Chapter 7

I wake to a man kneeling over me. He presses his cold fingers against my carotid and brings his ear against my chest. I can feel the warmth of his breath against me as he waits. Suddenly, he sits up and turns to the side.

"He was right! She's still alive!" He calls out.

"This one too." His partner responds.

Our contacts. It must be our contacts. Thank God they found us.

The man turns back toward me and seems to notice the slight flutter in my eyes.

"This one's up!" He calls to his partner.

I try to recall his short blonde hair, his almond-shaped eyes but I have little luck. He must be yet another new recruit. It's amazing how quickly we can train our guys.

I feel a prick against my forehead and I inhale sharply.

"Sorry," he says, "Just a bit of lido."

"How is he?" I say, my voice little more than a scratchy whisper.

"Shhh." he responds, "Don't worry. We've got him. He's in good hands."

"Don't go searching for the bullet. He's lost so much blood already and it went straight through him into the wall-"

"I know, I know we're going to take care of you both."

The pain in my head begins to fade and the blonde man pulls out a suture kit. The gash in my forehead continues to send blood down the side of my face as he sews the two flaps of skin back together.

"Wyle couldn't have gone far. Have your handler send a team to do a five mile radius search of the woods. There's no way he found his way back to the main road by now."

He nods, barely acknowledging my orders.

"And have Vlad send a team to Wyle's apartment. We checked the place—the wife's gone-no kids—you shouldn't run into any trouble."

Beside me his partner reaches under Phillip and I hold out my arm in protest.

"Don't move him!" I say. "He's not stable!"

The blonde man gently lowers my arm, "We have to. We've got more supplies back at the tent."

"Then bring them here! He's not ready to be moved."

"We were ordered to take him there for treatment."

"By who?"

He hesitates for a moment, "Vlad asked us personally."

I give a slight nod of approval and the man lifts Phillip into his arms. Phillip's head and legs dangle as the man grips his midsection. He leans back slightly to carry Phillip's dead weight to the small car they have stationed next to ours.

My posture relaxes and the man continues to work on my head.

The blonde man reaches into his bag and pulls out another carpule. Pulling the head of the syringe back he loads the next round of anesthetic and let's a small amount of fluid flow from the tip of the needle.

"The wound's a little deeper than I thought. I'm just going to give you a little something stronger to keep you comfortable."

I lean toward him and await the sting. He lifts his arm to me and his sleeve falls back to his elbow. As he injects, I notice the small marking on his right forearm. It's not much, a small name written in perfectly penned cursive with a red heart below it. Through the darkness, I try to make out the name-maybe his wife or a girlfriend's name.

"How long have you had that?" I say, gesturing toward the tattoo.

He smiles, "Too long."

"They don't mind it at the center?" I say.

"Why would they?"

The man caps the syringe and places it back in his bag. Before I can speak my head begins to feel light again and my eyelids start to droop.

When my eyes reopen I'm in a small, dark tent. Just a few small lanterns light the space around me and I can hear the rain coming down against our make-shift roof. I'm lying on a rickety cot with a few fleece blankets to keep me warm.

I lift my hand from the blankets and feel a bandage against my forehead. To my right, Phillip is fast asleep on the cot next to me-his chest steadily rising and falling under the blankets they've placed on him.

They've wrapped his leg and the bandage lacks the slightest bit of red seeping through it.

My relief fades when I remember the small badge on his arm.

I wanted to tell him that we're forbidden from obtaining any positive identification marks. That a tattoo makes any sort of cover nearly impossible. That he should know better and that he could be deported and tried for breaking a law that every KGB recruit should know.

A law that any KGB recruit would know.