“Things are kind of stacking up around here, boss. When are you coming back?” Those were the first words from Janna Ecklund, who was running the place in his absence. “You were supposed to be gone for just a few days.”
“Hello to you, too. Anything urgent?” Swanson enjoyed bantering with Janna and knew she had everything under control. Her FBI career had trained her not to leave loose ends.
“Sir Jeff is concerned because you were expelled from Finland. How does anybody get expelled from Finland? He wants to see you soon. You should give him a call. I’ve got some documents for you to sign. The people at XenTek Research in California are getting antsy for you to get out to Twentynine Palms for some new tests on Project Hydra.”
“Use the electronic signature, or just forge my name,” he instructed. “Tell Jeff everything is good on our end. I will contact XenTek as soon as I get back to the office.” Hydra, a laser-guided bullet for a .50-caliber sniper rifle, was the latest invention coming off the drawing board from the skilled researchers and engineers of Excalibur Enterprises and its partners, and had a potential upside of millions of dollars in contracts.
“So when will that be, going back to my original question?”
“I will be in Brussels all day tomorrow, Janna. Then I have a direct flight straight into Dulles the day after.”
“You sound tired.” She had no idea why he was in Belgium and knew better than ask to on an open line.
“I am.”
She laughed. “Stop whining. You can sleep when they’re dead, Jarhead.”
“See you in forty-eight hours, Feeb.” He hung up.
Janna was right. He was tired. Exhausted. It wasn’t the travel, but the saddle of concern that he was lugging around since the meeting with Colonel Markey and Deke Cooper. The colonel was a combat veteran with several tours in the Sandbox, so he was not one to panic in the face of a little adversity. The problems he laid out were bona fide, even without Kyle sharing his own observations from the trip over to Narva. He thought about Anneli, the girl he had rescued, and her Disappeared boyfriend, Brokk. He thought about the spy network being run by the colonel’s fashion-plate wife, Calico. He dialed his memory back even more and thought about the two goons who had tried to kidnap Anneli and kill him in the castle. Even wild combat usually has some meaning or discernible pattern to help it all make sense. He saw nothing in this mess.
One more drink, some bourbon over ice cubes, and he peeled back the cool white sheets and crawled beneath the covers.
The nightmare assaulted him. He dreamed of grime and grit, hopeless desolation, the stench of oil coagulating on the water around the blackened hulks of ships, and the burned remains of vehicles and shattered human bodies. Gaunt and frightened columns of refugees, mangled soldiers with their guts spilled, and buildings in smoldering ruin beneath an evil sky full of choking smoke that blanketed the countryside. Television sets flashed scenes of carnage. Politicians in world capitals arguing about who started it, who would finish it and which flags would still be flying when the war was over. Timers counting off seconds to launch the nukes. Swanson tossed and turned in the big bed, and moaned aloud, as if his brain was in physical pain. He was dreaming of war.
Out of the chaos in his mind appeared a figure who came to him almost like clockwork when things began to flood out of control. The singularly ominous figure was draped in black scraps, and steered a battered skiff with a single oar. The Boatman, as Swanson had come to know him over many years of the hallucinatory visits, was a herald of death.
Three corpses sat in the long boat and their blank eyes were fixed on a horizon of fire. Kyle recognized them as the ISIS fool from Rome and the pair of careless assassins in Narva. In these dreams, the Boatman collected the souls of Swanson’s targets and ferried them off to hell. A sulfurous wind flapped the dark cloth as the bateaux coasted close and the Boatman stood there with his usual hideous grin.
“We did not have an appointment here, Sniper,” came the hiss of a voice. “It was to be one from Rome, and yes, there he is in the front. Then you were to collect another in Cairo. I planned my schedule accordingly, only to have to change it.”
Swanson replied. “I know the feeling.”
“Change is uncomfortable, but I adapt. I had to add this pair from Narva to my roster because no other boats were available to pick up your droppings on such short notice.”
The skiff rocked gently on imaginary waters. Kyle asked, “Why are you here?”
The answer was quick. “I am here because you are my responsibility, and as I said, all of the other boats are busy. Ask me why they are all busy.”
“Okay. Why are the other boats busy?”
“They are being made ready for the Big One.”
“The war, you mean? Don’t be so dramatic. There is not going to be a war.”
The Boatman cackled. “No. That part is guaranteed. You will get it started. I have a lot of trust in your ability.”
The stormy sky above the Boatman loosed forks of lightning that snapped and popped along the white-topped waves. Curtains of ash and rain followed. “Then you are wrong. I have one more quick assignment with no blood involved, and then I am safe and sound back home. No war.”
Again the laughter seared. “Again, my gunnery-sergeant-turned-spy, you are not asking the right question.”
Swanson’s mind swirled and in his sleep he felt dizzy and nauseous. “Then what is the right question, you bag of rags?”
“Do not ask why I am here tonight. Ask instead what you are doing here.”
Kyle felt as if he had been struck by one of those ominous thunderbolts. He lurched from the bed and fell to the floor with his head spinning and his stomach in spasm. Crawling to the bathroom, he heard the final echoes of the Boatman’s laughter as the nightmare released its hold. He made it to the toilet bowl and leaned over and vomited hard, and a foul smell rose from the water as the waste splashed in. He heaved again, then once more, and finally rolled to the chill tile floor. Reaching up, he managed to flush it away.
Why am I here? How did Inspector Rikka Aura in Finland know to track me down?
Swanson struggled to his feet, holding the sink to steady himself until the uneasiness faded. He wandered the room, turning the dream over in his mind, went to the window and looked out over the old city. Inspector Aura had said she had discovered he was aboard a CIA plane coming in from Rome because he went through Finnish customs on the military side of the Helsinki airport. That was a lie. Why did she check that in the first place? It was not an uncommon thing — diplomats and other officials wanting to remain out of public view did exactly the same thing on a daily basis. Picking up on his name could not have been accidental.
His eyes closed and he drank some more whiskey and slammed the tumbler down hard on the wooden windowsilclass="underline" She knew that he was coming! She had been told in advance! There was a fucking leak!
He put the pieces together. Swanson went to Finland only because Ivan the Terrible had popped into the U.S. Embassy in Helsinki, and would only talk to Kyle. Inspector Aura from the Finland Security Intelligence Service had no previous idea of who he was, but she was expecting him that night. Then she expelled Swanson immediately, swooping down without so much as a protest from the U.S. Embassy. Her action had spurred Kyle to move quickly, and he had decided to follow Ivan’s instruction to go to Estonia. Kyle had done so, as compliant as a puppet on a string. He remembered the colonel’s warning about how Ivan always played games and always had a reason for everything he did.