Storm pushed the pedal harder.
“Slow down,” Nad commanded.
He looked to his left in the English-made car and saw that she had drawn her CZ P-01 semiautomatic pistol and was now pointing it at his chest.
“I told you to slow down,” she said. “And turn where Lebedev turned.”
Georgi Lebedev pulled a pistol from under his jacket and leveled it at Showers seconds after he parked the Mercedes under the row of trees.
“Give me your gun,” he told her.
Already in intense pain and holding her wound with her left hand, Showers grimaced and Lebedev realized that her right arm was useless. He reached across the car seat and snatched her Glock from the holster on her right hip.
“It’s time for the truth!” he hollered at Petrov, who was sprawled across the sedan’s backseat, moaning and clutching his abdomen. Blood dotted his white dress shirt.
“Where is the gold hidden?” Lebedev yelled.
“Gold,” Showers repeated. “What gold?”
“Shut up!” Lebedev yelled.
“Georgi Ivanovich,” Petrov pleaded. “Take me to the hospital! I’m dying.”
“Tell me where the gold is hidden, then we will go to the hospital.”
“But we are brothers,” Petrov gasped. “Why are you doing this?”
“No, Ivan Sergeyevich,” Lebedev said. “I’m your lapdog. You feed me scraps. But no more. Never again. Where is the gold?”
Petrov cut loose with a string of expletives.
Without flinching, Lebedev fired the Glock into the back car seat, near Petrov’s head. The shot made a deafening sound inside the sedan, but it was not loud enough to drown Petrov’s screams.
“The next one will be in your foot,” said Lebedev. “And then your balls.”
“Slow down or I will shoot you,” Nad said. “Slow down and turn right at that stone house ahead.”
The abandoned farmhouse was next to the dirt road where the Mercedes had turned moments earlier.
Instead of slowing, Storm jammed the car’s gas pedal against the floor.
“I was wrong. I thought you and Lebedev would not show your hand until later,” he said calmly.
“How long have you known?”
“When I saw the shortened Dragunov’s stock. It had been cut down for a woman. But I should have known earlier. The moment I found the Capitol Hill Police officer’s disguise hidden in a trash can outside the women’s room, not the men’s.”
“You have made your last mistake,” she said. “Slow down. You can’t make the turn at this speed. You’re going too fast.”
She was beautiful. He had wanted her to be something other than what she was. But she wasn’t and now he would have to kill her.
The car’s speedometer topped out at 180 kilometers.
“You betrayed Petrov for gold?” Showers asked, fighting to remain conscious. The pain in her shoulder was excruciating and she was losing blood.
Lebedev replied, “Not just for gold. But for love.”
“You bastard!” Petrov sobbed from the rear seat.
“Shut up,” Lebedev said. “I have been telling Barkovsky about your every move for more than a year. Nad and me. We made a pact. We are going to be rich and together.”
“Are you responsible for the kidnapping in Washington ?” Showers asked. “Did you have Senator Windslow killed? I need to know if you’re planning on killing me.”
“Yes,” Lebedev said triumphantly. “With Barkovsky’s help, Nad and I arranged everything. I wanted the Americans to blame Petrov. We did not want Windslow to help him find the gold. We did not want the CIA to trust him.”
His words sounded to Showers as if they were coming from a great distance. She fought to concentrate.
“I will never tell you where the gold is located, you bastard,” Petrov yelled from the backseat.
“Oh really, comrade,” Lebedev replied. He fired the Glock, sending a round into Petrov’s foot, causing him to scream in agony.
With the turn from the main highway approaching, Storm looked confidently at Nad and broke into a huge grin. “Good-bye. Bitch,” he said.
She gave him a confused look and tightened the grip on her pistol. But it was too late.
Storm jerked the Vauxhall’s wheel to the right, sending the car speeding across the oncoming traffic lane. Its tires hit a slight hump at the asphalt’s edge and the Vauxhall took flight, rising several feet above the ground, aimed directly at the farmhouse’s old stone walls.
“This is your final chance,” Lebedev yelled at a terrorized Petrov. “Tell me where the gold is and I will spare your life. I will drive you to the hospital. For all the years that I kissed your pompous ass, I deserve to know. Now, tell me, or the next shot will be in your crotch.”
A crying and defeated Petrov spat out a series of numbers.
Lebedev punched the longitude and latitude coordinates into an app on his cell phone.
“It’s near the Valley of Five Caves in Uzbekistan?” he said, making the statement sound like a question.
“Yes,” Petrov cried. “I swear it. Now, save me, my brother, I’m dying.”
Lebedev pointed the Glock directly at Petrov’s forehead. “I believe you, my brother,” he said. “If there is one thing that I have learned because of our years together, it is when you are telling the truth and when you are lying. This is my reward for wiping your butt.”
He fired the Glock, spattering his best friend’s brains across the sedan’s back window and seat.
Satisfied, he turned his attention to Showers, who was now so weak and groggy that she could barely comprehend what was happening. Her body was in shock. Without emergency help, she would die.
“I will tell the police that you forced us at gunpoint to come here after the rally and that you shot and murdered my friend with your Glock. I had no choice but to kill you with my own pistol.” He rested her Glock on his lap and picked up his own gun.
“You’re insane,” Showers responded, her voice a whisper. “No one will believe you.”
“I will tell them that you shot him in the foot to torture him, trying to make him confess. I will tell them you went crazy. It will be the word of Petrov’s oldest and dearest friend against a dead FBI agent who came here to avenge the murder of a U.S. senator. The British press will love it.”
“My partner,” she uttered.
“Don’t worry about him. He’ll be dead, too. Nad will see to it.”
Lebedev leveled the gun at her chest.
“Good-bye, Special Agent April Showers,” he said.
It was at that very moment that Lebedev heard the sound of a loud explosion coming from outside the Mercedes and momentarily turned his face to look out the driver’s side window.
The flying Vauxhall nose-dived into the stone wall of the old farmhouse with a tremendous roar. It hit with such force that the vehicle seemed to burst into pieces of shattered glass, busted chrome, twisted plastic, and crumpled metal. The trunk of the sedan flew upward upon impact, and for a moment it appeared that the Vauxhall might topple end over end, but the rear axle crashed back onto the ground with a loud boom. Flames, smoke, and steam poured from under the demolished front hood.
The car’s crumple zone, driver’s side air bag, and the driver’s seat belt had saved Storm’s life. But Nad had not been so fortunate. She had not bothered to put on her seat belt and Storm had flipped off the car’s passenger side air bags. Nad had not noticed and it had cost her her life.
The impact had launched her from the car’s passenger’s seat, rocketing her through the windshield, ripping her unblemished face to shreds. Her head had hit the farmhouse’s wall like a melon hurled at a hundred miles per hour. Her skull had burst open. Her spinal cord had been telescoped. Her broken body was now lying in an unnatural twisted position on the ground next to the burning Vauxhall.
Storm pulled himself away from the wreckage and fell facedown onto the long grass. He could not hear from one ear. There was blood dripping from it
and from his nose. His right knee was throbbing. But he was alive.
Gathering his senses, his first thought was of Showers, and the black Mercedes parked a hundred yards down the road, under a clump of English oaks.
Much like a drunk staggering from a bar, he tried to steady himself as he slowly plotted a course to Nad’s body. He spotted her pistol about eight feet away, next to the stone wall. He reached it and with great effort bent down and examined the handgun. It looked undamaged.
I must save April, he thought. I must get to her.
With tremendous willpower, fighting the intense pain that was streaking through his limbs, Storm began making his way from the farmhouse toward the parked Mercedes.
He had gone about fifty yards when he heard a loud crack.
It was the sound of gunfire.
And it had come from inside the parked car in front of him.
To be continued in A Bloody Storm,
available in August 2012
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Richard Castle is the author of numerous bestsellers, including Heat Wave, Naked Heat, Heat Rises, and the critically acclaimed Derrick Storm series. Castle currently lives in Manhattan with his daughter and mother, both of whom infuse his life with humor and inspiration.
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