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JULY 29, 2022

Nemo

Looking down to his left, Nemo smiled fondly at Scheherazade at his side, giving her a quick scratch behind the ear. He whispered to her, “Okay, now, girl, remember what we discussed earlier. No barking. We don’t want to wake up Midas.”

The elevator dinged softly, announcing its arrival on the eighth floor of Tribe Corporation. Nemo and his fraternal twin, Midas, shared the eighth floor of the Tribe Corporation building, which was split into two spacious apartments. Because each of the team members officially “died” when they joined Tribe, each of the team members, plus their handler, Cherry, had their own apartment in the building since it would be difficult to own homes or rent properties. There were even two guest apartments in case they needed a fast lockdown for a client.

When the doors opened, Nemo exited quickly, turning right to go down his portion of the hallway. Scheherazade padded alongside him, tongue lolling out of her mouth, ears up straight, and tail wagging like a flag. She gave a soft yip.

“Are those the same clothes you were wearing last night?”

Nemo glared at Scheherazade. “Some guard dog you are.”

Scheherazade yipped again, her eyes communicating how silly she thought he was to be irritated with her.

Nemo looked up to see his brother leaning one shoulder against the wall, with one foot crossed over the other, only the toe touching the ground. The two brothers may have been born only eight minutes apart at birth, but they were nothing alike.

Nemo was light-haired and had blue eyes; Midas was dark-haired and had brown eyes.

Both men were physically fit enough to be sighed over, but Nemo was just under six feet with the sleekness of a runner, and Midas was just over six feet with the bulk of a rugby player.

Nemo was a jokester, a prankster, and always laughing or at least smiling. Midas often could tease and joke, but he had to be prodded to do so. He usually had a more serious demeanor, his brows crunching over his eyes and nose.

Where Nemo was always on the move, Midas was most often found at his chair behind his computer banks.

Probably the biggest difference, however, was that Nemo was a playboy with a near-daily one-night-stand habit of high-maintenance women in designer clothes and exhibitionist tendencies. Midas lived like a monk.

“As a matter of fact, they are. You have a problem with that?”

Midas probed further. “I thought you were taking Scheherazade out to the dog park.”

“I was. I did. ”

“Awful long trip to the dog park. It was seven thirty last night when you left.”

“So? We were there an hour or so, and then we decided to go on an adventure. Didn’t we, girl?” Nemo gave the dog’s ears a vigorous scratch, which brought forth another happy yip from Scheherazade. She promptly threw herself on the floor, belly up. Her owner wasted no time getting on the floor with her, scratching her belly, and crooning. “Who was a good girl? Who was so pretty? Who deserved a treat?” And other dog-lover nonsense.

“You didn’t.”

“I didn’t what?” Nemo asked, not looking up. He was now in the stage of play where Scheherazade was rolling ecstatically on the floor and trying to wash his face while Nemo tried to avoid her puppy breath and slobber.

“You did.” His brother expelled a puff of exasperated air through his lips as he ran a hand over his closely shaved dark hair. “You met a girl at the dog park.”

“I met a lot of girls at the dog park,” he corrected.

“Yeah, but you fucked one, and I’m guessing you fucked her at the dog park. Dude, why can’t you go to a club and hook up with a girl in the bathroom, at least?”

“Gotta live in the moment, bro.” Nemo managed to extract himself from Scheherazade, stand, and key in his lock’s code.

Midas made an ick face. “Make sure you burn those clothes. God only knows what you were rolling around in all night.”

Nemo’s door opened, and Scheherazade bounded inside. Within two seconds, both men heard a thunk, a yip, and a squeaky toy being mauled to death. “We didn’t stay there all night. We took our dogs to the beach afterward.”

“Great. So, instead, you’re dragging sand in and leaving it everywhere. Fantastic. ”

An impish grin appeared on Nemo’s face. “Worth every scratchy moment.” He disappeared inside his apartment and shut the door, and his grin disappeared instantly.

No sooner had he toed off his sneakers when a brisk double knock came at the door.

Grin back on his face, blue eyes met a set of brown eyes when Nemo opened the door. “Knew you’d wanna hear about it. Okay, so, the tide was coming in?—”

“We’ve got a conference call at the top of the hour. Loki, Gilgamesh, and Medusa. Don’t be late, or Waters will have a shit hemorrhage.” Midas turned and headed back to the elevator.

The door closed. Again, the grin disappeared. Nemo stripped as he walked, dropping clothing and creating a trail back toward his bathroom and the huge glassed-in shower. He turned on the water. While he waited for the water to warm up, he brushed his teeth. His eyes perused his body or what he could see of it in the mirror. Over the years, Nemo had treated his body like an art canvas. His left arm was tatted from under his ear down to his knuckles. The tattoos wrapped around his throat and chest, and they started to track down his abdomen. He’d recently begun the sleeve on the underside of his right arm. Lost in thought, finger tracing the date over his heart, he made a mental note to find time to go and have his sleeve worked on. He had a sun image he wanted to add and build around.

He’d made other changes during that time, too. His hair was still in the fake military haircut, the top glued with enough product to make it stand up despite its length, but in the last few months, he’d grown a beard that he kept close-cropped to his face, which aged him beyond his thirty years. He’d also gauged his ears and pierced his nipples, tongue, and cock. The pain of piercings and the tattoo gun assuaged other past pains he refused to think about.

Finished with his inventory, he moved to open the shower door and stepped inside, closing the door behind him. Bracing his hands on the glass wall on one side and the ceramic tile wall on the other, he hung his head and let the water cascade over the top of him. He hissed when the sting of hot water washed away the sand from the multitude of shallow wounds on his ass, back, and shoulders caused by the girl’s nails. What was her name? Olivia. She said she was an actress. He gave a single bark of laughter. Every girl in Los Angeles was an actress. Always on the cusp of that big break, just waiting for the next call from their agent about the audition they recently nailed.

Whatever. Dime a dozen. Who are you kidding? Penny a dozen out here.

When the stinging ended, Nemo soaped up to clean himself from his and Octavia’s dog park and beach adventures.

No. Olivia! Christ! You’re a fucking mess. Who lives like this?

An image from the past popped into his head. One that made his chest hurt, and again, he rubbed at the numbers over his heart. Blonde mop of curls. Big blue eyes. Tight, tiny body. A smile that lit her face like it was the goddamn sun. Short, blunt nails sinking into his skin. Ink crawling up her body, particularly the art surrounding her belly button.

His skin felt itchy as he remembered the last time he’d seen her, and saliva exploded in his mouth, the faint taste memory of sugar. The same scent coming from her body. The velvet of her skin. The sound of her sighs and whimpers.

Nemo let out a roar of rage, and his fists pounded against the walls. A cracking noise sounded over the falling water of the shower, and he looked to his left. The glass shower wall was spiderwebbed with cracks where his fist had hit it. He ducked his head under the water and let it wash away the sand, sweat, and shame of tonight.

By the time he had stepped out of the shower, the water was cold. He marshaled his emotions; any question of who he was and how he lived his life thoroughly shoved into a drawer in the filing cabinets of his brain, and the drawer mentally slammed shut with violence. Hopefully, this time, the drawer stayed shut.

Not fucking likely.

Dark-blond hair perfectly glued, and clothed in his typical T-shirt, jeans, and running shoes, Nemo blew out any remaining melancholy with an exaggerated breath. Inserting his double-flared ear gauges, he whistled for Scheherazade, and together, they took the fire stairs down to the second floor where the conference room and offices were.

“Well, look what the St. Bernard dragged in,” drawled TB, a six-foot-seven, two-hundred-forty-pound giant sitting in his regular seat to the left of the head at the conference table.

Midas, the big gossip, already filled in the details of his dog park adventure for them.

“Technically, it was a Belgian Malinois,” Nemo corrected in imitation of a snobby dog breeder.

“Either way,” Demon grumbled, “I probably need to start you on a rabies shot series after the meeting.”

“Scheherazade, kill,” Nemo commanded, pointing to Demon, silently imagining the dog grabbing the surfer dude by the dark-haired man bun and dragging him under the table to maul him to death .

The men in the room laughed at Nemo’s fake command. Since it wasn’t in Afrikaans or one of their silent signals, Scheherazade leapt into Demon’s arms at the opposite side and end of the table, attempting in every way to lick him to death. “Thatta girl, Zade. Show your daddy who you love more.” Demon baby-talked the dog trying to roll around on his lap.

Nemo shook his head in fake disgust. She was not a small dog, probably about the size of a pointer in terms of height and length, but there the shameless hussy was—on her back in Demon’s lap, gazing at him adoringly as the grouchy medic scratched her belly in apparently all the right places. Didn’t matter which of the guys was paying attention to her, she would fall apart like a cheap suit, ignoring everyone else. Heaven forbid she latched onto any of the women. They were worse than the guys when it came to spoiling her.

Although he feigned hurt whenever she paid attention to anyone else, Nemo knew that he alone was her best friend. Her devotion to him was absolute. Not a moment went by when he wasn’t thankful he had rescued her and her puppies before fleeing Sallum. Hadn’t been easy sneaking them out of Egypt, and Steel had been pissed at the inconvenience of having to burn three markers to get safe passage across northern Africa by land to make it happen, but it was so worth it. Those puppies were happily homed with Kubrick and Flame and were already often reunited with their sibling and mother for playdates. Waters and TB might grouse about having dogs, but he knew they were secretly happy that the women would have someone at home with them when the men were gone.

Totally whipped. Ka-cha!

“You’ve got to work on your training regimen, bro. If that’s what she does when you say ‘kill,’ I hate to see what she does when you say ‘search,’” Midas teased from the head of the table behind his laptop.

“You know she only follows verbal commands in Afrikaans.”

“Shouldn’t they be in German?” Demon asked.

“Most are, I’ve heard. I don’t speak German. I speak Afrikaans. My dog, my choice of language. Besides, how many terrorists do you know speak that language?”

A notification bell binged from Midas’ computer, and a moment later, the telescreen at the other end of the room powered up to reveal a trio the team knew well. Loki, the face of the triad, looking for all the world like a blond billionaire CEO. Gilgamesh, the dark-haired, walking, talking poster child for a metrosexual male, looking like he stepped out of a photo shoot for sports cars. And Medusa… He had no idea how to describe her. Trademark smokey sunglasses over her eyes, dark-brown hair pulled back by a hairband, and her usual emotionless expression. A frozen Lara Croft. She even out-froze Waters in the blank stare department.

Extracting a piece of gum from his pocket, he unwrapped it, popped the pink blob in his mouth, and a brief flash of a pixie in curls hit his brain as his teeth did their first cut through the sugary confection. Instantly, he felt more grounded.

That’s better.

He crumpled up the wrapper and pelted his brother with it. Midas scowled, picked the wrapper up out of his lap, and pelted Nemo back. He grinned, winked, then spun his chair in the direction of the triad.

“Good to see you, gentlemen,” Loki opened. “We’ve got some information for you.”

“Loki,” Waters acknowledged. He nodded to Gilgamesh and Medusa. “What have you got?”

“Five days ago, one of our associates was in Africa doing some sample gathering for us?—”

“Thieving, you mean,” Nemo conjectured.

“I prefer professional terms, but yes. We weren’t invited in, and we didn’t want anyone to know we were there.”

“What does your ‘sample gathering’ have to do with us?” Waters wondered.

“She’s an expert on these stones and a master… or mistress, I guess… of getting into and out of tight spaces. We found her in Great Britain. Has quite a reputation for her craft. While on her assignment, she sent us some pictures and a request for an exit contact because she’d been made. Guess who we got a glimpse of?” The telescreen split in half. On the left was the triad. On the right, a picture flashed up on the screen of three men.

“Ka-Bar,” Steel answered.

Gilgamesh pointed at the screen. “Give that man a prize.”

“When? Where?” Waters asked, shotgun style. “This is the closest we’ve been to finding Kubrick’s brother.”

“This photo was taken five days ago in Zimbabwe. And he was being escorted by the two men in business suits,” Loki answered as he hit a button on his computer to show another photo.

“Hemeda and Pilis Kader,” Waters snarled, throwing the file folder in his hand down on the table so that he could run that hand over his closely cut dark-blond hair.

“Bonus question points awarded to the Navy SEAL,” Gilgamesh confirmed.

Steel, silver eyes flashing beneath his mussed black hair, shifted in his chair, leaning forward on his arms on the tabletop. “What’s in Zimbabwe?”

“A defunct mining site. There are several legitimate mines in the country, but this particular area was purchased by a private investor thirteen years ago. The purchasing corporation built the compound and had begun drilling tunnels, but they suffered huge losses trying to get an actual mine built and disappeared into the jungle, so to speak, leaving everyone cutting their losses.

“Fast forward to today. As far as the civilians are concerned, around two years ago, people began filtering into the old mining area, hoping to tempt certain death and hit a lucky strike. Basically, they purchase their own individual supplies, show up, pick a spot, and make human-sized tunnels to find and follow the old diamond veins. Most of them, a decent-sized man can’t even turn around in. Think Viet Cong tunnels. It’s not a job for the faint of heart, and the danger level is high, but these people are so desperate they’re willing to take the risks. In this location, mining is strictly forbidden, but no one is really paying attention. Even when there are accidents, the miners remain quiet about it because bringing public attention to it means bringing down the police on their illegal ventures. Or worse, losing their unlawful access to the land.

“Unfortunately, even if the police did something about the illegal mining, it would have little effect. The corruption on both sides of the color wall across Africa is rampant. In Zimbabwe, most of the officers were white Europeans until 1982, when the country made an active effort to replace the older white officers with younger native officers. But the damage was so extensive, it’s hardly better than it was. Many officers are on the take, not because they are innately corrupt, but as a means to remain safe from criminal gangs, political candidates, and anyone who has power or money to hire protection. Looking the other way is an occupational expectation unless it negatively affects the police force itself.

“Those who take police officer jobs are usually young and not afraid of getting their hands dirty. The hours are long and brutal because there aren’t enough officers to cover the areas they serve, and the turnover is huge. No one wants to go to work in a job where they know the likelihood of them coming home that night is less than fifty percent. Some African countries lose, on average, an officer a day to violence. The justification for being on the take allows them some supplementary income and provides a little extra insurance they get to go home at the end of the day. No guarantees, but some insurance is better than none.”

“What does any of this have to do with the Kaders? Or you? Or Ka-Bar, for that matter?” Waters wondered aloud.

Medusa flicked at a piece of imaginary lint on her pants. “Mythos is always interested in illegal activities. Uncut stones are an easy way to fund illegal activities.”

Midas mumbled to himself, “Well, at least I have a name for the trio now. Medusa, Loki, Gilgamesh… makes sense.” Nemo watched him start to madly type information into his computer, searching for anything on “Mythos” or its members.

Gilgamesh shook his head. “Ka-Bar’s connection? There’s absolutely nothing in his past to suggest he’d suddenly turn on the military, his country, or his family. A Westerner like him, formidable and affluent-looking, it’s likely they’re using him to lend outward legitimacy to the Kaders’ business. The question is whether he’s being coerced or is it by choice?

“As for the mining? Simple. These individuals are primarily central Africans. Even when they find stones, the rate of return when they sell them is not even a tenth of what they’re worth. Men like the Kaders are middlemen. They’ve organized these workers into a step above slave labor, purchasing their stones at a pittance, then turning around and selling them at value, possibly a little higher, and making a killing while they do it.”

“However,” Medusa chimed in, “something’s changed. The individual miners who were living in the self-created camps have completely disappeared, yet the illegal output of stones in this area in the last two months has increased one hundred times what it was. Both of those conditions caught our attention enough to take a closer look.”

Waters crossed his arms over his chest, and one hand rose to rub his chin. “You think they’re working the mine underground now.”

“That would explain why the output increased,” Steel acknowledged. “You can hide a lot more people underground. They can work round the clock with the police none the wiser. If there are no illegal settlements for the police to break up, it also means less police presence in the area. And even if someone does come around to do a rudimentary inspection of the area, there’s nothing to see other than an abandoned mine compound with minimal security, like an abandoned building has a guard to prevent trespassers.”

TB nodded. “Likely someone on the local force has access to the inspection rotation and warns the Kaders. That would allow them to halt operations before the raid occurs, then once the way is clear, they send the workers back to it.”

Waters gave a sideways nod, chin to the left. “I hate to admit it, but they’re not stupid.”

During the course of the conversation, something had been nagging at Nemo. Now that the conversation appeared to be winding down, he had questions. One, in particular, was giving him heartburn. He was pretty sure he knew the answer.

“Loki, what type of mining are we talking about?” he asked.

Loki looked at Nemo. “I’m sorry. Didn’t I say? Diamonds.”

Fuck. Female? Great Britain? Tight spaces? Diamonds?

“And, just out of curiosity, where is this associate you were going to extract? As in, where is she right now?”

He kept his eyes glued to Loki on the screen, but he could feel the heat of his five teammates' stares.

Loki had the grace to shift uncomfortably, and then he glanced at Medusa, who was looking down at her hands as if she was studying her manicure. He then moved his gaze to Gilgamesh, who simply stared back at him. Both men turned in unison to the camera.

Loki coughed discreetly into his fist. “Unfortunately, we weren’t immediately available to extract her, and by the time we could get to her, she had disappeared. There’s been no contact since then, and we have no idea where she is. That’s the other reason we’re calling you. We’re hoping you might be able to assist in finding our asset.”

“So we would never have seen these photos of Ka-Bar except you need us to find your lost asset. If we’re on the same side, this tit-for-tat bullshit needs to end.” Nemo’s hands let go of the table edge, and he placed them flat on the table. “What is your asset’s name?”

The air felt supercharged. Heavy. He was sure his heart and lungs were working at their normal capacity, but it felt like he was being compressed underwater. It was all he could do to keep from yelling at the triad as they paused before answering.

It was Medusa who finally broke the silence. She raised her eyes to Nemo in the camera. “Haskell. Haskell Dawson. You’ll likely know her as Le Chatte Noire.”

Every muscle in Nemo’s body was so tense it felt like one wrong word, one wrong touch, would cause him to explode.

All eyes were focused on Nemo.

He shoved back from the table and turned to his brother. “Find. Her. Now.” He stalked to the door, giving a sharp whistle for Scheherazade to follow him. “I’ll be in the gym to keep from killing someone.” The door slammed behind the man and dog.