The cab came to a stop and Angela paid the driver. She stepped out onto the curb and looked up at the building. The Ukraina was lit up brightly, each tier of its structure holding a warm glow.
She saw a group of well-dressed people emerge from a limousine and approach the entrance. Angela quickly moved in behind them, making the doorman think she was part of their group. She followed them into the elevator and up to the floor housing the banquet hall.
Angela stepped out with them and once passing through the doors, she broke away from the unassuming group. She took a glass of champagne from one of the passing waiters, flashing smiles at people she pretended to know.
It’d been years since she pulled a job like this. The first time she and Jeff met was on a mission at a very similar party in London. That was back in the days when every kill she made was strictly business. Now she killed only for personal reasons. And she wondered just which was worse.
She surveyed the room, keeping an eye out for Brennen’s face. Angela made a few sweeps across, moving about casually, exchanging some quick pleasantries with some of the other guests. By the time she finished her champagne, she’d been across the room at least three or four times.
And no sign of Brennen.
Something wasn’t right. Either Brennen had changed his mind about showing up here tonight or Brezhnev had set her up and the noose was about to tighten around her neck. Angela wasn’t sure which it was and she didn’t plan to stick around to find out.
She went to the elevator and pressed the call button. With a ding, the doors slid open. Angela stepped inside but just as the doors were about to close, a lithe hand came in from the side to keep them open. Angela stepped to the side to allow room for the second passenger. But once she stepped inside, Angela got a look at her face.
“Hi, Angela,” said Julie Kim, dressed in a suit and flashing her a smile.
Angela made a move for the doors, but they closed before she could escape. Julie grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her back, throwing her against the rear of the elevator. Julie lunged forward with a kick that Angela twisted to the side to just barely avoid. She moved quickly to the elevator buttons and hit the one for the next floor.
Julie drew her gun from the holster under her jacket. She opened fire and Angela ducked, leaping from the elevator and onto the floor. Julie rushed through the elevator doors before they closed, pointing the gun at the head of a crouched Angela.
“Don’t. Move.”
Angela followed the directive, remaining absolutely still. Only her eyes moved, meeting Julie’s gaze.
“Let me guess,” said Angela. “Carter Brennen’s not here.”
“Nope,” said Julie. “What the hell are you doing, Angela? Working with Infernum again?”
“No one’s more upset about that than me. But I’m not the only one working for someone I shouldn’t.”
“Oh yeah?” asked Julie. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“The Agency,” said Angela. “They’re not what they say they are.”
“And I should believe you?”
“I just found out myself and it makes sense if you think about it. How else do you think Johnny Venom managed to obtain Fury to sell on the black market? It’s why they want Samarin now, they need to replicate the weapon.”
Julie hesitated to answer, her forehead wrinkling. The hands that held her gun wavered, the finger moving from the trigger and then back to it. Angela took the opportunity to very slowly and carefully rise to a standing position, her arms held up.
“You’re not the only one who was lied to,” said Angela. “So was I. They played me, same as Dante. They’re both cut from the same cloth. Chris trusted you, so that’s all I need to know that you’re one of the good guys.”
The mention of her late partner’s name snapped Julie back into the moment and she fired a warning shot over Angela’s shoulder. Angela froze once more.
“Yeah, Christian trusted me. He also trusted you,” said Julie, narrowing her eyes. “That’s why he’s dead.”
Angela sprang to the side and Julie pulled the trigger. Angela dropped and rolled across the ground. When she stopped in a crouch, she drew her gun from the holster on her thigh and fired at Julie, hitting her in the leg.
Julie dropped to the ground with a cry, but still kept her determination. She raised her weapon, but Angela had crossed the distance between her and kicked it from Julie’s hand before she could aim properly.
“I really don’t want to hurt you,” said Angela. “I came here for one reason and seeing as how that was a lie, think I’ll be going now.”
Angela picked up Julie’s gun and turned her back on the operative, walking down the corridor between the hotel rooms. But as she approached the stairwell, she heard Julie’s voice calling back to her. Angela stopped at the door and looked over her shoulder.
“You forgot one thing, Angela,” said Julie. “What makes you think I came alone?”
The door flew open, slamming into Angela’s face. She backed away and raised both the guns, but the figure that emerged from the stairwell was like a black blur—feet and fists striking Angela’s body in rapid succession.
One kick hit her in the chest and she fell back, landing on the ground. Now she could finally see Vincente standing between her and the stairwell. He clenched his fists and his blades emerged from the housings on his gauntlets.
Angela got to her feet quickly and fired both her gun and Julie’s. The masked assassin deflected the shots with ease, but Angela was able to keep him at bay. Until Julie grabbed her from behind, wrapping her arm around Angela’s neck, causing Angela to drop both guns.
The two women struggled and Vincente remained where he was, waiting for the right opportunity to strike. But he never got the chance. Angela leaned back and then quickly threw all her weight forward, grabbing Julie’s arm and flinging her into Vincente.
The elevator door dinged and Angela decided to go with that route instead. She picked up her gun and moved away from her attackers. An elderly couple emerged from the doors, but gasped when they saw Angela rush inside. They then screamed as they saw Vincente approach the elevator. Angela pressed the button for the lobby and kept hitting DOOR CLOSE to no avail. She raised her gun and fired two more shots that hit Vincente square in his armored chest.
It slowed him down enough for the doors to finally close. Angela leaned against the wall of the elevator and panted, trying to catch her breath. When she looked up, she saw the retired couple standing as far from her as they could manage in the elevator, a mixture of fear and confusion on their faces.
“Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you,” she said.
The couple said nothing. Angela took the brief moment of rest to check her gun’s magazine. Empty. She opened the purse which, miraculously, had remained slung across her body during the entire fight. Angela loaded a fresh magazine into the pistol and readied it to go. She took hold of the slit in her dress and pulled it up so she could fit the weapon back into her holster.
Angela looked up from her leg and saw the old man staring intently at it. Once his wife noticed, she slapped him. Angela rolled her eyes and stood upright just as the door reached the lobby.
Before leaving, she gave the couple some parting words: “I’d consider grabbing a drink before returning to your rooms.”
The couple fervently nodded and Angela walked into the lobby, moving at a brisk pace. She cast furtive glances around the large area. There was no way Julie could have beat her down here, not with her leg damaged like that. Vincente was another story, Angela had no doubt that he would simply leave his teammate behind in order to complete a job. But it still left Quartermain unaccounted for, and that made her nervous.
At the front curb of the hotel, a doorman met Angela and asked her if she needed a cab. She nodded and he waved one down for her. Angela climbed into the backseat and told the driver her destination—a few blocks away from the safehouse, just to be sure.
She checked her ph
one. Still no calls from Tauna. Angela decided to check in on Samarin and dialed the number for the burner phone she left him. There was no answer.
“That can’t be right…” she muttered, checking the number and trying again. Still nothing. She briefly worried that this could have all been a ploy to get her out of the safehouse long enough for the Fixers to go after Samarin.
But no, that wasn’t possible. Only she knew where Samarin was. No one—not Tauna, not Brezhnev—knew the safehouse’s location.
Samarin could also have attempted to run. And if that was the case, it would be hard for her to convince Dante to still come through on his end of the bargain. But with him being wanted by the Russian government, it wasn’t likely he would attempt to escape the country on his own.
The third possibility is what she hoped was the most likely—he’d gone to sleep after a very long and difficult day. The sleeping bags weren’t exactly queen-size beds, but it was probably more comfortable than sleeping with one eye open in a prison cell.
They were hit from behind and the cab—as well as Angela and the driver—lurched forward. The driver began cursing in Russian and Angela looked over her shoulder.
She could see the driver who had rammed them from behind. It was Quartermain.
CHAPTER 12
Quartermain’s car surged forward, striking the rear bumper of Angela’s cab a second time. Angela’s driver honked and stuck his head out the window, shouting back at Quartermain. Angela took her pistol out and rolled down her window. The driver got a quick glimpse of her movement in the mirror and looked over the seat.
“What are you doing?” he shouted, first in Russian and then in English after she didn’t respond.
“Saving your ass. You drive—and do it fast. I’ll take care of him.”
Angela stuck her torso out the window, ignoring the driver’s curses. She raised the gun and fired at Quartermain’s car. He swerved to avoid the bullets, causing the car to his left to careen off to the side of the road, blaring on the horn.
Quartermain sped up again and Angela tried to steady her aim, lining up her sight with Quartermain’s head. Just as she was about to pull the trigger, the cab took a quick turn to the right, moving into another lane and throwing off her shot. Now there was another car behind them and that driver looked at Angela in horror.
Angela tried to get a bead on Quartermain again. She couldn’t see him so she decided to switch sides. Climbing back into the car, she moved to the opposite window.
“Who the hell is that?” asked the driver.
“The ex-boyfriend from hell,” she responded. “Just keep driving.”
“I have a better idea—how about you get the hell out of my cab?”
“If you stop this car, he’ll kill me,” said Angela. “And then he’ll kill you for being a witness.”
“But I’m no one!”
“He doesn’t care. Now either you keep driving, or we both die.”
“You can get us out of this?”
Angela took a deep breath. “I can try.”
They were hit from the right, the force throwing Angela against the passenger door. She looked across the backseat and through the open window to see that Quartermain was now right alongside them. He turned his car further to the right and then pulled the wheel quickly to the left. His car swung towards them again and the cab driver tried to pull away to avoid another side-swipe.
The cars still connected, but not as hard as it could have been. Angela aimed through the window and pulled the trigger. Quartermain slowed down, the bullet missing his window and striking the door frame. She rolled down the window and climbed out, trying to look around the road to find some sign of him.
She heard a revving motor and looked to her left. Quartermain’s car crossed the lanes of traffic, other vehicles skidding, stopping, and swerving to avoid him. Horns blared, collisions were initiated, but he kept coming.
He was coming at their cab from an angle, stepping on the gas. Angela fired at his car, some of the rounds hitting the windshield but unfortunately not him. At the very least she hoped it would obscure his view.
Until Quartermain fired his own revolver at the windshield to finish what Angela had started. The glass fell apart and he aimed through the open space and fired back at her.
Angela ducked and the cab swerved. She pulled herself up again and readied for another shot, but Quartermain fired first. Angela moved back inside the cab.
“What now?” asked the driver.
“Just shut up.” Angela opened her purse to check the remaining ammunition. Her gun was already close to empty and she only had one magazine left. If she couldn’t get away from Quartermain before that happened, both her and the driver would be dead before the night was done.
“He’s coming behind us again!”
Angela looked through the rear windshield. “Duck!” She dropped low and the driver slid down as much as he could in his seat as Quartermain fired rounds into the back of the car. The bullets punched through the rear windshield and the driver had difficulty seeing over the steering wheel.
The cab lurched forward with another ram from Quartermain. Angela sat up, resting her arms on the back of the seat and firing through what was once the rear windshield. Quartermain pulled away, slowing down and dropping back through the rest of the traffic, allowing the cab to pull ahead.
Angela watched with confusion. Why would he let them go suddenly after all that?
“Is that it?” asked the driver. “Is it over?”
Angela shook her head. “No, I don’t think so…”
***
Quartermain stepped on the gas, ramming the cab a second time. He saw Angela’s gun appear over the back of the seat and fire. Pulling the wheel to the side, he swung the car to avoid her bullets.
“Bax, tell me you got something,” he said into the comm-link plugged into his ear.
“I’m working on it!”
“Work faster, dammit!”
Quartermain heard the sound of typing over the comms. Then Baxter’s voice came back again.
“Okay, you might want to put some distance between yourself and the intersection up ahead. Angela’s about to have an accident.”
“Copy that.” Quartermain merged into the middle lane, dropping his speed and slowing down so the cars on either side could pull ahead of him. He kept his eyes on the lights in the intersection and saw that they remained a solid green. But when he looked at the lights for cross-traffic, he saw they also changed to green.
Angela’s cab was the first victim, a car from the opposite direction T-boning her vehicle. Horns blared and more cars collided into each other, creating a total mass of twisted metal and shattered glass scattered across the intersection.
Quartermain emerged from his car, holding the Magnum at his side. He calmly walked towards the crash site, past the bewildered and shocked bystanders. Those who managed to regain their bearings quickly were on their phones to call for help.
But Quartermain went straight for the taxi. The driver was slumped against the wheel, dead. The rear passenger door opened and Quartermain readied his revolver.
Angela crawled from the wreckage, moving along the asphalt. She sat up on her knees, fighting against her body’s desire to just pass out. Her eyes were glassy as she looked up at Quartermain and she raised her gun, the arm quivering. Quartermain took a cautious step forward and aimed his own gun right at her face.
“Look at you, Lockhart,” he said. “Think you can really stand up to me like this? You can barely hold that gun up, let alone keep it steady enough to fire. I’m betting you’re probably seeing at least three of me right now.”
“F-fuck you, Quartermain,” she said weakly.
“If my bosses didn’t want Samarin so bad, I’d blow your head off right here,” he said. “Guess it’s your lucky day.”
He moved forwards, slamming the butt of the gun against her head. Angela collapsed to the ground, unconscious. Quartermain holstered the gun and knelt dow
n beside her.
“Then again, considering what we’re gonna do to you if you don’t play ball, you’ll probably wish you died in the crash.” Quartermain raised his hand to the comm-link. “Return to homebase. I’ve got her."
***
Tauna entered the room, approaching the long desk. The man who sat in the high-backed leather chair behind the desk was facing the window, his back to her. Wisps of smoke floated up from the chair and she stopped in front of the desk, her arms akimbo.
“We haven’t had any luck contacting Lockhart,” she said. “Neither she nor Samarin were at her apartment and I reached out to Brezhnev—he doesn’t know where she is, either.”
The chair turned and the man known as Dante sat there. He reached a ring-clad finger and took the cigarette from his mouth, discarding the ash into a small glass dish on the desk.
“Then it seems we have a serious problem,” he said. “If Angela has gone dark and hasn’t attempted to contact us, then that means she’s either dead or captured.”
“Or she betrayed us.” Tauna folded her arms. “She’s hardly trustworthy.”
“Trustworthy? Oh, absolutely not.” Dante took a drag on the cigarette. He exhaled the smoke through his nostrils. “But predictable? Definitely.”
“What do you suggest?” asked Tauna.
“Put pressure on Brezhnev. I doubt he’s giving us the full story,” said Dante. “Also reach out to our friend within the Agency. Have him see if there’s any word on the Fixers and whether or not they’ve captured or killed our girl.”
“And if so?”
“If she’s captured, then we should learn what the Agency knows. Find out if they’ve also got Samarin.”
“Do we provide any assistance?”
Dante gave a shrug. “That depends on whether or not any is necessary. Right now, I simply want you to investigate and report back.”
“Yes sir,” said Tauna.
CHAPTER 13
Blurred vision greeted Angela as she opened her eyes. She could feel an intense chill in the air. She was sitting on a chair and plastic zip-ties bound her wrists to the armrests and her ankles to the wooden legs. There were two figures standing over her and after a moment, they came into sharp focus. She looked around and saw she was in a large, walk-in freezer.
The Fixers (Infernum Book 4) Page 7