39
Good Beer, Bad Company
Miesenbach, Germany
Near Ramstein Air Base
Cooper stretched his back and winced as he sidled up to the bar. The pain was still sharp as a knife, but not nearly as bad as last week. He’d have a hell of a time getting back into his PT routine, but a good five-mile run would loosen everything up. He raised a hand to get the bartender’s attention and ordered a glass of the best local lager.
When it arrived, he stared down at the amber liquid, the perfectly proportioned head, the sweating glass, and grinned. Cooper took a long pull from his beer and watched intently as the news broadcaster prattled on about the gory details of finding the Russian head of international medical conglomerate Onnei and up-and-coming political superstar, Igor Voroshilov—who had plenty of alleged ties to the dark Moscow underworld—brutally murdered during a business meal in a restaurant he’d recently acquired.
Cooper put his glass back on the counter. Jesus. That's a lot of blood.
"She's nothing if not thorough," sighed Danika Helström, appearing at Cooper’s elbow and sliding onto the stool next him like a cat perching on a windowsill. The bartender arrived instantly and took her mumbled order.
When he left, Cooper shook his head. "What is it with you and Jayne? What does a guy have to do to get the hell away from either of you?"
"Me?" Danika asked, one hand covering her chest. "What did I do?" She frowned, narrowed her eyes, and poked him in the arm. "I saved your ass, that’s what I did. Twice now."
Cooper arched an eyebrow. "So we’re keeping score? I guess that makes us even then…” he muttered, picking up his beer for another drink. He never got a chance to enjoy a beer in peace lately, and where else to enjoy some of the finest beers on earth but Germany? He’d be damned if he didn’t enjoy this one.
Her drink arrived and she grew quiet until the bartender left again. “How?” he asked at last, when it became clear she wasn’t leaving.
“Who do you think pulled you from the helicopter crash?” she asked, holding up a hand with pink, fresh skin. “I got burned, too.”
“You heal fast,” Cooper observed with a note of jealousy in his voice. “How did you know—”
“I hacked Oakrock,” she said, taking a drink.
Cooper sputtered over his. “No shit?”
“No shit,” she replied, dead serious. “You were right. Atkins is in contact with Jayne. I don’t know how deep it goes, but there’s a connection.”
“I knew it…”
She opened her purse and pulled out a flash drive. Sliding it across the bar to him, she held her hand next to his for a long moment. “Everything is on there.”
He pocketed the drive and nodded his thanks. “I need to thank you…for…for Brenda’s diary. I mean I know Bennett gave it to Oakrock, but—”
“I may have given him the clues so he could find it…” she allowed with a smile. “Have you read it?” she asked, wary.
Cooper shook his head. “No. Not yet.”
She put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.” She started to say something else, then stopped. “I just…I’m sorry. For everything.”
Cooper frowned, angry that the old melancholy was returning, thinking about Brenda did that to him. He wanted to be happy he was alive. He didn’t want to dwell in the past—not now. He’d have time for that later. At home. In private. “I’ve earned this beer. Go away,” he said, raising the glass to his lips.
Danika’s eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to respond, then closed her lips. He watched her in the bar’s wall-length mirror. She blinked twice, a serene calm covering her face in an instant.
Damn, you're good.
"That's neither here nor there," she said sweetly. “I’m honestly just happy you're okay," she added, turning back to her own drink—some sort of seltzer mixture with a speared olive resting on ice cubes.
"Well…" Cooper said, picking up his half-empty beer and peering through the amber liquid. "I'm alive…it'll be a while before I'm okay." He grunted. “Thanks to you,” he added, raising his glass in salute. She responded in kind and they drank in silence for a moment.
“The doctors would probably skin my ass if they knew I was drinking this,” he admitted a minute later.
"The doctors would skin your ass if they knew that you got out of the hospital so soon."
“Escaped,” Cooper correctly, arching an eyebrow. “And they shouldn’t be—I’ve been telling them for the past few days I was going to leave—not my problem they didn’t believe I would do it.” He shrugged. “Didn’t even have to hurt anyone…much.”
“How’s your head?” she asked.
Cooper looked down at the remains of his beer. “It’s sore,” he said, unconsciously touching the bandage at his temple. “I heard they had to drill a hole up here to let the pressure out or some shit. I’m thinking of getting a titanium plate put in…or maybe use the hole to get some of those AR glasses permanently implanted, you know?”
Danika laughed. “That’d be some serious shit, yeah?”
“Fuck yes. I love those damn things. I’m not giving them back to Oakrock, either. I don’t care if the screen is cracked.”
She grew somber for a moment. “So you’re going through with it then?”
Cooper snorted and raised his glass in salute. She raised hers and they clinked together. “If what you found is true…well, live fast, die young—that's my motto."
Danika took a swallow of her drink, then looked him up and down. "You’re not that young…" she muttered.
"Fuck me," Cooper sighed, putting the glass down again. “You think so, too? The nurse with the great ass said the same damn thing back at Ramstein.”
Danika slapped him on the shoulder, hard. Cooper winced and couldn’t stop a gasp from escaping his lips, but smiled. She was lot stronger than she looked.
"Maybe later, Braaten. I've got work to do,” Danika said with a wink.
Cooper turned on the barstool, swiveling to face her. "Work?" his voice said, though that wasn't what he was really asking about.
She smiled wider, her green eyes flashing mischief. Resting her hand on his with a feather-light touch, she lowered her voice. "I'll be in touch. There's something I've got to do first, but I'll be in touch." She squeezed his hand, turned, and sashayed from the bar. “Get my tab, will you?” she called over her shoulder in a flash of long, wavy red hair.
Every man in the place watched her with the intensity of a starving man watching a food fight. The door closed behind her and the spell broke. Several men around the room cleared their throats and ducked as the women they were with swatted at them.
Cooper smiled and turned back to the bar.
The reporter continued his dialogue, unaware of Danika’s presence, reporting on the alleged nefarious activities of Igor Voroshilov and his cronies—several of whom had recently been convicted of terrorism and drug trafficking for the bratva.
Cooper caught the bartender's attention. "Hey, bub, can you turn that up?" he asked in German.
The bartender looked at Cooper and grunted at his presumptive familiarity, but nonetheless turned up the sound as he cleaned an empty glass.
“…local police are stymied, as surveillance video for the restaurant has gone missing. At this time, they report no leads, and are asking the public to come forward with information…if anyone has seen anything.” He turned to face a second camera. “The employees of the restaurant were unharmed, and several mentioned seeing a man and woman enter before the slaying. One female employee is also reported as missing, and police are attempting to contact her next of kin before releasing her name…”
The picture of a young girl flashed across the screen. “Fanya Anishin is her name. She’s 23 and recently graduated from Moscow State University…”
And just like that, the public will forget the murder and focus on the missing girl. Cooper raised his glass in salute as the reporter moved on to local German news.
&
nbsp; You may be the end-all bitch from hell, but I gotta hand it to you, Jayne—you know how to get shit done.
He took a sip of his beer and closed his eyes as a nauseating pain rocketed through his skull. God damn, this one hurts…
Cooper leaned over the bar and held his breath until the pain subsided. He’d been having the headaches every day since he woke from the coma after the crash, but they’d been mere annoyances and simple side effects from the surgery. But this time, the pain took his breath away. When he opened his watery eyes, a drop of bright red blood rested on the bar, right under his face. He put his hand to his nose and one finger came away smeared with blood.
Fuck me…
He sniffed, wiping the blood from his nose, and reached for the beer. Just as he lifted it off the bar, his phone buzzed in his pocket.
“Really? Can I just have a fuckin’ beer in peace and quiet?”
The bartender arched an eyebrow at him, then turned away.
Cooper took a long drink, nearly draining the glass, and signaled the bartender in the mirror for another round before he answered the unlisted number. “Braaten.”
“Cooper?” asked a soft voice. “It’s Kyrsten. Kyrsten Marquadt. Where are you?”
Cooper coughed. “Uh…in a bar?”
She laughed. “I mean what country? I came by the hospital just now to visit you—I heard you were up and mobile now—and they are seriously freaking out that you’re, um…missing.”
Cooper couldn’t contain a smirk. “I’m not too far outside Ramstein, actually. Hopped a ride with a sergeant—never mind. How did you get this number?”
“Oh, your friend, Danika? She stopped by to see you when you were in the coma…she gave me this number and said to call it when you disappeared.”
“She did, did she?” asked Cooper, frowning. Of all the—
“She was very nice, by the way. I didn’t believe a word she said about you disappearing…until I walked into the lobby today—well, rolled…since I’m still in this stupid wheelchair—and you were…gone!”
“Yeah…” he cleared his throat, nodding in thanks to the bartender as a fresh lager appeared. “About that—”
“I think it’s hysterical, by the way,” she interrupted. “They literally have no idea where you are.”
Cooper snorted. “How are you feeling?” he asked, turning the glass in his hand while keeping a wary eye on the bar’s other patrons.
Kyrsten sighed. “I’ve been better, I can tell you that much. But I’m alive.” She lowered her voice. “Thanks to you.”
Cooper cleared his throat. “I uh…I was just doing my job, ma’am,” he replied, then took a drink.
“Please…don’t call me ma’am. Everyone calls me ‘ma’am’ around here, I’m so sick of it. My mother is ‘ma’am.’ Call me Kyrsten. You saved my life—”
“Well, I wasn’t the only one—”
“This isn’t going how I planned…” she said quickly. “Look, can I buy you dinner?”
“What?” Cooper blurted.
“I just…I feel like I owe you.”
“I, uh…I don’t know, Kyrsten…” he demurred.
“Look, they want to fly me back to the States in the next couple days, and I really want to see you again. Please? I have a driver and everything—the State Department is sparing no expense. We can go wherever you want—as long as it’s in Germany.”
Cooper coughed. “Well…”
“Please?”
He closed his eyes, remembering the look on her face when she’d begged him not to leave her, with Mikhailovich’s pistol to the side of her head. Her eyes were so expressive…he wondered how they’d look when she wasn’t terrified.
What the hell else have I got to do?
He sighed. “Okay, sure.”
“Yay!” she squealed. “Okay, do you know any good restaurants, or should I...?”
Cooper’s mouth twitched. “If State is picking up the tab, I know a few places in Berlin we could check out. But it won’t be cheap,” he warned.
She laughed, an intoxicating sound that made him want to hear it some more. “It’s a date, then.”
The line went dead.
Cooper stared at the phone. “Whoa…wait, what just happened here?”
40
Lisa
Over the Atlantic Ocean
South of Greenland
Jayne accepted the incoming video call on her way back to America. It was her first official visit as Lisa Melton, heading home to take the reins of her consortium for the first time. She could’ve done without the interruption—she had speech patterns to practice and new mannerisms to learn—but when she saw who was calling her…
“Jared, darling, how are you?” she asked.
“Fine,” he said, nudging his glasses up his nose. “I w-w-wanted to thank you for the…donor you provided.”
“How is everything progressing?” she asked. MacTavish had hand delivered the prototype neural implant thingamabobber to a pair of embedded Council agents who knew which side they needed to stay friendly with.
She’d watched through the little micro-camera in one agent’s glasses as he impersonated a doctor, walked into Braaten’s recovery room—right next to the fucking ambassador’s wife!—and wheeled him out, totally in a coma. Fascinated, she’d even watched as they took him to a private recovery room, drilled a hole in Braaten’s head, hooked up the extractor dohickey, and implanted the transceiver thing in the base of his skull.
Jayne smiled. It had taken a couple hours, just like Myles had said, and they’d dropped him back off in the recovery room with no one the wiser. She’d even ID’d the handsome man visiting the Marquadt bitch—and Charlie Marshal, Braaten’s own XO from his time in the SEALs.
It didn’t trouble her at all that her agents had been arrested later that day, trying to leave Germany with fake passports. No on in any position of authority had any idea who they were—and her legal team would see them released in a few days.
“We’re getting a good signal from the transceiver and downloaded our first data packets last night. I traced his location at the time—he was in a bar near the Ramstein Air Force Base. I hope for his sake—and ours—he doesn’t drink too much alcohol. We h-h-have no idea what that could d-d-do to the matrix.”
“A bar? How pedestrian,” Jayne said with a smile. “I didn’t know he’d left the hospital so soon after his…procedure.”
Jared Myles nudged his glasses again. “I don’t know anything about that. This guy was a volunteer, right? It says so on his release forms…” he said, looking at a piece of paper.
“Oh, for sure,” Jayne replied. “We know each other, Cooper Braaten and I. It’s all copacetic, promise,” she said, holding up a hand as if swearing on the Bible.
Myles looked like he was waiting for her to continue, and when she didn’t, he cleared his throat. “Well, anyway, I wanted to thank you again—this could b-blow things wide open for us,” he said with a wide smile. “We’re really excited.”
“So, do you have anything…?” she prompted.
“Uh, no…like I said we just got the first data packets last night, we’re crunching the numbers now, but the alignments all look good. It should be really g-g-good stuff,” he said, nodding. “Just the fact that he didn’t slip into a psychotic episode or t-tear someone limb from limb is a huge win. I should have more for you by tonight.”
“Lovely, darling,” Jayne said, pouring on the charm. “I have a lot of faith in you, Jared,” she said.
“I won’t let you down,” he replied, ending the transmission.
“See that you don’t, dear,” Jayne muttered, looking at her collection of Lisa Melton ID cards and personality notes. She leaned back in her plush chair and listened to the wind whistle past her private cabin window as the consortium-owned jet screamed over the North Atlantic, inbound for JFK International.
With a smile on her face, she wondered how long it would take before Jared Myles stole Cooper Braaten’s mind. W
hat would happen to him? Would he even notice? Would he die a pathetic, blubbering idiot? Would he lose his shit like the lab chimps and go down in a hail of gunfire?
Her smile broadened, thinking of how upset this development would make dear, sweet Sveda. She’d almost taken the two of them out in Edinburgh and came very close to having Braaten’s head on a plate in Moscow.
She picked up Lisa Melton’s Montana Driver’s License and laughed. One way or another, Jayne Renolds always got the job done.
Staring at herself in the mirror she smiled. “Hello—nice to meet you. I’m Lisa…”
What’s Next?
Have you read through the entire Wildfire Saga (don’t forget The Source and False Prey!) and are looking for more post-apocalyptic mayhem?
You might want to check out my Future History of America series. Fair warning, it’s not for the faint of heart. If you want action, these books have plenty. If you want characters—lots of ‘em—these books are chock full of people, from presidents to foreign leaders, spies, rebels, soldiers, civilians, and even bikers.
Want a paperback book you can sink your teeth into? The Future History books can also be used as doorstoppers.
If you’re looking for something less action-packed, but more realistic, you may want to try my Solar Storm series. This post-apocalyptic story is told from several points of view in a typical American family.
What’s the catch?
The sun wipes out the global power grid and the entire world is essentially tossed back to the 1800s. This Solar Storm is about one man’s quest to save his family and survive when the whole world goes dark.
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