Warrior Knight

by Aarti V Raman

  He should have been here.

  And, as if her thoughts had conjured him up, he came into the bedroom, on cat-like steps, bringing a steaming cup of coffee.

  “Good morning.”

  Krivi smiled back, perfunctorily and handed her the coffee.

  She propped herself against the headboard and cradled the mug in both hands.

  “Good morning,” he replied back, belatedly.

  “Is everything all right?”

  He shrugged. “How do you feel?”

  Ziya smiled. “Loose and very sleepy.”

  He nodded at the coffee. “That should take care of the sleepiness…” He hesitated before saying softly, “And I should have taken care of you…last night.”

  Ziya took an energizing sip of coffee and said neutrally, “I’m on the pill and both of us went a little nuts last night.”

  “Right.” He was unconvinced. “But you’ll tell me if anything happens.”

  Ziya thought of it…for a single, scary moment. What anything could mean. A baby with Krivi. For the both of them. It was a not-unpleasant thought which scared her even more. But she only nodded and finished the rest of the coffee. “If anything happens, we will deal with it. Okay?”

  She reached out and touched his wrist tentatively. “Now, can you please tell me what’s going on?”

  He shrugged and kissed the back of her wrist absently. “Nothing’s going on, Ziya.”

  “Krivi,” she said softly, tangling their hands together. “Talk to me. Please.”

  He was toneless as he answer, “You need to start your training from today. We are going to Yorkshire in two days.”

  Surprise and wonder lit her face, before doubt marred it. “That’s great, isn’t it?”

  “The face and features match report establishing you as The Woodpecker’s sister has been leaked into the underground. And I am pretty sure, he knows who you are by now. If not yesterday.”

  “Oh.”

  Dread filled her stomach as she nodded.

  “We didn’t leak it, if that’s what you are thinking, we wanted to wait a little longer, till you were better prepared... Harold is trying to find where it came from, but the thing is…news is out. You’re a target. You need to be prepared,” he ended simply.

  “I need to prepare you.”

  “For what? Entry into your world?” She tried a smile again, although it felt contrived because of his revelation.

  “No, Ziya. Survival.” Then he leaned in and kissed her absently on the side of her head and said, “Have more coffee. Get dressed in comfortable clothes. You’re going to start feeling real pain from today.”

  And then he walked out without a backward glance, with no pretty words or decent sentiments. Leaving her alone.

  And she thought, real pain was when people you loved left you. Every single time.

  And you never, could never, get used to it.

  Not in a hundred years of living, and definitely not in thirty years of being an expert in the art of being abandoned.

  STEP THREE: DISARMAMENT

  DECEMBER 2013

  Thirty-Seven

  Operation Hellsgate Compound

  Somewhere in Yorkshire

  Ten days to Christmas

  Yorkshire was cold, dark, and dreary.

  Ziya had traveled the world, seen the most beautiful cities and the most stunning vistas; she lived in Kashmir for Pete’s sake, which was not called Paradise on Earth for nothing… but the moors of Yorkshire matched her state of mind perfectly.

  She’d read Austen and Bronte in secondary school, but driving up the hilly terrain to the training center, she could totally imagine a long-haired, Krivi in britches and boots with a great sweeping coat behind him, while he stalked up and down the moors. A brooding, tragic hero like Edward Rochester.

  Yorkshire was a place she had never visited in all her years of staying in the UK. And now here she was, practically on holiday on the same hills as Heathcliff and Mister Darcy.

  But, she wasn’t on holiday here, even though it was an all-expenses paid trip by the good people who ran an organization called River House.

  The compound she was sequestered in was about five acres of training ground-come-living facilities for one of the world’s most well-equipped counter-terrorism units.

  The training facilities included a ‘conditioning room’, an open-air shooting range, a gun club and an obstacle course of unheard proportions, including an actual, live volcano that some of the inductees had to travel under or through, if what half the stuff Ziya heard during meal times at the big dining room was true.

  The living quarters were Spartan on the outside, adjacent to the main house, which housed the new trainees, who were some twenty in number and then, there were Quonset huts for the rest of the members, who lived here year-round, on rotation. These huts, again some twenty in number, were not big, but they had central heating so the members considered their living conditions better than that of any five-star hotel.

  Ziya shared one such Quonset hut with Krivi.

  Harold Wozniacki, and three other members of his shadowy organization were sharing three others.

  The whole place was run by a General Michelson, a cigar-smoking, hirsute individual, who had an entire wall full of medals in the display gallery. These medals were all for valor, and for being part of the Army assault on Finland during Margaret Thatcher’s time.

  His more recent achievements weren’t spoken about but they had netted him a training compound facility that was held in high esteem by MI5.

  This facility was now a hotbed for training new recruits into the world of counter-terrorism and espionage.

  The main house had an underground bunker that ran for a couple of kilometers and housed a small armory that could outfit a decent-sized army in minutes. With extra ammo left over to cover the secondary unit.

  There was also a dojo, for those well-versed in martial arts, and or boxing and there was always someone in the mood for a friendly bout or TKO or just plain sparring.

  It was a world almost entirely devoid of females, mostly because they couldn’t make the physical cut that the General’s facility demanded. There were a few women, of course, with severe crew cuts, built along the lines of line backers and no feminine attributes she could catalog or even notice.

  Ziya had seen them moving in an entirely intimidating, purposeful way that was more masculine than half the other members.

  She understood that because they were females, they had more to prove, every single time, but it seemed a hard thing to do: stamping out everything womanly about themselves in the name of the greater good.

  But, with their four-inch, rubber soled combat boots, their camo fatigues and their hard eyes, so like Krivi’s, she had to also wonder if they had lost someone, if they had seen something that had broken something essential inside them.

  And lately, every time she looked at Krivi, she could only think of the woman he was in love with.

  The ghost. The dead mother of his unborn child.

  She only knew the woman’s name; Gemma, he had mentioned that in the touching little story he had told her near Pangong Lake all those months ago.

  But she didn’t know how she looked like or what her life had been like. All she did know was that he had been happy with this woman.

  They had been cheating on another man, the woman’s husband and his best friend, but that was a whole other murky area she didn’t want to get into.

  But, sometime, in his life, before he had ever met her, Ziya, the woman who was hopelessly in love with him, Krivi had been happy. He had laughed and smiled and looked at another woman with tenderness and love in his dark, soulful eyes.

  Sometimes, she was tempted to ask for details, a picture, of this mystery woman, this ghost that shadowed her life because she wanted to know.

  Wanted to know what she looked like, how she had smiled and laughed and captured Krivi Iyer’s heart…maybe, then she wouldn’t feel so lonely, so adrift anymore
.

  Because Krivi was here in Yorkshire, with her, and yet he wasn’t.

  ~~~~~~

  As if, she admitted painfully to herself, cradling a warm mug of coffee in her hands, her admission of love had distanced him in some way.

  Had made him take a step back even though he still came to her every night, touching her in the sure, confident way of a man who knew his lover’s body.

  Her strengths and weak spots, her sighs and moans, what made her tremble and arch into him, what made her shudder madly in his arms and what made her hold him so close, she left marks on him too.

  And although physically, he was everything she had ever dreamed of in a man, in a lover, her beloved, Ziya knew with no false modesty that she didn’t mean as much to him as he did to her.

  She couldn’t.

  She was a target, an asset, the woman he was currently engaged in an affair with, since their extraordinary circumstances made the term ‘relationship’ redundant and a little ridiculous.

  She also knew that he wanted her, obsessively, continuously. That he needed her too, on some level. Needed her warmth and quiet silence when they came together and slept together or ate together…

  But he didn’t love her…because of the ghost.

  And there was a small, selfish, grieving part of her that wanted to step back, deny him her body as he was denying her his heart.

  It didn’t matter that there were such valid reasons for him to be the way he was. He had loved Gemma…known she was pregnant and she’d been blown to bits. Gemma was Krivi’s family like Noor and Sam were Ziya’s. That kind of loss was…irrecoverable.

  How did you get over the loss of your family? Your child…even one born of lies and untruths and betrayal?

  How did you trust your heart, trust your luck enough to open your heart again? To hurt and, love inevitably hurt, to let someone else in and give them the power to make you happy?

  How did you try and live again?

  She wanted to ask Krivi all of this, except, she was afraid if she did, if she probed too much and said a word, then he would become even more unreachable than he already was.

  As it was, she was aware of time winding down, like the year itself was, to a collision, a date with some destiny she was already frightened of.

  Even though it was her choice to do this…to be part of the hunt for The Woodpecker.

  But to lose him, lose what little time she had with him, before her time was up seemed like the height of stupidity to Ziya and she was unwilling to take that chance. Especially now, that she knew exactly how cruel and merciless time really could be.

  So, she drank her coffee, dressed in the jeans and tank top, her all-expenses paid trip had come with, laced up her boots and walked out of the safety of the Quonset hut for her first full day of training.

  Whatever that meant.

  Alone.

  Because her lover, the man she loved, had disappeared in the morning for some debrief session as he always did.

  ~~~~~~

  Krivi moved the cursor on the computer screen a few inches to the right in a desultory manner.

  All their prep work was almost done, the information trail had been laid out so that Pedro Panetta had just lost one day with Customs at Heathrow, and then he had gone back to being the consummate businessman that he was. Albeit with a broken elbow encased in plaster.

  The cover story was that there had been an incident in a flooded toilet at the airport and the authorities were desperate for him to not sue them for wrongful negligence or some other legality.

  The Woodpecker had not contacted him again, nor was he expected to.

  Instead, Pedro had received instructions to meet with another hotel owner… a seven-star resort with golf links and an eternity pool the size of Niagara, to discuss the laying of a complicated money route for an auction that was to take place in the first few days of the coming New Year.

  The location for this meeting was undisclosed so far, but Harold had an inside man who would be informing them of arrangements as and when they were made.

  Pedro had departed for the hotel yesterday, the meet was supposed to take place today evening… and there was no way any agent, no matter how skilled could tail the money man and not expect to be caught.

  Sensitivity was the codename of the day.

  It bugged Krivi that he wasn’t part of the team that was keeping a weather eye on Pedro and the situation from afar.

  Bugged him for more reasons than he cared to explain to himself, or even examine closely.

  He looked at the image forming on the screen that of the Baja peninsula, in three-dimensions, terrain-wise. They had a couple of NORAD satellite drones, that US intelligence had generously lent them, because they were as invested in putting The Woodpecker away for life as they had been in bringing down bin Laden. Big Brother was a good ally to have in certain circumstances, and this was definitely one of them.

  The drones would help monitor the situation remotely as Harold and Krivi sat in the room they had commandeered for Mission Control.

  Now, Harold entered Mission Control and looked at the blinking glass map of South America, Europe and Asia they had rigged up yesterday. In it were all the active agents, active, on the manhunt.

  About fifty lights blinked green, as people trolled the world for information of all kinds on The Woodpecker and his activities. Hank and his family had been taken to an undisclosed location where they were being kept for their own protection, till such time as the government saw fit to release them.

  Considering that Hank was nose-less, it hadn’t been that hard to convince the Sturgeons to leave town with bag and baggage and their cat, Pumpernickel to a safe house.

  As was Kelly, Panetta’s daughter, who lived with her mother’s grandmother and aunt, in an effort to protect her. Panetta had not seen either mother or daughter for the last two years, but blood always spoke and it was this fact that Krivi had gambled on which had paid off.

  And thinking about Kelly and Panetta always made him think of Ziya and how she had looked when she had told she loved him.

  That she was in love with him. Him.

  An animal, a mindless murderer and torturer. As if it wasn’t the most pathetically laughable notion in the world.

  As if someone as fine and pure and untouched and good as Ziya Maarten could love someone as depraved as him.

  Gemma, the love of his life, had not been pure. She had loved him with everything she had. But she had been a married woman who was not supposed to love another man but her husband. They had fallen so fast for each other that there had been no time for the guilt to set in.

  The weird thing was that she had never once mentioned leaving Joe for him.

  Nor he, for all his professed love for Gemma, had once asked her to.

  They had been content, coasting along with the occasional afternoon in the motel, or spending the night screwing in Joe’s master bedroom in their Chelsea flat.

  Their affair had been comfortable, stable…and both of them done nothing to change the status quo.

  He idly wondered if she would have left Joe for him now, if she had been alive. If the child had been allowed to be born. And was stunned to discover he wasn’t sure of her that way.

  Oh yes, she loved him. But in her own fashion.

  And there wasn’t that much of the heedless in Gemma that she would have thrown the stability and commitment that came from being in a marriage with a solid guy like Joe, for a loose cannon like him.

  It ashamed Krivi to know that of himself.

  That he didn’t have the depth of feeling to even make the love of his life stick by him…that he didn’t care about it.

  Then he scowled, because he didn’t want to think badly of Gemma or their relationship, fucked up as it was.

  And it was all because of that stupid, foolhardy, stubborn woman who was even now, probably getting ready to come down for her latest lesson in Battle Survival 101.

  Nothing deterred Ziya Maarten.
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  Not making love with him, skin to skin with no protection. Although, it was just one lapsed night, with no consequences yet. Not bruises or the thought of handling firearms.

  Definitely not the idea that what she was doing could potentially lead to her death.

  She was fiercely loyal, foolishly stubborn and fantastic when he held her in his arms, which seemed to be every moment he could, and she had faith in him.

  Misplaced, of course, but faith nonetheless. She thought he’d help her deal with everything…weapons training, endurance physicals, a freaking baby if it came down to it.

  She was mental.

  But it made him antsy and jittery and he knew he should have left her here with Harold and the guys and taken point on the Baja trip.

  But no, he was stuck here, with her, trying to get her acclimatized to what a dangerous situation they really were in. And they had still not gotten to any of the hard parts of her education yet. And he liked it.

  “Frowning like that makes you look ugly,” Harold commented, as he pulled up a chair and sat down next to Krivi.

  He held a cup of coffee that he sipped as he watched the screen with the same absent concentration that Krivi had.

  Krivi barely spared him a glance as he checked the report the Baja team was sending in, every fifteen minutes. “I have no clue what you’re talking about. As usual.”

  Harold smiled thinly. “You know exactly what I’m talking about, Krivi. And you can pretend otherwise all you want, but I know the truth about you.”

  “And what truth would that be?” He was deliberately sarcastic.

  “You are beginning to realize that Gemma Houston was not the perfect angel that you had made her in your misbegotten attempt at grieving…And Ziya Maarten actually is.”

  “Harold—"

  “I am just saying,” Harold cut in mildly. “She is still here, Krivi. After what she saw you do that day to Panetta, she is still here and she can still stand to see you without shuddering with revulsion.” He squeezed Krivi’s shoulder in a gesture of manly support. “There are worse fates out there than to be loved by a woman like her.”