Chapter 3
Triton
THE HELICOPTER WAS a nice surprise.
I heard the chop of the blades through the air as I threw my duffle into the back seat of my truck, dreading getting stuck in traffic. Mom had detained me longer than I’d planned, showing me a new painting she was working on, and I hadn’t had the heart to extract myself.
She’d always been artistic, focusing on her art when she wasn’t entirely focused on raising the four of us boys. But ever since my last brother had moved out of the house, our mother had thrown herself into painting. I’d always thought it was her way of dealing with the constant danger her boys were in, danger she didn’t—couldn’t—know anything about. She was a soft, kind soul, as gentle as my father was hard, her head always in the clouds and some artistic endeavor. I would never know how she had fallen in love with our rough, gruff bear of a father. But as a child, I had seen the unguarded moments she hadn’t meant me to see, those moments when my father was out on deployment and she was afraid he would never come home.
Her life would have probably been less stressful if she’d fallen in love with someone else. But she’d met my father at sixteen and hadn’t looked at another man since. She hadn’t looked back, either. My father was retired, but now she had four boys to worry about, and worry she did, even if she refused to let on.
That was why I hadn’t been able to walk away—I knew it was her way of spending a few more moments with me, soaking up every moment, just in case it ended up being her last.
I knew what I faced. I accepted the risks of my career, the one I’d chosen for myself. But it was always a little more complicated when I knew my actions would also affect my mother.
Turning, I waved at the figure in the window. She waved back, a melancholy smile on her face, which turned to surprise as the helicopter suddenly appeared low over the trees.
What I imagined had been a training exercise or a police search turned out to be an air force helicopter. The wind whipped the trees as the chopper landed in the large clearing across the dirt road from my parents’ cabin. The engine cut and the whirring of the blades began to slow, then stop, just as a tall figure threw open the door and jumped down from the pilot’s seat.
My mother was already out the front door and running down the porch steps, her shoes crunching over the gravel of the driveway. She was in the arms of the pilot a moment after that, and he hugged her closely.
“Steal a helicopter for the adrenaline rush, Herman?” I asked, following the path Mom had taken at an ambling pace.
“You know, I hadn’t thought of that one.” The man released Mom with a grin and slapped his hand into mine for the handshake the four of us brothers had created years ago that only we knew. “I’ll have to try it out next time the CO gets on my nerves.”
“You wouldn’t,” Mom chided, and my brother had to duck as she tried to run a hand over his freshly buzzed head.
Tall, slim, with hazel eyes and dirty blonde hair, my brother took after my mother, save for in the height department. The Air Force branch of the four of us, my brother always had a glint of mischief in his crooked smile. He was the one who came home most rarely, always off on some new adventure in some inhospitable place in the world when he wasn’t on duty on his carrier.
“Probably,” he shrugged, and neither of us was much convinced of his innocence.
“What are you doing here?” Mom asked, wiping away a tiny crumb from his cheek only she could see. He let her.
“I’m here to bring this idiot back with me. Decided to surprise him with a ride back to the carrier.”
“That’s very sweet of you,” Mom cooed, but I shook my head as I turned to grab my duffle from my truck. I knew this would come back to haunt me at some point, probably as some favor in the form of accompanying him on one of his trips.
After spending a few more minutes with Mom, we jumped back into the chopper. I suspected I was not the only one who had a feeling she would have asked us both to stay for a meal, and as tempting as that was, we were expected. No one took an Air Force chopper for dinner with their mom.
Herman waited to start the helicopter until Mom was back on the porch. She waved us off with an arm protecting her eyes as the whirling blades stirred up the wind and threw dust into the air.
“Just decided to take it out for a spin and pick me up?” I asked through the headphones.
“Something like that.” Herman grinned, the house and trees falling away behind us.
Even if it was just for a few hours and consisted mainly of trading insults and dirty jokes, it was nice to spend time with my brother, especially before a mission like this. The four Rusev brothers had spread out among the military branches and only occasionally came across each other. Even holidays were a crap shoot, one or more of us either out on deployment or a mission or unable to get leave time.
I felt this had been set up specifically for me as a surprise and made a mental note to thank my CO when I got back.
If I got back. There was always that possibility.
It was why Herman and I, or any of my brothers, stayed mainly to safe topics, jokes, insults, and old stories. It was why we tried to stay in the moment. Anything else was to face the reality of our jobs, and it was just better not to.
From the carrier, I went to the base and caught my transport to Japan. I managed to get some sleep on the flight there, and awakened with a start when we arrived. From there, I was taken to a Self-Defense Force base and transported to a sleepy fishing village on the far tip of the northern coast of Hokkaido.
The old fishing boat we were using bobbed at anchor, a Japanese flag waving from the top of the cabin beside the radar equipment. Several other figures moved on board, preparing themselves and the gear.
From this distance, they looked like any of the other Japanese fishermen preparing for their day out on the water in the boats down the row. They had their caps pulled low, and one was hauling in the ropes and fishing nets.