Patriot Dream

by Stephen Templin

  “Yes!” Chris smiled and put out his fist for a fist-bump, but Max left him hanging.

  “You abandoned us,” Max said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Max’s voice became tense. “We almost died in Sorrento because of you.”

  Chris raised his head. “But you’re alive, and you snatched the HVT.”

  “I thought preachers were supposed to help out their neighbor and all that,” Max said. “Not be assholes.”

  “If you were me, and it was your brother Tom instead of Hannah, would you have left him on the ground and continued the mission?”

  Max pondered his words.

  “That’s what I thought,” Chris said.

  Max didn’t back down. “Why didn’t God take care of Hannah—so you could help the rest of your teammates?”

  “I don’t know,” Chris said.

  “Why doesn’t God stop this BK-16? How many more people need to die before He lifts a damn finger? How many more massacres or genocides in the world?”

  “The Lord works—”

  “If you say ‘in mysterious ways,’ I’ll kick your Bible-thumping ass.”

  Chris raised his hands and looked away.

  Tom cleared his throat. “The doctor who created BK-16 is in Rome. She might have an antidote. If not, she can make it. We should get going.”

  Chris turned to Tom and asked, “We driving there?”

  “What about all our weapons and stuff on the boat?” Tom asked. “Do we have a safe house in Rome?”

  Max exhaled as if blowing off steam. “Angelo could take us on the yacht to the outskirts of Rome, and this could continue to be our safe house.”

  “We’ll need vehicles to get around on land,” Tom said. “One of us could drive up the van or the sedan.”

  “Or maybe Angelo could get us a fresh vehicle in Rome,” Max said.

  “Fresh vehicle sounds good,” Chris said.

  “Let’s ask Angelo,” Max said.

  The three of them climbed the stairs to the main deck and conferred with Angelo.

  “Nessun problema,” Angelo said.

  “Does that mean ‘there’s a problem’ or ‘there isn’t a problem’?” Max asked anxiously.

  “No problem.” Angelo got on his phone and texted.

  Max looked out over the transom. The marina had boats but no people—except one. He carried a pair of big black bags and headed in Max’s direction with the determined walk of a terrorist. “Who is this guy?” Max asked. There was something familiar about him that Max couldn’t place, but it was too dark to see clearly.

  “Sonny!” Chris exclaimed.

  Sonny had no hair, a slight gut, and a whole lot of attitude. He sauntered across the gangplank and dropped his bags on the deck. “Did you miss me?”

  Max was excited to see him again after their recent mission together in the German Alps. “Long time, no see.”

  Tom seemed less enthused. “Hi, Sonny.”

  “Where’s Hannah?” Sonny asked.

  “In the hospital,” Chris said.

  “In the hospital?” Sonny asked.

  “She got knocked on the head,” Chris said, “but she seems to be recovering.”

  Angelo rose to his feet. “Who’s this?”

  “I’m Sonny, King of Jews.” Sonny held out his hand. “You may kneel and kiss my ring.”

  Angelo gave him a quizzical look, as if something was lost in translation. “I’m simply Angelo.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Max and his brother only had one more day to live—unless they found a cure. Angelo steered them along with Chris and Sonny north on the Tyrrhenian Sea, following the Italian coast. Max was topside when he felt something dribble from his nose. At first he thought he had a runny nose, but he wiped it with the back of his hand, and he discovered that it was blood. He thought it might be the effects of the BK-16, but he wasn’t sure, and he didn’t want to alarm his brother or the others, so he hid it. Even when he wasn’t concerned about worrying others, out of habit, Max hid signs of pain or weakness.

  Chris rose from below with steaming plates of omelets, hash browns, and toast. “Too late for midrats and too early for breakfast, but since everyone’s awake, thought I’d make breakfast anyway.” Midrats was short for midnight rations.

  Max avoided eye contact and slipped past Chris while trying to hide any more blood that might seep out. “Go ahead and start without me,” Max called out behind him, “but save me a plate.” He descended the stairs, hastily stepped into the master head, and closed the door. More blood had gathered on his upper lip. He grabbed some toilet paper, wiped the blood, and tossed the evidence in the shitter. He bent over to grab the flushing handle, but he felt faint and had to grab the sink to prevent himself from taking a dive into the toilet bowl. This must be the BK-16. He hit the handle and flushed. Still feeling light-headed and afraid he might fall in, he lowered the lid. Then he washed his hands and face to help him stay conscious. He sat on the toilet. There he remained for several minutes. Gradually, his strength returned.

  He exited the head and climbed the stairs, but he felt like he was only operating on two-thirds of his strength. When he arrived topside, everyone was eating.

  Sonny eyed Max’s plate. “You want your omelet?”

  Max ignored Sonny, took a seat, and dug into his food.

  Sonny turned to Chris and complained, “You didn’t make coffee.”

  Chris drank a swig of his orange juice. “I don’t drink coffee.”

  Sonny looked to Tom as if soliciting support. “Tom drinks coffee.”

  Tom shook his head. “Not this morning, thanks.”

  “Doesn’t anyone on this boat want coffee?” Sonny lamented.

  “I do.” Max stuffed his mouth with omelet.

  With one hand, Angelo steered them along the Mediterranean Sea and with the other he ate a forkful of hash browns. “I like coffee.”

  Sonny stood. “Don’t everyone jump up at once to make it. You guys are as useless as condom machines in the Vatican.” He stormed below, and a clatter sounded from the galley.

  Angelo chuckled.

  “Angelo, are you Catholic?” Tom asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Max and I are, too,” Tom said.

  Max grunted. “Was.”

  “I still am.” Tom ate a piece of toast.

  Chris pulled out his phone and made a call. “I’m calling to ask about a patient, Hannah Morton.” Her real last name was Andrade—Morton was an alias. There was a long pause. “Do you know what happened to her?” Then there was another pause. “Thank you.” Chris ended the call and put his phone in his pocket.

  “Is she okay?” Max asked.

  Chris didn’t seem happy. “She’s not there. Soon after I dropped her off, she must’ve left without checking out.”

  Tom continued to nibble on his toast. “Why?”

  “She hates hospitals,” Chris said, “and she wants to be where the action is. I understand, but I wish she’d have stayed put—given herself more time to recover.”

  Max liked the idea of seeing her again, and she was a useful addition to the team. “You think she’s coming here?”

  “Where else would she go?” Chris asked.

  “Does she know where we are?”

  “I messaged Willy with an update on our status,” Max said. “All Hannah has to do is ask him.”

  Sonny returned with a cup of mud and sat.

  Max could see that Sonny’s service didn’t extend to him, so he walked down to the galley, poured two cups of brew, and returned to the upper deck. He gave one to Angelo before joining the others at the table.

  “We need to discuss how we want to set up surveillance on Dr. Nasty’s apartment in Rome,” Max said. Since working for CIA’s SAD/SOG (Special Activities Division/Special Operations Group) he was used to doing more with less, and having a four-man team was a welcome luxury.

  Sonny swallowed a bite of hash browns. “We’ll take a look, and as soon as
the opportunity presents itself, we’ll snatch the doctor.”

  They discussed the details of the mission while they finished breakfast.

  THE SKY TURNED THE sky’s dimmer switch from black to gray, and planes ascended and descended the sky over Leonardo Da Vinci International Airport. Max and the others cruised past a pair of sailboats on the Mediterranean. Farther north floated a dozen or so fishing boats. Angelo pulled into a wharf where hundreds of pleasure craft were docked.

  Max went aft and hung out boat fenders so the yacht wouldn’t scrape against the dock, while Angelo found a parking spot and backed up to a pier.

  Tom stood by to jump out and help tie up the lines to the dock, but Sonny put a hand on his shoulder and said, “Let the squids handle this,” using the pejorative word for Navy sailors. Like Tom, Sonny had been an Army Ranger. Unlike Tom, Sonny earned a slot on Delta Force, the Army’s tier one unit, similar to the Navy’s SEAL Team Six. Sonny was still in the Army, but now he was “on loan” to CIA for this mission.

  Max and Chris hopped out of the yacht and tied the vessel to the pier.

  A young man with curly black hair and wearing a suit stood on the pier next to a gray midsize crossover SUV—in the States it was a Dodge Journey, but here in Rome, the SUV was marked Fiat.

  “That’s our ride,” Angelo said. He went ashore and talked with the man.

  The young man in the suit gave Angelo a set of keys, exchanged some words, and left.

  Angelo returned and handed the keys to Max. “These are to the Fiat Freemont.”

  “Thanks.” Max tossed the keys to Tom.

  “What should I do with the prisoner while you guys are ashore?” Angelo asked.

  “Just keep him here until we can verify the intel about the scientist,” Max said.

  Tom went ashore, got behind the wheel of the SUV, and started the engine. Max, Chris, and Sonny loaded into the vehicle, too. Then Tom shifted into drive and used the GPS on his phone to navigate. They rode through the outskirts of Rome.

  After twenty-three klicks, Tom parked on the shoulder of the road, leaving a few open spaces between their SUV and the other vehicles parked there. In front of them were two hundred meters of manicured grass bordered with trees—a park. To the right of that was Dr. Rossi’s tan and ivory seven-story apartment building and four more apartment buildings similar to it. Across the street from the apartment were high rises filled with shops and restaurants.

  “We might make a scene if we go direct action to get Dr. Rossi,” Tom said.

  Sonny groaned: “Here comes the good idea fairy.”

  “I agree with Tom,” Chris said.

  “Great,” Sonny said sarcastically.

  “What do you have in mind, Chris?” Max asked.

  “Break down the door, bag, and drag her,” Sonny said.

  “What if someone sees us?” Tom asked. “We’ve got no package delivery or utility uniforms.”

  “We could get some,” Sonny said.

  Max sighed. “That’ll take time, valuable time.”

  “Too bad Hannah isn’t here,” Sonny said. “She could just go up there and talk to the woman.”

  “I could go up there and talk to her,” Chris said.

  “That’s a stupid idea,” Sonny said.

  “It’s your idea,” Chris countered.

  Sonny gave him the evil eye. “I said Hannah should go up there, not you.”

  “A minister is an expert in matters of the heart,” Tom said. “If any of us could convince the scientist to help us, Chris could.”

  “Does she speak English?” Sonny asked.

  “She’s a scientist; she should at least speak a little,” Chris said.

  Max looked at his watch. It was 7:23 a.m. “Going soft will save us time without creating a scene. If she resists, we can take her down hard.”

  Tom nodded in agreement.

  Sonny shook his head.

  “I’ll be back in a minute.” Chris opened the door and strolled along an asphalt walkway toward the scientist’s building.

  There was a long silence. Chris’s microphone transmitted only his voice through the vibrations in his neck—not his footsteps, a door opening, or anything like that.

  Finally, Chris’s voice transmitted: “I’m from a power that’s here to help you. We need your help, too.” That was his pitch. Then everything went quiet. He spoke again: “I understand your distrust of Doctor Kuznetsov and the FSB, but I’m not them. Far from it...”

  She’s not buying it, Max thought.

  Chris’s voice returned. “I’m from a greater power than that... What is it you really need?” There was a long pause. It was only seconds, but it seemed like minutes. “Yes, I can get you out of here and take you anywhere you want... If you have an antidote for BK-16, we need it; if you don’t, we’d like you to make it. People have already been killed by it, and more will die if you don’t help us... Is this what you became a scientist for?”

  There was another long pause.

  “Come on,” Sonny said. “Enough talk, let’s take her!”

  “How much time do you need?” Chris asked. “Ten minutes is good... I’m Chris...”

  Although Max understood that the doctor would be out of her house in ten minutes, fifteen minutes passed, and there was no sign of Chris or the scientist. They could be in trouble.

  Max transmitted: “Reverend, everything okay?”

  Squelch broke twice: affirmative.

  Five more minutes passed...

  “What’s taking so long?” Max asked.

  “Moving,” Chris’s voice came back.

  “’Bout damn time,” Sonny grumbled.

  Chris grunted—twice.

  “I’m going in,” Max said. “Sonny, you and Tom wait here.”

  “Hey,” Sonny said.

  Max unassed the truck and jogged across the walkway and into the building. The elevator was busy, and he didn’t like elevators anyway, so he ran up the stairs. He stopped at the fifth floor, breathing heavily, and found the scientist, who he recognized from her picture. She stood outside her apartment with a suitcase on the deck and cradling a big brown cat with gently curving stripes and an M on its forehead. The scientist stared at the apartment door across from her, which was open.

  Max drew his weapon and held it down at his side. He wanted to be ready if Chris was in trouble, but he didn’t want to make a scene if this was a false alarm. Max entered the apartment, and lying on the floor was a rugged-looking man with the side of his head bashed in and blood on the carpet. Beside him stood Chris, who simply said, “Let’s go.”

  Max returned his pistol to its holster and walked out of the apartment. Behind him, he could hear the clicking sounds of Chris locking the door and closing it. Max picked up the doctor’s suitcase and carried it.

  She seemed in shock, but she followed Max down the stairs. Chris brought up the rear, securing their six. They walked briskly out of the building. Max put her suitcase in the trunk of the SUV, and Chris helped her into the back seat. Then Max and Chris hopped in, too.

  Tom shifted into gear and rolled out onto the road.

  Max offered his hand to the scientist. “I’m Max.”

  She shook it. “Nastya.”

  Tom steered them around a curve. “Tom.”

  Sonny grumbled.

  The cat pulled its ears back and growled at him.

  “I’ve been hoping and praying for this moment,” Nastya said. “Thank you.”

  “Who was the neighbor back there?” Max asked.

  Nastya petted her cat. “My driver, but he’s a Russian FSB officer whose main job seems to be to keep an eye on me.”

  “He was in the hall when Nastya and I came out of her apartment,” Chris said. “I didn’t want to shoot him and make noise, so I hit him in the neck with my pistol, knocking him back into his apartment. Then I finished him.”

  Max turned to Nastya and asked, “Do you have an antidote for BK-16?”

  “Not on my person,” she said. �
�There is some at the lab.”

  “Where’s your lab?” Tom asked.

  “Downtown, near the Colosseum.”

  “We should go to the lab, now,” Max said.

  “Let’s get Nastya to safety first,” Chris said. “Then, if we can’t get the antidote at the lab, at least we’ll have someone who can make the antidote.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Minotaur listened to the jet engines and peered out the window of the Alitalia plane to see Leonardo da Vinci International Airport emerge from the darkness. He turned to Bear and said, “I hate Rome—it’s too crowded and too Catholic.” The plane landed, and Minotaur and Bear disembarked.

  Minotaur’s suit reflected his minimalist style: solid dark gray, single-breasted, and no belt loops or belt. The greatest tailor in Bulgaria used fine Italian wool to make this suit efficient, handsome, and inconspicuous. Because he kept the same physical fitness, and his weight never varied more than plus or minus two kilograms, he could wear it as often as he wished. His sleeves were loose so they wouldn’t restrict him in shooting or moving. He liked a white French shirt, eschewing the bulk and weight of cuff links; instead, he wore buttons. His light gray, silk necktie was a shade lighter than his suit. He used the same Silhouette sunglasses as NASA because they flowed freely without hinge screws, and their titanium frame was light, flexible, and durable. On his feet were black, leather, derby shoes with sleek, plain toes—more versatile for all occasions than the more formal Oxfords. The soles were customized with treads for more efficient movement. The remains of a dead apex predator, alligator skin, wrapped around his wrist and held time in the form of a Swiss International Watch Company Aquatimer—worth about four thousand dollars, he could barter it in an emergency. Minotaur was a sleek killing machine.

  Like a gray shark, he swam in and around a mass of passengers in the terminal, but Bear marched straight through, brushing a few shoulders and deterring others from entering his path. The crowd thinned out, and Minotaur and Bear rejoined each other for a moment. Minotaur continued his earlier thought: “Deep down inside, the Romans must know there is no God. They know that the emperor wears no clothes, but they’re afraid of saying so and being ostracized—so they bow down anyway. As for me, I’m not afraid.”