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The group split up, with Rick, Jane and Dr. Evans head
ing back into the building where they did their best to ignore the bodies on the floor as they headed upstairs to retrieve their gear. Oles and Jacob stayed in the parking lot near the police car, talking in low voices about the technical details involved in accessing the systems they anticipated finding.
Ostap and Carl, walking together, headed down the drive to the entrance to the compound where they closed the gate and began securing it in place so that it couldn’t be easily opened again from the outside. They spoke quietly as they worked, not wanting either the technicians nor the new trio to hear what they discussed. They lingered for several minutes at the gate as they spoke, occasionally gesturing to the compound or to each other, before nodding and turning to head back up toward the buildings.
Jane, who upon retrieving her gear had moved to the far end of the building, stared out the window at the pair, shaking her head slowly as they sauntered back up the drive, their rifles loosely held in their hands. “I don’t like this,” she whispered to herself.
“Don’t like what?” Jane started at the voice behind her and turned to see Rick standing behind her, watching out the window as well.
Jane turned and shook her head as she started walking out of the room. “It’s… nothing.”
Rick reached out and took her arm, stopping her and looking her dead in the eyes. “If you think something’s wrong—anything—I need you to tell me, okay?”
Jane started to speak, stopped, let out a sigh, shook her head and rubbed her eyes, trying to come up with a way to say what she was thinking about without sounding insane. “You… you know how you helped me, back in Vegas?”
Rick snorted in amusement. “It hasn’t been that long. Of course I remember.”
“Why did you help me? What was it about me that made you trust me enough to let your guard down and help me instead of leaving me there?”
Rick furrowed his brow and pursed his lips as he pondered the question. “I suppose… well, you needed help. And you seemed trustworthy enough.”
“When we got out of that casino, before the military took us to the base, I had plenty of opportunities to run. I didn’t, though. You want to know why?”
Rick shrugged. “I’m not sure I follow all of this, but sure; why?”
“Because I had a good feeling about you. You were kind, helpful, self-sacrificing and you never once made me feel unsafe. You had a goal in mind to reach your wife and children but you never once made me feel like I was going to be jeopardized if I stuck with you. That’s the same feeling I had about Dr. Evans, when I met him before you popped up again. Out of everyone I’ve seen and met since all of this terrible stuff started, you two have been the only ones that haven’t given me a bad feeling when I first met you.”
“Well, Dr. Evans is a nice guy.”
“He is. He’s genuine and kind and all of those things I said about you; he’s like that too.”
“So… you think the Russians aren’t?”
“The two technicians? I don’t know. I don’t get a bad feeling about them.”
“But the Spetsnaz. You get a bad feeling about them?”
Jane shook her head, her voice dropping an octave as she answered. “More than that. I get a terrible feeling about them. They’re playing some kind of game here. I don’t think they’re out to stop Damocles, not like we are.”
“But the technicians—”
“Are just that. They’re engineers. They carry pistols and fawn over Dr. Evans like he’s a rock star and they’re a couple of groupies who can’t wait to get him backstage and strip him down.”
Rick tried—and failed—to suppress a sharp laugh at the mental image, but the humor drained almost immediately from him upon seeing Jane’s face remain stoic and serious. He cleared his throat. “Okay, well, if you have a bad feeling about them then that’s good.”
“How is that good?! We’re going to be working with them!”
“We don’t have much of a choice right now. They slaughtered those gang members like they were three-legged puppies. We don’t stand anywhere near the same level of chance as they did.”
“But we had them at gunpoint. We could do that again, if we had to.”
Rick shook his head, growing more serious. “No. We never had them. They weren’t there to hurt us. They were protecting us from the gang. But, if you’re right about them… maybe Ostap and Carl have different orders from the technicians. Or maybe they’re in it together. They clearly want us to help them, though.”
“So what do we do?”
Rick squared his shoulders decisively. “We keep our eyes open, our fingers on our triggers and get the drop on them before they can get the drop on us.”
“That doesn’t sound like a very solid plan.”
