An hour later, the road had started to tilt sharply downhill and the lights finally seemed closer. He passed two isolated shacks before reaching a larger house with a barn on one side. He saw no lights in the house—not surprising given that his watch read 2:33 a.m. He wouldn’t get a better opportunity than this, especially since the barn door had only a simple latch with a padlock that was not fully engaged.
The barn smelled like any one of a hundred he’d encountered before. Rook’s teenage years had included summers working on a farm in his native New Hampshire, and the odor of hay and horse dung was not unpleasant when you were accustomed to it. He allowed his lips to curl into a smirk as he considered that even above the Arctic Circle, some things don’t change.
Rook could sense horses and perhaps other animals in some of the stalls, but he had no intention of spooking them by turning on his light. After allowing his eyes to adapt, he made his way to an empty stall. He’d endured far worse sleeping conditions than the pile of straw in the corner, and he drifted to sleep almost as soon as his eyelids slid shut. The Desert Eagle rested in his right hand.
His dreams included flames and explosions, from which a huge creature emerged at a full run. Rook could make out no distinct features except anger-filled yellow eyes, and he reached for his gun and tried to raise it. He couldn’t move his hand, no matter how hard he tried. When he looked down, something cold and hard hit him in the nose, and his head jerked upwards.
Then his eyes opened, dispersing the remnants of the dream. One object dominated his vision. A double-barreled shotgun jammed into one of his nostrils.
2
“Good morning, soldier.” The voice spoke Norwegian, a language in which Rook was fluent. Each member of Chess Team had learned at least half a dozen languages, and Rook’s blue eyes and blond goatee and hair made him the natural candidate for those of northern Europe. He decided to answer rather than disarm the man pressing the shotgun into his nose.
“Yeah, good morning. You mind pointing that thing somewhere else?”
“That depends. Do you mind telling me what you’re doing in my barn?”
Rook glanced up at the speaker and calculated some more. The man looked old, at least seventy to judge by the snowy hair and weathered face, but the gray eyes showed no fear or anger, just focus. A man who formerly must have commanded respect.
Rook didn’t wait any longer. His right arm was inches from the end of the shotgun, and in one motion he slammed his hand into it, pushing it in one direction and rolling his body in the other direction as a counter-balance. As the gun swung away, Rook grabbed it by the barrel and jerked it out of the man’s hands. The motion caused his roll to continue until he wound up kneeling, his Desert Eagle coming up into firing position.
As he aimed it, he noticed that the man had produced a small pistol. Not a bad move, thought Rook, especially for a senior citizen. He said, “I think this is what we call a standoff.”
“I thought you might try something like that.”
“Then why the hell did you get so close to me?”
The man chuckled. “I wanted to find out for sure.” He lowered the gun to his side. “So, soldier, no more standoff. But my question stands. What are you doing in my barn?”
“I was sleeping until you shoved a shotgun in my face.”
“I figured to get your attention. How did you come to be looking for a barn to sleep in, soldier?”
“Why do you keep calling me ‘soldier’?”
“I’ve seen a few of them in my time, and you could not be anything else. Are you going to answer my question?”
Rook considered before answering. What am I doing here, anyway? He knew he needed some time to get right with the loss of his entire support team, but that just wasn’t his style. He’d rather shoot out navels than spend time gazing at his own. But here he was.
He lowered the Desert Eagle and held out his left hand. “I wanted some time away. I started walking, and next thing I knew, I needed a place to sleep. I didn’t figure I’d find a motel around here, so your barn seemed as good as anything. The name’s Stanislav.”
The man kept his gaze steady and didn’t move to take Rook’s hand. “Seems like you might have left a couple things out between walking and sleeping.”
Rook laughed. “Yeah, I did. Especially the part about the wolf.”
The man raised his pistol again, and Rook didn’t see any wavering in the aim. “Tell me, Stanislav, what wolf are you talking about?”
Rook locked eyes with the man. “The pack of pitch-black wolves I met a few miles back, with a giant bastard the size of a small horse as their pack leader.”
The man lowered the gun again, and Rook said, “Make up your mind whether you’re gonna shoot me, okay? What’s this all about?”
Instead of answering directly, the man asked, “These wolves, did they attack you?”
“They sure as shit would have the way they were circling me. I cut their leader with my knife and they decided to find an easier target.”
Rook saw some doubt in the man’s eyes for the first time. Then the man put the gun in his waistband. Rook raised his eyebrows.
“You sure you wanna put that there? You might shoot off something important.”