“Not a thing,” Suarez said, standing up, a flash stick in his hand. “Trust me. I reran that clip a dozen times. Maybe more. Zoomed in all over it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to my quarters…”
Mike jerked the two still-pouting girls out of the boat and dragged them up the stairs, Shota still dragging Britney and Oleg stumping along behind. He took them downstairs but instead of turning towards his bedroom, took them down to the intel shack. As soon as Oleg followed and shut the door, Britney dropped into a chair and started laughing so hard she choked.
“I don’t know exactly what just went on,” she said through the tears, “but I’m pretty sure it was a drop. Right?”
“Yeah,” Greznya said, pulling the capsule out of her mouth. “Father of All, Lieutenant, you were wonderful.”
“That was Katya,” Mike said, chuckling. “Damn. Even I didn’t recognize her.”
“We were dying over here,” Olga said. “When the lieutenant called Greznya a two-timing bitch… Oh, All Father.” She started laughing again, helplessly.
“How’d you recognize her?” Mike asked.
“I knew Katya was there and couldn’t leave the boat,” Greznya said, shrugging. “When an American girl came over and started woo-hooing I knew it had to be her. So I had a drink of tequila. She’d put a message capsule in it. I think she offered it to Anastasia first, knowing that Stasia would be too… refined to drink from the neck of the bottle.”
“And making out?” Mike asked, raising an eyebrow.
“She was trying to start a fight,” Greznya said, shrugging. “If Stasia had been more prepared for this sort of thing, she probably would have started the fight. As it was, the lieutenant did nicely.”
“Yeah,” Britney said. “But, damn, that girl can hit.”
“She can do more than that,” Mike said. “Be glad you’re alive. What did we get?”
Julia had opened the capsule and extracted the note.
“Set of signals and pick up and drop points,” she said. “Probably for Jay.”
“So we can signal Jay that Katya can’t get off the boat,” Mike said, nodding. “Hopefully he’s developed some data.” He considered the situation, then nodded again.
“We’re moving,” Mike said. “Up towards the new base. Time to off-load some of the troops and get the base set up. Julia, you and… Lilia hang back. With a team of security. Take a hotel room and do a drop. Does anybody know if Jay has our codes?”
“We’ve got codes for him,” Greznya said, rubbing her cheek. “By the way, Lieutenant, Katya’s not the only one who can hit.”
“Sorry about that,” Britney said, grinning.
“Okay, make up a micro of everything Jay needs to know to date,” Mike said. “Do the drop tomorrow. Take some gear with you but you’re not going to be secure; Gonzales is definitely onto us. But do the drop and wait for a pickup. We’ll be back in two days.”
Chapter Eleven
The run up to the Abacos was done overnight so when Mike woke up the next morning the yacht was docked at an island that was in the middle of nothing but green and blue seas.
The island was a remote outlier of the Abacos chain, the buildings originally part of a lighthouse, the tower to which remained. It had been bought in the early 1900s by a wealthy British shipping magnate and upgraded to the then standards of modern. Over the years it had passed through several hands, and several upgrades, and was currently owned by an American information-tech CEO. He wasn’t stupid though. He only visited the island a few times a year. The rest of the time it was rented out to discerning clientele. The definition of “discerning” was anyone willing to spend a half a million dollars a week and plunk down a larger deposit against damage.
Mike was feeling worn out, though, so he more or less sat out the initial transfer as the Keldara were ferried to the island via the boats. The five new speed boats had turned up, after one hell of a long run, and Mike had Vil’s team crash while others, including members of the yacht’s crew, did the ferrying.
He was holding back Yosif’s team and the rest of Vil’s on the yacht for security. With the rest of the Keldara gone they were finally able to stretch out. The Keldara had been packed below like sardines. Even a hundred-and-fifty-foot yacht didn’t have enough room for them all.
Yosif was coming back on one of the boats and as it approached the ship he said something to the driver, one of the yacht crew, who slowed the boat. Yosif, cautiously, slid over the side of the boat and began swimming towards the yacht. He didn’t do it really well, what used to be called a California crawl, arms windmilling in a crawl but with his head out of the water. But he was clearly enjoying himself, given the grin on his face.
Mike watched him for a second, then frowned. He’d never seen the Keldara swim, didn’t even know they knew how. But Yosif was doing pretty well. Not exactly Olympic quality, but he’d clearly been in the water before and wasn’t afraid of it.
“Yosif,” Mike said as the team leader came up the ladder, horking some water out of his ear. “I didn’t know any of the Keldara could swim.”
“Not many,” Yosif admitted. “I enjoy it, though. There is a deep spot in the river, where the Karl stream joins. It is cold though. This water is…”
“Wonderful,” Mike said, nodding. “I’ve been wanting to hit it, too. Anybody else on the teams swim?”
“Most of mine,” Yosif said, shrugging ruefully. “It’s not considered… important to the Keldara.”
Mike blinked and considered that for a second. Every team had its specialty except Yosif’s. They were just rounders; they could do patrol well enough, entry well enough, shoot well enough, but they didn’t have a niche like, say, Pavel, whose team was the shit for anything involving altitude, be that air ops or mountain.
Mike, with some subtle prodding, had chosen the team leaders. But the teams had fallen out on their own in a process remarkably similar to the way that kids chose ball teams in school. The team leaders had tended to choose people that were like them. Oleg was a bull so his team was bulls. Vil was more subtle, his team was subtle. And so on. Yosif’s, from Mike’s perspective, had been the leftovers. But if they were, in fact, the strange ones who enjoyed swimming…
“Ever swim underwater?” Mike asked.
“Yes,” Yosif said, cocking his head. “Do you?”
Mike snorted and then had to laugh out loud. He’d put a bathing suit on under his shorts so all he had to do was take them off along with his shirt. In about ten seconds he was over the side.
He hadn’t hyperventilated and it had been a while since he did a breath-hold. But, Christ, he’d been a swimmer long before he joined the SEALs. All the breath-hold training he’d gotten had just added understanding and refinement. So he didn’t have much trouble impressing a Keldara.
He followed the bottom, given that there were boats moving overhead, and headed for the shore about fifty meters away. It was a long damned swim for not having prepared and, he realized, being really out of shape for it. But he made it to the shallows and then popped up, standing up and taking long breaths. When he was sure he’d vented all the CO2, he headed back.
The return was harder. His muscles had warmed up and were pumping CO2 into his system at a higher rate. That was what caused the strangling “I have to breathe” sensation when doing a breath-hold, too much CO2 not too little oxygen. The chemical sensor was actually a small bundle of special cells called peripheral chemoreceptors attached to the carotid arteries in the neck.