The Betrayed Series: Ultimate Omnibus Collection With EXCLUSIVE Post-Shiva Short Story (75 page)

It was a short trip to the railcars. They must be at the Domodevedovo Airport. It was known as the largest cargo airport in the world. She and Lochum had used it several times. Basically if you shipped anything west from Russia, China, or even India, it usually went through Domodevedovo. Even more importantly Domodevedovo was south of Moscow. By landing here rather than the more common Sheremetyevo Airport, they had saved four hours trying to get through the major metropolitan traffic jam that was Moscow. Forget New York traffic. Moscow was New York tenfold.

The few times she had been to the Russian capital you might as well walk wherever you wanted to go. And if somewhere you wanted to go was farther than you wanted to walk? Well, get used to the disappointment.

The forklift’s motor ground away as it lifted the crate into the train. One more jolt and the crate clanged to the metal floor of the railcar.

“Now what?” Rebecca asked.

Lopez shifted beside her. “Now we wait until the train heads out for fifteen minutes, then we pop the hood on this baby and stretch our legs.” He paused briefly. “
So
…I’ve got a couple of ideas about what we could do—”

Rebecca punched Lopez, in again what she hoped was his shoulder.

* * *

Brandt’s watch vibrated. As the train clacked along, he and Davidson took crowbars to the crate’s lid. Standing on the tractor’s compressor, Brandt got the torque he needed to pop the nails out. Davidson did the same on the other corner. Once out they were still in the pitch black of the railcar though.

“Rebecca?” he called out softly. “Lopez?” He flipped the light on his gun on, sweeping the beam across the other crates. “Anyone?”

Davidson climbed out, knocking against the other crates “Harvish? Talli?”

No one answered. Did something happen to them?

Taking the crowbar, Brandt worked on the crate next to them. Davidson wasn’t a whole lot of help though. “Put your back into it,” he urged. Worried that the others had somehow run out of oxygen.

“Sarge,” Davidson said. “These others aren’t our crates from our shipment.”

“What do you mean?” Brandt asked, feeling his pulse rise. This was not happening. Rebecca should be right here. He never should have let her out of his sight. Screw what it looked like, he should have taken the crate with her.

They finally got the lid off as Davidson noted, “These aren’t even tractor parts.”

Damn it, the kid was right. They were looking down at a huge shipment of teddy bears from China.

“I think we got put in a different car,” Davidson commented.

“No shit,” Brandt said, heading to the railcar door. He tugged on the handle, but it wouldn’t budge. Clearly locked from the outside.

Brandt pulled out a small block of C-4 and a detonator.

“This is a pretty confined space,” Davidson noted.

Again,
no shit
.

“I’m just going to blow the lock.” Hopefully. Lopez was the blowing-crap-up expert. “Get back.”

He smeared the Silly Putty–like explosive where the lock should be, then plunged the detonator into the C-4. Hustling back behind a stack of crates, Brandt laid down the wick. Once certain that Davidson was secured, he lit the wick. It snapped a bright red and then settled down to a steady orange, sending tiny sparks as the flame made its way up the wick. Within seconds the blast cap blew a nice little hole in the metal door. His ears were going to ring for a while, otherwise no harm done.

Brandt rushed over and tried to put his hand through, but he had been too conservative on the C-4. He went to smear more, but Davidson stopped him.

“Let me,” he insisted, snaking his thinner arm through the hole and unlatching the lock. Davidson then slid the door open.

Blinking back the sudden brightness, the countryside rolled past them. If he didn’t know better, Brandt would have thought he was in the American Midwest. Rolling waves of amber grain and all. He grabbed hold of the handle and swung his body halfway out the car, searching up and down the long line of cars for any sign of the others.

Wind whipping around him, Brandt swung back into the car. “We’re going to have to do a car by car search to find them.”

“That’s not going to work.”

“Why the fuck not?” Brandt growled. Tired of having to explain himself to not just a man outside his unit but a traitor as well.

Davidson pointed to their crate. A large “Destination: Moscow” was stamped on the side.

“That doesn’t mean—”

Taking away any hope that the stamp was a mistake, Davidson pointed past the countryside to a large splotch on the horizon. Moscow.

They were heading in exactly the opposite direction of Pushchino with absolutely no idea if the others were safe or not.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

* * *

Rebecca bit her lip. “Where are they then?” she asked Lopez.

“Best guess?” he answered as he shut the railcar door. “Brandt and Davidson are on another train.” Lopez nodded to Talli. “Stay on the door. Monitor and report if
anything
changes.”

“How can you be sure?” she asked. This didn’t make any sense. There were three crates destined for Pushchino. Why did only two make this train?

“I can’t. Like I said,
best guess
.” He turned to the point man. “Harvish, get prepped. We may have to make a quick exit.”

She didn’t like this side of Lopez. The business-first, serious, worried Lopez. She greatly preferred the cad, player, hotdogging Lopez. His sense of adventure had always made whatever situation they were in more tolerable. If Lopez wasn’t worried, everything must be okay. What did it say when that very same Lopez had concern drawn on his features?

“Could they have been captured?” she asked, her voice quavering.

“Not likely.”

Rebecca tried to keep her voice from becoming shrill. “Why? I mean—”

Lopez turned to her. His eyes bright under the soft glow from the flashlights. “Because the Russians would be stopping every freaking train out of Domodevedovo. They kind of take an American strike team on their soil rather poorly.”

She wasn’t quite sure whether to take that as a positive or not. “Can’t you try to raise them on the radio?”

“Darlin’,” Lopez said with a sigh. “We are in Russia. Not near Russia. Not out in the freaking Siberian plains. We are within a stone’s throw of Moscow. We are radio silent until we leave the Motherland’s borders.”

Her eyes scanned his face. She knew the corporal’s hands were tied. Special ops had very specific regulations. Ones that couldn’t be broken, even for Brandt. And now the feel-good Lopez had to be in charge. Enforcing those rules.

He put his hands on her arms. “The rally point is Pushchino. He’ll find his way there.”

Struggling against tears, Rebecca bit her lip again, but this only made Lopez chuckle.

“Enough of that, woman,” he said. “Out of all of us, you should be the least worried.”

“What do you mean?”

“Duh. Like Brandt isn’t going to go walk through hell’s fire to find you.
Seriously
. Chill out.”

With that Lopez turned back to the men.

Was the corporal right? Had Brandt changed so little in the last few months? Would it be Brandt’s priority to think of her rather than his pregnant wife? Could she cling to that tiny hope?

* * *

Brandt gritted his teeth, readying himself for the jump from the train. The damn thing had to be going at least fifty miles an hour. He glanced over to Davidson.

“You don’t have to do this,” Brandt yelled over the wind. “You can get off when it pulls into the next station.”

“Yeah, right,” Davidson said with a slight grin, or at least Brandt thought the expression was a grin. With all those scars it was hard to tell. “I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”

Really? Because right about now with his sore shoulder from London and cramped quadriceps from the torpedo launch, Brandt was pretty much ready for a twenty-four-hour period that did not require him to exit a vehicle moving at high speeds.

But that was not this day.

Brandt held up three fingers, ticking each one down until it came time to fling themselves from the train. Without hesitation, Brandt swung his pack in front of him and pushed off the train car. He got lucky—the pack hit first, and the ground next to the track was a nice soft grass. Better than the asphalt of London.

Davidson didn’t look much worse for the wear as he rose. Neither spoke. They knew what they needed to do. Gathering up their packs, they made their way east. A small darkening on the horizon marked a town. A town with cars. One hopefully that they could quietly and easily steal.

They needed to get on the road and head south. ASAP.

Damn, he missed Lopez right about now.

* * *

Rebecca clutched the door handle as Lopez used the emergency brake to make a sharp left at what must have been thirty miles an hour. Tires screeched as even the Marussia F2 SUV complained. Harvish and Talli, in the backseat, did not complain. If anything the point man egged Lopez on.

“I know,” Rebecca said, “that we want to get to the apartment building as soon as—”

She stifled a scream as Lopez cut in and out of traffic, missing a large truck carrying hay by about a millimeter.

“Did I not tell you this thing cornered nearly as well as a Porsche?” Lopez asked and then stepped on the gas. Apparently trying out the entire 420 horsepower of the engine.

Maybe it was just best to close her eyes. But that was how she hit her head on the window a few minutes ago. If you couldn’t see what Lopez was doing, it was hard to protect your body from the G-forces he generated.

Like right now. Lopez slammed on the brakes and downshifted, all while cutting across three lanes of traffic, pulling them to a gut-wrenching stop.

Somehow Lopez was able to talk rather than try and gag back the bile that had been forced to his throat by the seat belt dug into his belly.

“Harvish, you and I are going to escort Dr. Monroe up to Osip’s apartment. Talli, you are going to set up in your perch.”

Rebecca hit a button that swung the passenger side door open. She had to push off the hard leather seat to get out of the SUV. Clearly Russia had a different definition of luxury than America or Germany. This thing had been built like a tank. An incredibly fast tank. A fact Lopez had taken full advantage of. She leaned against the top of the car for support as her stomach tried to settle itself back into her belly.

“What about the car?” Talli asked.

Lopez frowned. Normally Lopez would have stayed with the car, moving to an inconspicuous yet nearby location, ready for any getaway they needed. Now, however, in Brandt’s absence, Lopez was in charge. He no longer could stay with his precious car.

With a sigh, the corporal tossed the keys to Talli. “Park it far enough away it doesn’t draw attention to us…” Which four people piling out of such a rare car was already doing. Lopez grabbed his gear as he continued. “But close enough we can grab it if we need a quick getaway.”

Rebecca frowned. If that was how Lopez drove that car
without
anyone chasing them, she could only imagine what he would do if they were in trouble. On second thought, she did not want to imagine it. Not with her stomach still complaining about its intimate interaction with the seat belt.

Swinging her laptop case over her shoulder, Rebecca took a look around. She really hadn’t seen much of Pushchino on the ride here given the blur factor. It had been all gray buildings and green farmland. The blur had been kind to the town. Now looking more closely it looked mostly sad. Tired. Even in spring the Russians walked with their heads down, leaning forward as if a frigid winter wind still blew.

Only the Marussia “luxury” SUV drew their attention up from the pavement. Rebecca was glad when it pulled away from the curb and left them in obscurity. Pedestrians came and went on the busy street. The street was lined with identical buildings. Block-shaped and eight stories tall, it honestly looked like someone had set up two parallel rows of dominoes. Each building was indistinguishable from the others.

It had been the Communists’ attempt to squelch individuality. Conformity had been more valued than creativity. Like she said. It made her feel sad. Russia had such a rich architectural history. And to have it turned into this?

No wonder the people seemed depressed. She was getting bummed just thinking about living in these “ditto” digs. No wonder Osip had chosen the last building on the block. At the least his apartment overlooked the greenbelt.

For a man who had traveled the world, helping to build the largest Jewish center in Russia, only to be ostracized from Moscow must have been a blow. Then to have his shtetl, his sanctuary fail? He must have come here to lick his wounds.

“Ready?” Lopez asked as he escorted her to the apartment building entrance.

To what? To accept the fact Brandt and Davidson were MIA? To trick a defeated old man into telling them where a stash of weaponized Rinderpest was located?

“As I ever will be.”

* * *

Brandt swerved the motorcycle, or at least what passed for a motorcycle in Russia, around an old Moskvich. For fuel efficiency, the Chinese had their bicycles. America had its Priuses. Russia had these barely-more-than-a-lawnmower motorcycles. But damn they could rev up. Even with their heavy packs strapped onto the backs of the stolen motorcycles, they were still crushing the ninety-mile-an-hour speed limit. Lopez would be proud. Well, at least a little bit.

He glanced over his shoulder as Davidson completed his swerve, joining Brandt right on his six. The kid was hanging in there. When they had found the bikes Brandt had been hesitant. Could Davidson’s damaged hand take the punishment a motorcycle could deliver? Davidson insisted it could.

Given that the motorcycles were by far more maneuverable than any car they could boost, here they were.

Brandt didn’t have to look to his watch to know how close they were. If you added the time he and Davidson had traveled in the wrong direction on the train, plus the time to hike to the nearest town, then take into account their increased speed of the motorcycles over the train, they were about fifteen minutes behind Rebecca and the rest.