by Seeley James
Roman didn’t move.
Yuri squinted at him. Then events fell into place. Only the two of them knew they’d randomly chosen Liberia to change planes. They had been traced through Roman in Brazil. And now they were found in Africa. Blood boiled into his head.
“Hey, Yuri.” Roman reacted to the fire building in Yuri’s eyes and backed up a step. “It’s not what you think.”
Yuri reached for his VX-Y spray in his pocket. His hand found his new switchblade instead. He snapped it open. “Whore!”
He lunged at his friend and stabbed him between the ribs. For a moment, they looked into each other’s eyes.
“Why, Roman?” Yuri’s eyes flared. “We were so close to being free.”
He pulled back and shoved Roman into a slump against the door jamb. Snatching Roman’s laptop, he put it in his bag with his own.
Roman wheezed through his punctured lung, trying to ask for help. He reached a desperate hand toward his boss.
Yuri pulled a pistol from one of the unconscious assassins and ran to the street. A motorcycle came up the lane. He shot the rider, grabbed the bike, and fled into the night.
CHAPTER 63
After Pia clicked off Yuri’s call, she crossed the street from the wharf and ducked into a dark alley. Silence shrouded the city, every movement echoing through the dark and empty streets. Tania followed, her eyes on her phone.
“They were Russians,” Tania said.
“Who?” Pia asked.
“The guys we beat up last time we were in Helsinki.” Tania showed her a report on the IDs from Bianca’s team. “Gotta be Popov’s people, right?”
They stopped and listened to the telltale taps of shoes on Helsinki’s ancient cobblestones. Whoever was following them was a hundred yards back.
Pia checked her pistol and kept watch over her shoulder. She’d suspected Roche Security, but his people couldn’t have guessed she’d be there, much less put agents in place for her return. Unfortunately, she’d expended most of her darts in Jurmala. She pulled her mag and counted out three. Tania held up two fingers.
The first man following them walked past the alley without a glance. The second man turned the corner quickly. He stopped, silhouetted against the ambient street light.
Tania stepped out, gun drawn. “Hands up.”
He hunched his shoulders, raising his collar. He reached for his gun. Tania wisely held her fire. Their pursuers knew about the Sable Darts and used their thick winter coats for protection. The first man returned, rounded the corner, and took up a position to back up his man. A split-second later, a bullet smashed Tania’s armor. She landed on the ground.
Pia stepped out and fired at the shooter, catching his overcoat but surprising him. She ran for him at full bore only to take a bullet square in the chest. Armor or no armor, it hurt like hell. She kept running.
He fired again. Hitting her shoulder at the edge of the armor.
Pia threw her arms out as she launched herself, wrapping him up, neutralizing his gun, and pounding the back of his head onto the pavement.
Behind her, Tania sat up and fired her two darts at the other guy. One of them caught his neck. He slumped to the ground.
Pia pounded her full weight into her man’s chest. Twisting for all she was worth, she slammed an elbow into the left side of his head. Then twisted back, connecting her other elbow with the right side of his head. He twitched and blinked and passed out.
“Tell me, boss—” Agent Kaspar’s voice floated in from the street “—why the elbows?”
Pia stood, clutched her chest, and waited for the silver sparkles in her vision to pass. “If you hit someone hard enough to knock him out with your bare knuckles, you’ll have at least three broken metacarpals. Use the heel of your hand or your elbow. Where were you?”
“Delayed by road construction. You left the pickup point before I could get there. So, I followed the sound of gunfire—and here you are.” He pointed up the street. “I have a car.”
“Do you have ammo?” Tania asked.
“Maybe a couple magazines.” He led the way.
Bianca called, and Pia answered as they walked.
“Belenov lied,” Bianca said. “He used a school teacher in Uruguay. He hijacks a different computer each time. His malware masks the incoming TCP/IP configuration and modifies the DHCP and DNS—”
“Spare me the tech speak. Is it safe to assume we didn’t get him?”
“Short version, his program erases everything after the call, including itself. We can’t trace him. He’s smart.”
“I noticed he didn’t flinch when I mentioned it.” Pia climbed in the backseat of Kaspar’s Skoda sport wagon and brushed dog hair away from her. “What did you think of his proposal?”
“Tough call. I’m a math and science girl, I want to examine all the details.”
Kaspar turned up a street blocked for roadwork. He backed up for a three-point turn. “You see? Everything in this town is under construction. They work all night.”
Pia surveyed the workers before turning her attention back to the phone. “Belenov’s not going to give us any details.”
“I find that suspicious,” Bianca said.
Pia could hear Dad’s advice from years ago. There is a time for caution and a time for risks; choosing wisely is what separates success and failure. A lesson she’d proven in soccer for years. But where would the risk fall with Yuri Belenov? Who could she turn to for advice now? The Major had yet to pull out of her guilt-fueled grief. Tania voted to take the deal and get both Popov and Roche.
Pia asked Bianca, “What does Jacob say?”
“Last tracked going 100 miles per hour through southern Lithuania. He’s not answering his phone.” Bianca took a long breath. “Bottom line: Belenov’s offering a deal with a devil that could lead you to a bigger devil.”
“As much as I hate working with the man who killed 365 Americans,” Pia said, “we have to take his deal.”
From the front seat, Tania pumped her fist in the air. “That’s right. We can kill Belenov after we kill the guys he serves up on a platter.”
“One last thing.” Bianca took a deep breath. “You need to know—Emily was the one who told the Senator about your intent to kill Popov and Strangelove.”
“I figured that out after I yelled at Olivier.” Pia paused. “She’s a reporter. Exchanging information is what she does. I’ve forgiven her. I hope you will as well.”
“I can’t. I feel betrayed. I’m going to break off our engagement.”
“If you want to get married and stay married, get used to forgiving. It works both ways. Or, so my grandmother tells me. She’s been married over fifty years. So. Forgive Emily.”
“I’ll think about it.”
They clicked off.
The car slowed again and turned down a narrow lane. At the far end: more construction barricades.
Pia looked behind them. One large truck turned up the street. She tapped Kaspar’s shoulder.
“I see him.” Kaspar’s eyes filled the mirror. He downshifted and powered forward.
Tania handed Pia two magazines of real bullets from her backpack.
Kaspar blew through the barricades, yanked the handbrake, and drifted sideways. He caught the slide and flew down a cross street. At the bottom, a motorcycle stopped. The rider raised an assault rifle. Kaspar cranked the wheel into a pedestrian lane. The vehicular barriers scraped the quarter panels with a heart-stopping screech. The biker rounded the corner. Kaspar broke free and burned rubber through a maze of plywood stalls, closed for the night.
The bike gave chase.
Pia pushed down a dog barrier and crabbed into the wagon’s back space. She planted a foot on each side of the hatchback and released the fifth door. It popped open. She sighted down her barrel. The biker slammed on his brakes. He swerved, complicating her aim. He ducked behind a vendor’s stall.
They quickly came to the end of the plaza. The truck had parked broadside to them. Two men with rifles
opened fire, splintering the windscreen. Tania leaned out the window and brushed one gunman back.
Kaspar cranked the wheel and slammed on the brakes, drifting them into a U-turn. They smashed into three stalls, sending Christmas ornaments and wood flying in every direction. He stalled it on the turn and cursed.
Pia recovered from the violent spin and fired through the debris falling back to earth. A bullet whizzed through the air. Kaspar restarted his car. He revved the engine and dropped the clutch. She agreed with his strategy: run him down and hope the engine block caught most of his bullets.
Two men stepped out from behind the truck. She fired despite the jarring ride across cobblestones hundreds of years old. Making an effort to counter the bumps proved futile. She fired the rest of her mag and reloaded.
Kaspar shouted out in pain. He tore the wheel to the left, smashing hard into a stall. Pia turned around in the small space to examine her driver. Only his left hand remained on the wheel. His right shoulder bled profusely. Tania applied pressure to the wound.
Bullets tore through the quarter panel near her knee.
Pia looked for telltale gunsmoke and found it at the same time she saw fuel spilling from under the car. She fired carefully, preserving as much ammo as possible. Kaspar turned unexpectedly to the right, sideswiping a building. Shards of brick fell into the street behind them.
They swerved again. Pia held the roof as their fender caromed off a car going the other direction. The truck came out of a side street and stopped. The gunmen jumped from the cab. One held an RPG launcher.
She emptied her mag. Pia yelled, “Turn!”
“Nowhere to…” Kaspar groaned.
Pia looked over his shoulder. A straight street, long and narrow. High brick walls on either side.
She heard the whoosh. She saw the flash. It hit forward of the left front tire. The engine saved them from the brunt of the blast and the shrapnel. Pia held on with each foot and hand braced against a different panel of the car. The Skoda lifted in the air, rolled one and a half times, and landed on Kaspar’s door.
Pia scrambled from the wreckage, black stars blinking in her peripheral vision. She aimed where she guessed her attackers were and hoped they were intimidated. Her free hand felt her empty pack in the vain hope of finding a new magazine.
Nothing.
An unnaturally bright light illuminated the street behind her.
She turned to the car. It lay on its side, the undercarriage facing her, her adversaries on the far side. No one was getting out. Flames licked the engine compartment at the front. At the back, fuel poured onto the road at an alarming rate. Three feet separated the flames from the growing spill.
Pia stepped on the axle, hoisted herself onto the car, and looked in the window. Tania struggled with her seatbelt. Pia grabbed the passenger door and tore it open only to have gravity slam it down on her back as she reached in. Twisting into the pain, she grabbed the belt and pulled slack from the B-pillar. Tania used it to unlatch the buckle. She fell on top of Kaspar.
Pia propped Tania’s door open with her shoulder and reached inside.
Bullets chipped the brick wall behind her.
Tania’s hand reached up from the smoke-filled cabin, holding a magazine. “Four left. Use them…”
Tania coughed.
Streamers of red and yellow flames snapped above the front tire. Pia grabbed the mag, reloaded, and fired three shots.
She reached back into the darkness, found flesh, latched onto it with all her strength and pulled Tania up by the forearm. She brought half her agent to the car’s bodywork. From there, Tania scrambled between Pia’s feet until she lay sprawled on the wreckage.
“Get clear!” Pia shouted at her. She reached back inside and felt nothing. She knelt, the car door still weighing on her back. Still nothing.
“Get out of there,” Tania shouted back. “It’s on fire.”
“He’s still in there.” Pia reached again. “I’m not losing him.”
A raft of bullets flew over her back. She tossed Tania the pistol as another round from the Russians blew out the door. Chunks of safety glass rained down on her back.
A flame erupted under the dash, lighting the interior. Kaspar lay slumped against the driver’s door. His hand wavered weakly in the empty space. Limited consciousness. She reached in and touched his fingertips. The flame exploded upward, blasting her face with scorching heat. Her sleeve caught fire. She leaned back and felt another round of gunfire ripping through the bodywork. Flames filled the open door. The heat drove her back. The door slammed shut. She reached for the handle but felt the searing heat before she touched it.
“We gotta go.” Tania held up her weapon.
Pia slammed her fist on the bodywork and felt the intense heat building inside. “No!”
Flame exploded out of the back door, flinging her to the ground. She looked skyward. “Goddamn it.”
Tania ran to her, five yards behind the burning wreckage.
“Nothing you could do.” Tania whipped off her jacket and wrapped it around Pia’s arm.
The flames roared through the car’s shot-out glass, reaching ever higher.
Tania pulled on Pia’s arm. “We gotta go. It’s going to blow.”
They took off down the narrow lane with a piece of Pia’s heart still in that flaming passenger compartment with Kaspar. As they ran, Pia heard Stefan’s words ringing in her head. It does nothing but bring you grief and hatred and violence.
CHAPTER 64
Sylvia failed to mention that Bialystok is a damn long way from Riga. Riding a fast bike with a used god on the back gets boring after the first ten minutes. Especially since he passed the time by recalling the good old days chasing Christians around places like Corinth, Ephesus, and Galatia. Has-beens gotta brag. Then he started in on how I never listen to him. Just like my dad.
Mercury said, Jesus has the same problem. None of y’all listen to him either. He says ‘give all your money to the poor and follow me’ and the first thing you do is vote for the richest guy running for president. I mean, huh?
We were in southern Lithuania nearing the border when the sun, still beyond the horizon, turned the black night into dark blue.
My high-speed ride paid off. I was well ahead of them. I pulled onto the grounds of an abandoned manufacturing plant. A crust of snow covered a landscape so flat I could see Dubuque from there. Probably. Riding around the outside of the parking lot to avoid leaving a trail, I came to the backside of the structure.
I toured the ruined building. Pretty much an empty barn on steroids, made of thin bricks and corrugated sheet metal and broken glass. Not much existed in terms of hiding places. I parked the bike in a corner. Only an oil drum obscured it. I leaned my butt against the wall near the door and began the long wait.
Mercury stalked the empty room angrier than I’d ever seen him. He’d started haranguing me at the end of the ride, whipping himself into a frenzy. Get woke, dude! I’m telling you. She stayed for one more round—cause that’s how the Greeks be. No sense of responsibility. Doesn’t care that danger’s coming. You even pointed Stalingrad out to her, and she stayed to party. She’s the kinda ho who loves making her hero save her, over and over.
I pounded both hands into his chest, pushing him back three steps. Don’t call her a ho.
Chill, bro. Mercury clenched his fists. You don’t want to be pushing a god around. I don’t fight little mortals like you.
He snapped his fingers.
Something in his voice told me I’d better let it go. But he was getting on my nerves. One more insult and I was going back on my meds. I rolled the bottle of pills around in my pocket.
Mercury disappeared for ten minutes, then reappeared with a brawny guy carrying a hammer. I found Ukko hanging around outside. I’d introduce you, but he hates Christians, former or otherwise. They ripped off all his believers too.
I said, Who?
Mercury looked to the skies with impatience. You’re trespassing on his bl
ock, and you don’t know who he is? Ukko—sky god in these parts. You really should study up a bit before you travel. Mercury turned his back to his pal and rolled his eyes and spoke in a whisper. Ukko thinks he’s up there with Jupiter. As if. You need a little time to be chilling down, you know what I’m saying, bro? So I’ll be hanging with Ukko for a bit. Good luck with the Russians.
Ukko put his arm around Mercury, and the two of them walked out.
Fine.
An hour later, a van pulled in from the highway. With the mile-long approach, it seemed like forever before they got to the expansive parking lot. The van stopped a long way back. They made a hard right and circled back toward the highway. There were no cars following them.
Half an hour later, she called.
Sylvia said, “He said you were there, waiting to ambush him.”
“Does he want the package or not?”
“He found a different place, a couple miles up the road.”
“Let me guess, it’s just like this one, only with a difference.” I thought for a moment how to phrase the question so her answer wouldn’t give it away. Working with civilians presents challenges. “If there are any buildings inside a city block, but no farther than three blocks away, I want you to phrase it by telling me, ‘nothing around here but a BLANK building really far away’. You fill in the blank. Now take a good look around and give me the answer.”
She took a few seconds. “There’s nothing around here but an old silo really far away.”
“Hang tight, I’ll have you rescued in an hour. I’m out of gas.”
“Hurry. I don’t like these guys.”
“One last question.” I couldn’t stop myself. “Did you have one more drink before you left the bar in Riga?”
“Well. The Latvian director was so nice, and he looked so lonesome when I said we had to leave. He insisted we have one more round. And I didn’t understand what you were telling me until it was too—”
I clicked off.
Nothing pisses me off more than finding out god was right.
