“What now? Do we leave him?” Perry asked.
“Hassan’s men should be along any minute now. They can manage him.” Emily removed his belt and slipped it under his back. She repositioned the front plate of his body armor and cinched up the belt across it. “Bring that rock.” Perry pointed at one. “No, the larger one.”
He grunted to lift it. “This thing must be at least eighty pounds.”
“Lean it up against his chest… here. The weight will keep the entry wound covered.”
Finally, the man uttered a few words, incomprehensible to Emily. Perry leaned over him to listen. He asked him something in return, but the man seemed to lapse into unconsciousness.
“Something about a boat, and a big payout… I think. My Pashtu isn’t that good. I couldn’t get anything about Andie or the other hostage.”
“A payout? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“They’re mercs, that’s what. Here to do a job and get paid.”
“Let’s go.” Emily was already through the next passage before Perry could disentangle himself from the wounded and the dead, having extricated a pair of Mini-14s.
“Crap… slow down,” he called to her as loudly as he dared. “We need some sort of plan of attack. We can’t just charge into… whatever they have waiting for us. They’re sure to know we’re coming now.” Of course, Emily hadn’t heard any of his very good advice.
Chapter 16
A Stray Round
What was she supposed to do? At moments like these, Perry was a bit too circumspect for her taste. This was what SEALs were all about, preparation and planning, and any tactical advantage they might gain from superior firepower. But time was their primary asset now, and no amount of planning could substitute for that.
She ran with a purpose, her feet light on the dusty floor of the passage, barely making enough noise to echo, much less carry more than a few meters, the Sig in one hand, a combat knife she’d stripped off one of the dead men in the other. The flashlight had long since been discarded, not wanting to inhibit her movements with a heavy cylinder jammed in a pocket… and, for whatever reason, the ambient light provided enough guidance to her eyes and steps, though she had no idea what the new source might be. Perry’s heavier feet thudded further and further behind her. He’d want to catch up, and she appreciated that, but the ordinance he’d taken from the dead weighed him down noisily, and stealth required her to move even faster, to keep enough distance between them to arrive in silence before his noise could be detected.
How long had it been since she’d rushed headlong into the fray like this? At Itbayat, of course, though stealth wasn’t an option then. She’d already stolen away Princess Akane from Diao Ming’s encampment, clothed in deadly silence. Once the sun brightened the sky, swiftness was key, not stealth, and the violence came out into the open, until finally she forced a confrontation with Diao himself, and felt his steel lacerate her flesh, but not before she’d slipped a wakizashi between two ribs and through his heart. His megalomania prevented him from seeing it, much less defending against it. Eyes red with rage, he saw only the painful death he meant to inflict on her, the agony he would extract in payment for the death of his beloved, Diao Chan.
So much had changed since then, so many dead to her credit, but also more attachments had formed, attachments to a world she couldn’t so easily throw away. She’d come close to losing Li Li and Stone just a few months earlier, and Yuki and Andie, even Perry was a reason to remain in the light of the sun. Perhaps that’s the lesson the dalliance with Wu Dao had taught her: love cautiously. Whatever else he might be, Perry was the safe choice. He would risk all for her, though he might err on the side of caution to keep her safe.
But caution and safety were not going to bring Andie home. This was what she felt in her bones.
She heard them up ahead, perhaps around another corner… or two. A woman’s voice, not Andie’s, she thought, more like the higher register of tones French women tended to favor. Either way, it meant she was on the right track. And male voices, deeper, coarser, in a tongue she didn’t understand, though it sounded like the little bit of Russian Ethan had taught her years ago, when she’d had to go to the Kamchatka Krai.
They were making too much noise to be able to detect her pursuit. Now she only had to manage the moment of her arrival, to arrange it so that Perry would come on the scene moments later, just when the mercenaries – that’s who they were, she’d concluded, might as well call them what they really were – would begin to think they’d gotten the better of her. Hassan’s men might be on the way, too, if Perry’s earlier surmise had been correct, and she hoped they wouldn’t scramble her efforts.
A shriek and a low growl: this had to mean she was close, and the women were becoming a burden. More shouting, in threatening tones, resounded through the passage. This was her moment, when the mercenaries were maximally distracted, but before their tempers got the better of them, and they actually hurt the hostages. With a deep breath and using the shadow from a bend in the passage for cover, Emily gathered herself for the final confrontation.
A quick pivoting step brought her full-face into the end of the passage, and she finally understood the source of the faint light she’d been following. They’d attached glow sticks to the women as a sort of necklace, to make them easy targets in the event of an escape. Perhaps they’d also hoped to make themselves less easy to target. To Emily, of course, this merely meant to fire wherever the green light wasn’t. As long as she didn’t hit either wall, the women should be safe. A dark figure on one side of the passage became momentarily visible, and Emily put two rounds into his belly, which probably wouldn’t be covered by body armor. A moment of intense confusion ensued, as she closed the gap in her last moment of invisibility. One man fell, and she fired three more rounds into the space he’d vacated, just as flashlights were flicked on, and automatic weapons swung around. Of course, they’d fire indiscriminately behind them, and she had no cover. Her only option was to launch herself into their midst, and hope the other primary danger didn’t materialize, that their lights blinded her.
Shielding her eyes with the flat of the blade, for a brief moment the lights made the mercenaries visible, and she fired almost automatically, emptying the magazine into anything that didn’t look like Andie… or female. Given the tactical gear they wore, it wasn’t hard to tell the men apart from the women, and at close quarters hitting her targets did not tax her marksmanship. She pressed the muzzle into one man’s thigh and severed bone and artery with a single round. “Get down, flat on the floor,” she shouted, for Andie to understand, but not the others.
A quick pivot, and she slipped the blade between the ribs of another man, while blasting away the elbow of a third. The lights danced around, struggling to frame her in someone’s kill-zone, but for whatever reason, they felt more constrained than she did, and the mayhem she unleashed was dismaying, wherever they caught sight of it. The barrel of a Mini-14 swung around towards her chest, and she could only yank it around barehanded before it fired. The rifle bucked, and the heat generated by the exploding powder from several rounds singed her hand. No matter, she could cry over it later. Now all she had time for was to yank the shooter close and jam her knife under his chin and through his tongue. He spat out blood, perhaps surprised that he hadn’t perished from the stroke, but the duration of that reflection cost him his life, when she yanked the blade out and across his throat. He fell to the ground, clutching his neck, drowning and desperate to stanch the bleeding.
The last two men fled, one clutching the French woman, Marie Roussel, the other running in heedless terror. Emily tore a rifle from one of the dead, took aim, and used the light from his own flashlight to put one of the men down with a couple of rounds into his lower back. The other disappeared into a side passage, still pulling along his human shield.
“Are they gone?” Andie asked, voice quivering.
“Stay down,” Emily said, and slid along the wall to be next to her.
“Give me your hands,” she said as calmly as possible given the circumstances, and cut the nylon restraints from Andie’s wrists.
In the residual green light of a few glow sticks, Andie glanced up into her rescuer’s face, trying to read an emotion there, to the extent she could bring her tremulous eyes to focus. Her shoulders shook and she dropped her head. “I was so frightened, Emily.”
“You did good. You left enough clues for Michael and Perry and me to find you. Perry recognized your sign, the Chinese characters you scratched into the basement…”
“Oh my God, Emily!” She reached to touch her, as if seeking some reassurance this wasn’t all merely a dream. The horror of what she’d just seen Emily unleash on those men was still obscured by the relief of feeling safe for the first time in days. There would be plenty of time later to piece together the paroxysm of violence she’d witnessed, and cringe at it anew.
Perry’s arrival was announced a few seconds in advance by heavy footfalls, and Emily called to him: “All secure.” He flicked on his light and lowered his gun barrel.
“Holy crap,” was all he could say. After a moment’s breath, he dropped to a knee and placed a hand on her shoulder. “You scared the ever-living shit out of me. How do you move that fast?”
“I was traveling light, not carrying as much ordinance as you.”
He laughed at her teasing. She knew he’d been preoccupied by some peculiar need to measure himself against her. Everywhere else on earth, he’d outrun her in a sprint, or a quarter mile, or even two klicks – it wouldn’t even be close – but in this one space, the narrow place between the onset of violence and its resolution, he never seemed able to keep up.
“Where are they now?” He paused to survey the scene, and take an accounting of the bodies. “Four dead here, a fifth up there. How many left, do you think?”
“Our Afghani friend back there nodded at nine, but I was running out of fingers. There’s at least the one who got away, but probably a few more. He took a hostage and seemed to be running with a purpose.”
“How many did you see at the Louvre?”
“I don’t know, sixteen, maybe twenty. But who knows if there weren’t others waiting elsewhere?”
“That’s too large a conspiracy,” Perry said. “If there were only twenty to start with… and that’s already a lot to keep a secret, there can’t be more than three or four left… can there?”
The hope that only one or two men remained for them to run down, like dogs on a hunt, was tantalizing. But Emily knew not to trust it.
“We’re not done. Let’s get going,” she said, and moved to continue the pursuit.
Andie looked up at her, helplessly. What would they do with her?
“It’s too dangerous. We should wait for Hassan and his men. Then we can regroup with him, and coordinate our assault.”
Emily considered his face in the dim light. He had a good point. She’d accomplished what she’d set out to do. But it still remained to find the other woman, to snatch her from the grasp of these mercenaries, too. Could they leave this task to others, to Hassan and his men? It would mean possibly prolonging the poor woman’s misery, maybe even abbreviating her life. She reflected on the dark cloud Marie Roussel’s death would surely cast over them all, if they rescued one of their own, but not her.
“We can’t wait for him,” she said. “The risk is too great not to pursue them now. Think about it. Hassan has put everything on the line by helping us. If we let the Roussel woman die, it’ll look really bad for him.”
“You must help her,” Andie said, and then sobbed heavily.
Perry rose to follow, and then put out a hand to steady himself against the wall. Emily grabbed the flashlight and looked him over.
“You’re bleeding.” She tugged at his shirt, and found a bloody hole just above his beltline, off to one side. “It’s a through and through. A few inches to the left, and…” She didn’t want to finish the thought, and cupped his face between her palms.
“I almost bought it,” he said, with a laugh. “I’m good to go.”
Emily pulled his shirt open, popping a few buttons off in the process, and slipped it from his shoulders.
“Andie, can you use this to make a bandage? If it’s not enough, use his trousers, too.”
She stood and readied herself for the pursuit. No, she couldn’t risk his life any further. Seeing the wounds had reminded her how to set priorities. He was worth way too much to her, much more than her own life, which she would have gladly pawned to free Andie, and now that she’d done that, only one task remained. She fixed him with her eyes.
“When Hassan catches up, tell him to cover the river from the cliffs. No one gets away. Understand?”
Perry blanched to hear the tone of command in her voice, and she regretted it. “No, I’m coming, too. You’ll need me in the next firefight. I can still make it.”
She did trust him, maybe more than anyone in the world. The trouble was, she couldn’t bear to lose him. How could she communicate this thought to him as efficiently as possible?
“I’m trusting you with my mom. Get her to safety. Then, come get me.” She let her words drift into inaudibility before completing the thought, “… if there’s anything left of me.”
Finally, Perry nodded – she was right, of course – but he wouldn’t let her go without replacing the magazine in her Sig. He wanted to give her a spare, the last one he had, but she refused.
“Too much baggage,” she said, and leaned over to press her lips against his. Then she raced down the passage as quickly as she dared. Andie gave a little shriek and a whimper when she left, but Emily couldn’t afford another moment’s delay to comfort her. The task of tending to Perry’s wound would settle Andie’s heart better than anything Emily might say.
“I gather she’s been arrested by the French,” General Lukasziewicz said into the speaker phone on his desk at the Pentagon. “It’s really gummed up the works.”
Michael’s voice crackled over the conference call. “Ah, yes. She thought it might have been your doing.”
“We just needed her to stay out of trouble for a few more weeks… you know, fly below the radar. But now that SECNAV has his nose in it…”
“I don’t think we can protect her any longer,” Admiral Crichton said.
“With a little luck, and a quiet perimeter, we could have concealed her on Jim’s staff in Sasebo,” Lukasziewicz said.
“Concealed her?” Michael’s tone betrayed a dangerous ignorance of events. “From what?”
“You didn’t know?”
“I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage.”
“Your people are looking at her,” Crichton said.
“Looking at her? For what? Clandestine Services doesn’t recruit like that. For one thing, if we wanted someone from the fleet, we wouldn’t go through SECNAV. Besides, she’d be an unmotivated operative, and that’s a dangerous liability on our end. Anyway, nothing like that has crossed my desk.” Michael’s voice gradually ran out of breath as he cycled through his reasons, until he finally grasped their implication.
“We think it’s coming from the other side of Operations, from the intelligence side.”
“They probably wanted to keep it off your desk,” Lukasziewicz added.
“What the hell is Gormley up to?” Michael asked, half out loud. “How did you get wind of it?”
“SECNAV sent over a list of winter billets for Quantico a few weeks back. From someone named Nyquist… that’s the name he let slip, right, Jim?”
“Yeah, a spook out of Beijing,” Crichton said. “We figured he was one of yours.”
An aide tapped at the door, before poking his head through. Lukasziewicz waved him in, but not until he’d muted the speaker. “What do you have for me, Charlie?”
“More Academy requests, sir… and another message from SECNAV.”
Lukasziewicz shuffled the papers, signed a few, and tried not to look dismayed by the final message. “That will be al
l, Major,” he said, and unmuted the speaker once the door had clicked shut.
“We figured slipping a promotion in would take her out of the equation for O’Brien, and whoever else is pulling strings,” Crichton said. “What with the Paris talks, the list would go straight through to SECDEF, and she’d be safe on my staff for the duration of Operation Talisman Blade.”
“All she’d have had to do then is muster out, and that would put an end to it,” Lukasziewicz said. “It would all have been settled by the end of October.”
“But with all the noise in France, her name must have popped back up again, because O’Brien is threatening an inquiry.”
“He wants an inquiry?” Michael asked. “Why would he think it’s anything other than a few crossed wires? It’s not like that sort of thing doesn’t happen often enough.”
“You see our dilemma,” Lukasziewicz said. “His reaction doesn’t track.”
“… and he’s forcing the two of you out?”
“Sort of,” Crichton said. “We were already on the way out anyway…”
“… but we figured letting him think we’ve fallen on our swords might buy her a little more time.”
“What on earth is he scheming after her for?” Crichton mused.
“I’m afraid that’s above my pay grade,” Michael said. “But I’m more interested in whatever it is Nyquist thinks he’s up to.”
“If I were you, I’d begin fitting him out for an out of the way billet,” Lukasziewicz suggested. “Don’t you have some sort of signals post at the South Pole?”
“I wish. But it might be better to promote him. He’s too senior to cast aside without drawing even more attention, and a promotion could keep him out of her hair. Right now, the plum assignment for a careerist is Paris or Berlin. They’re both too cosmopolitan to squawk about, and given the refugee situation, either one would seem like an opportunity to advance.”
Girl Stalks the Ruins Page 18
