He pushed again, but without oxygen, his muscles continued to weaken.
Then he felt the weight of bodies begin to lift off him. He heard grunting noises and shouts of pain. Then more weight shifted off him. He was lying face down on the ground, battered and bloody, with several of the villagers still on top of him and punching, clawing and poking at him. Before he couldn’t move at all, but now, with the shift in weight above him, as the grunting and shouting continued, he was able to slide his arms under his broad chest. He pulled his knees up slowly to his chest and planted his toes down into the soil.
Then, with a mighty heave, he launched himself up, throwing off the last few bodies that were dog-piled on top of him. As those few villagers hit the ground-three men and two women-Rook looked around to see what was happening. The barn was still burning. The sun had pierced through the fog of the morning and lit the scene in blinding detail. A woman with long dark hair was taking it to the remaining villagers. She was throwing side and high kicks like a karate champ, and punching and gouging throats whenever they came within her reach. She moved like liquid mercury, melting from one fight, rolling and flipping to another, as if the entire battle were one long choreographed dance for which she had memorized the moves.
And she was stunningly beautiful.
This woman had clearly come to Rook’s rescue, but he had no idea who she was. He wasn’t about to waste the opportunity though. He leapt back into the fight, grabbing the two nearby village women by their necks with his huge hands and knocking their heads together, then punching a tall, gangly man in the solar plexus. He found a second man rushing in and drove his foot into the man’s groin, lifting the now squealing bastard right off the ground with the force of the kick.
Ten villagers still stood, and another few were just staggering back to their feet, when something odd happened. The fight abruptly went out of them. Like a flock of birds communicating with each other through some unknown means, all of the conscious villagers turned as one and started slowly walking away from the battle and back toward the town. Rook’s unknown res-cuer kicked a few of the people as they were departing before she stopped and looked in confusion as the people calmly walked away from the fight.
A few others that had been lying on the ground staggered to their feet and limped back toward the town without a word.
Rook was bewildered. “The hell?”
The woman stood silently looking after the departing villagers. She was shorter than Rook, but in great shape. She wore black fleece tights, a loose-fitting gray sweatshirt and dark brown, hybrid, cross-training hiking boots. As if she had been out for a casual morning run when she had come across thirty bloodthirsty villagers dog-piling on him. But he didn’t buy it. Her fighting skills were world class.
Then she turned to face him and he recognized her.
“Asya,” he said.
She simply nodded at him. Once. Curt. Very Russian.
He had last seen her when he had put ashore in Norway. Two men had held her captive and beaten her on the boat before Rook had boarded. At first, he told himself it was none of his business-he had been trying to disappear, after all. When he had finally had enough of her whimpered cries in the hold, he had fought the two men and sent them both overboard into the frigid Barents Sea. Then he had released her from the hold. They had gone their separate ways when Maksim Dashkov, the captain of the fishing trawler Songbird, had used a small inflatable rowboat to get them ashore.
Rook looked at the woman and once again felt the suspicious feeling that he knew her from somewhere. He had felt the same thing when they first spoke on the boat. The bruises on her face had mostly healed. Her dark brown eyes revealed nothing. He peered at her more intently.
“What is it, Stanislav?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“My spider-sense is tingling,” he grunted.
“Your what? I do not understand.”
“Never mind. Thank you for saving me back there.”
“It is only proper I repay you for saving me on the Songbird.”
“Yes, it is. But your timing is…convenient,” Rook hadn’t taken his eyes off her. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but now all the alarms were going off in his head. He felt that this woman was familiar. She was a serious badass, and now he questioned how she could have ended up in that situation on board the boat, tied up by two worthless thugs. And then, weeks later, after heading off in the opposite direction, here she was, just in time to bail him out.
“Why are you here, Asya? Don’t get me wrong-I’m grateful for the rescue, but a lot of weird shit has been going down and you showing up out of the blue is a bit suspicious.”
“I understand,” she looked him in the eyes, and he felt she was about to level with him. “Those men that had me on the boat. I do not know who they were. But I have learned that they also took my parents. I do not know why. I thought I might ask you to help me locate them. It took me awhile to find you.”
“Uh-huh. And your fighting skills?”
“My father trained me. He was always a big fan of the ballet and the martial arts.”
Rook still kept his eyes on her. He wasn’t sure about the rest of her story, but he did believe that her parents had been taken. He could see the pain in her eyes when she had spoken about it.
“What kind of work does your father do? Is he a soldier? A spy?”
She looked aghast. “No. Nothing like that. He works for an electric utility company.”
“And men kidnapped him and your mother? And you want my help to rescue them?”
“Yes.” She cast her eyes down, suspecting his answer would be negative.
“I’m sorry, Asya. You saw those nutbags from the village.”
“Nutbags, Stanislav?” Asya asked with a quizzical eyebrow raised high on her forehead.
Damnit, Rook thought. He’d slipped back into his normal American accent. Fuck it. Too late now.
He let out a sigh and continued. “It was like they were possessed. I need to get to the bottom of this mess.” He felt bad telling her he couldn’t help, but he had put off getting in touch with the rest of his team for too long. They would be wondering what had happened to him after Siberia. It was time to stop feeling sorry for himself and the people who had died, his team in Russia and Peder.
“I need to bury my friend and then get to the nearest phone. I have some other…friends who need to know about what’s going on here.” He started to turn and walk away from her, waiting to see what would happen next. Surely, she wouldn’t let him just go. There would be more to the story, he could feel it.
“Wait,” she grabbed his arm. “If I come with you, and help to get to the bottom of this mess, as you say? Then you will help me?”
EIGHT
Above Lake Michigan, Chicago, USA
3 November, 0100 Hrs
Tom Duncan sat in the troop area of the stealth-modified MH-60 Black Hawk helicopter looking at a small array of computer screens that showed the chaos around the globe.
He was monitoring the situation, as well as orchestrating the retrieval of his various field personnel-King, Knight and Bishop-to combat the phenomenon. One of his other field agents, Rook, had been missing in action for some time, although some conflicting reports placed him in the northern part of Russia or Norway. The fifth member of the field team, Queen, was in that region looking for the man.
As the de facto leader and dispatcher of Chess Team, Duncan was known as Deep Blue, and his identity was a closely guarded secret from all those not part of his team. Only those members of his growing organization, which he had recently christened Endgame, were privy to the fact that Tom Duncan, former President of the United States of America, was now a global mover and shaker, in control of his own former Delta team of commandos that could be sent anywhere around the world on a moment’s notice.