“We all must die,” he said with a shrug. “We have no choice in that. We can, however, choose to make our deaths count for something.”
“Right,” she sneered. “Brave words from the coward who sends women in to do his killing.”
She regretted the jibe when Varno changed directions. She saw the intent in his pale eyes, watched his arm swing back and braced herself for the vicious backhand that followed. Even prepared, she couldn’t hold back a cry as pain exploded in the left side of her face.
“Don’t overestimate your value, Mrs. Carmichael. I will let the Ukrainians negotiate for you, yes. Such negotiations will buy my friends and me the few days we need to complete our plans. But if you annoy me too much, or make any attempt to escape, I will slit your throat as I did Elena’s and that fat pig who tried to take bribes from us while selling his soul to the Russians.”
“The Ukrainians...” Anna swallowed the coppery taste of blood. She could hardly hear herself above the ringing in her ears. “The Ukrainians have a stated policy of non-negotiation with terrorists. So does my government. They...they won’t concede to whatever demands you make.”
“I don’t expect them to.”
How could such a handsome man project such evil? It was in his face, in the smile that looked like it might slither right off his face.
“As I said, all I need is time. You’ve bought me that. Neither government will take rash action as long as they think I might let you go.”
“Will you?”
“You must cling to that hope.”
Yeah, she’d do that. Right up until she plunged the bastard’s knife into his belly and gutted him.
The savage thought sustained her while Varno hauled over a stool and busied himself at the worktable running the length of the shop. It was a garage of sorts, a mom-and-pop operation judging by the rusted tools hanging above the workbench and the assorted junk filling two stalls.
The white van occupied the third. It had been parked there since Varno hauled Anna out of its rear compartment and anchored her to this damned pipe. Five hours ago? Six? She couldn’t formulate more than a rough guesstimate. The garage had no windows, only two bare bulbs dangling at the ends of long wires, so she didn’t know if it was still afternoon or coming on to night.
Varno had been in and out several times. So had the woman who’d driven the van. She was young, probably in her mid-twenties, although her sunken features and the utter despair in her dark eyes made her seem decades older. All Anna had been able to extract from her before Varno cut them off was her name. Julia, pronounced Yu-lia in her native language.
Her cheek still burning and her ears ringing, Anna gathered her courage. “Do these plans of yours involve whatever you’re tinkering with there on the workbench?”
“Actually, they do.”
He swiveled on the stool and held up a palm-size circuit board with leader wires sprouting from either side like tricolored spaghetti.
“This is a timer. It’s constructed from components readily available in any electronics store.” He hefted what looked like an ordinary cell phone in his other hand. “And this is the detonator. With these two miracles of the modern age and that van packed with fertilizer, I will mirror the act of one of your country’s terrorists.”
“You’re referring to Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber?”
“I am. My death count will be considerably higher that his, however.”
For a moment Anna thought she saw something close to regret in his ice-blue eyes.
“It’s a terrible thing that so many must die before a government admits they cannot shackle a proud people, yes?”
Keep him talking.
Every DIA training manual said to keep a subject talking.
The Stockholm syndrome could work in reverse. Not often, it was true. But in rare instances, hostages could bend their captors’ minds.
“What people?” she asked. “What government?”
“The Russians have kept Chechnya enslaved for too long. We demand our own country. We will have it, no matter how many we must kill to...”
The rattle of the garage’s side door cut him off. Swift as a snake, he leaped off the stool and rounded the workbench. His knife slid from the scabbard at the small of his back with well-oiled ease.
Weird, Anna thought in the half second before the door opened. Really weird. The bastard wouldn’t hesitate to unleash the destructive power of modern technology on innocent victims. Yet his weapon of choice was the same one that cavemen had brandished after they’d chipped the first flint to a razor’s edge.
Julia nudged the door open with an elbow and entered the garage. She jumped back, the crockery on her tray banging, when she saw the flash of the blade mere inches from her face.
“Nikolai! I only bring her some soup!”
“You must knock before you enter, woman.”
“Yes, yes, I know.” The tray shook. Soup sloshed over the sides of an earthenware bowl. “I’m sorry.”
The fear on her face prompted an abrupt change in Varno. In less than a heartbeat he went from stone-eyed to gentle.
“I, too, am sorry, Julia. What we do here, you and I, is so important. Pray God it will keep others from suffering as your husband does.”
“Pray God,” she echoed in an anguished whisper. Tears leaked from her eyes as she clenched the tray with white-knuckled fists. “Your...our friends wait for you in the kitchen. There’s soup and bread and fresh vergun. You should go, eat with them. I’ll feed this one.”
He caressed her cheek, as sincere and caring as a viper, before exiting the garage. The man made Anna want to hurl. Resisting the urge, she scooted closer to the pipe to make room for Julia on the bench.
Talking. Get her talking.
“The goulash smells wonderful. Did you make it?”
“Yes.”
Sandy lashes lowered, fanned across pale, tired eyes. Aching sadness made a desolate moonscape of her face as she raised a heaping spoonful. Anna leaned sideways to take it and tasted the instant bite of pepper and paprika.
“My husband used to brag to his friends about my goulash,” Julia said, stirring the soup with the spoon. “Now he cannot so much as taste it.”
“Why?”
“He cannot swallow. One sip of water, one bite of bread, and he will choke.”
A sob ripped from the younger woman’s throat. Tears swam in her eyes.
“He breathes only on a machine,” she said in a raw whisper. “But last month the court says the company that builds the pipeline was not at fault. They no longer have to pay for the machine that keeps him alive.”
She raised the spoon again, let it clatter back down.
“I cannot pay. Our families cannot pay. So my husband will die.”
“And you will avenge him,” Anna said, her heart aching for the soon-to-be widow. “But do you really believe blowing up a section of pipeline will change anything?”
“It must!” Her head jerked up. A martyr’s fervor replaced the desolation in her voice. “This company? It’s owned by the Russians but managed by their Ukrainian lackeys. They are all corrupt! Every one! They look only to get rich from the blood of others. Someone must expose their evil. If I must die to do it, I will.”
“Julia...”
“No! I won’t be turned away from this! Nikolai knows what must be done. He guides me.”
“He’s using you! Just like he used those women to bomb the Moscow subway. They died with the innocent victims ripped apart by their explosives. But their sacrifice didn’t change anything, Julia. Terrorism only strengthens resolve. I know. My country hunted Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants relentlessly. They’ll hunt Nikolai, too, and...”
“Ha! They won’t find him.” She hesitated, anger and fear and pity warring in her eyes. “They came earlier, you know.”
Anna’s heart stuttered. “What?”
“Two police officers. They came to my door. Nikolai and the others hid in the bedroom. I shook lik
e a new leaf but I answered their questions and they left.”
The hope Anna had been nursing shriveled and died an agonizing death. She wanted to scream, to unleash her fear and beat her head against the pipe. It took everything she had to keep the terror from her voice.
“Listen to me, Julia. You can’t let Nikolai turn you into a murderer. Do you want other women—other wives and mothers and daughters—to suffer as you have? To see their loved ones maimed or blinded or torn apart by...”
“Stop! I won’t listen to you.” She sprang up and slammed the tray onto the bench. “Feed yourself, or starve.”
The door banged behind her. Silence fell like a hammer. Anna waited, her heart thudding, but the younger woman didn’t return. Nor did Varno.
Slowly, so slowly, she started breathing again. Her glance drifted from the door to the tray. Her mind was still numb with the shock of learning that the police had been there and left. Desperately she tried to regroup, to focus on what she could here, now. She should eat. She needed to maintain her strength. Or...
Her eyes narrowed. Her pulse kicked. Her thoughts winged from eating to escape. The earthenware bowl was thick. Too thick to shatter in a simple fall. Spearing a quick glance at the door, she stretched sideways and used a hip to nudge the tray off the bench. The soup splattered on concrete. As she’d anticipated, the bowl didn’t.
Feverishly, Anna worked her wrists up the pipe and pushed to her feet. Once upright, she toed the pottery bowl closer and smashed down her heel. Once. Twice. Finally, the bowl broke into thick, jagged pieces.
“Yes!”
She dropped to her knees again and fumbled for one of the shards. Angling a wrist, she got an edge of it under the plastic binding her wrists and started sawing. The restraint was tougher than she would’ve believed possible. Her fingers gripped the broken pottery piece so tight they got numb. Blood oozed from cuts she carved into her wrist. Hoping to God she wasn’t slicing into a vein, she hacked at the plastic.
When the first shard flaked to a dull edge, she fumbled for another. Then a third. Praying, panting, almost sobbing, she sweated and sawed. Just when she was ready to rest her head against the pipe and bawl, the plastic gave.
Her arms dropped to her sides. They hung there, lifeless, while Anna sucked in air. Then she was up and running for the door.
* * *
“Condor One, this is Condor Main.”
Duke stepped away from the unmarked police vehicle to take the transmission, but his eyes never wavered from the concrete block of apartments directly ahead. Yallin and another officer approached the entrance to the unit at the south end of the building. Floodlights mounted at intervals around the stark, unadorned Soviet-era complex kept the darkness at bay enough for Duke to pick out the piping on Yallin’s uniform. His eyes never wavering from the Ukrainians as they approached the apartment building, he put his cell phone to his ear.
“This is Condor One, go ahead, Condor Main.”
“We have the satellite imagery you requested.”
“Send it!”
“Will do, but be advised there’s been a change in operational command and control. We’re instructed to coordinate all further field activity with the U.S. embassy in Kiev.”
Duke’s knuckles went white where he gripped the phone. Fury steamed in his veins. He’d done what he could to squelch the Ukrainian request to terminate Operation Condor. He’d forwarded several sitreps since Anna’s kidnapping, and a personal communiqué to Colonel Haggarty. Now this!
It narrowed everything Duke had been feeling for the past few days to a single point. Anna. She was what mattered. The only thing that mattered. Screw following orders. Screw the Air Force. Screw his military career.
He opened his mouth, intending to advise Condor Main that the U.S. Embassy in Kiev could go to hell. They beat him to the punch.
“Also be advised that we’ve been instructed to dual-channel.”
Dual-channel. Military-speak for sending private signals. Haggarty had come through.
“Imagery downloading, Condor One. Please acknowledge receipt.”
The phone vibrated against Duke’s palm. He whipped the instrument away from his ear, saw the flash that indicated a downlink.
“Receipt acknowledged, Condor Main.”
“Roger that. Condor Main standing by. Let us know if you require anything else.”
The screen was too damned small, the night too dark. Keeping one eye on the men now mounting the entrance steps, Duke moved into the closest circle of floodlight.
Yallin’s sources had confirmed that the man paralyzed in the same accident that killed Elena’s husband lived in this apartment complex. Two officers had visited him earlier, spoken to him and his young wife. She was pale, they’d reported. Nervous. But no more so than to be expected when faced with an unexpected visit from the police.
Still, the nervousness had convinced Yallin to make another visit. Personally this time. Although he’d turned up no evidence that the couple owned a van, they could have begged or borrowed one from a friend to transport the husband to his doctor’s appointments.
It was a long shot, but all they had at this point. Which made the image Duke was now scanning all the more vital. If these people had access to a van, it wasn’t parked on the street. It could be on a side alley, though, or in a back lot or under a protective awning.
Or in a garage. The distinctive rectangle almost leaped from the screen. Single story. Three bays, all shut tight. Old tires and rusting car parts in a jumble behind it.
It sat by itself, a separate structure some yards behind the concrete block of apartments. Duke’s eyes whipped from the screen to the darkness shrouding the area beyond the complex. The garage was there, it had to be there, but he couldn’t see it. Wishing to hell he had his night vision goggles, he started for the patch of darkness. The driver of the unmarked police car voiced an obvious protest in Ukrainian and gestured for him to wait for Yallin. Duke ignored him.
Instinct kicked in. Every sense went to full alert. The night sounds, the side sweeps, the dim visuals, took him to a different plane. This was the place. He could feel it.
He pocketed the phone. Palmed the .45 he’d retrieved from the hotel suite. Thumbed the safety. Caught the thud of boot soles pounding concrete.
Two people.
One heavier than the other.
Both in a dead run.
Almost before he’d differentiated the sounds, Anna burst into the circle of light shed by the streetlamp closest to the garage. She was coming straight at Duke, blocking most of the dim figure behind her. All he could see was a glint of steel raised to shoulder level behind her.
“Anna! Down!”
For a frozen second, he was sure she hadn’t heard him. Swearing, he angled the .45’s front site a millimeter up and to the left, aiming for a shot just over her shoulder.
Then she dropped like a stone, and Duke pumped out three rounds.
Epilogue
The wedding took place on a crisp, wintery December afternoon at the home of Anna’s parents. The comfortable stone-and-brick residence sat on a one-acre lot in the rolling hills of northern Virginia, close enough to DIA headquarters that her boss and a good number of coworkers could attend.
It was also close enough for a half dozen of Duke’s friends who were currently condemned to Pentagon duty to drive in. The colorful medals and polished brass on their dress uniforms vied with the bright scarlet and silver Anna had chosen for her attendants.
Combat controller scarlet, she’d declared, since she was marrying into the brotherhood.
She and Duke had talked long and hard about that. They both knew the odds. The divorce rate among special ops personnel went through the roof. Duke would’ve walked away from the military. Had almost walked away in Odessa. Anna wouldn’t let him. Not until they’d at least tried to integrate their combined careers into a life together—or until she discovered she couldn’t handle the worry and uncertainty every time Duke deployed.
<
br /> He wanted to believe it would work. So did the three men standing shoulder to shoulder with him at the head of the aisle formed by rows of white folding chairs. Incredibly, four of the six Sidewinders had managed to convene on the same continent at the same time.
Travis Cooper, former Navy SEAL. Dan Taylor, Army Ranger. Jack Halliday, Delta Force. Josh Patterson and Chris Winborne were deployed, but both had sent Anna their congratulations for putting a ring through the Dukester’s nose. They’d also suggested various strategies for keeping it there, all of which he’d ordered Anna to ignore.
The memory of one of Josh’s more descriptive strategies had Duke shifting his shoulders under his dress uniform. The slight movement caught the eye of his best man. Travis, of course, pounced on it.
“Worried?” he asked with a sardonic grin. “Need some pointers on married life?”
“I’ll figure it out,” Duke drawled.
Although Travis could probably give him some excellent advice. One glance at the blonde beauty in the second row of seats verified that. Madison radiated happiness. The baby nestled against her shoulder only underscored her joy.
“Beats the hell out of me how you managed to convince that woman to marry you,” Duke muttered.
“Me, too.”
The former SEAL shook his head in unfeigned amazement before shifting his gaze to the two women who sat directly in front of Madison. They had their heads together, their iron-gray curls almost touching.
“Looks like your granny’s getting on well with Anna’s grandmother.”
Duke shuddered. “Yeah, I know.”
Either of those two could give CIA interrogators lessons. Granny Jones was particularly devious at extracting information. Not content with generalities, she’d demanded specifics. When, where, how, how often.
Anna’s babushka had worked them over with equal skill. Now, according to Duke’s bride-to-be, both grandmothers had put her on notice to start producing offspring ASAP. His glance shot back to Travis’s baby. Duke could handle a kid like that.
Maybe.
Any doubts he might have entertained on the matter evaporated when the door leading into the spacious living room opened. His heart hammering, Duke popped to attention. The three men beside followed suit.
Course of Action: Out of Harm's WayAny Time, Any Place Page 21