Without Fear

by Col. David Hunt

  They flew in from the west, fast, skimming the snowy treetops while dropping down the mountain toward Kandahar. But they were no longer alone. A pair of F-16s and three A-10s now escorted them.

  Stark watched their reassuring silhouettes while sitting next to Kira.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked, pointing at the bandage under her battle dress.

  “I will survive, Janki mishka,” she replied, before patting the side of the long weapon fastened to the metallic floor between her and her team. “And so will a lot of people.”

  Stark sighed as his gaze shifted from her Slavic features in the twilight of the cabin to her team surrounding the RN-40. Then he looked to Monica and Ryan, also sitting side by side, eyes closed, her head resting on his shoulder. Wright and Vaccaro sat across from them. Vaccaro’s bleeding shoulder was being tended by a medic. Her head rested against Wright, eyes staring out the side opening.

  And then there were Chief Larson and Mickey Hagen, standing guard by the side gunners, weapons pointed at an Afghan dawn.

  Ready.

  Always ready.

  147

  The Favor

  THE WHITE HOUSE. WASHINGTON, DC.

  President Bush sat at the head of the conference table in the Situation Room, flanked by Secretary Rice, Secretary Rumsfeld, and CIA Director Tenet. Counselor Bartlett worked the video conferencing equipment.

  The president was dressed in a pair of jeans, a Texas Rangers T-shirt, and cowboy boots, sipping from a very strong cup of coffee. It was just past three in the morning on a Sunday, but the emergency call from someone named Anton, one of Putin’s aides, certainly merited getting everyone out of bed.

  Secretary Rice wore a white jogging suit and sneakers. Rumsfeld and Tenet were in jeans, as was Bartlett.

  The mood was quiet, given the hour, but relaxed. The bomb was secured, and all that remained was a discussion that President Bush truly looked forward to but refused to initiate.

  Slowly, after a series of beeps and messages on the computer display in front of Bartlett, the image of President Vladimir Putin wearing a business suit, no tie, materialized on the large flat screen at the end of the room.

  He was alone, sitting stoically at the head of a table, hands on its smooth wooden surface.

  “Kovboy, thanks for taking my call,” he said in his deep voice.

  “Howdy, Pootie-Poot,” Bush replied. “To what do I owe the pleasure of getting my staff and I out of bed at this hour?”

  “You have something … something that belongs to me.”

  Bush leaned back before looking at his guys, settling on Rice.

  “Condi? You know what he’s talking about?”

  “No, Mr. President.”

  “Rummy? Have you been serving rum punches lately?”

  “No, sir. Not this week anyway.”

  “Brother George?” he asked Director Tenet. “Has the Agency been behaving?”

  “Always, sir.”

  “Oh, Danny Boy?” he asked Counselor Bartlett. “Have the pipes been calling down the rose garden?”

  “No, Mr. President. All quiet here too.”

  Turning back to the camera, Bush said, “You see, old friend, we have no idea what the hell you’re talking about. So I’m afraid you’ll have to spell it out.”

  Looking to either side, Putin leaned closer to the camera and mumbled, “Nam pizdets.”

  Bush frowned while showing his palms. “Sorry Pootie-Poot, but no parley Russkie.”

  “Da. Da,” he said, before adding, “I … I … ah…”

  “Yes? Come on, you old KGB bastard. I know you can do it,” the president said.

  “I … screwed up.”

  “And how’d you manage that?”

  “The bomb we lost … I should have been … up-front with you.”

  “There you go!” Bush said, slapping the conference table. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  Putin just stared back.

  “Now, I take it you want your bomb back?”

  “Da.”

  “You mean the RN-40 tactical nuclear warhead you lost in Afghanistan on the night of September 13, 1988?”

  After hesitating, Putin said, “Da.”

  “The one that the Taliban discovered last week and we had to move heaven and earth to locate and recover?”

  “Da.”

  “The one we have fully documented, with photos and serial numbers, so there is no doubt whatsoever of its origin and how NATO forces recovered it from the Taliban?”

  Dropping his gaze to the table, Putin simply nodded.

  “Of course you can have it back, Pootie-Poot.”

  Putin abruptly looked up. “I … can?”

  “Absolutely. I mean, we already have plenty of our own bombs, right Rummy?”

  “Plenty, Mr. President,” Secretary Rumsfeld replied. “Enough to level the world many times over.”

  “See. Many times over,” Bush repeated. “But look, this little incident will remain between us friends, okay, Pootie-Poot? No sense in advertising it to the world, and especially to your … political enemies.”

  Putin nodded. “That would be greatly appreciated.”

  “But that’s the thing,” Bush said. “I don’t want your fucking appreciation.”

  Putin blinked. “N-no?”

  Bush slowly shook his head.

  “Then?”

  “Just a small favor.”

  After another pause, Putin said, “Anything, Kovboy. You do this for me and you can have … anything.”

  “That’s the spirit, old boy,” the president said, before looking at his staff. “See, fellows? I told you the man’s a team player.”

  “What … what would you like?” Putin asked.

  President George W. Bush simply smiled and said, “I will let you know, Pootie-Poot. I will certainly let you know.”

  148

  The Gift

  MOSCOW. RUSSIA.

  Snowflakes pelted her long parka as Kira left Sergei by the black Mercedes and went up the icy concrete steps at dusk, pushing one of the double glass doors with a gloved hand.

  Her left shoulder ached from the effort, though it pretty much bothered her anytime the weather changed, especially on these bitterly cold Russian nights. In fact, in the past few weeks, since returning from Kandahar with the bomb, it had become her very own personal meteorological predictor.

  Kira stepped inside the lobby and Andrei, sitting at the guard post, looked up over the edge of his newspaper. Checking his watch, he said, “You’re just in time. He’s due for his meds in thirty minutes, and then he’s out for a while.”

  Kira despised the sight of the little man as much as she hated this building. It was certainly no place for a hero such as her father—no way for Colonel Mikhail Tupolev to live out his days.

  She walked straight to the set of doors leading to the patients’ rooms and faced the same utterly depressing corridor under the same dull glare of humming fluorescents recessed in the ceiling, evenly spaced down its entire length. The smell of disinfectant was pungent, almost making her eyes water.

  But this time it all felt different, or so she hoped, heading for the fifth door on the left, the heels of her black stiletto boots clacking flatly on polished floors.

  Slowly inching the door open, Kira found her father in his brown recliner, facing the layer of white covering the gardens and the early evening traffic on E30.

  Colonel Mikhail Tupolev just sat there, frozen in time, eyelids sewn shut, right hand a mere stump. But it was his left hand, resting on the recliner’s arm, which drew her focus—the one that always looked as if it held a gun while he flexed his index finger, squeezing his imaginary trigger.

  She took his hand in hers. “Hello, Daddy,” she whispered.

  As was always the case, Mikhail offered no reaction, resembling one of those Greek statues in the garden.

  Her eyes inexorably gravitated to Nemesis, still wielding that sword in the midst of winter—a winter that had
lasted seventeen long years for the once formidable Soviet pilot, recipient of the coveted Hero of the Soviet Union award.

  Reaching into her coat pocket, Kira produced his Gagarin class ring. Without a word, she slid it on the ring finger of her father’s surviving hand.

  And waited.

  It took a moment.

  Slowly, Mikhail Tupolev did something he had not done for some time: he visibly responded. He stopped the finger flexing and ran the tip of his thumb over the ring’s features. His lips parted, and for a moment she thought he said something, perhaps a whisper of gratitude, or maybe of surprise.

  “I found it, Daddy,” she said, resting a hand on his thigh and squeezing gently. “I found the bomb and your ring … and I killed them all.”

  A single tear ran down the side of the colonel’s left cheek, and at that moment, as Kira shifted her eyes to the frozen garden, she felt his hand reaching for hers, gently interlocking fingers.

  She looked over and he was still facing the window, his sunken and wrinkled features impassive, shut eyelids fixed on that miserable Russian winter sky dumping a wall of flurries on the evening traffic.

  But I’ll take it.

  Just as dawn broke slowly, with a faint trace of orange and yellow-gold dancing against the distant horizon at the end of the darkest night, perhaps Kira had just witnessed the first sign of his rising sun, his first steps toward the light.

  If only for a little while, she thought. Soon the nurse would come with another dose of those radical PTSD meds, snuffing out any semblance of brightness from his soul, dragging him back to that shadowy world of complete indifference.

  Glaring at this most depressing of rooms in this most depressing of institutions, Kira decided this was certainly no place for such a hero, forced to live out his days in the stupor of the very drugs that protected him from reliving the nightmares.

  Imprisoned in his own mind by those bewhiskered assholes, and again by his own country.

  Kira sighed and returned her gaze to Nemesis, before looking skyward. She needed to be strong for the both of them, and she needed to do so right now, before the nurse returned.

  Producing the Makarov that John Wright had given to her before boarding that Antonov flight to bring the bomb home, Kira let go of Mikhail’s hand and pressed the semiautomatic against his palm.

  “Daddy … I also found this. It belongs to you.”

  The colonel straightened as he gripped the pistol with instant familiarity, leaning forward, feeling its cold steel, its balance, and his index finger no longer twitching but resting on the trigger casing.

  Again, he mumbled something, but she could not make it out.

  “There is one in the chamber, Daddy,” she said, hating herself for doing this. But she wanted to give him the option, to allow him a moment of control over his destiny. Plus, she could no longer bear seeing him like this. Perhaps he could no longer bear living like this.

  But now he had a choice.

  Hugging him tightly, she added, “Now, if you so wish, you can finish what you started on that mountain … and take your rightful place among the fallen heroes of our Rodina, our Motherland.”

  * * *

  The moon hung high over the Sulaimans as Colonel Mikhail Tupolev raced through the darkness, his heartbeat rocketing, his lungs burning as he filled them with cold, frigid air. The rotor sound of the rescue helicopter reverberated across the hillside, searchlights stabbing the forest as he tried to reach the clearing.

  He hated this country, hated everything about it—especially those bearded insurgents, their loose clothing flapping in the breeze as they encircled him, as they tightened the noose.

  Pesh-kabz knives glinted in the moonlight as unseen hands forced him onto his back, as two demons crawled over him, chanting in tongues.

  But this time it was different.

  This time he had his gun, his old and trusty Makarov, his fingers curled around the pistol grip, index finger on the trigger.

  The curved blades would not cut him again.

  Not tonight.

  Not ever.

  But he still had to fight them to free his hand, pulling as hard as he’d ever pulled, jerking his wrist from their grip, and finally pressing the muzzle against his temple.

  Now, he thought. Peace … at last.

  * * *

  Kira was halfway across the lobby when the single gunshot echoed from behind the double doors leading to the hallway.

  She briefly closed her eyes as Andrei jumped up from his seat, tossing the newspaper and reaching for the radio strapped to his belt, barking orders, which Kira ignored as she pursed her lips and continued to the exit.

  A sense of peace enveloped her while pushing the double glass doors, leaving behind the chaos of Andrei running amid orderlies, medics, and other guards, filling her lungs with cold and humid air under a gloomy November sky.

  But she found the brisk Russian winter scene refreshing, revitalizing. And as she headed down the icy steps toward the waiting sedan, she noticed a colorful Eurasian bullfinch perched on Nemesis’s right shoulder.

  She paused and observed the chubby little bird, its bright red chest and grayish wings and cap contrasting sharply with the surrounding whiteout.

  It turned its short and thick black bill toward Kira, regarding her briefly while chirping a song that resembled fluted whistles, often described by Muscovites as mournful.

  Ruffling its feathers to shake off a thin layer of flurries, the bullfinch winged skyward, vanishing in the winter snow.

  Kira watched it, through her tears.

  EPILOGUE

  TWO MONTHS LATER …

  COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO.

  Laura Vaccaro swooped through mounds of fresh powder, veering sharply down the extreme slope, cutting left then right to stay on the challenging course following the northern face of the mountain.

  The air, cold and invigorating, filled her lungs, and adrenaline shot into her bloodstream as she buckled down, tucking her helmeted head, poles under her armpits when reaching a steep straightaway, gathering speed.

  The wind whistled in her ears as her world turned white beyond her goggles, as her heart pounded her temples, as a liberating feeling of complete exhilaration overtook her senses.

  She shot past another skier, the number pinned to the back of his jacket flapping in the wind, losing him in the silvery flurry kicked up by her skis.

  Grinning beneath her mask as she reached the next turn, Vaccaro dug the edge of her downhill ski just enough to cut left. Her ankles, knees, and waist bent, the edge gripped the snow, shifting her momentum, negotiating the turn before she pushed her poles to gain on the last racer.

  More speed. More speed.

  She again curled down into the traditional downhill position, helmet and poles tucked in tight, her stomach churning as the terrain steepened, as a wall of pines caked in snow to her right and the gorge on her left blurred into a world of blinding chaos.

  One more turn, then the final straightaway.

  Last chance to overtake the final competitor.

  She remained in a deep crouch, visualizing the upcoming turn, biding her time as the guy currently in first place began to slow down in anticipation of the last sharp right in the course.

  Wrong move, pal.

  Holding her downward energy just long enough to overtake him in a flurry of whirling powder, Vaccaro caught him, out of the corner of her right eye, swinging his helmeted head toward her as she rushed by.

  Adios!

  Keeping her feet eight inches apart and her thighs an inch from touching, she reached the turn, shins angled forward, applying a very light pressure on the tongue of each boot by bending her knees ever so slightly.

  Bringing both skis equally on edge, she carved the track deep, kicking up a wall of snow while sticking the turn and shifting her momentum to the right, maintaining a steep angle between her feet and her shins, moving her hips toward the center of the turning arc.

  And once more
she pushed the poles vigorously, entering the final slope, not bothering to look back, cleaning up her downhill pose for the last stretch.

  The crowd flanking the last section of the course, as well as those gathered at the bottom, exploded in cheers, their roar overpowering the wind shrilling in her ears.

  Speed. More speed.

  She continued accelerating, refusing to yield one ounce of advantage, shooting across the finish line at full speed before jerking sideways, digging in both skis firmly, bathing excited spectators in white powder. Looking up the slope while lifting her goggles, Vaccaro caught the first racer of the all-male competition cross the finish line a full two seconds behind her. He was officially the winner, but camera crews and reporters rushed to her, the rogue skier who had been denied entry—even with her hero status as recent recipient of two Purple Hearts, a Silver Star, and the Medal of Honor. The latter she had received directly from President George W. Bush at the White House, the previous month.

  But rules were rules.

  So she had done what she did best: gone rogue and broken them, proving once again that she could do the job of any man—and then some.

  The Fox Sports reporter reached her first, a woman in her late twenties. She had tears in her eyes.

  “You did it, Captain Vaccaro!” she said, thrusting a mike in front of her. “You beat them all!”

  “Oh, I’m just having a little fun … It’s a glorious morning for skiing in our wonderful state of Colorado,” she replied, catching her breath while the crowd continued to cheer, ignoring the winner and the rest of the racers crossing the line.

  “What are your plans now that you have officially retired from the air force, Captain? There are rumors floating out there that you plan to enter a bid in the next U.S. Senate race.”

  Before she could reply, the ESPN crew as well as CBS Sports, ABC Sports, and a couple of local stations also managed to get their microphones in front of her puffs of condensation as she tried to control her breathing, her chest still heaving.