The room didn’t look all that bad. There was a bed with clean sheets, a side table with a plastic pitcher of water, and a plastic tumbler. A sheepskin rug was on the tiled floor, a minimalist bathroom off to one side of the bed. No, not bad at all, except for the fact that one of her ankles was in a shackle.
Maia looked at the bed apprehensively and saw more shackles attached to the headboard and the foot of the bed. This was a kink room.
They had been ambushed on their way to the Volynksy stronghold of Samara. They had no idea how Gavlik’s men knew they were coming. Fortunately, none of the Guardians were killed. Manning had been injured, but she was assured that he was receiving medical treatment. Maia called a ceasefire when she realized they were outnumbered and that it would be suicide to fight back. Better to live to fight another day.
The door opened and Mikhail Gavlik walked in. He had silver hair and was a couple of inches taller than Maia. He was in his mid-fifties and had a slight paunch in his stomach. He was dressed casually in corduroy and a wool jacket, but Maia caught a glimpse of a sidearm.
“Ah, my lovely houseguest. I trust your accommodations are to your liking?” he said in a slightly-accented, cultured voice. His dark eyes coldly appraised Maia’s body which lent credence to the rumors that she had heard that he was gay. There was no lust in those obsidian eyes, just a calculating malevolence.
“I’ve seen better,” Maia replied sweetly.
“You can learn to curb your insolence,” Gavlik warned scathingly. “You have a beautiful face, it would be a shame to ruin it. Now, I have been told that the DEA has something that is mine. I believe your dear friend can procure it for me.”
“In exchange for our release?”
“Just your three friends. I think I’d like to keep you to trade for something else,” Gavlik replied, again appraising her body.
“For what?” Maia’s eyes turned wary.
“The timing of your arrival is impeccable. You just solved a pressing dilemma. I have a sheik who loves redheads, and you have the most amazing skin.” Gavlik lightly caressed her face as she tried hard not to flinch.
“I think I’m a bit past the bloom for the perverts you do business with,” Maia retorted.
Without warning, Gavlik grabbed her throat painfully. “I do not want to mark your lovely body, but I have little patience for your backtalk. Ilara will come in and get you ready.”
“Get me ready for what?”
“A little incentive I’m sending Viktor Baran.”
The situation room at the AGS headquarters was filled with analysts and Guardians.
When Jack showed up for the meeting, Viktor pulled him into his office.
“Look, McCord, I’m not surprised that you wanted to take Lockwood’s place. I’m used to working with Derek and we’re familiar with each other’s play. I trust that your years as a SEAL will come in handy, but I will not let you play heroics and get any of my men killed.”
“I know what’s at stake here,” Jack replied curtly.
“Just as long as we’re on the same page. We both want to get her back. I know you two were having problems, but I expected that. The question is, is your shit sorted out?”
“It is, Viktor. I’m 100% committed to her,” Jack said. “But know this: after we get her back, I’m going to persuade her to leave this life. It’ll be easier for her if I were to make the decisions on her safety next time. The further away she is from your influence, the better. But whatever she decides, I’m with her. Got it?”
Viktor smiled wolfishly and said, “Fair enough, McCord.”
Viktor was standing at the head of the table with an image of a three-level building on a widescreen monitor behind him.
“Mikhail Gavlik’s compound is in the city of Orenburg Oblast, which is on the Ural River, 918 miles from Moscow. The plan is to take a Gulfstream 550 to Germany and from Germany to Kurumoch Airport in Samara, Russia. From there we’re using three modified Black Hawks to fly into the Volynsky stronghold to pick up their commandos. There we refuel and fly into Orenburg. The Russians agreed to turn a blind eye to our incursion. But the less time we spend in their airspace, the better.”
“How do we know for sure our people are there?” a Guardian spoke up.
“Thanks to McCord Defense Industries here,” Viktor pointed to Jack. “We were able to inject our people with tracking serums. They function like a biological beacon that binds to the person’s blood stream. It is untraceable by any device right now except the proprietary one made by MDI. We have assets on the ground right now with the tracking device and they confirm that all four of our people are in that compound.”
“Viktor,” a voice came over intercom. “I have a live feed from Mikhail Gavlik. He wants a meeting with you.”
Chatter exploded in the room. Jack felt himself tensing up as he anticipated catching a glimpse of the man who had taken Maia.
“Quiet!” Viktor ordered, and told everyone, except one analyst and another Guardian, to leave the room.
“I’m staying,” Jack said stonily.
“Fine,” Viktor barked. “But you keep your mouth shut and let me do the talking.”
Jack nodded as Viktor gave the go ahead.
Mikhail Gavlik appeared on the widescreen.
“Viktor Baran,” Gavlik purred. “I believe I have a couple of your people.”
“I want proof of life,” Viktor said steadily.
“You are in no position to make demands,” Gavlik snapped. “You’re as arrogant as that redhead.”
Jack’s mouth tightened. Damn Maia, probably mouthing off again.
“What do you want?”
“I want you to get me the formula for the Rave-IX from the DEA.”
“And you’ll let my people go?”
“I’ll let three of them go. I’m keeping the redhead.”
“The hell you are!” Viktor responded acidly.
Jack’s hands tightly gripped the arms of his chair to keep from reacting.
“Ah, she is important to you,” Gavlik noted with interest.
“All my people are important to me. How do I know they’re even alive?”
Gavlik nodded to someone and the screen split. One showed a cell-block with three of the Guardians whom Jack recognized as Edmunds, Manning and Chavez from Brett’s protective custody. Maia was on the other screen and appeared to be in a regular room, but with shackles on one of her ankles. She was wearing harem pants and swaths of silk fabric covering her breasts, but her midriff was bare. Her gorgeous red hair was crowned with intricate beads of a harem headdress. She was shivering, obviously feeling cold in what she was wearing.
“What the fuck?” Viktor bit out, exactly echoing Jack’s sentiments. The screen switched back to Gavlik. “Why the hell is Agent Pierce dressed that way?”
“First of all, she is being punished for her insolence,” Gavlik said with a sadistic curl to his lips that made Jack’s blood run cold. “Second, if I don’t see any proof that you have the formula in your hands in 24 hours, I have a very rich sheik who has been after me to find him a redhead. I must say your Agent Pierce fits the bill perfectly. A little older than our standard virginal offerings, but she more than makes up for it with her exquisite beauty and spirit. My client will enjoy taming this one, such fire… I must warn you, once he gets his hands on her she will disappear into his harem forever.”
With that, the videoconference connection was severed.
Viktor swore violently while Jack exploded out of his chair and started pacing the room barely restraining himself from putting his fists through the wall. He stopped in front of Viktor.
“We have to leave now!” Jack growled.
“Calm down. We have to run through a tactical exercise first with everyone involved,” Viktor said, although his voice was far from calm—Gavlik had obviously rankled him.
“He better not touch her, I’ll kill him.”
“He won’t touch her,” an analyst spoke up. “At least not in the way you think he will. Gavlik prefers young boys.”
Jack’s mouth fell open. “He’s a pedophile?”
The analyst nodded.
“Sick fuck,” Jack muttered.
The three Black Hawks landed in a huge facility near the outskirts of Samara. Jack, Viktor and six other Guardians alighted from the imposing military choppers and met their Russian host, Alexsey Volynsky. He was flanked by an Italian-looking commando.
“Viktor, I am so pleased to finally meet you,” Volynsky greeted them with an anxious look on his face.
As they made their way towards one of the outbuildings, Viktor made the introductions as Volynsky introduced Erik Costa, the leader of their faction.
“I am troubled to hear about Agent Pierce,” Volynsky said gravely. “I fear it is my fault that she got into this mess. But she is one of the best I’ve seen. Fearless, that one.”
Jack grunted in disapproval.
Erik glanced sharply at Jack. “I’ve had the pleasure of working with her, I think you need to show some respect.”
It had been a long, tedious trip, and Jack’s patience wasn’t exactly all there, so he got into Erik’s face and snarled, “Look, man, I’ve worked with Maia and I know her more than you think I do, so back … the… hell… off!”
“Jack…” Viktor admonished.
Before Erik could retort, Volynksy said, “Jack, Maia’s Jack?” Alexsey walked back and clasped his hands.
“Maia mentioned me?” Jack whispered dazely.
Volynsky nodded. “I wanted her to stay longer so we can plan our offensive against Gavlik which would take another few weeks, but she said she had not quite left things right between you two and asked for a week to…” Volynsky saw Jack’s stricken face. “It wasn’t fixed?”
Jack shook his head, unable to speak. He felt sick. Maia left in the middle of a mission to set things right with him and he broke up with her. How could she forgive him?
Erik clapped Jack on the back, “We’ll get her back, man.”
Jack didn’t expect to get any sleep with all the anticipation thrumming through his veins, but he managed to disassociate himself and find that zen place to regroup and take a restorative break. By the time the men gathered in the courtyard at 1:00 a.m., his mind was sharp and his heart rate steady.
Viktor was able to keep Gavlik at bay by showing him that he had a copy of the formula of the Rave-IX. After that, he had cut off all communication as they made their way across the Atlantic in the Gulfstream 550.
The choppers were fired up, ready for the rescue mission. There were approximately thirty armed men at the Gavlik compound. Erik Costa was adding twelve men to Viktor’s eight. They were slightly outnumbered, but it was believed that the incursion team was better-trained.
“We’ll be cruising at 160 miles per hour,” Viktor announced. “We should be on target site right before zero three hundred hours. Our birds are outfitted with anti-radar detection and we’ll be flying low to the ground. As a recap of our playbook: Alpha team will fast-rope down to the roof. Bravo team chopper will provide cover fire and will provide backfill if necessary. Team Charlie will fast-rope to the courtyard and will proceed to rescue the Guardians from the cell block. The whereabouts of Agent Pierce in the three-story building is unkown. Alpha team will do that search and rescue. No detainees. Gavlik is shoot to kill. Any questions?”
Everybody grunted their agreement as they dispersed to their respective choppers.
Maia wrapped herself with the only blanket available to her. It was winter in Russia and she was dressed like Jabba the Hut’s harem girl. Damn Gavlik and his perversions, and her own smart mouth that had earned her this punishment. She tried to bury her cold nose in the pillows. It was damn hard to sleep when one was shivering with cold.
At first she thought she was dreaming when she heard the blunt rhythm of the rotor blades of a chopper. Temperature-controlled torture had been known to cause hallucinations. Then she heard shouts, rapid footfalls and bursts of gunfire. And then the alarms went off.
What was happening? Who was attacking? Erik?
Volynsky must have procured some helicopters for an air assault, because from what Maia had seen, the 30 foot walls of the compound were hard to breach.
Wide awake now, Maia tugged on the cold chain that was attached to the manacle on her ankle. She knew she may be used as a shield or as blackmail but she was prepared to fight.
Jack and Viktor led the assault of the Alpha team on the roof. Bravo team was doing a good job of keeping the shooters down to a minimum by raking bullets on the hostiles with their M4-carbines on fully automatic. Jack fast-roped onto the roof, landing with more than 40-lbs of gear strapped to his body. As each man landed on the flat roof, they formed a loose line along the wall leading to the entrance of the building. One of Viktor’s men knelt and set the breaching charge over the metal door. Everyone hunkered down as the portal was blown apart.
Bright light broke through as well as a spray of gunfire. Jack flicked up his night-vision goggles as another Alpha team member threw a grenade into the entrance to pave the way for their assault.
As soon as the grenade exploded, there was a brief stoppage of gunfire inside and that’s when Alpha team swiftly moved in.
A man on Jack’s team provided cover fire while he and the other five men disappeared into the building. Once they were clear, the man assumed sniper position.
Viktor took the top floor with one man while Jack headed down to the second floor with another, a guy named Brock. The fifth guy guarded the stairwell to backfill just in case. Erik, the leader of Charlie team crackled through comms to inform them that they had also breached the first floor.
Jack ran into a hostile at the base of the second-floor stairwell. A bullet zinged past his head, which pissed him off, but he calmly squeezed two shots off to take down the other guy.
A barrage of bullets followed from the opposite side of the hallway, raining bits of plaster on them. Jack snuck a look down the hallway to check the number of doors. Three on the left, four on the right; it was a long-ass hallway.
Gavlik’s men were not using suppressed firearms which would make their muzzle flashes easy to detect in the dark, so Jack pointed out the florescent lights on the ceiling to Brock indicating what he intended to do.
Jack shot out the lights and plunged the hallway into darkness. He and Brock quickly flipped down their night-vision goggles.
Jack signaled to Brock to cover him while he advanced along the hallway. At his nod, well-aimed shots took down the hostiles systematically at the other end. Jack quickly kicked down the door of the first room on the right. When it was cleared, his partner moved forward as he provided cover fire.
As expected, the hostiles became easy targets when their muzzle flashes revealed their positions.
After a couple of minutes, it was down to the last gunman.
There was a lull in the shooting when Jack heard a door crash, a distinct female voice curse and the sound of a scuffle. The commotion was happening in the last room on the right, from which light spilled into the hallway.
“Let go, you son of a bitch!”
Maia! Jack’s heart leaped to his throat. He looked at Brock and nodded for him to be on the lookout. Jack slung back his carbine and drew his semi-automatic pistol. Flipping his night-vision goggles up, he concentrated on his pistol’s front sight and turned into the room with his gun raised in a modified-weaver position. The remaining hostile had a gun to Maia’s head and was screaming that he would shoot her if he didn’t back off.
Jack vaguely registered her startled gasp as she recognized him, but her eyes were calm. She suddenly flashed three fingers over her abdomen and then started to count down three, two… damn it, Maia…
… one…
She broke free and dropped. Jack squeezed the trigger.
Maia felt the man behind her go down even as she noticed Jack surging towards her. He came for her! She couldn’t believe her eyes, couldn’t fathom that he was there.
“Maia, God, Maia!” Jack said hoarsely as his warm body hit hers and she was crushed into those familiar arms that had curled into her so many times.
“Jack …you came for me,” her words came out as a sob as emotions threatened to overwhelm her. Get a grip, Pierce, she berated herself. They were not out of the woods yet.
“I’ll always come for you, babe,” Jack whispered tenderly. His eyes dropped to her shackles and suddenly became alert as he looked around the rest of the room.
He pulled the chain taut and ordered her to look away as he snapped a round into the metal links to separate them.
Maia quickly ran to the dresser to change into her own clothes as she divested herself of the harem attire.
“Hurry up,” Jack urged her as he peered down the hallway, giving the all-clear to his partner.
“I’ve secured Pierce,” he said through comms.
“Copy that,” Viktor replied. “Alpha team rendezvous to position A for pick-up.”
Jack walked over to Maia and handed her a nine-millimeter. “You ready, babe?”
She nodded, still not believing that he was here.
“Stay close.”
It looked like all the hostiles from the second and third floor had been eliminated. There was a heavy din of a firefight that was coming from the first floor. This was punctuated with bouts of shouting.
“Shouldn’t we help them?” Maia asked as she made a move to go downstairs. She ran into Jack’s out-thrust arm catching her around the waist and holding her tightly against him.
“No! Damn it, will you follow orders for a change?” Jack growled as he lugged her up the stairs where they ran into Viktor.
“Third floor is all clear,” Viktor said.
“What about Edmunds and the others?” Maia asked with concern.
“They’re fighting their way out right now,” Viktor said.
“We have to help them!” Maia said fiercely as she shook free of Jack’s hold and made a move to go down the stairs.
“No!” Viktor and Jack yelled simultaneously as each man took hold of her arms on either side and hauled her towards the waiting Black Hawk.
“What the fuck?” Maia shouted back. “Those are my men, I’m responsible!”
She was surrounded by damn Neanderthals, Maia thought furiously.
“Not anymore,” Viktor informed her as he observed the mulish set of her jaw. “Some men from team Bravo are on their way to provide backup. Edmunds and the rest will be fine. Gavlik’s men are giving up. Don’t worry, Maia.”
Jack bundled her into the chopper and got in behind her holding her so tight she couldn’t breath.
“Jack, you’re suffocating me,” Maia complained. He loosened his arms only to have his lips come down on hers in a deep, searching, hungry kiss ignoring all the other occupants in the chopper.
Maia was red-faced, not used to this PDA in front of people she worked with. And then she remembered something.
“Wait a minute: we’re broken up, remember?” Maia whispered.
“I think that was more like a lover’s spat, babe,” Jack murmured huskily. His voice was so warm and gentle, Maia had trouble remembering why she had been mad at him in first place. Besides, he had crossed the Atlantic to rescue her.
Erik Costa took the kill shot that finished Mikhail Gavlik. In some way, he was able to avenge his mother. Edmunds, Manning and Chavez were able to get out with the help of team Bravo. With the death of their pakhan and with the imminent return of Volynsky, the rest of the Gavlik crime family abandoned their posts and disappeared into the woods of Orenburg.
“So what now?” Maia asked Alexsey Volynksy. They were back at the Samara compound, refueling the choppers and saying their farewells.
“Gavlik’s bratva is being dismantled. Your FBI had been working for years to weaken it. With Gavlik and Reznikov gone, no one is keen to take over,” Volynsky said. “As for GAV-VOL Pharmaceuticals, I had legal proceedings started to have it renamed Volynsky Pharmaceuticals and plan to restore the business to respectability. Any board member who had supported Gavlik in the development of the Rave-IX will be prosecuted.”
“It’s over then,” Maia said.
“Thanks to you,” Volynsky replied as he clasped both of her hands and brought them to his lips in gratitude. “If you need my help for anything, anything at all, Agent Pierce, you know how to contact me.”
Jack came up to them and looked at Maia. “You ready?”
Maia nodded and hugged Volynsky goodbye.
They landed in Kumuroch Airport at noon.
They were lingering in a private hangar waiting for their plane to pass flight check; Maia eyed the Gulfstream 550. “So who did you bribe to get this?” she asked Viktor.
“Compliments of the State Department,” he answered with a grin.
“I’m feeling honored,” Maia laughed.
Viktor threw his arm around her and walked her away from the other Guardians. Jack was surreptitiously watching them.
“Katerina, you gave me a fright with this one,” Viktor told her. “I wasn’t sure how to get you back.”
“How were you able to find us anyway? Not even Erik’s men knew the location of Gavlik’s fortress,” Maia said.
“You have your boyfriend to thank for that one. He’s still your boyfriend, right?” Viktor asked with a sly grin.
“Hmph, not so sure yet. We have a lot to talk about.”
“Remember the vaccination you received in December?”
“Yes?”
“Well, it wasn’t for the flu. That was a tracking serum that MDI had developed. It’s a biological tracking device. The signal is in your bloodstream.”
“What? Who makes shit like that?” Maia asked in amazement. “Wait, I’m not going to be trackable forever, am I?”
“It’s like a self-kill virus. It disappears in six months. That stuff saved your life. Jack was so worried about protecting you, he offered it to AGS for free. We’re definitely going to place an order for our agents. It’s untraceable by other devices.”
Maia was impressed. She stole a glance at Jack, who was still watching them anxiously.
“Maia, I’ve always thought you can take care of yourself,” Viktor said gently. “But Jack McCord is a good man. We may have had our differences and I know you had that recent blow-up, but give him a chance, I think he gets you. He may be an overprotective ass sometimes, but you do need that. Actually, I saw his point earlier.”
Maia scowled as she remembered the two of them hauling her to the chopper.
“Can’t believe you’re defending a man in my life,” Maia grumbled.
Viktor snorted. “Come on, we’re leaving soon.”
They approached the rowdy group that was now filing onto the plane. Maia guessed the huge success of the mission had put everyone in a celebratory mood.
Jack came up to her and pulled her aside.
“We’re not going with them,” he informed her.
“What do you mean? I don’t want to stay here.”
“Babe, what do you think of Paris?”
“What?”
“We’ll fly straight from here, I have a charter on standby.”
“Are you nuts?”
Jack curled an arm around her and kissed her nose.
“I couldn’t be any more serious and we have lots of things to discuss.”
“Oh, yeah, that,” Maia retorted sarcastically.
“Are you going to hold that over my head forever?” Jack sighed.
“Maybe. But I must say you have one heck of a way of making up for it.”
“Well, about Paris?”
“Jack, I don’t have my clothes and my real passport.”
“I have that covered.”
“What? You broke into my house?”
“No, I had Laurie buy you a new set of clothes before we came for you.”
Maia was having a hard time processing this. “You bought me a whole new wardrobe?”
“Yeah.”
“Before you even knew the outcome of the mission.”
“Babe, any outcome other than you coming home with me was unacceptable.”
Maia shook her head in disbelief. “And my passport?”
Jack shrugged, “Viktor gave it to me.”
“Viktor gave it… ?” Maia was baffled. “Since when did you and Viktor become such buddies?”
Jack chuckled. “Well, babe? Paris?”
“Oh, all right, since you went through so much trouble.”
Jack looked like he had hit the lottery and went off to finalize the arrangements with the charter company.
Maia shook her head and turned her phone on to listen to her messages. Her phone gave a rapid beep as the voice message notification filled up her phone. Holy crap, twenty voice messages from Jack?
She started to listen. And some from Derek, Jack’s assistant Laurie and Jack’s mom, all of whom, Maia was sure, had been put up to by Jack.
She got a bit teary-eyed listening to some of Jack’s messages. He was truly scared for her and had reacted in anger and she had also not handled leaving for Russia that first time properly either. After spending such a wonderful month together, she had treated him like crap, which she had realized in the weeks that followed. She had nearly destroyed him; good thing they found their way back to each other. And she was surprised how she was now willing to trust Jack with all of her.
They certainly did have a lot of things to talk about.
He loped back to her with a big smile on his face. It looked like everything was set with their trip to Paris.
Seeing her face, Jack frowned, “What?”
“Just listened to my messages,” Maia said waving her phone at him. “You are such a stalker.”
Jack’s laughter filled the hangar as he pulled her into his arms.
