KGB, she thought. He’d been trained by the KGB.
She’d been trained by Spetsnaz.
She threw his dead weight off her back and twisted around, her toes digging into the hard ground. One arm pushed up from the dirt and she was half standing, half crouching and facing the second man.
He looked surprised.
“When I was a little girl,” she told him, “I wanted to be Ecaterina Szabo. You know, the gymnast?”
He seemed to remember then that he’d been sent to kill her. He moved quickly, his hands coming out of his pockets, and both holding knives. As he came closer she saw just how big he was. The moves she’d used on his partner would be useless on such a bear — his inertia would be too great for her to counteract.
So instead she snatched up the fallen knife from the ground and threw it into his stomach.
He grunted in pain but kept coming, his eyes wild.
There was no time to get out of his way, so she didn’t. Just before he fell on her she lanced out with her foot. Her heel struck the pommel of the knife she’d lodged in his belly, driving it in deep until she felt it touch his spine. She rolled to the side as he collapsed on where she’d been, and she scuttled away as he began to scream.
“I was too tall to be a gymnast.”
For a second, no more, she let herself breathe. She let herself feel the panic she had suppressed before. Her breath made a little mist in the cold morning air.
She touched her jacket and felt the paper folder inside it. Made sure it was safe.
Then she got up and dusted herself off. Went over to their helicopter and found no one else inside. In a few minutes she was airborne, headed for Sakhalin Island. From there she could find her way into Japan, and then on to America. Where the real work would begin.
Jim Chapel leaned on the prow of the yacht and peered down into the water that foamed and churned beneath him. Ever since he’d been a kid, growing up not far from here, he’d loved the ocean. He knew no more peaceful feeling than looking out over its incredible blue expanse, watching it roll in from the far horizon. What human problem could mean anything measured against that blue infinity? Whatever was waiting for him back in New York, whatever Julia was going to tell him, for the moment, at least, he could put it in the back of his mind, tuck it neatly away and think about—
Behind him a vast rolling thump of noise shattered the peace, followed quickly by a squeal of feedback and another squeal, less loud but far more human, the sound of a woman screaming. Chapel spun around just as the beat dropped in and the DJ really got the party jumping.
The yacht was rated for fifty people — it had that many life jackets on board, anyway. Nearly two hundred men and women were crowded onto its main deck, leaping and swaying and throwing their fists in the air as the DJ asked if they were ready to tear it up and burn it down. More squeals and screams came as men in surfer shorts grabbed women and hoisted them up in the air, tossed them into the on-deck pool, poured liquor down their bodies to suck it out of their navels. Chapel had to smile and shake his head as he watched the bacchanalia unfold.
“Jimmy! Jimmy, goddamnit!” someone shouted, and a man ten years Chapel’s junior came running across the deck. “Jimmy, get away from there; can’t you see you’re in the wrong place? The party’s over heeeere!”
Chapel laughed and braced himself as Donny Melvin came rushing at him like a linebacker. The younger man barreled into him and wrapped his arms around Chapel’s torso, and for a second Chapel thought Donny was going to pick him up and bodily carry him over to the party. Donny could have done it, too — Chapel had a couple inches of height on Donny, but Donny had nearly twice his mass, and the vast majority of it was muscle.
Donny had always been a big guy. He and Chapel had gone through Ranger school together and bonded over the fact they’d both grown up in Florida. Back then, Donny had constantly complained that the life of a soldier interfered with his ability to lift weights and that he was running to flab. That had regularly elicited nothing but groans from the other grunts, who wanted to bitch about how heavy their packs were — some of them suggested Donny could carry their packs for them. When Chapel went off to Afghanistan, Donny had gone to Iraq. Flabby or not, after one particularly nasty firefight in Fallujah, Donny had ended up carrying two wounded soldiers off the battlefield, one under each arm. He’d gotten a medal for that.
Since his discharge Donny had clearly returned to working out almost full-time. Nor was he particularly modest about his body. He wore nothing but a pair of white-rimmed sunglasses, some floral print board shorts, and a neon pink pair of flip-flops. One of his massive biceps had been tattooed with a banner reading 75 RANGER RGT, while his other arm had been decorated with a multicolored banner showing he’d fought in the war on terror. Neither of those tattoos was regulation, though now that Donny was a civilian again, he was allowed to do with his skin as he pleased.
“How many times did I invite you down for a cruise, and you always said no? I don’t know how you did it, but you picked the perfect time to say yes. There is some serious action over there,” Donny told Chapel as he released him from the bear hug. “I’m talking talent, Jimmy. Normally, I call one of these boat rides, I’m looking at five or six girls I would do bad things for. Today there’s at least a dozen. At least come take a look, huh?”
“Maybe just for a look,” Chapel told Donny.
“I promise, your redhead girlfriend will not mind if you look,” Donny told him, smiling. “And anything else that happens, well, we are in international waters.”
“That doesn’t give me a get-out-of-monogamy-free card. And stop calling me Jimmy. Only my elementary school teachers and my mother ever called me that.”
“Sure thing, Jimbo,” Donny said, grabbing Chapel’s arm and pulling him back toward the deck.
Chapel couldn’t help but grin. Donny Melvin deserved a little fun after what he’d done in Iraq. If he was a little raucous about it, where was the harm?
Back on the deck a group of girls in bikinis shouted and squealed as Donny burst into their midst. One of them threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek. She had a plastic cup of beer in one hand and she spilled half of it down Donny’s back by accident, but Donny just whooped at the icy touch and hugged the girl. “This is Sheila,” he shouted over the thumping music. “She’s a student at — what school was it?”
“Shelly!” she shouted back.
“What?” Donny asked her.
“My name is Shelly!” she shouted. “Shelly!”
“Seriously?” Donny spun her around and squatted to take a look at the tattoo that rode just above the top of her bikini bottom. “Oh, man! King James, meet Shelly,” he said. “You can recognize her by the butterfly back here.”
Shelly spun around with a mock scowl on her face, which prompted Donny to get a shoulder under her stomach and lift her up into the air. She screamed and giggled and spilled the rest of her beer as he carried her through the crowd toward the open air bar. Dancers and drinkers alike moved out of his way, some of them raising cups in salute as he barged through their midst. This was, after all, Donny’s party. And Donny’s boat.
Donny had not exactly signed up with the army for the GI bill. His father owned half the orange trees in Florida. One day Donny was going to have to learn how to take care of orange trees himself. But clearly that day was not today.