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giant as she leaned forward and swept her tail back and forth. While forces gathered and weapons descended from the outer depths, Nemesis swam...for Boston.

 
     
    5
     
    I thrust my black-clad hands out toward the man scrawling his name in urine, but take no action. Instead, I turn to Collins and mouth, “What do we do about him?”
    She shrugs and mouths, “You’re in charge. You figure it out!”
    I glance back at Woodstock, who is watching things unfold from the safe distance of the cockpit. “How did you not see him?” I mouth at him, while thrusting my hands out at the large-bladdered man.
    I read the words, “I didn’t think—” on his lips and turn back to Collins.
    She pats the stun gun strapped to her hip. I have one, too.
    “I’m not going to start an international incident,” I mouth to her.
    “One of us has to,” she says, and though the words are conveyed in silence, I understand that she’s right. The stakes are higher than a squabble between nations. Even if this guy sees us, whatever lies beneath this island might be important enough to ruffle some international feathers. And if it’s dangerous, well, no one wants the Russians to have it. Except the Russians. Which means we need to get this done fast.
    “Okay,” I mouth. “Fine. I’ll do it.”
    We both flinch at the sound of a thud from outside. The Russian soldier is sprawled on the rough terrain, lying beside the name Ivan, the N trailing off into a scattered dribble.
    Maigo stands above him, fist clenched. She looks back at us and flashes a grin. “There’s a reason mimes aren’t action heroes.”
    “Har har,” I say and step onto the island. The first thing I do is check the man’s pulse. Maigo is strong enough to kill a man with one punch, and while I don’t think that was her intent here, accidents happen. Especially to people still learning self-control. The man’s strong pulse relieves me. Had he been dead, I would have lied about it. Maigo doesn’t need another death on her conscience. But a dead Russian soldier would have made covering up this covert trip a lot harder. “Well, he’ll live. So that’s something.”
    When I stand up, Maigo looks a little concerned. “Is he really okay? I tried not to hit him too hard.”
    “He’ll wake up with a bad headache...a really bad headache.” I motion to the name sprayed on stone. “But Ivan seems like kind of a knob. He had it coming.”
    “A knob?” Maigo asks.
    I recently started expanding my colorful language to include the best of other cultures. Not because I’m worldly, but to keep things fresh, and so the people I spend the most time around don’t realize I have a potty mouth. And if no one knows the meaning, I can dilute it. “Umm, a jerk. Really, what kind of person writes their name in pee? I mean, if there had been snow, fine. I get that. But he splattered all over his boots. And he’d track that—”
    “Jon,” Collins says. She’s stepping away from us, looking over the rocky terrain.
    “Right,” I say. Sometimes being a father makes me nervous, and when that happens, I lose focus. Collins is pretty good at reeling me back in. “Let’s walk a grid. Twenty feet apart. We’re looking for a flat-topped, jagged-edged, oval stone.”
    Maigo looks over the desolate plain that is Big Diomede. Tufts of hearty grass grow in patches, but the rest of the surface pretty much fits the description I just gave. We’re looking for a needle in a haystack of needles. “Ugh,” she says, but she starts walking.
    Separated by twenty feet, Collins, Maigo and I hike across the island in silence. We cover a lot of ground, but there’s no way to know for sure if we missed something. When the rocky terrain ends at a field of grass, everyone shifts ten feet to the side and heads back toward Future Betty, which is once again invisible, thanks to the closed hatch. Any Russian bored enough to be watching this forgotten island will simply see three people wandering back