Hell, no.
Which left the second alternative.
“Roll left!” she shouted to Dan, who was two steps behind her en route to the exit and therefore two steps closer to their new friend, who had by now extracted the pistol from his belt and pointed it in their general vicinity.
Dan dove to the concrete and rolled his body toward the far wall, away from Sam. His service pistol roared. A wild miss, but the shot wasn’t intended to kill. It was a distraction.
Sam pulled the trigger a fraction of a second later, re-aimed, and fired twice more, hoping like hell at least one of the slugs had found a new home near the agent’s center of mass.
The man spun abruptly, right arm flailing, and crashed into the side of the narrow hallway. He fell onto the floor, his body angled, his feet closest to Sam. His flank was exposed, but she couldn’t see his gun hand. “Gun down!” she shouted.
No response.
More muffled shouts, and the sound of banging doors in the adjacent rooms. The sirens grew closer. It was officially a party. “Put your gun down!” Sam yelled.
She still couldn’t see his gun, but she saw rapid movement from some part of his body, which was more than enough to communicate his intent. She pulled the trigger once more. The side of his abdomen erupted in crimson, and a long, gurgling “hnnnnnnnnnhh” escaped his throat. His back arched, an ancient reflex that reliably indicated death’s proximity. The slug had probably snuck beneath his rib cage and pierced his heart, Sam thought.
The sirens drew nearer.
She heard Harv’s loud, bellowing voice, cursing at his captors, coming from the room at the far end of the hallway. Some of them must have returned to the room from the warehouse floor, undoubtedly alarmed by the gunfire. This is turning into a completely disaster.
She fired a fourth shot into the supine agent, whose writhing had presented her with a head shot. It struck home, scattering the man’s thoughts all over the floor.
“Cover!” she shouted to Dan, then sprinted to the dead agent’s corpse. She wasn’t expecting to find a photo ID, written outline of the nefarious plot, or map to a secret hideout — she was still convinced he was a pro, despite the quick end to the engagement — but she had seen him with a cell phone earlier. Jacket pocket, she recalled as she skidded to a stop in front of his body, floor slick with the sweet, metallic fluid still pouring out in rhythmic gushes. The rest of his body evidently wasn’t finished dying.
She shoved her hand inside his pocket, fished around until her hand grasped the phone, and jerked it free just as the hallway became bathed in fluorescent light. Someone had turned the lights on, and it probably wasn’t Dan. She turned, still crouched, and started toward the exit door.
Her foot slipped in the dead man’s gore, and she fell forward onto the concrete. Her hands pounded the floor painfully. Sonuvabitch. Her handgun crushed the fingers on her right hand, and the confiscated cell phone shattered in her left.
Another deafening roar filled the small hallway. Dan had fired again. Sam rolled onto her back and raised her pistol in the direction of the far room, and her eyes focused just in time to watch another wounded man fall to the floor. Dan’s shot had found its mark.
She felt a vise-like grip on her left arm. Before she could protest, she felt herself being dragged backwards across the concrete toward the exit. She glanced upward to see Dan’s thick legs pumping, his pistol raised and pointed down the hallway.
Her ears were ringing horribly from the gun blasts in the confined space, but she could plainly hear the sirens converging on the warehouse building. She scrambled to her feet, shoved what remained of the dead man’s crushed cell phone into her pocket, and followed Dan out the side door of the warehouse.
Brock had the engine running. Dan dove into the backseat, forcibly moving their remaining DIS prisoner over to the far side of the car, and Sam rode shotgun. “Away from the sirens, please,” Sam said, out of breath.
Brock threw the car into reverse and backed out of the narrow alleyway, spinning the wheel to right the car in the direction of the one-way traffic at the alley’s exit. “I figured the gunshots meant a slight change in plans,” Brock deadpanned, accelerating into traffic and maneuvering to take the first available turn away from the downtown district.
“We no longer want to have a conversation with the locals,” Sam said. “At least not while they can take evidence from us.”
“What about Harv and Trojan?” Brock asked.
Sam looked out the back window. No followers that she could detect. “They’re still at the top of our agenda. But we still have to trust the DIS hostage team to get them out safely, along with Rojas and Alejandro.”
“So hope is our course of action,” Brock observed, cutting off traffic to turn south, eliciting an angry honk in the process.
“Always was,” Sam said, suddenly annoyed. “We had to hope that the suits in DC could put a decent plan together, or hope that Dan and I could shoot our way through a warehouse full of assholes, or hope that the DIS hostage rescue team has a good day. The last option seemed like the best of the shitty odds.”
“You don’t have to sell us,” Dan said with a smile. “We’ve already rolled our dice.”
Sam exhaled. She allowed a small smile. “Thanks for playing along. But there’s a lot more gambling left, I’m afraid.”
She pointed her finger out the window. “Take the next left.”
Brock complied. He rounded the corner at a moderately unreasonable speed. “Earlier, you asked Rojas if he was ready to make history. What did you mean?”
“Far as I know,” Sam said, “this was the only time anyone has ever broken into a hostage situation to add hostages.”
Brock chuckled. “Nice.” He changed lanes to dodge a beat-up pickup truck that pulled out into traffic.
“There.” Sam pointed to a gas station. “Pull in, if you can.”
Brock screeched the tires and made an abrupt turn into the gas station parking lot.
“Pull up next to the men’s room entrance, on the side of the building,” Sam said.
Brock brought the DIS sedan to a halt, its passenger door adjacent to the outdoor entrance of the restroom.
Sam handed her pistol to Brock. “I’m sorry, baby, but I need you to babysit our goon.”
Brock had almost forgotten about the third DIS agent, still sitting glumly in the back of the car with his arms and legs bound together. “You’re shitting me.”
“No, but you’re on the right track. I need you to lock yourselves in the bathroom until we get back.”
Brock looked at the dilapidated, disgusting restroom. “I love you,” he said. “But no way.”
“Unless you have a DHS badge that I don’t know about, you can’t be part of our little charade. And I’m not ready to give up the leverage by setting him loose.”
Brock gritted his teeth.
Sam rubbed his leg. “I’ll make it up to you in spades.”
He smiled. “Deal. But why did you hand me your gun? Won’t you need it?”
“It shot some bullets that are lodged in a dead guy they’re about to discover. I’d prefer that nobody in the Costa Rican government has a chance to run any forensics on it.”
“Won’t you need one for yourself?” he asked.
Sam lifted her right pants leg, exposing a holster. She pulled out her reserve pistol, chambered a round, and set the safety. “I’ll just use this one.”
She put her hand into her pocket and collected all the shards of the dead man’s cell phone, then handed them to Brock. “Please hang onto this, too. Best that we keep all the details of our first visit to the warehouse just between us.”
They removed Rojas’ compatriot from the sedan and perched him on the toilet in the restroom. Brock locked the door from the inside after Sam and Dan left the small latrine, and Sam ensured the bathroom was inaccessible from the outside.
They climbed back into the car, and Sam chirped the tires as she drove away. “I hope the whol
e thing isn’t over already,” she said, rounding the corner and heading back north toward the warehouse they’d left just minutes before.
“I doubt it,” Dan said. “The hostage team is probably still getting their bearings.”
Sam ran a red light, angered a few Costa Ricans, and nearly clipped the curb as she turned left onto the thoroughfare that ran in front of the warehouse. “Except that someone probably reported the gunshots from earlier.”
“Good point. That will probably expedite the proceedings.”
Sam pulled to a stop in front of the warehouse next to a black DIS sedan with police lights embedded in its grille. Four police cruisers were also on the scene, and a crowd of gawkers had gathered.
She opened the door before the car had fully stopped, her Homeland badge held high. She jumped out of the car and walked quickly to the first official-looking guy she could find, Dan in tow. “Special Agent Sam Jameson,” she said. “I heard that two of my people might be hostages. How can we help?”
20
Sabot’s head pounded. The pain was intense, unrelenting. Nausea struck. He rolled over in bed, kicked the covers aside, and retched. There was nothing in his stomach, and his innards cramped in a painful contraction. The exertion amplified the pain in his head. He curled into a ball, used the bedcovers to wipe the snot, bile, and tears from his face, and moaned in quiet misery.
He closed his eyes, but the feeling of vertigo became overpowering. He opened them again to stop the room from spinning. It was if he was suffering the combined effects of a hangover and a blow to the skull.
He gingerly touched the back of his head, and winced to discover a golf-ball-sized knot, complete with a bloody gash where the blow had broken the skin.
So at least one of the crazy dreams had been true. Someone had clocked him in the back of his gourd.
How about the other dreams? He looked at his wrists. One was chafed, bloody. The other was normal. Had he really been chained to a wall and doused with freezing water? Seemed probable.
Had he really had oral sex with the fetching guard, Marisela? Seemed less likely, given the way he remembered the episode — both hands chained against the wall, both wrists bloody afterward.
He looked around. Was he in a hotel? Nondescript quasi-art on the walls, clean white linens on the bed, television bolted to the dresser. A doorway led to what looked like a bathroom. Light spilled in from behind paisley curtains. Where the hell am I?
Sabot marshaled his strength. Gritting his teeth, he sat upright. A fresh wave of pain shot through his battered head, and his stomach threatened further jihad. Breathe. He hoisted himself upright, leaning on the night table. Through the fog of his pain and nausea, he vaguely registered that there was no telephone beside the bed.
He staggered to the bathroom. Used towels were strewn on the floor. A woman’s cosmetics bag sat perched on the edge of the bathroom countertop, and various items were strewn about. Whose stuff was this?
Sabot turned on the faucet. Cold water poured out. He cupped his hands beneath the stream, leaned forward with his elbows on the counter for support, and splashed the cold water on his face. Washing his face this way had always felt like clarity to him, like a re-acquaintance with cold, hard reality in a no-bullshit way. The starkness was refreshing, and his pain and nausea momentarily abated.
But there was no clarity, and he deemed any and all of his notions regarding reality as highly tenuous until proven otherwise. There were simply too many strange images floating around in his head. It felt as if he had existed in a dreamlike state for the better part of a week, and a part of his psyche wondered whether he would be able to fully participate in the real world again, after things got back to normal.
What things? And how were they going to get back to normal? The question led him full-circle: where the hell am I, and what am I doing here?
Sabot dried his face on a hand towel. It was damp, as if it had already been used. And who the hell is here with me?
He heard a door open, then shut, and heard footsteps. Something else, too. The creaking of a pushcart, its wheels in need of grease.
“Who’s there?” His voice was much softer than he had intended, yet the exertion sent a flash of searing pain through his aching skull. He became fully aware for the first time that he was completely naked. He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around himself.
The cart creaked closer. “Who’s there?” Sabot repeated.
“Señor Mondragon.” The voice was deep, gravelly, and familiar. Dread settled like lead in Sabot’s stomach, and adrenaline surged. He walked gingerly from the bathroom, one hand securing the towel around his waist, the other pressed against the wall to steady himself.
Sabot peered across the bedroom. A man stood in the doorway. He was small and slight, had close-cropped, ghost-white hair, and wore a button-down shirt, slacks, and a physician’s smock. Sabot’s eyes focused on the man’s face. Sonuvabitch, this can’t be happening.
“I am Doctor Terencio Manuel Zelaya,” the man said. “You have been assigned as my patient. I am here to check up on you.”
Panic struck. Sabot looked around, frantically searching for anything he could use as a weapon. “You’re no goddamned doctor!” His heart raced.
“Señor Mondragon, you are not well,” Zelaya said. “I am indeed a doctor, and I am here to help you.”
Sabot’s head swum. Reality seemed to be receding again. He found it hard to focus. Get out of here, urged a voice inside his head.
His hand gripped a table lamp. He brandished it, yanking the cord from the wall and knocking over a plastic vase full of fake flowers. “Where’s Angie? What the hell have you done with her?”
“Señor Mondragon, please relax. May I call you Domingo? I am here to help you feel more settled and less anxious.”
“The hell you are! Last time you were trying to get me to sign a confession. And the time before that you told me how you planned to torture me.”
Zelaya smiled sympathetically. “Your medications have unfortunately worn off. Your anxiety has returned. It is accompanied by psychotic episodes and occasional paranoia with hallucinations. These things happen from time to time. Now, if you’ll kindly set the lamp down, I would be happy to administer the appropriate dosage to set your mind at ease again.”
Can this be true? He was certainly having some crazy dreams. Sabot looked again at the short, slight man in physician’s garb. The man looked distinguished, educated, confident, all common attributes in the medical profession. And Sabot’s confidence in his own sense of reality was shaky at best.
“That’s right, Domingo. Just take it easy,” Zelaya said, his voice remarkably soothing. “We’ll have you back to normal in no time.” The man reached into the pocket of his lab coat and produced a syringe.
The motion — the man’s hand reaching into the pocket of the lab coat — struck a chord of recognition deep in Sabot’s mind. He didn’t know how or why he knew it, but he suddenly knew that his life was in danger.
Sabot charged Zelaya, lamp swinging wildly, feral yell spilling from his hoarse throat.
With uncommon quickness, Zelaya reached into the medicinal cart, then raised his hand up toward Sabot. As Sabot’s wobbly legs closed the distance between them, he recognized a dark, sinister shape in the old man’s hand. Gun. He’s going to shoot me.
Sabot leaped the remaining distance, hurling the lamp at Zelaya.
Zelaya raised his free arm in time to deflect the flying lamp from hitting his face. He recovered his balance and raised the pistol again.
But Sabot was on him, arms and legs flailing wildly. Zelaya backed away to gain fighting separation, but Sabot kept coming, all fists and kneecaps, somehow preventing Zelaya from firing the gun.
One of Sabot’s wild swings connected with Zelaya’s sternum. The blow resounded like a bass drum, and Sabot heard the wind escape the small white-haired man’s chest.
Sabot took advantage of his good fortune. He brought his fist down on Zelaya’s ar
m, sending the pistol clattering to the floor.
Zelaya lunged for the pistol on the floor. Sabot raised his knee violently. It struck Zelaya in the face. The white-haired man collapsed in a heap on the floor, his mouth a bloody mess. Lights out, you sonuvabitch.
Sabot’s head swum, his legs wobbled beneath him, and his breath came in gasps and spasms.
But he wasn’t done.
He grabbed the pistol from the floor, looped his finger through the trigger guard, brought the sights to his eye, and filled the aiming reticle with Zelaya’s chest.
“For Angie,” he said. He squeezed the trigger.
21
Against his better judgment, and against Protégé’s stern advice, Archive watched the presidential address broadcast on television. It was filled with the usual bullshit rhetoric — we will hunt down the terrorists who have perpetrated these crimes against our way of life, who are envious of our freedom and therefore hate us for it, who have committed these cowardly acts of violence that have robbed us of the fruits of our labors, and so forth.
Robbery? Who had really been robbed? What the president didn’t mention was the obvious: if the banking system had been destroyed, all of the debts of individual Americans had effectively been erased. It was as if they had never existed. Sure, those mortgage banks whose databases survived the cyber attack might still send mortgage bills. But the bills were payable in a worthless currency, and the scale of the default would be too massive to enforce any consequences for nonpayment.
Unless…
“As you know,” the president intoned, “I have called on the men and women of our National Guard to help restore peace and order. Tonight, it is my duty to announce that I have instituted a zero tolerance policy for looting, violence against persons and property, and non-payment of lawful debts.”
Protégé looked incredulous. “Lawful debts? What the hell?”
A dark cloud fell over Archive’s face. “The banks have found a way to buy the government again.”
The Essential Sam Jameson / Peter Kittredge Box Set: SEVEN bestsellers from international sensation Lars Emmerich Page 174