by Tara Oakes
“Come on…. It’s really not that hard. You just open your mouth and start talking.” I coax her.
Her fingers move, with the nails gently tapping on the armrest between us. “Aleksei. His name was Aleksei. He worked with the FSB. We worked together. We got close. Too close. After I’d left the agency and went on my own, he found me. I thought he had left the agency, too.” She takes a deep breath. “Turns out, he had never left them. He was assigned to me, to keep me in line and bring me back into the fold. I should have known better.”
I don’t know what to say at first, so I don’t say anything at all. The silence is deafening.
“When I discovered what he was really doing, I fled. He followed. We fought. He shot. I shot. He’s dead,” she wraps the messy story up neatly.
Even though the aging scar on her back is proof of how long ago the betrayal happened, I can tell by the cracking of her voice that it is still very much raw.
I’m sure there’s more to the situation than what she’s revealed, but I’m also sure that, at this point, it’s not something I need to know. It’s also not something I need to put her through having to tell me.
A change of topic is best.
“Let’s eat,” I break the silence.
Raven is still somber, but tries to hide it well, rummaging through the paper bag to recover a sandwich for me before selecting one for herself. We haven’t had a decent meal in three days, so I may as well be holding filet mignon right now with how my mouth is watering.
“How about you?” she says sarcastically between bites. “Any battle wounds? Or does it get boring in that safe little computer lab of yours?”
She’s dishing out as much as she took from me earlier. I can play along. “I think I have a story or two to tell.”
Expertly holding onto the the sandwich and steering wheel with the same hand, I use the other to pull up my shirt, showing off the diagonal scar that covers about nine inches of my side.
“Knife. Wrestled it away from a low level arms dealer when I was a rookie.”
Raven slows her chewing and stares at the jagged red line before giving in and touching it. Her fingers are careful, but their touch alone is enough to cause my cock to begin to grow mere inches away.
I lower the shirt before any further damage can be done.
Next, I pull my right sleeve up past my elbow, showcasing the round indentation on my bicep. “Bullet. That one was from a fourteen-year old drug dealer who was acting as a bodyguard to some scumbag pimp who liked to use children as human shields.”
Once again her fingers search the area I display and once again my dick reacts.
The smooth purring of the coasting engine helps adding fuel to the fire brewing between my legs. “Can’t show you the others. Not while I’m driving at least.”
There are three other scars from injuries I’d gotten back in my field op days. One on my left thigh from some barbed wire I’d gotten tangled in while on a chase. Another bullet above my ass cheek, and a blocked out tattoo with a girl’s name on it. We’d met in the Academy and I’d been stupid enough to ink her name on me. Sure, I could have turned it into something else like an eagle or some shit like that, but I thought it better to just black it out, to remind me never to be that stupid again.
That girl left another unseen scar behind. One on my heart.
“Impressive,” Raven throws me a bone. “And here I thought you were just some hacker.”
I roll my eyes. “I could say the same about you.” The conversation veers in the only natural course a conversation like this can. “I got off the streets, and out of the field. What are your plans after all of this?”
She’s already been shot, quite literally in the back, and had two other attempts made in the last few days. I hope she’s getting the hint.
“I’ll do what I do best, I guess. Take people’s money to do things they can’t.” She’s less than enthused.
I can’t help myself. “Don’t you think that’s gotten you into enough trouble? I mean, what kind of a future is that? The kind your parents have?”
I instantly regret it.
Her words have a bite to them. “Not all of us are lucky enough to have some basement to hide away in. This is who I am. This is what I’ve always been…”
I know not to press further. She must see for herself the kind of ending this story will have. If we even survive this.
~*~
The signs for the airport are beginning to show themselves. We’re only a few kilometers away. I’ve kept from waking Raven up, knowing that she needs the sleep, but I can’t wait any longer.
“Hey,” I gently nudge her. “Sleeping Beauty. Wake up.”
She doesn’t protest much, but groans anyway while opening her heavily lidded eyes.
“Where to?” I ask her. I’ve gotten us as far as the airport, but after that, I have no clue where we’re going.
Her voice is low. “Cargo shipping. FedEx terminal.” She raises a finger to show the way.
Smart.
We’re able to avoid the main security checkpoints this way.
“We need to ditch the car,” her words break my heart.
I knew it was inevitable, that at some point we would need to abandon this baby behind, so it can eventually be returned to whichever rich prick who was stupid enough to let me take it while pretending to be a valet at the haughty taughty restaurant I snuck into.
A person that stupid doesn’t deserve to own a car this fine. No matter how much dough he has.
There’s a small blue warehouse looking building approaching up on the right. I figure that’s the safest bet to stash the wheels before we get any closer. Perfect timing, too. The tank’s almost empty… let the next person to enjoy her have to fuel up.
Taking one last glance her way, I take a mental picture to remember her by. Rhonda. I’ve named her Rhonda. Red Rhonda.
“Come on, lover boy,” Raven taunts. “It never would have worked between the two of you.”
Ugh. Crush my heart and soul, why don’t you?
I’ve left the keys in the ignition and the doors unlocked. Hopefully the next lucky son of a bitch to ride her takes his time and fully enjoys it.
“So, how exactly are we getting through customs seeing as we’re both wanted?” I figure it’s as good of a time as any to ask the most obvious question.
I pulled the last rabbit trick out of my hat, the Porsche, now it’s her time to contribute to this little excursion and make some miracles happen.
She doesn’t even bother to look behind at me as she speaks. “Not going through customs.”
That was little to no help.
“Care to elaborate?” I practically have to pull teeth to get information out of this one.
Her hair swings wildly as she speed walks along a chain link fence serving border to the airport grounds. “Just follow me and keep quiet. I don’t want anyone to know you’re an American. Play dumb, but not too dumb, because that will be a dead giveaway.”
Another dig at me being American. I’m starting to think she rather enjoys doing that.
~*~
RAVEN
“You’re a day late, Marina.” Igor waves me away while carrying a wrench over to his tool chest.
With Igor I know his bark is worse than his bite. “Trouble. Couldn’t be avoided. We need the next plane out.”
He shakes his head, and his double chin shakes along with it. “Can’t help you. I had everything ready for yesterday’s plane. The manifests. The additional weight discrepancy on the travel logs--”
Igor’s Russian gets very choppy when he’s flustered. I can understand him fine, but I can tell he’s searching for the right words.
I’ve known him ever since I was fifteen. His father was Russian, mother was Polish. My parents had befriended him somewhere along the line and he and his connections have come through for all of us more times than I could count.
As a service technician for the airport, he handles the loading and u
nloading of cargo onto freight planes. It’s not the most comfortable of travel accommodations, but it will get you across borders without having to go through customs. Given what I do, that comes in handy more than I would have ever known.
“Igor, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t an emergency. Dire emergency. When’s the next plane out? London.” I use all my charm to help seal the deal although he gets paid handsomely for his trouble. His bushy eyebrows furrow as he pretends not to hear me. “It’s for Momma and Poppa. They need me.”
The tool in his hand lies limp and his head falls slightly. “How bad is this trouble?”
I decide it’s best not to tell him much. He’s not from my world. He doesn’t know all the danger that could come along with any facts I might give him.
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t have to.” I hint at the severity of the situation without actually having to give too much detail.
Metal can be heard as the heavy instrument is dropped into the pile of similarly shaped tools.
Beau stands off to the side, dutifully keeping silent as I’ve asked, although he couldn’t really join the conversation if he wanted to. He doesn’t speak Russian.
“You don’t pay me enough for this stress, Marina.” Igor’s tone is one that shows he’s given in. “There’s a flight leaving in forty minutes. The manifest has already been filed. We’ll have to take a chance and sneak you in with the fuel truck.”
I nearly jump for joy and stand on my tip toes to hug the old man who smells of motor oil. “Thanks Igor. I’ll make another wire transfer to cover this.”
His well worn baseball cap nearly falls off his head from my sudden move. “Yeah, yeah. Hurry up before we miss this one, too.” Looking over my shoulder, I can feel Igor’s heavy head nod, “And make sure your friend over there doesn’t get us all caught.”
One kiss on his cheek for good luck, and then I motion for Beau to follow. The fuel truck is nearby, but we need to be careful not to be spotted climbing in the back. Igor waits a few minutes before starting it up and driving out onto the tarmac. The petro fumes are strong. Mixed together with the sleepless fatigue and pain racking through my body, it’s enough to almost make me heave.
Just a few more minutes, I tell myself.
As if Beau can somehow read my thoughts, or actually hear the silent words I tell myself, his hand finds a resting place on mine.
“Almost there,” he reassures me although having never done this before, he has no way of knowing if what he says is true.
Badly in need of oiling, the breaks screech tightly signaling that we’ve reached our destination and not a moment too soon. I’m not sure if I’m ready to pass out, or throw up. Either way I feel weaker than I can ever remember.
“This is us,” crouched low in the base of the fuel truck, near some heavy coiled tubing, we need to move quickly before the petro begins to start flowing. It’s dangerous enough hiding in here with little to no air, but I have no desire to drown in jet fuel if one of these ancient rubber hoses were to blow.
“Beau?” My thoughts begin to jumble incoherently, and there’s a point when I’m not even sure I’m speaking although I can hear my own voice. “Can you, can you hel—”
“Raven?” His voice begins to sound echoed. Foreign. I try to answer, really, I do. “Marina?”
The very last thing I hear before the blackness takes over is Beau speaking my birth name for the very first time.
CHAPTER SEVEN
RAVEN
“I’m not going,” I protest. “I’m fine.”
Beau only rolls his eyes, doesn’t even bother to argue.
The flight from Warsaw to London was less than three hours, but I was only conscious for the last forty minutes or so. Thirty of those minutes were then spent arguing with Beau about seeing a doc after we landed. I know I had agreed to it back in Poland, but I honestly had no intention of following through with it then, and I still don’t now.
Of course my case wasn’t helped much by passing out back there, but that’s just a minor detail. I still don’t know how Beau managed to get us both out of the truck and stowed away in the cargo compartment of the plane without my help. It’s kind of reassuring to know he’s capable of making things move along though, just in case something were to really happen to me and I needed him to finish what I wouldn’t be able to.
Of the two entry points for the clandestine flight we’ve just taken, the one that will prove to be the hardest is the one that’s still before us. Security, in general, tends to be much more stringent in the west. If we’re gonna get jammed up, this is when it’s going to happen.
“Ok, now remember what I said. We don’t make a move until I say so.” One last round of instructions can’t hurt.
Holding my breath probably isn’t a wise idea considering I’m still a little woozy, but it’s a gut instinct under stress like this. The plane has taxied to a full stop, with the whirling engines now quieting. Next, according to my many experiences with this kind of travel, is the the air-locked clicking that will begin to travel down the corridor as latches are prepared to be opened.
Like clockwork, those begin.
Next, the automated hydraulics of the large bay doors at the rear of the plane slowly begin to open, with a team of machines at the ready to begin unloading the massive shipping crates as quickly as possible.
Harsh fluorescent lights flood the warehouse-like cabin, with the plane’s interior suddenly looking more like an industrial complex. I glance over toward Beau, who’s tugging at the coveralls that are fitting tightly over his bulging muscles.
Igor makes sure to always leave a couple of sets of the generic brown work uniforms in the same place on the planes I normally bum a free ride from. Igor clearly never anticipated my traveling with such a jacked companion like Beau.
His strong thighs are stretching against the fabric of the legs. The zipper running up the front was barely able to close over his massively chiseled chest. Lastly, the sleeves look to be bursting at the seams over his bulging biceps.
I can’t help but imagine the cheap material giving in and beginning to shred over his taught skin and perfectly honed muscular arms—
“Now,” Beau breaks my thoughts and leaves the confines of our hiding place, safely tucked behind one of the many plastic bins of packages and out into the open.
Gritting my teeth, I whisper in a hissed way to him, “Beau!”
He was supposed to wait for my mark.
With no other choice but to follow, I pull down on the generic tan baseball cap to hide my eyes as much as possible. Even with Beau’s large frame struggling to stay in his coveralls, he fits in better than than I do here.
I’m a chick.
Small, petite, short.
There aren’t many ways to hide those facts, even with my thick hair tucked up into the cap, hidden away from obvious view, and a woman working here doesn’t exactly blend into the crowd.
A few quick steps catch me up to Beau. “You moved too soon. Why didn’t you wait for my command?”
A portly stout man holding a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other approaches, with his eyes cast down on the paper he’s studying.
“Get going over to pallet three. They can use some extra hands over there.” He must be some type of supervisor, doling out orders so easily.
Beau nods, “Aye,” acknowledging the assignment.
The foreman keeps his feet in stride and eyes down to his work as we pass. I don’t dare turn around to see if we’ve piqued his curiosity at all. Instead, I keep my eyes down to each next step I’m taking and my ears open, listening to the sound of his heavy boots thudding against the rubberized coating on the plane floor. It’s even, steady, not at all like it would sound if he’d stopped to pause and turn at the curious looking pair he’d just encountered.
Almost there.
“Wait!” His voice stops me cold. I’m close enough to Beau to feel the tightness of his body as he freezes in place at my side.
Shit,
shit, shit!
Okay, we can make a run for it if we have to, take our chances by dashing into the huge hangar nearby. Once we do that, though, security will be alerted and the airport will get shut down tighter than a frog’s ass.
No, I tell myself. Don’t run. Not yet, anyway.
“Change that!” The man behind us adjusts his earlier order. “Head over to pallet one instead.”
A collective sigh lets out as Beau and I exhale simultaneously. Whew. Too close.
The thick, muted bootsteps behind us resume again. We need to get the hell out of here.
I move to my right, toward the large aluminum looking hangar only to have my arm pulled in the other direction by Beau, who is once again making unilateral decisions as to what we’re doing.
We need to have a serious talk about that at some point. “No,” I protest quietly, but my hand is held tightly. I chin over toward the hangar where we need to be heading, using my eyes to speak.
“Oh yeah? Look…”
My head snaps back around and eyes scan quickly. Wait.
Three men in dark, crisp, sleek suits are busying themselves ripping apart a large shipping container at the entrance. I gasp loudly. There’s no mistaking what a G-man looks like and these guys are definitely with some government agency.
The close cut hair styles, the dark sunglasses… the slight bulges on their hips where their weapons are holstered. The blank looking expression plastered on their faces. These are all the telltale signs of agents. Agents looking for something. Looking for what?
I’m guessing me. And Beau. Or, both of us.
Very calmly, I turn my body fully and Beau drops my hand. “Where do we go?” I whisper.
He’s looking just as frantically as I am. I can see the darks of his eyes darting about from the side. “Follow me.”
I do. I follow him, completely unsure why, but… I do.
“Pick this up,” he bends down to pick up a coiled roll of electrical wiring. It must weigh about two hundred pounds, easy, yet Beau only allows me to carry the tail end of it while he takes most of its burden. “Just walk and look like you’re supposed to be here. Carry the wire up on you shoulder so they can’t see your face.”