by Cliff Ryder
They stood there, face-to-face, with Anthony listening for the next noise from below. A soft tone in his earpiece signaled an incoming call, and he answered. "Go."
"I'm a floor below you, and thought I'd call ahead to avoid getting shot."
"Come on up — the party's about to begin." He took his gaze away from her for a split second, partly to confirm that it really was Liam down there, and partly to see if she would try anything. Her eyes narrowed, and he turned his hip just in time to block what would have been a vicious low punch to his testicles. She tried to follow up with a rake across his eyes, but he snapped his head forward, his forehead slamming into the bridge of her nose, the cartilage of her nose crunching under the blow. The back of her head bounced off the wall and she sagged limply, with only Anthony's arm holding her up. Moving his free hand to her mouth, he aimed at her right shoulder and squeezed the trigger, the 9 mm bullet burrowing through her flesh like a voracious, punishing insect. The shock brought her around again, and she screamed into his hand, just as Liam crept up the last flight of stairs.
"Found yourself a playmate, I see."
"You recognize her," Anthony said.
"Sure, she's one of them."
"Simple exchange, one bitch for another."
"I doubt they'll go for that."
Anthony shook his head. "Yeah, me, too. So we'll just have to kill them all instead. How're you fixed for ammo?"
"Got a full mag in, and a half on me. You?"
"Two full, one three-quarters up. I wanted to give Gregor more time to get into position, but we need to go now. Follow behind me and cover the right. I've got the left." He hoisted the semiconscious woman up like a rag doll, wrapping her left arm over his neck and hiding his pistol below her other arm. "Let's move."
29
The roar from the helicopter's blades made it difficult for David to hear anything. He stood in front of the open door of the chopper, his short hair ruffling in the powerful wind kicked up by the blades. When they had arrived, Cody had insisted on checking his injury, and slapped a pressure bandage on it, but David had insisted he was all right and could cover the rest of the team as they came up. They had placed the woman, still clutching her laptop case, in the far seat of the helicopter, and made sure she was belted in before taking their positions to cover the rest of the team. Cody stood a few feet off to David's right, covering the door, and David stood where he was to protect the helicopter and its cargo.
He had been half-right. The wound on the top of his left shoulder burned like a mother, making it nearly impossible to lift his arm for the time being. His HK pistol was in his right hand, but he couldn't pull off a Weaver's grip to save his or anyone else's life, so he'd have to shoot one-handed, which increased the chances of a bullet going astray…
Don't think about that right now — just concentrate on helping to get your team out of here alive, he told himself. David didn't dwell on what had happened to Robert — those were the hazards of the job. He just hoped that when it was his time, he went out like that — totally oblivious to it if at all possible.
The stairway door creaked open, and David's grip on his pistol tightened as two figures walked out, one supported by the other. David caught his breath as he recognized the one being helped along. Tara was a complete mess, her face, right shoulder and left arm all bloody, as if she had gone ten rounds with a heavyweight boxer.
The man helping her kept his head down, as if concentrating on his steps. David knew immediately it wasn't Kanelo. He brought his pistol up, aiming at the man, who suddenly stepped behind Tara and pointed a gun at her head. Another man popped out from behind him and aimed at Cody.
The brown-haired man had to bellow to be heard over the whirling main rotor. "All right! Everyone just relax, and nobody else will have to die today."
David took a step closer, his pistol aimed at the visible part of the man's face. "Drop your weapon right now and step away from her!"
"M-Two, hold your position!" Cody shouted, his own pistol aimed at the second man, who had him in a standoff, his gun aimed at David's leader.
"Simple exchange. You give me her…" the man nodded at the helicopter behind David "…and I give her back to you." He lifted Tara's head up so David could see her battered face, now crusted with drying blood, her eyes rolling back in her head.
"Not gonna happen! I said put your weapon down now!" David took another step forward, making the brown-haired man grab Tara by the hair and shove the silenced muzzle of his pistol under her chin.
"Don't — take — another — step!"
David kept his gun trained on the man's head, torn between taking the shot and concern that he might hit Tara. For a moment, no one moved, David swallowing his rage for the moment. Then he saw it.
Tara's eyes cleared, and she looked straight into his own.
Her left arm was free.
Her direct stare spoke volumes. Give me an opportunity — any opportunity.
David gave her the tiniest of nods.
Cody shouted back. "You know we can't do that!"
"You don't have a choice!" The brown-haired man turned to regard Cody for a moment, and Tara struck.
Her arm whipped up and levered the pistol away from her chin, catching the man by surprise, the gun firing as he reflexively squeezed the trigger. At the same time, she threw her head back, slamming her skull into her captor's cheek.
"Take them!" she screamed while trying to twist away, struggling to hold the pistol away from herself.
But while her attack had put the man off balance, he was still behind her, bringing the pistol back down toward her face. David tried to line up his shot, but they were both ducking and weaving so much he couldn't shoot without taking the chance of hitting Tara.
Even above the howl of the blade, David heard the loud crack of a rifle, and looked over to see Cody fall to his knees, pistol clattering to the rooftop as bright blood jetted from his neck, which looked oddly misshapen now, as if something had taken a big bite out of him. Clasping both hands to the wound did nothing to stop the spurting crimson, and before David could go to him, or even say anything, he fell face-first on the gravel, legs twitching as the arterial blood colored the gravel around him.
"David!"
He looked back to see Tara still struggling with the brown-haired man, who was slowly, inexorably bringing his pistol down to bear on her. Tara was giving it everything she had to keep the gun away, but her good arm and leg were both trembling, and the gun muzzle was getting closer and closer to her face.
In the split second that David saw that, he also registered the other man bringing his pistol around, as well — about to shoot him if he didn't fire first. David's reflexes, instincts and training all combined to spur his body into blurred motion as he made his move.
Sighting on the second man, he fired three times as his target's gun spit flame and lead at him. David's bullets hit him high in the chest, while the other man's hurried shots whistled by, punching through the helicopter's canopy. The man tried to keep his weapon on David, but he staggered backward and sat down, then fell backward, his face already turning a flushed pink as he struggled to breathe through a punctured airway.
Immediately David sighted back on Tara and her opponent — just in time to see him fire. The bullet punched through her jaw, into her brain and out the side of her head, sending a chunk of skull and gray-pink matter flying into the air.
David squeezed off several shots, but the guy held up Tara's body, using her as a shield as he retreated to the iron door, shooting wildly the entire way. Once behind more solid cover, he let her shredded, lifeless form drop.
Popping open the helicopter door, David threw himself backward on the floor. "Go! Go! Go! Watch out for a sniper at five o'clock!" he shouted.
The pilot engaged the throttle and the engine roared as they prepared to take off. David smashed away the rest of the broken side window with the butt of his pistol for a clear field of fire, expecting the last man to rush at t
hem at any moment. Tara's body lay near the door, a few yards from Cody's. David wanted to look away from the bodies, but he knew he couldn't — he had to remain on guard, in case the remaining attacker did something stupid.
The helicopter left the ground, rising away from the slaughter on the rooftop. David scrambled into one of the backseats and buckled himself in, trying to divide his attention between the door and his lone passenger. "You all right?" he yelled at her. A mute nod was her only response. "We'll get you back to England. You'll be safe there…"
She stared at him, her eyes wide with fear, and David trailed off, aware of how hollow his words sounded in his own ears.
His stomach dipped as the helicopter lurched, and at the same time David heard a strange noise, as if someone had thrown a watermelon at the windshield. The inside of the canopy was speckled with red mist, and the pilot's head lolled to one side, his hand loose on the collective.
The sniper got the pilot!
David wrenched his seat belt free and lunged into the cockpit as the helicopter's formerly steady engine stuttered, and the aircraft sideslipped through the air, losing altitude and almost crashing on the roof. Grabbing the collective from the pilot's motionless hand, he pushed it down, decreasing the rotor's attack angle and dropping the helicopter like a rock onto the next building.
The chopper skittered across the roof of the building next to the trauma center, and a vision of his life ending in a fiery collision flashed before David's eyes. He tried to remember how to power the engine down, and realized he was holding the throttle control — it was built into the collective. David twisted it with all his might, but the engine revved up even more, making the helicopter bounce faster along the roof. Looking out of the one section of canopy that wasn't covered in blood, David saw the end of the roof, then some kind of open-air courtyard. He twisted the handle the other way, and the helicopter skidded toward the very edge before grinding to a halt, the blade still slicing furiously through the air above his head. David searched for the power switch on the main instrument panel just as one of the skids slipped off the roof, making the entire helicopter lean precariously to one side.
Finding the main power switch, David flipped it, killing the engine, but the still-whirling blade shook the aircraft, threatening its already unstable position. David leaned back from where he stood and slowly — placing his hands and feet with care — crawled toward the door that led to the roof.
He turned back to the woman, who sat frozen in her seat, clutching a black laptop case. "We have to get out of here. I'm going to open the door, and then I want you to unbuckle your seat belt and come to me," he said.
"I can't — if I move, we'll go over," she said.
"If you don't move, we're gonna go over!" The helicopter shuddered and tilted even farther, the screech of tortured metal grating through David's skull. "Come on, you have to move. I'm going to open the door." He reached for the side door and pushed on the latch, shoving the door open. Grabbing the lip of the floor with his good hand, he reached out to her with his wounded arm, steeling himself for the pain that was about to come. "Unbuckle your belt and take my hand."
She sat frozen for a long moment and, just when David thought he'd have to go back for her, slowly moved her hands to her waist and unfastened the buckle. Setting it down carefully to one side, she slung her computer case over her shoulder and reached out to him, taking a cautious step across the slanted floor, then another, until their hands were almost touching.
The helicopter settled a bit more, and David knew it would go over at any second. He grabbed her hand and pulled as hard as he could, ignoring the fiery pain searing through his injured shoulder. "Come on!"
He scrambled to the edge of the helicopter's floor and jumped onto the landing skid that now hovered in midair beneath him, feeling the machine shift again at the sudden shift in ballast. With a last, agonized tug, he pulled her out just as the aircraft teetered, then hung on the lip of the roof for a moment.
"Jump!" Holding her hand, David leaped off the skid, pulling her with him. Unbalanced now, the chopper slipped over the side of the building to land with a deafening crash in the courtyard below. David heard shouts and screams from below at the helicopter's impact.
David collapsed on the roof, sucking in a breath and clutching his injured arm. Beside him, the woman panted from a combination of terror and shock.
"I can't believe we're still alive…" She put her hand on the roof to steady herself before she fell over.
"Hey, hey!" David took her chin and turned her face to his. "Take a deep breath. Now take another. You gotta stay with me — we're not out of the woods yet. Are you hurt?"
The woman sat up and examined herself. "I don't think so, other than skinned knees and hands. You're bleeding, however."
"Yeah, I know." David glanced at his shoulder.
"Not just there." She pointed at his left side.
David followed her hand and saw a large red patch where his shirt had adhered to his skin. The wound in his side flared with the movement, and he knew he'd have to treat it as soon as possible before it got infected. "Crap, the son of a bitch must have tagged me. Thank God for adrenaline, I guess. Come on, we gotta get down from here."
"Wait a minute, why should I go anywhere with you?" the woman asked.
David tested his legs and found them slightly wobbly, but otherwise stable. "Well, your choices are to either come with me, or I can leave you for those goons we met in the train station."
She shuddered at the idea, then shot to her feet. "Those other two on the roof — they were your fellow agents, or something like that, right?"
"Something like that." There really hadn't been time to explain. David had just rushed her to the roof and into the helicopter before all hell broke loose. He scanned around them, spotting what looked like a door on a roof to the north. "Wait for my signal, then follow my trail exactly," he said.
"Why?"
"Because that sniper might still have a vector on us. And when you do move, try to stay low." He loped off across the roof, away from the trauma center, keeping a wary eye on their surroundings. Reaching the thin cover of an air conditioner unit, he crouched down, ignoring the steady burn in his side, and watched the area past the trauma center roof, looking for any sign that the sniper might still be searching for them. A thick gray column of smoke rose into the air as something on the helicopter caught fire. That's as good a cover as we're going to get, he thought, waving her toward him. The wail of emergency vehicles reverberated in the distance, echoing off the tall buildings around them. As she walked — following his path exactly, he noted — David studied her during the short journey. She seemed to have shaken off her earlier hysteria, but he could just be watching her slip into the early stages of shock. Have to keep an eye on her for the next few hours. Other than that, she moved well, low and fast. Of course, the idea of a high-velocity bullet aimed at one's back makes just about anyone move fast.
Once she got to his position, David had already plotted the rest of their route to the door. "We need to get street-side, find transportation and get out of the area immediately. We can go to a safehouse to hole up in until I can arrange to get us safely out of the country."
"Um, okay." The woman hurried to match his stride. "Hey, what's your name?"
David had any one of several cover identities in place for just such a question, including the doctor one that had been prepared for their incursion into the hospital, but at the moment, he had been through too much to give them any thought. "David," he said.
"I'm — Maggie."
The pause had been slight, but David caught it all the same. He glanced at her and smiled. "Don't worry, you're with the good guys now."
"That's good guy, remember? I'd really feel better if the rest of your friends were here."
David's expression tightened, but he quickly smoothed his features over, not wanting to alarm her. "Fair enough, but I'll be calling in reinforcements like nobody's business. Now, M
aggie, let's get the hell off this roof."
They came to another metal door, this one locked with pass-key access. "Finally, something going our way," David said.
Maggie's eyebrows rose. "What, the locked door?"
"Yup." David drew his cell phone and extended two small metal prongs from the top. Inserting them into the slot where the card would normally go, he slid them down through the narrow opening once, then again. After the second time, the mechanism clicked, and when he pulled on the handle, the door swung open to reveal another staircase, this one much more utilitarian that the last one. Refracting the prongs on the phone, he sheathed it again, then started down the stairs. "I never get locked out at home."
"I'll bet. We should probably find something to cover your wounds — otherwise you're going to attract all sorts of attention."
David was pleased that she had thought of that, and annoyed that he hadn't. "Good point. I'm sure we'll find something along the way." He paused in the middle of the flight, leaning against the railing as a wave of dizziness swept over him.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
David shook it off, inhaling deeply. "For someone who's been shot twice today, I'm just ducky. Let's keep moving."
They continued down to the second floor, where David's rudimentary French told him there were patients on this floor, but he couldn't tell what department of the hospital they were in. "Let's take a quick look around here — see if we can find a lab coat or something."
"All right. Let me go out first," Maggie said.
"Sure, but I'll be watching you, so no funny business."
"Don't worry, I'll stay in sight the whole time."
"Okay, go." David leaned against the wall next to the door, sucking in a breath that made his side ache with the effort. When he took his hand away from the wound, bright red blood oozed out. That's not good, he thought. Remembering to watch his charge, he looked through the window to see the now empty hallway.
