“What?”
“You were shot—the bullet grazed you or a ricochet hit you. You passed out and your head was bleeding.”
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“The hospital.”
“I’m fine. We need to snatch the doctor.”
Chris became impatient. “You were seriously injured—you might have a skull fracture. Your brain could be bleeding or infected. We need to get you to the hospital. Make sure you’re okay.”
“What about Max and Tom?”
“I told them I was medevac’ing you. They’re big boys—they can make big boy decisions.” Chris put his arm around her. “You need to lie down and rest.”
The urgency in her voice faded, and she sounded as if she were talking in her sleep: “I’m okay.” She almost fell over, but Chris eased her down, and she closed her eyes—in a happy place.
Riding across the Bay of Naples with her brought him back to a day several months before, floating on the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC, when he asked her the question. She was a busy woman, but he felt blessed that she spent much of the little free time she had with him. He stopped their white swan boat rental on the water within view of the Jefferson Memorial. Spring’s morning sun glinted off the gleaming white dome of the pantheon, its steps descending into the water. On the other side, cherry blossoms popped like popcorn. The popcorn poured into Potomac Park, laying down a carpet of dazzling white. There were other people in the park and on the water, but Chris and Hannah were in their own little world.
Hannah had the curves of une belle and the heart of a warrior. Smiling didn’t come easy for Chris, but it came easy for her. When they were alone like this, it was the serenity in her cocoa-colored eyes that comforted him.
He put his arm around her.
She softly leaned into him. “I thought we were just friends.”
Chris smiled. “This is a friendly arm.”
Like the blooming of the cherry blossoms and this moment with her, blissful moments came and went like dreams, and before the dream evaporated, he leaned over to kiss her, but she kissed him first.
“I thought we were just friends,” he teased.
“That was a friendly kiss.”
Then the question came to him. He’d thought it many times before, but this time the feeling came so hard and so fast that he couldn’t avoid it any longer. And there was the small chance she might say “yes.”
“Will you marry me?” he asked. “I’d go to Hell and back for you.”
“You already have. More than once.”
Chris lowered his gaze. “But you won’t marry me.”
“I’m not a good fit for you,” she said kindly.
Chris’s heart ached. “I don’t understand.”
She sighed, and her face became more serious. “I’m already married.”
Chris was shocked.
“To my work,” she explained.
Chris’s nerves settled down. “I know.”
“We don’t get that much time together,” she said.
“And I’m okay with that. Is it because I’m—you know?”
“No, it’s not because you’re a preacher.”
He confronted the possibility that he didn’t want to confront. “You don’t love me.”
She took a deep breath.
Chris waited.
“Father was a CIA officer who went missing in action before I ever knew him,” Hannah said. “Mother gave me his picture—it was her most prized possession. More than once she said that Father and I had the same eyes, and the picture seemed to confirm it. In his absence, Mother sometimes played music from his personal collection. She said that ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ was his favorite.
“I remember when I was little—a weekend before Father’s Day. Mother and I had gone shopping at the supermarket. As I often did, I looked for my father’s face, but none of the other shoppers or grocery store employees were him. I passed the vegetables and meat section, and I imagined him grilling vegetables and steaks on a barbeque for Mother and me. In the frozen food aisle, I thought about an evening with him on the sofa, watching TV and eating ice cream.
“While Mother searched for shampoo, I drifted into the greeting cards section. There seemed to be so many cards for so many occasions, even graduation. I envisioned Father attending mine one day. There were Father’s Day cards, and I opened one and read the words inside. Another girl joined me and did the same. After we’d read several, a man appeared in the aisle. ‘There you are,’ he said with a smile. ‘I was looking for you.’ For a moment, I thought he was talking to me. I was so happy—like I’d never been happy before. But he held the other girl’s hand and led her away. I felt embarrassed, small—lost and alone. More than the barbeque or ice cream—or greeting card—all I wanted in the whole world was a hug from my father. As a child, Father’s Day always cut like a knife through the gut.”
Tears flowed from Hannah’s eyes. “If I were to marry you—then lose you—I couldn’t bear to suffer like that again.”
Chris appreciated that in private; she’d always been open with him. He wiped away her tears. “I didn’t know.” He felt sorry for her—and he felt sorry for himself. Part of him wanted to dig a hole and bury his love for her. But another part of him didn’t want to give up. In light of the situation, he chose to simply be satisfied with her friendship.
Chapter Twenty
Following urgent orders from “the Center,” FSB headquarters, Minotaur flew under diplomatic cover from Syria to the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Sofia, Bulgaria. The Center didn’t say why; they simply told him to go to Bulgaria and await further orders.
At noon, he swam in the embassy’s four-lane, short-course pool—half the length of a fifty-meter Olympic-size pool. Although the air temperature hovered around seventy degrees, the pool was heated. He swam to stay fit, but he also swam to forget the countersniper mission that he left Bear to wrap up. The water lifted the weight of his unfinished business.
Two fully clothed young men marched out onto the pool deck and halted at the shallow end of the pool. One of them pointed at Minotaur. He stroked to the shallow end, stopped, and stood facing them.
“Minotavr?” the smaller one asked in Russian.
“Da,” Minotaur replied. Yes.
“We were told to escort you to Semyon Nikolaevich.” Both lower ranking and upper ranking Russians addressed each other by their given name and patronymic name—except for special officers like Minotaur, who went by their code names.
Minotaur pulled himself up onto the deck and strolled into the pool house. The two young men followed him inside, where they averted their eyes while he changed out of his swim shorts and dumped them in a duffel bag. He threw on undershorts and concealed an MP-443 Grach pistol in an abdomen holster under his trousers. Near the turn of the millennium, he and a handful of comrades like Bear received the newly completed Grachs before anyone else, and now they still held on to them. Owning one of the originals was a badge of honor, and they were good weapons, too. In his line of work overseas, he had to hide his identity and couldn’t carry a Russian weapon, but here at the Russian Embassy in Bulgaria it was different. It was like home.
He put on his shirt, which he left untucked to help hide the Grach. Then he put on his socks and shoes, picked up his duffel bag, and approached the men. They guided him out of the dressing room, across the sprawling compound, and past the soccer green, clay tennis court, grove of trees, and various buildings to “Porcupine,” a skyscraper topped with an array of antennas and satellite dishes.
Porcupine’s security guard at the front entrance waved them through, and Minotaur let his two young escorts precede him down into the basement. He imagined drawing his weapon and shooting each of them in the back of the head. First he visualized himself actually doing it—internal imagery. Then he watched himself shoot them as if watching a YouTube video—external imagery. The better he could imagine such acts, the more skillfully he could execute the
m in real life. Of course real practice and actual experience were critical, too. Praktika delayet sovershennym. Practice makes perfect.
Inside Porcupine sat the prison cell. Although Minotaur couldn’t see the jail from the hallway, he was aware of its presence, and his respiration pumped like pistons. He held his hands near his abdomen, close to his pistol. This could be an ambush. It wasn’t likely, but anything was possible.
The two men ushered Minotaur into a conference room with soundproof walls, a concrete floor, and a little old man who sat at the opposite end of a table. Minotaur immediately recognized him as Semyon Nikolaevich, chief of Spetsgruppa “A,” Special Group “A.” He must’ve just flown in from Moscow. Minotaur hoped the news was good, but more often than not, the news was bad, so he steeled himself for the worst.
Semyon Nikolaevich had no papers or electronic devices in front of him. Like other FSB officers, he prided himself on his memory and rarely sent or received dispatches. “Please, sit,” he said.
Minotaur parked himself in a chair.
Semyon Nikolaevich offered a cigar. “You did a fine job in Turkey.”
Minotaur took one. The checkered band with raised gold lettering marked it as a Cuban Cohiba, the same that the late Cuban dictator, Fidel Castro, smoked. “Thank you.”
Semyon Nikolaevich took a cigarette lighter out of his pocket and opened it. He lit Minotaur’s cigar and then his. “And you are legendary in our community for assassinating the Ukrainian commander in Kiev.”
Minotaur’s cigar tasted full and peppery. “Russia was simply trying to host the Olympics in Sochi, but the West had to tarnish the moment by inciting Ukrainians to protest Russia. The Ukrainian commander was a puppet of the West. I only wish I could’ve killed him earlier.”
Semyon Nikolaevich blew smoke high into the air. “The West does whatever it wants. If it doesn’t like a leader, it replaces him—same as they did in Libya to Muammar Gaddafi and in Iraq to Saddam Hussein.”
“Yes, the West is out of control. It’s our responsibility to rein them in.”
Semyon Nikolaevich nodded. “Some would-be assassins are—how shall I say—committed enough to make the kill, but they lack the calmness to avoid detection. If they are not discovered before they complete their mission, they will certainly be discovered after. Other would-be assassins are so calm and careful that they lack the energy and risk-taking to get the job done. But you are neither. You possess both the correct faculties to get the job done and the necessary composure to escape.”
“It’s generous of you to say so.”
“Even so—”
Minotaur lowered his cigar and became still. Uh-oh, here it comes. He had to remind himself to breathe.
“Well,” Semyon Nikolaevich continued, “your Ukraine operation was some time ago, and Ukraine continues to be a thorn in Moscow’s side. Now, there’s another issue.” He looked gravely at Minotaur, seeming to weigh in his mind how to approach a delicate matter. “Pope Francis’s support of the Catholic Church in Ukraine is making the whole situation worse. The Vatican has condemned our interests in Ukraine and publicly spoken against Russian involvement. The power of the papacy has gone to his head.”
Minotaur had no opinion on the matter. Politics wasn’t his business, killing was. He simply agreed with his boss on political matters: “Clearly.”
“I am told you’ve been briefed on our new viral weapon, BK-16.”
Minotaur nodded.
“The perfect drug to eliminate the pope. What you may not know is that first we tested it out on some low-level subjects. Then we did a major operational test of the virus—the assassination of CIA’s chief of station in Turkey, William Hart. Hart was supporting the overthrow of our ally in Syria, President Assad. We assigned a man, codenamed Falcon, to deal with Hart. Falcon didn’t know he was working for us. He succeeded in infecting Hart, but Falcon was captured—probably by CIA. Hart is now hospitalized and in serious condition. We expect he will be dead soon.”
“Excellent,” Minotaur said. “But I don’t understand why you’re telling me this. I was in the middle of a mission to kill a countersniper and his partner.”
“I read your report. You stated that a militia-clan leader named Azrael poisoned them with BK-16. I know you’re trying to hunt these two down—see to it personally that the job is finished—but now that is not necessary. They’ll be dead soon enough. I need you for something more urgent. I am assigning you to terminate the pope from the papacy.”
Minotaur was disappointed to be pulled off the Syrian countersniper mission before he tied up loose ends; however, the excitement of assassinating the pope more than made up for it. He wanted to keep his emotions in check, so he puffed on his cigar. He also wanted to confirm what he thought he’d heard. “Terminate Pope Francis.”
“He has shown us no courtesy—acting beyond the limits of acceptable human behavior. And he continues to do so.”
“Terminate with extreme prejudice?”
“Yes.” Semyon Nikolaevich tapped his cigar ashes onto the floor. “I want you to use BK-16 for the job. You will fly to Rome and meet an Italian-Russian FSB officer named Mikhail Aleskeevich—he goes by Michael.” Semyon Nikolaevich showed Minotaur a picture of a man who looked like an Al Pacino in his early thirties. “This is him.”
“The bona fides?” Minotaur asked.
Semyon Nikolaevich described what Michael would be wearing and the prearranged words they were to exchange.
Minotaur nodded. He had a photographic memory and didn’t need to be told twice. “How much support will I have?”
“How much do you need?”
“I need Bear. And four men for additional muscle, preferably locals, so they blend in. And we may require additional supplies and support from the Rezident in Rome.”
“I thought you might choose Bear—excellent choice. I’ll see to it about the others and contact the Rezident.” Semyon Nikolaevich handed him two Bulgarian passports.
Minotaur examined them. One had his photo and alias, and the other had Bear’s. Bulgarians were allowed travel without a visa to Italy and other member countries of the European Union.
“Michael will drive you to meet with Dr. Nastya Rossi, who will give you a vial containing the virus. Five days after administering BK-16 to the pope, he will expire. After that, I want you to stay out of Western Europe for at least a year.” Nikolaevich paused, then said, “You understand that this mission does not exist, nor will it ever exist.”
“I understand.” Minotaur feared failure like he’d never feared failure before. He wasn’t scared of Semyon Nikolaevich or death. Rather, it was as if his whole life had prepared him for this moment, and he didn’t want to let himself down.
But instead of crippling or paralyzing him, his fear energized him.
Chapter Twenty-One
We only have two days to live, Max thought. He’d always figured that if he knew how many days he had to live, he’d spend them whooping it up with women, food, and booze, but the reality was that he was spending them finding an antidote to save his brother. And he was okay with that.
On the lower deck of their yacht in the marina, he finished cleaning the wound on his shoulder and bandaging it again. Fortunately the gunshot from the raid hadn’t been a direct hit—the bullet just grazed him. Anxiously, he walked over and stared at the door to the guest head where their prisoner, Doctor Kuznetsov, was being kept on ice. Tom stood beside Max.
“Think he’ll be ready to talk this time?” Max asked.
“Hope so.”
Max opened the door. The head was the size of one in a commercial airplane, with a sink, toilet, and barely enough space for two people. The toilet seat was down and Doctor Kuznetsov sat on it making a noise that sounded like sobbing, but it was difficult to tell with the gag in his mouth and the hood covering him. The noise-cancelling earphones prevented him from hearing Max’s arrival, and Max announced his presence with a punch to the face—not enough to kill him, or even knock him out,
but enough to get his attention. The doctor jerked backwards and bounced his noggin off the bulkhead. Then he balled up into a defensive position.
“What’re you doing?!” Tom asked.
“Softening him up.”
“Is that necessary?”
Max didn’t like being second-guessed by his younger brother, so he blew it off.
“Can we ask him the questions without the drama?” Tom asked.
Max frowned and removed the earphones.
The doctor recoiled.
Next, Max removed the hood and gag. “We need an antidote for BK-16,” Max said.
“Yes,” Doctor Kuznetsov said. His composure indicated he was eager to cooperate. “I know another scientist who has the antidote. If she does not have it, she can make it. She is the same person who created BK-16.”
“I thought you made BK-16.”
“She is a junior scientist, and I am a senior scientist, so she does the work.”
“And you take the credit,” Tom said.
The doctor shielded his face with his hands.
“What’s her name?” Max asked.
“Nastya Rossi,” the doctor said. “An Italian-Russian.”
“Where?” Max asked.
“Rome. She lives on Viale Citta d’Europa.”
Footsteps sounded on the deck above, and there were voices. Max speedily gagged the doctor, put on his hood and headphones, and shut him in the guest head again.
“Who is it?” Tom whispered.
“Hope it’s Chris and not the cops,” Max said. He rushed to the foot of the stairs and looked up. On the main deck, a figure approached. Then he came down the steps. It was Chris.
“How’s Hannah?” Max asked.
“She caught a ricochet to the head, and it knocked her out for a couple minutes or so. She still can’t remember the Russians we whacked at Doctor Kuznetsov’s hideout or me getting her on the boat, but she seems to remember everything else. The doc says she’ll be fine, but she needs some rest. He’s going to do some more tests.”
“I’m glad she’s okay,” Tom said.
Patriot Dream_A Special Operations Group Thriller Page 13
