Calculated Risk

by Stephanie Doyle

  But that didn’t make sense, either, she thought, even as the bullets were zinging over their heads. She’d made it clear she didn’t know the location of Arnold’s computer. What good did it do Kahsan to take out the agent making contact until he was sure she knew where they were going? Something else was at play.

  “We need to get out of here,” Quinlan concluded as glass continued to pepper them.

  “Definitely. The driver?”

  “He’ll stay in the car. It’s bulletproof.” Reaching for the Nextel two-way phone that he kept attached to his belt at all times, Quinlan hit a button. “Horner. Horner.”

  There was a small pause before he heard an answer. “Where?”

  “Around back. Pull the car up as close as you can.”

  “There’s a raised deck out back,” Sabrina told him.

  “How many feet wide?”

  “Seven and three quarters. That’s as close as he’ll be able to get.” She knew he was considering that it was a long way to run uncovered with only one gun to return fire against two AK-47s.

  “We’re going to need another gun,” she said, telling him what he already knew. Her gun was upstairs. “Cover me, then get to the kitchen.”

  “Sabrina,” he shouted.

  She didn’t wait for whatever reprimands were sure to follow, but instead charged for the stairs that led to the second floor. She heard the sound of his return fire, which temporarily halted the barrage of flying steel.

  Glancing behind her she could see the pinholes of light breaking through her front door and the glass surrounding it. Thirty-seven, she counted automatically. All of them above the level of the doorknob. Structurally there was nothing left to the door. A swift kick would knock it down.

  Then she turned her head forward and continued up the stairs in a stooped position. No looking back in a gunfight. Keep your eyes on the place you need to get to and get to it. How many times had Quinlan told her that?

  Turning the corner on the second floor she raced for her bedroom, keeping her head low and found what she needed in the drawer of her nightstand.

  Wrapping her hand around the compact silver Colt 45 Defender, she sighed with relief. With a gun in her hand, there was at least a chance. Moving forward she winced as a piece of glass she’d picked up from downstairs pinched through her sock. Acting quickly, she shucked both socks and fished out her rarely used jogging sneakers that she habitually kept under her bed. Shoving her feet into them, laces untied, she moved out of the bedroom. The tempo of the bullets was picking up again.

  Once more her fast brain tried to decipher what this meant. Killing her made no sense. None. Without her, the data that Kahsan wanted would be lost. And why the heavy-handed approach? Why not fucking knock first?

  Rather than head down the staircase, Sabrina moved around the second-floor landing to the room that had served as the laundry room. There was another flight of stairs that led to the kitchen and from there she and Quinlan could exit the back of the house where the driver hopefully was waiting.

  She didn’t have to wonder if Quinlan would be there. His goal was the same as hers. Trading fire would get him nothing. Racing down the stairs, she stopped at the archway opening to the kitchen. Quiet. Reloading? Or maybe they were repositioning themselves.

  “Sabrina.”

  She immediately spotted him in the darkened room situated behind the open refrigerator door. He’d taken out the overhead light in the room with a single shot rather than try to find the switch. He’d even broken the light inside the refrigerator. Thorough, she thought. That was something she’d never forgotten about him.

  Diving, she rolled her body on the ground in a somersault. By the time she was on her feet again, she was behind him, the cool air of the refrigerator hitting her back. She positioned her gun over his shoulder, aiming it at the half-glass storm door that led to the back deck.

  He turned his head and noted the gun. “Still love American guns.”

  “They really are the best bang for the buck. No pun intended.” A few seconds passed as they assessed their next move. Sabrina wondered at the sudden quiet.

  “They know where the car is,” Quinlan stated. “They know there is only one exit.”

  “There is always more than one exit,” she corrected him as a better idea came to her. “You taught me that.”

  He glanced back over his shoulder at her. “Where?”

  “Upstairs. Follow me.”

  She led him back up the secondary staircase through the abandoned laundry room and toward one of the rooms that overlooked the deck. The room was empty except for some paint cans. The window was unadorned-no curtains or blinds to use as a shield. Looking out, which they would need to do in order to determine where the shooters were, would be a risk.

  Quinlan moved forward, but Sabrina held him back with a hand on his arm. “No, let me.”

  She crawled to the window and raised her head slowly, giving her eyes just enough space to see. The moonlight sufficiently illuminated what was her backyard. She could see the black Cadillac patiently waiting on top of what used to be her hydrangea bushes.

  She also spotted two shooters. One pressed against the side of the house, about seven feet from the porch. The tip of his rifle was raised skyward. The other had moved around a tree at the edge of the yard, directly facing the back door. His weapon, also, was raised and resting against his shoulder. Awfully relaxed, she thought for two guys waiting to pick off whoever walked out the back door.

  Sabrina lowered herself and turned so that her back was against the wall, her head safely beneath the windowpane. “Two shooters repositioned around back with clear shots at the car.”

  “That means there is definitely a third,” Quinlan concluded.

  “Watching the front,” Sabrina concurred.

  “Any chance we can pick them off from here?”

  She shook her head. “All I can see are the tips of the guns. There is no clear shot.”

  “Maybe the neighbors heard and called…”

  “Too far away,” she interrupted, knowing what he was thinking. “I’m pretty isolated from the residential part of town. The closest buildings are businesses and they’re closed. I doubt anyone heard the shots. And no way is the sheriff capable of handling whoever is outside. I don’t want him involved. What about you? How fast can you get backup?”

  “Not fast enough. They’ll never wait that long. We’ve got minutes before they figure out we’re not stupid enough to try for the car and they move inside.”

  “So we wait them out. Try to take them out once they are inside the house.”

  He nodded. “It’s our best chance, but not a great one considering what they’re carrying and that they outnumber us.”

  Sabrina turned and once more slowly lifted her head checking to see that she was right before she suggested an alternative. She was.

  “The roof outside this window slopes down over the deck at least five feet. From there it wouldn’t be too far to jump to hit the roof of the car.”

  “Too much opportunity to hear us. The window opening, us on the roof,” he said dismissively.

  “Listen to me, those guys aren’t waiting for us to come out the back door. They don’t even have their rifles trained on the house. Did you see the front door?”

  “Everything high.”

  Sabrina nodded. “Usually when shots get fired people have a tendency to duck. I’m telling you they’re not here to take me out. Something else is going on. We get the window open, slide down the roof, maybe end up in a position to take out the guy behind the tree. I’m guessing they won’t risk firing at us when we’re so exposed.”

  “You guess?” he repeated, evidently not pleased with the idea of risking his life on a hunch.

  “I know.”

  His eyes, like laser beams pinned her to her spot, searching, she knew, for the girl she once was. Searching for the truth. He must have found what he was looking for.

  “Okay. You win. We’ll do it your
way.”

  He slid across the floor to her position, and together they pushed the window up as gently and as slowly as possible. The sound of the wood scraping against the pane was unmistakable, but it was hard to know how far it would carry. The window raised enough for them to slide through the opening, they shrank down and waited to see if they had signaled their position.

  Silence.

  “Let’s move,” Sabrina said. “Me first.”

  If the shooters did spot movement, and she was right about them not wanting to actually kill her-a really big if-then they would have to hold their fire until they verified the identity of the person on the roof. That should give her and Quinlan more than enough time to get to the car. If she was wrong, then Quinlan would still have a chance.

  “Horner. Get ready. Unlock the back doors.”

  Sabrina contemplated what it meant for him to trust her like this. Especially, since she knew part of the reason he was here was because he didn’t. But the time for thinking was over.

  Like a snake, she slipped out over the edge of the window. With her Colt in her right hand, she used her left hand to control her landing as she pressed her body flat against the slate roof. She knew from her contractor’s assessment that several of the slates were loose, contributing to her leaking problem. This would only add to the challenge of trying to descend silently. Using hands and knees, she carefully positioned herself on each slate checking for movement. When it remained stationary, she moved to the next one. Then the next.

  Behind her, she knew Quinlan was following her onto the roof. He was quiet, but the sound of his gun clicking against the slate gave him up. Lifting her head slightly, she checked the position of the shooter behind the tree. The gun was no longer pointed in the air, but his sight was focused on the back door, not at her. And his shoulder was exposed.

  Sabrina glanced back at Quinlan, whose head was now level with her waist. With hand signals, she pointed out the position of the shooters. Then tapped her shoulder and pointed again to let him know she had a shot.

  She could feel the intensity of his gaze on her, wondering, worrying, she knew, if she was still as skilled with a gun. He had no choice but to trust her. Taking out one of the gunmen meant that by the time the other one reacted to the sound of the blast, she and Quinlan would be on the car roof and might have a clean shot at the guy.

  She tapped her shoulder again and nodded. After a brief second, Quinlan returned her nod.

  Learning how to fight hand-to-hand combat all those years ago had been hell. It had been painful, gut-wrenching work struggling to teach her muscles how to react to her mind’s command. She’d been beaten, bruised and sore for almost a year.

  Learning how to shoot, however…that had been easy.

  She took aim, calculated the distance in her mind between herself and the target, determined the angle of her position relative to his, focused on the exposed shoulder and squeezed the trigger.

  The blast was instantly followed by her target going down with a painful yelp. Silence no longer an issue, she leaped to her feet and heard the sound of slate shifting behind her signaling that Quinlan was moving, too. Together they scrambled to the edge of the roof and jumped, falling the five feet onto the roof of the car. Quinlan started firing midair at the second gunman. In the absence of return fire, Sabrina had to assume he’d hit his target.

  She landed on the car top hard, her knees absorbing the shock, but she didn’t waste time before jumping to the ground. She opened the back car door and dived inside. Quinlan was already in, coming from the opposite side.

  “You get him?” she asked as soon as both doors were closed.

  “Don’t know. Couldn’t tell. Go, go,” he instructed the driver.

  The Cadillac lurched forward, thrusting them back against the seat. Over the bushes, then around the house, the tires spun along the grass digging up dirt. The car bounced onto the paved road and sped away from the house.

  “No one’s shooting,” she said, although that was pretty evident. “What happened to the third guy?”

  “I don’t know. He must have held his position out front. This is crazy. What the hell was the point of that?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “Yeah, well, work on this,” he said. “I’m pretty sure your grand plan was successful. Congratulations. You’ve now got the most dangerous man on the planet on your tail.”

  Yikes.

  Sabrina forced herself not to gulp, but instead bravely said, “I can take him.”

  Quinlan didn’t comment. He didn’t have to. Even she knew that she had no idea if that was true or not.

  Chapter 6

  Thirteen years ago

  “What are you doing? Sabrina. This is weak. You don’t work for the FBI. Sloppy. Very sloppy.”

  She raised her arm again in an attacking motion that Quinlan easily deflected.

  “You’re too slow. And you’re too predictable.”

  It was times like these that she believed she truly hated him. She knew he could feel her trying harder to move faster. She also knew that he was well aware of what it cost her physically. The greater her momentum during the attack, the more painful it was when she made contact.

  For five months, she’d been fighting him every day as part of her training. Her arms were nothing more than a patchwork of bruises held together by skin. When she showed him her initial bruises after the first day, he’d shrugged and told her to get used to it. That was a harbinger of things to come-both the pain and his attitude toward her suffering. But still she kept coming back for more.

  She supposed she might have considered quitting, if it wasn’t for the fact that she felt as if she was exactly where she belonged. Never had she felt so satisfied with her life. So productive. So sure she was on the right path finally. At Harvard they had only wanted to test her, but here she was part of the process. It was an exhilarating difference.

  No, the bruises didn’t hurt as much as leaving would. Not even close. Sabrina bet Quinlan knew that.

  Alternating between left and right jabs, she thought she could take the focus off her now throbbing arms by mixing it up with a roundhouse kick. Her leg circled over her body in a smooth arch, which he blocked easily with his knee.

  Oh yeah, she definitely hated him.

  “You looked down at your knee before you raised your leg. That was a mistake. Why?”

  She was panting now and struggling to keep up her speed. Seamlessly, he switched from defense to offense, changing the position of his attack until she was forced to take several steps back to avoid the onslaught of quick, perfectly executed punches that were coming dangerously close to her face.

  “I asked you a question, Sabrina,” he pushed.

  And she knew that giving him an answer was important. It was part of the training. The purpose was to work her mind as well as her body. If she was going to be a field operative, fighting was something she was going to have to learn to put on autopilot in order to free her mind to evaluate the situation around her. Her mind was capable of doing that. Her body, however, was not.

  To distract him she shifted back to an offensive stance. Her arms followed a series of coordinated moves she’d committed to memory. Learning those moves had been simple. After reading a manual once, she knew where her hands were supposed to be, how straight her back needed to be, and how her feet should be situated on the ground before each strike. It was getting her body to perform what her brain already knew, that was the trick.

  She was getting better, though. She knew that, despite Quinlan’s harsh commentary. He must have sensed it or seen it in her execution. Because now he wanted more from her than just a fight. He wanted her to stop thinking about the fight so she could concentrate on other things. She got the point, but as soon as she stopped focusing on where her forearm needed to be to protect her head, he struck.

  It was a particularly heavy blow to the side of her head. Graciously, he gave her a second to shake it off. Sabrina didn’t have to
be told that the enemy would never be so kind. It was Quinlan’s subtle way of telling her that she failed. The more obvious way would have been to actually hit her again.

  “Answer me,” he insisted between breaths, referring to his previous question.

  Now that they stopped maneuvers, it was easy to answer him. “Two problems resulted by switching the attack to my leg. I signaled my intent by looking down and I took my eyes off my opponent,” she panted.

  Rubbing her forearm across her head, she tried to remove some of the sweat that was raining down her face. Dressed only in a sports bra and loose cotton pants, she didn’t have a whole lot of options. There were towels on the bench, but they were off the mat, and she couldn’t leave the mat until he told her she could leave. That was a rule. He had at least a score of them. He was a rules freak. But she was getting used to it. It was part of his method.

  Next time, Sabrina promised herself, she wouldn’t look at her leg. Next time she would plant her bare foot against his cheek and smile when it happened. Lifting her head, she took a moment to study him. He was dressed in a black T-shirt and the same loose cotton pants she wore, only his were black. His shirt was hardly damp. Under the arms only. And he was breathing steadily but not deeply. As if he was barely exerting himself.

  The bastard.

  Then he nodded his head. Just once. It was a silent communication between the two of them that she’d come to understand. It meant he was satisfied she’d learned the lesson and wouldn’t repeat the mistake.

  To date, she’d never made the same mistake twice. Over a hundred of them once, but never one twice. She believed it was one of the reasons that he was still around, still working with her when he probably should have been back on active duty. But she didn’t know that for sure.

  “Why are you still here?” The question popped out before she could stop herself. She hadn’t wanted to ask, because she knew it wasn’t likely that he would answer. More than that, she didn’t want him to think that it mattered to her.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “How come you’re still here? At Langley. With me. Why aren’t you off saving the world? That is what you do, isn’t it?”