Dirty Little Wars 01: Moscow

THE BARGAIN

We cross the border before dawn and join a small convoy of Ukie ATO supply trucks heading west. They drop us at a clearing beyond the checkpoints, a frozen field scattered with rubble and surrounded by trees. A private med-evac helicopter has been chartered to pick us up here, but clearances to land in the ATO zone take time, so we wait for hours.

Marek is on-task, keeping Irusya warm under the canvas shade they've strung between the trees to protect her from the falling snow. He barely glances in my direction as he manages all things great and small, but I can feel him there, nothing between us forgotten. I find a place to sit away from all of them, hoping for a moment of peace.

It works for a while, but then I hear crunching footfalls in the snow behind me, and Lucjan appears from the winter cold. Whatever expectations he had for us—or this—are gone, replaced by something else. He crouches down beside me, and he's quiet, watching the sky with me for a moment that seems to last for hours.

"He's grim," he says finally, alluding to Marek. "The two of you have... an impressively open relationship. I wish I'd known about it before."

I don't answer. What is there to say?

"Still, I can see why it works," he adds. "Maintaining that important distance, but still having someone, right?"

"He understands me."

"Does he?" he asks, his dark eyes set on the tree line. "You're that honest with him? You tell him everything he needs to know?"

It doesn't sound like a question. It sounds like an accusation.

"I spent last night reading an encrypted data file," Lucjan continues. "Over a hundred pages. It was your full background investigation, including a lot of related intel that got buried, a few leads and connections that no one has bothered to look at in years, until this incident...until my report flagged you for review. You never told me what kind of trouble you're really in. I'm guessing you haven't told him either."

I shake my head. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Zoya..." He grimaces as if my denial is forcing him to do something he didn't want to do. "Does he know that the men who killed your brothers also mutilated their bodies, and sent the photos of their crimes to your mother on the tenth anniversary of their deaths? Does he know that those photos are what prompted her to take her own life?"

I clench my teeth, enduring the blow. "Why would I have told him that?"

"You don't think it's important?"

"No."

"No? Even though—just four years ago—you also received an envelope of pictures, which led you to believe that the same people are still tracking you? Isn't that why you keep Irina's true identity a secret? You protect her, but not him? Marek doesn't need to know what kind of killers they are?"

"Their vendetta isn't against him."

Lucjan frowns, and looks down at his hands, as if he knows the situation is far more complicated than that. "There was more in the file, more that we know. It's raw... not much... not definitive, and all from third parties. We don't know why your family was killed, but we've heard about the group that may have been responsible. Nothing solid, though we're certain that the men who murdered your family members were Spetsnaz veterans, and we suspect they were recruited by individuals far richer than your father ever was, individuals with no genuine allegiance to Russia, or any other state. We have SIGINT data that indicates they are still operational, and still interested in you. We believe they haven't decided whether they want to eliminate you or not. We know, however, that they've discussed it. We suspect that they think you're too close to the truth about them, or whatever leverage your father had over them. It doesn't make sense otherwise."

"Leverage?"

"It's a guess," he admits. "But our analysts now believe that you're a lot closer to our high-value international targets than we previously realized, and there's a desire to restructure your contract."

I know what is coming, and I don't want to hear it.