The Betrayed Series: Ultimate Omnibus Collection With EXCLUSIVE Post-Shiva Short Story (89 page)

Russian soldiers shouted conflicting orders and then argued with the local police as the panicked crowd surged back and forth.

Then some overeager soldier shot into the swarm of survivors. The Russians in the crowd, well aware of the State’s human rights track record, rushed the guards, breaking the line.

There truly was a God above. Saying a silent prayer to heaven, Aunush held to the sniper as he allowed them to be swept down a side street and away from the soldiers and police. From there, the crowd dispersed, seeming to melting into the buildings.

They couldn’t risk finding a hideout so close. Once the Russians untangled themselves, they would be thoroughly searching the area. But how far could they get on foot? They needed a vehicle. The sniper was already checking car doors, trying to find an easy mark.

Then a car squealed to a stop beside them. Unarmed, Aunush could only watch as the passenger door swung open.

Nannan sat in the backseat. Had the Watcher really secured a getaway vehicle?

But as two masked men exited the car, waving pistols at them, Aunush knew they could not be that lucky.

The sniper bristled at the men, but they were weaponless and clearly this ambush had been well planned.

With as much pride as one could muster while being kidnapped, Aunush moved with surety into the backseat. Of course, Nannan sat sobbing like a toddler as the sniper slid in beside her.

Even before the door closed on them, Aunush was already plotting how to turn this abduction to their advantage.

And sacrificing Nannan was perhaps at the top of her list.

CHAPTER 14

══════════════════

Undisclosed Location

6:35 a.m. GMT

Aunush sat on the cold steel chair, her wrists and ankles tied to the metal. She’d been left only in her bra and panties. A strange act of modesty given the fact the Chinese henchmen kept threatening to torture her.

And the scene supported their threats. The room had classic torture room gray, rough concrete walls. A bare bulb hung from a frayed electrical wire. The large drain in the center of the room made it easy to clean up any mess they made.

To the side sat a large stainless steel table filled with instruments meant to extract information from their subjects. Some sharp, others dull. All meant to torture.

Aunush supposed this was all meant to intimidate her, soften her for the questioning to come. She also noticed they left her interrogation for last. Through the grimy window she could see across the hall. Her sniper was stripped naked, hanging in a stress position. What the Chinese did not realize was that the sniper routinely did for this entertainment.

In the room next to hers, the drone of high-pitched sounds meant to break down cognition and thought processes beat through the wall. They must have realized that Nannan would have passed out if he’d been put into even a nonstressed position. A backhanded slap would have put him into a coma. Instead, the Chinese choose to break down his resistance with nonphysical torture.

Strangely she wasn’t any more worried about Nannan giving up any information than she was the sniper breaking. Granted Nannan was flabby and a moron, he was still a Watcher of the Word. The thing the Chinese did not understand about Nannan was that he did not fear for his life, he feared for his immortal soul. Judgment Day was not an abstract concept or even one that was that far off. The Disciples believed deeply that each life was judged at its end. And if you were found wanting? There would be no admission to heaven. It was the
Sheol,
where you were judged by God on how you followed His Word.

Nannan might weep and beg for the sound torture to stop, but break his tenet with God?
Never.

Aunush did not need to dig that far to find her will to resist. She simply would not give the Chinese the pleasure of breaking her. Besides, they would not have the time.

Patiently she’d waited through the night in a light meditative trance. In her mind she’d followed the
mavokh
, the holy labyrinth. She followed it in her mind as it twisted and doubled back upon itself, never finding the center. Not that she wished to. Aunush was not quite ready to come face-to-face with God just yet. If she witnessed His purity, she feared she would lose the ability to do what must be done in His name.

The door creaked open as a Chinese operative walked into the room. His gloved hands were covered in blood. Such a great theatrical touch. He snapped them off, tossing the gloves on the floor where they created a bright red blotch.

Aunush remained silent. Her features neutral.

He walked around her chair, clearly trying to intimidate her.

“Why did you attack the American team?” he asked, his English heavily accented in a distinctly Beijing accent, however she didn’t think he actually grew up in Beijing. There was a flavoring of Min Nan under that cultured accent. Clearly he was trying to hide his rural upbringing.

And just like his accent, the blood was fake as well.

Aunush didn’t answer for the same reason she didn’t ask to speak to anyone in charge despite the long hours waiting. No, she needed the Chinese to come to her.

“Who do you work for?”

Again, she ignored the man’s questions. The Chinese must already know at least some of the pieces to the puzzle. They had risked attacking Americans on Russian soil. They were not fools.

A slap came from nowhere, snapping Aunush’s head to the side.

Oh look, they want to play rough.

Please. This was more like foreplay.

“I asked, who do you work for?” the man demanded as he stalked in front of her. “Why were you in Moscow?”

She bent her head and murmured an offering to the Lord Almighty. Not really to give her strength but to pull the man closer.

He grabbed a curved knife from the table and obliged her. “You will tell me or you will suffer.”

Aunush threw her head forward, slamming her forehead into the man’s. Stunned, he rocked back, but not fast enough. Her wrist bonds, loosened after hours of careful manipulation, came loose as Aunush’s hands flew to his head, snapping it sharply to the right.

The dead man fell to the floor. From his nose a trickle of blood, real blood, emptied down the drain.

She didn’t bother undoing her ankle restraints. It turned out the chair was quite comfortable. Aunush simply sat back down and looked into the small camera.

“Why don’t you send in somebody who can really carry out an interrogation?”

* * *

Rebecca got out of the VW van, their fourth vehicle since ditching the helicopter in the middle of the international business district of Moscow, and unfolded her cramped limbs. Lacking the adrenaline of their harried escape, her muscles rebelled. It hadn’t helped that Rebecca had practically held her breath for the two hours it took for them to get out of Moscow.

Every car that pulled up next alongside them, a possible enemy. Any police car a possible threat. Just the memory of the tense ride made her joints shake. She had to reach out and steady herself on the van. Thank goodness the Russia-Ukrainian border was as porous as it was. They had traveled through the night on a string of bribes.

“Now that was invigorating,” Lopez said, slapping her shoulder.

“Whatever, Ricky.”

“Um, hello?” the corporal said indignantly with far too much energy for a guy who’d just driven seven straight hours. “I just invented indoor helicopter flying. It is going to be all the rage, I’m telling ya.”

Since she didn’t respond Lopez moved on, doing lunges at each step, as the others pulled the gear out of the back. The only two left in the van were Davidson and Bunny. The young woman still slept fitfully on the small cot in the back, her head resting on Davidson’s lap. He gently stroked her hair. It was the only way any of them could get her to settle down. Rebecca hated to rouse her even to board the private plane that Lopez had commissioned.

The woman had only spoken one word since the viscous attack on Moscow. “Slovenia.”

No one had known what she meant at the time. And honestly Rebecca didn’t know much more after an extensive search on the Internet. About all she could gather was that the architect, Nikolay, had retired shortly after the renovations to St. Basil’s Cathedral. Then she found some tiny Slovenian newspaper article from the seventies regarding a famous architect purchasing a remote chalet. She could only assume it was Nikolay, although an Alps cabin seemed a strange retirement choice for such a devout Russian Orthodox parishioner. There wasn’t a Russian Orthodox church for a hundred miles. Actually, there wasn’t much for a hundred miles in the tiny alpine village he had selected as his last home.

Leaning over, Rebecca fished out her laptop and fired it back up. Even with the backup battery she was nearly out of juice. They better have some form of plug on the plane or forget any more research.

“So you think he took the fragments he found at St. Basil’s to Slovenia?” Brandt asked over her shoulder, making her jump.

She tried to cover her reaction with a few callisthenic moves. “It would make sense.”

Brandt nodded. “And Slovenia borders Croatia, which is where we caught up with Amed. I don’t think that is any coincidence.”

Of course the sergeant didn’t. He didn’t think running into an old friend at a coffee shop was a coincidence. While she didn’t find out much regarding Nikolay, she did find some interesting facts about the country he chose. It appeared he was looking farther back than synagogues in his choice.

“It turns out that a Jewish population
predates
the Slavic settling of the area,” Rebecca explained.

“You’re kidding,” Brandt said as he shook out his wrist. It appeared to be sore from his stunt on the helicopter. Rebecca wanted to smack him for making her think she’d lost him…again. It was one thing to be married to another woman and quite another to be in the Russian secret police’s hands.

“Nope,” Rebecca said, acting as if the last few jarring hours hadn’t happened. “Plus, Slovenia has one of the oldest caches of prehistoric remains as well. They found them hidden high up in a cave near Nikolay’s chalet.”

“Lot of history then,” he commented, wincing as he extended his wrist back.

Lopez trotted up. “They’ve got the plane fueled. I’m just going to do the preflight check, boss.”

Brandt grunted his approval and then looked to the sleeping Bunny. “Think it’s just shock or something worse?”

Funny how “shock” became something to be shrugged off. Maybe
funny
wasn’t the right word, Rebecca thought as she looked to the young woman’s shallow breaths.

* * *

“What type of shock is the question, I think,” Rebecca answered.

Brandt regretted asking the question as soon as it was out of his mouth. Bunny had just lost her mentor. Rebecca had lost hers last year. On the surface the two seemed so very different, yet they truly were very similar. He hadn’t noticed it, but Rebecca certainly did. The sympathy she felt for Bunny shone in her eyes.

Rebecca had described losing Lochum like losing a really cranky stepfather. He bugged the crap out of you, but still left a hole in your heart when he was gone. With tears glistening in her eyes, he wanted to reach out to Rebecca so, so badly. He wanted to comfort her, yet he knew any comfort he might try to give would only backfire. Better for him to hold in his feelings and let it sting his heart rather than hurt Rebecca’s anymore.

“Can’t we get her to an American consulate or something?” Rebecca asked, going back to her laptop. “I researched it, and the embassy is just across town.”

Noting that she didn’t ask the same for herself, Brandt was reminded of Rebecca’s resilience. But her brash optimism sometimes blinded her to the situation on the ground.

“Not with the Chinese after us as well,” Brandt reminded her.

Rebecca frowned. “I can’t be sure those were Chinese features.”

“Perhaps not,” Brandt said. “But I can be sure those were QSZ-92s in their hands.
Chinese
military issue.”

“They’re after us for the Rinderpest?” Rebecca said more as a confirmation than a question. It seemed she was starting to accept the fact that now they had two enemies. The Disciples of Moshe and now a Chinese military intelligence squad. Their day couldn’t get much better than that.

The plane taxied out of the hangar as Lopez yelled out the window, “Come on, I want to get us to Ljubljana while they’re still serving
sarkelj
.”

Brandt turned to the van. “Davidson, let me help you get her out.”

But the younger man shook his head, gathering Bunny into his damaged arms. They shook, but still he carried her. “I’ve got it.”

Yes, apparently he had. Last year when they’d first met Bunny, Davidson had been the only one capable of dealing with the young woman. It appeared that several disasters later this was still the case.

Davidson carefully stepped from the van as Bunny roused a bit. He murmured something and she settled right down again.

“So he’s along for the long haul?” Rebecca asked as they followed the two to the plane.

Brandt didn’t answer. To say out loud that Davidson was officially on this mission would be breaking about a dozen military codes. And to say that Davidson wasn’t on this mission just seemed stupid.

Rebecca nodded. “The kind of don’t ask, don’t tell. Got it.” A timid smile curled her lips. “Thanks.”

He didn’t do it for the reasons she thought though. He hadn’t forgiven the traitor or come to peace with the past. He did it because Davidson was in a unique position to keep them safe. To keep
Rebecca
safe.

If he had to make a pact with the devil, then so be it.

* * *

There was a flurry of activity, including handcuffing Aunush to the chair. Not surprising since she’d killed her first interrogator. The Chinese guards didn’t seem to know quite what to do with her. Or the body that lay on the floor. Clearly everyone here was simply a grunt.

The Chinese must have thought they’d captured some low-level mercenary crew. Little did they know.

Finally a man, dressed in a suit that was probably bought at the Louis Vuitton store that she and her sniper had destroyed, stepped into the room. Clearly she was working her way up the food chain.