The Shepherd's Crook Pt. 01

Ben blinked in surprise at the man as he wasn't making sense. Finally, he snorted. "Am I being officially kidnapped by the Russian Army?"

The Colonel shook his head with a slight smile. "No, not officially. The story will be that you became lost in the wilderness. It's a big country. You'd be surprised how often it happens."

Ben shook his head in disbelief. "You're right about one thing. I do work for US Military in their non-weapons based research. They're aware I'm here in Russia. If I don't return home, they're going to start asking uncomfortable questions. Your bosses are going to have to answer for this."

The Colonel smiled smugly. "I run many covert operations that my bosses have no knowledge of, as that's how they want it. They can deny any involvement yet reap the benefits of my actions. I have autonomy, and they get what they need."

Yuri came back into the room pushing a bruised and beaten Liliya. The woman had her softly crying daughter in her arms. The girl couldn't have been more than three years old, and she was being exposed to this?

Ben took in Liliya's split and swollen lower lip and the dark bruising around her eyes and on her wrists. The next thing he was aware of was Trish pressing her body against his chest, talking to him quickly and soothingly. Ben's growl slowly died away, and he looked down into Trish's worried eyes. He was a few feet closer to Yuri who was watching him nervously as well. His expression flip-flopped between fear and hate.

"Can't he maintain control over himself?" Yuri muttered to Trish as if just noticing her presence.

She glared at the man. "Ben doesn't like to see women abused."

Liliya was watching Ben strangely. Then her eyes went to the Colonel, and Trish saw the barely suppressed rage take over.

"Mr. Shepherd. Did Liliya tell you that before she worked with Yuri, she'd worked for my private secret service? She was a very effective assassin. The blood of many men and women is on her hands. She showed promise of being the very best, but then she made a stupid mistake. She'd spent a year getting close to her target, feeding information to us while warming his bed. Then she became sloppy. The bitch became pregnant. This made her vulnerable. Worse, she hid the pregnancy from us. Foolish. We picked her and her daughter up then shopped her out to the highest bidder as her skills are highly sought after."

"Are you expecting me to reject or vilify Liliya for her past? I'm not her judge," Ben snarled.

Shaking his head, Ben walked over to the desk and leaned on the back of one of the chairs there. He glanced out the window and noticed a difference. He turned to Yuri who had followed him across the room but stayed beyond Ben's reach.

Time to address the matter at hand. "Something Liliya did tell me was that you, Yuri, were responsible for the kidnapping of the twins I rescued in France. You were the one who sold those children to slavers, destined for the sex trade. She told me you're threatening to do the same to her daughter if she doesn't obey your orders." He looked into Yuri's eyes and saw the man working out what was safe to disclose to the big man.

Finally, after the silence drew out uncomfortably, Yuri glanced to Liliya then back to Ben. A small smile appeared on his lips as he nodded. "Yes, but that was personal. A private transaction."

Ben lifted his hand and flipped Yuri the bird. Yuri's smile dropped from his face as he saw the hate in Ben's eyes.

Nanoseconds after the sharp pock of the 50 caliber bullet punching through the glass, Yuri's head exploded in a red mist.

The Colonel's reaction time was excellent as he dropped to the floor and scrambled for cover. Liliya dove for protection as well, shielding her daughter with her body.

Ben spun and ripped the chair apart with a deep grunt. He tore the loose bits from one of the legs and tossed the long carved staff to Trish who snatched it from the air and rushed over to guard the door.

Grabbing another chair, Ben rushed along the back wall silently towards the couches where the Colonel had leapt. Trish looked to Ben then tapped the floor with the chair leg. The Colonel popped up from between the couch and coffee table lifting his gun. Ben smashed the chair into the smaller man's side. Wood splintered and bones broke as the Colonel's body was launched into the bookcases at the end of the room. His gun bounced free and slid across the floor towards Liliya.

Just then the room's double doors burst inwards as the butler crashed through them, weapon drawn. Trish was ready and spun her club upwards, breaking his wrist and sending his gun sailing across the room. She twisted her body and swung the club, catching him on the ear. Reversing her spin, the next blow caught him across the throat. The man's legs went out from under him as the strike crushed his windpipe. He went down hard, striking his head and shoulders against the floor. With a final twist, Trish slammed the end of the chair leg down against his solar plexus, driving what little wind he had from his lungs. His eyes rolled back, and he fainted. Trish leapt from the doorway to the wall next to it and poked the broken door closed as best she could with the chair leg.

"We're sitting ducks here!" she said with a nervous glance to Ben.

He looked to Liliya who was staring at Trish in shock. "Liliya! Are you and Rose all right?"

"Uh, yes, we are good," she mumbled.

"How many guards outside?" Ben asked her.

She seemed to be getting her wits back. "Twelve... twelve on site. Three at gate, three patrolling grounds. One in security center in garage, and five in barracks above garage. Butler and driver are armed. Driver will be in garage."

The building shook as a massive thump rolled across the property.

"I think that was our friends taking out the garage. We should have friendlies arriving shortly." The Colonel took that opportunity to moan in pain as he began to wake. Ben glanced at him then looked to Liliya. "Can you pick up the Colonel's gun and guard him?"

She nodded as she moved with Rose clinging to her chest. She picked up the gun and moved closer to the injured man.

With a groan, Aleksei looked up at the woman, and his expression froze.

With Rose on her left hip, the corner of Liliya's lip lifted in a snarl. "You- you made me what I am. For this, I hate you, but what I cannot forgive, you put Rose in Yuri's hands. You are bad man. Rose is not safe if you live."

The Colonel's eyes widened in terror as he faced the steady gun barrel. "NE-"

Liliya blew the Colonel's brains out the back of his head as Ben and Trish watched helpless to stop her. Rose held her hands to her ears and began to wail.

Liliya kissed her daughter and comforted her. Then she looked to Ben with a sad expression. "It was only way."

He sighed then all hell broke loose as bullets ripped through the broken door.

"Fuck!" Trish yelped as she dove over the couch. Ben caught her in midair and pulled her behind him. Then he reached back over the furniture to grab Liliya and Rose in his arms before yanking them to safety.

He hissed as a bullet grazed his right shoulder. Liliya's arm was suddenly braced over his left as she put a slug into the right bicep of a man rushing into the room. He cried out and dropped his gun as his hand went numb.

"Maksim!" Liliya screamed in rage.

The man threw himself back into the hallway. Ben heard him cursing in a language he didn't understand. He did pick up the man was in pain.

"Liliya! You killed the Colonel?!?" the man's voice called out from behind the corner.

"Yes! He had to die! As do you!" Liliya yelled.

"You bitch traitor! You're dead! You hear me! I will hunt you down and your fucking spawn. You're both dead!"

Ben had to grab Liliya to keep her from charging into the hall.

Suddenly, gunfire sounded from further down the hallway, and stray bullets tore through the far side of the room. They heard another cry of pain, then a series of rapid shots, followed by a crash of glass then silence.

The next sound Ben heard was the rough cough of his rental car starting up. The engine roared as it drove off.

"Ben! You down there?"

He sighed as that was Wally's voice. "Yes! All present and accounted for! Is the house secure?"

"Yeah, but we gotta book!" Wally said as he peeked around the corner at the carnage.

Liliya handed Rose to a surprised Trish then rushed to Yuri's headless body. She patted his pockets and pulled the memory stick from his shirt. She tossed this to Ben. Then she took a small ring of keys from his pants pocket and rushed over to the desk. She unlocked the drawers and pulled out an envelope containing her passports and a few she'd obtained for Rose as well. Searching a few other drawers, she collected Yuri's tablet and a small metal box containing what looked to Ben like a large amount of cash. She dumped the box on the desk and stuffed the cash inside her shirt. Then she rushed over to the Colonel's body. She flipped him over then went through his pockets.

"We don't have time for this!" Wally said as he gestured for them to join him in the hall.

"Liliya, come on!" Ben growled.

She made a noise of victory then clutched another small keyring in her hand, moving to catch up. As she ran past, she grabbed the Colonel's attaché case. Arms full, she joined them.

Once the group was together, Wally got them down the hall and out the back door. He hustled everyone over to the helicopter.

"What the hell are we doing?" Ben asked.

"We're taking the express route. Get in!" Wally barked as he opened the side door for them, then moved to climb up into the pilot's cockpit. He quickly began to get it started.

Ben assisted Trish in as she was still carrying Rose, the girl fading from exhaustion.

Liliya hopped in as she knew her way around a helicopter. She immediately opened the briefcase and dropped Yuri's tablet and the passports in. She began sorting through the dockets inside. She knew the Colonel only kept paper records as his projects were too sensitive to have in a potentially hackable digital repository.

She smiled when she found the docket for the special ops team. Her file was in there too. More importantly, there was a docket for Maksim. Every detail about the Colonel's deadly assassin was in her hands. She skimmed through the papers as what she had to do next became clear to her. There were four other operatives in the Colonel's assassin program. They had to be eliminated, or she and Rose would never be safe.

She looked across to the seats facing her and saw Trish had placed earphones over her daughter's sensitive ears. The small girl was curled up in the redhead's arms fast asleep. Liliya relaxed as her daughter was safe at last.

Her eyes locked on Trish's and the woman gestured to hand the child back to her mother. Liliya's chest tightened as she flashed back to the moment she'd shot the Colonel in cold blood. She hadn't hesitated even though she was holding her daughter in her other arm. She recalled Rose's terror from the loud noise. How could she have done that before her child's eyes? She shook her head to Trish then looked back inside the briefcase as she blinked away her tears.

In the doorway, Ben waved to Nikolai to hurry and the older man entered with a massive sniper rifle in his hands. Ben stepped outside to look for Dan who was the last of their group to show.

He finally spotted the man sprinting for the helicopter. Ben waved at him to hurry. Just as Dan's foot touched the cement of the helipad, one of the Russian soldiers lying on the ground leapt up and grabbed him from behind. The soldier had a wicked blade in his hand and was frantically trying to drive it into Dan's throat. The attack caught Dan unprepared, and he barely managed to block it. The tip of the knife began to draw blood.

Ben launched himself across the helipad, running to Dan's side to grab the soldier's arm. He wrenched it away from Dan's throat with a savage crack of splintered bones, and seized the soldier's throat in his left hand, squeezing until he heard it pop. Gurgling, the man fell onto his back, unable to scream. Dan looked down at him in surprise then put a single round through his forehead.

"Thank you," Dan said, looking into Ben's eyes as he touched the shallow wound on his neck.

Ben just nodded and tugged him to the helicopter where they climbed in and Dan closed the door behind himself.

Everyone took seats and the helicopter lifted into the air. Headphones with mics went onto everyone's heads.

Shortly after they left the ground, there was a whoosh sound and a flash of light as two missiles were fired into the window of Yuri's study, incinerating everything in the room. Then Wally banked the helicopter to the right and got them moving away, skimming over the treetops.

Ben was watching Liliya and saw the sadness in the woman's eyes as she watched her daughter sleep in a stranger's arms. He didn't know what to say.

They were only in the air for a few minutes before they began their descent. Ben looked at Dan. "We're landing? Already?"

"Can't take this bird back to Moscow. Our lift is waiting for us below," Dan answered.

The moment they touched down, Dan popped the door and climbed out to reach back and assist the others out. Nikolai rushed away to the edge of the field as Dan helped Trish and Rose outside.

Liliya reached out and caught Ben's arm. "Take Rose with you."

He looked back at her in confusion. "What?"

"I must finish this. Rose will be safe with you. I will come to you when I finish," Liliya explained.

"What are you talking about? Your daughter needs her mother!" Ben asserted.

"She needs me to keep her safe, and only way to do this is to kill other members of my team before they come for us. Please Ben!" she begged.

He was flustered and looked to Dan who was waving at them urgently to exit the helicopter. He looked back to her.

"Take her where? To Nikolai's?" Ben asked.

"No, take her home. I will come to you when I have killed them all. Please!" She reached into the briefcase and extracted the envelope of passports. She quickly went through the small bundle and separated the passport for Rose Sokolov. The others went back into the case. "Use Sokolov passport." She pulled a notepad and a pen from the case and quickly wrote out a note giving Ben permission to travel with Rose and signed it. It was the best she could do.

She thought for a second then pulled the dockets for the assassins from the case and put everything else back into the briefcase. Then she pushed it into Ben's hands. "You must go, now!"

With a hesitant look back, Ben stepped out of the helicopter as Dan steadied him then Liliya who turned and closed up the doors. Ben and Dan moved a short distance away as Liliya waited for Wally to climb down from the pilot's cockpit. She then climbed up as Wally stared at her in surprise. He barely managed to rush to Dan's side before the big machine leapt skywards once more, Liliya now at the controls.

Nikolai's brother Andrei sat behind the wheel of the large SUV waiting for them on the country lane next to the field in which they'd landed. Everyone rushed to climb into the truck. Dan and Wally were in the rear seats, Nikolai sat up front next to his brother, Trish took one bucket seat in the middle with the girl on her lap as Ben settled into the last middle seat.

The moment the last door closed Andrei got them underway.

Trish suddenly jerked in her seat as she looked at the passengers in the truck. She stared at Ben in shock then glanced to the blinking light in the sky moving away rapidly. "Liliya?" she whispered to Ben with large anxious eyes.

Ben gave her an equally nervous look. "She's going after that assassin, Maksim, and the others in her group. She said they wouldn't be safe until she... dealt with them."

"What about her daughter?!?" Trish said, struggling to keep her voice low.

"She wants me to take her home," Ben replied. "She'll meet us there... when she's done."

Trish fell quiet, stunned. She held the sleeping girl in her arms as they drove along the country road.

Thirty minutes later, they slowed and cautiously drove past a car in the ditch which was burning ferociously. It was riddled with bullet holes and the trunk looked like it was blown off.

"Fuck! Isn't that our rental car?" Trish asked.

Ben nodded as he saw the man folded over the steering wheel, engulfed in flames.

"Yes. I guess Liliya caught up to Maksim," Ben responded.

"One down, how many to go?" Trish asked, glancing back at the flames in the night.

"No idea. She didn't say."

They rode on in silence. Seeing Trish shift uncomfortably, Ben gathered Rose in his arms to give Trish a chance to catch some shuteye. The small girl cuddled in against his chest. Only Andrei and Ben remained awake.

The drive was long, but eventually Ben recognized a few signs that they were in Nikolai's neighborhood. When they didn't pull off at the expected turn, Ben caught Andrei's eye in the mirror.

"I'm taking you directly back to the airport. Your bags will already be there. It would be best if you left the country as soon as possible," Andrei said quietly.

Ben nodded. That made good sense.

The sun was beginning to crest the horizon when they saw the private airport. Andrei reached across to nudge his brother awake.

When they got to the gate, Nikolai did the talking with the guards, and they were soon allowed to proceed onto the grounds. Andrei drove them to the hanger where they could see the jet waiting for them, the pilot standing by the stairs.

Ben woke Trish and she exited the truck to walk around to Ben's side. She opened his door and plucked Rose from his lap. Ben got out with Dan and Wally following. Everyone met in front of the truck.

Trish gave each of the four men a kiss on their cheeks and smiled as she walked Rose over to the plane.

Ben turned to Nikolai. He handed the man Yuri's tablet. "Yuri's access code is 1999. Yuri didn't even try to hide it from me when he activated it. I suppose he was sure I'd be a prisoner in the Colonel's lab for the rest of my days." Nikolai accepted the tablet with an eager smile.

Next, Ben handed him the memory stick, the blasted thing that started the whole mess. "I'd like to see some justice for the young man Yuri killed, shown in these pictures. I believe his family deserves the closure as well."

Nikolai held out his hand. "I can do that for you." Ben dropped the stick into his hand.

Then Ben shook their hands. "You are always welcome in my home. Drop by any time!"

"Thank you," Dan said, looking him in the eye. There was a white bandage on his neck. Ben just nodded to him in return.

"I'd like to take you up on that offer for a visit. We should continue our discussion about your radiation filter," Dan said with a little smile.

Ben nodded with an eager smile. "That would be great!"

"Shit! You're bleeding! You were hit?" Wally exclaimed as he saw blood on the torn right shoulder of Ben's dark sweater.

He glanced down at his shoulder. "Just a flesh wound," Ben said, channeling his inner Python.

Dan and Wally burst into laughter while Andrei and Nikolai gave them puzzled looks. A fifty percent success rate. Ben felt extraordinarily pleased. Lifting the Colonel's case with his left hand, he waved and walked over to the plane.

"Ready to leave?" the pilot asked.

"As soon as we can," Ben replied and the pilot gestured for him to board.

"Bandages are in the first aid kit in the galley," the man quietly said as Ben passed. "What's our destination? I need to file a flight plan."

"Oh, right." Ben stopped on the stairs. "We're going home, but I need to make a quick stop in Berlin. No more than two hours. Can you work with that?"