Bullet shook his head. “Nope, not happening. Not while I’m around. If I’m with you when you shoot her, I’m toast. You might be able to afford a fancy lawyer to represent you in court, but I can’t. I’m a street kid, remember? They’ll assign me some fresh out of law school public defender who’ll probably spend more time deciding what he’s gonna have for lunch than he will planning my defense. And even if he does give a rat’s ass that my future is more important than his corn beef on rye, I’ll still end up getting shafted. They’ll put me back in the system. Which means I’ll lose Eddy, and that’s not happening. I’m pretty tough, even though I might not look it, but that would break me. Eddy and I need each other. So, no shooting anybody. Okay?”
Maddy tucked the weapon into the small of her back. “All right,” she agreed. “But only on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“If she shoots first, I will shoot back.”
Bullet was mad. “Listen up, Annie Oakley! Before you came along, my life was perfect, at least to my standards. I had my own place and managed to hustle up three squares a day for Eddy and me. I didn’t bother anybody, and nobody bothered me. But in the last hour you’ve put me on the radar of some psychopathic whack job who you say is trying to kill you, got me kicked out of a house that took me and Eddy forever to find and now have us on the run, again. I don’t mind telling you that posifuckingtively pisses me off!”
Maddy apologized. “You’re right, Bullet. I’m sorry. I never should have gotten you involved in this.”
“No shit!”
“Trust me. When this is over, I’ll help you.”
“I don’t want your help,” Bullet exclaimed. “I don’t want anybody’s help. What I want is to be left alone.”
From a distant part of the yard came the sound of wooden pallets being tossed aside. A woman swore.
Bullet opened the gate. “Stay quiet and follow me,” he demanded. He pointed across the street. “See that company over there? The one with the fancy storage sheds out front?”
“Collins Tree and Nursery?” Maddy asked.
“Yeah. We need to get to the middle shed.”
“What’s so special about it?”
Bullet smiled. “Let’s just say I’ve modified it a bit.” He looked down, rubbed Eddy’s head. The dog looked up at its master, wagged its tail, panted. “You ready?” he asked.
Maddy nodded.
“Okay. Let’s go.”
The threesome ran across the road. As soon as Bullet reached the ornate shed, he knelt, tilted a decorative planter placed outside its entry door intended to give it a homier appeal, and removed a thin strip of metal. “I scoped out this place for days,” he said as he worked the steel strip, bending it with his fingers until he achieved the precise angle he was looking for. “Of all the display sheds on the lot, this one’s the least appealing to customers.” He slid the metal strip into the sliding door track and moved it back and forth until he located the nylon wheels. “Eddy and I stay in here some nights,” he said as he deftly worked the gadget from side to side until the wheels popped free of the track. “There,” he said triumphantly. “We’re in.” He stood, lifted the aluminum door free of the track, and placed it inside the unit.
“Pretty slick,” Maddy said.
“Yeah, I know,” Bullet said confidently. “Come on in. Make yourself at home.”
The shed was empty.
“Well, it’s certainly… cozy,” Maddy said.
Bullet smiled. “It might not be the Beverly Hills Hotel, but it does the trick when we need it to. His Ugliness, Sir Eddy, can’t stand thunderstorms. The booms freak him out. Our container doesn’t have any sound insulation, so outside noises like thunder get magnified a gazillion times. It’s like an echo chamber in there. Personally, I don’t mind it at all. I’ve always found storms kind of soothing. Not Eddy. Trust me, if you’ve ever had one hundred pounds of frightened dog plant its ass on your face in the middle of the night, you’ll find a workaround to that problem pretty damn quick. This place is great. Only the doors are aluminum. Once we’re inside, I just pop them back into the track and no one knows we’re in here. The rest of it is made of wood, plus the ceiling is shingled. It’s such a small space that when the two of us get settled in, our bodies absorb most of the sound. It’s really quiet. Eddy can sleep, and I don’t get a big hairy butt stuck in my face. I’d call that a win-win.” Bullet looked across the road. “No sign of the psycho,” he said. “Looks like my diversion worked. The phone booth is around the corner. Stay here with Eddy. I’ll go make the call.”
“Are you sure you’re going to be all right?” Maddy asked.
“It’s a ten second run. I’ll be fine.”
Maddy removed the gun from her waistband, handed it to Bullet. “Take this. Just in case.”
Bullet shook his head. “Nope,” he replied. “Like I said, I don’t do guns.” He stepped out of the shed. “Ten seconds to the booth and a minute to make the call. Then we’re out of here.”
“Be careful, Bullet,” Maddy urged.
The teen smiled. “I always am.” He spoke to his dog. “Watch the fort, Eddy.”
Eddy cocked his head, whined.
Maddy watched Bullet run down the street.
Thwup! Thwup! Thwup!
Three bullets ricocheted off the pavement directly at his feet. The frightened teen stopped dead in his tracks.
Maddy watched as the woman stepped out of the shadows from the gated yard entrance to the defunct pallet company. She walked ahead slowly; her weapon trained directly on Bullet.
“Where is she?” she yelled.
43
FROM THE STREET, Chris heard his partner call out, identify herself. The voice was distant, the tone urgent. He stopped, removed his phone, called Jordan.
The call rang through to voicemail.
Damn it, Jordan! Where the hell are you?
A second call, this one to Colonel Hallier. The instant he picked up, Chris yelled. “Two blocks west of the marina. Manse Road. Get here now!” He ended the call and continued the search for his partner.
The nighttime acoustics of the labyrinth-like industrial complex made identifying Jordan’s precise location difficult. Chris cursed himself. He never should have agreed to them splitting up, not when their search for Dr. Coltraine now also included tracking down an expert assassin.
There.
He heard the sound.
Objects being tossed around, wooden boards. He tried to locate where it was coming from.
Only one building on the block fit the criteria: AMES PALLET MANUFACTURING.
Chris ran down the driveway of the defunct businesses to the gates of its service yard, scaled the chainlink fence and looked into the property.
There she was. Safe. Thank God.
Jordan tossed aside the last pallet that blocked her path. The woman who had shot at her was smart enough to take the time to topple stack after stack of wooden shipping pallets to hinder her pursuit. Jordan had climbed over most of them without difficulty but had caught her foot in the last one, twisting her ankle.
Chris called out. “You okay?”
Jordan nodded, pointed beyond the yard in the direction of the road and yelled. “Asian female. Armed. She’s ahead of me, but not by much. I think she’s after Maddy. Stop her!”
“Copy!” Chris replied. He jumped down from the fence, ran back toward the road.
Hallier rounded the corner at speed. The government town car’s tires squealed as it took the turn. He saw Chris running out of the pallet factory, gunned the engine, raced up the road to his location, then slammed on the brakes, jumped out of the car, and drew his weapon. “You okay?” he asked. “Where’s Jordan?”
Chris pointed behind him. “Pallet factory yard. Target’s ahead of us. Jordan lost her.”
“Where?”
“Not sure.”
The two men looked up the road, saw Jordan dash out from between two buildings, then watched as she executed a shou
lder roll and took cover behind a large transformer box on the lawn near the turn in the road. The spark which danced off its metal housing explained the reason for the sudden evasive maneuver.
“She’s under fire,” Chris said. “Come on!”
Weapons trained into the darkness, wary of the armed adversary ahead, the DARPA commander and the agent closed in on Jordan’s location, taking cover as they ran, careful not to reveal their position.
From around the corner, a voice called out. Jordan peered out from behind the protective cover of the electrical box. She watched as the woman stepped into view.
A teenager stood in the middle of the road, feet frozen to the ground, too terrified to move.
On the opposite side of the street, an Asian woman held him at gunpoint, the silencer of her weapon trained directly on him. “Lose the gun,” she yelled at Jordan. “Do it now or I kill the boy!”
Jordan stood. She stepped out from behind the transformer box, displayed her gun, raised her hands. “All right,” she said. “Don’t shoot him. He’s just a kid. He’s got nothing to do with this.” She placed her weapon atop the electrical box. Slowly and carefully, she opened her jacket, removed her credentials, presented them. “My name is FBI Special Agent Jordan Quest. I can help you.”
“No, you can’t,” Qin replied coldly. “No one can. Not anymore.”
“Let me try.”
“You can start by tossing your weapon on the ground, far away from you.”
Chris and Hallier stayed in the shadows and watched the standoff unfold. Chris assessed their options. To announce themselves or make a move right now would be too dangerous, both for Jordan and the teen. He and Hallier needed to be in a better position, one that didn’t put Jordan or the teen in the line of fire. “Don’t do it, Jordan,” he muttered. “Don’t you dare throw away your gun!”
Jordan picked up the Glock, tossed it on the lawn, then took several steps ahead.
“Damn it!” Chris said.
“Hands on your head,” Qin ordered. “Walk to me. Any sudden moves and I’ll drop you first, then the kid. Understand?”
“Yes,” Jordan replied.
“Good.” Qin slowly closed the gap between them. She gestured with her weapon. “Move.”
Jordan stepped ahead until the two women faced each other in the middle of the lawn.
“On your knees,” Qin said.
Jordan slowly lowered herself to the ground, looked up. “I did what you asked,” she said. “Now let the boy go.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Qin replied. “He’s seen my face.” The MSS operative pressed the cold tip of the silencer against Jordan’s forehead. “You never should have followed me, Agent Quest,” she said. “That was a mistake. A very bad mistake.”
44
ZHANG SEARCHED BOTH sides of the street but found no sign of his partner or Dr. Coltraine. When he had reached the turn in the cul-de-sac, he pulled into a parking space that provided him with an unobstructed view all the way to the end of the street, then cut the engine. Whoever he had observed dashing into the complex just before the security guard had detained him had disappeared.
Home to only twenty businesses, this was the shortest street he had investigated within the enormous industrial complex so far. Two sodium vapor streetlights illuminated the road. The first, situated on the boulevard directly in front of him, painted the ground a jaundiced yellow. The second lamp gave light to the intersection at the far end of the road. Zhang stepped out of the car, raised his weapon, and fired twice; thwup, thwup. Each silenced bullet found its mark. Glass from the lamp housing above him shattered and rained down upon the road. At the end of the street, the death of the second light plunged the street into darkness. The assassination of the inanimate targets was necessary. If Chang’s men had arrived and were searching the area, they would be looking for the car. He needed to hide.
Too late.
Headlights bounced off the buildings at the end of the cul-de-sac. A vehicle pulled onto the road.
The thought of Chang’s men arriving and finding him without their precious cargo terrified him. They would kill him on the spot. He and Qin had been ordered to deliver the scientist to the freighter tonight. No excuses, no room for delay. Plans were in place, a critical path established. Once the vessel had departed the port and reached international waters, the woman was to be transferred by helicopter to a Chinese military submarine who would take her to a secret island in the South China Sea. There she would be introduced to her new staff, a select team of minds equally as brilliant as those she had led at DARPA. She would be forced to replicate her work for the Ministry of State Security. If she refused to cooperate, she would be summarily executed. Her bullet-riddled body would be disposed of at sea, never to be seen again.
Trading the information on the thumb drive for his life was now his only hope for survival.
Zhang picked up his gun, ejected the clip, inspected it. Except for the two rounds spent killing the streetlights, it was full. He slammed the magazine back into the weapon, chambered a round, and formulated a plan. He would drive down the road, intercept Chang’s men, and take out his would-be killers before they had the chance to draw their weapons. The situation had devolved to its worse possible scenario. It was now kill or be killed, and if anyone was going to be held accountable for their failure, he would see to it that person was Qin. She had threatened to kill him earlier. Now he would kill her. The only difference would be that the bullet would be delivered into her by Chang and not him. It was an acceptable compromise.
Zhang turned off his headlights, then started the car. He pulled out of the parking space into the cul-de-sac, followed it to the end, then stopped.
On the lawn of a distant business stood his partner. She appeared to be holding a woman at gunpoint. A third person stood in the middle of the road, whom he could not make out.
He rounded the corner and spotted two men crouched in the shadows, trying to move into position. He knew MSS agents when he saw them, and these were clearly not Chang’s men. They were American. CIA or Homeland Security perhaps. Regardless of their federal affiliation, their presence made one fact abundantly clear. The operation was blown.
Zhang passed the men, a curious onlooker for all appearances, then cruised down the road.
This was all on Qin. Her stubbornness had gotten her into this mess. She could deal with the fallout.
On leaving the business complex, a black Hummer blew past him and hurtled up the road. He watched in his rearview mirror as the car raced around the corner and entered the complex. The Hummer was trailed closely by a Lincoln Navigator. The two vehicles appeared to be traveling together.
Zhang turned on the radio, tuned in a local rock station. Def Leppard played, ‘Photograph.’ He turned up the volume and sang along to the catchy tune.
His world was about to change for the better. The thumb drive, his ticket to his new life in America, waited for him at home. He couldn’t wait to begin living it.
As he entered the Interstate he stepped on the gas.
He never noticed the Ford Expedition traveling several car lengths behind him do the same.
45
THE HUMMER CAREENED around the corner as Spencer followed the flashing blue dot on his phone’s tracking app that informed him of Maddy’s precise location within the business complex. Uncle Tony and his men trailed closely behind in the Navigator. Seconds later, Spencer reached the middle of the intersection and slammed on his brakes. According to the app, Maddy should be right here, directly in front of him, but she was nowhere to be seen.
Hallier saw Spencer step out of the military vehicle. “What the hell?” he said angrily. He turned to Chris. “Watch Jordan,” he said. “I’ll deal with this.”
“Copy,” Chris replied.
The colonel advanced on the Hummer, raised his gun, yelled. “Get on the goddam ground, Coltraine!” he ordered. “Do it now!”
Taken by surprise at the sudden arrival of the Hum
mer and Navigator and the two men breaking cover from behind the wall of the building, Qin panicked. Out-manned and out-gunned, Chris watched her swing her weapon wildly between Jordan and Bullet, acutely aware of the new threats that had suddenly arrived on the scene.
Chris stepped into view, trained his gun directly on Qin. He identified himself calmly, desperate not to set off a shooting spree that would result not just in the death of his partner but in ending the life of the teenager standing in the street. “Federal agent,” he said. “Lower your weapon.”
Qin refused to respond or comply.
Jordan called out. “Take the shot, Chris!”
Qin looked down at her adversary and yelled. “Shut up!”
Jordan persisted. “Don’t worry about me, Chris. Save the boy!”
Qin stepped forward, raised her weapon, then pistol whipped Jordan across the side of her head. “I said, shut up!”
Jordan collapsed to the ground, momentarily incapacitated by the blow, then pulled herself up to her knees. She touched her cheek. Warm blood trickled down her face. She tasted it on her lips.
Powerless to stop the assault, Chris watched his partner slowly regain her ground. “Jordan!” he yelled.
Jordan called out. “I’m fine.” She looked up at Qin and stared her down. Quietly, she added, “You hit like a girl. I don’t.”
Hallier pulled Spencer to his feet. “What the hell are you doing here and how the hell did you get that vehicle?”
“I came for Maddy. She’s here.” He took out his phone, showed the colonel the app, pointed to the flashing location dots. “Right here. As for the Hummer, your guys apparently suck at suspect detention. Not that I am one, but you get my meaning.”
Behind the Hummer, the doors to the Lincoln Navigator opened. Tony Vecchio stepped out, followed by three of his men. Each was armed with a fully automatic weapon. Uncle T held his gun at his side while his men took up strategic defensive positions around the vehicle.
Nemesis: A Jordan Quest FBI Thriller Page 15
