The Four Corners of the Earth

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The hours slipped by. The chopper was forced to refuel. The lack of news about the other teams became frustrating. Hayden found her best recourse was to lose herself in the wealth of information pertaining to Genghis’s tomb, but found it hard to discover anything new. The others clearly tried the same for a while, but a few grew tired and chose to grab a little rest, whilst others found it easier to turn to their personal concerns.

In their close quarters it was impossible to tune it out, and truth be told, by now the team were close and familiar enough to take it all in their stride.

Dahl called home. The kids were happy to hear from him, causing Dahl to break out into a big smile. Johanna asked when he would be home. The strain was clear, the upshot not so much. Hayden took a moment to watch Kinimaka whilst the big Hawaiian swiped at a tablet’s screen. She smiled. The device looked like a postcard in his large hands and she remembered those hands touching her body. Gentle. Stirring. He knew her so well, and that enhanced their intimacy. She stared down now at the ruined tip of her finger, the one she’d been forced to ingest during their last mission. The shock of the situation had opened her eyes. Life was infinitely too short to battle wills against someone you loved.

She caught her breath a little, unsure if she really believed it. Damn, you don’t deserve it. Not after all you said. She didn’t justify a way back, and had no real clue where to start. Maybe it was the battle, the situation, the job. Maybe it was each and every moment of the history of her life.

People made mistakes. They could atone.

Alicia’s done it.

The notion sent her gazing in the Englishwoman’s direction as the chopper barged its way through the skies. Sudden turbulence made her clutch a strap tighter. A second of free fall sent her heart into her mouth. But it was all good. It imitated life.

Hayden’s instincts were always to lead, to get the job done. She saw now that those instincts were getting in the way of other, important, aspects of her life. She saw a bleak future.

Drake and Alicia were happy, smiling, tapping at a shared tablet. Mai was letting Kenzie borrow hers, the two women taking it in turns. It was interesting how uniquely different individuals handled similar situations.

Smyth had moved in close to Lauren. “How ya doing?”

“As good as can be, you smooth bastard. This isn’t the time, Smyth.”

“You think I don’t know that? But tell me. When is the time?”

“Not now.”

“Not ever,” Smyth said sulkily.

Lauren growled. “Seriously? We’re at an impasse, man. You hit a brick wall and can’t get past it.”

“A wall?”

Lauren snorted. “Yeah, it has a name.”

“Oh. That wall.”

Hayden saw the way they were both skirting the issue. It wasn’t for her to judge or interfere but it did make clear how any kind of impediment could derail and damage any relationship. Smyth and Lauren were an unorthodox pair to say the least, so unusual that they might work well together.

And yet the most untraditional of obstacles now stood in their way.

Smyth tried a different tack. “Okay, okay, so what has he given you lately?”

“Me? Nothing. I don’t go there for information. That’s the job of the CIA, or FBI or whatever.”

“Then what do you talk about?”

It was a step forward for Smyth. An open, non-confrontational question. Hayden felt a little proud of the soldier.

Lauren hesitated just a little. “Crap,” she said. “We talk crap. TV. Movies. Books. Celebrities. The news. He’s a builder so he asks about projects.”

“What projects?”

“From all that you ask the guarded question. Why not which celebrities, or which movies? Are you interested in buildings, Lance?”

Hayden wanted to tune it out, but found she couldn’t. The cabin was too confined; the question too serious; the mention of Smyth’s first name too engaging.

“Only if someone wants to damage them.”

Lauren waved him away, conversation dead. Hayden wondered if Lauren might be breaking some law, slipping away to converse with a known terrorist, but couldn’t quite decide how to phrase the question to Lauren. Not yet anyway.

“Less than an hour out.” The pilot’s voice came over the comms.

Drake looked up. Hayden saw the determination in his face. Same with Dahl. The team were fully invested, always enhancing and perfecting their skill sets. Look at the last op for example. They had all come through a violently different mission, faced evil incarnate, with nary a scratch.

On a physical aspect, at least. The mental scars — her own in particular — would never heal.

She spent a moment rifling the papers before her and trying to absorb a little more of the history of Genghis Kahn. She looked over the Order’s text, singling out the lines: Go to the Four Corners of the Earth. Find the resting places of the Father of Strategy and then the Khagan; the Worst Indian Who Ever Lived and then the Scourge of God. But all is not as it seems. We visited the Khagan in 1960, five years after completion, placing Conquest in his coffin.

Four corners of the earth? Still a mystery. Luckily, the clues to the identity of the Horsemen had, so far, been distinct. But had the Order found the tomb of Genghis Kahn? It seemed so.

As the chopper continued to blast through the thin air, Yorgi rose and then stepped forward. The thief’s face looked drawn, the eyes hooded, as if he hadn’t slept a wink since his outburst in Peru. “I told you I was a part of Webb’s statement, his legacy,” the Russian said, his tone revealing he was terrified of what he was about to say. “I told you I was the worst of all those mentioned.”

Alicia tried to lift the sudden atmospheric dampener with a huffy grunt. “I’m still waiting to hear who the bloody lesbian is,” she said brightly. “Truth be told, Yogi, I was hoping it’d be you.”

“How…” Yorgi stopped mid-sentence. “I am male.”

“I’m not convinced. Those tiny hands. That face. The way you walk.”

“Let him speak,” Dahl said.

“And y’all should know that I’m the lesbian,” Lauren said. “It’s not a bad or shameful thing to be, you know.”

“I know,” Alicia said. “You should be whomever you want to be, and embrace it. I know I do. I was just hoping it’d be Yogi, that’s all.”

Smyth was staring at Lauren with a confused but otherwise unreadable look upon his face. Drake thought the reaction was admirable, considering the surprise.

“So only one remains,” Kinimaka said.

“Someone who is dying,” Drake said, staring at the floor.

“Shall we let our friend speak?” Dahl urged.

Yorgi attempted a smile. He then clasped his hands in front of him and glared at the cabin roof.

“It is not a long story,” he said, accent thick. “But it is a hard one. I… I killed my parents in cold blood. And I am thankful every single day. Thankful that I did.”

Drake held up a hand to catch his friend’s eye. “You don’t have to explain a thing, you know. We’re family here. This won’t cause an issue.”

“I understand. But it is for me also. Do you understand?”

The team, to a person, nodded. They understood.

“We lived in a small village. A cold village. Winter? It was not a season, it was a mugging, a pounding, a thrashing from God. It beat our families down, even the children. I was one of six, and my parents, they could not cope. They could not drink fast enough to make the days go easier. They could not knock back the right amount to make the nights survivable. They could not find a way to cope and care for us, so they found a way to rearrange the picture.”

Alicia couldn’t keep a lid on her feelings. “I hope that’s not meant the way it sounds.”

“One afternoon we all bundled into the car. A promise of a trip to the city, they said. We had not visited city in years and should have questioned but…” He shrugged. “We were kids. They were our parents. They drove away from the little village and we never saw it again.”

Hayden saw the faraway sadness on Mai’s face. Her younger life may have been different to Yorgi’s, but it held a sad similarity.

“The day outside the car grew colder, darker. They drove and drove and did not speak. But we were used to that. They had no love for life, for us, nor for each other. I think we never knew love, not in the way it should be. In the darkness they stopped, saying the car had broken down. We huddled, some wept. My youngest sister, she was only three years. I was nine, the oldest. I should have… should have…”

Yorgi fought the tears, glaring at the roof as if it held the power to change the past. He thrust out a firm hand before anyone could rise to go to him, but Hayden at least knew this was something he had to get through alone.

“They coaxed us out. They walked for a while. The ice was so hard and cold, it sent out thick deadly waves. I couldn’t understand what they were doing, and then I was too cold to think straight. I saw them turn us around again and again. We were lost and weak, already dying. We were children. We… trusted.”

Hayden closed her eyes. There were no words.

“Obviously, they found car. They drove away. We… well we died… one by one.” Yorgi still could not clearly articulate the details. Only the heartbroken misery scored into his face revealed the truth of it.

“I was only survivor. I was strongest. I tried. I carried and dragged and cuddled, but I failed. I failed them all. I saw life leaving every one of my brothers and sisters and I vowed to survive. Their deaths gave me strength, as if their departed spirits joined mine. I hope they did. Still do. I believe they’re still with me. I survived a Russian prison. I survived Matt Drake,” he managed a weak smile, “and breaking him out.”

“How did you make it back to the village?” Kinimaka wanted to know. Hayden and Dahl gave him the discreet look, but it was also clear Yorgi needed to vent.

“I wore their clothes,” he hissed in an achingly low voice. “Shirts. Jackets. Socks. I stayed warm and I left them all alone in the snow and ice and I made it to road.”

Hayden couldn’t imagine the heartache, the assumed guilt that should not be his.

“A car passed by, helped me. I gave them a story, returned to the village a few days later,” he took a deep breath, “and let them see the ghost of the sorrow that they wrought. Let them see and feel how deep his anger was. So yes, I murdered my parents in cold blood.”

A silence fell that should never be broken. Hayden knew the bodies of Yorgi’s brothers and sisters lay in the place they fell right now, forever frozen, never laid to rest.

“I turned thief.” Yorgi eased apart the heartbreaking resonance. “And later was caught. But never tried for murder. And here we are.”

The pilot’s voice came over the airwaves. “Thirty minutes to Chinese airspace, kids, and then it’s anyone’s guess.”

Hayden was pleased when Lauren called up the DC think tank at that point. A diversion was the only way forward.

“We’re close,” she said by way on introduction. “Anything new?”

“We’re working the four corners, the Horsemen’s birth date references, Mongolia, the Khagan and the Order themselves, which do you want first?”