Dana Marton (13 page)

She grabbed a croissant out of her shirt and shoved nearly half of it into her mouth. She was so hungry it was a miracle her brain still functioned.

Parker smiled at her and did the same. “Should have gone back to the duct until I came for you.” He couldn’t seem to be able to help himself from lecturing, but did it mildly.

“Could have stayed with me.”

“I need the guy.”

He explained to her how serious a security risk Piotr was. Piotr knew him. Could blow his cover, which would jeopardize his team and future missions.

“Why didn’t you shoot him in the kitchen while you had the chance?”

He made a strange face, his cheeks puffing out with food. He looked unbearably cute in a very macho and dangerous way. God, he was the handsomest man she had ever seen. The only man who could turn her on with a look in the middle of a hostage crisis. She was one sick puppy. Or—No, she wasn’t going to consider that. She was not, under any circumstances, going to fall back in love with Parker McCall.

“The guy Piotr took out, Victor Sergeyevich, was responsible for his father’s death,” he said, then fell silent.

“So you gave him a chance to get justice for that?”

He shrugged.

“But you
are
going to kill him, right? I mean, that’s the goal.”

“I have to.”

She couldn’t say she completely understood the workings of Parker’s mind. He was operating under his own sense of justice at the moment it seemed. “Look, his father—When my father—”

He looked away from her, as if expecting some sort of judgment.

“Hey.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “Piotr is the bad guy here.”

He looked up with a surge of hope in his eyes. The breath caught in her throat. She swallowed the last bite of food. So did he. He leaned forward. She held her breath. Something dinged.

The service elevator was so slow it took a full minute to go down one floor, but they were finally there.

“Stand aside.” Parker pulled back and stepped in front of her with his gun drawn. The doors opened. Bullets flew in.

Okay, so the rebels did know about the elevator. They hadn’t disabled it for a reason. Maybe they needed it for a part of their plan.

Parker was shooting back, and she did, too, as best as she could from behind him. He was leaning on the Close-Door button with his free hand until, after an eternity, the thick metal doors slid together again.

“I was afraid of this,” he said, his mouth set in a grim line.

“Are we trapped?” She was breathing hard, her heart going a mile a minute.

He looked up. “Not quite.” Then he was reaching up, dismantling the ceiling. “Keep pushing the button so they can’t open the door.”

And they were trying. She could hear them. She fused her index finger to the button while Parker worked on getting them out of there. He had the decorative panel off in seconds revealing a small door. She’d only seen stuff like this in movies.

He jumped for the ledge and pulled up. The next second, all she could see were his dangling feet. Then he was gone.

“Push the button for the kitchen.” He reached back down for her. “Wish the damn thing went higher.”

So did she. Whatever he had in mind, they only had about a minute before the elevator reached the kitchen, opened, and the rebels who would run up the stairs to meet it realized Kate and Parker weren’t inside. It wouldn’t take them long to figure out that they were up on top. She didn’t see what Parker’s plan was, but there was no time to question his judgment. She pushed the number one button, then reached for his hand and let him pull her up, trusting herself to him.

The elevator started with a shudder and some scraping sounds.

“Come on, we’re getting off,” he said.

“Here?” she asked, bewildered.

But he was already stepping over to a ledge of bunched wires on the side. There was enough room in the shaft for him to fit by the elevator if he flattened himself against the wall.

It looked dangerous. She peered down as the elevator inched past him, covering him up to the knees, then up to the waist.

“Come on.”

She reached for a bundle of wires and stepped over quickly, holding her breath until she found sure purchase with her feet and both hands, sucking her stomach in and cursing her breasts, which stuck out. But she made it. Barely.

Deep breath. The elevator was rising, and she found it harder and harder to stay still as the elevator neared her head. She felt trapped, about to be crushed. Not that being spread on the wall was her only worry.

“Aren’t we going to get electrocuted?”

“Only if you touch the wrong thing,” he said, perfectly calm.

“What’s the wrong thing?” She had to yell to be heard. She might have yelled anyway. In fact, she decidedly felt like screaming.

“You’ll know when you touch it,” he said.

She felt the urge to escape, but panic kept her pressed to the spot. There was an equally strong urge to strangle Parker at the earliest opportunity. Which, after a moment, she did recognize as unreasonable. He hadn’t gotten her into this situation.

Well, he did get her into
this
situation, but not the whole embassy-hostage-crisis deal. He’d come to save her. He just didn’t realize that she wasn’t a professional and that likely he was going to kill her in the process.

For a few moments she was completely blocked in by the elevator, the heavy machinery moving inches from her ears like some horrific creature, ready to grind her up. It pushed the air around, giving her the eerie feeling that the great beast was breathing down her neck.

“Parker…” she said in a weak voice, not expecting him to hear her over the noise. But his warm hand closed around her calf and anchored her, both to the wall and to reality. So maybe she could wait a little longer before she strangled the man.

Then the elevator passed by her, and Parker tugged. She wasn’t about to move.

“Let’s go.”

Okay. But only because she couldn’t stay here forever. She tried desperately to decide which wires were the wrong ones so as not to touch them.

They lowered themselves to the bottom of the shaft about fifteen feet below, careful not to step on anything that looked as if it might give them a nasty shock. The closed doors that led out of there were about waist high.

They listened first. No noise came from outside. The rebels had probably run up to meet the elevator in the kitchen.

Parker did something to the wiring on what looked like a maintenance panel, then jammed his knife in the slim slot where the doors met and pried them apart far enough so his fingers would fit in there. Nobody started shooting outside. Encouraging. After another moment, he was able to pull the doors open enough for them to fit through. He went first, then helped her out.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“In a back hallway near the embassy’s courtyard.”

There were no windows, only a steel-reinforced door. He tried that. Locked.

He glanced at the TNT belts on his shoulder, then said, “The Russians probably have all the exits covered. Let’s get down to the basement and check on the hostages. We can always try this if we can’t get out through there.”

“Which way?” She’d gotten turned around again, enough so she couldn’t remember where the basement door was. She had a deplorable sense of direction, something he used to tease her about back in the day.

He took off as sure as an arrow. She rushed after him, keeping her gun at the ready. They moved as fast as possible. It wouldn’t take long for the rebels to figure out what had happened and come back down to look for them here. This was the only other exit from the elevator shaft.

They were in the back areas of the embassy, nowhere near the marble-tiled grand foyer and its twenty-foot-high ceiling. The hallways were narrow and the flooring the same heavy-duty tile usually used in hospitals. When they finally reached the basement door, they flattened themselves to the wall outside it, one on each side, stopping to listen.

No sounds came from downstairs. It could have been that the door was heavy enough to block any sound.

Parker reached out and turned the knob silently. It gave. That didn’t bode well. Ivan was supposed to have barricaded the door.

She thought of Elena and Katja, her heart beating in her throat.

Parker looked at her.

“I shouldn’t have let them go,” she mouthed the words miserably.

He cocked his head and raised his eyebrows.

Okay, fine, so they’d been in a hairy spot or two since she’d sent the girls to what she’d thought was a safe place. So maybe they wouldn’t have been better off with her. She was going to reserve judgment until she found them.

Parker went first and after a moment or two she followed.

They took the stairs one step at a time, careful not to make noise. Nobody was talking below, but there were some odd sounds and clothes rustling, so they knew there were people down there.

Had to be the hostages.
Alive.
She relaxed marginally. The rebels wouldn’t just be hanging out down here when there was fighting going on upstairs. Instinct pushed her to rush forward, but common sense held her back.

Then Parker stopped and held up a hand, staring intently at something out of her range of vision. She stayed motionless for a minute, then took the few steps that separated them, using extra care not to make even the slightest noise.

A pair of feet came into sight first, then the torso of a man, lying on the ground at an uncomfortable angle, motionless. Then she could see the top of the chest, covered in blood, and knew, even before she could see the cook’s vacantly staring eyes, that he was dead.

P
ARKER MOVED
lower on the stairs, signaling to Kate to stay where she was, hoping this time she would listen. “Be careful,” he mouthed, a last admonition before turning his full attention to what waited ahead.

Something had gone terribly wrong down there. The tension was so thick in the air he could smell it over the musty scent of the old brick walls that drew cold moisture from the ground.

He’d had visual of one body, but sensed more people down here very much alive. Whether hostages or rebels, he didn’t know. They were to the left, farther ahead where he wouldn’t be able to see them until he reached the bottom of the stairs, stepped out and would be without cover. He moved inch by inch, registering and evaluating each and every sound, letting the cool of the basement surround him and revive him a little. The elevator shaft had been hellishly hot.

He stole down another step. Another body came into view. Black pants, white coat, same as the first. Another one of the kitchen staff. His stomach tightened.

When Kate and he had been down here, there’d been crates of salt to his left. But he couldn’t count on them still being there. If they weren’t, then with the next move he would be out in the open.

He didn’t hesitate at the last step, just went around the corner.

The crates were there.

The surviving hostages, only eight, sat twenty or so feet from him on the floor, tied together and gagged this time. His gaze went to the two little girls first, who were pressed up against a young woman. He put a finger to his mouth lest somebody made some noise and betrayed him. The woman signaled something with her eyes to the kids. They stayed quiet. She fixed him with an urgent look and glanced toward the back of the basement, then at the people next to her.

He got it. He’d figured there were some rebels down here.

He quickly skimmed the rest of the hostages, taking in the red-rimmed eyes and exhausted faces, registering that Ivan was among them. He had expected him to hold up better and protect the rest.

He stepped farther out, not exactly into the open, but away from the cover of the salt crates, keeping his focus on the dark places in the shadows, looking for the enemy. A man or two, no more. Just enough to keep an eye on the hostages. The rebels couldn’t spare more when a desperate battle was raging above.

He saw movement in a maze of boxes, shot at the shadow of a man and was shot back at. On instinct, he rushed forward, keeping low to the ground, putting himself between the rebel soldier and the hostages. Then a blunt force hit his left shoulder from behind, as if he’d been smacked by a football at top speed.

But this wasn’t a varsity game, and he knew what being shot felt like.

This was it.

August 12, 00:50

Kate stood back, higher up the stairs, waiting for Parker’s go-ahead signal. But instead, when he got to the bottom, he stepped around the wall and she couldn’t see him. She couldn’t see anyone. She had no idea what was going on when the first shot exploded.

Her brain was screaming to get out of there. Her heart pushed her forward, toward Parker.

More shots came. She held her gun at the ready as she carefully crept down the stairs, pressed against the wall, going sideways so she would present as small a target as possible if someone came running up. Parker had told her to do that. He’d given her a dozen small tips for staying alive while they’d been stuck in various places in the last three days.

Not that he followed his own advice. Whenever they were together and heading into trouble, he always went first to block as much of her as possible.

She listened, jittery enough to jump out of her skin at the next shot. And another, and another. Still nobody had said a word down there. She could smell her own fear in the air, her mouth as dry as the dusty vent ducts had been. She was no soldier. Her index finger twitched on the gun’s trigger.
Not good.
What in hell did she think she was doing here?

Saving Parker.

She steadied her hands and eased down another step. She saw the dead bodies first. Hostages. Her heart clutched. She moved lower, and then she saw him in the crossfire, ducking bullets as best he could with no cover. Her heart tripped when she spotted the blood on his shoulder. A man sitting among the hostages was shooting at him from one side. Ivan? What—Another took potshots from behind the solid cover of a stone wall in the far corner.

She aimed at Ivan. His Russian dress uniform—obviously it had been a cover—stood out. He was sitting among the hostages, making it hard for Parker to fire back as men and women scrambled around, some shouting, trying to get out of harm’s way unsuccessfully, frustrated by the ropes that bound them. She spotted the children—
alive,
thank God, still unharmed. They were crying, but their voices were lost in the cacophony of the attack.

Parker ducked behind some boxes finally, not that they offered any protection. The bullets Ivan shot at him sliced straight through the cardboard. And he was still open to the attacker on his other side. He was focusing on holding that man back, reluctant to shoot toward the hostages.

The pop and bang of bullets echoed in the basement. At any moment the rebels could reach them, following the sounds of a gunfight. But before that happened, there was a chance that the Russians could gas the building, or one of the human-bomb rebels could blow it or if Piotr had another capsule, he could set that off.

Moving, trying anything seemed futile against such overwhelming odds. Part of her wanted to fall to the floor and curl up where she was, and hope that when the end came, it would be quick. Her mind was numb with the possibilities of death.

She couldn’t afford numb. The problem manager in her mind took over.

Parker needed her help. The girls needed her, and so did the other hostages. She drew a deep breath and cleared her thoughts as best she could, resolving to work on the disasters that threatened them one at a time. First, the one right in front of her.

She gripped her gun. Nobody had noticed her yet in the mad fight. She had a different view of Ivan than Parker, a better angle. She adjusted the gun’s sight until she had the man’s head in the crosshairs. When she got him, she wanted him to drop instantly, without being able to cause any more damage to Parker or the kids or the other hostages.

It was different from target practice. There she normally visualized the hit and focused on the hole the bullet would leave in the paper. But she blanched at the thought of a bullet busting through Ivan’s skull, even if he
was
the enemy. A real person was nothing like the shadow outline at the range.

And what if she missed? There were hostages around him. Bet Parker never thought about missing. He saw what had to be done and did it.

She had to try. He had seconds left at best. Nobody could last longer in his current untenable position.

As the hostages scrambled away from between Parker and Ivan, scared that a stray bullet would find them, Ivan filled the gap by grabbing Katja and holding her in front of him.

Parker couldn’t do anything now. But she could. Ivan still hadn’t noticed that she’d come down the stairs, and in her direction, his side and head were still unprotected. Katja, however, did look at her, tears streaking her cheeks.

Cold fury steadied Kate as she watched the hard grip Ivan kept on the child’s arm, yanking on her when she struggled against him. She took a deep breath, held it so her body wouldn’t move, then squeezed the trigger.

She didn’t hit her intended target, little wonder. But the bullet did go through Ivan’s neck. He dropped his gun and Katja at the same time to clasp both hands to the wound, turning to give Kate a surprised look. A couple of men from among the hostages threw themselves on top of him the next second. Anna, the young woman who’d sat next to her in the gym at the beginning, threw herself on the children to protect them from the bullets that kept coming from the corner. Another hostage finally got hold of Ivan’s gun and shot back.

She could only pray that he was a good shot and wouldn’t hit Parker.

The sound of boots came from somewhere above her head.

No, no, no.
She lunged back up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and locked the door, knowing the simple lock could only hold them for a few seconds.

She clicked the safety on her weapon and shoved it into the waistband of her pants. A handful of wooden boards lay on the shelving that lined the staircase. She grabbed those and wedged them against the door.

She searched desperately for anything else that she could use to strengthen the barricade, knocking tools and a length of rope to the ground, finding an axe that she could think of no use for. Then she accepted that this was the best she could do, and ran back to Parker.

Whoever was in the corner of the basement was still shooting at him. She stuck her head out from the cover of the staircase, then ducked back quickly when the next shot came her way.

“Stay where you are,” Parker called out.

She didn’t have to be told twice.

At least he was still alive. The same couldn’t be said for Ivan. The hostages were using his body for cover. They seemed to have finished the job she had started. His neck looked broken.

Another one of the hostages had the gun now, the tall, young guy whose cooperation she had tried to get unsuccessfully in the gym. He wasn’t shooting, however. She supposed he couldn’t clearly see the rebel soldier in the corner from where he was and he didn’t want to risk hitting Parker. She appreciated the restraint.

Anna was still protecting the children. Everyone was trying to get their ropes off. She wished she could get to them and help, but Parker had asked her to stay, and if she lunged forward she might distract him.

To hell with that. She had to help. She could just warn him that she was going over. She opened her mouth to call out just as he dropped and rolled, found better cover, the giant steel toolbox. He’d left streaks of blood on the cement floor where he touched down.
Shot.
He’d been shot again. Judging from the blood on the ground, this time it was more serious than just a graze. He looked strong and alert, as capable as ever, but at this rate, she was worried how long that could possibly last.

They’d made it this far together. There was no way she would hang back in the stairway and watch him get killed.

The hostages seemed to be able to manage on their own for now. She had to get to Parker and help him, see how bad his latest injury was.

“Coming.” Kate bent low and dashed toward him, yelling, “Cover me!” to the hostage who had the gun, hoping like hell that the man spoke English.

He did, and she reached Parker with only a few bullets whizzing by her. Blood pumped through her ears so loudly she could barely hear what he said, but she had no problem interpreting the black thunder on his face.

“I said stay, dammit,” he yelled, popped up to fire a few shots over the large steel box then ducked back down again. “Kate, listen to me.” He cupped her face with his free hand, forcing her to look at him. His whole body was wound tight, his features hard, his stance promising violence. But not to her. His hand remained gentle. “I’m trying to keep you alive.”

“I’m fine.”

“You were in a safer position on the stairs. Do you want to die?” His tone reflected his frustration. He let her go and popped up to fire another round.

“Do you?” She grabbed his arm then put her gun on the floor and ripped his shirtsleeve off, used it to wrap the arm and slow the flow of blood. The bullet had gone clear through the thick cords of muscle.

He kept taking shots the whole time, not at all interested in making her job easier. She did it anyway. He could be stubborn, but so could she.

“Are you okay?” he asked when he dropped down again and looked her over.

She was not okay. Frankly, she thought it was a major miracle that they were still alive. She was hungry and tired and ached just about everywhere. She was pretty close to losing it, more scared than she had ever been in her life. But Parker needed backup. And the hostages were depending on them.

“Good as new,” she said.

He gave her a look that said she hadn’t fooled him. “It’s almost over.”

She hoped he was right.

“I can’t see him. I’m never going to hit him from here. I have to get closer,” he said.

She didn’t want him to go. “I’ll cover you.”

He moved fast, in a zigzag pattern. She shot round after round, aiming well over his head to make sure she didn’t hit him by accident. She didn’t stop firing until he was safely behind a half wall.

And then he disappeared.

She blinked, trying to bring his outline into focus in the deep shadows. But as hard as she stared, he didn’t seem to be there. She hadn’t heard any noise, either.

Silence enveloped the basement. The rebel soldier was probably listening for Parker, trying to figure out where he was. The hostages waited for their fate to be decided. They knew their best bet for getting out of here was Parker. Because even if the Tarkmez soldier in the corner got put out of commission, they still had a full rebel team in the building. Kate glanced toward the staircase, surprised that nobody had broken through her makeshift barricade yet. Could be that whoever was coming this way had been waylaid by the Russians. She hoped so. Their plate was kind of full for the time being down here.

A second ticked by, then another. Silence stretched, and as more and more time passed, the tension became nerve-racking.

Maybe Parker had passed out from blood loss. She couldn’t accurately judge how much time had passed since he’d gone. It felt like an eternity. Could be he’d reached the rebel and they’d silently knifed each other to death.

Another minute or so passed before the rebel called out, words she didn’t understand. Didn’t sound like he was giving up, more like taunting.

Okay, that one was still alive. What about Parker?

She wished he, too, would say something, but understood that it would give away his location.

The muted sounds of gunfire came from a couple of floors above them. Sounded like the Russians were well into the building.

The rebel in the corner made a surprised sound, drawing her attention back to him. There was a single gunshot, then some scraping noise. Then complete silence again.

“Parker?” She didn’t worry about giving away her location. Everyone already knew where she was.

For a second, no response came, and her heart stopped in midbeat.

The battle seemed to be intensifying upstairs. But her full attention was on Parker as he came out of the shadows. He looked tired and bloody, but he walked tall, his eyes finding her immediately. And what she saw in those eyes took her breath away as effectively as the danger had just moments ago.

She had been crazy to think she could ever walk away from him.

He stopped a foot from her and picked up the TNT belts from the floor, even managed a grin, although she could tell it took some effort. “Let’s leave with a bang.”

“You know what to do with that?” she asked as a vivid picture of the whole building collapsing on their heads flashed into her mind.

“Does Bugatti make the best cars?” His grin grew wider.

Not only did he know his way around plastic explosives, he looked as though he actually enjoyed playing with them.

He handed her his knife. “Why don’t you go check on the hostages? I’ll take care of the escape route.”

“Okay,” she said, and did as he asked.

Half the hostages were already free of their ropes, having helped each other. She helped the rest.

“Almost over,” she told the ambassador’s daughters, who were tightly hanging on to each other. “We are leaving here in a minute.”

“I want my mommy,” the younger one said as new tears welled in her beautiful brown eyes.

“Soon,” she lied and ran a soothing hand over her mussed-up hair. “Would you like something to eat?” She emptied her pockets and shirt and every bite of food was snatched up in a second.

Only one of the hostages stayed motionless on the ground. Anna.

Kate moved to her side. “Are you okay?” Then she gasped as she turned her and saw the blood on the woman’s chest. A stray bullet had found her as she had shielded the children with her body.

“Parker?” She pressed her hand to the wound, and Anna’s eyes fluttered. “We’re going to get you out of here,” she whispered to the woman.