by Lynn Mason
A sudden thought occurred to her. The bracelet! What if Sandoval found it? It could tip him off that she was a spy. Slowly and steadily, so as not to jerk her upper body, she stretched out the fingers of her right hand along her opposite wrist until they hit the cool, hard metal of the arm cuff. Thank god it was still there! She slid her index finger along the silver band and found that the two remaining stones were intact.
Suddenly she felt the guitar strings give slightly. A trill of optimism buzzed through her body, easing her headache and filling her with new strength. As subtly as possible, she began twisting her wrists back and forth, rejoicing as the tension gradually fell slack.
Sandoval continued to stare at her scornfully. “Jou see, Claire. I have a problem,” he said gravely. He pulled up a chair and sat down facing her. “Jou could be telling the truth, but I don't know for sure. But . . . I have a way to tell, I think.” He reached down into his boot and pulled out a long, shiny dagger with a hilt of ornately carved ivory.
“Is beautiful, no?” he asked, waving the knife in front of her face. “I got it in the Sudan while I do business there. I had it made especial.”
Sydney's eyes grew wide as the razor-sharp tip circled her nose, cheeks, and chin. The man's a psycho! she cried inwardly. I've got to do something, and soon. Otherwise—
“If jou scream, it's okay,” he said matter-of-factly. “No one is here. The people who own this building are my comrades. They let me use it for my work. And that man I was with? He is gone too. My business with him is finished. Now, I have business with jou,” he muttered, leaning forward with a cruel smirk. “Jou will tell me who jou work for, and I will be gentle. Or”—he slowly swiped the flat side of the blade against her throat—“jou will not tell me, and I will be very harsh.”
Sydney swallowed as the knife continued to slide along her gullet. An intense fear was brewing in the darkness of her mind, but she pushed it back as far as it could go. Freaking out would only make things worse. Instead of meeting Sandoval's sinister gaze, she stared up at the ceiling tiles, the bone white fluorescent light tubes, and the dust-caked air-conditioning vent. Meanwhile, she wriggled her hands as fast as she could.
“What is wrong? Jou not going to answer, eh?” Sandoval laughed darkly, and she could feel his warm breath on her face and neck. “Okay,” he said, sitting back and shrugging with the knife in his hand. “I guess we do it harsh.”
Just then, her bindings gave way. Sydney tensed her body. This was it. She had to do something—now.
With one swift movement, she kicked out her left foot against his right arm. He crumpled slightly, dropping the knife. “If that's how you want it,” she hissed. Then she grabbed the loose guitar strings and whipped them across his face as hard as she could. Sandoval cried out and fell backward.
Leaping from her chair, Sydney ran for the door, snatching the dagger as she went. She raced down the meandering corridors, her hair flying out behind her, trying to remember the path Roland and the others had led her down. Behind her, she could hear Sandoval's shouts echoing as he chased her.
Finally, the heavy steel door loomed in front of her. Sydney sprinted forward and threw her weight against it. But it didn't budge. Just like before, it was locked tight.
Sandoval's footsteps were now approaching down the passage. Whirling around, Sydney ducked through a nearby doorway and ran as fast as she could along the dim, cluttered corridor. There seemed to be no way out. In desperation, Sydney pushed down stacks of crates and knocked over spools of wiring, hoping to slow Sandoval's pursuit.
She was deep in the bowels of the arena. Sandoval had been right about the place being empty. Her only hope was to elude him long enough to find an unlocked exit, or until help arrived.
But who would come for me? she wondered as tears stung her eyes.
SD-6 were the only ones who knew where she was, and from the looks of things, she was on her own. And if she stayed out all night, Francie would only assume the party had gone terrifically well. She wouldn't worry for another several hours.
Come on, Syd, she ordered herself. Get it together.
The passage intersected with another, and Sydney took it. This one was slightly brighter, but much more cluttered. And as she ran, the ceiling seemed to slope lower and lower. I must be under the stage, she thought, stooping slightly. The place was a veritable obstacle course—a grid of steel supports littered with breaker boxes, the metal shells of unused spotlights, and long, snakelike cabling. Sydney carefully made her way through the debris, ducking under beams and sidestepping spaghetti-like piles of wire. She moved as soundlessly as possible, hoping Sandoval hadn't made the turn and was now dozens of yards down the other corridor.
A rattling noise sounded behind her. “Mierda!” Sandoval had followed. But at least his height seemed to be hampering him. Sydney mentally patted herself on the back for having taken off her boots.
“I know jou are here,” he sang out sadistically. “I will find jou, chica.”
A burning anger raged inside her. Sydney resisted the urge to shout back, cursing him in the worst words she knew in five languages. But a voice in her head, which sounded amazingly like Yoav's, told her to stay quiet—to board up her emotions and focus.
The ceiling was now no more than four feet above the floor. Crouching further, Sydney sidled around a large wooden crate and came upon what looked like a small metal-gated elevator. The trapdoors! If she could ride one up to the stage, she could easily find her way out of the building. But where was the control panel? Her eyes followed a thick black power cord. It coiled into a shadowy three-foot-square crawl space directly in front of her.
Sydney dropped to her knees and crept forward. The space was dark and filthy and she kept scraping her elbows against the sharp joists of the stage's metal skeleton. Finally, the cable led her to a small black control box.
Excellent. Now all she had to do was pull it closer to the lift, activate it, and hop on before it pushed its way up through the stage. Clenching Sandoval's dagger between her teeth, she began to drag the power box by its cable back toward the platform. She was almost a foot away when a tall figure suddenly clambered into view.
“I told jou there was no escape,” Sandoval hissed.
Sydney dropped the control box and snatched the dagger from her mouth, holding it straight out in front of her.
Sandoval let out a chuckle. Then he reached into his other boot and pulled out a small gun. “Jou think jou can stop me now?” he asked. He leaned casually against a steel girder, waving the weapon lazily in her direction. “I'd like to see that.”
Sydney froze, staring into the shiny chrome muzzle of the gun. A 9-millimeter Ruger, she surmised. During the past several months she'd learned all about weapons. Their makes and models. How to load, shoot, and clean them. Even how to conceal them on her body. But Pilar had left out one crucial thing: how it felt when one was pointed directly at you.
She was vaguely aware of Sandoval muttering something, but she couldn't stop staring at the gun. She had somehow moved beyond fear into a detached, self-absorbed stupor. Was this how her life would end? A lot of good those months of training had done her. She knew she should be able to find a way out of this. But then fear slid down her throat, forming a cold, hard ball in the pit of her stomach, preventing her from moving. Speaking. Breathing. And only one thought kept echoing in her panicked brain.
I'm nineteen. And I'm going to die. . . .
“Now,” Sandoval said, cocking the gun and correcting his aim, “jou will tell me who sent jou . . . or die.”
A fog lifted off her. Sydney broke her gaze from the weapon and stared right into Sandoval's face. Her hand holding the knife was still raised. In a flash she brought it down and severed the power cable on the nearby breaker box. A searing pain ripped through her hands, but she somehow managed to grab the sparking end and hurl it against the steel beam Sandoval was leaning against.
There was an explosion of sparks and smoke, and a sound like rippin
g sheets filled the air. Sydney curled into a ball, shielding her head with her aching hands. And then all was silent. She looked up in time to see Sandoval slump forward onto the cement floor. Jets of steam rose from his back, giving off a sickening burning stench.
Sydney collapsed backward, her body wracked with deep, shuddering gasps. Everything that had happened at the arena slammed into her with the force of a Mack truck.
She had just killed somebody.
There had been no other choice.
For a long time she sat there, staring at Sandoval's sprawled form with a mixture of awe and horror and relief. The shorn end of the power cable jetted forth an occasional ember, like the last kernels of popping corn.
Then Sydney wiped her eyes and struggled to her feet. She made her way to another trapdoor platform and activated the switch. There came a whir of hydraulics, and then she was rising through the stage into the dark, noiseless arena.
She was free.
12
TEN MINUTES LATER, SYDNEY was running full speed down the sidewalk that skirted the concert hall. She had to call someone. But who? She was way too emotional to call Francie. And she didn't want to call Wilson, either. Obviously she must not be too important to SD-6 if they were willing to throw her into Sandoval's sweaty clutches without even preparing her.
Maybe she should call the cops. But if she did that, she could blow her cover with the agency and risk everyone involved. And that was if they even believed her. The truth was, they might very well see her as a murderer.
Because I killed someone, she screamed inwardly, a sharp twisting sensation wrenching her gut. I actually killed someone!
Or did she? What if Sandoval was only critically injured? She hadn't checked his pulse. For all she knew he was still alive. Whether he was a maniac or not, she should at least see that he got help . . . right?
She rounded the corner and flew down the wide concrete steps to the parking lot. In the distance she could see a row of pay phones under the bug-infested light of the streetlamp. Maybe by the time she reached them, she'd know who to call.
Suddenly, as Sydney stepped off the curb, a large van screeched to life from the cover of a dark alley.
There was no time to think who or why or what. Sydney put on a burst of speed and headed for a thicket of nearby trees. The van squealed to a stop behind her. She heard the sound of running feet. A few seconds later she was tackled to the grass. She kicked backward and jabbed with her elbows, but her arms and legs were held fast. She struggled. It got her nowhere. Two men in black ski masks carried her to the van and threw her unceremoniously into the back.
One of the men shut the double doors and then jumped into the passenger seat. “We got her. Go!” he barked out to an unseen driver. The other attacker crouched over her, holding down her wrists and kneeling on her thighs.
With an angry grunt, Sydney tried to head butt her assailant.
“Whoa. Calm down,” the man said. “It's us.” Keeping an elbow on her forearm, he reached up and ripped off his ski mask.
And Sydney found herself face to face with the nameless SD-6 hunk.
“My god. What happened to you?” he asked, his gaze traveling from her bruised face to her scorched fingers on down to her dirt-streaked bare feet.
For a moment Sydney couldn't answer. Then a sudden burst of anger exploded from inside her.
“What do you mean, ‘What happened'?” she yelled, struggling to a sitting position in the rocky van. “I was tied up and threatened with a gun! I was at the mercy of a lunatic! A lunatic you guys sent me to see!”
The guy stared at her for a moment, his eyebrows knitting up in a look of . . . what? Concern? Annoyance? For some reason, Sydney couldn't quite pin it down.
He reached over and pulled the bracelet from her arm. “Aha,” he said, turning it over in his hand. “That explains it.”
“What?” Sydney snapped. “Your precious pictures are all there, if that's what you're looking for.” There was no disguising the self-pity in her voice. She couldn't help it. It hurt to think that the agency was more worried about getting photos of a shady rock star than about keeping her safe. She'd thought they valued her. More than that, she'd thought they cared.
The guy let out a long, loud sigh. For a moment he just kneeled there, watching her, nodding slowly as if trying to make up his mind about something.
“Okay, listen,” he said finally. “We're heading to SD-6 now for a debriefing, but I might as well tell you what was going on tonight. I think you deserve to know.”
“I think so too,” she said, lifting her chin defiantly.
The guy sat down beside her and ran a hand through his scruffy brown locks. “The truth is,” he began, “the concert wasn't just a perk, as you were led to believe.”
“Duh,” she snapped irritably. She realized she sounded like a pouty kid, but she didn't care. Her hands hurt, her head ached, and the rest of her body felt as if it had been shoved through a mulcher. All she wanted was an explanation. A good one.
A wry grin breezed across his face and then vanished. “This whole thing,” he mumbled, leaning toward her, “was just a test.”
“A test?”
He nodded. “To see how capable you would be at handling a mission. And I've gotta say,” he added, shaking his head, “I think you passed with flying colors.”
Sydney pressed her fingers against her forehead. “But I don't understand. Are you saying this wasn't real?”
“Oh, it was real, all right. We've suspected for some time that Sandoval was selling information, using his status to gain entry into all sorts of countries. Unfortunately, he was also heavily guarded at all times and none of us had been able to get near him. But we did know he had one weakness—women.”
“So . . . you used me as bait?” Sydney asked, scowling.
“Not exactly,” the guy replied, propping his foot on the wheel well. “All SD-6 wanted was for you to go in and get close. Gather information. But they didn't want to tell you since you're not on full agent status yet. They were afraid if you knew, your behavior might inadvertently tip him off. First missions can be a killer.”
“No kidding! Thanks to you guys, that's how I almost ended up!” She closed her eyes and sighed shakily. “Is Sandoval dead?”
He grimaced. “We'll find out soon enough. If he is, it's no loss to the world. Believe me.”
“Why didn't they at least send some other people in to protect me?” Sydney whispered.
His eyebrows raised. “They did. There were agents in the arena who saw you go backstage, and we were outside in the van on electronic surveillance. We were tracking you through most of it, ready to extract you afterward, but we lost the signal during the concert.”
“The signal?” she repeated quizzically.
He held up the bracelet and pointed to the empty socket where the green stone used to be. “The tracking device we'd planted somehow popped off into the pocket of another concertgoer, and we ended up following a couple from the Valley for forty minutes before we realized our mistake.”
Sydney's mouth fell open. Her eyes blinked rapidly as a rush of thoughts and emotions crowded her mind. So they had been looking out for her. She really did matter. . . .
“I'm Noah, by the way,” the guy said, thrusting out his hand. “Noah Hicks.”
“Sydney Bristow,” she replied distractedly. She reached out to grasp his palm and immediately cried out in pain.
“Sorry,” he exclaimed, releasing his grip. He took her right hand in both of his and opened it gingerly. “Ouch. That looks bad. What happened?”
“It's a long story,” she replied wearily. She watched his face as he bent over her injury. For the first time, she was able to really see him up close. A renegade lock of hair was hanging down the middle of his creased forehead. His high, chiseled cheekbones quivered slightly as he pursed his lips. And there was a slight crook in his nose, making her wonder how many times it had been broken and how. Suddenly, her hands didn't hurt qu
ite as badly anymore.
“Don't worry. We'll get you some help,” he said, meeting her gaze. He leaned forward and called out to the driver, “How far away are we from HQ?”
“We're pulling into the garage right now,” the driver replied.
“It'll be okay,” Noah said, turning back toward her. “SD-6 has doctors on call at all times.” Then he raised his hand and gently pushed her hair off her face.
Sydney sucked in her breath. A tingling sensation ran through her.
“Looks like you also got a nasty blow to the head,” he said, frowning at her temple. “You'll want them to take a look at that.”
Sydney deflated slightly, feeling incredibly silly. Stop fantasizing, she scolded herself. The guy is just doing his job. It's not like it meant anything.
Or did it? After all, didn't the manual say something about the significance of face and hand touching?
13
“OKAY. TELL ME AGAIN. So Sigmund Freud's cigar caught Marilyn Monroe's fur stole on fire, and you just decided to grab it with your bare hands and throw it into the swimming pool?” Francie's round eyes blinked in astonishment. “And you say you weren't drunk?”
Sydney shrugged sheepishly. “I know, I know. It was stupid.”
Her story was pretty stupid. But it was the best she could come up with when she stumbled back into their dorm room, in bandages, twenty hours after she had left for the concert, and found Francie in near hysterics.
“Man, that must have been some party,” Francie declared, shaking her head. “What a night. Terwilliger lets me out early. You get seriously burned. Jeez, is the world coming to an end or what?”
Sydney continued to sip her Dr Pepper, afraid to answer the question.
“So what about that guy you were checking out?” Francie asked, reverting to her typically bubbly self. “How did that go?”
“Oh, um . . . that was a bust. He turned out to be a real slimeball.”