The Spy's Love Song

by Kim Fielding

  What would the people back in Peril think if they knew where Jaxon was now? And his parents? He hadn’t spoken to them in years. He used to try to send them money, but they never cashed the checks, so eventually he gave up. He sent them a Christmas card every damn year, though, and they sent one too. They mailed it to Buzz, since that was Jaxon’s only stable address.

  Jesus. Buzz. How much had he known of the real purpose of this trip? Jaxon trusted him and knew he wouldn’t have endangered him on purpose. How long until he knew Jaxon was missing, and what would he do about it? Jaxon pictured Buzz marching to the State Department in one of his technicolor suits and demanding the rescue of his star client. The image comforted Jaxon a bit—although the realization that his agent was likely the only person on the planet who’d miss him was sobering. Oh, the fans would be sad too. People would post memorial memes on social media and buy Jaxon Powers T-shirts; his music sales would skyrocket. Maybe he’d even get a tribute band. That was fucking depressing.

  Reid. Reid. Goddammit, what had happened to Reid?

  The truck picked up speed. When Jaxon risked a glance out a window, he caught a glimpse of greenery and realized they must be heading out of the city. Maybe they were going north to the border Reid had tried to cross. Jaxon hunched in on himself more tightly and tried to remember prayers from his childhood, but nothing came to him but music. Fine. His songs were sometimes prayers too. He hummed quietly, allowing the engine’s rumble to drown him out.

  As the truck slowed abruptly, Jaxon’s companions erupted into a flurry of what had to be Vasnytsian swearing. The passenger tapped Jaxon’s shoulder and patted the seat between him and the driver. Once Jaxon was properly seated, he received lots of instructions. He didn’t understand a word.

  But what he saw through the windshield made him react so strongly that he probably wouldn’t have understood English either. They were on a two-lane road, badly pitted and lined with trees and thick undergrowth. Directly ahead, a jeep-like vehicle with official-looking insignia blocked half the road. The other half was occupied by three uniformed men with guns.

  Jaxon would have felt a lot better if the driver hadn’t seemed to be mumbling prayers.

  The truck came to a complete stop just short of the roadblock, but the driver kept the engine running. As the soldiers sauntered over, Jaxon did his best to look like a bored but obedient Vasnytsian worker. He kept his head ducked in what he hoped was a nonfurtive way. One of the soldiers approached the driver’s side while the other two, smoking and looking bored, remained in front of the truck.

  The closer soldier barked a command, and the driver handed over a sheaf of papers in grimy plastic covers, which the soldier appeared to skim through. He handed them back and demanded something else. The man to Jaxon’s right reached across to give the soldier more documents. Again a quick scan before they were returned.

  Then the soldier barked something else, paused, and repeated himself angrily. Jaxon dared a glance and was horrified to realize the soldier was talking to him. When the driver tried to intervene, the soldier yelled at him. The driver shouted back. The other two soldiers began to walk closer.

  Unseen by anyone but Jaxon, the driver slowly reached under his seat.

  But before he could get what he was grasping for—a gun?—a voice called loudly from the jeep’s radio. All three soldiers turned to look. And Jaxon’s driver hit the gas.

  Letting out an undignified squawk, Jaxon thudded painfully into the other passenger. Before Jaxon could even brace himself, the driver pulled out a handgun from under the seat and fired several shots at the jeep. He was a good driver and a hell of a marksman, because even as the truck roared away, a geyser of steam erupted from the jeep’s hood. Jaxon’s companions shouted at each other; Jaxon just held on to the seat and closed his eyes.

  Eventually the truck slowed and turned into a narrow lane, where dense tree branches scraped the roof. The driver stopped and cut the engine. With impressive speed but no dignity, Jaxon scrambled over the passenger, opened the door, and fell onto the ground, where he proceeded to spew the contents of his stomach onto the dirt.

  SOMEWHAT later Jaxon felt a little better. His new friends—taller Spartak was the driver, shorter Oles the passenger—gave him a bottle of water to rinse his mouth and clean himself up a bit.

  At least Jaxon was now fairly certain that Spartak and Oles were on his side and not planning to turn him over to the authorities. But Jesus, they’d almost been caught. He should have known how serious this was—he’d seen Albina die, Mariya had disappeared, and he had no clue as to Reid’s fate. Somehow none of those things had driven it home like hearing bullets fly.

  Apparently satisfied that Jaxon was through puking, Oles walked over to Jaxon, who was slumped on the grass. He gave Jaxon’s shoulder a friendly pat and pointed at the truck.

  “Time to go?” asked Jaxon as he rose to his feet, and Oles answered something in Vasnytsian. As Jaxon settled into the middle of the seat, he vowed that if he survived this adventure, he’d never travel to another country without at least a smattering of the language and a decent phrasebook.

  Spartak backed out of the leafy lane and then kept the truck rolling at a brisk pace over narrow roads, perhaps trying to avoid the main routes. They passed forests, farmland, and several small and run-down villages. Sometimes Jaxon caught a glimpse of a factory belching smoke in the distance, usually with a nearby collection of rabbit-hutch apartments, but Spartak stayed away from those larger settlements. They saw few other vehicles.

  Jaxon had fallen into a light doze when Spartak stopped the truck in the middle of a heavy copse and cut the engine. With the sky darkening to twilight, Jaxon, Spartak, and Oles walked a footpath that wound past ancient stone walls and ruined houses. Jaxon couldn’t tell what had destroyed the houses or how long ago. They skirted another stand of trees and walked up a steep hill. A castle stood there, smaller than the one in Starograd but in much better shape. Although it had an air of neglect, at least its walls and roof were intact.

  Pointing at the castle, Oles said something, and this time Jaxon actually caught one of the words: Turks. This must have been a defensive fortress from the days of the Ottoman Empire.

  Birds were settling into the nearby treetops, doing a last call to one another, and the waning moon had become visible through sparse clouds. Jaxon followed Oles and Spartak through the castle’s arched entryway and into a bare courtyard. Someone waved at them from a second-story balcony, but Jaxon couldn’t see much of her except long brown hair. Spartak knocked on a wooden door—more Rolling Stones—which opened at once into a large room with walls and floor of smooth stone. Lera was there, and she and Jaxon’s companions began talking rapidly. But Jaxon’s attention narrowed to what he saw across the room: a woman who knelt over a blanket-covered figure lying on the ground. All that was visible of the shrouded mass was a familiar crew cut of dark hair.

  Chapter Thirteen

  JAXON didn’t remember crossing the large room. One moment he stood just inside the doorway, staring in horror at Reid’s still body, and the next moment he was falling to his knees and reaching for Reid’s face.

  “Do not—” began the woman, but it was too late for whatever warning she wanted to give. Jaxon touched his palm to one stubbled cheek, and Reid opened his eyes.

  “Jax.” Reid’s voice was hoarse but strong. He grabbed Jaxon’s hand with enough strength to prove his vitality. “You’re here.”

  Jaxon felt light-headed with relief. But then he saw the raw scrapes on Reid’s forehead and the bloody bandage on his other hand. “What’s wrong? What happened? You’re hurt!”

  “I failed. Tried to sneak over the border and fucked up.”

  “But what’s wrong with you?” Jaxon wanted to tear away the blanket and inspect Reid himself, but the woman was blocking him.

  Reid shook his head. “I’ll be fine. I’m just—” His eyes narrowed then widened. “You look like shit. Are you—”

  “I’m fine
.”

  “The hell you are.”

  A skirmish followed, with Jaxon trying to get information from Reid, Reid trying to interrogate Jaxon, and the woman doing her best to keep them separated. They finally came to a truce, in which Jaxon and Reid stayed close, kept their hands to themselves, and took turns with their stories. Jaxon went first, to the accompaniment of assorted swearing by Reid. The woman—whose name was Gertruda and who was some kind of doctor—interjected a few exclamations as well. Neither of them was happy to hear about the encounter with the soldiers.

  “But you’re okay?” Reid asked when the tale was told.

  “I barfed spectacularly and almost pissed my pants, but I’m fine. You’re not, though.”

  Reid winced as he squirmed around a bit. “The border guards saw me and started shooting—”

  “Reid!”

  “They didn’t hit me. Poorly trained. But it’s rough terrain and I took a nasty fall while I was retreating. Luckily I’d lost the guards by then, so they couldn’t scoop me up, but I banged myself up pretty good.”

  “How good?” demanded Jaxon.

  “Don’t think I broke anything, but I’ve got some deep bruising and a lot of abrasions.”

  “He needs to rest,” Gertruda said with a scowl. With her short gray hair and solid build, she was a formidable-looking woman. She might have been a couple of decades older than Jaxon, but she probably could have taken him in a fight.

  Reid patted her hand. “He’s going to pester until he gets his answers, so you might as well get it over with. He’s a stubborn ass.” He said the last bit with a degree of fondness.

  Pressing his advantage, Jaxon asked, “How did you get here?”

  “The wonders of technology. Lera gave me an RFID chip so she could monitor my progress. When her scanner showed me moving away from the border really fast and then abruptly stopping, she figured something had happened and came to my rescue.”

  Jaxon added Lera to the list of people he wanted to thank in song someday. “So now what?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll be able to move by tomorrow, I think, but they’ll have doubled down on border security. After your adventure they’ll be crawling all over the roads too. Maybe if we can lie low for a little while….” But Reid looked skeptical.

  And if Reid didn’t have any bright ideas how to get out of this mess, Jaxon sure as hell didn’t. Not only was he not James Bond, but his head was so muddled with the day’s events he could barely remember his own name. Surprisingly, he also felt a thread of gratitude. He and Reid were still alive and kicking. Or, more accurately, alive and lying on the floor.

  Gertruda clucked at him. “Rest,” she told Jaxon as she rearranged Reid’s pillow.

  “I’m wiped, but just give me a minute, okay? Maybe near-death experiences are commonplace for you guys, but they’re a new thing for me.” Jaxon turned to Reid. “How come we saw only three soldiers? Not that I’m complaining, but I’d have expected a bigger roadblock. And those three weren’t very good at it.” Getting distracted by a radio was a poor strategy.

  Reid seemed to consider this for a moment. “I think they’re all badly trained. They’ve been drafted and they get paid next to nothing, so they may not be strongly motivated to do their duty.” A groan when he shifted again. “And I think Talmirov underestimates the opposition. He has no idea how close things are to tipping away from him. Narcissists are like that—they believe everyone loves them as much as they love themselves.”

  While Jaxon was contemplating that, Oles approached and held out a plate of bread and sliced meat. Although Jaxon’s only meal of the day hadn’t stayed with him, he wasn’t hungry. Too exhausted, too worried, too traumatized. Too everything. So he shook his head. “No thanks. I really just want to sleep.”

  Reid translated, and Oles nodded knowingly. He took the food away and returned shortly with a blanket and a stack of newspapers. Gertruda helped Jaxon spread the newspapers into a makeshift mat, and she didn’t even complain when he insisted on sleeping within arm’s reach of Reid. He wrapped himself in the blanket, and with the murmur of Vasnytsian conversation nearby and Reid’s steady gaze trained on him, Jaxon swiftly fell asleep.

  HE didn’t sleep well. Despite the newspapers, the stone floor was hard, and the room was drafty. And noisy too. The building emitted creaks and moans, and although the other people tried to keep their conversations low, their voices carried. When he managed to catch a little sleep, he had unsettling dreams of being chased, of falling, of guns firing. Then he would awaken to worry about Reid, who moaned periodically through the night.

  When the first weak light of dawn crept in through the windows, Jaxon stood and joined Oles in the courtyard. Oles smiled and, after heating water over a small fire, made Jaxon some coffee. Jaxon drank it gratefully and ate a roll Oles produced from somewhere.

  “Are you going to be okay?” Jaxon asked him.

  But Oles didn’t understand any of the question except okay, which he echoed, then shrugged. Fuck. Jaxon didn’t know a thing about this man who’d risked his own life to help him and who was now probably a fugitive too. Did he have family? What made him join the resistance? What were his hopes for the future?

  The castle did not have plumbing, so Jaxon had to make do with a nearby tree and then a bucket of water Oles drew from a cistern. With eyes still sleep-grimy, Jaxon went back inside the room, where he was happy to see Reid standing upright. For once, Reid didn’t look dapper. He was shirtless, his back slightly hunched, his torso dotted with bandages and mottled with bruises.

  “Should you be moving around?” Jaxon asked as he hurried over. He looked around for Gertruda, but she wasn’t there.

  “Can’t stay here.”

  “Then where are we going? Oh, and note the we, because we’re not splitting up again.”

  It was a sign of Reid’s diminished state that he sighed instead of arguing. “I don’t know.”

  “What about the other borders? Can we try them?”

  “No. They were always better protected than the north, and now….”

  Shit. “There must be some way for you to get word to your people.”

  “I can’t just send them a goddamn text message!” Reid winced. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to…. There are ways to get messages out, but they’re slow and risky in themselves. We don’t have the time. And it’s pointless anyway because they can’t extract us.”

  Not caring at this point whether anyone was watching, Jaxon moved closer and rested a hand on Reid’s shoulder, carefully avoiding a large scratch. “You’ll think of something.”

  “Really? My mind’s a fucking blank right now.”

  “Because you’re tired and you hurt. And when did you eat last? Give yourself some time.”

  “Might as well tell me to give myself a platypus.”

  Jaxon blinked at him. “Huh?”

  “Don’t have a platypus; don’t have time.”

  “Let me get you some breakfast.” Jaxon was beginning to wonder if Reid was showing symptoms of a concussion.

  Reid waved a hand dismissively. “I’ll get it. Have to piss anyway.” His gait was slower and more uneven than usual, but he made it out of the room on his own steam. Although tempted to follow, Jaxon remained inside. Sometimes a guy needed space.

  Jaxon paced the large room, nodding at the Vasnytsians who sat in a corner playing cards. He wondered what the original purpose of the space had been. A meeting hall, perhaps? The room contained several broken wall sconces and two enormous fireplaces empty of everything but ancient soot. Had Vasnytsians gathered here once upon a time for dinners, and if so, had musicians entertained them?

  As soon as that question crossed Jaxon’s mind, so did the image of a medieval singer huddled in a cold castle on a winter night, waiting for the battle at dawn. But he wasn’t scared, because his lover—a soldier—had been killed in the last fight, and now the musician yearned to join him. Shit. Jaxon knew exactly the words to write, and the tune was already playing in
his head. He used sign language to beg a pen and a few scraps of paper from one of the men in the room, and then Jaxon sat on his makeshift bed, scribbling frantically.

  “What are you writing?”

  Jaxon startled. He hadn’t noticed Reid’s return, and now he loomed over him. But at least Reid was looking more chipper, which cheered Jaxon a bit. “I just got an idea for a song.”

  “They come to you just like that?”

  “Sure. Sometimes when I’m fooling around with my guitar, but other times too. Especially when I’m in the shower, for some reason.”

  Reid carefully lowered himself to his bed. “I can’t play any instruments, I can’t carry a tune, and I couldn’t write a decent anything if my life depended on it.”

  “But you could save people if their lives depended on it. In the end, James Bond’s more useful than Elvis Presley.”

  “Elvis has a lot more fans.”

  Jaxon pointed the pen at him. “But Bond’s pretty popular with the ladies.”

  “I don’t want Pussy Galore.”

  Jaxon laughed hard, and even Reid cracked a smile. But then someone outside shouted in Vasnytsian, and Reid shot to his feet with a speed that would have been impressive even for an uninjured man. He looked chagrined when he reached for a weapon and realized he remained shirtless.

  “What is it?” Jaxon stood with less rapidity.

  Reid was looking around for something lethal. “Someone’s coming.”

  A few minutes later, though, the voice called out again, followed by a familiar knock on the door. Reid relaxed. “Friends.”

  In fact, the newcomers turned out to be Fedir and a frizzy-haired woman Jaxon remembered from the Black Cat. She waved at him and headed straight to the card players, who’d taken up arms when the alarm was sounded. Fedir walked over to Jaxon and Reid.