Demon Mind (Vector Book 2)

by Anthony J Melchiorri

  One had to go first, leaving the other in mortal danger.

  Alex should make the smart choice. They couldn’t afford to lose Jaber’s information. The mission could be lost, and untold lives might hang in the balance.

  But Alex couldn’t afford to lose Skylar, either.

  Decision made, he ducked under the gunfire and grabbed Skylar’s wrist with one hand. Together, half running and half falling, they dove out the kitchen window onto a roof terrace.

  He crouched to jump for a handhold, ready to get Jaber out next.

  More gunfire filled the apartment. Between the reverberating blasts, Alex could hear the slam of bullets into wood. And then the wet slurp of rounds piercing flesh.

  Jaber.

  Alex spat out a curse and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

  He didn’t have time for regrets now. They still weren’t in the clear.

  Alex still felt dizzy, but he hurdled over pipes and past water tanks and TV satellite dishes atop the neighboring buildings’ roofs. The sounds of gunshots from inside the apartment chased him.

  He had one hand wrapped around Skylar’s arm to keep her moving. She stumbled when her boot hit a ridge vent, but he held her upright.

  It was hard enough keeping her moving like this. He couldn’t risk letting go of Skylar to reload his handgun. Instead, he holstered it and focused on keeping his partner upright.

  “What’s happening?” she slurred.

  “Run, Skylar,” he said. “Just keep running.”

  He continued dragging her under clotheslines filled with laundry rippling in the wind, around buzzing air conditioning units.

  He glanced back. A man was leaning out the kitchen window with a rifle. Two more men were already crouched on the roof with their weapons aimed, searching for Alex and Skylar.

  They were three or so buildings away, but a wild spray of automatic gunfire could still cut him and his partner down. Taking a hard right past a row of potted plants, Alex led Skylar along a wall that came up to his hip. Bullets smashed into the short wall. Several of the pots burst in a spray of ceramic, leaves, and soil.

  “Skylar, I could really use your help,” he said more urgently.

  He cornered around a square structure in the middle of a roof with a domed skylight. At least they were out of sight of the men spilling out from their former safe house. But Alex was also quickly running out of rooftops. This was a corner building nearly a full block from their safe house. Two sides were bordered by open streets, and he wasn’t going to be able to jump to the other buildings without a pair of wings.

  The men would be on their position soon. If they were smart, they were already orchestrating an intercept maneuver with their backup forces in the streets too.

  Alex’s only option was to climb down the side of the two-story building, using the windowsills and pipes. Such a task should have been easy for him. Even easier for Skylar.

  But her mind still seemed to be nothing but a puddle of mud. His smart, brave, occasionally scathing partner was docile and confused, unable to fend for herself. When she came out of this—if she came out of it—she was going to be furious.

  “Skylar, we need to climb down. Do you understand?”

  She looked over the precipice of the roof, dangerously close to the edge. Below was a heap of trash next to a stack of lumber and rock for a nearby house in the middle of construction.

  “Do you understand?” Alex asked Skylar again.

  “Down.” She started to take a step forward into open space.

  “No, not like that.”

  He yanked her arm, pulling her backward. Together, they tumbled back into a clothesline, ripping down the line and all the drying garments.

  From over the rooftops, Alex heard shouting. He risked a peek around the square structure they had sheltered behind. They had a minute, maybe less. Another life-or-death decision with no time to think, to analyze all the variables.

  Climbing down wasn’t an option. Falling might be their only choice. But he’d be damned if he was going to shove Skylar over the side of the roof.

  He thought briefly about taking the sniper rifle from Skylar’s pack again. He wasn’t as good a shot as her, but he could almost certainly take out the handful of men climbing around the other rooftops. He might even be able to hold off a renewed attack from the ground.

  Problem was that didn’t help them in the long run. Not with sirens descending on their location.

  No, they needed to vanish.

  He pulled out his handgun and slid in a new magazine then pointed at the domed skylight, firing. Fractures formed in the glass before it finally shattered away.

  Past the jagged teeth of glass lining what remained of the skylight, there was only a one-story fall to a bedroom below. Fortune didn’t favor him enough to allow him an easy drop into the bed, but at least he would be less likely to break his ankles—or Skylar’s neck.

  “Come on,” he said. “Down we go.”

  He herded her toward the edge of the skylight. Instead of letting her fall, he wrapped his fingers around her wrists.

  Gunshots exploded to their south again. This time, the men had closed in enough that Alex was right in their sights.

  They were out of time.

  “Go!” he told Skylar.

  As if in a daze, she let go. Alex did his best to hold on, to slow her descent as much as possible, falling to his belly on the roof to lower her down.

  But though Skylar was nowhere near as tall as him, she was all dense, ropey muscle. He tried to hold on, to find a foothold on the roof, but the sudden jolt of her weight was too much.

  He couldn’t let her go, though. Couldn’t let her fall. So instead, he was yanked over the side with her.

  They tumbled down toward the tiled floor. Alex rotated as best he could to avoid slamming down straight on Skylar’s body. His side smacked against a chair and a vanity. The legs of both gave out. Splintering wood cracked under his weight.

  Alex heard a scream. There was a woman in the hallway outside the open bedroom door. Beside her was a young girl. Couldn’t be more than five or six.

  Oh no, he thought.

  In his desperate attempt to escape, he had brought this danger into the heart of an innocent family’s home.

  “You need to leave,” he said to them in Arabic. “Right now. Very bad men are coming.”

  The shouts from outside filtered in through the broken skylight.

  The mother picked up whatever was close to her and threw it at Alex. Clothes, glasses, decorative candles.

  If he hadn’t been running for his life, he might have laughed.

  “Please, leave now,” he said again, shielding his face and forcing himself to stand. His bones ached from the fall. He limped forward. If Skylar was hurt, she didn’t show it, acting just as stupefied as before.

  The mother didn’t listen. She was bravely defending her home, fighting for her daughter’s life. There was nothing funny about that.

  Footsteps pounded on the rooftop. No more time for pleading.

  Alex couldn’t scoop up Skylar, the woman, and her daughter all at once. But he did know one surefire way to get the mother to leave.

  Grabbing Skylar’s hand, he guided her toward the woman and child as they screamed. He pushed past the woman, but with his free hand, he hoisted the young girl over his shoulder. He took Skylar and the girl straight through the living room then kicked open the front door.

  The mother chased after him, screaming and crying, slamming her fists on his back.

  Even before he started down the stairs toward the first floor, he heard the pop and bang of more stun grenades landing in the apartment, followed by the sounds of men jumping down into it.

  He took the stairs down two at a time. The mother was right on his heels, cursing and pleading the whole time.

  As soon as he hit the first floor, he sprinted outside, looking down both directions of the road. A few cars rolled through the residential street. A small group of people
gathered in front of what looked to be a coffee shop, tables and chairs spilling outside under lights strung along an awning.

  Alex ran straight for the coffee shop. The handful of patrons outside were staring up at the rooftops. No doubt they had heard the commotion.

  “Everyone, inside,” Alex said. “Please, it isn’t safe out here.”

  He sighed. Nobody ever listened.

  Alex slung the little girl into her mother’s arms and shoved them both toward the café door.

  When the people merely continued to gawk at him, he flashed his holstered handgun. That got their attention. The shop patrons retreated inside, yelling. The angry mother swatted at him one last time, crying, but was too preoccupied with the safety of her daughter to pay any more attention to him. She ran inside with the others.

  Then Alex started running east, ensuring the people in the shop saw him take off with Skylar. As soon as he was out of sight, he took a hard right and doubled back through the alleys. With any luck, the people in the coffee shop would be only too glad to tell his pursuers which direction he and Skylar had gone. It would take them a few minutes to realize they’d been duped.

  A few minutes was all he needed.

  He flagged down a taxi and told the driver to take them west, all the way to the resorts by the Dead Sea. Even though it was a good hour’s drive from the city, the taxi driver didn’t complain. Alex knew that kind of fare would beat anything the guy could make piddling through the Amman streets all night. While the taxi driver merged with the throngs of chaotic traffic encircling the city, Alex kept a watchful eye behind them. Police cars with screaming sirens and flashing lights passed by, headed the opposite direction.

  He prayed that he had at least saved that mother and her daughter.

  And he prayed that there was some way forward with this mission. Some way they could find Ballard’s trail again. Their opportunity to pursue him completely undercover had come to a tumultuous end.

  He kept one finger over Skylar’s wrist, watching her vitals. Besides a few bruises, she seemed healthy—except for the otherwise vacant look in her eyes. How long had she been like this? Fifteen, twenty minutes? What if the effect was permanent?

  They hadn’t traveled far before her eyes suddenly went wide, reflecting the passing streetlights, and she tensed, fingers gripping the seat. Her face drained of color.

  “Where am I?” she asked. “What the hell is going on? And why the hell do I hurt everywhere?”

  Skylar recalled a night shortly after finishing Officer Commissioning School in Quantico. She and her cohort had traveled up to DC for a night of celebrations. A hard night of barhopping on H Street turned into a very long day. Every little beam of light seemed intent on personally stabbing straight through her pupils into her throbbing brain, reminding her that extra round of tequila shots was about as good an idea as sticking her hand in a garbage disposal.

  That had been an awful feeling.

  This was worse.

  “How long… before the Dead Sea?” she managed, her mouth feeling dry.

  “Just another half hour,” Alex said, seated next to her in the back of the cab. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

  “Other than feeling like I’ve got a first-class ticket on the struggle bus after a night out, I think I’ll live.”

  Alex’s fingers worked across the touch screen of his phone. “All the same, I’ll see if we can set up a tox screen and health checkup with one of our medical assets in the area. Kasim should be able to arrange it.”

  Worse than that night on H Street, Skylar had no recollection of the events that had transpired. No matter how many times Alex told her about the moments leading up to their escape in the taxi, it just didn’t click.

  The last thing she remembered was the anger and pain flooding through her just as Jaber began to go wild.

  “You really didn’t feel any of it?” she asked Alex. “No ringing in your ears? No pain, no anger?”

  Alex shook his head. Out the window past him, Skylar could see the first hints of water reflecting the shimmering moonlight.

  “I didn’t feel or hear anything,” he said. “It was like you two changed at the flip of a switch.”

  Skylar took a long swig of water. They had stopped briefly at a market along the Jordan Valley Highway to stock up on a few supplies and check to make sure they didn’t have any tails. So far, they were in the clear.

  “I’m not sure I’d call it a switch,” she said. “Felt more like someone had let a flash grenade go off in my head. Only instead of the light and sound fading, it just kept going. What the hell do you think that was?”

  “I would’ve guessed some kind of nerve agent. A chemical weapon. But it didn’t make sense that only you and Jaber were effected.”

  Skylar massaged her temple. She tried to look at the Dead Sea off to their west, but even the moonlight reflecting off the waves seemed too bright.

  “I keep thinking back to 2016 when those alleged attacks hit embassy officials in Havana,” Alex said.

  Skylar knew what he was talking about. The supposed sonic attacks that had stricken several diplomats and State Department employees had resulted in everything from hearing loss to headaches and memory loss. Sounded like a tamer version of the crap that had driven her crazy.

  “Maybe they hit the apartment with a sonic attack to soften us up and get in,” Alex said. “I might’ve been in just the right position to avoid it.”

  Skylar closed her eyes, trying to recall those moments, wondering if maybe Alex was right. But while it might’ve been a decent explanation for this garbage, one memory stood out to her like a zit ready to burst in the middle of her forehead.

  “I would buy that, except that still doesn’t explain why I saw that guy in a gas mask when I rescued Jaber from the van,” Skylar said. “That makes me think the chemical weapon explanation might be the right one.”

  “You said the guy had a syringe, right?” Alex said.

  “Yeah, but we have no idea if he injected Jaber.”

  “I’m thinking it doesn’t matter,” Alex said.

  “My mind’s still groggy. Head feels like it’s a gorilla’s punching bag. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “I don’t think the chemical weapon, or whatever it was, that those people used on you and Jaber was in the syringe,” he said. “You didn’t get injected with anything.”

  “No, nothing that I can remember.”

  “And why would he need a gas mask if it was injectable?”

  “Good point,” Skylar said. “But that mask was like none I’ve ever seen. Weird square filters, like it was custom-made.”

  “I’ll make a note of it,” Alex said.

  “If they didn’t inject the weapon, then you’re thinking it was airborne?”

  “All signs point to yes. Maybe something inside the van.”

  “Then what was the syringe for?”

  A light bulb seemed to go off behind Alex’s eyes. So damn bright she nearly had to shield her eyes from his gaze. “Maybe they injected a tracking chip into Jaber. That’s how they found him.”

  Skylar nodded and then immediately regretted it. Her head felt like a broken egg that had been put back together with duct tape.

  “God, I hope that’s the right answer.”

  “Why’s that?” Skylar asked.

  “First off, it means that I didn’t screw up countersurveillance. That when I patted him down, I didn’t miss something I shouldn’t have missed.”

  Skylar understood. Her worst fear was not that she failed to meet an objective because she’d been utterly defeated. It wasn’t even to lose another leg while working in the field. Her worst fear was that she screwed the pooch on a mission because she’d messed something up. That her skills in the field were rusty, and it was time to hang up her rifle.

  That day would go down as the worst day in her life, worse than when she had lost her leg in the helicopter crash that ended her career in the Marines. She tapped the prost
hetic, just to make sure it was still there. After everything she’d just been through, it brought her some reassurance to know she was still in one piece—or at least wasn’t missing anything new.

  “Second,” Alex continued, “it would mean that we know how this chemical weapon is administered. So maybe we can better defend ourselves against it next time, especially if all it takes is a gas mask, custom or not.”

  “You think this is the weapon Ballard was after?” Skylar said.

  “I don’t know,” Alex said. “But it could be. I’m just glad you’re back now.”

  “I hope you’re right,” she said.

  Deep in her mind, she feared the unknown weapon had hurt her in ways that weren’t clear yet. She had enough knowledge to understand that even if a nerve agent or viral disease or whatever looked temporary, that might leave a person with chronic side effects. Paralysis. Respiratory issues. Heart troubles. Brain damage. List wasn’t short. Those symptoms could rear their heads at any moment, striking when you least expected it, like a snake hiding in the grass. The last thing she wanted was that stuff to still be hiding inside her, causing her to lose control over herself again, risking the mission.

  And Alex’s life. He hadn’t blamed her, but knowing that she had pulled a gun on her partner made Skylar want to sink through the floor of the taxi. She turned and rested her cheek against the cool glass of the window and closed her eyes against the lingering pain.

  -13-

  Frederick, Maryland

  Kasim tried to slip into bed without waking his wife. He hadn’t been home in nearly forty-eight hours. Tired as he was, he hadn’t been able to tear himself from Vector’s headquarters in Fort Detrick until he had been sure Cruz and Wolfe finally reached the relative safety of the resort on the shore of the Dead Sea.

  It was finally time for a break. Not that he had wanted one.

  But Morris—the guy who was addicted to bad music and energy drinks—had practically shoved him out the door, saying Kasim needed to think about his mental and physical health. The gangly analyst said that he would call Kasim the instant there was another emergency.