01:44:39
Oh man. Marchuk just read me like a book. I hope he can’t also read the panic I’m feeling right now. Play it cool, Jake.
“You think I don’t keep fatigues in my locker for just such an occasion? And I’ve been moving all over this building since ‘they arrived’ and I saw one of them taking a smoke break, more than once, even if he didn’t see me.”
01:44:52
“I think you would be happy having us down to four, no? Why do you care so much about this?” Marchuk asks.
I don’t have an answer for him.
01:44:57
Andrews’s radio comes to life. A heavy New York accent says, “All quiet on the western front.”
Oh no. That means the hostiles must have come to. I never liked Duncan, but I also never wanted this for him. I can only hope they gave him some of what Katie and I got, and stopped at that.
“Ah, so he will live another day. Just as well. Really could not afford to lose one more, but my anger gets best of me and Marchuk does not always think straight,” he says, adding a chuckle as though he’s talking among friends, before he yells at Andrews to go do what she was told.
I’m trying to figure out which man is down. Obviously, the two in the chem lab are awake. Hold on a minute. That punch must have really messed me up. They can’t be, or they’d have already told Marchuk about what Bunker and I did, unless they were too afraid to let Marchuk know they’d been taken down by two high-school kids. Even if they left that part out, wouldn’t they have at least warned them there were two of us on the loose? For all they know, Bunker’s a CIA operative, too.
“Now, let’s get to business, shall we? You killed my father. This makes me very angry.”
I’ve just seen his “angry.” Don’t need any more of that, so I try to diffuse it.
“I didn’t kill your father.”
“Your people did. I was loading truck, saw whole thing from across compound. Father raised his weapon first. He meant to take offensive.” Marchuk pauses for a second like he’s trying to collect his thoughts as he remembers that day. Maybe he isn’t 100% monster. “But you were there, inside house. For some reason, he liked you. He only hesitated in firing first because of you.”
He turns his back to us for a moment before whirling around again, a whole different expression on his face.
“So, now you die. Only question is how,” he says, rubbing his hands together like a B-movie villain before placing a duffel bag on the desk. “Marchuk has many tools for job.”
So not only am I about to die, it’s going to be a horrible way to go. And if that isn’t enough to think about, now I smell smoke.
“Wait, does it smell like something’s burning?” I ask.
“Is that best stall tactic you have?” Marchuk asks. “CIA training is not so good as I thought.”
“CIA?” Katie says, this time with words. “You’re a CIA operative?”
“I’m serious,” I say to Marchuk, ignoring her question. “I smell smoke.”
Or is it tar? Whatever it is reminds me of the smell when they’re paving a road. No, it smells more like a fireplace. It seems a weird thing to worry about when I’m about to be tortured, but I actually do smell smoke. In a locked-down building filled with hundreds of people. Unfortunately, neither Katie nor Marchuk seem worried about it.
“I will enjoy killing you same way you killed my father, and making girlfriend watch.”
I believe it. I don’t remind him that I didn’t actually kill his father. At this point, it doesn’t seem relevant, and I’m more concerned about what he has in store for Katie. I wish I could at least grab her hand, but all I can do is lean as close as I can to her. When I do, instead of strawberries and cream, I get a whiff of fireplace.
“It’ll be all right, Katie, I promise. Try not to worry,” I tell her. “Look, Marchuk, I’m more valuable to you alive than … not alive.”
“You are of no value to me in any state. But why would you think so?”
“I know that hacker you hired last spring caused all your problems when she allowed me access to your client list.” Marchuk doesn’t say anything, but I can tell he’s listening, so I keep going. “And I know for damn sure I’m better at this game. Clearly, the CIA thinks so. You’d get a twofer with me—best hack in the business, and an operative trained by the best in the world.”
Marchuk paces a couple of times before he asks, “And you would turn your back on CIA? Why?”
“To save all these people. They haven’t done anything to you.”
“Did I say I was going to kill them? No. I said I would kill you. They are just incentive to keep you in line, but now I have you. You do this to save yourself,” Marchuk says, all up in my face. Or more like sprays, and I can’t even wipe my face because my hands are tied. Then he smiles and adds, “Ah, yes. You offer this to save girl too, no?”
“Does it matter why I’m offering?” I say, as tough as I can for a guy with his arms tied behind his back. “It’s a good offer and you know it.”
“Perhaps. But I also know you are wrong about two things. One, SBU—not CIA—is best in world.” He smiles all sinister before he says the next thing. “Two, hacker may not be as good as you, but offers me much more than you can.”
“Marchuk, if you—”
I don’t get to finish pleading with him because he lands his fist against my jaw.
“Also, it does not matter, because you killed my father. So, on to killing. It will be bad for him, pretty girl, but Marchuk is gentleman. Once I tire of you, your death will be quick. Don’t worry.”
I hear Katie sigh before she says, “I swear to God, if another man tells me not to worry—”
It’s the last thing I hear before the room is suddenly filled with smoke.
CHAPTER 20
At first, I’m disoriented from the smoke and probable concussion. Then my senses are assaulted all at once: I hear the click of a switchblade springing open; I feel the sawing motion as the rope that binds me to the chair is cut; I smell tar, smoke, and just a hint of strawberries and cream. By the time I shake off the cut ropes and escape my chair, I see Katie bringing down Marchuk with a brutal kick to his junk. I hate Marchuk, but I can’t help but feel for him.
At least until she hooks her foot around his ankle, sweeps his legs out from under him, then straddles his back. I’m certain it’s an image I won’t soon forget—girl of my dreams on top of the guy who wants to kill me.
“Uh, need some help there, Katie?”
“Yes. Hand me my purse, please. It’s on that desk behind you.”
That wasn’t the kind of help I was offering, but since she now has both of Marchuk’s arms behind him, I figure she may not need it anyway. I didn’t see this playing out with Katie saving the day instead of me. She must have taken a self-defense class. From the looks of it, she must have been the best in her class there, too.
When she reaches up to take her bag, which must weigh about twenty pounds, I realize what I’d been smelling on her. Not woodsmoke and not tar, but creosote, which smells like a combination of both and is used to treat railroad ties, which is what the fake groundskeeper likes to bench-press.
“So you weren’t lying when you said you took those clothes off a bad guy,” I say, sounding a little stupid. More like a little stupefied. Okay—a lot stupefied.
“Maybe that concussion is worse than we thought,” Katie says. “Why would I lie about something like that?”
“Okay, not lie, but I thought you were making a joke.”
“Why would I make jokes at a time like this?”
“Maybe to lighten the mood?” Like right now. This mood could definitely stand some lightening. I suppose people handle stressful situations differently. I like a little humor. Katie gets more serious than death. Maybe because Marchuk is beginning to recover from the ball-kick she gave him and is starting to squirm. She still doesn’t ask for my help, though.
“I mean—how?”
“How what
?” she has the nerve to ask, at the same time she grabs Marchuk’s hair and slams his face into the floor, knocking him out.
“How the clothes? How the smoke bomb? How the … what you just did to Marchuk there?”
“So many questions, Peter.”
“Well, the clothes I figured out. They’re a couple sizes too big and smell like creosote, so I’m guessing you took them from the groundskeeper.”
She sniffs her sleeve. “Really? That is one keen sense of smell you have there.”
“Yeah, it’s a gift. I assume that guy was outside the building acting as a lookout.”
“You assumed right. At least, I think that was supposed to be his job, though I found him inside.”
“Not such a great lookout if he got himself trapped inside after the building was locked down.”
“I suppose. But he had that just-came-in-from-outside smell.” She looks up at me and smiles. “Hey, who has the nose now?”
Why is she acting like restraining the man who was about to kill me is all in a day’s work? Unless … it actually is.
“He is a groundskeeper. Maybe he always has that smell,” Katie says. “Anyway, I’ve seen him checking me out before, so I was able to lure him into one of the stairwells, knock him unconscious, and take his clothes,” she says, clearly skipping some important details, like how she could possibly knock out a guy who lifts railroad ties like they’re nothing. Or where she left him, because I didn’t see an unconscious groundskeeper in any stairwell.
From the bag she pulls a pencil case. I’ve seen it before and thought it had to be the only pencil case in all of Carlisle, as much a relic as Bunker’s brick-phone walkie-talkies. I always figured it was a British thing. Katie digs around in the case like we’ve got time to select the perfect writing utensil, all the while sitting on top of a twitching Marchuk, until she finally selects a red fountain pen. Except it isn’t. She pulls the pen apart and reveals an already-filled hypodermic needle. She plunges it into Marchuk’s neck.
“And I don’t lie,” she continues as though all that didn’t just happen, while patiently waiting for Marchuk’s twitching to stop. “Well, of course I lie. It’s what we do, isn’t it? But I didn’t lie about that.”
“So … what about the groundskeeper?”
“Oh, I just gave him a little carfentanil, zip-tied him, and dragged him into the nearest closet. That took forever. He’s small, but all muscle.”
“Carfentanil?”
She holds up the needle she just pulled from Junior’s neck.
“It’s ten thousand times stronger than morphine, so it acts quickly, and it only takes a drop or two. Vets use it to sedate elephants,” she explains, finally getting off of the now-unconscious Marchuk. Or possibly dead Marchuk. “Which makes two down and I’m not sure how many to go, unfortunately.”
“By my count there are six altogether, but four down,” I say, finally glad to add something to the script. “Bunker and I took out two more. Duke Duncan’s with them in the chem lab, making sure they stay that way.”
Or at least I hope that was him who just checked in with Marchuk.
“Excellent! Just two more, then. We need to stay on task and complete this mission.” She slings her purse—though I suspect it’s more than a purse—across her body and heads toward the door. When I don’t follow, she turns back to me.
“Unless you don’t want to help?”
I’m still in a daze, and it doesn’t have anything to do with my possible concussion or the smoke bomb Katie just happened to have on her.
“I’m trying to figure out what the hell you know about a mission.”
She narrows her eyes at me like she’s trying to decide how much she wants to tell me. Or how truthful she wants to be about it. “I may have left out a few facts when I told you about myself over dinner that one time.”
“So when you said lying is ‘what we do,’ did you mean—”
“Of course that’s what I meant. They have girl spies too, you know. And speaking of facts, you left out a few yourself. The CIA. My word.”
“But I … I mean…”
“No time for that now. I have a job to do.”
“What job?”
“Let’s just say I need to make sure a package is secure.”
Her answer surprises me, mostly because I didn’t expect her to give me one. Yeah, it’s pretty vague, but it’s more than I knew about her thirty seconds ago. The fact that Marchuk said the same thing when he was listing Koval’s duties means I still don’t know nearly enough about Katie.
“Stay here and babysit Marchuk if you want, not that he’s going anywhere anytime soon.”
“Are you sure you didn’t kill him? You used elephant tranquilizer.”
“No need for that messiness. Besides, there wasn’t enough tranquilizer left to kill him—I need to ration it. But he’ll be down for hours, and by then, we’ll have neutralized the remaining two and evacuated the school.”
If you count the hacker, there are actually three remaining, but I figure I should hold back as much information as I can until I can learn as much about her mission as possible. She heard me mention the hacker, but I assume Katie has no idea she’s in the building, or what her role is in this current operation.
“So you agree, those are our priorities—neutralize and evacuate—in that order?”
Katie hesitates a second too long before she agrees with me, and now that I know she’s an operative, I read something into that hesitation. I store the clue for later, and actually smile when I think about solving the mystery that is Katie.
“Good. Andrews is supposed to be in the auditorium guarding the office staff, but we’ll have to track down Koval.”
“He could be anywhere,” she suggests, sounding defeated, like we might as well not even look for him. Her response doesn’t quite match the Katie I’ve witnessed over the last few minutes.
“Marchuk said he gave Koval three jobs: watching the other men, watching the soft targets, who should all be locked down in their classrooms, and ‘making sure package is secure until other package arrives safely.’ Koval must be somewhere working on that task. You don’t think one of these packages is yours, do you?”
“Why would I?” Katie answers casually, just as a trained operative would if she were hiding something.
I know why I’m here—to track the hacker. I know why Marchuk is here—to kill me. Or at least, I thought that was his only reason, until all his talk about the packages.
Now it seems he had another plan to execute once he finished executing me.
What I don’t know is why Katie is here. She isn’t going to just tell me, so my best bet is to play along until I gain her trust. Or until I have to force her to tell me.
“Hey, can’t blame me for asking. So I think the first thing we need to do is make sure Duncan is okay with the two bad guys he’s guarding,” I say. “Do you have any more of those needles? We could give Duncan some help by drugging the hostiles.”
I’m talking to her like I trust her, but the only thing I trust completely about her is that she’s an agent of some government. Only an operative could calmly eat M&Ms—a handful of which she just grabbed from a bowl on the registrar’s desk—while discussing how to neutralize possible Ukrainian rebels/terrorists/arms dealers.
“I told you I’m already running low,” she says, “and with two more to take out, we probably should conserve it. How did you take them down in the first place?”
“With a sleeper hold.”
“Well, we’ll just run down there and you can put another one on them. That should tide Duncan over awhile.”
Is it just wrong that it makes me all kinds of happy to hear Katie talk about applying choke holds to bad guys as though she’s listing errands we need to run? Like, Oh, and let’s grab a bag of Funyuns from the 7-Eleven. At least until I remember why I’ve heard of the drug she used to knock out Marchuk.
“Wait a second. Isn’t carfentanil the stuff the Russian police u
sed back in the day, to smoke out some Chechen rebels when—”
“Someone paid attention during hostage-crisis mitigation class at Langley, I see. Want some?” she asks, holding the bowl of M&Ms out toward me before grabbing another handful for herself. “I am so hungry. And we just had lunch, too. Dealing with that groundskeeper really took it out of me.”
She’s noshing while I’m over here worried the government she works for is enemy number one. “Uh, no thanks. About the carfentanil?”
“Don’t worry, Peter. I didn’t use that much of the drug. And I’m not KGB.”
I’m glad she didn’t call it by the current name—FSB. Probably everyone but actual Russian agents still call it KGB, so that’s a good sign. Still, Katie may not be Russian, but Ukraine is just next door.
She polishes off the M&Ms while I help myself to a Sharpie from Jonesy’s pencil cup because I can always find a use for a Sharpie and duct tape. He had a roll of it on his desk before lunch, but now it’s gone. I grab the switchblade off the desk and follow her. As we make our way toward my chem class, I remember what Koval said about the girl with all the accents. I know now that he meant the hacker, but it does raise a question.
“So is that really a British accent you’re working, or just a cover?”
“It’s an English accent.”
“Same thing.”
“How very American of you. British means I could be from Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland. I’d think a CIA operative would know that. And yes, my English accent is real,” she says as we pause at the end of Corridor A so I can use my periscope to check around the corner. Koval may be roaming around, moving those packages Katie claims to know nothing about. She adds, “I suppose I can tell you who I work for, since you told me.”
I don’t mention that I didn’t tell her I work for the CIA. Marchuk did. I mean, she’s Katie and everything, but I wouldn’t have given up that information so quickly. Well, I was going to before, but that was when I thought I was about to die.
Prettyboy Must Die Page 12
