Patriot Dream

by Stephen Templin

  Bear grinned.

  They separated again to pass through immigration. At the counter, Minotaur showed his Bulgarian passport to a middle-aged man wearing glasses and a bored expression.

  “What is the purpose of your visit?” the officer asked in English.

  To kill your pope, Minotaur thought. He returned the bored look and answered in English, “Business.”

  “What is your final destination?”

  “Rome.”

  “How long will you be staying?”

  “Three weeks.”

  “Where will you be staying?”

  “The Lifestyle Suites Rome.”

  The officer passed him through.

  Minotaur strolled over to the luggage carousel, picked up his bag, and waited in line for customs. At the counter, a young woman in uniform asked, “Do you have anything to declare?”

  “No,” Minotaur said.

  “Did you pack your own bag?”

  “Yes.”

  “Open it, please.”

  Whether he had contraband or not, or whether he worried about being discovered or not, he projected Zen-like calm. In this moment, he carried no weapons or other illegal items. His contact would equip him, and if he needed more contraband, he could requisition it through the Russian embassy in Rome—the FSB’s rezidentura. Minotaur graciously opened his suitcase.

  The immigration officer rifled through his clothes, toiletries, and other mundane items before pushing the suitcase aside and speaking to the next traveler. Although Minotaur appreciated her being timely, he wasn’t happy at her disrespectful attitude and how she crumpled up his carefully folded clothes. He didn’t want to linger near Italian authorities any more than necessary, so he closed the suitcase without ordering the messed up contents and departed.

  Outside immigration, Minotaur met up with Bear and they proceeded through the waiting area, where they met a man who wore a red shirt and looked like a young Al Pacino. He greeted them in English. “Welcome to Italy.”

  Minotaur spoke English, too. “You our ride?”

  “Yes, come with me.”

  “Excellent.”

  The brief exchange seemed natural, but the conversation was made up of pre-arranged bona fides to ensure that Minotaur met the person he was supposed to meet.

  Michael escorted them through the airport.

  “I understand there was some trouble in Sorrento,” Minotaur said.

  Michael guided them outside to a gray Mercedes-Benz Vito with black windows, sitting curbside with the engine running. “Yes. We’ve prepared as you instructed—to avoid future troubles.” He opened the side door of the van, and they got in.

  Five Italians were seated—two in front and three in back. All except the driver carried short-barreled Heckler & Koch 416s, German assault rifles similar to the American Colt M4. On the deck in the middle row were two more HK 416s. Michael closed the door and propped one of the rifles between his legs with the barrel aimed at the deck.

  Minotaur grabbed one and briefly examined it before resting it between his legs.

  Michael pointed to a pair of bulging duffel bags on the floor and said, “Those are for you, gentlemen.”

  Bear reached into the bag nearest him and pulled out a Serbu Super Shorty Remington 870 shotgun and swing-out holster. Then he took off his suit jacket and armed himself. In his bag, Minotaur found a Glock 19 pistol with an inside-the-waistband holster, a sound suppressor that appeared to screw onto the barrel of the Glock, and magazine pouches loaded with ammo. He put on the pistol and ammo and pocketed the silencer.

  “Let’s pick up the BK-16,” Minotaur said.

  “Now?” Michael asked.

  Minotaur loaded a round in the chamber of his rifle. “Now.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  A taxi stopped on the pier. Who is this? Max thought as he and the others escorted Dr. Rossi onto the Pershing yacht. Max’s shoulders and arms tensed, and he moved his hands to the front of his abdomen so they’d be close to his concealed pistol in order to draw it speedily.

  Hannah stepped out of the taxi.

  Max’s shoulders and arms relaxed. He waved to her, and she waved back.

  Chris left them and walked aft to meet her. His voice lacked enthusiasm: “Welcome back.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “It sounds like something,” she persisted.

  “I just wish you would’ve taken more time to recover.”

  “Time we don’t have,” she said. “Willy told me where to find you.”

  “How you feeling?”

  “Fine.”

  Chris and Hannah walked over to the pilothouse and joined the others.

  Angelo, perched in his pilot seat, turned to face her. “Welcome back.”

  “Thanks, Angelo,” she said.

  Chris sat with Sonny, Max, Tom, and Dr. Rossi on the white leather couch that wrapped around the foldup table.

  Sonny smiled and gave her a friendly nod.

  “Glad you’re okay,” Tom said.

  Her countenance beamed. “I heard you guys got Doctor Kuznetsov.”

  “He’s stashed below in the guestroom head,” Max said proudly.

  Hannah extended her hand to Dr. Rossi and said, “I’m Hannah.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” the doctor said. “I’m Nastya.”

  “The scientist,” Hannah said.

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you for helping us.”

  “Thank you for saving me,” Nastya said.

  Hannah sat in the copilot’s chair next to Angelo and faced the group. “I’m afraid I have some bad news,” she said. “Bill Hart died.”

  Max’s heart felt like it had shrunk—the death of the CIA chief in Turkey meant that his brother’s death was imminent.

  Tom lowered his head.

  “We’ll get the antidote,” Hannah said. “Today.”

  Nastya pulled out a pen and asked Angelo, “Could I have a piece of paper?”

  “Sure.” He paused for a moment before he rifled through his newspaper, and pulled out an advertisement that was blank on the back. “Is this okay?”

  She took it. “Yes, thank you.” On the table in front of them, Nastya sketched what appeared to be the layout of a building.

  Hannah pointed to the sketch. “What’re you drawing there?”

  At the top of the drawing she wrote: Lab. “I worked with a small international team of scientists to research pharmaceuticals—at least that was my cover. My team didn’t know that they were helping me create a viral weapon. They didn’t know that was the lab’s main purpose.”

  “Why not make BK-16 in Russia where you can do whatever you want?” Max asked.

  Dr. Rossi continued to draw rooms and label them while she talked: “Many of the best scientists live overseas, and they’re suspicious of Russia and won’t live there,” she said. “It’s easier for an Italian pharmaceuticals company that pays lots of money to recruit good people.” She wrote Supply Room on one of the rooms. “When not many of my colleagues are around, I go to this supply room, where there’s a hidden door that leads to a secret room. In the room, I weaponize the BK-16 and make its antidote. After I receive a call from the FSB, I go to the room, pick up the BK-16 and the antidote, and go out for coffee, where I discreetly hand it off to an FSB officer.”

  “How’d you get mixed up in all this?” Chris asked.

  “I was the top PhD graduate at Lomonosov Moscow State University—I learned quickly, found new ways to answer old questions, and I worked hard. I was flattered by my prospective employers, and I thought I’d be working for a top international pharmaceuticals company based in Italy. It wasn’t until later that I discovered they were FSB. When I talked about leaving, they made subtle threats. I hated lying to good people, looking over my shoulder, and working through lunches, evenings, weekends, and holidays—I tried to commit suicide but failed. I didn’t believe in God, but I started praying. I
thought there was no hope, but then you came.”

  Tom tilted his head to the side. “How many FSB officers are in the lab?”

  “At least two who I know of, maybe more,” she said.

  “Do you store the antidote in the secret room?” Max asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “The antidote is kept in titanium vials in storage.”

  “All right then, we go to the lab and snatch the antidote,” Max said.

  “If we enter from the back,” Chris said, “we can get in and out a lot quicker.”

  “We should go in at night so we have fewer civilians to deal with,” Sonny said.

  Nastya rubbed at her hands. “Oh no.”

  Tom raised his eyebrows. “What?”

  “An FSB officer is flying in today to pick up some BK-16 and antidote. Someone I haven’t met before—his codename is Minotaur.”

  “What else do you know about this Minotaur?” Chris asked.

  “An FSB officer told me that he’s a gray-haired man wearing a gray suit who’ll arrive in a gray Mercedes van. The officer seemed afraid of Minotaur.”

  “Do you know what time he’s arriving?” Max asked.

  “No, I just know he’s arriving today.”

  “Alone?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Max stood. “We need to get the antidote before Minotaur does.”

  Hannah took out her cell phone. “I’ll arrange for an asset to hold us a parking spot near the target. And I’ll text Willy to pick up Nastya here and take her someplace nice and safe.”

  “I can text Willy about Nastya,” Max said. “And while I’m putting him to work, I’ll tell him to pick up our prisoner and take him someplace not so nice and not so safe.”

  Hannah flashed a mischievous grin. “Great.” She turned to Angelo and said, “We’ll need you to stay here until Willy sends someone to pick up Nastya and the prisoner.”

  Angelo nodded.

  Chris turned to Hannah and asked, “You sure you’re up to this?”

  “Always,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “Assault rifles or submachine guns?” she asked.

  “Sound-suppressed submachine guns will be quieter,” Chris said.

  “And lighter,” Sonny said.

  “Easier to conceal,” Max added.

  She looked at Tom as if to elicit a reply.

  “Sound-suppressed submachine guns sound good,” he said.

  “Each of us can carry a blowout kit in the back left pocket,” Max said, referring to the first aid kit. As per standard operating procedure, they didn’t use their own blowout kit to patch up someone else because if they needed it later, they wouldn’t have it, and the wounded person and his unused first aid kit could’ve already been medevaced out. The Good Samaritan who gave from his kit would be shit out of luck. This was why each team member carried a blowout kit in the same place so others could find it and patch up a wounded member with his or her own kit.

  “Have any of you given shots before?” Nastya asked.

  “Why do you ask?” Hannah asked.

  She produced two wrapped syringes with needles. “You might need these.”

  Max took them and put one in Tom’s left shirt pocket and one in his own. “What’s the dosage for the antidote?” he asked.

  “Fifteen milliliters,” Nastya said.

  Hannah flashed a wide smile. “Stellar. Meet back here with your gear in, say, twenty minutes?”

  Max and the others nodded in agreement before separating to prep their kit. Max went below and put on a swing-out holster for his sound-suppressed FN P90 submachine gun. On the opposite side of his holster, he wore an extra fifty-round magazine in a custom-made pouch. Then he put a suit jacket on to conceal it. He also switched to a hip holster for his Glock, which would serve as a backup weapon.

  He pocketed his blowout kit, and on his belt he strapped a smoke grenade and two flash-bangs. He thought of taking a fragmentation grenade instead of a flash-bang, but he figured there would be too many innocent civilians around to allow him a chance to use it without injuring them, so he stuck with the flash-bangs.

  Twenty minutes later, the five operatives exited their lean and mean shark and stepped out onto the pier. The morning light glowed like a burning ember, illuminating jets coming and going like birds from the nest that was Leonardo Da Vinci International. With Max and his team on the prowl, the wild kingdom was about to get wilder.

  Max rode shotgun in the Fiat SUV next to his brother. Chris, Hannah and Sonny jumped in behind them. Tom started the engine, drove to the Tiber River, and followed it for a klick and a half.

  “I got a joke,” Sonny said.

  “Uh-oh,” Chris said.

  Max’s ears perked up. “I want to hear it.”

  “Four guys are sitting on a bench in the park,” Sonny said. “A black man, a Hispanic, a Jew, and a bigot. The black man notices that lying on the ground is an antique lamp from the Middle East. He picks it up and rubs it. A genie pops up and says, ‘Wow, I’ve been in that lamp for ten thousand years. I’ll give each of you whatever wish you want.’ The genie looked at the black man and asked, ‘What do you want?’

  “‘I want to go back to Africa and live in peace without poverty, and I want to take all my black brothers and sisters with me.’

  “‘Shazam, there you are,’ the genie said. The black guy disappeared, and the genie turned to the Hispanic man and said, ‘Next.’

  “‘I want to go back to Mexico with all my people and have good jobs and live in harmony,’ the Hispanic man said.

  “‘Shazam. Next.’

  The Hispanic man vanished.

  The Jewish man looked amazed. “‘I want to return to Israel with all my fellow Jewish people, and I want peace in the Middle East and no more terrorism.’

  “‘Shazam.’ Then the genie turned to the bigot, who was all alone now, and asked, ‘What is your wish?’

  “‘Let me get this straight, genie,’ the bigot said. ‘All the blacks are in Africa, all the Hispanics are in Mexico, and all the Jews are in Israel?’

  “‘Yes,’ the genie said.

  “‘I’ll have a Diet Coke.’”

  Max and the others sat in silence.

  “That wasn’t funny,” Tom said. “You’re Jewish, Sonny. How can you joke like that about your own people? And others?”

  Sonny shrugged his shoulders as if he couldn’t care less.

  “Sonny is offensive to everyone,” Hannah said.

  A moment later, something wet tickled Max’s upper lip, and he surreptitiously wiped it away. It seemed like there was a jump in time, but he couldn’t figure out why. I must’ve drifted off—or passed out. He looked to his left to see if anyone noticed. Tom sat beside him, driving with his eyes focused on the streets of Rome. Max glanced down at the thick liquid on his hand—blood, more than before. He wiped it on his pant leg. A wave of weakness washed over him, and he sat motionless, nervously waiting for it to pass. The streets of Rome blurred, and he blinked until his vision cleared. In the seat behind him, Chris, Hannah, and Sonny talked about something, but Max couldn’t focus on it. He hoped he wouldn’t become a liability on this op.

  There was a sniffle—Tom.

  “You okay?” Max asked.

  “I’m good,” Tom said.

  Max suspected that the sniffle was blood and that his brother was hiding symptoms, too. They were running out of time to get the antidote.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Max’s strength returned, and his urgency to get the antidote intensified. Using his thumb to peel up the side of his suit jacket, he clutched the handle of the pistol in his hip holster—but it didn’t ease his worry.

  Tom drove them into the heart of the city, and ancient ruins materialized. “We’re a klick away from the lab.”

  The air became hotter, and Max wondered if he was developing a fever.

  Sonny complained: “Is the A/C broken?”

  Max moved the switch on the air cooler to High.

  Ahe
ad appeared the Colosseum. It was massive, standing about a hundred and fifty feet tall. Max had enjoyed the classic martial arts movie Way of the Dragon, where Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris fought each other to the death inside the Colosseum.

  Tom steered through the downtown maze, found the target building, and parked. All except Tom got out of the SUV and climbed the metal stairs to the third floor, where they stacked up on the door. Hannah inserted the key, unlocked the door, and opened it.

  BEHIND THE WHEEL OF their hacked Audi, Chris raced the team through the streets of Rome, Minotaur’s gunmen in close pursuit. Hannah slumped in the back seat like her bones had become jelly. The car turned sharply, and she flopped into Max. “Hannah!” he shouted. There was a bloody gunshot wound in her left eyebrow and fragments of glass imbedded around it. She was one of those operators who he expected to be among the last survivors.

  Chris took his eyes off the road. “Hannah!”

  Max feared she was dead, but he hoped she was still alive. He touched her neck for a pulse, but there was none. Max shook his head.

  A dull heaviness filled Max’s skull, causing the world to tilt askew and colors to fade. A low-pitched tone hummed above all other sound. The heavy hum spread to his heart and his gut before it killed the feeling in his arms and legs. It was as if some dark force had pushed his soul out of his body. He couldn’t feel Hannah’s neck anymore, and he pulled his hand away.

  Chris drove like a man possessed. “Hannah, wake up!”

  Max felt sorry for Chris, but he deserved to know without ambiguity. “She’s dead,” Max said. “Hannah is dead.”

  “No, no, no,” Chris repeated. The car slowed.

  “What the hell, Max?!” Sonny shouted.

  “Hannah saved my life while I was taking out the driver, but then she stopped firing. I don’t know if she had sudden vertigo, tunnel vision, or what, but she stopped. And then she got hit. I think I nailed the gunman, but I was too late. I’m sorry.”

  Chris was exasperated and his voice weak. “I told her she needed more time in the hospital for that concussion.”

  The vehicle came to a halt.