“Ms. Kacey Bathlick?” the major asked. “Captain Bathlick?”

  “Up until a couple of months ago, yes,” Kacey said.

  “And is Ms. Wilson present?” the major asked. He was black, medium height and heavy build. Kacey had done an immediate check of his uniform and she suspected that there were some ribbons missing from his dress greens. But there was an SF patch on his right shoulder to counteract the Military District of Washington patch on the left. And he was wearing the “Tower Of Power”, Ranger, SF and Airborne tabs stacked. No CIB but a two year Pentagon service badge. And his highest medal was an Army Commendation Medal. Either this guy was a washed out Green Beret who had been shuffled off to Washington after being found “unfit for combat” or he was deliberately understating his experience and leaving off merit badges. From his look it was probably the latter. Which in the five sided Puzzle Palace was… weird. Everybody wore every possible doo-dad so they could look more military than Napoleon.

  “Yes, I am,” Tammie said, walking over while wiping her hands on a towel. “Pleasure to meet you Major Stang. What can we do for you?”

  “I was told… ” the major said and then paused. “Could we do this somewhere other than the doorway?”

  “Of course,” Kacey said. “Sorry.” Of course, he could be a rapist dressed up like an Army major, but he had all the badges in the right place which would be unusual for a “wannabe.” And between herself and Tammie they could probably handle him, weight lifter or no. Tammie had been studying karate since before she was really walking well. Kacey’s fighting style was a bit more eclectic running in the direction of beating the hell out of people she didn’t like.

  She stepped back and then to the side so that she had him flanked as he entered the room. The brief, amused, glance over his shoulder told her that he’d noticed, knew why and found it both tactically correct and funny.

  “Take a seat if you’d like,” Tammie said, smiling.

  “Nah, I’ll be quick,” the officer said, dipping into his blouse pocket and pulling out a slip of paper. It appeared to be cut out from something, possibly an e-mail. “I was told that you two are looking for a flying job, preferably as a matched set.”

  “Yes,” Tammie said, frowning but taking the paper.

  “I’m also told that you were very pissed off when the Marines pulled you both out of combat slots,” the major added. “That’s the name of a guy who needs some helo pilots, yesterday. He’s not in the US, though, the country of Georgia. But he doesn’t have the time to come to the States and do an interview. So he’s willing to pay appropriate pilots five grand just to fly out there and interview, as long as they don’t dawdle. The flip side is that while it’s intended to be a permanent gig, he needs them for a mission that… Well that involves a certain amount of risk. The pay, I’m given to understand, will be commensurate.”

  “He’s a merc?” Kacey asked. “The US government is death on mercs.”

  “Mercenary, security specialist, the US government hires out a lot of stuff these days,” the major said with a shrug. “I have it on very good authority that this is one of the good guys. I will mention that the US government is, effectively, being his hiring and screening agent for this. I’m not here on my own, I’m on government time.”

  “That’s odd,” Tammie said.

  “Yes, it is,” Stang said. “But I get a lot of odd jobs. I’ll add that while you’re not covered by the UCMJ or USC 18 on this, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t pass on the fact that you were contacted, and in this way. More to be the point, Uncle Sam would appreciate it. I don’t know what’s going on, so don’t ask. All I was told was go tell you two and get your answer on whether you’d go interview.”

  “He’s going to pay five grand just to fly out and interview?” Tammie said. “That’s not a signing bonus. That’s just to interview.”

  “And your transportation,” Stang said with a nod. “If you say yes to the interview, we’ll have you on a plane headed towards Georgia, and I quote as fast as you can pack end quote.”

  “What’s the mission?” Kacey asked, taking the paper from Tammie and glancing at it. All it had on it, though, was a name “Michael Jenkins” and a number. She did recognize that it was a sat-phone number, though.

  “I have no idea,” Stang admitted, grinning. “I will say, though, that some very senior and connected people have been running around lately like there’s a monkey gnawing on their neck. And we’re not expecting an IG inspection in simply ages.”

  “So who do you… ” Tammie stopped at his expression and grinned. “Classified?”

  “Got it in one,” Stang said. “If I told you I’d have to find a place for the bodies.”

  “So do we call this guy or what?” Kacey asked.

  “Got a cell phone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Call him on the way to Washington National?”

  * * *

  “You look all in, Master Chief,” Mike said, sitting down to breakfast in the kitchen. The coffee was already on the table and Mother Griffina was frying up the eggs. Life was good. Some sleep would be nice.

  “So do you,” Adams said. “When’s the last time you slept. Never mind. I gotta use Shota for entry. Every single other position is tasked. And they all require more sense than blowing a door then taking five god damned steps! The way I got it set up, all he has to do is this simple task. The guy has at least learned to shoot, and what to shoot and what not to. But he can’t seem to get the concept that just because there are bad guys in the room, he still has to take five steps to clear the door.”

  “Sucks to be you,” Mike said, taking a sip of coffee. “Try teaching HALO to a bunch of newbies in a week. Not to mention all the other prep for this damned mission. On the other hand, it’s going pretty good. First real jump today.”

  “You know you don’t have to be busting your ass as hard as you are,” Adams said. “Nielson can handle some of it.”

  “I have reasons to stay busy,” Mike pointed out.

  “Being all bleary before a mission isn’t good for anybody, boss,” Adams pointed out. “Or are you talking about your latest slash?”

  “You’re so eloquent about these things,” Mike said.

  “Nielson is eloquent about these things,” Adams said. “I’m from the Teams, remember? The list starts: My wife, sure… ”

  “My toothbrush, maybe, my knife, never,” Mike finished. “And you’ve been through how many of those wives?”

  “Enough that I’m glad to be out of the States,” Adams admitted. “They can get my pension but they can’t touch what I’m making over here.”

  “Then let me just suggest that you’re out of your league, Master Chief,” Mike said with a sigh. “Except, maybe, on one question: Think I should talk to Kiril about this?”

  “No,” Adams said. “I already did.”

  “Thanks,” Mike said.

  “I told him you weren’t nearly the cockhound everybody made you out to be. Hell, you hardly knew where to put it. There was no way that Gretchen was going to go for a guy as bad in the sack as you are.”

  “Let me repeat my thanks,” Mike said, chuckling.

  “He was really weird about it,” Adams said, frowning. “Resigned, maybe. He just said that his fate would be decided. What’s this I hear about him being sent off?”

  “Isn’t happening,” Mike said. “They’re talking about sending him off to the Legion and me hooking up with Gretchen. I’m putting my Kildar boot on that. He marries Gretchen.”

  “Ain’t like you’re short on pussy,” Adams admitted.

  “Eloquence, thy name is Ass-boy,” Mike said. “But, to reiterate, pussy is not the issue. However, changing the subject, we may have helo pilots.”

  “That would be great,” Adams said, nodding. “We’re seriously fucked without pilots. I mean the bad kind of fucked. Not the fucking Gretchen kind of fucked.”

  “Pierson said that quote some candidates end quote are on the way,” Mike said, shaking his head at Adams’ aside. He knew the approach, it was the specialty of the Teams. Call it “tough love.” As in “go cry in somebody else’s beer.” On the other hand, Adams didn’t actually have to deal with the management of the Keldara’s morale. “So, so far the rest of us are on track. Sucks to be you, though,” he added with a grin.

  “You want this girl alive or not?” Adams grumped.

  “Be nice,” Mike said, taking another sip. “That’s why I detailed you to it. But the most important thing is getting the package. And that means getting eyeballs on the target and into commo with Katya.”

  “She in place, yet?” Adams asked.

  “Should be.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The first thing Dmitri told her was: “You’re going to need to change clothes.”

  Katya didn’t see what was wrong with her clothes. She’d carefully chosen them based on her cover as a new hooker in the trade: hip-hugger jeans, a tight, low-cut blouse, black patent leather high-heels and a fake fox coat. All of the clothes were well worn, the coat actually a bit ratty. Most of what she had packed in her small bag was the same.

  “The Chechens, well… ” Dmitri had sighed and shrugged. “They move the whores, they use the whores. But if you look like a whore they’re going to make your life hell.”

  Katya didn’t know what Dmitri’s connection to Russian intel was. The one thing she’d insured was that he did not know she was “connected.” Another agent had handed her off to him without any suggestion she was working for Russian intel. What she had come to realize was that he was an expert in the trade. He’d treated her with polite disinterest, not even trying to cadge a “freebie.” And he knew all the guards at the crossing points. So by the time they reached Gamasora she’d changed.

  Full coverage sweater, slightly tight but not even vaguely sexual, a skirt she’d picked up on the road that hung to well below her knees, flats, the hardest to find. Her makeup was dialed way back. She looked… drab.

  Looking at the women of the town, many of them in Islamic dhimmi scarves that covered their hair and ears with skirts that went all the way to the ground and heavy coats that gave little if any indication of their figure, she had to admit she looked more the part.

  “You’re not going to get as much for me looking like this,” Katya pointed out.

  “The buyers know what they’re looking at,” Dmitri replied as they pulled into the town. “This isn’t a market, it’s a trading point. You know you’re headed for Turkey on this route, right?”

  “Yes,” Katya said then shrugged. “Turkey or Europe, what’s the difference. A whore is a whore.”

  “With your looks you’d do better in Europe or the East,” Dmitri said then shrugged in return. “But if you want to go to Turkey, that’s nothing to me. I already have you contracted to Georgi Torshin so I’ll just drop you and be gone.”

  Dmitri pulled the antiquated Lada to a stop in front of a coffee shop and gestured at the door. “Last stop. For me, anyway.”

  Katya was glad for the rest. The roads to Gamasoara had been atrocious and the Lada had apparently lost all of its springs decades ago. She felt as if her teeth had been rattled loose by the long journey. But they were finally at the area of operations. Now to see if she could find the target.

  She got out, grabbing her bag, and, head down and posture slumped, followed Dmitri into the café. She still was cataloguing her surroundings. The café had a small stream behind it and a patio to one side. In fact, it was practically identical to the one in Allerso. However, the design was so common in this region it wasn’t particularly surprising.

  The town was a bit larger than Allerso, maybe a thousand people. She wasn’t sure what the local industry was but it didn’t appear to be booming. Most of the people in the town seemed to be selling things to each other, most of it old and worn. There were two food vendors on the street and they didn’t seem to be doing much business.

  The interior of the café was hot and stuffy, the windows and doors closed against the late fall chill. All of the patrons were male and most of them watched her as Dmitri led the way to the back of the room. They had the look that said “Islamic” to her, automatically. She had never really understood how you could spot an Islamic, or an American or a European, immediately. Jay had explained some of it to her. Islamics followed certain laws that affected their dress and demeanor to a degree most of them didn’t realize. For example, when you had to regularly take your shoes off for prayer it just made more sense to step down on the backs so you could slip them on and off like slippers. But when you did that you had to shuffle as you walked or they’d slip off. Thus Islamics tended to shuffle their feet and take small steps.

  There were a thousand such minor cultural clues about personal behavior and body language that subconsciously, to most people, screamed what culture a person derived from. The job of a spy, or an actor, was to learn them and copy them slavishly.

  “I will see where Georgi has gone to,” Dmitri said as soon as she was seated. “He is usually in here this time of day. Talk to no one.”

  Dmitri went to the counter that served the café and it quickly became obvious that something was wrong. Not quite an argument but Dmitri was clearly unhappy when he came back to the table.

  “Well, there is a problem,” he said with a sigh as he sat down with two cups of strong coffee. “Georgi is dead.”

  “How?” Katya asked, wide-eyed. She was playing the biggest innocent a new whore might be and wide-eyed was the right reaction to sudden news of death.

  “Heart attack,” Dmitri spat. “There is a man called Yaroslav has taken over his business. He will come.”

  “Do you know him?” Katya asked, nervously. Again, the nervousness was right for the character. Of course, there was some true nervousness to it. Things were going wrong, which was always bad for a mission. The intermediary, Dmitri, and the primary, Georgi, had been carefully chosen. Georgi normally held his “girls” for a few weeks, setting up someone to move them to further down the line. He also was reputed to be easy with his girls’ time as long as they brought in a few rubles while they were waiting. Katya needed that time, and the freedom, if she was to have any chance of finding the target.

  “No,” Dmitri replied. “He’s a sweetmeat vendor of all things. When Georgi died he bought all of his stock. He’s trying to unload it now, but is willing to buy some more.”

  Katya didn’t bother to ask where a sweetmeat vendor got the money to buy a string of whores. Obviously he was more than a sweetmeat vendor.

  Yaroslav, when he finally made it to the café, turned out to be a pig. The man was grossly obese. If she had to service him it was going to have to be from on top; the man would crush her otherwise. Short and at least two hundred kilos, maybe more. He wheezed his way across the café and collapsed in the chair, which creaked ominously, then leaned back, interlacing his fingers across the top of his huge belly.

  “She is pretty,” Yaroslav wheezed. “But I already have too many girls. I cannot afford to pay more than a thousand euros… ”

  Katya had gotten used to it a long time ago and now that it wasn’t, at some level, real it was easier. But it was never fun to be bartered over. Fucking men treated women like a piece of meat to be dickered over.

  Finally a price of five thousand euros was settled on and Yaroslav hoisted himself to his feet.

  “I will return with the money,” he wheezed, stopping to breathe deeply at the effort to get to his feet. “I of course don’t carry that much on me. I will return. Soon.”

  “Well, if you decide to run you won’t have much trouble,” Dmitri said, bursting into laughter as soon as the door to the café shut.

  It was much the same thing Katya had been thinking but she just shook her head.

  “I won’t run,” she said with a shrug. “What do I have to run to?”

  Besides, she had a mission to complete. There were men to screw over and, with luck, a few to kill. Why should she run?

  * * *

  “This is… where you… will be sleeping,” Yaroslav wheezed, gesturing at the room.

  It wasn’t… yes it was. This was definitely the worst place she’d ever been bedded down in her long career as a whore. The stone building was one large room, about the size and general shape of the Keldara homes, but open and filled with beds lining the walls. The beds were springs, no mattresses, and the room was unheated. Cracks in the walls let in drafts that were virtually gales in themselves. The floor was packed dirt, so stained with unnamed fluids and garbage that it brought a new meaning to “dirt.”

  Arguing or complaining had never gotten her anywhere, though.

  “Is there a blanket?” she asked, meekly.

  “I will try to find you one,” Yaroslav said. “I am doing this practically out of the goodness of my heart. When my good friend… Georgi died his ladies were left with no protector.” He paused to breathe deeply and wiped at his eyes as if there were tears. There weren’t. The pause indicated that he’d had to dredge the name of his “good friend” from unsure memory. If he wasn’t such a slob, Katya would have suspected him of offing a competitor just to buy up his stock at a discount. “It was from the goodness of my heart that I took you girls in. I will have no complaints as to the quality of the lodgings.”

  “I’m not complaining,” Katya said, hastily. The man might be a pudge-monster, as the Kildar would put it, but he could still probably smack the hell out of her. And in her current cover, all she could do was try to move so it didn’t hurt too much. She’d have to take the punch with barely a flinch.

  “All the other girls left yesterday,” Yaroslav said, puffing. “I had hoped to return to my simple life of a sweetmeat vendor. Then you were dropped on me. So you must make the best of it until I can find someone to take you on to Azerbaijan.” Pause. Wheeze. “There may be some blankets the girls left behind.” Pause. Wheeze. “Check the cupboard. I must return to my money-making ventures. I do not have time for this.”