“Dad,” Wesley hissed, trying to get a glimpse of him over his shoulder. Dad was leaned forward, his wrists strained above his head, his back exposed and covered in ointment, but it was hard to tell the ointment from the puss of the infection.
He groaned.
“Dad,” Wesley tried again.
“I can’t,” Dad said, groaning a second time.
“Yes, you can,” Wesley said, spitting, his neck strained already from everything else. Every muscle was sore. He couldn’t imagine how his dad must have been feeling. “Can you just touch your forehead to your arm? Check for fever?”
“No.”
Dad’s head lolled forward again, slipping in and out of consciousness.
What could Wesley do? He had finally enlisted as a soldier, and in the span of a few weeks, he had lost the man that was going to train him, almost been blown up by a terrorist attack and been taken hostage. He needed a plan. He needed to focus.
Mom’s sharp advice came to mind—when you’re fighting an enemy bigger than you, use your environment.
With the sugar and the carbs of the pastry giving him some strength, Wesley analyzed what was around him. Sink to his right and wall to his left. His father behind him, strung up to the metal towel ring that could probably be pulled out of the wall with enough effort, but Dad wasn’t strong enough for that. Under the sink, there was a cabinet, but he couldn’t reach the silver handles with his hands like this.
The burns on his ankles and feet were at least healing. It wasn’t infected like Dad’s.
He reached with his toes to the cabinet, trying to grasp at the handle with his feet. Cupping his body around the toilet, he managed to wedge his toe under the bottom of the cabinet door. He pulled. It opened slightly and then closed again, just out of his reach. Again. Toe under the door, pulling, yanking, and bouncing shut. Pull and shut.
Wesley let out a frustrated grunt as the back of his ankle reminded him of the pain that had singed through him at Ratanake’s funeral.
He wasn’t strong enough for this. Not yet. But a couple more pastries and Wesley could do it; he could get into the cabinet. Maybe, it wouldn’t help him. Maybe, there would be nothing useful under the sink, but he had to keep moving forward. He couldn’t give up and die like Dad was doing. Stay alive. That was the focus he needed—keep him and Dad alive for as long as he could. For now, that meant laying his head down on the back of the toilet and resting because he was tired from just extending his leg. But tomorrow or the next day—or whatever made up the time between day and night, Wesley didn’t know anymore—he would make his move.
Chapter 11
Diana Weick
Dawson City, Yukon
The Jeep pulled off on a gravel road. Both Zabójca and David got out and continued their journey on foot, black bags on their back, one that looked like a particularly big and nasty piece of machinery. The Readers had way too many people working for them on the inside, distributing information and weapons like they were the royal gunned-up disciples of American military reform.
They watched from their own rented SUV, keeping an eye with Amber’s monocular by passing it between the two of them. Taras was in the backseat, picking at a to-go container filled with french fries that were making the whole car smell like oil.
“They’re going on foot,” Amber noted.
“Over those mountains there.” Diana pointed to a low mountain range. “You guys ready for a hike?”
Her eyes moved to Taras in the rear-view mirror as he looked himself up and down, brushing off any crumbs from his food, scratching at his beard. Diana wouldn’t say that he had “let himself go,” but he certainly started caring less about the way he presented himself. In all the other times she’d seen and fought him, he’d taken the utmost care to ensure his shirts were freshly pressed, his face was clean-shaven, and his hair was well-styled.
“I could stay in the car, yes?” Taras asked, leaning forward.
“No,” Diana and Amber said at the same time.
The three of them followed the Readers up a black-stone trail, keeping a fair distance and their hoods and hats up despite the sun beating down overhead. Diana had expected cold, a chill, but the summer was relentless, a hot stifling day to stop another assassination attempt on a military official.
At the edge of a cliff, Zabójca and David prepared their weapons, looking down over an expansive valley. There was a clear lake in the middle of a ring of expensive cabins. The water reflected so much of what was around it that it made it hard to discern where the edge of the lake really was. Along the road in, the community was lined with budding wildflowers, purple and pink lilies and delphiniums. Diana had once planted a garden at home with the same flowers and then had proceeded to forget about it and let it all die. It was nice to see what could have been in a setting like this one.
“Oh Christ,” Amber muttered as he dropped the monocular and handed it over to Diana. “Check out that bloody monster.”
AirTronic GS-777—lightweight rocket-launcher. Diana recognized it from a previous SEAL mission with Snowman and Laird, crawling across the flat tundra of Russia, overlooking one of Kushkin’s trafficking hubs. Diana went in for the hostages, gave her signal when they were safe, and Snowman blew a gaping hole in the side of the building to get them out with two rockets from 800 meters away. That was only a few weeks before they had gone back in to take down the rest of the operation by putting a bullet in Kushkin’s head.
Taras was crouched next to her, and Diana tried not to show the memories of
