The Tiger's Mail Order Mate (Paranormal Shifter Romance) (5 page)

*

Russell angrily sped his black sports car around the twisty roads to the city. He was seething that his boss wanted to talk to him again, twice in four days, during his leave. The light on the back of his neck slowly blinked red as he tried to reign in his fury so he wouldn’t change into his tiger shape.

He pulled into the parking lot and stormed into the office building. He shoved open the door to the colonel’s personal office and sat down in one of the seats provided. He pointedly ignored the secretary as his temper rose. The light began to blink more rapidly as he was made to wait.

The secretary noticed this and picked up the phone to page Colonel Bankes to hurry up, politely as possible.

Colonel Bankes opened the door to his office. “Major Kahn, come on in.” He said quickly.

Russell stalked into the office, slamming the door behind him. “With all due respect, sir,” he began. “I am on leave. I was enjoying the company of a beautiful woman and was going to show her the sights. Why have you asked me to come back?”

“Because, I believe the woman you picked up at the airport is a Russian spy. Well, she was a KGB agent, but our sources have told us she wants to defect. Now, you should always tell me when you go and pick up strange women from the airport.” The colonel stared at the younger man. “You aren’t to let on you know. Keep stringing her along until she gets her goal. Once we have the intel she brought here, we will bring her into custody and send her back to the Russian authorities to be dealt with.”

“Wait, why would you do that?” Russell asked.

“Because, Russia is our ally. Remember, you went and mauled that Ukrainian diplomat to death? Yeah, Russia wants the Crimea; we are going to facilitate that. If it keeps the Cold War from rearing its ugly head again, I’m all for it. All the top ranking generals in Washington agree with me.” Bankes turned his monitor around for Russell to see what was displayed.

“Sonja Fedorenko. She was really born in Pripyat, like her dating profile said. She was exposed to the radiation when Chernobyl blew, but instead of causing harmful mutations, she acquired slightly enhanced endurance, strength and speed. She is deadly. The KGB kept tabs on all the children from that disaster, to monitor for any positive exceptional developments. There were more cancers than positive mutations, though, but those who displayed gifts, were quickly scooped up. Ironically, all of them were female children. Her brothers died of malignant Leukemia.”

Russell couldn’t believe what his CO told him. “So, this means what?”

“You, my friend, are boning the super-est super spy in all of Russia. You haven’t told her about your background, have you?”

“No, she asked about the implant but dropped it when I told her it was for enhancing medication.”

“Not surprised. The KGB performed experiments similar to our own, with the same success rate. She would have known exactly what it was for. You don’t have to tell her what animal your genes were spliced with. She’ll find out soon enough.”

Russell stood expressionless as the Colonel briefed him on his mission – and that’s exactly what it was, another mission. “So, you want me to babysit her, lead her on thinking she has reached freedom, and then take her to Russia to turn her in?”

“Exactly. It seems that she trusts you.” Bankes replied.

“You know, I’m getting really sick and tired of you spying on my personal life.” Russell snapped.

“Well what is a concerned father to do?” Colonel Bankes said patronizingly as he spread his hands in mock innocence. “In this matter, I thought it was pretty important because of the national security risk you took by bringing her into the country.”

“Wait she flew here on her own, I just met her at the airport.” He snapped back.

“Oh potato, potahto. You made contact, you kept contact, and you are definitely maintaining very intimate contact. The CIA are about to get involved with this and we can’t let those monkeys anywhere near this mess, do you hear me? Now, go to the Med Unit, get more Adrenal suppressant ampoules and go home to your...wife.” Bankes almost snickered the word out. “I’ll send an encrypted message when it’s time for you two to part ways.”

“Understood, sir.” Russell growled as he left the office. He wasn’t surprised that Bakes was spying on him. He was still an above top-secret military experiment after all. He was fortunate he was allowed to be independent as he was, all things considered.

He stalked to the med lab and swiped his key card. The woman at the supply desk smiled as she handed Russell a small cardboard box filled with glass ampoules full of green liquid. “I’m going to need at least three more.” He said to her. “I have a lady friend over and we’ve really hit it off, if you know what I mean.” He said with a wink.

The receptionist smiled and went to the back to fill his request. She came back with five boxes in her arms. “Here you go, a few extra, just in case.” She said with a broad grin.

Russell thanked the blonde woman and walked out with his medication. He looked at the amount of boxes he had and smiled. He probably could run off if he wanted to. There was only one problem and that was the small GPS transceiver in his implant that Bankes used to keep track of his every movement.

He would figure that out later. Now was the time for transparency between Sonja and himself.

CHAPTER THREE

Russell silently opened the door and crept inside the house. He didn’t want to alert Sonja to his presence just yet. He peeked over the breakfast bar into the living room, to find her sitting on the futon, flicking through the channels on his television.

He quietly padded to his bedroom to place the boxes of adrenal suppressants in his bag and left the room.

Russell sat down next to Sonja and gently took the remote from her. “We really need to talk about something.” He said softly.

“Oh?” Sonja said without losing her cool. She was good, he thought.

He looked around and found a piece of paper. “I need to write this by hand, it’ll take a while, but please be patient.” He explained

“Well let’s see, my CO wanted to meet with me because he knows what I do and where I go at all times. He knew I picked you up from the airport and he did some digging.” He paused for a reaction and saw anxiety creep into her eyes for just a moment, and disappear just as fast. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell you my secret first anyway, I’m a splicer, for lack of a better term. My mother was a member of the Dalit class in India, an untouchable. The CIA kidnapped her off the streets of New Delhi and brought her to America. They removed her eggs as they matured and spliced them with tiger DNA. They forcibly impregnated her and out of all her pregnancies, I was the only one that was successful. They did it to other women, but none of their babies survived. I was raised in a secret military bunker by high-ranking officers. The implant is to keep track of me, and it also listens in to anything I say, that’s why I’m hand writing this. My computer has a key logger on it, so I can’t type it either. That’s my secret, what’s yours?”

Sonja looked at him and looked back at the paper. She took the pen from his hand and scrawled a note of her own. “He told you I was a KGB agent wanting to defect, didn’t he?”

Russell nodded.

“It’s true. I found out that Russia wants to take over the Ukraine again for their oil reserves. They also want to destroy everyone living in the country that is not loyal to the new regime. Gulags are being reopened in Siberia. Ukrainians, Roma, and Muslim people will all be loaded on train cars and sent to those camps for either re-education, scientific experimentation or euthanization. Those who are loyal to Russia, stay in the Ukraine to work the oil fields and the docks on the black sea to wherever it needs to go. There is even a rumor of a pipeline from Afghanistan through all the smaller territories, ending in the Ukraine to tap their natural gas reserves to sell to the rest of Europe and Asia for a hefty mark up. China has stake in it as well.” She scrawled. “It’s all on a micro SD card I have in my bag. I need to get to one of your officials with this information.”

Russell flipped the paper over and grabbed the pen. “I hate to break it to you, but the US Government has decided to help the Russians with this. Once they get that SD card, they will destroy it and send you back to Russia to be dealt with. We’ll need to get out of here before the colonel clues in. Hey moan a little; pretend to be having sex with me...they can hear everything and long periods of silence will set them off.”

Sonja nodded and began moaning and panting as if she was getting turned on. Russell grinned at the she put on a hot audio show. “Oh man your tongue feels soooo good, keep going...” she panted.

“Since Russia, China and the US are in cahoots we have nowhere safe to really go when we flee the country.” Russell wrote.

Sonja took the pen from him, “You turn, grunt and growl and stuff.” She instructed and he followed suit, moaning and panting for his unseen audience. “There are a few neutral countries, mostly in the EU, Germany, France and the UK do not want this deal to go through. They might be our allies but the humanitarian catastrophe that is about to happen reminded them of World War 2 and they did not want that happening again. Japan is also against this for the fact that China is involved. They are about to throw their treaty with the USA under the bus because of this, even some countries in South America would be willing to take us, I know Brazil would be a nice place, and they don’t have an extradition treaty with either Russia or the USA.”

Russell took his turn with the pen. “The airport is going to be monitored now. We’ll need to figure out a way to get off the Island and somewhere safe.”

“This place is rather badly situated. I think our best bet is to find a sail boat and get out of here under the cover of darkness. We can sail to the mainland and get a private small air craft to Brazil.”

“Or we can just steal a small aircraft from one of the air fields located on one of the smaller islands and fly to the mainland, fuel up and once we’re out of US Airspace we’re home free.” Russell replied on paper.

“That is a much better idea. We still need a boat, though.” Sonja replied underneath his message.

“I’ve got one, I can get rid of its GPS no problem, but we do have one other GPS we need to deal with.” Russell wrote down.

“The one in your implant.” Sonja said. They both kept breathing heavily and moaning sporadically to confuse the person listening into their lives. “Luckily they can’t see through your eyes.”

“Nope, I have that going for me, at least.” Russell smirked.

“I think I can do something about that, hang on.” Sonja recalled that a Chinese tech firm made the implants for the Russian splicer program, and wouldn’t be surprised if they did for the American one as well, since the tech was so unique. She remembered needing to go into the lab for some reason and saw the schematic. She made a really loud moan like she was climaxing and went to her duffel bag and pulled out a small tool kit. She went back to the futon and sat behind Russell as he scooted forward. “Oh man your cock feels so good in me.” She said out loud while she tinkered with the implant. “Mmm give it to me harder...oh yes.” She breathed.

Sonja pried off the small LED light bulb from the apparatus and saw the two things she was looking for. It was exactly the same as the Russian design. She saw a small speaker type thing, which was the microphone, and an RFID microchip. “Hmm if you keep this up I’m gonna dig my nails in and hurt you.” She said. The code wasn’t lost on him and he braced himself for the pain.

She grabbed a small flathead screwdriver and popped it under the microphone first and popped it out. Russell winced at the sharp pain that accompanied it. She then snipped the wires attached to the black button-like object and pried out the GPS chip. “This one is gonna hurt the most.” She explained.

Russell cried out as agony seared through his brain as she delicately pried the chip out of his implant. “Hurry up, just get it out of there.” He growled through gritted teeth. She noticed the hair on his back was growing longer and his muscles were rippling under his skin as his body transformed due to the agony.

“Almost there, just have to snip the wire...” She cut it and the man’s ragged breathing returned to a normal pace. “There we go. We can’t be traced now.” She said as she put the medication plate back on the base.

“Thanks.” Russell said. Let’s leave the RFID chip there, and splice it to the microphone. I have a feeling that’s what was transmitting the audio as well.”

“We’ll do that right before we leave. I’ll hook it up to the clock on the stove and have it count down.” Sonja grabbed the equipment and went to work.

Russell went into his room and grabbed his bag. “Alright, we need to get moving before they send someone to come check on me. There’s a 20-minute timer for dead zones built in to it so it won’t alert anyone unless it’s been out of communication for 20 minutes. We have that long to get it going again after we leave.”

“Roger that,” Sonja replied as she tinkered with the timer. “So, we have ten minutes to get on that boat and out into open water.” She said as she hit the button.

“Alright,” Russell said as he put on the backpack. “Let’s get moving. The dock isn’t too far from here.”

Sonja zipped up her bag, tossed it over her shoulder and hustled out of the house. “Got any guns?”

“They’re stashed in the boat and I have a few 9mm’s in my backpack. Don’t worry I’m prepared.” He said as he hit the button to open the garage door.” Russell blinked as the bright Hawaiian mid-morning sun filled his sensitive eyes. He put on his sunglasses and motioned to Sonja to stay back as he peeked around the corners.

Russell saw nobody as he surveyed the area, and motioned for Sonja to follow him. “There’s a trail leading from here to the bay. I have a dock and my speedboat is there. We’ll rip the GPS out of it and use the stars like the old days.” He said with a smile.

The pair followed the short trail through the Hawaiian rain forest to a white sandy beach. Off to their right was an old wooden floating pier with a white speedboat tied up to it. “Oh we’re gonna have to wade to the dock.” He said sheepishly.

“Not a problem. At least this water is warm.” Sonja replied with a grin. “Hey, thanks for this,” she said, meaning it. “You are throwing everything away, for me.”

“Yeah, I know.” Russell said as he trudged through the water. “To be honest, I was getting sick of being handled like some crazy science experiment, without thought to my feelings or desires. This was a long time coming and you’re the one who catalyzed it.”

Sonja smiled as they reached the dock and climbed up the rope ladder and into the boat. She untied the boat while Russell removed the GPS and threw it out into the middle of the bay. He turned the key in the ignition and the boat’s engine sputtered to life. At the aft of the light fibreglass pleasure craft there was an emergency outboard motor in case the main one cut out for any reason. Russell was one prepared individual.

“Do they know about the boat?” She asked.

“Yes, but they don’t know why I got it.” He said as he turned towards the mouth of the bay.

Sonja sat on one of the small benches as the small craft motored though the calm waters between the isolated Pacific island chain. “You know, I was hoping to make a new life here in America. If I had known Russia and the USA were partners in the Crimea deal, I wouldn’t have come here. I might have gone to Canada or something. Guess I’m not that much of a spy after all.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself.” Russell comforted her. “We all make mistakes. Just that in our line of work, mistakes usually cost lives, we’re lucky that it’s just our own that’s on the line this time and nothing in the way of collateral damage.”

“You do have a point. I’m just so tired of being hunted.” She sighed.

“Well get used to it. I’ll do my best to keep you safe, at least.”

“You mean we’ll keep each other safe? We’re in this together, you know. I’m not any mere damsel in distress.” Sonja scoffed.

“True. You are fully capable. We need to work together, that’s for sure. I’ll protect you, and you protect me. There will be times where I can’t really do much of anything. I only have ten boxes of adrenal suppressant, so when those run out, I’m going to need some hands on help in keeping calm.”

“Hopefully we don’t need to go through all those by the time we get to Brazil.” She said.

“Same, it’s just trying to steal one of those planes and hope that there is fuel in it and, there are just so many variables.” Russell said. He hoped that they wouldn’t be stuck on one of the smaller islands for very long. The longer they stay in Hawaii, the easier it would be for the Navy to track him down and euthanize him.

*

Russell pulled the boat up alongside a rickety old dock in an isolated cove on the island of Niihau. It was near midnight and Sonja was covered with a wool blanket, snoozing on the bench. He cut the engine and walked down to her. “Hey, we’re here.” He said softly as he shook her awake.

Sonja yawned and stretched out. “Hey. Since I slept, and you haven’t, when we get to the plane you can let me fly. I’ve done it plenty of times.”

“That works for me, I’m beat.” Russell pulled out a map of the area. “Alright, the airport isn’t too far from here if we cut through the scrub. Watch out though, there are real nasty wild boars around.”

“At night?” Sonja said incredulously.

“If we wake one up, it won’t matter.”

“Where are we anyway? Sonja asked.

“Niihau. It’s largely uninhabited except for a few native Hawaiians and the owners, the Robinson’s. They have a private airstrip not too far from here. They keep a couple of private jets here so they can get off the island when they need to, and sometimes they need to medivac an injured local.”

“Makes sense.” Sonja replied as they jogged along the sandy dune. “How far away is it?”

“Not far, maybe an hour or two walk from this cove. Oh, be prepared for resistance, just in case. I know we did well at keeping the microphone transmitting but they’ve probably caught on by now and are searching for me.”

“More than likely, yes. One question,” Sonja interjected.

“What is it?”

“What if the planes are gone?”

Russell scanned the horizon and saw a bunch of twinkling lights slowly growing brighter. “Then we head to Kauai and stow away on that.” He said pointing at the cruise ship in the distance.

Sonja liked that plan. “Let’s go see if the planes are there first.”

They trekked through the dry scrub of the sparsely inhabited island. Nothing stirred at that time of night except a few small bats that feasted on the mosquitoes that bred in the stagnant pools that were left behind during the summer drought. The air was cool as the breeze from the North Pacific Ocean softly blew over the nearly barren island.