Little Dove

by Jaden Wilkes

  She was unable to escape so she calmed her sobs, slowed her breathing and let her mind slip into a dream where she was in his arms, and she was safe and whole again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  DIMITRI

  Dimitri grabbed at his knife as if reassuring himself that he still had it. It was a habit at this point, a constant reminder that he was ready to kill.

  They were in one of Boian’s inner chambers under Bucharest. Boian had invited him into the secret network of tunnels, caverns, and rooms that looked suspiciously like military bunkers. If it was underground, Boian and his gang had claimed it.

  Wide sheets of blue technical drawings were spread out on a large table that looked like it had been pilfered from an office somewhere above ground. Dimitri learned early on not to ask questions about the origins of anything down here. It kept them from glaring at him or rolling their eyes.

  He felt impotent in Boian’s realm, he didn’t like it but he knew he didn’t have a choice if he wanted Columbia back. He’d grown to respect the other man, and admired him for everything he’d achieved, but ultimately Dimitri was a singular creature of certain habits, and that included ruling everything in his world.

  He stroked the knife again and listened while Boian’s right hand man, his second in command, explained their approach. Dimitri wanted to seek and destroy, find Columbia and leave the rest in flames…but he had to agree there was a certain need to go at this in a particular way. The mansion was heavily fortified and well guarded. They didn’t know where Columbia would be, so they had to move quickly.

  “I am supplying five helicopters,” Dimitri said when Boian paused. Boian might have a lot of people to fight for him, but he lacked Dimitri’s infinite resources. Nico had arrived the night before. It was almost two weeks since Columbia had gone missing. Nico had managed to gather up a team of twenty mercenaries; some of the best fighters and most cold hearted men Dimitri had ever worked with. They were perfect for this job.

  They’d briefed his team back at the hotel, given each of them Columbia’s photo, and drilled in the idea that Columbia’s safe return was paramount to anything they would be told. They’d come this morning, to Boian’s underground kingdom, and had joined the ranks of those willing to fight.

  “They’re fortified, ex-Israeli air force. Black Hawks, UH060s…we can take all of us, stopping to fuel up once along the way or we won’t be coming back in them.”

  “I know a place we can stop,” Boian said.

  “This will get us there in just under two hours, giving us a good window to attack at dusk. We’ll fly in from the West, obscuring their view of us, taking them by surprise. We’ll land here,” Dimitri said, indicating a wide, open lawn at the front of the building, “this seems to have the least defense as it functions as the public space for this property. The place they’ve always held parties and events. They won’t expect us to come in from the front.”

  Dimitri knew the mansion; it had been Sergei’s back in the day. He’d been there a handful of times, not enough to know the layout inside, but enough to remember where the most heavily guarded areas were. The moment Boian had produced the drawings, he’d remembered.

  Luck seemed to be on their side today, and he would take as much luck as he could get. He needed everything to go smoothly, he needed her to be there and he needed to get her home. Otherwise, he would see the world burn. His tenuous grasp on humanity would be severed and he would step into Sergei’s shoes, destroying anyone who had anything to do with Columbia’s death.

  They finished up the meeting dividing the troops, a few of Boian’s people with Dimitri’s mercenaries. They armed each and every one of them to the hilt, and settled in to wait until they left.

  Nico was by Dimitri’s side, he would be storming the mansion with him, it just felt right. They both needed her back, for different reasons but with similar urgency. Dimitri was shocked when Nico arrived, his eyes were haunted and his face gaunt. They mirrored one another’s desperation to have their girl safe.

  “She’ll be okay,” Nico said to break the silence. Dimitri knew they couldn’t be sure, but he appreciated the sentiment.

  “Of course she will,” he replied, “she has to be.”

  “Don’t become like them,” Nico said, “if she’s not. You have to promise me, you won’t become like them…like you were before.”

  “I can’t promise anything,” Dimitri replied, his fists clenching at the thought of losing her. His new injury ached and burned, and he tried not to think of it as an omen, for the fires and hurt to come.

  “She wouldn’t want that,” Nico said.

  “She would be dead,” Dimitri said, his lips drawn in a grim line, “and we both know she’d want to see them pay, to watch them suffer, to dance in their guts and smear their blood on her skin. That’s why we both love her so damn much.”

  Nico was silent, then took a long breath, exhaled and gave a small smile. “I guess you’re right. I guess we’d have no choice then.”

  “I guess not.”

  And they waited.

  *****

  They lifted off from a small private airport outside of Piatra Neamț, about halfway between Bucharest and their destination. One of Boian’s contacts had operations in the area and had generously offered his services. For a large price of course, generosity only went so far among thieves.

  The sound of the helicopters drowned out any talking, so the men in his group remained quiet. Dimitri used it to help him focus, finding meaning in the rhythmic blades, hearing her name repeated over and over until that’s all he could think of.

  Columbia. Little dove.

  The rest of the flight took about forty minutes, Nico remained steadfast and grim faced beside him, lost in his own train of thought.

  They were carrying guns this time, Dimitri had thought fuck the knives, he wanted something to maximize death and minimize their time on the ground. He wanted in and out, fast.

  He was carrying an M4 carbine; he recounted the rounds he had with him over again in his head just before they touched down. He had ten cartridges, three hundred bullets. That would have to do.

  He set it so it would shoot in bursts of three at a time, hoping he’d gain a little time rationing his ammunition.

  He and Nico were also wearing matching body armor, not enough to stop an armor piercing round, but enough to keep them alive in the case of a direct hit. He thought they looked a little like the cover of the combat games Eden liked to play on the X-Box. If only this were a game, and not life or death.

  They were fired upon as they landed on the grass, all five helicopters landing in almost perfect formation. His mercenaries were precise and skilled at what they did, the pilots being no exception.

  He and Nico dropped onto the grass together, followed by the rest of their team. He saw Boian and his group from the corner of his eye; the other helicopters released their occupants within a minute or two.

  The grass was swarming with armed men and a few of Boian’s women. The mansion lit up and the attackers were exposed under high-powered spotlights. Snipers on the roof started shooting, Dimitri didn’t notice, he had one thought on his mind.

  Find her.

  He heard a guttural cry and saw one of Boian’s men go down in a spray of blood. One of the mercenaries fell soon after, in spite of his body armor. He might have a better chance of survival, but getting hit with a round even at this distance would take a grown man down. This wasn’t like the movies.

  Nico matched Dimitri, stride for stride. They were both in black, both with helmets and matching ammo packs. Both determined to bring her home.

  They reached the front steps, wide sweeping stairs leading up through six columns to the heavily armored front door. Dimitri turned around and gave the signal to one of Boian’s men, a crazy Turk with a rocket launcher and a wicked coke habit. The man grinned and lifted the launcher up, aimed and released.

  The door exploded in a maelstrom of metal and wood. It didn’t quite
take it off the hinges, but left enough room for two men to enter, side by side.

  Immediately guards appeared and opened fire on the approaching attackers. Dimitri knocked Nico to the stairs and dove after him to avoid being hit. One of the mercenaries behind him wasn’t so lucky and rolled down to the curved driveway where he lay motionless.

  No time to assess casualties now, Dimitri was determined to get through any way he could. He stood and opened fire on the men in the door, seeing them as nothing more than cruel captors, barriers to finding his little dove.

  Two of them exploded, they hadn’t had time to put on any armor and Dimitri’s rounds cut through them, collapsing them like trees in a hurricane.

  The third and fourth men held back and shot at them from behind the broken doors. Dimitri managed to gain a few stairs by belly crawling and firing when they poked their heads out. Nico came to his side and whispered, “You stick to the one on the left, I’ll get the one on the right.”

  Dimitri nodded and concentrated on his target.

  They made it a few more feet on their stomachs, crawling with guns out ahead of them. Every time one of them fired at Dimitri or Nico, both men would let loose a hail of bullets.

  Fifteen feet from the front door, Dimitri scored a shot and downed his target. The man fell backwards, arms out and face in a parody of shock. Headshot, direct kill.

  He helped Nico take the other one down and the door was clear.

  “Nice work,” he said to Nico and clapped him on the back. He was grateful he wasn’t doing this on his own.

  He turned and signaled to the men on the lawn. The ones joining him on the centre attack rushed the mansion. Two other groups had split up and were entering the house from the left and the right.

  “Where would they keep her?” Nico asked and looked up the broad, winding staircase to the second floor.

  “I don’t know,” Dimitri said, “how about you go up and I’ll go down? I remember there being something about a basement prison in this location.”

  “Don’t get yourself killed,” Nico said, “because if I find her and let you get killed, she’ll slit my throat.”

  “I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen,” Dimitri said and smiled. His first smile in a while. “I promise.”

  He moved to the left and crept through a large sitting room and into a kitchen space. He remembered the door to the basement somewhere off the prep kitchen, although he’d never been down there.

  He found a couple household staff, a young man and an older woman, both obviously local. They were crouched in terror behind a kitchen island, the woman held a knife up in a protective stance when he approached.

  “I’m not here for you,” he said in Russian, “I’m here for a girl. Where are the girls?”

  The woman answered in accented Russian, “Girls, down. In bottom.” She pointed behind him at a metal door. It looked thick, impenetrable and had a series of locks welded across it.

  He’d need help to get through this. One of Boian’s crew had C4 and a blowtorch. Something was going to get through that fucking door.

  He turned to leave and heard a loud bang and muffled voices from an adjacent room. He altered his route to find the source of the noise, opened a sliding door and stuck his head in slowly. He didn’t see anything immediately, so he stepped through for a better look.

  It was a study of sorts, a large desk dominated the space, and floor to ceiling bookshelves lined the walls. Instead of books, the shelves were full of weapons, guns, grenades, and tear gas. It had been converted to an armory.

  He spotted a laser cutter on one of the centre shelves, not too high up. That would mean he didn’t have to hunt down Boian’s man, and he might get to his girl that much faster.

  He crossed the small space, reached for the cutter and caught motion out of the corner of his eye.

  He turned as a well-dressed man stood up from behind the desk. The narrow face, the dark hair, the suit…it all seemed so familiar.

  Before he raised his gun, the man shot him, point blank, with a Colt 45. Dimitri managed to get three shots off before falling back, the pain in his chest radiating out and sending him into a dark abyss.

  As he lost consciousness he realized where he knew the guy. He was the one who took Columbia; he was the pig from the bar in Vienna. He was the one he was looking for.

  Choking, he fell deeper into the abyss, losing himself and all sense of time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  COLUMBIA

  She only knew pain, she only knew sorrow. She had become a creature forged from both. They took up equal residence in her heart.

  She rocked back and forth, letting the motion sooth her mind and ease some of the pain she was going through.

  Her foot was infected, she was sure of it. It throbbed with each beat of her heart, with each little movement. Her ribs stabbed with each breath, each cough. And she was still bleeding. It had slowed, and the blanket was stiff with dried blood and tissue, but she still clutched it. Sometimes between her legs, sometimes cradling it in her arms.

  She felt as though she had truly, finally taken a break from reality.

  Her dreams and nightmares all marched through her mind, in front of her open eyes. She could no longer discern what was true and what was imaginary.

  Guards bringing her slop, mocking her and laughing as she cowered in the bright lights of the open door. She didn’t know.

  Visions of Dimitri’s death, being shot, being rolled into an endless deep lake of pitch-black water. She didn’t know.

  The only thing she that was definite was Iryna’s voice, her words of encouragement and promises, in spite of Columbia’s confession.

  “He was a bastard, such a terrible man,” Iryna said, her voice slicing through Columbia’s misery. It really was a bright light in the midst of her agony.

  “Who?” she asked, forcing herself to concentrate on the here and now, and ignore the ghosts and visions passing through her mind.

  “My father. I’ve been thinking about it, what you told me. I forgive you, I understand why you did it.”

  “But I killed him, I stabbed him in the heart and left him in an alleyway to die.”

  “You said it yourself, it was revenge. You were doing it for Uncle Dimi.”

  Columbia thought Iryna must be so young, so naïve to think this way. She thought about her next comment carefully and finally said, “But I’m the reason you’re here. And that is unforgivable.”

  Iryna laughed, a short staccato in the frigid air. Columbia imagined she could see Iryna’s breath being expelled in her ironic laugh. Iryna said, “I’m so sorry you thought that, I’m sorry you’ve taken that weight to carry along with everything else you’ve gone through.”

  “How did you end up here? Why are you in this place?”

  “It was my father. He sold me two years ago, well, exchanged me for a debt he owed somebody. After the fire, my father’s empire started to crumble and he leaned more and more on others, until they practically ran everything. If you hadn’t killed him, he might have been dead by his own stupidity by now,” Iryna told her. “I was young, only sixteen, and came from a highly connected, powerful family so I didn’t hit the open market. I was kept by an American, who had plans to marry me himself. Mace. You might know him.”

  “I do. I can’t wait until I have a chance to slit his throat and paint my name on his chest in his own blood. He deserves to die.”

  “Yes, he really does. He kept me in Germany, in a beautiful country estate, but as a prisoner. I had everything I could possibly want except for my freedom. About a year ago he decided I was old enough to bed.”

  “I’m sorry,” Columbia interjected, not even knowing the story. She was sorry for what she was about to hear, for what Iryna had gone through.

  “It’s okay, I’m here, right? I survived. He was gentle with me, at first. He wooed me and treated me well. Until six months ago, when he started to drag me into his depraved lifestyle. By then it was too late to back
out, I was already engaged to him and would be forced to marry him on my eighteenth birthday. He wanted to get married in California, near his family.”

  “Did you go? Are you married to him?”

  “We never made it. I turned eighteen three months ago and everything went…how do you say, the shit hit the fan?” Iryna laughed, this time with genuine amusement. “That’s a funny saying. We were going to leave for California but a week ahead of time; he threw a party for his friends. Drug lords, guards, and sex traffickers, pimps you name it, his disgusting buddies were there. He forced me to dance for them, for hours. It was humiliating, they were treating me like a stripper, shoving their fingers inside of me and pinching my skin.”

  “How horrible,” Columbia said, “I really am sorry.”

  “It was, but it got worse. He wanted me to fuck them, as many of them as wanted me. I protested, he beat me, and I bit the cock of his closest ally. A fat, stinking Norwegian gunrunner. I nearly tore the thing right off, but it wasn’t much of a loss if you ask me.”

  Columbia enjoyed this story, in spite of the content. Iryna seemed to really relish her violent behaviour. They might have more in common than just loving Dimi.

  “So,” Iryna continued, “by then my father was dead and I was no longer such a powerful ally to have. He threw me into the open market just to see what would happen. A joke maybe. I was taken by train, packed into a cattle car like Word War Two. We ended up in a central auction, in Kiev. I was poked and prodded and bid upon. It was a harrowing week, not knowing what would happen to me or who would purchase me.”

  “But you’re here,” Columbia said.

  “Yes,” Iryna told her, “it was all a sick joke to Mace. He wanted to terrorize me and punish me. In some weird way, he cared for me. He watched me grow up after all.”