“Likewise,” Niko says. The captain lets his hand go, and Niko’s gaze washes over the trucks and the men inside them, full of naked, unabashed longing.
It must be hell to be the guy who has to stay behind while the rest of us get to go on a mission like this. It doesn’t matter that he’s got some of the most important jobs, or that there’s no way it would be happening without Niko. There’s nothing else like it in the world, and he knows that.
Captain Ovechkin nods again and turns back to his truck.
I turn to Niko and we embrace hard.
“Good luck, brother,” he says gruffly.
I back up and we hold each other’s shoulders at arm’s length.
“I wish you could come,” I say.
“I do too,” he says. “I’d slow you down.”
“You’ve got everything,” I say.
He nods.
“You know the backup plans?” I ask.
This could go bad. I could die. We could all die.
“Of course,” he says.
“Thank you, brother,” I say, and we let go. He walks back through the still-open gate, his limp only just noticeable.
Then he watches us as we drive off, and the car is quiet for a moment. I look out the window at the barely-gray horizon, thinking about the hour and half between now and the meeting.
Finally, Sergei speaks up.
“What the hell happened to your neck?” he asks.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Hazel
I’m almost too wired to sleep, too nervous about the day ahead. I wake up again at 5:30, look at the clock, sigh, and roll over.
Then I sit up in surprise. The bed’s empty. Kostya’s gone. I put my hand on the mattress.
Cold. He’s been gone a while.
There’s a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach as I roll out of his bed.
This is the thing he wouldn’t tell me about, I think. I fucking know it is.
I yank on my pants and a bra. I can’t find my shirt in the dark so I grab a t-shirt of his off a chair and it’s barely over my head before I’m leaving his room, still barefoot, adrenaline spiking through my veins.
Maybe I can find him and stop whatever the fuck he’s doing, I think.
I come out of his apartment into the hall and try to think. He’s probably leaving, and if he didn’t want to get caught he’d go out a lower level—
I round a corner into the broad, tall main hall and stop. Niko’s standing there, arms crossed, staring out a window. He looks over at me as I enter.
“I was about to come wake you up,” he says.
“Where’s Kostya?” I ask, doing my best to make my voice not shake.
“Already gone,” he says.
“Gone where?” I ask.
I feel like I’m seconds away from losing my shit.
“Come on,” he says, and starts to walk away.
“No!” I say, then look around.
I take a deep breath and lower my voice.
“I am fucking done with people not telling me shit,” I say. “I’ll come look at whatever you want me to look at but would you please fucking tell me what is going on.”
“He’s meeting Pavel,” Niko says, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
“I knew it,” I say, pinching the bridge of my nose with one hand. “I fucking knew it.”
I take a deep breath.
“What the hell for?” I ask.
“Because he’s the King, and he didn’t want to send a defenseless foreign national to do his work for him,” Niko says, then lowers his voice. “And because neither of us trust the volki not to try something, even with an American.”
“So he’s going?” I ask.
“He’s got half the Royal Guard with him,” Niko says.
I exhale, crossing my arms in front of me.
“That’s the first thing you’ve said that’s made me feel any better,” I admit.
“He’s in very good hands,” Niko says, and looks back out the window.
“When’s the meeting?” I ask.
“Six,” Niko says. “Thirty minutes. We have dashboard cameras, if you want to watch.”
“Can I talk you out of this?” I ask quietly.
Niko shakes his head.
“You sure?” I ask.
My mind is racing. What if I called the state department? The military base in Turkey?
I’m pretty sure that’s all stupid. Sveloria is a sovereign state. They were only involved because I was, and now I’m not.
“I’m sure,” he says.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Then it wouldn’t be a secret,” Niko says.
“Come on,” I say.
Niko almost smiles.
“Because you’re also stubborn and argumentative, and he was afraid you’d do something like call the State Department, and then he’d have to argue with them for another day,” he says. “His words, not mine.”
It was the first thing I thought of.
“I don’t have to like it,” I say.
“No one thought you would,” Niko says, and tilts his head toward the door. “Come on.”
We’re in the same office where we have all our meetings, and we’re projecting a dashboard camera onto the screen. Every so often Niko switches to a different one, but right now all four show the same thing: a wide open concrete slab, buildings in the distance. There’s no sound, but we can see men carefully patrolling, checking the ground, keeping watch.
I have no idea which one’s Kostya. The camera’s not that good, and it’s simultaneously boring and tense, like a nature documentary that could become a horror movie at any moment.
Right now, in the room, it’s just the two of us, and we’re not talking.
Finally, after a long stretch of silence, I speak up.
“Can I ask you a nosy question?” I say.
“Americans only ask that when they’ve made up their mind to ask it already,” Niko says.
I sigh.
“Yes,” he says.
“Are you watching from here instead of with them because of your leg?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says again.
I wait for him to elaborate, and finally he looks at me, like he realizes I’m waiting.
“Land mine on a road in the mountains,” he says.
I can tell there’s more. I glance at the screen, then wait.
“It killed two other men instantly,” he says. “I was ten feet away and just got a legful of shrapnel.”
He folds his hands on the table and looks at them.
“It was a trap, and they started shooting the second I went down,” he says softly. “Kostya and Sergei came back and dragged me behind cover. I’d be dead if they hadn’t.”
I glance at the screen. Still nothing.
“I’m sorry you’re not there,” I say.
“It’s that obvious?” he says.
“Only to people with eyes,” I say.
He’s quiet for a long time, watching the screen.
“It’s a stupid thing to miss, but I miss it,” he says. “We all do. The words were hardly out of my mouth before Sergei and Dmitri said yes.”