took this brute behind me in Mozambique. We shot bait animals and chained them up in trees. We waited and waited until his hunger overcame his sense of danger. He was an old male who had been kicked out of the pride to die alone. One day he was the most powerful animal on the block and the next he had lost all respect. Do you know who did this to him, Oliver?”
“No, sir.”
“His son. When a lion’s son gets to maturity, he challenges his father for the right to lead the pride. Eventually this comes to a head, and they fight, sometimes to the death. If the father is lucky, he survives, and he limps away to live in solitude for the rest of his days. It’s the natural order of things, Oliver.”
“I don’t understand what this has to do with James Reece, sir.”
“That’s because—forgive me for being blunt—you didn’t have a father, and you don’t have a son. It’s a struggle as old as mankind itself.”
Oliver took a moment to consider the situation and everything the old man had just relayed.
“Your son, Aleksandr, is an intelligence officer. He wants to take over the bratva and would have his own assets imbedded in your organization?” Grey asked, thinking of Svetlana and finally comprehending the significance of the lions. Could she have betrayed him?
Ivan nodded slowly.
“But why? Why would he want James Reece alive?”
“So that he can hunt him, Oliver.”
CHAPTER 50
Boundary County, Idaho
United States/Canadian Border
THE ALBATROSS CIRCLED THE lake, its iridescent waters a colder version of Caribbean blue. Officially known as an “inholding,” Senator Thornton’s wilderness retreat was located in a remote section of the Kaniksu National Forest, on the border between Idaho and Canada. Privately held from a time before the area was designated a national forest in 1908, Thorn used it as an escape during his years in Congress so his staff could truthfully answer that he was “out of the state” when he needed a reset.
Reece remained in the back of the plane with their prisoner, curiously studying the man he would soon kill. The Russian’s head was bagged, his eyes underneath taped over with riggers’ tape. They’d given him four oral disk fentanyl wafers for the pain, and to knock him out for the flight to a more remote location. Reece’s memory flashed back to the chaotic days at the height of the war when enhanced interrogation techniques were the order of the day, and a time when Iraqi units who did not abide by such rules did what came naturally. War brought out the best and worst in one’s fellow man.
Reece saw the Russian leveling his AK at those he cared about, those who had provided him sanctuary: Katie, Raife, Annika, Jonathan, Caroline, Thorn. It was his fault. He had been targeted on U.S. soil and even with all the security precautions in place, they had found him. Reece was going to find out who they were. As the plane began its final approach, he saw the prisoner level his rifle at Katie’s head and pull the trigger, her frightened face turning into that of his beautiful wife before being riddled with bullets. Suppressing an urge to choke the life out of the man before him, Reece closed his eyes.
Patience, Reece. You need him.
As Liz put the plane down with expert precision and floated to a dock, Reece unbuckled his harness and stuck his head into the cockpit.
“How’s Khrushchev doing back there?” Liz asked.
“He’s still alive. Where’s the cabin?”
“You’ll be able to see it back in the woods momentarily.”
“Beautiful spot,” Reece offered.
“Yeah, Thorn usually flies in alone, but, every now and again, he’ll have a guest and I’ll ferry them to and from the airport. Make yourself useful and tie us up.”
Reece jumped from the side door of the antique aircraft and secured the amphibious bird to the cleats spaced along the mooring. Liz cut the engine and joined her friend on the pier.
“I’ll need your help getting him to the cabin, Liz. After that, I want you to come back to the plane and wait. I don’t want you to see this.”
“Are you forgetting what those savages almost did to me in Iraq? You think I’m squeamish about this? Whatever you are going to do, I can help. These Russian clowns almost killed me and the closest thing we both have to a family. Whoever sent them wanted you and Raife dead for a reason and they didn’t care who they had to kill