I threw the bolt back and opened the door, exiting hard and twisting to my left, the Sterling ready, thinking that planting four or five rounds in Arzu's chest would end this once and for all. I would've been right about that, too, except for one small thing.
He wasn't there.
I'd started to turn when I felt the muzzle press into my right shoulder from behind, and I lost the sound of the shot as a bullet exploded out of me from in front. I dropped the Sterling and found myself following it to the ground. My right arm absolutely failed to support me, and I went face-first into mud. I couldn't get my breath, tried to raise my head, thinking that it would be better if the last thing I saw in this life was the sky. The muzzle returned, the metal hot, jammed into the back of my neck, but the shot didn't come.
"I told you," Arzu shouted at me, rage and glee commingled. "You should have taken care of your women!"
I managed to lift my head enough to look around and up at him, and he was leaning over me, the barrel of his Sterling still digging into my neck. I saw him, and I saw beyond him, and despite his gun and the bullet and the mud and pain, I had to laugh.
"The women can take care of themselves," I told him.
Then Bridgett Logan buried a pitchfork into his back.
CHAPTER
Thirty-eight In mid-August, Alena told me that she wanted to visit Tiasa. We had resettled in Vancouver, Canada, and she was well into her second trimester. She was in New York a week, leaving Miata and me alone to continue our respective convalescences and to pursue our slow search for a more permanent home. The night she returned, Alena said, "She wants to come live with us. She doesn't want to go back to Georgia."
"What do you think?"
"I think it's a good idea."
"You talk to Cashel about it?"
"Yes."
"What did she say?"
"She thinks that Tiasa will need counseling, therapy, for a long time to come. That she needs stability. Safety. Love. She wonders if we can give her all of these things."
"We can," I said.
"Yes," Alena agreed. "We can." In early October, Cashel and Bridgett brought Tiasa out from New York, to the house we'd purchased in Victoria. Alena and I met them at the airport. Tiasa hugged me when she saw me, and my right arm had recovered enough strength and mobility that I was able to hug her in return. She looked like a different person than when I'd last seen her in July. Somewhere along the way, somehow, she'd rediscovered her ability to smile.
Bridgett and Alena kept their mutual hostility almost cordial, more for Tiasa's benefit than mine. Bridgett stayed with us for only two days, but Cashel was with us a week. With her assistance, we were able to set up counseling and further treatment for Tiasa.
None of us had any illusions. On the last day of the year, at thirty-six minutes past three in the morning, Alena gave birth to a healthy baby girl.
We named her Natalya, in memory of another lost friend. All the while, even into the new year, I'd been following the news, trying to keep an eye on the various outlets I'd sent my FedEx packs to.
Some ran further with the story than others, and some ran with it not at all. Of the European outlets, Der Spiegel did the most with the material I'd sent, followed by The Guardian. In the U.S., as I'd seen, The New York Times took the lead, but in early October, The Washington Post began its own series.
It was, I knew, a drop in the bucket.
All I had to do was look at Tiasa, holding her baby sister as she sang Natalya to sleep, to see the memories still fresh in her eyes, to know the truth. Acknowledgments The research for this novel was some of the most painful I've undertaken, and the efforts of everyone who assisted me is greatly and sincerely appreciated. Of the many who offered their time, observations, knowledge, and assistance, the following are but a handful.
My thanks to both Eric Trautmann and Timothy O'Brien for research assistance. For an insight into the world of engineers, Andrew Greenberg-who really is a rocket scientist-was invaluable.
As he has done on almost every novel I've written, Jerry Hennelly provided firsthand tactical experience, professional know-how, and a deeper understanding of everything from surveillance technology to firearm techniques. I remain, as ever, in his debt.
My agents, David Hale Smith and Angela Cheng-Caplan, continue to supply moral and creative support, and consistently provide that most crucial of aid: they know how to listen, and they do so exceptionally well.
Christina Weir took time from a busy schedule and an insanely difficult year to read the manuscript in progress and offer comment, constructive criticism, and encouragement. Mine's finished; where's yours?
A special note of gratitude to E. Benjamin Skinner, a man I've never met, but whose book, A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern Day Slavery, reveals one of the greatest evils of our time, and our failings in combating it. In combination with H. Richard Friman and Simon Reich's Human Trafficking, Human Security, and the Balkans, as well as Kevin Bales's remarkable book, Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy, these works formed the foundation for this novel. Not a single scenario as presented herein was fabricated from whole cloth: everything is based in fact to a greater or lesser extent, gleaned from publications, testimonials, interviews, and documentaries.
Finally, to Jennifer, who listened when she would rather not have done, and who lived with me as I went once more to the dark places; thank you, again, for being there when I came back into the light.
DON'T MISS ANY OF THE GRIPPING
Coming soon from Greg Rucka, the latest chapter in his acclaimed, searing QUEEN amp; COUNTRY series:
Turn the page for a sneak preview of The Last Run.
For Tara Chace, it was the fall that did it, the absurdly long pause that came between missing the handhold and slamming into the ground. Like all falls that are too far, this one lasted long enough for her to realize what had happened, and what, as a result, would inevitably happen next. It was a moment of perfect clarity; not of vision, but of self-awareness, and Chace saw herself then as she had only four other times in her life. She saw herself as the woman she was-frankly, honestly, without self-pity, judgment, or false modesty. Who she was, who she had been, and who she wished to be.
Then she hit the ground, her back impacting first, followed almost immediately by her skull. • • • The first such moment of clarity had occurred when she was only ten years old, the day her mother, Annika Bodmer-Chace, informed Tara that, come the spring, she would be attending a boarding school in Cheltenham, England, and would no longer be living in Switzerland with her mother and father. The conversation-if it could be called such-had occurred in the sitting room of the Geneva house, with Chace seated in a chair so large it had threatened to swallow her, and her mother on her knees before her, speaking gently and sweetly in French, holding both of her child's hands in her own as she imparted the news. When Chace looked past her mother and out the window, she could see snow falling with a sedate grace.
"For your education," her mother told her with the same, bright smile that made men and women alike wonder what other sweet lies and promises it concealed. "You must be educated like a proper lady."
"Like you?" Chace asked.
The smile broke wide, Annika laughing. At thirty-four, she was a near-perfect mirror for the woman Chace would grow to become, the same golden blond hair and sky blue eyes, strong and fineboned. The only marked difference were in the first creases of age in her flawless skin, lines made by laughter that Chace would never share.