The Impossible Alliance (22 page)

Helga appeared fine now. She still clutched Mikhail's body to her bosom, the boy's gauze-bound limbs clutching her neck and torso just as tightly. Orloff hurried in to assure the woman her grandson was fine. To their surprise, Helga
became agitated when he admitted they wouldn't be taking the boy with them, after all.

“No, no, you take. You
take.
Please!”

Jared snagged her arm as Alex struggled to make out the frantic jumble of Rebelian that followed.

“What's wrong?”

“I don't know. I don't think Orloff knows, either. She's too hysterical.” But something was wrong. The woman kept clutching the boy's head to her breast as she wailed over his head.

Jared ripped open his first-aid kit and pulled out the empty rucksack he'd stashed beneath the cover supplies before stooping down to retrieve both his knives. “You stay with Orloff, protect his back. At this rate, I'll grab the gem and be back before you figure what the hell she's saying.”

She didn't like it, but he was right. They had an obligation to the three innocent bystanders they'd embroiled in their plans.

“Hurry.” Before she realized what she was doing, she grabbed his arm, hard.
“Be careful.”
Her heart lurched as he wasted precious seconds lifting his hand to her face.

He brushed her cheek. “I always am.”

And then he was gone.

Orloff vaulted over the grizzled guard's body as the door closed. “We have to take them with us.”

“Why?”

“Helga overheard DeBruzkya and Sokolov talking. It seems the general has already tired of fatherhood. Once DeBruzkya has reaped the benefits of his recent press coverage, they plan to murder the boy. They hope to gain even more sympathy by claiming a rebel soldier killed the child during a fabricated attempt on DeBruzkya's life.”

Alex sucked in her breath. Given both men's track records, she didn't doubt they'd do it, too.

Orloff's brows shot up, underscoring her gut assessment. He didn't bother flicking his own gaze about the clammy
hospital cell, the cell he, too, had been dumped in after his brutal beating.

“Let's go.” She'd worry about the political fallout later, as well as the ass-chewing the director of the CIA would probably end up delivering personally. For now, she led the way down the hall to the cache of jewels as Orloff dragged Helga and her grandson behind them. Before they hit the first turn, she knew they were in trouble.

Boots. Running…toward them.

Before she could open her mouth to warn him, Jared stepped out from the doorway, the fully loaded rucksack already on his back. She could tell from his stride as he raced toward them that the box was lighter than they'd both expected. She could only hope the shielding was enough as she grabbed his arm. “Hurry!”

“What's wrong?”

“I hear several contacts coming around the corner, still silent—”

Jared slammed her into the wall in the nick of time. The spray of bullets chewed up the granite two feet from her head. Before she could raise her 9 mm, his MP-5 was up, his answering spray chipping the corner of the wall at the end of the corridor. Helga and Mikhail screamed as Orloff pushed them into the wall and covered their bodies with his own.

Jared slid the ruck from his shoulders and shoved it at her, helping her to don the straps before Alex could argue. She'd been wrong. The box was a hell of a lot heavier than it looked. She had to square her feet to stay standing. Jared tucked his 9 mm in her hands. “You may need the extra ammo. Take the gem and the others. Get them to the chopper. I'll hold them off as long as I can.”

“What about—”

“I'll be right behind you.” He slipped his hand behind her neck and pulled her close, sealing his lips to her right ear. Even with the hearing aid, she barely caught his murmured “I love you, too.” Before she could blink, much
less draw her next breath, he was gone, turning away to raise his MP-5. The blistering spray from the room broom afforded her enough cover to retrieve the others and advance down the hall.

She took it.

She had to. Jared's ammo supply wasn't endless. She refused to waste a single round of it. By the time they reached the turret, her back was screaming, but Orloff, the old woman and kid were holding their own. A damned good thing, because when two guards slammed out from the turret door four feet in front of them, they didn't freak out. She took down the first guard without thinking, but by the time she shifted the barrel of her 9 mm for the second, he was gone.

Lying at her feet.

Bemused, she met Orloff's stunned gaze as she shoved Helga and the child through the doorway of the turret.

“I shot him,” he said flatly.

She grabbed Orloff's arm and pulled him in, as well. “You had to.” Still, she knew what was going though his head. He was a doctor. He'd just killed a man with a—

She jerked her gaze to the still-smoking Colt .32.

“Where did you get that?” But she already knew.

“Your partner.”

Jared had given the man his backup piece? But why? He'd already given her his 9 mm. Why cull his weapons to supplement theirs? Unless…the terror slammed in.
He'd told her he loved her.
Something he had no intention of ever doing. Why do it now? The dead weight on her back evaporated as she grabbed Orloff's arm and practically shoved him up against the moldy turret wall before she could stop herself. “Did he give you anything else?” Please God, not the knives. Anything but the knives.

“Yes. But it was earlier. Before we left.”

What on earth was he talking about. “Before?”

Orloff nodded. “A gold coin. On a chain. He asked me to give it to you should this—”

She didn't wait for the rest. She spun around. “Take this, and get the hell out of here! Wait for us as long as you can. But if you have to go, then go. Contact the medical company I got the supplies from. They'll know what to do.” She shoved her 9 mm into Helga's hands as Orloff adjusted the ruck onto his back, then ruffled Mikhail's hair, earning a quick, terrified peek from those huge brown eyes.

Jared was right. There were some memories you didn't need.

But she was keeping
him.

Whether he wanted her to or not.

“Good luck.” She shoved Jared's Colt back into Orloff's hands and vaulted out of the tower as he turned to urge Helga up the stairs. She didn't even hear the door slam behind her—she was too busy following the next spray of gunfire as the sound waves ricocheted down the corridor and straight up her spine.

She didn't need a blueprint to follow.

Her heart was doing just fine on its own—until she rounded the corner and her heart jammed up her throat.

Jared.
He was trapped in front of the far wall, pinned in place by the barrels of no less than six Kalashnikovs. His expended MP-5 lay at his boots. Where the hell had all those soldiers come from? DeBruzkya, Sokolov—good God, had they come back?

If they had, she had no time to lose.

She only had three rounds left, but they would have to do. She waved her right hand and caught Jared's gaze. She held up three fingers, then pointed to herself, then to the right. He'd retrieved his first two knives. He should still have three. But would her gunfire distract the remaining three soldiers long enough for him to retrieve them?

There was only one way to find out.

She held up three fingers again, dropping them one by one as Jared tipped his chin ever so slightly.

Three, two, one.
Now!

She picked off her quarry in rapid succession. The ex
plosions in her ear prevented her from hearing the knives leave his boots, but she did see the glints from the first two blades as their victims fell atop the others, then a glint from the third as Jared sliced his hand up and across the remaining soldier's throat, slitting it from end to end.

Only, that
wasn't
the final soldier.

For some bizarre reason she never even heard the shot. Maybe because she was too busy screaming as her brain registered the fact that although Jared turned, he couldn't quite lift his arm far or fast enough to release his final blade as he fell.

He'd been shot.

“No!”

Pure, blinding terror ripped through her as she raced down the remaining nine feet of hallway to slam onto her knees inches from that dark, gorgeous head. His amber gaze glowed up at her as he smiled or, rather, as he tried.

“You're right, you don't follow orders.”

“Shut up.” She tore off her sweater, bunched it up into the pocket of his right arm, directly over the raw, seeping hole in his shirt. In his flesh. “Hold this.” She shoved the hem of her remaining T-shirt out of the way and reached for her belt next, desperately hoping it would be long enough to hold the sweater against his wound. She froze as she caught the deliberate scuff of boots closing in. She knew that pace. She'd heard it before—in a hotel room in Holzberg.

“Sokolov.”

Confusion tinged the pockmarked face above the rock-steady hand holding a pistol, a Makarov she'd also seen before, this time sans silencer. “I was right. You do seem to know me. How?”

“You murdered a friend of mine.”

The confusion actually ebbed. “Hmm. It's possible. But I confess, I have killed many men. Who was your friend?”

Why not? It just might give her the distraction she needed.

“Alice, don't—”

“I said shut up.” She ignored the thick brown brows that shot up as she yelled at her “husband.” She ignored her husband's hand, as well. The one that was crushing the feeling from her own as he silently ordered her to look down and meet his gaze.

Why? She'd just have to ignore that, too.

“Karl Weiss.”

Sokolov blinked. Unfortunately the hold on his Makarov also tightened. But then he smiled. Chuckled. “You must be mistaken. I had him watched. Karl had no friends who looked like you.”

“Alice.”

Despite the fact that the warning in his voice had weakened, that the grip on her hand had weakened, she smiled. “I went by another name at the time. Perhaps you remember it—and me. Morrow. Dr. Alexander Morrow.”

Another blink, this one rife with disbelief. “What? You lie. I met Dr. Morrow. We stood as close as you and I stand now. As close as you and I stood last night. He was a man.”

“You mean, he didn't have these?” She whipped her T-shirt straight up, offering the murdering doubting Thomas an eyeful.

It was the last thing Sokolov ever saw.

She flinched as the blade speared the colonel directly between the eyes. Like the grizzled soldier in the hospital cell, Sokolov never had a chance. By the time she spun around, Jared had staggered halfway to his feet. She scooped up two of the Kalashnikovs and hooked her shoulder under his left arm, leaving him to hold her sweater against the pocket of his right as they made their way down the hall at a modified, shuffle-run.

“Told you I'd have to kill the man who tried that.”

“The hell you did. You didn't intend on coming back at all, you jerk. I should kill you myself. Now shut up and save your strength. You're bleeding all over the damned
place.” But most of her fury evaporated as his exhausted grunt filled her ear. By the time they reached the base of the turret, she was beyond worried. Full-fledged panic set in at the top. He could barely move as they reached the door. She dragged him out onto the roof. Orloff was there and, miraculously, the idling chopper was still standing by.

Then again, it wasn't so miraculous, after all.

It was a sixty-five-year-old grandmother named Helga with a 9 mm pistol crammed up against a Rebelian Army pilot's skull. From the steely glint in those faded gray eyes, even Alex wouldn't have messed with her. The old woman shouted something and the blades began to rotate. Within seconds the vibrations were pounding though her skull.

Unfortunately her remote was down in the dungeon.

There was no way in hell she was going back for it. She managed to help Orloff heft Jared into the belly of the bird and scramble in after them as the chopper took off. Alex tore though the remaining medical supplies they'd packed to make their cover look good. She laid them out for Orloff as he worked.

“There is no pain medication. Hold his hand.”

She knew then that she was in trouble. Her eyes were watering so badly from the agonizing noise she couldn't find Jared's chest, much less his hand.
The hell with it.
She tore off her ear and shoved it into her pocket.

Orloff didn't bat an eye.

And Jared was too far gone trying not to crush her hand as the doctor rooted around on the inside of the pocket of his shoulder with a pair of forceps.

“Christ.”

She leaned down, smoothed the hair from his face as she laid her cheek to his so she could talk directly into his ear. It was the only way she could beat the blades. “It's okay. It'll be over soon. Just don't bleed to death on me, okay?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On you. You gonna hit me?”

Damn him. She couldn't help it, she smiled. “Probably.”

“Alex, I—”

“You are a class-A bastard, Jared Sullivan. And don't even try to worm your way out, much less lie to me. You might not have set out to kill yourself, but the thought sure as hell crossed your mind that if you had to sacrifice yourself, it would all be over. You wouldn't have to face the next twenty years. You wouldn't have to face me. You're a coward, you know that?”

“Done.” Orloff sat back. “And…I believe we have landed.”

They both ignored him.

She continued to stare into that dark, amber gaze that—praise God—was still glowing with life as the chopper powered down. Through no fault of his own. She waited as Orloff retrieved the boy from the webbed seat at the rear of the chopper where he and Helga had evidently stashed him and then bailed out to link up with the grandmother, as well as head off Marty Lyons and his men as they converged on the bird.