Force: Book Two of the Zoya Chronicles

by Kate Sander

  Leo recognized which of the two had the grenade and launched himself at his hand.

  Seven seconds.

  Senka shot the other man in the head. He was diving and she missed the forehead, hitting him in the jaw. His jaw shattered, leaving his face contorted in a sadistic smile.

  Six seconds.

  The grenade fell to the ground, bouncing towards the man she had shot in the jaw. Both men were screaming. Leo had his man’s arm in his mouth and was shaking it violently.

  Five seconds.

  The man she shot rolled over and pulled the pin of the grenade.

  Four seconds.

  “Leo, come!” Senka yelled. The man with the jaw hanging from his face was laughing maniacally. The other stared wide eyed at the tendons and bone exposed in his arm.

  Three seconds.

  Leo ran past her through the mangled doorframe and launched himself over the fallen door.

  Two seconds.

  Senka followed fast and grabbed his jumping form right around the middle. They crashed to the ground together and Senka grabbed for the fallen door.

  One second.

  The grenade exploded in a fireball. Senka pulled Leo into her chest and cowered under the steel door. The explosion pushed them into the server room, passing the bodies of the dead men. Senka held on to Leo and the door tightly, head ringing, eyes closed. She could feel him breathing rapidly as he cuddled into her chest.

  The explosion ended as rapidly as it occurred, bits of debris falling from the roof. She waited an extra few seconds, just holding on to Leo, feeling his chest rise and fall. She pushed the door off them and let go of Leo. He scrambled to his feet. She did a rapid assessment of herself. Nothing broken, a couple of small lacerations here and there, bit of a burn on her lower back. She would live. With deft hands she felt Leo over as well. He stood still as a statue, letting her feel his joints and fur. No damage to him.

  She breathed a sigh of relief and patted him on the head. He wagged his tail and scratched himself, unfazed.

  “Carter, still there?”

  Her ears were ringing but she heard the faint reply through her thank god undamaged earpiece, “Yes. You guys ok?”

  “All good. You get it?”

  “Yes, we got in right before the explosion.”

  Senka breathed a sigh of relief, “Server room is destroyed. I won’t be able to find that nifty little device you gave me.”

  “No worries,” Carter replied, she could hear relief in his voice. “If they find it they find it. We can deal with that. Hopefully it’s so destroyed that they can’t figure anything out.” Always on task, Carter continued, “Evac is eight out. They will come to the west side of the roof. I have the security feed and a map. I’ll get you up there.”

  Senka nodded. She quickly searched the least charred of the bodies while Leo laid down and yawned.

  “Lazy shit,” she mumbled at him. He rolled his eyes and huffed at her, resting his head on his front paws, bored with it all.

  She managed to find another Glock and a magazine with nine more bullets. That put her at fifteen bullets total.

  “How many?” Carter asked.

  “See me?” she asked, looking around the drifting smoke for a security camera.

  “No camera is busted. I just know you. How many bullets do you have?”

  “Fifteen total, two guns.”

  “Ok, the explosion triggered every alarm known to man in that building. They are coming for you. Go right out the door, back the way you came.”

  “Let’s go, Fatass,” she mumbled at Leo. He leapt up, tail wagging. They went right, Leo taking the lead by about three feet. Senka didn’t have time to marvel at how fast she and the dog had fallen into step with each other. It just came as naturally as breathing. They ran quickly.

  “Right here, four down the hallway,” Carter said.

  Senka knew she was in the basement. “Leo, right,” she said. Leo listened and she saw his hackles raise at the same time that she heard the men coming down the hall.

  “Stay.”

  Leo obeyed and crouched at the corner, hidden.

  Senka made the turn fast and shot four rounds. Four men dropped, bullets in their heads. They didn’t even have time to raise their guns.

  “Let’s go,” she said. Leo jumped up and took the lead again. As they jogged by the mercenaries Senka stole one of their M16’s. It felt heavy in her hands but it would do the job.

  “Up the ladder. It will take you to the first floor. There should only be seven men covering all of upstairs, the rest went downstairs the other way to check out the server room. One is waiting by the hatch as guard.”

  Senka nodded. She squatted and said, “Leo, up!” Leo ran and jumped on her back. She positioned him so he was draped over her shoulders and started to climb the ladder. Leo panted happily in her ear.

  “Good thing I don’t skip leg day,” she said, puffing slightly. Her two weeks of touring around Russia on this mission had taken its toll. Leo licked her cheek.

  “Blah,” she said. He panted happily.

  She made it to the top of the ladder.

  “Hold,” Carter said. Senka waited patiently. Carter would be watching the guard at the top of the ladder on the security camera footage.

  “Go!”

  Senka pulled hard on the ladder and sprang both feet to the top rung. She opened the hatch with one hand and muscled it open.

  “Hey!” a man yelled.

  “Go Leo,” she said. The man was across the room, she had rudely interrupted him as he lit a cigarette. Carter had waited for the perfect moment. Leo was off her shoulders before the command, running and weaving towards the mercenary. The man managed to get his gun up at the charging dog and pull the trigger. A shot rang out as she pulled herself off the ladder and Leo launched himself at the mercenary. Her heart dropped with worry. The man screamed and fell under the weight of the attacking German Shepard. Senka swung the M16 off her back to the ready. Leo had a man by the arm and was violently shaking his head. The man was yelling and trying to punch Leo with his free hand.

  She aimed swiftly and said, “Leo, drop!” The dog dropped the arm and collapsed onto his stomach, giving Senka an open head shot. One that she took and didn’t miss. Leo padded back towards her. She quickly checked him out, again he was unscathed. They were in a non-descript concrete room with three doors and a window showing snow and mountains. She saw a grey-blue sky outside. Sunrise was approaching.

  “Go left. Up the stairs. No one in the next room.”

  Senka nodded and she and Leo ran. She could hear men coming from the other two directions following the yells. The next room looked exactly the same, except it had a large metal staircase that ran all the way up to the top of the compound. They pushed hard to the stairs. Halfway up, she stopped, turned and settled her heart, aiming at the door.

  Men burst through and she picked them off with well-aimed shots. There were too many of them. Bullets started to rain around them. “Come!” she yelled and she and Leo bolted farther up the stairs. A grenade was thrown but they were well clear by the time it exploded.

  “Nice,” Carter said. “Roof should be empty. Evac is thirty seconds out.”

  Senka smiled to herself as they continued to pound up the stairs. Hopefully those men had blocked off their own path. There were ten flights total and they burst out a metal door. She breathed in the beautiful cold air, staring at the morning sky above and mountains all around. Senka saw the helicopter burst over a nearby hill, snow swirling and dancing below. This fortress was in the middle of nowhere, ice and snow sparkled on the surrounding mountains. She wasn’t sure what Viktor used it for, she hadn’t found much out on this expedition.

  She quickly got her bearings and ran to the west side. The chopper hovered as they lowered a rope down to her. She hooked the back of Leo’s vest to the rope. They quickly hoisted him up, his tail happily wagging. She turned her back, trusting the Joint Task Force 2 members in the helicopter to protect her
dog. She crouched and covered their exit.

  The Joint Task Force 2 Division of the Canadian Military were a group of special-forces used for a myriad of different tasks. The Zoya Task Force worked closely with the JTF2 to accomplish missions. The JTF2 soldiers were the toughest of the tough, they could handle anything and they were smart. Senka trusted them fully when they were used on missions together.

  Men burst through the door to the roof. Senka started shooting. She heard, “Engaged! Cover fire!” coming from a man above. A machine gun was fired up and bullets were concentrated on the men by the door.

  Carter knew his job and transferred her earpiece to the crew in the chopper.

  “Package is secure,” she heard in her ear. She was relieved, Leo was fine.

  “He’s pretty cute. Lowering rope for package two.”

  They lowered another rope to her.

  “Cover fire,” they concentrated bullets towards the door again, making the mercenaries dive for cover.

  Senka turned and grabbed the lowered rope. The chopper immediately rose and Senka hung on to the rope with both hands as they raised her up. They weren’t worried about her falling. The JTF2 men didn’t know about her mission, but they knew she was a ZTF agent and they didn’t have to worry about her. They hoisted her to the chopper door. She looked down. They were forty feet above the ground and she wasn’t hooked to anything. Lovely.

  Two JTF2 men pulled her in, patting her roughly on the back. She turned to smile at them and thank them, looking for Leo when something caught her eye glinting off a hill.

  “Sniper! Pull up!” she yelled.

  The shot rang out as the pilot banked hard. The bullet ricocheted off the top of the door. A searing pain ripped through Senka’s face and she fell back into the men’s arms. She could only see red as the blood poured down her face.

  “She’s hit! She’s hit! The package is down!” it sounded far away. Everything seemed like it was pulsating. She could barely feel the chopper rising and speeding away. She felt Leo lick her face. He let out a high pitched whine and everything faded to black.

  5

  Isaac

  October 19, 2023, 14:32

  Location: Unknown.

  The whirling of a fan woke him.

  “Mom, turn that fan off,” he mumbled. The fan continued to rumble overhead. Isaac buried his head farther into his elbow. He was sore all over and sleeping on a hard surface that didn’t feel at all like his bed.

  “Mom! Can you turn that fan off please?” he said louder. He realized that he didn’t have a pillow and had a searing headache.

  “It’s not a fan,” a girl’s voice answered him.

  Isaac opened his eyes and was confused when it was darker than his room at home. He didn’t recognize the girl’s voice. He noticed that he was on a metal floor. He pushed himself up to sitting. A wave of nausea took hold and he closed his eyes, waiting for it to pass. He opened them and took notice of his surroundings. He was in a metal box with a single, sick yellow light on the roof, swinging away with the motion of the box. He then realized that the box was in motion. He noticed a girl sitting cross-legged against the wall opposite of him, about five feet away. She was staring at him with brown eyes, leaning her head against the back wall. Isaac noticed that one of her eyes was black.

  “Where are we?” he asked. He was trying to recall how he had come here but he couldn’t put it together.

  “I think we’re on a plane,” she answered. She didn’t move. She was sitting quietly in her black tank top and jeans staring at him. “I’m not sure, I’ve never been on a plane. But it sounds like a plane and my ears popped a while ago. My buddy said that can happen when you fly.”

  She talked slowly, deliberately, still staring at Isaac. His headache was starting to subside and the drowsiness was fading. He really tried to look at her. She looked as young as he was, maybe fifteen years old. She was pretty, with long brown hair and brown eyes. She looked tired.

  “How’d we get here?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure how you got here. You were already here when they tossed me in. I got here ‘cause some red-headed dude with a weird accent tricked me.” Her eyes darted away from his face. She wouldn’t meet his eye. Isaac stared at her for a bit then lowered his eyes. She made him uncomfortable, he didn’t know why.

  The fog in his brain was starting to lift.

  “I think the same guy tricked me too. How come you woke up sooner?”

  “He didn’t dose me with anything,” she answered, still looking anywhere but his face.

  “So you must know where they took us before the plane?” Isaac started patting his jeans. He needed his phone. He needed to call his parents. He was in trouble, he had made a terrible mistake. They would get him out of this. The fear that had been growing started to ebb as he thought about his parents.

  “No. They had a bag over my head,” she nodded to the corner of the box. Isaac looked and saw a brown bag in the corner. He started to fervently dig through his jeans and his coat pocket. It wasn’t there. It had to be there, he always had his phone. “They would have taken it,” the girl said. “They wouldn’t forget to get rid of your phone. If you have people to call that means that someone would be looking for you. They wouldn’t take that much of a risk.”

  Tears welled and Isaac angrily wiped them away. The girl graciously looked away giving him some time to compose himself. He wrapped his thin jacket around himself, now grateful for it. He missed his mom and the smell of her shampoo when she woke him up for school. He missed his dad and throwing the football around. They needed to know where he was so they could come and help him.

  The girl let him cry for a bit. Once Isaac pulled it together, he looked at her. Ashamed he asked, “What’s your name?”

  She cocked her head, “Kelly. You?”

  “Isaac. My friends call me Zac though.”

  She nodded curtly. The plane lurched slightly in the air. She looked around scared and tried to grab the sides of the metal container. Isaac closed his eyes and rode the turbulence out.

  “I always hate flying,” he said.

  “That’s normal?” Kelly asked and her voice hitched. In the yellow light Isaac noticed her eyes were darting around.

  “Yea,” he said. “It’s called turbulence. It happens when the plane hits air pockets or something when it’s flying.” He saw that she still looked scared when the plane lurched again so he decided to change the subject to take her mind off of it. His mom used to do that when he was little and scared of thunderstorms. His heart skipped again when he thought of his mother. He needed to change the subject as fast as possible.

  “Where you from?” he asked her.

  She was pale, looking around, terrified. “Toronto,” she answered vacantly. Isaac noticed her hands shaking.

  “Cool, me too. What high school do you go to?”

  She looked at him, “I don’t go to school.”

  Isaac was surprised, “Oh, cool. You like, home-schooled or something?”

  She stared at him, stone-faced. Isaac started to blush. He must have hit a nerve, “Sorry,” he mumbled, “I didn’t mean to pry.”

  They were spared from more awkward conversation when the plane pitched forward slightly. Isaac felt the pressure in his ears and knew they were on the descent.

  “Where have you been on a plane to before?” Kelly asked him.

  “My parents have taken me to Disney World a few times,” he answered, “and we went to New York last summer. You’ve never been on a plane?”

  She looked uncomfortable and started rubbing her ears.

  “Do this,” Isaac offered. He showed her how to plug her nose and blow gently to get her ears to pop.

  She copied him and smiled, “Thanks. Wish you were here on the way up.”

  “How’d you get that shiner? That asshole give you that?” he asked. The stark violence of the black eye made him uncomfortable and was emphasized by her pale, sweaty skin. He realized in an instant how cushy his home
life really was. Kelly had such a hard edge to her. It was something he couldn’t place.

  “No, I had this from before.”

  “Are you ok?”

  “Nothing I can’t deal with.”

  Isaac stared at her for a long time. Finally, “My parents will get us out of here. They will get us home. My dad’s never let me down. Then you can go home too. Plus your parents would have reported you missing too so that’s twice as much information for the police to go on. They will find us.” He was trying to convince them both and he thought he was doing a pretty good job.

  “I don’t have any parents,” she said flatly.

  The plane bounced and lurched. They were thrown and jostled in their small metal box. Kelly managed to stay sitting up but Isaac ended up lying on the ground. The loud whirling of the engine slowed down and Isaac figured they were coasting down the runway. The road was bumpy and rough. They came to a lurching halt and Isaac, who had just pulled himself up to sitting, was bucked to his side again.

  Isaac managed to get himself up to sitting again. Kelly looked at him and smiled. He smiled sheepishly back. He heard people above him start to leave the airplane, their steps echoing above.

  “Holy crap!” he exclaimed when they heard the footsteps echoing above. “We’re in a commercial flight! I thought we would be on a cargo plane or something. Those people don’t even know we’re here!” Isaac starting banging against the side of the metal container.

  “Help!” Isaac screamed. “Help! We’re down here!” he banged on the side of the container with everything he had, but the footsteps upstairs didn’t stop walking.

  “I tried that,” Kelly piped up after Isaac’s voice starting going dry and cracking. “Before you woke up. Didn’t work. They can’t hear us.”

  Isaac sat down heavily again. They waited in silence. A door to the side of the plane opened and Isaac could hear men chatting and laughing in a different language. It sounded like German but he couldn’t be sure. Isaac exchanged a sidelong glance with Kelly and they both sprang up at the same time and started pounding and yelling on the side of the metal container. The cool metal hurt his hands but Isaac didn’t care. He needed someone, anyone, to hear him.