"Nikolai, how did you get this number?"
"It is... trade secret. I will send you an address. You need to meet me there. Alone."
"Did I have 'mug' printed on my forehead last time we met?"
"I have never seen under your mask."
"Fuck sake, fine... Send the address."
Simon spent a few hours scouting the warehouse through the end of his scope. It was empty. Owned by a shell corporation. No one entered and no one left. And then a text pinged through: are you going to wait outside until sunrise?
Instead of walking through the front door, Simon scaled up to the second floor and slipped in through a cracked window. He found Nik by a workbench. He didn't even look up as Simon approached.
"Privyet, tavarishch leytenant," Nik said, holding his hands out either side. If Simon remembered correctly, Nik had a korshun in the back of his belt, and a Udav or a Grach under his arm, as standard. There was no sign of anything else, or anyone else. "Did you come alone?"
"Against my better judgement," Simon replied, keeping his rifle braced against his shoulder. "You?"
"Da. I am glad my judgement of you was accurate."
"And you f'ought callin' me was a good idea?"
There was a pause. Nik tilted his chin down and then turned slowly. He looked... rough. Unshaven, dark circles under his eyes. He had always reminded Simon a little of Snoopy from the telly, but built like a brick shithouse, with a macabre sense of humour.
Simon felt his hands tighten on the rifle, a surge of anger winding up his spine. "He left us."
Nik clenched his teeth and dropped his chin, hands rubbing over his hair. "He was there for you when everyone else had abandoned you, no?"
"When you had driven everyone away like a rabid dog, he was in your corner," Nik bit out. "You owe him. As do I."
Simon's mind filled with it all. The long nights in the rec room when the nightmares wouldn't leave him alone. The annual leave spent together on a beaten old sofa. The missions in the arse end of nowhere. The way Price had cracked silently down the middle on that cliffside.
He lowered his rifle, sighing heavily through his nose. "Take me to him."
It was a small apartment in a town not five miles from the warehouse. The sleepy kind that held a market on Saturday and had an honour system for the local library. Ghost wasn't quite ready for the sight that greeted him as he ducked into the living room.
"He would have escaped if I had left him conscious while I was out..."
"Oh, he is gonna be bloody hoppin' when he wakes."
Price was trussed up good and proper on the sofa. Boots and legs bound, hands behind his back, probably secured against his wrists so he couldn't break his thumbs to get out. "Was the gag necessary?"
"That is because he bit me."
"It is not the first time," Nik said, far too fondly.
"Jesus fuckin' Christ..."
Price stirred as Simon placed his rifle against the wall, and the next time Simon looked round, he was met with two blue eyes glaring fiercely at him. They flicked to Nik and narrowed marginally, a very clear 'and fuck you too'.
Nik walked over slowly, and hooked his finger through the gag, pulling it out of Price's mouth and past his chin. The smirk Price flashed looked unnatural on his face; not the big, face-crumpling smile Simon was used to. "Good t' see y'again, Simon."
"We need to have a talk."
Price hummed low in his throat.
"I will make tea," Nik said, tiredly. It was going to be a long night.
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