NPS

SEPTEMBER 3, 1963

 

Only crazies and thrill-seekers would go after the goddess. That’s what Marco told them. But yet, there he was, neither crazy nor thrill-seeking, riding into the misty mountains on his motorbike. It’d been only a few days since the goddess escaped from a remote KGB facility hidden in the bluffs of Bryson City, North Carolina. Marco was a freelancing agent, so when the KGB approached him and asked if he could locate her so they could bring in an extraction team, he had the luxury of saying no. In this case, he told them no, dozens of times. But the bounty on her head kept growing and the KGB were relentless in their pursuit of him. A spare million dollars didn’t sound so bad after a while, so he said yes.

He was confident enough in his skills. He’d done bigger jobs. But, before he could start tracking, he needed a local to show him the area, because a local could accomplish what a map couldn’t. They knew where the people were. A local could show him just how frequently traveled paths were. He couldn’t risk running into a pedestrian hiker on a mission like this. Besides, he knew the goddess wouldn’t be hiding just anywhere. She’d be deep in the hills and as far from the KGB as someone could get in twenty-four hours.

There were three requirements for locals on a mission: intelligence, loner status, and a willingness to walk away after the mission was complete. Smart enough to get Marco in. Unknown enough not to be missed if they vanished. And a lack of interest that ensured they wouldn’t follow up after everything was said and done. However, on this specific mission, there was a fourth variable that was unavoidable: they had to be black. It had been a long time since Marco stayed stateside. In his time overseas navigating ruins and tramping around, he’d forgotten how blatantly racist and dangerous Americans were. He needed someone black like him, anyone lighter would draw unnecessary attention. This far South, a guy like him could go missing and never turn back up. He had to be careful. All tips and intel pointed to Ruby Starr.

The theory that she was just the local for the job did not dissipate when Marco finally laid eyes on a tiny girl in a horrid ensemble. She was propped up against a giant van decorated with a painted mural of the stars. She wore a gray dress accented with every color known to man and presumably two known only to galactic travelers. Her wrists were densely populated with bangles, and her outfit was topped off with a pair of hiking boots.

Marco pulled in behind her van and peeled off his helmet. His curls sprang out like coils. Ruby’s attention shifted toward him. She beamed like she’d seen him before or they were old friends, meeting up after a long break. He mustered up a sad excuse for a grin in return and slid off his bike, pressed the kickstand in place, and walked toward her, scanning the road for anything suspicious.

When she smiled, two perfect, craterous dimples showed on her cheeks. “That’s a smooth ride you’ve got there. Are you Marco?”

“I am. I’d guess you’re Ruby.” He extended his arm and shook her hand.

“Smooth ride and a smoother accent.” She gave him a sly look. “Where are you from?”

“Brazil.” Now that he was close, Marco could see that her horrid fashion sense was easily overlooked because of the dreamy look in her eyes and the cascade of waves her curls made right before they stopped at her chin. “So where do we start?”

She turned to the giant bluffs before them and then looked back at Marco. “Run it by me again. What do you want? It sounds a little ridiculous and I just want to hear you say it.”

“I want to see every trailhead in this part of the park, but I don’t want to hike any of the trails. I’m planning on camping here once Hazel Creek reopens and I just want to get a feel for where hikers tend to be. I don’t actually want to hike all the trails. That sounds exhausting. I just want to see them.”

Ruby was not the kind of local you contracted or clued in. This mission was on a need-to-know basis. So a well-crafted lie would have to do.

“That’s dangerous, ya know.” Ruby nudged him with her elbow. “This part of the park is closed for a reason—treacherous terrain, bear attacks, inaccessibility, dangerous happenings. Sure you can handle it?”

“Do you think I’d be here asking you for help if I thought I could do it on my own?” Marco smirked, not smugly but teasingly.

“Should have thought of that one,” she whispered to herself. “You’re not with a commune, right?” Her tone shifted, watching him now with a skeptical eye.

Marco was taken aback by the question and the image of him in a commune. He couldn’t help but laugh. “Not my bag, why?”

“All right.” Ruby’s position seemed to shift from closed to open as she stepped closer to him. “Let’s get shaking.”

Even though she had completely ignored Marco’s question, he followed her into the bluffs, tying his riding jacket around his waist as they ascended. He had no desire to walk the paths most traveled, but he needed to know them. The goddess was a tactical genius. Investigating the trails with a local was just a swift way to figure out where she wasn’t, so he could start to focus on where she was.

The initial hike was steep, and Marco could easily see why this part of the national park was closed. The path was choked with leaves, fallen tree trunks were scattered around the area, and the sun was especially hateful at this angle.

“We’re going to want to move fast. We’ve only got about six or seven hours of light left. And man, you’ve given me a big order to fill.” Ruby reached the top of the bluff and instinctually turned around to offer her hand to him. He took it and she helped pull him up over the eroding edge. “I don’t think I’ve ever had such an ambitious request, actually. I’d say ambitious hiker, but you don’t seem to want to hike.”

“Is there a lot of business around illegal tour-guiding?” He took in the view. It was nothing but treetops as far as the eye could see. The whole world looked as though it were an overgrown arboretum.

“Some here, some there, mostly black folks and communes. Can’t really go through the Park Service. The visitor’s center is, uh, pretty pale.”

“So I heard.” After one good look at her lumberous legs, he didn’t doubt that Ruby was in the mountains a lot. She moved like a tank, careless, unafraid, and unstoppable. She stepped wherever she pleased.

“It’s a nice way to pick up some cash. Plus, I was coming out here tonight, anyway. Your job was really good timing.” Ruby grabbed hold of a tree limb and hoisted herself up and over a fallen tree trunk.

“Out here?” Marco repeated, slightly annoyed that he might have very well caused an unwelcomed wanderer to join him in the woods that night.

“Nah, out on Lake Fontana. It’s amazing out there at night with the stars all lit up. Like the skies are above and below you.” She then snapped her fingers to draw Marco’s attention. “So twenty feet that way, there’s a trail. About two miles down that path, there’s a fork. One way’ll take you all the way out to Andrew’s Bald, and the other will take you deeper into the creek.”

“Does this one tend to get a lot of foot traffic?”

“Not much. Since the CCC ended, this entire area has been off-limits to the public, and for the most part, they keep their distance. Too afraid of bears and stuff. Buncha babies.” She guzzled water from a canteen and kept her pace strong. “If we keep heading this way, then I can show you a few more paths before we have to turn back and go to a different starting point.”

“Buncha babies,” Marco repeated skeptically. “Are you not afraid of bears?”

“Black bears are docile creatures.” Ruby paused for a moment and then added, “Besides, I have enough bear mace on me to stop an entire horde of them if the time comes.”

“What? Where? There is no way you have room for all that on you.” This girl was in layers among layers of fabric and had a backpack that served more as fashion than function.

Ruby gave a single loud Ha! in return. “Nice try, but I’m not gonna tell you. That’s my only line of defense in the event that you’re actually a creep.”

“You think I’m a creep?” He laughed.

“Nah.” She turned her head just enough to peek at him. “I’ve picked up hitchhikers scarier than you.”

Marco stopped, rebuilt his pride, and then continued on. Surely he had to look at least slightly menacing. He was fit, seemingly brooding, scarily knowledgeable, and worldly, but apparently not intimidatingly so. He thought of all this while keeping the same stoic expression on his face.

“I could scare the hell out of you,” he said. “But because I’m a kind man, I will not.”

“Man.” She snorted, hiking forward faster. She stepped without care, her ankles teeter-tottering left and right as she took a chance on each unstable rock she trusted. “Please. Ghosts, aliens, yetis, they don’t scare me. I love ’em. I’d study them if I could. I watch The Twilight Zone with the lights off, and that stuff’s really scary.”

Marco just let the thought of yetis resonate in his mind for a minute. He followed in her steps carefully to ensure he didn’t injure himself. “I could tell you some things about Area 51 you wouldn’t believe.”

“Like what?” Ruby spun around like a snapping shark, and Marco was nearly positive she’d lose her balance and he’d have to stop her from falling down the thousand-foot elevation, but she stayed strong, no help needed. She looked at him with hope, her eyes wide and brimming with possibilities. Marco suppressed a smirk.

“Well, it starts in the ruins of Greece…” He began spinning a tale for her that reached from Greece to Roswell. It was perfect really. He’d tell a story. She’d be distracted enough not to notice him scanning the trail and jotting notes. After one story, she demanded another, not rudely, not brashly, but eagerly.

This was the kind of local Marco loved, someone with an appreciation for storytelling. However, Ruby had a bad habit of interrupting. Just as the CIA was reaching into an alien spacecraft, she’d ask what color the aliens were. Just as explorers from worlds unknown came over the hills of Tibet, she’d ask about the weather on that day in history. Luckily, Marco found her questions insightful and endearing. She was making him craft a truly fleshed-out story. He had started innocently enough, names were changed, locations moved around, and facts omitted, but the stories were mostly true, but after the first three tales, he switched completely, fabricating his stories just to see what she’d believe. He quickly learned that Ruby was not gullible. In fact, she was brilliant in something Marco had always considered a pseudoscience.

Ruby cut Marco off mid-alien attack in the Himalayan Mountains. “Okay, now that one’s bull. Aliens would never do that.”

“Do what?” Is this where the line was going to be drawn? Marco thought.

“Uh, speak English.” Ruby hung her hands in midair, emphasizing the obscenity of Marco’s story. “Aliens are crazy-brilliant, sentient beings. Do you really think they’d pick a language as Germanic as English?”

“You got me.” He could feel the sun beating on his back. He was warm inside and out.

“I thought so. As fake as that accent of yours.” She winked at him before spinning around and setting foot into a shallow stream.

“My accent isn’t fake.” Although the mission to find the goddess was his top priority, this was a fun detour. “I’m from Brazil.”

“Sure, and aliens speak English,” she replied.

Marco couldn’t find it in himself to move. He stood, slightly stunned, resisting the urge to laugh. “So aliens can crash land in Greece, but I can’t be Brazilian?” He poked fun at her, finally mustering up the competency to move one foot in front of the other and cross an incredibly wide stream dribbling down the side of the bluff.

“The Greece story wasn’t fake, was it?”

“No, no, that one was totally true,” he lied, but she looked relieved. They walked in silence for a few more minutes. The longer they hiked, the more elevation they gained. Eventually, the clouds created a fog around the two of them, but her comment was still digging at him. “But you do understand, if I can’t be Brazilian, you certainly can’t be a Floridian.”

Ruby slipped and Marco grabbed her from behind just in time to stop her from falling face-first. Once she regained her balance, she embarrassingly pulled herself from Marco’s grasp and turned around, a can of bear mace in her hand.

“What kind of accusation is that? I’m not from Florida.”

Marco’s heart rate spiked. Why would she lie about this? He backtracked, analyzing every interaction they’d had since first meeting. What did she have to gain from lying? Where had she pulled that bear mace from? Had she had time to put a bomb on his bike? Could she have a gun buried somewhere in her layers of scarves and dresses? If he hadn’t been working for the KGB, he would have suspected the KGB. He considered the situation at hand for another second before determining that odds were she wasn’t a spy, but the idea of her actually being one was now eating away at him.

“You have an accent, Ruby. There is no reason to lie.” He laughed nervously. “It’s not clear to other native-English speakers, but for me, it’s pretty easy to hear.” He braced himself in case she swung at him.

Instead, she turned and scowled. “Are you a cop?” She sounded irritated, done with whatever conversation they were having.

“No,” Marco replied, falsely defensive.

“Swear so?”

“Yeah. I’m not a cop, Ruby. Stop looking at me like that.”

“Not a PI, either?”

He laughed again. “Not one of those, either. What are you so worried about?”

Her face reddened with shame. “Ah, shoot, Marco, I’m sorry. It’s just the motorbike, the nice leather jacket, the accent. Then you said I was from Florida like you’ve got some secret intel or something. I don’t tell people where I’m from for a reason. You don’t need to know why, just that I don’t like to talk about it.”

Any alarm in Marco’s mind dropped. He was always so paranoid. He’d rushed to a conclusion again. She wasn’t some deep-undercover spy, or a KGB cover-up, just a kid doing something illegal.

Ruby groaned loudly, irritated with herself. “Oh my god, this is so embarrassing. You’re the third person I’ve done this too.”

“It’s fine. You should at least admit I’m right, though.” Marco snorted, following her as they reached the last mapped-out trailhead. The sun was beginning to set and time to hunt was rapidly approaching.

“Well, you aren’t. Right, I mean,” she said. “This is the last crossing. There are about three smaller trails that intersect here, two to the west, one to the south. The higher up the mountain, though, the less chance you’ll have of seeing other people. Like I said, there’re more bears up that way and less accessible bluffs. It’s dangerous up there.” She traced the ground with her foot. “I feel obligated to tell you that someone like us probably shouldn’t be camping out here alone at night, anyway. It may not be as bad as other places, but there’s still a lot of hostility.”

“Thanks, Ruby. You’ve got nothing to worry about. Trust that I’m capable of taking care of myself.”

It was as they descended the mountain, that Marco drew her in again. “It is a shame that you’re not from Florida, because one of the greatest heists I’ve ever seen happened there.” His words peaked her interest and, he led her through yet another story. As they walked down the mountains and talked, Marco laid out a mental map of the terrain as well as his game plan for the evening ahead. The hike down felt significantly slower than the hike up, allowing Marco’s anxiety to build. He decided to pass the time by telling Ruby one last story. This one about Thailand, a man called the Dragon, and an unbelievable break-in. She was listening, but her excitement and questions were gone. When they were back at Ruby’s van, he felt just a hint of sadness.

“So, how much do I owe you?”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” she gushed. “This was such a blast. Free of charge. And I almost maced you, ya know? Doesn’t feel right, taking your money.”

Marco grinned. “No, no. I insist. I have more than enough cash already.”

Her smile shifted to a smirk. “Why do I feel like you’re not here to camp?” she asked. “For real. Don’t worry about it. This has honestly been the best hike I’ve had in a long time. Plus, you’ve basically given me enough Area 51 information that I could probably break in there myself if I tried.”

“Definitely don’t.” Marco laughed aloud, but was gravely serious inside. “Definitely don’t,” he repeated, thinking of what truly was in Area 51. He dug into his back pocket and pulled out a beaten leather wallet. “Twenty?” He thumbed through the bills.

She groaned dramatically. “Marco, please don’t. I just can’t take your money.”

“Fifty then.” He shifted his gaze from his wallet to Ruby. She was heavily sighing in an overly dramatic fashion.

“I just can’t accept.” She put her hand to her forehead and pretended to wither. “If you really want to give me something, take me for a spin on your motorbike.” She stayed in her dramatic pose, but she was now peeking over at him.

Marco laughed, deeply, happily. Ruby was a doll, a sweet and kind of weird doll but a doll nonetheless. “I can make that happen.”

The next thing he knew, Ruby was holding onto him tight as they rode through the Carolina hills, the wind rushing against his face and cooling him off after a long day of hiking. Ruby squealed with excitement as the twists and turns came, the bike drifting as they flew past cascades and moss-ridden mountains. Marco grinned as he felt one of Ruby’s arms tighten around him and the other release so she could cut the air against her hand.

She finally stopped screaming just in time to start bubbly laughing as they slowed and came to a stop behind her van. She was still laughing when she gave Marco back his helmet and sighed with stars in her eyes.

“That is one groovy ride you’ve got.” She smoothed out her dress and took a moment to really hold Marco’s gaze. “If you find yourself free tomorrow, a couple friends and I are going out to the Typhoon Club if you’d want to tag along.”

“Thanks, Ruby. Keep it real, all right?” Marco dug into his wallet and pulled out a few bills. “And just take this, please.”

She grabbed it casually, and Marco revved his bike back up, then pulled out into the road. It was when he’d traveled maybe a few yards that he faintly heard her call his name, but he continued riding. He suspected she’d looked down and realized that he’d slipped her two hundred-dollar bills in a sandwich of singles.

The fun was over and the hunt was on. Marco wasted no time getting his bike parked and hidden. He hiked back into the Hazel Creek backcountry, knowing that he was in for a long night. In his riding bag was a collection of park maps and facility blueprints the KGB had given him. He had a good hunch she was somewhere in the rhododendron marshes atop the mountain. They were dense, far from the facility, and would offer coverage from aerial searches.

Given who he was dealing with, he suspected he’d fall victim to at least one or two misdirection tactics—a false path, multiple foot trails, decoys. However, she’d be limited in resources and time. Marco hoped that maybe she’d be easier to find because of this. He was wrong. After a few hours of searching, Marco was still empty-handed, having eliminated eight false paths and nearly fallen over a trip wire. It was getting dark, not dusk but truly dark. It seemed as though the mountains now grew around him and the only sound left was the chirping wildlife of the woods.

He was exhausted and sleep tempted him, but he kept moving and marked his path along the way. He kept his head down and his footsteps quiet as he listened. There were crickets off in the distance, frogs all around him, and crackling leaves, not under the foot of a spy but the paw of a bear. All hope seemed lost until a scream cut across the woodland.

 

DIANA’S SCREAM REVERBERATED through the woods, echoing off tree trunks and riverbanks until there was nothing left of it but a whisper in the night’s sky. Hundreds of feet below ground, at the bottom of one of the mountain’s many caverns, she was sprawled out, broken, and already healing. Da Vinci and Tim stared in horror.

“Shit.” Tim said, gaping as a shell reformed from membrane and her previously bashed-in face regrew into her features.

Diana forced herself off the ground, pressing her arms up and then her feet. Chips of old shell fell off her. “I survived,” she groaned, rocking her head from one side to the other until it gave a satisfying crack. “Guess you were right.”

This troubled Da Vinci. Before she began to climb up, Da Vinci had told her of a night terror he’d had where she’d climbed the cavern wall and fell from it. He’d seen her fall before it happened. And then, despite the warning, she had still fallen. He’d been right about an odd amount of many things since leaving the facility. Da Vinci was full of either lucky guesses or accurate intuition brought on by serious night terrors and epileptic fits.

“Catch your breath. I’ll scale it.” Tim took the rope from Diana and began to climb the wall, his bare feet not bloodying on the way up.

Once Tim was up, Diana followed shortly behind.

 

FROM THE TREE line, Marco stared in horror as a pale creature rose from what he could only assume was an underground cave. It was a man but deformed with a bulging chest growth and veiny skin. Marco’s stomach churned. He stood completely still and quieted his breathing, praying he lived through this nightmare.

The goddess rose next, like the living dead. Her arm, more muscle than shell, lurched out of the cavern opening. The peachy-skinned and angelic-faced woman Marco expected to find was nowhere to be seen. She had skin so pale it was nearly translucent. Her legs and face were cracked like porcelain, and any seductive nature people had reported was replaced with a tired and defeated appearance. Marco almost didn’t recognize her, but upon taking a second look at those famous curls, he clapped his hands over his mouth; his heart sped up and beat so loudly that Marco worried she might hear it.

This was the goddess. Who was with her? The KGB hadn’t mentioned any other agents. He held onto the nearest tree trunk for support, no longer caring about the mission. As soon as they left the clearing, he was going to bolt. But they weren’t clearing out. It seemed that they were waiting for another of their macabre party. Marco could hear this third member scaling the cavern, and once he spoke, Marco knew why he was the KGB’s prime candidate, why they said there was no one else for the job. Ascending from the cavern was his mentor, Da Vinci.

Marco let out a weak moan before collapsing.

When he finally came to, he could hear Da Vinci’s faint and familiar voice. “Rigan, no. No, no, what are you doing here?”

Rigan. The sound of his given name was enough to shake him from his groggy state. He opened his eyes hesitantly and found Da Vinci and the monsters around him.

“Who the hell is he?” the goddess asked.

Coming back to consciousness, Rigan managed to mutter, “Niccolò, what the hell are you doing here?”

Although nothing was said, there seemed to be as much uncertainty on Da Vinci’s part as on Rigan’s. “Rigan, it’s fine, everyone here is on a first name basis.”

“Oh, pardon me,” Rigan groaned. “Da Vinci Moretti, what are you doing here?” He let his head fall back onto the grass.

Da Vinci was just sitting there stunned. Rigan was expecting a reply, but it would appear Da Vinci couldn’t think coherently enough to give him one.

Tim answered for Da Vinci, “It’s a long story, Rigan.”

Upon hearing the familiar voice, Rigan flinched. He propped himself up on his elbows and laughed when he set his eyes on the vein-ridden one. It was Tim. “Holy shit, you look rough.”

“I believe you have seen better days.” Tim gave a begrudging reply.

“You know him, too?” Diana crossed her arms now.

“Yeah, he’s our old partner. Codename’s Marco.” Tim said something else, but Rigan was too focused on Da Vinci. The old man looked rough. His beard was unruly and the bags under his eyes were dark.

Eventually, Da Vinci spoke. “Rigan, what are you doing here?”

“The KGB sent me.” He answered. “They didn’t say it was you, Da Vinci. You know I wouldn’t have taken the job if I’d known it was you.”

“Did you know it was me?” Tim grumbled. Rigan shot him a dirty look in response.

Da Vinci helped pull Rigan up to his feet and then spoke to the boy in Portuguese. “Did anyone follow you?”

“No one.” Rigan grew more uneasy. He and Da Vinci rarely used Portuguese, since Rigan’s was substantially better than Da Vinci’s. If Da Vinci opened with it, it meant he wanted to exclude other parties from the conversation. “What have you gotten yourself into?”

Da Vinci ignored the boy’s question and switched back to English. “Rigan’s going to help us,” he told Diana.

Well, that might be an overstatement. Rigan was all for helping Da Vinci. His partners on the other hand? He could do without them.

“I don’t think so.” She crossed her arms and looked at Rigan coolly, her brows pinched with skepticism. “We can’t let him go back. What if the KGB find him?”

“The KGB aren’t going to find him, and even if they did, Rigan’s not going to sing.” Da Vinci placed a hand on her shoulder. “Trust me. Let him go and get help.”

Diana shook her head. She didn’t need to speak for her answer to be understood. “Rigan stays with us. Letting him go is too much of a risk. If he’s found out, we’re found out.”

Da Vinci looked disappointed, but resigned and accepting. Rigan was used to seeing him with more fire to him. It was weird to see him so compliant.

Tim, on the other hand, was full-on livid. “Why? So, we can keep walking around in the woods?” he spat. “Fuck that, Diana. Rigan is our best shot. Let him go.”

“Fuck you,” she snapped back.

“He’s our best shot, Diana. What other options do we have?” Da Vinci pleaded.

She bit her lower lip and paused. It was clear she was thinking this through.

“Rigan is a trustworthy source,” Tim added. “He’s a freelancer, no alliance but himself.”

She inspected Rigan, meticulously, calculatingly. “If you turn us in, know that when this is said and over, I will hunt you down and I will kill you.” Diana’s words left nothing open to interpretation.

“Your reputation doesn’t do you justice. Christ.” Rigan held back a scowl, giving Da Vinci a quick look before replying. “You’ve got nothing to worry about with me, goddess. I’m not turning you in. I’m getting you out of here.”

Diana began to walk him through her plan. “You will leave here within the next hour and hike back down the mountain. When you get back to your car, I want you to get to the nearest phone and contact Adams at his emergency number. Do you have that?” She paused long enough to let him confirm. “Tell him Hera, Niccolò, and Dresden are trapped at our current coordinates. Tell him about the KGB kidnapping us. Do not tell him about our deformities. You’ve got until sunrise. If you’re not back by then, we’ll already be on the move.”

Rigan’s heart pounded as his night began to unfold in front of him. These stakes were high, but Da Vinci was worth it. He owed it to him to get him out of there. “All right. That sounds smart. Hang low. I’ll come back after I talk to Adams.”

Da Vinci gave Rigan a quick hug. There was something rigid about him, something Rigan couldn’t ignore. It made him uneasy.

“Make sure you have your gun.” It was a sudden change in topic that added to his nerves. “Don’t stop until you know you’re safe, Rigan.”

“I’ll be back,” Rigan assured him before rushing back to his bike as fast as he could. Something was wrong, and it wasn’t just the obvious. Da Vinci was uncomfortable, and seeing Da Vinci without a calm and cool exterior was a rare and dangerous thing. When he made it back to his bike, Rigan quickly mounted and then tore through the winds and curves of the road, not waiting for the safest phone but the closest. When he found one, just getting the coins into the payphone’s pay slot was nearly impossible as his hands shook. The image of Diana with a broken arm rising from the depths of the cave was etched into his mind. The dial tone hummed and then rang.

Finally, a tired voice came up on the other end of the line. “Hello?”

“Adams. It’s Marco. Hera, Niccolò, and Dresden are in trouble. They need an airlift fast.”

There was a pause. The man gave a warm laugh. Something about Adams’ voice had a naturally calming effect on the people around him.

“You’re running around with Niccolò again?” he asked.

“That’s not important.”

“Suppose not,” Adams groaned as he audibly crawled around his bed. “That explains the enormous bounties on their heads. All right, pen and paper in hand. What’re their coordinates?”

The words were on the tip of Rigan’s tongue, but before he could get them out, there was a loud clatter. He was being shot at. The first bullet cut right through the payphone, destroying its insides and ending Rigan’s call. The second bullet went right for Rigan, grazing his right arm.

Across the parking lot, in the pale moonlight, Gulliver stood, Rigan’s KGB contact, the man who swindled Rigan into taking this job just a few days prior. He hated that spy’s crooked, thin-lipped smile.

“Marco.” Gulliver’s English-accented voice sounded musical, as he approached the boy, gun still in hand. “Something the matter? Realize the old man is in trouble?” His closemouthed laugh was high in pitch.

“You knew.” Rigan gritted his teeth until the inside of his cheek tore open. The copper taste of blood filled his mouth.

“You were the only agent we knew who wouldn’t be killed on sight once finding Hera and her teammates, and we were right, no? Pops didn’t let her pull the trigger, so to speak?” He oozed a snarky confidence.

Rigan wanted to talk his way out of this before it could escalate any further. “Are we going to talk about what the hell you did to them?” his words were acidic.

“Are you referencing the pleasantly corpse-colored ones?” Gulliver replied coyly.

“You’re sick.”

“I’m doing the best I can.” Gulliver shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels for a moment before taking a firm stance. “So are you coming willingly?”

“I’m not a canary.” Rigan sized Gulliver up. He was as tall as a tree, vision impaired, and skinny as a rail. With Rigan’s muscle and agility, he would win the fight, hands down, but few physically weak agents traveled alone. Rigan scanned the tree line surrounding the area. “Where’s your muscle?”

“He’s around.” Gulliver smiled, appearing relaxed at the thought.

Rigan contemplated running at the exact moment Gulliver jabbed out his talon-like hand to clench onto Rigan’s forearm. Rigan shoved Gulliver back easily and twisted away from his grip. Then, Rigan turned on his heel, ready to run for his bike when he saw the six-foot-three-inch wall of pure Soviet strength blocking him.

“Let me leave here alive!” Rigan shouted.

“Sorry, comrade.” The brute had a thick Russian accent and an unapologetic expression that read shit happens.

Rigan reached into his jacket for his gun, only to find that it was missing. He’d put it in the seat of his bike when he and Ruby went riding. Since finding Da Vinci, he’d been in too much of a hurry to grab it.

All he had now was a pocket knife. It’d have to do. Summoning his courage, Rigan charged at the man. Rigan was thrown back like a rag doll. He ricocheted and rolled across the asphalt. Gulliver grabbed for him, but Rigan instinctively kicked, knocking the wind from Gulliver in one hit.

Gulliver wheezed. “Kal,” he called for his partner and extended his arm to help balance himself.

Rigan scrambled to his feet, knife out and ready to charge again. Kal wasn’t fazed. He walked over and scooped Rigan up from the pavement, brushing off the few punches he landed.

“You should’ve done the job.” Kal threw him to the ground.

Rigan’s head bobbed and his ears rang. He wasn’t made for this. He scrambled to get to his feet, but with all the soreness, he fell right back to the concrete. His tailbone seared with pain.

Kal picked him up by the collar of his shirt.

“No! Stop! Stop!” Rigan thrashed back and forth. He kicked and screamed for help. He needed to save himself and Da Vinci. That’s what kept him going. The idea of repaying a debt made long ago. He pried at Kal’s hand. “Let me go!”

Kal drew his fist back, preparing to hit, but released him when Rigan sank his teeth into the callused skin on Kal’s hand.

Rigan dropped to the ground, the taste of Kal’s and his own blood turning his stomach. He attempted to move away.

“Good try,” Kal kicked.

Rigan’s rib cage made a loud crunching noise when Kal’s blow landed.

“Fuck!” Rigan wrapped an arm around his chest. He couldn’t move.

This was how Rigan went out, crumpled on the ground, hugging himself, choking on his own blood, and listening to the sound of his bones breaking with each kick.