Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. I'm borrowing her characters, dressing them up in MARPAT, and giving them some guns (again).
Unbeta'd, unedited. Anyagal graciously fixed my Russian and assisted me with phrasing I would have been very hesitant to employ otherwise. Anyagal has also started a new fic herself! It's called No Measure of Time and it's awesome! Jump on it!
Warning, please read: Some of the dialogue in this chapter may be disturbing and even hurtful for some readers. It's intended to be realistically reflective of the character, his background, and his beliefs (in this case, Tarkhan-Ali Basayev, a 50-something Chechen warlord modeled somewhat off of real-life terrorists like Shamil Basayev and Arbi Barayev, as well as Chechnya's current sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic jerk-du-jour, Ramzan Kadyrov.)
And yes, in case there is confusion, there is a small time jump from where the last chapter left off and this one. That'll be addressed next chapter. But hopefully, you can infer from this chapter who shot whom at the end of last chapter :)
Jan 25
Abandoned Farmstead
Somewhere within the Tusheti Mountainous Region, Northeastern Georgia
"Ask him his name."
With a quick glance over to a grim-faced El'azar, Samal Rishon Leah Rivkin nodded at the Marine commander and turned to the seething warlord sitting in a rickety chair in the center of the room with his wrists bound behind his back. "Kak tebya zovut?"
The man spat a wad of blood and saliva on the hardpacked floor and sneered. "Ty znayesh', kto ya."
Of course, they knew who he was. That wasn't the point.
"Chto zh," Leah said, shrugging, and her lips curved into a small, bland smile. "Sdelay mne priyatnoye."
Unsurprisingly, silence answered her, broken only by the ice-cold wind whistling through the eaves of the abandoned, dilapidated farmhouse deep in the heart of the mountains. Outside, pristine white powder mounded against the clapboard and cinderblock building and filled in the uneven terrain, obscuring the rusted-out farm equipment left long ago. Glowing beneath the moonlight, it was a disarmingly peaceful scene, a winter wonderland that ran one-hundred and eighty degrees from the tension bubbling inside.
A handful of long, weighted seconds passed. Arrogant and defiant, Basayev straightened despite the bindings. His gaze cut away from the woman questioning him and focused on the distant pock-marked wall. His jaw locked, morphing his defiant sneer into something enraged and darkly violent.
Leah's palm smacked against the wooden table in front of him. "Otvechay yemu!"
Across the room, Bella jerked.
Perched cross-legged on top of an ancient roughhewn bench shoved into the corner, she looked up from the stack of crinkled documents the Deltas had dumped into her lap. Her fingers fumbled around her old, chewed-up pen, and as she caught the dark, furious eyes tracking Leah as she circled the table, Bella's heart rate ticked up in time, pounding like a kettle drum inside her ribcage.
Basayev spat again, this time barely missing Leah's boots. "Snachala otsosi mne… pizda zhidovskaya."
Hatred – and something else that set Bella's teeth on edge – dripped from the man's voice, but after another moment of frozen silence, Leah belted out a loud, out-of-place laugh.
"Chto ya dolzhna sosat'?" Leah said, almost crooning as she stepped closer, eating into the man's space until he leaned away. Grabbing him by the hair, she shoved his face into the table and moved in close to whisper. "Ty imeyesh' v vidu tu zhalkuyu pipetku, kotoroy ty nasiluyesh' svoikh ovets?" He flinched when her lips grazed the shell of his ear. "Ili ty predpochitayesh' koz… chmo kolkhoznoye?"
"Ya tebya pridushu, trakhnu v zadnitsu… a potom pererezhu tvoyu gryaznuyu glotku!" Basayev snarled, low and guttural, the words distorted as his bruised, windburned cheek dug into the coarse wood. "Basayev. General Tarkhan-Ali Basayev."
As Edward watched El'azar's staff sergeant laugh and then murmur something else into the Chechen general's ear, absolutely nothing in his expression changed. Seemingly bored, he checked his wrist, waiting until Leah looked up. "I'm assuming he's still not being overly helpful."
"We're getting there." The Israeli flashed the Marine an amused, almost mischievous row of pearly white teeth. "Ali here is telling me about his experiences on his farm. He's quite the animal lover."
"I see." Fisting his hips, Edward stepped forward. "Why don't you ask him if he speaks any English?"
"Well, that's not very fun." Leah tsked, then slammed Basayev's face against the table again. "Govorish' po-angliyski?"
On the other side of the room, Jake snapped off a chunk of half-frozen beef jerky, stepped over his snoring sergeant first class, and parked on an olive-drab ammo box to enjoy the show. As Dayan's prickly staff sergeant leaned in and muscled the bearded fifty-something twice her weight, her pretty dark eyes danced – a cat playing with a mouse – and a reluctant smile teased Jake's lips. That one was a firecracker and a half, and judging by the dumbass grin stretching Paul's ugly face, he wasn't the only one who'd noticed it either. Ignoring him, as well as the contemplative stares coming from Cullen's pet scientist across the way, Jake scowled and bit off another hunk of beef.
Leah repeated Edward's question again, this time louder – angrier – and Basayev grunted. "Net."
"Vresh'!"
"You fucking Jew whore!" Basayev growled, his accent thick and rolling. Livid, bloodshot eyes shot to Edward. "Yes, I speak some English. Now get your bitch away from me, and we will negotiate."
A tingle of sharpened awareness cascaded through the room. Fabric rustled. Gear creaked. The cold air seemed to swell and spark until the hair on the back of Bella's neck stood on end. Her gaze shot from Leah to El'azar and finally to Edward, only to find an eerie, almost preternatural stillness and calm in his features and bearing. It reminded her of a lion biding his time before the strike, and when he finally spoke, ice crawled down her spine.
"Negotiate," Edward repeated, quietly, tasting the word as he eased into the chair opposite Basayev and casually kicked an ankle over the opposite knee. "There's no negotiation here." Slowly, almost absently, he began rolling up his sleeves. "Right now, you have a choice to make. You're going to tell me exactly what I want to know, or I'm going to cause you a great deal of suffering, and then you'll give me what I want anyway. Are we clear?"
Jan 26
Abandoned Farmstead
Somewhere within the Tusheti Mountainous Region, Northeastern Georgia
"Tell me about the chemical agent found in your facility outside of Grozny."
Dark stains of fatigue ringed Basayev's eyes. His broad shoulders sagged, and beneath his torn, sweat-laden shirt, muscles twitched from so many hours held in one position. Nonetheless, when he finally spoke, arrogance dripped from his every word. "Chto za agent? I know nothing about such things."
Still hunkered down on her bench and buried in an old tan fleece two sizes too big, Bella sucked in a shallow breath as the two men squared off across the table for what felt like the hundredth time. Pale pink light filtered in from a set of ragged curtains, playing shadow games across the warlord's battered face. Coupled with the spiderweb of dried blood covering his forehead and cheek, he looked like a horror story come to life.
Yet the Marine commander on the other side of the table remained a man untouched, as patient and serene as a high mountain lake, ice-cold, and seemingly immune to the exhaustion that had turned everyone else's limbs to jello.
Just like the last time, when he'd had to break a different man deep in the mountains of Iran and when she'd witnessed him empty his stomach afterward.
Sluggish, Basayev's gaze finally relented, sliding to the table, and Edward motioned to Jasper. Without a word or a moment of hesitation, the younger man handed over a slim black laptop. Spinning it around, Edward jabbed an index finger at a pair of high-resolution shots the Delta team had captured before setting the thermite and the larger explosives. "Tell me where you obtained this."
"I told you before, I know nothing about… whatever this is," Basayev said, barely sparing the images a second glance. "This is all lies, some propaganda bullshit."
The jawline gave him away, though. Beneath the thick, wiry beard, it clenched. Behind his back, his fist balled, turning his knuckles white.
"Is that so?" One corner of Edward's mouth pulled up. He waited until the man whose Borz forces had murdered, raped, and terrorized their way across four continents – from Venezuela to Sudan to Syria to Ukraine – looked at him again, and then, despite every instinct screaming through his body, Edward barked out a single command. "Dr. Swan?"
Bella's name echoed off the timber ceiling. It was the first time Edward had even so much as acknowledged her presence since they arrived so many hours ago, and there was absolutely nothing of the man she knew in his voice. But when their eyes met, for a fraction of a second, she saw past the façade. A war raged in those forest depths.
"Sir?" Bella replied, back cracking as she straightened after the long night sitting silent watch.
Without taking his eyes off Basayev, Edward asked, "Have you completed your assessment?"
"I have," she said, right as the door creaked open, ushering in a gust of bitter wind. Flecks of dry white powder swirled in the air, and in her periphery, Bella caught Rosalie and Emmett slipping inside and dumping their gear against the wall. The former's scowl could have lit the world on fire, while the latter just eyeballed Basayev, grinning when he picked up the tracks of dried blood.
"And?"
Bella cleared her throat. "It's conclusive."
Edward didn't ask a second time, nor did he question her judgment or expertise. Instead, the major's chin dipped in a single, curt affirmative. "Explain to General Basayev what was found in his weapons factory… Just so we're all on the same page."
Shoring up every bit of steel she had, Bella swallowed past the sudden lump of nerves at the base of her throat and shoved off her bench. After a beat of hesitation, she targeted the vacant end of the rectangular table, situating herself between Edward and Basayev and across from Leah. As she angled toward the warlord, she then laid out a half dozen sheets of crinkled papers – spectra, chromatographs, chemical formulations, structures, and an array of complex reaction mechanisms.
"What you have for me, little girl?" Basayev rumbled, eying her up and down until her skin crawled.
Across the table, Edward stiffened. Before he could speak or intercede, however, Bella leveled the man a flat, withering glare, channeling their foul-tempered gunny at her worst. "You will address me as Captain Swan or Doctor Swan. Understood?"
"Da, da, ponyal," he drawled. Unkempt, bushy brows climbed his forehead in expectation. When she said nothing, instead continuing to stare him into the ground, the man chuckled. The stench of body odor, tobacco, and the lingering hints of a strong, musky cologne she couldn't name washed over her, turning her stomach. "Please, continue your lesson… Captain."
Ignoring the nasty bite of sarcasm, as well as the split second of silent fury that licked across Edward's features, she slid Jasper's laptop over to the side, replaced it with her tablet, and swiped over to a series of graphs. "The agent found in Sunzha Machines' lab is a one-hundred percent match to the residual chemical signature of the compound used in the January 7th attack in Paris."
Positioned at the other end of the table, with her own darkening hollows ringing her eyes, Leah echoed the statement in rapid-fire Russian.
"Is that so?" Basayev purred, shrugging. "Mozhet byt', eto prosto… sovpadeniye."
Chuffing, Leah rolled her eyes. "Asshole says maybe it's just a coincidence."
"No, there is no coincidence," Bella said, hard, angry, and unforgiving. "It's not only the same chemical. This," she pointed to the screen and the graphs, "says the weapon that took thousands of innocent lives and the weapon we found in your compound was produced in the same facility by the same process and under the same conditions, likely even in the same batch. So, either you produced them both, or you obtained it from the same source. Which is it, General?"
"And Davos?" Edward asked, deceptively soft.
Nodding, Bella flipped to another set of complicated graphs, these overlaid with annotated symbols and chemical formulas. "Davos, too. Sunzha specified it for the localized anti-personnel mines Captain Black's team found in the warehouse."
"Did you find anything else?"
Bella's heart thumped. "A third iteration. This one's closer to the original, the one Riley and I developed back at DARPA. It's been similarly configured for binary warhead deployment."
In the background, one of the Deltas swore. Leaning against the wall, Rosalie stilled.
"Intention?" Edward asked, sharper.
"If I had to guess, larger-scale ballistic missiles," Bella said quietly, remembering all too well the conversation back at the outpost in Türkiye with Black's sergeant first class. Coupled with the manifests stapled to the olive drab crates in the warehouse and the rows of empty rockets and warheads, it didn't take a rocket scientist – or a chemical weapons specialist – to guess where they were heading. "Maybe not as ambitious as Aronović was in terms of scale or reach, but definitely meant for medium-range application."
"Like those produced by Sunzha Machines, for example," El'azar chimed in, dry as the desert he was born in.
"Yes, precisely. Modified Iskanders, likely even Zircons." Bella glanced over her shoulder. "They're in possession of a nearly full portfolio, with capabilities for small-scale surgical strikes, theater and battalion-level attacks, and larger population leveling. The only thing they lack is an ICBM."
"This is lie!" Basayev ground out, yet his eyes shone with the dark, churning fervor of a true believer.
"Where's the next target?" Bella asked, barely above a whisper. It wasn't her question to ask, but when she blinked, rows and rows of burned, bloody, misshapen bodies danced behind her lids. "When?"
A low snarl answered her. "Even if I have such information, what makes you think I will tell you? You think I fear you? What can little girl like you do to me?"
Bella's blood boiled, and for once in her life, her palm itched with the need to strike another. Her fist balled into a tight, quivering hammer, and harder than she'd ever thought herself capable of, she nodded over to the Marine commander and said, "Maybe not me, but, General, you should definitely fear him."
For a second, Edward just stared at the woman swallowed by his ancient fleece, with her too-pretty, too-fine face standing at the end of the table, warring between a fierce, clawing pride, pricking irritation, and the irrational, gut-punching terror that had plagued him since the moment she'd been attached to his team. None of that touched his expression.
"Well done," Edward said, and after a brief moment, he signaled a curt dismissal. "Thank you, Doctor. Send Langley your report and let the General know."
The warlord smirked, and Bella's teeth clacked together. Nonetheless, with a quick, practiced "Yes, sir," she spun on her heel. As she settled back on her bench, Bella looked over to Rosalie. Still propping up the far wall, the blonde's arms locked across her chest. Sharp, ice-blue eyes scanned the room, lighting on Black and his trio of operators before landing on Edward, then finally her. What she saw, Bella didn't know, but when the two women made eye contact, the gunny's lips flattened into a harsh line, and her head tipped forward in the barest hint of acknowledgment.
Still flat and seemingly bored, Edward repositioned Jasper's laptop and swiped over to the CIA photo of the clean-shaven businessman with neatly styled pepper-gray hair standing in the shadows inside the auditorium in Davos.
"Dmitriy Nikolayevich Mirenkov," Edward said, studying the warlord over steepled fingers. "Tell me about him."
Grumbling, Basayev shifted in his chair and tugged at his constraints. "Otkuda, blyat', ya znayu?"
Before Leah could translate, Edward waved her off and swiped over to a second photo, this one an old, grainier shot of a pair of soldiers in tri-color VSR camo. In the background, an old Soviet-era T-72 rolled across arid, rocky terrain. "Don't play stupid. That's you standing beside him. Ingushetia, right? Or was it Ossetia?"
Basayev grunted.
"Were you on the same side or opposing?"
"Is there difference?" Basayev replied, snorting derisively, then flashing the Marine major bared teeth yellowed by age and cigarettes. "Tupoy amerikanets… Ty nichego ne znayesh' o moyem mire. Davay ne budem pritvoryat'sya."
Edward glanced over to Leah.
"He's just being rude again." Leah motioned over to Emmett with his bare, inked, tree-trunk arms. "Perhaps the big guy and I should take him outside for a short walk. Maybe some time in the fresh air would make him a little more forthcoming."
With the knee-deep snow and the near arctic conditions up here in the mountains, Edward had a very good idea what El'azar's staff sergeant meant by walk. Frostbite could be an effective motivator.
"Maybe later." Edward tapped the screen again, returning to the shot of the urbane businessman in Davos. "Does Mirenkov work for you? Or do you work for him?"
"Neither. We are simply…" Momentarily forgetting his restraints, Basayev tried and failed to wave. With a sharp grunt of annoyance, he hesitated and then reluctantly peered over to Leah, gesturing with his beard. "Staryye znakomyye."
"He says they're just old acquaintances." The Israeli's dark eyes flickered with amusement, and beneath the table, her heel cracked his shin. "Ali, ty v etom uveren? Mozhet, Dima lyubit prisoyedinyat'sya k tebe, kogda ty trakhayesh' svoikh bednykh tvarey…"
There was a blink of eerie silence, then without warning, a loud, rabid roar came out of Basayev's mouth. His chair toppled backward, crashing against the dirt floor, and in a flurry of limbs and movement, he lunged across the table.
A hard, meaty fist whipped through the air before he could make contact, slamming into the Basayev's temple and knocking him to the floor.
"Fucker, I told you once!" Emmett bellowed, stomping his boot on the man's kidney, pinning him to the ground. When Basayev tried to roll, the big man kicked him in the ribs before hauling him up by the armpits. "You try that shit again, and I'll punt your goddamned head."
Fresh rivulets of blood seeped down Basayev's cheek, disappearing into his beard only to continue down his neck to stain his collar. As Emmett threw him back into his chair, his brows slammed down into another hate-filled glare. Licking his lips, Basayev mouthed some vile epithet to Leah, but the woman just laughed.
"My apologies, Major," Leah said, addressing Edward with a haphazard flick of her wrist. "I didn't expect this one to be so… sensitive. I'll keep that in mind going forward."
"See that you do," Edward replied as he studied the twitching facial muscles of the man sitting opposite, cataloging all the little tells that said El'azar's pit bull of a soldier had eaten her way into the warlord's mental space faster and far more effectively than he'd anticipated.
Judging by the slight upturn of Rosalie's lips, even his gunny was impressed.
One brow arched. "Now, General, where were we? I think you were going to tell me who Mirenkov works for."
Basayev laughed, low and gravelly. "Dima does not work for me. Trust me on this."
"Okay, who does he work for?" Edward asked. "Who's pulling his strings?"
"No one." With an arrogant roll of his eyes, Basayev shook his head. "Dima always work for himself. Call him… self-employed, hired gun if you like." He laughed at some private joke. "Maybe he just like the snow in Switzerland. It's very beautiful there, so people tell me."
Lips mashed, not believing a word, Edward tapped the screen once more, flipping to yet another photograph. Set against a blank, bone-colored wall, it was a headshot of a young blonde with fine, symmetrical, porcelain features, full pink lips, and a pair of pale, piercing blue eyes that could stare into your soul.
"All right, then what about her?"
Frozen on her bench, Bella watched every muscle in Basayev's body abruptly lock. The cord-like tendons in his neck snapped taut. He unconsciously swayed left, as though to somehow escape the image in front of him, and when he finally spoke, the words came out in a raw punch of air.
"I do not know this person." Pupils dilated, with fat beads of sweat popping out on his forehead despite the chill, Basayev looked over to Leah when Edward didn't respond and licked his chapped lips. "Ya ne znayu etu devushku. Skazhi yemu."
The urgency and change in demeanor was startling, one-hundred and eighty degrees from the seething, haughty warlord with decades of blood and violence on his hands.
Fear – sharp, nauseating fear. The man reeked of it, Edward thought, and the predator in him awakened.
"You're lying to me," Edward said quietly, leaning across the table, stalking his prey. "You know exactly who she is."
Basayev flinched. "Net – no."
"Jana Aronović. Does she go by her late father's name?" Edward asked as the threads slowly began weaving together. "Or… is there another?"
"No." Basayev shook his head, this time too quickly. Fresh fear crawled beneath his skin, turning his complexion sallow. "I do not know this woman. I swear it."
"Yes, you do. Who's she working for?" Edward's eyes narrowed. "Or is it… who's she working with? What kind of man would send someone like Dmitriy Mirenkov as guard detail?"
"Kaysarova," Basayev whispered, head tipping back in a fleeting moment of defeat. "That is surname Jana Vladislavovna uses, and that is all I will say to you."
In the background, Jasper's keyboard clicked a mile a minute.
"So… you're more afraid of him – this Kaysarov – than me." One corner of Edward's mouth lifted, but his irises were flat and black, and that old phantom ache in his side pulsed, turning his stomach to lead. "Bear-man, take the general out to the barn next door. String him up on one of the joists. He and I will continue this conversation in a more private setting."
.
.
.
Notes:
Kaysarov, also anglicized as Kaisarov = our good buddy, Caius.
Also, many Russian last names follow gender rules. For those surnames ending in -ov, you'd add an "a" for a woman. Hence, Jana Vladislavovna [patronymic, from her late father, Vladislav Aronović] Kaysarova. I'll let you theorize from there.
Certain interrogation techniques employed in this story are for the fictional setting only. In the real world, because of the sometimes gray and always dangerous nature of their work, special operations forces (such as Edward's or Jacob's) are granted some leeway, especially in situations in which they are operating under duress, but there are lines that can't be crossed. For this story, though, I'm perfectly okay with Edward (and others) toeing up to and crossing some lines.
Russian [transliterated]:
Kak tebya zovut: What's your name?
Ty znayesh', kto ya: You know who I am
Chto zh… Sdelay mne priyatnoye: [roughly] Well then… humor me
Otvechay yemu: Answer him!
Snachala otsosi mne… pizda zhidovskaya: First, suck me off… you Jewish cunt
Chto ya dolzhna sosat'… Ty imeyesh' v vidu tu zhalkuyu pipetku, kotoroy ty nasiluyesh' svoikh ovets… Ili ty predpochitayesh' koz… chmo kolkhoznoye: What should I suck? You mean that pathetic pipette [roughly little prick] you rape your sheep with? Or do you prefer goats… you [roughly, although much more vulgar/offensive] redneck?
Ya tebya pridushu, trakhnu v zadnitsu… a potom pererezhu tvoyu gryaznuyu glotku: I will choke you, fuck your ass, and then slit your filthy throat!
Govorish' po-angliyski: Do you speak English?
Net: No
Vresh': You're lying!
Chto za agent: What agent?
Da, da, ponyal: Yes, yes, understood
Mozhet byt', eto prosto… sovpadeniye: Maybe it's just a… coincidence
Otkuda, blyat', ya znayu: How the fuck do I know?
Tupoy amerikanets… Ty nichego ne znayesh' o moyem mire. Davay ne budem pritvoryat'sya: Stupid American… You know nothing of my world. Let's not pretend you do
Staryye znakomyye: Old acquaintances
Ali, ty v etom uveren? Mozhet, Dima lyubit prisoyedinyat'sya k tebe, kogda ty trakhayesh' svoikh bednykh tvarey: Ali, are you sure about that? Maybe Dima likes to join you when you're fucking your poor critters/creatures
Ya ne znayu etu devushku. Skazhi yemu: I don't know this [young] woman. Tell him
Glossary:
ICBM: or intercontinental ballistics missile, is a missile capable of greater than 5,500 km. They're primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery but conventional, chemical, biological weapons can also be delivered
Ingushetia: a republic of Russia located in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe. Largely due to the insurgency in the North Caucasus, Ingushetia remains one of the poorest and most unstable regions of Russia
Iskander: or, the 9K720 Iskander is a mobile short-range ballistic missile system produced and deployed by the Russian military. It has several different conventional warheads, including a cluster munitions, a fuel–air explosive enhanced-blast, a high-explosive fragmentation, an earth penetrator for bunker busting, and an electromagnetic pulse device for anti-radar missions. The missile can also carry nuclear warheads
Ossetia: is an ethnolinguistic region located on both sides of the Greater Caucasus Mountains. The area has been under dispute for a number of years. Most countries recognize the Ossetian-speaking area south of the main Caucasus ridge as lying within the borders of Georgia, but it has come under the control of the de facto government of the Russian-backed Republic of South Ossetia – the State of Alania. The northern portion of the region consists of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania within the Russian Federation
T-72: the T-72 is a family of Soviet main battle tanks that entered production in 1971
Thermite:is a pyrotechnic composition of metal powder and metal oxide. When ignited by heat or chemical reaction, thermite undergoes an exothermic reduction-oxidation (redox) reaction. The chemical reaction can produce temperatures up to 4500°F. It can be used in incendiary anti-material bombs and explosives. It can also be used on smaller, more localized scales where the user wants to destroy equipment without an explosion
Zircon: or the 3M22 Zircon, also spelled as Tsirkon, is a Russian scramjet-powered, nuclear-capable hypersonic cruise missile and anti-ship missile that can be deployed via submarines, surface ships, as well as land-based facilities. Its operational range is +1000km