by Kim Fielding
Then he thought about Reid and the satisfying solidity of Reid asleep in his arms. Jaxon had fucked a lot of people, but he’d slept with very few.
“Now I know what a Bond girl feels like,” Jaxon said—out loud, but very quietly. “If we survive this, will they make a movie of it? And if so, will I play myself?” Although he’d always considered his acting skills too weak for that kind of career expansion, maybe playing himself wouldn’t be too big a stretch.
He was mentally casting the rest of the film—would Joe Manganiello make a good Reid?—when he heard footsteps coming from the direction of the castle. Before he could scurry away, a familiar voice called out in English, “Don’t run. It’s me.”
A moment later Reid appeared over the top of the little hill. He’d somehow managed to change into a blue-and-yellow tracksuit with a gray tee, and he carried a plastic bag.
“Please tell me that’s food and drink,” said Jaxon, smiling up at him.
Reid grinned and nodded.
They sat cross-legged facing each other, munching on the phyllo-and-meat sandwiches that were the Starograd equivalent of hamburgers. They tasted pretty good. Reid had brought bottles of water and some liquid yogurt stuff you were supposed to drink like milk, along with a couple of apples.
“A nice picnic,” Jaxon said. “Thanks. But did you find the cat?”
“Yes. It’s in the old city.”
“Did you have any problems?”
“No. I saw more police than usual, but I kept my head down. I don’t think they recognized me.”
Jaxon took a swig of yogurt. “Thank you. For coming back for me.”
“I’m not….” Reid glanced away for a moment. “You’re getting under my skin, and that’s dangerous. I can’t afford to… to care about anything but the mission.”
With his heart twisting, Jaxon shook his head. “You think you’re the only guy in the world with intimacy issues? I’ve never dated anyone for longer than a week. Ever. And yeah, maybe nobody’s trying to poison me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t hurt.” Ha. His therapist would be very proud—if Jaxon hadn’t given up on seeing him years ago.
“I was married,” said Reid. “Right after high school. My stab at living a normal life. Poor girl.”
“Oh my God—did someone assassinate her?” Jaxon pictured a young woman lying motionless on a suburban living room floor.
Reid rolled his eyes. “We divorced less than a year later. The whole ‘normal’ thing wasn’t working out. That’s when I enlisted.” He wadded up his empty food wrapper and stuffed it into the bag. “I haven’t talked to her since. I hope things went well for her.”
Reid’s confession didn’t especially shock Jaxon, but one aspect of it caught his attention. “You didn’t have a normal life when you were a kid?”
“No interrogations,” Reid replied as he collected the rest of the trash. “My childhood doesn’t matter, and talking about it would just make the under-the-skin thing worse.”
“Fine. But if we get out of here, you owe me a biography. You had some kind of dossier on me, and I’ve got nothing on you. It’s not fair.”
“If we get out of here, I’m going to spend about a million years in debriefing. I’ll also be skinned alive for allowing their cherished rock star to get involved.”
Jaxon clenched his jaw to keep from starting a fight. He didn’t have the energy for it, not right now. And seemingly neither did Reid, who yawned and stretched. “We have time before dark, and I didn’t sleep much last night. Would you keep watch while I catch a few winks?”
That small show of trust mollified Jaxon a little. “Okay.” Somehow he ended up with Reid’s head in his lap, which was unexpectedly pleasant. Jaxon stroked Reid’s soft crew cut and hummed quietly until Reid’s body relaxed and his breathing slowed.
Asleep, he didn’t look like a model or a spy—he was just an exhausted man with a day’s growth of whiskers and phyllo crumbs on his jacket.
“You’re already under my skin,” Jaxon said. But unless the woods were bugged, nobody heard him.
CLOUDS had moved in by early evening, obscuring the moon and darkening the woods. Reid seemed to have little difficulty finding his way to the castle ruins, and Jaxon stuck close behind him. As they crept down the hill, traffic seemed heavier than before, with big, dark vehicles entering and leaving the prime minister’s palace. It took Reid and Jaxon a long time to descend because they were repeatedly forced to hide in the bushes.
Once they reached the flat part of the city, they moved more swiftly. Some people were out and about—mostly factory workers on their way home—but Jaxon kept his head down and mouth shut, and nobody seemed to recognize him. It helped that the streets were dark and that the cheap tracksuits allowed Jaxon and Reid to blend in with the locals.
They passed quite a few uniformed men with guns, most of whom looked utterly bored and were too busy smoking to pay much attention. It appeared that state security wasn’t a top priority for much of the rank and file. But when Jaxon and Reid turned a corner near the old city, they were just in time to see a squad of soldiers turn onto the same street a block away—heading toward them. And these guys looked like they meant business. They marched in step, guns slung over their shoulders, faces set in stern masks. Jaxon’s heart beat a fast rhythm as he realized these men were coming after him.
But it turned out that maybe his acting skills weren’t so awful after all, because he feigned nonchalance and continued onward, Reid several steps ahead. They weren’t a fugitive intelligence officer and a rock star—they were nothing but tired Vasnytsians coming home from work, or maybe heading to a café or bar for a drink. In the low light, Jaxon’s hallmark red hair simply appeared dark and unremarkable.
Jaxon breathed a noisy sigh of relief after the soldiers marched past without glancing his way, and his heart attempted to reach a healthier speed.
Secrecy became easier in the old city, where the streets were narrower and more deeply shadowed and where alleys and odd nooks provided easy hiding spaces. But there were also more people here, many of them sitting on front steps or clustered around outdoor tables. They smoked and chatted quietly, and Jaxon was suddenly struck by the complete absence of music. Not a single open door spilled notes out onto the street. This particular silence, perhaps more than anything, made Jaxon understand how difficult life was for Vasnytsians.
Reid entered a small café that had five or six occupied tables out front, and Jaxon followed him closely. Jaxon hadn’t been able to read the sign, but he didn’t really need to since it featured a black cat arching its back. Only a few of the inside tables were taken, probably because the warm evening made sitting outside more attractive. Reid chose a small table near the back.
The café was largely unremarkable—stone walls adorned with the requisite Talmirov posters, a well-worn floor, and a wood-beamed ceiling. The air was thick with cigarette smoke. Two young waiters ferried trays of coffee to the customers, and an older woman worked behind the glass-and-wood counter, preparing drinks and washing dishes.
Reid didn’t have to say what an enormous risk they were taking. Even if Jaxon hadn’t been fully aware of their situation, the stiffness of Reid’s shoulders and the tightness of his jaw would have transmitted the sense of danger. As for Jaxon, he felt slightly nauseous. And since he had no clue how to proceed, he decided the best course of action was keeping his lips zipped.
After a few minutes, one of the waiters approached. Reid ordered coffees for both of them—Jaxon caught that much of the conversation—and his accent must have been good, because the waiter simply nodded and left. That gave Jaxon time to consider the things that might happen next; few of them were good. It disturbed him that the guy in the potato kitchen had claimed to listen to Jaxon’s music every night here—yet nobody was listening to any music at all. Christ, if Jaxon had misled Reid, then Reid’s capture, his possible death, and the fates of Vasnytsia and assorted former Soviet republics would all be Jaxon’s doing. He hoped Talm
irov would have him shot quickly, before he endured too much torture by his own conscience.
The waiter appeared with their coffees and Reid gave him a few coins. How had he gotten his hands on Vasnytsian money? Their guides had paid for the few expenses outside the hotel. As Jaxon tried to puzzle that through, someone across the room gave a loud laugh, a rare sound in Starograd. Jaxon turned to look, and it was nothing more than some coveralled men and women playing cards. But they caught Jaxon looking, and their widening eyes let him know that they recognized him.
A man at a nearby table stood up and started over. Just as Jaxon was ready to shout at Reid to make a run for it, he recognized the man—the guy from the potato kitchen. “Jaxon Powers!” he whispered when he was close. “Where is guide?”
Jaxon glanced at Reid, who gave him a go-ahead gesture. “No guide,” Jaxon said quietly. “But we really need your help. Please.”
“What help?”
“Talmirov’s after us.”
Their potential savior was an ordinary-looking fellow dressed in gray-blue coveralls frayed around the collar and cuffs. He was tall and skinny, with poorly cut brown hair, teeth in need of straightening, and whiskers a couple of days old. But as he stood staring at Jaxon, the man’s eyes shone and his mouth stretched into a wide smile. This was a person discovering he could be a hero—and he transformed from ordinary to beautiful.
“Wait,” the man ordered before rushing to the counter. During the quiet but intense conversation, the barista stared at Jaxon and Reid, her face expressionless. But at the end she nodded, which seemed to please Jaxon’s new friend.
“Come,” said the man as soon as he returned to the table. Moving quickly, Reid and Jaxon followed him through a door near the counter and down a flight of ancient, narrow stairs. At the bottom was a single bathroom and a large storage closet. Jaxon was somewhat alarmed when they were led into the closet, weakly lit by a single bare light bulb, but Reid seemed willing to go, so Jaxon followed. The man shut the door, cramming the three of them between wooden shelves stacked with waiters’ aprons, napkins, dishes, and cleaning supplies. The man performed a complicated knock on one of the shelves—a pattern Jaxon recognized immediately as the chorus of the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil.” To Jaxon’s astonishment, the entire shelving unit swung forward, revealing a doorway.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Reid stepped inside.
Chapter Eleven
AS secret rooms went, it wasn’t particularly exciting. It was a large space, probably spanning many of the storefronts above, with dusty beams and several large pillars. The floor and walls were stone, worn from centuries of use, and the few hanging light bulbs cast pools of brightness surrounded by shadows. The room smelled of beer and damp, and the air was chilly enough to make Jaxon shiver in his thin jacket.
But the White Stripes played from a couple of speakers, and two dozen people in their twenties lounged on battered couches and threadbare armchairs. It was a more casual gathering than Jaxon had seen in Vasnytsia—or it had been casual, until Jaxon and Reid entered the room.
Jaxon’s friend from the potato kitchen addressed the group in rapid-fire Vasnytsian. Jaxon couldn’t understand anything but his own name, but Reid listened closely. By the time the little speech ended, everyone was gaping. Then an awkward, expectant hush fell, and Jaxon realized they were waiting for him to say something.
“Reid?” Jaxon asked.
“Better for them to hear it from you. I’ll translate.”
“Okay.” After a deep breath in and out, Jaxon waved at his audience. “Uh, hi. I’m Jaxon Powers. Obviously. I was invited here for a couple of concerts.” He paused so Reid could repeat his words in Vasnytsian. Jaxon got the sense that most of these people understood at least some English, but it was best that they hear the tale in their native language. He didn’t want misunderstandings.
“This is Reid. He’s, uh….”
Reid nodded. “You can tell them. We need to be honest now.”
“Okay. He’s pretending to be my assistant, but he’s actually a spy. I mean, intelligence agent.”
Their audience gasped, and Jaxon didn’t blame them. Surely none of this was what they’d expected tonight.
“So Reid has some info that’s pretty damaging to your prime minister. But it looks like Talmirov figured that out, and he tried to kill Reid. Now we’re on the lam.” Was there a Vasnytsian equivalent of that phrase? Apparently, because Reid said something that made everyone look even more shocked.
“We need to get out of Vasnytsia,” Jaxon continued, “but we don’t have any way to do that. When we visited a potato kitchen, I met, uh….” He blushed slightly. “Sorry. I don’t know your name.”
But the man didn’t seem upset. “I am Fedir.” He even gave a small bow.
“I met Fedir, and he told me he enjoys my music, that you guys listen to it here at the Black Cat. I understand that sharing this with me was a dangerous thing for him to do. Fedir’s a brave man, and I am so honored.”
It was Fedir’s turn to blush. Jaxon was afraid Fedir’s friends might be angry at him for divulging the existence of their secret little club, but they didn’t seem upset. In fact, a couple of them called out what seemed to be congratulatory phrases, and a woman with an elfin face and frizzy hair ran over to kiss Fedir’s cheek.
When the fuss died down, Jaxon faced the crowd. “This is asking a lot of you. I know this. But it’s important. Can you help us?”
Reid hadn’t even finished translating when everyone surged forward to pat Jaxon’s shoulder and shake his hand. “We will help,” said Fedir, who seemed to have appointed himself spokesman. “Maybe we all die. But we have, um, motto here.” He said something in Vasnytsian.
With a grim smile, Reid translated. “Better a worthy death than an unworthy life.”
“It sounds like something a Klingon would say.”
Reid rolled his eyes.
THE actual scheming was best done in Vasnytsian, which was all right with Jaxon since he had little to contribute anyway. While Reid got deep into conversation with several people, Jaxon drank a beer and ate another of those phyllo sandwiches, both brought to him by Fedir.
“So you guys hang out here and listen to music?” Jaxon asked.
Fedir nodded eagerly. “Yes. It is one place like this. There are others in city. We talk too. Say forbidden things. Think forbidden thoughts. We taste freedom.” He shrugged. “Only small taste. We dream of…. Our government, it is like metal fist—hard and strong. We dream of open hand instead.” He held his own palm up to demonstrate.
“Do other people agree with you?”
“Yes, very many. But we are afraid to do. Maybe there are more of us, but they have guns. We have only ourselves.”
Jaxon couldn’t imagine such powerlessness. Even as a lonely, weird kid in Nebraska, he’d always hoped for something better. That hope had given him the courage to leave everything behind and try life on his own. What would it be like to have to endure without the option of escape?
“How do you even know about me? I thought you guys were pretty isolated from outside influences.”
Fedir looked thoughtful as he toyed with some frayed threads at his knee. “It is… hard. But some people know how to make… make ways to do things. I fix machines in factory where gun is made. But also I know how to fix other machines. Other people, they do computers at work. Maybe they do computers after work also. We have… how you say? Equipment?” He removed a flip phone from a pocket and waved it a bit. “Sometimes we make it do more than government knows.” He looked at Jaxon, clearly hoping for understanding.
“I get it. Job skills come in handy for other things too, and technology can be altered. But—and I realize this is a weird question—why waste your time and effort on stupid stuff like my music? Especially when it’s dangerous.”
But Fedir was shaking his head. “No, no. Is not stupid. Things from outside—music, films, stories—they give us what we cannot get here.
Like a man who eats nothing but these.” He pointed at Jaxon’s half-eaten phyllo sandwich. “He will live, but without joy. If he gets also even little tastes of cake or fruit sometimes, his life will be better.”
Jaxon understood what Fedir meant. When he had been a miserable teenager, music had been his salvation—the thing that got him through years of loneliness and angst. “I’m really glad I’ve been able to do that for you. I always was fruity.”
Fedir clearly didn’t get the pun, which was maybe just as well. He nodded earnestly instead. “You do more. When you are born here and live here, you think maybe this is normal. No freedom? Normal. No money? Normal. Government tells you what to do? Normal. Government punishes everyone who speaks out? Normal. Your music, the other things we get from outside, they show us, remind us, this is not normal. That is very important. Otherwise we stop trying to fight.”
Shit. Jaxon didn’t have a reasonable answer to that. It wasn’t as if he’d ever intended to help inspire a revolution. He hadn’t even known any of this was going on. Hell, a few weeks ago, he couldn’t have found Vasnytsia on a map.
He opened his mouth to say something—he didn’t know what—but then the lights went out, leaving the room completely dark.
While Jaxon remained frozen, expecting somebody to start shooting, a few cigarette lighters flickered and he heard a lot of people scrambling around. Somebody moved right in front of him, and Jaxon balled his hands into fists, ready for his first physical altercation since eighth grade. But an engine roared to life, making him jump, the lights flickered back on, and he saw who was crouched in front of him: Reid, who had his back to Jaxon and had knives in both hands.
