Free Patriot Acts by Greg Rucka

Which is probably when he informed his masters that you would be coming to the safe house. Masters who, in all likelihood, are responsible for Illya’s disappearance. The team that ambushed you could have been an element of the larger team that assaulted the house; they could have been split off when it became apparent they needed a new contingency to deal with you, when they realized they needed to stage an ambush.”
    The tea bag in my cup was floating on the surface, on its side. I poked it back down with a finger.
    “That’s something that’s been bothering me,” I said. “Why didn’t they just hit all of us at the house? Why did they think it was necessary to hit me separately?”
    “They identified you as the greatest threat.”
    “Greater than you? I find that hard to believe.”
    “They knew I was wounded. They wanted to isolate you. That’s why they forced you into an ambush, away from the safe house.”
    “Stupid on their part.”
    “Perhaps. They were having to adapt very quickly, remember. And their assessment of you was correct; you broke their ambush, and you killed all three of them without dying yourself. There are not many who could have survived that.”
    “If they’d kept the whole team together, hit us as soon as we’d arrived at the safe house—”
    Alena moved her left hand, a slight gesture, side to side, impatiently. “Don’t make assumptions, Atticus. We do not know if they were in position when we arrived. It is just as likely that they had to call for more men to set the ambush as it is that the three who attacked you were part of the larger unit.”
    I snagged on the word “unit.” “You think they were military?”
    “Not active duty, no.”
    “Civilian contractors.”
    “That would be my suspicion, yes. And we both know who civilian contractors contract
with,
Atticus.” She ran a hand through her hair. “As I said, we both know who ‘they’ are.”
    I put my tea down, on the shelf, beside my glasses. I was tired and I was sore, and I hurt in body and heart. I let my head fall back against the cushion behind me, closed my eyes.
    Natalie Trent was still resting on her bed of leaves.
    “I love my country,” I said softly. “But I fear my government.”
    Beside me, Alena said, “With good reason.”
    Then she reached across the aisle, and took hold of my hand, and held it until the government I feared was far, far behind us.

PART
TWO

CHAPTER
    ONE
    It took three years, two months, and twelve days for us to find where Illya Tyagachev was hiding.
    Within three weeks of arriving in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, I was out of the woods and beginning to heal, and to heal fast. Maybe it was because I’d been in the best shape of my life when I’d been shot, better even than when I’d been twenty and full of juice and pounding the ground in the Army; maybe it was simply my bullheaded resolve that, between Alena and myself, at least
one
of us needed to be able to rely on their legs to do what they were told.
    Whatever the reason, I bounced back quickly, and was able to move around, unassisted and with only minor discomfort, before the end of November. I wasn’t doing handstands during yoga, and the ballet training was off the table, but if I had to, I could serve in a pinch. Vadim was still traveling with us, and he helped pick up my slack, further acting as our legman, gopher, and extra gun.
    We spent New Year’s Day that year at the Sonnenhof Clinic in Saanen-Gstaad, looking out at the snow-covered mountains of the Bernese Oberland. Alena had undergone her first surgery only two days prior, a combination exploration and cleanup where a team of orthopedic surgeons had gone into her leg to visualize the damage Oxford had done there. They’d removed the remaining bone debris and the last of the shot that had been missed by the first doctor who’d worked on her, back in Kingstown, St. Vincent.
    The operation took just under three hours, and the doctor leading Alena’s