So it’s my fault? Anna’s lips clamped together. I didn’t leave because I wanted to hurt him. I left because he lied to me about killing people for a living.
Back when I had no idea what that meant.
“You are being a bastard.” Willie folded her arms, her chin lifting. “You apologize.”
“Like you never wanted to get your hands on whoever broke him.” Hassan made a short, rude noise. “Like you never—”
“I never did.” Willie shook her head and her large, finely modeled hand came down hard on Hassan’s thigh. “I said apologize. Horrible man.”
“Fine, I’m sorry. Doesn’t make it any less true.” His jaw jutted out stubbornly.
“Don’t listen to him, liebchen. All this time, he is the best friend Josiah has. Now, jealous like a woman.”
“You’re a spiteful lass, Willie.” The broad British accent turned the words into sharp edges.
Anna turned her head, stared out the window at the freeway slipping away beside the car. Just like a magic carpet. She ignored the further sound of bickering, staring at the white stripe at the side of the road, swelling and retreating according to a random fluctuation of speed.
It’s true. It is my fault. Whether she meant Josiah, or Eric, or anything else, she couldn’t tell.
* * *
They drove all day, stopping only for a hurried lunch at a roadside diner. By the time Hassan checked them into an anonymous hotel, they were over the state line in the middle of a dark rainstorm. Anna’s back ached, but Willie gave her ibuprofen as Hassan laid an armful of gear on the bed, shaking water out of his hair. “Good Christ. I wasn’t born to be a mule. What did you put in these?”
“Lead pipe.” Willie set up her laptop on the table, unplugging the television cable and deftly plugging in a long cord from the computer’s side. “Useful for all occasions.”
His laughter was a bitter snort of non-amusement. “How is she doing?” He spared one look at Anna, who pulled further into herself.
Why do you even care, if you dislike me so much? Still, she couldn’t blame him. She would feel the same way if someone hurt one of her friends.
Friends she’d never see again, but still.
“How do you think, you horrible man? As well as can be expected. Lie down, liebchen. You are safe with us.”
Safe. What did that even mean, anymore? Did it just mean alive?
I wish Josiah was here. A swell of self-disgust rose in her throat. I wish I knew what to do. What can I do?
“Bloody hell. I’m going to get that last load from the car. I’ll do the usual.” Hassan stretched, various creaks and pops sounding as he moved. “I hate these kinds of operations.” He paused, his eyes coming to rest on Anna again. “Listen…Miss Caldwell. Anna. I didn’t mean it, love.”
Anna stared at her knees. Her entire body hurt, but her heart worst of all. Leave me alone. I hate you. If I had a gun…
But she didn’t, and it wasn’t right to be angry at him anyway.
Hassan sighed. “Willie?”
“Leave her be. You are terrible cruel.” She waved a hand at him. “Get everything from the car, Hassan.”
“Women.” He went out the door, muttering.
“Don’t take it personally, liebchen,” Willie said in the sudden silence. “He says things he doesn’t mean. Like Josiah.”
Josiah doesn’t say something he doesn’t mean. Anna sighed, folded her hands in her lap like a schoolgirl. Would you teach me what I needed to know, if I asked you? “We’re just supposed to sit here? For how long?”
“Until Josiah makes contact.” Willie turned the laptop on. “Or until it’s too dangerous to stay. Then we’ll get out, by train or plane. Probably by train, then plane. Or we might drive up over border. It all depends.” She shrugged, her huge bun bobbing as she settled into the chair, producing a gun that clicked as she settled it on the table within easy reach. “Important thing is to keep you out of it.”
God. “I shouldn’t have called him.” Anna shut her eyes, hugging herself. I’m responsible for this. I didn’t know, but that doesn’t absolve me. “I should have just let them kill me. Or I should have tried to find out what Eric knew and—”
“Does no good to blame yourself.” Willie’s fingers tapped the keyboard. “Bloody hotels. No security at all.”
“You say he’s really going to get himself killed.” It was one thing for her to think it, quite another to hear these “professionals” saying it out loud. “It’s my fault. I wish I could do something.”
“The best thing to do is wait. Silly little girl. We are specialists, let us…” Willie stopped. The sound of her fingers tapping the keyboard stopped as well.
Anna’s eyes flew open. What’s wrong?
Willie eased out of the chair. “Get down,” she whispered. “Beside the bed, liebchen.”
Anna didn’t hesitate. She almost fell off the bed in her hurry, her back spasming and her ankle sending a bolt of pain up her leg. She peered over the top of the rumpled coverlet and saw the door handle moving. “What if it’s—” she whispered.
“He would knock. Get down.” Willie moved aside, crouching behind the long, low dresser holding the TV. Seeking cover.
Anna found herself nose-to-carpet, listening with every fiber of her body. The carpet was short, stubby, and peach colored, probably a bitch to clean without steam and heavy-duty solvents. If they ever did clean. Her hair was a hot weight against the back of her neck.
I’m spending a depressing amount of time in hotel rooms lately. A sardonic laugh rose in her throat, was strangled, and died away, clawing at her chest as it went so her eyes turned dry and her entire body into a hypersensitive canvas, nerve endings straining. It must be my personality.
The door rattled. Willie let out a soft breath.
Four knocks. A pause. Two knocks. Another rattle against the door.
“Stay still,” Willie whispered.
The door clicked and opened. “Stand down.” Hassan was hoarse. “Check the window, Willie. They’re here.”
“Who?” Willie gained her feet in a lunge, and the light died.
Anna blinked.
“Them again. The fucking exploding men.” A skittering sound, like sand poured from a pail at the beach. “I knifed one at the door. Move, woman!”
“How many?” Willie eased to the window.
“Four of ’em I saw. The other three hung back—be careful.” Hassan was hoarse. “Christ. I hate this.”
“Get the rifle. I see one. Standing right down there in the light.” Willie tweezed the curtain aside delicately. “Stay down, liebchen.”
“She behind the bed? Good.” Little clicks. “You sure you want to open fire?”
“Not sure, no. A silenced shot from here…” She accepted the rifle. “What are our options?”
Anna’s back spasmed again, and she wished the ibuprofen would start working. Oh, God. This just keeps getting worse.
Hassan brushed ash from his shoulders. “I even have this shit in my hair. Our options are to fight, fight silent, or run.”
“I like the second.”
“I like the last.” He stepped back. “Willie. They came in the window at the house.”
“I know. I’ve got a visual on two and three. You sure you only saw four?”
“I saw—”
Whatever Hassan had seen remained unsaid as the window shattered and Anna screamed, frantically scrabbling to get away and failing miserably as the man landed on the floor and launched himself at her. Two guns spoke at the same instant, one silenced and the other not, and the man’s head exploded.
Literally, truly evaporated. Flesh runneled, veins of darkness crackling through the flying figure with lightning speed, and an eruption of fine crystalline grit painted the air, breaking into smaller and smaller pieces.
Anna stared. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen it, but it never got any easier to believe what her eyes were telling her.
Get up. The voice in her head
was new, and cold, married to the same chill certainty that had forced her to keep running in George’s garden as bullets pocked into wet earth. If you freeze they’ll get you.
Funny, how George’s head hadn’t acted like that. The explosion there had been much more—
For God’s sake, stop it. Her legs wouldn’t quite work, but she grabbed the bed and hauled herself up with more determination than success. Get up, Anna.
Cold air swelled through the broken window. The curtains fluttered, making little noises as they touched the wall.
“Fuck.” Hassan moved to the window. “It’s fight and run. Get the girl and the laptop, lovey.”
“And after you brought everything upstairs.” Willie eased to the side. “I can take another one from here. He’s just standing there.”
“Don’t take the easy shot.” Hassan stepped forward and leaned down, grabbing Anna’s arm. He hauled her up as if she weighed nothing. “How did they fucking find us? How? We’re over the goddamn state line!”
More certainty clicked into place inside Anna’s head. Me. They’re tracking me. Because my…blood…smells like Eric’s. Bile rose in her throat. I think I’m going to throw up. I really do.
Puke later, the cold voice replied. Move now.
Willie slammed the laptop shut, shoving it into a padded case while Hassan grabbed the backpack and the duffel bag. “Hold these,” he said, and Anna found herself with the backpack on, her arms through the straps, her left hand taken up with the heavy duffel. “If I shout down, you drop. Let’s move.”
“They could be out in the—” Willie slung her laptop case across her body and picked up the rifle again, its case discarded on the bed.
“Move, woman!”
The curtains billowed, and Hassan shoved Anna so hard she stumbled and fell, her head giving a starry burst of pain as it rebounded from something hard in the duffel bag. He fired twice, three times, bursts of incredible sound followed by a soft explosion as dust flowered through the air.
Forget puking. What about passing out? She made it up to her knees, casting around for something, anything, to use as a weapon.
Hassan hauled her the rest of the way back up, his fingers unforgiving steel spikes. “Off we go, then.” Grim good humor filled his voice. “Willie?”
“Right behind you. Stay with me, liebchen.” She, at least, sounded calm. The rifle did something in her hands, clicking and coming alive, and Willie’s dark eyes took on a predatory gleam.
Anna had nothing in her hands but the duffel. The entire world was going a bit fuzzy—was it because of the Advil?
Find something to fight with, Annie. “Can I have a gun?” I sound almost normal.
Hassan snorted rudely. “Not bloody likely. Worse than having none at all. Come on.”
Outside in the hall, dead silence ruled over the harsh broken sound of their breathing. The duffel bag was heavy, the backpack straps cutting into Anna’s shoulders. Still, she felt more useful than usual—she was carrying something, at least.
“This way.” Hassan shoved her to get her going. “Not the elevator, duckie. Someone’s coming up.”
“Americans,” Willie muttered, like a curse. She walked sideways, the rifle held ready; Hassan had his gun pointed at the floor. “Do you hear that? Sirens.”
“I hear it.” His voice was pitched low, and Anna stumbled. Her heart beat high and wild-frantic in her throat, and she suddenly longed for a bathroom. Her bladder was two sizes too small now.
Dammit. Now is a really fine time to wish I’d bought a gun years ago. Or learned how to use one, at least.
Then the stairwell door was flung open, and chaos swallowed her whole.
Chapter Twenty-Five
He took the first one—a prominent businessman on the City Council who looked twenty years younger than his real age now—from a rooftop, the recoil of a silenced rifle jarring his hands, the shock against his unwounded shoulder. The second, a district attorney, was a bit trickier, but the rifle still worked wonders. Ballistics would link the two, but that was fine.
It was, after all, what Josiah wanted. He wanted them to know someone was picking them off. He also stopped at two, having other work to accomplish that day.
He hardly ever thought about Anna. At least, not for long, not that night. Hassan and Willie would take care of her. They didn’t make contact, but Hassan could have decided to take the women even further afield to protect them.
Josiah couldn’t worry about that now.
He was grimly satisfied to see the headlines the following morning. There was no more covering it up or keeping it quiet. No, they were called murders and splashed across the front page, the first attributed to a jealous ex-wife—Josiah could have laughed until he choked if the situation hadn’t been so gruesome—and the second to a disgruntled felon the DA had prosecuted.
That afternoon found him settled in a cheap hotel room across from the back of the brownstone on East Morris, as planned. From here he could see the rear entrance, not the façade and the front door—and not so incidentally, since he was well camouflaged and in place by 6 a.m., he was pretty much already inside whatever security perimeter they would set up. The fire escape outside his window was well oiled, going down to an alley that would be impenetrably black once night fell.
Josiah settled in and watched the comings and goings—people carrying out boxes of files, cars pulling up, cars pulling away.
The afternoon lengthened, and they started arriving.
Idiots.
The Chief of Police showed up, looking fit as a fiddle and much younger than his fifty-three years. Two more City Council men, both with a bounce in their strides but with worried shoulders. The heads of two hospitals. A man who owned half of downtown. A virtual who’s-who of the city and county influential.
Christ, there’s so many. All coming to do damage control.
Dusk settled in increments, and they kept arriving, a good double-dozen men who had sold their souls and bled Corpse Boy dry, then used his bone marrow to create their own private army of dust-exploding men. Not to mention killed a pesky reporter and, the only thing Josiah really cared about, threatened Anna Caldwell.
If they would have left her alone I’d have turned this over to the agency and been long gone by now. I’d have taken her to Europe, maybe. Easier to stay out of sight there.
He shifted his weight slightly to keep his circulation going as he crouched in the window, the binoculars in his hand. Hanging out in a sniper’s hole all day was almost guaranteed to give one the mental jitters, but he felt better than he had in a while. Once he put her out of his head, he could function more effectively.
Except the thought of her kept coming back. Tiptoeing into his head on little cat feet, touching off the unsteady explosive feeling that had almost got him killed in Cairo.
The way her skin smelled, for example. Her steady gaze at a painting she was interested in. The way she would look up at a waiter in a restaurant, thanking him with a quick smile. She never glanced in store windows to check sight lines or woke up damp with sweat, a scream caught in her throat because the dreams were so bad.
She lived in the real world, and she’d made it possible for him to live there, too. Instead of the gray pit of murk where Josiah had sunk for so long he couldn’t remember the real, except when he saw it through her eyes.
Don’t think about that. She’s in the gray now, and you have to get her out. Yourself, too.
He took a deep breath, another, and settled himself more comfortably as full dark began to spread her wings over the city. The streetlamps came on, and he clicked the binocs to night vision. The bite on his neck throbbed with the same hot, infected pulse.
She’s seen what I am up close now. How am I going to keep her with me after this? Lie to her about whatever kind of danger she’s in? Yeah, that’ll go over real well if she ever finds out. Let’s face it, Josiah. You’re not the man for her.
Soon this would all be a bad dream for Anna Caldwell. She’d
visit her brother’s grave, lay down some flowers, cry, and get on with her life.
The agency knew about her. She wouldn’t be safe without him. Could he possibly make her understand that?
Doesn’t matter. She’s not going anywhere without me once I finish this. I don’t care what I have to do to make her understand.
He patted his hip pocket for the fifth time, the heavy little lump of cold metal in it sharp even through heavy denim. Another car pulled up and he lifted the binocs just as the cell in his breast pocket vibrated.
He held the nocs with one hand and fished the phone out with the other. The car was a limo, and it held the prime mover of the whole thing, if Eric’s files were to be believed.
Denton. The man himself. He looked even trimmer and thinner than in Eric’s pictures—pictures, incidentally, probably taken from the alley below.
Josiah flipped the cell phone open. “Talk to me.”
“Wolfe.” Hassan sounded pale. Josiah’s heart gave a thump. He controlled it, ignoring the sudden taste of copper in his mouth. “We have a problem.”
The wall inside Josiah’s head lifted, flooding him with sterile white light. The world stood out in cold, sharp relief, every muscle in his body locking briefly as he stared through the binoculars. The world was green and distorted through them, but once his eyes compensated he had no trouble picking out Denton, the bullyboys around him—probably off-duty cops, maybe with the gene therapy making their cellular structures unstable—and another figure, slim and limping, that he would know anywhere, in any crowd.
Her hair was tangled. She moved painfully, and one of them shoved her.
You promised me you would keep her safe. You promised, Hassan.
“They have her,” he said flatly. “Where are you?”
“They followed us out of town and overwhelmed us, got us locked up in a warehouse on Starke.” There was a sound of shifting, Willie’s hoarse voice counting something off behind him. “We were to be liquidated as soon as they took Anna, but Willie managed to get her hands free. And the freak showed up. He said to tell you he’s on his way. Josiah—”