Lear

by Jasinda Wilder

  Finally, the man in the middle of the formation spoke in English. “Fuck, it is so hard to find good help these days,” he groused, and then addressed the pilot. “You speak English, at least, I presume?”

  The pilot was visibly and audibly rattled. “Y-yes, sir. I speak English okay.”

  A nod. “Good. Then what the fuck happened? Where are my prisoners? I see one here, half-dead. Where is the woman? Where are the rest of them? I paid more money than you’ll make in a lifetime to retrieve six men and have them on this plane, brought to me dead or alive. There is one, only. Explain.”

  The pilot shook his head, hands spread palms up in a gesture of helplessness. “I do not—I do not know, sir. I only fly the plane. There was much shooting. Many men died. Someone shot up all the helicopters. They were everywhere. I was afraid my plane would be destroyed too, so I flew away. This man, he climbed on at the last moment, I think. I do not know.”

  The other man—Cain, I was beginning to think—stared at the corpse. “And him?”

  The pilot patted a pistol at his side I hadn’t known he was carrying. “It was a disagreement. He was a fool.”

  Cain sighed. “Something is not right.”

  He looked around the cargo hold, and I felt like there was no chance he wouldn’t see me. I’d hidden the best I could, and I could barely see him through the mess of gear I was behind.

  But, to my surprise, his eyes danced around, settled back on Lear. “I will take this one, at least. Perhaps he can be used for leverage against that pissant enemy of mine, Harris.”

  Oh, fuck no.

  But what could I do? Attack now, I’d hit Lear, probably miss Cain, and get killed for my trouble.

  This wasn’t the moment. It galled me, gutted me to the core, but I shrank in on myself and stopped breathing entirely, clamped down on my muscles to prevent myself from acting out of impulse.

  Cain called out, and more men trotted up the ramp. He snapped out orders, gesturing at Cain and the copilot. Two men dragged the corpse of the copilot down the ramp, and two more vanished down the ramp, returning a few seconds later with a modern emergency services stretcher. They gently slid Lear’s body onto the stretcher, lifted it to unfold the legs, and then Lear was being pushed away, out of sight.

  It took all my restraint to wait in place, still not breathing.

  Cain started toward the ramp with a swagger. Stopped at the top of the ramp, gazing around again, as if still sensing something he couldn’t quite identify.

  And then he was gone, and I waited another beat or two, and then moved silently to the top of the ramp, watching as Lear was pushed into the back of an ambulance. No lights, no sirens. A medic went to work on him, but I lost sight of Lear then, as the doors were closed. Cain was already being ushered into the back of a blacked-out SUV, which squealed in a circle and drove away with a roar.

  I couldn’t lose Lear—couldn’t.

  Wouldn’t.

  But what was I supposed to do? A dozen men at least milled around the tarmac near the rear of the plane.

  I was about to rush the group and take my chances when one of them peeled away from the group of mercenaries and sidled up the ramp. He stood in the middle of the cargo hold, glancing derisively at the pilot.

  Abruptly, he drew a pistol, aimed it at the pilot. Spat an order, and the pilot dropped to his knees.

  The man—devastatingly beautiful in a sharp-featured way, longish dark hair under a ball cap, stubbled, hard-looking, broad-chested and narrow in the waist, with the stance and gait of a predator—dropped the pistol to his side.

  “Miss Cuddy.” His voice was pitched low, heavily accented. “I am with A1S. Please come out.”

  I hesitated. A trap? Seemed likely.

  He hissed in frustration. “You must trust me—time is short. Lear Winter is my friend. He has a sweet tooth. He pretends to only know this coding of computers, but is lie. He is good at many things.”

  I stepped forward, the clips and straps jangling as I detached myself from them.

  He looked me over, nodded once. “I am Sasha. My brother is Alexei, he is waiting for us.”

  “You’re undercover?” I asked.

  A shrug. “We are not policemans. We just try to be of help in getting that fuckface Cain to be properly killed.”

  I couldn’t help a laugh. “Okay, well that earns my trust a little.” I gestured. “Lead on.”

  He eyed me, and nodded. “Just walk with me. You look like the rest of these animals in your dressing. No one will notice.”

  I sucked in a breath, nodded, and lifted my chin as I did my best to project the pure swaggering big-dick energy of Cuddy.

  “I don’t speak anything but English,” I murmured as we moved down the ramp.

  “Don’t speak. These asshole fuckers are dumber than concrete block. They do not ask question.”

  I nodded—I liked this guy.

  “If they mess with you, remember, this is criminal underworld. No rules. They make you angry, you kill. No one makes question of the hardest killer.”

  I nodded. “That I can fucking do.”

  He eyed me, and saw something he liked. “Da, I think this is true.”

  We were down the ramp, now. Angling for an older model Mercedes sedan waiting with its engine idling off to one side. The snarling rumble of the engine, though, told me it was likely a sleeper—a car meant to look old and unprepossessing, but with a monster engine hidden under the rust-pocked hood. Sasha was headed for the car, and I walked beside him still projecting DON’T FUCK WITH ME as hard as I could, swaggering for all I was worth.

  We were intercepted, though. He was big, at least six-six, if not six-eight, with hands the size of dinner plates, shoulders, chest, and arms like the Hulk, with an ugly sneer on his face.

  He stopped in front of me, chin tilted up to stare at me down his nose. “You.” English.

  I pretended to not understand, even though his meaning was clear enough in any language. Just stared back at him, letting the monsters inside me roil up out of their crevices in my soul, letting them infuse my gaze with that killing rage, the ice-cold, diamond-hard attitude that sends the rookies of RMI running for their mommies.

  He saw it.

  He thought it was a bluff.

  He gestured at the nearby guard shack. “There. You entertain me.”

  I kept my gaze vacant of understanding. Spat on the ground at his feet and made to move past him, as if I had no time or patience for his bullshit.

  His meaty paw gripped me by the bicep and spun me around, slammed me up against him. “No ask.”

  I just grinned up at him—he had one arm in a vise grip so tight I knew he could snap my arm one-handed with a flick of his wrist. But he’d left my other hand empty. I could do so many things to him, with that one hand. Draw my pistol, my knife…

  Instead, I opted to teach him a lesson.

  I let my worry for Lear transform into rage. Let the hate for men like this I kept festering inside me boil up and turn my sight red with a savage, seething fury.

  My right hand snapped up, slammed closed-fisted into his throat, cracking his windpipe. That could have been it, but that wasn’t enough. Not for me, not now.

  His grip slackened, and I jerked free, pivoted and used the momentum of my pivot and transferred it into a lightning-fast side kick to the outside of his knee—it crumpled inward, and if he could’ve screamed past a shattered windpipe, he would’ve. As it was, all he could do was squeak like a helpless little hamster. He toppled sideways, and I scythed a roundhouse to his skull—I felt the bone snap and crack under the force of the kick; he hit the ground, and I snagged his greasy thatch of hair in my fist, held him up off the ground by that grip, letting his weight tear at it.

  He was alive, still, and conscious, but barely. I drew my pistol, pressed the barrel to his skull, and ended it.

  BLAM.

  Wet sprayed across the tarmac, and I heard voices murmuring in shock. I released the now-ruined mess, letting th
e erstwhile skull thunk wetly to the ground, and wiped my hand on my thigh and then my face. Stared around in a slow circle, at the gathered crowd of mercs.

  I wasn’t even breathing hard—at least, not from exertion. The rage had me in its grip, and I half wished someone else would make a move. There was only silence, utter stillness.

  I didn’t say a word, just moved for the idling Mercedes and slid in behind the driver. Closed the door, and waited. After a moment, Sasha slid into the seat next to the driver, and we were off. The driver was built like Sasha, although maybe a touch wider in the shoulders.

  Sasha turned to me, handed me a pack of wet wipes from the glove box. “You, I like.”

  I grinned, but it wasn’t a happy or nice thing, it was the feral baring of teeth of a rabid wolf. “They have the man I love, and he’s dying. And that fucking insect dared put his fucking hands on me.”

  He nodded. “He is best dead. Cain’s lieutenant. A vile pig of a man. Evil is not a word strong enough. You did a good thing.”

  “I want Cain.” I felt the fury inside me, boiling, boiling. “I want him.”

  The driver, Alexei, I assumed, gave a hoarse bark of laughter. “That is a very long line, Cuddy.”

  “How do you guys know me?” I asked. “And where are we going?”

  “There was a call from the States. You and Lear, injured, were on a plane headed here. We were in deep, for such a time as this.” A heavy pause. “To go along with what these people do…I will not sleep well for a long time.”

  Sasha nodded. “Soon, brother.”

  Alexei rolled his thick shoulders. “Soon.” Another pause. “We go to where Cain will be. He will have Lear fixed up, just so he can torture him to fuck with Harris. We are going to get him first.”

  “Get him meaning rescue Lear, or get him meaning slowly and painfully murder Cain?”

  “Both,” Sasha answered.

  “Do you know if there’s been any word from my boss?”

  “Who is your boss?”

  “Johnny Raze.”

  A tense silence, as Sasha turned to regard me. “You are that Cuddy?”

  “The one and only.”

  He nodded. “The ease with which you killed Yuri should have told me that much.” He shook his head. “I have not heard of any contact. But I can get you in touch with Harris.”

  I nodded. “I’ll take it. Johnny should’ve contacted him by now.”

  Sasha glanced at Alexei, who reached under his seat; I heard the rip of Velcro, and he came up with a fat satellite phone. Sasha connected a power cord to a cigarette lighter outlet, powered on the phone, dialed a number, listened, dialed another long number, and then hung up.

  Waited about sixty seconds, and then the phone warbled.

  Sasha answered it. “Harris. Is Sasha.” He listened. “I have Cuddy, but we are still working on Lear…she wants to speak to you.”

  He handed me the phone. I took it, leaning forward to let the power cord reach. “Hi,” I said. “This is Cuddy.”

  “Cuddy.” A brief pause. “Nick Harris, A1S. Glad to hear your voice.”

  “Wish it was different circumstances.”

  “Same.” Another pause. “How’s Lear?”

  I sighed. “He’s in a bad way, Harris. Took a round to the side, low, under the ribs. A couple other hits to the arm and shoulder, but the side is the one I’m worried about. They have him, and I’m on the way with Sasha and Alexei to get him back.” I hesitated. “And to kill Cain.”

  “You’re last in a long line, Cuddy.”

  “Yeah, but I’m here, and he has my…” I blinked, forcing ice into my voice. “He has Lear.”

  He caught it, damn him. “Your Lear.” He laughed. “Figures.”

  I wasn’t prepared for that reaction. “What?”

  He laughed again. “I really should be thanking Cain for this whole thing. Layla and I were already a thing when it started, but then he went after Thresh, and Thresh ended up with Lola. Then Cain went after Duke, and Duke ended up with Temple. Then Puck, and Puck got Colbie out of that snafu. Now Lear vanishes, and when he resurfaces, it’s with the Cuddy, squadmate and best friend of none other than Johnny Raze, the Butcher of Benin—the Cuddy, a legend of nearly mythic proportions in the world of black ops. And you refer to my boy, my computer nerd, my tracker-hacker, glasses-wearing, adrenaline junkie, super-coder special sauce spy in the sky Lear as your Lear.” Another laugh. “It just figures.”

  “He’s all that, and a whole hell of a lot more, Harris,” I said quietly. “He’s…” I trailed off, unsure of how to finish it.

  “He’s Lear,” Harris filled in for me. “Believe me, I know.”

  I let the silence breathe. “Have you heard from Johnny?”

  A cough. “Yeah, actually. He called me a few hours ago, and I filled him on what I knew, which wasn’t much. He was going to mobilize his crew, your crew, to the airfield. I caught him in the air and redirected him to Riga. So, when I say there’s backup on the way, I mean serious cavalry.” A laugh. “I’ve got my crew en route via one of Roth’s secret jets, and Johnny has a couple hours head start.”

  “Cain is going reap Hell,” I said.

  “No shit.” Harris let out a breath. “I’m actually already in Europe—it’s why I wasn’t at the airfield. So I’m sort of getting information slowly. From what I gather, Thresh has a prisoner and is doing his best to convince the fellow to talk. Duke and Puck are with him. Lear is wounded and with Cain. The only unknown for me is Anselm.”

  “If you’re asking me for info, I’m sorry but I’ve got nothing. It was chaos, Harris. Cain had a veritable fucking army there, and we hit them from all sides, but without any cross-planning, or even knowing the other was there. Lear and I had a rough plan, and then someone—your guy Anselm, I think—opened with that big fucking Barrett, and all hell broke loose.”

  “So Anselm was there?”

  “Lear was giddy when he heard the Barrett, said it was Anselm. I never saw him, never knew where he was even shooting from—but seeing as Barretts can drop rounds from over a mile, that’s not unusual. He had to have been fairly close, though, considering the damage he was doing to vehicles.”

  Harris was silent a while. “Shit. I haven’t heard from him in a while. It’s not unusual for Anselm, but I just have a bad feeling.”

  I hissed. “Cain’s plan all along was to get all of you at once. I think he thought Lear would be better bait, or something, that all six of you would show up and he could snatch you all with sheer numbers, or at least kill you. I think he wants to…play…first, but he’ll take you dead or alive. I heard him say as much himself.”

  “You heard him? You saw him?” Harris seemed…impressed. Which something told me was hard to do.

  “Yeah. He was on the cargo plane with me. I was hidden. I swear there was a guardian angel or some shit, because there’s no reason he didn’t fucking see me, but he didn’t. Or he was pretending and this is a trap. Either way, I heard him say he had paid a fortune to get all six, and I was just gravy.”

  “Shoulda popped him then and there.”

  “Believe me, I know. But he was armed, his guards were armed, and there were more armed guards outside the plane. I didn’t have a good angle, and even if I’d gotten a shot off, we’d both end up dead, and the likelihood of tagging Cain was low.” I hissed in frustration. “I wanted to, though, trust me.”

  Harris huffed. “Hate that fuckin’ guy.”

  I laughed. “Like you said, that line is really long.”

  Harris harrumphed. “Okay, well, you and the Ruski boys do what you gotta do. Layla and I are en route to Riga ourselves, but if you guys get a good opportunity to take out Cain, do it. First priority, though, obviously, is getting Lear out and keeping him alive.”

  “We are from Georgia,” Alexei yelled over his shoulder. “I have tell you this many times.”

  Harris laughed, and I handed Alexei the phone; I could still hear Harris’s response, though. “I know, I know
. I just like messing with you.”

  Alexei grumped into the phone, clutching it between shoulder and ear as he navigated a left turn. “I should say the chances of getting Cain are low. We can get Lear, but Cain is too good guarded. He is never alone. If you wish to die in the process you will kill him, but to kill him and be alive after? Not so much likely.”

  Harris was silent a moment. “One of these days, I’m going to go on the offensive. I’m sick of this reactionary bullshit.”

  Alexei kept the phone clamped between ear and shoulder, reached into a pocket of his jacket and withdrew a soft pack of cigarettes, shook one loose and stuck it in the corner his mouth, but didn’t light it. “We get Lear out. Then we create a plan for the killing of Cain, once and for all. Da?”

  “Trusting your judgment on this, Alexei. Get Lear, and get him out with all possible prejudice.”

  Alexei’s grin—which I caught a glimpse of at an angle in the rearview mirror, was downright evil. “This will be fun day, I think. Especially with our new friend Cuddy to help.”

  A few more back and forth comments, and then the call was ended and Alexei replaced the phone under the seat.

  Now that I wasn’t focused on the conversation, I had a moment to look around me—Riga was gorgeous. Classic old Europe, row houses and apartments and shops all crammed in side by side, front doors opening directly onto the street, the facades painted bright colors, with planter gardens on windowsills, and old men slowly smoking cigarettes and cigars on stoops. A café here and there, outdoor seating fenced off with wrought iron fences, patrons sipping espresso and munching pastries. Cathedral spires stabbed the sky in the distance over the roofline, and a bell tolled somewhere.

  If it weren’t for the task at hand, I would probably be falling in love with Riga.

  “So, we have a plan?” I asked.

  Alexei and Sasha traded glances—Sasha produced a Zippo from a pocket, lit Alexei’s cigarette, waited until his brother had taken a drag, and then took it for a drag of his own.

  “Cain has made his hideout in a series of flats by the river. He has buy two side by side, upper floor, connected by make a door in the wall between.” Sasha took another drag, handed the cigarette to his brother, and spoke around a mouthful of wreathing smoke, which he exhaled through his mouth and inhaled through his nose, and then blew out between pursed lips; he twisted sideways on the seat and extended a burly arm over the back of his brother’s seat and gestured with a lazy hand. “He has access to the roof, and from there he can escape to the next flat, the next building. He also has access through back stair to the alley, which is on the river, where he has also a boat waiting. A car is always at the front, with a man at the wheel and two in the back, ready to drive away very fast. Many camera, many soldier. He sees approach from all direction. He is like a fox, with an escape in all ways.”