“You can get the cab,” he said shortly, and limped into the building while Alisha paid the fare.
A bellboy in the elevator prevented them from speaking still further, though they watched each other warily in the polished steel of the elevator walls. There was an absurdity to it, their silence so ritualized and full of weighty expectation that Alisha wanted to laugh, though she kept her features schooled. Not until Reichart keyed his door open and she followed him inside did either of them speak, and then it was at the same time.
“How’s the thigh?”
“How’s that cut?”
Alisha did laugh, the finger-thickening tension she felt disrupted by the questions. Laughter made the cut on her belly protest and she put a hand over it, still smiling. “Hurts. Could be worse. You?”
“I’ve spent the last two days wondering if you meant to hamstring me and missed or if you weren’t trying to permanently cripple me.”
Alisha’s laughter fell away. “You got lucky. I wasn’t trying to hamstring you, but that knife wasn’t meant for throwing.”
“You picked up any horrible blood diseases I should know about?” Reichart limped to the room’s tiny refrigerator and pulled out a six-pack of glass-bottled beers, arching an eyebrow toward Alisha as he lifted one. She raised a hand and he tossed it to her in a smooth arc across the bed. Alisha tapped on the bottle top as she shook her head.
“I forgot my blood was on it. But no, bill of health came back all clear. What the hell were you doing there, Frank?”
“That’s twice.” Reichart sat down on the bed, still moving much more fluidly than he had in the cathedral, but stiffer and more awkward than Alisha was accustomed to seeing him. “You must really want something.”
Alisha took a seat, as well, pulling a well-padded chair away from the round table in the room’s corner. She kept the purse open and at hand, the gun easily available, knowing that Reichart would watch her for a slipup. “You know, I was never sure if you’d noticed that.”
“It’s my job to notice, Leesh. You only call me Frank when you’re trying to butter me up, or when you’re furious with me. I’m not getting lividity off you right now.” He dug into his coat’s pocket, coming up with a bottle-opening key chain. His beer let off a fssht of escaping carbon dioxide as he popped the lid, and condensation wafted from the bottle top. Alisha put her hand out and he tossed her the key chain. Two keys, one a safety-deposit box key, the other for a vehicle. Unmarked, but at a guess Alisha thought it probably belonged to an Audi. She cranked the top off her own beer, holding it away from her lap in case it spilled thanks to its journey through the air, then flicked the key chain back onto the bed.
“Pissed doesn’t begin to cover it,” she admitted then. “I’m so many things I don’t have names for half of them anymore.”
“How about you start with you deciding to take a walk?”
Alisha looked up sharply. “Don’t fool yourself, Frank. This isn’t your interrogation.”
“Of course it is.” Reichart shifted and winced, an action Alisha was all too familiar with in the past few days. “You want to interrogate me, so it’s my interrogation.”
“Christ, but you’re a pain in the ass. What were you doing in Rome, Frank?”
“You’ll tell me why you walked?”
“Reichart.”
He closed his eyes and chuckled before draining his beer. “What’d Parker tell you?”
“I’m going to tear the stitches open on your thigh and pour beer into the hole, Reichart. I swear to God.”
Reichart opened his eyes. “You’re a mean woman, Alisha.”
No, Alisha thought, though she stopped herself from saying the words aloud. Leesh is a mean woman. The one you used to like so much. “Brandon said you told him you’d allied yourself with the Sicarii.”
“If you believed that you wouldn’t have thrown the knife at my leg.”
“Unless I wanted you to be able to answer my questions. How does it always end up like this?” Alisha tilted her attention up to the ceiling and shook her head. “You and me, sitting in a hotel room somewhere, dancing around each other’s questions.”
“We’ll always have Paris,” Reichart murmured. Alisha shook her head again.
“Don’t count on it. I believed him, you know. You were there, you betrayed me to them, you nearly killed Brandon. I should still believe him.”
Reichart refocused on her, taking a long drink of his beer. “But?”
“But you had a gun,” Alisha said, “and instead of using it you were throttling Brandon. I can only think of two reasons why you’d do that.”
Reichart lifted his eyebrows, invitation to speculation. Alisha breathed out a smile and took a sip of her own beer. “One—you wanted him disabled but not dead. Maybe to keep Phoenix happy, maybe to use him for your own ends.”
“And two?”
“You figured I’d get there in time to save him if you didn’t do anything as final as shooting him.” Alisha wet her lips. “Which doesn’t preclude theory number one.”
“You know me too well,” Reichart said into his beer.
Alisha shook her head. “I don’t think I know you at all. What were you doing there, Reichart? Last chance.”
“Or what?”
Alisha lifted one shoulder and let it fall again as she set her beer aside and tilted her purse over, reaching into it for the gun. “Or I’m going to shoot you and let Langley do the interrogation. All I want are answers, Frank.”
“You wouldn’t really shoot me.”
“I thought that about you once,” Alisha said. “The thing is…”
“Yeah?”
“I was wrong, too.”
Reichart had enough time to widen his eyes in dismay before she pulled the trigger.
Chapter 17
Flechette feathers sprouted in Reichart’s left shoulder as the dart hit home with a quiet but solid thunk. His arm spasmed, sending his beer to the side, foamy liquid spilling over the bedcovers. Alisha darted out of her chair to scoop the bottle up, clicking her tongue in mock dismay. “Don’t you know there’s a special hell reserved for people who spill good beer, Frank? You’ll be upended in a barrel full of all the beer you ever wasted.”
Reichart’s movements were already slower and clumsier as he fumbled for the dart in his shoulder and managed to pull it out with a thick movement. It gleamed black in his fingers, a trace of blood on its tip. “You utter bitch,” he said incredulously. Alisha flashed him a humorless smile.
“I went for a walk because I needed answers from you, Reichart,” she said in a low voice. “At this point I don’t really give a shit how I get them. If it takes putting you in a glass cell and feeding you psychotropic drugs for the next six months, I’m good with that. At least I’ll know where the hell you are and what you’re up to, and that’ll make me sleep better at night.”
“You don’t really expect me to come quietly,” Reichart asked, pronouncing the words as carefully as a drunk might. Alisha gave him another quick smile.
“Yes, I do. C’mon, sweetheart, upsy-daisy.” She slid herself under his arm, grunting as levering him off the bed made her belly protest.
“You can’t carry me!” he said in astonishment. Alisha huffed a laugh.
“Not easily, but it doesn’t matter, I just need to support you. You don’t feel like arguing with me anyway, do you? C’mon, let’s take a few steps. I want you on my turf away from any visitors you might get.”
Reichart’s lip curled, a furious expression as he shuffled forward, leaning heavily on Alisha’s shoulder. “What’s in this?”
“Just a little cocktail,” Alisha said cheerfully. “It won’t knock you out. That’d be too much of a pain in my ass. You’re just going to be really agreeable and prone to suggestion for the next several hours, and too damned groggy to do anything about it.” She hitched around the end of the bed, grabbing her purse on the way, and guided Reichart toward the door.
“When I shake this off…�
�� Reichart warned. Alisha grinned broadly.
“I know,” she said cheerfully. “But in the meantime, why don’t you tell me who Phoenix is?” Weight on one hip so she could support both herself and Reichart, Alisha reached for the door, pulling it open with her grin firmly in place.
The well-dressed blonde from the cathedral, still heavily veiled, stood outside the door, a pearl-handled derringer in her gloved hand.
Behind the veils the woman’s eyes widened in surprise, clearly not expecting to be met at the door any more than Alisha was. Alisha, in a moment of pure irrational flippancy, said, “Nice gun,” and then dropped Reichart to fling her weight against the door. It closed as rapidly as she could force it to, while she cursed the fact that hotel room doors were designed not to slam.
There was no sound of a bullet firing, no telltale thunk in the wood of the door that said the trigger had been pulled. Alisha slapped the locks closed and snatched at Reichart’s arm, ignoring his yowl of protest as she shoved herself under the shoulder she’d shot only moments earlier. Reichart sagged against her and let loose a completely undignified giggle, slurring, “That’ll show you.”
Alisha snarled a wordless reply and backed away from the door, hauling most of Reichart’s weight with her. His feet slipped and stumbled, tangling in hers, and he gave another mewling objection when she tromped on his toes.
The door shuddered, sound of a blow echoing through it. Not a gunshot, but a foot, Alisha thought: a well-directed kick. Certainly not given by the blond woman, whose shoes were impractical for kicking doors down. Alisha swore again and herded the increasingly loose Reichart onto the balcony. “Keep on your goddamned feet,” she ordered, and he gave her a sloppy grin in response.
A giggle of misplaced outrage erupted from her throat. Alisha choked it down and left him leaning dizzily over the balcony railing. “Don’t fall,” she muttered, but the room door shuddered again and she didn’t dare return to steady him. The woman and at least one thug were outside the door. Alisha pulled her flechette gun out of her bag and put it in the small of her back, still swearing under her breath. Without knowing how many waited for them, escape was better than trying to bring her assailants down.
She yanked the table light out of the wall and pulled the alarm clock free of the bedside table as well, knotting their cords together. Not enough. “Damn it.” She more vaulted the bed than went around it, jerking open the closet. Two extra pillows, an iron, ironing board and one of Reichart’s very fine coats peopled the closet. Alisha closed her hand around the breast of the coat, feeling paper and stiffness within it, and pulled the soft leather jacket on before taking both the iron and ironing board out.
The iron had an extralong cord. Alisha moved her mouth in a prayer of thanks and pulled her entire haul back to the balcony. Reichart leaned so heavily on the railing he was nearly bent double. Alisha muttered, “Don’t fall,” at him again, and he gave her a cheery, upside-down smile.
A crack sounded: the door beginning to shatter. Alisha swore again and dropped the table lamp and the alarm clock on the balcony floor as she scrambled to untie their cords again. Once they were free, she popped the ironing board open. “Move,” she snapped at Reichart, and he wobbled a few inches without moving the bulk of him. Alisha bared her teeth and worked around him, jamming the board legs-first through the balcony railing. The cords from the lamp and clock dangled over the balcony’s edge, the appliances themselves captured behind the ironing board. Still cursing all but silently, she bent over the railing to scoop the cords up and stuff the plugs into her pocket so they couldn’t escape, then eyed Reichart and made a loop of the iron’s long cord. A little chorus sounded in her head, right down Santa Claus Way, and she cut it off with a muttered, “Fuck. Hold on to me, Reichart.” She swept the looped cord around both him and herself, pulling him upright to do so, and stepped up to him, fitting her bottom against his hips.
He wrapped her in a clumsy embrace and Alisha made a loose knot of the cord, binding the mercenary spy to herself. “I want you to concentrate, Reichart,” she said through her teeth. “We’ve got to coordinate to climb over the railing. Okay?”
Reichart nodded agreeably, an action that was too exaggerated for his usual economy of motion. Alisha pulled the cords from her pocket and wrapped as much of their length around her forearms as she could before guiding Reichart over the railing. His weight, clumsy with the drug, began pulling her backward, and Alisha cast one wary glance at the ground five stories below.
“What the hell,” she said under her breath, “who wants to live forever, anyway?”
She pushed off from the balcony with all the strength in her thighs. Burdened by Reichart’s weight, the jump wasn’t as extreme as it might have been, but it was more than enough to fully clear the concrete balcony. The last thing she remembered hearing was the sound of the room door collapsing entirely beneath the assault, and a frustrated shout from above.
The cords unwound from her forearms with distressing speed, and Reichart bellowed in her ear, a sound of pure animal alarm. Drugged or not, his grip on her turned to a death hold, for which Alisha was grateful. Dropping him four stories after staging the unexpected escape would have been infuriating.
Even drugged, he had the sense—or self-preservation—to curl himself around her as tightly as he could. They swept over the balcony below theirs, Alisha thrusting her legs out to meet the glass door with all the momentum of their swing and the strength of a kick. Glass exploded inward and someone screamed. For an instant Alisha thought it might have been her, as the cords wrapped around her wrists met with the resistance of her clenched hands and cut deeply into her flesh. The stitched puncture in her upper arm ripped open with a series of pops that felt as if she could hear them. White agony washed over Alisha’s vision, making her gag with pain and stress.
Then she managed to let go of the cords and they whipped free, leaving deep pale welts in her arms that would soon enough be purple and bruised. The screaming faded: it wasn’t Alisha at all, but the woman whose room they’d crashed into, and she, in a fit of good sense, had run from the room. Alisha staggered forward, dragging most of Reichart’s weight with her, then jabbed an elbow back into his gut.
He oofed in surprise as she yanked the cord that wound them together free. “Come on,” she barked. “I need you to concentrate on running.”
Reichart let go another nasty little cackle that told her he still had enough mental faculties left to appreciate just how bad Alisha’s timing had been in drugging him. She grimaced and shoved herself under his arm again, supporting his weight. Later it might be funny, assuming they both survived. “Stairs,” she hissed. They would send one to the stairs, one to the elevator, to cover all bases.
Unless they’ve got more, Leesh, she warned herself. “Who the fuck is she?” she demanded of Reichart, but he only chuckled again as they ran awkwardly for the stairwell.
Two dark-suited men came down the stairs three and four at a time. Alisha dropped Reichart again and snatched her gun out of her pants, bringing it up to squeeze off a series of near-silent shots. Two went entirely wild and one struck home, sending its recipient tumbling down the remaining stairs with a crash. Alisha heard herself chanting, “Thank God, thank God, thank God,” under her breath, even as the second thug sprang over the stairway railing and appeared on the landing beside her.
The quarters were too close to use the gun, but having it in hand encouraged Alisha’s instinct to try anyway. The shot was knocked askew by her assailant’s meaty wrist smashing into hers with a quickness that startled her. He was over six feet tall, Reichart’s height if not a little better, and barrel-chested. Men of his build usually relied on brute strength, not finesse. The misjudgment might prove fatal.
She heard the gun clatter against the wall, thrown far enough away by the hit that she couldn’t risk going after it. There was insufficient room to circle her sparring partner, but they both dropped into combat stances, their centers low as they watched each
other warily.
Her strength was nothing to match his. Alisha’s wrist was still numb from the blow it had taken, for which she was oddly grateful: it reduced the throb from the cords that had been wrapped around her forearm. But it made her chances of winning the fight that much slimmer. She feinted in, a low hit that took advantage of her smaller size without opening herself up to the big man.
She literally didn’t see his answering volley coming. It was one rapid move the instant she came forward to engage, his hand curling inside her defenses and catching her, with deliberation, in the long cut across her stomach. His fingers dug in as if he knew the wound was there. Pain exploded through her body as the bandages gave way under his grip, and blinding tears coursed down her cheeks. Spasms racked her abdomen and she gave a tiny cough, trying to force the shooting agony out that way, to no avail. There was no breathing past the pain: she couldn’t even inhale, her stomach a knot of focused torment.
Breathless, blinded, Alisha stiffened her fingers and jabbed upward, driving them into her attacker’s throat. Soft cartilage gave way and his hand convulsed tighter in her belly as he struggled to pull another breath.
A soft bamf sounded, the flechette gun firing. Alisha blinked away tears to see surprised dismay struggle with panic on the thug’s face before his grip relaxed and he dropped to his knees with an echoing thud.
Reichart sprawled behind him, half propped against the stairway railings, the gun in hand. He stared at the fallen man, then rotated his head up in an exaggerated, wobbly movement to offer Alisha a messy, smug smile.
“I had him,” she muttered, though it did nothing to wipe his helpful grin off his face. Then his eyebrows drew down as he took obvious effort to focus on her stomach.
“You’re bleeding.”
“Yeah,” Alisha said through her teeth. “Trying not to think about that.” She bent to examine the wheezing man at her feet, nabbing a gun from a holster under his jacket before dragging Reichart onto his feet again. “Upstairs, c’mon, big guy.”
The Firebird Deception Page 14