Quinn held her breath.
Aslan’s hand didn’t waver. The gun remained steady. Then, even before she saw the car between the noses of the minivan and the Jeep, Aslan fired. It was a soft sound. She thought a gun would sound louder.
The hood of the car she could see between the van and the Jeep skewed sideways. Aslan fired again, twice. The black nose of the car plowed into the family sedan parked on the other side of the lane. It came to a stop, the engine running unevenly.
More gun fire. Overhead, the glass in the Jeep smashed. Glass confetti rained over her head. Quinn covered her head with her hand and closed her eyes. Then she realized she couldn’t see what was going on. She opened them again and tried to peer out from under her elbows, as the glass pattered over her.
Aslan was not firing a rapid rain of bullets the way she thought someone might when faced with an overwhelming number of enemies. He waited, even while bullets whined and dinged the sides of the cars they were standing beside. One of the Jeep tires blew out. The Jeep sagged to the side.
Shouts sounded. Quinn couldn’t see anyone from here. Aslan stood behind the Jeep and fired over it. He had a clear view of what was happening. She realized that by shooting out the lead car and causing it to crash, he had blocked all the other cars from coming any farther down the ramp.
Wouldn’t the men in the cars all get out and pursue on foot? It was what she would do. Only, they had to face Aslan and his gun.
“Ready?” He asked it calmly.
“Yes.”
“Stay down low. And…” He didn’t blink as he gazed over the top of the Jeep. He seemed to be waiting. Then he fired off three shots, correcting his aim each time. Quinn heard someone cry out. “Go!”
Quinn pushed herself up with her hands on the car and remembered to bend and keep low, as she scrambled for the stairs. She almost flew down the stairs, skipping every second one and hauling herself forward with both hands on the rails. At the bottom, she turned to fly down the next set and paused.
Aslan was not behind her. She looked up the stairs, her heart screaming. Aslan stood at the top, still facing to the right where the men would come from. He fired off another careful shot as she looked.
“Come on!” she shouted.
Aslan fired one more shot, then turned and hurried down the stairs. Unlike her he took every step. Then she saw why he was being so cautious. He gripped the rail with white knuckles, which spread the front of his jacket. The shirt beneath was bright red with blood.
“Go! Go on!” He said it irritably. He turned and fired up the stairs, then reached inside his bloody jacket and pulled out another clip. He dropped the empty clip and tried to catch it but missed. Quinn lurched forward and picked it out of midair and slipped it into the pocket of her stolen coat.
He nodded at her and shoved the new clip in. He cocked the gun and jerked his head toward the down steps. “Go on.”
Quinn crept down the stairs. Deep reluctance pulled at her. As Aslan backed down the stairs, his gun up and ready to fire, she took the stairs in front of him, only a step or two in front.
Feet appeared at the top of the steps and Aslan fired. He jerked and his shoulder shifted backward. He hissed.
Quinn gritted her teeth. He had taken another bullet.
She rounded the stairs and started down the next set. Then she glanced back to see if Aslan was still with her. He was still on his feet. He shuffled, one hand gripping the rail.
This flight of stairs was the last. There was only gray concrete beyond, scored by millions of tires. Quinn turned around at the bottom and looked up. Aslan was backing down. Covering her rear.
A new engine sounded, this one coming from her left.
Quinn caught her breath. Were they trapped in a pincer movement? She looked up at Aslan. “Another car!”
Aslan nodded. For the first time, the gun wavered and her heart halted. He was growing weak.
She looked to her left, where the car was coming from. The lane turned sharply and disappeared behind a concrete wall. The car was coming from the other side of that corner. She wouldn’t see it until it was right on them.
Aslan lifted the gun again and fired. Quinn heard a choked cry, then a man tumbled down the steps past Aslan, to fall at her feet. His eyes were open and didn’t move.
Quinn slapped her hand over her mouth. She didn’t dare say anything, because she suspected that if she spoke it all, what would emerge would be hysterical. Her heart was thudding in her temple and beating in her brain.
Aslan walked down the steps then turned to look up them once more. He was breathing hard. The hand which held the gun was coated in blood.
Despite that, he stood straight.
The approaching car skidded around the corner, the inner wheels almost lifting from the ground as the g-force of the tight turn made itself felt.
It was a charcoal gray Ford sedan, identical to thousands on the road. The best thing about it, though, was Noah behind the wheel.
Quinn gave out a shuddering gasp. She tugged on Aslan’s sleeve. “Hurry!” she shouted, as the Ford came to a sharp stop right beside them. She pulled Aslan over to the Ford and fumbled the back door handle and yanked it open. Aslan dropped onto the seat and she slammed the door, then ran around to the passenger side and got in.
“Go! Go!” she yelled at Noah, as she slammed the door shut.
“Put your seatbelt on,” Noah told her, his voice as calm as Aslan’s. He put the car into gear.
Quinn felt her jaw drop open. There was no time to argue. She snatched up the buckle, drew the belt over and clipped it closed. She looked up and saw that the only thing ahead of them was a solid concrete wall.
Noah gunned the engine. She squeezed the seatbelt, her heart trying to climb out through her mouth.
He dropped the clutch. The car lurched backward with a squeal of tires. At the corner, he wrenched the wheel. The car did a neat flip, so it was facing forward.
He threw it into first and trounced on the gas. The car shot forward into yet another parking garage which had been connected to this one, far down on the bottom layers. A short, sharp ramp climbed to the other garage floor level. The Ford bounced as it lurched over the top of the ramp, the suspension compensating wildly.
Noah glanced in the rear vision mirror. “Elijah?”
“He was shot at least twice,” Quinn said.
Noah nodded. “There’s nothing we can do about it until we get back to the plane. Mitchell bought all his gear.”
“Is that where we are going?”
“The jet, then back to Austria. We have to get you out of country.”
Quinn’s heart sank. She was wearing a black wig, but too many people had seen her face.
The truth clarified in her mind. She was a federal fugitive.
[15]
Sometime later
Ren finished going through the pocket of the expensive winter overcoat lying on the table. She straightened and put the small tube of lip gloss in front of Dima. “She doesn’t have the cellphone on her, either. It’s still pinging from Austria.”
“Now we can’t track her,” Dima concluded.
“Question is, did she ditch the coat deliberately?” Scott said. His tone was dry.
Dino pointed at the black merino wool overcoat lying beside the green coat which Quinn had been wearing. “Aslan got rid of his, too. They were changing their appearance so they could get away.”
“And it worked.” Scott shook his head. “They ran to a new subdivision out on the north of the city. The jet used the road as a runway. It took off and stayed below the radar until it was in international waters. Then it climbed to cruising height and altered direction. Before they fell off our radar, their heading was on a nice steady line for Europe. Although they only have to shift direction by a couple of degrees to head for North Africa and refuel there before sliding into Austria. Even Gibraltar won’t ask too many questions.”
“If they are even heading for Austria,” Leela said. She l
ooked just as unhappy as everyone else. Leela genuinely liked Quinn. Now Quinn’s motives were in question, Leela was also questioning their friendship.
“Did Quinn take the fob?” Dima asked. She looked at Leander.
Leander sighed. “Yes.”
Dima sank on to the cheap vinyl kitchen chair sitting beside the table. It was a nasty hotel near the airport but they wouldn’t be staying long. As soon as they knew where the jet landed, they would head there themselves.
Her group stood about the table, watching her. There were looking to her for the next direction.
“Run the tape again, please,” she said. Something about the clip bothered her. There hadn’t been time to sit and analyze it. Perhaps she needed to do that now.
Lochan turned the laptop around, leaned over it and pressed the space bar. The video had been cued. It played silently, for it was security footage from the camera across the road from where Hague had been fleeced.
Dima watched as Quinn strolled along the street, as Hague got out of her car and headed for the building. Quinn looked like any other shopper. The black hair was startling, although it was definitely her. Same height, same high cheekbones. Same direct way of looking at the world.
Besides, they had listened to Quinn accept Aslan’s test as a way of proving herself trustworthy. Dima has set her up for that. She had told Quinn to find a way to make Aslan trust her. Quinn had taken the obvious route.
Dima was glad they had reached out to Hague before the incident and arranged for her fob to be harmless.
She watched the screen as the guard raised his gun and pointed it at Quinn. Quinn turned and raised her fingers to the middle of her chest, her eyes opening wide. The picture of innocence.
“Please stop there,” Dima said.
Lochan tapped, freezing the video.
Dima frowned at it. “Did any of you see her lift the fob?”
Scott shook his head. “She’s damn slick. I didn’t spot it. And I’ve watched the clip six times now.”
“We know she took the fob and despite knowing, we still can’t detect it.” Dima looked at everyone. “So how did the guard know?”
Silence.
“Linear logic says he didn’t see it,” Leander said. “He couldn’t have. He was facing the opposite direction, looking at the gunman. Then he shoved Hague into the car. He never looked at Quinn until he shouted at her to stop.”
“He knew she would do it before she did,” Scott said.
Dima nodded, unhappiness settling even deeper into her bones.
“So who was the guard working for?” Agata asked. “Did Hague clue her guards in?”
Scott shook his head. “This whole thing was classified. None of her detail are cleared. She would’ve been breaking laws if she told them.”
“If she didn’t tell the guard, who did?” Agata asked.
“The million-dollar question,” Scott said. “We didn’t, and it’s a fair bet Hague didn’t. It leaves a short list of people who knew this would happen.”
Leela took off her glasses and rubbed her nose where they rested. “I don’t like the look on your face, boss.”
Dima sighed. “I don’t like the look on my face either. When Quinn figures the guard already knew and outed her deliberately—and she will figure it out sooner or later—she will draw the same conclusions as we. Either it was Aslan’s people or us who set her up.”
Scott tapped his fingernail against the lip gloss. “Maybe she has figured it out already. Maybe that’s why she tossed the trackers. Maybe she has figured it out the wrong way.”
“And maybe she got rid of the trackers, because Aslan’s lifestyle was irresistible,” Leander said.
“That is why I do not like the look on my face,” Dima said with a sigh.
Unlike Quinn, when she had been shot, Aslan remained awake while Mitchell swore at him for not ducking properly, as he dug the bullets out. Toni acted as a scrub nurse, while Johnson sat with a laptop and plugged into news feeds and other sources of information, to assess the damage.
When Aslan was resting on a stretched-out lounge chair, Mitchell dressed a small scrape Quinn had received from falling glass, handed her a Tylenol and patted her shoulder.
Quinn took the Tylenol, then got to her feet and moved over to Aslan’s lounge chair. She dug in her jeans pocket and pulled out the electronic fob. It had a digital readout on the side, which showed a different collection of numbers and letters every time she looked at it. She held the fob out to Aslan. “For what it’s worth, here you go. Although by now, they will have changed her security settings. This is useless. Just as I warned you it would be.”
Aslan took the fob and put it on the table beside his chair. “Actually, it has already served me well.” He considered her. His eyes were pain-filled, although he was as alert as always. His judgment did not seem to be impaired. “Don’t worry, Quinn. We will take care of you now.”
She pushed her hands into her jeans pocket and hunched her shoulders. “I don’t understand what went wrong. No one should have seen me lift it. It was a perfect score.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Aslan replied. “Get some sleep, Quinn. We will be busy when we land.”
She wanted to ask where they would land but didn’t have the energy for it. It wasn’t simply physical exhaustion. She was tired of the games. She was tired of the lies.
Quinn moved forward to the cramped bathroom at the front of the jet, just behind the cockpit. Similar to commercial jets, this plane’s facilities were designed for pygmies. Only, it had a door which closed, which let her be alone for a few short, blissful moments.
Quinn stared in the mirror at her scratched face and her eyes, which were larger than she remembered them being. She looked as if she was stunned. It wasn’t inaccurate.
She was now an international fugitive. She had no way to reach out to Dima. She couldn’t even explain why she had done what she did. Dima and her crew would have watched Quinn inexplicably help Aslan and his people.
The only thing which might redeem her would be to learn about Aslan’s connection to Kobra. She would have to go down the pipe, become one of his people and earn his trust, dig for the truth and find a way to give that information to Dima.
She was on her own.
A tap sounded on the bifold door. It was soft, designed to capture her attention and no one else’s.
Quinn squeezed herself back and opened the door a few inches to peer out. Another bathroom was at the back of the jet. It wasn’t as though someone was impatiently waiting for her to finish so they could use this one. There was only six people on the jet.
Noah leaned so he could see her through the two-inch space between the door and the frame.
“Who is flying the damn plane?” Quinn hissed.
“Autopilot,” he said. “We’re in the middle of the Atlantic, three hundred miles from any commercial traffic lane. I will take a nap after I finish talking to you.”
“That’s exactly what you want to hear the pilot of the plane say,” Quinn whispered back. “What is it you wanted to tell me?”
He lifted his hand so she saw it through the open space. A white pill lay on his big palm.
“I’ve already had a Tylenol,” Quinn said.
“This is something different. Mitchell is only a medic. He can’t risk pushing pills because he doesn’t know the chemistry.” Noah’s gaze was steady. “You’ve had a rough few hours and a lot on your mind. When we land, you will have to hit the ground running. Everyone else here is used to the pace. They are used to people chasing them and always keeping their heads turned away from security cameras. You will have a headache for weeks yet, from keeping it all in the forefront of your mind. Take the pill. It will knock you out and let you sleep. It will be the last peaceful few hours you will get.”
Weeks of it. Quinn felt her stomach churn uneasily. “Am I going to be hooked on painkillers or something after this?”
His one eye rolled. “Take the damn pill, Quinn.”
<
br /> Quinn reached out and plucked the tablet of his palm.
“Last time I will be nice to you,” he muttered.
“That was nice? Telling me to take a pill because I’m gonna hate myself for weeks?”
“Talk to me in six weeks about this. I guarantee you will feel differently.”
He would’ve closed the door, only Quinn got her fingers up against the edge and hold it open a bare half inch. They had already been keeping their voices down, for reasons Quinn didn’t quite understand. Now she dropped her voice even lower. “Did this happen to you?”
He closed the door without answering her.
Quinn turned back to the basin, pulled a paper cup from the tube attached to the mirror, and poured water. She considered the tablet. It was plain, with no brands stamped into it. It wasn’t a capsule.
Could she take a tablet given to her by a relative stranger? Only, people did it all the time. They took tablets handed to them by nurses they didn’t know, prescribed by doctors they only knew by the name stitched on a white coat pocket.
She remembered the pat on her shoulder Mitchell had given her as he packed up his medical kit. Even Toni’s sarcasm was muted. She had contained herself to a simple observation about the poor quality of the coat which Quinn had stolen. “You couldn’t have found an Armani while you were stealing outerwear?”
Aslan had taken bullets in his shoulder to get her out of the boiling pot.
And now Noah showed an empathetic streak, predicting what her life would be like for the next few weeks. Even though she didn’t like the prediction, was it a reason to distrust the messenger?
She took the tablet and told herself she could trust the man that much and no more. It was as much as she could trust any of them.
It would be a long few weeks. Or perhaps even longer.
How long did it take to uncover a Russian spymaster?
[16]
Monday, December 9th
If there was a heart and soul of music, Vienna would be it—at least in Quinn’s mind. She fought to stop the rush of sentimentality from overwhelming her as they passed the Vienna Opera House.
Hunting The Kobra Page 13
