Clark walked back to the GAZ. The others also seemed to notice the shift in their commander’s demeanor as he approached the lone enemy survivor.
No one went with Clark.
If he had wanted backup, he would have asked for it.
—
Boss Man did his best to mask his trepidation as the American commander approached. Surely, he failed. He was not easily unnerved, yet he couldn’t push away an impending sense of doom.
Most likely, it was because he saw something of himself in the big American. He had served sixteen years in the Wagner Group, marauding through some of the world’s most miserable hellholes. He’d been to Ukraine and Mali, Libya and Sudan. He’d shot peasant miners to steal the diamonds in their pockets. Dug trenches in the dirt of Chernobyl to keep from getting blasted by Ukrainian artillery. Yet this…this felt different.All three of his comrades were dead. He was injured and bound to a smoldering truck. It was a level of helplessness he had never before experienced. The kind of helplessness he had only inflicted upon others.
The American knelt down, putting them face-to-face. His blue eyes were cut from a glacier.
“Name?” the man asked in Russian.
Feeling a need to negotiate, hoping a bit of truth would be in his favor, he gave it. “Dmitri.”
A nod. A good start.
“All right, Dmitri. There are a great many things I would like to ask you. Unfortunately, neither of us has the time for an extended conversation. So I will be brief.” The American looked him up and down. Boss Man knew he must be a sad sight. His right ankle was swollen, probably broken. The rest of his battered body had been immobilized, wrapped in so much duct tape he looked like a mummy.
The American continued. “In a few minutes my team and I are going to fly out of here. We have the device you used to bring down a United States diplomatic aircraft, which means the details of your plotwillbe uncovered. That said, if you can answer two questions it would save us a great deal of trouble. As things stand, you are alive—that makes you the lucky one of your little expedition. You’ve suffered injuries, but on the whole, I think you’ll survive. At some point in the next hour or two, a vehicle will drive up the road, find you, and contact the authorities. There will be an ambulance and a hospital in your future. I’ll let you fill in the rest. But there is an alternate scenario. The one that happens if you don’t answer my two questions. Are we clear?”
Dmitri nodded. He was massively relieved, but tried not to let it show. He recognized an empty threat when he heard one. American operators were known for operating by a different set of rules. They were highly proficient, motivated, and always had the best equipment. Their weakness, however, was their rigid code of ethics. They were constrained by high-minded rules against opponents who fought by the law of the jungle.
“I understand,” he said.
“Excellent. I want to know who you were targeting when you took down that airplane in Bodrum, and also who you work for. That’s all. Two names, I walk away, and we’ll never see each other again.”
Dmitri grimaced. “I would tell you if I could, but no one gave us names. We are only mercenaries. I was told when the airplane would arrive, but nothing about who was on it.”
The American only stared, the blue eyes vacant.
“A man like you would understand,” Dmitri said. “There was no need for us to know. As to who hired us, everything was arranged through the dark web.”
The American nodded as if hearing what he’d expected. He reached over and picked up the roll of duct tape. It was smaller now, most of it already used to bind him to the GAZ’s crooked bumper. The big man seized Dmitri’s left hand, which was unrestrained below the elbow, and bent it upward until his fingers touched his chin. The pain was excruciating—his hand had been crushed during the rollover, and at least two fingers were broken. Holding it forcefully in place, the American began wrapping the tape around his wrist and neck again and again. When he was done, the palm of Dmitri’s damaged hand was directly below his chin and completely immobilized.
“What are you doing?” he asked, the first quake in his voice.
The American put two fingers on the palm of Dmitri’s injured hand.
“Squeeze my fingers,” he said.
The Russian looked at him quizzically.
“Do it!” he bellowed.
Dmitri did his best, closing the three undamaged fingers of his left hand in a tenuous grip.
“Yeah, that’s about what I thought. You’ve got some serious damage to that hand. Bones, nerves.”
The American pulled his fingers clear, then reached into his tactical vest and removed something Dmitri recognized instantly: a standard Russian F-1 fragmentation grenade.
“What are you doing?” he whispered uneasily.
“Ever hear of Charles Darwin?” the American asked as he placed the grenade into Dmitri’s partially closed fist. The big man wrapped his own hand around Dmitri’s, including the two fingers that were broken, and forced him to squeeze the grenade firmly. Dmitri grunted in pain. The American then reached in with his free hand and yanked out the grenade’s pin.
Putting the pin between his teeth, he mumbled, “Darwin had some insightful observations about the gene pool. Now, keep a tight grip—wouldn’t want you to drop it.” The American unfurled his hand and pulled away. Dmitri stared in horror at the pin-pulled grenade in his mangled hand.
