Dead Double

by Cooper-Posey, Tracy

  But the only thing he could do would be to run and take Malik with him. Micky barred the way to the door, which meant they’d have to run down the corridor the other way—and the nearest corner looked to be miles away. They’d never reach it in time to avoid Micky’s next shot.

  Her heart thudding sickly, Sahara acknowledged that she had to leave this up to Logan.

  Micky gave a shrill peel of laughter. “You can’t do it, can you?” she crooned. “I can see it in your eyes. You can’t protect them both. You know I’m too fast.” She moved the gun back and forth, from Malik to Sahara. “Oooooh, so which one will it be?”

  “Logan, I was wrong,” Sahara said, keeping her voice low so the shaking was disguised. “Micky isn’t a bad person. She’s an all-out lunatic.”

  The gun turned to point at her.

  “Shut up, Sahara,” Logan ground out.

  “She left you, traded in her loyalty for her country and let her daughter think she was dead so she could play footsies with one of the worst fanatics this world has ever seen.”

  “Don’t do this,” Logan growled.

  “Fanatical, he may be,” Micky told her. “But he has power. Real power. Logan, for all his posturing, is a castrated wimp at the beck and call of his masters.”

  “What and you’re not at Zaram’s beck and call?” Sahara shot back. She poured as much derision into her words as possible. “You’re so full of shit, Micky.”

  That did it. Sahara could see it in Micky’s eyes. The slight narrowing, the glittering intensity in the green. The gun swung toward her. Fast.

  And the world slowed down.

  It wasn’t like slow motion on television. It wasn’t like everyone began to move at a crawl. It wasn’t that at all. It was more that Sahara was able to move faster than all of them and take time to think out her actions in between.

  She knew Micky was going to shoot her. The knowledge was as ingrained as her name. Sahara had goaded her into it deliberately, knowing that Logan needed to be able to predict which of them Micky would choose to shoot first.

  As the gun swung around to line up on her, Sahara saw Logan also swivel around to face her. His arm was held out wide and she was scooped up and held against his chest. His back was to Micky.

  The gun roared. Once. Logan shuddered against her but he was still turning, bringing her across the corridor, sweeping her into the bank of lockers.

  The gun fired again and again Logan jerked, this time a muffled grunt pushing past his lips.

  Sahara’s shoulder slammed against the metal door of the locker next to Malik’s. Logan elbowed Malik’s locker door fully open with his right elbow, reaching around the little man, who was frozen with shock in front of his locker.

  The gun fired again and this time the bullet thudded into the locker door, right in front of Malik’s chest. There was a soft, muffled impact and the inside of the locker door punched inward by a good two inches. But it stopped the bullet.

  Logan was still moving. His right elbow was holding the locker door open fully. With his right hand, he reached into the top shelf of the locker and emerged with a heavy revolver. Sahara saw his thumb cock it, as he fell back toward the floor.

  But it was a planned fall, to bring him out behind the locker door at an unexpected angle. As his rear hit the linoleum, he brought his gun arm up and around the locker door, aiming at Micky.

  He fired.

  There was a soft cough and a squeak of the linoleum. Then Sahara saw Micky fall to the floor, thrown backward by the impact of the bullet.

  Sahara’s heart was screaming and her temples began to pound. She watched to see if Micky was going to get up again. So did Logan, still sitting with his arm flung out from his side, the gun aimed at her.

  Time jumped back into its normal speed then and Sahara found herself sliding down the face of the locker, all the strength gone from her legs.

  “Is she dead?” she breathed.

  “Yes,” Logan said. His voice was ragged and weak. As she watched, the gun wavered and he dropped it to the linoleum. “Sahara….” he whispered.

  She scrambled to his side, already knowing what she would see. “No, no, Logan…. God, you took those shots deliberately, didn’t you?” She tried to help him stay seated but he was a dead weight in her arms and she had to lower him to the floor.

  “Back. Side. Get pressure on it,” he said weakly. “Turn me over.”

  Sahara bit her lip and looked up at Malik. “Quickly, help me. He’s too heavy for me and I need more hands.”

  Malik was staring at them, still frozen.

  “Malik!” she snapped.

  He blinked.

  “Get down here. Now. I need your help. Snap to it!”

  He sank down on his knees and helped her roll Logan onto his side. Under the arm, the shirt was soaked in blood. She nearly wept at the sight of it but held it together. Logan needed her.

  She pointed at Malik. “Your coveralls. Your tee shirt. Give them to me.”

  He reached back for the heavy green coveralls and pulled them out of the locker. She saw his gaze move over the volcano shaped protrusion in the inside of the door, then he thrust the coveralls at her.

  “On his back there,” she said. “Push it up against the wound. You know how to do that?”

  “Yes, yes,” he said slowly. “This I know.”

  “First, your tee shirt. Hurry.”

  He stripped off his tee shirt and handed it to her, then went back to wadding his coveralls and pushing them up against the wound on Logan’s back.

  Sahara did the same with his tee shirt, over the side wound. There was so much blood! She tried to hold back the panic rising in her and looked down at Logan’s face.

  His eyes were still open but glazed and sleepy.

  “You stay awake, you hear?” she warned him. “Just hang in there. The shots will bring people running.” She glanced at Malik. “When they come, you’ll have to translate for me, okay?”

  He nodded. He was more alert now, his shock fading.

  Logan spoke in a rough whisper. “Sahara, you have to see Angel. Tell her—”

  “Just shut up right there, Logan. This is not the end, you hear me? Just shut up and save your energy for hanging in there.”

  “She has to know….”

  “The truth?” Sahara said softly.

  “Yes.”

  “I agree,” Sahara said. “But you’re going to tell her yourself. Do not mess with me, Logan, you hear? I’m done being a carbon copy for anyone. I won’t take any more crap. You just shut up and concentrate on staying awake. Hear me?”

  His answer was a long time coming. “You made her shoot you.”

  “Shoot at me,” Sahara amended. “You had to know which way she was going to jump. I made sure she jumped at me, so you would be able to figure out what to do about it.”

  He coughed and drew a noisy breath, then another. “She was always going to shoot you first.”

  Sahara knew that talking was keeping him with her, so she answered him. “How on earth do you know that?”

  “Micky…hated other women. Competition, see? Malik was just a stupid egg-head to her. She saw I…cared about you. Even before you opened your mouth, you were going to be first. I just had to figure out what to do about it.”

  Tears were blurring her vision and Sahara blinked them out of the way, then dashed them from her eyes with the back of her hand, in an irritable movement. “So you just go and take two bloody bullets for me,” she husked. “I don’t know whether to shake you or kiss you, Logan Wilde.”

  Footsteps sounded in the corridor, then excited calls in Spanish. The footfalls quickened to running.

  “They’re here,” she murmured to Logan. She looked up at Malik. “Thanks for your help.”

  He shook his head. “It has been most instructional,” he murmured.

  “When they get here, you’re just the janitor. You know nothing. You just stopped to help me, okay?”

  “Okay.”

&nb
sp; Logan gave a little whispered moan and she looked down at his face again. His eyes were closing.

  “No, Logan! Stay here!” she called.

  He was fighting to keep them open but his eyes were rolling in a way that alarmed her. She felt hands on her arms and her back, trying to pluck her away from him and shoved them away. Hard.

  “Logan, do you hear me?” she called. The hands were on her waist, they were going to lift her away. Malik was babbling in Spanish.

  “Logan!” she cried.

  His blue eyes opened enough to look at her and she knew he was fighting a hero’s fight to stay with her. The tears were rolling down her face and she let them fall. Nothing mattered right now but the next few seconds with him.” Don’t leave me,” she whispered. “Please, Logan. Don’t leave me.”

  He tried speaking twice, then took a breath that gurgled in a way that let loose the fear inside her, to crawl through her body. “Not me,” he whispered back.

  His eyes rolled back and closed and a tiny rivulet of blood escaped the corner of his mouth.

  Horrified, she reached for him but this time the hands and arms had their way. She was physically plucked away from him and carried down the corridor. She struggled. It was the hardest struggle of her life. She remembered screaming at people, wishing that volume would make up for her lack of Spanish. But there was a sharp sting in her arm and a cold wave that rushed from her arm, up through her body, to her head.

  She remembered no more.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It was cool. Air-conditioned cool and almost silent. Just a murmur of voices somewhere beyond the room.

  Sahara opened her eyes and wasn’t surprised to find herself back in her hotel bedroom. The rich brocade canopy above the bed was unmistakable.

  She stretched experimentally and her limbs were stiff and her body ached all over. “Ouch…” she murmured, letting the stretch go immediately.

  “You are awake then. Good.”

  “Jacqui?” Sahara sat up quickly, the ache forgotten. “Jacqui, where is Logan? What happened to him? They knocked me out—I was hysterical, I think Please, tell me!”

  Jacqui got up from the divan and hurried over to the bed, her hand held out placatingly. “Shhh. It’s all right. Everything’s under control.”

  Sahara sat back against the pillows, appalled at how weak she felt. “Just tell me,” she said dully.

  Jacqui spread her fingertips on the counterpane at the edge of the bed, studying them. “Logan is in surgery,” she said softly. “One of the bullets nicked his lung. I don’t know about the other. Information is confused right now.”

  “Can I see him after the surgery?”

  Jacqui shook her head. “Zaram is in the area. We have to withdraw back to England at once, especially as retrieving the notebook was a failure. Leaving Spain will take the heat off Malik, maybe even draw Zaram back over the channel.” Jacqui smiled weakly. “I’m told the Seurat are much more efficient on familiar territory and London is home for them.”

  “But what about Logan?”

  Jacqui spread her fingertips again. “No one knows the outcome of the surgery yet. No matter how he comes through the operation, it will be some time before he’s fit to travel again. He will be moved to London as soon as they think it prudent but for now, he must stay here.”

  “And me?” Sahara croaked. She couldn’t quite get her head around the news. It seemed so terrible.

  Jacqui’s fingers were doing a dance on the countertop now. “You have to come back to London with us. Zaram knows you’re not Micky, so you can revert back to being yourself now, but…”

  “What? What is it? What aren’t you telling me?”

  Jacqui lifted her eyes to finally look at her directly. “Logan took one bullet in the back,” she said shortly. “He was protecting you, wasn’t he?”

  Sahara nodded and felt hot tears slip from the corners of her eyes. “Yes.” The same cold dread squeezed her chest.

  “That’s why they must get you back to London and then return you home. You’re a civilian, yet Zaram knows you’re involved in this operation. That makes you the Seurat’s weakest link and they know Zaram will try to take advantage of that weakness.”

  “He’d come after me?” Sahara whispered. “But I would be worthless to him.”

  “You would be leverage. He doesn’t have the notebook, and he doesn’t know that we don’t.”

  Sahara wiped her wet cheeks. “I guess then I must go back to London.” Intellectually, she understood the need, but her heart cried out in protest.

  Jacqui nodded. “They’ll be moving very, very soon. I’ve almost got you packed.” She straightened up, back to business. “You’ll want to take a shower, I’m sure.”

  “Oh, a shower.” On any other day, it would have sounded heavenly. Right now she couldn’t raise any enthusiasm at all. She pushed the sheets aside and discovered she was still wearing the shirt and silk skirt she had worn to meet Malik. “Oh wow…” She looked up at Jacqui. “What time is it, anyway?”

  “Nearly nine p.m.”

  She slid out of the bed and brushed at the crumpled silk skirt distastefully. There was a spot of blood on it. Logan’s blood.

  Her hand flicked at a lump in her pocket and she delved into it, puzzled. She felt the slim elongated shape and her heart skipped a bit.

  “Oh, god, Jacqui.” She pulled the USB drive out and held it out to Jacqui on the flat of her hand. It was missing the cord that Malik had been swinging it with. He must have snapped it off and pushed the device into her pocket. All her attention had been taken up by Logan and she hadn’t noticed.

  Jacqui paused, looking at the USB drive. “Is that…?”

  Sahara nodded. “Malik gave it to me, after all.”

  “After all?” Jacqui said quickly.

  “He knew I wasn’t Micky, but he gave it to me anyway.”

  “Why would he do that? He was very insistent. It had to be Micky or he wouldn’t hand it over.”

  Sahara felt her mouth turn down. “I think Micky impressed him with her true colors.”

  Jacqui gave a helpless, weak laugh. “Or you did.”

  * * * * *

  When they arrived back in London, Sahara was taken through what they euphemistically called “debriefing.” In reality, her mind was filleted and spread across petri dishes for them to examine from every conceivable angle.

  She found herself relating every passing minute of her and Logan’s journey across Seville and every twist and turn that led them to the university and Malik. Not only did she repeat every word she and Logan had shared—especially those with Malik—but she found herself repeating the conversations over and over again. First for a panel of examiners that included Elias but then again for individuals, some who gave her only their first name.

  She was kept in a small, comfortable but plain hotel-like windowless bedroom when she wasn’t spilling her guts. They kept her cut off from the world and the only way she could measure passing time was by the ebb and flow of her hunger and those times when sleep pressed in on her. But even then they insisted upon questioning her, despite her body trying to shut down and sleep.

  Over a five day period, as near as she could judge, she went over and over the afternoon’s events, trying to maintain her cool and cooperate. On the fifth day, however, the door to her room unlocked and Celia stepped in.

  “’Ello, Sahara.”

  Sahara sat up on the bed. “So, you get to inspect the inside of my head this time.”

  “They can be a bit intense, can’t they?” Celia lifted a hand toward the door. “Actually, we were wondering if you could ’elp us out a bit.” She reached into the breast pocket of her denim waistcoat and pulled out a photo. “There’s a woman walked into the public offices an hour ago. Sez she knows you. Wants to talk to you and won’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

  Sahara glanced at the photo. “Tiffany! But what is she doing here? I’m not even sure where here is! How could she have found me h
ere?”

  Celia nodded. “That’s the name she gave. Tiffany. We were ’oping she’d tell you ’ow she found you. It’s a bit of a worry, y’see?”

  Sahara studied her. “Yes, I imagine it might be. If I do this for you, will you do something for me?”

  Celia glanced up at the corner of the room. She moved only her eyes to do it. “Like what?” she asked.

  “When I figure that out,” Sahara said cautiously, “I’ll let you know. Can I speak to Tiffany now?”

  * * * * *

  Celia led Sahara to a plain door, turned the handle and pushed it open.

  Tiffany was sitting at the metal table in the enclosed little room and when she saw Sahara, she jumped to her feet. Her eyes got very large. “Sahara?” she asked warily.

  Sahara touched her hair self-consciously. “You’re not the only one who can change her hair color.”

  Tiffany skirted around the table to hug her hard. “Oh, god, Sahara! What on earth are you mixed up in?”

  “Long story. But, Tiff, what are you doing here? How did you find me?”

  Tiffany shook her head. “That’s why I’m here. I need to take you somewhere.” She looked around the room. “Will they let me do that?”

  Sahara stepped to the door and knocked on it. “I know someone who will.”

  * * * * *

  Celia unbuttoned her vest as they stepped out onto the busy inner London street and looked around. “Quickly,” she insisted, waving Tiffany and Sahara onto the pavement. She hurried them down the street. “Cork Street, y’said, right?”

  “The surf shop there.”

  Celia snorted. “I’ve lived in London all me bloomin’ life. First I knew there was a surf shop in Soho.”

  Cork Street was five minutes away, at Celia’s pace. When they stepped inside the store, Sahara was assaulted with the smells of wax, incense, sand and salt and was instantly homesick. Tiffany, though, lifted a hand at the girl behind the counter, then hurried around the counter and through the back door into the office beyond. Sahara and Celia followed.