Someone entered the living room.
Rutskoi had been in a constant state of alert, but now adrenaline rushed through his body, heightening his senses even more. He loved this. He was born for this.
It was time. He felt it in every cell of his body. It was happening
now.
The fiery red, gold and green figure walking into the room was slender, narrow-shouldered, with shoulder length hair. The woman.
His trigger finger loosened slightly.
Rutskoi breathed evenly, in and out, letting the adrenaline settle throughout his body. Enough to sharpen him, not enough to make his hands tremble.
Perfect.
The woman walked to the center of the room and picked something up…it was hard to tell what she was doing as her back was turned. Ah. It looked like she had opened a bottle of wine and was pouring. Knowing Drake, the bottle was undoubtedly excellent, rare and expensive.
He’d never live to drink it.
The woman’s head turned and she walked to the door. Rutskoi tracked her through his thermal scope. A man walked into the room. Not overly tall but with immensely broad shoulders. Drake.
The woman was kissing him.
It made for a bad shot. A doable shot, of course. A .50 caliber bullet could go through the woman, through Drake and through the door behind them and the wall beyond that.
But he didn’t like the angle and the odds. He waited, patiently, observing them kissing, detached and cold.
Okay. The woman was backing away, holding Drake’s hand, leading him toward the center of the room, toward the large hearth. The intense heat from the fire distorted the picture. Drake’s body heat would be lost in the greater heat of the fire. Rutskoi had to shoot before Drake walked in front of it.
The woman’s heat signature disappeared as she moved in front of the fire, her hand outstretched, holding on to Drake’s. He was walking toward the fire, in profile.
Shit. The best shot would be frontal. Rutskoi had to make a split-second decision. To aim for a profile requiring millimeter precision, dealing with the distorting effect of the thermal signature through a dense glass that could deflect the bullet, or to wait for Drake to turn and present a full-frontal target.
Every ounce of training and experience said
wait
.
Rutskoi lay, alert but not tense, focused but not overwhelmed, right leg slightly bent for stability as was the Russian sniping style, and waited.
Drake had one hand on the mantelpiece. Rutskoi remembered that mantel—a huge monolith of white and gray marble—just as he remembered everything about the room. He remembered the luxurious sofas covered with cashmere throw rugs, the deep carpets, the antiques. Drake lived like a prince. Goddammit, Rutskoi wanted to live like a prince, too.
Ah! Drake was turning, the woman was walking back toward him carrying something. A glass. He was reaching out for it with one hand, the other still perched on the mantelpiece.
Turning, turning…
Yes!
Rutskoi took a breath, breathed half of it out, waited until he was between heartbeats, and pulled the trigger.
Drake was smiling at Grace, reaching for the glass of wine she held out to him, when she tripped on a rug. Instinctively, he moved fast to catch her before she fell.
And the world exploded.
He went down on his hands and knees, head hanging low, watching a slow dripping of something thick and red, not understanding what. Nothing moved, his vision dimmed, sound had deserted the world.
And then vision, hearing and understanding came back in a sick rush and he realized they were under attack.
Shards of marble were flying off the mantelpiece as bullets gouged enormous holes. One, two, three.
Someone was firing at where he’d been a second ago, firing .50 caliber bullets, judging from the size of the holes and the fact that they penetrated his bullet-resistant windows. If Grace hadn’t tripped, three .50 cals would have turned him into human hamburger in an instant.
Grace!
The shots kept coming, at a steady pace, set to single-shot fire, shot by a man who knew what he was doing but who couldn’t see what was happening.
Drake fast crawled to where Grace was crouching in front of the sofa and threw himself on top of her.
“Stay down!” he shouted, wishing he could somehow crush her down below the ground so she wouldn’t in any way be a target.
His movements were clumsy, slow. He wasn’t clumsy and he wasn’t slow. His slow reflexes told him he was concussed, and he swore. He needed all his wits about him to get them out of here, but he could barely think.
“—invisible?” Grace said. She was still under him, head turned to take instructions from him, eyes wide with fear.
Another bullet smashed a large Ming vase. Drake curved over Grace, trying to shield her as much as he could, sharp shards piercing his back.
Drake shook his head, trying to say he didn’t understand her, but no words came out. He scanned the room, trying to figure a way to the door, but his vision was blurred and he saw double.
Another thunderous shot exploded above them, and another.
Whoever the sniper was, he’d have plenty of ammo. This was a planned hit.
Drake had to get them out of the room fast, because sooner or later, one of the bullets would strike its target. Even a shoulder-or thigh-shot from a .50 caliber bullet would prove fatal in seconds. There would be no way to staunch the blood—they’d simply bleed out fast.
Grace was shouting something over the noise. Something about—
The clouds in his head parted for a second and meaning rushed in.
He put his mouth close to her ear. “He’s using a thermal imager. It doesn’t matter that he can’t see through the windows. He’s seeing our heat signature.”
Another bullet crashed into the floor two feet from them, gouging a hole inches deep, then another a foot away.
The shooter was laying down withering fire, getting off a round every five seconds.
Though his muscles had lost most of their strength and coordination, Drake gritted his teeth and rolled off Grace. “Crawl!” he shouted. “Crawl to the edge of the fire!”
He thought he was shouting but his voice came out frighteningly weak. He coughed and wiped his mouth. His hand came away red.
Oh God, no. Jesus no. Had he been lung shot? If he had, he had only minutes to live, and he was leaving Grace to die alone. He refused even the idea of it.
Drake tried desperately to take in a deep breath, while trying to stop the room from spinning. He breathed in hard. There was no sucking sound. He hadn’t been shot through the lung, thank God, but he was badly concussed.
“Drake!” Grace put her face right next to his and he realized she’d been shouting at him and he hadn’t responded. She looked terrified. Another shot went straight through the sofa and into the wall, inches from them. “Drake, answer me!”
Drake coughed again and tried to lift his head. It felt as if he had lead weights in it. “Get—” He coughed again, desperately trying to pull in air. “Get close to the fire. Heat…distorts.”
A series of shots in quick succession, but off the mark, burying themselves into the wall over the fireplace.
The room filled with the deafening sound of a fusillade of bullets.
Grace looked confused, glancing back at the window. Drake narrowed his eyes, trying to focus. The shooter was concentrating fire to punch a hole through the window.
Drake reached out and took Grace’s face in his hand. He turned her to face him, desperately trying to make her understand. “Thermal…imager,” he gasped. “He sees our heat.” He wheezed heavily, trying to gulp in air. “You need to stay close to the fire…”
They needed to blend their image with the fire’s image. The shooter wouldn’t see human shapes then, only a wall of fire. Somehow Grace understood. She nodded and started pulling him toward the fire.
“No!” he choked. “Get to the fire.” She was wasting time trying to pull him.
Suddenly, Grace looked at the trolley containing lunch and then back at him. “He can’t see through heat?” she asked.
Drake nodded, trying to coordinate hands and knees to crawl to the hearth. Another round embedded itself in the wall and he watched as a big chunk of laminated window fell to the floor.
Grace let go of him and, crouching, made her way back to the trolley.
“Come back! Come—” Drake’s vision darkened, his head pulsed and he gritted his teeth to stay conscious. Damn his reflexes!
But Grace was already at the trolley, moving fast. She picked up both bottles of wine and threw them at the windows.
Drake’s thoughts were slow, dull. He wanted to tell Grace that, brave as she was, throwing bottles at a sniper across the street wouldn’t help anything, but he couldn’t articulate the words, could barely think them.
She was by his side again, shaking his shoulder. “Drake—is there a way out of the building?”
He nodded slowly, painfully.
“Good.” She left his side and reached into the fire. Drake watched, gritting his teeth against the pain and the encroaching darkness. What was she doing?
It wasn’t until he saw her pick up a log that was burning on only one end and throw it at the window that he understood. The curtains burst into flame, fueled by the alcohol. The flames spread along the hardwood floor, following the line of the spilled wine.
Grace picked up a bottle of cognac and whiskey and threw them into the flames. The fire blossomed, covering almost the entire wall.
The sniper was now blind.
“Drake—get us out of here! Darling, we need to run!” She tried to help him stand, forcing a shoulder under his arm. He did his best, but he fell heavily to one knee. The room was spinning. She’d bought them some time, but it wasn’t going to help them if he simply passed out.
The sniper was firing wildly now, blindly, shot after shot, in a deadly fusillade. It was only a question of time before he hit them.
“Go.” Drake wanted to caress her face, but his hand wouldn’t coordinate. All he did was leave a streak of blood down her cheek. “Go. Get to the end of the corridor. Under the print on the wall is a keypad. The code is—”
“No, absolutely not.” Grace’s voice was sharp, the voice a soldier would use to a wounded comrade. “We’re going together. You must get up, my darling. I can’t carry you and I won’t leave you, so you need to get up.”
A round came so close he felt the air displacement. They had to get out
now.
Grace put her shoulder under his arm again and stood, shakily, bearing a good portion of his weight. She slipped on his blood getting him upright and he could feel her effort.
“Go,” Drake gasped, trying to push her away. They flinched as a series of shots flung needle-sharp shards of marble from the mantelpiece. One stuck in her cheek and she simply reached up and pulled it out. Goddamn it, they were going to die here, right now. “Get out of here,” he whispered.
Her jaws clenched. “Not without you. Forget about it. We live together or we die together, it’s your choice, Drake. Do you understand?” She waited a moment to allow him to gather what little strength he had, then nodded. “Now, let’s go.”
She lurched forward, right arm around his waist, left hand holding on to his hand dangling over her shoulder. Drake straightened, ignoring the pain from his chest and back, gritting his teeth hard against the blackness that threatened to overwhelm him.
They were supposed to run for the door, but instead they shuffled. The burning curtains provided a good screen, but Drake had no way of knowing where the sniper was positioned across the street. They couldn’t be certain that they weren’t in his sights right now, the sniper preparing in this very instant to blow Grace’s beautiful head off her shoulders.
He stiffened his knees. He couldn’t fail her.
He heard her heavy panting as they made their way to the door. She could have saved herself by now, been long gone, but she’d made it clear she wasn’t leaving without him.
He wasn’t going to be the cause of her death. No way.
A lifetime of discipline asserted itself. He wasn’t going to slow Grace down. Fuck it if he could barely stand, barely see, barely think. She needed him.
Grace left him, rushed to the trolley and poured a bottle of grappa over the couch and threw a burning log into the cushions. It caught fire with a roar. Smart woman. The sniper wouldn’t be able to see anything within a radius of at least a few feet around the burning sofa. She had bought them another precious few seconds.
They had to move fast.
“Wait.” He stopped, swaying, then turned around. It was a sign of his mental confusion that he had walked right by the trolley.
“Where are you going?” Grace gasped. She was panting, face dripping with sweat from the exertion of holding him up and the heat of the burning room.
Drake shuffled forward. “Trolley.” He didn’t have the breath to explain.
In his study, his vault contained at least twenty million dollars in diamonds, credit cards on accounts with hefty sums in them, and cash in a number of currencies. They couldn’t stop to empty his vault. They had to make it out as fast as possible, via a route no one knew about, not even his bodyguards.
“Stay here, I’ll get it.” Grace took a deep breath and plunged toward the burning sofa. She grabbed the trolley’s handle and was by his side in an instant, putting her shoulder back under his arm and urging him forward, all in one smooth move.
The sniper had shifted tactics, deciding to sweep the room starting from the north end. The shots were badly distorted, ricocheting, but they still had more than enough punch to kill. They were coming at a steady pace, heading straight for them.
Grace was trembling badly, trying to bear his weight. He straightened, moved away from her, shuffled as fast as he could toward the door and all but shoved her through it, then fell forward.
They landed in a heap on the other side, Drake toppling on top of Grace. For a second, he was stunned, fighting hard not to black out, holding ferociously onto consciousness. Under him, he felt Grace’s narrow rib cage moving as she fought to pull in air. She was pale and sweating. Drake rolled off her and gathered his energy to kick the door closed.
Now the sniper had a fire and another thick wall to see through. It was entirely possible that they had become invisible.
There was pounding on the steel door that led into the vestibule, shouts ringing out. His men, having heard the shots, trying to get to him. Smoke sensors would also have sounded an alarm.
For an instant, Drake was tempted to simply punch in the code that would open the door from the inside and let his men take over. Right now, he was in no shape to lead Grace to safety. There was something wrong with him. He was probably badly concussed and if his brain was swelling or if there was subdural hemorrhaging all the willpower in the world wouldn’t keep him on his feet.
His men were handpicked for loyalty, but even the remote possibility that one or more of his men were traitors was too big a risk to take. He would be handing Grace over to his enemies.
Unthinkable.
He was used to risk taking, though not on behalf of someone he loved. It was terrifying, yet it had to be done. He’d rather go down fighting, trying to shield Grace, than hand her over like a lamb to slaughter.
He made for the end of the corridor, for what looked like a blank wall but was a secret passageway to a hidden elevator in the building only he had access to.
The wall was only fifty feet away. It looked miles away, at the end of an endless tunnel surrounded by gray fog.
He talked quickly, hoping to get it all out before he lost consciousness, gulping in air, shaking his head in an effort to keep conscious.
“Grace, there’s a keypad on the wall at the end of this corridor, under the flower print. Code…” He sucked in air, coughed. “Code 9076. Punch it in, door will open…” The gray was turning to black at the edges of his vision. “Elevator,” he gasped. “To basement. SUV in slot 58.” With a fumbling hand, he dug into his pants pocket. He always carried the key to a getaway car no one knew about, a secret cell phone and several credit cards. He’d spent his life ready to run at a second’s notice. “Key.” It dangled from his nerveless fingers.
They’d been shuffling forward as he talked, Grace bearing almost his entire weight, pulling the trolley behind them.
Finally, after what felt like a century, they were at the wall and Grace punched in the code. The pounding at the door to his quarters grew fiercer, the shouts louder. They would be debating amongst themselves whether to break down the door. They could try. It was built to bank-vault specifications. If and when they finally managed it, they would open the door to the charred remains of what had once been his home.