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“This poses us a problem,” Alex said, frowning. “We are going into Petrov’s territory. My old stomping-grounds, as Cal would say. No one has seen you except Volkov. If his crew shows up in one of those Quechua villages where we must go to for the orchids, he could identify you.”
“As what? An American woman? A tourist,” Lauren scoffed. “We’re undercover, Alex. They won’t have a clue as to why we’re here.”
Shaking his head, he muttered, “You make a mistake,Malen ‘kaya. The moves you put on Volkov sent him a very loud, unmistakable message.”
“What are you talking about?” Lauren demanded, irritation rising in her tone as she stared at him.
“He KNOWS you are an operator. No one fights CQC except black ops people.”
Lauren’s brows fell and she stared down at the table and the empty food containers, considering his statement. “Shit, you’re right… damn…”
Alex shared a sour grin with her. “If you had fought like a woman, a civilian, we could have felt safe even if they saw us at one of those villages. As it stands, Volkov is going to have a lot of time nursing his injured knee and thumb on ice and he’s going to be replaying everything that happened. In detail. It won’t escape him, Lauren. He is a smart Russian soldier. He will figure it out.”
Thunking the front legs of the chair down, Lauren pushed away from the table and paced the kitchen, scowling. Finally, she stopped and looked at Alex. “You’re right. We’re screwed.”
“At least with Petrov’s team. The other teams will not know us. They do not communicate with one another, so far as I know.”
Mouth flexing, Lauren muttered, “Dammit. This means we’ve got to hightail it out of here now. If Volkov spots me or you, he’s going to have a field day with us. He’ll alert the whole team and then the shit is gonna hit the fan.”
“I like that American slang,” Alex said, keeping a straight face. “I think I will write this one down.”
Lauren rolled her eyes at him. “I’m serious, Alex. We’re compromised. We need to get out of here. Tonight.”
He took out his notebook and dutifully wrote down the slang words. “Do you want to talk to Gage? Or do you want me to do it?”
She sighed loudly. “I might as well. They’ve got two other Special Forces teams up in the area where we’re going. I think we should meet with the closest one somewhere and have a little confab with them. Their job is to shadow us. Be there, if we get our asses in a sling.”
“That is not a very good image,” he murmured, rising. “Another slang?”
“Yeah, but it’s appropriate,” Lauren said, rubbing her brow, a headache coming on. The day had been hell for her. She didn’t want to tell Alex how frightened she’d become, how it had pushed every button she had, because Volkov had wanted to rape her. If she told Alex that, Lauren wasn’t so sure he wouldn’t just go for a visit to that fleabag hotel and shoot all six Russians in their sleep. Ukrainian blood, she was discovering, boiled hot and just below the surface.All the time.And it was just as lethal, or worse, than the Russian variety. The saying, “scratch the surface of his skin and you find the savage,” applied to Alex in every possible way. The feral, glittering look in his eyes told her that. He’d take Volkov down before she ever got her pistol out of the holster.
Alex started collecting the emptied plates on the table. “Make the call. There is a Night Stalker Black Hawk helo in Cusco on twenty-four-hour stand-by with two Army pilots. I do not envy them if they must fly us out tonight. It will be very dangerous for them and us.”
“Why?” Lauren asked, halting at the door to the kitchen.
“Because at night, the winds shift and flow off the Andes toward the Pacific Ocean.” He pointed toward the east. “The mountains are covered with snow; the winds are very cold. They meet the warmer air rising from the ocean, it becomes highly unstable air. Commercial airlines refuse to fly at night between Lima and Cusco because of this unique weather situation. There have been too many air crashes due to the clear air turbulence that the weather condition creates. It has been known to tear wings off aircraft.”
“Great,” Lauren muttered. “How does it affect a helo?”
“Same way,” Alex said. “The air pockets are huge. They can drop a chopper a hundred feet in seconds. And this makes it highly unstable to fly in those conditions. I do not know if the Night Stalker pilots will agree to fly up here tonight. Maybe at dawn, when the winds are switching and flowing up from the Pacific toward the Andes. That is much more stable air and no clear air turbulence.”
Lauren replied, “Dawn? That could be risky. You said Petrov and his men would probably leave tomorrow morning for their territory? How are they getting up there?”
“There’s an old Russian helicopter at the airport,” Alex said. “They pay the pilot who owns it to fly them into their territory.”
“Then, that means we could accidentally meet them at dawn at that little airport outside of town?”
“Very possible.”
“That won’t do.”
“No, it will not. We need to get the Black Hawk up here tonight. No later than 0300. Usually, when I was with Alexandrov’s team, we left in the dark because we wanted no one in town to know we were leaving.”
Lauren stared at him for a moment. “You sure aren’t leaving many options open for us, Kazak.”
“It comes down to two options,” he told her, seriously. “Stay here tomorrow and see whether Petrov leaves or not. Volkov’s knee may be so bad that they are forced to stay here a few days longer. Or, we hope these two Army Night Stalker pilots are the best of the best and they can negotiate the winds and fly up here to pick us up.”
“Will we still encounter CAT from here to up in the highlands?” asked Lauren.
