Cut and Run (Phoenix Code 1 & 2)

by Lara Adrian

  While Ethan was shown to the last open booth in the dining room to the right of the door, his pursuer parked on a stool at the end of the long bar counter at the opposite side of the restaurant. Ethan didn’t miss the subtle glance in his direction as the man was greeted by the bartender and handed a menu.

  This wasn’t the first time Ethan had been hunted in the three years following the demise of the Phoenix program. Another assassin had found him last summer in Kansas City, where Ethan had taken a job with a landscaping firm.

  It was an inconvenient quirk of his ESP ability that his premonitions never told him when he was in harm’s way.

  The day the sniper had him in his sights in the affluent suburban neighborhood in Missouri, Ethan hadn’t even realized he was in danger until he bent to clear a jam on his weed whacker and a bullet zipped over his head, missing him by a fraction of an inch.

  He’d dropped everything then and there, and started running. He’d cut an uneven path across the country in the year since, never staying put for more than a few weeks at a time.

  Cash and carry. No questions asked, and no truths given. That was his mode of operation now.

  No strings, no complications. And definitely no emotions. He’d learned that lesson in spades the morning he walked away from Tori Connors.

  There were days—and nights—his regret still felt raw.

  But he’d had no choice where she was concerned. A reality that was hammered home in cold, inescapable fact when he considered the hired killer waiting for him across the restaurant.

  Ethan lived off-grid as much as possible, and made a habit of not letting the grass grow under his feet. It had served him well so far, probably the only thing keeping him alive.

  He glanced up with a vague smile as a middle-aged waitress came over to greet him.

  “How you doin’ today?” she murmured without pausing for a reply. “What can I get for ya?”

  “Tell me about the crab cakes. Any good?” he asked, well aware they were the restaurant’s claim to fame.

  As his server described the special seasoning and cooking method, Ethan pretended to listen, while in his peripheral vision he studied every physical nuance of the man who’d been tailing him. “Sounds great. I’d like two, please. And a cup of black coffee.”

  “Coming right up.”

  Ethan settled into the booth, watching as the other man murmured his order and leaned his elbows on the bar. He was trying to appear casual now, watching people stroll past the window. The bartender poured him a beer, but it sat untouched in front of the man.

  As Ethan’s server delivered his coffee, he wondered what type of weapon the assassin concealed inside his jacket.

  Would it be a gun from this one too, or something more personal, something hand-to-hand? No doubt he wouldn’t be left to wonder for long.

  He should have already been gone from Seattle. Usually, he figured it was time enough to move on once he started seeing Tori’s face in his dreams—dreams that woke him with a start, made him wish he was someone else. It happened more often than he cared to admit.

  But better that he see Tori in his dreams than the recurring nightmare of fire and destruction that had begun haunting his sleep ever since the Phoenix program went dark.

  The flames and melting heat were a premonition; that much was certain.

  But a premonition of what?

  He hadn’t had contact with any other agents in all this time. There had been no other messages—psychic or otherwise—from Henry Sheppard.

  Ethan knew the program was no more. He just didn’t know who was responsible, or who had betrayed and murdered the program’s creator.

  Whether the hired gun across the room knew anything useful remained to be seen, but Ethan intended to do what he could to find out. He needed information, answers that might help him understand who he was running from and how far his unknown enemies might be willing to go to find him or the other members of Phoenix. His survival depended on it.

  And yes, there was a part of him that wanted something more than that. He wanted to inflict pain. He wanted justice.

  He wanted vengeance, not only for the demise of the program, but for all that had been yanked from his own fingers.

  When the man at the bar glanced his way again, Ethan decided to put the wheels in motion. Digging out cash enough for his pending lunch order and a tip, he left the money on the table and slid out of the booth.

  His pursuer had just picked up his twenty-dollar burger and was about to take a bite when Ethan strode out of the place.

  There was no need to look back to check if the man in the windbreaker and dark shades was going to follow him. As he stepped outside, Ethan felt the assassin’s eyes on him from the other side of the restaurant’s large front windows.

  Ethan hung a left on the wide sidewalk, heading for the corner of Western and Virginia. Better to take the steep side street, away from the waterfront and its milling crowds, than risk leading his pursuer into the heart of the tourist zone on busy Pike Place.

  He walked briskly up the incline on Virginia, certain the assassin would be rounding the corner not far behind him.

  Ethan picked up his pace, ducking into the alcove for an underground parking lot. He positioned himself at the very edge of the concrete wall, waiting for his opportunity to strike.

  In a moment, he heard the swift approach of someone on the sidewalk. As soon as Ethan spotted the sunglasses and shaved head of his pursuer, he lunged out, driving his elbow into the man’s throat.

  The guy gasped at the impact. He staggered, wheezing a sharp breath. Then he lowered his head like a bull on the charge and barreled into Ethan.

  The man was a tank, driving him back against the cement wall. Ethan’s breath coughed out of him, his head snapping back, cracking sharply on the wall.

  He felt the gun a second later. Cold metal came out of the assassin’s windbreaker pocket to jam against Ethan’s gut. He twisted, grabbing his attacker’s wrist in both hands and wrenching it hard, until he heard the pop of breaking bones.

  The gun went off as the man lost his grip, dropping it to the ground in a clatter. As it hit, a bullet shot wildly into the alcove, echoing like a clap of thunder.

  Shit.

  There wasn’t a lot of time now. The noise was going to attract plenty of attention.

  Neither Ethan nor his assailant would want to see their faces caught on cell phone cameras, let alone the local news.

  Calling on his years of training in hand-to-hand combat and self-defense at the CIA’s Farm, Ethan repositioned, twisting the assassin’s arm around to his back. He jammed it high, teeth bared in a snarl as his attacker gurgled a curse, face contorted in pain. “Who sent you?” Ethan demanded.

  The man groaned, but didn’t answer. He struggled, still in fight mode even though Ethan must have broken his wrist and was halfway to dislocating his shoulder as a bonus.

  “Who do you work for? Answer, goddamn it.”

  “Don’t know, don’t fucking care,” the would-be killer finally wheezed out. “I work for my paycheck.”

  The man heaved his weight as he spoke those last words, a sudden burst of adrenaline working in his favor. He managed to break out of Ethan’s hold. With his right hand disabled, it was his left one that came at Ethan now.

  A hard punch connected with Ethan’s upper chest before he could react.

  The blow took him aback…then he realized it hadn’t been the guy’s fist that hit him.

  It was the short blade the attacker held in his curled grasp.

  Ethan glanced down at his right pectoral, saw a dark bloodstain growing.

  Fuck.

  The man made another tight jab, but this time Ethan dodged it. He came back with a fierce uppercut to his assailant’s jaw.

  The guy fell back on his ass on the pavement. He didn’t stay down for more than a second.

  Scrambling up in a hurry, the would-be assassin took off running. Not up the quieter side street, but down towar
d the waterfront.

  Toward the madhouse of tourists and locals that jammed the popular Pike Place Market.

  Goddamn it.

  Ethan retrieved the gun, watching the man beat feet. He had no choice but to follow.

  He wasn’t about to let this son of a bitch survive to come after him another day.

  3

  Walking alongside her friend Hoshiko in the bustling midway of Pike Place Market, Tori let her gaze drift over the endless produce and fruit stands.

  Everywhere she looked was a sensory kaleidoscope of colors and textures and smells. The crowd inside moved slowly, a shoulder-to-shoulder mass of people from all walks of life.

  In the fifteen minutes since they’d arrived, Tori had heard no less than half a dozen different languages spoken near her, not counting the assorted drawls and dialects representing just about every corner of the United States as well.

  “What do you think?” Hoshi asked her as they paused to sample some Asian soup at one of the many stalls that lined the central walkway of the market.

  She said something in fluent Japanese to the elderly woman behind the counter. The two women chatted animatedly for a few moments, then Hoshi handed a paper cup and plastic spoon to Tori. “Be careful, she says this one has a kick to it.”

  Tori sipped the citrusy, spice-laced fish and noodle broth and moaned in delight. It tingled on her tongue, exploding with exotic flavors. “Oh, my God. Is this salmon?”

  Hoshi nodded as she spooned some into her mouth too. “Didn’t I tell you this place was amazing?”

  “It’s incredible,” Tori said, handing back her empty cup and soaking it all in as she followed her friend from vendor to vendor, grazing on one delicious offering after another.

  Seattle was so different from anything she’d seen back home in Maine. The energy of the city was vibrant, pulsing, intoxicating. Even a bit overwhelming.

  Then again, she’d only been in town for a few days. She was flying home tomorrow morning, but if everything went well, she’d be returning to Seattle in a few weeks as the newest member of the ER staff at Harborview Medical Center, where Hoshi worked.

  Tori hadn’t come to visit her old nursing school friend with the intent to interview for a new job, but when Hoshi mentioned the opening in her department, Tori had found herself wondering aloud if she ought to apply. A phone call and a couple of emailed resumes later, Tori had a face-to-face meeting with the ER’s chief of staff.

  The job was hers if she wanted it. The only problem was, she didn’t know if pulling up stakes and moving out west was going to be any different from her life back in Maine. Long hours and graveyard shifts as part of a trauma unit would keep her busy, no matter where she did her work. Though she had to admit the idea of a scenery change after living her whole life in the same place was tempting.

  Not to mention the fact that her current home held three years’ worth of confusion and heartache for Tori that hadn’t fully healed.

  Three years since Ethan had vanished from her life without a word of explanation or goodbye.

  He’d taken his coat and boots from their spot near her back door, but left everything else behind. His apartment, his belongings, his job at the college and everything else he had and knew in Portland—he’d abandoned it all. As though none of it had mattered to him.

  As if she hadn’t mattered to him either.

  The weight of that realization still crushed her. The pain was still raw when she thought about the moment she’d discovered he was gone.

  For weeks afterward, she’d tried to find him. Waited months for him to call or respond to her emails. She’d even scoured police logs and intake records at every morgue in a two-hundred-mile radius.

  Nothing. Ethan had simply ceased to exist.

  She had so many unanswered questions, even now.

  Had she somehow pushed him into leaving? Ethan wasn’t the kind of man to spook over anything, but maybe asking him to move in with her had forced him to admit to himself that he wasn’t ready to take that step.

  At least, not with her.

  Maybe she’d woken him up when she pointed out that he seemed to be wasting his time at the community college. Maybe it had been all he needed to decide he didn’t want to stay there after all.

  There were other times Tori’s wondering took much darker turns. Had Ethan been in trouble in some way?

  Did he owe someone money, or did he have some hidden problem he couldn’t bring himself to share with her? Was he in danger somewhere, somehow prevented from getting in touch with her?

  Or the worst scenario of all, could Ethan possibly be dead?

  For a long time, Tori had mourned him as if he had been killed. She had seen enough shell-shocked loved ones during her nights in the ER to know the hurt she felt at Ethan’s leaving was like the aftermath of a sudden, fatal accident.

  He was simply there one moment and gone the next. And she had been left to pick up the pieces of her broken heart and carry on without him.

  She’d done her best to do just that, throwing herself into her work and telling herself to forget him. After all, she was a born survivor, a fighter. She’d been taking care of herself from the time she was a kid.

  She’d had to, being the only child of a single mom who’d been sick with cancer most of Tori’s childhood. From fifteen on, after her mother died, Tori had supported herself. She’d leaned on no one.

  She had never allowed herself to need anyone, but damn Ethan Jones for coming into her life and changing all that. He’d been her best friend and lover, her most trusted confidant. He’d been the one…or so she’d thought. She’d let herself fall hard for him, and he’d walked right over her on his way out the door.

  The best thing she could do for herself was move on, start fresh in a place that didn’t carry so many reminders of what she foolishly thought she had with him.

  If only she could convince her heart that’s all it would take to forget him.

  As she and Hoshiko strolled deeper into the market building, Tori realized a crowd had begun to gather around one of the fish stands up ahead. Crabs, shellfish, and a vast array of other seafood was displayed on heaping mounds of crushed ice in stands flanking the walkway.

  Tall glass cases stood behind the ice bins, and at the counter, two men in stained white vinyl aprons hawked to passersby. Another man in orange overalls and rubber boots had taken up a position across the midway.

  As they worked, they started chanting to each other in unison. “Ayy, oh! Ayy-oh!”

  “What’s going on?” Tori asked as her friend brought her toward the commotion.

  “You’ll see.” Hoshi grinned. “Just keep your head down.”

  “What do you mean, keep my—oh!” A large salmon was chucked across the market by one of the guys behind the counter, to the delight of the crowd.

  The man in the overalls intercepted, cradling the fish and chanting at his coworker before sending the salmon back over the heads of Tori, Hoshiko and the rest of the laughing spectators. The fishmongers put on quite a show, drawing an even bigger throng around their storefront.

  Between the singsong calls of the men at the fish stand and the laughter and applause from the cluster of onlookers, it wasn’t immediately apparent that some kind of disturbance was taking place toward the rear of the long market building.

  Not until a woman let out a shriek, followed by the crash of a produce stand.

  Alarmed, Tori glanced over her shoulder. Something—or rather, someone—was pushing their way through the market.

  She spied the sheen of a balding head and the glint of light off dark sunglasses. She saw bullish, bulky shoulders clothed in a light windbreaker, as the man wearing it violently shoved people out of his path. He rolled forward without stopping, throwing down obstacles in his wake.

  Screams and curses punctuated his progress as he tore through the thick lunchtime throng like a cyclone.

  What the hell is wrong with him?

  More than one person
shouted at him to slow down, watch where he was going, but the man kept barreling forward with total disregard.

  He burst through the edge of the crowd where Tori and Hoshi were standing, cradling his right hand and running at full speed. Hoshi couldn’t get out of his way fast enough and he slammed into her, knocking her into one of the fish displays as he passed. Clams and crab legs clattered to the concrete as Hoshi staggered into a spill along with them.

  “Asshole!” Tori hissed at him as she rushed to her friend.

  The man tore out of the market to the street.

  And then the reason for his flight—a second man, obviously in pursuit of the bald guy in sunglasses—emerged from the crowd behind Tori.

  She threw an angry glance at him, ready to rip into him for his part in the chaos too. But suddenly her mouth wouldn’t work.

  The man was younger than the one he chased, probably by an easy decade. Dressed in a tan T-shirt sporting a local microbrewery logo, graphite gray cargo shorts and leather sandals, his clothes would have made him blend in with the rest of the tourists and locals downtown.

  But his expression was fierce, deadly. And below his right shoulder, a growing bloodstain bloomed.

  All the breath in Tori’s lungs seemed to dry up as her gaze lifted to his.

  Her mind lurched to a halt as she stared into a pair of hazel eyes she’d know anywhere and a beard-stubbled, handsome face that had been emblazoned on her heart for the past four years.

  4

  If he thought running into an assassin with a kill order on him was fucked up enough, it was nothing compared to the surprise—and the dread—Ethan felt when he found himself staring at Tori Connors in the middle of Pike Place Market.

  And if he wanted to hope that the three years and thousands of miles between them might have dampened her recognition of him, he couldn’t have been more wrong.

  She knew him instantly, even if she seemed unable to say so at first.

  “Oh, my God,” she finally managed to gasp. “Ethan?”