They truly were monsters, Chang thought. The most disturbing of them, though, was the small, maskless commando. He had a tiny cut over his right eye but was smiling and wildly gesticulating, replaying the battle that had just ended. He seemed to be enjoying it all.
The men conferred briefly, and the one in the white mask slowly drifted over to the camera and tapped a bloody stake on the screen. He held up three fingers and began counting them down. Three. Two. One.
Alone, Chang didn’t know what else to do. He let the monsters in.
Honolulu, Hawaii Special Administrative Zone
“It itches, right? That’s the thing with amputation, they say. Not the pain, but the itch.”
Markov was doing exactly what she wanted. As far as Carrie could tell, he would have been happy to oblige her, even without the muzzle of the pistol that she’d lifted from the guard pressed against his kidney. They drove slowly through the dark night in his mottled green-and-gray Geely SUV, the Russian glancing over at her whenever the road straightened. It was not lust or fear; she knew those looks well. It was more a sort of scientific curiosity.
They drove past a parking lot full of Directorate vehicles. It looked familiar, and she recognized it as where she’d listened to jazz in the APC.
“You’re taking us the long way,” Carrie hissed. “If we’re not there soon, I’ll —”
“You’ll what? Kill me with that gun because you’re in a hurry?” said Markov. He drove on, stopping briefly at the corner of Queen and Ward, just across from the Alto Café.
“I am sure you don’t want to kill me just yet, especially with that gun. That wouldn’t feel right, yes? So if you can give me a little bit of your time, I will take you to what you really want. Or, rather, who you really want.”
He drove on, humming to himself. They passed by Addiction, the nightclub attached to the Modern, the hotel where she had strangled that naval officer in the bathroom three weeks ago. At the next intersection, he turned to look at her.
“Where to next? Maybe the hotel? Or did you kill any at your home?” He laughed. “My, how that would surprise your neighbors. You know they all think you are a traitor who enjoys our company.”
“Whatever. They can think what they want,” she said.
“So, if you’re not a traitor, then you’re a predator? You kill only the healthy? A wicked insurgent princess of the night wearing a red, white, and blue cape?”
“The flag’s got little to do with me,” she said. “I just want everything back the way it was.”
“You mean you want to be back the way you were? Before the war?” said Markov. “What was that like? All I know is the pictures from your file that I see on the hologrid. There’s nothing of Carrie Shin’s heart or soul there.”
“You’re not looking hard enough,” she said.
“I doubt that,” said Markov, chuckling.
She put her pistol on her lap and watched him with a slight twist of her head, as if sizing up a target.
“You should put the safety on if it’s just going to sit there,” said Markov. “For both our sakes.”
“I guess you’re a professional,” said Shin. “Through and through?”
“You stick with something long enough and it’s what you become. But you’re certainly no amateur at this,” said Markov. “This war was waiting for somebody like you. Or were you waiting for the war? Did it make you, or was it already there, just waiting to be released?”
“You talk too much. You said it yourself, we are all changed by war,” said Carrie. “Some more than others.”
“The war is all about you, then? Did it take something important from you?” asked Markov. “There are many who feel that way. Maybe you are not as unique as I thought.”
He slowed the car to a walking pace as they passed by Duke’s, overflowing with drunk sailors, marines, and soldiers. He slammed the brakes to avoid running into a short, stocky sailor who’d dropped to one knee to throw up in the intersection.
“Perhaps we can test it. Should I let you out here, perhaps?” said Markov. “I think you’d quickly make new friends again, maybe visit old ghosts?”
She didn’t reply, but she adjusted her wig in the side mirror as if slightly tempted by his offer. As she did so, Markov spotted the cut marks on her forearms.
“The cutting, did it start before or after your loss?” said Markov. “You know, it won’t stop, even if all of them go back home. What are you going to do then?” He winced as the pistol’s muzzle pressed into his rib cage.
“Your little tour is over,” she said. “The next stop better be where we agreed or you really will be dead. I won’t enjoy it, but I’ll do it.”
He nodded and kept driving, humming to himself as they headed through the night. After ten minutes, he made another turn and pulled the car to the side of the road.
“We’re here,” he said, pointing to the first security checkpoint outside the Directorate headquarters complex. “You sure you want to do this?”
Carrie nodded and climbed into the back seat. She pulled out a pair of metal handcuffs.
“Cuff me,” she said. “Gently.”
Ehukai Beach, Oahu, Hawaii Special Administrative Zone
“Peaches, I think you better introduce yourself to Major Doyle,” Duncan said, still holding the knife to Conan’s throat. Conan kept the rifle pointed at the forehead of the man in the dirt.
“Major, I am introduced to be Lieutenant Pietor Nowak of Jednostka Wojskowa Formoza.” He reached up a hand to shake, but Conan kept the rifle trained on him.
“Polish navy special operations. He’s our ride,” Duncan said, slowly pulling the knife away from her throat.
“I must compliment you on your tradecraft, Major,” the figure in the dirt said. “Now could you remove, please, the gun?”
“I’m not buying this shit,” Conan said, keeping the gun on him. “Why the mind games? There’s no one left in the NSM. Just kill me and get it over with. But he’s going to die with me.” She jabbed the figure with the tip of the barrel.
Duncan walked over and knelt beside the figure on the ground, sheathing his knife and putting himself in Conan’s line of fire.
“No mind games, Major; a lot has changed. The Directorate cracked how to track our nuke subs. So we had to find a new sub. Or, rather, a shitty old rust bucket that runs on diesel.”
“You should not make the fun of the Orzel,” said the man in the dirt. “She is wonderful ship; she got us here, did she not?”
Duncan turned to him.
“Wonderful? I know you had it hard here, Major,” he said, looking back at Conan, “but try spending two months on an old Kilo-class sub transiting from the Baltic to the Pacific. God, the smells. Not the diesel, mind you; the fumes from the crew eating only borscht, pierogi, and smoked cheese. Worst cruise of my life. Going to have words with the travel agent when I get back to Dam Neck.”
“I thought NATO imploded and wouldn’t give us help. That’s what the Directorate propaganda said,” said Conan.
“It did. The Poles, though, didn’t like how things were playing out and came to a private agreement to loan us the services of their shitty little ship and stick it to the Russians along the way.”
“And what did the Poles get in exchange?” Conan asked, her body starting to ease, the rifle lowering.
“A very good deal,” Nowak said.
“Major, you’re looking at an officer in the world’s newest nuclear power. That’s what they got. A crappy old diesel-powered Kilo-class submarine that’s untrackable from space and shows up on sonar as Russian. And Peaches, of course. All that in exchange for ten B-eighty-three one-point-two-megaton nuclear bombs. The Nuclear Lend-Lease is what the planners call it.”