EndWar

“This is the new serum, more potent; but like the old, it’s tasteless, odorless, and has no side effects. Best of all, you would never remember our heart-to-heart talk. We use it on our own agents all the time, to ensure their loyalty. We would have what we want from you in one hour. I have been here a long time, twelve, fourteen hours? I do not know. They took my watch. And you have nothing after all that time, nothing except a team of dead soldiers, spies who deserved to die.”

Dennison’s chest grew tight, her breath shallow. She stood and came around the table, leaned over, and got into the colonel’s face. “Those men gave their lives to bring you back here. Oh, you’re going to talk. But first, I suspect, you’re going to bleed. A lot.”

“Like I said, you are a beautiful woman with a terrible job.” He laughed again, under his breath.

Her fist connected with his nose, driving his head back, and she thought, My God, I just punched him, but there was no taking it back.

The door swung open and the guards rushed in, followed by Shakura. “Major, please, we have strict orders not—”

“I issued those orders,” she said, rubbing her knuckles.

Doletskaya faced her, blood streaming over his mouth. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For allowing me to bleed for my Motherland.”

She cursed at him.

He smiled, blood filling the cracks of his teeth. “Major Dennison, you are apparently the only man here.”

She regarded Shakura. “Clean him up. He’s off to Cuba.”

“I’m sorry, Major,” said the colonel.

She frowned.

“I’m sorry we don’t have more time to talk.” The guards took the colonel by the arms and forced him to his feet. “I wanted to express my condolences about your mother,” he added quickly.

“My mother?”

“The cancer. And yes, I wanted to tell you that you should talk to your sister, that she is still your sister despite your political differences. And I wanted to tell you that it’s okay to cry, late at night, like you do sometimes when you eat all the ice cream. The rocky road. It’s okay.”

She balled her hands into fists, glowered at him, flicked her glance to Shakura. “Get this… freak… out of here.”

Doletskaya winked. “Dosvidaniya, Major.”

Chills ripped across her shoulders as they shoved him out of the room, blood dripping from his chin.

She trembled violently now, began to lose her breath.

“Major?” called Shakura. “Are you all right?”

She closed her eyes.

Bared her teeth.

And inside, she screamed.

FOUR

“Oh, damn, Mick, we got only ten minutes till the Russians arrive.”

Staff Sergeant Raymond McAllen, leader of a six-man USMC Force Reconnaissance team, didn’t need his assistant, Sergeant Terry Jones, to remind him of that. He’d set his stopwatch within a minute after the eighteen-man platoon fast-roped down into the valley as their Black Hawk had thundered off to seek cover until they called her back.

“We got less time than that, Jonesy. But the crash site should be just over that ridge.”

“Yeah, but it don’t look good. No contact from them. We don’t even know if this guy is still alive.”

“Our job’s to find out. Come on!”

The sun was beginning to set over the Sierra Maestra mountains in southern Cuba, and the shadows grew longer across slopes covered in mud from the midday rains. McAllen and his men had already shouldered their way through some dense jungle in sweltering, humid air, but they were almost at the site.

And no, this wasn’t a run-of-the-mill TRAP (Tactical Recovery of Aircraft and Personnel) mission. Apparently, one of the passengers onboard the Learjet was a Russian colonel who’d been on his way to Guantánamo when the Russians had shot down his escort fighters. They’d also managed to strike a glancing blow to the jet, forcing it down into the mountains.

Fortunately, McAllen and his entire Force Recon company had been engaged in a weeklong, live-fire training exercise at Gitmo and been able to respond within minutes of the call.

Unfortunately, they’d been out in the field doing some physical training when the call had come, and they’d been forced to board the chopper with whatever they had, leaving behind their best high-tech toys — advanced body armor, weapons, and communications systems that were all part of the military’s Future Force Warrior program.

They’d get by with just the conventional gear. McAllen believed that if you depended too much upon technology in the field, you’d become sloppy and soft, a kid at a convenience store who can’t make change, a Marine who can’t aim because the computer does it for him.

He waved on the others, Jonesy first; then his two recon scouts, Corporals Palladino and Szymanski; his radio operator, Lance Corporal Friskis; and finally the team’s medic, Navy Corpsman Gutierrez, who carried the team’s biggest gun, the Squad Automatic Weapon, because putting more steel on target was the best form of preventative medicine.

Palladino and Szymanski moved out ahead, walking point, ready to throw hand signals or call in via the intra-team radio at their first sign of contact.