Afraid she might have come too early, Anna was debating whether to return later when the front door opened and Elena emerged. She was in jeans and sturdy work boots, with her hair caught back by a kerchief and a dented tin pail in her hand. She came down the front steps, whistled shrilly and started for the shed at the edge of the clearing.
No, not a shed, Anna saw. A small barn with an attached corral defined by split birch rails. Obviously home to the shaggy mountain pony that whinnied an eager greeting.
“Ahh, Succi, you’re a greedy little beast.” Elena knuckled the horse’s forehead affectionately. “You want your breakfast, eh? Well, I...”
She broke off when the horse raised its head, ears pricked forward. Spinning, the blonde glared at her uninvited visitor.
“What do you want?”
The naked hostility stopped Anna in her tracks. “I came to apologize for upsetting you last night. I didn’t know about Marko.”
“Fine. Good. You have apologized. Now go.”
“Elena, I’m so sorry....”
“For what? That those bastards in Odessa murdered my husband? You’re no more sorry than I, Anya. No more...”
Her voice cracked, wavered.
“No more than I,” she finished on a broken sob.
The pail clattered to the ground. The young widow buried her face in her hands. Anna rushed forward and tried to put an arm around her shoulders.
“No!” The blonde flung off her hold. Tears streaked her face, but her eyes sparked now with fury. “I don’t want comfort. I want only justice for my Marko.”
“But...”
“It was no accident, I tell you! It was murder. They didn’t mark the feeder line as they should have. They killed him. They killed my husband.”
Anna hated to play on the woman’s grief. Feeling like the worst kind of voyeur, she probed deeper into Elena’s raw, weeping wound.
“Marko hit a feeder line?”
“To the Soyuz pipeline.”
Anna’s pulse tripped. “Your husband worked on the Soyuz?”
“You know it? You know the Russian company that owns it?”
“I know of it.”
Elena’s lip curled. “They want only to make a profit. They care nothing for the people who work for them, nothing for the land and seas they pollute. Well, they will soon have to care.”
“Why?” Her heart was banging against her rib cage like a trapped bird. “What will make them...?”
“Who is this, Elena?”
The deep, sensual voice brought both women around. Elena’s face went dead white as she faced the newcomer, and Anna looked into the ice-blue eyes of a killer.
Chapter 6
“Who’s this?” Varno repeated, his eyes on Anna.
“This is... This is...”
Fury or fear or maybe her storm of weeping had robbed Elena of breath. As the blonde fought to get it back, Anna gathered every ounce of courage she possessed and thrust out her hand.
“Anya Solkov. I’m visiting from America.”
God knew how she managed that cool, polite smile with spiders of fear crawling up her spine! Or how she kept from snatching her hand back when Varno held it several moments too long.
“You’re an American, yet you speak like a native. How is that, Anya Solkov?”
“My grandmother was born in this village. She and my grandfather immigrated to the States, and I spent my summers with them when I was young. I grew up speaking both Russian and Ukrainian. And you are...?”
“Ah, forgive me. I am Gregor Zak, a friend of Elena’s husband. As you can no doubt tell from my accent, I, too, am visiting this area.”
In a desperate attempt to control her terror, she catalogued his features. Those pale, icy eyes. The slanting black brows. Skin showing the faint pock mocks of old acne. A full, sensual mouth set above a chin with a dent in the center.
That dimple would tag him, she thought exultantly. He could wear contacts or dye his hair, but unless he underwent cosmetic surgery, antiterrorism units around the world would now have a distinguishing feature to associate with Nikolai Varno.
Assuming Anna lived to report it.
“I don’t remember seeing you at the party last night,” she commented with a nonchalance that almost choked her. “Were you at Auntie Oksana’s?”
“No, I had business to attend to and got back late.” His pale eyes conveyed a show of disappointment as they shifted to Elena. “You didn’t tell me there was to be a party.”
“Anya and her husband arrived only yesterday afternoon. Auntie invited everyone to meet them. I would have told you about it this morning,” she added with a hint of desperation that Anna picked up on immediately, “but you were still sleeping when I came out to feed Succi.”
“I see.” Varno’s gaze lingered on Elena’s mottled face for a moment before turning back to Anna. “So your husband is with you. Is he also an American?”
“He is. If you come into the village today, stop by Auntie Oksana’s and I’ll introduce you.”
“Perhaps I’ll do that.”
“Great.” She made a show of checking her watch. “I’d better get back. I left him and Auntie trying to communicate with hand signals.”
She hesitated, unsure how much Varno had overheard, and went with the truth. “I’m sorry about Marko, Elena. Very sorry.”
Her reply was low and bitter. “So am I.”
* * *
The walk from the barn to the road was the longest of Anna’s life. She kept her shoulders loose and stride easy, but more cold sweat gathered at the base of her spine with each step. Her hands shook so bad she jammed them in the pockets of her windbreaker. Her fist closed around her cell phone and squeezed it like a vise.
Had she asked too many questions? Too few? Was Varno suspicious?
Stupid, stupid, stupid! Of course he’d be suspicious. The man had killed or helped kill hundreds of innocent people. Police and militia forces in a dozen countries were hunting him.
She reached the edge of the clearing. Started down the dirt road. Forced herself to turn and wave to the two standing motionless, watching her. Neither returned the wave.
Her sweaty fist gripped the phone. Not yet. She couldn’t contact Duke yet. Birches lined either side of the road, but she was still visible through the wickerwork of their slender white trunks.
Dried leaves crunched under her boots. The road took a curve up ahead. She strained to hear sounds from behind, was terrified that she would. To keep herself from bolting, she counted her steps. Five. Six. Seven...
She risked a quick look over her shoulder, and was jabbing at the phone’s keyboard almost before she completed the sweep. Her heart dropped to her boot tops when the phone rang and rang.
Answer! Answer, dammit!
She jerked the instrument down from her ear, checked the number on the display and was about punch to redial when a laconic greeting came through the speaker.
“Hey, sweetheart.”
“Where are you?”
He picked up on her urgency instantly. His own voice altered. Not enough to alert anyone listening to his end of the conversation, but Anna’s trained ear caught the subtle change.
“I’m with Auntie at the store. Did you see Elena?”
“I saw her.” Her heart pounded so hard and fast she could barely breathe. “I saw Varno, too. He’s here, Duke. At Elena’s place.”
“Are you there now?”
Nothing subtle in that. It came at her with the speed and force of a bullet.
“No, I’m on the road, walking back to the village.”
“Keep moving, and keep this line open!”
* * *
Duke threw out an excuse in mangled Russian and barged out of the small, cluttered shop. He left Auntie and the two old men he’d been trying to pump for information gaping after him.
Swearing viciously, he raced to Auntie’s house to retrieve his weapons. He shouldn’t have let Anna go off on her own. Shouldn’t have accepted Aunt
ie’s assertion that he and Anna were the only strangers to show up in the village in recent weeks.
All right. Enough recriminations, dammit!
He needed to shut down, retool, focus.
Eyes flat, thoughts narrowed, he extracted the .45 from its hiding place, ejected the clip and made sure it was fully loaded before snapping it back in and chambering a round. The pistol went into the right pocket of his vest, a second clip and the KA-BAR into the left.
The jeep kicked over on the first try. Duke rocked it into a two-wheeled turn. The goat in Auntie’s neighbor’s yard bleated and jumped to the end of its tether to avoid bouncing off a fender. Chickens flapped their useless wings, squawking and scattering as Duke tore down the village’s only street.
He earned a shouted curse from the housewife whose compost pile the jeep’s rear wheel plowed through. An up-thrust finger from the sheep herder he sent diving for the side of the road. Then the village fell behind and the road dipped and curved ahead.
The leaves still clinging to the birches flashed by in flickers of orange and yellow and brown, like a DVD in fast forward. The jeep’s tires spit up dirt and rock with every sharp turn. His eyes on the road, Duke kept his ears tuned to the phone stuffed in his shirt pocket and both hands on the wheel.
He didn’t pull in a full breath until he spotted Anna’s canary-yellow windbreaker. She was coming toward him at a dead run, her dark hair trailing in the wind.
“It’s Varno,” she gasped as he skidded to a stop. “He claims he was a friend of Elena’s husband, but she’s nervous around him. Too nervous.”
Duke threw the jeep into Park and swung out. “Where’s the house?”
“About a kilometer and a half straight down this road.”
“Right. Here’s the plan. You go back to the village. I’ll circle...”
“No way!”
“Remember our agreement?”
“Yes, but...”
“Listen up!” The command lashed like a whip. “I don’t have time to argue with you and I damn sure can’t go in worrying about whether Varno will frame you in his sights. Get in the jeep and haul ass, woman.”
She bit down on her lip, hard, but did as ordered. He waited only until she’d put the jeep in gear and executed a screeching Y-turn before he palmed the .45 and took off.
Damned good thing he’d spent the weeks before this mission in Colorado Springs. The Carpathians didn’t come close to the Rockies for oxygen deprivation. Duke’s still-healing wound tugged at his hip like a sulky child demanding attention but he ran fast and he ran low.
He’d covered just over a half kilometer when he spotted the smoke rising above the tree line. It coiled into the blue sky, too thick for chimney smoke, too dark for a wood fire. A hundred yards later, he caught the stench. It came at him through the trees, carried on the wind with the stink of burning wood and melted plastic.
Duke’s gut knotted. Anyone who’d ever pulled a buddy from a blazing armored vehicle or had to identify their charred remains could recognize the smell of burnt flesh. Savagely suppressing the memories of the times he’d had to search a still-smoking corpse for ID tags, Duke broke into an all-out sprint.
Mere moments later he spotted the flames leaping up to join the thickening column of smoke. A turn in the road brought the farmhouse into view. Fire licked at its windows. Heat from the inside was already buckling its exterior siding. More smoke poured through the open front door, almost concealing the body sprawled half-in, half-out of the house. She was on her stomach, with her face buried in a bent arm, but the blond hair spilling across the front stoop identified her.
“Dammit!”
Duke raced for the burning house. His weapon at the ready, he made constant sweeps to either side as he ran. He was halfway across the clearing when a loud thud pierced the fire’s deadly crackle. Dropping into a shooter’s crouch, he spun toward the sound and took two-handed aim at a wooden shed attached to the far end the house. His heart stayed square in his throat even after he spotted the panicked horse backing away from the burning house and thumping its haunches against the shed’s wall.
Duke’s priority was the woman. His gut told him she was too far gone to save, but he had to try. Shoving the .45 into the waistband of his jeans, he ripped off his vest as he closed the last few yards to the house.
Smoke boiled through the open door and windows shattered by the heat. Flames shot through the melted siding. A part of the roof crashed down even as Duke locked air in his lungs and ducked under the thick, suffocating smoke. Using the down vest to smother the flames licking at Elena’s head and shoulders, he dragged her clear of the house.
As gently as he could, he rolled her onto her back. Her hair was gone now. Her scalp was black and blistered. Her bent elbow had protected her face from the fire. Might even have saved her life if someone hadn’t sliced open her jugular.
Jaw locked, Duke retrieved the .45 from his waistband and pushed to his feet. Instinct as much as common sense told him Varno was gone. The bastard wouldn’t have hung around until someone spotted the smoke and came running. Still, Duke kicked in the door to the shed and made a thorough sweep before going back outside to free the panicked horse. He slammed a shoulder against the top rail of the pen and aimed a vicious kick at the second to send it tumbling to the ground. The short, shaggy horse rolled its eyes, whinnied and sailed above the remaining rail. Hooves thundering, it took off at a gallop.
When Duke kneeled beside Elena again, her green eyes stared sightlessly at the sky. He closed them gently, battling a mix of cold fury and raging self-disgust. He should have accompanied Anna to Elena’s house this morning. Should never have left her alone. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Still kneeling beside Elena’s body, he brought up his phone and thumbed in a code to uplink him to the military comm-sat net.
“Condor Main, this is Condor One.”
* * *
He expected at least a token resistance from Anna to his flat declaration that they would operate in tandem from here on out. She surprised him by accepting the dictum with barely a nod. Elena’s gruesome death had shaken her. Shaken Auntie Oksana and the rest of the village, too.
Word of the murder spread with the speed of light. Every resident of the village knew the gory details long before two militsiya officers from the Ministry of Internal Affairs arrived. They’d driven up from Khmelnytskyi, the nearest town of any size, and took over the investigation from the local constable.
Duke thought he might have to do some tap dancing given the murky justification for his and Anna’s presence in the area. Auntie Oksana took care of that. With wringing hands and tear-streaked cheeks, she overcame whatever doubts the militsiya might have about dear, dear Anya and her husband.
* * *
While the Ukrainian police detectives conducted their investigation, the sitrep Duke called in to the 352nd at RAF Mildenhall was already producing results.
He’d supplied the name Varno had given Anna and her description of his appearance, along with a description of the car she’d spotted parked at Elena’s. Armed with that information, the DIA and DOD had sent a joint emergency request to the National Reconnaissance Office in Chantilly, Virginia.
The NRO was one of the U.S.’s five “big” intelligence collection organizations. A sister agency to the CIA, NSA, DIA and NGA—the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency—the NRO designed, built and operated the spy satellites that provided vital intelligence to senior military and civilian decision makers.
The decision maker in this instance sat smack atop the chain of command. The president himself had ordered the NRO to redirect satellite surveillance to this remote corner of the Carpathians. If Varno was tackling these winding mountain roads in a pearl-gray mini, Duke should get word any moment. So should the president.
At that point, the commander-in-chief would have two options. He could give the CIA the green light to pulverize the mini with a laser-guided missile launched from a drone. Or he c
ould send word through secure channels for Duke to track Varno to his lair and call in a strike to take out not just the terrorist, but the rest of his cell. In either case, he would coordinate with the Ukrainian premier, who’d requested U.S. assistance.
* * *
The flash message came through just after noon. Duke excused himself from the crowd jammed into Auntie’s house and went outside. He reentered the house a few minutes later and signaled to Anna to join him in their bedroom.
“They located the car,” he told her quietly. “It was abandoned about forty clicks from here.”
“Varno?”
“No sign.”
“Dammit! Someone has to have seen him!”
“Yeah, well, with any luck someone will.”
“What do we do in the meantime?”
“We pack up. We’re leaving.”
“We can’t leave! Not with Varno still on the loose.”
Anna’s protest came straight from her gut. Going toe-to-toe with a known terrorist this morning had scared the crap out of her. All she’d wanted then was to get away from the man and call in the heavy artillery.
But Elena’s brutal murder had altered her perspective on every aspect of this mission. Made it personal in a way that none of the hundreds and hundreds of hours she’d spent poring through intelligence data could.
“Orders are orders,” Duke said calmly.
“And you always follow them?”
It wasn’t so much of a question as an accusation, but she answered herself anyway.
“Yes, of course you follow them. The military’s your life.”
“Anna...”
“Get back on the phone. Contact Condor Main. We can’t leave.” She chopped a hand through the air to emphasize her point. “We know what Varno looks like now, but I’m the only one who’s seen him up close and personal.”
Too close and personal. She countered the shiver that raced up her spine with a stubborn tilt to her chin.
“I can ID the man, Duke. I want to stay until he’s found.”
“Use your head. He won’t remain in this area. The consensus now is that Varno came to the mountains specifically to recruit Elena. Her belief that the greedy bastards who operate the pipeline killed her husband made her putty in his hands. Which is why,” he continued, cutting off another protest, “we’ve been ordered to Odessa.”
Course of Action: Out of Harm's WayAny Time, Any Place Page 16