Station Alpha: (Soldiering On #1)

by Aislinn Kearns

  Blake grunted, but didn’t reply further. Duncan distracted him with another suggestion for a possible breach. They were prepared to go in on their own, without backup, if they saw Mr. Disik in danger. Christine would have to hold onto that knowledge, and hope her employer would be all right. That they’d keep him safe.

  She heard Duncan murmuring to his two team members, talking about the fact that the chances of Mr. Disik being able to get himself out or follow their directions when they went in were slim. They had to minimise the risk of Disik getting himself hurt, which would mean that if they breached, they would have to prioritise disabling Klim as quickly as possible.

  So, their two options were either talking Klim into coming out, or using the element of surprise to go in and get him.

  “Let me talk to him,” Christine said aloud. “Perhaps I can get him to leave Mr. Disik alone.”

  Sam paused in her discussion with Duncan and glanced up in the direction of the satellite they were looking at her through. She hadn’t quite figured out where it was—her gaze was a little off to the left—but her exasperation was still clear.

  “Given that the last time you spoke to him you riled him up enough to do this, do you really think that’s a good idea?”

  Christine swallowed, ashamed. She wanted to help, but knew she would just get in the way.

  Sam’s voice gentled. “Leave this to the professionals.”

  Christine nodded, despite knowing that Sam couldn’t see her, unable to get any words out.

  Sam went back to talking to Duncan. They were still discussing their options when a loud crack echoed through the comms. All heads on the ground swivelled in the direction of the house.

  Silence. No more gunfire, no shouting. Just silence.

  Christine held her breath. After a moment more of waiting, the Soldiering On team sprang into action. All three whipped guns out from the air, pointing them at the sky in a two-handed grip. Duncan shouted orders, gesturing furiously.

  They encroached upon the house, quicker than she would have expected given their stealth. They melted into the hedges surrounding the property, getting into position.

  No words were spoken. Christine had no idea what was happening, but she assumed they were communicating somehow.

  A shadow flashed across the lawn, then disappeared. Seconds later a flashbang went off inside the house. Even without the bang, Christine jumped.

  The team appeared, melting from the long, afternoon shadows and converging on the house. They breached the front and back door simultaneously, storming the building. That’s when the flurry of voices assaulted them. Yelling commands and information to one another. She could hear gunfire among it all at different distances to the comms. She guessed that Klim must still be returning fire.

  “Disik is still alive,” Christine heard at one point, but had no idea whose voice had said it. She breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Get down!” came another command, and a second flurry of gunfire and activity followed. Chaos reigned, sounds coming from all sides, surrounding her in panic. She squeezed her eyes shut, but, of course, it didn’t help. Just fired her imagination more as the ricocheting sounds bounced around in her brain.

  As if a switch had been flicked, all the sound abruptly stopped. No, wait, not all the sound. A rattling breath could be heard over the comms.

  “Blake?” came Sam’s voice. “Blake, can you hear me?” No answer. Dread pooled in Christine’s gut as a sense of foreboding settled over the proceedings.

  “Klim’s unconscious and in custody,” Sam said, possibly to them. Christine could hear the sound of repressed tears in her voice. Oh God. “Blake’s been hit. He needs an ambulance. Now.”

  “One’s on the way,” was Duncan’s reply. “The cops will probably be here soon after. Paul, call Destiny and see if she can hold them off for a minute or two.” Paul nodded. He took one look at Christine’s face and backed out of the room, his phone in hand.

  Christine’s legs went weak and she nearly slid out of the chair, boneless and trembling. Blake was hit. Unresponsive. Obviously in a bad way. Sam’s tear-filled voice haunted Christine, echoing through her with increasing condemnation.

  This was her fault.

  Her own stupidity had got them to this point. And if Blake died? She didn’t know how she would ever forgive herself.

  Ambulances pulled up. Christine could hear the sirens, but was unable to look at the screens. She couldn’t bear to see Blake like that after having seen him so vital and alive so recently.

  One of the ambulances pulled away, then the other. She cracked her eyes open. Paul came up beside her.

  “Klim’s awake,” Duncan’s voice said. “Let’s ask him some questions before the cops arrive.”

  Paul zoomed in to see Klim sitting on the front steps of the house. Duncan was standing over him.

  “What are you going to do with me?” Klim asked. His voice was distant, since they were only hearing it through Duncan’s comm.

  “Hand you over to the police for due process,” Duncan replied. Klim seemed resigned to his fate. Duncan continued. “What made you go after Mr. Disik?”

  “You’d hidden Christine too well after the fuck up with her being attacked. I couldn’t find her anywhere, so Disik was the next best thing.” He paused. “My father had always told us to avoid him. That he was the Devil reborn. He was terrified of the old man, but we never understood why. Admittedly, he had quite a reputation back in the day, but it just made my father look fearful. Weak.” He spat in disgust.

  “But then you found out he was sick.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Exactly. Not even my father could deny it was a perfect opportunity.”

  “And Christine?” Duncan prompted.

  “Well, if after everything Christine really doesn’t know where the money is, then Mr. Disik is the only person who does. He was my last hope at getting the money back for my father. And he was at his most vulnerable.” He picked absently at the flaking wood on the stairs. “But time was ticking, if he was losing his memory.”

  “Why is the money so important to you? Why now?”

  “My father needs it. His company is failing. We figured at first that Christine knew where he’d stashed it. She’d seen all his files, and he kept meticulous records. And if he was still in the blackmail game, it was just like Disik to use his secretary to do his dirty work. That would mean she was in his circle of trust.”

  “But she didn’t know.”

  “Apparently not.” Klim sighed.

  “It wouldn’t have worked anyway. Christine tells me that Mr. Disik has very little memory left. And stress makes the issue worse. I can’t imagine more stress than being held at gunpoint.”

  Klim straightened. “Hey, I didn’t pull out the gun. I was just chatting with him. I planned to get him to either tell me where the money was, or get his permission to search the house. He was the one that went for the weapon. Just out of the blue.”

  “That little old man? He bested you?”

  “No, but the gun still went off. In the struggle.”

  “Why would he attack you?”

  Klim shrugged, seemingly uncaring. “Maybe he saw through me. I was pretending he and my father were old friends and I was just visiting. He seemed willing enough to go along with it, but something must have spooked him, because he lost it.”

  “I’ve heard that people with dementia can react violently when scared.”

  “Yeah. I mean, I guess that’s what it was.” He didn’t sound so sure. In fact, he sounded weary. “How did you get to me so fast? I thought I’d have more time to interrogate him.”

  “We had someone watching you. Your phone call with Paul and Christine tipped them off.”

  Klim shook his head. “Amateur,” he muttered, apparently to himself.

  “So, you admit responsibility for all of this? With everything that happened to Christine?”

  Klim sighed. “Yeah. I suppose it is all my fault.”

/>   Paul interrupted. “Duncan, police are on their way. Two minutes. Destiny wasn’t able to hold them off any longer.”

  Duncan passed on that message, and Sam slid into her vehicle, waiting for the command.

  “Are you going to just leave me here?” Klim asked.

  “Nah,” Duncan replied. “I know the local police. I’ll hand you over personally.”

  Paul cut the feed, and the screens went back. They were silent for a long moment.

  “So, it was Klim all along, huh?” Paul asked.

  “I guess so.” Christine wasn’t sure all the pieces fit together, but she was too emotionally drained to give the thought the attention it required.

  “It makes sense. If he was crazy enough to take a man hostage to try to get information, it’s not so farfetched that he’d also try kidnapping.”

  “I suppose so.” She stared blankly ahead, trying to sort out her mind. It was too scattered for her to make much progress. “Will Blake be all right, do you think?”

  “He’s tough, and he’s been through worse than a bullet wound. I think he’d be pissed if that was how he ultimately went out.”

  “This is all my fault,” Christine whispered as tears welled in her eyes. They hovered a moment, then slipped down her cheeks.

  Paul twisted his chair around to face her. He cupped her cheeks, stroking his thumb over the tracks of her tears. “No, no it’s not. Blake’s a professional. He made the choice to participate in this, as did we all.”

  She took a shuddering breath. “Mr. Disik didn’t. He must have been so scared.”

  “His past actions brought this on him.”

  “Can a person really be punished if he doesn’t remember the crime?” Mr. Disik’s pleasantly blank face popped into her mind. Could he understand at all why Klim had done what he did? Or was it too late for him to be punished for whatever crimes he may have committed in the past?

  “That’s not my decision. And it is probably too philosophical a discussion for me to have an educated opinion on it, anyway. How about for now I get you a cup of tea and you lie down? It’s been a tough day for you.”

  Christine nodded. Paul led the way out to the living room and settled Christine on the couch. She drifted into thoughts of how she could have done everything differently. Now that she had hindsight, her courses of action were so obvious.

  But, of course, she could not change the past now. She’d messed up. She knew that. However, she could take responsibility. She’d admit her mistakes, and then she’d take steps to rectify them and redeem herself.

  Maybe, eventually, she would have done enough.

  She was asleep before Paul returned with the tea.

  Chapter 19

  In the early hours of the morning, Paul got a text to say that Blake was out of surgery and that his prognosis was looking positive. It was this that finally allowed Paul to snatch a few hours of sleep.

  He’d decided not to disturb Christine until 8am. If she hadn’t woken up at any point during the night, that would mean a solid twelve hours of healing sleep. She needed it.

  The hospital visiting hours started at 9am, and he knew that she’d want to see Blake alive and relatively well with her own eyes. Paul’s chest ached as he remembered the helpless look in her eyes the night before. The guilt and the self-recrimination. He’d give anything to never have to see that again.

  “Christine,” he murmured softly, stroking her hair. Her eyes fluttered open. A soft, sleepy smile grace her lips as she saw him. His stomach flipped and tumbled at the sight. He wanted to see that smile every morning.

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “Just after eight,” he replied.

  He waited. He saw the moment the memories of the night before came rushing back to her. The light dimmed in her eyes.

  “Blake’s fine,” he told her. “I thought you might like to go see him.”

  She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Her expression was still melancholy. “I’d like that,” she told him.

  Half an hour later, after Christine had had a rejuvenating shower and restorative coffee, they were on the road to the hospital. Paul couldn’t help but notice the way she was glancing around, checking the windows and mirrors.

  “What are you doing?”

  She jumped guiltily. “Sorry. It doesn’t feel like it’s over.”

  “That’ll pass,” he reassured her. “Klim’s in jail, and he admitted he was behind it all. He can’t hurt you.”

  “I know. I just can’t help the feeling that we’ve missed something. The information doesn’t categorise properly.” She shifted in her seat and once again glanced uneasily at a passing car.

  “What do you mean?” he asked curiously.

  “For example, if the Vovks had a heavily armed team of men at their disposal like the people that had tried to kidnap me, why were they so afraid of Mr. Disik? They could have just done the same thing to him.”

  Paul pondered that, acknowledging that it was a good point with a slight nod. “I’m not sure. Maybe Destiny can get us in to see Klim, and we can ask him.”

  “Maybe,” Christine murmured, unconvinced.

  He wanted to take her hand, reassure her with contact, but didn’t dare take his hands from the controls. “How about I ask Duncan if you can stay in the safe house a few more days? Just until you feel comfortable with the idea of going home.” He knew that it was likely just paranoia she was feeling. It was something all military personnel were familiar with, that adjustment period once they were safe again.

  Christine’s smile was grateful. “I’d like that. As long as you are there, too, of course.”

  Paul’s heart expanded in his chest. Warmth spread through him, like a sip of honey tea. “Yeah. Of course.”

  The smile she sent him was one that he’d remember until he was old and grey.

  They arrived at Portsboro General Hospital. The scent of cheap cleaning products assaulted his nose and stuck in his throat the instant they went through the front doors. He hated hospitals. Had ever since his accident, when he felt like he’d spend the rest of his life in one.

  A nurse greeted them and immediately directed the two of them through to Blake’s room. Paul went in first, with Christine following close behind.

  Blake was on his back with his eyes closed, looking pale and wan. His breath rattled in his chest, sounding a little too wet to be natural. A few tubes stuck out of him, connecting him to various apparatuses. A steady beep from the heart rate monitor was a comforting counterpoint to the fluid dripping into his veins and the damp sound of his lungs.

  They stopped a few feet away, and Blake’s eyes fluttered open. A smile immediately transformed his face, making him look almost the picture of health.

  “Hey, man,” Blake greeted him. “Never thought I’d see you in here.”

  Paul frowned, confused. “What do you mean?”

  Blake’s eyes flickered between him and Christine. “Well, you don’t really leave your apartment if you can help it. The hospital thing is just an added deterrent for you.”

  Paul blinked, shocked. Is that what his friends really thought of him? That he wouldn’t even visit them in the hospital if they were seriously injured?

  He knew that he wasn’t close with most of the people at Soldiering On—his own fault, not theirs. But he cared about them. More than friends, they had the bond of serving together, even if it was in civilian life.

  It hadn’t occurred to Paul before now how his absence would appear to the others. That they would think that he wasn’t concerned about them at all. That he would be so dismissive of a near-death experience.

  Christine leaned forward and gently took Blake’s hand in an imitation handshake. “It’s nice to meet you.” Blake’s prosthetic was off, and the sheet outlined the shape of his stump. Blake didn’t seem at all self-conscious about it. Paul always found his friend a little humbling. Blake had had an injury just as life-changing as Paul’s, but he hadn’t let it negatively affect h
im. He’d taken it in stride and gone about his life.

  Paul knew he could learn a lot from his friend. It was time that he stopped hiding away in unnecessary shame and started living his life properly again. Beginning, perhaps, with Christine.

  Paul cleared his throat. “What do the doctors say?”

  Blake rolled his eyes. “The bullet nicked a lung, but I’ll be all right. It wasn’t a bad one. They say they want me to take it easy for a while after I get out of here, which sounds extremely boring.”

  Paul laughed. “You’ll go crazy within five minutes.”

  “Ain’t that the truth?”

  Christine shuffled closer to Blake. “I’m really sorry about this.”

  Blake looked up at her, frowning. “About what?”

  “About putting you in the hospital.”

  Blake looked askance at her. “Klim Vovk, I didn’t realise you’d transformed into a woman.” He eyed her in an exaggerated way. “And such a pretty one at that.”

  Blake’s smile was all charm, and Paul couldn’t help a little spurt of jealousy. He immediately tamped it down. He wasn’t a Neanderthal. But he did wish there was some small way he could put a public claim on Christine. Something that would deter his friends until he and Christine figured out where they stood.

  Instead, Christine edged closer to Paul and placed a proprietary hand on his shoulder. She was claiming him. And didn’t that make his grin a little smug.

  Blake looked between the two of them, apparently impressed. The wordless exchange had neatly avoided any awkwardness.

  “What I meant to say,” Christine continued. “Is that if I hadn’t screwed up—twice—you wouldn’t be in here.”

  Blake shrugged as best he could with the tubes in the way. “We also might not have solved the case. Duncan told me that Klim confessed. That was because you brought it all to a head.”

  “And got you shot!”

  Blake made a dismissive face. “I’ve been shot before. I mean, it was a ballsy move on your part, but it paid off. I don’t mind taking a bullet every now and again if that’s the outcome.”