Talon: Combat Tracking Team (A Breed Apart) (55 page)

W
here do we stand?” Lance closed the shade to the portal of the great blue beyond and turned his focus to the huddle around his leather chair.

Thank God, Payne’s lackeys had splurged on the Lear to get down to Djibouti lickety-split, or Lance would be hoofing it for twenty-four hours to St. Petersburg on a commercial liner.

“Not much. We know Tselekova fell out of grace with his superiors about two years ago.” Lieutenant Hastings set a picture on the low table between the four chairs.

Members of ODA452 and Timbrel leaned in to get a glimpse of the man.

“What happened?” Watters asked.

“His ideas were—”

“Radical?” Austin offered.

“No.” Brie locked gazes with the man. “Familiar. He wants to help return Russia to its former glory, and he believes it’s acceptable to do it on the backs and lives of anyone. Since he was merely a general and not a politician or cabinet member or president…” She shrugged. “They sent him away to work some obscure job on a frozen base.”

Ah, a lead? “Where?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Smith said. “He never showed up. Went completely off-grid.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Smith said, laying out more photos, “while politicians and superiors didn’t like him, he had a fist hold over the throats and hearts of many under him. Promises of wealth and power were served up at every meeting. He’s formed a quiet little insurrection.”

Lance scooted to the edge of the chair, thumbing his bottom lip as he considered the information.

“Why does he want Aspen?” Austin knelt at the table. “Why her? What does she have to do with anything?”

“Yeah, why her? The hit was pretty deliberate.”

“They didn’t want her,” Lance finally said. “They wanted him.” He pointed to the image of Cardinal.

“Why? Why Cardinal? Because of the yellowcake?”

“I think that just tipped the hat.” Lance eased back in the seat and wished for a Dr Pepper for the millionth time. This was bloody torture to be under this much stress and not have one single can of liquid genius. “Things heated up down here—first with you.”

Austin’s eyes widened. “Me?”

“When you found the yellowcake—what happened?”

“They hunted me down.”

Lance nodded. “Thought so.” He shook his head. “Then we sent Cardinal down here looking for you. Kuhn must’ve mentioned it to his sources. News travels fast when protecting an illegal—and international—operation. No doubt the heat alerted someone—or Tselekova himself. He sent his little minion to do the job.”

“You seriously believe Lina is behind all this?”

“Absolutely.”

“Whatever happened to ‘innocent till proven guilty’?”

“You seriously think you’ll be able to drag her into a U.S. court and fry her there?” Lance snorted. “Russia wouldn’t let you get that close. Remember the spies discovered in 2010? If you’ll remember, they went back to their homeland. Good ol’-fashioned spy swap.”

“She just didn’t seem the type—”

“Then she did her job well.” Lance pointed to the table. “Go on, Hast—”

“Got it!” Smith shot up from the laptop on his lap. “Payne’s wife just received communication.”

Good news. Tell me good news, Smith
.

“St. Petersburg.”

“That’s a big city, Lieutenant Smith.”

He grinned. “Yes, sir. Another hour or so and I can get you within a mile of where the e-mail was sent from.”

“Good. Relay that to the pilot. Divert to Pulkovo.”

Smith leapt up and hurried to the front.

It took a lot of political capital to get the clearance necessary to enter Russian airspace—without getting shot down. His stomach churned and threatened to toss the modest airplane meal he’d eaten an hour ago back up the way it’d come.

The dog missing.

Aspen missing.

Cardinal MIA. Vanishing like this…
I ought to ring his ruddy neck!
This was
not
the time to go rogue. A lot of questions had been raised about Cardinal’s loyalty and trustworthiness—all thanks to General Payne, who should be halfway to Langley and right into the arms of federal penitentiary guards.

Lance sipped a Dr Pepper and swallowed. He nudged the drink aside.

“You okay, sir?”

In the glass of the oval window, he saw Lieutenant Hastings’s reflection. “No. Nothing is okay. The dog, Aspen—Cardinal! Even my Dr Pepper doesn’t taste right.”

“That’s because it’s a Perrier, sir.”

Snickers sent a heated flush through his cheeks as he glanced at the bottle. Green bottle. He muttered an oath. Ran a hand over his face. “I think I need to retire.” He glared at the others. “Don’t you have work to do?”

“I thought you chipped your spies,” Rocket said from his chair, where he sat with closed eyes.

“That’s the movies, Rocket. If we can track them, so can anyone else.”

Timbrel sucked in a hard breath. “Wait!”

“You okay?” Candyman asked.

“Better than that.” She grinned—and wow, that girl was pretty when she smiled. She brushed bangs from her face. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. I’m stupid. I mean—I’m a handler.”

“Hogan!” Lance snapped. “Calm down and tell me—”

“Talon.” She gulped air. “He’s microchipped and has a tracking device. They tag all MWDs in case something happens and they get separated.”

Lance snapped his fingers at Hastings. “Get on that. Get it tracked.”

The air and space cleared as the others rushed to the table near the back where they went to work on getting them closer to stopping this nightmare.

As he pushed back in his chair, Lance eyed the men of ODA452. Two of them snored loudly, their heads cocked at odd angles against the seats and windows. Watterboy and Candyman were engaged with Timbrel, working to track Talon’s chip. Weariness marked the faces of every last one. If he looked at his own, he was sure it’d show up there, too.

And after eight hours in flight, they were only halfway to Russia. He punched the seat as he sat down. Eight hours.
Eight!
Half a day. When Lance had given the pilot hay about the length of time, the man warned him that this was a good day. Sometimes, the flight took twenty hours.

Curses exploded from the back.

On his feet, Lance searched for the upset.

“Is it her? Can you verify it?”

Lance rushed to the back. “What’s going on?”

“Sat imaging, sir. We piggybacked a satellite. I started checking locations connected to insurgents. After a few back-channel searches—”

“What’d you find?” Lance thought his head might explode.

“Aspen.” Smith blinked. Looked at the screen. “At least…it looks like her. She appears to be running down a street. There’s a black car. Four men.” He dragged his finger along the screen. “Chasing her.”

Austin swung around. Face red. Eyes enraged. He threw a punch.
Crack!
Lance felt the world tumble.

“If she dies, you die!” Austin screamed.

Weapons snapped up. Hastings. Smith. ODA452. All aimed at Austin.

The man’s chest heaved. “I swear—if she dies because of this, because of your agent—” He hauled in a breath, face tormented. “I swear I’ll kill you.”

“Why don’t you stop wasting your energy on hate and venom, Mr. Courtland, and get to work helping us find your sister.”

But the man’s words…the rage…Lance could relate. And shared the fears that drove them. With eight hours—
hours!
—between them and Aspen…

Were they already too late?

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” He looked from the cherub to his mother’s sweaty, glowing face.

“Yes, she is.”

He heard something in his mother’s voice and looked up. Red circled her eyes. “What? Why are you crying? She’s beautiful and healthy!” But that wasn’t the best. “And he doesn’t know!”

Her brown eyes locked onto his. “But he will.” Her chin trembled. “He always does.” A sob punched its way out, and she clutched the newborn to her face, kissing her.

He watched them. His mother and new baby sister. Knew his mother was right. The colonel found out everything. He always did. Somehow. Someway. He just did. “We have to hide her.”

“Give her up?” Panic clanked through his mother’s words. “I can’t! No, I can’t.”

Nikol stood, feeling every bit the eight-year-old he was. “We must. Just as we hid that you were pregnant.”

“That’s not the same, Nikol. He doesn’t like me in his life, so it’s easy to stay away. But you see what he’s done with you.”

“It’s different.” It hurt his heart to even think it. “I’m a boy. He won’t want her.”

Mother cried again. Slowly, she settled in the bed with his baby sister cuddled in her arms. Then she lifted her head. Lips slightly apart. Light settled in her eyes. She smiled.

“What?”

“There’s a family…my brother knows a missionary family in Brno.” She smiled through a still-wet face. “They’re American.”

“He’d never think to look there.”

    Forty-Two    

A
mazing the way a million things can happen in a microsecond. Cardinal noticed the blue eyes peering at him from over a headstone.

Kalyna’s gleam, the thirst for him to hurt, that poured out of her eyes.

The way the weapon dipped.

Tiny explosion.

The report of her weapon registered a fraction too late.

Fire lit down his arm. Flung his arm back.

In the second it took him to recover, Cardinal lunged. Straight into one of the men who stepped into his path. Their collision barreled right into Kalyna. The second guy tripped trying to get out of the way.

As Cardinal went down, he saw a dark gray blur. Braced himself.
Crack!
Stars sprinkled across his vision, compliments of the gravestone he’d hit. He lifted but didn’t release the guy. Flipped the man over. Cold-cocked him.

“Get up,” Kalyna shouted. “I’ll shoot if you try anything.”

Cardinal fishtailed and scissored his legs, gauging where she stood, and ripped her feet out from under her. The gun flipped from her hand. She landed with a thud.

He dove for the weapon. Saw the second guy charging. Cardinal rolled, lifting the weapon and bringing it to bear. He fired, and the guy took one, center mass. Red bloomed over his blue shirt like a dark sun.