Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. I'm borrowing her characters, dressing them up in MARPAT, and giving them some guns (again).
Unbeta'd, unedited.
If you're not aware, I've started a second story, Heist. Basically, a bunny bit me and wouldn't let go, so I'm going to attempt to run two stories like I used to way back when. The first chapter is already up. I do hope you'll join me on that one. I think it'll be fun!
Jan 15
U.S.S. Kearsarge
Mediterranean Sea
Undisclosed location off the coast of Northern Africa
"Have you told her yet?"
Sitting on a beaten-up metal conference table in the center of the darkened war room, Edward gave the bank of wall-to-wall glowing screens one last look before angling toward the familiar silhouette standing by the bulkhead. He scratched his chin, rasping against the coarse stubble he hadn't bothered shaving, and nodded. "We found out as soon as we hit the beach."
El'azar peered around the room, tagging a pair of baby-faced sailors bent over a laptop off in the corner and prepping for the upcoming briefing. With silent quickness and soldier efficiency, he left the bulkhead and weaved through the maze of desks and bolted-down chairs to meet the Marine in the center. Quieter, he asked, "How is she doing?"
"Devastated, angry…" Edward said, trailing off as a familiar deep, weighty fatigue settled in his bones. A wry, inwardly directed smile played across his lips. "She's also not talking to me… which I'm sure amuses you to no end."
A low whistle answered him, then the Israeli commander's broad shoulders rose and fell in a lazy shrug. "Eizeh basa."
Edward scrubbed his face. "Yeah, no kidding."
"Meh, it happens," El'azar said, shrugging again before a mischievous glint brightened his gaze. "You know, I think the last time my wife stopped talking to me was when she found out we were having our third. I still don't know what nonsense I said, but in her eyes, I did not exist for nearly two weeks." El'azar's bushy brows abruptly furrowed. "It has not been quiet in my house since."
Edward snorted. "Next time I'm over for dinner, I'll be sure to mention that."
"Pfft, as if she could hear you!" Chuckling when the other man rolled his eyes, El'azar shook his head, and for a long moment, the two were silent, waiting in the dark and staring at the flickering screens. Dead center, El'azar watched the smooth, silent flight of a CIA surveillance drone as it banked left and circled the snow-capped peaks of the Saharan Atlas before aiming east toward Tunis. As it disappeared into the mist of a low-lying cloudbank, he eyed Edward in his periphery. "Perhaps it is not my place to say, but Dr. Swan is a highly competent individual."
"She is." Edward's reply came slowly and evenly as he continued staring at the flashing images and footage. His arms crossed over his chest in a picture of patience and ease. The tendons running along the tops of his forearms gave him away, though, rolling and flexing beneath skin permanently tanned from years out in the blazing sun. "But she's inexperienced and more importantly…" He scowled. "She's unpredictable."
A soft chuff of a laugh spilled out. "I see."
When Edward glanced over, the Israeli baited him with a wide, toothy grin. A biting, sarcastic retort sat on the tip of Edward's tongue, but instead, he just scrubbed his face once more. Pushing the heels of his palms into the bruised hollows of his eyes, he let out a weary, resigned sigh. "Yeah, yeah, I know. You don't have to say it, Lahav."
"What?" With a dramatic huff, El'azar's hands flew up in mock surrender. Incredulity dripped from his tone, but those eyes of his still glittered, and his cheeks still creased with that ever-present, taunting grin. "It seems the mighty Ghost is sensitive today. I said absolutely nothing."
"Of course not." Edward's shoulders shook. "You never say shit, do you?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
They were quiet for a little while longer. As a third sailor – this one a lean, older chief petty officer with faded ink peeking out from under his cuffs – approached the two in the corner, Edward punched in a command on the keyboard beside him. The drone footage on the center screen winked out, replaced by a series of street-level images taken last night from the small Alpine resort town a thousand kilometers to the north.
"You already seen the footage?" Edward quietly asked as he began clicking through the images.
In the first, hundreds of people – all frantic and disheveled – poured out of the mouth of the conference center's wide, geometric wooden face. In the second, lit by the soft, dim glow of the nearby street lamp, a pale, finely boned woman of indeterminate age, dressed in pricey Chanel tweed, sat slumped alone on the curb. Despite the snow and frigid temperatures, her arms were bare to the elbows and blistered, and she sobbed into her hands. Another showed a pair of bearded men standing off to the side. Hunched and shivering in the falling snow, they wore masks of shock and wide-eyed horror. Like the woman on the curb, angry, seeping blisters decorated their skin. A torn checkered ghutrah lay discarded on the ground. Rust-colored stains marred the once-pristine white of their thobes.
Another photo appeared – this one a neat row of black, zipped-up body bags lining the sidewalk – and El'azar nodded. "It was chaos, exactly as the perpetrators intended."
Edward looked over. "What's the latest count?"
"This was a much more focused attack than Paris," El'azar murmured, tsking and shaking his head with a low curse in Hebrew. "And there was no explosion this time, just confusion and suffering."
He'd heard the same from the general. "Do we know the initiator or mechanism?"
The Israeli shook his head again. "Not yet, or not definitively, at least. My sources tell me there was a dull thumping noise in the middle of a speech and a small release of liquid spray near the stage. The casualties seem to be limited to the first few rows and those on the panel itself." He grunted and leaned back on the table. "With this particular audience, as you can imagine, there is a lot of… posturing going on."
With a quick tap of the keyboard, Edward flipped to another shot, this one of the main stage itself with its signature bright blue backdrop and row of curved white leather chairs. The matching white lectern lay on its side. The chairs were strewn everywhere. On one, a dark swipe of crimson stained the side, and all across the stage, pools of blood and other body fluids gleamed under the spotlights. "But?"
"But…" El'azar smiled humorlessly, and when his head turned, the old scar that ran along his hairline shimmered. "Everyone is in agreement that the primary targets were the Secretary-General and your Secretary of State." His mouth hardened. "As I'm sure you're aware, there have been some recent efforts to reform the UN into something more effective, particularly the Security Council. Naturally, this will halt any progress that has been made."
Plucking a half-empty bottle of water off the table, Edward drained its contents. "And at the same time, those fuckers proved to the world just how versatile and precise that weapon can be."
"Yes." El'azar's chin dipped in short, succinct agreement. "Just as importantly, it proves that this faction…" He spat out the word, followed by another curse. "They can strike wherever, whenever, and whomever they choose."
As Edward's watch pinged a reminder, gray afternoon light flooded the war room. The door swung wide, and a dozen soldiers and Marines filed in. Without conscious direction, Edward's eyes skipped from his wrist to the slim, silent figure trailing in the rear, tucked in between his pilot and his staff sergeant. Like always, his old oversized fleece swallowed her whole, in the process making his chest tighten in response. Almost on cue, Bella looked over, her expression shadowed and inscrutable. Edward's fists curled around the edge of the table.
"Sergeant," El'azar drawled, studying the eagle-eyed Marine sniper as he ambled toward a paper-thin, high-end laptop running on a nearby desk. "I hear you had quite an adventure yesterday."
"Yes, sir. You could say that." A slow, easy-going grin creased Jasper's cheeks. He slid a toothpick between his teeth and thumbed over to Bella. "You wanna see what Doc and me found?"
Before El'azar could reply, the sergeant's fingers sped across his keyboard. The images from Davos blinked, then smoothly slid over to an adjacent screen. Choppier, grainier helmet footage of the house in the Algerian Sahara appeared in its place. With another couple of keystrokes, the video fast-forwarded. He stopped right as two Marines carefully lifted Dr. Yorkie's mutilated body and repositioned it for transport.
A second later, a gloved hand – Edward's – gingerly plucked a fist-sized black disk, oddly reminiscent of a hockey puck, from the tile.
"Whatcha make of that, Major?" Jasper asked as the hand slowly flipped over the mine and tilted it into the light, revealing a stamped block of squared Cyrillic text:
ПАО Сунженские машины
ПМН-5Г
El'azar's brows climbed, but then he motioned to the serious, statuesque woman beside his perpetually cheerful lieutenant. "Samal Rishon Rivkin, what do you think?"
The woman's features sharpened as she approached. With a not-subtle glance at her commander, she ducked her pointed chin in curt acknowledgment before offering Edward a small, tight-lipped smile.
"Samal Rishon," Edward said, nodding. "Leah, correct?"
"Major Cullen." Leah inclined her head in quick affirmation and flicked a warm, olive-toned hand at the screens as if in explanation. "My parents immigrated from Yekaterinburg when I was young. We spoke Russian at home." Her tight-lipped smile vanished completely, and she shot El'azar a dark, sideways glare. "But according to this one, this somehow qualifies me as an expert in all things Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Tatar, Kazakh… you get the picture."
In the background, Rosalie barked out a laugh.
"But since you asked," Leah said, going on with her lightly inflected accent. She shoved dark strands of stick-straight, chin-length hair behind her ear. "It says: Publichnoye aktsionernoye obshchestvo, which is just a type of corporate structure. Sunzhenskiye mashiny is the name of the company. It's a specialty arms manufacturer located in Grozny near the Sunzha River." She tapped her bottom lip. "If I recall, there are rumors that it's linked directly to Tarkhan Ali-Basayev, that he is, at least, a partial owner."
At that, Bella started. Her head shot up from her tablet and its lines of digitally scrawled notes and figures. She stepped toward the bank of screens before she knew she was moving. Forgetting the lingering irritation and tension between them, Bella looked at Edward, then the stern Israeli, and then back to Edward.
"I thought the CIA ruled him out," Bella said. A frustrated hand swept the air, and Edward watched her too-pretty face pinch in a blend of anger and confusion. "When we were at Langley, remember? They said he was too… busy for something like this."
A soft punch of air came from the back of the room. Shoving off a long desk, Alice followed Bella to the front. With cat-like grace, she danced between a pair of chairs, dodged a table, and approached the center screen to eyeball the video from Edward's helmet cam back in the desert. "Yeah, like the CIA's never been wrong."
Leah sent the diminutive pilot a savage grin but then pivoted toward her lieutenant, where he'd parked himself beside Cullen's giant of a staff sergeant. Her cheekbones turned into blades. "Segen, have you ever seen this particular device?"
Propped against the far wall, Segen Benjamin Levy frowned and shook his head. "Not this particular design. This looks like something new." He paused, looking thoughtful. "See those nozzles?" When he pointed to the tiny, black-on-black dots along the sides and the top of the mine, Bella's stomach sank. "If I had to guess, it's a test model, modified to disperse gas or atomize some kind of liquid on detonation. Pretty slick, honestly." Pausing again, he stared pointedly across the room at his sergeant. "But you're right. Basayev's Borz Group uses similar devices… extensively."
Leah rattled off another fast-paced question in Hebrew, but Benjamin just shook his head once more before replying to the group. "As you're likely already aware, over the last several years – before the current crisis, of course – Basayev's mercenaries have been heavily engaged in contract military activities to the north of us in Syria, as well as in Yemen and various countries in Africa. We've seen them deploy about every anti-personnel device imaginable, as well as far worse things. Solzhna Machines is a major supplier of theirs, fairly exclusive, too. They supply a variety of things: all-terrain vehicles, light arms and heavier artillery, as well as ordnance and explosives, including mining devices."
When Edward peered at Rosalie, the gunny's jaw tightened. As he pushed off the table, his fists dropped to his hips, and his expression hardened when he looked back at the screens. Something dark and predatory gleamed in his emerald eyes, sending a shiver down Bella's spine. "Which means if he's not behind this himself, he's supplying the group who is."
"So, Ru'ach refaim, " El'azar clapped Edward on the shoulder, and the two commanders eyed each other like foxes. "We just need to find that ugly SOB and have a little conversation, eh?"
A hint of a smile played across Edward's lips. "Yalla."
After another few minutes, two of the larger screens blinked. On the left was the familiar Eagle, Globe, and Anchor, ringed in blue and set against a scarlet background. The CIA's eagle and shield flashed on the right.
Jasper peeked up from his laptop before linking the video. "Sir? You ready?"
After giving his sergeant the go-ahead, Edward stole a glance at the woman next to him. Freshly scrubbed and showered, her skin might as well have been porcelain, and with her hair gathered into a loose ponytail at her nape, Bella looked more like a graduate student than the battle-hardened Marines and soldiers surrounding her. The usual misbehaving ribbon of hair at her temple curled and kissed her cheek, and never mind where they were, Edward's fingertips itched at the sight of it. Instead, hidden by the dark, he gave in, and his hand drifted away from his side to gently touch the flare of her hip.
"You good?" he mouthed when she slowly looked up.
"Fine," Bella said shortly. Her lips mashed into a hard, unforgiving line. Yet as she watched Edward's flinty eyes soften and roam her face in spite of his earlier fury, her heart gave an involuntary thump. Some of the tightness bled out of her muscles, and she blew out a resigned huffy sigh. "We'll fight later, okay?"
At that, Edward's own lips twitched, and he stared at her a second longer before finally tipping his chin. "Fair enough."
It took nearly an hour to review the footage and evidence from the house in Sahara. They spent another on the Israelis' raid on the warehouse on the outskirts of Algiers.
"It was too clean, not even a fingerprint or cigarette butt," El'azar said, answering the general's last question with simmering irritation. "They obviously suspected the location would be discovered, and someone with some brains took the appropriate precautions. We were very disappointed."
It was early back home, closer to night than morning. The crisply pressed uniform and bright, alert gaze told Edward that Lieutenant General Carlisle Cullen had been up for hours. The older man with ash at his temples leaned back in his leather chair, staring at them all over steepled fingers.
"Unfortunate, but not surprising," Carlisle said, and his pale blue eyes danced at the Israeli's reluctant grumble. "But as always, well executed." With a cluck of his tongue, he addressed his other monitor. "Has your team determined who owns that property?"
On the second screen, Special Agent Charlotte Calahan leafed through a stack of paperwork before responding. Like the general in his office at Quantico, she'd already made the drive into Langley – either that, or she'd never left. Regardless, the window over her left shoulder was a dark, inky square, and when she finally looked up, pale plum-gray ringed her eyes. Tiny lines of stress and fatigue bracketed her mouth.
"Possibly," Calahan finally said, replacing her neat stack of red-stamped documents on the corner of her desk. "We have an asset embedded in the local government. He says the property is legally registered to the owner of a small agro distributor, but the paperwork was clearly falsified." She took a slow breath, then a sip from a steaming ceramic mug. "Our asset suspects the owner is, in fact, a retired warlord who used it to support his prior activities. Our reports indicate that this warlord has loose ties to a certain individual operating out of the Caucasus."
A low hum filled the room. Throwing up a fist to silence his team, Edward asked, "Basayev?"
Calahan nodded. "Unverified, but it certainly does fit nicely with what you found at that house." She quickly echoed the same observations that El'azar's staff sergeant and lieutenant had already made. "Our intelligence indicates Solzhna Machines has an exclusive contract with Borz Group. Essentially, Basayev's vertically integrated his organization and is now selling weapons to himself."
"Good way to hide or siphon off money," Bella murmured as her fingertips drummed a tight staccato against her opposite arm. "Especially when it involves contracts with governments preoccupied by wars and invasions."
"Very good, Dr. Swan." Carlisle's eyes glittered. He turned back to the CIA agent. "Davos. What have you found there?"
An image flashed up on the screen, one they'd not yet seen. Blurry and half-hidden in the shadow of one of the auditorium's massive center columns, a figure stood with his hands shoved into the pockets of a finely tailored, dark blue suit. The neat, stylishly arranged, pepper-gray hair pegged him as one of the event's well-heeled businessmen.
That feline posture did not, and the eyes certainly gave him away. Those were dark chips of ice, calmly focused on the stage amidst the terror and chaos around him, and as sharp as the tanned, chiseled planes of his face.
"Who is he?" Edward asked, stepping closer. Huddled deep in her oversized fleece, Bella unconsciously moved with him.
"We're not 100% sure," Calahan answered as she swiped strawberry blonde hair out of her way. "But…"
With a tap of her mouse, a second photo appeared, overlaying the first. This one was an older, 35mm shot, blown out and faded from time. But there was no mistaking the younger, thinner man in tri-color VSR camo standing in the back of an olive-drab cargo truck on an unnamed battlefield. A banged-up AK-47 hung off his shoulder, and a Makarov pistol with a wood-trimmed grip sat on his hip. In the background, dry, rocky hills climbed a hazy afternoon sky.
Another click, and both images zoomed. Pixels flickered as the algorithm ran behind the scenes. Beside them, Jasper leaned forward, staring down at his mirrored laptop. He muttered an eager oath under his breath, and his steel gray eyes gleamed with curiosity and blatant approval. Before Edward could ask, a crimson bar appeared beneath the photo, and a line of text read:
Дмитрий Николаевич Миренков
"Facial recognition indicates that the man you see in that auditorium is one, Dmitriy Nikolayevich Mirenkov."
In the back of the room, Emmett grumbled a low, annoyed, "Who the fuck is that?" There was the muted thud of muscle being struck, then a louder, "Damn it, woman. Fine."
With only slightly raised brows, the agent pulled up an old, scanned document in serifed typewriter text. Illegible, hand-written notes ran down one side. A French stamp occupied the top left corner. "To the best of our knowledge, Mr. Mirenkov was born sometime around 1970 in a Russian-speaking village on the eastern border of the Byelorussian SSR."
Carlisle's head tilted in study. "Background?"
"We know very little of his family or upbringing," Calahan said as she slugged another drink of her coffee. "It's our understanding he enlisted young and was sent to the front lines of Afghanistan during the last year or two of the Soviet-Afghan war. He excelled in heavy combat and quickly rose through the ranks." She flipped to another scanned document, this one stamped in unfamiliar curling letters somehow reminiscent of both Greek and Semitic scripts. "After Afghanistan, he then went to Georgia in the early 90s, and surfaced again in Tajikistan during the civil war there." More documents raced across the screen. "By that time, we believe he'd progressed from infantry to running covert ops with either the FSB or Spetsnaz. The last time we saw him was in the Caucasus in the early 2000s."
Bella chewed the inside of her cheek before asking, "Is he linked to that guy, Basayev?"
"Difficult to ascertain," the agent replied. "But there are a limited number of true players in that part of the world, so it's highly likely they've run into each other at some point."
On Edward's opposite side, El'azar squinted at the blurry text and made a gruff, aggravated noise. "This one has not been on our radar. In fact, I've never seen this man."
The admission was a sour one, bordering on offended, and Edward bit back a laugh when he looked over at this fellow commander.
"Don't worry, Major," the agent said, offering the Israeli a small, knowing smile. In the background, a slim, dark-haired junior agent slipped into view and dropped another stack of paperwork on Calahan's desk. "From what we can tell, Mirenkov's mainly operated within the current and former CIS states. He's also not flashy… a lieutenant as opposed to a mastermind, the kind of guy you keep around as your right-hand man, which is why we don't think he's the one behind all this."
"Okay, then, who is?" When Carlisle cleared his throat, Bella clapped her palm over her mouth. "Shit, sorry."
Lips twitching, the general waved her off, and for a second, he studied his nephew through the screen before turning to the CIA agent. "What else do you have?"
"This."
Mirenkov's photo disappeared, only to be replaced by another image they hadn't seen. In this one, hastily caught by what appeared to be a shaky camera phone, the same man stood at the elbow of a slender, elegant young woman with pale blonde hair that fell halfway down her back. It was dark out, seemingly captured as they'd paused beneath the glow of one of the street lamps outside the conference building. Her features were obscured, too, offering little more than a side profile of a heart-shaped face.
Bella recognized her immediately. Her fingers wandered until they found Edward's ribcage, searching for something solid to ground her as the air sucked out of her lungs. "So, it's true?"
As Edward peered down at Bella's stricken expression, that perpetual fist in his gut squeezed, and the old ache in his side blossomed. He jerked back to the general as the older man inclined his head in subtle affirmation.
Calahan gave Bella a slow, measuring look. "Yes, it appears that, unlike Dr. Yorkie, Dr. Jessica Stanley–"
"Jane," Bella cut in, quieter, and her fingertips wound themselves into the thin, wicking fabric of Edward's combat shirt. "She didn't go by Jessica. She went by Jane."
"Regardless," Calahan said, zooming in until Bella could see the thin, sophisticated wire frames sitting across the bridge of Mirenkov's nose. The man stared off-screen as though he were waiting for someone. His left gripped a slim mobile phone, its screen still lit and shining. His right hovered near the woman's lower back – like an escort or bodyguard – yet he didn't dare touch her. "It's evident that Dr. Stanley was a willing party to the attack at Davos. Most likely, Paris, too. We're assuming that was her there in the plaza."
In a rare uncharacteristic show of weariness, the general scratched his freshly shaven cheek, then propped his elbows on his desk. "Tell me more about Dr. Stanley."
"Private education through high school," the agent said, shuffling through the second stack of papers. "Her records show that she grew up abroad, mostly Middle East and Africa. Her father – deceased, of course – was supposedly an upstream oil executive, but we're pretty sure that was all an elaborate fabrication." The tiny lines framing Charlotte's lips deepened. "Whoever set it up, it was a very, very good cover, enough to get her into Cambridge, and from there into DARPA."
Bella inhaled in a shaky breath, and when she spoke, her voice came out barely above a whisper. "Have you run her DNA against Aronović's?"
The answering silence was deafening, and Bella's next breath tasted like static. On the screen, Carlisle's eyes turned piercing, and he wore the distinct expression of a soldier weighing his newest weapon.
Calahan frowned, glanced down at her desk, and then let out a tired sigh. "Yes. Peter – Special Agent Dalton – is waiting for the results as we speak." She drained the remainder of her coffee and pulled up two more photos.
These, Bella knew, at least individually, and the nerves in her left hand – the one Walker had broken – gave an involuntary twitch. A wave of recalled nausea swept through her body as a light sheen of sweat dotted her forehead.
Professor Vladislav Aronović stared out of the screen. While the image was an old one – a stiffly posed university staff headshot, taken at least two decades before the man's death in that compound in Somalia – those sharp, aristocratic features were unmistakable. Unlike the last time she'd seen him, the right side of his face was clear, absent the heavy chemical scarring he'd gained at some point in between.
The second was Dr. Stanley's DARPA security photo taken maybe a year ago. Startling in their clarity, the young woman's ice blue eyes looked into the camera with bored disinterest, as though the activity was somehow beneath her. With her hair pulled back and in sleek, all-black attire, she was undeniably beautiful, all finely wrought angles and planes. The lines were softer than Aronović's, however. Her skin was paler and smoother, too, and her lips were full and distinctly feminine.
But sitting side by side like this…
"Jesus Christ," Rosalie muttered, echoing the curse on the tip of Bella's tongue. "How did no one see this shit?"
With her hands folded neatly on her desk, the CIA agent ignored the accusing bite in the gunny's tone. "Our forensic experts are fairly certain what the DNA results will confirm."
"So," Edward said, cutting in. His gaze flitted between the photos, the general, and then Bella. "We're looking at Aronović's daughter."
"Illegitimate, most likely," Calahan replied. "There is no official record of him having ever had a daughter." The photos abruptly winked out, and the rest of the screens, save the connections to Quantico and Langley, went black, darkening the room even further. "But yes, we think so. She would have been very young when his son, Marko, died in the Balkans. We're guessing that Aronović placed her with someone else sometime before he disappeared."
For a moment, no one said a word. Nose crinkling, Alice finally plopped onto the end of Jasper's desk and plucked a package of Twizzlers out of her jacket pocket. "And you think that dude, Mirenkov, is working for her?"
One corner of the agent's mouth pulled up. "Doubtful. Mirenkov's not exactly the kind of man to work for a woman, especially not one half his age."
"Why am I not surprised..." Rolling her eyes, Alice let out an inelegant snort and bit down on a cherry-red rope. In Edward's periphery, he caught Eli's staff sergeant shooting a knowing look at Rosalie. "Then what's he doing with her?"
"Come on, Little Bit. That one's easy." A wall of muscle crept forward, and as Emmett peered down at their pilot, his tree-trunk arms crossed his barrel chest. The curling lines of ink decorating his forearms flexed and rolled like serpents. "He's the muscle – guard, escort, babysitter, whatever the fuck you want to call it. But whoever she's working for sent him to make sure she got out of there in one piece."
"Then, we are back to Basayev," El'azar said, cheeks creasing in a ruthless, eager smile. "At least as a starting point, of course."
The general watched the silent conversation between the two commanders before finally looking to Edward. "Major Cullen, tell me what you need."
With a final nod at the Israeli, Edward said to Carlisle, "I need all the intel you have on Basayev's location. I want coordinates and layouts for his houses, his compound, the off-grid shack where he takes his sons fishing. I want to know what he eats for breakfast, who he's sleeping with, anything you can get me." When his uncle flashed him a grin, Edward added. "And I need a secure launch point as close as you can get us without it causing an international incident."
"You're asking to operate within the Russian borders, you know that, right?"
Edward's jaw turned to granite. "I do, and I'm aware of what risks that might entail." Before Carlisle could reply, quieter, Edward added, "I also want to know what's going on at Solzhna Machines, if they're already integrating XR-5 into their weapons." He turned to El'azar. "You in?"
The Israeli scoffed and flicked a dismissive hand. "You would expect anything else?"
The two shared another moment of silent conversation. El'azar's brows climbed in question, his lips quirked, and after a few seconds, Edward blew out a loud breath and grimaced. "And fine, get me Black's team." His hand sliced the air, and when he looked up, Carlisle was shaking with silent laughter. "But tell that asshole – and his general – the same rules as last time apply."
Jan 16
U.S.S. Kearsarge
Mediterranean Sea
Undisclosed location off the coast of Northern Africa
By the time Bella descended the ladder and pushed through the heavy metal door, it was nearly two. With most of the crew down for the night, the passageways were empty. The lights had been dimmed. The ship was quiet but for the dull, distant hum of the massive steam turbines down in the engine room.
Following the long, central passageway, she padded by a dozen neat, compact staterooms occupied by the officers, then even more of the claustrophobia-inducing berthing racks of the crew. Muted snoring filtered out of most of the compartments, interrupted by the occasional voice or faint strains of music. Every now and then, she picked up the random metallic clangs and pops echoing from deeper inside the vessel.
Another deck down and somewhere midship, Bella finally found what she was looking for. Stopping outside a solid gray door, she examined the plain, understated sign that marked the compartment as the gym. The letters were fuzzy, blurring together enough that she squinted, and when the ship listed to the right, her body swayed with it until her shoulder gently bumped into the bulkhead.
Bella jerked, giving herself a hard, internal shake.
She should return to her quarters, where Rosalie and Alice still slept like the dead, but that wasn't happening. Despite the watery eyes and worn-down muscles, there was no way she could sleep, not tonight. Not with the images from Davos still spinning inside her head. So, with a yawn and a final sluggish glance in either direction, Bella eased open the door, expecting to find nothing more than darkness and silence.
The buzzing glow of fluorescents greeted her instead, along with the rhythmic, repeating thud of a fist hitting leather.
Pausing just inside the entry, Bella again debated turning back.
Unsurprisingly, curiosity won.
Peeling off her jacket, she chucked it over a nearby hook and aimed for the empty mats in the distant corner. Following the repeating thuds, she deftly skirted the line of treadmills, ellipticals, and rowers, then quietly threaded between the racks of weights and heavy-duty machines.
As soon as she rounded the last one, Bella halted dead in her tracks, however. Her heart climbed up her throat, and for a long, still moment, she leaned against the bulkhead and simply stared.
Alone, shirtless, and dripping sweat, Edward pounded a heavy black hanging bag.
Defined and lean, his body was a study of strength and efficiency in motion. Over and over, he struck with blinding quickness and precision. Every time his taped-up knuckles connected, the bag shuddered, and Bella blinked from the force of the blow.
Something warm curled low in her abdomen, and it was enough of a distraction that she could almost ignore the maze of scars – badges, he still liked to call them – that gleamed in the overhead light. A bullet from long ago. Coin-sized marks from shrapnel. The angry, jagged lines, where that Taliban Elder had carved him up in a cave buried deep in the White Mountains of Afghanistan. But the ones that grabbed her eyes and wouldn't let go were the pink, freshly healed puckers of flesh beneath his shoulder blades, evidence of the wounds she'd held together with her own two hands.
A few minutes in, Edward's pace slowed. With one last jab and a sharp exhalation, he bent at the waist, and for a second, he just stood there, doubled over with his elbows propped on his knees. Still panting, he gradually straightened with a barely perceptible wince. Before she could say a word, his face tipped up, and he blew out a loud lungful of air.
"You should be asleep right now," Edward said, still studying the vast network of pipes and conduit that ran above.
Bella refused to reply until he finally angled toward her. Pushing off the bulkhead, she slowly closed the distance. With a quick glance at the ancient analog clock on the wall, one brow climbed. "I guess I could say the same to you, Major."
They stared at each other for a short forever, and with each passing second, the air crackled between them, turning her stomach into lead. A muscle jumped in Edward's cheek, his teeth clenched, and his eyes, intense and dark, burned into hers.
"So, are we going to fight now?" she asked, chin jutting out in open defiance.
"Is that what you want?"
It was a quiet question, as soft as spun silk, and without permission, Bella's gaze fell to a droplet of sweat sliding down his chest, past the dark lines of the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor on his right pectoral, to the chiseled valleys of his abdomen. She glared, as much at herself as him. "Well? Are we?"
He stepped into her then. Positioning his knee between her thighs, Edward crowded into her space. Still stiff and bristling, Bella took an involuntary step backward, and one corner of his mouth lifted into a sardonic smile. He moved forward again, then again, corralling her until she hit a stack of folded-up mats shoved up against the bulkhead.
One hand dropped to her waist while the other captured her chin. Slowly, Edward leaned down, ghosting his lips along her cheek to her ear, sending gooseflesh rippling across her skin. "Can we just fuck instead?"
Bella froze. Unexpected heat climbed her neck and face, turning her skin pale pink.
"No. I want to fight first," she said, trying and failing to hide the unsteady rise and fall of her chest. She kissed the coarse stubble along his jaw. "I have new moves. Rose showed me how to do an armbar, and I want to try it."
Edward's shoulders shook. Without warning, he grabbed her by the waist, lifted her to the stack of mats, and wedged himself between her knees. Her t-shirt whipped over her head before she knew what was happening, and then calloused fingertips slid up her ribs to sneak beneath the thin black fabric of her sports bra. "Planning to break my arm?"
"I'm still mad at you," Bella said, still glaring. Yet her head fell back as his mouth closed on her throat, and when he began to suck, a soft, breathy moan spilled out. "Jesus… so, yes, maybe?"
Edward grinned against her skin, but then his mouth vanished. His palms abruptly framed her face, his forehead tipped forward to touch hers, and his eyes squeezed shut. Warm lips brushed against hers, slowly and repeatedly, then he whispered a quiet, "I fucked up when I told you to stay with Jazz."
She swallowed past a sudden lump in her throat. "How's that?"
"I wasn't thinking." Hesitating, he grimaced. "I wouldn't have done that to anyone else. I'd have trusted them to get shit done."
Bella drew back enough that she could look him in the eye. "You don't trust me?"
"That's not it." His thumb grazed her bottom lip. "Sometimes, I can't figure out what's going on inside your head, which means, unlike the rest of the team, I can't predict what you'll do." He shoved a hand through his hair, sending a spray of sweat. "Bella, that scares the ever-loving shit out of me." When she opened her mouth to respond, he frowned and shook his head. "But that's a me problem. I'm supposed to be able to figure this out."
"Edwa–"
A wry chuckle tumbled out, but then his eyes found hers once more. "I just… fuck, sometimes, I can't think straight when it comes to you." His brows angled down. "I'm sorry."
"Damn it, that's a really good excuse." She shot him a sour look, but her arms snaked around his neck, and her fingers wound into the messy, damp hair at his nape. She sighed. "I'm sorry, too."
"No. You're not." It was a dry statement of fact. Before she could protest, Edward shushed her and added, "And don't say you won't do it again, because you will." His face tilted back, even as his palms slid back down to her waist. He tugged her closer and closer, until there wasn't an inch between them. "Just… try, and that'll be good enough for now."
"Fair enough," Bella said, repeating his earlier response. When she pulled him back to her mouth, she grinned. "So, about that armbar…"
Edward barked out a laugh, taking her along with him. One hand fell to her thigh and squeezed. "How about I just make you come instead?"
.
.
.
Notes:
A note on Tarkhan Ali-Basayev, this is just me recycling an original character I put together for The Cleaner. The two stories are not linked in any way.
Basayev is an amalgamation of a few real-life individuals, including Dmitry Utkin, the founder of the private military contractor (PMC), the Wagner Group, and Ramzan Kadyrov, the current leader of the Chechen Republic, located in the Caucasus region of southern Russia.
The surname Basayev is a nod to Shamil Basayev, aka Abu Idris, a Chechen warlord and separatist who masterminded several of Russia's worst terrorist attacks, including the Beslan School siege in 2004, which ended in the deaths of 333 people, many of whom were children. Borz Group comes from the Chechen word "Borz" which means wolf.
Hebrew [transliterated]:
Eizeh basa: that's a shame / bummer / that sucks
Lahav: recall this is El'azar's call sign. It means Blade.
Samal Rishon: rank in the Israeli military, equivalent to a staff sergeant
Segen: rank in the Israeli military, equivalent to lieutenant
Ru'ach refaim: ru'ach means spirit as associated with the soul. Refaim refers to the "fallen ones". Combined they roughly mean Ghost, which is Edward's call sign.
Yalla: from Arabic, meaning let's go
Russian [transliterated]:
Publichnoye aktsionernoye obshchestvo (ПАО): Public Joint Stock Company
Sunzhenskiye mashiny (Сунженские машины): Sunzha Machines. Sunzha is the name of the river that runs through Grozny, the capital of the Chechen Republic, Russia
Protivopekhotnaya mina nazhimnaya (ПМН-5Г): anti-personnel pressure mine, 5G
Glossary:
AK-47: officially the Avtomat Kalashnikova, is a gas-operated assault rifle chambered for the 7.62×39mm cartridge. It is an extremely reliable weapon and has a low cost to produce, and after more than seven decades since its creation, the AK-47 model and its variants remain one of the most popular and widely used firearms in the world
Byelorussian SSR: or the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, was a republic of the Soviet Union. It's now Belarus
Caucasus: a mountainous region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia, including Chechnya, Dagestan, Northern Ossetia, and Ingushetia
CIS: or Commonwealth of Independent States, a regional intergovernmental organization in Eurasia. It was formed following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and now includes most of the former SSRs. Georgia withdrew in 2008 due to the Russo-Georgia War, and Ukraine largely ceased participation after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014
Eagle, Globe, and Anchor: references the official emblem and insignia of the USMC. It features a gold and silver image of a globe showing the continents of the Western Hemisphere intersected by an anchor and surmounted by a spread eagle, set against a scarlet background
FSB: or Federal'naya sluzhba bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Federatsii, or Federal Security Service, is the principal security agency of Russia and the main successor agency to the Soviet Union's KGB
Ghutrah: also keffiyeh, shemagh, or hattah. Often white or check/fishnet patterned, this is a traditional headdress worn by men from parts of the Middle East
Ladder: in boat-speak, ladders = stairs, deck = floor, bulkhead = wall, passageway = corridor or hallway, overhead = ceiling, door = inside door, port = openings on the outside of the ship
Makarov: refers to the Makarov Pistol, which is a Soviet semi-automatic pistol that fires a 9x18mm cartridge
Secretary-General: The secretary-general of the United Nations is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations and head of the United Nations Secretariat
Security Council: one of the six principal organs of the United Nations. It's charged with ensuring international peace and security, and its powers include establishing peacekeeping operations, enacting international sanctions, and authorizing military action. Along with 10 non-permanent members, there are 5 permanent members: China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US. Permanent members have veto power on resolutions and actions. This presents challenges and can effectively render the Council useless when one of the permanent members is the subject of a proposed action (e.g. responding to Russia's invasion of Ukraine)
Secretary of State: The US Secretary of State is the head of the Department of State. The officeholder is one of the highest-ranking members of the president's Cabinet and ranks first in the U.S. presidential line of succession among Cabinet secretaries
Soviet-Afghan War: a protracted armed conflict fought in the Soviet-controlled Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) from 1979 to 1989. After the invasion under the command of Leonid Brezhnev, it saw extensive fighting between the occupying forces of the Soviet Union, the DRA, and allied paramilitary groups against the Afghan mujahideen, foreign fighters, and smaller groups of anti-Soviet Maoists
Spetsnaz: this is the name used for special forces or spec ops units in many post-Soviet states
Thobe: this is the ankle-length, often white robe-type garment worn by men on the Arabian peninsula
VSR: or Vooruzhennyye sily Rossii (Russian Armed Forces) or dubok (little oak) was originally a Soviet-era camo pattern developed in the 80s. It was used extensively in the 90s by specialized units, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and most ground units of the Russian Armed Forces
Yekaterinburg: alternatively Ekaterinburg, is a large city located in Sverdlovsk Oblast and the Ural Federal District of Russia. It's a cultural and industrial center