Calculated Risk

by Stephanie Doyle

  It had been a hell of a long night. But she wasn’t tired and knew that it was doubtful she could achieve real sleep with Quinlan only a foot away. Still, maybe if he thought she was sleeping, he would be content to let the silence linger. Although he had never had a problem with silence. She had always been the one to break it.

  Not this time, though. “You handled that situation back there well,” he told her.

  “Guess shooting at people is a lot like riding a bike,” she retorted. She sounded casual but now that the adrenaline wasn’t flowing as hard there was a lingering nausea in her gut. She considered the possibility that she might have killed someone back at the house. Regardless that the someone was, in fact, the enemy…it still made her queasy.

  “I meant your accuracy with the gun. You’ve been practicing,” Quinlan suggested.

  “I always did like target practice.”

  He expelled a breath that might have been mistaken for a laugh. “I wouldn’t call what you did target practice. It was more like some distorted ricochet theory.”

  She smiled then with her eyes still closed as the images from her days at Langley returned. Hitting a target while aiming directly at it was a cinch. She believed it had to do with her uncanny ability in spatial mathematics. Her eye could accurately register the distance between herself and any target, and she knew from the kick of the gun, the slight jerk of her hand, the exact trajectory the bullet would take.

  Quinlan would stand behind her and tell her to hit the head of a target and she did. He would tell her to hit the leg, and she could do that, too. It was simple. What was more of a challenge was determining a bullet’s ricochet angle. Knowing what a bullet did if it hit steel, if it hit Kevlar, if it hit brick. Knowing the angle at which she was firing, Sabrina always believed, in principle, she could bounce a bullet in any direction she wanted it to go. More often than not she was wrong. But she’d never stopped trying.

  With only the woods to use for practice, she’d come pretty close to figuring out just how to hit a tree the right way to send the bullet sailing dramatically right or left. Depending on the thickness of the bark, of course, and the type of tree. If she told him that, though, he’d make some disbelieving sound. It’s what he used to do.

  Other memories of their time together spat at her like rapid fire. Because some of them made her want to smile, she concentrated more on the ones that hurt.

  “Did you marry her?”

  The words fell out of her mouth and she winced. It had always been like that with him. Always pushing and prodding him, forcing him to talk or at least to react to her because she hated it when he dismissed her. Hated that he always seemed to find it so easy to ignore her. The fact that ten years hadn’t changed anything was really annoying.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.”

  “It was over a year later,” he elaborated.

  “Shocker.” She hadn’t wanted to respond, but she’d been surprised that he had bothered to expand on his answer. He didn’t owe her any explanation.

  “Bri…”

  “Don’t call me that.” Opening her eyes, she pinned her gaze on him so that he would know how serious she was. The nickname brought with it too many of the memories she wanted to forget.

  This wasn’t going to work, she realized.

  Her mission would not succeed if she found herself wrapped up in some attempt to seek justice for a wrong that was done to her a bunch of years ago. She needed to let it go. If asked under penalty of torture, she would have sworn that she had. Her questions about his marriage suggested otherwise. But it didn’t have to go any further than that. She wouldn’t let it.

  “You should know that I didn’t do all of this as some sort of warped attempt to see you again. You have to understand that you weren’t supposed to be part of this. It’s not what I wanted.” She turned away from him and closed her eyes again.

  She heard him release a slow breath. “If only that were true.”

  The back seat shifted and without looking, she determined that he was planning to catch some sleep. With Quinlan it wouldn’t be an act, either. Sleep was a precious resource. Like food or water. In any conflict, it needed to be taken when it could. He’d taught her that.

  To distract her thoughts away from him, she began doing complicated geometrical proofs in her head. She could see the shapes flowing behind her eyes. Could see the angles and how they related to one another. Could see the purity and the simplicity of the theory that determined the answer for every angle on any scale.

  Like drinking a tonic, it cleansed her. There was no emotion in the math. Only truth. Only right and only wrong. It played out like a piece of music that she could actually hear. The symphony of order and reason, which, in so many ways, was in direct contrast to her emotional state-typically chaotic and confused. She allowed her mind to go to that place where so few people had ever gone. Where it seemed as if the answer, the one answer behind everything, was within her grasp if she just let go…

  Then a vision intruded. In her mind she saw herself sitting in the same seat hours earlier when Quinlan had first picked her up. She saw herself in the space and measured the distance between her knees and the driver’s seat.

  Sabrina opened her eyes and looked down at her legs and at the front seat. There was three-eighths of an inch difference.

  “Q,” she whispered.

  “Hmm.”

  “Wake up.”

  Her tone conveyed the situation. Instantly, he was alert. She could almost feel the resulting tension that was quickly being dispersed throughout his body.

  She pointed to the driver’s seat in front of her and whispered, “It’s been moved up.”

  He looked at the seat but shook his head, indicating that he was unable to see any discernible difference from where it was now to where it had been before. That didn’t mean that there wasn’t one, and apparently he trusted her enough to know that she wouldn’t have said it if she didn’t see it.

  He stared through the tinted partition where they could see a part of the driver’s head. Sabrina pushed closer to Quinlan, also trying to make out more of the driver’s face. Then she turned and shook her head.

  “Shorter,” she mouthed silently.

  He looked at her and she could see he was beyond questioning her at this point. Nodding, he reached for his gun. Then hitting a button on the door’s handle, he lowered the partition between them another few inches. Enough to be heard, but leaving enough protection if the man driving aimed a gun over his shoulder.

  “Horner, pull over.”

  “Can’t,” came the muffled response from the front seat.

  “She’s sick. Pull the car over.” As he said this, he pushed Sabrina back against the seat with one arm and lifted his gun out of the holster with his free hand pointing it directly at the head of the driver.

  She understood that if the driver didn’t want to pull over, then the driver was going to die. With her hands she searched for the seat belt. It felt as if they were pushing at least sixty on the speedometer, and anything over forty could be deadly for both of them if the driver was suddenly put out of commission and the car made impact with an unmovable force.

  She leaned toward Quinlan ready to warn him to put his seat belt on, as well, even as she struggled to fasten hers, but it was too late. The unknown driver, evidently realizing he’d been discovered, veered the car off the highway.

  Their destination was unknown, but Sabrina had a feeling she wasn’t going to have anything good to say about the trip.

  Chapter 8

  As the careening car skidded off the road, the force of a sudden ninety-degree turn sent Sabrina slamming into Quinlan. Another turn, this time in the opposite direction, sent them flying the other way until they were smashed against the door. The pattern continued so quickly that neither was able to grab hold of anything to stop their momentum. Her Defender flew off the back ledge, grazing her cheek before hitting the floor.

  Finally, when the car slo
wed, Quinlan used the opportunity to spread his body out over the length of the car seat. His feet pressed against one door as his hands pushed against the other to steady himself.

  “Hold on,” he ordered her.

  Lying flat over his body, Sabrina wrapped her arms around his middle and linked her ankles underneath his. She could feel the power of his muscles underneath her body pushing out against the two doors to keep them stable while the car continued to zig and zag.

  Sabrina noted the time they had been driving and estimated an average speed. She’d seen enough landmarks through the car window earlier to let her know they had been driving in the intended direction: south. That meant they were probably somewhere close to Gettysburg, maybe even closer to the Maryland border. From past trips down this way Sabrina knew the area was mostly farms, small towns…and woods.

  A perfect place to dump a car and two bodies.

  Not if she could help it. She let go of Quinlan and with one hand searched the car floor by touch until she found her Defender. She grabbed it, but the car made another sharp angle and it took all her strength just to hold on to Quinlan. He had a better chance of getting a shot off anyway.

  “Shoot the partition,” she shouted into his ear above the sound of the turbulent vehicle.

  “Bulletproof.” He did, however, lower one arm from the door and take the offered gun. “Try to lower it.”

  Sabrina understood immediately that she was in the better position to reach the control panel over his head. It’s where she’d seen him work the partition previously. But before her fingers found the button, she saw the glass sliding up to meet the roof. By the time she got to the panel, it wouldn’t move.

  “Forget it,” Quinlan told her. “The partition can be controlled and locked from the front.”

  It made sense, considering who had tricked out this car. No doubt the doors were also controlled from the front for the purpose of not letting anyone exit the car without the driver’s permission. The assumption was that the good guys would always be the ones driving.

  Bad assumption.

  Their only recourse was to wait until the car stopped. Eventually it had to. After another turn and jarring side impact, with what Sabrina had to guess was a pretty significant tree, the driver must have started to hit the brakes. Gravity began to pull against their bodies. Sabrina clung to Quinlan as tightly as she could, but when all movement came to an abrupt end, her grip didn’t hold.

  Suddenly she found herself flying the short distance from Quinlan’s body to the wall that was the front seat. Her back slammed against the leather-covered steel frames, the force of the impact knocking the wind out of her. She slid to the floor of the car. Moaning, she tried to suck in some air and roll over so that she was at least facing up ready in spirit for any attack if not in body.

  The car was stopped now. It was just a question as to what the driver would do next. Quinlan was already sitting up, the gun she’d pressed into his hand aimed at the door on the driver’s side.

  She tried to control her breathing so she could hear what was happening around her, but she couldn’t stop her staccato gasping. The squeak of a door opening was ominous, but the expected clicking sound of the locks being disengaged never happened. Without unlocking the car, the driver wouldn’t be able to open the back doors from the outside.

  “What’s he doing?”

  “Shh,” he whispered, his senses evidently completely engaged.

  She groaned and pushed through the bruising pain in her back to sit up. Still no action.

  “He won’t shoot us through the door,” she concluded. “He knows it’s bulletproof.”

  “He can blow it up,” Quinlan informed her.

  But Sabrina shook her head. “He can’t risk killing me, remember?”

  “You think.”

  “I know,” she replied. Finally she was able to take a deep breath. “The men back at the house were stalling us. We both agree on that. This guy is doing more of the same. Horner?”

  “Probably dead,” he stated coldly. “His own fault for getting out of the car in the first place. Tried to be a hero and instead he ends up…” Quinlan closed his mouth and lowered the Defender.

  She read the scowl on his face and knew that his irritation had a lot to do with the disgust over losing an agent. He never liked to lose. Anything. But he would put the agent’s death behind him as if it meant nothing because that’s the only way he could stay focused on the present. She knew this because once upon a time he’d taught her to do the same.

  “So we’re stuck?”

  “Yes.”

  “But I have to pee.” She flashed him a cheeky smile.

  Shaking his head he gave her back her gun. “You have a warped sense of humor.”

  “At least I have one,” she rallied as she shoved the gun deep in her jeans at the small of her back where she knew it was secure. Then she began to assess the space. “You got a plan?”

  “I’m working on it.” Quinlan, too, studied the small area looking for a possibly stealthy exit. There was none.

  “Each of us could get out on either side,” she suggested. “He can’t cover both of us.”

  “He doesn’t have to. If your theory is right, he won’t be shooting at you.”

  Sabrina nodded, agreeing with his conclusion. “Tough break for you then.”

  He smirked. “I was thinking more along the lines of both of us surviving.”

  “Oh.”

  “Besides, we’re locked in. Remember?”

  He turned and faced the back seat cushion. He felt around the headrest and tugged. The entire back seat snapped loose from the catches that held it in place and he was able to lower it until it was almost parallel to the seat.

  They both stared at the empty trunk.

  “He’ll be expecting us to find a way to unlock the doors and get out that way,” she commented, knowing she was merely echoing Quinlan’s thoughts. “Can you hot-wire something and lower the partition?”

  “Why?”

  “The rearview mirror.” It was all she needed to say.

  Quinlan nodded. A little muscle and some help from a pair of tweezers from the first aid kit and he was able to get the casing off the car door panel. He fished out a bunch of wires, picked two, stripped them of their plastic casing and twisted them together. A hum sounded, and the glass between the front and back seats slid down.

  That done, he reached through the opening and pulled at the mirror until he managed to break it free from its hinge. She let him work, while she pushed the back seat down as far as possible so she could squeeze her upper body back into the trunk.

  “No,” he objected. “I’ll do it.”

  “You’re too big. If you crawl back here you’ll make the car dip too much and he’ll know what we’re doing. Besides, I’ve got more room to maneuver,” she explained logically. “Give me the mirror.”

  He hesitated.

  “You know I’m right. And I know that drives you around the bend a little bit, but this time you don’t have a choice. Hand me the mirror.”

  Quinlan passed the mirror through the opening and put it next to her. “There should be a release switch that opens the trunk from the inside.”

  Sabrina had already found it. The problem was she had an image of pushing the switch and having the trunk top spring open. It would broadcast their location and could leave her a sitting duck, depending upon where the guy had taken up his position to wait them out. Shifting in slow increments so as not to cause too much motion in the car, she turned first on her side, then on her back. She found a wire secured to the top of the trunk, probably for the brake lights, and tugged. It was tight enough for what she needed.

  Holding on to the line, she reached over her head for the button located just under the catch that held the trunk top in place. She pushed it, heard the pop that signaled the catch releasing, then clutched the wire in her hand to hold the trunk lid.

  The mirror in her hand now, she loosened her grip on the w
ire just enough to allow the lid up about an inch. If their kidnapper was watching the trunk, he might realize it had been opened, but she still wasn’t giving him enough space to make a decent shot. Not that she imagined he would, without knowing exactly who he was shooting at.

  But Quinlan was right. That was still only a theory. Sabrina saw no need to put it to the test.

  Instantly, she knew she was going to need a better angle in order to use the mirror effectively. She turned again, this time even slower, until she was once more on her belly, her legs stretched out over the folded-down seat. She eased the mirror out through the gap she’d left and surveyed the area surrounding the car.

  Morning had turned the sky a sort of purplish hue. It was cloudless, which helped the visibility, and she found she didn’t have a problem making out the leafless trees a few feet in front of her.

  “What do you see?”

  “Trees,” she reported. “Lots of them. He’s parked us in the middle of the damn woods.”

  “Can you see him?”

  Sabrina angled the mirror first to her right, then to her left. Then back to the right, only this time not as far. Thick trees, thin trees, a squirrel and…there. Behind an oak tree that faced the front of the car so he could see if either car door opened. She could make out the bulky black sleeve of a coat that was slightly exposed, but not much else. The guy was staying low.

  “I see him.” She pulled the mirror in through the space she had created, then tugged on the wire slightly to shrink the gap without actually closing the trunk. Turning her head, she saw Quinlan’s face in the opening by the car seat.

  “I think I can make the shot.” She watched as suspicion immediately crept into his eyes.