They would have night goggles, rendered slightly less effective because of the fires than they might have been, but a dash for the bedroom wouldn’t go unnoticed. Alisha slid the bar counter doors open slowly, silently and without conscious thought. A dozen bottles of alcohol lay knocked on their sides. Alisha shifted a bottle of vodka out, trying not to disturb the others, and used her shirt-wrapped hand to twist the stiff top off. The temptation to take a swig hit her so unexpectedly she found herself grinning as she shifted her feet under herself and prepared to stand.
One chance, Leesh.
Not a problem, she assured herself, and with smooth confidence surged to her feet, making herself a painfully visible form in the darkness for anyone wearing night goggles.
She swung her arm wide, spraying vodka in an arc across the room. A voice barked as she was noticed, and two figures, barely lit by the stench-ridden couch fire, whipped to face her.
The arc of alcohol splashed over the fire, and a sudden new burst of flame shot up. Bullets spattered, flying high as her assailants scrabbled to remove the blinding goggles. Alisha was in a dead run long before her conscious mind could send move! signals to her muscles, the bedroom door reached in a few desperate strides.
She came through the door in a roll, feeling her neck muscles protest again as she hit the floor at full speed. Agony seared along her belly as small bandages and tape pulled free, opening the cut again. Bullets whined above her head again, hitting the wall with puffs of dust. Tiny beads of plaster crumbled down the wall and came to rest in the carpet. They’d need to be cleaned up soon, Alisha thought distantly, or they’d be ground into the carpet and their chalk would be difficult to remove.
She came out of her roll at the head of the bed, hand sliding under the pillow for her gun. She popped up to her knees in one fluid movement, taking a precious second or two to track before squeezing the trigger.
There was only one Sicarii—they had to be Sicarii, Alisha thought—in the bedroom, no doubt intending to sneak up behind Alisha and Brandon, should they survive the initial explosion.
Brandon. In thirty seconds Alisha hadn’t spared a thought for him. Nor could she now, as she squeezed off three shots: center-center-head. There was no time for delicacy or disabling. The first bullet slammed into the mark’s shoulder, spinning him around. The second crashed into his spine, and the third missed as he dropped to the floor, the sudden stink of violent death permeating the room. Alisha ducked forward again into another roll, bringing herself back to the bedroom door.
Smoldering fires were alight everywhere now, the shrieking wind from the torn-out wall whipping acrid smoke through the room. There were three figures she could make out in her quick glimpses around the doorjamb, all of them with the telltale sleekness of operations clothing. Brandon wasn’t among them. Alisha gave a little nod, driving home that knowledge, then leaned around the door again to take another three quick shots. There were thirteen rounds in the fully loaded .45. She couldn’t afford to miss, nor did she. The second man went down even as Alisha launched herself out the door, seeking different cover and hoping the night goggles were as useless to her assailants as normal vision was to her.
Bullets shattered the wall she’d hidden behind, making her painfully aware of the difference between cover and concealment. A wall bullets could smash through so easily was only concealment; it would never protect her from those bullets.
The bar counter, made of solid, heavy wood, made much better cover. Alisha dove behind it, landing on her stomach and rolling to her back before she had time to catch a breath. No one approached in the brief moment it took to switch positions a second time, pressing her back against the cupboard she’d left open. A bottle of alcohol curved against her back, and the urge to open it and take a swig hit her again. Maybe later, if she got out of this alive. She’d deserve a drink, if she lived.
The concussion of bullets firing faded from her ears, letting the preternatural hearing that she relied on in combat settle into place. Even her own breathing fell silent, though she wasn’t sure if she’d stopped breathing, or if the sounds of her body had become so irrelevant as to be utterly ignorable.
The softest footsteps possible, the only thing to betray them the crunch of shattered glass grinding into the carpet. One to her left. Good, Alisha thought; that was her dominant side. An attack to her strength was always good.
And the other above her.
Alisha surged to her feet, turning as she straightened, and fired without taking time to find her targets. First shot to the left at center-mass height, and then as her twist brought her around to face the counter she brought her weapon up, firing toward the ceiling.
There was an instant of surprise visible on her assailant’s face before the kinetic force of the bullets knocked him backward off the counter. Alisha snapped back to her left, pulling the trigger again, but the third man was gone. She dropped to the floor and crept around the end of the bar, eyeing the body there. It moved, and she edged forward to get in position to pull the trigger again, or better still, keep him alive long enough to discuss the attack. Interrogation would have to wait a few minutes, if it was possible at all; her hearing rang with the sound of the shot she’d fired. But better to wait and question than to have no answers, she thought.
A gun pressed into the base of her skull. For the first time since the windows had exploded, emotion slid a cold knife of fear through Alisha’s belly. “You’re good,” a man said in lightly accented English. “Better than she said, even. But not good enough.”
Alisha’s shoulders rose in slow tension. “Who’s she? Where’d you come from?”
“The front door,” he admitted with a tiny shrug that shifted the gun against her skull. “Anticlimactic, but so effective.”
“Yeah.” Alisha heard the hoarseness in her own voice. She’d been so busy looking for enemies from the shattered windows she’d never looked behind her. “Good job.”
Surprising warmth came into the man’s light chuckle. “Do you think complimenting me will cause me to spare your life?”
“No,” Alisha said honestly. “But if somebody’s going to kill me, it’s nice that it wasn’t some jerk getting lucky.”
He stepped to her side without taking the gun away from her head. “I’ll pass your regards on to the appropriate persons,” he promised. “Say good night, Gracie.”
Alisha lifted her chin a little, staring across the wind-ripped room out into the wet Roman night. The fear in her belly was gone, replaced by silent expectation. It was good, she thought, not to be afraid. She even turned her head toward her murderer, feeling the gun’s muzzle press harder against her temple. She couldn’t quite see him as she looked up, his form slender and tall but unremarkable in the smoke. She took one last breath and exhaled it slowly, then gave a minute shrug and whispered, “Good night, Gracie.”
Brandon appeared out of the smoky mess like a war-torn god, barely on his feet but with the zeal of a madman in his eyes. He had no weapon, but raised his fists locked together in a hammer. Bone snapped in the Sicarii’s neck as the blow landed, weight of the hit smacking the man to the side. His gun fired, muzzle flare so close Alisha felt its heat across the bridge of her nose. The bullet drove into the floor just beyond her.
She jerked her gaze up, staring at Brandon in wide-eyed silence. He gave her a shaky smile in return, then said, “Damn,” and collapsed into the rubble on the floor.
Alisha lurched forward, too late to catch him in his fall. A cursory examination in the poor lighting suggested no bullet wounds, though his clothes were more badly damaged than Alisha’s, and his skin was littered with fragments of glass and larger scrapes. Except for his throat, there was no bruising yet visible, but as Alisha pulled his eyelids back to examine his pupils, she could feel the tenderness in his skin that said bruising would come soon, and badly. There was likely a Brandon-shaped dent in one of the walls.
And now there was pounding on the door, raised Italian voices full of concern. A
lisha left Brandon’s prone body in favor of examining the one Sicarii she thought was still alive. His breathing was shallow, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth; she’d put a bullet into his lung. Alisha swore and knotted her hands into his shirt, the close black fabric almost too slippery to grip. “Who sent you? Who’s ‘she’? Who are you working for?”
The man turned his focus on her with clear effort, then offered a faint, bloodstained smile as he rasped, “From the ashes comes the phoenix to destroy you.” His last breath was a coughing laugh before he became dead weight in Alisha’s hands.
“Goddamn it!” Alisha dropped him and straightened to deliver a kick to his ribs. Then she stepped over his body, ignoring the pounding on the door to return to the bedroom and lift and activate her earpiece. “This is Cardinal,” she snapped. “I have a situation in Rome. Four bodies and an agent is down, I repeat, an agent is down. Please send in authorities. Cardinal out.” She flicked the earpiece off and scooped up a bottle of alcohol, taking a long dredge without looking to see what it was. Whiskey burned down her throat, bringing tears to her eyes and somehow clearing her mind. Then, bottle in hand, she stalked out to deal with the hotel staff.
Only later did it strike her how she must have looked, confronting the terrified staff. Scraped and bloody, wearing nothing but a dusty, torn bra and half-shredded jeans, the remains of her shirt wrapped around her right hand and a bottle dangling from her fingertips. With smoke billowing and the wind in the room tangling her hair around her face, she might have been one of the dead answering the door.
But it lent her an air of authority, and no one balked or protested when she said it must have been a terrorist attack, and that an ambulance was needed. By the time the paramedics arrived she’d swept the room of anything Agency-owned, and walked down to the ambulance under her own power, taking the stairwell instead of the elevator in order to avoid any media that might have arrived. She joined Brandon in the ambulance and pulled an orderly’s vest over her torn clothing, then yanked the doors shut and pounded on the vehicle’s side to let the driver know they were ready.
A woman in the passenger seat turned to look back at her as Alisha made her way toward the cab of the ambulance. “Will he be all right?” The woman spoke American English, her accent tainted with transatlantic vowels.
“I’m not a doctor.” Soreness was catching up fast, and Alisha’s voice reflected her discomfort, though she took a slow breath and added, “I think so. Just banged up. A few days’ rest should do it. Who’re you?”
“My name is Susan Simone,” the woman said coolly. “You may have heard of me.”
“Shit.” Alisha took a better look at the woman, who was in her fifties and less aging gracefully than successfully fighting the battle. Her graying hair was tinted blond except at the temples, and her gaze was sharp and steady in the predawn streetlights. “Director Simone. Sorry.”
“I won’t hold it against you,” Simone said, still coolly, “as you’ve just been blown up.”
But don’t do it again. Alisha heard the warning as clearly as if it’d been spoken around, and ducked her head. “Thank you, ma’am. When I said send in authorities I didn’t think I’d be going all the way to the top.”
“The president is the top, Agent MacAleer. I’m merely a waypoint.”
Under the circumstances, Alisha thought, it was wiser to withhold the “Bullshit” that was her first response. She drew breath to say something else, but Simone continued on. “Your current alias will have to change. No one’s yet thought to ask who you are, but that will happen soon enough, especially when it becomes clear that the bodies in that room were not killed by an explosion.” She cast a glance at Brandon. “He’ll be brought to a private hospital. You, Agent MacAleer, will leave Rome immediately.”
“Director Simone—”
“Immediately, Agent MacAleer.”
Alisha pressed her lips together and lowered her chin to her chest. “Yes, ma’am.”
Chapter 10
“Cardinal, this is a bad idea.” Greg sounded tired over the staticky cell phone connection. “You’re under orders.”
“I want them countermanded.” Alisha had made it as far as the coast, miles outside of Rome, and stood on the roadside now, watching the sun rise over the Apennine Mountains. She’d been given new clothes, more ammo for her gun, all the things she’d need to leave not just Rome, but Europe, including a new passport. She flipped it open and held it up to the sunrise, studying the name. Karen Buckner, an American grad student traveling in Europe. Alisha closed the passport again and turned her attention back to the conversation. “I’m going back in, Kremlin. I’ve still got my mission to reacquire the Firebird’s black box, and Reichart was last seen in Rome.”
“Reichart.” Greg said the name through his teeth. “I’m more convinced than ever that you—”
“If Boyer takes me off the case I’ll step away.” Alisha put steel into her voice. “But I want it from him, Kremlin. I’m playing ball here. You want me to see somebody local for my shrink session? I’ll do it. I’d rather talk to Reyes, but I’ll do it. If I’m off this case, it’s Boyer who’s taking me off. He’s the one who agreed to put me on it.”
“And waltzing back into Rome after the European director’s thrown you out?”
Alisha shrugged without the slightest apology. “She said leave. She didn’t say anything about staying gone.”
“Not exactly the letter of the law, Cardinal.”
“Fuck the letter of the law, Greg.” Alisha turned in a tight circle, grinding earth under her heel. “I just got blown up. Your son’s in the hospital. Reichart’s got this Sicarii question to answer to, and even if he didn’t there’s the box, so excuse me if I’m not real goddamn concerned with the letter of the law.”
Long silence met her impassioned speech, before Greg sighed. “When did you develop this problem with authority, Ali?”
Right about the same time the authorities around me started looking like they might be working for the bad guys, Alisha thought. “I don’t know,” she said aloud. “Maybe you could suggest I talk it over with Dr. Reyes.”
“I will,” her handler said without a trace of humor. “Alisha, do not do anything foolish. I’ll call you back with Boyer’s decision within the hour.”
“Fine. I’ll be waiting.” Alisha hung up the phone and put it in her back pocket, then crouched to pick up the backpack of hiking gear and general supplies she’d been provided with. Rome was barely an hour’s walk away. She would be waiting. Just not where Greg expected her to be.
“Arrivederci.” Alisha’s curt goodbye was the first word she’d spoken since hanging up on Greg. She hadn’t even spoken to order coffee in the back-street café she’d entered on the edge of Rome. It was well past dawn now, though still far earlier than most European cities began to function at full speed. Not like New York or Los Angeles, Alisha thought. Not like D.C. Six a.m. meetings were the stuff of jokes in those cities, but their humor came from a thread of truth.
Prickles walked up her spine, a warning that someone approached from behind. She sat facing west, with the sunrise and open streets behind her, not because she wanted to, but because there was a pattern to be kept here. Her preference would have been the corner table in the little café, where she could watch people come and go without ever being approached unexpectedly. A chair scraped at the table behind her, then creaked with the weight of someone sitting in it. The muscles between Alisha’s shoulder blades tightened, but she didn’t turn.
“Arrivederci and hello,” the person behind her murmured. His English was heavily accented, even within just a word or two, though Alisha had heard him drop the accent and sound like he was from Nowhere, California, when the need arose.
“Carlos.” It was the name she’d last known him by. “It’s good to see you again.” She didn’t need to turn to see the man, her mind’s eye building the picture for her. He was in his late forties, maybe older, a corpulent man who built his business aro
und the reputed genial nature of fat people. It was a facade; Alisha had watched him put a massive hand over a man’s face and smother him, the cheery smile never slipping.
“Carlos, who is this Carlos?” he asked, another part of his ritual. Everything she’d done since entering the café, even the refusal to speak for over an hour and her first word finally being arrivederci was part of Carlos’s game. Alisha had no idea what his real name was, nor had she ever tried to find out. “Not that a wise man argues over the name a beautiful woman wants to call him.”
Alisha pulled a little smile at her coffee cup. “But a man should be accorded the respect of his name,” she replied. “What should I call you, then?”
The chair creaked again as he leaned back, and an explosion of cracks sounded, his knuckles popping expansively. “Jon, I think. Today I am a Jon.” Alisha could all but hear him shake his head, as dismay and gloom filled his voice. “Ah, but then the beautiful woman will write me a ‘Dear Jon’ letter, and my heart will be broken. But come, why do you sit with your back to me? Is that any way to greet an old friend, little bird?”
Little bird. He had called her that since the first time they’d met, long before she’d taken on the code name Cardinal. Alisha’s grin became full-fledged and she finally pushed her chair back, scooting it in a half circle to Jon’s table without getting out of it. Coffee sloshed onto her fingers and Jon offered her a napkin with a physical grace that reminded her of Marlon Brando in his later years. “Grazie. You look good, Jon. Have you lost weight?” The question was part of the ritual, too; she said it every time to flatter the man, but this time there was some truth to it. He would never be small, but he seemed slightly less mountainous than he had in the past.
The Firebird Deception Page 8