“Because you’re going to kill her.”
Rogers looked puzzled. “What do you care?”
Myers didn’t answer.
Chapter
60
PULLER, KNOX, AND Shepard were under the table in the café. Puller and Knox had their guns out. Shepard was screaming hysterically.
The café, which had been quiet moments before, had erupted into chaos as the customers screamed, ran, jumped, and shoved trying to escape.
Puller reached a hand over and gripped Shepard’s shoulder. “You’re okay,” he said in a calming tone. “The shooter’s gone. You’re okay. Do you understand me?” He squeezed her shoulder reassuringly.
She finally quieted and gave him a jerky nod. “Okay.”
“I want you to stay right here. The cops will be on their way. You’re safe, okay, Anne? You’re safe.”
She gave him another nod and then a tight smile. “You…you saved my life.”
“I’m glad I was here.”
“Me too.”
“We’ll be back.”
Puller and Knox reached the front door of the café. Puller did a turkey peek through the opening, found it clear, and they raced out into the street.
“How did you manage that?” she asked.
“I saw the shooter reflected in the mirror at the back of the café.”
A woman was squatting down on the pavement crying. She saw Puller and Knox with their guns out. She put up her hands and said, “Please, don’t shoot me.”
Puller whipped out his badge. “I’m a cop. Are you hurt?”
She shook her head.
“Did you see the shooter?” asked Knox.
She pointed to her left. “Down that alley. Tall guy in a black hoodie with a rifle.”
Puller and Knox raced off, turned the corner, and headed down the alley. They could hear police sirens in the distance. It was well dark now and Puller was listening to the pounding footsteps ahead of him.
They reached another street, turned left, and raced down it. They saw a shadow of movement dart down another alley.
They reached the opening, paused for a few moments, and then entered. They kept going, following the steps ahead. But when they stopped, so did Puller. He held up a hand for Knox to do the same.
Puller was in full combat mode now. And he wasn’t liking what he was seeing.
He looked back at the other end of the alley. In the dark there wasn’t much to see. But he had senses honed to such a fine degree that he could see what others couldn’t.
“What is it?” Knox said in a whisper, hunkered down next to him.
Puller shook his head slightly. He could no longer hear the sirens. The police must have already reached the café.
It had been risky. Done in a public place. And the shooter letting himself be seen in the mirror? A rookie error? Or a calculated maneuver?
Because here we are, blocks away from the scene, in the middle of a dark alley with both flanks exposed.
Puller pulled out his second M11 from the holster in his rear waistband. He leaned into Knox. “Trap,” he muttered. “Keep your eyes and ears open and your pistol ready.”
She looked behind and then up ahead. “The woman back on the street?”
“Part of it,” said Puller in a tone so low only she could hear. “Most people aren’t that observant when shots are being fired. Should’ve seen that. She led us right here.”
“What do we do now?”
“We move.”
Keeping low, he led her twenty more feet down the alley, even as they both now heard footsteps behind them.
They were in a pincers trap that Puller knew well because he’d used it many times in combat. Whoever was back there had some military or at least paramilitary training.
If whoever was tracking them had NV goggles and/or laser sights, this would not be a long fight.
Which was why Puller did not intend to stay on the field of battle.
He looked over at the building adjacent to where they were and calculated something in his head. Then he and Knox ran another ten yards down the alley.
When Puller saw the door he suddenly hurtled sideways and slammed his thick shoulder into the wood. It gave under his two hundred and thirty pounds, the lock broke off, and the door swung inward. He and Knox dove inside a split second before a dozen rounds slammed into the exterior walls and through the open doorway.
Puller kicked the door closed behind them and looked around. They were in what looked to be an abandoned commercial building. The space was empty except for some boxes, a few odd pieces of furniture, and a lot of dirt and grime. The walls were brick and the windows were set high, their exterior sides covered with rusted metal grillwork.
There was a light switch set next to the door. Puller tried it. The building had no juice.
He took out a small but powerful flashlight and shone it around. There was a door on the other side of the large space.
Puller looked quickly around, found a long piece of wood, and used it to jam closed the door they had come through.
“That won’t hold them long,” pointed out Knox.
“But it will tell us when they enter the building,” rebutted Puller.
They raced across the space and reached the other door. But Puller grabbed Knox by the arm to stop her before she went through.
He pointed both his M11s at the door they’d entered and emptied a half mag each through the door.
She looked at him questioningly.
“That just bought us another thirty seconds. The counterfire will start up in about five clicks.”
They hustled up the steps and a few more moments later heard the bullets ripping into the door Puller had fired through.
“Good combat instincts,” said Knox as they high-kneed it up the stairs.
“You either gain them or you don’t make it,” said Puller.
“Someone has to hear the gunfire,” said Knox.
“They’re using suppressed rounds,” said Puller. “The technology has gotten a lot better. This area of the town is deserted at night. And by the time someone does hear, we’ll probably be dead.”
“So what do we do?”
“We keep moving. Stationary targets are easy targets. That’s why they use them on shooting ranges, so wannabes can feel good about themselves.”
He kicked open the door and they were confronted by a set of steps. They took them two at a time and came to a hall that went off in both directions.
“That’ll take us to the front of the building and that way to the rear,” calculated Puller.
“So which one do we take?”
“Neither. They’ll have them covered.”
“This is nuts. I’m calling the cops.”
She pulled out her phone and looked at it in disbelief: She had no bars.
Puller glanced at her. “I already checked mine. They’re jamming the signal.”
“Great. So you say we don’t go fore or aft? Then where do we go?”
“We go up.”
“What, so they can trap us on the roof?”
“Come on.”
Puller led her down the hall until they reached a door marked Stairs. He pulled it open and they headed up.
They had heard the door they had initially come through open as the wood Puller had jammed there was broken. The sounds of footsteps had carried across the open lower floor.
Now the footsteps were echoing through the building. The men after them apparently didn’t care if Puller and Knox knew they were coming. That was the confidence gained by superior numbers and firepower.
Puller led Knox up one flight of stairs after another until they reached the roof eight stories up. Puller forced the door and then used his Ka-Bar knife as a wedge on the hinge side of the door to jam it.
“Now what?” asked a perplexed Knox.
“You told me you ran track in college.”
“Are you drunk?”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Ever practice the long jump?”
“Yes. I was pretty good at it.”
“Glad to hear that.”
“Puller, what the—”
They heard footsteps racing up the steps to the roof.
He grabbed her hand. “Let’s go.”
“What?”
They sprinted flat-out toward the edge of the roof.
Knox’s eyes bulged as she finally saw what his plan was. She started to scream but it died in her throat.
Puller’s hand still clamped around hers, they reached the small ledge, pushed off, and soared over the alley below.
For a long moment it seemed like they were suspended in the air, moving neither forward nor back.
Their momentum carried them over the multistory drop.
They hit the roof of the adjacent building, tucked, and rolled.
Before Knox could even catch her breath, Puller jerked her up and pulled her toward the access door on the building’s rooftop. He busted through it and pulled her inside and closed the door just as the men broke through the door on the roof of the building they had just been in. The armed men raced over the expanse of the roof looking for them.
Meanwhile, in the other building Puller and Knox clattered down the steps. They reached the ground floor and Puller found an exterior door leading to the side opposite the building they’d just leapt from. They pounded down the street.
Puller’s unerring sense of direction led them back to their car about twenty minutes later. They climbed inside and Knox finally let out a deep breath.
He looked at her. She was pale and shaken, her eyes staring straight ahead, as though she were in a trance or on the edge of hysteria and trying desperately to hold it together. Her face was bruised, her arm badly scraped, and her jeans and shirt torn.
“You okay?” he asked anxiously.
She slowly nodded. “Thanks for saving my life.” She paused. “And if you ever do something like that to me again, I swear to God I’ll fucking kill you.”
Chapter
61
PULLER BLINKED AWAKE the next morning. He had slept in his clothes. As he sat up he looked out the window of the motel room on the outskirts of Williamsburg, Virginia.
The sun was starting to rise. The angle of light hit him in the eyes and he turned away.
He heard water running. He sat up and looked around.
Knox was in the bathroom. They had decided to only take one room. There was safety in numbers.
Knox padded out of the bathroom. She had taken her jeans off and the T-shirt was too short to conceal her pale thighs.
“How’s your arm?” asked Puller.
“Fine,” she said curtly.
“You feeling sore? We hit pretty hard.”
She didn’t respond.
They had not talked last night. Knox clearly was too angry to do so and Puller couldn’t come up with the words to initiate a productive discussion. He decided to try again, with a universally appealing opening.
“I’m sorry,” said Puller. He paused and added, “I thought if I told you what I was planning you might freak out and not do it. Then we’d be dead.”
She sat down on the corner of the bed and glared at him. “Have more faith in me next time,” she said, though her tone was more conciliatory.
“I will.”
She scooted up next to him and laid her head against the pillow. She closed her eyes and scrunched up her brow as she rubbed her injured arm.
“So they tried to kill Shepard and then tried to kill us. Led us right into a trap.”
“Which tells me they’re worried we’re getting close to the truth.”
“Who do you think those guys were?”
“My guess is mercenaries. They’re a dime a dozen now. Probably brought in from another country. Even if we managed to track them down they could tell us nothing. Money wired to an offshore account from an untraceable source. I’ve seen that enough times.”
“I get that when they’re operating in the Middle East, but here? Hiring killers to come to this country and kill a DoD contractor?”
He glanced at her. “Well, some assholes came to this country and knocked down buildings using planes, right? So in my book anything is possible.”
She sighed. “Right.”
“We need to find Paul. And we need to get to Jericho.”
“We have no idea where he is, and we have nothing on Jericho.”
Before he could answer his phone rang. It was his brother. He put it on speaker and laid the phone between them so Knox could hear.
Puller took a minute to fill his brother in on what had just happened. Robert listened in silence that he let linger for a few moments after Puller was finished speaking.
“Things are coming to a head, John.”
“Yeah, that I get. I just don’t know whose head is going to be left on their shoulders.”
“The guy you saw with Helen Myers is Anton Charpentier.”
“Is he a spy?”
“No, he’s a businessman. He’s not the big force behind all this. That’s my best estimate, anyway. But he is wired into some fairly substantial global business interests, and not all of them are allies of this country.”
“Shepard told us that some of the things Atalanta Group was working on have enormous commercial applications. Billions, maybe trillions.”
“They do. And which Atalanta Group is barred from exploiting. They don’t have the rights to do so.”
“She says it comes down to who holds the patents.”
“Shepard was exactly right. And the person who holds all those
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