Chapter 6 Dimitri
DIMITRI
The phone rang, but Dimitri didn't lunge for it even though he wanted to. Perhaps it was because he was so relieved to hear it ring that he felt weak in the knees, or maybe he just wanted to project calm so Mattie's heart would stop racing.
Instead, he reached for the device almost nonchalantly, pressed the speakerphone button, and set it back on the nightstand where everyone could hear it.
"This is Doctor Volkov speaking."
"Doctor Volkov, this is Onegus. I have the boss on the other line."
The boss. Onegus hadn't said leader, commander, or director. He'd said boss, a word so noncommittal that it revealed nothing about the man's actual position, which was probably the point.
"May I know who I'm speaking with?" Dimitri asked.
"That's irrelevant at this stage." The second voice was very different from Onegus's cultured and slightly amused tone. It was gruffer and sharper. Much less pleasant, as if he was short on time and considered having to be on the call a nuisance.
"Should I refer to you as boss man, then?" Dimitri asked. "Or is some other title preferable?"
He had no idea what had possessed him to say that to the male who held his future in his hands. He was negotiating for his life and the lives of everyone in this room, and such blatant impudence was not helping their cause.
Petrov's eyebrows shot all the way up to his receding hairline, and the look he gave Dimitri could have frozen boiling water.
There was a pause. "You can call me K for now." The voice on the other end was still gruff but didn't sound offended. "Let's not waste time on nonsense. Describe in as few words as possible what you want."
A no-nonsense kind of guy. Dimitri could work with that.
"My colleagues and I want off this island. Doctor Konstantin Petrov, Matilda Johnson, eight enhanced soldiers, and myself."
He paused to let that register and decided not to mention just yet the grand scheme of rescuing everyone in the breeding enclosure. If he got a positive response for the original crew, he would continue with the larger plan.
"The soldiers have the ability to thrall other immortals," he continued before K could interrupt.
"That means we could potentially board one of the supply ships that depart the island.
But we need a safe destination and support on the other side.
The soldiers are dependent on a specific drug protocol to stay stable.
Doctor Petrov and I can produce that for them, but we need a proper lab and resources to do it. "
That was clean, concise, and honest. No embellishments, no emotional appeals, just the facts of what they needed and why.
"What's in it for us?" K asked.
The question was blunt, and Dimitri appreciated the directness. It saved time they didn't have.
"Several things. First, the enhancement program.
Doctor Petrov and I built on Doctor Zhao's original research to develop the current protocol.
If we leave the island and destroy all the documentation relevant to the program, the Brotherhood loses the only scientists capable of producing the enhancement drugs, as well as the last remaining enhanced soldiers.
That's a death blow to their enhanced army plans, which means a significant strategic loss for your enemy. "
"Are you going to offer the same services to us?"
Dimitri frowned. "We need to maintain the protocol for the eight soldiers, or they will most likely lose their minds. If there is anything we can do for you, we would naturally offer our services."
"Even if I want to create a similar program to enhance our people?"
It was a trick question, designed to assess his motives. K wasn't asking because he wanted Dimitri to sell him on the idea. He was testing whether Dimitri would try to, and what that would reveal about his character and his motivations.
"No," Dimitri said. "In fact, I would strongly advise against it."
"Why?"
"Because the enhancement protocol is unstable and dangerous.
Many of the volunteers became psychologically violent and had to be eliminated.
" He took a breath. "The full explanation of why I'd advise against it would take longer than we have tonight, but the short version is that the success rate is too low and the changes are irreversible. "
He cast a quick glance at Number One, the spokesperson for the Eight, but the soldier's expression remained impassive, revealing nothing about Dave's emotional response, if there was any. If the Eight were troubled by what Dimitri had said, their faces didn't show it.
"Noted," K said, and nothing in his tone indicated whether Dimitri had passed the test or not. "What else are you offering?"
"Intelligence about the Brotherhood's operations, infrastructure, and military capabilities. The Eight enhanced soldiers can share what they know, and that's a lot. They have been assisting Losham. That's how they knew about your contact with him."
"Then they must know that we can get whatever intelligence we want from Losham," K said. "We don't need the soldiers for that. Anything else?"
Dimitri looked at Mattie.
She was sitting very still on the bed beside Number One, her eyes locked on the phone and her mouth tight. She was waiting for him to tell K about the women in the enclosure
He had promised her.
He had fought her on it, debated it, pointed out the impossibility of it, but in the end, he had promised.
"There's one more thing," Dimitri said. "In fact, that's the biggest item on my list, and I ask that you hear me out before you respond."
"That sounds ominous, but go ahead," K said.
"I don't know if you are aware of this, but the Brotherhood has a breeding program to produce immortal soldiers.
They keep females who carry the immortal gene in a separate compound on the island and use them to produce children.
The boys are taken when they reach puberty, transitioned into immortals, and inducted into the Brotherhood's army.
The girls remain in the enclosure and enter the same breeding program as their mothers.
It's been going on for thousands of years. "
"We are well aware of that," K said, and there was a note of sadness in his voice, a softening in the gruffness that encouraged Dimitri to continue.
"We want to liberate them," he said. "The women and the children."
The silence that followed stretched for long seconds, and Dimitri had to fight the impulse to fill it with justifications and explanations and all the arguments that they had rehearsed.
He didn't.
He let the silence do its work, because silence after a statement like that was the prelude either to an agreement or to a refusal, and talking over it wouldn't change the outcome.
"How many people are we talking about?" K asked in the same sad, soft tone.
"Approximately two thousand. About twelve hundred women and eight hundred children."
"That's impossible."
Dimitri had expected that, had prepared for it, had told Mattie a dozen times that this was the most likely response, but the response still felt like a punch to the gut.
"What you're describing is no longer an escape and rescue operation," K continued. "It's a full-scale war declaration on a fortified island with over ten thousand immortal warriors. It would be a bloodbath. I'm sorry, but we can't do that."
Dimitri's heart sank. "Can't or won't?" he asked, and he was surprised by how steady his voice was.
"Can't," K said. "If I had the resources to take on that island while sparing the lives of innocents, I would have done it a long time ago and freed those women along with all the other people they keep there against their wishes."
K sounded genuine. He wasn't negotiating, using stated impossibility as a bargaining position to extract better terms. He was stating facts.
Dimitri swallowed. "Can you at least help save some of them?"
"Maybe."
Maybe was better than a no.
Dimitri glanced at Mattie and winced.
Her face was pale, her jaw tight, and her eyes were bright with the sheen of tears.
Summoning every argument that Mattie had presented over the past few days, Dimitri turned his attention back to K.
"I understand the limitations but consider this.
Every male child born to those women is a soldier for the Brotherhood's army.
The breeding program is the engine that powers the Brotherhood's growth.
It's how they expand their capabilities.
Eliminating that program would deal a heavy blow to your enemy. "
He let that sink in for a beat before continuing, "By removing these women and children from the island, you'll save two thousand lives and permanently cripple the Brotherhood's ability to create new immortal warriors, regular or enhanced.
The army they have now is the army they'll always have, and even immortal warriors aren't invincible.
Over time, attrition will reduce their numbers with no way to replenish them unless they can find more women who carry the gene elsewhere, but if they could find them, they would have already done that.
What we are asking for is not charity. It's the most strategically devastating blow you could deal your enemy. "
There was a long pause before K spoke again. "I need time to confer with my people and develop a plan. Can you call again at the same time in two days?"
Dimitri looked at Number One, who met his gaze and gave a single, definitive nod.
"We can try," Dimitri said. "But I have to be honest. Stealing Losham's phone is risky, and each time increases the chance of exposure. We can probably pull it off one more time but making it a regular thing is not sustainable."
"You're right," K said. "We'll work on getting a communication device to you. Are the enhanced soldiers free to move around the island?"