Thirst of Steel

by Ronie Kendig

  She flapped the folder closed. “So they’re being pulled offline?”

  “Negative. Can’t,” he said with a huff. “Doing so would tip our hand. We were about to intervene.”

  “Until I dropped a truth bomb about the president’s chief.”

  He nodded, then narrowed his eyes. “I need you out of sight for a while.”

  “Definitely—with NSA wondering and ‘burying’ me, we need time for people to forget me.”

  Another nod, this one distracted.

  “Send me to Russia.”

  His withering glare turned sharp. “Russia?”

  Despite his poker face, Mercy knew what she’d seen in that report. Some things blacked out. Others not. She had a quick mind, assembling the pieces. “What I found in TAFFIP’s system suggests their hands aren’t quite as clean as they claim—Mattin Worldwide is involved. I stayed up last night, comparing security protocols.”

  He nearly came out of his seat. “You what?”

  “Easy, Boss-man. It’s good. Nothing invasive. And I’m right—again,” she said in singsong voice that betrayed her pride and pleasure. “Same protocols, which are like a signature. You get to know the coding, you get to know the coder.”

  He stared at her. “Why Russia?”

  Though her pulse thudded against that question, against the reason he might be inquiring, she put her best foot forward. “Because that’s where Mattin is, and I need to get onsite and into their systems to prove what we’re already guessing.”

  Elbows on the arms of his chair, he gave her a disapproving look. “Any other reason?”

  Mercy shook off the shudder tugging her muscles. “What else?”

  He motioned to the door. “Close it.”

  Two possibilities loomed—she was about to get chewed out, or she was about to get her wish. After replanting herself in her seat, she crossed her legs. Folded her hands. Prepared for the worst.

  “What happened with you and Khalon?”

  Bomb out of left field.

  Mercy swallowed. She could lie. She could hem. She could divert. But it would be no use. Dru Iliescu might let a lot of her personality slide with a smile, but there was a reason he sat in this office.

  “It’s not in any of your reports,” he said, his tone anything but pleasant, “but how else would you have crossed paths with him unless it was under our purview?”

  As she’d anticipated. Out with it, Maddox. “Our paths crossed during my time in Greece. Remember when that Special Forces team was tracking someone trying to release the identities of their operatives? Myself included?” She eyed him for some recognition, but he only gave her a blank stare. “Well, our paths . . . kept crossing. We”—careful, tricky waters here—“weren’t exactly working together—”

  “But you were sleeping together.”

  Her jaw dropped at the accusation. “I—No.” Although it had nearly happened.

  “But things were intimate between you two.”

  “Intimacy implies sexual relations, and there weren’t any.”

  “What I saw in that SAARC bunker looked a lot like unfinished business,” he said pointedly, ignoring her attempt to be facetious. “And now you’re asking me to send you to Russia. Where you somehow know he is.”

  She wet her lips, decided to push his attention to something less incriminating. “The report wasn’t as redacted as you probably hoped,” she said. “I put things together.”

  He cursed. “If I send you there and Ram finds out—there are things about that man you don’t understand.”

  The fierceness in Dru’s voice and eyes made her swallow. “Like what?” She scooted to the edge of her seat. “Because I got to know him pretty well. I knew about his vague connections to the Israelis and his citizenship with the U.S.”

  The deputy director sat in silence for several long, excruciating minutes that made Mercy wonder if she’d said too much, if she’d inadvertently and singlehandedly ruined her own career. She watched, searching for some clue to his thoughts. But it was like trying to read a book made of marble, the lettering hidden deep within the stone.

  He huffed. “Do you know the name Tox Russell?”

  “Sure,” she said with a shrug. “Everyone does—he was on the news. Died in prison. Hero gone wrong.”

  “He didn’t go wrong. He was set up. And he’s alive, and that is who Ram is handling in Russia.”

  She blinked rapidly, her mind scrambling for purchase on this new information. “Doing what?”

  “The operation isn’t ours. Ram is clamped down on intel, but we have other assets feeding us information. Seems Tox is now personal bodyguard to Nur Abidaoud.”

  “CEO of Mattin. The man himself.” Impressive navigation of tricky politics. “How’d he manage that?”

  “Couple of lucky situations put him in the right place at the right time, and his instincts, which I trust over pretty much anyone else’s, got him the rest of the way.”

  Though Tox’s record spoke for itself, as did Dru’s high praise, what made her heart pump hard was that Dru had brought this up. That he’d just handed her classified intel. She glanced at the folder. Above Top Secret. “You’re sending me,” she said with entirely too much excitement.

  “If I send you, it would be deep cover. It’ll mean you can never cross paths with Ram Khalon.”

  “What?” She frowned. “Why not? He’s ours.”

  “Because those Mossad connections you mentioned earlier?” His gaze pierced her with warning. “They aren’t vague.”

  Her mind raced ahead to the obvious conclusion, but there was a piece of her that refused to move past his statement, that obstinately said she should’ve known. “What do you mean?”

  “Come on, Mercy. It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

  “He’s Mossad.” The words tasted like burnt popcorn.

  “I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate, but it might as well be.”

  “He contracts.” She hated feeling guilty when it was Ram who’d had another layer of his oniony self peeled away. Then again, she’d never told him who she worked for. Besides, turnabout was fair play, wasn’t it? “And his loyalty?”

  “More than once he’s sided with Israel over us. He’s Mossad, Mercy. His loyalty, even to the detriment of his life, is to Israel.” He pecked on his keyboard. “I’ll get you read in on this, but what you need to understand right here, before we go any further, is that if Ram learns you’re there, Mossad will know. And if they know—”

  “No more Mercy.”

  32

  — OUTSIDE LONDON, ENGLAND —

  Grief squeezed Tox’s chest, strangling him. He wanted to curse the night, curse that his last memory of the professor was in death’s embrace. He’d been good for Tzivia, good for them all. And now he’d fled to heaven. At least . . . at least in the end, he’d smiled.

  A shrill whine strafed the air, drawing his gaze once more to the short airstrip. Red and blue lights popped to life, marking the runway.

  Tox caught Tzivia’s arm to guide her. She flinched. Flashed him a severe look but said nothing. In fact, she hadn’t spoken in the three hours since they had fled more gunmen, leaving the professor’s dead body behind.

  “They’re here,” he muttered, nodding to where the jet’s nose splashed light over the gray cement. “C’mon.”

  Hunch-running, they crossed the field toward the roar of the engine reversing to slow the jet. He watched it howl past, slowing unbelievably fast. The pilot used a jutting arm of the runway to maneuver a U-turn, then whined toward them. The side door slid open as they came even with it. The plane bounced to a stop, and an attendant in the hatch deployed the stairs.

  Tox guided Tzivia up the metal steps. “Bathroom?”

  The attendant’s eyes were riveted to Tzivia, whose hands were coated in the professor’s blood, as were his.

  “Bathroom,” he snapped.

  “B-back. In the back.” She pointed, her gestures jerky. “On the left, opposite the galley.”
>
  Tox stepped aside, allowing Tzivia ahead of him down the gangway past a section of seats arranged in foursomes, some in sets of two. Then two rows of five luxury seats on each side. A partition separated the seats from a long, narrow conference table with starship-looking chairs, a galley, and a bathroom.

  The attendant stopped at the bathroom door, staring as if she didn’t know what to do.

  Punching open the door, Tox maneuvered past Tzivia. Slapped down the toilet seat and turned on the water. He backed out and nodded her inside.

  Tzivia stood staring at the sink. Her expression seemed at least ten klicks away. In the flat. Tox nudged into the confined space, shut them in, and took her hand, gently placing it under the faucet.

  When she made no effort to resist or assume control, he pumped soap into his palm and rubbed it over hers. Blood was the worst to wash off. You could scrub for hours and still find a speck under a nail or in a crease. In a way, it was good that it couldn’t be easily removed—a poignant sign of what it meant: life.

  He directed Tzivia onto the closed toilet seat and knelt, drying her hands, then looking into eyes that seemed as vacant as the professor’s had been. A chill ran down his spine.

  He focused on cleaning the blood from her face and neck. He hated even making the first wipe across her cheek, because he expected it would snap her back to the present. But when she just sat there, stone-faced, a bigger concern replaced his anxiety. Had she really cracked? He wanted to jar her out of it, but he’d give her space. They had the next two hours for introspection. Then they’d be on the ground and thrust before Nur, who would demand to know what she’d found.

  Tox’s gaze hit the pocket where she’d tucked the photograph after extracting it from the frame.

  A rap at the door startled him. He tugged open the folding partition. The attendant handed him two T-shirts. “This is all I could find.”

  He thanked her, then waited for her to leave. He turned back to the woman who’d kicked life’s butt and taken names. It bothered him to see her like this. “Tzivia.”

  She blinked but didn’t otherwise respond.

  He touched her shoulder. “Hey. Tzi.”

  Finally she snapped her gaze to his, exposing a hollowness that sent chills through him again. In her irises flared a fierce anger, drilling a deep chasm into her soul.

  He pressed a black shirt into her hand. “Here. Change. Less than two hours before we’re back with Nur.”

  She twitched, which was good. The name had been meant to jar her, remind her what she was fighting—and whom.

  “You with me, Tzivia?”

  Her left eye narrowed. “Who are you?”

  He started at the question. Though he wanted to tell her everything, tell her she wasn’t alone in mourning Dr. Cathey, a friend and ally, he couldn’t. He wished she could know that he felt her pain. That he too grieved the professor, that she wasn’t alone fighting the AFO.

  But that was just it. She wasn’t fighting. She was working with them. So telling her . . .

  “Get changed.” He sidestepped.

  A vise tightened around his wrist. He glanced back into eyes red-rimmed with a mix of fury, anger, and fear. Her chest rose and fell beneath ragged breaths. He’d expected anger, but this was . . . fear. Panic.

  “I’ll be right outside.” With that, he extricated himself and pulled the folding door closed. He glanced at the shirt he wore, stained with dirt and sweat. Blood. Splattered like bad spray paint. He tugged off his shirt and stuffed his arms into the clean one, though he’d have preferred to shower up before putting on clean clothes.

  “Yes, sir. He’s out,” the attendant’s voice drifted from the front. She sauntered toward him with a thick phone. “Mr. Abidaoud would like a word.”

  Why couldn’t he give them time to recover? Tox took the phone with a nod. “Rybakov.”

  “That was quite a mess in London.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Amazing they found you there so quickly.”

  “Wondering about that myself, sir. Any ideas on how that happened?”

  Nur scoffed. “Do you suggest me, Mr. Rybakov?”

  “The trip was kept under wraps. Fast turnaround. How’d they know where we’d be and when? They also knew we were looking for the sword.”

  “That is what we should be discussing—that and your petulance.”

  “My questions aren’t petulance. They’re tactical. Because nobody should’ve known we were there,” Tox said, trying to cool his anger, his protective furor over what had happened to his friend, Tzivia’s mentor. “Now, either you sent someone to clean house, or you have a spy. Either way, I’m not real juiced about returning.”

  “Good thing you’re on my plane and have no say.”

  “Good thing,” Tox gritted out.

  “My personal car will be waiting at the airstrip. It’ll bring you and Ms. Khalon directly to me.”

  “Look, she’s really rattled. I’ve never seen her like this.”

  “You’ve only known her a few weeks, Mr. Rybakov. What do you know of that spitfire?”

  He nearly cursed at his slip. “That she’s a lot more spit and less fire right now. You’ll want to go easy on her. Give her room.”

  “What I’ll want is to get what we were after.” Silence gaped through the phone. “You overstep, Mr. Rybakov. Give care, or I’ll need to introduce you to some humility.”

  The call ended, and Tox balled his fist. Leaned against the seat. Ground his molars and told himself to get a hold of the anger bubbling inside him, or he’d make more mistakes. This wasn’t him talking. It was the adrenaline.

  He wanted—needed—to hear Haven’s voice. He slid into a seat and leaned his forehead on the back of the row in front. Let himself drift quickly and deeply to Israel, where they’d had moments he’d never thought possible. Marrying her. Loving her. Quiet moments. Intimate moments. It seemed those were a lifetime away now. She was a lifetime away.

  He opened his eyes and gazed at the phone in his hand. He could call her. Just to hear her answer and say hello. The voice that had melted his reserve and spoken to something buried deep inside him.

  The ache dug deep. Spread its desperation through his chest, down his arm. To his hands. He swept the keys. Pressed several in quick succession. The screen glowed green with the numbers, bright against the dim interior of the jet. His thumb hovered over TALK.

  “What did he say?”

  At the sound of Tzivia’s voice to his right, Tox came to his feet and cleared the number. “Sorry?”

  “You were talking to Nur,” she said, her T-shirt crooked, hair disheveled. Her eyes were redder and the roots of her hair wet. She must have washed her face. Stepping closer, she motioned to the row, indicating he should let her in.

  Tox allowed her to slip past.

  She slumped into the chair. “What’d he want?” she repeated, though it still wasn’t the Tzivia he knew.

  He pocketed the phone. “Don’t worry about him.” He threaded his fingers. “How about you? Holding up?”

  Her brown eyes met his, flecked with surprise. “You’re not worried about angering Nur?”

  “No.”

  She frowned. “Why not?”

  “Because he’s always angry.”

  A tremor of a smile met her lips. “And you? Don’t you want to know?”

  If he knew, then he could be bled for the intel. “Right now,” he said, injecting his tone with as much authenticity as he could muster, “we have one-point”—he glanced at his watch—“two-five hours to just . . .” He couldn’t say grieve without tipping his hand. “Process.”

  She pressed her head against the back of the seat with a scoff. “I’m not sure that’s something I can do in that short amount of time.”

  “Then do what you can. Give yourself a breath while you can.” He pressed his skull into the leather seat and adjusted his position. “Do what you need to, because once we’re wheels down, you’re on his turf and time.” He looked at he
r. “I know the professor was important to you. I’m sorry.”

  She smiled wanly. “He was the only person who ever believed in me—really believed in me.” Her eyes swam with unshed tears. “All the time. Never doubted. And when I got off track, he smacked me back into line, but lovingly.” She pursed her lips. “And now, because of me,” she said, her voice trembling, “he’s dead.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “You’re right—it’s not. And I own that.” Tears puddled in her eyes. “It’s not fair that he’s gone way before his time. It’s not fair that he had a lot to give, and now he can’t. Nobody new will discover the beauty of one of the most giving, passionate men ever.”

  “‘The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.’” When Tzivia glanced at him with a frown, he shrugged. “Mark Twain—an American author—wrote that.”

  She frowned more. “Is that supposed to mean something?”

  Tox shook his head. “It’s just . . . I think”—careful, he warned himself, play those cards close to your chest—“he seemed the type of man ready for death.” He nodded, thinking through his next words. “I’ve seen men die.” That was true and could be said of more than just soldiers. “He wasn’t panicked or afraid.”

  “He smiled,” she said quietly. “He actually smiled as he died.” She shook her head. “Which, in some ways, made it worse.”

  Tox frowned. “How?”

  “Because,” she said, scrunching her shoulders, “it was like he was glad to be free of me.”

  33

  — SAARC HEADQUARTERS, VIRGINIA —

  “Anyone besides me not buying the whole ‘on mission’ thing with Tox?”

  Tilting back in his squeaky office chair, Thor swiveled at the command hub to eyeball Leif, who stood with his arms folded. “Your attitude is jacked. Did you miss the whole black ops part of our jobs?”

  Leif wasn’t fazed. In fact, it fed him. “Tox has been gone upward of five months, maybe six, and nobody’s worried.” This was familiar to him. All too familiar. Nobody had been worried about his absence, assuming he’d been on mission.