Rocky Mountain Valor

by Jennifer D. Bokal

  Arms pumping, legs driving, heart racing, she ran. Her fingers connected with a handle and she pulled it open. Bright sunlight streamed into the room and she took another step forward. A figure emerged from the shadows and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her hard and driving all the air from her lungs. She was lifted from the ground, her feet dangling.

  Terror gripped Petra’s chest with an icy hand, stilling her heart. Her mind stuttered. She couldn’t think, couldn’t plan, couldn’t react.

  “Stupid woman,” he said. His breath smelled of cheap vodka and cigarettes. Even though he was at her back, she could tell that he was tall—towering over her at six foot five or maybe more. His chest was solid and his arms were large and powerful, making him an impossible enemy for her to defeat physically.

  “You really thought that you could just sneak away?” he asked. “Why did you not realize that the door would be the first place to set up an ambush?”

  She hadn’t been thinking—that was the problem—only trying to escape. But now that the Russian had her, she wasn’t about to remain an easy victim. Petra jabbed back with her elbow, striking her captor in his solar plexus.

  The Russian cursed. “Do not make this harder on yourself.” He shook her with each word. She flopped in the large man’s grasp, then bent double and bit the other hand that held her.

  The man screamed and dropped her to the floor. To her left, the cans had been stacked in stair steps, giving her one way to escape—up. She hefted herself onto a drum, finding the top greasy and slick. The stench of oil hung thick in the air.

  The Russian grabbed her foot and she kicked him in the face. He fell back to the floor. She climbed to the next drum and the one after that. Her attacker was on his feet again, climbing after her.

  Petra ended at the top, with no place else to go, and still the Russian pursued her. She kicked the lower drum. It rocked forward and settled back in place. She braced her back on the wall and placed her feet on the lip of the drum. With all her strength, she straightened her legs. The barrel slowly pitched forward and then gravity took over.

  The big Russian looked up, his eyes wide. Then he was gone, his screams lost in the clatter of metal on metal. The drum lay on the floor, a hole in the side leaking thick black oil. It rocked, hitting the crushed body of the big Russian, before rolling out and then back in again. He lay without moving, breathing, his lifeless gaze staring at nothing.

  Fumes rose in the air. Petra gagged and wiped her watering eyes.

  “Stop right there,” said Rick. He had found her. He stood on the floor with his gun in his hand. Feet braced, he aimed the pistol.

  Without any place to hide, Petra slowly lifted her hands. The other Russian came up from behind at a jog. He looked at his fallen comrade and then at Petra, his eyes narrowed. Her heart skipped a beat as she wondered what kind of revenge he would extract for the death of his friend.

  Rick moved his finger to the trigger. He pulled. A spark erupted from the barrel of the gun. The bullet tore a hole through the metal wall behind her at the same moment that a ball of fire exploded from the floor.

  * * *

  Ian and Martinez stood at the empty trunk of Rick’s rental car.

  For Ian, this was the worst-case scenario. The single lead had brought him to a dead end. He opened Petra’s phone. His contact information was on the screen. Ian’s throat closed and his heart seized. It was the same feeling he’d had when Travis died all those years ago. The implosion of emotion, where all the hurt and anger and sadness comingled into a dense mass, a black hole of feelings.

  Ian had lost himself in that void, struggling out only when he met Petra. And if she were gone, truly gone, how would he find the light again?

  “What’s next, General?” Martinez asked.

  Ian hadn’t a clue. He had no place to look or any other way to find her. Yet he needed to make a decision.

  Before he could, a blast rattled the windows and the ground shook, choking off whatever he might have said. “What was that?”

  “It felt like an earthquake, but that’s impossible.”

  The acerbic smell of smoke filled the air. “I think it was an explosion,” said Ian.

  He raced for the door. Smoke billowed from another warehouse—the one farthest from the gate. It was Petra, of that he was certain. The question now was, had she survived the explosion? Or even after all this, was she truly gone?

  * * *

  Nikolai Mateev stood next to his bed and stared at the bank of monitors. The closed-circuit TVs were the only security for this out-of-the-way and forgotten location. That and his bodyguards. Mateev’s blood went cold and his bowels cramped. He stared at a live picture of the open gate and a heavily pixelated SUV.

  It was Ian Wallace. He had found Nikolai, after all.

  “Ilya,” he yelled. “Anatoly.”

  There was no answer. Everyone was gone. They were looking for Petra Sloane, the same woman Ian Wallace had come to find.

  The floor shook suddenly, sending Nikolai off balance. He held on to the bed and waited for the shaking to stop. A funnel of fire shot up at the far side of the warehouse. Fingers of flame danced along the ceiling before burning themselves out.

  Metal, scorched and black, remained. The air heated as a fire at the far side of the warehouse raged. There was enough distance that Nikolai wasn’t immediately concerned. And yet if his sense of direction was right—and it was—the blast had happened near the only door to the warehouse. And thousands of gallons of highly flammable oil blocked his path to the exit.

  * * *

  Flames shot up around Petra, trapping her and cloaking her in a thick cloud of smoke. Her eyes burned and watered. Her lungs were raw and hurt with each breath. Coughing and choking, she dropped to her knees. Instinct drove her from the flames and she crawled atop the wall of drums. All the while, she knew that she was taking herself farther into the warehouse and away from the only exit.

  The smoke lessened as the flames were fed by the fresh air and drawn toward the door. The cloud dissipated, and Petra could both breathe and see. She took a moment to take stock of her location.

  Obviously, stuck atop containers of flammables in the midst of a fire was the worst place to be. Three rows over, Petra saw what she needed. She leaped from one tower to the next and then to the one beyond. The next stack of drums was only three high, and she carefully lowered herself down a level. Then to a stack of drums only two high. She turned and gripped the lid of one, then dropped the last few feet to the floor.

  “We finally meet.”

  The voice came from behind Petra, but she didn’t need to turn around to know who had spoken. It was undoubtedly Nikolai Mateev.

  “Put your hands up where I can see them and turn to face me.”

  Petra hated having to obey the Russian criminal, yet she wasn’t willing to die simply to be spiteful. Lifting her arms, she slowly complied.

  Petra had seen Mateev before—when he’d attacked her at the apartment, and then today, as she lay on the floor, pretending to be unconscious. But standing face-to-face, she was finally able to get a sense of who she was up against.

  Mateev was a large man, both tall and broad. Wisps of white hair covered his scalp and his jowls sagged. His skin was slightly yellowed. His lips were chapped and cracked. In her estimation, Mateev was both old and infirm. But he was far from harmless.

  It was his eyes. He watched her with dispassion and at the same time cunning. It was as if Petra were a bug in a jar that Mateev planned to dissect just because he could.

  * * *

  Ian dropped his foot on the accelerator and turned the steering wheel. The warehouse came into view. A large door was open. Fire licked around the frame and a cloud of black smoke rolled out along the ground. Even in the car, he could feel the inferno’s heat push him back. An acrid chemical odor filled the air.

&n
bsp; Martinez sat in the seat beside him. He held a phone at his ear and spoke. “There’s a fire, possibly chemical, at the industrial park owned by Hatch Enterprises. We need help and backup, STAT.”

  Two figures, hunched over, emerged from a cloud of smoke and flames. Was one of them Petra? Ian strained to see any distinguishing features—hair, clothes, face. The two were nothing more than dark forms in a fog of billowing soot. Ian dropped his foot all the way down, pressing the accelerator to the floor and sending the SUV flying forward. Then he stepped on the brake and skidded sideways to a stop.

  Throwing the door open, he hit the ground at a sprint. He wasn’t the praying type, not really believing in anything more than his own strength of will. As he ran toward what was surely the gateway to hell, he hoped a higher power had been watching out for Petra and allowed her to escape the inferno.

  Ian got closer and pulled up short. The figures were men: One was Albright. Ian didn’t know the other.

  Martinez was just a step behind Ian, his gun out and at the ready. “Hold it right there,” the detective said. “Lift your hands where I can see them.”

  Neither man complied, but they were hardly a threat. Both dropped to their knees, coughing and retching.

  Ian grabbed Albright by the collar and hefted him to his feet. The doctor’s face was blackened with soot, his eyes red and watery. Ian had no sympathy for the man’s plight, nor joy for what he had survived.

  “Where is she?” Ian asked. “Where’s Petra?”

  Albright lifted a hand and pointed to the warehouse. “She’s in there.” His voice was nothing more than a wheeze. “But you’ll never find her. The whole place is filled with drums of used motor oil. It’s a bomb waiting to explode.”

  Ian let go and the doctor fell to the ground.

  Martinez kept his gun trained on Albright and the other man. “The fire department is on its way. They’ll be here in five minutes, maybe ten.”

  “Petra doesn’t have five minutes to live,” said Ian. In reality, he wasn’t sure she’d survive the next five seconds. But he had no other options. “I’m going in.”

  “Are you crazy?” cried Martinez. “You can’t do that. I won’t let you.”

  “Shoot me if you want, but short of a bullet to my brain, I’m going to find Petra.”

  Ian cast a glance over his shoulder. In the distance, a line of SUVs approached the industrial park. It was the RMJ team. Roman must’ve called them together. Why had Ian ever shut them out of this—the most important investigation of his life?

  Roman, Cody, Julia—hell, even Jones. They were the family he was looking for.

  “Is that your crew?” the detective asked.

  Ian nodded. “Tell them,” he said to Martinez. There were no words for Ian’s feelings. “Tell them I said thanks.”

  He looked again to the warehouse and the flames.

  “Your gun,” said Martinez. “Give it to me—otherwise you’ll blow a hole in your chest.”

  Martinez was right—gunpowder and flames made a deadly combination. And yet, without his Walther, Ian would be unarmed. Already he was thinking about what he needed to do to be successful. But no gun was better than being foolishly dead. Taking the Walther from the holster, he pressed it into Martinez’s free hand.

  Then he turned back to the warehouse, and ducking to avoid the flames, ran inside.

  * * *

  Nikolai Mateev had nothing to lose. Either way, he was a dead man. Would it be the cancer that finally corrupted his insides, so that he was filled with nothing more than sludge? Or would he die in this fiery warehouse? He preferred a comfortable bed and plenty of morphine to being roasted alive—who wouldn’t? But there was one place he refused to perish and that was in prison.

  Motioning with the gun, Nikolai directed the woman away from the drums of oil and her back to the bed and the table filled with monitors. The computer screens were all black, the wires most likely burned by the encroaching fire. But the hanging bulb still worked, and for the moment, they had light.

  Nikolai sat on the edge of the bed. His legs hurt and the gun in his hand was too heavy. He ignored the discomfort and said, “We wait for your boyfriend, Ian Wallace, to save you. Then he’ll save us both.”

  The woman’s long dark hair clung to her sweaty cheeks and neck. Her face was flushed and the flames behind her danced and undulated, throwing their shadows across Petra’s body. He knew exactly what had attracted Ian Wallace to her. It was more than her beauty; it was her strength, as well. That was evident in the set of her jaw and her unwavering glare.

  “You’re delusional,” she said.

  He ignored her comment. He needed her alive. “I’ve known your man a long time, you know.”

  “You don’t know Ian. You’re a criminal he’s been chasing.”

  “I am a business man, but there was a time when I wanted to recreate the world order.”

  She spat on the floor. “You? A revolutionary?”

  Beautiful, strong and spunky. It was quite an intoxicating mixture. “Why do you think that at one time I didn’t want to change the world?”

  Petra looked away. He didn’t blame her. In these last few months, Nikolai had become maudlin.

  “The corruption in Russia was enough to make a man sick,” he continued. “And the West, with all their talk of freedom and liberty and justice? It was just talk. That’s when I got the idea of making war. I found others willing to work with me. One of them was a physicist and we made a bomb meant for London. It wouldn’t have killed many, but enough. Then, when the West investigated, they wouldn’t see a group of rogue attackers, but Russians.”

  “And the ensuing counterattack would get rid of the corrupt leaders?”

  That’s exactly what he had wanted. “And you’re smart, too.”

  “And you failed, obviously.”

  “It was Ian Wallace who found me. He got the bomb and I escaped.”

  “And you became a criminal who doesn’t care about anyone other than yourself.”

  “Not true,” said Nikolai. But it was.

  “What changed?” she asked.

  “I became pragmatic.”

  “Then why are we here, roasting to death?”

  “We are waiting for Ian Wallace, like I said.”

  “He probably has no idea where I am, and he certainly wouldn’t know how to find me.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” said Nikolai. “He’s here, now.”

  “Ian’s here?” she whispered, her eyes bright.

  Never had anyone looked at him with such hope as Petra held for Ian Wallace.

  Nikolai had seen desperation many times. Greed? Respect? Of course. He’d even seen lust, but underneath it all was fear.

  But hope? Never. In that moment, Nikolai truly hated the Brit.

  “Why are we here?” she asked. “What do you really want?”

  “I want to go back to Russia. Ian won’t let me simply walk away. But to save you, I imagine he’ll do just about anything—including letting me go.”

  “So I’m your hostage?”

  “Only until I get back to Russia.”

  Petra shook her head. “Ian would never go for that. He’s been after you for over ten years. You’re crazy.”

  Nikolai shrugged. A certain amount of insanity had kept him alive all these years. The air was hot; it dried his lungs. Sweat dripped down the side of his face. He wiped it away. “Not much longer now,” he said.

  “What if you have this all wrong?” Petra asked. “What if Ian doesn’t try to save me?”

  “I’ve seen Ian Wallace confront death to save a stranger before. Imagine what he would do for someone he loves?”

  Petra turned and gestured to the wall of flames that separated them from the exit, keeping out anyone who might try and save them. “What if he tries, but can’t rea
ch us?”

  She had a point, he’d give her that.

  Still... “I am prepared to die,” said Nikolai.

  A bit of ash floated by, looking to him like a blackened snowflake. Would he ever feel the icy kiss of a Russian winter again? In truth, he thought not.

  “And if I should die here?” He laughed bitterly. “Well, I’ll only have to spend one minute longer in hell.”

  Chapter 16

  A towering inferno loomed over Ian. His eyes watered. His lungs squeezed every time he took a breath. Each exhalation racked his body with a cough that bent him double. Smoke hung thick in the air, blinding him and confusing his sense of direction, until he no longer knew where he was.

  More than that, Ian had no idea how long he’d been wandering in the fire. Seconds? Minutes? To him, it felt like days. Without a way to gauge his progress, he had no other choice than to move on.

  He pulled the side of his jacket over his head and raced forward. With his heart pounding, he felt flames lick at his skin. A crack, like a gunshot, came at him from behind. He turned in time to see the lid of an oil drum, spinning like the devil’s discus, come directly at his head. Ian spun to the right just as the cover slammed into another barrel. Sparks exploded and bits of hot ash caught him on the neck.

  He looked for a place to go, a space to inhabit that would help him survive for one more minute.

  Survive. The word hit him like a bullet to the gut. How could Petra survive in this inferno? And if she was alive now, how would he ever reach her? Ian drew a breath and it came without pain. The smoke had lessened. He wiped a sooty hand down his face and found that the worst of the flames was behind him. More than that, he heard noises.

  Then he realized they were voices, and he strained to listen. One was deep and slow—a male voice. The other was higher and soft. From the cadence and intonations, Ian knew that he’d found Petra—and most likely Nikolai Mateev.

  He followed the sounds and, as he knew he would, he found them—Nikolai and Petra. She stood with her back to where Ian hid. Nikolai sat on a hospital bed, a gun in his hand, pointed at her.