Halon-Seven

by Xander Weaver

  “You’re worried about Cyrus?” she asked him finally, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

  Hondo stopped mid-stride in the center of the kitchen. “I’m sorry?”

  She’d pulled him from whatever intellectual concerns had kept him distracted. At first she was content to leave him to his thoughts. But the longer he remained zoned out, the more troubled she had become. Was there something more going on? Was she missing something? She had come to realize that Cyrus and Hondo, and Dargo by extension, operated on a level that was completely foreign to her.

  “You’ve been on edge since Cyrus left with those men,” she elaborated. “Are you worried about him?”

  Hondo shook his head slowly as he considered the question. “No,” he decided. He pushed the ubiquitous floppy bush hat back on his head. “Not at all. Not a worry when it comes to Cyrus and that crew. Can’t say I’m excited to have Dargo in the picture, though.”

  “‘Dargo,’” she said quietly. “That’s an odd name. He’s Russian?”

  Resuming his pacing, Hondo nodded as he replied. “Ian Dargoslav, ‘Dargo’ for short. Retired Spetsnaz. Russian special forces.”

  Walking around to the far side of the breakfast counter, Reese pulled out a stool. “Hondo?” she said. When he looked up at her, she glanced at the chair. “Have a seat.”

  “That’s okay, I’m fine.”

  She motioned at the stool. “I’m not. This may be all in a day’s work for you and Cyrus, but my nerves are shot, and your pacing has me at wits’ end. Please, take a load off. I’d consider it a kindness.”

  The self-conscious grin from Hondo made Reese feel better. She’d been reluctant to speak up, especially after all the man had done, but she was exhausted, and his constant movement was putting her increasingly on edge.

  “Sorry,” he said as he took a seat.

  Reese rounded the counter and offered her thanks. She set out two coffee cups and poured the brew. The fact was, she had more questions for Hondo, but she wasn’t sure how to ask them.

  “You and Cyrus go back a ways?” she finally asked. It was an awkward opening, but she had to start somewhere.

  “A bit,” he confirmed. “We’ve worked together on and off over the years. Our paths crossed a few times when I was a Ranger. When I mustered out, we still managed to keep in touch. He’s just one of those guys people naturally gravitate to, I guess. It’s a rare quality.”

  “So Cyrus was in the Rangers with you?”

  Judging by Hondo’s expression, she’d missed her mark. But he didn’t immediately reply, which Reese found disconcerting. He looked considerably more serious all of a sudden.

  “No, not a Ranger,” he said at last. “Wish he was though. We could’ve used a man like him.”

  A wave of guilt washed over her. She realized she’d put Hondo in a position he found uncomfortable. While she didn’t understand why, his clumsy sidestepping of the question told her this was a subject better left alone.

  “I’m sorry,” she said somewhat meekly. “I didn’t mean to pry. It just seems rather obvious that you and he work well together. I assumed you served together.”

  “No worries,” Hondo said with a confident smile. “You’re right, we go back a ways. But I served in the Rangers. A lot of good men there. It’s just not a subject that comes up often.”

  “So you’re American, but you’re living in Australia?”

  “Dual citizenship, actually,” he chuckled. “I grew up as a boy in the outback and moved to the States when I was in my teens. Thought I was here to stay until I met the love of my life. She was here on holiday. Wouldn’t you know it? She just happened to be from Down Under. I met her near the end of my time in the military. When I retired, I took her back home. To be honest, I’d forgotten how beautiful it was there. There’s no better place to raise a family.”

  That brought a wide smile to her face. “So you’re a family man! How many kids?”

  “Just the one, so far,” he said proudly. “But we’re working hard for another. It shouldn’t be long. The missus wants a whole litter of ‘em!”

  “That’s really great!” Seeing the proud gleam in Hondo’s eyes, she realized he wasn’t just a proud father, but he was also a great dad. She was happy for his family.

  So, Hondo had a family. And, as far as Reese could tell, his involvement in their current predicament seemed to be voluntary. That seemed odd. Why would anyone choose to put their life on the line in such a way? Especially with a family waiting at home?

  Failing to find any tactful way of asking what she really wanted to know, Reese decided to just come out with it. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

  After taking a long moment to look her square in the eye, Hondo finally nodded. “You want to know why I’m here—why I’m helping. Is that it?”

  His question left her stunned. He had nailed it. For a moment, she didn’t know what to say. But finally she found her voice. She gave him a weak smile. “No offense, but yes. You have a family at home—one you obviously care for a great deal. Why are you here, risking your life for a group of people you don’t know?”

  Her question brought a bright smile to Hondo’s face. “You’re asking the smart questions; I’ll give you that. I can see why he’s so taken with you. You’ve got a lot in common.”

  He sat back on the stool and looked decidedly more comfortable all of a sudden. “No offense taken,” he said, as he considered how best to answer the question. “A ways back—in another life, really—Cyrus pulled my wife out of a rather tough jam. Saved her life, actually. Of course, she wasn’t my wife at the time. He’s the one who introduced us, actually.”

  As they’d been talking, Reese suddenly realized she was rubbing the marks on her wrists. The flex cuffs Dargo had used to bind her hands had done no permanent damage, but her wrists were raw from her futile fight with the binding.

  Dargo’s decision to take her hostage had been aggressive, even hostile, but strangely the situation had turned decidedly in their favor. That was where things were not making sense, and she realized that was also why she felt constantly uneasy. Why had Dargo warned them of his employer’s intentions? From everything she’d seen, there was no love lost between Cyrus and Dargo. Cyrus clearly didn’t trust the man, and they’d both referred to a dark shared past. So what was really happening?

  “Hondo? Tell me about Dargo? I know he has a history with Cyrus. I just don’t understand what it is.”

  Hondo considered the question. “In a word? Complicated.”

  “You’ve got to give me more than that! His men attacked us in Chicago. They later attacked Cyrus in New York. Then Dargo shows up here. But when you and Cyrus get here, Dargo lets his kid try to kill Cyrus? When that doesn’t work, he warns us about his boss and then leaves peacefully? What the hell is going on?”

  Raising both hands, Hondo signaled his surrender. “Okay, okay,” he conceded. “It’s not that I don’t want to tell you—the fact is, I really don’t know. Like I said, they’ve got a really complicated history. The last I knew—”

  Hondo stopped mid-sentence. He didn’t continue. He just proceeded to look increasingly uncomfortable with each passing moment.

  “Last you knew, what?” Reese asked.

  By the way the man fidgeted in his seat, Reese would have thought his chair was on fire.

  “It’s a complicated history,” Hondo finally said quietly.

  While Reese knew she’d made Hondo wish he could run for the door, she also knew he had been about to say something important. Putting her palms on the countertop that separated them, she met his eyes. While she didn’t want to push, she sensed this was important. She needed to understand what was happening. Her life was at stake too.

  “Last you knew, what?” she insisted.

  Taking a deep breath, Hondo sat back in his seat. He let the breath out slowly and once again met her gaze. “The last I knew, Dargo was fixing to kill Cyrus. But he had his chance today, and he didn’t try.” He shrugg
ed his shoulders. “So I don’t know what’s going on any more than you,” he said with sincerity.

  Standing up straight, Reese considered both the words and the meaning behind them. Her finger tapped absently on the counter as she worked through what she knew.

  “This is about Natasha?” she said finally. It was a statement as much as a question. “Dargo blames Cyrus for what happened to her?”

  The surprise wasn’t hard to read on Hondo’s face. He rested his elbows on the counter and leaned closer to Reese.

  “You know about Natasha?” he asked in little more than a whisper. His voice made it sound as if she were in on some sort of conspiracy or privy to a monumental secret.

  It was her turn to shrug. What did she really know? Bits and pieces, but she was putting them together with time. Today’s confrontation with Dargo seemed like a rather large piece of the overall picture, but she didn’t yet understand how the things she overheard fit in. “I know she was Dargo’s daughter. I know she was someone special to Cyrus, and I know that she died.”

  Hondo’s eyes narrowed slightly, as if seeing her suddenly, for the first time. His head tipped slightly as he looked at her more closely. “Cyrus told you about her?” His voice was still little more than a concerned whisper.

  She nodded. “Not a lot, but yeah. I know he cared for her a great deal, and I know she died. From what I’ve gathered, I take it Dargo blames Cyrus for her death?”

  Sitting back in his seat, Hondo nodded almost imperceptibly. “You’re right about that.” His voice and expression were finally back to normal, but he still seemed surprised at her knowledge of the subject. “Did he tell you what happened?”

  The shock on Hondo’s face had surprised Reese and left her off balance. Could what have happened have been that bad? Evidently, it was enough to make Dargo want to kill Cyrus. But surely that was just the reaction of a distraught father.

  “No,” she admitted. “To be honest, that’s not the part that has me worried. I think Cyrus blames himself too.”

  Hondo gave that some thought. “Yeah, I’d say that’s likely the case. I’d hoped he would work through that over time, but I think you’re right on the money. If I had to wager one way or the other, I’d say he still blames himself. But it’s rubbish! There was nothing he could’ve done. If he would just look at things objectively, he’d see that.”

  “I don’t know what happened,” she said. “Maybe some day he’ll tell me the story. But my concern right now is Dargo. I’m afraid that if Dargo isn’t on the level and he goes after Cyrus, Cyrus won’t fight back.”

  “Not to worry about that, Reese!” Hondo laughed. “You saw what he did to Yuri. The man doesn’t know how to lose.”

  Reese wasn’t so sure. “That was Yuri. I could see something different in him when he looked at Dargo. Something I’ve never seen before. He wasn’t going to let Yuri take him out, and he sure wasn’t going to give up when you and I were in danger. But put Cyrus and Dargo in a room alone?” She grew quiet for several long moments. “In that situation, I don’t know what he would do if Dargo turned on him. Whatever happened to Natasha, Cyrus carries a lot of guilt. I’m worried that Dargo could take advantage of it.”

  The conversation had Hondo back on his feet and pacing. Reese stood in the corner of the kitchen, forgotten coffee in hand and slowly growing cold. She suspected that Hondo’s concerns were now very close to her own. But after their talk, she had decided something. She wasn’t concerned with what had happened between Cyrus, Natasha, and Dargo. She was confident that Cyrus would share it all when he was ready. The only thing she wanted to know was whether Dargo was on the level. Was he sincere in his warning about his employer, or was he playing at some sort of revenge?

  Chapter 41

  Payton Street, Santa Barbara, California

  Saturday, 9:05 am (10:05 am Colorado Time)

  Having returned to the house adjacent to Alfie Ahmed’s home, Dargo was looking forward to closing up shop. He knew Ahmed was safely sequestered, and more importantly, he had valid reasons for pulling up stakes should Nil Bayer question the decision. Every member of the research team had literally disappeared without a trace. They had clearly gone to ground. Ahmed was a low value asset anyway. Leaving surveillance on his home was a waste of resources.

  And the new day held a new concern. The operative Dargo tasked with surveilling Bayer had contacted him late the previous night. He reported that Bayer was about to board a flight bound for Los Angeles. This was troubling for a number of reasons. Foremost of which was that, at the time, Dargo had not yet been informed of Bayer’s impending arrival in the States. It suggested Bayer was up to something, and he was intentionally keeping Dargo out of the loop. If that were the case, Dargo was on treacherous footing. It was true, he didn’t trust Bayer. This made his worst-case scenarios, unfortunately, all the more likely. The suspicion was supported by the fact that Bayer hated to fly. The man truly despised it. Bayer made every trans-Atlantic crossing by ship. Always. If he’d resorted to air travel, something of critical importance was about to happen.

  Once more, Dargo chastised himself for ever taking this contract. He would be lucky if he lived to regret it.

  He had contacted Bayer first thing that morning to report his progress. There was some relief when Bayer admitted that he was currently in California. Not entirely surprising, he was already in Santa Barbara. He wanted to meet with Dargo and discuss operations in person.

  Maintaining control of field operations was now more important than ever. While Dargo didn’t know what Bayer was up to or why he was really in the States, he knew he was likely to lose command of the operation. Bayer had been at a tipping point for some time. It was all Dargo could do to prevent the man from attacking Cyrus’s people head on. Bayer honestly believed heavy-handed interrogation was the key to getting what he wanted. It didn’t matter that Professor Meade had died as the result of such rash action.

  Adding to Dargo’s concern, there was the matter of his predecessor on the assignment, the man who had led the interrogation of Walter Meade. Following the failure of that mission, the man had never been seen again. Dargo was fairly certain Bayer had had the man killed. He had no intention of becoming another casualty of Bayer’s ceaseless ambition.

  With little time to prepare, Dargo had made a gamble and contacted Cyrus. It was his hope that together they might improvise a plan to keep Dargo’s team in play and neutralize Nil Bayer once and for all. To Dargo’s satisfaction and relief, it had taken a single fifteen-minute phone call to devise a plan that would fulfill both objectives. Dargo had no idea how Cyrus would make the necessary arrangements within the confines of their aggressive timetable, but thankfully, that was not his problem.

  Dargo’s objective was to prevent Bayer from replacing him as head of field operations. The trick would be to present key intelligence and an operational strategy before Bayer could make his agenda known. That way, Bayer would have no reason to be suspicious of the plan or the carefully orchestrated timing.

  With a glance at his watch, Dargo realized Bayer was already five minutes late. Like himself, Bayer was normally punctual to a fault. That got him thinking. What else might Bayer do like Dargo? Dargo made a custom of showing up to every meeting early, leaving time for reconnaissance prior to the rendezvous. That was a practice drilled into him thanks to years in the military. It wasn’t a habit Bayer was likely to have developed in civilian life.

  As Dargo set the last video processor inside its protective packing crate, he considered the situation. He snapped the lid of the case shut. Was he becoming paranoid in his old age? There was no doubt Bayer was a snake of singular order. Why was he in the United States? Dargo wondered if there might be more going on than he first suspected.

  There were three knocks on the sliding glass door at the back of the house. The door immediately slid open, and a man stepped into the room. He was dressed in an expensive black suit and dark glasses. One of Bayer’s bodyguards. He quickly looked D
argo up and down before scanning the rest of the room. Without a word, he marched down the back hallway, only to return moments later, speaking into the cuff of his sleeve as he entered the room.

  Nil Bayer stepped through the sliding glass door, accompanied by another bodyguard in a dark suit. The second bodyguard was a virtual duplicate of the first.

  “Dargo!” Bayer said warmly. A little too warmly for Dargo’s taste. It was out of character. “It’s good to see you.”

  Dargo did his best to smile despite the circumstances. “You as well, Comrade Bayer. I am surprised to see you in United States.”

  A grave look crossed Bayer’s face. “Yes,” he said somewhat quietly. “I have business in Los Angeles. An unrelated matter. I do hate to fly, but the matter is most pressing.”

  Bayer looked around the nearly vacant room. All of the gear was stowed, the folding tables collapsed and now standing against the wall in the corner.

  “I see you are—what is it the Americans say? Pulling up stakes?”

  “Da,” Dargo confirmed with a nod. “This is what I wish to discuss. I believe our opportunity has arrived.”

  The flash of excitement Dargo saw in Bayer’s eyes appeared genuine. But Bayer said nothing and waited for him to continue.

  “My son, Yuri, had recent run-in with Cyrus Cooper in New York. He allowed Cooper to escape, but not before planting surveillance tracker on him. We now know that Cooper has been using Professor Meade’s teleportation system to move around the country. Our tracker relays the feed via satellite. There is delay, but most recent download suggests he has developed concerns for the safety of project data following trouble with Mexican drug cartel and multiple run-ins with my men.”

  “So he’s moving the research data?” Bayer asked. “When and where?”

  “The exact location is unknown. Yesterday morning he shipped a large container to Fairbanks, Alaska. I believe this container held one of the platform devices. I expect Cooper will use the platform to move the research to newly secured location, somewhere in Alaska.”