Kill Zone (Danger in Arms, Book 2)

by Cindy Dees

  The Gulfstream’s left side and main exit faced roughly in Taylor’s direction. With his telescopic rifle sight, he’d be able to see the comings and goings, too. If he had to take a shot he was still within his effective range. Although his shooting angle had just gotten worlds trickier with the control tower partially blocking his line of sight.

  “Can you see the jet’s door?” she asked under her breath.

  “I can see the bottom half of the steps, but not the top of the hatch. You’re gonna have to cover the doorway,” he bit out.

  “Roger,” she breathed.

  The commuter jet beside the Gulfstream opened its doors, and a stream of passengers came pouring out of it. Two dozen milling men, women and children collecting bags and making their way sloppily toward the terminal. The Gulfstream’s stairs started down. Amanda rested her finger softly on the trigger of her gun. The bulk of the commuters were moving toward the terminal now. The ramp cleared slightly. There he was. Poised on the top step of the Gulfstream behind a bulky bodyguard was Brodin, in his distinctive wire spectacles.

  “It’s our guy,” she murmured without moving her lips. C’mon. Move, you big lug. Lemme see your boss, she mentally exhorted the guard. She glanced up quickly to gauge Taylor’s line of sight. He wouldn’t be able to see Brodin yet.

  And then a movement out of the corner of her eye sent subliminal alarm bells ringing in her head. She turned her head slightly and looked at the reflection in her sunglasses. A man walking behind her with a limp and a cane. Biryayev. He didn’t seem to be looking at her. Good Lord willing, he hadn’t made her. But the way he’d stopped a moment ago, it could’ve been a jolt of recognition that caught her attention in the first place.

  Should she abort the surveillance? But when would they ever get another shot like this at finding out what the elusive Brodin was up to? Just a few more seconds, and she’d know who the bastard was climbing into bed with. No way would their terrified contact finger the bastard a second time. She slid to her right, behind a large family exchanging enthusiastic greetings with one another.

  Taylor spoke into her ear. “I’ve got Brodin in sight. Now let’s see who comes to him.”

  Biryayev walked on past, leaning heavily on his cane.

  She moved to the end of a broad observation deck that jutted about thirty feet out into the ramp. Although a dozen of the commuter passengers still milled around on the ramp collecting luggage and kids, she had a relatively clear view of Brodin. A couple of his guards peeled away to supervise luggage.

  Amanda gripped her pistol more tightly. She maneuvered the last few steps to the window past the family, who were still busy hugging and chattering. Brodin was in plain sight now. A sharp movement out of the corner of her eye. Biryayev was pivoting around, raising the cane toward her. Like a weapon!

  One of the bodyguards outside jumped and opened his mouth as if to shout something. In slow motion, she dived for cover, flinging herself toward a row of chairs.

  The huge plate-glass window beside her shattered as a shot rang out. It hung suspended for an instant, then crashed to the ground outside with a tremendous explosion of glass and sound. Men all over the tarmac pulled out guns as she rolled behind a heavy trash can. A barrage of answering shots rained around her.

  People screamed and dived to the floor while glass and lead flew. Shots came from every direction now, some coming from in front of her, others flying over her shoulder from behind. She couldn’t tell who was shooting at whom. Muzzles flashed from a dozen positions within the terminal, and at least that many more returned fire outside.

  Biryayev advanced in her direction, a pistol in his hand now, close enough so she could see his face contorted in a rictus of rage. She looked around frantically. Nowhere was out of the line of fire as men shot wildly, everywhere.

  Police came sprinting down the terminal, blowing piercing whistles and adding to the chaos. Apparently, the street exits had been locked because a swell of screaming passengers came surging back in her direction like a wave rebounding off a sea wall.

  A shot zinged past her, clipping her left shoulder. It burned like a skinned knee. She glanced down quickly. Just a graze. Quickly, she calculated the direction it must have come from.

  Her instinct was to drop and fire back. Except there were civilians all over the place. She couldn’t take the chance of hitting them. She had to choose the more difficult option of not shooting back. To get the hell out of here. Fleeing went against everything she’d ever learned. But she could not in good conscience lift a weapon among all these innocent people.

  “What the hell’s going on over there?” Taylor shouted in her ear.

  She jumped up and took four leaping strides toward the window. She dived through the jagged opening, falling and rolling in one movement. She slammed to the concrete ten feet below. God, that hurt her shot shoulder. Maybe more than a graze, after all.

  Brodin’s men trained weapons on her, but apparently saw only a local woman escaping and yanked their aims away. She dived toward an airplane tug, crouching behind the piece of heavy machinery. Someone fired out the terminal window toward the ramp. Probably Biryayev. The guy looked absolutely crazed.

  Brodin’s bodyguards lay on top of their charge while the rest of his people returned fire wildly. Good Lord. What a mess! More men fired toward Brodin’s position out several windows. People screamed and ran in every direction, while the staccato sounds of gunfire rat-a-tatted and bullets whizzed through the air. She ducked behind the tug’s big engine once more.

  More gunfire from inside. Jeez, it was a free-for-all! Brodin’s shooters turned away from the windows. Amanda took advantage of the momentary lull in the rain of lead and the utter chaos to make her crouching way around the far side of the tug. She saw Brodin try to stand up only a few yards from her, but one of his men yanked him roughly back down to the ground.

  Brodin dropped something. A cloth pouch. A half-dozen shiny, flat, round objects fell out of the bag, and one of them rolled practically to her feet. She snatched it up and stuffed it in her left pocket. She backed around the corner as Brodin scrambled on his hands and knees, chasing after the rolling wafers. His men bodily tackled him, jerking him back under cover. She lost sight of him.

  Slowly, the gunfire ceased. A few more sporadic bursts of fire, and then an eerie silence fell, broken by the screams and moans of the victims. At least a dozen people were hit, most writhing in pain, but a few lay motionless where they’d dropped.

  Dull with shock, she made her way to the window she’d leaped out of. She climbed up on a stack of cargo to lever herself inside. Most of the family she’d been standing behind when the firefight broke out was down. Numb, she climbed through the window. She let go of her pistol. Unfired, it hung slackly against her leg.

  Miraculously, she was unscathed except for the minor wound to her shoulder. She watched as Brodin’s remaining security hustled him onto the Gulfstream, half carrying, half dragging him. The plane taxied away, gathering speed, as someone struggled to close its door.

  A motion out of the corner of her eye caused Amanda to turn and stare.

  A bloody man lay on the ground a few yards away from her. He rolled over and raised his arm to point a pistol at her. She sidestepped instinctively, and the arm fell back down to the ground. She rushed over to kneel beside him, looking carefully at the face.

  Dead eyes stared back at her. Her former CIA collaborator. She looked up. There. And there. Two more downed American faces. She widened her search. There. Over there, too. Oh, Lord, the carnage. Her stomach revolted. She tried to set aside her reaction. Reached for a state of emotionless calm. And failed. Utterly. Damn Taylor and his awakening of her conscience. Think, Amanda! Keep your brain engaged or you’ll die out here!

  The faces lay in a wide circle around—what? What had been at the center of their surveillance bull’s-eye? It couldn’t have been Brodin. They weren’t arranged correctly to target him outside on the ramp. She drew a mental circle from body
to body. The center of it had been…

  It couldn’t be. She staggered to her feet in disbelief. She began to back toward the exit slowly, the macabre scene burning into her memory like a hot coal. The center of the bull’s-eye was where she’d been standing when the shooting broke out.

  Had all this erupted because of her? Biryayev had fired in her direction. It could’ve been at her or at Brodin, given where she’d been standing. Had he recognized her? Her disguise had only changed her coloring, not her basic facial features. If somebody knew her well enough, they could’ve spotted her. And he did lurch in recognition a few seconds before he fired. Lord knew, Biryayev had certainly tried to kill her on that quiet residential street nearly a week ago.

  So Biryayev shot at her. Brodin’s people had panicked and fired back, thinking their man was the target. Then the Russians fired on everyone, and the Americans joined in. Clearly the CIA had a green light to take her out, or else that downed agent wouldn’t have just raised his gun at her as his last living act. But why, for God’s sake? Why did the CIA want her dead?

  Her gaze swept around the terminal once more. Twenty, maybe twenty-five victims in here in addition to the thirty or so outside. Fifty-plus innocent men, women, and children, oh God. She’d been the catalyst that started this whole massacre.

  A policeman brushed past her, snapping at her to get out of the way. Looking at the scene around her, Amanda’s stomach filled with bile and she headed for the front of the terminal. Police and ambulance personnel raced past, jostling her.

  A hand on her arm detained her just as she reached the doors. She whipped around violently, hands flying up to protect herself. It was a woman speaking rapidly in Spanish. Amanda stopped her hands abruptly, halting the killing blow only inches away from the woman’s larynx.

  Amanda stared blankly until the Spanish phrases untangled themselves and comprehension came. The woman was pointing to the patch of blood staining Amanda’s left shoulder and asking if she was all right. Amanda nodded and moved away from the woman.

  Amanda stepped across the street, avoiding the fire trucks and police cars parked haphazardly in front of the terminal. Staggering in shock, she zigzagged among the cars, moving generally to her right. She tripped over an unseen curb and finally broke into a stumbling run.

  Her feet felt heavy and wouldn’t obey her properly. She plucked at the skirt as it twisted around her legs, tangling stickily where someone had bled on it. She wiped her hand on the front of her blouse as she ran, leaving a red blotch against the white cotton.

  The sound of a commotion behind her roused her enough to glance over her shoulder. A half-dozen men pouring out of the terminal. With short hair and conservative suits. Americans. She ran faster, heading for the dark shape of their van in the back of the parking lot. Tears began to flow, blurring her vision. She gasped for air in sobbing, irregular breaths.

  A tall shape loomed beside the van motioning for her to hurry. Taylor. She staggered the last few yards to the powerful motorcycle he’d pulled from the back of the van. He shoved a satchel into her hand and pushed her onto the machine, then climbed on in front of her and jumped savagely on the kick starter. The engine roared to life and he gunned the throttle.

  They bumped over a curb and across a strip of grass, bouncing onto an access road. Taylor turned his head and shouted, “How bad are you hit?”

  “Not bad!” she shouted back in his ear.

  “Then hang on. We’re getting the hell out of here before those bastards come after us!”

  Sixteen

  Geneva. Perched at the westernmost point of Switzerland at the tip of a territorial peninsula that juts like a finger poking into the ribs of France. The graceful city nestled in the mountains at the westernmost end of the crescent that is Lake Geneva, or Lake Leman, as the French call it.

  Amanda stood under the stars and breathed the clean pine scent of the mountains. The frigid air burned her lungs, but it was invigorating. A stiff breeze blew off the lake tonight, reddening her cheeks and the tip of her nose. She huddled deeper into the turned-up collar of her coat.

  For the first time in days, she felt half alive. After the disaster in Caracas, it was as if a dense fog had enveloped her, muffling sound and sense and reducing events around her to a slow-motion crawl.

  “Why Geneva?” she asked Taylor. He looked out over the black lake beside her, stalwart and controlled, completely in command of the situation. The irony was not lost on her. They’d reversed roles, with her the voice of conscience and moderation after the horror of the Caracas massacre, and him focused fiercely on completing the mission and saving her life.

  “Marina Subova is here,” he said succinctly.

  “Ah.” Something she should have remembered. Thank God he was operating on all cylinders. She’d be lying dead in a ditch or rotting in a Venezuelan jail were it not for him the past two days. He’d orchestrated their anonymous escape to Switzerland with a smooth precision she could be proud of.

  They walked another block along the lakeshore in silence. The moon bathed them in silvery, cold light, and distant mountain peaks flanking the lake glittered white. There would be good skiing already at the higher elevations.

  “I got the report back from Devereaux on that wafer you picked up,” he said quietly.

  His words jarred her back to the case at hand. “What is it?”

  “Diamond. Just as I suspected. But synthetic.”

  She frowned. That was significant, somehow. God, she wished her mind would get in gear. “I didn’t know diamonds came in shapes like that.” The wafer was nearly the size of her palm and roughly a millimeter thick. Polished smooth, it shone with crystalline purity.

  “They don’t. Somebody grew a diamond crystal in a lab and then ground it to that shape. The Swiss jeweler who examined it was impressed with its exact precision of manufacture.”

  She fought through more tendrils of fog in her brain and asked, “Why did Brodin have it?”

  “The more pertinent question is, what is it for?” They walked a bit farther and then he turned to face her. He answered his own question. “Devereaux says it’s a blank computer chip.”

  That startled her. A few more cobwebs tore away. “A computer chip? Made of diamond?”

  “One of the biggest limitations on the speed of computer chips is heat. Silicon can only take so much before its performance degrades. But diamond can stand a great deal more heat.”

  “Which means,” she said slowly, “that a diamond chip is faster than a silicon one?”

  “Up to a hundred times faster.”

  Amanda blinked. Every computer could be a hundred times faster than it currently was? Whoa.

  “Diamond computer chips will also revolutionize the nano-chip industry. Medicine with robots the size of red blood cells will be possible.”

  “And why did Brodin have a pouch full of these diamond computer chips?”

  “He was going to deliver them to someone in Caracas,” Taylor replied.

  She flinched at the mental images that single word conjured. She frowned up at him. “To whom? The American government, the Russian government, and the Russian Mob were there.”

  He shrugged. “Good question.”

  She turned over the three possibilities. Finally. Her brain felt like it was coming to life. “We know Brodin’s got access to synthetic diamonds, and the way he’s been throwing around gemstone rocks this past year, I’d say the odds are excellent he’s been using synthetic diamonds in all those arms trades he’s doing. And we think those arms trades are being set up by the Russian government and signaled to him via Marina’s music. My bet’s on the Russian government.”

  “So the Russian Mob was there only to act as Brodin’s security, and the Americans were there because they got wind of the deal with him and Russia and wanted to stop it?”

  The second part didn’t ring true in her gut. “The Russian economy is a free-for-all these days. So why wouldn’t the Americans just approach Brodin and/or his
supplier and buy some for themselves?” she asked.

  Taylor frowned. “Let’s ask Marina.”

  “You think she knows something about the wafers?” Amanda asked in surprise.

  “Only one way to find out.”

  “Nobody else has been with her entourage nonstop for the past eighteen months. Kriskin’s gone, Brodin’s gone…she’s the only unbroken thread.” Hard to believe her old friend was tangled up in something like this. But then, look at her own life. Lord knew, Marina would have no moral compunction about dabbling in smuggling.

  Amanda resumed walking, more briskly this time. Taylor’s long strides kept up with hers easily. They retraced their steps along the shore and crossed the Quai du Mont Blanc, which spanned the Rhone River where it joined the lake. Black, forbidding water swirled under the bridge.

  This time it was Taylor who broke the silence. “Can you arrange for us to see her?”

  “How private do you want our conversation to be?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  “Hmm. That means we’ll have to get her away from her bodyguard, and probably out of her room wherever she’s staying. I imagine somebody has it bugged. When do you want this meeting?”

  “As soon as possible.”

  “Tomorrow night?”

  “That’d be fine. Can you do it?”

  “Of course. I’ll appeal to her sense of adventure. She always did love to break the rules.”

  They walked a little while longer before turning away from the waterfront. They headed for their accommodations in a lower-profile section of town. Taylor unlocked the door to their plain but spotless hotel room and ushered Amanda inside.

  For the first time since they fled Venezuela, she felt like her old self. She had completely unraveled after the massacre. It had been all she could do to keep moving and let Taylor herd her out of the country. An all-nighter on the motorcycle had put them in Cali, Colombia, where they had boarded a flight for Paris on their fake IDs. The train ride to Geneva had been simple enough for Taylor to arrange, even with all the antiterrorism security these days.