32

THAILAND, MID-AUGUST

The brief was clear and direct. Havok, Stone, and Kilgore were to catch a commercial flight to Bangkok; rent a car and drive to Pattaya Beach, a resort area seventy miles southeast of Bangkok; and check into the Royal Garden Hotel and pose as tourists. To the south of Pattaya Beach was the town of Sattahip and a Royal Thai naval base, the training ground and headquarters for their naval special forces. Because of the similarity in topography, and because they were to operate at night in Vietnam, they would train at night, then make their way back to Pattaya each morning and sleep during the day.

The flight to mainland Asia was uneventful, allowing each man to be alone with his thoughts.

After landing in Bangkok, Kilgore checked out their car from the rental center, a mundane white four-door sedan, while Havok and Stone retrieved their luggage. They then drove to Pattaya, passing the many baht buses that shuttled the local population up and down the flat countryside. They checked into their hotel, just off South Pattaya Road, the main drag of the resort town, and visited old haunts. When dusk approached, they piled into their rental and made their way to Sattahip.

The two Thai guards at the gate sweated profusely from the early-evening tropical heat, wet spots staining their uniforms. One of them stepped out of the guard shack and peered through the tinted glass before Kilgore had a chance to lower the window. The guard seemed to be expecting them because, as soon as he saw three white males, he yelled something to the other guard inside the small shack, who then picked up a cell phone.

The first guard signaled them to pull off to the side of the road and wait.

Their wait was short. In a couple of minutes, a giant of a white man, wearing tiger-striped BDUs and jungle boots, stepped out of a nearby two-story wooden structure. Bamboo blinds covered the inside of the building’s windows. The man lumbered toward the car with an easy gait despite his immense size. Havok saw no nametag or insignia patches on the uniform.

Kilgore rolled the window down but kept the car’s air conditioner going.

The man bent down and peered through the driver’s-side window. He looked them over cautiously and then said, “Kilgore?”

“In the flesh,” Kilgore answered, flashing a huge smile.

The man’s smile matched Kilgore’s. “Park next to the building I just came out of.” He allowed the car to pass and then followed it as Kilgore drove the short distance and parked it under the light at the corner of the building.

Kilgore, Stone, and Havok left the car, retrieving their luggage from the trunk, and walked up the bare wooden steps to a plain brown door. The uniformed man opened the door and all four of them stepped inside a large room. The room was dim and cavernous with sparse furnishings. A dozen seated men eyed the new arrivals with cautious suspicion. Though not as imposing as the first man, they all appeared to be tough and professional, and all wore the same type of camouflage BDUs, also without badges or distinctions of rank. Most wore civilian ball caps denoting the names of states or sports teams.

“Gentlemen, this is Joe Havok, Scott Kilgore, and Pete Stone.”

The seated men warily inspected the new arrivals, sizing them up like wrestlers before a big match. Havok, Kilgore, and Stone did the same. Intense, hardened eyes clashed against one another.

“Let’s get started,” said the big man, breaking up the silent duel. “I’m Blane Tucker, and I, like everybody else in this room, am a member of SCRU. I believe you know what that stands for. You’ll learn everybody’s names as we go along.” Tucker turned and faced the entire crowd. “The purpose of our mission is to infiltrate a villa located just outside of Da Nang. You are going to bring out two men, Tang and Anisimova. Their photos are included in the briefs I hope everybody had a chance to study. Tang is probably the biggest drug manufacturer, trafficker, and pusher around. His cliental is definitely not exclusive. Then there is Anisimova, who’s not only a Russian separatist wanted by his own government, but also Tang’s partner in the heroin trade. The type of heroin that these two are turning out is twisting many minds into zombies in both the US and Russia. Both Tang and Anisimova are old friends and have been partners for years. Now, we’re going to bring them both back to the States.”

One of the men, who sat near the far wall, raised his hand. “Is the Vietnamese government still in the dark about this?”

He appeared to be perhaps the youngest man in the room and wore a Minnesota Vikings ball cap, which was perched jauntily on the back of his head.

“Yes, Bergdahl, they are. Most of Tang’s relatives run the government and are paid a decent sum. We couldn’t take a chance at informing them,” Tucker said as he looked around the room sternly. “I must stress that we cannot leave anybody behind. If, for whatever reason, you’re not at the extraction point, you must make it to the alternate extraction point. We are not supposed to be there, and Uncle Sam will not admit to anything.”

“So what else is new?” Stone joked, breaking the ice. He received a couple of chuckles, but most of the men still viewed them warily.

“The basics of the operation are as follows,” Tucker continued. “We will parachute in, landing at a marked LZ manned by people on our payroll, about four klicks from the villa. Far enough away that the sounds of the helicopters won’t alert our targets at the villa and our direction won’t telegraph our intended target, just in case we are tracked by radar. We will make our way to the villa, and the helicopters will land at another LZ two klicks from the villa to wait for us. This will be our primary extraction point. We will complete our mission and make our way there. In case our primary LZ is compromised, there is a second extraction point near Ba Na, about ten klicks from the villa. Both extraction points are on the maps that you will be given as part of your issue; they will be marked in code. Make sure you study those maps carefully. Any questions?”

“Why are we bringing civilians?” asked Bergdahl, seeming to question the presence of the three new arrivals. Havok studied his young face. He was handsome, with Nordic features. Well-muscled, he held himself with extreme self-confidence.

“Easy, Bergdahl,” Tucker said. “These civilians just had a run-in with Anisimova less than a month ago. They know him, and they have a pretty heavy score to settle.”

“This ain’t a grudge match,” Bergdahl retorted. “This is the real thing, and I don’t think we should operate with amateurs just because their pussies got hurt.”

Havok looked around the room at the rest of the agents. He saw others nod in agreement. He also saw Tucker staring at Bergdahl.

“Listen here: these two men kept a cargo of sarin gas out of the hands of terrorists along with a half-billion dollars in gold and diamonds. Also, I’m guessing that any one of these amateurs could kick your ass without even working up a sweat,” Tucker said, staring the man into silent submission. “If you don’t like the way I run my ops, you can always resign and see if the Eighty-Second Airborne will take you back.”

The younger man averted his eyes to the floor.

“All right,” said Tucker, biting his ire, “let’s finish this brief.”

The brief lasted another fifty minutes. Afterward, Tucker led his newest recruits to a backroom in the same building. There they drew their field gear: canvas parachute bags stuffed with packed parachutes, web gear, boots, and BDUs. They put on their fatigues and web gear, stashed their remaining gear in assigned lockers, and then joined the rest of the team, who waited on a grass-covered field behind the building. Their training began as the sound of helicopters approached.

Sixteen men, each equipped with parachutes and night-vision devices, parachuted from helicopters crewed by US Army Special Ops pilots, aiming for the faint infrared markers that ringed the drop zone. After the three-thousand-foot jump, the team would spend time on an improvised range, shooting brand-new AK-47s with the aid of their night-vision devices. If there was going to be any shooting going on, then the brass casings left behind couldn’t be associated with the Americans. The time on the range would be followed by a six-mile land-navigation course back to a country villa. The team had selected the site because of its similarity in construction and terrain to the target villa in Vietnam. Once at the site, they would practice breaching the walls and accessing the rooms where their targets would be sleeping.

The first night of training proved relatively easy and, with one exception, went by without a hitch. The commando team had just landed and were stuffing their parachutes into their rucksacks when a sharp crack rang out in the darkness.

Havok and Stone were the first to reach a struggling form on the ground. Stone turned on his red-lensed flashlight and saw a man lying on the ground, holding his foot with both hands. It was Bergdahl. Next to him, on the ground, was his AK-47. While Stone held his flashlight, Havok helped remove the soldier’s boot to inspect the injury. Havok shook out the remains of his big toe.

Stone squatted next to the gunshot victim and comforted him. “You know something, friend? I feel plumb stupid. I’ve had it all wrong. I had no way of knowing that the best way to get them to drop their guard was to shoot yourself in the foot.”

“Fuck you,” the man hissed.

“No, I think you just fucked yourself, pal.”

Just then, Tucker walked up behind Stone and peered at his man on the ground. He shook his head before speaking. “I knew I shouldn’t have allowed you on my team. Go ahead and see if the Army will take you back. See me in five years once you’ve grown.” Tucker then turned away.

The next three nights were spent fine-tuning their drill. The team had to be at peak efficiency if they were to complete their mission and return. Havok and Stone also knew that, for the team to accept them, they had to prove themselves to the others. They did so by always being the first ones out of the aircraft, the first ones to the target villa, and the ones with the best range scores. By the start of training on the fourth day, they were the most respected members of the team.

***

On the fifth night, the team found themselves at sea. The Macau Lady, a dilapidated coastal freighter, sleepily made its way south along the coast of Vietnam twenty miles away. On the ship’s dark and lonely main deck sat three large transport containers with tarps stretched across their tops. Registered as a Malaysian vessel and a veteran of the Asian trade, the old vessel slowed to a stop, and a radio call went out to the ship’s owners in Panang. The ship’s captain reported that the engines had broken down again, and they would have to spend a few hours on repairs.

Once the owners acknowledged the information, the ship sprang to life. Men who seemed to well up out of the rusty decks climbed all over the containers and rolled the canvas tops back. After removing the tarps, the men pulled pins out of the corners of the containers and gently lowered the fake metal sides, revealing three MH-60 special-operations-capable stealth helicopters that squatted inside. Their crews, the SCRU team, and Kilgore, Havok, and Stone waited patiently in the helicopters while their ears strained to hear that one brief radio transmission.

It came.

The pilots started their engines, and when they were at full power, the large insects lifted themselves off into the midnight darkness. Two minutes later, with only the exception of the ship’s running lights, the dented freighter went back to sleep, slowly drifting southward. Its engines were still being fixed.

The jump was flawless. Havok, like everybody else, dove into nothingness. At one thousand feet, he pulled the ripcord and felt the opening shock of the rectangular chute. He looked up to ensure his lines were not tangled. From what he could tell, they were free and clear of each other. He couldn’t see the canopy above him; it was the same color as the night sky. He looked down and could see only the same thing that the others saw, a fuzzy black blanket under him with a group of diminutive green lights. Barely visible, the pinpricks of light outlined the drop zone, a rice paddy about two hectares in size.

Agents were in position, ready to mark the LZ with infrared markers and guide them to the villa. The agents were Vietnamese peasants employed by the US government for the last twenty years. Their first mission, twenty years ago, had been to report any evidence of American POWs still in Vietnam. Now they kept an eye on the flourishing drug trade.

Havok’s body slammed into the flooded rice paddy without warning, jarring his back painfully. It took precious seconds for him and the rest of the men to extricate themselves from the clinging mud and climb up the narrow dike. This was the time when they were most vulnerable, helpless in the mire; they could be shot down where they stood. After Tucker had a full head count, he led the file of men off the path to the jungle’s edge where two Vietnamese men materialized from the foliage, silently greeting them.

One of them stepped past the line of American men to gather their chutes; the other man just turned around and walked back into the jungle. The Americans followed the man to their target, four kilometers ahead.

Thirty minutes later the group approached the villa. In the dark, they could see the old-style French-colonial mansion. Its unique, imperial audaciousness clashed with the simple peasant huts that surrounded the vast grounds of the estate.

The team split into three groups. After hours of practice, they knew exactly what to do and where to go. The first group followed the informant to remove the guards and set up a defensive perimeter. The other two teams waited in the bushes until Tucker, who squatted next to Havok, heard the all-clear signal on the earpiece looped over his ear. He acknowledged the transmission and then whispered to the leader in charge of Havok’s team. The man nodded and turned to his team, which included Havok and Stone. Nothing needed to be said. The team leader simply stood silently and walked toward the side of the mansion. His team followed. They had been assigned the job of capturing Anisimova, who took up quarters in a spacious guest cottage behind the mansion.

Under the blank witness of the moon, which had just made its appearance from behind the partially overcast sky, Kilgore, Havok, Stone, and the rest of the team skirted the shadows of the jungle along the edge of the expansive lawn behind the mansion. They found themselves behind a cottage that was raised three feet off the ground and surrounded by a wide porch. Havok looked down as they approached the target and saw the body of a guard who had died minutes ago, staring blindly at the night sky. The six men darted out from the bushes and covered the ten yards of open ground to the porch.

Havok and Kilgore stepped up onto the porch and tested the planking. The wood was as sound as the day it had been nailed into place. Still wearing their night-vision devices, they peered through a side window that they knew from their plans was the target’s bedroom window. Inside they could see two fuzzy green outlines lying naked on the bed, sleeping. They had already factored in the second person. Kilgore also spotted a bottle of vodka and a glass on the nightstand.

With everybody else in covering position, Stone stepped up to the porch and the men circled around the front door. Kilgore gently tugged on the door handle only to find it locked. Stone carefully placed his weapon on the deck and pulled a small leather case from his right trouser cargo pocket. He opened it and removed two long, thin metal picklocks and went to work. Within thirty seconds, Stone put his tools in his pocket and turned the handle. Staying low, the men opened the door and stole into the front room and down the hall to bedroom.

Stone approached Anisimova’s partner on the left side of the bed. He again placed his weapon on the floor and pulled a black cloth sack and a roll of duct tape from his other pants pocket. Havok did the same thing on his side of the bed while trying not to step into the beam of moonlight that entered through the window and landed on Anisimova’s sleeping face. On a silent count of three, they struck.

Havok reached to secure Anisimova, and Kilgore grabbed the vodka bottle by the neck. As soon as Havok touched him, Anisimova’s eyes flew open, but before he could react, Havok jumped onto his chest, pinning his arms at his sides. At the same time, Kilgore smashed the heavy glass bottle across Anisimova’s face. The sound of the breaking nose echoed in the darkness. Havok used the precious seconds to slap a wide piece of tape across Anisimova’s mouth. Next, he slid back and wrapped the roll of tape around the pair of wrists that Kilgore held together for him. Once Anisimova’s wrists were secured, Kilgore slipped his own cloth sack over Anisimova’s head, pulling the drawstring tight.

When they were finished, Havok looked across the bed and saw a young girl, perhaps sixteen to eighteen years old judging by her naked build, kicking blindly at her kidnappers. The men ignored their captives and scurried around the room, looking for clothes to dress the two people. Havok could hear them struggle on the bed, trying to shake their bindings. He could also hear Anisimova trying to breathe through the heavy cloth, duct tape, and a shattered nose filled with mucous and blood.

“You think he’ll choke to death?” Kilgore asked.

“It will take a lot more than a broken nose to kill him,” Havok answered.

“I got mine,” Stone said cheerfully.

Everybody turned and looked at Stone. They saw that he had wrapped a black shirt around the girl’s shoulders.

Carrying their captives over their shoulders like two sacks of rice, the men bolted from the cottage and joined the other two teams at the spot where they had split up only a few minutes ago. Standing on weakened and shaking knees was another person also with a black cloth sack over his head. Tucker completed a hurried head count and then radioed in, “Mission complete.” When he received his confirmation, the Americans, with three captives, melted back into the jungle. Havok remained at the end of the column. As he turned to look behind them, he thought, The snatch went off too easy. Too damned easy.

***

Unknown to Tucker and the rest of the Americans, Tang had had the opportunity to hit a silent-alarm button next to his bed before the Americans threw the bag over his head. Also, although most of the staff were sound asleep, one man was not. Having girl problems back in Saigon, the man, Tang’s driver, was sitting in a secluded section of the grounds, mulling over his predicament. As he sat in the darkness with his cell phone in his hand, contemplating how to solve his problem, he heard footsteps‍―lots of footsteps.

The scene at the Vietnamese air force base outside Da Nang was one of urgency as the duty officer received the alarm and the phone call from the driver. He, in turn, called on the helicopter crews and soldiers waiting in the barracks and hangars nearby. Though not suspecting any immediate danger, Tang had requested, through government connections, that a Vietnamese military contingency always be on standby, ready to rescue him at a moment’s notice. Two French-made Gazelle helicopters, each armed with ten two-inch rockets and two M60 machine guns along with six hundred rounds of 7.62 NATO ball ammunition, lifted off with their crews and a squad of soldiers each.

***

On the ground, after thirty minutes of a forced march, the American commandos reached the primary extraction point and saw the three stealth helicopters waiting for them. Their guides had earned their money and disappeared back into their normal lives.

The team approached the aircraft, and as they stepped up next to the open side doors, Havok dropped Anisimova from his shoulder and removed the sack from his head. The lower half of his face was a bloody mess where snot and thick blood gooped down his throat and matted his chest hair. Anisimova looked at Havok with an intense hatred while he noisily sucked in air through his shattered nose. Havok removed a canteen from his web belt and drank the warm water. “That job as a deputy director fell through, huh? Don’t worry about it, though; shit like you always end up on top.”

Stone pulled up next to Havok and slid his load from his shoulders. “I guess being a white supremacist is too rough these days. The drug trade is more up his alley. The pay is better, and you still get to ruin people’s lives.”

“Let’s just hope he doesn’t ruin anybody else’s life except his own from now on,” Havok said. “By the way, how’s your date?”

Stone turned to his left and removed a jackknife from his pocket. He cut the duct tape around her wrists but didn’t remove the cloth sack. Before the guides departed, one of them told her to keep the hood on until she heard the helicopters fly away.

By now, the rest of the American commandos had already loaded themselves in the helicopters, and Havok and his team were doing the same. Suddenly, the reverberating sounds of a helicopter engine approached from somewhere in the darkness.

That doesn’t sound good, Havok thought as he turned to push Anisimova forward.

The pilots of the three American helicopters heard the same noise and frantically started their engines. Havok and Anisimova were the last men in the paddy, only five feet from the door, when the entire area was suddenly set ablaze in blinding light.

Havok, shocked, froze in mid-stride. Anisimova reacted immediately and used the change in fortune for his survival. He turned right and fled from the harsh light. Havok stared ahead at the gaping door of the helicopter and at the waiting arms that were close enough to touch, arms that could pull him to freedom and life. He then looked right, at the bounding animal that had caused so much pain and misery for so many people. Havok turned right and disappeared into the darkness, followed by a pair of two-inch rockets as they exploded in the mud between him and the helicopter.

Everyone was startled at the suddenness and ferocity of the attack. What followed happened so fast that nobody could recall the details except for the anguish that each man felt in his own way. The American pilots, knowing they could not be caught on the ground, engaged their blades and increased their engines’ rpm. Stone, sitting on the edge of the side door, felt the aircraft lift away from the rice paddy and his friend. All he could see was his own hand reach out for Havok, who stood alone in the thick black water. Stone stood to jump out of the chopper but was held back by the other men in the aircraft when they realized what he was going to do. The helicopter escaped the bright light and left behind a trail of unseen exhaust and sorrowful screams.

The lead Vietnamese pilot, Lt. Vihn, had just received an update over his headset as to where the American helicopters were waiting. The driver had followed the group of commandos and kept the air base updated. Vihn led the other helicopter to the scene, and through his own night-vision goggles, was able to capture the site on the ground. He saw the first two helicopters and fired two rockets. Vihn saw his rockets explode uselessly in the mud. He recovered quickly and radioed in the incident, informing the base of the two men left on the ground. Vihn and the other helicopter followed the unknown helicopters into the darkness. He knew he had the advantage of home territory, as well as probably having more fuel than the invaders, meaning they would have to set down somewhere.

Now alone in the communist country, Havok tried to follow the diminishing sounds of the rotors beating the jungle below. Ahead he could hear the splashing and the horrid rasping as Anisimova tried to run through the knee-deep ooze and breathe through a clogged nose.

For Anisimova, this was his last chance at survival. With hands still bound, he reached up and ripped away the tape on his mouth. He gulped in great amounts of air, which immediately increased his strength. He reached the dike and climbed it. Once on dry ground, he ran down the narrow footpath. Now it was his turn to hear the man behind him struggle in the thick water.

Anisimova turned around when he no longer heard the sound and then saw a shadowy figure climb the precarious rise. Anisimova ran as fast as his wet, naked legs could carry him, knowing he had only seconds. He saw a buffalo-drawn plow in front of him, sitting there like some sort of metal scarecrow in the moonlight. He ran to the blade of the plow and began to rub the thick tape across the rusty metal, sawing away at it. In two seconds, his wrists sprang away from each other, just as Havok’s body loomed above him, blocking the moonlight as he slammed into Anisimova.

Now that Anisimova was able to fight back, he did so with a bitter vengeance. Angered beyond reason, full of insane hate, he threw Havok aside like a ragdoll. Havok sailed through the air and landed on his back in the putrid water of the paddy. He tried to get up, but the equipment he wore glued him to the bottom. Before he could free himself, Anisimova was atop him, straddling his waist. Havok felt strong fingers close on his throat, keeping his head underwater. He tried to breathe but gagged on warm water that tasted like shit.

Anisimova grinned and laughed madly. All those years of poverty and want had made him murderously evil. Twice within a single month, vast power and wealth had been cruelly snatched away, and now the man responsible for his avalanche back into poverty was under him, struggling in a shallow sea of waste and filth, dying. Anisimova tightened his grip. He could feel the man under him weaken.

Anisimova was so intent upon choking the life out of Havok that he did not see the fist leave the water and smash into his already-broken nose. The first punch sent shock waves of agony sawing through his skull; the second punch made Anisimova shit himself, forcing him to loosen his grip. With his remaining strength, Havok pushed Anisimova away.

He rolled away from Anisimova, and between deep gasps for air, he saw Anisimova flounder in the water, holding his face in his hands and screaming in agony. The screaming that started out sounding inhuman was made worse by blood, mucus, and animal waste as it ran down his heaving throat, choking him. Havok crawled away from his opponent, hoping to get a few precious seconds between himself and Anisimova. He knew Anisimova had gone beyond the edge; he was now a rabid, diseased animal that would be nearly impossible to stop.

Havok managed to pull himself free of the clinging mud and get to his feet. His trembling right hand reached for the K-bar on his web belt. Desperately, his fingers tried to clear the mud from the snap that held the knife in its sheath, while the enraged animal rose from the mire, his pain subsiding. Havok gave up on the knife, knowing that even if he did get it out of the sheath, the five-inch steel blade would not be enough to stop the madman.

The two spent warriors stood there, stooped over and gasping for breath. Their world consisted of only this fetid square piece of swamp, and only one man could live in it. Foregoing all thoughts of power, wealth, or life, they charged at each other. Their bodies clashed, and their fists pounded away at each other. Havok took several kidney-busting blows to his abdomen, forcing him to vomit. As he was spewing out wastewater and stomach contents, he continued to send blows against Anisimova’s shattered nose.

They fought like two junkyard dogs that had never known anything but pain, misery, and hunger. For the longest minutes, the nearby jungle listened to the muted grunts and agonies of these two men until one of them collapsed back into the mud.

The figure swayed above the prostrate body in the paddy and then made his way back to the dike, crawling up the incline until his body lay flat on the narrow footpath, his chest heaving under great strain. After a brief respite, he forced himself to sit up and pulled a canteen from his web belt. Havok used the water to rinse his mouth of the vomit and vile taste, and then threw the empty canteen at Anisimova, who struggled in the paddy, trying to get a foothold. Havok was about to step back into the arena and finish off the gladiator when somebody pulled up next to him.

He looked wearily to his left and saw a man dressed in black fatigues, carrying a pistol. He spoke in English but with a Russian accent. “Do not stand up.”

Havok recognized Petroske from Terumbu Island. Under the bright moonlight, he saw more black-dressed shadows lining the crisscross of footpaths. His heart sank.

Petroske turned to the other men and said something in Russian. Two men walked down from the dike and into the rice paddy. They grabbed Anisimova by the armpits and dragged him out of the water and up the dike, depositing him next to Havok.

Everybody remained silent as they stared at Anisimova. He was quickly recovering from the duel and soon realized that his compatriots surrounded him. At first, his eyes betrayed a frightened uncertainty as he surveyed the picket of stark figures, until they fell on Petroske.

“Petroske! Good to see you, my old friend.”

Petroske helped his former superior to his feet and then handed him a canteen.

Anisimova rinsed his mouth with the warm water and spit out the fetid bile. He handed the canteen back to Petroske and then stared down at Havok. Now it was finally over. Havok would be dead, and he was safe from extradition to the States. He was tired and had had enough. Anisimova stopped staring at Havok and looked at Petroske. “Shoot him,” he ordered in English.

Havok heard those two words and saw Petroske raise his pistol. For some reason, Havok took the time to look at the pistol. He closed his eyes and heard the echoing click of a slide being drawn back. Knowing he was about to die, he gave his life one more chance at survival. He lurched to his feet just as the sharp crack of the pistol exploded behind his left ear. As he fell forward off the dike, he was amazed at how painless death really was; he did not feel the bullet’s impact. Instead, he felt the bone-jarring shock as his chest slammed into the decline of the dike, his face just kissing the paddy water.

After about a minute, when the pain in his chest subsided and he could still hear the soft night breeze blowing across the black water, he realized he was still alive. He quickly pushed himself into a crouching position and turned around to peer over the top of the dike.

One of the black figures said something in Russian.

Petroske lowered his pistol and looked at Havok. “This is your lucky day. I was told not to kill you. We were ordered here to take care of Anisimova, which we were about to do until you took him from us. We followed you here to see how this night would develop.”

And with that simple statement, Havok saw the soldiers walking off the dikes and melting back into the jungle, disappearing like ghosts. Havok looked to his right and saw Anisimova’s body lying sprawled out, facedown. The entire right side of his head was a sliding mass as blood and fluid leaked from his cranium.

Havok did not move; he simply tried to absorb what had happened. Either Anisimova’s superiors or the official Russian government, embarrassed at the attention brought to them by Anisimova, had ordered him hunted down and executed the old-fashioned Stalinist way of doing things: a single bullet to the skull.

With a body racked with pain and a mind filled with wonderment at his miraculous survival, Havok stood and climbed back up the dike. He glanced once more at the body and then turned east, toward the alternate extraction point. Pulling his map from his pants pocket, along with a small flashlight, Havok reviewed his route and stepped forward while thinking about all that had happened within the last month. He then thought about Apple. She was right: there was no way he could live life without facing it. With a smile, he started to think about the search for a lost pirate fleet. It was an easy job‍―perhaps just too easy?

Maybe I’ll just have to burn more toast, he thought as he walked away with a spring in his step.