“You’d regressed even farther, so it didn’t have a chance?” Agata suggested.
“Maybe.” He moved back a few steps. “Your turn. If you hit the tree, I’ll believe you about the certification.”
“You think I’m lying?”
“Prove me wrong.” His voice was deep and smooth.
She gripped the pistol, recalling the way he had stepped and then…dived. She took the steps and threw herself forward in a similar fashion. Her elbows flared as she landed and she hissed.
“Focus on the target. Forget everything else,” Cain said, from behind her.
Agata lifted the gun in both hands, as he had. She laid on her belly with her arms extended.
“Allow for wind sheer,” he added.
She adjusted her aim, then adjusted again, because the longer distances meant the bullet would have time to drop off and also to drift.
She fired and was rewarded by bark chipping from the side of the tree and fluttering to the skirt of green beneath. It was lower than Cain’s gouge.
“Not too shabby, Kelsey,” he told her. “I could have timed you with a calendar, although you did hit the tree.”
She rolled onto her back. Cain held out his hand. “We should move on.” He hauled her to her feet, providing more lift than she had given him.
“It’s still just a target,” she pointed out, as she ejected the clip and refilled it from the box of ammunition in her other pocket.
“That’s right, Kelsey.” His gaze met hers. “Everything, even the bad guy, is just a target. Remember that.”
She swallowed. From which life was he pulling that wisdom? There was only one possibility.
After less than an hour on the skis, Agata’s aches diminished. She could move freely again.
The sun was out and warmed her face. Visibility was good for more than a mile. Barely any wind stirred. Today’s conditions were a complete reversal of yesterday and her mood lifted accordingly.
Agata fell into the rhythm of the skis slapping and sliding, trying to minimize the slaps, the way Cain did. She made each step longer, so she skied more than she stepped. Cain made it look easy. She watched his technique closely and adjusted her own. Every little tweak helped either increase her speed or reduce her effort.
Time passed quickly, as they climbed slopes and slid down the other side, then drifted across the valley floor to the next up-slope.
Agata barely noticed the lifting sun. It was a shock when Cain planted his poles, twisted his hips and came to a fancy stop with a spray of snow, at the base of the next up-slope.
“Why are we stopping?” Agata asked, lifting her goggles. Her breath chuffed steam, which hung in the still air.
He nodded his head toward the side of the mountains which had risen to their left all day. The peaks were farther than they had been this morning. In front of the crags were several lesser slopes and hills, all of them white with snow. On one of the closer hills was the snaking path of a ski lift. Beneath the lift were three weaving ski runs, dotted with colorful skiers who looked like drifting confetti from this distance.
“Méaudre? Already?”
“Check your phone,” he told her. “It’s passed noon. We made good time again.” His smile seemed to contain approval, as if he had noticed her constant adjustments to her skiing. He nodded toward the slope before them. “At the top there, we’ll be visible to the skiers and the practice fields. We’re leisure skiers now.” He dropped his goggles so they hung from his neck, and rolled the ski mask up so it looked like a cap.
Agata copied him. “And the packs?” For this had been bothering her.
“You’ll see.” He unclipped his skis and picked them up.
They trudged up to the top of the slope. Knowing it was the last one made it easier to climb. When they reached the peak, they paused.
Down on the valley floor were the ski fields, and what looked like thousands of skiers. They were everywhere, along the practice runs, the baby slopes, and the flat landing areas at the bottom of the ski runs. They congregated in chatty clumps at the line ups for the ski lift, their skis over their shoulders, or planted in the ground while they leaned on them.
A ski jump was on the far side of the lift. Skiers with no sense of self-preservation threw themselves off the impossibly high curved ramp, turned lazy somersaults and twists, then landed on their skis. They slid to a halt a long, long way from the end of the ramp.
In the center of the activity was a bunch of buildings belching steam and smoke from their roofs. Big glass windows glittered in the afternoon sun. From here, Agata could see umbrellas spread over tables and chairs, scattered across the balcony in front of the building. Not all the umbrellas were open. Diners sat at the tables, most of them wearing dark glasses.
“Wow,” Agata breathed. “I feel rich and privileged just looking at it.”
“Notice the backpacks?” Cain asked.
She glanced from skier to skier, narrowing her eyes to increase her focus from this distance. And yes…many of the skiers wore backpacks.
“None of the packs are as big as ours.”
“We’re obsessive survival types. We take everything with us, not just a flask of schnapps.” He dropped his skis and kicked the clips to make them attach to his boots. “We ease through, looking like we belong there, take off our skis at the chalet, then trudge over and join the plebes catching the bus into town. See the bus shelter?”
She looked again. Behind the chalet, on the far side from the balcony and the kiddy slopes, was a glass and steel shelter. People sat on the benches beneath the curved roof. There were no buses.
“Usually, there is a bus into town every hour, in the popular resorts, and Méaudre is one of the popular ones.” He gripped his poles and looked at her. “Ready?”
She nodded.
They skied down the gentle slope toward the resort, taking their time. No one turned to look at them. No one pointed at them.
At the chalet, they stopped at the place where everyone who came off a ski run halted. They removed their skis and hefted them over their shoulder the same way the skiers were, even though their skis were wider and longer and their packs higher.
They moved through the busy chalet area, around to the bus shelters. As they approached the first shelter, an Alpine bus pulled up beside it. It was a resort bus, painted with mountains and skiers and exhorting everyone to head for the slopes today. Most of the top half of the bus was tinted glass. The roof was higher than the average bus.
Agata found out why when they climbed onto it. While Cain paid the driver for two tickets, she lowered her skis and pack and moved into the bus itself. Everyone clipped their skis to racks on the wall, parked their bags beside them, then stood and gripped handrails and straps for the ride into town. There were only two seats at the front of the bus, behind the driver, for the infirm or elderly.
The floor of the bus was non-skid steel, covered in black slush from the boots of previous passengers.
Cain came back and strapped his skis and poles against the wall. Agata copied him, trying to make it look as if she had done this hundreds of times before. With deep gratitude, she lowered her pack onto the ledge beside her skis. She gripped a strap, for the rail was too high for her to reach comfortably. Cain stood close to her, his hand curled over the stainless steel bar, his arm crooked.
The bus filled with passengers, the door cranked closed, and the bus jolted around a big circle to head back the way it came.
After a day and a bit in solitude, being surrounded by people had abruptly become uncomfortable. She met Cain’s gaze and grimaced.
His smile was self-deprecating. “Noisy, huh?” He understood.
In the off-season, Méaudre had barely fifteen hundred residents. The town more than doubled in size during the peak tourist seasons. At the moment it was a bustling miniature city, complete with luxury shops designed to tempt well-to-do ski aficionados.
The resort bus stopped at the bus station, where more traditional style buses departe
d.
Cain stretched to peer through the high ceiling windows. He raised his brow. “There’s probably a bus to Grenoble from here.”
Agata considered. If they dived into a bus straight away, with no warning and no premeditation, it might throw anyone off their trail…if there was anyone on their trail. She didn’t think it was possible anyone had tracked them from Malleval, although she had been wrong about anyone tracing them to La Richonnière, too.
“Yes. The first one we find,” she said.
Cain picked up his pack. When Agata reached for her skis, he said softly, “Leave them.”
She understood. They didn’t need to be weighed down with awkward skis, now.
Instead, she picked up her pack and shouldered it with a groan. She would never disparage long distance hiking, ever again. She appreciated now how underestimated was the art of carrying a pack with everything one needed to live.
They found the ticket counter and Agata stood back and let Cain charm the ticket officer. A bus was bound for Grenoble in thirty-five minutes. The trip took just over an hour.
Cain bought two tickets. Rather than interact with station staff, who might remember them later, they sat on yet another bench at the bay from where the Grenoble bus would leave.
Barely ten minutes later, the bus pulled up beside the bay. They elected to take their packs onboard with them, and shoved them on the shelves overhead, and settled on the seat together.
In less than ninety minutes, they would be in Grenoble. A day late, but they would make it.
What would be waiting for them there?
[20]
Baltimore, Maryland.
Lochan still couldn’t walk at a great pace. It forced him to take his time walking from the Johns Hopkins Hospital to the jewelry store just off Monument Street. They’d agreed to meet there after he’d had his checkup and been pronounced on the mend.
It was early morning, for they were both early risers. The journey from the ranch house had been thought-filled for both of them. When Leela dropped him off at the hospital, she had met his eyes. “We’re really doing this, aren’t we?”
“With bells on,” he assured her.
Her answering smile was beautiful. “See you there,” she said, throwing the Miata into gear and peeling rubber.
The walk was only a mile, yet it taxed Lochan and made his heart work harder than it should. Then he realized it wasn’t just the walking which generated the warmth in his middle. He looked ahead, eager to see her, even though it had been less than two hours since the last time.
Leela was leaning against the plate glass of the store window, which must be pissing off the staff inside. That might make picking out a ring interesting.
She straightened when she saw him and waved.
Lochan still couldn’t increase his pace, not even for her.
Leela watched for a few seconds. He didn’t know if she rolled her eyes. She did move over to the edge of the sidewalk, her head moving from side to side as she scanned traffic.
She was coming to him.
A nearby heavy-duty motorbike rumbled and blared in the higher revolutions. Lochan didn’t care for bikes at all. Then he spotted the big thing careening down the center of Monument Street, with a passenger clinging to the driver. The passenger flung out their arm.
The shots came at the same moment Lochan recognized the semi-automatic in the passenger’s gloved fist. He flinched and ducked behind the car parked at the curb, his abused body protesting. Then his brain caught up with his instincts and cold fear speared him.
They hadn’t been firing at him.
Lochan didn’t notice rising to his feet or running across the road. He didn’t remember looking for traffic. He wouldn’t recollect the screaming or the sounds of panic up and down the street until much later.
His brain had frozen again, as soon as he realized he hadn’t been the target. It spared him the agony of wondering until he reached the other side of the road. He moved down the sidewalk to where people gathered around her, all speaking in high, frightened voices. Some of them gabbled into cellphones.
Lochan pushed between them, the real pain already starting. Slowly, he lowered himself to Leela’s side. He picked up her hand, even though she wouldn’t feel it.
Already, sirens sounded, coming closer.
You need to go. The thought came to him, in Leela’s voice. You can’t be processed.
Even though she was right, even though she had spent a week putting him back together again and would be pissed at him wasting the effort, Lochan stayed there until the very last moment. He couldn’t let her go…not until he absolutely had to.
Even then, as he limped away from the crowd gathered around her and ducked down the side street to avoid the gazes of the cops and the emergency crew, with Leela’s blood on his hands, he knew he would never really let her go.
Grenoble, France.
The three-star hotel was tucked behind a pizza joint and strip mall on Boulevard Clemenceau. It had been the most random choice Dima could make. She had blown up the map of Grenoble, then searched for the nearest rental to where the tip of her fingernail rested.
No one should have been able to trace them there, or find them. They would have to trip over them accidentally. It gave her team time to draw breath and recover, and her, too.
When the tap on the door came shortly before four, Dima reached for the gun on the coffee table. Noah eased over to the door and glanced quickly through the inspection lens. Then he rolled his eyes at Dima and opened the door.
Scott stepped through and shut it again. He carried a single cabin bag.
Dima lowered the gun. “Scott, what the fuck?”
Noah went back to the bed, and slid back beneath Quinn, who curled up and buried her tear-streaked face against his shoulder once more.
Scott looked at the two on the bed, then Dima. He came over to the pair of small chairs where she sat and lowered himself into the other. “What’s happened?” His voice was low.
“What are you doing here?” Dima demanded. Tiredness gripped her. She didn’t want to have to deal with this right now.
He glanced over his shoulder at the other two. Then he shrugged. “I’ve been off the Percocet for three days. I’m over the worst of it and now my brain is working again. I need to do something, Dima. This is what I’m good at, and you need the help.” He tilted his head. “I’ve been on commercial flights and out of contact. What happened?”
“Leela is…” She cleared her throat. “Gone.”
Scott’s expression didn’t change. Sadness filled his eyes, though. “Lochan…?”
“On the move. He won’t stop until I give the signal.” Dima wiped her fingertips beneath one eye.
Scott frowned. “The email I found has to be a fake.”
“What email?” Dima asked, trying to stir her interest.
“The one which made it seem as if Leela arranged for Lochan to be beside the Christmas tree for the bomber to find.”
Coldness gripped her heart. “Maybe it wasn’t fake at all. Maybe the Kobra is just cleaning up behind him. He likes to extort people. Maybe she didn’t have a choice.”
Scott shook his head. “Leela wasn’t me. She didn’t have a single vice, her history was pure driven snow. The Kobra wouldn’t have found any useful leverage.”
Dima wiped at the other eye. “That’s why he killed her.” Her voice came out empty.
Quinn made a soft, wordless sound of pain.
Scott reached into the cabin bag and pulled out his heavy duty laptop. “Ren is processing the email, looking for markers, to see what it can tell us.”
Dima tried to be pissed that Scott had arranged things behind the scenes, pulling the unit together. “Reaching out is dangerous. Lochan and Leela were together. When I was too close to Lochan, the Kobra stepped in.”
“And now we’re all here,” Scott said. His blue eyes met hers over the top of the laptop. “Agata?”
Unhappiness squeezed Dima’s hear
t. “Gone dark. The bulletin board is compromised.” She gave a harsh laugh which held no humor. “Everything is compromised. Until we know who is connected to the Kobra, any move we make is visible. The longer we sit here, the sooner the Kobra will find us. It’s only a matter of time.”
Scott’s gaze fell to the burner phone sitting on the little table between them. “That’s clean?”
Dima sighed. “It’s the last one.”
“Agata knows the number?”
She nodded.
Scott’s fingers tapped the top edge of the laptop in a quick, nervous rhythm, as he thought it through. “We should keep moving.”
“We were,” Noah said from the bed. “We arrived in Grenoble yesterday morning. This is the fourth hotel.”
Dima sighed. She couldn’t help it. She had to exhale the sadness, or it would rot her innards.
Scott’s eyes narrowed. He leaned forward and let his hand rest on her wrist. “You just have to keep moving, until you can think. You’ll get it back. Give yourself a moment. You’re allowed that.”
Dima swallowed. Had she suddenly become transparent? That wasn’t good.
The phone buzzed.
Everyone jumped. Even Scott.
Dima leaned and picked it up.
Scott got to his feet. “We’re moving out,” he told Quinn and Noah. “Five minutes. Wipe everything.”
While the three of them sterilized the room, Dima thumbed out a cryptic message to Agata.
“There’s Dima,” Agata murmured, peering through the bus window. From Cain’s angle, it seemed as though she was gazing at the dark-haired woman standing on the concrete, ten yards away from where the bus pulled up.
The woman held her arms by her sides. Most people couldn’t let their hands just hang. They had to cross them or chew their nails or fiddle with their clothing. Standing still was an acquired skill, used by actors, or those who needed their hands free. Fidgeting, though, ramped up the adrenaline and made cravings worse. He’d learned to stand still the hard way.
He assessed the woman quickly. “She’s alone?” Uneasiness squeezed his middle. He was already braced for the white-headed Zima to gun them down the moment they stepped off the bus. That Agata’s most trusted back-up was alone wasn’t reassuring at all.
Inside Man Page 20