* * *
“Wake up!” a voice called through the darkness. “Wake up, damn you! We have to move!”
Mark’s brain fluttered back to consciousness as the voice continued to scream at him to awaken. He opened his eyes and was looking at the world through a wall of red fog; everything was hazy and distorted like it was very far away and coated in thick crimson. It took Mark a second to realize he was bleeding from his head, and it was his own blood that obscured his vision. Mark wiped it away from his eyes, and when he peeled his head from the window, he felt tiny shards of glass dig into the flesh around his temple. More blood trickled from the dozens of tiny cuts along his scalp and face, and Mark couldn’t stop his head from swimming. Mark felt weak in a way he’d never experienced before, and he wondered how much blood he’d lost, not only from the lacerations in his head but also, more important, the gunshot wound in his shoulder. He just needed to sleep. Even as a voice was yelling for him to “get up”; all he wanted to do was lie down and rest. That’s all he needed, just a little bit of sleep …
But the voice wouldn’t let him. As Mark’s eyes fluttered in his head and he let his mind drift away, he felt a giant mitt grab his arm—the one that didn’t have a bullet in it, thankfully—and yank him through the back seat and out of the car. Mark screamed in pain, but when he looked up, through clear eyes at last, he knew resistance was pointless. Oleg had him tight in his grasp, and there was no getting free of his overwhelming strength.
“But, Alex…,” Mark offered, forgetting that the other bodyguard was dead.
“Fuck Alex,” Oleg snapped. “He talked too much. Now move.” Mark realized that Oleg, too, had a stream of blood coursing down the side of his face.
Oleg spun Mark to the sidewalk and ordered him to stay down. The fog lifted from Mark’s head, giving him clear eyes to watch Oleg train his pistol straight ahead and scan every inch of space around them both. The area was crowded with pedestrians who screamed as they ran—terrified, their heads protectively ducked down—away from the bloodied madman wielding a gun. Oleg was barking in Russian into his Bluetooth, demanding, Mark assumed, backup. While Mark was pained even by the idea of moving his body, he realized that while Oleg was keeping a vigilant eye on their surroundings—watching for the gunman, wherever he was—he was keeping less of an eye on Mark. If there ever was an opening for him to make a run for it, this was it. Though bloodied, shot, and disoriented, Mark still didn’t lose sight of the one and only thing that he had in his life, the thing that got him out of bed in the morning:
Home.
With his right hand—his left was immobile, hanging lifelessly from his shoulder socket—Mark mustered whatever strength he had and pushed his fragile body off the sidewalk. He rose, shakily, off the concrete, noticing the blood that was pooled on the ground beneath him. It was a lot—Mark was no doctor, but he knew he was losing blood at a concerning rate. The horrifying sight, and the realization it brought, was almost enough to drop him back down. Pushing himself would only make things worse, Mark reasoned, and Oleg’s emergency call should bring help soon enough. But Mark refused to give in; he’d rather be dead than captive, and if this was the only chance he was ever going to get, he had to seize it. He squeezed his eyes shut and forgot about the blood; he forgot about the bullet in his arm and the glass in his head. Think about Sarah. Think about holding her again. Feeling our baby kick inside her belly.
It was all the motivation he needed.
Mark got to his feet, uneasily at first, but he found his balance. He stumbled in the direction most people were heading, thinking his best bet was to try and get lost in the crowd. He couldn’t blend, not in his condition, but he just needed to be unseen enough to get out of Oleg’s sight. Free of the bodyguard’s oppressive eye, Mark would then worry about getting help and staying alive. But right now, he had to get away.
Every step Mark took was fraught with pain that shot throughout his entire body, but those same steps also brought him closer to escape. People stared at him, disgust and horror in their eyes, but Mark didn’t care. He pushed his body forward, shuffling ahead with a hobbled gait as his lifeless arm acted like a weight tied to his body and pulling him down; he gritted his teeth, fighting off unconsciousness, as he felt the path to freedom open ahead of him.
But then he felt the dull pain of something blunt smashing the back of his head; he heard the horrified screams of onlookers, and before he knew it, Mark was on the ground again.
Oleg flipped Mark on his back, taking no care for his wounded shoulder, and before Mark could spit a bloody wad of mucus in his face—which was what he intended to do—Oleg pressed his pistol into the glass that was already buried into the flesh at his temple. Mark groaned in agony.
“You are not going anywhere,” Oleg said in a low, maniacal tone. “And you will not die on my watch unless I’m the one who puts the bullet in you.”
“Kill me,” Mark wheezed. “Just do it already.”
Oleg grinned a bloody grin. “Your life isn’t yours to take. It’s ours. You live until it’s no longer necessary. Understand?”
Mark tightened his jaw, considered spitting his bloody phlegm after all, but couldn’t find the strength to do so. He was beaten.
“Now stay down and—”
Suddenly, Oleg’s words were interrupted by the sound of a car’s tires squealing as they raced around the corner.
“Keep your head down if you want to live,” were the last words Oleg said before he rose to his feet and ran back to the street.
Mark, wanting—needing—to know what was going on, raised himself upright enough to watch what was happening. Someone had shot him, someone had killed Alex, and now that person was making another pass. Mark knew there was no way he’d identify the assassin; still, it was worth getting a good look, for future reference.
An unmarked gray Renault raced down the street, quickly closing the gap between it and Mark. Oleg, though, was ready for the encounter. The moment the car got close enough, Oleg fired shot after shot. The explosive sound of bullets erupting from the gun’s chamber rattled throughout the entire area; Mark heard people in the crowd scream, and he saw their frenzy hit a fever pitch. Behind him, the crowd pushed and pulled at one another, cursing—that was the one bit of Russian Mark did understand—as they fought for their lives.
Oleg continued to shoot at the Renault, but whoever sat behind the wheel was undeterred. Two bullets caught the windshield, leaving two massive holes in the glass’s center. Before Oleg could perfect his aim, the car swerved laterally with the curved road, exposing its passenger side to Oleg’s barrage. He continued to fire, and Mark saw three bullets pierce the fender; Oleg must have been aiming for the rear passenger tire. If only out of the instinct to survive, Mark found himself cheering for Oleg, hoping he would either stop the assassin or, better yet, find a way to direct one of his bullets into the assassin’s head. But Oleg and the assassin, Mark realized, were one and the same; after all, sooner or later, it would be Oleg trying to kill him and not this assassin.
The assassin sped past Oleg, who had emptied his ammunition and was drawing only hollow clicks from each pull of his trigger. For just a split second, Mark saw inside the assassin’s Renault, just as the passenger window, which was open, aligned with Mark’s view. Mark couldn’t see the face of his would-be killer, though. All he saw was a tangle of long blond hair swirling in the car’s cross breeze. As if in slow motion, Mark watched as the hair blew out of the assassin’s face, exposing delicate features made harder by a scar that ran over the assassin’s left eye. Mark studied her face, knowing he’d never forget it. But his reverie was broken when he caught sight of something else: the assassin’s gun. And it was trained directly on Mark.
Mark heard the pistol fire—a muffled shot in comparison to the hand cannon Oleg wielded—and thought he was done for.
But instead, Mark heard a scream. A horrible, painful scream that he’d never forget.
A woman, around the same age as Ma
rk, dropped to the ground no more than five feet from him. Mark wanted to scream. The woman lay on her side, peacefully still; her lifeless eyes stared into Mark’s, and though he knew she was gone, he couldn’t stop himself from stumbling toward her. He didn’t even know why he felt compelled to get to her, he just knew that it was something essential for him to do. Through the pain it caused him, Mark lifted the woman’s body and cradled it; he didn’t want her to be dead, to have been gunned down so senselessly with a bullet meant for him. He kept his eyes locked on hers, blue and absent, hoping beyond hope that she’d blink. But she didn’t. Mark began to cry furious, devastated tears right before he felt a hand grip his right arm from behind. Mark knew by the strength and size of the grasp that it was Oleg, but he didn’t care; he resisted the bodyguard’s hold, yanking his arm back with whatever strength he could muster, but Oleg wouldn’t let him go. He pulled Mark back, hard, and Mark tumbled into his body; Oleg greeted his ward with a forearm pressed against Mark’s throat.
“Get your hands off of me!” Mark yelled. “We have to help her! We have to—”
“You should have kept your head down,” Oleg whispered.
Mark’s body sagged as he felt the weight of the woman’s death press down on him. But then he remembered who he was, why he was here, and he grew even angrier.
“Fuck you!” he screamed, thrashing his entire body in Oleg’s unyielding grip. “I’m not supposed to be here—this isn’t my life!”
Oleg pulled Mark back and turned him around; waiting at the curb, Mark saw, was an ambulance flanked by three unmarked black sedans. Five men in suits, each holding a gun in their hand, anticipated Mark’s arrival.
When they got close enough, Oleg yelled to the nearest agent, and that man holstered his gun and approached Mark. He tried to grab Mark’s legs, but when he got close enough, Mark delivered a kick square in the agent’s jaw. His head cracked back, and he nearly fell off his feet. He bounced back and punched Mark in his abdomen. Mark retched in pain, feeling like he was going to vomit. By the time he returned to his senses, the agent had Mark by his feet and, with Oleg, was lifting him inside the ambulance. They strapped Mark to the gurney, effortlessly subduing the little fight Mark had left to offer. The adrenaline had worn off, and pain filled its absence. But it was pain that meant nothing when compared to the guilt Mark felt as he thought of the look in that woman’s eyes as she lay dead on the ground. Mark was certain he’d meet a similar violent end soon enough—unless he did something about it.
“You’ll never stop me,” Mark said, staring right into Oleg’s eyes as he drifted into unconsciousness. “I’m going home.”
“You will try,” Oleg said.
Mark was out cold before he could respond.
15
Mark woke up panting and shaking, the memories of the shootout playing over and over in his nightmares. He didn’t know how long he’d been out for, but his mind wasn’t focused on piecing together where he was or how long he’d been there. Even in his waking state, Mark couldn’t shake the terrible, violent images that’d been scored into his mind. He kept seeing the look in that woman’s eyes as she died right in front of him. Her pupils seemed to dim as the life fled from her being. The memory haunted Mark, and the guilt pushed a cold shudder throughout his chest as he struggled to hold back tears. This woman died because of him, because of this lunacy he was caught up in, and there was nothing he could to assuage that tragedy. She was a real person, and now she was gone. Mark tried to remind himself that everything he was tangled in wasn’t his fault. He didn’t ask to be a pawn in this game of international intrigue. He didn’t ask to be framed as a spy. That was the absolute truth, but in the cold recesses of his mind—those places that whispered the things to you that you didn’t want to hear as you lay in the dark, trying to sleep—he knew that bullet was meant for him. And right now, Mark wished he would have been the one to have caught it and not that poor woman. He’d leave examining his tacit desire to die to another day—his psyche had endured enough trauma for the time being.
Even as the images of the woman being shot faded, Mark still couldn’t help but recall everything that’d happened. In his mind, he saw Alex’s body slumped over the steering wheel. His blood and brains splattered everywhere. He saw the blood oozing from his own shoulder, he saw his head crash into the window and the glass slice up his flesh. He saw Oleg shooting at the assassin’s car and, again, he saw the pistol glint before firing off one shot. And that shot landed square in an innocent woman’s chest. Over and over that memory played, with slight variations from one rendition to the next. The worst version was when Mark’s attention stayed on the crowd as everyone scrambled to get away. Mark isolated the woman, running in a panic though she didn’t know what she was running from. Then came the shot—only it didn’t originate from the assassin’s car. It came from Mark. He looked down, and in his trembling hand was the smoking gun.
Mark calmed himself. The guilt was raw, and it was real, and he’d use it as fuel for revenge against the people who’d exiled him in Russia and senselessly took an innocent person’s life. They’d get what was coming to them—Mark was certain of that.
When Mark opened his eyes, he realized he was in a hospital room. He’d figured as much, given all the injuries he’d sustained and the fact that he was still alive. With an apprehensive glance, Mark looked at his left shoulder, fearing that he’d find a still-open wound or infection settling in. The punishment for his defiance, perhaps. But that wasn’t the case. His shoulder had been stitched and bandaged; Mark tried moving it, and while it wasn’t as if he’d never been shot, his range of motion wasn’t all that bad. The Russians had patched him up nicely. There was even a bandage around his head, which Mark wasted no time unspooling. He reached for a mirror that rested on his bedside table and examined the work the doctors had done. Small butterfly bandages covered the side of his face, marking the countless places where glass had clawed under his skin, and a few stitches ran under his hairline just above his forehead. Mark was looking beat up, but he had survived a shootout—an attempt on his life—and was on the road to recovery.
And that was good enough for him to get to work.
He had no doubt that there was at least one security guard outside his door. Mark had to hope it was just one; one he could handle. But if it was two guards out there … two could overpower him. Two could call for backup. But one, Mark would take care of.
Silently—so he didn’t alert whoever was outside his door—Mark searched the room for a weapon. Anything solid that he could knock somebody out cold with was all he wanted. But there was nothing. The monitors connected to the needles protruding from the back of his hand were too heavy and unwieldy to be used as weapons, and the room was stripped bare of anything else. Not even a visitor’s chair had been left behind.
While Mark would have preferred a weapon to clobber his enemy with, he wasn’t deterred; a blunt object would have been nice, but not having one only meant he’d have to get creative with his clobbering.
Pressing his ear to the door, Mark listened. It’d be better if no one was around for what he was about to attempt. He didn’t need any unwanted guest, even if it was just a nurse or doctor, getting in the way of his jailbreak. This was between him and whoever was keeping him locked inside this room.
When the time was right—a few voices passed, but they seemed to have moved on—Mark took hold of the monitor he’d been wheeling around with him. He turned off the lights, positioned himself against the wall next to the door, and pushed over the monitor. It clattered against the floor, loud enough for the entire wing to hear.
Within seconds, the door to his room clicked open, and Mark saw a gun poke through the small opening. A deep voice sighed.
“Still trying to ice skate uphill, yes?” the voice taunted. Mark recognized that tenor and cadence immediately:
Oleg.
Mark had been afraid, nearly trembling at the idea of fighting an armed guard—armed and trained in self-de
fense—for his life. At the sound of Oleg’s voice, he should have felt his fear escalate to terror. Oleg was physically superior to Mark, and he was in much better condition than Mark—after all, Oleg hadn’t been shot or sliced up in the very recent past. Oleg was simply more capable; he probably knew more fighting techniques than Mark could even understand let alone hope to match. Still, Mark didn’t feel terror.
Mark felt rage.
His heartbeat racing, Mark barreled forward, smashing a kick against the door. It slammed against Oleg’s body, causing the bulky agent to groan in pain. Oleg stumbled back against the frame; his gun fell from his grip and skittered across the floor. Mark grabbed hold of the door and smashed it against Oleg again, and again, and again. He heard ribs crack as another hit from the door nearly dropped Oleg off his feet, but the bodyguard stayed upright. And the next time Mark tried to slam the door on him, he was ready. Oleg grabbed the edge of the door with both hands and, using his overwhelming strength, pushed it back against Mark. The force whipped Mark around and against the wall, and suddenly he was on the defensive.
Oleg came charging like a rodeo bull. Mark leapt out of his path without a second to spare; Oleg smashed a fist into the wall where he had been standing, crushing the plaster. Before Oleg could twist into another attack, Mark landed a punch into his broken ribs. Oleg grunted as Mark rolled away from him. Oleg had strength and power; Oleg had training. But Mark was quicker, more athletic, and most of all, he had a hell of a lot more to fight for.
Mark slammed the door shut, snuffing out the room’s light. It was no advantage for him to fight in the dark, but anything that could diminish Oleg’s proficiency was a benefit, Mark figured.
“I’m going to crush your skull with my bare hands,” Oleg snarled.
He was carving a curved path around the room’s edge; at least, that’s what Mark assumed based on how Oleg’s voice carried. Mark took slow, silent steps backward; he didn’t have much time, and he knew it. There was no way he’d survive a hand-to-hand fight against Oleg. The Russian agent would make good on his threat, and that would be after he delivered Mark a severe beating.
The Throwaway Page 13