Dirty Bop to Blighty
Diana Deverell
Art by Joel Spector

FBI Special Agent Dawna Shepherd leaned on the railing of the Queen of Scandinavia's topmost deck and glared at the Norwegian coast. July sun glinted off saltwater and seagulls argued over the thrum of four engines as the ferry plowed between a long, windswept island and the scenic shore. Morose, Dawna inhaled coconut-scented suntan oil overlaid by diesel exhaust fumes and tried to relax her taut shoulder muscles. Why was she feeling so twitchy?

She was supposed to be herding eighteen East European police officers through an on-board conference, but she'd left them congregated at the open-air Sky Bar where most were enjoying a late afternoon smoke break. She'd climbed one deck higher to avoid conversation while she tried to pinpoint what was setting off her b.s. detector.

When she spotted Armenian cop Alek Talatinian peering at her from the top of the stairs, she knew her time for thinking was up. Threading his way through half clad ferry passengers sunning themselves, he bounced with each stride and the strong sea breeze was ruffling his shaggy salt-and-pepper hair into an Einstein-do. Clearly, he was bursting to tell her something. Like the other participating cops, he was a graduate of the eight-week leadership training course offered by the FBI-sponsored International Law Enforcement Academy, the ILEA, in Budapest. Dawna had been his class coordinator, and she'd seen him single-handedly resolve the mock bank robbery that was a standard part of the course. Man was sharp—and excitable.

The Little Nogai Boy
R. T. Lawton

In my first seven years of life I had never been robbed, but then I owned little of any value to anyone else, only the clothes on my back and a small bladed knife in the belt at my waist. My master was a different matter. He was a trader of goods and had many objects of much worth to sell on both sides of the Terek River, that winding border between the Cossack lands to the north and the Chechen tribes below.

Thus it was, those many years ago, while approaching through a shallow valley between two rolling grass hills in the Wild Country south of the river, that we met the horseman. He appeared to have been waiting just for us.
I am Timur of the nomadic Nogai people. It is said that my long ago ancestor was of direct descent from the Great Khan, the one the Round Eyes called Temujin, the one who led our Mongols in their conquest of the known earth. His swift ponies carried the yak-tail standard north as far as the frozen lands where nights are long, and south to the deep blue waters of the Mediterranean and the sweltering jungles of the once great Hindu Kingdom. Our people raided east to the Tien Shan Mountains of China, then turned and pursued the setting sun to white-faced races beyond the edge of the Western Steppes.