Hearts Under Siege

by Natalie J. Damschroder

  “No.” Brady set the hand holding the gun on the seat, out of her reach. “You’re not exposing yourself.”

  “Hey, maybe that would work!” She reached for the collar of her shirt. Brady laughed, but his eyes tracked her movement. He spotted the blood on her shirt as she touched it and felt how much wetter it was than before. Oops.

  “We need to get out of here, Dixson!” he called over his shoulder.

  “I know what we fucking need!” Dix shouted back. “You shot one of the tires, but they’re still coming! I don’t know these roads well enough. Do you? You grew up around here.”

  Brady’s eyes met Molly’s, and even in the dark, she could see what he was thinking. They hadn’t grown up here, but that wasn’t the point. He would know the roads better, if he’d spent any time with his family after they moved to Connecticut. He hadn’t spent enough. But she had.

  “Move.” She struggled to get out from under him.

  “Molly, no.”

  “I’m just going to navigate.” She dragged her body from under his and squeezed between the front seats onto the passenger side, keeping herself as low as possible. She looked out the front window to figure out where they were.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay, what?” demanded Dix.

  “I’m thinking.” They were about four miles from the Fitzpatrick home, but they had to lose these guys before they got there. This main road took them into town, but there should be— Yes! She pointed to a farm road, its entrance marked by three-foot-tall reflectors on either side. The burst of inspiration solidified into a real idea, the needed steps laying themselves out in her mind.

  Dix waited until the last second, then spun the wheel and swerved onto the narrow dirt road. The sedan bounced over ruts. In the back seat, Brady grunted and cursed.

  “They’re closing in again,” he told them.

  “This doesn’t seem like a good idea,” Dix said through gritted teeth as he fought the wheel. “They’ve got an off-road vehicle.”

  “I know. It’s okay.” She hoped. The vehicle following them was more powerful, but also bigger. As long as things hadn’t changed too much… She inhaled slowly when the buildings came into view. “There. Go between the barn and silo.”

  It was Dix’s turn to curse. The gap wasn’t meant for vehicles, and it would be a tight fit. “They’ll go around and meet us on the other side.”

  “No.” She didn’t try to explain. “Just go. Hard.”

  Dix mashed the accelerator to the floor and braced his arms straight out, gripping the wheel tightly to keep the car pointed that way. They zoomed through the gap like an arrow through the window slit of a castle, and both men whooped as they came out the other side.

  And—yes!—the pile of hay was still there, as tall as the barn and filling all of the space between the building and the forest on the other side.

  “Turn left!” Molly shouted as the car’s momentum took them toward the trees. Dix turned and they ran parallel to the woods, on rutted tracks made by farm vehicles. The car’s engine made odd noises now, protesting its rough handling.

  “Okay.” Dix’s elation had been short-lived. “What now?”

  “Are they back there?” she asked Brady, who was still watching out the back window.

  “Not yet. They’ll have to go back around the buildings.”

  “As fast as you can,” Molly told Dix. “We’re almost to it.”

  “To what?” But then he saw it, a gap in the trees, and swung the car wide left to make the tight right turn. This road was still dirt, but hard packed and littered with pine needles.

  “Still nothing,” Brady said. “Kill the lights, Dixson.”

  “That’s going to slow us down.” But he did it, slowing to a crawl. It was late enough in the season that the deciduous trees had lost their leaves. Soon their eyes adjusted, the moonlight sufficient to see the path. A few minutes later their sedan came out onto a regular road. She gave directions, and soon they were in town, with no sign of their pursuers.

  “We’ve got to ditch this car.” Dix pulled into the first big parking lot they found, in front of a small grocery store with enough cars in the lot to hide the sedan. “In case it’s being tracked.”

  “And the cell phones,” Brady added, dumping his onto the seat. “They have the GPS data for the company phones.”

  “What good will that do?” She pried the back off of hers and popped out the battery. “We have to take Dix’s with us. It’s our only contact with Shae’s captors. And if we have his—”

  “The rest don’t matter.” Brady powered down Dix’s phone and took out the battery, looking grim.

  “What about our clothes?” Molly patted herself randomly. “They could have hidden trackers on any of us.”

  Dix shook his head and turned the car off, dropping the keys under the seat. “This is real life, not spy TV. Trackers small enough to hide are still rare and expensive. Just check all your pockets and stuff.”

  They did, then left the locked car to be retrieved later and started walking. They only had about a mile to go and agreed stealing a car or calling a cab would be counterproductive.

  “Can you make it?” She tried to tuck herself under Brady’s good arm, but he shook her off and took her hand again instead. Dix noticed, quirked a sad smile at her, and moved to walk in front of them in the direction she’d indicated.

  “I’m fine,” Brady insisted. “How did you know about that place, and the hay and everything?”

  “I worked for the census one summer, and we had to go explore lots of remote spots like that. I’d talked to the owner for a few hours and took a chance that his ‘biggest haystack in the county’ was still there

  Brady whistled. “Big chance. That was a long time ago.”

  “Yeah, but he wasn’t very old. Something like that, people don’t let go of easily.” She shivered when Brady’s hand tightened around hers, as if to punctuate her last few words. “I’m just glad it popped into my head.”

  “They know we’re here,” Dix pointed out. “And that we’re not heading to the rendezvous point. What’s that going to do to the kid?”

  “Hopefully nothing,” Brady said. “They gave us until morning. We have time to meet that deadline.”

  “Unless they figure out what we’re doing.” Anxiety danced over Molly’s nerves. “If they think we’re copying the information, or taking it to someone, they might—” She stopped, because what the hell else could they do at this point?

  They crossed a road into a residential area. It was late now, and quiet, and the stillness of the streets had them all silent as they got closer to Brady’s parents’ house. He wished he’d been able to call his father, alert him that they were on their way and being tailed. They could have met somewhere else instead of in front of his mother and Jessica, perhaps still leading the bad guys to his innocent family. He wished, as they turned down his parents’ street, that it felt more like nearing safety and less like dooming everyone.

  “Hold up,” he murmured, reaching out to stop Dix before they reached the driveway. “This doesn’t feel right.”

  Dix and Molly waited while he did a 360, checking the neighborhood for any tiny thing out of place. A fluttering curtain or glint of light, shadows where there shouldn’t be, vehicles that didn’t match the homes they were parked in front of. But nothing jumped out at him. Nothing alerted him to the presence of any danger. So all he could do was lead them up the walk.

  Assuming everyone was asleep, he headed for the kitchen door. But as he lifted his foot to the bottom step, his father loomed out of the shadows of the back porch.

  He gave a silent head jerk toward the detached garage behind the house and started down the steps. Brady shrugged at the other two and they followed. How long had his father been outside, waiting for them? He pressed his arm against the package inside his shirt and hoped whatever was about to happen next would put an end to the lies and the pain.

  His father eased open the barn-style d
oor, let them all go in, and closed it behind them, sliding a two-by-eight board into an iron frame to secure the door. Brady relaxed and reached into his shirt as his father lit an oil lamp on a heavy wooden table.

  “Everyone okay?” Rick asked. Experienced eyes assessed each of them in turn—Brady, then Molly, then Dix.

  “No,” Molly said in contrast to the guys’ nods. “Brady was shot last night and was barely out of surgery when we had to flee the hospital. Dix’s driving—and my navigation,” she added before Dix could get too huffy, “aggravated the wound.”

  “Molly took a knife slice to the chest,” Brady countered, not caring if it made him sound ten years old. She hadn’t let him look at it when they left the car, and he’d been worried enough about being out in the open to let it go until they were safe. “It hasn’t been treated yet,” he added as his father came to him instead of Molly.

  “Surgery, huh?”

  Brady rolled his eyes when his father motioned for him to remove his shirt but obeyed, trying very hard not to wince as his movements pulled at the stitched-together flesh. His father assessed the amount of blood staining the bandage. “Looks okay, considering. We’ll need to get you antibiotics. That the information?” He reached for the packet sticking out of Brady’s waistband.

  At that exact moment, two bodies burst feet-first through the wooden slats over windows on the back and side of the building. Brady tried to do too many things at once—reaching for a gun he didn’t have, crouching to present a smaller target, pulling Molly down and trying to get her behind cover, and protecting the packet.

  The men must have swung down from the roof. Black ropes dangled through the shattered wood. One of the black-clad figures leapt on Brady’s father, while the other dove for the packet that had fallen to the floor. Dix lunged, too, knocking Guy One off the envelope, but his momentum took him out of reach of it. Brady would have gone after it, but his father had lost the upper hand.

  “Help Rick.” Molly scrambled for the packet, too close to where Dix grappled with Guy Two.

  Brady hesitated for a crucial second before rushing to his father’s side. He had no upper body leverage or strength, so he balanced on his left leg and slammed the bottom of his right boot at Guy One’s head. Guy One fell sideways, stunned enough for Rick to get out from under him and finish him off with a knee to the chin.

  Brady spun to find Molly. She huddled—and looked furious about it—behind the massive table, several feet now from where Dix still exchanged punches with Guy Two. Brady stepped to go help him, but his father caught his arm and shook his head. Two hits later, Dix stood panting over Guy One.

  “Nicely done,” Rick said in an authoritative voice. “Now, let’s see who we have here.” He bent and pulled the knit hood off the guy at his feet. “I don’t know you.” He looked to Brady and Dix, and they both shook their heads. Rick bent to check pockets, found a wallet, and tossed it to Brady.

  He flipped it open and found a DC driver’s license. It looked legit. Not a field agent, then, or one not trained very well. His eyebrows went up when he read the name. “Dad. It’s John Ellison.”

  “Howard Ellison’s son.” Rick studied the groaning man. “Not part of SIEGE, but obviously working for his father. Secure him.” He pulled a handful of zip ties from the thigh pocket of his cargo pants and tossed them onto the table before striding over to Guy Two, whom Dix had already secured and kept on his knees with a hand on his shoulder.

  Brady took a moment to absorb the absurdity. He’d always seen his father as a standard middle management type, and here he was engaged in hand-to-hand combat and giving orders. By the time Brady moved toward the zip ties, Molly had already picked them up.

  “I got him.” She handed the information packet to Brady. “You guard this.”

  He bristled at the implication that he couldn’t handle Ellison Junior, but then pain burst through his shoulder, the abuse it had taken making itself known. “All right. But be careful.” He watched closely as Molly rolled Junior to his stomach, ready to intervene if the guy so much as flinched. But though he was fully conscious now, he made no effort to get away. With quick, sure movements, Molly ringed his wrists with the ties and hauled him to his knees. She didn’t even blink at an effort that would have been difficult, if not impossible, if the cut on her chest had been deep.

  He was so busy watching her that he didn’t notice another presence in the room until he heard the distinctive click of a revolver being cocked. Right by his ear.

  “I’ll take those, thank you very much.” The woman’s soft voice was an even bigger shock than the weapon. A long, slender hand tipped with crimson nails reached around him and plucked the envelope from his hand. After a few beats, everyone else in the room froze.

  “Ramona?” Molly asked incredulously. “Aldus, right? But…you’re a facilitator.”

  “What? No, she’s not.” Dix looked from Molly to the woman behind Brady, puzzled.

  “Yes, she is,” Molly insisted. “She’s the woman I met with about Christopher. She’s, like, public relations.” But she sounded less certain by the time she finished speaking. Brady could follow her thoughts. The woman could be a simple facilitator working for Ellison or his partner…but she seemed much too confident and in charge.

  Brady’s father was the only one who didn’t look confused. In fact, he looked…amused?

  “Dad.” Brady couldn’t believe it. This woman had had Christopher killed! Twice! “What’s going on?”

  Rick shrugged. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Ramona, one of SIEGE’s top executives, and Howard are the bad guys. They think that information”—he motioned to the packet Ramona held—”is all they need to destroy, to eliminate the evidence against them.”

  “Evidence of what?” Ramona scoffed. “There can’t be anything in here too incriminating. Certainly not my name.”

  “But it is!” Molly rolled her lips inward after her outburst, clearly regretting revealing her knowledge. But then she shrugged. “I mean, if you’re exposing yourself, threatening us at gunpoint, you must believe it is. But I don’t know your endgame. You gonna kill us all? That would just set more people on your trail.”

  Brady smiled at her, pride and love filling him up until he almost forgot about the muzzle behind his ear. Molly was smart and tough and understood him better than anyone, but more than all that, she was the strongest person he’d ever met. Man or woman, agent or not.

  How the hell could he have been stupid enough not to see it before now? How could he ever have wanted Jessica, and all that weakness and self-centeredness?

  “I don’t need to kill anyone,” Ramona said. “Without evidence, no one can prove anything. They can’t—”

  “Get you tried for espionage against the government?” Rick asked conversationally. “Are you sure the only evidence is in that envelope?”

  The sullen silence behind him told Brady that no, she wasn’t sure. She was probably trying to decide whether or not to call their bluff.

  Except… Fuck. She didn’t need to call it. She had everything now. The information and Shae. He was surprised she hadn’t used her leverage already.

  He fumed, unable to come up with a plan. Normally her position, with the gun up against his skull, wasn’t a strong one. It was too easy for him to spin and disarm her. Easy when he wasn’t hobbled by a pre-existing bullet wound.

  “SIEGE isn’t a government entity,” she said. “All we do is move information. We don’t act on it.”

  Rick scoffed. “That defense won’t even get you in the door. And that information isn’t all we have on you. Sorry, but you’re toast.”

  “Then I guess I should kill you, after all.”

  The gun shifted against Brady’s skull. He tried hard not to flinch away from it and cause a reflexive shot. His eyes narrowed at the sudden glint in his father’s eye. But he didn’t move.

  In his peripheral vision, he saw Molly shift onto her heels, out of the ready stance she’d taken as soon as Ramona put t
he gun on him. What the hell was going on?

  The silence in the building crackled with tension. Something was about to break, and Brady didn’t want it to be him.

  “Treason’s the least of her worries,” he said. “She tried to kill Christopher. Twice. They’ll start with murder one.”

  The glint in his father’s eye deepened, a dark, satisfied amusement. “You know, Ramona, your field agent skills still suck ass.”

  “My field—” The woman’s indignant retort ended abruptly with a dull thump. The gun fell away from Brady’s head and he spun, bracing himself to take Ramona out with one punch. That was all he’d get, the way he felt right now. But she was already on the ground, cold-cocked by baseball bat, her revolver held—in his mother’s free hand.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Donna Fitzpatrick stepped around the heap that was Ramona Aldus, uncocked the revolver, slipped on the safety, and tucked it into her waistband without a hint of hesitation. Then she set her bat on the table and dried her hands on a dish towel. His disconsolate, wet mess of a mother was gone, replaced by a steady rock displaying as steely an edge as her husband.

  “You’re losing your touch,” she chided Rick as she walked across the barn. “Ten years ago she’d have never gotten the jump on you.”

  “I had it fully under control,” Brady’s father said as if this was banter they were used to exchanging. But it fell flat under the circumstances, and Brady couldn’t wrap his head around one important point.

  “Mom?” His voice came out thin. “You’re— You can’t be—”

  “SIEGE? Why not?” She checked the ties around the wrists of the man Dix stood over. “I’m guessing this is Howard.” She pulled off the hood, leaving the man’s white hair fluffed on top of his head. Ellison scowled and stared straight ahead.

  Brady had no answer for why not. Hell, everyone else was working for SIEGE. But… “You were always home. You never went on missions.”

  “Not after you kids were born, no.” She leaned against the table and folded her arms. “We can talk about this later, sweetie. The police are on their way. Then it looks like you all need some patching up.”