single file, they moved along the sidewalk, hugging the walls to keep in the shadows.
Riley had intel that Jackson—known as Rennie on the streets—was responsible for sending the mail bombs that killed Sergei Demerov and his two roommates. The mission was to capture and detain Rennie for interrogation. If Riley’s information was right, and it always was, Rennie was a member of the RRA.
The camera bounced as Lance made his way up the stairs to the second floor of the building on Green Street. He stopped at the landing, and John could see Humps moving down the hallway, glancing at the numbers on the doors as he went. Stopping in front of one, he leaned in just slightly and listened for any movement. He lifted his arm and waved his hand back toward his head, palm facing him.
The men moved down the hallway in silence. They were trained to be no louder than the average rat scurrying down the hall. Tipping people off to their presence stripped them of their advantage. And opened the door to someone being injured or killed.
When Lance reached Humps, he signaled the men behind him to crouch. Then he pointed to Gabe, the IED expert of the team. Gabe fished in his pocket for pieces of clay, placed them at various places on the door, then pushed the ends of very long fuses into them. He stepped back, crouching next to Lance and raised his hand to count down to detonation.
A loud bang sounded through the enclosed space, and quickly filled with smoke. The men stood and rushed through the door that now lay flat on the floor, blown clean off the hinges. M-4’s raised and at the ready, they swiftly moved through the kitchen into the living room and into the lone bathroom. The all clear sounded as they moved through the apartment and entered the bedroom.
A twin mattress was on the floor, pushed into the corner of the room. Clothes scattered the floor around them. And a lone man of about twenty stood in the middle of the room, his arms raised over his head.
“Down on the floor,” Lance yelled at Rennie. “Get down! Get down, now!”
John squinted at the screen trying to get a better view of what he was seeing. The man was wearing something bulky. His eyes bulged and he gripped something in his hand.
“Oh, fuck,” John muttered.
“Vest,” Lance yelled. “Out! Out! Out!”
Heavy, even breaths filled John’s ears through the headset as Lance ran through the apartment towards the front door. John could see most of the team moving swiftly in front of Lance.
There was a loud blast. Lance grunted. The video bounced around, smoke obscuring any ability to see what was happening. John’s heart thudded in his chest. He wanted to scream at Lance. Make sure he was still alive. He needed a report on the rest of the team. But at that point, he wasn’t even sure if Lance was conscious. Or alive. He tamped down the impatience that blazed through his veins like a line of lit black powder.
John was always calm under pressure. When he was with the Raiders, out on missions, facing bullets and bombs, his head was always in the game. He was cool, level-headed. Patient. He trusted his instincts. Felt he could control his own destiny.
But now that he was in forced to command from the sidelines, he felt helpless. He couldn’t face the adversities along with the men. They were facing it alone. And while he knew each one was amongst the best in the military—he had hand-picked most of them for the team—his nerves tingled with anticipation and fear for his men.
Lance’s camera moved, and John could see that he was standing. He exhaled and thanked God Lance was alive.
“Anyone hurt?” Lance asked, placing a hand on Mason’s shoulder as he stood.
The men checked in, one-by-one. Covered in dirt and debris, but no injuries. And most importantly, no fatalities.
“Guess we won’t be interrogating Jackson,” Lucas said, a shit-eating grin on his face. “Not sure there’s big enough pieces for them to make a positive ID on the dude.”
Gabe walked up behind Lucas and pulled something from his hair. “Anyone missing a tooth?” He held up the small white object for Lance to see. A litany of negative responses filtered from the rest of the team. Must belong to our mail-bombing Ruskie Suicide bomber.”
“Leave it for the forensic team,” Lance said.
“Get back to the transport and get out of there before law enforcement show up. I don’t want anyone held up for questioning,” John said. The 13 was a highly covert, special operations team known only to the Joint Chiefs and the President. And neither of those entities wanted to field questions regarding why a bunch of special ops guys were in the middle of Chicago with a suicide bomber. John had been told from the start that any operation the team went on, any member of the team captured, or discovery of the team by government officials or the press, and the powers that be in Washington would disavow any knowledge of the unit, and they would be labeled mercenaries.
Chapter Five
Charlee glanced at her students as filed into the classroom and took their seats. Some already squirmed and shifted in their seats, anxious for the class to end so they could start their Friday follies. She needed to get through this lecture in order to stay on track before the Thanksgiving break. Charlee had taught at the university long enough to know that the period between Thanksgiving and the Christmas break—which was also the end of the current semester—was nearly impossible for maintaining the students’ interest and attention. But with the final exam coming up, there remained a large portion of material left to cover.
She couldn’t deny that she was looking forward to the Thanksgiving reprieve, short as it was. She and Connor would be spending Thanksgiving in Boston at her parents house. Her brother and his family would be there, so Connor would be able to play video games with his cousins. Half the battle with Connor when they would visit Charlee’s parents was finding ways to avoid Connor’s “I’m bored, there’s nothing to do here,” whine.
But Connor’s attitude lately was worrying her. He had already subtly dropped a hint that maybe he should have Thanksgiving with his dad. That was a first, and had taken Charlee by surprise. He was typically adverse to spending holidays with his father. Although, lately, Connor had been spending more time with Peter. Could that be the sudden shift in his dark demeanor?
She sighed, and flipped to her notes. Probably not fair to blame what may just be teenage angst on his father. Talking with her ex was about as exciting as getting a root canal performed—and equally as painful. But she guessed if Connor really wanted to stay with his father, she shouldn’t stand in the way of them building a stronger bond. Just because Charlee thought her ex was a close descendant of Satan, didn’t make it true, and didn’t alleviate the man’s love for his son—even if the relationship seemed awkward to her. She wished Connor had a better male role model in his life. HIs father’s beliefs and judgments were odd on a good day, and could quickly devolve into disturbing.
The face of the handsome Marine she had met at the Andropov lecture. John. She had hoped he would call—was intrigued by their similar interest in Russia, historically and in the future. But he hadn’t called her, and she didn’t have his number. She had intentionally left the ball in his court, and he obviously had decided to pass on dinner, or getting to know her better.
She smoothed back her blonde hair, feeling every bit of her forty-one years. It would’ve been nice to meet someone her age. Go out. Talk and get to know each other. Maybe even kiss—something she hadn’t done in years. She and her husband hadn’t had intimacy during the last few years of their marriage. After three miscarriages and the doctor’s proclamation that she would never carry another child to term, they had both drifted apart.
The clock on the wall read two o’clock on the dot. “Okay, everyone, the sooner we get started on this, the sooner we get out of here.” The room quieted enough for her to be heard over students pulling out laptops and booting them up. Gone were the days of anyone writing notes on paper. Everything was technology based.
“Last time we ended at the de
ath of the Russian Tzar, Alexander the third, of kidney disease at the ripe old age of forty-nine.” Chuckles came from the students which was a good sign. At least they were listening. “Now that story on it’s own, with the extreme reversal of much of his father’s more liberal policies, and his death in the arms of his beloved wife, is a compelling, if not romantic, tale. And it may have been a more popular Russian romance and tragedy, if not for his son’s, Nicholas II’s, rule. Nicholas was twenty-six when he succeeded to the throne and became Czar. It is widely held that Nicholas was ill-prepared for ruling a country—a fact which became apparent during the first world war. However, several aspects of Nicholas’s rule lend themselves to wonderful story-telling. The heartbreak of finally having a son, after having four daughters—none of which were permitted to rule under the succession and lineage laws at that time—only to discover that little Alexei suffered from hemophilia.”
All eyes were on her as she spoke. Moving around to the front of the desk, she grasped the edge, braced her arms, and leaned back against it. She loved teaching—and Russian history was her favorite. When she could get a roomful of young minds to sit interested in the stories she told, it was a huge win.
“Because of this, the family kept Alexei’s condition as secret. Civil unrest and revolution was just the start of the dynasty’s downfall. Due to the seriousness of Alexei’s condition , the Nicholas placed his son’s well-being—his very life—in the hands of a ‘mystic healer’.”
Charlee used air quotes for the last two words. “Rasputin claimed to be able to heal Alexei, and through a series of unfortunate events that appeared he had saved the boy, the family put all their trust in him. And basically secluded themselves from anyone and anything outside the palace walls.
“This caused even the aristocrats to begin to question the Czar’s sanity and effectiveness—even the need to continue the Romanov dynasty. They were very distrustful of the influence this supposed holy man had over Nicholas. And so, Rasputin was the first to go. On December 16, 1916, Rasputin was murdered. Then, on July 17, 1918, the entire Romanov family was executed. So ended the Romanov dynasty. In fact, Russia turned away from royal rule, and have never had a Czar since then. But there was a man who took center stage in between the time Rasputin was murdered and the Czar was executed. His name was Vladimir Lenin—the father of communism in Russia.”
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