“You know what happens next!” Zima called. “On three. One—”
No time to think. No time at all. Fear gripped her throat.
“Two.”
“Alright! I’m coming!” Agata shouted.
“Rifle first. Throw it toward me.”
She swung the rifle by the strap and released it so it looped up in a low parabola. It landed four feet away from Cain’s toes.
Cain didn’t move. He didn’t even flinch. His gaze was remote.
“Now you,” Zima called.
Zima would shoot her the moment she stepped out into the open. She was his primary target, but she wasn’t the only one. As soon as she was dead, he would shoot Cain, too.
Agata fumbled for the Glock in her pocket, her heart running heavily. When she had thrown the rifle, she had seen the daylight shining onto the smooth rock floor from the other holes in the walls. They undulated down the cave, one after another.
She gripped the Glock. Her hand was shaking. She gripped the wrist, not to improve her aim, but simply to halt the trembling in her hand.
A deep breath. Then another. She lurched around the thick rock wall, into the cave, and fired a shot toward Zima. No time to aim.
Then she threw herself behind the wall lining the opening of the next hole. She was a dozen feet closer.
Zima’s bullet zinged off the wall where she had just been standing and whined away, a series of echoes dying after it.
Agata breathed hard. Zima would be ready for the same trick.
So don’t fire at random. Take aim.
Only, he would have his Makarov lined up on the wall where her head would first appear.
Agata stared at the floor, her heart beating hard. The Remington she had tossed was just visible and too far away to reach.
A sense memory came to her of throwing herself forward onto her elbows in thick snow. It was accompanied by the sour smell of hot, green pinewood from the gouge in the trunk she had stared at with fascination.
Agata didn’t process the idea beyond that. The seconds had ticked on—too many of them.
She threw herself out into the cave, diving forward onto her elbows. To shoot her, Zima would have to lower his gun, only Cain was in the way. He would have to step around Cain or shove him down or aside. It gave Agata a precious two seconds.
Her elbows hit the raw rock. Pain flared, only she had been braced for it. She skidded across the floor, as she found her target.
Time slowed down. She even recognized the sensation and knew it was her hopped-up reactions processing events so quickly that each second had a calendar year of sensations and feedback packed into it, which she coldly processed.
Zima shoved Cain aside, while trying to bring his gun to bear on Agata. Cain crumpled without Zima holding him up. He folded and fell forward…only he wasn’t falling. Not really. Agata saw the thick rubber front edge of his ski boots dig into the rock floor, gripping to give him leverage.
He was going for the rifle.
As Cain landed beside the rifle, Zima spotted the new danger. His gun swiveled to cover Cain, who was closer to Zima.
It was a simple calculation, after that. Cain was injured, weak and not thinking well. He would go for the head or trunk, which were both easy shots from that close. He only had one good hand. The easy shot had to be his.
Besides, he was about to fire a 6.8mm rimless special purpose cartridge. It would would deliver a guaranteed death shot, just about anywhere it hit. Agata’s little handgun would, unless she was utterly accurate, only slow Zima down and allow him to get off another shot.
Only, she was thinking clearly and smoothly. Her vision was as clear as it had ever been. She was calm. She could take the harder shot, no problems, and make it stick, because making it count, making her shot land, would save Cain’s life.
Agata dropped the muzzle of the Glock by an inch, as Zima’s Makarov finished swinging into place. The Makarov lined up on Cain’s back, as Cain grasped the rifle one-handed.
Cain’s finger reached for the trigger as he lifted the rifle and rolled onto his back, which would bring the rifle up into place. The inertia of the swinging rifle would shift the weight of the gun off Cain’s arm for a fraction of a moment. It let him aim one-handed.
Agata had all the time in the world. She knew her aim was true, even before she gently squeezed the trigger. Her breath was held. She let Zima’s hand swing into her sights, then fired.
The Makarov jerked across Zima’s body, away from Cain. The bullet whined off the floor, sending up a spark, as Zima gave a cry of pain. The Makarov itself skittered across the floor to land up against the wall.
Cain finished swinging the rifle up into place and fired, as soon as the muzzle was in place. The rifle bellowed and bucked in Cain’s weak hand. The bullet had already left the gun, though. It slammed into Zima’s chest and tossed the man back four steps. Zima stared at Cain, as blood rose and dribbled from the corner of his mouth. “But…” he said, sounding puzzled.
He fell against the wall, and would have slithered to the floor, only the rough stones and projections snagged his coat. He hung against the wall, his eyes open and unmoving.
Time jumped back to its normal speed.
Cain dropped the rifle with a clatter, groaning heavily.
At the same time, footsteps echoed at the other end of the cave. Agata rolled over, to cover that direction with her Glock.
Dima appeared in the square doorway cut into the rock at that end, where yellow incandescent light glowed, showing a narrow, rough tunnel. Behind her were the plain clothes security guards, Noah Bailey among them, shouting directions.
Agata dropped the Glock, weak relief coursing through her. She crawled over to Cain, taking in the bloody mess of his hand, and the blood-soaked shoulder of his coat. His eyes were closed. She didn’t know if she should touch him. She let her hand hover uncertainly, as Dima and the guards ran past them, heading for Zima.
“Cain?” she whispered.
He opened his eyes. Focused on her. “Damn, you’re good, Kelsey.” His voice was weak. His uninjured hand lifted to press against her back, as if he was trying to hold her there. “Don’t disappear, huh?” he whispered.
“Not going anywhere,” she murmured.
Dima’s feet showed at the corner of Agata’s vision. Agata looked up.
“Zima’s dead,” the other woman declared, sounding pissed.
Behind Dima, the security guards were yelling into their radios. Noah spoke softly and urgently to the most senior of them, arranging things. Managing.
“Did you ask Zima about the Kobra before he died?” Dima added.
“He was going to kill Cain. Cain is my first concern.”
Dima sighed and glanced at Cain, who had closed his eyes once more. “Your assignment is successfully concluded, Agata. Cain is safe. He’s no longer your priority.”
Agata shook her head. “He will always be my priority.”
[23]
Undisclosed cemetery, Washington D.C.
Ten days later.
There were few mourners at the graveside. Among them was an elderly couple wearing mid-western snow boots, looking bewildered and drained of energy.
“I should be there,” Lochan ground out, watching the priest shake Leela’s parents’ hands, as the mourners dispersed. The tinted windows of the limousine made the gray day seem even darker. “They look like they’ve been mugged.”
“Because they have no context. This came out of left field for them,” Leander said quietly from the other corner of the bench seat. “No one can tell them anything. You know how it goes.”
“Instead, Leela gets an anonymous star on a wall, while her folks will wonder forever where they went wrong.” Lochan put his face in his hands, squeezing his temples as if that would remove the pain.
“You don’t have to wonder, though,” Leander said, his tone gentle. “You know exactly what happened.” He paused. “And you can do something about it.”
Loc
han sucked in a breath and let it out. He looked out the window once more. “Oh, I intend to,” he said, his voice low. “When I find him, I will rip his fucking heart out.”
“The Kobra? Or the inside man?”
“Either. Both.” Lochan considered. “The Kobra—he’s just doing business. I’ll kill him with whatever I have in my hand when I meet him. The mole, though…I’ll eat his kidneys while he watches, then drive a white-hot poker into his temple and make him dance a jig. I want him to hurt, Lea.”
“Perfectly understandable.” Lea tapped on the glass behind him and the limousine rolled forward smoothly. The driver already had his directions.
Lochan pressed his fingers against the glass as the cemetery fell behind them. “Where are we going?” His voice was harsh.
“There’s a Cessna waiting on a strip, just outside the city,” Lea said. “Then, some long frog jumps to wherever Dima is when we catch up with her. Then, we get to work.”
Lochan nodded. “Good.”
“You need to keep a clear head now,” Leander warned.
Lochan sat back. “I’ve never been clearer, my man.” His tone was cold.
Temple of Buddha, Gentilly, France.
Cain came to a halt, three paces beyond the door of the meditation room, as students filed passed him. Cain’s gaze locked onto the blonde woman waiting with one hip against the railing across the stairwell. She was back to Parisian chic, all glamor and ice, in the color they called winter white, but looked like warm cream on her.
His heart actually leapt, the first sign of real life it had shown for days now.
Cain moved over to her. “You’re waiting for me?” He shifted his arm in the sling, as his shoulder twinged. He was holding himself taut, braced for…something.
“Yes, I was waiting for you, Warren,” she said, her smile warm. Soft.
Again, his heart did the little flip and turn. “There’s a café, a block away on—”
“Yes,” she said, cutting him off. “Are we walking?” she added.
The official Embassy limousine waited for him at the curb. He’d had to argue hard to be allowed to stop off here, first, to pay his respects and say goodbye to everyone. From here, it was a direct route to Orly.
He shoved all those concerns aside. “Let’s walk,” he told her, and held out his hand. His heart squeezed again as she took it.
Agata bought an espresso and a cup of green tea and took them to the little table where Cain sat waiting, in the dark back corner of the café. Everyone else chose tables by the sunny window.
There were strain lines around Cain’s eyes and mouth, still, but there was color in his face once more. When he had been lying in the hospital bed, unaware that she was there, she had watched the pain gnaw at him while Cain fought to control it. He’d stubbornly refused all pain killers except simple Tylenol.
She had only been able to stay by his side for one day. There had been too much work to do, after that.
Agata put Cain’s tea in front of him and sat down.
Cain pushed the tea aside. “Who was it?” he asked, his voice low. “Who is the inside man?”
Who had nearly got them killed?
Agata shook her head. “We don’t know yet. We can’t start to figure that out until everyone is in the same room together, looking each other in the eye. The room gets sealed around us. No channels to the outside. Then we break down everything that happened, from the bomb in Washington, to Leela, to Grenoble. Every message, every communication and record. If there is more than one person examining every bit of data, the mole can’t distort it, or hide. Not right there in the room, where we’re all watching for it.”
Cain grimaced. “Fun.”
Her gut roiled. “It has to be done. We can’t go on, exposed as we are.”
“You wouldn’t be able to break it down, or pin the mole down, if the Kobra hadn’t made this move to take the team out,” Cain pointed out.
Agata nodded. “Dima thinks the same—that it was a tactical error by the Kobra, which we can take advantage of.”
“At a cost.”
Agata sighed. “Yes.” She saw the black limousine sitting across the road from the café, steam rising from the exhaust pipe. “You’re going back to the States, they tell me.”
“I’ll be back in New York by tomorrow afternoon,” Cain said. “I’m glad I got to see you before I left.”
Agata grimaced. “As if I’d let you leave without saying goodbye.”
His gaze met hers. “You’ve been keeping tabs on me. Multi-tasking again, Kelsey?”
Her heart thrummed. “You’ve been busy yourself,” she shot back. “I got a strange call from my old boss at NASA yesterday.”
Cain froze. Then he relaxed. “Damn it, he wasn’t supposed to do anything until I…” He shook his head and reached for the cabin bag sitting on the third chair and unzipped it. “I wanted to talk to you about it, first, before…” He delved in the bag and withdrew something which he put on the table beside her coffee cup.
It was a navel orange, wrapped in a green ribbon.
Agata stared at it, her eyes stinging. “It was you who pulled their strings. I wondered…”
Cain shook his head. “It wasn’t me. I made a call, that’s all.”
“Your father,” she guessed.
Cain tried to shrug, winced, and resettled his shoulder. “He was over the moon that I reached out to him.” He grimaced, his eyes rolling. “He said it was about time I showed an interest in people once more. It should have warned me, but I guess I’m out of practice. He must have pulled in favors the second I hung up.” He touched the orange. “I wanted to ask you first…see if you still wanted your old job back.”
Agata blinked hard, dispersing the tears before they fell. “I don’t.” Her voice was hoarse.
Cain smiled. It was a warm expression. “You’re staying with Dima. Good.”
“You like that?” Her surprise stole some of her breath.
Cain glanced around the café, looking for eavesdroppers. No one was within hearing distance, for it was mid-afternoon. Too late for the noon meal and too early for post prandial beverages. He lowered his voice anyway. “You’ve got unfinished business. And you’re good at it. I will sleep easier, knowing you’re going after the son of a bitch.”
“You make it sound like the natural and obvious choice.”
“There’s no choice in it,” Cain said gently. “You have to do this. You’re uniquely qualified, and you’re the man on the spot. It has to be you. And Scott and Noah and Dima and the others. You’ve all got skin in the game. So have I, although I’m comfortable with you going to bat on my behalf, as long as you promise to slug the bastard across the jaw for me, when you catch up to him.”
Agata smoothed her thumb over the melamine of the table top. “I guess I can do that.”
Cain lowered his head to look at her, making her meet his gaze. “The entire time I’ve known you, you’ve never held back. Not once. Now you’re biting your tongue?”
Agata drew in a breath for courage. “I said I’d wait for you, Cain, only I can’t. Not anymore. They’re taking you back to America and I won’t be there…” She drew in another quick breath and made herself spill the rest. “I don’t want to lose you, yet I don’t know if I’ve really got you in the first place.”
He lifted her chin, and she realized she had been focusing fiercely on the orange, afraid to look at him and see the distance in his eyes.
No coldness was in them, though. His smile was tiny, but it was there. His hand lingered against her cheek. “You saved me,” he said gently. “Not just my life, but here,” and he touched his head, “and here.” He rested his fingers on the black sweater, over his heart. “It would take a century for me to make up for what you have done. I still don’t feel worthy of you. Only, after everything which happened, I feel as if I might be a small inch closer. That single inch is a lightyear, inside. It makes so much difference, that inch. It represents change…something I thought
was beyond me.”
“You’re talking about hope,” she breathed. Her heart beat heavily.
“Very good, Kelsey,” he said gently. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. That’s why I’m going back to the States.”
Her middle sank. “I don’t understand.”
He picked up her hand, his strong fingers gentle. “I love you, Agata. Pure and simple. I don’t know how it happened. I didn’t think I was capable of it, so it sucker-punched me, and now I don’t care how it happened. I just want to hold on to it…and you. To do that, I have to feel as though I deserve it. You dictated that, and you’re right. So I’m going back to the States. I’m going back to school, but I’m changing my discipline.”
She trembled, as she threaded her fingers through his and he didn’t pull away. Instead, his hand curled around hers. Her trembling increased.
“No more history?” Her voice wavered.
He shook his head. “I was never interested in the politics of history. I was more interested in how the people of those times thought about everything happening to them. It’s what I’m good at, anticipating how people behave under stress. I’ve got some experience with it. So I’m going into addictions counseling. And I think, Kelsey, I might actually be able to help people.”
Agata was too late to stop the tears from falling. She was turning into a mess right there in front of him. “It’s perfect,” she breathed. “It fits you exactly. You’ll be good at it, Cain. I know you will.”
His hand tightened on hers. “Say you’ll wait for me,” he breathed. “Let me do this and prove to you the wait is worth it. Please.”
Agata wiped at her cheeks with her spare hand. “Where will you study? Colorado?” That was his native state.
His thumb stroked over the back of her hand, leaving sizzling skin behind. “I can’t altogether leave you. I thought…Washington. Between the veterans and the homeless, there’ll be plenty of work, once I’m qualified.”
Agata’s heart soared. She reached into her bag and pulled out her key ring and slid one of the smaller bronze keys from the ring and put it in front of him. “You’ll need this.”
Inside Man Page 23