SubOrbital 7 by John Shirley

Author:John Shirley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags:  
Publisher: Titan

FOURTEEN

Has Ildeva told you anything interesting, Syrkin?” Mayweather asked softly.

They’d happened to meet at the recycle chute, Syrkin and Mayweather tossing out their empty food packages after a skimpy meal.

“Only hinted, sir,” Syrkin replied.

“I’m not sure you should be talking to him at all. I don’t trust the bastard.”

“Seems to keep him quiet, sir. Anyway—he said he’d tell me something surprising, soon. Lot of hints like that. I’d better keep at him.”

“For now.” Mayweather nodded. “Sounds like they’re about ready to go EVA…” He drifted forward to the flight deck.

Relieved, Syrkin made his way to his seat and pulled down into it beside Ildeva, thinking that to satisfy the officers, he had better pretend Ildeva had made some tantalizing claim. Buckling in, he realized he was planning to lie to his CO. Which was surprising. Then again, it wasn’t. Since Olek had been killed, he felt they were all strangers.

“Look at that bastard Carney, all chummy, gabbing with the Captain,” Ildeva said.

Syrkin grunted. Second Lieutenant Carney was up at the flight deck, talking to Mayweather while Burkett and Dabiri went EVA. Smiling, nodding. Cozying up to the Captain. Maybe thinking ahead to the debriefing back on base. He had to explain shooting a CIA asset and he needed Mayweather on his side.

“I tell you, Alexi,” Ildeva said in Bulgarian, “your brother was my close friend. And my second cousin. He was family.”

“That’s what you said, yeah.” Syrkin squirmed a bit in his seat.

“Alexi—you know my childhood? My father—a drunk. My mother—always running off with some man. Can I blame my father for dropping her from a helicopter into the Black Sea? No. I learned from Papa, drunk or not. Because he was old-time Thieves. Started during Soviet Union, and he taught me: find men you can stand with, work with them as a team, to get what you all need from the rest of the world. You see? It’s us against the rest of the world, Alexi. That is the hard truth.”

Perhaps, Alexi thought. Perhaps it was indeed the truth. He wished they’d have let him go on EVA. Anything to get out of here. Have a change. But the others didn’t seem to trust him. He’d gotten a knock on the head, so what? They’d all had concussions before. He was fine now. Mostly.

Alexi glanced at Ildeva. “I never heard anyone in my family mention you were a relative.”

“Maybe your family doesn’t like that connection,” Ildeva replied. “They were too self-righteous, living in the land of the banking gangsters, to have anything to do with a real gangster, eh? But I tell you—the CIA bastards blackmailed Olek to betray me. It must have been that. Maybe they threatened your family. ‘Do as we say, Olek, or we can make your family disappear.’ You remember, back when they were running death squads in Central America?”

“That was under Reagan. Decades ago.”

“You think they’ve changed? They were caught torturing people in the Iraq War! The CIA changes faces, but not methods, Alexi. They probably blackmailed him.

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