Laynie Portland, Spy Resurrected

by Vikki Kestell

  The woman took it in then said softly, “My daughter was seated in business class. She witnessed some of what happened. She told me about the second marshal, the woman. Said she was the bravest woman she’d ever seen . . .”

  “That she is. And she . . .”

  Wolfe’s chest had tightened. His words stuck in his throat.

  He considered the paper cup of now-cold coffee sitting on the stone bench between them. In an abrupt and violent move, he swept the cup from the bench, hurling it onto the sidewalk. Its lid flew off. The contents splattered across the asphalt. The slurry froze on contact.

  He regretted the outburst at once, but he’d momentarily reached the end of himself and his ability to tamp down his anger.

  Frustration.

  Impotence . . . and a sorrowful sense of inevitability choking him.

  He felt something, looked down, and found Svitlanya’s gloved fingers touching his arm. “What is it?”

  He shook his head. Couldn’t answer.

  “What have you not told me, Director Wolfe?”

  She waited. When he’d regained control, he murmured, “I sent her to Tbilisi. A simple meet with an informant, but AGFA found out. They took her. Have her.”

  Wolfe stared into Svitlanya’s eyes. “AGFA took my operative because she knows where we’ve hidden Vyper. They have her for one reason—to extract Vyper’s location from her so they can pay you the promised price for safely delivering the carfentanil.”

  He made certain she understood exactly what he said next. “She’s only of use to AGFA as long as she ensures the delivery. Once they realize we’ve intercepted it . . .”

  Svitlanya slowly nodded. “They will no longer keep her alive. It is why you wanted to know how we have spoken to their leader. So you might save her.”

  “That—and we’d love to deliver a slice of karma to AGFA.”

  Wolfe pushed Svitlanya. “Do you call a satellite phone to speak with him, their leader? Would you tell us the next time you are scheduled to speak to him? We can track a satphone while it is in use.”

  When she didn’t move, he played his last card. “You said . . . you said that losing your daughter would have been an insurmountable blow. This operative. She is something like a daughter to me—and I sent her to Tbilisi. Whatever AGFA is doing to her? However they are torturing her to give up Vyper’s location? I sent her.”

  The face she turned to him was lined with regret. “I am truly sorry, Director. I can tell you that at our last communication your operative was still alive. Beyond that? I cannot do what you are asking of me, even if I wished to . . . even though it seems I owe this woman a debt I can never repay. As I said earlier, position in our organization is, first of all, who you are related to.”

  Semion Davydenko. She may be his daughter, but he is still calling the shots. Svitlanya will never cross her father. Disloyalty has but one outcome, and that punishment would fall on her—and her daughter.

  He pulled himself together, retrieved a business card from his pocket, wrote on it. “I’m glad we were able to come to the arrangement we did. Please forward the shipping info to this email address.”

  It was an email account Jaz had recently created for this express purpose.

  Wolfe stood, careful of his cold, stiff muscles and the slick sidewalk. “As soon as we receive the information, we will intercept the carfentanil.”

  She stood, too, and shivered. “The shipment is eight days from port. The longer you wait to intercept the cargo, the more of AGFA’s people we will be able to . . . identify.”

  “Eight days. Good to know.”

  As she took his card, Wolfe added, “If . . . if you should change your mind about the other, please call or send an email.”

  He walked away, Svitlanya’s last words occupying his attention.

  Eight days. Eight days to intercept the shipment. Eight days to find and save Laynie.

  God, you know I have never asked you for anything. From a young age, I have derided the very idea of a higher being who gives a rip about human civilization, and I have treated those who believe in you with scorn.

  Not for my sake, but for hers, God . . . if you are there? If you do actually care?

  Please save Laynie.

  LAYNIE HEARD THE RHYTHMIC pounding of the three soldiers’ boots on the tunnel stones as they drew near that evening. She slowly removed the veil from her head, twisted it tightly to form a rope, stood, and used the rope as a belt around her abaya, cinching the garment in, close to her body. Her second veil was bound around her burned arm.

  She walked toward the grate, alone, leaving her little chicks huddled by the campfire in a nervous knot.

  The other kafir girls, seeing a bareheaded Laynie facing the grate and sensing something amiss in her stance, whispered among themselves uneasily. They, too, hung back.

  The three soldiers, with leashes in hand, unlocked and opened the gate. The soldier who appeared to be in charge motioned Laynie forward.

  “I will not go,” Laynie answered in Russian.

  He bellowed a sharp command. Immediately, the girls from the other campfire hurried toward the gate. When Laynie held out her hand toward them in the universally understood signal to halt, they stopped. Their nervous eyes darted from Laynie to the soldiers and back, and they stayed well clear of both.

  The soldier again gestured for Laynie to come to him.

  “No. I belong to Jesus. I am a virtuous woman. I will not defile my body.”

  The kafir girls lifted mutters against Laynie, then shouts. She felt their fear and anger in the curses they called down on her. Between the soldiers and the angry women, the tension in the cell mounted until it was a palpable, pulsing thing Laynie forced herself to ignore.

  The lead soldier carried a whip coiled around his waist. He made a show of unwinding its coils and flicking it, sending a resounding crack into the air. The girls scattered before the threat, but Laynie did not move or flinch. She focused on the man’s hands. When he sent the lash snaking toward her, she reached out for it and let its stinging bite wrap around her wrist and forearm. As soon as it did, she grabbed its length with her hand and jerked the whip toward her.

  It flew from the soldier’s hand. Laynie gathered the whip’s coils to herself, then tossed it aside, out of the soldier’s reach.

  “I belong to Jesus the Son of God. I am a virtuous woman. I will not defile my body.”

  Incensed and mortified, the man stormed the short distance between them, swinging his fists at Laynie’s head. She sidestepped, grabbed his wrist, and rotated his entire arm.

  The sharp snap of bone drained the cave of all other sound—until the man’s shriek of agony filled it back up. When he fell, writhing, onto the stone floor, the other two soldiers acted. One rushed to pull the man away from the grate. The other slammed the gate closed behind them and locked it. The wounded soldier’s screams of pain echoed and grew fainter as his friends retreated down the tunnel, dragging him with them.

  Laynie remained where she was.

  Inside the cell, the girls of the second campfire were beside themselves in an uproar, yelling at Laynie what she surmised were obscenities.

  She did not move, not even to see how her girls fared.

  Minutes later, the two soldiers reappeared. Bula and two other soldiers were close behind.

  “What are you doing?” Bula asked her.

  “Defending my honor.”

  “I cannot permit your bad example before the others.”

  “You should not be surprised by my actions. I told you I would defend my honor.”

  “And I told you Sayed would kill you.”

  “What you are doing is wrong. It is unholy and sinful, displeasing to God.”

  Bula motioned for one of the soldiers to unlock the gate.

  Laynie dropped her chin to her chest, then lifted it again and said in a loud voice, “I declare that I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world! I will defend my virtue as any Christian woman
should. If I die, I die as a Christian, as a testimony to Jesus’ saving grace.”

  Bula drew a stout club from his belt. The two men with him did the same. He shouted into the cell. “This woman is an enemy of Islam. Has another of you committed such apostasy? Does anyone else wish her fate?”

  Laynie stared at Bula, unblinking, half-praying her chicks would remain silent.

  One did not.

  Ksenia peeked from behind Laynie’s back. “I, too, love Jesus. I-I will stand with her.” Her quavering voice spoke first in Russian. She repeated herself in the dialect the other women knew. Sobbing, she buried her face in the skirt of Laynie’s abaya.

  From a few yards behind her, Laynie heard Asmeen and Mariam’s keening sobs.

  Bula and his men, clubs whirling, advanced on them. Laynie knew the danger of those weighted blows so she dodged them, looking for her opportunity to reach inside the arc of a swing. Meanwhile, Ksenia quailed before the advance and retreated. Laynie, unable to fend off all three men, gave ground—only to back into Ksenia, knocking her down. When Laynie tripped and sprawled over Ksenia’s body, Bula and his men descended on her, beating her with their clubs and fists.

  Bula shouted to the men to grab Laynie’s arms. They dragged her, kicking and fighting, across the rocks, farther back in the cave where she hadn’t gone—where Ksenia had warned her not to go.

  “What is there?”

  “A deep hole. An empty cistern. If you fall into it, you may break your legs . . . If one of us does not submit herself to a soldier, if she persists in displeasing him, they will drop her into the cistern.”

  “And . . . what becomes of the woman?”

  “If she repents and begs them to pull her out, they do. Sometimes. If they do not pull her out, they let her die there.”

  Bula’s soldiers flung her over the edge, and she felt herself falling. At the last moment, she pulled her arms and legs into a tuck. Then she struck the bottom, landing on her side. The air whooshed from her lungs.

  Moments later, Ksenia’s body fell on her, and Laynie lost consciousness.

  BULA PEERED INTO THE cistern. He could not see into its depths—he could barely make out its treacherous edge.

  One of his men asked him, “Shall we throw these two in as well?” He gestured to the two girls weeping in the hands of the other soldiers.

  “I did not hear them declare themselves for the false Christian messiah. Besides, we have work for them this night. Get the women ready. All of them.”

  When the soldiers left to do his bidding, Bula stared down into the cistern’s darkness.

  “You defended your virtue well, Christian lady, and preserved your honor—such as it was—unto death.”

  Before he turned away, he nodded. “I salute your courage.”

  Chapter 33

  WOLFE RETURNED FROM New York after meeting with Svitlanya and drove to Broadsword to brief the task force. It was evening when he called the task force together, posted Bo and Harris outside the gym, and shared the results of the meeting with the team.

  “Settle down, everyone,” Jaz ordered, then took her seat with them.

  This had better be good, Wolfe.

  “A reminder. Everything I’m about to tell you is classified at the highest levels. Although I won’t disclose every detail of the meet, I can say that it was successful. I met with an individual from the Ukrainian mob whom I’ll refer to as my counterpart. After we agreed that our conversation would be off the record, I laid out what we know about the mob’s relationship with AGFA—money and favors in exchange for fentanyl, those favors including the mob taking delivery of certain shipments for AGFA.

  “When I explained that the first shipment the mob smuggled into the US for AGFA had contained poisoned ecstasy and had killed close to two thousand Americans, my counterpart was suitably appalled. By the time I revealed that AGFA had bought the fentanyl from the Chinese instead of manufacturing it, I had their undivided attention.

  “I told my counterpart that we believed the next shipment they had agreed to smuggle into port for AGFA contained carfentanil. I explained what carfentanil was, how we believed AGFA’s American jihadis planned to use it in another terror attack on the United States—and that, since we knew the Russians were innocent of attacking us, AGFA was no longer attempting to instigate a war between the US and the Russians. Instead, AGFA’s move was pure terrorism for terrorism’s sake.

  “I explained furthermore that, rather than risk the might of the United States coming down upon their heads, AGFA was happy to shift the blame onto the mob. These revelations gained us the candid cooperation we hoped for, and my counterpart verified that a sealed sea can was scheduled to arrive eight days from today.

  “The meeting also resulted in another important bit of information. When I asked if they ever spoke directly with AGFA’s leader, the answer was yes—but what they let slip was even more important. They confirmed that Bella is alive and being held at AGFA’s headquarters—or rather, that at their last call, Bella was alive.”

  A murmur followed by a heavy exhale went around the bullpen.

  Wolfe lifted a hand and the murmur died. “It’s not all good news, I’m afraid. They also confirmed our theory that the only reason AGFA took Bella was to pry Jaz’s location from her. As your team had already surmised, Jaz is the payment AGFA offered the mob for both money and for smuggling the sea can of carfentanil into the US. Of course, the mob doesn’t want to be on the hook for enabling a terror attack, so my counterpart agreed to provide the shipping information.”

  Wolfe singled out Jaz. “I gave her the email address of that account you set up. You should receive the shipping info shortly. Let me know as soon as you do.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Wolfe continued speaking to Jaz. “I made certain that the mob understood the stakes, should they come after you, Jaz. I was quite clear on that point. My only concession was an agreement to discuss the loss of their data at a later date—not that the FBI would ever consent to surrendering the files to the mob.”

  Jaz asked what was uppermost in the team’s mind. “What about Bella? Did they tell you how they communicate with AGFA? Can we use their communications to find her?”

  Wolfe looked away. “They call Sayed on his satphone. I asked if they would tell us when the next call was scheduled so we could track it, but my counterpart refused me.”

  Jaz couldn’t let it go. “But did you . . . do the Ukrainians understand that AGFA is torturing Bella? To find me? To pay them? I mean, they have the power to make it stop, right? Can’t you . . . can’t you force them to do something?”

  A shadow crossed Wolfe’s face. “I tried. I did. Believe me . . . I did. As for making AGFA stop?”

  He didn’t finish the thought aloud.

  Vincent did. “If . . . if the Ukrainians were to tell AGFA they no longer needed Jaz, then AGFA would have no reason to keep Bella alive.”

  Stunned, Jaz considered Vincent’s logic, then looked to Tobin. He said nothing. He seemed to have pulled in on himself. Tobin’s silence spoke louder than his words ever would.

  “That’s it for now,” Wolfe said. As he stood, he said to Tobin, “No, not yet, Marshal Tobin.”

  Not yet, Marshal?

  When the meeting broke up, she grabbed Tobin, dragged him outside. “Tobin. Are you . . . are you okay?”

  What she saw in his eyes made her want to weep. It wasn’t defeat. Exactly. It wasn’t even resignation. It was brokenness—but not a “this person is injured and dying” brokenness. It was something else.

  “What did Wolfe mean when he said, ‘Not yet, Marshal Tobin’?”

  “Oh. That. I . . . well, when we thought Bella was dead, I asked Wolfe why he was keeping me around. I don’t really have a role on the task force. My job was to keep an eye on Bella back when he and Seraphim wanted to be sure she wasn’t suffering from PTSD. With Bella gone . . .”

  “Wait—you can’t leave, Tobin.”

  “Didn’t say I was. I said
I asked him why I was still here.”

  “And he said what?”

  “He asked, ‘Marshal Tobin, is Bella still part of the task force?’ That riled me up real big, which was what he’d intended. Then he said he still had hope for Bella—and until he no longer did, I was as much a part of the team as any of you clowns.”

  “There’s no way he said, ‘you clowns.’”

  Tobin laughed a little. “You’re right. He didn’t.”

  “So the ‘No, not yet, Marshal Tobin’ back in the conference room? Wolfe was saying he hadn’t lost hope for Bella?”

  “Yeah. That’s what he was saying. He did add, though, when I asked why I was still here, that I was a stabilizing force on the team.”

  “Well, he’s not wrong. You can’t leave, Tobin. We need you . . . and I’m a little worried about you, too.”

  “No need to worry about me, Jaz,” he said. “I am praying and walking this through.”

  “Praying again! What *blanking* good does that do?”

  “Thing is, Jaz, if you look for God’s hand in any given situation, more often than not, you’ll find it.”

  Jaz rounded on Tobin. “You know what praying is? It’s *bleeping* double-talk. There’s no God and no ‘hand of God’ to be seen anywhere.”

  Tobin smiled, his eyes weary, but something else flickered down deep in them. “Did you notice the mistake Wolfe made?”

  “I—” Jaz frowned. “No. What mistake?”

  “He used the phrase ‘my counterpart’ and non-specific pronouns throughout both briefings.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “Except the one time he said ‘her.’ He said, ‘I gave her the email address of that account you set up.’”

  “So?”

  “We might be accustomed to women in leadership in the US, but how many female ‘counterparts’ at Wolfe’s level do you think the Ukrainian mob has?”

  Jaz frowned and stared down at the snow-packed path. Absentmindedly, she flipped a stick of gum out of the pack in her left hand. Unwrapped it. Folded it in half, then half again. Tossed it in her mouth.