“Maybe Orloff can help us again?”
Jared nodded. “He did a good job with those darts. Didn’t leave more than a drop of blood between them.”
Blood?
She snapped her gaze back to Jared’s arm. To the biceps that hadn’t quite healed. To the one she’d tried hard not to grab when they— Stop! Don’t think about it.
She voiced the solution instead. “Packed red blood cells.”
“Mikhail.”
Relief spread through her as they breathed the name, the connection, simultaneously. At least they were still in sync on something. For all his visits to the hospital, DeBruzkya had no idea which supplies were in current stock and which supplies weren’t. No one had told him about the packed red blood cells. If they played this right, Orloff and Jared’s blood supply would become their ticket back in to Veisweimar—and if necessary, the boy could become their ticket out.
“It could work.”
“You know it will.” She saw the regret biting into his gaze, felt it mirrored in herself. “Jared, we don’t have a choice. Mikhail will be fine. He’ll probably get a kick out of the helicopter ride. DeBruzkya won’t even care enough to follow him.” In the end they both knew it was a risk they had to take. If they failed and DeBruzkya succeeded, Mikhail’s future would be grim indeed. At least this way, the boy had a chance.
“Agreed.”
Silence filled the room. With the mission set, it seemed they’d run out of things to discuss. Things they could discuss, anyway. Unable to bear the tension any longer, she pulled the blanket tight and turned to scoot off the opposite side of the bed.
His hand snagged her arm, stopping her. “I don’t want you to come.”
She turned back, stared into those gorgeous eyes. The burning concern. The desperation.
“Jared, I—”
“Please. It’s dangerous. There’s a good chance we won’t make it out.”
She nodded. “I know.”
“Is there…anything I can say to change your mind?”
“Is there anything I can say to change yours?”
They weren’t talking about the mission anymore. He didn’t pretend they were. She almost wished he had. Maybe then she wouldn’t have gotten that agonizingly slow shake of his head.
“I thought not.” She sucked up her pride. “I love you.”
She’d have given anything to hear those three words come back to her, even whispered from his heart.
But she didn’t.
Nor did he acknowledge hers. He stood, instead. “I…need to finish typing Karl’s notes. I’ll e-mail the file to Hatch, along with the information about the potential mole when I’m done. In the meantime, get some rest. I’ll work downstairs so I won’t disturb you.”
The distance already disturbed her and he hadn’t even left yet. Unfortunately calling him on it wouldn’t help.
Somehow she managed a nod. “I’ll be fine.”
But as Jared reached the door, unlocked and opened it, as he stepped through, relocking the knob just before he nudged the slab of wood shut once again, she knew. She wasn’t fine.
Nor was she sure she ever would be again.
He was nervous.
At first Alex had chalked it up to her imagination. But when Jared had insisted on grilling her on the layout of the castle for the third time and then tried to force a blueprint he’d sketched on her she was certain. The one man her uncle swore never got nervous was definitely on edge.
And that terrified her.
Even now, with her hearing aid turned off because of the rhythmic thumping of the rotor blades atop this rickety bird, she swore she could hear the man’s equally rhythmic, far too studied breathing. She glanced across the belly of the Vietnam-era Huey that DeBruzkya had claimed as his following the assassination of the Rebelian royal family years before. Like her, Orloff was beyond nervous. The good doctor was also pissed off.
For all their meticulous plans, DeBruzkya wouldn’t even be home. Colonel Sokolov, either. Hell, DeBruzkya’s sister hadn’t even answered their phony, but frantic offer to double-check Mikhail’s red blood cell count or their subsequent offer to transfuse the child on site if need be. It had taken a second phone call and a separate request to speak to the boy’s natural grandmother, Helga, before the main guard had released the chopper. She was the one who would be standing by.
Maybe Jared was right. Maybe they shouldn’t risk tangling the boy up in all this. She hated the idea that an innocent child could lose his life for their mission. Jared must have read her mind, because he reached out and squeezed her hand. Alex clamped down on her nerves as she stared into her lap. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized how much she needed the strength of those big, dusky hands. How much she needed him. She met Jared’s gaze as the pilot’s thick German filled their headsets.
“Eine minute!” One minute.
She squeezed Jared’s hand back, once again silently agreeing to the lie: everything would be fine.
She would be fine.
The minute reprieve was over much too quickly. The dense pines of the Hartz forest parted to reveal the massive granite walls and stone turrets in the rapidly closing distance. Soon the razor-sharp coils of concertina wire were in view, then the explosion of a million blinding, fractured rainbows as a blanket of embedded glass shards captured the glint of the early-morning sun. The Huey thumped onto the roof seconds later, and they were out.
Like the night before, she was two steps behind Jared, with Orloff two steps behind her, all three clenching the first-aid cases they’d packed thirty minutes before, though the majority of the supplies fell neatly within DeBruzkya’s world, rather than that of emergency medicine.
“This way!”
They followed the guard’s terse shout as well as his buddy’s frantic wave, bypassing the southern facade of the castle and the direct vertical drop Jared had taken the week before to clamber down the winding stairs in the darkened corner turret. In the end it wouldn’t matter. Both routes led to the makeshift hospital room in the basement—and that cache of priceless gems a corridor and a half away.
The guards were breathing heavier than her, Jared and Orloff combined when they reached the bottom step and exited the turret. Jared coughed loudly as they reached the first turn in the musty corridor beyond, distracting both guards long enough for her to slip her hand into her first-aid bag and turn on her hearing aid.
She blinked thrice as they reached the hospital cell. She could hear the boy, his grandmother and someone else inside. From the tenor of the voice, an older man.
She flicked her gaze to the left.
Jared returned her nod, his barely there whisper filling her ear. “I’ll take the blonde and whoever’s in the room.”
She nodded again.
Seconds later, the first guard stepped into the room with Jared inches behind. The moment she heard the first knife clear his boot, she spun about, slamming the heel of her palm straight up into the second guard’s nose. He grabbed at the shattered, bloody cartilage as he flailed backward. The exact moment his skull smashed into the granite wall behind him, Mikhail’s grandmother let out a bloodcurdling scream from inside the room. Alex spun around again, leaving the dazed guard to the mercy of Orloff’s needles as he hit the floor, vaulting into the room, instead, to back up her partner, her lover.
He didn’t need it.
“Get his boots.”
She grabbed the man’s feet as Jared took the hairy arms. Together they dragged the inert body, complete with Jared’s favorite knife protruding from his chest, the final two feet into the room so they could close the door. One of Jared’s spare knives was lodged directly between a grizzled guard’s wide-open eyes, two feet from the farthest gurney. The gurney she’d spent three weeks of her life on. A steady rivulet of blood flowed down the side of the man’s whiskered face, soaking into the portable hospital curtain that had once shielded her view.
Helga appeared fine now. She still clutched Mikhail’s body to her
bosom, the boy’s gauze-bound limbs clutching her neck and torso just as tightly. Orloff hurried in to assure the woman her grandson was fine. To their surprise, Helga became agitated when he admitted they wouldn’t be taking the boy with them, after all.
“No, no, you take. You take. Please!”
Jared snagged her arm as Alex struggled to make out the frantic jumble of Rebelian that followed.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think Orloff knows, either. She’s too hysterical.” But something was wrong. The woman kept clutching the boy’s head to her breast as she wailed over his head.
Jared ripped open his first-aid kit and pulled out the empty rucksack he’d stashed beneath the cover supplies before stooping down to retrieve both his knives. “You stay with Orloff, protect his back. At this rate, I’ll grab the gem and be back before you figure what the hell she’s saying.”
She didn’t like it, but he was right. They had an obligation to the three innocent bystanders they’d embroiled in their plans.
“Hurry.” Before she realized what she was doing, she grabbed his arm, hard. “Be careful.” Her heart lurched as he wasted precious seconds lifting his hand to her face.
He brushed her cheek. “I always am.”
And then he was gone.
Orloff vaulted over the grizzled guard’s body as the door closed. “We have to take them with us.”
“Why?”
“Helga overheard DeBruzkya and Sokolov talking. It seems the general has already tired of fatherhood. Once DeBruzkya has reaped the benefits of his recent press coverage, they plan to murder the boy. They hope to gain even more sympathy by claiming a rebel soldier killed the child during a fabricated attempt on DeBruzkya’s life.”
Alex sucked in her breath. Given both men’s track records, she didn’t doubt they’d do it, too.
Orloff’s brows shot up, underscoring her gut assessment. He didn’t bother flicking his own gaze about the clammy hospital cell, the cell he, too, had been dumped in after his brutal beating.
“Let’s go.” She’d worry about the political fallout later, as well as the ass-chewing the director of the CIA would probably end up delivering personally. For now, she led the way down the hall to the cache of jewels as Orloff dragged Helga and her grandson behind them. Before they hit the first turn, she knew they were in trouble.
Boots. Running…toward them.
Before she could open her mouth to warn him, Jared stepped out from the doorway, the fully loaded rucksack already on his back. She could tell from his stride as he raced toward them that the box was lighter than they’d both expected. She could only hope the shielding was enough as she grabbed his arm. “Hurry!”
“What’s wrong?”
“I hear several contacts coming around the corner, still silent—”
Jared slammed her into the wall in the nick of time. The spray of bullets chewed up the granite two feet from her head. Before she could raise her 9 mm, his MP-5 was up, his answering spray chipping the corner of the wall at the end of the corridor. Helga and Mikhail screamed as Orloff pushed them into the wall and covered their bodies with his own.
Jared slid the ruck from his shoulders and shoved it at her, helping her to don the straps before Alex could argue. She’d been wrong. The box was a hell of a lot heavier than it looked. She had to square her feet to stay standing. Jared tucked his 9 mm in her hands. “You may need the extra ammo. Take the gem and the others. Get them to the chopper. I’ll hold them off as long as I can.”
“What about—”
“I’ll be right behind you.” He slipped his hand behind her neck and pulled her close, sealing his lips to her right ear. Even with the hearing aid, she barely caught his murmured “I love you, too.” Before she could blink, much less draw her next breath, he was gone, turning away to raise his MP-5. The blistering spray from the room broom afforded her enough cover to retrieve the others and advance down the hall.
She took it.
She had to. Jared’s ammo supply wasn’t endless. She refused to waste a single round of it. By the time they reached the turret, her back was screaming, but Orloff, the old woman and kid were holding their own. A damned good thing, because when two guards slammed out from the turret door four feet in front of them, they didn’t freak out. She took down the first guard without thinking, but by the time she shifted the barrel of her 9 mm for the second, he was gone.
Lying at her feet.
Bemused, she met Orloff’s stunned gaze as she shoved Helga and the child through the doorway of the turret.
“I shot him,” he said flatly.
She grabbed Orloff’s arm and pulled him in, as well. “You had to.” Still, she knew what was going though his head. He was a doctor. He’d just killed a man with a—
She jerked her gaze to the still-smoking Colt .32.
“Where did you get that?” But she already knew.
“Your partner.”
Jared had given the man his backup piece? But why? He’d already given her his 9 mm. Why cull his weapons to supplement theirs? Unless…the terror slammed in. He’d told her he loved her. Something he had no intention of ever doing. Why do it now? The dead weight on her back evaporated as she grabbed Orloff’s arm and practically shoved him up against the moldy turret wall before she could stop herself. “Did he give you anything else?” Please God, not the knives. Anything but the knives.
“Yes. But it was earlier. Before we left.”
What on earth was he talking about. “Before?”
Orloff nodded. “A gold coin. On a chain. He asked me to give it to you should this—”
She didn’t wait for the rest. She spun around. “Take this, and get the hell out of here! Wait for us as long as you can. But if you have to go, then go. Contact the medical company I got the supplies from. They’ll know what to do.” She shoved her 9 mm into Helga’s hands as Orloff adjusted the ruck onto his back, then ruffled Mikhail’s hair, earning a quick, terrified peek from those huge brown eyes.
Jared was right. There were some memories you didn’t need.
But she was keeping him.
Whether he wanted her to or not.
“Good luck.” She shoved Jared’s Colt back into Orloff’s hands and vaulted out of the tower as he turned to urge Helga up the stairs. She didn’t even hear the door slam behind her—she was too busy following the next spray of gunfire as the sound waves ricocheted down the corridor and straight up her spine.
She didn’t need a blueprint to follow.
Her heart was doing just fine on its own—until she rounded the corner and her heart jammed up her throat.
Jared. He was trapped in front of the far wall, pinned in place by the barrels of no less than six Kalashnikovs. His expended MP-5 lay at his boots. Where the hell had all those soldiers come from? DeBruzkya, Sokolov—good God, had they come back?
If they had, she had no time to lose.
She only had three rounds left, but they would have to do. She waved her right hand and caught Jared’s gaze. She held up three fingers, then pointed to herself, then to the right. He’d retrieved his first two knives. He should still have three. But would her gunfire distract the remaining three soldiers long enough for him to retrieve them?
There was only one way to find out.
She held up three fingers again, dropping them one by one as Jared tipped his chin ever so slightly.
Three, two, one. Now!
She picked off her quarry in rapid succession. The explosions in her ear prevented her from hearing the knives leave his boots, but she did see the glints from the first two blades as their victims fell atop the others, then a glint from the third as Jared sliced his hand up and across the remaining soldier’s throat, slitting it from end to end.
Only, that wasn’t the final soldier.
For some bizarre reason she never even heard the shot. Maybe because she was too busy screaming as her brain registered the fact that although Jared turned, he couldn’t quite li
ft his arm far or fast enough to release his final blade as he fell.
He’d been shot.
“No!”
Pure, blinding terror ripped through her as she raced down the remaining nine feet of hallway to slam onto her knees inches from that dark, gorgeous head. His amber gaze glowed up at her as he smiled or, rather, as he tried.
“You’re right, you don’t follow orders.”
“Shut up.” She tore off her sweater, bunched it up into the pocket of his right arm, directly over the raw, seeping hole in his shirt. In his flesh. “Hold this.” She shoved the hem of her remaining T-shirt out of the way and reached for her belt next, desperately hoping it would be long enough to hold the sweater against his wound. She froze as she caught the deliberate scuff of boots closing in. She knew that pace. She’d heard it before—in a hotel room in Holzberg.
“Sokolov.”
Confusion tinged the pockmarked face above the rock-steady hand holding a pistol, a Makarov she’d also seen before, this time sans silencer. “I was right. You do seem to know me. How?”
“You murdered a friend of mine.”
The confusion actually ebbed. “Hmm. It’s possible. But I confess, I have killed many men. Who was your friend?”
Why not? It just might give her the distraction she needed.
“Alice, don’t—”
“I said shut up.” She ignored the thick brown brows that shot up as she yelled at her “husband.” She ignored her husband’s hand, as well. The one that was crushing the feeling from her own as he silently ordered her to look down and meet his gaze.
Why? She’d just have to ignore that, too.
“Karl Weiss.”
Sokolov blinked. Unfortunately the hold on his Makarov also tightened. But then he smiled. Chuckled. “You must be mistaken. I had him watched. Karl had no friends who looked like you.”
“Alice.”
Despite the fact that the warning in his voice had weakened, that the grip on her hand had weakened, she smiled. “I went by another name at the time. Perhaps you remember it—and me. Morrow. Dr. Alexander Morrow.”
The Impossible Alliance Page 22