So, I’m not going to be alone down there.
But who was this new intruder? And how was his presence going to complicate Skip’s mission?
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Despair spread through Anika as Stephanie walked her back toward her apartment. The sky above appeared as dark as her soul. The compound lights cast cones of yellow in the misty air. She smelled freshly mown grass which triggered odd memories of haying as a girl on the ranch.
Desperate to think of anything except what she had done with the New York data, she let her soul drift back to the past. If only she could be sitting in the hot cab of the swather, bouncing slowly along as the blades tucked tall grass over the cutters. She’d hated the swather back then. They’d never been able to afford to fix the cab air conditioner. Even with the windows open, the late June sun had turned the tin box into an oven. And the thing had constantly been breaking down, its parts worn past tolerance as a hedge against expensive new ones.
Please, God. Just let me go back to cutting hay and I’ll never set foot off the ranch again.
Stephanie’s stomach made a loud gurgle and the woman winced.
“How bad is it?” Anika asked. “The attack rate, I mean.”
“Attack rate? What are you talking about?”
Anika gestured as she walked along. “It’s an epidemiological term. How many people has the enterotoxin affected?”
“We’re running on half-staff. The rest are in the clinic or have been sent home and told to stay put until we figure out what it is. The lab’s trying to run down the source. But they…” Stephanie stopped, listening to something in her earpiece. “Come on. We’ve got to hurry.”
“What’s wrong?”
“One of the dog teams found a parachute. Security is going wild.”
Anika glanced around, a sudden desperate hope building in her chest.
“Don’t even think it,” Stephanie muttered, reaching into her purse and withdrawing a stainless steel semiautomatic.
“What do you shoot?” Anika asked, uncomfortably gazing at the pistol.
“Nine-millimeter Sig. Why would you care?”
“As sick as you are, you’d better keep the safety on. If you get the shakes, I don’t want to get shot.”
“Oh. Right. Wyoming girl. Of course you’re familiar with guns.” Stephanie gave her a cold look through fevered eyes.
When they reached Anika’s apartment, Stephanie fumbled the lock twice, then shoved the door open and gestured for Anika to enter first. Closing the door behind them, Stephanie carefully looked around the room.
“With an intruder alert, guards should have been posted. But with most of them crapping and puking, we don’t have the personnel.” Stephanie clutched the pistol high and close to her chest and started forward. “Keep back until I clear the place.”
Anika watched Stephanie step forward and glance quickly up the stairs before she walked wide around the kitchen divider. Then she checked the bathroom.
“Clear.”
“Why would they come here?”
“To try and take you back.”
Anika felt her heart race. She followed behind Stephanie as the woman started slowly up the stairs, pistol in a competent two-handed hold. No doubt about it, the woman knew what she was doing.
Anika swallowed hard. Don’t hesitate. Grab Stephanie by the belt and jerk her backward down the stairs.
Anika opened her hands, heart hammering, mouth gone dry. A distant part of her brain thought: This must be how Dad feels each time he puts his life on the line in Converse County.
Just as she made her grab, Stephanie leaped upwards out of reach, taking the steps two at a time.
In a crouch, Stephanie rounded the corner at the head of the stairs. Moving quickly, the woman advanced on cat feet, the closely tucked pistol swinging with her body as she covered the office.
“Stay,” she ordered, then advanced to check behind the desk. Satisfied the room was clear, she crept to the bedroom door and darted inside.
Stephanie stepped out, pistol lowered, a look of disappointment on her excitement-flushed face. “No one here.”
Anika watched Stephanie cross to the wet bar, kneel, and retrieve a bottle of water from the little refrigerator. The woman rummaged in her purse, removed a pill bottle, and tossed two tablets into her mouth before she cracked the cap and chugged water.
“Antibiotics,” Stephanie told her. “My own concoction.”
Anika took a deep breath, walking to one of the chairs and flopping into it. “You’re not seriously going to attack Rockland County, New York, are you? Use your head. Run the permutations. The US will retaliate.”
“That’s the idea.”
“What?”
Stephanie dropped, exhausted, into the opposite recliner, but managed to chuckle. “The dominoes of your beloved model are rolling down the hill like big rocks.” She pointed to her gut. “If the Big Man weren’t occupied with other things, he’d be euphoric.”
“Other things?”
“Deals that are suddenly on hold. Investors dumping assets. Someone clever has figured out exactly how to hurt us. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. Little things that would seem insignificant. A supplier of a critical part suddenly unable to deliver. Money transfers held up. Investors offered more lucrative deals at the last minute. Always at the weakest link. Zoakalski’s experts are baffled.”
Maureen and the team. Has to be. Modeling how to derail the chain of events…
“What about the parachute?”
Stephanie gave her a flat glare. “Anyone who thinks they’re going to get you out is in for a surprise. Assuming they could get to you, they’d never make it past the first perimeter. Even on half-staff, security is alerted. Whoever the intruder is, the second he moves, the cameras and motion detectors will spot him. By now the dogs are tracking his scent.” She smiled victoriously. “Poor fool.”
“Why do you think they’re after me?”
Stephanie’s eyelids were drooping from exhaustion. “In your words, you’re the highest probability.” She listened to her earpiece. “We’ve got guards on your door. A perimeter is being formed around this building as I speak. Since they aren’t here already, they’re not going to be coming.”
Anika’s heart sank.
Stephanie continued. “Too bad, actually. I’d have liked to take him down myself.” A pause. “We’ll be fascinated to find out just how he expected to get you out.”
“Helicopter?”
“Not possible.” Stephanie listened to her earpiece, nodding. “I’m placing security with you. You’re to be under constant surveillance until this thing is concluded.”
Stephanie climbed wearily to her feet, pistol dangling from her right hand. “The guard will be up momentarily.”
Anika watched the woman walk to the stairs and listened as she descended to the ground floor.
In an instant, Anika was on her feet, running to the head of the stairs to peer down. Then she hurried to the refrigerator, removing a heavy bottle of champagne.
As soon as the guard walked up the steps, she had one chance to brain the man. A tremble ran through her muscles. I have to kill him. I can do it.
She whirled as the sliding door to the deck opened. Turning, she gripped the bottle by its neck, ready to swing.
Skip Murphy, dressed in black, gave her a stern look. “Put down the Dom Perignon, okay?” He slid the door closed behind him and quickly crossed the floor on silent feet.
“Skip!” Anika lowered the bottle. “A guard’s coming.”
Skip considered for a moment, whispering, “Can you distract him?”
Anika swallowed hard. “Uh, yeah. I can think of something.”
“Good.” Then he ducked behind the huge desk as feet thumped on the stairs.
Anika tried to keep from shaking, wondering why Skip didn’t just ambush the man as he stepped into the office. Instead, she tried to compose herself as a man in his thirties, clad in dark blue, a submachine
gun hanging from a sling, cautiously entered the room.
Anika cradled the bottle of champagne. Distract him? How? Come on, what would completely occupy his attention?
“So, you’re my new jailor?” she asked warily.
The man cast a wary glance around the room, speaking into a throat mic in German. Then he turned his attention to Anika, a slight smile on his lips. “I’m going to like this duty,” he said in accented English.
Anika read the interest in his eyes and she had it. “Look, I’m tired. Stephanie acted like an ass. I’m taking a shower, drinking a glass of champagne, and going to bed.”
The guard shrugged. “You are not to be out of my sight.”
“Not even in the shower?” Anika asked as if stunned.
“Nein. Not out of my sight.”
“Hope you don’t blush,” Anika growled sourly as she started past him for the bedroom. “Because I’m sweaty and filthy.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw the grin widen on his thin lips, a glitter of anticipation in his eyes.
He followed her into the bedroom, just as she’d hoped he would.
Anika unbuttoned her shirt and tossed it on the bed. As she stepped into the bathroom, she was unsnapping her pants, pausing long enough to hit the appropriate shower controls. As she began to slip her pants over her hips, the guard was in the doorway, eyes gleaming in anticipation.
“Don’t think this is an invitation,” Anika said in a chipper voice. “Not that you’d ever be distracted from your duty by a naked woman…”
A blur of movement behind the man was followed by an arm snaking around the man’s neck. Then the fellow was yanked backward. Anika stepped forward, staring in disbelief as Skip Murphy lowered the guard’s body quietly to the floor.
“Good work, Anika.”
Anika snapped her pants, watching in amazement as Skip began peeling out of his jacket and shirt. “What are you doing?” She ran past him and retrieved her shirt from the bed.
“Dressed as him, I get you out of here.”
Anika was pulling her shirt on. “They’ve got guard dogs. They’re tracking you from your parachute. We don’t have much time.”
Skip stuck an arm into the guard’s shirt. “Not my parachute, Anika. Someone else is here. I saw them drop in. One person, dressed in black. Slender and moving fast when he hit the ground.” He frowned at her. “Get a coat, your purse, whatever you need as long as it’s small.”
She yanked open the closet, pulling out her black coat and lunged for her purse. “How’d you get here? Can we get out that way?”
He checked his watch. “You ever read Homer? The Iliad?”
“You think you’re Achilles and Zoakalski’s Hector? You’re going to challenge him to single combat?”
“Who? No, it was the horse I was thinking about.”
“Classical literature isn’t your strong point, is it?”
“Nope.” He buttoned up the guard’s shirt, wincing as it stretched the buttons over his thick chest. Clipping the throat mic to the collar, he fit the earpiece. He was strapping an equipment belt to his hips, when he said, “I won’t lie. It’s going to get scary out there. Are you with me?”
She gulped and nodded as he slung the MP5 submachine gun over his shoulder. “I’m my father’s daughter.” I hope.
“Yeah, I thought you were.” Skip gave her a grin. “Come on.”
He led her out to the office and flicked off the lights. At the sliding door, he raised a small radio from a holster on his belt.
He carefully slid the door open and said, “Ready.” Even as he re-holstered the radio, Anika heard a fssst accompanied by a snapping pop. She swallowed hard, having heard that sound before: the sound of a high-velocity bullet hitting flesh. In her youth, it had always been a deer or antelope.
But there were no deer here.
“Come on,” Skip said, stepping out onto the deck. “The rope’s knotted. Can you climb?”
Anika jerked a nod, grabbing the rope. Driven by a fear she’d never known, she began to climb, Skip steadying the rope from below.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Skip held his breath as Anika clambered up the rope. The tricky part was where it hung over the wood-shingled roof. But Anika managed. Then he muscled himself up, climbing for all he was worth. Anika was crouched at the top, and Skip paused only long enough to pull up the rope.
“What if they see us?” Anika asked. “They have cameras all over this place.”
“I’m hoping they’re shorthanded.”
“They are. Food poisoning. Half the compound is down.”
“Yeah. Maureen Cole will be delighted to learn her toxin worked.” He was scuttling down the roof, the rope coiled over his shoulder.
By the time they reached the far end of the roof, they could hear shouts in the distance.
“What’s all the commotion?” Anika whispered.
“My insurance policy.” Then he listened as voices began bellowing orders in his earpiece. He turned and placed a hand on Anika’s shoulder. “Just hold onto the rope. I’ll lower you to the ground.”
He unslung the rope and quickly wound it around her butt and thigh to create a belay. Then he placed her hands on the knots. “Hold tight. I won’t drop you.”
“I know.” She maneuvered over the edge and saw Skip brace himself as he began lowering her.
When Anika’s feet hit the ground, she scuttled back into the shadows and watched Skip descend.
“Come on,” Skip said when he touched down. “Now, we’re just walking normally. Two people out for an evening stroll.”
“Where to?” Anika asked as Skip started down the walk to the trees.
He fished in one of the pockets of his tactical pants and found the key. “Hopefully, a rather uncomfortable ride out of here.”
As they approached a line of conifers, Skip started as a man came trotting out of the darkness. “Be cool. Let me do the talking.”
The man peered at them in the dim light, then straightened, saying in a German accent, “Mr. Murphy.” The voice was in English now, the pistol pointed at Anika. “You will lower the machinegun. If I hear the selector click, Dr. French is dead.”
Skip removed his hand from the grip, lifting it into plain view. “Very well, Herr Gunter.”
Anika had begun to shake like a deer in the headlights. Another of the distant shouts could be heard.
“The sniper is your work?” Gunter asked, head cocked. “Teams have already been dispatched to hunt your friend down. And we know the mountain better than he does.” Gunter’s smile hinted at nothing nice.
“Hope you told your teams to pack a lunch. They’re going to need it.”
“Turn around. Then, drop to your knees. Both of you.”
“You might want to rethink that,” Skip replied easily. “Helping us out of here might just earn you a very nice retirement. I’m thinking that house in the Bahamas would be a delightful place to spend the rest of your life.”
Gunter gave a slight shake of his head. “Turn around. On your knees.”
Anika caught the flicker of black as it emerged from the trees. In a low crouch—little more than a blur in the night—the form seemed to float toward them across the grass.
“Gunter,” Skip called, “You really can make a fortune for yourself.”
“Fortunes come and go. But the memory of a midnight execution, well, it stays with a man forever,” he said reasonably. Skip watched him raise the pistol as the dark intruder slowed, straightened, and slipped an arm around his neck. Gunter was pulled back, arching.
Skip danced forward, using the HK to club the pistol from the man’s hand. Then he stepped back, bringing the gun to bear.
Gunter thrashed, arms flailing, as his body was levered to the ground. Skip recognized the flicking motions as an artfully wielded knife did its work and was wiped clean on Gunter’s clothing. Tall and lithe, the assailant straightened; the knife slid neatly into a belt sheath.
From under a balacl
ava, a female voice said, “Thank you for the distraction. I owe you one.” She glanced down at the corpse. “With Gunter, it was personal.”
“For Fetzer? The guy they found on the railroad tracks in Laramie?” Skip guessed.
A slight nod. “And then the attack in Italy.”
“So what’s next, Li?” He stepped in front of Anika, who’d been standing like a frozen deer. “Dr. French is mine.”
She seemed to ignore the MP5 pointed at her middle. “We don’t want her. Schott gave us everything we need.”
“Then we’re done here?”
She gave a nod and turned, long legs poised to strike in case he moved. “See you on the outside, Murphy.”
He watched Mi Chan Li sprint into the darkness under the trees.
Skip grabbed Anika’s arm. “You’re not going to fold on me, are you?”
“No.” She shivered.
Skip left at a trot, thankfully ducking into the trees. Crouching under the branches, he paused before stepping out on the other side. Yep, there it was, just like he’d hoped—silver and shining in the lights.
Chapter Seventy
It had been a really shitty night: The security of the compound breached, Gunter and three others dead, Anika French vanished, and her dangerously concussed guard clueless about who brained him. And no one had been able to hunt down the sniper on the hillside. When Stephanie hadn’t been dealing with one crisis or another, she’d been racing for the toilet.
She was in anything but a good mood when her cell rang. She fished it out of her pocket, blinked away her fatigue, and checked the number. Unknown.
“Ja?”
“Stephanie? It’s Mark Schott. Can you talk?”
She glanced at Zoakalski sitting behind his desk, talking on his phone, so carried away in his own rage that he barely glanced up when her phone rang.
“Just a moment.”
Zoakalski waved for her to leave the room.
Fracture Event: An Espionage Disaster Thriller Page 24
