Close Pursuit

by Cindy Dees

  She’d rigged up another tape-and-gauze affair for later when Dawn needed a change and was heading for what she hoped would be a kitchen when she heard a sound. Like someone moving. Close.

  Her pulse leaped in alarm. She froze, listening intently. Nothing. Closing her eyes, she replayed the sound in her head in an attempt to identify and locate it. Someone moving. Outside. It hadn’t been anything as dramatic as a twig snapping, but there had been a rustle of bare branches, as if someone had brushed up against a bush under the window.

  At any other time in her life, she’d have blown it off as some kids walking past. But not tonight. Not now, with Russians trying to kill her and Alex. Not on a chilly spring night when no sane person was creeping around after midnight in the dark and cold.

  She jumped as the phone started to ring again upstairs, jangling through the ominous stillness inside the cavernous building. The police. She should call the police. Creeping stealthily herself, she eased toward the grand staircase and up toward the only working phone, step by painfully terrified step.

  * * *

  ALEX SLIPPED INTO the unlocked vestibule quickly, ducking low, and Mike followed suit. The hulking form of André Fortinay took up most of the deep shadows by the door. The man wasted no time on pleasantries and asked tersely, under his breath, “Any idea who could be following Katie McCloud with guys who move like commandos?”

  “Russian military,” Alex answered equally tersely. “Long story, but the upshot is I think uranium is being smuggled out of the Karshan Valley. Someone’s worried that Katie and I found evidence of uranium poisoning in the locals during our medical mission there.”

  “Hence the two of you have to be silenced,” André concluded.

  “Correct.”

  “Status report?” Alex bit out.

  “The D.U. alarms don’t show an incursion. Yet. The team is either not in the building or has totally disabled the alarms. The hidden cameras outside appear to be working normally but have not picked up movement in a few minutes. Perhaps our commandos have hunkered down to do a little surveillance or wait for instructions before they move on Miss McCloud.”

  “In other words, Katie’s alone and unharmed inside the building or already dead.” It was Alex’s turn to conclude.

  “I’ve got reinforcements coming, but it takes time to discreetly assemble a wet squad on U.S. soil.”

  “And in the meantime?”

  “I thought we might join Miss McCloud inside the Doctors Unlimited building.”

  Alex stared at the craters where the man’s eyes would normally be. “How?”

  “Certain precautions have been taken for an eventuality such as this. Follow me.”

  Fortinay turned and walked swiftly down the long hall to the back of the apartment building. He opened an interior door and disappeared quickly down a narrow flight of steps. Alex and Mike exchanged questioning looks and followed.

  The basement of the building was dank, cold, low-ceilinged and pitch-black. Fortinay pulled out his cell phone and turned it on, then used its glowing face as a makeshift flashlight. All three men had to duck to avoid hitting their heads on the bountiful pipes and conduits running along the ceiling. They passed a set of hurricane fence storage units and stepped into a boiler room. A large furnace blew loudly.

  Fortinay slipped behind the commercial heating unit, and Alex nodded in comprehension. A tunnel connected this building to the D.U. building. He stepped through the even lower doorway into a tunnel no more than five feet tall. Ancient parallel steel tracks announced this was an old coal tunnel.

  For a big man, Fortinay moved quietly in front of him. Alex half ran, crouching behind D.U.’s leader as his curiosity mounted. Secret escape tunnels? Hidden security cameras? His father’s request for the names and locations of the deployed staff members had been the beginning of his suspicions, but tonight’s revelations sealed the deal. Doctors Unlimited was not just some innocent foreign aid bunch. He would bet a year’s salary the organization was a CIA front.

  It made sense. They sent “medical personnel” to the front lines of every hot spot on the planet, often before more well-known aid groups like the Red Cross or Red Crescent arrived. Their personnel had front-row seats for the breaking crises in the world. It was the perfect cover for intelligence observers. All under the innocent guise of helping victims of war and violence.

  Fortinay paused at the end of the tunnel and squatted down. The glow from his phone showed a black canvas duffel bag lying on the floor. André unzipped it and pulled out two pistols and several spare clips, which he passed over his shoulder to Alex and Mike without even glancing up at them. The two men accepted the weapons in grim silence.

  Alex was more surprised when André lifted out an Israeli Tavor—the weapon was a compact urban assault weapon, light, maneuverable, quick to fire and easy to handle. How in the hell had André gotten his hands on one of those? The Israeli army wasn’t sharing them with anyone.

  Armed to the teeth, André eased open the door. Alex slipped past him and moved quickly and quietly up the stairs on the other side. Be alive, Katie. Please, God. Be alive.

  * * *

  YET AGAIN, DAWN seemed to sense Katie’s fear and had gone silent and tense against her breast. When this was all over, Katie vowed never to put Dawn in a scary situation again as long as she lived. Surely she was scarring the baby for life. But it wasn’t like she had any choice in the matter. Staying alive was the first priority. Mental health concerns had to come second for now.

  She’d retreated to Fortinay’s office with the intent of answering the phone the next time it rang and telling Peter Koronov he had his deal and to leave her alone.

  But strangely, alarmingly, it had quit ringing right after she’d heard the movement outside. Were the two somehow connected? Who was out there creeping around the D.U. building? She didn’t like this one bit. Her fear and tension were almost more than she could stand. Were it not for Dawn huddled tightly against her, she’d have run screaming from there and confronted the lurker before now.

  She tucked herself under André’s big desk, feeling silly hiding under it like a naughty child and wishing she could make herself invisible and walk out of there unseen. Incongruously, it popped into her head to wonder if Alex had ever felt this way as a child.

  She hoped he wasn’t being followed and harassed, too. Of course, he knew how to lose a tail like a pro—

  What was that?

  It sounded like a door squeaking faintly. Crap. Was someone else inside the building? How did they get in? Who were they? She picked up the red phone and dialed 9-1-1 as quietly as she could. Not that a phone was great at keeping the noise down when it dialed.

  “9-1-1. State your emergency and give me your location, please.”

  “I’m alone in the Doctors Unlimited building in northwest D.C., and I think someone just broke in.”

  “I’ve got response on the way, ma’am,” the efficient voice said emotionlessly. “Where exactly are you in the building?”

  “Umm, under a desk on the second—”

  The line went dead.

  Oh. My. God.

  * * *

  ALEX FROZE AT the sound of a murmuring voice. It cut off even as he listened for it. Upstairs. Muffled, like it was in an office. Mike gestured urgently; he’d heard it, too.

  André mouthed soundlessly, “My office.” He held his hand to his ear like he was mimicking talking into a telephone.

  That would be Katie. Alex took off running across the big lobby that had once been a grand entry hall. The ceiling was four stories overhead, a glass rotunda in it letting in far too much starlight for his taste.

  An explosion of gunfire sent him diving for cover behind the big marble table in the middle of the foyer. The huge vase of cut flowers on it exploded, showering him with cold droplets of water.

  The front door imploded as a barrage of automatic weapons fire slammed into it, shattering wood and glass. He rolled and came to his feet, sprinting for t
he stairs and taking them two and three at a time in a dodging, zigzagging series of random leaps.

  So much for stealth.

  “Katie!” he shouted.

  A pair of weapons from inside the building returned fire in short, controlled bursts. André and Mike laying down suppression fire. Bless them. They were badly outgunned, but at least they might be able to buy him a little time to find Katie and get her the hell out of there before they all died.

  He dived into Fortinay’s office and left the door open behind him. Closed doors were one of the most dangerous obstacles to surmount in an emergency egress. Better to be able to peek around door frames or leap through a doorway unannounced and surprise your foe.

  “Katie?” he whispered in a lull in the gunfire. “It’s Alex.”

  “Thank God.” A fast-moving object flew out from under André’s desk and launched itself at him. He caught an armful of woman and baby with a grunt of surprise.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  She nodded and fell in behind him as he crept toward the door.

  He jolted, though, as a dark form raced around the corner, announcing, low and hard, “It’s Mike.”

  Alex jerked his pistol up and away from Katie’s brother, whom he’d almost killed...again. He had to stop doing that.

  “They’re breaching the front door. Should be through in sixty seconds. André’s laying charges on the staircase. Told me to get you guys to the back of the house.”

  Alex nodded tersely and herded Katie out into the hall, tucked under his arm. They ran together down the central hall toward the conference room and chief financial officer’s office at the back of the second story.

  “Fire escape?” Mike bit out.

  “No,” Alex replied.

  “What about ladders?” Katie piped up. “Wouldn’t an office have to have some way for workers getting out of the upper floors to meet city safety codes?”

  They spun into the CFO’s office and Alex cleared it quickly. “Feel free to look for a ladder while Mike and I figure out how to slow these bastards down.”

  Katie nodded and headed for a closet while Mike tossed him a grenade and a spool of thin wire. Working frantically, Alex rigged a knee-high trip wire and wrapped it around the belly of the grenade and its handle. Very carefully, he pulled the pin and snugged it into a nest of wadded paper he’d pulled from a wastebasket to hold the explosive upright. He and Mike high-stepped over the wire and backed into the office just as a tremendous explosion rocked the building.

  Alex checked the grenade in a panic. It hadn’t been shaken free of its nest. Good to go.

  “Trip wire,” he announced to Fortinay as the big man barreled down the hall.

  They stepped over the wire and dodged into the office as the first bullets zinged down the hall. Damn, these guys were fast! How had they gotten up the stairs and past André’s explosive charges like that? The only answer was they were Special Forces and well trained. Alex swore under his breath.

  Fortinay locked the office door and gestured for them to retreat into the conference room. Alex asked urgently, “Is there a way out of here?”

  He grinned and nodded. “Help me out, guys.”

  Alex and Mike moved over to the window and the big wooden chest André was unlatching.

  “Open the window and help me toss this out.”

  “What is it?” Katie asked.

  “Emergency escape slide.”

  “Like on an airplane?” she squeaked.

  “The very same.”

  Alex, Mike and André gave a mighty heave as running footsteps pounded down the hall. They threw the big container outside. An orange strip of vinyl unrolled and commenced inflating all at once.

  “Cool,” Katie breathed.

  Alex winced. He could think of a dozen things that could go horribly wrong in the next few seconds that would get her killed.

  “I’ll go first,” Mike announced. “When I wave, you join me, Kat—”

  Kaboom.

  The door exploded inward as the goons outside hit his trip wire. The concussion felt to Alex like someone had hit him in both ears with sledgehammers. A dark shape loomed in the ruined doorway, and Mike dived out the window. Alex dropped and squeezed off a half-dozen shots.

  Body armor. Dammit.

  Katie was climbing over the sill awkwardly with the baby in her arms. He was pretty sure Dawn was screaming her head off, but all he could hear at the moment was a massive roaring noise.

  He rolled behind the long conference table, popped up and took careful aim. Only way to defeat body armor was to take a head shot. He popped off two rounds and something black and liquid exploded out of the intruder’s face. The guy crumpled and another black shape stepped into the void. Crap!

  “C’mon, Alex!” he heard dimly.

  He pulled his trigger. Out of ammo. And this was his last clip. He measured the distance from the table to the window. He was dead.

  He waved for André to go on without him. He would make a death charge and draw the hostiles’ fire long enough for the others to get down the slide and safely away from the structure.

  Time slowed around him. The roaring became silence as the tableau unfolded. Chips of wood and lead slugs flew every which way. Fortinay’s bulk disappeared over the windowsill. Alex rose to his feet. He shouted but could not hear his voice as he began his charge. His final grand gesture.

  He ran toward the intruder’s weapons and recognized the stubby, efficient shapes of AK-47s. The irony of dying from a Russian weapon was rich. He thought briefly, sadly, of his father. He no longer had any hate left for Peter. Not even contempt. Just pity.

  He was sorry he wasn’t going to get to see Dawn grow up. Would she be as beautiful as her birth mother had been? Katie would do a great job raising her.

  Katie.

  All else cleared from his mind but images of her. Washing her hair in a bucket. Laughing. Teasing him. Fleeing danger. And the sex. God, the sex. It had been so much more with her. They’d...connected. Hell, they’d all but become one. Sex had been freaking transcendental with her. Above all else, he was sorry he wasn’t going to get to make love with her again.

  He charged forward across the open space and opened his arms, embracing the bullets to come. Embracing death. A burst of relief at finally stepping off the nerve-racking tightrope of his life washed over him. So this was it. The end. Something hot grazed across his cheek, spinning him around. And then something hard and heavy slammed into his back between the shoulder blades. The last thing he registered was an explosion of pain as his legs dropped out from under him and he went down like a rock.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  FORTINAY WHOOSHED DOWN the slide, his momentum carrying him to her side as Katie waited frantically for Alex to follow André. A barrage of gunfire made her flinch violently, and she all but jumped up and down in her panic. Where is Alex?

  Her boss grabbed her upper arm and commenced dragging her away from the window. Or at least trying to. She cried out, “We have to wait for him!”

  “He went down, Katie. He’s not coming. Crazy bastard threw himself at the gunmen so we could get away.”

  Stunned, she stared at Fortinay. “Wait. What?”

  “Alex is dead. Right now we must run or die.”

  Shock rolled over her like fog filling a valley. Dawn’s howl finally registered, though, and the piercing wail spurred Katie into clumsy motion. Must save the baby. But Alex...

  André’s long legs took monster strides that were nearly impossible to keep up with, and Katie had no more time for thought as they tore away from the Doctors Unlimited building with Mike leading the way.

  The screams of sirens—a lot of them—shredded the night, and Mike finally slowed. Stopped. Pressed a hand over his stab wound. “Dammit. I’m bleeding again,” he muttered.

  “Lemme see,” Fortinay snapped. Mike lifted his hand away. “You tore your stitches all to hell, man. You got any internal sutures in there?”

  Mike nodded
with a grimace.

  “C’mon. Fire trucks and SWAT will bring an ambulance with them. You’ve got to get to a hospital pronto and get that wound opened up and repaired, again. What were you thinking running around out here with an injury like that?”

  “I was thinking about saving my sister’s life,” her brother bit out.

  “Noble idiot,” she panted. She looked behind them, and fire glowed in the upper windows of the D.U. offices. “What happened to him? We have to go back in there and find him. If he’s still alive he’ll need medical care—”

  “Katie,” André said gently. “He ran straight at a cluster of three Spetsnaz guys pumping lead from AK-47s as fast as they could fire. He was at point-blank range. A child couldn’t miss from that distance. He drew their fire so the rest of us could get away. There’s no way he survived.”

  A scream started deep inside Katie’s head, so piercing it couldn’t escape her skull. Her knees buckled, and Fortinay jumped forward and managed to get an arm around her waist at the last second before she went down. “Come, Katie. You have to keep moving. We’re not quite there yet.”

  Wherever there was. Not that she cared. If Alex was dead, nothing else mattered. She could not believe he’d sacrificed himself like that. He’d never struck her as having a death wish. He’d seemed desperate for redemption, though. To prove his honor and his worth to his father, at least. While she wasn’t the least bit surprised he’d been a hero in the end, she was shocked that he’d given his life for her and Dawn and Mike and André. He must have felt a great deal more for all of them than he’d let on to have sacrificed his life for them.

  That bastard! Fury, hot and irrational, burst forth in her bosom, searing her and shocking her. She swung back to grief in the blink of an eye. This must be shock.