by Kim Baldwin
“What?” Ryden asked again. She couldn’t understand what the hell was going on.
Kennedy placed the weapon in her hand.
“Get ready to run,” the woman said.
Ryden watched in disbelief as the stranger aimed the gun at her own thigh and pulled the trigger.
“Fuck! I’m shot!” she yelled, and collapsed to the ground as blood poured from the wound. “They’re out back!”
“I owe you.” Kennedy picked up the gun.
“And don’t you fucking forget it.” The woman gasped, in obvious pain, as she clutched at her thigh.
Kennedy grabbed Ryden by the hand and ran around the side of the warehouse for the van. Before they got in, Kennedy shot out two of the tires of the sedan.
*
Washington, D.C.
Although the bullet had passed cleanly through the fleshy part of her thigh, Jack’s leg hurt like a bitch during the bumpy drive. TQ had sent a car and two men to pick up Jack and Bill from the abandoned warehouse. They were driven into the heart of D.C. to a service entrance behind a big glass office complex, then led to an elevator that took them down to the underbelly of the building.
From one basement to another, but the two were radically different. This space was clean, modern, and well lit, dominated by large wooden shipping crates piled in several groupings. The markings on the side indicated some had come from the Middle East, while others had Russian Cyrillic labeling or Asian characters.
Jack was surprised and troubled to find TQ standing in the middle of the room. As far as she knew, the bitch rarely left her penthouse. If she was here, that meant things were very serious.
TQ was on the phone with her back turned to them. “I want you to comb every inch of Washington and toll booth out of Washington. I don’t care how many men you need to do it, just give them pictures.” She hung up and turned to look at them before she dialed another number. “Have you found the van yet?” she asked whoever was on the other end. “I see.” She sounded disappointed. “I’ve ordered all airports to signal me should they show up, and I have men at the train stations,” she said. “Call me as soon as you find anything.”
TQ shut the cell phone and walked past Jack, without looking at her, to Bill. “How exactly did they get away?” She was the picture of serenity, which scared Jack more than tripping while holding liquid nitrogen.
Bill explained how he had run outside when Jack shouted that the two women were getting away. When he found her, wounded on the ground, Jack had told him the contractor had used her as a shield to get to the exit and then punched her unconscious in the stairwell. When Jack came to, she went after them and got shot as the two women were in the process of getting away with the van.
“How did they get the keys?” TQ asked calmly.
“They must’ve taken them while I was out cold,” Jack explained. “I need to sit.” She bit her lip in pain. She could feel blood slowly trickle down her leg. It had saturated her black jeans.
“When I say so.” TQ looked at Bill. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t you the one driving?”
His look of terror at being questioned by his boss was undeniable. “I…I…yeah, I drove.”
“Then do explain how Jack ended up with the keys.”
“I…I don’t know.” He looked at Jack. “They were in my jacket.” Bill felt his pockets as if expecting to find them there.
“They fell out and I picked them up,” Jack said blandly. She’d picked his pocket when he’d been busy pointing his gun at Kennedy’s head outside the building.
“Does that happen a lot?” TQ asked him.
“Never.”
“How unfortunate for you it happened tonight.” TQ took a step closer, so they were face-to-face. “How very unfortunate,” she repeated.
Bill had a good six inches on her, but his eyes were wide in fear and his face was slick with perspiration. He backed up against the wall. “Don’t believe her. She picked my pocket.”
“You saying I stuck my hand in your jacket and you never noticed?” Jack took a painful step forward. “I doubt you’d miss that, since moments before I found the keys on the ground you’d asked me to fuck you.”
“You took them from me.” He turned to TQ. “I know she did. She spent the whole drive there trying to convince me to let the contractor go, because she was afraid of them coming after her.” He looked at Jack. “You could have dropped them both, but you hesitated. It was like you were waiting for that bitch to go for your gun.”
“Don’t be stupid. She took me by surprise.”
TQ arched one eyebrow. “Why do I find that hard to believe?”
“Hey, I’m not superhuman.” Jack looked down at the small puddle of blood at her feet.
“You’re also not an amateur. I’m sure you didn’t get your rep by making unintelligent moves.” TQ paced the room. “You killed a man you knew nothing about—an innocent individual who could have been a fed or cop—in front of me, without so much as flinching. You did it while practically blind and then went back for one more shot.” She crossed her arms.” You want me to believe some woman managed to take your weapon, punch you, steal the keys, and shoot you, all in the process of escaping?”
“That’s the gist of it.” Jack shrugged. She had to play it down. Any show of fear or diffidence would trigger TQ’s thinly veiled patience and anger at tonight’s massive failure. “My apologies.”
“I’ll get them next time,” Bill said.
“Next time.” TQ mumbled, more to herself than either of them. “Of course, because this was some silly, inconsequential job that can be done any old time.” She removed invisible lint from her stiff and white-as-herself shirt.
Jack knew the signs. TQ was about to throw a shit fit. The two of them were about to get very dirty.
“Yeah, no biggie,” Bill said. Was he stupid, or did he have a death wish? Didn’t he recognize sarcasm and lethal composure?
Without taking her eyes off her shirt, TQ sighed. “Remove him from my life.”
One of the two guys who’d brought them here—a short, barrel-chested guy who’d been watching the goings-on from a position near the door—drew a pistol and shot the dumbass in the chest. Bill fell to his knees and then slumped forward and lay still.
The short goon then trained his gun on Jack and waited.
“What to do, what to do.” TQ started to pace again.
Jack tried to remain calm, but TQ was unpredictable. These could be her last moments. The bitch had just tossed the coin of Jack’s life in the air, and all she could do was wait for the deciding heads or tails.
Yet it wasn’t her own existence she cared about. They said that your life passes before your eyes before you die, but all Jack could see was Cass’s future—one where TQ killed Cass as well.
“Look.” Jack shifted her weight and cringed as pain shot up her leg. “I know I screwed up, but I’m good at what I do. You can’t judge me based on one failure.” She stuffed her hands in her jeans. “I need my own team to perform. Let me put one together next time, a few people I can count on. Not clowns like him.” She looked down at the lifeless body next to her. “The guy couldn’t even manage to keep the car keys in his pocket.”
“Why didn’t you pull the trigger, Jack?”
“I have anger-management issues,” she replied. “The contractor insulted and threatened me with her organization.”
“Since when do you care about contractors?”
“Since they almost killed me during a job.”
“Why is it you’re not concerned about me executing you instead?” TQ asked.
“I know—”
“Do you think I need you enough to overlook your failures, Jack?”
“No.”
“Then?”
“I know you want to keep me alive for as long as it takes to get over yourself, which could be never.”
“Myself?” TQ sounded intrigued. “How interesting. Do explain.”
“You didn’t come
after me because I killed your brother. I doubt you care enough about anyone to seek revenge on their behalf.” She had to remind TQ why she’d wanted Jack in the first place; she had to put TQ’s anger back into perspective if she wanted to keep Cass alive. “I’m just here because you can’t cope with someone else deciding destiny or calling the shots. I put a glitch in your plans, in your perfectly choreographed life, when I killed your brother and rubbed it in your face. If anyone should have decided about his miserable life and reveled in the choice of his death, it should have been you.”
TQ clapped slowly. “Brava. Not bad for a lowlife assassin.”
“You’re not that complicated. Pretty transparent, actually.”
TQ laughed. “Am I, now?”
“Just another statistic, really.”
“How precious. Kitchen psychology.” She approached Jack.
“Probably a case of a messed-up childhood,” Jack replied. “Parents didn’t love you, think you were good enough. For some reason, gave more love or saw more potential in your paraplegic brother. Maybe they never wanted a daughter in the first place and treated you like an afterthought. But you proved them wrong. You got even by becoming powerful and rich. You showed them who really calls the shots when it comes to rejection and pain—”
“Shut up.” TQ shouted, completely out of character.
“How am I doing so far?”
“I said, shut up,” TQ repeated, quietly this time.
“The truth’s a remorseless bitch, isn’t she?”
“Undoubtedly.” TQ traced the scar on Jack’s cheek with her index finger. “Yet nothing, compared to me.” She went to the door but turned back, her hand on the knob. “I can end your life with the wave of my hand.”
“But you won’t.”
TQ smiled. “My game, my terms, remember? You get to live for as long as I deem necessary. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to take care of your failure.”
She addressed the short goon standing there and his friend Hulk on the opposite corner. “You two…I want you to demonstrate just how remorseless I am, until I say otherwise.”
Chapter Thirty-two
Burke, Virginia
Shield drove slowly past the safe house. The cracker-box home was dark, and the overgrown yard, if it could even be called a yard, told her it hadn’t been used in a while.
The isolated safe house was near the northern edge of Lake Accotink Park, an enormous wooded area big enough to get lost in. She skirted the edge of the park for nearly three miles before she began looking seriously for a good dump site.
She’d hoped to hide the van among the trees, but every possible avenue she explored had problems or carried too much risk of immediate discovery. She spotted the solution in an enormous car dealership coming up on the right. Shield followed the signs to the service department around back and parked in a lot filled with older vehicles waiting to be repaired or picked up by their owners. “Let’s go,” she told Wagner as she slid the keys under the front mat. “Follow me closely, keep quiet, and don’t draw attention to yourself.”
After a two-block jog they were inside the tree line at the edge of the park. They’d made it there unobserved, fortunately, because the bloodstain on Wagner’s light-blue hoodie was getting too large to ignore. Since it was still much too early for park visitors, Shield kept to the main path that led north through the woods, confident they wouldn’t be seen. Still, she remained quiet, alert to any noise or sign of movement ahead or behind them. Though it was black as pitch out, they could move quickly because the pathway was wide and had been paved for bicycles. Wagner did a good job of keeping up, though she was breathing heavily.
The one-story safe house, set a good distance from any neighboring homes, was sadly neglected, with peeling paint, an iffy roof, and a driveway of cracked concrete and tall weeds. All the curtains were drawn, and every window was opaque with filth. From the look of it, it might have been years since anyone had last used the residence for any significant amount of time.
Shield hoped they’d at least find a working phone.
“Are you sure this is the place?” Wagner bent over, hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. The sleeve where she’d been shot was saturated with blood.
“There’s nothing else around.”
“What’s this house supposed to be?”
“A safe house is a place where ops or agents can find refuge until further notice or a place to hide witnesses.”
Wagner straightened and stared at the sagging porch. “It looks…spooky.”
“As long as we find a phone, I don’t care what the house looks like.” Shield tried the front door, the Walther at the ready. Locked. Wagner stayed close behind her as she made her way around to the back. The back exit was locked as well, but the wood was so warped there was a gap between the door and frame, enough to pop it open with the security keycard from her wallet. The Russian goons who’d overpowered them in the tunnel had taken only her Glock.
“Wait here,” she told Wagner. She slipped inside and slid her hand along the wall until she found a light switch. She flipped it on, relieved when a dim bulb came to life, illuminating a small, sparsely furnished kitchen.
She turned on more lights and looked around, giving the half dozen rooms a thorough check in the space of a couple of minutes. Two small bedrooms, one bath, a living room, dining room, and kitchen. Although everything was dusty and worn, the place did indeed conform to the usual safe-house standards: it was isolated, with a good view of the surrounding area, and had multiple exits and basic, functional furniture. Little else, except for a few kitchenware items and minimal bedding and towels. The less clutter in a place like this, the better. It was easier to tell immediately if anyone had been there and changed anything, and it was tougher to conceal cameras or listening devices.
Many safe houses also had a place to hide things—weapons, documents, even people. Did this one? For the moment, her priority was the phone she spotted on the end table beside the couch. “You can come in,” she called out to Wagner.
Wagner, hugging herself, came in from the kitchen and looked around. “At least we’re safe for now,” she said with evident dismay.
“Have the White House luxuries spoiled the florist?” Shield knew she was out of line, but she didn’t care. Wagner had proved to be a liar working for a dangerous woman named TQ, a woman she’d turned a blind eye to knowing anything about, and Shield was fed up with her lies and games. She didn’t even know why she’d helped Wagner escape.
“My name is Ryden,” Wagner replied angrily. “And no, the White House and everything about it is a nightmare I hope to one day forget.”
“Then get comfortable. I don’t know how long we’ll have to stay here.”
“I thought they were coming to get us.”
“That depends on what’s going on at headquarters and whether they think it’s safe.”
“When are you going to call them?”
“As soon as I figure out what to tell them.”
“What do you mean?”
Shield locked the door and took a seat on the couch. “I want you to tell me what the hell is going on—who this TQ is and how she involved you. And then I want to know how the hell you pulled this off.”
“Look,” Wagner replied, as she sat on an armchair to Shield’s left, “I know you’re angry and you have every reason to be, but I did what I had to, to stay alive.”
“The only reason you’re alive, that both of us are alive, is by the grace of a complete stranger. I don’t understand why she helped us, but we owe her our lives.” Shield tried to keep her voice steady and not let her bottled-up anger take over. “What you did—your lies and deceptions, kidnapping the president and getting innocent people killed in the process, and then trying to seduce me to throw me off track—is not why you’re still alive.”
“They promised me freedom,” Wagner said coldly. “And I did not try to seduce you.”
“Stop repeating that ridiculous mant
ra. Did you really think they’d let a nobody live to tell what happened? High-profile people have been permanently silenced for a lot less. Do you have any idea how ludicrous you sound?”
“What the hell was I supposed to do? Go to jail and wait for death? Do you think I went looking for them, for this whole absurd weirdness?” Wagner winced. “They framed me, killed my customer and his ex-wife with my stem cutter, and placed it back in my shop where the police found it covered in blood. I didn’t stand a chance.”
“Didn’t you get a lawyer?”
“A fancy-looking one came to me while I was being held for questioning. Initially, I thought my colleague sent him. I’d asked her to find me a lawyer, a pro bono one. Some guy in an expensive suit showed up instead and got me out then took me to his equally expensive office, where he told me if I refused to work for his client they’d provide solid evidence against me. Witnesses who saw me being intimate with the victim on various occasions.”
“Were you?”
“With Tim? No. Never. I hardly knew the man.”
“Who hired this lawyer to represent you?”
“He never said, but as time went by and they started to operate and school me, this woman would call to check on my progress. She never said so, but I know she was the client the lawyer had referred to. She was behind it all.”
“Was TQ her name?”
“She never mentioned a name,” Wagner replied. “No one ever mentioned their name, except for the woman who trained me, taught me manners, how to talk, sound, walk, politics, how to hold a damn fork, and every other little thing.”
“How do you know this woman who called was the brain behind this scheme?”
“Just the way she talked to me. Like it was up to her to decide whether my transformation was successful and I was ready to proceed with what they wanted from me. It wasn’t until I was ready for the job that they revealed who I was to double.”
“The president.”
“I only realized after the swelling from the operations had gone down and they let me look at myself for the first time in the mirror.”
