Queen snatched the picture away from him and tucked it into her pocket. She wanted desperately to believe Vladimir, but what if it was a mistake or a lie? “How is it that you overheard their conversation? My friend is very private about his business.”
A moment of suspicion cross the sailor’s face, but a quick reassessment of the situation told him he better tell Queen what he knew. “My friends work at the docks. I was wandering, waiting for them to finish some business. Your friend was speaking to a the captain, who I recognized as a competitor of my friends. Information can be a valuable commodity, one my friends sometimes pay for, so I wandered closer, hoping to overhear their conversation.” He shrugged. “I managed to hear only a little bit before I sensed your friend watching me and decided to slip away.”
“Tell me everything you heard.” Queen’s heart was racing. Finally, after the events of this horrific night, things just might be turning in her favor. Nothing like a little dumb luck. Vladimir told her all he could recall. It was not much. An injured Rook had been rescued and tended to by the sister of the sailor from whom he sought passage out of Russia. But Vladimir didn’t know where they went.
“Tell you what, Vladimir, if your lead pans out, I’ll see to it that you’re rewarded. Now, tell me who this captain is and where I can find him.”
The man’s features relaxed. Clearly he had feared her reaction should she not believe him. “In Severodvinsk, in Russia. The ship is the Songbird, and the sailor’s name is Maksim Dashkov.”
Smiling a genuine smile for the first time in…she didn’t know how long, Queen stretched out in the bottom of the boat and breathed deeply of the cool morning air. Exhausted as she was from her ordeal, her mind was racing. She was going to find Rook. She knew it.
Epilogue
Darius rolled over and groaned. He put his hand to the side of his head and felt a ragged hole where his ear had been. He snatched his hand away, his fingers coming back bloody.
“Who the hell does that bitch think she is? Mike Tyson?” The words came out in wheezy rasp, and he rubbed his aching throat. She had almost been the death of him. He wondered why she had not taken the time to kill him. That was a big mistake on her part.
He hauled himself to his feet, feeling every bump and bruise he had sustained during the fight with the little, blonde Tasmanian devil. His eyes burned from the smoke and dust that hung in the air. He rubbed them with the back of his arm, but that only made it worse.
He took a deep breath and gagged on the acrid smoke that hung in the air. He would make an inspection, but he already knew what he’d find.
Five minutes later he was climbing out the emergency exit, his head wrapped in a blood-soaked bandage. He carried nothing with him. The girl had done a number on his facility, blowing up or burning all the offices and the laboratory. Nothing remained that was worth saving. He’d found all the holding pens empty, their doors wide open. He wondered why she had released them, and hoped they’d torn her to bits for her trouble.
Outside, dawn was breaking. Sirens wailed somewhere in the distance, warning him that his time was short. He turned to make for the river when a bright light caught his eye. He looked up to see that Fujiyama was on fire. He couldn’t begin to fathom how or why she had done that.
He took off at a steady run, each step sending jolts of pain through his battered body. While he occasionally entertained thoughts of avenging his defeat at the hands of that…woman, she had unknowingly given him the keys to the magic kingdom. If Richard Ridley was dead, the throne could be claimed by its rightful heir, and there was only one man on the planet who could make such a claim:
Darius Ridley.
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From the Authors
We hope you enjoyed reading Callsign: Queen as much as we enjoyed writing it. Pripyat is a real and fascinating place, and the locations about which we have written are real. We did make one change for the sake of the story—Fujiyama is not located next to the town square. It’s actually located on the western edge of town, and a different, not so well-known building stands in the spot where we’ve placed Fujiyama. Fujiyama is a well-known site in Pripyat and it would have been a shame to leave it out. Thanks for reading!
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
JEREMY ROBINSON is the author of eleven novels including PULSE, INSTINCT, and THRESHOLD the first three books in his exciting Jack Sigler series. His novels have been translated into nine languages. He is also the director of New Hampshire AuthorFest, a non-profit organization promoting literacy. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and three children.
Click here for a sample of Robinson’s novel, THE LAST HUNTER
Visit him on the web, here: www.jeremyrobinsononline.com