Page 2 of Radar (Iniquus Certified Cerberus Tactical K9 #2)

Xander

Tuesday

Bratislava , Slovakia

The warmth of Xander Belov’s exhaled breath formed a visible cloud as he stood under a lonely streetlamp.

He paused, assessed, then jogged across the road, jumping the ice-filled gutter.

There, on the corner, Xander paused again.

Something about this next stretch of cobblestones made his teeth itch.

Peppered with chained bikes, Xander noted how the residents parked their cars at an angle on the sidewalk, making the road passable for small vehicles. This configuration forced the pedestrians to hug the shadows of the building walls as they moved from Point A to Point B.

There were no pedestrians. There was Xander.

Who else would be out on a night like this?

Cold nipped at the tops of Xander’s ears through his fleece cap. It stabbed through the soles of his boots, piercing his thermal socks and reaching his bones, making them feel brittle and easily snapped.

This whole setup reminded Xander of the World War II film he’d watched on the plane ride in.

The movie depicted people hauled from their homes, rounded up and herded at the point of a rifle, then sent on to a concentration camp with inadequate clothing.

When they stood in formation for their daily roll call, the imprisoned people worked to stave off frostbite by stomping their bare feet.

This wasn’t then. He wasn’t them.

He had boots, good boots. And he was able to walk around freely.

Yeah, it was probably the sound of his footfalls moving in a habitual, military-trained cadence that was inventing ghosts in Xander’s imagination.

“I’m a fortunate man,” he said aloud as frigid air burrowed into the weave of his hiking pants to lay moist against his skin.

Xander reached behind his head to grab the collar of his wool coat, standing it up to cover the nape of his neck.

But it gave him little respite from the sensation of ice water in his veins.

As a whole, Xander had felt comfortable moving about the city of Bratislava.

He loved her history and music.

Loved the food— my god, the food !

Loved her architecture and the unexpected success of its May-December romance, marrying modern and ancient styles. Somehow, it worked beautifully.

The more opportunities Xander had to work in this Slovakian capital—to explore and learn—the more intriguing he found Bratislava’s character.

Yes, as a whole, this was a wonderful city.

Just not this particular neighborhood.

Alarm bells clanged his nervous system awake. Something’s not right here.

Tugging his hands from his coat pockets, Xander flexed his fingers against the frigid temperatures.

He didn’t like this.

Tonight, fog crawled over the rooftops, prowled down the walls, and hovered just out of reach.

It made the streetlamps dim by wrapping them, like a woman’s shawl around her babe, hugging the light to her chest, leaving just enough illumination for Xander to move down the street, only semi-confident he wouldn’t stumble over something lying in his path.

Above him came the plaintive strains of a saxophone as someone listened to the radio.

Other than that, the only sound was Xander’s tread echoing off the cobblestones and ricocheting against the ancient walls made rough with curls of peeling paint.

Each step announced his progress toward the bar where he’d meet Anna Senko, CIA.

Maybe that was why his breath was coming heavily.

Maybe there was something about this meet-up that made his scalp prickle and itch.

Did he trust Anna and the information she was about to pass him?

Xander had been friends with Anna since he’d earned a place in the AWG—the Asymmetric Warfare Group, best known for its special forces' physical capabilities and its nerdy brains.

There, he and Anna discovered they were cousins.

With little effort, they learned they shared a Dedko Belov. Xander was a grandchild of his dedko’s first wife (divorced). Anna was the only grandchild of Dedko Belov’s second wife (also divorced).

That second wife, Anna’s grandmother, was Olga Zoric Belov from the Slovakian-based Zoric family—a highly feared and highly successful crime family that had operated for generations behind the Iron Curtain.

And even decades later, The Family was pissed as hell that when the Iron Curtain was raised to allow the former countries to enter the world stage, the Zoric family's power dimmed.

They meant to put things back the way they had been.

Since the fall of the USSR, The Family had worked toward reunification, creating chaos on a global scale decade after decade.

In fact, Xander had spent his entire AWG career trying to thwart them. He continued his efforts in the DIA—Defense Intelligence Agency—when the AWG disbanded.

At the AWG, Anna had worked on the Zoric case, too, but she had done it from inside the enemy camp. She’d used her name, her native Slovak language skills, and her cunning to snake her way in and bring information out.

After Anna fell in love with an FBI special agent, the Zorics asked Anna to be a double agent of sorts, and she had—with Uncle Sam’s blessing—agreed.

Everyone seemed fine with her dual roles.

Everyone put up with it, Xander amended.

Should he trust this meet-up with Anna?

He shrugged his shoulders, getting himself primed and ready before he stepped off the curb between cars to jaywalk across the narrow street.

Xander used the opportunity to seem natural as he looked both ways—as he was taught to do in preschool for traffic safety—as he was taught to do in spy school for bad-guy safety.

Casting his gaze to the right, out of the corner of his eye, Xander caught a shadow sliding up tighter against the wall just behind him on the sidewalk. Ahead on his left, Xander spotted an alleyway.

Xander slowed his gait, lowered his center of gravity, and kept himself off the wall. It was muscle memory from his time in Afghanistan that shifted his body into combat mode.

Then came the signal whistle, a light “Here, pup!” kind of tune.

Nope. This wasn’t going to be pretty.

It was good that he’d crossed the street. It gave Xander a split second more time to adjust as a man leaped from the black alleyway and sprinted toward Xander’s ten o’clock.

With the whistler racing up from behind, Xander had the wall to his right. Parked cars boxed him in on the left. Forward was the only way clear.

But forward felt like a trap. It felt like where a rat should run.

With his intuition telling him that advancing was a mistake, Xander swiveled to protect his back and square off before he discovered what was waiting for him up the street.

The two men spread their arms like linebackers, like cat herders, like barricades against escape.

Xander wondered how fast they were and if he could simply pivot and dash for the bar, linebacker-style, plowing through any new roadblocks.

He could burst through the door, and the bartender could pull out a protective gun.

Then, Xander would be okay. He’d toss back a shot and feel like he’d dodged a bullet.

But forward felt perilous.

In most public attacks, the first line of defense was to get loud fast. Xander’s Slovakian allowed him to excuse himself if he stepped on a toe, to say thank you when handed a key card at the hotel, or to ask for the bathroom.

This wasn’t a country where he frequently operated, so “Get the hell away from me!” wasn’t something he could pull out.

“Stop!” was the word he finally produced.

“Stop” was as close to a universal language as existed.

The “stop” was shouted loudly enough that Anna should have heard it at the bar. He was only a block and a half away from the golden glow of what might be safety.

But the shout didn’t produce any help.

No window flashed a light on. No one poked a head out the door and called out that the police were on their way.

A couple of dogs were barking, but they displayed their ferocity from the safety of a locked apartment.

Xander knew this mission was FUBAR because his brain had switched to adrenaline timing.

When muscle memory and training weren’t enough, the lizard part of his brain—the part that wanted him to survive—slowed everything down.

It seemed like Xander had all the time in the world to process the scene as the bad guys moved in slow motion like they were running underwater.

Reality was the inverse; things hadn’t slowed at all. His brain had revved to warp speed in order to save his life.

Yup, slo-mo was the tell. This was going to be the shit.

These two guys weren’t big men. Yeah, yeah, two against one was problematic. In a hand-to-hand, his height and the length of Xander’s limbs gave him an advantage. His years of combat experience would help. If this were a fisticuff mugging, he should come out okay.

If these two followed him because of his job with the DIA, that was a very different story.

Did someone send these men after him?

Shit, Anna! Did you set me up?

Most special forces men looked innocuous. Typically short and wiry, they were made of indefatigable steel. It was too dim out, and the men had on too many layers of clothes for Xander to decide if these guys were special forces types.

Xander hadn’t seen the thugs reaching into their clothes to drag out weapons. But as he took a sidestep closer to the bar, he snatched up a trash can lid, holding it like a medieval shield to protect his throat and organs should the attackers pull knives.

It wouldn’t do shit for him if they had a gun.

The men laughed and moved forward. Xander took another sidestep to maintain reaction space.

And another.

They were herding him, Xander reminded himself.

He stopped under an archway. He’d have to take his stand before he got to whatever surprise made them grin like that.

As his back foot moved to fighting position, he thought that the men should focus on his shield—both protection and weapon—but instead, their heads tipped back, and smiles of delight spread wider across their faces.