Rules of Engagement
Page 27
He tried a smile. “No, Alexi. No problem, they had a job to do. They just got carried away.” Gerasimov tried to rise but found he was cuffed to one of the teak deck chairs that littered the bathhouse.
Don’t lose your head. Be cool.
“Alexi…” He paused. How to play this? Casual or penitent? “I—I was just about…”
Alexi’s face loomed into sharp detail. His breath smelled of sour vodka and rotten meat, and there was a chunk of something caught in his front teeth. His pupils were dark pinpoints in the muddy brown of his eyes.
Gerasimov dismissed the tingle of fear that tried to worm its way into his thoughts. Alexi Aminev was a businessman. Gerasimov was a businessman. They would reach an agreement and go their separate ways. He’d made enough in profits from the China deal that he could afford to share. Hell, he’d made enough from the China deal that he could afford to retire.
This was a negotiation. Treat it that way.
“What? You were just about to what, Borodin?” Aminev was so close that his whiskers scraped across Gerasimov’s cheek. And they were alone. Gerasimov noticed that for the first time. Where were all the women? And his ever-present entourage of tattooed confidants?
He drew his head back as far as he could. “Call you, of course. The China deal was ten times what we expected. I think success like this calls for some celebration.”
Aminev’s hairy face moved even closer, snuffling his neck. “I agree,” he said, his words almost lost in the hollow of Gerasimov’s collarbone. The other man’s beard scratched his skin as it traveled up his neck. Gerasimov’s flesh shrank in disgust.
The snuffling reached his jawline. Hot, fetid breath tickled his ear canal, offering a sick thrill of pleasure. He opened his mouth to speak but closed it again when Alexi planted a wet kiss on his temple. Then the other man bit down on his ear.
Gerasimov screamed, his voice echoing in the open space.
Aminev’s face loomed in his field of view again, his lips twisted into a leer, mouth dripping blood. A piece of flesh—his flesh—poked from between Aminev’s teeth. The other man started chewing. Then he made an exaggerated swallow and a dumb show of opening his mouth to demonstrate that Gerasimov’s ear was all gone.
“You were saying, Borodin?”
A warm flow ran down Gerasimov’s neck, pooled in the hollow of his collarbone, and dripped down his chest. His breath came in quick, ragged gasps, and his vision started to close in.
A chilled glass pressed against his lips. Vodka flooded across his tongue, cutting through the gumminess of his mouth. Aminev’s meaty paw slid behind his neck, tilting his head back. “Let’s not pass out yet, Borodin. We’re just getting started.”
He choked on the vodka, but the bite of the cool alcohol cleared his head. His mind slipped into frantic calculations. “You’ve seen the news,” he said. “There’s no way they can trace it back to us.”
Aminev stood. “Hold that thought.” He padded away into the blurry land beyond Gerasimov’s vision. There was the sound of snorting. Good Christ, the man is taking more drugs.
When Aminev came back, he was shirtless. His broad chest was completely covered in fur. His heavy pectorals swung like hairy breasts, and his belly bulged over the belt. He bowed closer. “You were saying, Borodin?”
Gerasimov couldn’t tear his eyes away from the drop of blood in the man’s beard. A pink tongue snaked out and worried at the blood. Gerasimov felt the sourness rise in the back of his throat as he grappled with the truth.
He wasn’t getting out of here alive.
“Take the money!” he screamed. “All of it. It’s yours. You can still get away.”
Aminev’s eyes glittered. His hand slid behind Gerasimov’s neck again. Powerful, but strangely comforting. He pressed his forehead against Gerasimov’s. “You don’t get away from the Brotherhood, Boris. You know that.” He giggled. “They’re coming for me. It’s just a matter of time.”
He reached behind his back and drew out a Grach handgun. Gerasimov’s eyes followed the weapon as the other man laid it on the stone floor. He grinned up at Gerasimov. “You thought this was for you? Too easy, Borodin. This is for me. But before I go I have one thing to take care of.”
He stood and stretched, the powerful muscles of his upper body rippling. “You, Borodin, you fucked me.” One set of hairy knuckles pawed at his belt buckle. Gerasimov heard the sound of a zipper.
“Get ready, Borodin, because now I’m going to fuck you.”
Gerasimov tore at his restraints. The heavy chair rocked on the stone floor.
Aminev stepped out of his trousers, and Gerasimov caught a flash of red silk underwear. The other man hooked a thumb in the waistband and dragged them down his thighs.
Gerasimov screamed and pushed back against the chair with all his might. The front legs rose off the floor; the chair teetered for an instant, then fell backwards.
Hot water and shiny bubbles surrounded him in the hot tub. The chair sank slowly until it clunked against the cement bottom of the pool.
He opened his eyes in the frothy hot water. Alexi Aminev, fully unclothed, stood on the rim of the pool.
Gerasimov blew all the air out of his lungs and opened his mouth wide.
CHAPTER 65
North of Fortaleza, Brazil
Pak Myung-rok lowered his body into the lounge chair and listened to the surf crashing far below the stone veranda. A full moon was rising on the horizon, turning the glassy water molten silver.
He sucked on the end of his cigar and realized it had gone out again. Sparking the lighter on the teak table next to his chair, he lifted the flame and puffed until the end of the Cuban glowed. He followed the smoky taste with a sip of cognac.
Pak exhaled and closed his eyes. Bliss.
If he had planned it this way, it could not have gone better. The Americans were so appreciative of his timely information that they’d been happy to chip in to his private retirement fund. There was already more than enough in his Caymans account, but one could never have too much cash on hand.
He could have taken them up on their offer of relocation, but some information was better kept on a need-to-know basis.
Cash the check and disappear. It had all worked out so well. A just reward for his honorable service to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Another puff and a sip. The night air was perfect, like velvet on his skin. Pak dozed.
He was awoken by the sound of the doorbell. He rolled his shoulders and stretched his back. The evening’s entertainment had arrived. He paused to drink off his cognac before he strode inside.
The video camera next to the steel-reinforced front door showed two women in skintight minidresses. One blond, one dark-haired, both stunning. Pak licked his lips. Apparently, the agency was getting a better handle on his tastes.
“Yes, ladies?” he said through the intercom in his accented Portuguese. It was a frightfully difficult language to learn, but he was determined to fit in.
The dark-haired woman unleashed a torrent of unintelligible Portuguese, then cupped her breasts at the camera.
Ah, the international language of lust.
Pak unbolted the door and threw it open. He spread his arms. “Bem vinda, senhoras.”
The brunette stepped forward, her lips set in a sultry pout. She raised a tiny spray bottle.
“Boa noite.”
* * *
Pak’s mouth was dry, and his head throbbed with each heartbeat. He blinked, but there was something across his eyes. As far as he could tell, he was still wearing the silk pajamas from last night. The pants were damp where he’d soiled himself.
And his hands were tied behind his back. Panic set in.
He writhed on the cold ground, a chill wind cutting through the thin material of his pajamas. His panicked pulse thundered in his ears.
Strong hands gripped him by the elbows and jerked him to his feet in one jarring motion. His back touched a solid wall. Cold. Concrete.
&
nbsp; The blindfold was ripped away. Pak blinked in the weak sunlight. His knees almost gave out when his eyes met the icy stare of the Supreme Leader.
“Excellency,” he gasped. “Thank goodness you brought me home. I was abducted by the Americans on my way to…”
Kim Jong-un turned slowly and walked away, his hands clasped behind his back.
“Excellency!” Pak called. “I have money! It’s all for you. I was saving it for you.”
The broad back of the Supreme Leader did not even miss a step.
That’s when Pak saw the field gun. A massive weapon; the bore was so large he could have fit his fist inside of it. Pointed at him.
Fresh wetness ran down his leg.
“Excellency, please!”
The Supreme Leader reached the viewing stand built at a safe distance behind the field gun. He mounted the steps and accepted a pair of earphones from General Zhu.
The general screamed out an order, and the men standing at attention next to the gun sprang into action. Pak heard the sharp crack of the breech being opened and the slip of metal on metal as a round was loaded. The crew fitted their own hearing protection, then snapped back to attention.
Except for one soldier, who held a lanyard in his hand and faced the viewing stand.
The Supreme Leader raised his hand; the general screamed an order.
Pak stared at the pudgy palm, lit by the morning sun, and tried to will it to stay in the air.
The hand fell.
CHAPTER 66
United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland
A stiff breeze, unseasonably raw and cold for April, blew in from the Chesapeake Bay and straight into Janet Everett’s eyes. She stood at attention, or as best she could with the arm sling beneath the service dress blue jacket making an unsightly bulge in her uniform. Medically, she was not required to wear her uniform, but she felt like it was the right thing to do. She’d gotten her roommates to pin the front of the double-breasted uniform coat closed. The empty left sleeve hung slack at her side, moving with the breeze.
Her shoulder throbbed where Roshed’s bullet had pierced the inside of her arm, nicking the humerus bone and severing the brachial artery. Had it not been for Michael Goodwin’s first-aid skills and the SEAL medic she would have bled to death on the floor of that dingy control room deep inside a North Korean island.
The Academy psychiatrist told Janet she’d suffered a trauma and to go easy on herself. She wrote her a prescription for sleeping pills.
She didn’t take them, not even once. Instead of having nightmares, Janet found she liked the nighttime. The quiet helped her think, helped her make sense of everything that had happened.
Don Riley, standing next to her between a pair of aluminum crutches, wavered, and she put her good hand on his arm. The man looked like he’d come out on the losing end of a prizefight, with bruises still shadowing the side of his face. Dre and Michael had told her how Don Riley had pursued Roshed into the tunnels of Yang-do Island without telling anyone. After the explosion, the SEAL team dog had found Riley, unconscious, half buried in the rubble of a collapsed tunnel, and shot through the thigh.
But alive. Janet was glad for that.
“You okay, sir?” she murmured.
Riley nodded, his gaze stealing for the hundredth time to the front of the funeral assembly, where Captain McHugh’s widow sat with her two children on either side of her. Liz Soroush’s face was still and beautiful, and her dark eyes were dry. Her children, a girl with dark hair and skin coloring like her mother, and a boy, younger, with a blond crew cut, each held one of their mother’s hands tightly, as if they were tethering her to the earth.
Captain McHugh visited Janet’s thoughts again, as he often did. This time, she remembered him in the back of the Chinook helo before they landed on Yang-do Island. His easy grace under pressure, the way he spoke to her in calming tones when her own mind was about to spin out of control. He’d known exactly what to say to her in that moment. His experience talking, she figured at the time.
It was more than just his manner, though. Certainly, he was wary about the action to come, they all were, but as she remembered it now, there had been another layer to his mood.
Captain McHugh had been happy in that moment. Fulfilled.
The honor guard of six midshipmen, including Ramirez and Goodwin, lifted the American flag from Captain McHugh’s casket and moved away in lockstep to perform the elaborate folding ceremony. The chief of naval operations presented the folded flag to Liz Soroush and bent low to say a few words that Janet couldn’t hear.
The widow murmured a reply. Janet’s heart ached as she saw the children watch their mother, eyes wide, looking for cues on how to act. She wondered if the reality of their loss had settled yet. Captain McHugh’s widow left the flag in her lap and reached for her children’s hands again, searching for her tether.
The sharp crack of the rifle squad delivering a twenty-one-gun salute snapped Janet back to reality. From somewhere behind them, the mournful sound of “Taps” floated in the air. The wind whistled through the crowd, making the lone bugler’s lament fade and swell.
The domed lid of the mahogany-and-brass casket reflected the low clouds, their patterns shifting subtly on its surface. The priest nodded. The casket began to recede into the earth.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” the priest intoned, and next to her Riley’s body convulsed in a suppressed sob. He hung his head. Tears rained down. Janet put her good arm across his shoulders and held him as best she could.
In that moment, as she saw Riley’s grief and the strength of McHugh’s widow, the pieces clicked for Janet Everett. All those sleepless nights staring at the ceiling while her roommates snored gently. Every session with the psychiatrist where it felt like she talked endlessly about every emotion she had felt in every moment of every day since the raid. Every time she saw how Ramirez and Goodwin watched her.
All that time she was searching for an answer, the answer had been staring her in the face.
Captain McHugh’s life had meant something. His death had been the price to make the world a better, safer place. He was a hero, not because he’d died, but because of how he had lived.
But now, he was gone, and a new generation needed to step in to continue the fight. She would honor Captain McHugh’s life with her own service.
For the first time since the raid, Janet Everett wept.
Liz Soroush rose to her feet, her figure in a long dark coat bold against the blustery clouds hanging over the Chesapeake. She had a child on each hand as they stepped to a small mound of dirt next to the open grave. They each took a handful of dirt and threw it onto the coffin. The hollow sound was like hail on a window.
Then it was over. Janet huddled with Riley as the strangers who had assembled around the hole in the ground slowly dispersed. She watched a parade of brass offer their condolences to Liz, then hurry to their waiting cars for the trip back to Washington and the inertia of their own lives.
Ramirez and Goodwin joined Janet and Riley.
Finally, the widow said goodbye to the last well-wisher, sent her children off with a pair of grandparents, and turned toward the three midshipmen and Riley. She came straight at Riley and threw her arms around him so forcefully she might have knocked him down had Janet not been there to steady him. The subtle jasmine scent of her perfume flowed around them as she buried her face in Don Riley’s shoulder.
“I’m so sorry, Lizzie,” he said. “I—”
“Don’t you dare, Don.” She pushed back and gripped him by the lapels of his jacket. “Don’t you dare. Brendan was there because he wanted—no, he needed—to be there.” Her dark eyes were bright with emotion. “That’s how he lived, and that’s why I loved him.”
She released Riley and patted his lapels flat before she turned to the midshipmen. “And how are you three holding up?”
Janet said nothing, so Ramirez put her arm around Goodwin. “We’re keeping it together, ma’am—”
Riley blinked hard but made a solid attempt to smile.
Liz turned in to the freshening breeze, her eyes glassy now. She took Janet’s good arm and hugged the younger woman to her. Together, their gazes roved over the stately buildings of the Naval Academy grounds.
“He always loved it up here,” she said in a whisper. Janet nodded, not daring to break the spell. “I’m so glad you’re all safe. He wouldn’t have been able to live with himself if something had happened to any of you.”
Janet didn’t know what to say. She was so choked up, it would have just come out as a wail anyway.
Liz drew in a deep breath and blew it out between trembling lips. She patted Janet’s arm. “My Brendan’s watch is done. It’s up to you now, Midshipmen.”
“We’re ready, ma’am,” Janet said.
Something in her tone must have caught Liz’s attention, because she locked eyes with Janet. The widow’s gaze was sad, still full of unspent grief, and yet somehow still fierce. The eyes of a fighter.
“Yes.” Liz nodded slowly. “I believe you are.”
She squeezed Janet’s arm one last time, shook hands with Ramirez and Goodwin, and hugged Riley again.
Then she walked away through the headstones.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes at least that many people to nurture a book from a vague idea to a finished product sitting on the shelf of your local bookstore. And since this book has two authors, the number of people we need to thank totals something approaching a small town.
We’ll do our best.
Although we’re both graduates of the United States Naval Academy and former US Navy officers, we only met in 2013 at an alumni breakfast event in Minneapolis. We struck up a friendship, and a few months later, we were asked to speak to the local Minnesota chapter of the USNA Parent’s Association about careers post-graduation from Annapolis. At the time, David had recently left his corporate job to write science fiction full-time and J. R. was retired from a twenty-one-year career as a naval intelligence officer. After hearing our dueling biographies, one of the parents raised his hand and suggested we write a book together.