by JT Sawyer
Masala didn’t even know the American’s real name nor did he care. Whenever he received a call, it was immediately followed by a down payment in his bank account with detailed instructions for the job following within eight hours. The balance was always promptly paid within two hours of completing the job, whether it was kidnapping, torture, extortion, or outright assassination. He preferred the latter as it left less residue in his psyche when he was trying to unwind after an assignment.
He glanced over his shoulder at the moon as he slipped into the forest, knowing that this green purgatory would be a distant memory twenty-four hours from now. Then he’d be reclining at a beachside cabana in Thailand with young women who would do anything to him or to each other for the right price.
Chapter 24
Somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea
The ninety-six-foot yacht was anchored off the coast of an unnamed island near Malta. Three women clad in bikinis were sunning themselves atop the main deck in view of the captain, who was resting in his chair. This had been the same scene that had played out over the past three days as the vessel moved from island to island.
Around noon, one of the women got up and sauntered down the mahogany spiral staircase that led below deck. She stopped on the first floor to obtain a chilled glass of vermouth before heading down to the lowest level where the sounds of Chopin filled the room. She walked behind Anton Tokarev and handed him the glass; his arm extended without looking up at her. He took a sip and then let her massage his shoulders for a few minutes before brushing her off and nodding for her to leave.
Putting the empty glass down on a round table whose legs were made from ivory tusks, he continued flipping through his book, The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire. He’d been forced to read it before in younger days at the boarding school in Kiev before he was expelled for nearly beating another student to death. Now, he was trying to learn from the events leading up to the final days of the once great world that was Rome. He leafed through the dog-eared pages in the chapter that discussed how something as simple as malaria had halted the expansion of the empire and brought its magnificent army to its knees.
His mind was too distracted to digest much and he interspersed each page with a furtive glance at his Cartier gold watch with the diamond inlays. It cost as much as most people made in a year and he had eight of them in his collection aboard the yacht.
Since making the acquaintance of Kyle in the Chinese prison and helping him to escape, he’d grown increasingly dependent on the talented spy for increasing his stranglehold on illegal mob activities throughout Moscow. In the past three years, he had snuffed out most of his competition and acquired enough dirt on the politicians at the Kremlin to assure control of his business holdings. But after spending most of his fifty-two years in Russia, he had grown weary of the cold. He had briefly tried to venture out into new territory with the Triads in China but that only landed him in a dank cell and put him on the receiving end of punishment that he was used to doling out himself.
He wanted to expand his reach but had no desire to get bogged down in endless turf wars in other countries for years. When Kyle came to him, after their escape from the Chinese prison, and discussed his scheme for crushing the two great economies of the world, he was more than intrigued. Now their plan was close to fruition. He glanced at his watch again as if his impatient glare could increase the revolution of the hands. He reached for his glass but remembered it was empty and pressed the buzzer on his recliner.
Anton flipped the voluminous book back to the first few pages, full of black-and-white drawings of the emperors. He gazed upon the haughty image of Caligula, caressing the outline of the face, then raising a hand to his own cheek.
Chapter 25
After they’d put a few miles behind them, Marco led the group to a small finger of land that jutted out above a valley. The view was magnificent and a distant waterfall, which resembled a white ribbon, muscled its way through the jade green carpet below. With nightfall fast approaching, he had everyone set up the hammocks he’d provided after which they dug into some Asian version of a MRE packet. Dev was sitting on a fallen tree, rubbing the sole of her bare foot when Marco came over. He placed a folded green poncho on the rotting log and sat down beside her. She shimmied a few feet away without glancing at him, like he was another annoying feature of this hellish landscape.
“Be careful where you put your hands out here,” he said. “Most of these downed logs are covered with monkey shit. You get some on you accidentally and then touch your skin later, you’ll get a nasty threadworm larva burrowing into your skin. Two days later, you got this little bastard wriggling under your epidermis.” He fluttered his fingers in her face. “Had one get in beside my ribs once and could see it snaking around just below the surface like a piece of fishing line. Nearly took my blade and dug it out myself. Drove me fuckin’ insane for a week until we got to a small village with a med clinic.”
Dev had stopped her foot massage and replaced her boots then stood up and scanned her former seat on the bare wood. “If you’re fucking with me, Marco…”
He raised his hand and was about to respond when Mitch walked by. “Marco’s not telling a tall one this time. I was there on that op. Those threadworms are like something out of a horror movie. I’d pay heed to his advice.” Mitch continued moving past them, rolling down his sleeves as he headed into the treeline to relieve David of guard duty.
Dev followed him with her eyes until he seemed to melt into the foliage. Upon turning around, she caught Marco checking her out. He just smiled and slowly turned his eyes towards the treetop. “Don’t worry, you’re safe with me. I never hit on another man’s lady, especially one who belongs to a friend of mine.”
“How honorable. And I don’t belong to any man.”
“Right.” He shook his head and chuckled.
“Mitch told me about how you nearly got both of your heads removed in a bar fight in Manila years ago.”
“Oh, shit, that’s right. I nearly forgot about that one.”
“Is that how he got that nasty scar on his forearm?”
Marco grew silent and looked at her, his grin disappearing. “No, no. That was from Afghanistan.” He glanced beyond her shoulder in the direction Mitch had gone then turned his eyes back to her. “He never told you about that one, eh?”
“We’ve only known each other a short time though it feels like a lot longer sometimes.”
“He sure likes you by the way he was gushing last night. Thought he was gonna cry on my shoulder at one point.”
Dev kicked him in the leg. “Shut up. Mitch isn’t the whiny type from what I know.”
“You’re right actually, he’s not. And that’s why you’re not likely to ever hear what happened near the Pakistan border.” Marco leaned back slightly, looking beyond Dev one more time before continuing. “We were in a village near Asmar, a remote region in the mountains that seemed to have more dung than peasants. We had been working with a local resistance group for several weeks and our team was tracking a small pocket of Taliban that were doing slash-and-burn hits to anyone suspected of working with the U.S. forces or our allies. This particular group had hit a small outpost of ours and made off with some sensitive data. A late season spring storm had rolled in and we were getting hammered by the snow and wind. It was colder than two-day-old penguin shit and most of us were trying to prevent frostbite.”
Marco leaned back, pulling one knee up to his chest and wrapping his bear-like hands around it. “We came upon this village that had been wiped out, bodies strung up off the bridge with the skin missing—little ones, old ones, women, no one was spared, it seemed. It was like something out of your worst nightmare. There were three survivors hiding in the rubble. A mother and her two little kids, they couldn’t have been more than five years old. The team leader insisted we stay put until the weather cleared so we could help the family. Our unit commander back in Kabul ordered us to push on and retrieve the intel despite the objecti
ons of the team leader. He requested a helo extract for the three survivors but the weather was too inhospitable to risk a flight.”
He grew silent for a long moment, looking up at a bat zipping in figure-eights near the canopy. “We left the family with some MREs and medical supplies then made our way through the valley, picking up the tracks of the insurgents. It took another day before we caught the fuckin’ ragheads in a small canyon. We had the high ground so picking them off wasn’t exactly a challenge. Our team leader was the only one who suffered a wound; an AK round grazed his forearm. With the intel in our hands, we double-timed it back to the village. He swathed the injury and refused any further treatment. Like the rest of us, his thoughts were focused solely on the fate of the woman and her children. We walked through the night over terrain that would kill a billy goat, arriving at the village at sunrise.
Marco lowered his chin and let out a strained sigh. “The family was still there, huddled under the shattered roof of the last remaining hut, their bodies…their bodies…frozen together like statues. The eyes of the little ones still open, looking upward at their mother whose frozen tears were still clinging to her cheeks.”
“Christ,” whispered Dev as she moved closer.
“We had all seen horrors before but nothing like that. Something that could’ve been prevented if we’d only stayed a little longer. Orders were orders though—you look like someone who knows what that means.” Marco looked beyond Dev towards the treeline. “The team leader took it the hardest. It changed him from the man I knew. It took its toll on all of us but a part of Mitch died that day.”
Dev looked up at a sliver of moonlight piercing the canopy, letting out a deep sigh. She looked at Marco, whose facial muscles were quivering, then out at the forest where Mitch had gone.
“Combat is horrible enough to endure without having to lose one’s soul to remorse. I’m sorry for what you went through.” She folded her arms, taking in a deep breath. “I know from my own experiences, you either get bitter or get better, though some days are easier than others.”
Marco raised his chin slightly, emitting a forced grin. “Ah, shit, you know—you find ways to cope whether it’s burying yourself in the bottle or your job.”
Dev felt the sting of the latter word like a boxer’s jab had struck her in the jaw. Had she been immersed in her father’s company for the sake of carrying on his legacy or because the insane schedule numbed her to being alone with her own thoughts? She wasn’t sure but she forced her mind back to the present and knew it wasn’t time to focus on her own difficulties. She removed her poncho from her pack and put it down on the log, sitting beside Marco.
“So, is that why you disappeared into Malaysia after you left the army?” she said. “Mitch told me you removed yourself from everyone back home and cut ties for a while.”
“When you’re that dark inside, it’s better not to swallow up the ones you care about. I needed a break, hell, we all did after running non-stop missions abroad for so many years. I was always amazed that Mitch stayed in as long as he did but then he’s always been a glutton for punishment—fuckin’ cowboy.”
Marco stood up and arched his back while raising his arms skyward in a stretch. “Better get some rest while you can. Tomorrow is going to be another good bitch-slap in the face like we had with today’s trek.” He nodded to her and walked to his hammock, turning around before he climbed inside. “You’re alright, Dev. I doubted you could hack it when I first laid eyes on you but you’re not half bad.”
She rolled her eyes and snickered. “See you at sun-up, Marco.”
Dev hoisted herself up and walked past Petra and David’s hammocks, hearing both men stir slightly in their light sleep. She walked twenty feet into the jungle to where Mitch was leaning against a tree, his AK strung off the front of his chest as he peered into the valley below, which was illuminated in the moonlight.
He cast a sideways glance at her as she sidled up next to him. “You seem right at home in the tropics and here I thought you were a desert caballero.”
His lips cracked in a faint smile. “I’ll tell you, I never get used to this stinking humidity and all the bugs. Yeah, I’d take the desert any day.” He looked over his shoulder towards their camp. “You and Marco have a good talk? He fillin’ your head with more tales of his prowess and alcohol-driven exploits?”
“You sure know how to pick your friends, I’ll say that much.”
He slid his hand down, interlacing his fingers with hers while looking into her eyes. “I sure do.” She ran her fingers up his arm, pausing as she moved over the scar. Mitch turned and brushed the hair off her forehead, tracing his fingers along her neck. She felt her heart racing, the sounds of the night fading. Then he moved closer and kissed her, pulling her in towards him as she inhaled his earthy fragrance. She slid her arms around his neck and felt months of tension release as her desires surged forth. Dev ran her hands through his hair, her chest melting into his. Then a nighthawk shrieked on a nearby branch and they abruptly pulled apart.
Dev took a deep breath, sliding one hand back over her tussled hair and then looking back at the hammocks. Mitch reached down for her hand and rose up on his toes, bobbing his head back and forth, looking at their camp then towards her with a smile. “All is well, it seems.”
She squeezed his fingers firmly, rubbing her thumb over the back of his hand. “I mustn’t keep you from guard duty, Mr. Kearns. We can’t have a breakdown in discipline.”
“Yeah, that’d be real bad for morale, Ms. Leitner. Plus what kind of tone would that set in our relationship being as I’m your client and all.”
She bit her lower lip, holding back a wicked grin. “Client, right, of course. You know maybe we should revisit our terms sometime.” Dev gave his hand a final squeeze before pulling away.
“Maybe we should.” Mitch walked back a few steps towards his lookout tree.
Dev began slowly backpedaling, her head tilted down with a frolicsome smile forming. “Tomorrow, we should definitely, for certain, you know, go over what we want in this venture.” She waved one hand in a half-wave and then turned and quickly retreated to the main camp, stopping once to glance at the fine man standing with his back to her, the moonlight cascading over his rugged features.
Chapter 26
Pain and delirium traversed the breadth of Von’s being as he stood on his toes while his arms were tethered to the rafters with an abrasive manila rope that was digging into his wrists. He awoke to the unpleasant sensation he’d experienced during interrogation training at the farm only this time there’d be no respite. It was unlikely even Crenna knew of his location. Even if he did, his boss probably wouldn’t risk sending in a team for a lone operative who’d gone off the radar.
He glanced around the cinder-block room, his vision coming in and out of focus as he tried to regain his thoughts. The overhead fluorescent lighting was flickering, causing his headache to increase, and he didn’t know if that was an intentional irritant or just a sign of the seemingly makeshift nature of the rundown location. Von heard the moans of another man coming from the room to his left and suspected it was Schueller. There was a rivulet of water leaking in from the tin roof to his right alongside a crack where there were several finger-length red centipedes scurrying along the bricks, snagging the small ants with their curved pincers and snapping them in two before consuming them.
Von did a mental check of the rest of his body to make sure there were no serious injuries and concluded that he had sustained a mild concussion from when he collapsed to the pavement in the alley. As he pried his crusted eyelids open a second time, he saw a burly man with a three-day beard walking up to the door frame, a bullwhip over his shoulder. In the corner of his mouth was an unlit cigar that he was feverishly chomping on. The man moved forward and grabbed Von’s chin, rotating his head like it was a volleyball he was about to serve. “Good, there appears to be no significant damage. This makes me much happy as there is plenty my boss needs to liberate from yo
u.” The man spoke in broken English as he paraded around Von, clasping the handle of the bullwhip once before reaching for a walkie-talkie clipped to his belt.
“He is awake now.”
A few minutes after the surly goon delivered his message, Von heard the clacking of shoes on the hallway floor. A lean figure dressed in white trousers with an off-white jacket and a green button-up shirt entered the room. He stood with poise for a moment, like a sprinter confidently studying the hurdles on the track ahead of him.
“Von Harut, it’s a pleasure to meet my latest incarnation. You probably came onto the team just after my supposed disappearance, I’m guessing.”
Von squinted at the man, noticing a large scar near his temple. Von felt his stomach churning in part from the drugs in his system coupled with dehydration. He was in no position to be able to maneuver his body and even if he could try to grab the figure before him with his legs, his mind wasn’t coherent enough to make sure he’d be coordinated in his efforts.
“Have we met before?” Von said, playing dumb while trying to contain his astonishment at the face before him. He’d heard the stories amongst other agents about the notorious traitor Kyle Redstrom, a former agent of Crenna’s. He had read the man’s files and instantly recognized the face despite the nasty scar near his eye. From what he recalled, the rogue agent had gone missing in Beijing after being exposed as a double agent. Yet here he was at the mercy of a fellow agent connected with his boss, a man whose own backstory he was beginning to question once more.
