by Ronie Kendig
TWENTY-FOUR
NEAR FALAM, CHIN STATE, BURMA
Having downloaded articles on Burmese traditions and greetings, Leif used the flight to prepare himself, get familiar with the language. The rest of the team grabbed rack time, but a buzzing brain wouldn’t let Leif rest. He headed to the tight quarters of the small debrief room and laid out the intel on the grease board. Got a game plan in mind. He leaned back against the table and folded his arms, staring at the board. His thoughts vanished into the white space, where he drew a mental Venn diagram to sort out the fiasco that was Viorica. Her betrayal had a blast radius of a couple hundred miles. His trust had been too close to the origin point to survive. But . . .
As an operative, she’d failed her master—a safer term than lover, which conjured some pretty terrible images—so she had to pay the piper. Along came Veratti—or so she said—offering a chance to save her butt and her master’s. If she hadn’t agreed to take the mission, they both might be dead. So she went along with it.
Okay, cool. Well, not cool, but understandable.
Then she wanted to change the game. That was what he didn’t get. She had an out, so why the change? He ran a hand over his mouth and the back of his neck. What was at the center of that invisible diagram? What tethered her?
Hang it all.
He punched to his feet and shoved a chair out of the way. Paced the ten feet of the room. By exploring this, he was condoning her betrayal. And that was unacceptable.
Why? You weren’t much good to humanity after the Sahara. He’d been so ruthless about pursuing answers then that he’d destroyed every connection and friendship. Except with his brother and Dru. He’d lied. Done things he’d never thought he’d do. All in the pursuit of answers. In the end, he had also nearly destroyed himself, hating the things he’d done, the people he’d hurt.
There. Leif drew in a breath. Bent forward and palmed the table. There was the thing that wouldn’t let him walk away when common sense said it was the smartest thing he could do. Sometimes, smart wasn’t right. It was thinking with the head, not with the heart. Which was crazy psychology, but whatever worked.
He couldn’t—wouldn’t—walk away from Iskra because he saw in her eyes, in every action, the very desperation that drove him.
He lifted his gaze and stared over the slick surface of the table at the board imprinted with his mental diagram. Okay. He could do this—not condone her betrayal, but categorize it as “understandable considering the context.” He churned that phrase over in his mind, then nodded. Yeah. That would work.
It still left him with the empty middle circle. What belonged there, serving as anchor for everything else? Hristoff?
His gut roiled at the thought. If that was the situation—
No. Not with the way she said his name. Not with the way she went to another, more dangerous man. Bypassing Peych. Avoiding him.
Footfalls near the door snagged his attention. His heart thudded at the blur that passed by. Iskra.
There was work to be done. Lies to be excavated from the foundation of her mission.
“Landing in ten,” the pilot announced over the speakers.
Leif returned to the main cabin and planted himself in a seat, his head still buzzing. Once they were wheels-down, he and the team made quick work of loading up and heading toward the village.
A hardened dirt road wound up the hillside, its edges littered with buildings that jutted out over it. A sea of green fell away behind them, the sight deceptively lush. The ruts thrashed them as the truck lumbered into Falam along a stone wall that looked centuries old and barely did its job of holding back the earth and homes sitting on its incline. The buildings along the left side weren’t much of an improvement with their corrugated steel walls and rooftops. Locals shuffled past with barely a nod.
Their translator should be at the top of the hill in the market. But to get there, they had to conquer the road’s violent switchbacks about every hundred meters. Baddar frowned as he navigated around a bend, glancing in the rearview mirror.
“What’s up?” Leif asked, noting the unease in their Afghan friend.
“They are not surprised to see strangers enter their town, and they are not pleased to see supplies either.” His frown deepened.
Leif understood, daunted by the realization. “We aren’t the first to come.”
“Or maybe,” Peyton said, nodding to the Chin Hills, “they’re more concerned about the large black cloud forming overhead.”
“Perhaps both,” Iskra said from the back. “If the storm is from the Meteoroi, then whoever generated the storm might not be far ahead of us.”
“Which means eyes out.” Leif visually roved the streets, making sure the villagers were villagers, not disguised enemy combatants.
“I’m more concerned about covering ground before that thing unleashes its payload,” Lawe grumbled, nodding to the sky. “The supplies are slowing us down.”
“Easy,” Leif said. “We meet the translator, then split up as agreed.”
“I’m with Lawe. This is making me tense.” Saito squinted at the storm cloud. “I was thinking we should find the center, but I’m not seeing one.”
“Yeah, it seems all over the map,” Culver agreed.
“There’s the market,” Peyton whispered.
Squat structures lined both sides of a wide footpath, with steps leading up to their façades and iron bars over oddly placed windows that were open for bartering. But nobody was bartering. The rains had demolished the harvest. Men, women, and children sat around, bereft.
Baddar guided the truck to the side of the road. Even before the engine was cut, the team was climbing out. Leif turned to Iskra. “Stay close.”
Surprise leapt through her features, which then darkened. “I—”
“Hello!” a voice called, chipper and thickly accented. Waving, a man crossed the road. Wide-legged pants that didn’t reach his ankles hung below a dingy tunic that might have been white once. His hair was longer than Leif’s short crop but stopped above his shoulders. “Hello. I help you.” His smile could light a village. “My name Thet. It means quiet.” An ironic name, considering his ebullient self. Obviously, he was their translator.
Ignoring Iskra’s near-objection, Leif pressed his palms together and inclined his head toward their translator. “Nei kaurn thala,” he said, offering the traditional greeting.
Thet’s eyes widened. “Very good! Sa pi bi la?”
“No.” The question about whether they had eaten was a standard greeting of respect, and the team hadn’t eaten anything since the dry meal on the plane.
“Come, come!” Thet motioned them up a side path that wound crookedly around homes and through alleys. “You eat. We talk.”
The uphill walk brought them to a long gray building that jutted off the road like most of the other buildings. Thet led them into a home lined with paneling. A table, no taller than Leif’s shins, devoured the bulk of a corner. A few small stools sat askew around it. A short, thin woman smiled and nodded as her room filled with bodies. Thet introduced his mom too quickly for them to catch her name.
Iskra nodded and pressed her palms together, just as Leif had with Thet. It won major points with Thet’s mom, who motioned them toward the table. She left and returned a moment later with a heavy pot.
Broad-chested and tall, Lawe had to bend down to enter the home. When he spied the squat arrangements, he stilled. “You gotta be—”
Leif silenced him with a glower. It was funny, really, thinking of the big guy seated at the table, probably hugging his knees. Even cross-legged, he wouldn’t fit.
Beyond the room that served as both the dining and living room, a large open balcony gave an awe-inspiring view of the valley that spread below them. Had to admit—it stole his breath. Leif thanked the host and moved to sit down, relieved when Iskra followed him. That she was complying with his brusque stay close said a lot. Convinced him even more that the middle circle in his Venn diagram was the key.
“Chief.” Lawe stood staring out at the valley. “I don’t think we have time to chow.”
After a shared look of concern with Iskra and the team, Leif joined him. “It’s rude not to accept the meal.”
“Yeah, and it’s kind of rude to die, too.”
Leif’s gaze struck the hillside that he and Iskra would trek out to. Satellite imaging had shown it to be covered with trees. The image must have been old, because it was now just a streak of brown.
“Holy Mother,” Iskra breathed beside him.
At her Catholic phrase, Leif eyed her.
She nodded toward the hill. “That’s where we’re going, but it . . .” She peered up at the clouds. “Oh no.”
He saw the danger, too. It was time to bug out. Leif returned to their host. “Thet, storms are coming. We have to go.”
The man’s smile never wavered. “Eat first.”
“Sorry, we—”
“My brother bring motorbikes.” Thet gave an enthusiastic nod. “They help you go fast. You wait, yes?”
Motorcycles? Was he kidding?
“It would be faster,” Saito said. “If the bikes come soon, we might beat the storm.”
“Yes, soon.” Thet gave Leif a bowl of mohinga, rice noodles covered in a fish-based soup and topped with fried fritters.
Leif’s stomach growled, and his mouth watered.
Thet laughed, as did his mother. “See? You eat.”
“Might as well wait for the bikes.” Culver’s eyes were wide in anticipation of food, which Thet’s mother happily supplied.
“Could be our last meal,” Saito offered.
Culver glared at him. “Morbid.”
“I agree—dying on an empty stomach is a travesty.” Saito parked himself at the low table.
Despite a few grumblings about losing time, the team sat on the floor and enjoyed a bowl of steaming mohinga—albeit quickly. It was nice to have a warm meal before heading out into who-knew-what. Leif finished first and handed over the chipped bowl, its pottery a swirl of blues, and wandered to the windows again. The storm had grown, its circumference nearly covering the mountain. The center, though, seemed to be about two klicks northwest of their location. That was where he wanted to go, where he was sure he’d find . . . something.
What was the Meteoroi? How were they supposed to disable something when they didn’t even know what it looked like or actually did?
Outside, a vehicle rumbled to a stop in front of the house. Through the gap where the door hung crookedly, he spotted an old rusted truck. He started outside, then paused to press his palms together again in the Thai wai and utter his thanks. “Kyay zu tin bar del.”
After everyone offered their thanks as well, they regrouped outside. By the truck, Thet stood with a man—his brother, presumably. In its badly dented bed stood four bikes. Beat-up. Old. Rusted. But as long as they worked . . .
“Four bikes. Six operators,” Lawe noted.
There was no way they would hand Iskra her own bike. “Viorica and I will use one—our route is shortest.”
“I’m riding my own,” Devine snapped, then tucked her chin. “Our route is longest, and if something goes wrong, we might need two.”
Lawe considered her. “Uh-huh.”
“Guess Culver and I are piggybacking,” Saito said.
After the obligatory thanks and offering a monetary gift for the bikes—which was soundly refused—the team put their plan into motion using the DoD intel on the local weather patterns. Which, thanks to the Meteoroi, Leif no longer trusted, but what other choice did they have?
“Okay,” Leif said, studying the radar. “Storm’s pretty big, but not as large as expected. Culver and Saito head north, but let’s shrink the ten-klick radius. Stay within five klicks of the river. If you don’t see anything, turn back.”
“Roger,” they agreed.
“Lawe and Devine, take the smaller village just south of the river—it’s still within the zone of impact. Check it out. See if anyone’s been there. If you can’t beat the storm, wait it out. Radio and let us know.”
“Baddar and Mercy, stay here with Thet. As you unload the supplies, ask around. See if the locals know anything. Viorica and I will head west, see what’s happening on that stripped spine.”
* * *
Stomach pressed to Leif’s back, Iskra clung to him as they sped through the lush vegetation of the Chin Hills. This clearly wasn’t his first time on a bike or racing through jungle terrain, because he handled it with precision and speed. But the bike seat dug into her hips and pulsed aches through her lower back. Of course, she didn’t really mind. It was nice—probably much more than she should admit—holding on to his taut, trim frame.
The terrain roughened, nearly upending them. They rebalanced and started again, only to have the bike’s back end swing around. Another near face-plant, and Leif slowed to a stop. “Probably need to go on foot.”
“If the storm generators are still here, then it is safer that way, da?”
Shouldering into his ruck, which had been secured on the back of the bike, Leif grinned. “I like the way you do a lot of things, V, but the way you think is a beauty all its own.”
Surprised at his flirting and generous words, she tried to stem the heat crawling up her neck. She’d seen him in the plane’s conference room. He’d been bent over, staring at the table. He seemed . . . frustrated. When he’d nearly spotted her, she slipped away. She had no doubt that angsty look was about her. But when he emerged and they landed, he had seemed extremely focused—on keeping her close.
The area darkened, drawing her gaze up. The clouds beyond the canopy revealed that the darkest part of the large storm was directly overhead. Wisps churned and tumbled over one another as if fighting for the best position. The effect was so deep and terrible, she felt it beneath her feet.
Whenever the storm finally chose to dump its contents, it would drench them. Oddly, she didn’t care. It had been a long time since she had hiked mountains. The last time was an op for Hristoff. Before that, running for her life. How strange that being here, fronds slapping her shoulders and tugging at her clothes, filled her with a sense of . . . rightness. Why? Was it the mountains? The sense of freedom, being on top of things? Or . . . she eyed Leif as he worked to hide the bike.
With that ever-ready smile in his eyes, he straightened. “Ready?”
A witty, flirty response hung on her tongue, but she choked it back. Nodded.
He started hiking, unfazed by the taxing incline. Neither did he seem achy from the bike ride. Leif was tall—maybe six foot or six one. His shoulders weren’t broad like the other guy on his team, but they were squared. His arms showed regular weight lifting with their beautiful curves that were hard not to notice. While he had the muscles and good looks, it was the strength pouring out of him that drew her. The leader in him that urged her to be better and do more. Convinced her to hand over that USB.
“I saw you talking to Culver,” he said.
Iskra slowed, confused. “Who?”
“The guy on my team, red hair and beard.”
“Oh.” She picked her way around a cluster of shrubs, wondering why—of all topics—he brought up her talking with his teammate. “Am I not supposed to?”
He threw a scowl over his shoulder. “Never said that.”
“He wanted to know if I had a boyfriend. If I liked Chinese food.” That was what Americans did, right? Go out for Chinese?
Leif stopped short, and she stumbled to avoid colliding with him. At the scowl on his face, she laughed.
He realized she was teasing and resumed the hike. “Not funny,” he growled.
She’d really broken his trust, hadn’t she? She skipped a step, trying to catch up. “He was telling me that I could trust you.”
Again, he stopped.
“I wish—” No. She shouldn’t say that.
“What?”
Though she tried to avoid his gaze, it was impossible. Especially if she wanted him to believ
e her. “I wish there was someone to tell you that you could trust me.”
Something pinched his expression. He grunted. “Me too.” He resumed the climb. “Why did Culver think you needed reassurance about trusting me?”
“He noticed I was concerned about coming here.”
“You were? Why?”
“That would be telling.”
“But you told Culver.”
No, this wasn’t just broken trust. A thought stole into her mind. “Why are you jealous of him?”
“I’m not,” he barked.
She laughed. Couldn’t help it. He snorted and shook his head, and she saw the disappointment he wouldn’t voice.
“Look, I don’t really have a lot of secrets,” she said. “And I don’t like you thinking I’m weak or a failure.”
He glanced at her. “Not a lot of secrets, huh?”
What did that mean? But she wouldn’t be diverted. She had decided to win back his trust, so she’d start with some vulnerability. “Coming out here, chasing this storm, puts me far from what I thought I’d be doing right now.”
“Yeah?” he asked as they climbed. “What’s that?”
“Meeting a contact. Returning to Russia.”
“To Peychinovich.”
“To Russia,” she insisted. “Hristoff is just in the same place.”
“Does that work for you? Saying things like that?”
“It has to,” Iskra said firmly, thinking of Bisera.
“You use his first name. That implies intimacy.”
“No, it implies familiarity. After living in the same mansion with him for the last twelve years,” she huffed, hating even talking about him, “yeah, I’m familiar with him.”
He stepped over a fallen trunk, his pace rigorous and unrelenting, but he said nothing. Was he listening? Did he care?
She scooted around a tree. “I—”
The sight before her was startling. A clearing. Stumps no taller than two feet dotted the ridge, as if the hillside had gotten a crew cut. The land had been stripped of its vegetation and dignity. Tucked against the gaping openness, a grass-roofed hut that had probably housed a family at some point sat empty and forlorn.
