Hunting The Kobra

by Cooper-Posey, Tracy

She just looked at him. It was what it was.

  He opened the umbrella again and stepped out into the rain. “Go and get warm,” he told her. He walked back to the car.

  Her shivering was making her teeth rattle. She didn’t wait any longer. She stepped inside, locked the door and ran upstairs and turned on the hot water.

  The water didn’t help. For the rest of the night and until noon the next day, periodic shivers rippled through her, as she recalled how nice Aslan had seemed, as he walked beside her and kept the umbrella over her head.

  When Leela dropped into the empty chair on the other side of the table at the café and stole one of Quinn’s fries, Quinn was almost relieved. Now she could unburden herself. She could vent the sludge which Aslan had left in her soul.

  It was over. Time to move on.

  The cold kept most people away from the garden, although there were a few people walking the paths. Dima walked beside Quinn, wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap. Her hair was tied tightly at the back of her head. She wore jeans and a sweater and flat shoes. If Quinn hadn’t already met her in different circumstances, she may have guessed Dima was in her late twenties or her thirties. She walked with energy belonging to a much younger woman.

  “Aslan suggesting you go to Vienna changes things,” Dima said.

  “Not if I don’t go to Vienna,” Quinn said.

  Dima didn’t speak for a few steps. “You must do as you feel, of course. Although, this is a most unexpected development. How serious was he in his offer?”

  “Honestly? I thought he was offering only because it was the right thing to do. He was just going through the motions. It was a gesture. I think he was happy I refused.”

  A touch of the cold brushed up her spine. Quinn held her teeth together against the shiver. She couldn’t imagine traveling with the man to Vienna. Even if she didn’t know who he was, if she had never met Dima and the others, then she would still be a fool to go with him. She wouldn’t have known anything about him, other than he once knew Denis. It wasn’t enough to fly off to parts unknown with him, no matter how nice he seemed.

  Only, she knew the truth. She knew what he was.

  She corrected herself in her own mind—what he allegedly was.

  An early afternoon jogger came toward them, glowing in neon and reflecting strips. As the woman passed, Quinn recognized her as the soccer mom from the real estate office.

  Dima didn’t glance at the jogger. “This was all too simple,” she said. “I think Aslan will be back.”

  Quinn’s heart sank. “No, I’m done. I did what you asked. Now I’ve told you everything he said.”

  Dima shook her head. “I’m not calling the shots here,” she pointed out. “Aslan sought you out because you knew Denis. Yet he didn’t ask you directly about Denis at all. He doesn’t want to startle you, so he is approaching you in increments. He doesn’t want you scared. He just wants to learn about Denis. He will be back.”

  Quinn shook her head, even though denying this was useless. “I can’t stand talking to him,” she said. “Every time I opened my mouth, I had to think about what I would say if I knew nothing about him. Every time he said something, I couldn’t take it at face value. I wondered what he was trying to get out of me. I was sick from talking to him for twenty minutes.”

  Dima never seemed to be in a rush to respond. After a dozen more steps, she said softly, “Many years ago, I was working in the field, passing as the wife of a diplomat. It was a place where women were barely seen and never heard. I worked my way into a terrorist cell and was accepted by everyone as the angry woman who wanted justice.” She shook her head. “I was in the pipe for nearly two years. It got to where I would wake from a deep sleep and still use the northern accent, even before I remembered where I was. Every single moment of every single day I was in the pipe, I was afraid. I couldn’t trust anyone and thought that at any moment they would discover me. A year after I came home, I still had to check my passport before I handed it over, to see what my name was.”

  Quinn’s heart thudded unhappily. “Why are you telling me this? Isn’t it classified or something?”

  “I gave you no details which would let you identify anything critical. I told you, because despite being afraid, of having to wear a mask for so long, it was worth it. I found the bad guy, Quinn. To this day, he sits in the solitary cell somewhere in the United States. He can’t hurt anyone else, anymore.”

  The ringing note in Dima’s voice made the hairs on the back of Quinn’s neck lift. She shook her head, denying it.

  “I’m not insisting you do this,” Dima said. “If you rush off to Vienna with Aslan, it won’t be natural. It wouldn’t be something which Quinn would do. If you found a way for it to happen naturally, then you would stand a real chance of finding out who killed Denis.”

  Quinn gritted her teeth. “Damn you,” she said. “You said that deliberately.”

  “I am reminding you, not manipulating you. The work I do, the work you can help me with, makes a real difference in people’s lives, Quinn. They don’t know it and they will never know it, but you will. It is that fact which lets me sleep at night.”

  “You said Aslan had nothing to do with Denis’ dying. If I go with him to Vienna and he had nothing to do with it, then how would I find out who killed Denis?”

  Dima shook her head. “I don’t know. Not yet. All I can tell you is that Aslan is mixed up in this. If he is involved and you can stay in his world, then you stand the best chance of finding any hint of what really happened.”

  “I’m not trained for this. I’m not you.”

  “That is what allowed Aslan to approach you. He thinks you are harmless. And you are harmless.” Dima caught her elbow and bought them both to a halt. “If you go down the pipe with him, you won’t be alone. I will have your back.”

  They stood beside the concrete duck with her row of ducklings. The afternoon sun was bright and warm. On a bench under a tree, on the grass behind the ducks, a man read a newspaper. It was Lochan.

  Dima gave Quinn’s arm a little shake to draw her attention back to her. “You told Aslan you want to find who killed Denis. Were you lying?”

  “Damn it, no.” Quinn sighed.

  “Then, think about this before Aslan returns. And he will return. Think about how much you want to find who killed Denis. Think about how much you want to know why.” Dima’s smile was grim. “You are in a unique position for a civilian. You are the key who will find the answers for all of us.”

  [7]

  Saturday, November 16th

  The yoga studio where Quinn had met Leela was in a converted warehouse, which had once been an alehouse. The old wood beams which held up the roof still smelled of hops if one leaned close enough to sniff.

  Quinn approached the warehouse with trepidation. It had been nearly a month since the last class, and Leela had been in that one.

  That was before Quinn knew what Leela was.

  Quinn had seen none of Dima’s people for two days. Dima said she had her back and Quinn wondered if that was true.

  Not that she cared. Heading for a yoga class was her declaration that, no matter what, she would live her life.

  She had spent two days locked up in her apartment, hiding away from the world. Now, as the sun came out and the temperatures returned to normal, Quinn also tried to come back to normal. Yoga was normal.

  She worried that it wouldn’t feel the same anymore. It wasn’t supposed to feel the same now Denis was dead, only life was far more complicated, now.

  The warehouse had a pair of benches parked outside, their backs against the wall. Health-conscious yoga practitioners would sit in the sun and soak up their vitamin D while waiting for their class to start.

  Quinn came to a halt on the sidewalk when she saw the big figure sitting at the end of the nearest bench.

  Aslan got to his feet and came toward her. He wasn’t smiling.

  “What, are you stalking me?” she demanded.

  Aslan shook h
is head. “I didn’t think you would be comfortable with me ringing your doorbell. This is at least a public place.”

  “What do you want with me, Mr. Aslan?”

  “Only to talk, if you will let me.” His suit was black, today, and he wore no tie. He still looked far too overdressed for the Lycra crowd. He was drawing attention. Most of it was admiration.

  It irritated Quinn. She didn’t want people to like him.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Aslan. I’m trying to move on with my life—”

  She gasped as someone punched her in the gut. At least, that was what it felt like. It was a soft blow. She looked down.

  Aslan’s hands were at his sides.

  Puzzled, she looked up at him. “What did you do to me?”

  The ground was tilting around her, lifting.

  Aslan grabbed her shoulders. “Damn, damn, damn!” he muttered, his tone harsh.

  Her belly burned. Quinn could barely keep her eyes open. The flat note in her mind was a B, and sour.

  She heard a piercing whistle. Soft sounds of curiosity and exclamation from the yoga students heading in and out of the building.

  She couldn’t focus on them. She couldn’t focus on anything.

  The squeal of tires on roadway sounded. The snarl of an engine.

  She was being lifted.

  “What happened?” The question came from someone other than Aslan.

  “Belly shot. Silencer. Get us the hell out of here,” Aslan said.

  She was laid on soft leather, her cheeks against more padding. A car door closed and the air compacted inside the sealed car. More soft engine sounds as the car took off.

  Someone tugged at her sweater and lifted it. He hissed.

  The heat in her belly turned into pain, radiating out across the torso, making her groan.

  “Head straight for the airport,” Aslan shouted. “Tell Toni to dig up a spare passport, something which will cover her. And tell Mitchell to have his stuff ready. Go!”

  Someone picked up Quinn’s hands. “Stay with me for a little while longer,” Aslan said. “I’ll take care of this.”

  Quinn knew she should be afraid but the pain was overwhelming. It spread like a black wave through her body. She knew no more.

  Lochan tore off his headphones and spun the chair to stare at Dima. “It was a shot, I tell you. I know that sound. I’ll never forget it.”

  Ren and Scott sat at the other two stations, both speaking into phones with urgent voices. Dima ignored them. She held her hands together and breathed. “Have Leander and Agata quarter the area. Find out where the sniper nest is.”

  The door of the van slid aside and Leela jumped in. She slammed the door shut and spun to face Dima. “He took her!”

  Dima held up her hand. “Take a breath, Leela. He won’t take her to a hospital. He is traveling on a false passport. He can’t afford to be questioned. He has unique resources, though…” She paused, thinking.

  Lochan squeezed his headset, watching her and waiting for his orders. Leela put her hands on her hips, breathing hard.

  Dima nodded. “Lochan, contact Logan International Airport. Check to see what flight plan he files.”

  Leela dropped her hands. “He’ll take her out of the country?”

  Scott disconnected his call, blew out his breath and leaned back in the chair. “It’s a sure bet he leaves the country. That’s Aslan’s thing, running away.”

  “He’s not running away,” Dima said. “It is a strategic retreat. He has no resources here. He has them elsewhere. Until he understands what is going on, he will move back to a place of safety. And he will take Quinn with him, so he can get the answers he wants.”

  “I could stand to have a few answers of my own,” Scott said. “Who the hell shot her?”

  Ren took off her headset. “What if Aslan set it up? It would give him the perfect excuse to whisk her away, when she didn’t want to go.”

  Dima shook her head. “It isn’t a simple matter to transport a wounded person across international borders. He could have stayed here and milked her for all the information he needed about Denis. Aslan did not shoot her.”

  Leela turned to stare at the monitors, where yoga enthusiasts were mulling around the door of the warehouse, murmuring to each other, trying to figure out what had just happened. It had happened so quickly and Aslan’s reactions had been so fast, that even though their instincts said something dramatic had happened, no one had seen enough to understand what it was.

  Aslan’s reactions had probably saved Quinn’s life. A sniper always had a spare. By moving so fast Aslan had taken her out of the sniper sightlines.

  Leela grimaced. “It was a belly shot, wasn’t it?” she asked Dima.

  “Yes, it was,” Dima said. She didn’t believe in sugarcoating anything for her people. They were trained. Truth was a more useful tool for them.

  “Are we going to get her back?” Leela asked.

  “We can’t,” Scott said, behind Leela. “If we try, Aslan will know we’re watching him.”

  “She’s injured!”

  “We watch and we learn,” Dima said. “Aslan will keep her alive. He will use emergency resources and old contacts, he will pull favors and he will make sure she lives. He is on foreign soil and he is hurried. He may make a mistake which exposes him or gives us more leads. So we watch.”

  Everyone was looking at her now.

  “Lochan, what did the airport say?” Dima said calmly.

  Lochan drew in a breath. Then, he swiveled the chair to face the bank of monitors and communications equipment, put his headset back on and made the call.

  After a moment, the others returned to work, too.

  [8]

  Monday, November 25th

  The absolute silence did more to wake her, this time, than any loud noise. Quinn felt as if she had been sealed inside noise for days on end. Shouting, jet engines, the basso rumble of a slipstream sliding past the fuselage. Calm voices talking over the top of her. Even the changing light was noise to her pain-riddled mind. Sunlight blasting through portholes. Revolving yellow lights and the sound of forklift vehicles reversing, their beeping throbbing in her brain. The thwocking sound of a helicopter, nearby. The scream of the plane taking off, the engines working hard. The prick of a needle in her elbows. The cold rush of liquid.

  And now, nothing. Not even the hiss of air conditioning in a private jet.

  The orange light on her eyelids told her it was daylight. Quinn opened her eyes carefully.

  An exceptionally large window to her right let sunlight upon her, warming her through the quilt which covered her.

  Then she saw the view beyond the window and forgot about warmth and sunlight. She drew in an astonished breath delight.

  A row of mountain peaks, snow-capped and jagged. They were blue at the base and majestic.

  “Ah! You are awake. Good, good.” The feminine voice had a thick German accent.

  As Quinn turned her head to sight the speaker, the woman rounded the end of the bed and came up to her side. The woman wore jeans, a T-shirt, and a warm smile. A stethoscope was slung around her neck. “How do you feel?”

  “Like an elephant has been using me as a soccer ball,” Quinn said. “Who are you? Where am I?” The mountains made her suspect she wasn’t in America anymore.

  The nurse—or maybe she was a doctor—picked up Quinn’s wrist and checked her pulse. Then she bent and peered into Quinn’s eyes. She waved a little flashlight at them, then patted Quinn’s shoulder as she straightened. “Herr Aslan wishes to speak to you, as soon as you are awake. I told him it would not be long. Are you able to speak to him?”

  Quinn swallowed. Her throat was dry. “Can I have some water?”

  The woman picked up a cup with a plastic straw from the table beside the bed and put it in a position where Quinn only had to turn her head to take the straw and sip.

  Then the nurse put the cup back and raised her brow.

  Quinn nodded. She wanted to talk to Aslan to
find out what happened, anyway. The last things she clearly remembered was standing outside the yoga studio, and someone punching her in the stomach.

  Although now she realized she hadn’t been punched at all.

  The nurse hurried away. She closed the door after her with a soft click.

  The room looked like a bedroom, although not a typical American one. The highly polished dark wood floor was covered in thick rugs. The walls were wood, too. The planks on the walls ran horizontally. They were a paler wood than the planks on the floor.

  There was no horizontal ceiling. The walls angled, coming together in the corner of the room just over her bed. The timbers looked old and worn smooth.

  The window pushed out through the walls. A picturesque window seat was beneath. The cushion on the seat was made of gay colors—reds and greens and a blue which matched the sky Quinn could see through the window.

  Two doors led from the room. The nurse had used one to leave. The other was possibly an en suite. There was no closet. Instead, a tall and large freestanding wardrobe stood against the wall beside the second door.

  The bedside table was of the same ancient wood as the rest of the room. No medical equipment sat on it. It held, instead, a lace doily, a small vase and a bunch of flowers.

  The bed Quinn laid in was also wood-framed, the four corners made of heavy logs which might have been felled from the mountains, outside.

  The room was bright with sunlight, warm and cozy.

  Quinn was still examining the room when the door opened again. Aslan came in. He wore a casual sweater over dress pants and leather loafers. The man was constantly elegant, even at home.

  He tilted his head to examine her. “I won’t bother asking how you feel. I can see from your eyes you’re still in pain. I’ll ask Greta to give you something for it.”

  He picked up a round-backed chair sitting against the wall and brought it over to the side of the bed. He sat and crossed his leg, then considered her for another silent moment.

  “I was shot, wasn’t I?” Quinn said.