Phantom zero, p.17
Phantom Zero, page 17
“He’s upstairs,” one of the other men said.
“You coward!” the woman under Maya’s boot shouted. She struggled, but when Maya pushed down onto her ribs, she gave up. “I’m sorry, Dr. Keller. We tried.”
Maya looked upward to see a glass-walled room above the control center. Through the glass, she saw a man in his early forties glaring down at the group. She fired a single round at the glass, and it bounced off, scuffing the glass but leaving it otherwise unharmed.
The man in the office glared at Maya. His lip curled upward in contempt, and he left the window and sat behind a desk where a computer screen displayed data that Maya couldn’t quite make out from where she was standing.
“Holy shit,” Trent said.
Maya turned to him. He was standing in front of one of the computers looking at what the terrorists were doing. His face was ashen.
“What?” Maya asked. “What is it?”
“He’s going to use OWLS to destroy a dozen different cities in the United States. Washington, New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, San Francisco, Miami, Atlanta… He’s going after all the major population centers.”
“But he can’t use OWLS,” Maya said. “Todd said they were going to disable it.”
“Well, he enabled it. It’s back up. He’s got control of the entire OWLS system, and he’s going to fire at twelve US cities in fifteen minutes. Just as soon as he can aim the satellites and lock onto the targets.”
Maya’s blood ran cold. They were right. From the moment they deciphered the Morningvale guard’s riddle about fire, they knew that Keller was trying to access OWLS.
And it didn’t matter. He’d gotten to them anyway. They’d tried to stop him and still failed.
Now they were at the Devil’s mercy.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Sara drew her handgun, trembling slightly. The excitement she felt before was gone. The enemy was here, but they had the advantage. They had the element of surprise, and they had enough people here that Mischa was as close to afraid as Sara had ever seen her.
“Go,” Mischa said. “They’re going to try to block the building exits and trap us in here. We must hurry.”
As though to illustrate her point, bullets punched holes in the door, and screams from the neighboring apartments reached their ears. The police would surely be on their way soon if they weren’t now. They only needed to run for a few minutes before law enforcement got here and the problem was solved.
They sent dozens of people here in broad daylight. They're not concerned with law enforcement.
“Go,” Mischa said. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Sara stepped to the open window. She felt a pang of grief knowing that this was the last time she would ever see her apartment. Aside from the fact that it would be a wreck by the time Meridian was done with it, she doubted they would renew her lease once it became clear that she was the target of an international criminal organization.
It hit her that going through this window meant turning her back completely on the chance of a normal life. Maybe not for good, but for a while. Until Meridian was defeated.
You made that choice already. Now you understand just what that choice entails.
The voice in her head was cold, unforgiving, harsh. Just like the life Sara had chosen.
“Go!”
Sara took a deep breath, climbed through the window and dropped to the ground on the other side. She rolled to her feet and caught a blur of movement.
Then a firework exploded in her leg. She cried out and fell to the ground, clasping her left thigh. Blood welled underneath her fingers, and she realized that she had been shot.
Reality clicked into place. Her fear, anguish, and frustration all fled. Very calmly, she realized that she was in over her head and not prepared for this at all. In her head, she was an avenging angel who would cut through her enemies with righteous judgment. In reality, she was the child of a secret agent who had lapsed seriously in her training and had now scraped off just enough rust to fool herself into thinking she was invincible.
Now you understand just what that choice entails.
One of the attackers snarled and leveled her handgun at Sara, teeth bared.
Then her teeth were buried in the asphalt. Her lifeless body convulsed on the ground while Mischa rolled off of her and buried her knife in the throat of one of the woman’s two male partners. The other male cursed and leveled his handgun, but Mischa, moving too fast for Sara to track, stripped the weapon and bumped him with the handle.
He staggered backwards, and Mischa stabbed the man through the neck, an efficient piercing that left him gasping hoarsely, unable to scream.
She ran to Sara, knowing he was dead before he did. She dropped to Sara’s side and moved her hand out of the way. Sara watched in open-mouthed shock as the dying man dropped to his knees.
“The wound is not superficial,” Maya informed her, “but it is not immediately deadly.”
Sara shivered at the word immediately. The mercenary fell to the ground, still gasping even as his eyes glazed over.
Mischa grabbed Sara’s chin and spun her face to look at her. “Sara, we need to go now. I will need you to run. It will be painful, but you can do it. We will get you medical attention as soon as we are safely away. I don’t believe the other attackers know we escaped, but they will find out soon. We must go now.”
Sara nodded numbly. She allowed Mischa to help her to her feet, wincing as pain rocketed up and down her leg.
“Follow me,” Mischa said.
She turned around and sprinted away. Sara started after her, cried out, and immediately stumbled. “Mischa!” she called. “Wait!”
Mischa stopped, turned around, cursed, and ran back to Sara. She helped Sara to her feet and half-dragged her forward. “You must run,” she said. “I can’t carry you fast enough to escape. You can do this, Sara.”
Sara’s lips shook, and her eyes welled with tears, but Mischa’s tone left no room for argument. She pulled free of Mischa’s grasp, moaned as fresh pain shot through her, but pushed it down and ran forward.
Mischa nodded and ran ahead of her, leading them forward at a brisk pace away from the apartment building. Sara shoved her hand in her mouth and bit down to keep from screaming. Her left leg felt loose and rubbery, like she was swinging a hose rather than using it.
But it stayed underneath her and kept pumping, even as the pain increased from unbearable to impossible. She followed Mischa around the corner into an alley. When she saw the wall at the end, she moaned again. “Mischa, I can’t—”
“You will,” Mischa said.
Her voice was strong and cold and dangerous, different from any voice Sara had ever heard before. She looked firmly at Sara and said, “You are a Lawson. You have survived worse. You will survive this too.”
Sara had survived worse than this, not just when she was trafficked, but when she was fighting alongside Maya and Trent against forces on Mr. Bright’s payroll. At one time, she had been able to face enemies like the ones chasing her now and come out on top. At one time, she had even rivaled Maya and Mischa in skill.
That felt so long ago.
Mischa saw the indecision on Sara’s face and gripped her shoulder. “You will,” she repeated. “You saved me when Meridian had me injured and on the verge of death. You will save yourself. The odds are no greater now than they were then.”
Yes, but I wasn’t shot then.
She ignored her mind’s protest, nodded, then took a deep breath and ran up the wall. She clenched her teeth and screamed through them as she pulled herself over. She dropped to the ground beyond and tried to roll forward, but she landed heavily on her right side and cried out as more pain rocketed through her.
Mischa landed easily next to her and helped her to her feet. “You can do this, It’s okay.”
Her voice was gentle that time, and Sara felt a wave of love for her so fierce it outweighed her pain. She understood now just how strong her little sister was. How kind and brave. She was a true hero. She was everything Sara wished she could be.
Gunfire and shouting reached them, and Mischa smiled. “The police must have arrived. They will distract the enemy.”
Her smile disappeared as she turned back to Sara. “We must not slow down, though. I want three miles between us and the enemy before we stop.”
Sara moaned at the thought of three miles on her injured leg, but she nodded. “All right. I’m ready.”
Mischa nodded again. “I will call Papa when I am confident that we are safe from immediate harm. I think it’s clear we were mistaken to believe we could do this on our own. Come on. Let’s move.”
She started forward without waiting for Sara’s response. Sara followed, whimpering from the pain but not stopping and not slowing. They left that alley onto a service road that connected the loading docks of a grocery store, three restaurants, and a laundromat to the main road beyond. Mischa led Sara away from the main road to a cul-de-sac and through that cul-de-sac to a residential neighborhood.
She turned left onto the next street, led them for another three blocks, then turned right and ran six blocks before turning right again. Two blocks later, she turned left.
Mischa continued in that zigzag pattern, taking them away from the fighting. Sara followed, gritting her teeth against the pain. After a few minutes, the pain consumed her until she was nothing more than a ball of agony. Her lips shook, her eyes trembled, and her breath hitched, but she kept moving.
After a few more minutes, the pain receded. No, that wasn’t correct. The pain was still there, intense and raw, like she was being devoured alive. She receded, floating deeper into her mind until she experienced the pain as though it were a memory, an echo of a feeling she had once had.
The feeling was familiar to Sara. It was how she felt when she used opiates. She had experimented with many drugs during her brief journey through self-medication, but opiates were always her favorite. Only opiates had the ability to shield her like this. They created a cocoon of numbness that made everything pleasant, warm, and soft and safe, and everything unpleasant distant, something she didn't need to worry about. When the noise was too loud, and the flashes of memory too sharp, she would shoot heroin or pop oxys, and things would fade enough for her to breathe.
Just like with her drugs, though, Sara knew she would pay for this eventually. Mischa was right about her wound not being immediately deadly, but the rubbery feeling in her leg wasn’t going away. The bullet had damaged something, and running on it like she was would damage it more.
Mischa had just recovered from an injury. Had she healed completely, or was she damaging her knee more by running and fighting like this?
Guilt wafted through her numbness. She had screwed up so badly. If she had just stayed at the cabin, then Meridian would have stormed her apartment and found nothing. Zero and Alan would have tracked them here and either wiped them out or captured one of them and gained the information they needed to stop the organization once and for all. Instead, they were running for their lives and possibly doing permanent damage to their bodies.
Mischa remained in the residential neighborhood for a while before leading them out into a more crowded portion of McLean. Sara recognized the neighborhood. She had worked at the Giant Food across the street until she was forced to quit following the attack on Mischa six weeks ago.
Mischa slowed to a walk and looked back at Sara. She pursed her lips and fell back, walking in front of her. “Your leg is soaked with blood,” she explained. “We can’t be in public.”
Sara blinked. “Shouldn’t we… We don’t want the police to see us?”
“Do you want to tell them why an international criminal organization is chasing us? We risk exposing our own illegal activities and possibly the identities of the others as secret agents. You will not die from this wound. We will find a place to stay, and then I will call Papa and have him come rescue us. He will take us to EOT headquarters, and the CIA will care for you.”
Sara laughed, earning a fishy look from Mischa. “I was just thinking about how pissed everyone’s going to be with me. Todd’s going to lecture me. Dad’s going to lecture me. Alan’s going to lecture me. Penny is probably going to lecture me.”
Mischa scoffed. “Penny is the most compassionate woman I’ve ever met. She is going to sew you a get well blanket, hand it to you with a stuffed bear, and spoon feed you soup while brushing your hair back from your face.”
“While lecturing me.”
Mischa stared at her again. Then she laughed. Sara joined her. The two girls covered their mouths with their hands and giggled as they climbed over a fence into the back patio of a brunch restaurant that was currently closed and unlit. Mischa led Sara deeper into the shadows and lowered her into a chair, still laughing.
Sara looked up at her face and said, “I’m sorry. I’ve messed things up a lot, haven’t I?”
“We’ll call it even for the time when I messed things up a lot,” Mischa said. “I know you feel a certain way about exposing yourself to me, but I’ll need to remove your pants to examine you.”
Sara grimaced. “You could not have picked a weirder way to say that.”
“English is my fourth language,” Mischa said, carefully pulling Sara’s pants down. “I am not inclined to familiarize myself with every possible nuance of every word.”
She carefully checked the wound in Sara’s thigh. Sara winced as her fingers traveled over the jagged hole. The wound was still bleeding but not as much anymore. It must have been bleeding internally a little, though, because Sara’s leg was swollen to double its normal size and tender to the touch.
Mischa clucked her tongue. “Ah, Sara. What am I going to do with you?”
“You could knock me out if you want to,” Sara suggested. “Just wake me up when I’m bandaged and safe in a hospital bed.”
Mischa glared at her. “Don’t tempt me.”
She pulled her shirt off, and Sara chuckled. “Trying to make me feel better about being half-naked?”
“I assume you are delirious,” Mischa said, tying the shirt around Sara’s wound. “So I won’t hold that against you.”
“That is still not nearly as weird as what you said earlier.”
“You are fixating on the wrong event of this evening. Will you stay still? You squirm like a domovoy.”
“A what?”
“A domovoy. It’s a Slavic spirit. It is helpful but grumpy and doesn’t like receiving affection. I believe it’s supposed to be a spirit in service to a pagan god that protects families.”
“Wouldn’t that make you a domovoy?”
“I have no trouble accepting affection. I don’t understand why everyone feels I do.”
She finished cinching the leg and straightened. Sara smiled up at her. “Thank you.”
“It is nothing,” Mischa said. “I will call Papa now.”
She reached for her phone but froze with her hand in her pocket. Sara’s smile faded. “What is—”
“Shh.”
Sara’s blood chilled. She reached for her handgun, then realized she had lost it somewhere along the way. Mischa remained still for a second longer, then spun around, drawing her weapon.
She fired once, dropping the man approaching from behind her. Sara sighed with relief, but her breath caught in her throat when she felt the barrel of a handgun press against her forehead and heard a raspy voice say, “Drop it, or you will see your sister’s brains spread all over this table.”
Mischa stiffened. Without turning, she said, “Hello, Ambassador.”
“Hello, Sparrow.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
The truck lurched over the curb and plowed into the courtyard. Most of the Meridian fighters managed to dive out of the way, but the truck slammed into four of them on its path through the narrow plots of grass and flowers. Zero heard their bones crunch underneath the wheels, heard their screams turn to gurgles turn to silence. Next to him, Alan retched, but Zero felt no such squeamishness. The enemy had threatened his family, but he was here now, and he was going to very quickly and very thoroughly teach them their final lesson.
The truck jolted, and a puff of black smoke escaped the hood. Another jolt destroyed the engine entirely. It came to rest a few feet from the edge of the courtyard. The silence that followed told Zero that the enemy was watching the scene, stunned into inaction.
Their mistake.
Zero kicked the windshield out, and when bullets sprayed the hood, he opened the door and stepped out that way instead. He kept the door half closed and fired at the mercenary standing in front of Sara’s door. He struck the man in the spine, and the fighter fell backward, screaming. When he hit the ground, his neck snapped, and the scream stopped abruptly.
Zero heard gunfire and shouting on the other side as Alan engaged the group trying to flank the building and cut off the exit. He fired at a Meridian agent who tried to shoot Alan in the back, then rushed to the front of the truck, using the smoke to obscure his movements and the engine block to protect him from gunfire. He could smell fuel leaking onto the ground and frowned. That was a serious fire risk. Gasoline was actually very difficult to light without a spark, which was why gasoline engines used spark plugs to cause ignition. If a bullet ricocheted off the engine block just right, though…
Actually, that wasn’t a bad idea. If he could lure Meridian close…
Alan flinched as a bullet shattered the passenger side window inches from his head. He killed the woman who had shot at him, then called to Zero. “We’ve got civilians!”
Zero scanned the buildings on either side of the courtyard. Sure enough, several residents had let their panic control their actions, choosing to flee their apartments and try to escape on foot rather than remain inside. One of the Meridian fighters grabbed at a fleeing mother clutching her toddler to her chest, but his companion shouted a command, and the mercenary released the civilian.
It was good that the mercenaries were avoiding harm to civilians, but that didn’t change the fact that they’d threatened Zero’s daughters. He made them pay for their distraction by killing both of them.
