For one dangerous moment, his whole careful plan nearly collapsed. “Ellen, look at me. It’s me. I made it back. I came for you.”
She turned her clouded eyes toward him with visible effort. But there was no recognition there, only fear. She shrank back against the wall and raised her arms to shield her head.
“No. Please go. I don’t know anything about the papers. Just don’t hit me.”
Then he understood: through the fog of the medication, she saw him as another tormentor. Mike reached into his jacket and pulled out the bundle of old letters, the ones that had carried him through the war.
He placed them gently in her lap. “Do you remember writing about Katie’s new school backpack? You wrote these to me.”
“Ellen, I swear to you, I’m getting you out of here. Just hold on a little longer. A couple more days.”
Then came the sound of keys in the hallway. Night rounds.
Mike touched his lips to her forehead and slipped out just before a drowsy doctor appeared. He had to leave through a filthy ventilation shaft in the basement.
Outside, a nasty surprise was waiting.
The same dark car stood by the fence. They hadn’t lost him. They had let him walk into the trap.
“Well now,” a voice called. “How’d the visit with your wife go?”
Three men stepped out carrying compact rifles. “Boss says you’ve been running around our town too much. Time to put you in the woods with your truth.”
Mike didn’t waste time talking. He moved first and hard.
Instead of running, he charged straight at them. The first shot went high from surprise. He slammed into the nearest gunman and used him as cover. The second round hit that man in the shoulder.
Then came an elbow to the jaw of the second shooter and a violent wrench on the weapon. Mike moved with brutal efficiency, like a machine built for close work. In less than a minute, two men were down in the snow and the third was running for the trees.
Mike let him go. He needed transportation more than revenge. He jumped into the driver’s seat of the car they had brought.
A radio on the passenger seat crackled with the irritated voice of the gang boss. “What’s taking so long? Is he dead or not?”
Mike keyed the mic. “Bad news. You just lost three of your dogs. By tomorrow, you lose everything else too. Get ready for company.”
He tore onto the highway toward the capital.
He knew every road out of the region would be watched by bought-off state troopers. The drive turned into a deadly slalom. On one stretch, a truck blocked the road completely. Mike never touched the brake.
He dropped into the ditch at speed, cut across a snowy field, and somehow got the car back onto the highway behind the roadblock. Bullets followed, punching glass and metal, but he drove the way he had once handled armored vehicles in mountain country.
By four in the morning he reached the outer ring of the capital. The car, riddled with bullet holes, began to smoke and lose power. He abandoned it in the courtyard of a large apartment complex.
Then he headed for the central security directorate, avoiding the front entrance. He had one private number memorized: Colonel Victor Savel.
Victor was one of the few men Mike knew who had never been for sale.
The two old comrades met at five a.m. in an empty city park. Victor took one look at the filthy man in front of him, streaked with blood and exhaustion, and gave a grim nod…
