Chapter One
Xander
Tuesday
Bratislava, Slovakia
The warmth of Xander Belov’s exhaled breath formed a visible cloud as he stood under a lonely streetlamp.
He paused, assessed, then jogged across the road, jumping the ice-filled gutter.
There, on the corner, Xander paused again.
Something about this next stretch of cobblestones made his teeth itch.
Peppered with chained bikes, Xander noted how the residents parked their cars at an angle on the sidewalk, making the road passable for small vehicles. This configuration forced the pedestrians to hug the shadows of the building walls as they moved from Point A to Point B.
There were no pedestrians. There was Xander.
Who else would be out on a night like this?
Cold nipped at the tops of Xander’s ears through his fleece cap. It stabbed through the soles of his boots, piercing his thermal socks and reaching his bones, making them feel brittle and easily snapped.
This whole setup reminded Xander of the World War II film he’d watched on the plane ride in. The movie depicted people hauled from their homes, rounded up and herded at the point of a rifle, then sent on to a concentration camp with inadequate clothing. When they stood in formation for their daily roll call, the imprisoned people worked to stave off frostbite by stomping their bare feet.
This wasn’t then. He wasn’t them.
He had boots, good boots. And he was able to walk around freely.
Yeah, it was probably the sound of his footfalls moving in a habitual, military-trained cadence that was inventing ghosts in Xander’s imagination.
“I’m a fortunate man,” he said aloud as frigid air burrowed into the weave of his hiking pants to lay moist against his skin.
Xander reached behind his head to grab the collar of his wool coat, standing it up to cover the nape of his neck.
But it gave him little respite from the sensation of ice water in his veins.
As a whole, Xander had felt comfortable moving about the city of Bratislava.
He loved her history and music.
Loved the food—my god, the food!
Loved her architecture and the unexpected success of its May-December romance, marrying modern and ancient styles. Somehow, it worked beautifully.
The more opportunities Xander had to work in this Slovakian capital—to explore and learn—the more intriguing he found Bratislava’s character.
Yes, as a whole, this was a wonderful city.
Just not this particular neighborhood.
Alarm bells clanged his nervous system awake. Something’s not right here.
Tugging his hands from his coat pockets, Xander flexed his fingers against the frigid temperatures.
He didn’t like this.
Tonight, fog crawled over the rooftops, prowled down the walls, and hovered just out of reach. It made the streetlamps dim by wrapping them, like a woman’s shawl around her babe, hugging the light to her chest, leaving just enough illumination for Xander to move down the street, only semi-confident he wouldn’t stumble over something lying in his path.
Above him came the plaintive strains of a saxophone as someone listened to the radio.
Other than that, the only sound was Xander’s tread echoing off the cobblestones and ricocheting against the ancient walls made rough with curls of peeling paint.
Each step announced his progress toward the bar where he’d meet Anna Senko, CIA.
Maybe that was why his breath was coming heavily.
Maybe there was something about this meet-up that made his scalp prickle and itch.
Did he trust Anna and the information she was about to pass him?
Xander had been friends with Anna since he’d earned a place in the AWG—the Asymmetric Warfare Group, best known for its special forces' physical capabilities and its nerdy brains.
There, he and Anna discovered they were cousins.
With little effort, they learned they shared a Dedko Belov. Xander was a grandchild of his dedko’s first wife (divorced). Anna was the only grandchild of Dedko Belov’s second wife (also divorced).
That second wife, Anna’s grandmother, was Olga Zoric Belov from the Slovakian-based Zoric family—a highly feared and highly successful crime family that had operated for generations behind the Iron Curtain. And even decades later, The Family was pissed as hell that when the Iron Curtain was raised to allow the former countries to enter the world stage, the Zoric family's power dimmed.
They meant to put things back the way they had been.
Since the fall of the USSR, The Family had worked toward reunification, creating chaos on a global scale decade after decade.
In fact, Xander had spent his entire AWG career trying to thwart them. He continued his efforts in the DIA—Defense Intelligence Agency—when the AWG disbanded.
At the AWG, Anna had worked on the Zoric case, too, but she had done it from inside the enemy camp. She’d used her name, her native Slovak language skills, and her cunning to snake her way in and bring information out.
After Anna fell in love with an FBI special agent, the Zorics asked Anna to be a double agent of sorts, and she had—with Uncle Sam’s blessing—agreed.
Everyone seemed fine with her dual roles.
Everyone put up with it, Xander amended.
Should he trust this meet-up with Anna?
He shrugged his shoulders, getting himself primed and ready before he stepped off the curb between cars to jaywalk across the narrow street. Xander used the opportunity to seem natural as he looked both ways—as he was taught to do in preschool for traffic safety—as he was taught to do in spy school for bad-guy safety.
Casting his gaze to the right, out of the corner of his eye, Xander caught a shadow sliding up tighter against the wall just behind him on the sidewalk. Ahead on his left, Xander spotted an alleyway.
Xander slowed his gait, lowered his center of gravity, and kept himself off the wall. It was muscle memory from his time in Afghanistan that shifted his body into combat mode.
Then came the signal whistle, a light “Here, pup!” kind of tune.
Nope. This wasn’t going to be pretty.
It was good that he’d crossed the street. It gave Xander a split second more time to adjust as a man leaped from the black alleyway and sprinted toward Xander’s ten o’clock.
With the whistler racing up from behind, Xander had the wall to his right. Parked cars boxed him in on the left. Forward was the only way clear.
But forward felt like a trap. It felt like where a rat should run.
With his intuition telling him that advancing was a mistake, Xander swiveled to protect his back and square off before he discovered what was waiting for him up the street.
The two men spread their arms like linebackers, like cat herders, like barricades against escape. Xander wondered how fast they were and if he could simply pivot and dash for the bar, linebacker-style, plowing through any new roadblocks. He could burst through the door, and the bartender could pull out a protective gun. Then, Xander would be okay. He’d toss back a shot and feel like he’d dodged a bullet.
But forward felt perilous.
In most public attacks, the first line of defense was to get loud fast. Xander’s Slovakian allowed him to excuse himself if he stepped on a toe, to say thank you when handed a key card at the hotel, or to ask for the bathroom. This wasn’t a country where he frequently operated, so “Get the hell away from me!” wasn’t something he could pull out. “Stop!” was the word he finally produced. “Stop” was as close to a universal language as existed.
The “stop” was shouted loudly enough that Anna should have heard it at the bar. He was only a block and a half away from the golden glow of what might be safety.
But the shout didn’t produce any help.
No window flashed a light on. No one poked a head out the door and called out that the police were on their way.
A couple of dogs were barking, but they displayed their ferocity from the safety of a locked apartment.
Xander knew this mission was FUBAR because his brain had switched to adrenaline timing. When muscle memory and training weren’t enough, the lizard part of his brain—the part that wanted him to survive—slowed everything down. It seemed like Xander had all the time in the world to process the scene as the bad guys moved in slow motion like they were running underwater.
Reality was the inverse; things hadn’t slowed at all. His brain had revved to warp speed in order to save his life.
Yup, slo-mo was the tell. This was going to be the shit.
These two guys weren’t big men. Yeah, yeah, two against one was problematic. In a hand-to-hand, his height and the length of Xander’s limbs gave him an advantage. His years of combat experience would help. If this were a fisticuff mugging, he should come out okay.
If these two followed him because of his job with the DIA, that was a very different story.
Did someone send these men after him?
Shit, Anna! Did you set me up?
Most special forces men looked innocuous. Typically short and wiry, they were made of indefatigable steel. It was too dim out, and the men had on too many layers of clothes for Xander to decide if these guys were special forces types.
Xander hadn’t seen the thugs reaching into their clothes to drag out weapons. But as he took a sidestep closer to the bar, he snatched up a trash can lid, holding it like a medieval shield to protect his throat and organs should the attackers pull knives.
It wouldn’t do shit for him if they had a gun.
The men laughed and moved forward. Xander took another sidestep to maintain reaction space.
And another.
They were herding him, Xander reminded himself.
He stopped under an archway. He’d have to take his stand before he got to whatever surprise made them grin like that. As his back foot moved to fighting position, he thought that the men should focus on his shield—both protection and weapon—but instead, their heads tipped back, and smiles of delight spread wider across their faces.
Slowly, Xander tipped his chin.
Straight above him, in the archway, was a third man who pressed his hands against one wall and his feet against the other to make a human lintel over Xander’s head.
It was so unexpected to see a man hovering above him that, even with an adrenaline brain, it took Xander a moment to understand what he was seeing.
By the time he processed the situation, the man had bent his knees. Without the tension holding him in place, his body—all hundred and eighty-ish pounds of him—dropped down onto Xander.
Knocked to the ground by three to one? Xander knew that, no matter his training, he’d be at their mercy.
Without a plan, Xander lifted his garbage shield to stave off the third thug, using both hands, thrusting outward to stay on his feet.
And to his surprise, it worked.
His adrenaline must be flowing at a higher velocity than theirs.
Xander tried to scramble backward, but the thugs quickly encircled him.
Now, only a block from the bar door, Xander yelled, “Stop!” This time, there was enough emotion in his voice that anyone who heard him would know that something bad was going down.
Fire, he thought. He should yell “fire.” As a child, that was the word his parents taught him to yell if he needed help. Few came to answer the call for “help,” but almost everyone came to the call of “fire.”
I don’t know how to say fire in Slovak. Xander lifted the garbage lid and stepped into horse stance, thinking that if he made it through tonight, “fire” would go on his short list of words he should know in every country he visited.
The men had their fists up, looking juiced by Xander’s behavior.
If this were a mugging, he didn’t have a single thing on him that would make them happy; his pockets were empty.
If these guys were Zoric goons, his lack of a cell phone to steal might just piss them off enough that he didn’t survive their beating.
Xander wasn’t coming out of this unscathed. That was all there was to it.
Now, it was up to his skills and fate to determine if he’d lived through the night and could feed himself in the morning.
As the first punch aimed toward his nose, Xander moved the trash lid for the block, pulling in a lungful of air to call out. He wouldn’t yell for Anna. He wouldn’t tie her to him or call her into danger’s way. But he’d allow himself to try again with, “Stop!”
Before Xander released his word, the guy in front of him perfectly aimed his uppercut, impacting Xander just below the ribs, knocking the wind clear out of him, leaving his diaphragm spasming.
He’d been here before. Both on the training mat and in the field, that punch was the go-to when the aggressor wanted someone to succumb but didn’t want to break bones or knock them out.
Xander had trained for this scenario, spending plenty of time in the pool getting body and mind used to physical exertion without air. He’d practiced functioning through the panic.
It would take at least a full minute before he got his next breath.
In that oxygen-deprived minute, he’d be fighting for his life.
And through all his inner dialogue, Xander was aware that his brain was still functioning in adrenaline mode, slowing time to keep him alive.
That meant this situation still called for more than just strength and training.
With a well-placed kick to the back of his knee, Xander collapsed to the ground—the last place he wanted to be with three men standing above him.
Xander knew to roll once he hit the ground, dispersing the energy and lessening the impact. He’d learned to tuck his chin so he wouldn’t knock himself out cold should his head bounce off the pavement. But he’d never trained on cobblestone, and the protrusions hit his vertebrae in a way that numbed his ass and shot fire down his legs.
Bystander attention still might save him, Xander thought as he kicked hard at the garbage cans, sending one flying. It landed with a clatter. As empty food cans bounced out of the yawning mouth, rolling and clanging over the cold stones, Xander pulled his knee to his chest and kicked out, clipping one of the men hard on the shin. The goon’s leg gave way, and he dropped.
With a quick retraction of heel to ass, Xander rolled his hips to the side and kicked the steel toe of his boot into another goon’s ankle.
The man bellowed from behind gritted teeth, hopping back into a doorway to recover.
When the third goon jumped on Xander, he sandwiched the garbage can shield between them. The rim was driving down into Xander’s clavicle, a bone so thin that it was easy to break. It would be excruciatingly painful if it did snap and would make lifting his arms in self-defense all but impossible.
If circumstances were reversed, and it was Xander on top, he’d punch the can lid and break the goon’s bone and feel good about it.
In this configuration, with the solid surface of the lid unyielding against Xander’s chest, trapping him against the road, Xander’s brain was at a loss.
He had no idea what to do from this point.
Xander was a panini pressed between two hard surfaces. If it were just the goon on top of him, flesh and muscles would allow at least a little flexibility, and Xander might be able to sip some air into his body.
Very soon, Xander was going to black out from compression asphyxia.
He’d grabbed the lid to protect himself, and that might have been a fatal choice.
The goon on top of him growled words that Xander didn’t know.
Xander pushed out, “English,” from the last reserves of his dimming consciousness.
“Where is monies?” The words were spoken with a heavy accent and antipathy. Each word was pronounced with a shower of spittle that misted Xander’s face. “Where phone?”
Xander shook his head.
The goon grabbed Xander’s hair, yanking his head up until Xander was chin to chest.
Xander was about to have his brains bashed against the rock. Clenching his jaw, he hardened his neck muscles to stop any momentum.
“Where is these?” the goon growled.
In a surprise reprieve, the man jumped off him. His coconspirators jerked Xander to his feet, where they unbuttoned Xander’s coat and dragged it down his arms. One of the men searched the pockets and seams while the others held Xander’s arms in vice grips. They lifted his sweater and shirt, running hands over every inch of him, taking the opportunity to land punitive blows as they went.
Xander didn’t feel any pain. Adrenaline was doing its job of masking in the moment so he could stay in the fight.
He’d feel it later.
The attack had been fast and violent despite the leisurely crawl his brain was taking him on.
This encounter was probably at the three-minute mark from the signal whistle to the rabbit punches he was bracing his muscles against.
The way they groped and rubbed every inch of him, Xander might have thought their intention was rape, but they’d asked, “Where is these?” This was a robbery, he reasoned—hoped.
Right now, Xander was rubbery on his legs, not yet able to hold his full weight. Not that he was trying all that hard. Holding him up made this—whatever this was—more complicated for the attackers.
Playing possum sometimes served a fighter well. In a moment, Xander could just burst out with his special forces fighting skills and take down all three.
Joking. He was joking.
Okay, maybe not joking, Xander thought as he wrapped his hands around the scruff of two of the men’s necks and banged their heads together in a violent blow. The hollow-sounding thunk of the heads crashing one against the other cast a nauseating echo.
Stunned, they dropped to the ground.
Xander raised his fist in the air and drove his elbow down behind him to break the grip of the man at his back and to feel for the guy’s position. Nodding forward, Xander banged his head backward, impacting the goon’s face just as a light flashed in front of Xander with such high lumens that he squinted his eyes tightly shut and ducked his head to protect his ability to see on this gloom-filled night.
The light lowered to his stomach, and a woman’s voice, menacing and authoritative, said something incomprehensible; he supposed it was in Slovak.
The three men staggered back to their feet and shambled off into the shadows.
Xander fell against the wall, sliding down until he sat with his knees posted and his head curled over.
“It’s Anna.” She turned her light toward the street and did a sweep.
Xander realized she was breathing just as hard. She must have leaped up from her bar booth and raced to his aid.
He raised a hand in acknowledgment.
“Well, shit, Xander.” Anna shoved her gun into her waistband and reached under his arms, dragging him to his feet. “You can’t sit on the ground without your coat. You’ll go hypothermic.”
As he stood, Xander looked around him for where the thugs had tossed his jacket. He noticed Anna didn’t have a coat on either. Yeah, she’d jumped and run out into the subzero night to come to his aid.
That’s how he remembered her from the AWG. If someone was in trouble, Anna was the first to plunge into the fray to help with zero thoughts of her own safety.
He should never doubt that her character was above reproach.
“They took the coat with them,” she said. “Do you know who they were?”
Xander winced as he took a step forward. “Me? No. Did you recognize them?”
“Why would I rec—Come on.” She pulled his arm over her shoulder, holding it in place with her outside hand as her inside arm snaked around his waist. “Walk.”
Xander moved gingerly to the bar door.
Before Anna turned the knob, she said, “No one knows I’m meeting you. My good friend Tatiana lives in the apartment upstairs. I always hang out with her on Tuesday nights and have for years. Those men aren’t associated with The Family, I can assure you. Why would you think that?”
“Because I’m here with you.”
“We can talk it through when you’ve caught your breath. First things first.” She looked up to catch his gaze. “Tell me truthfully, tough guy, do you need an ambulance?”
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