Adrian grunted and pulled, trying to dislodge the samurai sword from the desk while Dick, on the ground, shrieking in terror, closed his fist around the silver revolver, lifted it up, closed his eyes and pulled the trigger twice.
The angry sounds of gunshots once again filled the room, but it was the deafening sound of silence which sickened Dick to his stomach.
Adrian’s body hit the ground with a soft thud, his eyes wide with surprise as he clenched his gut. There was black blood oozing out of a pair of bullet holes, staining the austere white carpet an unholy shade of crimson.
His tanned face had taken on a white pallor as he tried hard to keep his vital fluids inside his body, the blood leaking out from between his fingers with every beat of his heart.
His lips kept moving as though he wanted to say something. Dick knelt down on shaking legs and put his ear closer to Adrian’s mouth.
But no words came. Dick looked and saw that his eyes were closed.
Adrian was dead.
Dick sat beside Adrian’s unnaturally still corpse and cried silent, dry tears.
Finally, he stood up. His hands were shaking, and the back of his throat was dryer than the Sahara Desert. His hand hovered over the silver revolver. It would be good for him to take it, he would need it.
No, he decided. I will never touch a gun again.
Dick removed his hand with a shudder. Taking a deep breath, he turned the lock, his hands shaking the entire time.
The door hinges creaked as he stepped out into the hallway.
He had to be strong, he knew. He had to save Sarah.
Dick Mitey tried to wipe the tears from his eyes only to find that they were dry and set down the hallway.
Chapter Forty
The silence in Sarah Nieminen’s holding cell had gone long past awkward. The sizeable tattooed man continued to stare at her with his dumb, beady eyes. She wasn’t sure if he knew how to blink.
She had racked her brains for any way to escape the small prison to no avail. She banged her hands against the metallic table with frustration, causing the man to raise his eyebrows at her.
Eventually, her frustration turned to a gnawing fear in the pit of her stomach. Dick Mitey was almost certainly dead. Another name to add to the list of Adrian’s victims.
Her partner, Connor Browne. That poor redheaded girl in Ibiza, Elise. And now Dick Mitey. All names on a list which was undoubtedly much more extensive than that.
But those were the names which she had known.
And, soon enough, her name would be added to that list.
Funny, she had always thought that she’d be more afraid.
Growing up she had frequently been plagued by existential terror, a paralyzing fear of what happens after you die. It always arrived at those quiet moments where she was alone.
She used to sit awake at night shivering in fear and trying to convince herself to calm down. That it was natural, and nothing to concern herself about anyway because her inevitable death was still decades away.
But now it figured to be mere hours – if not minutes away. All Sarah could feel was disappointment.
She had proved all the doubters who had put her down, who had questioned her ability because she was a woman, right.
Sarah smiled sardonically, the corners of her mouth lifting ever so slightly. At least she wouldn’t be around to see their goddamn smirking faces.
She was disappointed in herself as well. It wasn’t even that Adrian had bested her, it was that she had walked so blindly into an obvious trap.
Sarah sighed.
All my fault.
Every time there was movement outside she’d glance towards the door thinking: this is it.
But no-one came.
She thought about her Daddy, that Yooper bastard.
Why couldn’t they hurry up with all of this? The waiting was the hardest part. There were things now that she never would be able to do or see again.
She wouldn’t ever again watch the Astro’s play at Minute Maid Park in those hot summer nights where they’d open up the dome and let in the oppressive humidity to mess up the opposing pitcher’s change-up.
She’d never get to see Paris or scale the Eiffel tower, or see the Great Pyramids at Giza.
She’d never see Charlie again, feel him put his head on her lap to try and get some table scraps or rub his furry belly or get woken up to doggy kisses.
That made her sad.
There was movement outside the door. Even the impassive, swinish eyed man across the table seemed off-put by the noise they were hearing.
Another man entered the room. Sarah recognized him at the one from before who had tightened her zip-tie restraints.
They spoke to each other in German. Sarah closed her eyes and waited for them to pull her to her feet and bring her to wherever they were going to kill her.
She waited as their conversation continued. Finally, she opened her eyes. The other man ran out the door. The porcine eyes man with the sleeve tattoos was looking at her. She couldn’t quite place the expression on his face, but it wasn’t what she expected at all.
“What’s happening?” Sarah asked, feeling the mounting tension in the room.
He gave a wistful expression.
“Fire,” he said.
Sarah stopped for a moment. She could indeed smell smoke, though faintly. The building was of wood; she was reasonably sure of that. The rooms were either carpeted or hardwood. It wouldn’t take long for this place to light up like a Christmas tree.
“Wait, where are you going?” She asked, panic in her voice. Her captor had stood up and was hurrying towards the door.
Sarah had been ready to die, but not like this.
She knew that one of the most painful ways to die was to be burned alive. Flames licking your skin and charring it black, the intense heat which made it impossible to breathe. You’d suffocate before the fire would burn you, most likely, but that didn’t make it any less painful.
“You can’t just leave me here!” She cried, running for the open door as fast as her sluggish legs would allow.
He shoved her back with all of the strength in his massive arms. Sarah flew back into the table, knocking it over with the momentum.
“No!” she cried, scrambling to her feet as quickly as she could. She limped over to the door. It was locked once again. “Goddamn asshole,” she cried, beating helplessly on the door with her zip-tied hands.
“Let me out of here!”
Finally, the fire alarms went off in the building, alarm klaxons which offended her eardrums with their high pitched, incessant wails.
She banged on the door again.
“Somebody help! Anybody, please.”
Sarah forced deep breaths into her lungs. She had to calm down; there had to be a way out. The door was secured and embedded in a steel frame. What was more was that it opened inwards. There wasn’t a chance of her ever breaking that door.
What else? The room was small and drywalled on all four sides. She took a chair in her hands, cursing whoever it was that had tied the restraints around her wrist so damn tightly, and started hacking at the wall.
Shit. It was double-sheet drywall. Unless she could magically conjure up a sledgehammer, she wouldn’t be able to break through. After a few moments, she stopped, her hands ringing from the impact. There were several dents on the wall but nothing substantial.
In her mind's eye, she could see the fire moving closer and closer to her. Roaring and consuming everything in its path.
Sarah grabbed the chair again and swung it with the fervor of desperation. Every time she hit the wall with the chair, the vibrations would ring painfully up into her arms, but she couldn’t stop now.
Finally, she collapsed on the ground weeping tears of frustration and fear.
Her hands throbbed painfully against the zip-tie restraints on her wrists.
Out of all the ways she’d expected to die, this had not been one of them. Sarah Nieminen bowed her head in her
throbbing hands and closed her eyes.
A low whining sound filled the room. Like fire sizzling on damp wood. The end was close now. So much she had wanted to see, wanted to do. All for naught.
Or was it a sound like a door opening on hinges which needed some oil? She peeked her head up.
“Hullo Sarah,” Dick Mitey said. “I’m sorry to interrupt your – prayers? I never thought you were the religious type. Meditation, maybe? But I think that we should probably get out of here.”
He stood there maybe six-three, six-four. One hundred and thirty pounds soaking wet, with ears that stuck out way too far and a red pixie nose. He wiped his pale-blue watery eyes with his spindly fingers and smiled a crooked smile.
Sarah Nieminen thought he looked perfect.
Chapter Forty-One
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Dick asked nervously, glancing back towards the hallway he had come from.
“Nothing,” Sarah replied, wiping a tear from her soft brown eyes while she stood up slowly. Dick noticed a huge, ugly bruise under her right eye.
Battle wounds, just like me.
They fled together down the corridor. Behind them now the roar of the fire was getting more and more aggressive.
“Another couple of minutes…” gasped Dick, “and I think it would have been too late.”
“Not out of the fire yet!” Sarah replied. Dick realized that she wasn’t breathing hard at all.
Why is it, he thought, that everyone else is in so much better shape than me?
The corridors seemed to continue endlessly. Dick followed Sarah’s lead, struggling to keep up with the athletic woman and her unholy speed. She seemed to know where she was going, which was good because Dick was hopelessly lost.
Left, then right, then left again. Another left. Straight. All the paintings on the wall looked the same.
Finally, they reached an exit and emerged into the cold night air.
“Stop, just lemme… catch… breath.” Dick hunched over, trying to draw air into his lungs so that his head would stop spinning.
“Just a little further Richard. We need to get clear of the building.” He looked up at her. If she hadn’t been gleaning in sweat slightly, he would have had no idea that she’d just sprinted through a building. She wasn’t breathing hard at all.
Dick stumbled to the street, his awkward lanky body flailing everywhere. He plopped down on the curb and tried to catch his breath.
What a night! Dick couldn’t remember the last time he’d had such an exciting evening.
They sat down together on the curb and watched the flames consume the modest white building with the oversized awnings. The fire department had indeed arrived, but the fire raged so vehemently that they had decided to let the fire raze the building. They worked on containing it, from spreading.
By morning nothing would be left of the building other than some steel girders and ashes.
“What happened?” Sarah asked Dick. “Is he…”
“Yes,” Dick said quietly. He didn’t want to talk about it. Dick had seen enough death to last him a lifetime, he’d decided.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to talk about it,” Sarah said, patting his arm, her wrists still bound together. “What about the fire? Where the hell did that come from?”
“Oh!” Dick said, “that was my idea.”
“Oh?” Sarah contracted her eyebrows together in a frown. Dick didn’t think she could look less than gorgeous ever, even if she tried.
“Let me explain!” he said hastily. “I knew that there was no way I’d ever be able to save you by playing the hero. I had to find some way to get those big, mean men out without having to deal with them.
I was stumped! Until I came across a pack of cigarettes. I think they belonged to Adr-“ Dick ended sadly.
“Keep going.”
“Well, anyways, I grabbed them along with his lighter. Once I figured out around where they were keeping you I went a bit further back and lit them on some of those plush carpets.
Whooomp!” Dick emoted, waving his hands in an exaggerated fashion. “I was worried that it was going to spread too quickly, actually. I’ve never seen something go up so fast. It took them a little while to notice the fire. They sent one guy to check it out. He came back flailing his arms and speaking in German, which is a very angry language, by the way.”
Dick paused back and looked at Sarah. He couldn’t quite tell what the expression on her face meant.
“So they had a brief conversation, hit the fire alarm and then ran. That’s what I was worried about, that they’d not leave. Or that they’d leave and bring you with them. Either way, I figured that you wouldn’t be in that room anymore.”
From everything he had learned about Sarah, he had realized that she was incredibly resourceful. If they had taken her with them, she could have just waited for her moment to escape in the confusion. Of that he was positive.
“And then I found you in the room, and we sprinted through the hallways – let’s not do that again, okay? I think I’m going to faint!” She smiled at that.
“Dick, that was incredibly dangerous. For me and for you, you know that, right?” She admonished.
“I, well, yeah, I guess so. But I –“
“Thank you. There’s not many people that could have thought of something like that, much less pull it off.” Sarah leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
Dick beamed from ear to ear and felt his cheeks burn.
There was a long silence as the two watched the building slowly burn down. Now, in his experience, Dick knew that most silences which lasted too long tended to be awkward. But, in this case, for whatever reason, it wasn’t uncomfortable at all.
It was nice.
Dick wished that this moment would last a lot longer than a moment. But, as is the case with moments and sweet memories, it was over much too quickly.
“Come on, let’s go,” Sarah said. “Can’t draw any more attention to ourselves. I’m pretty sure that there’s a pocketknife in the car for this,” she said, drawing attention to her bound arms.
“Where are we going?” Dick asked, even though he thought he knew the answer.
“Home,” Sarah said.
Dick had given the idea of home a lot of thought over the past little while.
“What if I don’t have a home anymore?” He asked quietly, thinking of his small apartment where the smell of mildew came through in the summertime. By now he had undoubtedly been evicted, all his stuff sold most likely.
Sarah shrugged her lithe shoulders.
“We’ll figure it out. You can crash on my couch the first night if you don’t mind Charlie.”
“Charlie?”
“That’s my dog. He’s probably going to want most of the couch. Consider yourself warned!”
That cheered Dick up. He hadn’t been looking forward to the prospect of being homeless. But it was more than that, too. Sarah was indeed his friend.
They’d been brought together by coincidence, but their bond was stronger by the time which they’d spent together.
There was this warm and fuzzy feeling in Dick’s heart. He remembered his Mama talking about his Aunt Glady’s who had complained about a burning pain in her heart shortly before she suffered a massive heart attack.
Dick had never had a heart attack before, but he knew that this was a completely different feeling. It was belonging, it was fitting in and not being mocked.
It was friendship.
Dick could get used to this feeling
Chapter Forty-Two
Sarah stood in Mohammad Al-Azhar’s office. Across from her, the bearded man looked wistfully at her. She could see the sadness in his eyes, she thought. Unhappiness from her actions, which must have forced his hand.
Did he serve up a burn notice about her? It was what she would have done if she was in his position. Burning was permanently severing her ties with any intelligence organization on the planet.
Or would he merely convict her
of treason? The silence was driving her insane.
“Look, Mo,” she began, but he held out a hand to stop her. She hated when he did that.
“How was your vacation?” He asked. It was a beautiful summer day, and Mo had opened the window in his office to let in the smell of flowers from the garden outside. It smelled good and fresh and reminded Sarah of her childhood in Marquette.
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