The woman was Hammett.
“Another sister?” Tequila said.
Fleming couldn’t find the words to answer. The sight of her sister hit like a slap, shuddering through every muscle, zinging along each nerve, and centering in her chest. Fleming stared at the face that was the same as Chandler’s, the same as her own, and involuntarily recalled the horrible things Hammett had done to them both.
Hammett was worse than Malcolm. She wasn’t power hungry, or a puppet of the government, or sadistic for its own sake. Hammett simply did whatever she wanted to do, without guilt or remorse. At least Malcolm’s evil was rooted in emotion. Hammett was a shark. A shark following a blood trail. And Fleming was the chum.
As they raised their weapons and flattened themselves against the walls, Tequila and Fleming emptied their magazines, lead pinging and ricocheting off concrete and stone. Just as the enemy began to return fire, Tequila did a quick pirouette and rounded the corner, bursting into a full sprint. This hall was like the previous one, lined with cells, and they were through it in a flash, coming to a twisted metal door. The air smelled heavy with spent explosive.
“The way out?” Fleming guessed.
Tequila nodded and slipped through.
“Wait—” Fleming said, thinking of the man she’d promised to help.
Tequila holstered his gun and pried the Semtex out of Fleming’s hand. He stuck it to the doorjamb. “I’m low on ammo, and they’ll be on us in a second.”
“We can’t just leave—”
“We’ll come back for him. I promise. But we need to stop them here.”
Fleming swallowed the lump in her throat, then nodded. Tequila sprinted down the hall and yelled, “Do it!” in midstride.
She pressed the detonator, and the corridor shook behind them, roaring in an explosive thunderclap.
Chandler
“Family is a luxury,” the Instructor said. “And all luxuries are liabilities.”
I was still running, nearing the cannon area, when I heard the explosion. It sounded dampened, muffled, and I felt the ground shake beneath the soles of my feet.
Something underground had blown up.
Fleming was underground.
Panic gave me a surge of extra energy, and I managed to put on a bit of speed. But my legs—heavy with lactic acid—couldn’t keep up with the forward momentum, and for the second time I face-planted into the ground—
—right as a sniper round whizzed over my head.
Being shot at is a very distinct, unforgettable sensation. At Hydra I had to stand against a wall while various caliber bullets were shot above and around me. This was definitely a rifle round, probably a 30-06. I peeked through the field weeds, trying to follow the report, instinct telling me it had come from the southwest.
Another crack, and dirt erupted a few centimeters in front of my hip. I didn’t have sufficient cover, and there wasn’t any for a hundred meters around me.
I got up and ran.
Fleming
“The only safe enemy,” the Instructor said, “is a dead enemy.”
The shock wave from the exploding doorway washed against Fleming’s back, dust peppering her in tiny pinpricks. She twisted around and squinted through the smoke, watching the ceiling collapse around the doorway.
Then they were running up stairs, and Fleming was surprised by how familiar it felt. Since the accident, she’d been on stairs either in her chair or on her butt. For the briefest of moments, Tequila’s ascent—and the memories it stirred in her—blocked out all other feeling, thought, and emotion. There was only the step-step-step of his feet on the stairs, the unforgettable bouncing of the body as it climbed.
In her dreams, Fleming often walked. But this sensation was so real, so powerful, she hugged Tequila’s chest not just to hold on, but with genuine emotion.
All too soon they were at the top, her savior dropping to his knees. Fresh air washed over her, the scents of forest and prairie, the sounds of trees and geese flying south. Through a doorway ahead was the mouth of a concrete cave, and behind that, a field. The elation Fleming felt from jogging upstairs was multiplied by the realization that freedom was only a few steps away.
“Tequila?”
“Yeah?”
The words were sticky in her throat. “Thanks.”
“Too soon,” he said. “Remember the sniper? South, a few hundred yards, behind the building out there.”
Fleming swallowed the lump and brought up the AR-7.
“You want to wait him out?” she asked. “Or run for it?”
“If we wait, they can surround us.”
“You can leave me here, get around him. I can cover you. Can you get closer?”
“He might have infrared.”
“Risk it.”
Tequila released her ankles and tucked her feet into the side pockets of his jeans. Then he dropped to a push-up position, keeping his whole body straight as a board, and pulled himself up the last few steps and over to the doorway with Fleming on his back. They hung back half a meter, giving Fleming a wider view of the landscape. The concrete cave was actually a giant testing pit for cannon fire, dug into the side of a hill. Across the weeds Fleming saw two buildings, and the one at six o’clock Tequila had mentioned. Fleming watched for movement, saw none, and then swept her gaze to the east where she spotted—
“Chandler,” she whispered.
Her sister was running toward them, her pace erratic, more than four hundred meters away. Fleming’s eyes teared up, and she almost began to sob, her chest shuddering. Fleming knew she was in an emotionally frail state. That was one of the effects of captivity and interrogation. She was thrilled to be free, and it was amazing riding on Tequila’s back, but seeing her sister again was overwhelming.
Fleming couldn’t remember the last time she’d been overwhelmed by happiness. She was getting ready to call out when the crack of a sniper round cut across the compound. Fleming’s breath caught as she waited to hear where the bullet hit. But it didn’t come near the doorway, or the cave.
Which meant the sniper wasn’t firing at them. He was firing at Chandler.
“Tequila—”
“Hold on.”
Fleming gripped his neck tight as Tequila hopped to his feet and began to sprint into the open field. It was notoriously hard, even for professionals, to sight between two moving targets on a long scope. So the sniper would have to pick one and stick with it if he—
Crack!
Chandler went down.
Fleming tried to process it, but couldn’t. Had she been hit? Had she just gone to ground? Had she even seen Chandler at all?
Crack!
Fleming felt the bullet hit home, tugging at her backpack and making a clanging sound. Tequila immediately changed course, cutting left, and Fleming brought up the AR-7 and fired twice in the direction of the building, the bouncing and jostling making it impossible for her to aim.
Crack!
And then Tequila was skidding, face-first, onto the ground, and Fleming went rolling into the weeds, amazed at how quickly overwhelming happiness could disappear.
Hammett
“There are always obstacles,” the Instructor said. “And there are always solutions.”
Hammett frowned at the rubble before her. Grit filled her mouth, and all she could smell was concrete dust and smoke. “Can you get through it?”
Jersey shrugged. “Sure. But I might bring the ceiling down on us. Blasting underground is bad news. There was this time, when I was a kid, I brought a puppy into a mine shaft near my house—”
Hammett elbowed Jersey in the nose, not hard enough to break, but hard enough to shut him up.
“I like dogs,” she said, her voice steady and eyes hard. “Now clear a damn path.”
Any complaint Jersey might have had died in his throat. Instead he dug into his pack and began to set up a charge. Hammett moved away, around the corner with Santiago, back to Fleming’s cell.
Hammett pressed her radio.
“I need eyes topside.”
“Found your look-alike,” Isaiah said into her earpiece. “Going for a leg shot, but she moves like a rabbit.”
“Stay on her. Javier? You got ears on?”
“Putita knocked me into a grinder. Trashed an eight-hundred-dollar pair of Ferragamos, and I almost lost my little toe.”
“What have you got for me, other than complaints?”
“Heading to my ATV. We lost them in the chase.”
“Stay there, in case she returns. Our main target is with a man, riding on his back.” Hammett turned to Santiago, who was toeing the burned man on the ground, making him moan. “Where will they exit?”
Santiago pressed his talk button. “They’ll come out near the cannon area.”
“Here we go,” Jersey called out.
The explosion shook the corridor, bathing them with another flood of smoke and dust. Waving a hand in front of her face, Hammett hurried back to where she’d left Jersey. In her haste, she stepped on him.
Well, parts of him.
The idiot had blown himself up. Even worse, the path was still blocked.
Behind her, Santiago began to whistle something off tune. It took her a few seconds to recognize Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces.”
“See if there’s anything salvageable,” she ordered.
Hammett stormed back down the corridor and rounded the corner. So far, they hadn’t encountered much resistance from the site’s caretakers. It had been a skeleton crew. Hammett hadn’t noticed any prisoners other than Fleming, and her sister had managed to charbroil the lead spook. This had been easier than expected, other than the obvious fact that they still hadn’t acquired their target, and that she’d lost a man due to gross incompetence.
Santiago returned, empty handed. He shrugged.
“Who’s out there?”
Hammett’s head jerked at the sound of the voice, coming from one of the cells.
A male voice. One she knew intimately.
“Grab and secure the crispy critter,” she told Santiago. “I’ll be just a moment.”
Chandler
“If you’re forced to be a target,” the Instructor said, “be a moving target.”
Another crack of the rifle, and I dove for the ground, rolling with my shoulder dropped and my legs tucked to my chest, feeling every one of my injuries as I came to a stop on my side beside some goldenrod and twisted branches of sumac just starting to turn orange.
The sniper seemed to be aiming low, at my legs. They wanted me alive.
That didn’t make me feel any better.
I heard the rifle’s report once more, but this time the round didn’t come anywhere near me. I peeked through the weeds and noticed movement to the west, only a hundred meters away.
Fleming!
She rode Tequila piggyback, wearing his Blackhawks starter jacket and nothing else, the bottom band barely covering her ass. Her bleeding, bruised, dirty legs circled his waist, held in place by the gymnast’s jean pockets. She clung to his shoulders with one hand, a rifle clutched in the other. My sister fired twice, surprising steady considering her mount, and then the sniper returned fire, and I watched her and Tequila go down.
No! No no no no—
I got to my feet again and ran with all I had, closing the distance by half, and then Tequila was on his feet and lifting Fleming onto his back again, and my sister stared at me.
Fleming gave me a smile with her eyes, and even though her lips were pinched from pain, they curved into a grin so brilliant and brave, she looked like the picture of a conquering hero.
My lower lip started to tremble. Tears blurred my vision, and at that moment I realized I’d never expected to see her again, let alone so strong, so defiantly alive. I’d wanted it more than anything, planned for it, worked for it, but I’d never truly believed I’d see her sweet face.
My knees felt weak, and I stumbled, catching myself before I fell.
A few more steps and I reached them. No time for hugs, for tears, for spilling the feelings welling inside. No time for the feelings at all. We had to reach the fence, the horses. We had to get Fleming somewhere safe.
I touched my sister’s hand, and what passed between us was deeper than words. “We need to go,” I said.
“Hell yeah.”
Then I shoved the emotion into a compartment somewhere in my psyche as I’d been trained to do, and we went. Another rifle shot, but we were on the road now, behind the cover of trees and scrub, heading back in the direction of the reservoir.
“Hammett is here,” Fleming said over the sounds of our feet slapping asphalt.
“I know.”
The last time I’d seen my only other living sister, we’d been trying to kill each other on the deck of a yacht. That was a sisterly reunion I was not looking forward to.
Tequila moved at a steady run, seemingly not even out of breath. I hadn’t even looked at him, noticing only Fleming, but now I could see his ear was wounded, the top of it missing. Blood stained his blond stubble and ran in a stream down his neck.
“Your ear…are you OK?”
“What?”
“Is your ear OK?”
“What?”
“Is your—” And then I caught the glint in Tequila’s eye. So the man could do funny, too. Who the hell knew?
“What happened to Hammett?”
“Delayed.”
“Permanently?”
“No.”
“A girl can dream.”
Fleming grimaced and said, “She can find us. The chips.”
Of course. I was now clean, but we’d have to deal with Fleming’s. But before we could do that, we had to reach Lund.
“That can wait. If we’re still here when they get out, she won’t have to track us, she’ll run right into us.”
Her or one of her little helpers.
I thought about my ATV and the long trek back to the spot where Lund was waiting. The upward incline alone would be difficult to manage, even if Tequila and I took turns carrying Fleming. But I knew Hammett. She’d be staking out my quad, figuring I’d return with Fleming.
I held my hand out to Tequila. “I need your phone.”
“What happened to yours?”
“A long and soggy story.”
He handed it over.
I punched in the number I’d memorized after my call to the fire department. The phone rang, seemingly endlessly, then went to voice mail.
Where in the hell was he?
Scenarios flashed through my mind, all of them ending in Lund being discovered, suffering, and dying. I never should have let him help. He was a civilian, not cut out for this.
“You done?” Tequila asked.
I cut off the call and texted instead, FOLLOW THE FENCE LINE WEST—not the easiest thing to do while jogging. Then I handed the phone back to Tequila and willed Lund to be all right.
“Where did you come in?”
“Follow me.” Tequila’s steady gait quickened.
I glanced at Fleming. “We can’t climb the—”
“Follow me,” he repeated.
We cut left, off the road, and pushed through the waist-high weeds, my head light from the effort. I could feel burrs snagging in my socks and pricking my legs, but kept moving.
“The fence isn’t charged,” Tequila said.
I looked up at the curls of razor wire at the top. “I hope you have wire cutters on you.”
The bullet snagged the cuff of my pants before I heard the sound of the shot.
I dropped to the ground, Tequila and Fleming with me, as the crack echoed off the bluffs. Our sniper had found higher ground, and the greater distance didn’t seem to bother him.
I could see Fleming through the long grass, staring at me, eyes wide. “Chandler?”
I checked where I’d felt the tug. When functioning on adrenaline, it is possible to be injured and not feel it at first, the body’s way to keep one’s focus on survival, not relatively smaller things like getting a bull
et hole in the leg. But despite the tear, I’d escaped having a round pierce my flesh yet again.
Chalk it up to living right. “I’m OK.”
“Where did he fire from? I can’t see him. Not even a hint.”
I scanned the area but came up empty as well. “Some kind of distance, that’s for sure.”
“I think I know that guy.” Tequila rummaged in his bag and brought out wire nippers. “We can’t go over. He’ll be waiting. We’re going to have to go through. Stay low.”
I wasn’t about to argue with that.
Cutting through the fence, on the other hand, was not as agreeable. Even with the good-quality cutter, it took forever to sever each wire of the chain-link fabric. Tequila took the first turn, snipping several. When he stopped to stretch out his hand, I took over.
And the whole time, there was no sign of Lund.
Now I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to meet us or not. If he rode up with the horses right now, there was no telling what the sniper would do. If it were me, I’d take him out, then each of the animals, cutting off our means of escape.
I handed the cutters back to Tequila, trading for his phone. Lund hadn’t returned the text or the call.
“Chandler, go.” Tequila clipped the last wire and bent the remaining side open like a flap.
I returned the phone and crawled through the small space. Once on the other side, I helped Fleming, even though she was better at crawling through the space on her belly and dragging her legs behind than I was. Then it was Tequila’s turn, and the little man slipped through without a hitch.
The three of us crawled into the edge of the tree line. So far, so good. “I need to find Lund.”
“Lund?” Fleming and Tequila said in unison.
It seemed like I’d known Lund for a few days, rather than a few hours. Certainly after this afternoon, I knew him better than I’d known most of the men I picked up for an anonymous good time whenever my work schedule allowed it. But I’d forgotten neither my sister nor Tequila knew he existed. “I recruited some help.”
Flee, Spree, Three (Codename: Chandler Trilogy - Three Complete Novels) Page 44