Merit Badge Murder (22 page)

Rex ducked down once we were a few minutes out, and I drove carefully into the school parking lot and parked where we had earlier. I took a deep breath and let it out. I was nervous. More than I'd been when we were going to take on the Russians yesterday. It was probably because I knew they wanted to kill me. No one has wanted to kill me in a long, long time. You never really get used to that feeling.

I waited a few minutes to give Riley and Aleksei time to move to the gym. Rex and I got out of the car. I motioned to the unlocked door and signaled him to wait a few minutes to enter. I'd already briefed him on the layout of the school on the way. He was going to do what I did—use the interconnecting classrooms to get to one of the gym entrances.

"See you soon," Rex whispered.

I entered the school noisily. They knew I was coming. My guess was they wanted something dramatic. They weren't going to shoot me down in the hallway. And Riley would of course want to give a speech on how he'd fooled me and why he'd done it. I had no doubt about that.

I headed down the hallway and entered the gym through the side door. The room looked empty.

"Здравствуйте." A Russian voice welcomed me from the stage. I turned to see Aleksei standing in the middle of it with spotlights directly on him. Apparently, we were going for full-on drama.

"Пошел на хуй! I swore back at him. I told him to fuck off. I'd wanted to make an impact.

And I did. Aleksei's face darkened. I didn't give him a chance to respond.

"Где Светлана?" I shouted the question, shaking with building fury. I switched to English. "I'd like to see her first! She needs to go free before whatever you're planning happens!"

A strange look crossed the Russian's face. I couldn't decipher it. Maybe because he was so ugly. He switched to a wicked leer.

"Aren't you worried about Riley, Miss Wrath?" He asked in heavily accented English. "Or should I say, Miss Fionnaghuala Czrygy."

I shrugged. "So you know my name. Big deal, Aleksei." I wasn't going to tell him I was impressed that he pronounced it correctly. He didn't deserve it.

A look of shock crossed his face. "How did you know my name?" Ah. So I was right about that.

I smiled. "Tradecraft. I was a pretty good spy, you know." My goal was to make him think I wasn't afraid of him. In the back of my head, I was straining to hear if Rex was moving through the school. I heard nothing. I'd have to take it on faith that he was there.

The Russian regained his composure. "Does not matter. I will soon wipe smug look off your face."

Threats. Well, that's what I was here for, wasn't I? To put myself in danger so Lana would be released. I wondered, with an internalized shudder, what he and Riley had planned for me. It wouldn't be good. I was pretty sure of that.

"I don't want to talk to you, Aleksei. I'd rather talk to your puppet-master. You're just the hired thug." My voice projected confidence, but inside I was worried.

"What does this mean?" Aleksei frowned. "This puppet-master?"

I sighed. He wasn't totally proficient in English then. Fine. "The guy who's manipulating your strings. That's the puppet-master."

He cocked his head to one side. "Puppet." He thought about the word for a moment, and I let him because I wasn't in any hurry to march into my own death. "Puppet?"

Great. He was a total idiot. I held up my hand and formed a puppet with my fingers. I opened and closed the fingers like it was talking. "Puppet. A sort of doll you put on your hand."

A look of understanding crossed his face. "Ah. Like the Muppets! I love Miss Piggy." Then he frowned. "But no strings on Muppets."

Oh my God. This could drag on for hours. I held up both hands, palms down and mimed holding marionette strings. "It's a different kind. The ones that don't talk but you can manipulate their bodies."

"Oh," Aleksei said simply, "are you calling me a Muppet?"

Okay, so that took the sting out of my earlier request. And I'd thought it was a good line. Oh well. Time to move on.

"Where's Riley?" I asked instead. "I know he's here."

The Russian understood this. He walked off stage, and I heard a kind of scraping sound before Aleksei came into view, dragging Riley, who was tied to a chair. Great. So they believed I hadn't yet figured it all out. You know, it was just like Riley to do something like this.

"You can cut the act with me," I growled. "I know who's behind this. What I want to know is why?"

Riley, who was gagged pretty convincingly, gave Aleksei a look. Aleksei returned that look. Clearly they were communicating. It was time for Riley to give it up. I knew too much to be fooled by his being fake-tied-up.

"Why?" Aleksei asked as if he was in the dark about the reason we were all there. He was definitely just muscle.

A look of recognition crossed his face, and he smiled while pulling a piece of paper from his back pocket. Was he going to read a script?

"It is written down so I get this right." Aleksei smiled as he tapped the piece of paper. "I begin now." He kicked a red, rubber ball that was at his feet on the stage. It bounced over to me and stopped a foot away.

"Great," I mumbled. This was too ridiculous for words. What was he going to do? Challenge me to dodgeball to the death now?

"You…" He stopped after one word and pointed to me. "Fionnaghuala Czrygy, are charged with crimes against Russia. I am to take you back to Moskva where you will be tried and executed for these crimes." He folded up the piece of paper and stuffed it back into his pocket. He smiled, clearly pleased with his speech.

I rolled my eyes. "
That's
what this is about?" So, Riley was working for the Russians now? What turned him? It had to be money. The FSB paid well, and the CIA still used the government pay grade—which basically sucked.

Aleksei nodded, confused. "Of course it is! What did you think this was about?"

Out of the corner of my right eye, I saw Rex standing in the shadows of the doorway. I felt a little better. Two on two were better odds. At any minute now Riley would drop the ropes and pull his gun.

I shrugged. "I just thought it was more complicated than that."

Clearly, Aleksei didn't understand. He once more exchanged glances with Riley, whose act was starting to get on my nerves. I wasn't a particularly fast draw, but maybe I should shoot him before he stood up.

"Ah." Aleksei figured it out. "Because of dead terrorists."

I nodded. "Yes, because of them. If you just wanted me, why go to all this trouble?"

He shrugged. Clearly he was not the mastermind of anything.

"So what now, Aleksei?" I asked. "You won't take me until I see Lana go free." He didn't know Rex was in the hallway or that the building was surreptitiously surrounded by cops. Did he really think it would be this easy?

"And Riley…" I narrowed my eyes at my former boss and until recently—possible candidate for boyfriend. "You can drop the act now. I
know
."

Riley narrowed his eyes at me. Now that was a look I understood. He was pissed that I was smart enough to call his bluff. Seriously—men's egos are so fragile!

"I get that you're still trying to make me think you're a hostage, but I figured it all out." I folded my arms over my chest. "Just how much are they paying you to betray your country, anyway?"

Riley's face was red, and he was shaking with fury. I guess he was still convinced he could play this out.

"Ugh!" I stamped my foot and curled my hands into fists. "You're being a big baby about this. Give up the masquerade already!" Men! I'd about had it with them. I was definitely getting a cat after all this was over. I wondered if Lana would like that. I hoped she wasn't allergic or anything…

A strange sound echoed off the hallway on my left. It was singing! It sounded like a lot of voices. A chill ran through me as I realized who it was. No! It couldn't be!

"
Everywhere we go…people want to know…who we are…so we tell them…"

Just then, two rows of my Girl Scout troop, in their uniforms, marched into the gym, singing one of their songs. My jaw dropped open. Why did the SWAT team allow them in? What kind of sick bastard kidnaps little girls? Oh. A sick bastard who didn't want a gun fight. Because I wasn't going to shoot with my troop in the middle of it all.

The girls stopped marching and singing, staring at me as if I'd turned into a rabid hippopotamus. Oh right. I had a holstered gun on my hip. That might've seemed a tad terrifying to them. My heart was pounding as I turned to the stage.

"You don't need them!" I cried out to Aleksei. I brought my hand up to my heart. "I was going to go with you! Send them back outside right now!"

I turned toward the doorway. The last of the girls were marching in now. And right behind them, marching along and singing with them, was Lana.

"Lana!" I shouted. They must've made her contact the troop and bring them here. "How could you? You should've refused…" my voice drifted off.

Lana was smiling. Lana was holding a gun. And she was aiming it into the two rows of girls. It was Lana who was the puppet-master. Not Riley. Lana.

I turned to Riley whose eyes had grown wide with fear when he saw the kids. "Oops. Sorry Riley," I said weakly. I was starting to feel bad for suspecting him. And for letting Lana live with me. And for letting her near my troop.

Lana. Aleksei worked for Lana. My head was spinning. She was behind all this? How did I not see this coming? For a moment, I thought I would throw up. Danger never bothered me before, but now there were fourteen little girls in the middle of it all.

How could she? I took her in! Fed and clothed her! Hated her, then liked her, then hated her, then felt sorry for her! I was going to rescue her from this! I was literally here to save her life. Well, forget about that now!

Riley gave me a look that said,
We are going to talk about this later!

"Hey!" I said with a wounded look. "You're the one who brought her into my home! This is your fault. Don't go blaming me!"

Riley looked like he wanted to argue. But he couldn't. Because of the gag. For once during this whole mess, I was a little grateful that he couldn't speak.

I turned to Lana. "What the hell, Lana?" I wanted to say something a little stronger, but the girls were in the room. It's all about being a role model, you know.

Lana threw back her head and laughed. "Stupid, stupid Merry!"

"Hey!" I said, a little hurt. And pissed. Seriously pissed. I'd been nice to this bitch! I took care of her! Now I wanted to kill her.
Please, please give me the opportunity to do so
.

"You fell for the whole thing!" She laughed. "It was so easy to manipulate you! I just had to pull the rubbery lip pout, and you'd have done anything for me!"

"I thought you were an orphan," I snarled.

Lana laughed loudest at this. "Of course not! My father is a very important political man in Moscow."

Great. There's nothing like public humiliation. Maybe Rex wasn't paying any attention out in the hall. It was kind of important to my self esteem that he think I was a good spy.

"Yes. I fell for that. But I've been out of the business for a while…so…" It was weak, but I had to say something.

Lana's eyes were ice cold. I almost didn't recognize her. "That was a problem for me at first. You disappeared. You even got out of Chechnya alive." She shook her head. "When I get back the first thing I'm going to do is eat that damned chicken."

"You tried to kill me then?" I thought back to the armed chicken I'd encountered. First time I'd heard of a chicken as an assassin. I suppressed a shudder. The Chechen Chicken.  You know, I don't mind human killers. You can reason with them…stall. But a screaming rooster running at you at top speed with razors strapped to its legs and a small, laser-sighted heat seeking missile mounted on its head is a little different. I don't know how they trained it to set the thing off, and I don't care. Two barns and a haystack and an unfortunately placed fireworks stand were obliterated by the time I got away.

I looked at the girls. They were hypnotized by the whole thing. Which was good, because I didn't want them to freak out. I was freaking out, but they weren't allowed to. My mission of just coming into a firefight was nowhere near as scary as having to keep these girls from getting hurt. How was I going to get them out of here unscathed?

She nodded. "I've wanted to kill you from the day I'd met you. You stupid Americans think it's so easy to get us to betray Mother Russia! You needed to be taught a lesson." She was working her way up to a full blown tantrum. It sucked to realize I had absolutely no idea how she was going to play this out. I'd been wrong about her so far. Devastatingly wrong. For all I knew, she could just start killing children and think nothing of it.

"But I never had the opportunity. Then poof! You vanished. I had to try something else." Her eyes strayed to the stage, and she wiggled her fingers at Riley. He turned an alarming shade of red.

"So, I contacted Riley and told him I needed asylum. That I'd been found out in Russia. He led me right to you!" Lana laughed. It wasn't that cute, musical little giggle she'd been doing these past few days. It was a hearty, full out, maniacal laugh. It was kind of like listening to the Darth Vader theme.

I needed to stall. Keep her talking so I could figure out what to do next. I looked out into the doorway where Rex was. He was talking into his cell phone. If he brought SWAT in too early, these kids were dead.

I tried to keep my voice steady. "So what was up with the dead terrorists? Why go to all that work?"

Lana shrugged. "I wanted to discredit you. I wanted the CIA to think you were a mole in several organizations. After you were humiliated, I'd kill you."

"Well that's kind of a stupid idea," I said. "Why not just kill me the first time?"

Lana's face turned purple and she brought the gun up level with my chest. I could almost see sparks shooting out of her ears. Okay, so don't piss off the scary blonde. Got it.

"I could have killed you one thousand times over! But I didn't want you to die too soon. I wanted to humiliate you. To fool you. To make you realize what an imbecile you are. I wanted you to suffer!" she screamed. "I wanted you to know the pain of having everyone hate you! That's why I brought them here and killed them!"