Free From Russia Without Love by Stephen Templin Page B

right.”
    “I agree,” Xander said. “She should stay here.”
    “You do?”
    “Yes, I think she is no match for the people we are dealing with…” Xander glanced at his watch.
    “But…?”
    “But she told me something different. She told me she still blames the West for December twenty-first when her mother was killed. It is why we still call ourselves 21D in the first place. Evelina wants revenge. More than ever. She told me she wants to go with us no matter what.”
    Animus was puzzled at the contradiction. “Why would she tell me she’s not sure and tell you she’s going no matter what?”
    Xander shrugged. “She probably does not want you to know these demands she is placing on me and the mission.”
    “She’s afraid I’ll be angry,” Animus said.
    “While she is not prepared, I am afraid she will take off like a loose cannon if we leave her here. She will do her own thing and interfere with Phase Two. We will not be able to protect her. It will be better for her, and us, if we go to London together.”
    Animus nodded sadly. “I just don’t want anything to happen to her.”
    “Nor do I.”
    “She’s the love of my life,” Animus said.
    “Me, too. But if we let her go off on her own, she will be in more danger and more likely to disrupt our mission.”
    Animus swallowed. “Yes, sir.”
    “Did you reserve the hotel rooms?”
    He cleared his throat. “There is a symposium in London and most of the hotels were booked. The closest to our target was the Sofitel St. James, but there weren’t enough vacancies for our whole team so I also reserved rooms at the Grosvenor House.”
    “It is probably better that way. If one hotel is compromised, the whole team won’t be compromised. And we’ll be less suspicious if we’re not all in the same building. Top-notch work.”
    Animus smiled.
    “I will stay in the Sofitel with some of the men,” Xander went on, “and you and Evelina can stay in the Grosvenor House with the rest of the team.” He looked at his watch again. “It is time.”

8
    _______
    C hris, Hannah, and Sonny arrived at the Naval Support Activity in Crete and turned Michael’s body over to the SEAL Team Six commander of Blue Squadron. The SEALs placed Michael in a body bag and zipped it shut. One moment, he was full of life, and now his body was an empty shell. The part of him that mattered most was gone, like a projectile fired through the barrel of a gun, and there was no bringing it back.
    The Blue Squadron SEALs’ faces and shoulders drooped as they loaded Michael onto the plane. They’d gotten all psyched up for a rescue, and they weren’t even given a chance to try. Now there would be no back slaps, high fives, or stories of momentous heroism—only feelings of helplessness and defeat. On top of all that, Michael was dead.
    The plane’s hatches closed, and soon the big bird ascended into the clear blue sky. The higher it ascended into the expanse of the heavens, the smaller it became, and Chris felt himself become small with it. Then it was gone.
    He wanted his senses to become numb. He wanted to take the emotions welling up inside and shove them in a box and store them with the others in the depths of his psyche, never to see the light of day again. But his emotions were loose. They started coming out of one eye, and soon a tear crept down his face. He was conscious of being in a public place, with Hannah and Sonny standing beside him on the tarmac, and he wiped it away.
    Beneath his feet, the tarmac seemed to tilt and spin, like the teacup ride at Disneyland, and nausea overcame him. When Nikkia had died, little Chris had sat in a closet and wept, and now he longed for a closet to hide in.
    Breathe , he tried to remind himself. He inhaled weakly, but he didn’t get much oxygen. It was more like a convulsion, an inward sob.
    He sensed Hannah’s eyes on him. He turned to look at her but couldn’t maintain eye contact.
    “Chris?” It was her voice. “Your shoulder…