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  Rasputin frowned, “And if I reject your offer?”

  All emotion drained from the Tsaritsa’s face and she clasped her hands regally in front of her, “I do not enjoy to speak of such things, but I think you know what the Tsar’s wrath can be on anyone who disobeys the throne.”

  Again Rasputin nodded sadly and moved to where the again sleeping child lay on the workbench. Gently the tall man lifted the boy up and handed him back to the Tsaritsa.

  “I agree to and accept your offer. Please allow me a few days to pack my belongings and gather my family for the journey.”

  Smiling now for the first time since she arrived, the Tsaritsa asked, “Is there a place in the village where we can stay while you prepare?”

  Rasputin chuckled, “None that befits a Romanov. In fact, I believe it will be safer if you, the boy and your escorts were to head back to St. Petersburg as soon as possible.”

  “I would agree with that,” the Commander spoke out abruptly.

  “When you arrive back home dispatch three coaches to this village as soon as you can. That should give me ample time to gather myself.”

  “Agreed,” the Tsaritsa said and turned to leave, but halted before climbing the first step. “I am putting a great deal of faith in you Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, not to mention the future of Russia’s monarchy. For all of our sakes I hope you are very sure of yourself.”

  Rasputin only nodded as the Tsaritsa and the Commander began their climb up the stairs toward the exit of the church. Once the pair was gone Rasputin let out a heavy sigh as he walked over to the workbench where the partially dissected corpse lay. He thought it interesting that neither the Tsaritsa nor the Commander had noticed that the corpse showed absolutely no signs of decomposition, nor was there any smell of death in the room.

  He was also relieved that neither of his guests had been inclined to view the small hole in the table, which allowed trace amounts of miscellaneous bodily fluids to seep slowly and drain away from the corpse into a collection bottle beneath the tabletop. Rasputin placed a drain stopper in the hole and then reached under the tabletop and picked up the collection bottle. The quart-sized bottle was made of crystal and was intricately etched and polished as if its importance was far greater than what it was currently being used for. Rasputin examined the cloudy red liquid inside the bottle as he moved to a shelf along a far wall of the chamber. With one hand he opened a wooden box, removed a pinch of a dust-like substance and carefully sprinkled the contents into the bottle. Placing the bottle in front of a candle he slowly began to swirl the contents until the liquid inside turned from cloudy red to clear as pure water.

  Rasputin stopped swirling the bottle and regarded it with a sly smile as he said out loud, “All too easy.”

  Chapter 1

  2016: Bangkok, Thailand

  “’Well now, s’cuse me thar’ pilgrims!” Chris announced to the room, his voice heavily laden with a ridiculous imitation of John Wayne as he brandished his twin Beretta PX4 Storm Special Duty .45 caliber handguns toward the hastily working men at the far end of the hall. Multiple heads shot in his direction with eyes wide in a combination of surprise and panic before their hands dipped to draw their holstered sidearms.

  Chris took one more moment to clear his throat and, in that same John Wayne voice, quoted one of the legendary actor’s lines, “Fill your hands, you son of a bitches!!!”

  Chris’ battle cry was the last thing I heard before he unexpectedly opened fire and left a familiar high-pitched ringing in my ears. I could feel the force and air pressure push into the side of my head with each rapidly fired high caliber round that exploded less than two feet from me and I instinctively looked up to see my best friend, and now fellow “vampire” Chris Barnes, rapidly firing the entire 10-round contents of each of his guns, wild west style, down the enclosed hallway we had just entered.

  The targets of Chris’ attention dove for cover, as the large .45 caliber rounds blew apart whatever they impacted, sending shards of wood, drywall and scraps of paper flying into the air. I tried to shout something to Chris, but in my currently deafened state I really couldn’t tell if what I said had been loud enough to register with my gun-wielding, bullet-slinging and “yippie-kay-yay-yaying” buddy.

  Chris turned to look at me, his face screwed up in a confused expression while his mouth moved as if he were asking me a question. My look of incomprehension must have been evident because he started gesturing with one of the guns for me to “go.” Feeling somewhat stupid that I hadn’t instantly realized Chris was eliciting the distraction that I had asked for, I bolted for a side door along the hallway as the last thirty minutes of my life flashed before my eyes.

  ***

  30 minutes earlier.

  Chris and I had approached the multi-story strip club, the top floor of which, our source informed us, the CIA had converted into a kind of safe-house. Our source had reliable and in depth knowledge of the floor's layout as he had met with our target, a certain Mr. Pollard, on several occasions at this location, and thus he had been able to provide us with all the details we would need for what we were planning.

  As Chris and I entered the club we were practically assaulted by the ‘working girls’ closing in all around us, like predators converging on some vulnerable prey. The loud techno music blasted our eardrums and the cigarette smoke combined with the cloying humidity in the air making it momentarily hard to breathe. The air also had the lingering scent of multiple perfumes and body sprays that mixed with the smell of sweat and garlic. The press of human bodies didn’t help and it was all we could do to politely press our way forward against the tide of smooth skin that was provocatively caressing every inch of our flesh left uncovered by the cotton T-shirts and blue jeans we wore.

  Some of the girls actually pulled at our arms in possessive tugs to claim “first dibs” on us, or more importantly, our money. We eased ourselves free of their embraces with simple smiles, feigned mock embarrassment and clumsily performed “wai’s”, just as any tourist might.

  The “wai” is a way of saying “hello” or shaking hands to the Thai people and is performed by extending the fingers and bringing the hands together like a prayer, then drawing your hands up towards your face, so that the middle fingers are just above the mouth, accompanied by a slight bow of the head while lowering the eyes. It is also a way of conveying respect, and as these girls are normally shown very little respect, we made a show with our hands held high on our heads in order to grant them the highest form of respect we could as we turned them down. The girls laughed at our use of the “wai” in a way so inaccessible to their own personal status, but it helped to avoid any injured egos, and they allowed us to pass into the club without incident, or otherwise drawing undue attention.

  Once we had reached the bar the music mercifully ebbed, but it was still enough to drown out everything but the closest of conversations, which worked in our favor as we scanned the bar for problems. At first glance it seemed that every patron was beset upon by one or more of the girls, all of whom appeared to be in the midst of one kind of celebration or another. At the bar shot-glasses clinked and alcohol was thrown back, while at the tables every man’s lap had at least one provocatively clad woman firmly planted for the night.

  Finding him took longer than it should have, given the man’s larger than life size, but eventually Chris and I found who we were looking for. He was seated near the back of the bar, sipping a small snifter that held about a finger’s worth of cognac, and at his feet lay a small backpack. The tawny color of the alcohol seemed to stand out dramatically against the man’s alabaster white hair and skin as he raised the glass to his lips. At first glance the leathers he wore despite the heat of the city would have identified him stereotypically as some kind of giant American biker, but closer inspection would reveal the clothes were made of soft lambskin as opposed to the heavy cowhide leather that the motorcycle clubs favor. His cowboy boots were black but made from the tough, yet supple skin of an ostri
ch, which indicated that they were likely to be both very expensive and incredibly comfortable. His long leather pants were cut to a custom fit, and the shirtless vest he wore might have been a slight nod to the heat that the rest of his ensemble defied. The vest exposed his lean and muscular arms with skin almost as dramatically pale as his platinum hair, and every flash of colored light from the various neon signs on the walls reflected off of his white skin, making him seem like a hyperactive chameleon.

  The employees and patrons of the club didn’t exactly make a clear a space around the man, given the packed club’s general lack of room at the moment, but everyone near him either consciously or unconsciously kept at arm’s length, while he slowly sipped at his drink. A barstool was open on either side of the man, which both Chris and I filled, as we enclosed the man between us.

  The man didn’t look up from his drink as Chris ordered a round of beers for the three of us. I looked straight ahead into the mirror on the other side of the bar as I quietly said, “I guess you managed to bring them in.”

  The man smiled and set his drink down on the bar-top, “How astute, as I am sitting here and not in a jail cell. One might think you to be a detective.”

  I smiled at the jibe as the man’s hand fell to his side and dipped into the backpack at his feet. I immediately felt the sensation of something pushing into my side and I lowered one hand to take the package, which I knew contained my Glock 20, plus several spare 15 round magazines. The bartender had dropped off three bottles of Singha beer, and Chris was mid-swallow when his parcel was shoved into his side and, as if written into a vaudeville skit, Chris immediately spit beer into the air in response. Fortunately, the bartender had cleared out of the way to serve other customers and avoided the shower, but he glared at Chris with enough heat to make me think he might want to club Chris to death.

  The man and I both covered our eyes, shaking our heads in equal amounts of incredulity before he said, “Sometimes I really wonder if saving you was worth the effort.”

  Chris feigned offense at the statement, “Oh come on Alpha. We all know how lost you would be without me.”

  Alpha, leader of the North American “vampire” collective and the man who was as close to me as a father said, “Oh, of course. How did I manage the last 600 years without you?”

  Chris only shrugged at the sarcasm, “Walking around the old world like a dumb-ass, most likely.”

  Alpha turned to look at Chris and the simmering anger on his face was enough to stop time. He was wearing dark sunglasses inside the dark club to hide the twin ebony orbs that his eyes had become. Normally Alpha would have donned full-eye contacts that would simulate normal eyes, but Alpha always said they were extremely uncomfortable and compromising in a fight… and we knew we were in for a fight very soon.

  Chris only responded with an over-exaggerated smile that was as much defiance as it was acquiescence.

  I broke the tension and asked, “Have you seen her?”

  The ‘her’ I was referring to was my fiancé Lei. She had been abducted by a man we believed to be an active CIA agent named ‘Pollard’ who, our informant told us, was in the process of shutting down his operation before returning to the U.S.

  “No,” Alpha said quietly while turning his head back to the bar top, “but Pollard came in just over an hour ago and hasn’t come down since.”

  I nodded, “So we’ve got him.”

  Alpha shrugged, “He’s still up there, but we are going to have to go up and get him.”

  Chris grew serious, “That was always the plan.”

  It was Alpha’s turn to nod, “True, but several men have been coming down with boxes and going out the back before returning empty-handed, then repeating the process again and again. I don’t think we have much time left.”

  “How many would you say are up there?”

  “I’ve counted six including Pollard, but there could be more who haven’t come down.”

  Chris swallowed some more beer and screwed up his face, “God this beer sucks. Do they have anything else?”

  Alpha and I both looked at Chris with the incredulity that one would use with an impetuous child. Chris looked from me to Alpha and back again several times before he said, “What? I’m thirsty.”

  “Chris,” I sighed, “could you please focus for one minute?”

  Chris’ face grew as serious as I had ever seen it, “Focus? I’m waiting on you two assholes to stop talking so we can just do this.”

  I sighed again, “Chris…”

  “Steve, stop. Just stop,” Chris cut me off, his voice angry, “maybe you forgot that Lei was taken out from under my nose. Or maybe you forgot that this makes her abduction my responsibility. Or maybe, just maybe, you forgot that it doesn’t matter if they have six or sixty people upstairs because we know the exact layout, including all the potential entry and exit points, and we will be taking them by surprise. So whenever you guys want to stop gossiping like old women and are ready to act, I am good to go.”

  He punctuated the end of his tirade by slapping the bar several times getting the bartender’s attention. The bartender glared again as Chris waved a hand holding an American twenty-dollar bill.

  Chris pointed to the bartender, “Asshole!” he then held up the Singha bottle and angrily said, “Piss!” before slamming the bottle down and pointing to a banner over the bar and read out loud the single word printed there, “Heineken!”

  The bartender had started an angry approach, but when he saw the twenty in Chris’ hand his fierce expression immediately changed into one that was all smiles and agreeability. He hurried over and opened a large ice chest, digging his arm deeply into the ice and emerging with a green glass bottle. Setting it gingerly in front of Chris, he waited.

  Chris nodded and set the twenty on the bar as the bartender used a bottle opener to pop the top. The bartender smiled and “wai’d” several times as he plucked the twenty from the bar top and immediately pocketed the cash. Alpha and I looked disappointedly at our bottles of Singha as Chris took a long pull from the Heineken before setting the now half empty bottle back down on the bar.

  “And you guys thought I couldn’t speak Thai,” Chris said, as picked up the bottle and polished it off on his next pull. He then let out an exaggerated, audible sigh of appreciation for his beverage before asking, “Any of you ladies want to go to the bathroom with me?” Alpha and I looked at each other and set our still full bottles of Singha down on the bar, as we all got up from our barstools. Chris and I headed for the restroom while Alpha disappeared into the crowd. It was eerie the way he could just do that. I mean, the guy was six and a half feet tall, and he vanished into a crowd of people literally a foot shorter than him.

  Once in the restroom Chris and I checked that our guns were loaded and ready to fire, then tucked them into our waistbands so the loose fitting shirts we wore would conceal them. We left the restroom and headed for the kitchen, where we knew we’d find a service elevator that would take us to the top floor. There was a fire escape stairwell next to the elevator that would be Alpha’s point of entry once the fun began.

  A couple of waiters, bouncers or whatever, tried to block our way once we passed through the kitchen doors, each one placing himself in either Chris’ or my path. It took a ridiculously small amount of effort to incapacitate them, as Chris and I each knocked one of them out of the way with sharp blows to their heads.

  The bustling kitchen froze in silent stupefaction as the entire staff watched the men fall, then refocused on us as we casually moved to the elevator’s door. Chris touched the elevator’s call button, whistling “Dixie” as we waited for the doors to open, while the kitchen staff remained frozen in place, staring at us. It was like looking at a still life display in a museum as water ran from faucets, flames rose from beneath oversized woks, and steam wafted up from the fresh rice that had just come from the steam pots, but none of the people moved.

  The elevator’s high-pitched bell went “ding” to signal that the ca
r had arrived, and the doors slid open with a groan of gears that indicated a desperate need for grease. Chris walked into the elevator as if ignorant of the spectacle we had created. I started to follow, then stopped and turned to the restaurant staff while putting one finger to my lips.

  “Shhhh,” I made the noise with a wicked grin and a promise of violence on my face that hopefully would be enough to keep the kitchen staff from interfering as the elevator doors closed.

  We rode the car to the top floor, taking up positions on either side of the doors, just in case someone was waiting for us when we arrived. Again, the doors groaned as they slid open, but the space facing us was empty. I took a quick glance from each side of the elevator, to look for anyone in the hidden spaces to the left and right of the door leading into the receiving area. Seeing no one we then we moved out of the elevator car and onto the floor, covering each other as we went. Instantly, I recognized some of the details I had been told to look for by our informant, which seemed to validate the information regarding the basic layout as accurate.

  Following our plan, we turned a corner, entering a hallway with multiple doors along each side of the corridor, that were probably once used as “short-time” entertainment rooms for any of the club’s ladies. Our informant told us that these rooms had been turned into offices, safe rooms or jail cells, depending on whom the Agency brought up the stairs. At the end of the hall was what looked to be an open space that might have formerly served as a large congregating area for the girls, but was now filled with four men stacking file storage boxes one on top of another. Quickly realizing that there was no way we would be able to check the rooms for Lei or Pollard without those four men noticing our presence, I had whispered the eight fateful words, “What we really need here is a distraction,” and Chris had responded with a simple, “Gotcha,” and then the chaos spelled C-H-R-I-S, ensued and my hearing went “bye-bye.”