The good news was he hadn’t been shot yet and he had a lot more firepower than just his Glock now. The bad news was he was trapped against the wall and didn’t know whether his spray of bullets had picked off anyone out there.
“Impressive, Vale.”
Apparently none of the bullets had gotten Mr. Smooth Talker, but his voice sounded farther away, as if he had moved down a few doors.
Where the fuck were the cops in this town?
Without moving from his position, Jonathon reached with the automatic out of the door, just his arm, and shot toward the voice.
Although he heard a thud, it wasn’t the main guy, the talker. He could hear him swear. The thud brought somebody down, though, so score one for him.
He waited.
Maybe nobody out there was willing to sacrifice themselves as a diversion so Mr. Smooth Talker could follow in after and kill him. Unless it was just Smooth Talker out there by now. That would be nice.
He no sooner had the thought than a powerful kick through the window took him by surprise as did the guy who launched himself into the room that way, knocking Jonathon off-balance. Another powerful punch to his jaw and Jonathon was reeling for a second as the guy knocked the automatic from his hand and tried to pin him to the floor. They grappled, rolling on top of each other, both struggling to get purchase enough to make the next move, which would be a bullet one way or the other. The guy had knocked the automatic out of Jonathon’s hand, and he couldn’t reach the Glock that he had set down beside him against the wall, but the other guy’s gun would do just fine.
Rolling on top of him, Jonathon slammed the man’s hand against the floor, maybe not hard enough to break it, but hard enough to dislodge the gun. He had it in his own hand and a bullet in his enemy’s brain in record time.
But not fast enough.
“Don’t move, Vale, or I’ll blow her head off.”
Mr. Smooth Talker had yanked Veronica out from the side of the bed and had her in a tight grip against him, a gun to her head. The man switched on the light. He was an ordinary-looking guy, muscular maybe, but otherwise unremarkable. A little familiar in a generic sort of way.
In a surreal bit of trivia, Jonathon noticed that Veronica was in only her bra and panties.
She was shivering.
“Tut, tut, Agent Vale. Undressing our little doctor, were you?” He glanced down. “Not that I can blame you. She’s a beauty. She doesn’t photograph well, though, does she?”
Jonathon still held the gun, but he was frozen on his knees over Smooth Talker’s dead compatriot. He was surprised the man was stopping to chat, or for that matter that the gun was to Veronica’s head instead of his own. One part of the equation—the absence of a police response to the shots and this man’s apparent willingness to dally before he killed him—made sense now. Somebody had been paid off or otherwise taken care of. There would be no sirens coming anytime soon.
“Drop the gun.”
He dropped the gun.
“You’re a pain, you know that, Vale? You’ve killed a lot of good guys in your time.”
“I doubt that,” Jonathon muttered. “Why aren’t the police here by now?”
“A little money goes a long way in a town like this. Besides, I’m disappointed in you, depending on an Andy Griffith sheriff to rescue you.”
“I never refuse a helping hand.”
“Well you’re not going to get one. Dr. Barrett here has a new employer, I’m afraid, but more importantly the great Jonathon Vale is the one who served her up to us.”
Even if the guy had the time to chat, Jonathon couldn’t figure out why he was taking it. He wouldn’t have.
“Hands up!” the man warned, the barrel of the gun still at Veronica’s temple.
Jonathon obliged. “No problem. I don’t suppose you were serious about that offer not to kill me if I surrender?”
“Afraid not. I wish I had some time to play, though.”
“I don’t go that way,” he offered.
“Always so flippant, aren’t you, Vale?”
Flippant or not, Jonathon wasn’t stupid enough not to know that he and Veronica were in big trouble. He didn’t move a muscle, not even in his face, as he tried to take in what he could in his peripheral vision, what opportunities there may be.
And he wasn’t seeing much.
Diving for his Glock or the automatic was too risky, given how close that barrel was to Veronica’s head. Like right against it.
Talking to the guy might be the way to go—he seemed to have a chip on his shoulder—but Jonathon wasn’t sure how that would help. Other than by dragging it out. His only hope was the guy would get distracted long enough for the gun at Veronica’s temple to waver.
Jonathon just didn’t understand, though, why he wasn’t dead yet. Why that gun wasn’t on him. It should be. There was something off here. “Let Dr. Barrett go. You don’t want to hurt her.”
“Oh, good idea. So you can tackle me without risking her getting in the way?”
The guy was either giving Jonathon’s reflexes too much credit or he was a piss-poor shot.
“No, we’re just going to take care of some business first, Vale, and since you killed my little helpers, Dr. Barrett and I will have to manage it ourselves. Reach your hand in my left pocket, babe, and get out my iPhone,” he instructed his captive.
“You’re going to make a call now?” Jonathon inquired, taking the opportunity to start to get to his feet.
“Down!” The guy bellowed and Jonathon complied. “Now, bitch!” he snapped at Veronica and she fumbled in his pocket. Her hand shook as she tried to hand him the phone. “No. You keep it. Open the camera icon and switch it to video. We’re going to film the great Jonathon Vale’s death.”
Instead of following orders, Veronica used the elbow maneuver he knew first-hand from the kitchen to distract the guy with a moment of sharp pain, right to the ribs. He squealed. “You fucking—”
The barrel lifted, maybe to hammer Veronica on the head with it the guy looked so pissed, and she hooked her leg around the back of his knee, almost succeeding in knocking him off his feet. He just managed to keep his footing and with one hand around her throat now and the other back to pointing the gun at her, he slammed her with a sickening thud against the wall.
Intellectually, Jonathon knew the guy wouldn’t kill Veronica. With his gut, though, he kind of thought he might. Though any agent worthy of being out in the field could keep one hand on a woman’s throat and still shoot an oncoming attacker, Jonathon lunged, anyway.
In the split second it would have taken for Smooth Talker to shoot Jonathon, Veronica kneed her captor in the balls. Probably not full force given their proximity, but just enough to give the guy pause and to make him, well, not at his best. Jonathon tackled him, as hard and as quickly as he could. And he didn’t waste any time with a chat or a fucking camera. He went for the larynx first and after that for the gun.
The seconds it took to shoot Smooth Talker were the longest of his life.
Christ, he fucking hated close calls. And while he was at it, this job wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Breathing heavily, he rolled off the dead guy. Faceless now. The fact that nobody else stormed into the room probably meant this was it. He glanced outside just to check, noting the body out there, and closed the door.
Okay, then.
They had to get out of here. Fast. Jonathon grabbed Smooth Talker’s phone then went for his own in his inner jacket pocket still hanging on the chair. To call the Agency phone a cell was a bit of an understatement. But that wasn’t what he was calling it now, anyway. He was calling it a tracker. It had to be in Jonathon’s phone. How they’d found them so fast. That or the helicopter, maybe, but he couldn’t do anything about the copter.
He didn’t bother to try to pry the back of it off to search for a device. It could take any one of a number of forms. He wasn’t sure he’d even recognize all of them. So he just pulled his pants and boots on and, dr
opping both phones to the floor, stomped on them, hard, as many times as he could manage.
The best he could do.
He reached for his shirt and looked around for Veronica, seeing she was crouched next to the bed again.
“Come on,” he said sharply, only to realize that she was crying, softly but crying. It was jarring, given her feisty self-defense moves.
He should have ignored it. Told her to cut it out. Hustled her into dressing. It shouldn’t have affected him.
But it did.
“Hey, hey.” He pulled Veronica up and sat on the bed, taking her with him, not worrying about the blood on him and around them. Cradling her on his lap, he stroked her hair, rubbing her back, making soothing noises he hadn’t known he even knew how to make. She pushed out of his arms almost immediately and sat next to him, turning her back. He waited, unsure whether to touch her.
“I’m sorry,” she sniffed after a minute. “I can’t believe I’m crying. This is so infuriating.” She looked back at him and swiped at her eyes. “It’s just a defense mechanism. Men swear and hurl things. Women cry.”
He nodded. “No biggie. Even the strongest woman needs a good cry once and a while.”
“Did your secret-agent mother tell you that?”
“Naw, she swore and hurled things. It was my secret-agent grandmother.”
She laughed, though her eyes were still red and teary.
“I’m kidding about that. My grandmother wasn’t a secret agent.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have been surprised.”
“She was a Marine.”
She slapped against his chest half-heartedly and he took the opportunity to hold her ice-cold hands, bringing them briefly to his lips before he dropped them.
“No, really, Veronica, you were great through this whole thing. I’d be dead right now if it weren’t for you.”
“I doubt that,” she mumbled.
“Don’t doubt it. It’s the truth. Where’d you learn those moves?”
“I live alone out in the woods. I learned a few things to protect myself.”
“Well, you protected us both a minute ago. We make a good team. So I deserve some swearing and throwing to let off some steam and you deserve a good cry. But can we hold off on both until we get out of here?”
She sat up straighter, glancing around, and unwittingly stared right into the face of Smooth Talker, or rather where the face used to be, which prompted her to bury her own face into his chest. He wrapped his arms around her.
“I think I might throw up,” she warned.
“There’s a basket if you have to. Right there.”
She clung to him, letting out little hiccups of suppressed sobs for a minute. “God! Just give me a minute. I’m sorry I’m such a wimp.”
“Getting used to the sight of bloody corpses isn’t something to be proud of, Veronica. I’d take your two PhDs over that any day.”
Her breathing was slowing and she pressed her lips to his neck, jolting him. “You’re sweet.”
“Jonathon.”
She glanced up in surprise.
“Say my name,” he coaxed. “You haven’t said my name once, not even when we were kissing.”
“Jonathon,” she whispered.
He kissed her cheek, still wet with her tears. Jesus, he’d almost gotten this girl killed. And here he was at it again. Taking the time to comfort her could end up getting them both killed. He couldn’t keep on like this. He had to freeze her out and get back to doing his job.
Which was not, again not, romancing this chick.
“Come on.” He made his voice as cold as he could and stood. She looked up at him hesitantly and he steeled himself to his natural reaction. Or rather his unnatural, for him, anyway, reaction. “Get up and dressed. Now. We have to get out of here.”
She stood slowly. “The helicopter’s still miles away.”
“Not the helicopter. We’re going the old-fashioned way. By car.” He shoved her toward the rest of her clothes, wishing they had the time to take a shower to wash this whole attack off them. But they didn’t. A quick swipe with a wet washcloth would have to do. Just to wipe the blood off his chest at least.
“You have a car?” she asked as she dressed and he grabbed the satchel with her computer and notes. He would have liked to bring the guns, but he had no way of knowing whether there was something planted in them that could allow them to be tracked. At the last minute, he shoved the condoms in the inside pocket of his jacket, not up to examining why.
“I will about two seconds after I break into one.”
“Shouldn’t we take those?” she asked at the last minute, nodding toward the guns. “Won’t we need them?”
“If you’re in a fight and relying on superior firepower to get you out of it, half the time you’ve already lost.”
“Is that some kind of Agency maxim?”
“My mother’s. Besides, they’re probably marked in some way.”
They had to get out of there, fast, but not until they checked on the kid at the desk.
As Jonathon had feared, Smooth Talker and his pals had shot him, leaving him for dead. Jonathon put a finger to the boy’s skinny neck, sidestepping the pool of blood beside him to avoid kneeling in it. The pulse was faint, but it was there.
“He’s still alive. Call nine-one-one from the desk phone, say you need an ambulance and hang up. They can get the address from the phone number.”
Jonathon wondered where the hell the other guests in this dump were right now—cowering in their rooms while they waited for the corrupt cop who had been paid off to not show up, no doubt.
While Veronica made the call, he ripped the bottom of the kid’s T-shirt off and tied it tight, tourniquet style, around his midsection where blood was spurting from the gun wound.
The kid’s eyes fluttered open.
“You’ll be fine,” Jonathon said. “An ambulance is on its way.”
The boy clutched his arm and seemed to be trying to say something. Jonathon bent closer.
“I didn’t tell them what room you were in,” he whispered with a weak smile.
Jonathon felt humbled by the admission. “I know you didn’t. I’m so sorry. You were very brave.”
“Mike,” the boy rasped. “I’m Mike.”
They could hear a siren in the distance. Jonathon didn’t want to leave him alone, but the ambulance was almost there and he wouldn’t die. At least not before the ambulance made it. But if he and Veronica stayed around, they just might. “Thank you, Mike. I won’t forget this.”
“What’s your name?”
He hesitated. “Jonathon.”
“You better get out of here, Jonathon.”
They were in a Chevy Cruz five minutes later, heading down the main road of the dark deserted town. A quick switch of license plates with a car parked outside a closed bar and they were on their way straight on to the highway.
“Will that boy make it?” Veronica asked after they’d put a few miles behind them on the highway, heading south.
“I think so. There was a lot of blood, but the fact he was conscious and could still talk is a good sign. If the bullet had hit anything major, the shock probably would have made him pass out. Or killed him right away.” Jonathon meant what he’d said to the kid. He wouldn’t forget this. Once they were safe, he was going to make sure Mike received an anonymous payment, enough to attend whatever college he was studying that Chemistry book for. It wouldn’t make up for getting shot, but it would help him out so he didn’t have to work in rat-hole motels anymore to make his way through school. “That kid had guts. And speaking of guts, back there, you didn’t fall for that story about me being sent to kill you.”
She scoffed. “Of course not.”
He felt unreasonably pleased until she added, “You had plenty of opportunities to kill me and you didn’t.”
“Oh. Good point.” He was hoping maybe it had something to do with trusting him or, sap that he was, kissing him, before he remembered his res
olution to freeze her out.
“What are we going to do?”
On any other job, he was pretty sure he would have just gone to ground. Found another seedy motel to lie low in while he figured out next steps.
Veronica was biting her bottom lip as she watched him.
But shit, they knew who he was, where he was. Too much. And too fast. And the tracker had been on the fucking phone. Or the helicopter. He was sure of it. The phone the Agency had given him not twenty-four hours ago. The copter he had flown straight from headquarters.
And what the fuck was that with the video?
Somebody had to figure out what was going on at the other end of this mess. Somebody he trusted. And right now, that was a short list. In fact, there was only one name on it.
Desperate times called for desperate measures.
He was going to do something he’d never done on a job. Never. Not even when he’d been a wet-behind-the-ears rookie. Something even more unthinkable than sleeping with his charge in the middle of a dangerous assignment.
He was going to have to call his mother.
A red light on the dashboard came on, indicating he should have checked the gas gauge before he’d picked a car back at the motel parking lot. “We need gas.”
“I saw a sign back there saying there was gas in twenty miles.”
“I guess that’s us then.”
The sign must have been some ways back. About twenty miles, because the exit came up right away. He pulled off on it and into a lit gas station right at the base.
“Come on. Cash only, remember? We have to go in to pay.”
When they went inside, he was relieved to see a pay phone at the back of the convenience store attached to the gas station. What with modern technology and the internet and all that crap, pay phones almost didn’t exist anymore. He paid the gray-haired attendant for the gas.
“What you folks doing out so late?”
Jonathon could feel Veronica next to him stiffen and so he put his arm around her waist and hugged her close. “Getting a little last bit of loving in, but you won’t tell her husband if he drops in, will you?”
Alone With an Escort Page 7
