This time, Yana took point. Hammet dropped back to watch their backs. Zahra kept her head on a swivel and trained her attention on their flanks. They skirted past the deceased. Zahra spotted two more bodies as they moved closer. The first man wasn’t the only casualty here.
Yana crept up to the door and then waited. She leaned closer, listening.
She glanced back at Zahra and Hammet and shrugged. The German tipped his chin to the entry point and leveled his weapon at it. Yana nodded and stepped out of the way. When she did, Hammet put his massive boot straight through it. The trio rushed in, prepared for a close-quarters firefight.
What they got was their answer: More bodies.
“They’re all dead?” Zahra asked. She spotted three more inside.
“It seems so,” Yana replied, heading right. “A double cross, perhaps?”
Hammet moved left. The two of them cleared the area quickly since it was only one large open space.
“You think their employer decided that they were expendable?” Hammet asked.
Yana eyed him. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
Zahra didn’t exactly know what that implied. Had Yana been on the end of a decision like this before?
Hammet stepped back. “Over here.”
“What is it?” Zahra asked, heading for him.
“A survivor.”
Zahra rushed around a central command area. It was mostly just a space made up of cheap banquet tables, charts, and pictures of herself and everyone else who had been aboard the LC-130. As she neared, she spotted the lower half of a person. He or she was lying on the ground in a pool of blood.
Yana and Hammet parted and allowed Zahra access to the man. He was a mess. Whoever he was, he was leaning up against a crate and had been shot multiple times in the stomach and chest. How he wasn’t already dead was beyond Zahra’s comprehension.
Zahra didn’t bother trying English. She went straight into Russian.
“What happened here?”
“Betrayed.” The mercenary coughed blood. “Just a job.” He gasped for air through ruined lungs. Zahra was pretty sure one of them had collapsed based on the way he was wheezing. “Just a job…”
“Who hired you?” Yana asked.
His eyes went glassy.
“No, no, no! Hey!” She grabbed the man’s coat and gently shook him. He came back around. “Who hired you to kill us?”
“Krause. It was… Krause!”
The muscles in his face went still, and his breathing stopped. The mercenary was dead.
Zahra bowed her head, not in prayer, but in thought.
“Everything we discovered in the U-boat,” she stood. “Now this.”
Yana turned to Hammet. “Krause? As in Dietrich Krause?”
Hammet stepped away, collecting himself. After a few moments, he faced the two women. “When Dietrich Krause disappeared, he left behind a wife and son — a son who is still alive and very powerful.”
“That’s it!” Zahra said, pounding her right fist into her left palm. “Krause’s son is the one behind all of this. He has to be!”
“The Krause family is still very influential in Europe. The general’s son — Tobias — is not someone to trifle with. He owns an empire spanning several disciplines, including real estate development, architecture, and pharmaceuticals. The company is worth billions.”
“Geez,” Zahra said. “A real-life Lex Luthor type, huh?”
Zahra’s comment didn’t get a verbal reply.
It got a physical one.
Hammet growled, turned, and flipped over the nearest table.
Yana took a cautionary step back, but Zahra didn’t. She stepped up next to the obviously emotional soldier.
“Something bothering you?”
He let out a long breath. “Yes. All of it.” He faced her. “I thought we were finally finished with this evil. When will my countrymen be able to leave it behind?”
Yana moved closer. “That will never happen, I’m afraid.” Zahra and Hammet eyed her. They required further explanation. Yana paid Zahra no attention. She focused only on Hammet. “You don’t think Russians have demons too? The things we’ve done.” Her eyes darted away. “The things we do now…”
Yana turned and left them, putting fifteen feet between her and the others before speaking again. When she did, her shoulders dipped.
“My great-grandfather proudly served Stalin.” Her words were slathered with disdain. It sickened her. She spun and caught both their eyes. “He
“She’s right,” Zahra agreed. “We are our history, whether we like it or not. My family tree is full of murder and deception and excessive psychosis.” She snorted and scratched her head through her sock hat. “It’s, uh, not pretty.”
“I can vouch for her,” Yana said. “Didn’t you tell me that your cousin tried to kill you?”
Zahra smiled. “Which time, before or after he bombed the British Museum?”
“That was you?” Hammet asked, stunned. That seemed to snap him out of his funk. “Thank you. Both of you.”
Both women shrugged.
“On
