Page 96 of Gryphon

Tamar had also revealed vast wealth gathered by her corrupt father, Chief Kancheli. He, post mortem, purchased two replacement Gripen jets for Sweden and made reparations to the pilots’ families—and one prize bull.

“What’s up, buddy?” Mike asked when Tad proved unable to continue.

The Prime Minister had put Pavle as probationary chief over the Georgian Intelligence Service. “Between you and Tamar Kancheli, you’ll know better than anyone what needs to be cleaned out and what we should keep.” Pavle had started with providing the short list of agents he’d used—Swedish and Delta Force action teams had already taken most of them down.

Pavle and Elene had promised them invitations to the wedding. Mike already knew what to get them for a present: he and Holly not showing up as reminders of this day.

Tad continued studying the ground as Holly strolled up with Max. The PM had wanted Max back in the GSOF, but he’d declined on the grounds that he had a bar to run. No mention was made of the highly restricted weapons that he’d liberated; the ones that he and Holly had used and that had once again disappeared from sight.

“Look,” Tad finally found his voice. “You guys get into some heavy shit. I’m just a good ol’ Southern-fried whirly-guy.”

“It’s not always like this,” Mike assured him. Then thought better of it, “In fact, it’s almost never like this.” Almost. And he couldn’t ever thank Max enough for taking both of the kill shots so that Holly didn’t have to. She was welcome to shatter as many submachine guns as she wanted, but he’d rather she never had to kill again. She might think she could brush it off, but he knew her too well and could see how each bit of her past ate at her.

He glanced over at Max, who was watching him.

Mike tipped his head ever so slightly toward Holly, then offered a small nod of thanks.

Max acknowledged it with little more than a twitch of his neck. Being Spec Ops, that was about right.

Tad was watching him too. “I’m not talking about what you guys had to do to stop this. That was A-1 squared-away. It’s that you’re in all…this.” He waved a hand as if to encompass everything from the last three days. “International madness? Too heady for this boy. Give me a wrench and a bird to fly, and I’m good.”

And Mike knew that’s what had been raising the warning flags on Tad. Not that he was an unidentified agent for Kancheli and Kurbanov, but rather that he was visiting a world he’d never actually belong in.

How being a conman had prepared Mike himself to help avert a war better than Tad’s years of military service was a question he’d never find the answer to. But for today—it was true.

“So what will you do?”

It was hard to tell with his dark complexion, but Tad appeared to be blushing. “My boys here with the 43rd Mechanized Battalion tell me they need someone to help the GDF shape up their helo program.”

Holly laughed.

“I know, right? Way more my speed that what you folks are into. They’ve got some old Russian Mil birds and a double handful of Hueys. Feel like I can be useful here for a while. I’m retired military and I can’t imagine the NTSB will miss me much.”

“Going to help them take back South Ossetia?”

Tad shrugged that would be unlikely. The Russians had been occupying it since 2008.

“And nothing to do with the sultry Tamar?” Holly teased.

Tad had almost collapsed when he’d met the woman. This time he didn’t blush, he grinned. “Might have asked Pavle to see if he could coax her to Max’s bar. I’ve got me some smooth moves on the dance floor.” He placed a hand on one hip and gyrated in a way Elvis might admire.

Mike saw the look on Max’s face, just as he’d seen the look on Tamar’s when they met. Killing her father was only the beginning of things that might go right between them.

Mike shook Tad’s hand. “Gonna wish you luck on all fronts.” Because he’d need a lot of it to slip in on Tamar with Max around.

“Madloba. Means thanks in this here place.”

“Take back Ossetia,” Holly said quietly after Tad had walked off to pull his luggage out of Miranda’s plane.

“What’s that?”

But Holly wasn’t looking at him. She was staring off at the line of civilian jets parked halfway between their military corner of the airfield and the civilian terminal at the opposite end. A trio of Boeing 737s and two smaller jets painted in the colors of Air Georgia.

“What’s up with those, Max?” she asked. “Haven’t moved since we arrived.”

“Bankrupt eighteen months ago, no buyers. The pandemic shutdown was harsh, but most of their routes were in and out of Russia. Ukraine War put and end to them.”

Holly and Max exchanged some kind of look that Mike couldn’t interpret, but it left Max smiling almost as much as he had at meeting Tamar.

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