King laughed, then grunted in pain.
Aleman turned to the Russian. “Who’s this?”
“Name’s Asya. She’s with me,” Rook said, as he helped the pilots guide Queen’s stretcher toward the plane’s loading ramp. “She’s okay.”
Aleman turned to Deep Blue who gave a nod.
But King wasn’t satisfied. When she turned to the plane, he took her shoulder and said, “Hold on.” She faced him, looking in his eyes. She stood nearly as tall as him, but he wasn’t interested in her height. He was interested in her face. So familiar. When their eyes met, he noticed she was looking at him the same way.
“Do I know you?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied.
“Haven’t figured it out yet?” Queen called as she was carried up the Persephone ’s loading ramp. “Who taught you how to fight, King?”
A lot of people had taught King how to fight. Hand-to-hand combat instructors, martial artists, every enemy he fought, even Queen had taught him a thing or two.
As Queen disappeared inside the plane, she shouted one more time. “The first person.”
King’s eyes widened. The story, which he’d told the team over beers one night, came back to him in a flash. He was ten. Got the snot beat out of him by a couple of kids. While his mother, Lynn Sigler, pursued typical childhood diplomatic channels-calling the other kid’s mothers-King’s father, Peter Sigler, took him in the back yard and taught him how to fight. Some of the moves became part of his natural fighting style. He’d used a few in the brawl inside the So had Asya.
He staggered away from her as though he’d seen a ghost, shuffling through the deep snow. Recognition slammed into his gut now. The face. The eyes.
“What is it?” Asya asked, stepping toward him.
Deep Blue rushed over, placing a hand on King’s shoulder. “Aleman, get a-”
“It’s fine,” King said. “I’m okay. I–I just know who she is.” He stood straighter, looking into Asya’s eyes. “She has my mother’s eyes.”
Deep Blue looked like he’d been slapped. He whipped his head toward Asya, staring at her eyes. “My God.”
“Her eyes?” Asya said, still confused. “How-”
“Your last name,” King said. “Is it Machtcenko?”
She looked surprised. “How did you know?”
“Because it’s my last name, too,” he said. “My real last name. My parents were Russian spies. Their cover name was Sigler. My father taught us both how to fight. Fenrir’s roar didn’t affect me, probably because of a genetic trait passed down by my parents. You have that same trait.”
Asya’s eyes began to widen.
Despite being completely unnerved by the development, a smile crept onto King’s face and tears threatened to spill from his eyes. Since Julie’s death, he’d felt a void in his life. He’d grown up with a sister and missed that relationship greatly. But now…maybe he had a second chance? “You’re my sister.”
Gilmour, Kane Robinson, Jeremy
Ragnarok: A Jack Sigler Thriller
Dear Reader,
You are just an epilogue away from finishing this book and I wanted to take a moment to thank you for reading. I hope you have enjoyed the journey and that you will come back for more adventures. If you did enjoy the book, please show your support by posting a review at Amazon. com. The Amazon website works on algorithms, meaning the more people positively review my books, the more Amazon will recommend them to other readers. And the more people buy my books, the more I get to write them, which is a good thing for both of us (assuming you enjoyed the book).
So today's lesson is: good Amazon mojo + algorithms lead to more sales, even more positive mojo, more books, bigger releases, extra bonus features and eventually a glorious mojofest unlike anything the world has ever seen before. So support the mojofest and post a review…right after you finish reading the epilogue!
Thank you again and please forgive this intrusion.
– Jeremy Robinson
EPILOGUE
Endgame Headquarters, White Mountains, NH
14 December, 1430 Hrs
Snow fell heavily outside the immense open hangar door of the Endgame base, hidden under the large rocky face of Mount Tecumseh, in the White Mountains. King drove a black Humvee into the large hangar and parked it next to a Black Hawk helicopter that sat dormant, its rotor blades strapped down lengthwise along the vehicle with nylon webbing to metal rings sunk into the gray concrete floor.
He climbed out of the driver’s seat, and Asya stepped out on the other side of the vehicle. Before they had fully emerged, the massive metal door that retracted into the ceiling of rock above the doorway began to lower. Soldiers in white battle gear operated a newly installed guard shack that had a door leading from a shack on the inside of the hangar to an identical shack on the outside, adjacent to the massive door.
Some of Deep Blue’s new White security team. King knew they were top-notch soldiers from Fort Drum, just like their predecessors had been. He just hadn’t taken the time to get to know any of them. If they lived long enough, he knew he would. The only thing he knew about them was that Deep Blue had foregone the Chess-themed numbering and hired ten men to be security members, where previously they had numbered only five.
There was a lot to think about and process in the wake of the assault, which had hit the team hard, but the world even harder. Millions were dead or missing. Cities were destroyed or simply gone. The world economy was in turmoil. The silver lining was that most governments recognized that the threat was not of this Earth and threatened every nation. The damage was extensive, but governments were entering a new phase of cooperation as they lent aid, rebuilt and prepared to fight global threats as a unified force rather than as separate nations. King wasn’t naive, though. There would be some who deviated from the plan. Over time, alliances would fade. Greed would divide nations. Eventually, without a second attack, the world’s governments would be back to fighting each other.
Despite all of that, King had only one focus right now: finding his parents. He and Asya had been hard at it for weeks, tracking down every lead. Asya had been temporarily given the callsign: Hammer for the mission, which began as a joke with Queen referencing how well Asya had fought in Norway, and also referring to the symbol from the old Soviet flag. Asya liked it.
They were a natural team and bonded quickly. Asya reminded King of his mother and he of her father. They swapped childhood stories, marveling at how their parents had led double lives, in two countries. And for the first time in his life, King knew where his father had really been during the ten years he’d been missing. Asya had also become fast friends with Sara and enjoyed being called “Auntie Asya” by Fiona, who also enjoyed rubbing in the fact that the women in King’s life now outnumbered him three to one.
As King and Asya headed down the hallway toward the main computer lab to check in with Deep Blue, they came across Rook and Queen, heading the other way. Rook was dressed in shorts and tennis shoes, with a rock t-shirt that read Primal Puppy Dogs on the front and showed a silhouette of a medium-sized dog, lifting its leg and urinating on a guitar leaning against an amplifier. As a native of New Hampshire, things like winter didn’t faze him. Even when they would go outdoors to local restaurants as a group, Rook wore shorts year-round. Over his t-shirt, he wore his arm in a blue medical sling. His shoulder would still need a few more weeks to recover from the surgery he had undergone to repair his rotator cuff.
Queen wore tight-fitting jeans and a loose navy sweater that accentuated her lithe physique. She also wore a black pneumatic medical fracture boot on her ankle that allowed her to walk short distances while her ankle healed. Her right hand was in a blue cast from the fingers to just beyond her wrist.
King noticed that she held Rook’s hand with her left hand as they approached, and they were not shy about it. He smiled at them. “How’s it going?”