Georgi pulled out his phone and hit a speed dial button.
"Yeah, it's me. I got a problem with the truck, it's trashed. I need you to bring yours in from the south road. No, no, that's not a problem. Yeah, right now. Ok, see you soon. " He turned towards the team and smiled. "Ok, is all good. Now, let me see…."
He keyed the credstick terminal alive, and then held out his hand to Kai, waiting for him to pass over one of the certified credsticks. When Kai passed over a plain silver stick, he flicked the protective cap off the end and put it into the machine, then put his own credstick into the other slot, and keyed in the amount.
"So, we agreed sixty-five for the job, you got twenty up front and five in cash for the bribes, so that's another forty I owe you. Four, oh, oh, oh, oh, confirm." The machine made a musical chime, and the display lit up, showing an animated transfer of coins from his stick to the team's. "There. All done!" Kai raised an eyebrow at him.
"I believe there was some mention of some magical goods as a bonus, if there was a hot encounter." He looked over his shoulder at the lake, theatrically, then back to Georgi. "I think this probably counts…"
"Of course, of course, no problem. Let me sort that for you now." He returned to the ruins of his truck and rooted around in the bag, pulling out a small plastic box and bringing that back with him as he sought out Tads.
"I believe that these are for you?" He popped open the top of the box, and then passed over the two items inside. Tads took them carefully, holding them up to study them by the light spilling from the cab of their truck through the open door. The first was a tiny salt crystal suspended in a lump of clear resin with a nickel chain large enough to fit around a neck. The second was a thin piece of metal, beaten into the shape of a leaf with a delicate pin on the back. Both appeared to be hand crafted by someone with a little skill but plenty to learn still. As she drifted into the astral to examine them, she felt the flow of mana around them. The salt crystal was very low force, only able to hold a basic spell in place, but the leaf was actually stronger, able to hold more power inside. She snapped back to reality and nodded at Georgi, accepting them as payment.
A set of headlights appeared on the road to the south, bouncing their way along the rough road and approaching quickly. Aswon and Hunter moved away from the truck into the underbrush and cover to the side, disappearing into concealment and the sound of their weapons cocking was clearly audible in the quiet night air. Shimazu closed up to Kai and placed a hand on his sword hilt, and the others moved closer to the protection of the truck. Georgi seemed unconcerned though, as did his shotgun-wielding accomplices.
A minute later, the vehicle arrived, pulling into the car park behind Georgi's wrecked vehicle. The driver got out and greeted Georgi with a handshake and muttered to himself as he got sight of the wrecked vehicle. Georgi turned to the team though, clapping his hands together.
"Ok, let's get the cargo transferred and get out of here!"
Aswon and Hunter emerged from concealment, and the team moved to the truck, opening it up and sliding the boxes to the rear of the load bay, where Georgi's men could get at them and carry them over to the new vehicle. They started to stack the boxes together in the back of their van, and several of the team exchanged meaningful glances, but then shrugged their shoulders…. As each box was moved to the back of the truck, Shimazu scuffed at the marks he had painstakingly inscribed on them, breaking his wards.
As Hunter watched the men struggling with the heavy boxes, a flash of movement caught his eye. He raised the rifle to his shoulder and peered through the scope to confirm it, the quietly called out, "Folks, movement on the water, looks like one of the hovercraft is coming back."
They sprang into action. Hunter and Aswon moved out a little, then raised their weapons and trained them out to the west over the water, sighting in on the craft. Tads climbed rapidly up into the truck and threw herself onto the seat, then projected out of her body and flew across the water. Up ahead, the drone which had been heading back over to the car park to cover the team circled and dipped its nose, powering back out onto the water to close on the targets.
Tads arrived first, and hovered over the craft. Looking down she could see two occupants in the crew area, both of them keeping low. They both had a raggedness to their aura, their essence strained and disrupted. She manifested above them, and saw the wounds with fresh bandages applied, and realised they were the ones that Aswon had been shooting at. One was in the driver's seat, and was nursing the hovercraft forwards carefully, keeping the speed low and trying to steer with just occasional glances above the hull. The other was struggling with a large four-pointed hook, trying to tie a length of rope onto the eyebolt in the middle of the hook.
"Hello! What are you doing?" she spoke loudly, almost shouting, to be heard over the sound of the engine. Both of the occupants gave a start and flinched, expecting her to attack – but she just floated in mid-air above them, keeping pace with the hovercraft as it bobbed across the water.
"We just want to get to the other craft, and save them from drowning." Tads listened, then nodded, and in a blink of an eye was back to her body. She opened her eyes and looked out to where Kai was watching the water from behind Kai and Aswon.
"Kai, two of them, both wounded. One has a grappling hook. They say they just want to rescue their friends." Kai looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "Sounded like the truth, but no promises." He nodded, then keyed up his radio.
"Hold fire for the moment, keep them under observation, but leave them be for the moment, let's see what they do." He heard a few grumbles, but got acknowledgement from the rest, and then stared out to the water, watching with interest.
Tads looked over at the lake, and started to conjure, calling a lake spirit to aid her. The spirit appeared in the astral realm in front of her, a swirling and ephemeral mass of water, waiting for instructions. She bade it to go out to the hovercraft and help them in their attempted rescue of their comrades, in fact to help them however it could – provided they didn't try to attack anyone. The spirit dove into the water, and she watched as a magical v-wake spread behind it as it surged across the reservoir towards them.
The unloading continued without incident, and just as the last box was being moved, Marius called over the radio, "I can see them approaching the larger craft now. They've managed to get the hook on board, and they're lashing them both together. Ok, starting to tow the larger craft westwards now, back to shore. No sign of hostile intent." Tads closed her eyes once more and pushed out of her body, zipping across the water and then manifesting again just above the rescuers.
"So, who are you, and why were you attacking us, then?"
"You are thieves, despoilers of our religion, and abominations in the sight of God! You meddle with antiquities and powerful holy relics, and we have nothing but contempt and pity for you." He spat the words at her, and his aura blazed with indignation and fury – he felt strongly about what he was saying, of that there was no doubt. While he was speaking, she could see him trying to bandage the wound on his neck, wrapping dressings around it and fighting to tie the chemical soaked pad in place. Even with the steadying effect of the lake spirit on his craft, his trembling hands and the pain from the wound made it difficult enough that he couldn't complete the task, and she watched as blood oozed from under the pad, dripping down his neck. He didn't seem to care though, staring at her with obvious hostility. Tads didn't think she'd get much more from him than that, so she glanced over at the larger craft, and the carnage there. Blood soaked the bottom of the crew compartment, sloshing back and forth with brass shells rolling around in the slick red mess. She quickly assensed each of the bodies that she could see, and spotted both the physical adept and the mage from ambush back near the airport amongst them. They, along with everyone else, were in a very bad way – bad enough that she didn't think they'd make it back to shore alive. Shaking her head, she realised there was nothing else for her to do here, so she headed back to her body, and reported on the situation to Kai.
"So Georgi…. Our visitors over there. What do you want doing about them?" asked Kai. He kept his voice neutral, trying not to lead the conversation in any particular direction.
"I think, I think I want them very much not to be chasing my Golem. Yes, not to be chasing at all."
"Well, we can arrange that, if that's what you want. You just need to say the word."
"This is a deep lake. I think they would be much better at the bottom of it." Georgi glanced over at the guys pushing the last crate through the door on the second van, and made a swirling 'wind it up' motion to them. "Is that clear enough for you?"
"Yes, that's clear enough for me." He reached up to his radio and pushed the button, paused for a moment and then spoke clearly. "Marius, take them out." There was a moment's pause, then they heard the German's voice come back over the radio.
"Confirm, you want me to take out both targets?"
"That's correct, sink them both please." Kai's voice was cold and emotionless, and didn't seem to show any remorse over what he had just ordered. A moment later the sounds of automatic gunfire ripped through the sky, as the drone started to strafe the hovercraft. A single long burst took out the wounded driver and grappler in the small hovercraft. Another burst riddled the deck of the medium hovercraft, finally rupturing the hull with the impact. Another long burst did the same to the smaller hovercraft, and they both started to take on water, getting lower and lower in the lake as Marius watched through the sensors.
Aswon and Hunter had both switched up their optics to the highest magnification on hearing the exchange and were sweeping the far shoreline, looking for a crew, transport or reinforcements. They couldn't see anything though – the shoreline looked deserted. They reported in that they couldn't see anywhere the hovercraft had launched from or been transported from.
"Marius, can you get your spotter drone up please, have a look around?" Marius responded to Kai with a swift acknowledgement, and they heard the whine of electric engines from the top of the truck as the second drone started to power up.
Georgi turned to the van, and told the driver to pull out, heading to the delivery point and not to waste any time. The driver started the engine, and turned the van around, pulling out and heading north along the edge of the water, the way the team had come from, and accelerating hard into the darkness. As soon as they were clear, Georgi pulled out his phone again, and called another number.
"Ivan? It's Georgi. I need a lift, if you're sober. I'm out on the lake, on the far side, and some scum just blew up my truck. Yea, properly dead. No, I'll tell you over a drink. Wait, hang on a minute…" he keyed the hold button and looked up at Kai, who was waving to get his attention.
"We can drop you in town – that's no bother. Plenty of room." Georgi checked that he really meant it, then thanked him and took the call off hold.
"Ivan, never mind, I got a lift back to town. I'll catch up with you tomorrow, at the warehouse." He hung up, and thanked Kai again.
"Ok Marius, let's get your gun drone heading back while the scout does a recon. The rest of you, let's get our kit packed up and ready to leave."
The team started to tidy up – collecting spent cases and grenades, checking for other easy forensics and cleaning up as best they could after the encounter. It wasn't a professional job, but they figured that the harder they made it, the better.
They were just getting to the end of the clear up, when Marius informed them that he had done a quick scan down the far side of the lake and found nothing – that probably meant that the hovercraft had come from somewhere in the town itself, maybe a warehouse or staging area – so Kai told him to head back. Once again, they were interrupted by a set of headlights approaching from the south, bouncing and weaving as they progressed up the road.
"Georgi – is this one of yours?"
"No Kai, all my men are with the golem." He looked thoughtful for a moment, then shook his head.
"This was supposed to be a nice simple exchange. Right, Tads, can you go see who and what is in that vehicle?" The shaman nodded, sat down and strapped in to her seat and then went limp. "Everyone else, mount up, let's get on the road."
"What about my drones?"
"If they can make it back in time, Marius, get them docked. In fact no – let's keep them out for air support, as long as they have fuel. But let's be on our way back towards the city to buy some time."
Tads flew through the air, and then waited on the road just in front of the approaching truck. It was tricky – she could go at her normal walking or running pace, or at the speed of thought – but nothing in between. So to get onto the vehicle, she had to wait in front of it, let it ram through her body, which was still an unnerving activity, and then 'jump' into the truck, trying to synchronise her location with the truck, rather than the earth, to pick up its speed and make herself relative to the vehicle not the ground. She waited, waited – and then jumped! Her timing was a little off, and instead of landing in the cab, she appeared in the rear compartment. In the back were two rows of four people, one down each wall of the van. They were carrying grey blobs in their arms that looked suspiciously like weapons, and as she got a quick taste of their auras, felt them gearing up for trouble. She jumped out of the back of the van, hovering in mid-air once more whilst she got her bearings, and then flitted back to her body.
"Kai, we got at least eight soldiers in the back, armed and looking for a fight!" The words tumbled out of her mouth, and as she opened her eyes she felt the truck start to move and realised that everyone else was now aboard and the truck was just pulling out. She gave a bit of a start as Hunter was standing right in front of her, legs on either side of hers which unfortunately put his groin at her face height. Trying to ignore his crotch, she focussed her attention on the rocky escarpment to their right, and called forth a rocky spirit, asking it to go and damage the truck chasing them, to throw them off their track. Glancing around the cab, she saw Georgi sitting where Aswon normally did. She looked back over her shoulder into the rear of the truck, but couldn't see him there either….
Up on the roof, Aswon was crouched low, one leg tucked under him and the rifle held steady, aiming behind them. His tattoo glowed steadily under his clothes, and he stuck to the rooftop in an unerring fashion as the truck swayed and tilted around the corners. Hunter couldn't really see clearly behind the truck, due to the height of the living accommodation behind the cab, but he could loft grenades over the top indirectly quite happily – and that also kept him out of the return line of fire, of course. Overhead the two drones kept pace with the truck easily, the blimp looking down on the scene and transmitting a detailed sensor feed of the truck chasing them. It recorded the sudden slip of rocks that tumbled onto the road, and under the passenger side wheels, the tipping of the vehicle as it swerved around them, and the frantic corrections by the driver to avoid driving off the road onto the lake. But still they came on, driving fast and slowly catching up to the truck.
They watched them close for a few minutes, creeping up on them, then strangely enough they started to flash their lights at them, in a clear bid to make them pull over. Kai frowned and turned to Tads.
"Go see what these jokers want, will you?" Tads nodded, then sagged as once more she projected from her body and stood in the roadway. Right… this time she needed to count to one, not two… the truck drove into her astral form and she flexed and jumped, and just managed to synchronise her aura with that of the truck, appearing in the cab, halfway through the back of the seat between the driver and passenger. Slowly she manifested, causing a cry of alarm from both the dark swarthy man in the passenger seat and the driver as they caught sight of her.
"GET OUT!" the passenger yelled, brandishing a pistol at her. Tads didn't care too much, though she noticed with a grim sense of humour that if he fired, the bullet would probably hit the driver square in the ear.
"Who are you, and what do you want? Why are you following us?"
"We are here for Georgi! Now get out of my truck!"
"Georgi? Who are you, then?"
"I am Sergei!" He slapped his chest with his pistol, proclaiming the fact proudly.
"Well, if you're after Georgi, then what's the password?"
"Password? Password! Pah, there is no password."
Tads dematerialised and flitted back to her body. At least it was easier to land with all of the rear of their truck to use as a landing spot. She returned to her body, and told the team what she had found out. As she mentioned the name 'Sergei' she heard a slap as Georgi's head and hands met in dismay.
"Something you want to tell us?"
"I think we had better stop, Kai, the longer he chases us, the more upset and belligerent he'll be." They exchanged looks, then with a sigh, Kai asked Marius to pull over somewhere safe. They slowed and pulled off the road onto a wide patch of shingle near a bend, and waited for the other vehicle to approach. It pulled up on the road behind them, and the heavy-set swarthy man climbed out and wandered towards the truck. The driver reached out through the open window and slapped his open hand on the panel behind him and a moment later the back doors opened and disgorged bodies from the rear of the truck.
They were carrying AK series weapons, but they looked old and battered – in a lot of ways, they were similar to the Kurdish road block they had bribed their way past. Mismatching kit was everywhere, old and battered load bearing harnesses warn over jeans or tracksuits, at least five different cammo patterns of smocks in various states of disrepair. If any of them had been in the army – any army, they would have earned enough ire from their sergeant major to do a lifetime of punishment duties for daring to turn up like that. Still, they fell in to what might charitably have been called parade formation, two ragged rows of four, facing the truck, with weapons at some semblance of port arms.
The heavy-set individual from the front, Sergei, had closed the distance and was now standing by the side of the truck, waiting. Georgi had climbed out and round the front of the truck, and approached him.
"GEORGI! We come, as promised! Look, I bring soldiers to defend you!"
"Sergei, you were supposed to be here two hours ago." Sergei belched, and looked at Georgi with somewhat bleary eyes, then checked his watch, moving his arm back and forth until he could bring it into focus. He tapped it a few times, then shrugged.
"Georgi, let's not argue. Sergei and his commandos are here now, ready to defend you. We are ready to fight! We shall punish anyone that stands against us!"
Various snorts could be heard from the team at the description of this sorry and bedraggled rabble of individuals being referred to as "commandos" and at the idea of this drunken buffoon protecting anyone. Shimazu was watching his body language carefully though, and keyed up his microphone, speaking quietly to the rest of the team.
"He's drunk, but he's also angry. Probably embarrassed about being late. He's looking for a fight or an excuse, something to give him a reason to go on the offensive. And he looks drunk enough that he won't be entirely rational to deal with." The team looked over at him, and really examined him carefully, spotting the vague outline of some kind of weapon under his heavy jacket, and took notice of his stance – widely spaced feet, turned slightly outwards, hands both hunched in front of himself, ready to attack or defend his core. And while the gaggle of eight troops behind him didn't look trained or competent even, spraying auto-fire from this range would riddle Georgi, and could do anyone outside the vehicle a deadly injury as much by luck as planning.
"So, we are here to protect you, and all is good, yes? And soon you will pay us for protecting you."
"Sergei, no! You're late. You missed the ambush. These guys had to look after me, and fight off the attackers. If anyone is going to get paid, it's them." Sergei shook his head, and his lips thinned, while his cheeks took on a ruddy colour.
"Georgi, Georgi why you do this? Why you upset me like this? I thought we were friends. Now you say Sergei's men are no good? Not fit to protect you? Why do you spit on them? You don't pay them? Why Georgi? They have to eat, to stay strong? Why you wanna hurt them?" Several of the men started to frown, staring at Georgi with anger in their eyes – willing to follow their "leader's" chain of logic.
Marius lowered the drone a little, getting ready to fire at the troops if they looked like causing trouble – but for once, his engineering excellent worked against him. The drone was quiet and subtle – so subtle in fact that none of the troops noticed it and looked up into the twin barrels of the rifles mounted on its vector thrust chassis. It was still ready to fire, but its intimidation value was lost upon them.
"If they want to eat, I know where they can get some oats!" They sniggered a little at Hunter's quip, but kept an eye on the situation outside. Tads squeezed to the edge of the cab until she could see Sergei directly, and started to move her hands a little, shaping the mana as she reached towards his mind. He was surprisingly resilient to her attempt to influence his thought patterns – until she realised that it was probably because he was so drunk. She pressed on, trying to get him to see reason and be amenable to some kind of compromise. She whispered under her breath that she was trying to magically calm him, but that it was hard work. Kai climbed over her, momentarily putting all his weight on her legs as he clambered to the door and breaking her concentration. She grumbled, but then started again, trying a slightly different approach this time, sliding into his thoughts and redirecting his anger elsewhere.
As Kai clambered down the steps he called out loudly.
"Georgi? Is this the solider you were telling me about? The master tactician?" Georgi looked at him in confusion for a moment, lost for words. Sergei turned towards Kai, and looked ready to spit insults at him, until the words started to penetrate the drunken fug and a wide smile formed on his lips, displaying green and rotting teeth by the lights of the truck. "Ahh, the famous Sergei. So tell me, how much was Georgi going to pay you?" Sergei belched, and then mumbled.
"Five hundred for troops, another one hundred for elite commander Sergei."
"Wow, that's a lot of money – but for elite troops, not surprising. Just let me get something from the truck, will you?" Kai clambered up the ladder to the rear door of the cab, then lowered his voice. "Two of the bottles of Vodka please, the really cheap nasty stuff." He waited for them to be passed forward and then clambered down the ladder again, moving slowly with just one hand to grab the rails, whilst the other held the two bottles by the neck.
"Who is this man, Georgi? Sergei does not know him?" Kai shook his head at Georgi a little, hoping he'd get the message, then continued his conversation with the "elite commander".
"Now then Sergei, we're a little low on funds right now, as we had to spend a lot on ammo, you see, fighting off that ambush a little while back. So how about we do you a deal. We still pay you a hundred, because you are the boss, after all. And we put in two hundred for the troops. And alongside that, there's one bottle of excellent quality special label Vodka for you, and another for your troops, so you can all celebrate your victory?" The words oozed out of him, and his body language was a strange mix – non-challenging and non-confrontational, and yet with a surety and sense of confidence that brooked no argument.
Tads' spell took effect, and between the subtle programming of Kai's language and body, and the influence of her spell, Sergei nodded, slowly at first then with more and more enthusiasm. He took the cred and the bottles, and turned to his troops to pay them, forgetting Georgi and these other people. Kai nodded in satisfaction, then ushered Georgi back to the truck, and they remounted and got on their way, before anything else happened. Tads worked to dissipate her spell signature as they pulled away and Hunter and Aswon stayed on top of the truck until they were out of sight, watching as Sergei addressed his men and split out the small bundle of notes between them, and passed over the bottle.
"Thanks Kai, everyone. As you probably gathered, he was supposed to be there much earlier, and I figured he'd just turned into a no-show, that I was going to have to deal with later. I guess they went and spent their up-front money on a case of Vodka by the looks of things…"
"Don't worry about it, Georgi. And if you want to blow off steam about it, you can – we'll quite happily listen to you, as you tell us all about it over dinner, in a nice restaurant, in the nice hotel that we're all staying in tonight." Georgi smiled. "Which you're paying for." The smile froze in place, and he looked around the cab, but saw no sympathy for his position at all.
"Ahh right. Ok." He sighed heavily. "Head for the place where we met for dinner the first time, the hotel on the other corner is pretty good. And I know the owner, I'm sure I can get us some rooms…"
They drove into town quickly, and without incident, and headed for the centre of the city, pulling up in the large city square. There were some people still moving around, heading to or from nightclubs or bars, but it was quiet enough that there was no issue getting there. A quick word from Georgi and a small cash consideration and it was agreed that the truck could stay outside in the square for the night. They checked in, and headed to the restaurant grabbing a quick meal and talking about mostly inconsequential stuff, blowing off steam and not having to pay attention to who might be listening.
After they'd eaten, Marius suggested that he and Nadia should go to a nightclub – but she instead wanted to go to their room to talk, seeming quite insistent. Marius shrugged and headed up with her, finding their small double room easily enough, and settling down with her. She started to pour out her heart to him, describing how she felt during the ambush, afterwards. What was going through her head when she thought she'd killed someone. How she felt. Marius nodded, made sympathetic noises at what he thought was the right time, and tried to look like this was important to him – but Nadia got more and more frustrated with him, getting snappy and snarky at his continued lack of understanding. After a while, Marius held up his hands in a sign of surrender, and said that he was going to go and get a drink, and when he came back, perhaps they could try again.
He slipped out of the room, and headed to the bar, grabbed a bottle of wine and a few glasses and headed back to his room. But, along the way, he fired up his sat-link, locked it on, and paired it with his datajack, feeding the signal through to his display link built into his cyberware. A bit of quick searching as he waited for the lift, and he found a couple of matrix nodes that listed trauma counselling advice, along with a bunch of relationship advice primers. Back in the room, he settled Nadia down with a drink, keyed up the first article and started to talk to her again. This time, with his secret weapon in hand, things seemed to go much better, and he and Nadia talked things through for several hours.
Aswon and Hunter made their excuses and headed off not long after Nadia and Marius, each heading back to their rooms and treating themselves to long hot baths, and then a relatively early night in a decent bed. Tads was not far behind them, though she ended up curled up into a ball, like normal, in one quarter of her bed. Kai stayed up the latest, chatting with Georgi. As the night got late, and people drifted out from the restaurant, Kai gave Georgi a full run down of their pickup of the Golem, and their trip back, including a detailed series of events around the capture team. He also advised Georgi to make enquiries about the warlord up to the north west of Tbilisi and strike some kind of deal with him. Eventually, they too headed off to bed, Kai just tucking in to bed as the clock in the square struck two.
They all slept well, rising in the morning refreshed and feeling a lot better, and certainly cleaner – though the hotel staff would surely be cursing their names when they came to clean their rooms later. But, by 9am they had breakfasted and got back into the truck, threading their way out of the city and heading south east, driving against the morning traffic.
The journey down the E60 went smoothly, leading them across the Trans Caucasus League into former Azerbaijan. As they travelled, they discussed their plans, working out what they were going to do for the new few weeks. Kai raised that he really wanted to set down some roots, perhaps start on a base of operations, and how they'd need to get someone competent and trustworthy to manage it – listing a whole bunch of criteria for skills and talents that Nadia had demonstrated. He talked for a while, trying to lay the seeds in her, and everyone else's minds that it would need a full time manager to keep things running along smoothly, and watched her carefully to see her reaction.
Satisfied that the pump was primed, Kai suggested that they head to the Estara Horse Ranch, just north of Shirvan. The folks there seemed nice, and it was remote and had plenty of space – and while it was a little way from Baku, that made it much safer for Nadia and meant she was unlikely to run into her family. Hunter plotted the route, and they rumbled down the highways, making pretty good time and arrived at the ranch a little after dinnertime.
When they arrived, Rusudan was out working in the field to one side of the driveway. He spotted the truck, and greeted them with an enthusiastic wave, breaking out into a jog and heading to the house, shouting for his wife and children to come out. As Marius pulled the truck around, they lined up on the veranda, like the staff of the house greeting the returning lord of the manor.
They broke the ice with Rusudan, and found that he, his wife Naena, daughter Eteri and son Vardo were all reasonably well. They glossed over how they were doing, quickly, declining to say what they'd been up to recently. In chatting, they found that while Rusudan had originally been left alone for a week after the team had dealt with the mafia protection racket, since then they'd had a few people nosing around – Rusudan wondered if they were planning on staying?
"Do you know what, Rusudan? I think we might stay for a while around here. Why don't we see if we can sort this little problem out for you, and after that, we'll talk." Kai beamed at him, whilst Hunter translated his speech into Azerbaijani.
