“This is going to impact the lodging I had set up for the Baltic Wings Festival near the airport, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Yeah, it probably is,” Lars answered. “And I can’t guarantee it won’t affect any of your other bookings with the huge amount of influx coming in.”
“Damn. This is going to be really inconvenient for both of us, then,” Klara replied.
Lars put his head into his hands. “It’s going to be a
“Aw, I’m so sorry all of this is coming down on you all at once,” Klara responded soothingly. She stood up and gave him a hug from behind before massaging Lars’s shoulders.
Although she did her best to play the role of empathetic and dutiful girlfriend, she had moved behind him partly so she wouldn’t have to work as hard to control her face. Her thoughts were spiraling. Eight of her operatives had confirmed lodging near the airport. Vidhave was only fifteen minutes west by car. If Alpha Company was taking over the area, that entire plan was compromised. Worse, the Patriot unit and their support teams would make any movement toward the airfield a much riskier proposition.
Lars slowly relaxed his shoulders under the influence of her strong hands. He sighed. “Thank you for this. You always know how to calm me down.”
“Of course,” Klara replied cheerfully. “I’m here for you.”
After another moment or so, she slipped back down into her seat and took another sip of her tea. “So when does Alpha Company arrive, my love?”
“They’re already off the boat. Staging now in Visby Harbor.”
Her stomach tightened.
“Well, how can I help make this whole situation better for you?” she asked.
“I can think of one thing,” Lars said with a wink. “But it will have to wait. I still have to coordinate power grid assessments with Region Gotland and find a local contractor who can deliver six hundred meals three times a day until the field kitchens are operational. Honestly, I just came here for breakfast and to vent. I have to be out the door again in fifteen.”
She reached over and placed her hand on his. “Lars, I am so sorry. We’ll get through this… together. Let me fix you breakfast,” she replied.
In no time flat she had some toasted rye crispbread and jam on a plate for him, which he accepted with gratitude. As soon as he ate it, he rose from the table, kissed her on the head, and left.
Once the door closed, Klara allowed herself to curse quietly under her breath. “This is going to mess up all of my hard work!” she said to herself. Now instead of the original one hundred and fifty or so US paratroopers her operatives had planned on encountering, they’d be up against about six hundred of them. Not to mention, these huge areas being taken over would absolutely impact her housing plans before and during the festival.
She needed to get to the office as soon as possible. Her morning observation walk would have to wait.
As soon as she stepped into her work area, Klara went straight for her laptop. She logged in, turned on her VPN, and didn’t even bother checking the birding websites yet. This amount of information would be very difficult to transmit through one of the boards. Instead, she went right for her Tuta email account, where she wrote a draft email that she would never send. She had just finished typing when she noticed another draft email besides the one she had been writing.
The message was simple: “Team modified. Eight Russian attendees of the Baltic Wings Festival have changed their travel plans, and Chinese attendees will be taking their place.”
For the second time that morning, Klara swore. Russians could blend in. But Chinese? In Roma? In Vidhave?
She stood abruptly and crossed to her laptop. Everything was unraveling. And the Americans weren’t even fully unpacked yet.
She exhaled, forcing herself to slow her breathing and concentrate.
Tropical rain hammered the tarmac in sheets. The squall had rolled in fast, turning the morning sky the color of old steel. Wind gusts shoved the C-17’s tail as hydraulics lowered its cargo ramp with a mechanical groan.
Jodi Mack stood just inside the hangar bay, tablet tucked under her tactical jacket as rain hammered the flight deck. Water pooled around her boots, trailing wet prints across concrete still warm from the previous day’s sun. Outside, forty-eight Taiwanese sailors and marines stood in formation under the deluge. Their digital blue uniforms clung to them like a second skin, soaked and dripping — but not a single one shifted or grumbled.
“Skinny Poo’s probably watching this through a spy satellite,” Mick muttered, checking his watch. “Counting heads. Measuring shadows.”
