“They’re still fighting,” Val said, her voice distant, incredulous. “How can they still be—”
And then Lund watched Chandler and her opponent drop off the line, into empty sky, and his mind filled with disbelief, because that wasn’t supposed to happen to the good guys.
Chandler
“You ain’t dead,” the Instructor said, “till you’re dead.”
When you hit the ground during sparring, there are moves and tricks to absorb the impact. Some of these can help counteract the effects of a fall from as high as four or five meters.
There is no training that can help you survive a thirty-meter drop. Brace yourself? Go limp? Land legs first? Back first?
None of it matters. From that height, you are lasagna when you hit.
There is no way to mentally prepare yourself to become lasagna, especially when the raw panic of falling overwhelms your ability to think. I’d always hoped for some insightful, poignant last thought, something that succinctly summed up my life and what I’d learned from it, but when Hammett and I fell off the wire, all that went through my head was: Shit.
I looked up, hands outstretched, and watched an arc of electricity reach out and zap my fillet knife, then stretch and wink out. Before I had the chance to brace myself or go limp or do anything that required more than my reptile brain, we hit, much sooner than I expected.
Even more surprising, we didn’t turn into pasta.
Hitting ground didn’t stop our downward trek, and as we slid in on an angle, the reality of my luck went off in my head like a school bell. We’d landed on the balloon envelope I’d removed from the power line, hanging in a bow beneath us. Because nylon didn’t conduct electricity well, it only had a small charge, similar to static. My hair stood up on my neck, but there was no discomfort, no heat like that of standing on the wire.
Still entwined with Hammett, I turned onto my side, trying to grip the slippery nylon, dropping the fillet knife in my efforts, unable to grab hold but eventually coming to a gradual stop as we reached the center of the bow.
For a moment, Hammett and I lay there in the world’s largest and highest hammock, silent and shocked.
“That was lucky,” she said.
Then the end ripped free from the insulator, and we were falling again.
I kicked my sister away and gathered up the fabric in my arms and legs, like a koala bear clinging to a tree, getting friction burns on my bare skin but determined to slow myself down before slamming into the earth. The nylon continued to tear, and I dug an arm inside the hole, my armpit busting through seam after seam after seam. But I wasn’t slowing down fast enough, and soon I’d slide off the end of the balloon and drop to the ground at too high a velocity to survive.
Then I felt Hammett’s hands on mine, seeking my shoulders, and my hands found her waist, and we clung to each other, the torn balloon nylon between us, pressing our bodies together in a wrestling clinch and coming to a painful, friction-filled stop with a few feet of envelope still left to spare.
I gasped, chanced a look down, saw we were still about fifteen feet up. High enough to break ankles, but we’d live.
“Prisoner’s dilemma again,” I said between panting. “If we work together here, we can—”
Through the envelope, Hammett elbowed me in the face.
Goddamn, she was an asshole.
I released her, sliding down again, managing to snag onto the line that opened the parachute valve. I slid down those two feet and then dropped off, leaving my hands above my head, electricity arcing from the envelope and giving me a painful zap in my right index finger; and then I hit the ground with my ankles tight together, immediately dropping and rolling to absorb the shock of impact.
Hammett dropped next to me, and from a prone position, I kicked her in the face. She rolled away, my toe connecting with her cheek, and I got up on wobbly legs in time to see Javier speeding toward us on his ATV.
“Chandler!”
The voice came from behind me, and I turned and saw Lund running up. Next to him, drawing a weapon, was a blond woman. She was trim, attractive, and moved like a cop. I guessed it was the infamous Val. My joy at seeing Lund again was tempered by my instant dislike for his ex girlfriend.
“Shoot the four-wheeler,” I told her.
“I’m a police officer. Both of you raise your hands above your heads and get on the—”
I was on Val before she finished her sentence, coming up in under the gun, twisting, levering it away from her, and then tripping her backward so she fell onto her ass. I could do the same move without the tripping part, but it felt right for some reason.
Her gun was a Glock, no safety. I aimed at Javier, a head shot, and fired just as he swerved.
The hammer fell on an empty chamber. Damn townie cop played it cautious.
I fired again, but Javier was now racing away, Hammett running alongside. He slowed enough for her to hop onto the back of his bike, and I emptied the clip at their retreating forms, trying to aim through the dirt the tires kicked up. They didn’t slow down, but I saw sparks as I pinged the back of their ride. Unfortunately, none of my shots was a kill shot, and they zoomed away leaving me pissed as all hell. We’d never catch them in Lund’s truck.
“Val…” Lund said.
I turned, ready to chew out Blondie for being a wuss and not carrying a live round in the pipe, but to my surprise she was right there, already swinging a haymaker at my head.
I took it on the chin, as hard a shot as I’ve ever received, and even though it hurt like crazy I stood upright and stared her down like it was no big deal. Her eyes got wide with obvious fear, and I thought about all the things I could do to amplify that emotion in her.
“Chandler,” Lund said, “she’s here to help.”
“Learn to load your weapon, cop,” I said. Clint Eastwood couldn’t have been scarier.
To her credit, Val didn’t melt into a blubbery pool of cowardice. “There are more accidental firearm deaths due to—”
“Shh,” I interrupted. Then, before she could go on, I’d shoved her gun back into her holster and was walking away.
Above, I saw Fleming, clinging to Tequila’s back as he climbed down the balloon envelope, hand over hand.
I looked back at Lund, saw the poor guy paralyzed with indecision as two women stared him down. He looked from me, to Val, and back again, as if watching a tennis match. When he took a step to Val, my heart died a little bit.
“I swear, you’ll get an explanation. But right now I need you to drive the truck while I talk to Chandler.”
Val stared hard at him in a way that made me think she was probably a pretty good cop, then gave him a clipped nod and headed for his truck. Lund walked over to me, and my heart promptly forgot about its minor setback a moment ago, and beat with new possibilities.
“Are you OK?”
I nodded. He took a step closer.
“Val is…she’s a good person. I trust her.”
I nodded again.
“When I saw you up there, I—”
“Lund?”
“Yeah?”
“Just kiss me already.”
His lips curled into a quick, boyish grin, and then I was in his arms, feeling safe for the first time in I don’t know how long. The kiss was soft, gentle, nice, but as much as I liked nice, it wasn’t enough for the moment. I circled his neck with my arms and crushed my lips to his, hard and needy, taking him, claiming him. My tongue touched his, and I felt a spark that was just as strong as any I’d felt on the power line. And in the back of my mind, I hoped Val saw it all.
Fleming
“Combat is like politics,” the Instructor said. “It makes for strange bedfellows.”
“I don’t want to interrupt them,” Fleming said. “They’re so cute.”
She was clinging to Tequila’s back while he hung off the end of the balloon roughly three meters up, watching Chandler passionately kiss Lund.
“No problem,” Tequila said. “I ca
n hang on for as long as you need.”
Fleming gave him a little extra hug, then called down to her sister, “A little help here.”
Chandler and Lund looked up, then immediately broke the embrace and positioned themselves beneath the duo.
“Ready?” Tequila asked.
“Yes.”
Ever since the coast guard had fished them out of Lake Michigan, Fleming had been out of her element, at the mercy of those around her. That Chandler had watched out for her didn’t come as a surprise. She knew what her sister was capable of, and it was far more encompassing than her amazing physical skills. Chandler had a big heart. She’d proven it to Fleming before they’d ever met face-to-face, and she’d proved it every moment since.
But Tequila had been a welcome surprise.
Fleming didn’t know anything about him, but she didn’t have to. He was obviously reserved, even cut off emotionally, and yet the way he’d taken care of her in the prison, when he gave her his jeans so she didn’t have to ride half naked, how she was piggybacking him again like it was the most natural thing in the world for him, suggested there was more to the guy than met the eye, even though he seemed to resist accessing it.
Gently but firmly grasping her hand, he removed her off his shoulders and held her at arm’s length.
“You’ll get shocked when I let you go,” he said.
“So will you.”
“I can handle it.”
“So can I.”
She took a deep breath. For a few seconds, Fleming swung back and forth, hanging by Tequila’s hand as if they were a couple of acrobats at Baraboo’s nearby Circus World Museum. Then he released her, and the electric spark stretched between them like a tether—painful, but perhaps not as painful as letting him go.
Fleming fell into Chandler and Lund’s arms.
“Hiya, Sis,” Chandler said.
They hugged hard, both teary-eyed.
Chandler allowed Lund to take her, and Fleming looked up just as Tequila dropped off the envelope, doing a double flip in the air before landing on his feet.
Fuck shining armor. Fleming’s knight wore black boxer briefs and was built like a Roman god. She allowed herself a quick, unabashed ogle as he walked over, and then she let out a girlish sigh.
“No kidding,” Chandler said, also eyeing Tequila.
And they looked at each other and squeezed hands and giggled like schoolgirls. Like regular civilians. Like sisters.
“Did I miss something?” Tequila asked.
Fleming and Chandler giggled again. Tequila rolled his eyes, held out his arms, and took Fleming from Lund, whisking her over to the trailer.
Lund opened the back, and they all squeezed inside with Banshee, Bo, and Max, who were still wearing their saddles.
The trailer was an open stock-type, built to haul four horses, and Lund pushed to the front and lowered Fleming to the floor in the open space next to Banshee. The trailer started to move just as the scream of sirens filtered in from outside.
Chandler eyed Lund. “We can’t get pulled over.”
“We won’t be. At least not for long.”
“They’re going to want to check out what we’re doing here.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“We can’t—”
“Val is driving the rig, Chandler. She’s police chief of a town near here. She understands that you can’t be found. She’ll get us out, and no one will be the wiser.”
Fleming didn’t know who Val was or what was going on, but even though she didn’t totally trust cops, she was relieved to have one on their side.
The trailer rumbled over gravel, then reached a smooth paved road. Tequila stood between Fleming and Banshee, seemingly guarding to ensure the mare didn’t make a wrong step. Chandler and Lund stood near Bo and Max’s heads, speaking in low voices. Chandler administered another shot of Demerol to Fleming, and two for herself.
They made it down the road without being stopped by police at all, and as the truck wound down country roads, Fleming’s eyes closed and she fell asleep to the gentle rocking of the trailer and the scent of horses.
The truck came to a stop, and Fleming woke. Pulling herself up as tall as she could, she peered through the slats in the upper portion of the trailer, but the sun had finally set and all she could see were trees and the black sky, speckled with stars. She had no idea where they were. She sought out Tequila, saw him standing in the same position he’d been in before she fell asleep. Fleming knew how terrible she must look after all she’d been through, but she also knew lust in a man’s eyes when she saw it, and through all the pain and exhaustion it made her feel warm all over.
She must have shown something in her face as well, because even in the dim light she could see Tequila blush.
Lund jumped out the back, and Chandler knelt down beside Fleming. “You’re going to think I’m crazy, but we need to remove your tracking chip.”
Of course they did, and Fleming probably would have thought of it herself if she wasn’t so out of it. “Where do you want to do it?”
“Here in the trailer. Lund has the supplies.”
As if on cue, Lund slipped back in the trailer and shuffled between the horses, carrying a duffel bag, a small, hard-cased device slung over his shoulder. The truck remained still, the trailer only shifting slightly as the horses adjusted their feet.
“Don’t worry,” Chandler said. “He’s experienced. And very gentle.”
Fleming felt a momentary sense of panic. Not at the thought of an impromptu operation in a horse trailer, but because she hadn’t yet told Chandler.
“At the site, while I was escaping, there was another prisoner there. We have to go back for him.”
Chandler’s face screwed up, almost comically. “Are you kidding? There is no way in hell I’m ever going back to that place.”
“I have to. I owe him. Years ago, when I fell in Milan…he risked everything for me.”
She shook her head, still not understanding.
“Chandler…it was the Instructor.”
The White House
“She escaped, Mr. President.”
“How on earth did that happen? It’s my understanding she has no use of her legs.”
“As I said, these women are formidable.”
The president closed his eyes and shook his head. He resisted the impulse to throw his encrypted cell phone onto the floor. Not that it would do anything. The phone was supposed to be shockproof.
“Do you know where she is?”
“She’s with Chandler, and we have a way of tracking them, but we don’t know how long that is going to be viable.”
“What are the chances of her coming in on her own?” he asked.
“Zero. She feels her country has betrayed her.”
“No shit.” But at least they remained loyal to each other, which was more than the president could say about his party. This situation had brought out the worst in them.
“But we have a plan in place to recapture her, and her sister Chandler. We’ll know more soon.”
“What about the rogue agent? Hammett?”
“She’ll be taken care of.”
“See that she is.”
The president hung up. He no longer believed he could trust his contact. In fact, he no longer knew whom he could trust. So far, the only ones who seemed to be on his side were the Hydra agents, Chandler and Fleming. And their country had betrayed them. Which meant, what? They needed to be silenced? Would he be forced to kill patriots—heroes by any definition—just to keep a dirty little government secret?
Unfortunately, he knew the answer to that.
Chandler
“I can’t state this often enough. You must learn to live in the moment,” the Instructor said. “Not just while carrying out an assignment, but in every aspect of your life. There’s no point in putting things off when the future may never come.”
Fleming’s chip came out more easily than mine had, but that was probably a combina
tion of Lund and me now having experience and it not being my own duodenum this time. Once the procedure was done and Fleming’s incision was dressed and bandaged, Lund took the chip and tossed it into the back of a dump truck on its way to who knew where. Then he rode the rest of the way back to his in-law’s dairy farm in the truck with Val.
I stood in the back, watched Tequila fawn over Fleming—or at least his nonfawning version of fawning—and tried not to think about the Instructor.
The last time I’d seen him, I’d been unsure about whether I could trust him, and that feeling hadn’t changed. But although I didn’t know the details of what he’d done for Fleming after her devastating fall in Milan, I recognized the look in my sister’s eyes when she said she had to go back. And no matter how ambivalent I felt about our mentor, I wasn’t about to let Fleming down. I had a hunch Tequila would agree, although I doubted he would lower his rates.
Of course none of us was in any kind of shape to do anything about it now. We needed time to regroup, arm ourselves, and come up with a plan.
Once we reached the farm, Tequila carried Fleming to the house. I paused for a moment, standing in the gravel drive, loaded down with the first-aid duffel and ultrasound. By the time I realized Lund was not getting out of the truck, I felt exposed and awkward and realized Val was sizing me up from the driver’s seat, her piercing blue eyes seeing more than I wanted.
“I just…thank you,” I managed to say.
She nodded, then she shifted into gear, and I watched her drive away with the horses…and the man.
My teenage years hadn’t been normal, no dating or going to prom. But if I had experienced such things, I imagined this is what it would feel like to watch the boy I was crushing on go to the dance with the head cheerleader.
Giving myself a mental shake for being so pitiful, I followed the others into the house. I should feel lucky to be alive, and not just me but Fleming and Tequila, too. We’d escaped from the prison, we’d shaken Hammett, and now we could recover and reload and figure out what the hell we were going to do next.
Flee, Spree, Three (Codename: Chandler Trilogy - Three Complete Novels) Page 49