“The reason is because that’s us out there. Marchuk’s people began moving out early. We had to stop him. He drew on us first.” She’s silent for a minute before she adds, “After all our work, I could kill you for ruining this operation, Peter.”
“You almost did, boss.” It’s a smartass thing to say, but that’s my defense mechanism when I’m in trouble, and I am currently in some serious shit.
Now, in the silence that almost seems as deafening as the shooting that came before it, I hear the crunching of boots on bits of pulverized concrete. I jam the phone into my pocket, leaving it on, and search the room for a weapon. There isn’t one, which is ironic considering the family’s line of work. Not that I could reach it in time anyway.
Even before I see him, I can smell him from the other side of the wall: B.O. mixed with beets, onions, and pickled cabbage. Since I arrived, I’ve come to love the scent of borscht, but not when it oozes secondhand from Marchuk Jr.’s already-rank pores. He doesn’t know I’m here, so even if he’s armed, I may be able to take him.
Or maybe not. My head is spinning and I have to lean against the wall just to keep my balance.
“I saw an old car parked outside the gate. I don’t recognize it.”
And I don’t recognize that voice, which means Pavlo is not alone. No way can I take on two armed men, especially since I’m currently sliding down the wall into a sitting position, as though my body has a will of its own. I’m losing feeling in my right leg. What the hell is happening to me?
“I saw it arrive each morning before I left for Kiev. Belongs to the delivery boy. He must still be here,” Pavlo says.
“They stopped shooting for some reason. We should go while we can. They have our vehicles surrounded. We can go out back, make an end around, maybe reach the boy’s car.”
“Father liked him. That may be why he drew his weapon and then hesitated in firing—because he was worried about the boy. It is his fault my father is dead.”
Pavlo is right. I was the last thing his father ever saw. I startled him, but I still think he would have taken the shot at my team, whether I’d come through the kitchen door at just that moment or not. But I won’t ever forget the way he looked at me in that moment. He knew I’d be the last thing he’d ever see. Even if he was a very bad guy, I won’t ever forget that.
“Then find him, kill him, and let’s go.”
“Kill him?” Pavlo says, sounding incredulous. Yeah, I’m with Pavlo.
Thank God my boss knows I’m in here. I just need to stay alive long enough for the team to get me.
“I thought you want revenge?”
“This is why Father would not want you in charge, Koval. As the Americans say, you are a one-trick pony. A gun is your answer to everything.”
“If a gun was not the answer to everything, you would not be a wealthy man.”
“We find the boy, use him as a hostage, as a human shield, to get out,” Pavlo explains. “Then we kill him.”
Oh no. He’s made me. He knows who I am and who just invaded his compound and killed his dad, and now he’s going to … wait, what was I just saying? I feel so light-headed.
“There is no army in the world that would sacrifice killing you to save a simple delivery boy. I was a rebel soldier before I could drive a car. No one cared that I was a boy,” says the other guy, making his case too convincingly for my comfort, but at least they have no idea who I am. “They will kill him, then you. You will die like your father. Forget the boy. We should go while we still can.”
They’ll have to come around the wall and pass through the dining room to reach the back of the house, the escape route they’re planning to take to get outside the compound to my car. Their boots crunch on concrete as they come closer.
I want to run, but every bit of strength has drained from me. All I can do is play dead.
But I won’t have to play. Marchuk comes around the wall and, despite what he just told the other guy, draws his gun the second our eyes meet.
Next thing I know, the whole world goes black.
*
When I wake up, I expect to be tied up in an abandoned farmhouse in the wilds of Ukraine, so I’m surprised to find myself in a hospital bed. We must be near the Luhansk front line because the building is shaking as though the area is under heavy artillery fire. I try to focus on the things closest to the bed: a vitals-monitoring machine, a bag of saline slowly dripping into a vein in my arm. Everything is written in English. Everything is modern and shiny. I look over at the dim left side of the room, and make out a person sitting in the chair two feet away. Instinctively I search for a weapon, but then a voice comes from the dark. I recognize it immediately.
“You’re alive, then. Are you more than that?”
I am now, thanks to the burst of sunlight I’m assaulted with as she slides open a window at the foot of my bed. Weird place for a window. Oh, wait. I’m slowly getting it. That isn’t heavy artillery shaking the building, but heavy turbulence. I’m not in a hospital. I’m in a jet. I look past the woman and see two more patients in hospital beds. I don’t know who they are, but they must be in worse shape than I am because they’re hooked up to way more machines.
“Do you know who I am?”
When I first saw her in the dim light, I thought she was my mother. They look something alike. Similar coloring, anyway. But a few more seconds of consciousness reminds me how impossible that is.
“Of course. Who are they?” I ask, pointing at my fellow patients.
“The men who saved your life.”
“Saved my life? Last thing I remember—”
“You lost a lot of blood, but the doctor says you’ll be fine.”
“I was shot?”
“You took shrapnel. A piece of concrete pierced your femoral artery, but you’re in much better shape than they are.”
I don’t remember feeling the pain of the concrete hitting me, but that explains why I felt so weak. I must have passed out from the blood loss. But I don’t remember anything after that.
“What happened? Did we get Pavlo?”
Rogers doesn’t answer right away. I watch as her expression goes from sad to worried, before it lands on angry.
“Once I knew you were inside the compound, our job became an extraction mission. So no, we didn’t get him.”
“But you should have—”
“Sacrificed you for the mission? Can you imagine the hell I’d have caught back home once they found out I let a sixteen-year-old work such a dangerous mission?”
We both know that no one ever finds out about most of what we do—that’s the whole point of what we do—but I don’t question her. Considering the status of the two men lying in the other beds, I ask an even stupider question.
“Is my cover blown?”
She stares at me for a moment too long, like she’s trying to decide whether to do more damage to me than the shrapnel already has.
“I mean, I think I remember Marchuk seeing me. He could probably identify me, and—”
“Your cover may be the only thing to come out of this mission in one piece. I’m sure Pavlo still thinks you’re a food runner from the village, if he thinks of you at all.” I want to stop her, to tell her he blames me for his father’s death, so yeah, he probably thinks of me. But I stay quiet and let Rogers continue. “He probably has other things on his mind. We aren’t the only ones looking for him.”
“And the other one?”
“What other one?” she asks, leaning forward, gripping the arms of her chair.
“Pavlo was with someone else, someone new whose voice I didn’t recognize. He was Ukrainian, though. His dialect was eastern, same as the Marchuks, and he had a Ukrainian name, though I don’t remember it right now.”