by L. T. Ryan
“Makes sense.”
“No, you don’t get it.”
“So, help me get it.”
“He tried to drug me. I saw him do it. So, I played his game. Changed the rules up on him.”
“That’s why he won’t be ready to go for a while.”
She nodded.
For a moment he wondered if he should’ve let her in the car. Everything he’d assumed about her was wrong. Who was she? “Doesn’t explain why you needed to leave.”
“I knew I was heading out this morning anyway, so I took a parting gift.” She hugged her bag to her chest.
And there it was. A thief.
“What’d you take?”
“He pulled a picture, a painting, off the wall, and there was a safe. So, I asked him to open it, and he did. I had no idea it was even there. And he starts talking crazy about how I can never blow his cover.”
“Ines,” Jack interrupted. “What did you take?”
She turned her duffel sideways on her lap and unzipped it, then angled it toward Jack. He eased his foot off the accelerator, widening the gap between the Mercedes. In the bag he saw a stack of bills in various currencies, at least three passports, a pistol with two spare magazines.
“I didn’t know what was in the bag. He opened the safe, shuffled a few things around, took out this book to show me. It was filled with pictures of people. Some famous. Some regular. By that point, he was mumbling. It didn’t take long until he collapsed face first onto the book, eventually sliding off his stool onto the hard tile floor.”
Opportunity had presented itself, and Ines took advantage.
She continued. “I grabbed the duffel and hurried back to where me and my friend were staying. Locked the bag in the car. My friend had balked at leaving, but I pressed, and she gave in.”
“I hardly slept last night, which is why you found me asleep in the car you stole.” Her expression changed to one of shock. “The car you stole. My friend’s car, with me in it. And here I am, worried about petty theft.”
Jack held up his hand. “One, I borrowed that car, and it’s safely parked in a garage not far from where I found it. Two, what’s in that bag is hardly petty theft. Not to the guy you took it from.”
There was more he wanted to say but refrained. Few people had belongings stashed away like the guy had. Who needed three passports except for someone like Noble? He tossed a quick glance up at the sky. A sky full of faceless spies hovering above the stratosphere. Was the car being tracked by one of them?
Before ditching the BMW, he planned on copying the registration information.
They passed the border without incident. He didn’t even notice until Ines pointed out they were in France. Thank God for the Schengen Agreement.
“You know this area?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Never been here before, but I need to stop. Haven’t eaten since six yesterday.”
“Bound to be a decent-size town here soon. We’ll stop first place we have options.”
What he didn’t tell her was leaving her behind with the vehicle was his first option.
Chapter 13
The sunlight knifed through Bear’s eyes and stabbed his brain. It felt like it had swollen to twice its regular size in a matter of seconds. He clenched his eyelids shut, then blinked a few times. The blurry haze lifted and soon all he felt was the warmth on his face cooling a second later as a gust of wind whipped past and lifted dead leaves off the grass and deposited them in the alley.
Mandy slammed the hospital door shut. She freed a slat from a nearby pallet and wedged it under the door handle. The wood grated against concrete until she couldn’t move it anymore.
She grabbed Bear’s hand and tugged him to the left. “See, like I said. A way out.”
“What about the—”
“Keys?” They glinted in the sunlight as she dangled them in front of him while forcing a smile.
“Where’d you…”
She hesitated, allowing him time to finish. When he didn’t, she said, “They were on a hook. Grabbed ‘em. Figured if there wasn’t a dead-people-mobile out here, they’d fit a car belonging to a doctor or whatever.”
Bear took the keys from her and depressed the lock button on the black fob. The taillights of a hearse parked thirty feet away blinked red.
“Did good, kid.”
That didn’t seem to be any consolation to her. “Sasha?”
“She never found you?”
Mandy shook her head. Her gaze cast down at a muddy puddle confined to a pothole a foot from the building.
“Look,” Bear said. “Sasha’s as competent as I am. Probably more so. She’ll be fine. But right now, I gotta worry about you. Someone is after us.”
They both jerked their heads back toward the morgue as someone slammed against the door from inside. They hustled across the alley. Bear pressed the unlock key several times and yelled at Mandy to get in.
She climbed into the passenger seat as Bear used the roof to steady himself. He hadn’t done anything close to attempting to climb in behind the wheel during his rehab. Wasn’t even sure he could bend that way yet.
Bear yanked the door open and failed to get his foot over the threshold. He reached down, cupped his hand behind his knee, and lifted his leg into the air.
Mandy winced at the look on his face. “I can drive us out of here.”
The banging against the door continued. Another gust of wind chilled his skin near his sweat-drenched collar as he lowered himself through the opening. He tightened his grip to steady his shaking arms.
“Bear,” she said. “Climb into the back. I’ll get us out of here.”
The morgue door crashed open, slamming into the concrete wall like a crack of thunder. Bear fell back into the wedge between the door and frame and gripped the MP7 with both hands. The Black man who emerged from the opening lifted his hands in the air.
Bear recognized the orderly, said, “The hell are you doing?”
“I’m trying to help you,” he said. “Thought they took you, or the girl.”
“What’s your deal, man? Why you so hell-bent on this?”
The guy took a couple steps forward. “She’s too young to drive. You’re not ready. Let me help you. Get you out of here. Come on. What do you say? Lower the gun.”
Bear gripped the H&K tighter. His index finger grazed the trigger. Could he trust this guy? He couldn’t come up with a single reason to do so.
“Stay put,” Bear said.
From inside, another round of gunfire erupted. Sounded close. The orderly flinched, looked back, hopped to the side. He mouthed something, but Bear couldn’t figure out what it was. Had to be some kind of warning.
There was shouting from within the morgue.
“Man down.”
“Forget him, he’s dead.”
“They gotta be out there.”
Bear waited for the first guy to emerge through the doorway. He didn’t hesitate this time. Three rounds, all dead center. The guy went down in a heap.
The orderly whipped the door shut. He threw his shoulder into it and sprawled his legs out. “Go on. Get her out of here.”
Bear looked inside the car. Mandy leaned over her armrest; tears slipped past her eyes as her gaze darted between Bear and the orderly.
“You gotta save him,” she said.
Bear thumbed the fob again, and the liftgate on the rear of the vehicle rose. Shutting the driver’s door, he told Mandy to scoot behind the wheel and get them out of there. Then he pulled the rear door open and leaned back against it.
“You,” Bear yelled at the orderly. “Get in back.”
Sweat beaded on the man’s shaved head and slid down like streams. He was thin but strong. His forearm muscles rippled. “They’ll get through.”
Bear gestured with the MP7. “Let me worry about that. OK?”
The guy bared his teeth as though one final massive push would prevent the men on the other side from escaping.
“Now,”
Bear said. “For all we know half of them are looking for another way out.”
The orderly looked toward the opening in the rear of the vehicle, presumably sizing it up. He pushed off the door, took two long lunges, and dove headfirst. Bear mashed the button again to close the liftgate before the guy had taken his second step. A beep signaled the gate’s descent.
The morgue door crashed open. Bear didn’t wait for someone to appear. He squeezed the trigger three times, hitting the door twice and the exterior wall once. A plume of decimated concrete rose and covered the area like white smoke.
Bear fell back into the vehicle and yelled, “Mandy, go!”
The girl hit the accelerator hard enough to spin the tires for a few seconds. When they began moving, the rear end fishtailed. For a second it looked like they would collide with the building. Before Bear could tell her how to correct, she figured it out and they raced down the alley behind the hospital.
Bear rolled his window down. Sirens approached. Finally. How the hell weren’t they already there?
Mandy looked from the road back to him. “You take over.”
“We can’t stop,” Bear said. “Hear those sirens?”
“They’re here to help,” she said.
He shook his head. “Not us. Not me, at least. We gotta roll, sweetie. And we gotta get past here before they block us in.”
“Turn right here,” the orderly said, threading his leg over the seat and plopping down next to Bear. “Then make your first left. That’ll wind us through the woods. Cops won’t come in that way.”
Bear studied the man. How was it he had come to be so close when Mandy had been taken, and then again as they attempted escape? Was he one of them?
The orderly gripped his left hand with his right. He’d been shaking. Fresh sweat formed on his head. This wasn’t a man used to this kind of activity.
“Really are a bleeding good Samaritan, huh?”
The orderly squinted back at Bear, had to process the meaning of the words. “I-I could just tell you were the kind of man who could get out alive.”
“All those people racing down the hall got out alive.”
“Did they?”
Mandy looked up at them in the rearview, her eyes wet and red. “Sasha?”
Bear held up a hand, in part to calm her, but also to block her penetrating stare. “Watch the road, sweetie. I’m sure we’ll run into Sasha soon enough.”
The orderly cast a look back at the hospital. “We’re almost far enough. I can take over.”
“Take over what?” Bear said.
“Driving.”
“Nah, I’ll do—”
“Are you kidding?” The orderly shook his head, pressed his thumb and middle finger against his closed eyes. “You can barely walk.”
“I’m improving by the second,” Bear said. “Besides, driving isn’t walking.”
“You don’t know the roads here.”
“You can tell me.”
“What if we’re chased? I can—”
“You know how to drive when being chased?” Bear watched the man for any tells indicating a lie.
The orderly lowered his head. “I just want to help.”
Bear grabbed the driver’s seat and leaned closer to Mandy. “How’re you feeling? Think you can keep going?”
She nodded.
“How far to a train station?” He glanced over at the orderly.
“Five minutes, max.” He pointed at the upcoming intersection. “Turn right here, then it’ll be on the left in a couple kilometers. You can drop me off ahead.”
“Nah, you’re coming with us.”
“What? Why?”
Bear couldn’t answer that. Everything with the guy had been a coincidence, and he didn’t like that. He had to keep the man close until they were in touch with Sasha again.
He bit down on his index finger and turned toward the window.
If they saw Sasha again.
Chapter 14
Clive stood at the rear of the room and watched his team move like a finely-tuned orchestra. The conductor of surveillance. Months of struggle and pain had led to this moment. And this moment was not without its difficulties. Was it ever? The hospital shooting had been unexpected. And after reflecting, he had no doubt it was related.
Who else was involved?
Lacy had moved a team into position at the hospital where they would meet up with Sadie, who Clive knew would not be pleased. She’d prefer to work alone rather than with a team she was unfamiliar with. She’d cite operational integrity or some other such nonsense. Clive would let her give her speech, then tell her tough luck.
The scenes played out on the big screens mounted across the walls. The crowds had thinned outside of the hotel in Luxembourg City. Yellow police tape blocked the entrance. Detectives had moved on and had been replaced by crime scene investigators who were taking pictures and collecting samples. Another monitor displayed a scrolling log of license plate numbers. The search net widened with every passing minute. An initial group of fewer than four highways available for escape had grown by several dozen, as every tributary became part of the search territory. Within a few hours the number of square kilometers they had to cover would reach a total too high for the team to effectively manage. They would be back where they started.
Despite this, Clive had little concern. There was no awful feeling gnawing at his gut. Why? Because they had Noble. They had him on tape. The most current version of him. And they could feed that through the system, and facial recognition software would pick him up the moment he showed up on a networked camera. They also had the license plate of the car he escaped in, which Isa located in a garage not far from the hotel. It took her less than thirty seconds to determine Noble had left there in a BMW M5. “Nice ride,” had been Clive’s comment. “Hope he enjoys it.”
There hadn’t been any hits on the vehicle. Yet. But it was only a matter of time. And the moment the license plate pinged or Noble’s face was detected, the web would shrink again.
Clive turned his attention to the hospital. The situation was under control, but the cost had been severe. He surmised the body count would be upwards of twenty dead, and at least four times that many wounded.
He walked down the middle of the room and came to a stop in front of a fifty-five-inch Samsung, the screen split into eighths. Each rectangle played a video feed on a loop. He was sure there were dozens more cameras in the hospital. Someone had chosen to use these, though, so he watched with two of his analysts nearby. Was there something recorded they could use? He noted the reason for these specific feeds, and turned his head toward Isa. She glanced up in time to see him offer her a quick nod. Her half-hearted smile indicated his assumption was correct.
Each stream focused on a member of the hit team. In seven feeds, innocents fell. Some dead when they hit the floor. Others writhing in pain. He felt a knot in his stomach. Death was more a part of Clive’s world than most. He had no qualms issuing the order to terminate a terrorist or rogue agent they’d hunted down. If his team showed up, you had done something to bring them there. He drilled that into his people, analysts and field operators alike. But innocents…he couldn’t tolerate that.
“Lacy,” he said. “If you can get the resources together, and if any of the hit team are left behind, we need to gather as much intel as we can from them. After this is all over, I want to hunt down the people behind this. I don’t care if it’s out of my own wallet.”
The click-clack of keyboards and low hum of chatter ceased as his team focused on him. Had his conciliatory tone, which was always even, caught them off guard?
He ignored their stares. He watched the scenes on the Samsung one more time. When he reached the eighth feed, Clive froze. What had appeared to be footage of a throng of people streaming down the hallway like they were swept up in rapids contained something else. As the crowd thinned, a scene played out. A girl, maybe thirteen or fourteen, being dragged by one of the attackers.
And someone
hunting them.
“Zoom in on that.”
“What?”
He rushed to the display and placed his finger on the small feed. “This one. Hurry.”
The other feeds gave way as the one that caught Clive’s attention took over the screen. A large man stumbled across the hallway in pursuit.
“Can you get any closer?” Clive asked.
The image zoomed in on the big man. Clive’s breath caught in his throat as he waited for the right moment. He didn’t want to assume who the man was. The crowd had thinned. Stragglers continued to hurry down the hallway. They avoided the man. Then the guy turned his head.
“Freeze it!”
The video went still.
“Riley Logan,” Clive said. He jabbed his finger at the nearest monitor. “Get his picture up now.”
A few seconds later, three images of Riley “Bear” Logan were posted, all face shots.
“Got a profile?”
And there it was. The profile picture matched the still image from the video.
“What the bloody hell is going on?” Clive stepped back until he butted up against a cubicle wall. “Can anyone tell me what is happening here today?”
The team knew the history between Noble and Bear well. They’d studied it, from the two men meeting in Recruit Training at the age of eighteen, to their most recent business dealings. And now, not even four hundred kilometers apart, they were both involved in shooting events.
Isa stood next to Clive, disbelief on her face. “This can’t be a coincidence, right?”
The reality of what was happening began to set in. “Someone is more than a step ahead of us.” He turned toward Isa. “I need live feeds from the hospital. If they aren’t gone, we need to pull our people back.”
She called out to one of her team and multiple monitors began to pipe in the current streams from the hospital. The hallways looked like war zones, bodies strewn about, blood streaks across the floors. There were cops in tactical gear clearing the hospital room by room.
“I think they’re gone,” Isa said. “Who do you think is behind this?”
“Could be any number of people or groups or governments. Clearly what we’ve witnessed is a coordinated attack meant to take out both of these men. While we’ve been struggling to locate Noble for months, someone else had not only him in their sights, but Logan as well. First guess would be multiple government agencies, but I can’t fathom them giving the go-ahead for the carnage at the hospital.”