Chapter Eleven
Fire and Ice
Yet another first for Anna was in the making. There had been the private jet that had dropped her and Kevin off in Reykjavík along with James, who insisted that she now call him Flint.
Now she was hovering in a chopper over the most barren godforsaken looking land she’d ever seen in her life. Nothing but black rock, snow and dead looking grass greeted her eyes. This was Iceland.
It looked cold, barren and very lonely. Still if this was where Tyre wanted to be then she would be here also. But they would definitely be going somewhere warm for vacations!
Flint was flying the chopper and Anna noticed him shaking his head, as a rueful smile played across his features.
“What is it?”
He pointed ahead.
They were just clearing the rim of an up thrust in the rugged terrain and Anna saw a house that reflected crisp clean lines of construction situated in the center of the basin beyond the rim they had just cleared.
“Only Tyre would build his home on the base floor of a dormant volcano.” Flint said laughing.
“Volcano!” Anna squeaked out in disbelief.
“Yeah this whole basin is the caldera of a dormant volcano.” Flint said, as he brought the chopper down onto the icy black rock before the house and then shut it off.
Flint got out and helped Anna and Kevin out of the chopper, but stayed with it as the two began to make their way across the short expanse of distance toward the lone figure of a man standing in the entrance way of the house.
I watched her come toward me. I couldn’t imagine how she had found me, but it was a wild dream come true! My eyes drifted down to Kevin. It had been him of course that had found me I realized.
Thank God for his gifts!
They stepped up in front of me and it looked like Anna had a lot to say, but nothing came out and she seemed to give up on the words as she stepped forward and hugged me hard. I hugged her back and heard her say against my neck,
“I don’t want to be safe if it means living without you!”
I nodded and said, “I’m so sorry! I made a mistake!”
“You’re forgiven.” She leaned back her face all teary, as she shook a finger at me, “But don’t do it ever again Mister, you got me!”
“Yes ma’am!”
I opened the door behind me and ushered her and Kevin inside.
“I need to talk to Flint for a moment okay?”
She nodded, as she started to take her and Kevin’s coats off in the warm interior of the house. It was hard to step away from them, when I had already felt them lost for forever and now they were here with me.
I made my way to Flint, who still stood at the chopper.
“I hope you don’t mind me doing this Tyre. You’re not someone I’d want to hold a grudge against me!”
I shook my head and held out my hand, “Thank you James!” I said using his real name.
“You’re welcome Nikolai.”
We shook hands.
“Your secret is safe with me Tyre.” Flint said, as he gestured to the caldera at large with a wave of his hand. He started to turn to get back into the chopper.
“Flint how do you do it? How do you face living with yourself if anything were to ever happen to Lisa or your child, because of the lives we live as agents?”
Flint looked down at the icy snow at his feet, “I don’t know how I do it Tyre. It truly scares me and it worries me all the time, but you can’t live your life in fear. I do what I can to ensure their safety and I trust that God will do what I can’t. There are no guarantees in life Tyre, you know that. Enjoy the day, because you don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I’m really glad to see that you found someone to share your life with Tyre! Speaking from my own personal experience I can say that it really sucks to be alone! These women that have come into our lives are like the vital nutrients that we can’t live without and that build us up so that we can accomplish even more than before. Tyre, if I lost Lisa, I would starve to death inside! So I live every moment I’m blessed to have with her, as if it were my last and take the days as they come. You should do the same. Beginning with your wedding night would be a good place to start I’m thinking!” James said slapping me on the back hard.
I nodded and watched him take off moments later, as he headed back to his family even as mine awaited me inside the house behind me.
I stepped inside and dusted the snow off my shoulders. I followed the trail of lights and sounds to my study. Anna was who I saw first and she looked concerned.
“I can make him stop.”
I glanced at Kevin to see him completely absorbed with my smart screen. His fingers traced across it as he felt his way through what was essentially a giant iPad.
“He just started and…”
I cut her off before she could finish, “Its fine. It’ll keep him occupied.” I said taking her hand and leading her from the room and down the hall.
She looked back toward Kevin, “But that TV thing must be outrageously expensive and you probably don’t want him in your personal stuff!”
I opened a door and led her inside before twirling her away from me and toward the bed, as I turned the lights on.
“I could care less right now if he deleted every folder and file and smashed the thing into a million pieces.” I said.
She swung back around to face me smiling, but I could tell she was a little shocked by my domineering handling of her. I stepped out toward her, as I let the door slam shut behind me as the lock clicked audibly.
“Am I moving too fast Anna?”
She looked rather breathless, as she shook her head no.
“Good.” I said as I pushed her over backward onto the bed and then slid onto it myself as I straddled her.
“You know why?”
She shook her head again as she stared up at me, as if seeing me for the first time or at least a different side of me.
“Because right now I couldn’t move fast enough to suit my desire to make you mine!” I said my voice trailing off as I began to kiss her and undress her at the same time.
“A volcano seriously?” Anna asked, as she looked up at me from where I sat on the countertop beside the sink, as she did the dishes.
I gave her a mock look of affront, “Why what’s wrong with it?”
She rolled her eyes and shook a loose strand of her hair from her face back over an ear with a quick dart of a finger.
I chuckled and continued eating my slice of apple pie that she had made, as I appreciated her hard work at cleaning the dishes.
“You know there is a dishwasher.” I said.
She smiled and shrugged, “I know but I’ve never really had a place of my own or one that I wanted to call my own anyway. I’ve longed for years for the simple joy of washing nice dishes in a sink that I could call my own that’s part of a beautiful kitchen filled with nice things.”
I smiled teasingly, “Is it still a dream come true since this dream kitchen is located in the middle of a dormant volcano?”
“It’ll do.” She said softly.
After a moment she asked, “Just what does dormant mean?”
I laughed.
“I’m serious! What does it mean?” She asked looking somewhat miffed at my laughter directed at her.
“It means that it’s been a very long time since it was an active lava spewing volcano. It doesn’t however mean that there’s no volcanic activity going on. This particular caldera sees some activity every 500 years or so. By my figuring we are in year 312 of the volcanic cycle. So unless you’re figuring on living another hundred years and then some, I see no hindrances arising to deprive you of your kitchen.”
She smiled and continued washing the dishes, “Homeowners insurance must be terribly expensive.”
She glanced up as if to glean the answer from my face and she found it in my eyes that were laughing at her.
“You don’t have any insurance?” She exclaimed, as the dishrag almost slipped out of her soapy fingers into the suds.
“Honey this isn’t the States. Iceland’s broke not saying the States aren’t too, but here the loan notice has been signed and delivered. Home insurance is the last thing they’re concerned about. If they don’t pass out flood insurance to people living on a floodplain I doubt they’ll insure against volcano damage for a house located in a lava field.”
She went back to washing, but I could tell she was still bothered. I was done with the pie and with being content just to watch my wife. I leaned over and placed my dirty dish and fork squarely in the middle of her freshly emptied sink and she gave me a censoring eyebrow.
I slid off the counter and up behind her and kissed her neck. I could hear the smile in her voice as she asked, “What are you doing?” As my hands began to pull her shirt up and then over her head.
“Why I’m enjoying the ambient quality of our beautiful kitchen with you before lava flows destroy it all.”
She giggled and stood still facing the sink, as I removed the rest of her clothing.
“I do have to admit Tyre that there is one thing that I really do like about your house’s location.”
“And what’s that my love?”
She turned to me her eyes sparkling as her fingers moved to the buttons of my shirt, “All my life I’ve been a city girl. I find it very freeing to enjoy the life and privacy of the country with you anywhere I want to.”
I sat up panting hard the nightmare still real in my memories. I hadn’t had one in a while and I had enjoyed their absence. They weren’t so much as nightmares as they were bad memories.
The nightmare was that in the midst of a dream I was left with the impression that life had never passed beyond that time of hardship that my bad memories were based out of. It had been an intolerable time to go through let alone be stuck in.
“Oh honey! You’re drenched!” Anna exclaimed, as I felt her hand touch my back and then my head.
I lifted a shaking hand to brush the sweat off my forehead. Her cool hands pulled my head down against her warm chest and she hugged me to her.
This was a level of comforting that I had never had before and I soaked up every moment of it. I pressed my face harder against her feeling myself begin to relax, as her hands rubbed my upper back and neck.
“I’m hopelessly in love with you and would do anything for you, but it bothers me that I know so little about you in regards to the time before I met you Tyre.” Anna said softly.
“What do you want to know?”
“What gives you nightmares?”
“My whole childhood was a nightmare and sometimes I dream that I never left it.”
I was quiet for a little while and so was she.
“I suppose you want to know more?”
“Yes.” Was her soft response.
I reluctantly pulled myself up to sit back against the headboard leaving the comforting softness of her chest behind. Thankfully she followed with her comfort, as she turned halfway into me, as she lay her head on my shoulder and her hand rubbed over the muscles of my chest and belly.
“Were you an orphan?” She asked prompting me.
“Yes and no. I had a mother. I never knew my father.”
“You were born in Russia?”
“Yes, Kiev to be exact.”
“That must’ve been hard for a single mother in Russia to raise a child alone.”
“She wasn’t like you Anna. You’re a wonderful mother and I’ve seen few people equal you in terms of the amount of self-sacrifice that you’re willing to go through for your own child, and even for me. In a word, you’re amazing!”
Her lips kissed the base of my neck, “Thanks!” She whispered before she asked, “Your mother wasn’t amazing I take it?”
“She was a drug addict and did anything she had to in order to get a fix.”
Anna’s words were cautious as she asked, “Was she on drugs while she was pregnant with you?”
“Most likely.”
I squeezed an arm around her back, “Come on out with it honey. You think I’m slightly autistic don’t you Anna?”
“No I don’t think your autistic Tyre, but you do have some processing disorders and emotional hang-ups. Your mother being on drugs could explain that. You cope very well with them though, but it shows at times if you know what to look for like I do. That doesn’t make you any less of a man Tyre! It just makes you who you are, which is the man I love above all others!”
“You’re sweet you know that! You’re the sweetest, kindest most loving influence that I’ve ever had in my life!” I said emotionally.
She nuzzled her face against my neck and pressed her body closer to mine. “I’m glad you think that.” She whispered softly against my neck.
“Your mother she didn’t care for you at all?” Anna asked.
“No, I cared for her instead. I stole food and picked pockets and whatever else I had to do to survive. A lot of times we ate other people’s garbage. At times, especially in the winter rats and mice can become a delicacy let me tell you.
I managed to get a small job cleaning up at a chess club that paid enough to get some better food for a while.”
“How old were you?”
“About eight I think.” I said in response.
“What happened to your mother?”
“She was doing sexual favors one night in order to get the money for a fix and I guess she didn’t do the job well enough or she asked too much money for it and the guy slapped her so hard he broke her neck.”
Anna cringed against me and I felt her tears on my skin, “Then what did you do Tyre?”
“The authorities got a hold of me and threw me into an orphanage, which was essentially a sweatshop. I was there till I was 11, when a rich American couple adopted me.”
“Did things get better then?” Anna asked hopefully.
“The food did, but nothing else. They were rich New York socialites. The wife had lost a bet with another couple and the conditions of the bet had been that the loser had to adopt a Russian orphan.”
“That’s terrible!” Anna exclaimed.
“Actually it wouldn’t have been that bad, if her husband hadn’t had a fondness for boys.”
Anna’s head came up off my shoulder and I could see the look of outrage on her face in the semi light of the moon reflecting off the snow outside.
“He molested you?” She cried out in anger.
“Molest would be a small word for it.” I said before looking away.
Her hand brought my face back around, “Oh honey!” She whispered out before hugging me hard as her tears pressed into my skin.
I relished her comfort, but I knew she might not give it so freely after she heard all of it. I started to speak, but her fingers closed over my mouth. “Tyre you don’t have to go on! I understand if you don’t want to talk about this stuff!”
I kissed her fingers, but pulled them away, “You need to hear all of it Anna.”
She looked uncertain but said, “Okay.”
I started back into the story, “The authorities found out about my adopted fathers activities with me from a maid, who felt sorry for me. They shipped him off to jail and the inmates made short work of him within a couple months, when they found out what he was there for.
I stayed on with the wife until I was fourteen and then I ran away. I started stealing stuff again. It was easy really. Growing up in a Russian ghetto had been survival, but making it alone on the streets of New York City was child’s play in comparison.
I killed my first man when I was sixteen. It was the easiest money I ever made, more followed after. I educated myself with the money I made. I even went to college under an assumed identity with the money I made off of killing people on the side.
I was in every way as cold and dispassionately out for my own gain as the man who injected you with that acid was.”
“What made you change?” Anna asked, her words slightly muffled against my chest.
In some ways I couldn’t believe she was still against me. Let alone in the same room with me. “It was a couple of years later after college, when I came up against the wall.
I was given a target to take out and offered a lot of money to do it. Much more than usual. I inquired why that was and was told that I could expect resistance from other interested parties. Well, the interested parties got the better of me or I should say one of them did, an old man.
I was full of bullet holes and bleeding out on the concrete floor of an old warehouse building. As I lay there dying I reflected on how glad I was that life was almost over.
The older man that had outfoxed me came up to me. I thought he’d come to finish the job, but he just stared at me for a while and I at him. He stopped the bleeding then and somehow I survived.
He took me to his estate and I started the long process of recovery. It took a while. When I was to the point that I could’ve walked off under my own power I went to him and asked him why he had saved me. He didn’t answer my question directly at first.
He looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘You work for me from now on boy. You’re good at killing, but you only kill those from now on that need killing, and you won’t do it for money anymore, but rather for the greater good. I’ll see that you have the money you need to live comfortably, while not on assignment and in return I expect absolute loyalty from you.’ He started to leave me then and I grabbed his arm to stop him as I asked again, ‘Why?’ He looked at me for a long moment, ‘Because I thought I saw something worth saving in you. Now don’t disappoint me or I swear that I’ll put a bullet between your eyes myself, so help me and finish the job I started!’ And that was that. I started working for him and the agency he runs. It hasn’t all been killing, but there has been a lot of it. He paired me up with Flint and Galloway. Flint you know. Galloway doesn’t have a serious bone in his body and gets on my nerves a lot, but he is still very capable in his own right. His effervescent mood is in some ways a cover that helps put others to sleep in regards to his true threat to them. It took me a while to realize that the dumb ox wasn’t so stupid after all. Flint is the consummate man in almost every aspect and if given the chance in another life I would very much like to have been a lot more like him. He’s even got me half convinced that forgiveness and a ticket to heaven are still options left open to even someone like me.”
“And why not?” Anna said cutting in.
“You’ve been a perfect angel with me and Kevin! Sure you’ve done enough to be in hell, but so have we all. Why shouldn’t forgiveness be an option open for you to? Whatever you once were and as bad as that may have been, you’ve changed! You’re a wonderful man! You shown me nothing but a caring heart and youth melted mine in how you’ve been a father to Kevin and a tender caretaker over my own needs and desires. You’ve been nothing but an answer to prayers that I thought were long forgotten! Knowing you has given me back my faith Tyre and I won’t stand for any nonsense about how you think you’re such a bad guy!” She said passionately into my face.
“I don’t deserve you Anna!” I said with emotion equal to hers.
“Tough because you’re stuck with me!” She said as she slid over straddling my lap. I watched her wipe away tears as her resolute smile came back out.
“Now I’ve heard all your deep dark secrets and I’m still here and I love you! Now you want to know what I think your problem is?”
“What?”
“I think you just haven’t had enough good memories in life yet to wipe out all those bad ones.” She said as she kissed me.
“That could take a lifetime of work on your part don’t you think?” I asked teasingly, as the entire mood of the bedroom’s atmosphere shifted down another avenue, thanks to this amazing woman.
I laughed as she held up one hand and said, “Ready willing and able Sir!”
She made it so good to be alive.
Her eyes turned smoky with passion, as she ran a finger down my face to my lips, “Now there’s something I want to know!”
“What?” I asked completely captivated by her.
“Since we’re in the spirit of you laying everything out in the light of day, I thought you could be persuaded.”
She kissed me.
“To reveal.”
She kissed me again.
“Yourself.”
“What in particular are you referring to?” I asked cautiously.
She smiled predatorily at me as her arms closed around my neck. “You spent hours and hours stalking me with your eyes in that bar in Philadelphia. For thirty two nights I felt the heat of your gaze on me and now I want you to tell me every single fantasy you dreamed up while you were watching me, because honey I’m going to make them all come true!”
I felt beads of sweat pop out of my forehead and I laughed nervously. “Do you think you can handle that, honey?”
I hated the nervous sounding quality of my own voice, as I tried to deflect her question.
Her smile was full of promise and her voice deepened as she said, “Oh you know I can honey! I have a few of my own as well, but I want to hear yours first. Now start spilling the beans Nikolai and don’t leave anything out!”
It was easy to sleep in this house. It was always so quiet in the shelter of the caldera. There were no traffic sounds or freight trains; in fact there was little chance of running into another person at all. Peaceful and quiet, but I had already started saying goodbye to my first real home.
I wasn’t going to keep someone like Anna all boxed up and isolated away from the world in this lonely little volcano in the middle of nowhere. She needed interaction with others and I could tolerate it, so I didn’t mind sacrificing my cherished peace to make her happy.
Truth be told since I had met her I had noticed a marked willingness on my part to partake, so to speak, in the daily goings-on around me in the world. I suppose they would say she was pulling me out of my shell. If she was I had to admit that I was going altogether willingly.
I looked around the rumpled bed with its sheets tossed everywhere and smiled. Last night had been wild! I didn’t do wild, but last night I had. I did it all the time now actually.
I smiled kind of sappily to myself with the realization of how much I had already changed because of Anna’s influence in my life. I threw some clothes on and ambled down the hall into the kitchen area.
Anna was industriously hard at work with breakfast, but she looked up and gave me a quick smile followed by a wink. I smiled in return and looked around for Kevin. I found him as usual sitting at the kitchen table with the chessboard all laid out and ready to go.
I sighed audibly. It was time for my morning beat down as usual.
Anna’s arms came around my middle from behind and her voice was all laughter as she chortled into my ear, “You’ll always be a winner in my book honey!” And then she shoved me lightly towards the table and Kevin.
I sat down and gazed up from the chessboard to meet Kevin’s implacable gaze. One day I swore to myself I’d beat this kid, but today wasn’t likely going to be the day. Give me about a thousand years and I might manage it.
Anna saved me from having to witness the final death throes of my two remaining pieces by announcing that it was breakfast and the time for playing was over. Kevin didn’t look pleased. The kid was competitive as all get out. In many ways I admired his killer instinct and thirst for victory.
Breakfast as usual was good. Yet one more blessing to add to all the others I was experiencing. Kevin disappeared off to somewhere, which left Anna and I alone at the table.
She gave me a funny look and asked, “What’s that look for?”
I just shook my head smiling, as I finished fleshing out the newest fantasy I’d just come up with in my head that I wanted to share with her later. Alarms began to shriek as concealed warning lights began to flash throughout the house.
I upturned the table and grabbed Anna, who was sitting deathly still in sudden shock at the sound of unexpected alarms and lights all around us going off. I dragged her to the kitchen and pushed her down on the inside of the kitchen’s surround counters.
“Stay!” I yelled above the noise of the alarms.
“Kevin!” She screamed back at me frantically.
“I know!” I answered, as I took off at a run for the bedrooms.
The lights were now flashing red. I ran into his bedroom only he wasn’t there! He wasn’t in mine either or the spare bedroom. I ran into the bathroom but nothing! Where was he?
I started to run back towards the kitchen and living area, which is when the bullets began to strike the house as the heavy caliber rounds chewed their way through it.
Interlacing cannon fire of thousands upon thousands of shells chased me in hot pursuit down the hall back to the kitchen, as the armor piercing rounds punched through the thickly insulated walls of the house as if they were made of butter. I heard Anna screaming and saw her with her hands over her ears as the house all around us was disintegrating as it was torn apart by hot lead.
I ran the fastest sprint of my life and even then I don’t know how I made it back to the shelter of the kitchen counters. I dove the last few feet as the shells chasing me slammed into the thick steel armor plating that the kitchen cabinets and counters were inlaid with. Crawling I reached Anna. She was crying hysterically and saying something, but little could be heard over the whining destruction of the bullets destroying the house.
Glancing around corners of the splintered cabinets I made out at least six to seven black helicopters surrounding the house, as they poured round after round into it. They had to be using some kind of infrared heat seeking targeting system to have us so pinned down. Kevin was likely dead, only a sudden glance back into the living room proved otherwise.
Kevin was standing there crying and beating at himself, completely freaked out, by what was going on. If I made even an attempt to go get him I would be instantly shredded apart by bullets.
“Why aren’t the bullets hitting him?” Anna screamed into my ear.
The dawning realization came to me then, “Because he’s what they came for!” I answered feeling sick to my stomach.
Yet again I had failed to keep them safe. One of the helicopters swooped down low and I watched as a man poised in the open bay of the helicopter brought a bazooka like weapon up to his shoulder. He shot it off and a grappling net swallowed Kevin whole and ripped him up out of the house and into the air.
Anna screamed and moved forward as the chopper left the remaining group of six choppers, but I held her back. She turned and sobbed into my chest. Her fist hit my chest repeatedly, “Why?” She repeated over and over.
“Because there are evil men that will do anything if the price is right! Anna?”
She looked up at me, as I noticed several cuts on her face from flying glass shards.
“I’ll get him back! I swear it on my life!”
She nodded and wiped the tears from off her face as I saw a new side of Anna emerge or perhaps it’s the harder edge that every loving mother possesses when her child is threatened.
“I know you will and I’m going to help you do it!”
I didn’t argue with her, it would have done no good. I would need help. More help than just she could provide though, because I knew who had kidnapped Kevin.
I reached a hand up and pulled a meat tenderizer mallet out of a drawer and proceeded to smash away at a kitchen floor tile. It shattered revealing a handle beneath it. I smashed the rest of the hidden door’s outline out and I pulled the heavy steel door up which gave a creak of protest. The bullets had stopped.
“Down now!” I yelled as I grabbed Anna and dropped her down into the dark hole in the floor.
I jumped in after her pulling the heavy door closed as I went. Seconds later the dark space surrounding us punctured by our rapid breathing shuddered, as the house above us was hit by missiles, which ignited an inferno, of what little was left of what had once been my home.
I flicked