Greg Rucka - Patriot acts

Alena dropped the duffel onto one of the leather-covered seats, then dropped herself into the one across from it, facing me. She scowled. Miata continued past us, snuffling his way into the galley.

"The bullet creased the iliac crest on your right side as it exited. The bone needs time and rest to heal. If you insist on moving, you will prolong recovery, and potentially do greater damage. Bad enough that I'm half lame; now you're trying to cripple yourself, as well?"

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," I said.

Vadim returned, carrying a bag of his own, this one smaller than Alena's duffel, black, with a silver Nike swoosh on its side. He gave me a grin, then bent to stow his luggage in one of the lacquered wood cabinets acting as a divider between portions of the cabin. The plane wasn't terribly large, but a lot of effort had gone into the main cabin design, and there was plenty of space. Slight tears marred the leather upholstery around me, and I could see faint scratches on the lacquer in places, and it struck me that the Gulfstream probably got a lot of use.

Finished, Vadim closed the cabinet once more, then dropped into a seat of his own, pulling an iPod from one of his jacket pockets. From where he stood at the cockpit door, the pilot called out to us, asking if we were ready to go. That surprised me, not because he seemed to actually care, but because he sounded American, and not Russian.

"They're ready," Dan said, and he got to his feet. He switched into Russian, asking Alena something, and while I was starting to pick up words here and there, I couldn't really understand it. But I heard the name "Illya," and that was enough.

"You know where he is?" I asked.

They both looked at me, Dan with vague hostility, Alena with curiosity.

"Not yet," Dan admitted. "But we'll find him. We'll find him, and we'll take care of him. I'll take care of him."

"But you don't know where he is."

"I said that I will find him."

"And you think he doesn't know that? There's no way Illya's still in New York, Dan. He got out, and he got help to do it, most likely. You're going to have to cast a very wide net before you find him again."

Dan clenched his teeth, showing me one of his thick fingers. The anger was an anger I understood, the anger of betrayal, and I didn't take it personally that he was consequently directing it at me.

"But I will find him, Atticus." It was a growl, half threat, half oath. "I will find him, and when I do, I will pay him back for what he did. He sold us out, he got two of my boys killed and your Natalie, he goes down for that. For that, he pays."

"He pays for that," I agreed. "But not until after I've had a chance to talk to him."

"The fuck-"

Alena interrupted. "It will take you a while to find him, I think, Dan. Atticus is correct."

"This kind of thing, it has to be answered quickly!"

"Not until after I talk to him," I said, and I said it deliberately, and I said it softly, and I said it as clearly as I could. In his seat, about to put his ear buds into place, Vadim stopped what he was doing, turning around to look at first me, then his father.

"Tasha, tell this guy-"

"Find him," I told Dan. "Watch him. Track him. Mark him. But don't touch him, Dan. And don't let him make you. Once you have him, you let us know."

"I have to take care of this!"

"You will. But I'm going to need him first."

I moved my eyes from Dan to Alena, and I saw she was with me, that she understood what I wanted, and why, and more, why it was important.

She spoke quietly, in Russian, and Dan made a face like he was having trouble controlling his temper, and then he actually did throw his hands in the air. When they came down again, he pointed his finger at me a second time.

"I don't do this for you," he said. "And I don't do this for Tasha, you understand? I do this for Natalie, because I liked her, and she liked you. But because I do this for Natalie, Illya is mine, you understand? His life is now mine, no one else's. No one kills that walking fuckhole but me, understand?"

"I understand."

Dan grunted, turned away, slapping Vadim on the shoulder. The younger man got to his feet, and the two of them exchanged a rough hug. Vadim had drawn the short straw on the height gene, because he only reached Dan's shoulder, which put him at, perhaps, chin height on me and Alena. But he had his father's body type, the same strength of chin and jaw. When the two of them embraced, it was clear that the blood running between them was thick.

Dan released the young man, this time slapping him lightly on the cheek, then made his way to the front of the aircraft. He stopped at the door, looked back at us.

"I will see you when I see you."

"You didn't even see us here," Alena responded.

Dan turned to the pilot, still waiting at the cockpit door. "How many passengers you carrying?"

"One," the pilot said. "Some kid I'm taking back to the home country."

"That's right. One."

Dan looked back at us, then at his son, a final time. Then he went out the door, disappearing down the stairs.

"Buckle up," the pilot told us. Seven minutes after takeoff, the pilot came over the intercom.

"International waters," he said.

I shifted carefully on my bench, looked over to where Alena had taken a position opposite me, her legs stretched out in front of her, as if she was imitating my posture. Her head was turned to the window, resting her forehead against the glass. Miata lay curled in the aisle between us.

Without looking at me, Alena asked, "Are you ready to talk about what happened?"

"If you're asking do I feel up to it, yes, I think so."

"Then tell me what happened."

I told her what happened, as best as I could remember. Everything from the moment I'd left the safe house in the Civic to my broken memories upon returning. I ended with her and Vadim taking me to see Natalie where she lay in the yard.

She never stopped looking out the window as I relayed it to her, and her questions were few. She was curious about the AR-15, because she said that had been an anomaly in the weapons load-out. The MP5s were, strictly speaking, MP5SDs, and apparently, all but two of the people who'd been trying to kill us had carried them.

"Tasked from the same source," Alena murmured, more to herself than to me. "Each group, tasked from the same source for their op."

"Your turn," I said. "What happened at the house?"

She drew a deep breath through her nose, exhaling it strong enough that it formed a mist on her window. Then she swung her legs off the bench, turning so she could sit facing me.

"Natalie was trying to protect me," Alena said. "Remember that, Atticus."

Then she told me what happened at the safe house.

The window in Alena's room at the house in Cold Spring looked out over the backyard, not the front, and so she had not watched me go. But she had heard the sound of the Civic starting, had heard its wheels turning on the leaf-strewn road, and because she had never had to say good-bye before to anyone she did not wish to see go, she remained motionless, and listened for as long as she could. She listened until the sound of my departure faded into the night.

When she said this to me, she told me that she would have been embarrassed to admit it, except that doing so is what had given the first warning, because by doing so, she heard two things she hadn't expected.

The first was the sound of an engine, of a vehicle coming down the road (she admitted that, for a moment, she had hoped it was the same vehicle, that I was returning for some reason, but almost as quickly as she'd thought that, she had dismissed the idea: I was not returning). Then she heard another one behind it, and she understood that two vehicles were now approaching the house.