“This?” Vasilii said. “This… might be possible. Perhaps,” he said, turning to stare at the dirty brown water of the reflecting pool, “if I push, if I talk to right people. If I do this thing for you, perhaps Alexandra could return.” He spun on his heels. “Why?”
“Because she never deserved this,” Smith said, searching for some sign of understanding in Vasilii’s face. “She never meant to betray her country. She never meant to get pregnant. You know this.”
Vasilii stared at him, his face finally softening. “After all these years, I have come to believe you speak truth.”
“You’ll support me in this?” Smith’s heart soared. It seemed too good to be true. After all the years spent searching for a way, the love of his life was finally within his grasp.
Vasilii stuck out his hand and Smith took it, shaking it firmly.
“I think she has suffered enough,” Vasilii said. “If your daughter can prevent Feofilivka from becoming public knowledge, I do what I can.”
John sighed as his hand holding the cordless screwdriver banged against the bumper of the Ford transit van. He worked with Taylor Martin, putting fake plates on the vans. They were in an aircraft hangar at the Boryspil International Airport, southeast of Kiev, preparing for their mission. He turned to Taylor. “Just once I’d like to travel as a tourist, you know? Sample the cuisine? Buy some postcards?”
“Nobody buys postcards anymore,” Taylor said. “They just share every little fart on Twitter.” He grunted as he finished attaching a license plate to the other van and eyed it critically. “Looks good.”
John tightened the last screw on his. “Yep. No would will suspect two vans full of Americans who work for a secret government organization coming to kill anyone trying to release a killer virus.”
“You’re in a mood.”
John shook his head. He was still upset about the suicide bombing in Seoul that almost killed Nancy, and hadn’t been thrilled hiding out at the airport while waiting for the C-17’s to arrive from Area 51.
“Cooling my jets with Nancy for a day wasn’t exactly fun, know what I’m saying. She wasn’t good conversation.”
Taylor stood and stretched his tall frame before offering John a smirk. “Could have been worse. Could have been stuck with Deion, like Mark. When he found out Eric recruited Valerie?”
Taylor was right. Deion could be prickly even under the best conditions. Eric recruited Valerie? He saw Valerie on the plane and wondered what role she would play, but hadn’t realized she had been recruited. He shuddered. Deion is going to be even more of a pain in the ass. “When are we leaving?”
Taylor shrugged. “Soon as they want us to know, they’ll tell us.”
“Battlefield philosophy?”
“Practical experience.”
Mark Kelly carried plastic cases of gear down the ramp and carefully packed them with the rest in the back of the vans. “Are you two done goldbricking?”
John rolled his eyes and let loose a mock groan. “Now what?”
Mark smiled. “We’re leaving in five. It’s a hundred and twenty miles, so hurry up and wait. We’ll be sitting on our asses for the next couple of hours.”
Taylor nodded. “That’s why I joined the Army, so I could go to strange foreign lands and kill people, but slowly. Very damned slowly.”
As Taylor finished speaking, Nancy, Eric, Deion, and Valerie exited the C-17. John saw Valerie’s eyes focus on him and he knew, somehow, that Eric had briefed her on the StrikeForce technology. From the way her eyes darted away, he suspected that Eric had also briefed her on his history. He wanted to grab her and shake her, screaming that he wasn’t that person anymore, but he knew it wouldn’t make a difference.
Some sins can’t be forgiven.
“All right, people, let’s get rolling,” Eric said. “Valerie, you’re with Deion and Mark. Nancy and Taylor are with John and me.”
They left the airport and headed toward Feofilivka. True to Mark’s word, the drive took several hours. Eric and Nancy rarely spoke during the trip, except to offer directions. Once they were well away from Kiev, the roads were barely more than one vehicle wide, and by the time they reached Mais’ke, the roads had turned from concrete to dirt.
They proceeded through Mais’ke, turned left at Stepne, and soon entered the almost-abandoned town of Feofilivka. Eric pointed to a dirt road that led north. “That way.”
Taylor nodded and turned, driving carefully over the dirt road. Mark followed close behind in the second van. They approached a small lake and Eric said, “The facility is through there.” He pointed to a stand of trees to the west. Taylor nodded and pulled the van close to the tree-line.
“Valerie and I will stay with the vans,” Eric said as they got out, shooting Nancy a quick look. “Beat you to it.”
Nancy frowned. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Well, I am here,” Eric said. “Everybody suit up. We don’t expect any contamination, but we’re not taking chances. Wear your JLIST’s and your M50’s.”
They nodded and began suiting up. John took a deep breath. The smell of pines reminded him of a trip he once took with his parents, north of Pasadena. The mountains were beautiful, the trees majestic. The old forest in the Ukraine had the same earthy scent.
If only I had time to enjoy it.
He opened the plastic crate, stripped to his briefs, and strapped on the Battlesuit. He noticed Valerie watching and tried to put it out of his mind as he fiddled with his prosthetic. The Battlesuit would offer moderate protection against contaminates, but nothing like the JLIST. He stared at the VISOR, then felt a clap on his shoulder.
“You’ll have to get by without the VISOR,” Eric said, standing beside him. “Doc Elliot said it would interfere with the M50.”
“How are you going to run things from back here without video?”
Eric shrugged. “The earpieces will do. We’re easily within range of the facility, so we’ll have coverage. It’s not the same as the VISOR—”
“I’ll get by,” John said. He glanced longingly at his M11’s nestled in their case. “I’ll miss them more.”
Eric smiled and patted him on the back before leaving to check the others. John continued putting on his JLIST before strapping the M50 mask to his head. He pulled the top of the JLIST tightly over the back of his head and tightened the clasps.
He picked up his spare HK417, a replacement for the one lost in the Gulf of Aden. He checked it, then strapped extra magazines to his belt. He wished he could wipe the sweat trickling down his neck, but there was no way to reach the skin with the JLIST sealed. He fumbled with the pack that held the M50’s carbon filter and the hose that connected the filter to the mask, making sure it was tight and out of the way of his rifle.
He turned to find Nancy, Taylor, Mark, and Deion already wearing their JLIST’s, standing around, their weapons at the ready. His earpiece crackled. “Okay,” Eric said, “we’ve got a Sentinel overhead. It will give us a good read on radio chatter, but we have minimal visual and no thermal.”
John shook his head. They were going in almost blind. “You sure about this?”
“The intelligence is as good as we’re going to get,” Nancy said, the barest hint of edge to her voice. “We don’t have to like it. We just have to do the job.”
The team shuffled down the dirt path, the afternoon sun obscured by dense tree cover. John led the way, glancing at the path as they went. The ground was soft, spongy, and had been recently disturbed. “There’s been trucks through here,” he said. He dropped to get a closer look, then pointed so the team could see. “Tire tracks. They haven’t filled back in or weathered away.”