The Essential Sam Jameson / Peter Kittredge Box Set: SEVEN bestsellers from international sensation Lars Emmerich

by Lars Emmerich

  Quick footfalls echoed through the ostentatious apartment, lending credence to her fear of an ambush.

  She made her decision quickly. “Dan, hang tough. I’m going to get this asshole.”

  “I’m fine,” he said, getting to his feet. “Just a collarbone.”

  “Hold the fort,” she said, rounding the corner past the giant clock and sprinting as quickly as her beaten body could manage.

  She saw a flash of something shiny ahead of her in the dim hallway light, and a streak of bright steel moved toward her faster than she could dodge. She felt a searing pain in her thigh, and looked down to see a small dagger buried halfway to its hilt in her flesh.

  A dim, gray blur ran toward her. She raised her gun instinctively and fired two rounds at the assassin. He tucked and rolled onto the foyer floor, disappearing around the next corner.

  Sam dashed forward to the entryway, narrowly avoiding a second dagger as it flashed toward her at eye-level.

  She dove around the corner. The knife protruding from her thigh clanged painfully against the hardwood floor as she rolled, an excruciating distraction that slowed her arrival in the prone firing position.

  She got there a second too late. She raised her pistol for another shot at the killer just as the apartment door closed behind him.

  Sam clambered to her feet, ripped the knife from her thigh with a bark of pain, and charged out the apartment door.

  She looked in both directions down the hallway.

  Empty. The killer was gone.

  But the stairwell door betrayed the direction of his retreat as it drifted slowly closed in his wake.

  You’re mine, asshole.

  50

  Sam cursed at the pain as she sprinted down the hallway after the deranged assassin who’d nearly killed her yet again. Dark blood poured from the deep wound in her thigh, and she badly needed to stop the blood loss.

  But first, she badly needed to stop a killer.

  Arriving at the stairwell door, she planted her good leg to support her body, then winced in pain as she swung her wounded leg to kick open the door.

  She charged into the stairwell gun-first, her finger on the trigger, but she heard only retreating footfalls beneath her on the hard tile stairs. He was several floors below her.

  Sam gritted her teeth, grabbed the railing for support, and ran down the stairs two at a time, surprised again at how debilitating and painful the electrocution-induced muscle cramps were. The knife wound was no picnic, either.

  She heard a door slam shut someplace beneath her in the stairwell. She was certain the killer hadn’t exited the stairwell onto the third floor, but she had no idea whether he’d dashed onto the second or first floors.

  With backup, she’d have sent someone to search the other floors while she followed the more probable hunch, that the assassin had descended all the way to the lobby in order to make as hasty an exit as possible. But Sam didn’t have that luxury. It’s just him and me, she realized, bounding painfully onto the second floor landing. There was no one to call for help, and nobody she could trust to apprehend the killer if he got away from her.

  But he wasn’t going to get away. It ends now, Sam resolved. She was going to stop the assassin, or die trying.

  She swiped through the second-floor doorway, threw it open, and trained her gun down the hallway. It was dark and still. Satisfied that the killer hadn’t hidden to ambush her, she charged back into the stairwell and ran down the stairs to the first floor.

  As she approached the entrance, Sam saw the doorman lying in a heap on the floor. She saw no blood and no obvious signs of an injury, but he was clearly unconscious. Strange. Almost like he and the senator had been…tranquilized. Just like she and Brock had been drugged. Then kidnapped.

  Beyond the glass window, the headlights of the plumbing truck suddenly turned on, and she heard the low rumble of its diesel engine grinding to life.

  Sam hustled out the door and raised her pistol to take aim at the assassin. The engine revved and the truck chirped its tires, roaring down the street, spoiling her shot.

  She mashed the BMW’s key fob with her thumb, dashed to the big 7-series sedan, and shoved the key in the ignition as she jumped into the driver’s seat. Sam slammed the transmission into gear, spun the steering wheel, and stood on the gas, whipping the car around to follow the plumbing van containing the devil himself.

  As she straightened the car and accelerated, she made a disheartening discovery: the van had disappeared.

  He had to have taken one of the first two turns, Sam reasoned, probably southbound toward K Street, a major east-west artery through the heart of the lobby district that would afford the killer the greatest speed and anonymity. Sam reefed the big sedan hard to the left and dove down 11th Street, blazing past the Department of Justice. Irony.

  She saw two cars stopped at the intersection with K Street.

  But no plumbing truck.

  She cursed loudly and matted the accelerator, hoping to spot the killer’s truck before he had a chance to turn again.

  A small rise in the road allowed her to see over the queued cars at the stop sign. Sam was certain she glimpsed the killer’s getaway vehicle, still barreling southbound on 11th on the other side of K Street, heading toward the center of downtown DC.

  Sam smiled to herself. You screwed up, buddy. There’s no good time to drive the Mall.

  She stood on the accelerator and the horn, veered out into the oncoming lane of traffic, which was thankfully devoid of cars at the moment, and held her breath as the big BMW sailed through the intersection crossing one of DC’s busiest streets.

  Horns blared at her, and she narrowly missed a collision with a delivery truck. She had to swerve into the wrong lane to avoid a car pulling out of an underground parking lot, and she nearly became a minivan’s hood ornament in the process.

  She caromed back onto the right side of the road just in time to see the plumbing truck make a hard, fast right turn onto New York Avenue. Is this guy new? Even at midnight, the traffic around the White House and the National Mall would be prohibitive. She smiled again. She suddenly liked her chances a lot better.

  Something felt warm and squishy beneath her legs as she worked the car’s pedals, and she realized that the sticky substance was the blood still pouring profusely from the angry knife wound in her thigh. Houston, we have a problem.

  Sam guided the big luxury car through a hard right turn onto New York Avenue. Despite its size, the car handled like it was on rails, and Sam was only halfway through the turn when she floored the gas pedal again.

  Getting closer! The killer’s truck was only half a block ahead of her. The big German engine roared and the speedometer climbed through fifty, and she had closed the distance to just a couple of car lengths when the killer did something exceptionally stupid.

  He veered hard left, charging south on 12th Street – a northbound one-way.

  Sam gritted her teeth and tucked in behind the killer, following him in tight formation as he swerved the heavy utility truck wildly back and forth to avoid streams of irate drivers heading the opposite direction.

  Sam’s heart leapt into her throat as she saw the killer try to thread the needle between two oncoming cars. He’s never going to make it. She slammed on the brakes and braced for the inevitable collision.

  She was right. Not even close. The plumbing truck plowed into the side of a large Mercedes that had swerved at the last second to avoid what would surely have been a deadly head-on collision. The impact spun the Mercedes completely around, and for the briefest of moments, Sam thought she might be able to guide the big BMW unscathed past the twirling wreckage.

  No such luck. The Mercedes continued its spin, side-swiping the expensive car she’d stolen from Secretary Cullsworth, throwing her directly in front of an oncoming grocery van.

  Sam stomped on the accelerator, torqued the steering wheel, and made peace with the universe, expecting to be crushed at any moment beneath the grille of t
he big grocery truck.

  But the collision never came. The powerful engine rocketed the sedan forward, and she escaped by the narrowest of margins.

  She had no idea where the killer might have gone – his plumbing truck was nowhere in sight – but Sam decided she’d had enough fun trying to navigate 12th Street the hard way. She turned the steering wheel hard to the right, plowed the big Bimmer over the curb, and narrowly dodged a signpost on the sidewalk on her way to H Street westbound.

  Heart pounding, Sam looked around for the big plumbing van, hoping against hope that the killer had experienced a similar epiphany regarding the difficulty of driving against the flow of downtown DC traffic.

  She suddenly found it hard to focus her eyes, and small, colored dots appeared in her vision. I’m losing too much blood, she realized as she matted the accelerator.

  Sam recalled her many conversations with Brock about not losing consciousness while “pulling G’s” in a fighter jet. The trick was to squeeze your abs, ass, and legs, he’d said, to keep the blood from draining from your head.

  Sam tried it. More blood poured from the wound in her thigh, but her vision cleared up, and as the stars disappeared from her eyes, she made out the now-familiar form of the assassin’s getaway vehicle.

  She breathed a sigh of relief for her good fortune at not having lost the killer in the traffic bedlam on 12th Street, but realized she was in serious risk of going into shock due to blood loss. Sam glanced around the car for something she could use to stem the bleeding. Wouldn’t do her any good to catch the bastard, only to pass out when she got there.

  She found a raincoat lying in the passenger seat floor. She shot her arm down and swooped it up, and set to work wrapping it around her thigh even as she followed the fleeing killer, dodging cars and barreling toward the home of the President of the United States. This is going to be interesting, she thought as she cinched the coat tight around her thigh.

  H Street veered to the northwest, and Sam saw a line of brake lights stopped at another busy intersection. The killer’s truck hopped the curb and drove on the wide sidewalk, careening past cars waiting at the red light. He charged recklessly across the intersection.

  Sam followed, hearing the scrape of metal on concrete as the expensive sedan bottomed out on the curb. She stayed close behind the killer as he made a wide, sweeping left turn to join the startled midnight drivers heading west toward downtown DC.

  There was an opening in traffic, and Sam mashed the gas pedal to catch up to the fleeing killer. She veered to avoid a turning car, and her eyes were drawn to the blazing whiteness of the most famous residence in America, bathed in floodlights. The Secret Service guys are going to smoke us both if we don’t slow down, Sam realized as the killer’s truck charged toward the end of New York Avenue, where it became Pennsylvania Avenue – practically on the President’s lawn.

  Apparently, the killer reached a similar conclusion. The top-heavy plumbing truck leaned hard to the right as he threw it into a tight left turn, diving south on 15th Street at the last possible second to avoid the White House area.

  Sam nearly didn’t make the turn in time to follow him. She clipped the curb just feet from the Treasury building, grinding the BMW’s expensive rims before settling back onto the roadway.

  She was close enough to hear the big diesel engine roar as the killer gained speed, and she accelerated to keep pace. She peeked the nose of the car out into the oncoming lane to assess what lay ahead, and was relieved to see that traffic was uncharacteristically sparse all the way to the Washington Monument.

  If she was going to make a move, now was the time.

  She pulled the 9mm handgun from its holster, rolled down the window, placed the gun in her left hand, and squeezed off two rounds at the left rear tire.

  Misses.

  The killer slammed on the brakes, and Sam was just quick enough to avoid a collision. Asshole. If she’d hit him, and her airbags had deployed, she’d never have caught back up to him.

  The truck’s diesel engine clattered and growled, and the killer was off again, tires squealing.

  Secretary Cullsworth’s BMW easily kept pace, though Sam followed a bit further away. A stream of crossing traffic caught her eye, and Sam realized that they were rapidly approaching Constitution Avenue.

  She tightened the raincoat she’d tied around her thigh, hoping she’d be able to keep her wits about her long enough to put a round through the bastard’s tire. And then, with a little luck, maybe also his forehead.

  Sam was relieved to see the flow of traffic on Constitution come to a stop. Seconds later, their traffic light turned green, and the killer charged through the intersection, starting the wide arc around the Washington Monument, its lighted scaffolding an eerie, otherworldly shroud draped around the giant concrete obelisk.

  This shit has to stop, Sam thought, again bringing the BMW in close for another shot.

  She fired two more rounds. One hit the metal above the wheel well.

  The other one popped the left rear tire.

  The killer’s truck fishtailed back and forth in front of her windshield.

  He regained control, but Sam accelerated, pulled out into the oncoming lane, and jerked the steering wheel over to slam the BMW’s front quarter panel into the left rear of the truck.

  The truck spun, and Sam slammed the gas pedal, driving the big, wide nose of the BMW broadside into the truck, ploughing it toward the sidewalk. Sam heard the truck’s tires screech and howl as she kept the pressure on the gas pedal, accelerating the truck sideways into the curb.

  She braced for the impact, but wasn’t prepared for its violence. The curb sheared the truck’s right front wheel clean off, and the force of the collision flipped the heavy truck over onto its cab.

  The airbag exploded in Sam’s face, and she heard the impossibly loud screech of metal scraping over concrete, then felt the damp coolness of upturned sod and clumps of turf hitting her body as the two tangled vehicles gouged deep ruts into the wet grass.

  They came to rest a hundred yards from the Washington Monument. The front of Sam’s car was propped up on the upended truck, its engine still idling, its rear tires still spinning.

  Sam was dazed and disoriented. Her head lolled to the side, and she felt painful abrasions on her face and arms. Miraculously, her left hand still clutched her pistol.

  The sound of shattering glass sharpened her focus, and she heard harsh, gravelly grunts as the killer extricated himself from the wreckage beneath her.

  Sam clambered to open the door. It wouldn’t budge. The car’s bent frame had wedged it in place.

  She laid down across the front seats and kicked the door with all of her strength. Fiery pain in her heels rewarded her effort, but the door didn’t move.

  She heard more grunts in the grass below her, more shattering glass, and then the shuffle of footsteps, moving closer to her. The grunts grew louder, followed by the groan of metal, and she felt the entire car move beneath her.

  He’s climbing up here, she realized.

  Sam had no idea whether the killer still had his gun, and she had no desire to press her luck. She aimed her pistol out the window and fired a warning shot.

  It had the desired effect – she heard a heavy landing on the grass outside, followed by shuffling footsteps heading off to the west as the killer ran up the broad, green slope toward the giant concrete monument.

  Sam reversed her position in the front seat and poked her head out the window. Holy hell, I’m a long way up here. The ground was a frightening distance beneath her car, perched as it was on the upturned plumbing truck.

  She turned her head and saw the killer shuffling off toward the monument.

  There are no good options from here, Sam realized. Any choice she made would have its consequences. Without backup, without the ability to trust the cops, with no one to protect her, and with an alarmingly vigorous leak in her upper thigh threatening her consciousness, Sam made a difficult decision.

 
She held the gun in her right hand, steadied it on the car door ledge, took aim at the killer’s back, and smoothly added pressure to the trigger.

  The pistol barked, and bucked in her hand.

  The killer pitched forward with a deep, croaking cry of pain. He rolled on the grass, cursing loudly in Spanish, then lay still.

  Stay down, asshole.

  He didn’t. Sam’s heart sank as she watched the killer pop back up on his feet, clutching the back of his left thigh, and continue his lumbering shuffle up the hill toward the monument, now zigzagging back and forth to spoil her aim. Before she could draw a bead on him for another shot, he was out of the little pistol’s range.

  I can’t buy a break.

  She crawled head-first out of the open window and stretched to grasp the frame of the upended pickup truck, pinned upside-down beneath the BMW. She used the truck’s frame to pull her legs free of the car, yelping in pain as her wounded thigh scraped on the doorframe.

  Her fingers slipped, and she fell awkwardly onto the grass, landing with a thud.

  Sam rolled onto her back. Her arms fell limp by her side, and she gazed blankly up at the stars. Pain and exhaustion wracked her body and her mind, and she was tempted to just close her eyes, to lie there, to let fate run its course, not giving a shit whether the good cops or bad cops showed up, or whether anyone would ever catch the stocky little beast of a man.

  But something stirred within her.

  She didn’t want to die.

  And she knew she’d never be free to walk in the daylight, to live her life without looking over her shoulder, unless she stopped the madness once and for all.

  It ends now.

  Sam stood. It took great effort, and she felt as if she might pass out.

  She took deep breaths. Her head slowly cleared, and the stars slowly disappeared from her vision. She fixed her gaze up the hill, and could just make out the killer’s form, silhouetted against the powerful floodlights, running toward the base of the monument.