Beneath the Surface

by Meredith Fletcher

  The harsh crack of a high-powered rifle drew Rafe up short. He’d been trotting down the street, knowing that most onlookers wouldn’t question a man moving quickly through the driving rain.

  Now he ran past the dark bulk of the Tin Hau Temple that was one of the centerpieces of the small town. A lightning flash tore through the shadows and revealed the red paint, dark as blood in the night, that colored the front of the temple.

  Xiaoming paced him easily, and for a crazy minute Rafe wondered if he was holding her back. His knee throbbed, but the strength didn’t fade. Some of the old fear came railing back at him, though. If it came apart on him—

  Don’t think about that, he ordered himself. Hold it together yourself. Will it to stay together.

  He ran, blinking against the harsh slaps of the rain that tore at his face. His breath burned in his lungs and turned gray against the coolness of the storm.

  “Where is she?” he asked.

  “Ahead,” Allison replied. “On the right.”

  Rafe looked and spotted the restaurant. Neon signs advertised beer and wine and that the business was open. A weathered sign held the name The Mizzen.

  “Can you tell where she is inside?” Rafe asked.

  “No.” Allison cursed. “I just lost her. The phone connection ended.”

  The rifle cracked twice more.

  “Eyes,” Rafe said.

  “Yes,” Hua responded.

  “Find that shooter.”

  The woman’s voice was uninflected and unhurried, both good traits for a sniper. “I will.”

  Rafe reached the door at the same time Xiaoming did. They fell into place on either side of it. Both of them had their pistols out.

  Another rifle shot punctuated the night.

  A man crashed through the restaurant’s doors.

  Rafe stepped in front of the man and stopped him with a hard, flat hand to the chest.

  “Don’t shoot!” the man pleaded in English. “For God’s sake, don’t shoot!”

  Knowing that the man was just a patron and scared out of his wits, Rafe fisted the man’s shirt and pulled him forward to get him into motion again.

  “Go!” Rafe ordered.

  By then a veritable torrent of people cascaded from the restaurant, driving Rafe and Xiaoming backward.

  Shannon rolled across the floor as two more bullets ploughed splinters from the wood surface. They missed her by inches. She came to a stop under the window the sniper was shooting through. Jagged pieces of glass tumbled down onto her, mixing with the rain that now drummed into the room, as well.

  Only a few feet away, Dr. Chow Bao lay sprawled in death.

  Get up! Get moving! Shannon screamed at herself, but she was frozen. Then she remembered to breathe. After that, she remembered the Athena Academy training she’d been given.

  While at the school, students learned a lot of things, but most of all they learned how to survive. Although she had never and would never want to, Shannon knew how to live off the land and find water.

  She also knew how to handle herself in high-pressure situations. And this was definitely high-pressure.

  The door was ten feet away. The distance wasn’t impossible.

  But all it took was one bullet.

  Yells and screams from the dining room below invaded the room.

  If you stay here, they’re going to trap you. Taking another quick breath, Shannon pushed herself into motion and threw herself across the room. At the last minute she threw herself down into a baseball slide and shot through the door.

  Two bullets chopped into the door frame only inches above her head.

  The floor was slick enough that she slammed into the wall and knocked the breath from her lungs. She also hit her head. Black spots danced in her vision.

  Another bullet stuck the wall and kicked splinters over her face. She threw herself forward, landed on the floor once, then pushed herself to her feet just in time to start running down the stairs.

  The lower dining room was in total chaos. Diners were torn between running and hiding.

  Three black-uniformed men with assault rifles came through the kitchen area. One of them pointed at Shannon. When red flared through her vision, she knew the laser sights of one of the weapons had swung across her eyes.

  She ducked, and bullets tore into the wooden railing of the stairs.

  Chapter 25

  F inally, through the confusion of people abandoning the restaurant, Rafe spotted Shannon taking cover on the stairwell. A laser light flashed across her forehead. She flattened against the stairs as a hail of bullets struck the railing.

  Spotting the three men in black uniforms on the other side of the dining room, Rafe raised his pistol in both hands and snap-fired, operating on instinct, training and experience.

  His bullets knocked one of the men down before they even knew he was there. He shifted his aim to the second man, aiming for center mass and not trying to be selective about his target.

  The man wheeled toward him and raked a spray of bullets around the room that vectored on Rafe’s position. Despite the threat, Rafe stayed locked on target and kept firing. His bullets slammed into the man’s chest.

  The shooter locked up, then dropped.

  Rafe shifted to the third man, fired once and missed and watched as the pistol slide blew back empty.

  “Move,” Xiaoming ordered.

  Rafe rolled to the side and abandoned his position. Xiaoming stepped into it and framed her arms into a triangle as naturally as drawing a breath. When she fired, the shooter’s head snapped back. Even at that distance, Rafe saw the small hole dotted perfectly between the man’s eyes.

  It was one of the coolest shots he’d ever seen in his life.

  Xiaoming tracked the pistol across the dining room, but there were no more targets.

  “Lucky?” Rafe asked as he reloaded his pistol. “Or are you that good?”

  “I’m that good,” Xiaoming replied without looking over her shoulder. “You did well.”

  “Nothing like that,” Rafe said. “You’ve got point. We get Shannon first.”

  “All right. Ready?”

  Rafe tripped the slide release and the pistol snapped back together. “Ready.”

  Xiaoming moved forward quickly. She kept her shoulders square, her knees bent and her seat dropped slightly to lower her center of gravity and provide a smoother gait.

  She definitely knew what she was doing.

  Rafe followed her toward the three men they’d dropped. The restaurant’s patrons, lying on the floor, hastily scrambled out of the way.

  Xiaoming reached down for one of the assault rifles and tossed it to Rafe. “Just like the video games,” she said. “Weapon upgrade.”

  Rafe checked the rifle’s action and magazine. When he nodded, Xiaoming picked up an assault rifle, as well. Then they divvied the magazines. Rafe shoved a fresh one into his weapon.

  Then he turned his attention to Shannon.

  Her eyes met his, then she fled back up the stairs.

  That was where the sniper was.

  “Eyes,” Rafe bellowed as he charged toward the stairs.

  “Yes,” Hua said.

  “Do you have that damned sniper in check yet?”

  “No.”

  Rafe pushed himself harder and tried to ignore the burning pain strafing his knee.

  Shannon knew she was trapped between a hard place and a rock. She didn’t know the three men that Rafe Santorini and his companion had killed, but she had no doubt that Rafe was there for her.

  She’d seen that much in his eyes.

  Upstairs, she also knew she might be fair game for the sniper that had killed Dr. Chow Bao. Still, she had a plan.

  She ran down the length of the hallway, not at all surprised when the sniper spotted her and started cracking shots in her direction. The second floor of the restaurant was lousy with windows.

  The ruby laser strobed in all directions. Windows shattered and bullets ripped gouges in the walls
.

  Shannon ran for all she was worth for the balcony overlooking the east side of the restaurant. Rafe had come in the front. The men in black had come in the rear. She hoped to split the difference.

  When she reached the balcony door, she flung it open. No one was outside, but she checked anyway. Whoever was out to get her, including Rafe, wasn’t holding back.

  A bullet cored through the door as she held it open. She felt the vibration and it jarred her into movement. She ran through the scattered tables and chairs and tried not to think about how far below the ground was.

  Shots hammered a table beside her and knocked over a chair.

  Shannon didn’t break stride as she placed her hands on the railing and vaulted over. For a moment, in the pelting rain and the howling winds of the storm, she was disoriented. But all the gymnastics training she’d had at the academy and in the martial arts dojos afterward came back to her.

  She went limp at the moment of contact and rolled through the landing to come up on her feet. Her hair was already wrecked, plastered to her head. She had to rake it out of her face. Even as she did, she saw the man step toward her with his assault rifle raised.

  He aimed the rifle butt at her face and she almost escaped it. The metal plate partially caught her forehead and drove her backward.

  Confident now, the man came at her. Dazed, Shannon gave ground before him. He lifted the rifle to take aim. There was nowhere to run.

  With a howl of inarticulate fear and rage, Shannon rushed the man, pushed the rifle aside with her left hand, kneed him in the crotch with her right leg, raked his face with the nails of her right hand, then head-butted him in the face. His nose snapped under the impact.

  Shannon ripped the rifle from the man’s grip and swung it like a bat. The buttstock slammed into the side of the man’s head. He tried to stay on his feet, but he stumbled with the effort. Shannon swung again. This time the rifle came apart in her hands.

  The man fell at her feet.

  And she saw two more black-uniformed men coming up quickly from the alley. She stood, chest heaving, and knew she wasn’t going to make it out of the alley alive.

  Liquid agony throbbed along Rafe’s knee as he powered up the steps. It lightened somewhat when he reached the second floor.

  At the landing he hesitated for just a moment, trying to figure out which way Shannon had gone.

  “To your right,” Hua said. “I took out the sniper.” Her voice sounded pained.

  Rafe raced to the right and heard Shannon yelling out beyond the balcony. At first he thought she’d tried to jump over the side and hurt herself in the fall. But when he reached the balcony railing, he was just in time to see her swing the rifle into her attacker.

  Then movement to Rafe’s left caught his eye. The two men materialized out of the darkness and raised their weapons.

  In a split second Rafe weighed his chances of taking out both gunners. They wouldn’t know he was there above them until it was too late. But he felt it would also be too late to save Shannon if he didn’t kill them immediately.

  He felt rather than saw Xiaoming closing in from behind him. It was all part of the battlefield awareness he’d developed over years of being in bad situations. He dropped the assault rifle as he threw himself over the balcony railing toward Shannon.

  “Two men to your left,” Rafe said as he dropped.

  Although he’d known the move was going to send screaming agony through his knee, Rafe was unprepared for the sheer brain-frying pain that ripped through his consciousness. For a minute he was afraid he was going to pass out. What made it even worse was landing on his feet instead of rolling out of the drop.

  But he landed and remained standing only a few feet in front of Shannon. He lurched forward one step, dragging the injured leg, then wrapped his arms around her before she could escape.

  Behind him, the two shooters opened fire. Hammer blows struck him. Something clipped the side of his head and he fell forward as he blacked out.

  Rafe’s dead weight almost crushed Shannon. She tried to get her breath and couldn’t. Beyond him, she watched as someone on top of the balcony fired down at the two men that had shot Rafe. Both men went down.

  Shannon struggled, wishing she had enough air in her lungs to tell Rafe that he could get up now, that the danger was past. But she couldn’t. When she noticed the still slackness of Rafe’s body, she couldn’t even vent the scream that filled the back of her throat.

  She managed to leverage one of Rafe’s shoulders up and slither free.

  The figure above her dropped lithely over the balcony’s side and landed as effortlessly as a cat. Lightning ripped the sky and revealed the woman’s features as she reloaded the rifle she carried.

  Panicked, scared and not wanting Rafe to be dead, Shannon tried to find the wounds in his back. If she could stop him from bleeding, he would have a chance.

  “That,” the woman with the rifle said, “has got to be one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen a guy do.”

  “It’s definitely in my personal top ten,” a young Chinese man with long hair said as he joined them.

  “Shut up and help me,” Shannon yelled. “He may still be alive.”

  “Oh, he’s still alive,” the woman said. “He was wearing a vest.”

  Shannon brought up her hand and showed them the blood that covered it. “He wasn’t wearing a vest on his head.”

  The woman tossed her rifle to the man and knelt down with Shannon. The woman took a penlight from her pocket and played it over Rafe. The right side of his head was a bloody mess.

  “It’s okay,” the woman said. “He’s still breathing. As long as he’s breathing, he’s going to be all right.”

  “Unless he’s got brain damage,” the man said.

  The woman glared up at him. “You’re not helping.”

  Self-consciously the man shrugged. “I’m just saying, is all.”

  “Transport,” the woman said. “I need you. East side of the restaurant.”

  Feeling helpless, not knowing exactly how she was supposed to feel, Shannon looked around. Several faces were pushed up against the restaurant’s windows.

  She knew she should run. She didn’t know what Rafe or these people with her now had orders to do. For all she knew, they were going to kill her at the first convenient opportunity.

  “If you run,” the woman said quietly, “we’re going to have to come after you. If we come after you, we may not be able to help Captain Santorini. Do you understand?”

  Shannon looked at the woman and nodded. Even if she could have gotten away, she found she couldn’t just leave him there. That surprised her almost as much as having Rafe throw himself from the balcony and use himself as a human shield.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Shannon said.

  It looked as though Allison and Athena Academy had won after all. Whatever secrets they were protecting were going to stay hidden.

  Chapter 26

  S hannon sat with Rafe in the dark underground room where the people he’d been with had taken him. He lay in bed for two days and never regained consciousness. After the first couple of hours, one of the men had started an IV feed.

  For the first day the people that had been with Rafe hadn’t bothered to introduce themselves. They largely ignored her and didn’t talk to her.

  When the woman entered the room to change the IV bag, she saw that she’d arrived early. Without a word, she sat with her back against one of the cinder-block walls with the bag in her lap. She was quiet and controlled.

  “Why are you keeping him here?” Shannon asked. “He needs a doctor.”

  The woman ignored her. A moment later the IV machine beeped and reminded Shannon of the sounds she’d heard during Kwan-Sook’s calls.

  The woman got up effortlessly and went to change the bag. When she was finished, she walked toward the door.

  Shannon stepped in her way.

  The woman regarded her. “You’re not big enough to stand there
.”

  “I want answers,” Shannon said.

  “You,” the woman said, “are lucky to be allowed to stay in this room. If I hadn’t seen Captain Santorini willing to sacrifice himself to save you, your presence here wouldn’t have been allowed.”

  “I don’t know why he did that.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “Look.” Although she tried not to let it happen, Shannon’s voice broke. “I…I just want to know that he’s going to be all right.”

  “Why do you care?”

  Shannon couldn’t answer that. She just kept thinking about how Rafe had been raised and how he’d put his life on the line since he’d met her.

  The woman started to leave.

  Shannon didn’t try to stop her. She couldn’t have anyway. The rest of the group were in the next room. They made sure she had plenty to eat and drink and they let her go to the bathroom, but her movements were restricted.

  The woman halted at the door and hesitated. “He’s going to be all right. He’s strong. He’s healthy. He’s just…resting.”

  “He needs to be in a hospital.”

  “He’s in this country illegally, Miss Connor. As are you. China is not the United States. They’re not as generous here. Given his background and who he really is, he could be shot as a spy. That’s why we don’t take him to the hospital.”

  “Can’t Allison get him out of here?”

  “I don’t know anyone named—”

  “Don’t,” Shannon interrupted. “Don’t lie to me. I know Allison Gracelyn is NSA and I know that Rafe worked with her. I don’t know what their interest is in me, but I know who they are.”

  The woman just looked at her.

  “Please,” Shannon said.

  The woman nodded. “If Allison could get Captain Santorini out of here, she would. But transporting him while unconscious and wounded would raise questions we’re not at this point ready to answer. Likewise, transporting him could be dangerous.”

  “I thought you said he was going to be all right.”

  “I believe he will be. But I don’t know everything.”