“No idea,” Brodeur said. “I tend to misplace things.”
Miller felt like slugging Brodeur, but held off when the man took out his keychain and pushed a button on a car alarm transmitter. A honk sounded in the distance. “Thataway.”
Brodeur led the way, honking the horn every ten seconds, honing in on the vehicle like a dolphin using echolocation. When they reached the car, Miller debated taking the keys from Brodeur and leaving him behind, but the man was just doing his job.
While Brodeur opened the driver’s side door and climbed in, Miller looked back at the hospital. He found the fifth floor and followed the windows to the room he thought belonged to Arwen. It all seemed so normal. So simple. The hospital. The blue sky. It was hard to imagine that while part of the world had been transformed into hell, the rest was business as usual. He kept expecting red flakes to fall from the sky, or for the hospital to explode, or for a sniper bullet to find him.
When the doors unlocked, Miller jumped. Relax, he told himself. Get a grip.
After getting in the car and hitting the road, Miller discovered that his assessment of the world outside the Miami area was drastically incomplete. The world was anything but normal. In the fifteen minutes it took to get to his apartment they witnessed two stores being looted, several fights, and a standoff between a mob and D.C. police in riot gear.
When they turned onto Miller’s street, he was glad to see it looked no different than the last time he’d seen it, nearly two weeks previous. Brownstone apartment buildings lined both sides of the street, most of which were concealed behind twin lines of maple trees heavy with green leaves.
“It’s this one,” Miller said, pointing to his building.
Brodeur pulled over.
“You don’t have to stay,” Miller said.
“You have your orders, I have mine,” Brodeur said. “Won’t be the first night I spent in a car.”
“You’re staying in the car?”
“Can’t keep watch as well from the inside.”
Miller knew he was right, but it still felt odd, having someone watch over him. He opened his door. “You sure?”
“Go,” Brodeur said. “Sounds like you’re going to need as much sleep as you can get.”
“Thanks.” Miller stepped out of the car and closed the door. He offered a nod and casual salute, and limped toward his front door. He strode up the granite stairs leading to the front entry of his building. He had planned to buzz a neighbor to let him in, but found the front door wedged open. The tenants sometimes did this if they were moving a mattress or TV, but no one was around. Assuming someone had just forgot, he kicked the rock away and let the door close behind him.
His pace quickened as he took the stairs toward his third-story apartment. It would feel good to just sit in his chair, which had conformed to the shape of his body. He took the last flight of stairs two at a time, working out his game plan: ibuprofen, shower, beer, chair, think, second beer, go to bed. As soon as he reached his door, the plan became moot. It would have to wait for another day.
The door was open.
Miller reached under his left arm, looking for a gun that wasn’t there. Shit, he thought. He listened for several seconds, and after hearing nothing but the loud hum of his old refrigerator, slid into the apartment. Two steps into the apartment he saw that it had been tossed. The contents of every drawer and cabinet covered the floor. Paintings lay broken and torn. Cushions sat gutted.
At the center of it all, in the living room, stood a petite blond woman, gun in her hand and blood on her arm.
22
Several options shot through Miller’s mind. He could retreat and get Brodeur, who was armed. But that wasn’t really his style. And the game could change by the time they got back. She might be watching the door, or have exited out the back. Leaving wasn’t a viable choice. He had to take care of this here and now.
His way.
The woman held something in her free hand and was inspecting it closely. No way she’s a pro, Miller thought. She’d left her back to the entrance and was totally ignorant of her surroundings. Still, she was holding a 9mm Glock and the blood on her arm suggested she knew how to use it.
Miller stepped quietly through the detritus littering the hardwood floors. With adrenaline fighting his fatigue, he managed to slide up behind the woman. Close up, he noticed a large purse at her feet.
Who brings a purse to toss an apartment?
Her clothes were all wrong, too. She wore tight-fitting jeans that showed off her short, but fit legs. Her red shoes looked like fashionable cross-trainers. And combined with her untucked white blouse and red, flowery purse, she looked like some kind of office employee on casual Friday.
Still, there was the gun.
A problem he would soon fix as he moved to within four feet of the woman. Close up, he could see that she was looking at the Purple Heart medal he’d been awarded for the greatest failing of his Navy SEAL career. He held his breath, pictured every move he’d make, and then acted. With one long step he closed the distance between them. He grasped the gun with his right hand and twisted, while with his left, he shoved her hard in the center of her back. The woman fell forward with a shout. The gun came free.
Miller turned the gun on the woman and took aim at her head.
She landed on the floor and spun around quickly. Her straight blond hair clung to her face, which looked wet. Through her hair, Miller saw her eyes, red-rimmed and wide. The woman was terrified. Not only was she not a pro, she wasn’t even a killer.
“Who are you?” Miller lowered the gun a notch.
And then she spoke.
“Please, don’t shoot me. I’m not your enemy.” The request was simple enough, but every syllable she spoke held the unmistakable sharp sound of a German accent.
The gun came back up. “Bullshit.”
“Please,” the woman said, shrinking back.
“Who did you shoot?”
The woman looked confused. “No—no one.”
Miller squinted at her. His logic said she was lying. After all, the last German he’d encountered had nearly killed him, and she had been standing in his ransacked apartment with a gun. But her eyes, blue and wet, looked honest. He quickly ejected the clip and looked at the bullets. Full. There wasn’t even a round in the chamber. He slapped the clip back home and smelled the gun. If it had been fired recently and reloaded, it would still smell strongly of cordite.
He smelled nothing. Either the woman had reloaded and cleaned the gun, or she was telling the truth.
“Whose blood is that?” he asked, pointing to her arm.
She looked down at the blood, her eyes widening as though she’d seen it for the first time. With a shaky hand, she wiped at the dry blood, but it wasn’t going to come off without soap and water.
Miller lowered the gun. Whoever this woman was, he could see she’d gone through hell.
“What’s your name?”
When she kept wiping at the blood, Miller took her face in his hand and turned her toward him.
“What’s your name?”
Her lips quivered for a moment, but after a deep breath, she found a measure of self-control and spoke. “Elizabeth Adler. I— I’m a German liaison for Interpol.”
“Interpol?”
“I coordinate with the FBI and several European agencies on criminal activities that involve multiple countries.”
“You’re not a field agent?”
“Interpol has no field agents.”
Miller’s knowledge of Interpol came to him in a flash. The organization—despite what Hollywood and novelists would have the world believe—didn’t hunt down criminals and solve cases. That’s not to say they weren’t important; coordinating police forces from multiple countries that might not always have the same agenda was no easy task. And thanks to their efforts, many international criminal organizations and terrorist plots had been uncovered. They were the good guys.
But, if President Bensson was right
, even the good guys could be bad guys. Her being an Interpol liaison didn’t necessarily make her trustworthy.
“Back to the blood,” he said. “Whose is it?”
She glanced down at her blood-splattered arm, but didn’t linger. She turned back to him and said, “My boss’s.”
“Is he dead?”
“I don’t think so. I hit him with the gun.”
“Why did you do that?”
“I have something important.”
When Adler pronounced “something” as “somesing,” Miller tensed. He wasn’t sure if he could ever hear a German accent again without feeling threatened. Ignoring her accent as best he could, he listened to her story.
“Something about the iron.”
“The attacks.”
She nodded. “I took it to the local Interpol chief. After he saw it, he—” Her eyes shimmered with tears. “He tried to kill me.”
She brushed her hair away from her face and neck. There was a cut just below the hairline on her forehead, but it was the ring of bruising around her neck that held his attention. Someone had damn near squeezed the life out of her.
“I got his gun. Hit him in the head. Here,” she said, rubbing her temple.
“He fell on you?”
She pursed her lips. “I thought I would die beneath him.”
“But you didn’t. You got away. And … you came here.”
With a sniff, she said, “Yes.”
“Why?”
“The chief was on the phone when I entered his office, finishing a conversation and taking notes. Before he hung up, he said, ‘I’ll get word to the others. We’ll find him and take care of the problem.’” Adler pulled herself up and sat on the edge of the cushionless couch. “After I knocked him out, I looked at the note.” She reached into her pocket and took out a folded slip of paper. She handed it to him.
Miller opened the paper and saw just two handwritten words: Lincoln Miller.
“I had seen you on TV. After everything you’d been through, I knew they weren’t looking for you to congratulate you. I wanted to find you first. The hospital said you’d left, so I came here. I thought I could trust you.”
Miller shook his head. “You and everyone else.”
“What?”
“Never mind. How did you find me?”
“I have contacts with the FBI and D.C. police. It wasn’t hard.”
“Okay. But what were you looking for? Why did you toss my—” A warning Klaxon sounded loud in Miller’s gut. He stood and raised his gun toward the empty apartment. “You didn’t toss the apartment, did you?”
“No, why would—”
Miller held an open palm up. “Shh!”
Leading with the gun, Miller moved from the living room to the kitchen. The place wasn’t big, but there were a few nooks and crannies that would make great hiding places, one of which contained some weapons he thought might come in handy.
“What are you doing?” Adler whispered. She was a few steps behind him, clutching her purse to her chest. “There’s no one here. I checked.”
“Whoever did this was searching for something. I—”
“What where they searching for?”
That was the million-dollar question. To his knowledge, Miller had nothing to hide, and certainly nothing to find. So if they weren’t searching for something, what were they—
“Shit,” Miller said, turning his attention to the open apartment door.
“What?”
“It’s a distraction.”
“For what?”
The answer came a moment later. Glass shattered in the living room. Miller spun, expecting to see someone swinging through the window. What he saw was much smaller, and much more deadly. The grenade bounced off the couch and rolled into the center of the living room. It wasn’t a smoke or flashbang, either. This was the real deal—a frag grenade that would shred their bodies to pieces. Whoever had thrown it through the window had no intention of capturing them alive.
23
Miller turned to Adler and was surprised to see her moving fast in his direction. Her open hands struck him hard in the chest and shoved him into the open bathroom. Miller saw where they were headed, spun around, and ran. He dove into the tub as Adler leapt atop him. The impact of striking the tub hurt like hell, but when the grenade exploded, they survived without injury.
Ignoring the loud ringing in his ears, Miller jumped up and pulled Adler to her feet. “Good reflexes for a liaison,” he said.
She shrugged. “I played a lot of sports.”
Good, he thought, she’s not falling apart. Even soldiers sometimes check out when things start exploding. Adler was wide-eyed, but thinking clearly and still mobile. Knowing they most likely had just seconds, he yanked her out of the bathroom and into the hall. The living room lay in ruins. A three-foot-round hole had been blown through the floor into the apartment below.
Miller ran for the hole. There were two exits from his apartment—the main entrance and the fire escape. The metallic clang of footfalls on the fire escape were impossible to mistake. The shouts rising up the stairwell meant both exits were covered. That left them only one option.
“Into the hole,” he said.
To his surprise and relief, Adler didn’t question the order. She sat on the floor, dangled her legs into the hole, and scooted over the edge. He watched her land far more gracefully than he thought he would manage. When she stepped out of the way he noticed she was still holding on to her purse.
But there was no time to think about why the purse was so important. Red dots bounced on the hallway wall outside his apartment. The men coming up to greet him had weapons with laser sights. He took aim, waiting for the first man to show himself. Miller was outmanned and outgunned, but a single shot could stop an enemy cold. Precision often achieved the same level of shock and awe as brute strength.
When the first man’s black-masked head rose into view, Miller squeezed off a single shot. The man toppled forward and dropped from view, leaving a splash of red on the opposite wall.
“Shit!” shouted a voice from the hallway. “Tango is down! Viper Two, Viper Two, target is alive and armed. Proceed with caution.”
Miller’s gut twisted. Everything about the attack screamed U.S. military.
“Copy that,” came a voice from the back window of the kitchen.
As Miller spun toward the window and took aim, he heard the same voice shout, “Shit!” He squeezed off two more shots. He couldn’t see who was outside the window, he just didn’t want anyone to see his escape route. He knelt, fired another shot into the hallway, and then dropped through the floor.
Miller attempted to roll, but his body, already battered, resisted. With the wind knocked out of him, he fought to his feet.
“No one’s here,” Adler whispered, urging him on with her hands.
Something hard rattled across the floor of his apartment above them.
“Down!” Miller said, covering his ears as he curled into a ball.
The explosion was loud, but dulled by the floor above them. It was also far less violent than the first. A flashbang. But he knew what would come next. The assault team wouldn’t take chances, and they had no reason to hold their fire.
“Ready to run?” he asked Adler.
She stabbed a finger to the second-floor apartment’s exit. “Out there?”
“They think we’re still on the third floor.”
He sensed the argument would continue, but when the rapid-fire staccato of four assault rifles roared from above, she opened the door and dashed into the hallway. If they survived this, they would need to have a serious talk about tactics. He chased her out the door and was glad to see the stairwell leading up to his floor now empty. But that didn’t mean they’d left the front door unguarded.
He managed to grab Adler’s arm before she hit the last set of stairs and yanked her back. He held a finger to his lips. She instantly understood and moved so he could pass.
Leading wit
h the Glock, he leapt into the stairwell and took aim at the man standing at the bottom of the stairs. But he held his fire.
Brodeur, gun in hand, saw him coming, and Miller’s gun pointed at his face. “Miller, what in all hell happened?” He saw Adler. “Who’s that?”
A red dot streaked across Miller’s arm and danced on his chest. He saw it and dove to the side, shouting, “Look out!”
Brodeur dove to the side, but crossed through the line of fire when he did. The red dot appeared on his back. A moment later, two holes appeared. Brodeur hit the floor without a sound, his body motionless. Miller bounced back into the open doorway, aiming for where he’d seen the two muzzle flashes across the street. He fired twice and saw the man drop.
Echoing footsteps pounded down the steps above them. The hit squad had either figured out the apartment was empty or heard the gunshots below. Either way, they were coming. The Glock 17 still held eleven rounds, but he had no idea how many men were coming down the stairs, how many were in the back, or if they’d lob another grenade. After quickly glancing at Brodeur and seeing two holes in the center of his back, Miller grabbed Adler and yanked her out of the apartment building.
“Where’s your car?” Miller asked as they ran down the hard granite stairs.
“This way!” She ran down the street while pulling her keys from her pocket. She pointed the keys out in front of her. A honk came from one of the cars parallel parked on his side of the street.
“You drive,” he shouted.
When Adler cut into the street in front of a tough-looking SUV, Miller felt a flash of hope. But she continued past it, opened the door to a pint-sized blue Mini Cooper, and threw her purse in the backseat.
“Europeans and your tiny cars,” Miller grumbled before climbing into the passenger’s seat. He didn’t know exactly what kind of weapons the men carried, but there wasn’t an assault rifle, or handgun for that matter, in the world that couldn’t tear this car to bits.
The small engine purred instead of roared, but Adler worked the car like a pro, throwing it into gear and peeling out and around the SUV. She hammered the gas and tore down the street—straight back past his apartment building. A line of parked cars and the occasional maple tree would help shield them, but when five members of the assault team emerged, dressed in all black and carrying M4 carbine assault rifles, Miller knew they’d need a little more help. With the butt of the Glock, Miller smashed the passenger’s window, took aim, and fired a volley of five rounds. The first struck a man’s leg, toppling him down the stairs. The rest of the men dove for cover while the Cooper shot away.
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