Because he felt like it, he let out a maniacal laugh as he stumbled out. He hadn’t taken any alcohol, but he felt drunk. He looked around him. There were so many more to choose from…
“de Clerq, pass on to Jed that I’m going down to where he is the back way. Tell him the two CIA agents from Stratter’s are heading there too. He’ll know who I mean. I’m not sure what they’re up to.” Helen adjusted her hidden weapon, and added, “Tell him to be careful.”
“Ten-four.”
The access to her cubby hole was a ledge above one of the auditoriums. It took her a few minutes before she got off it and onto the closest floor. She ran toward the exit.
“Heath?” she snapped as she took the stairs.
“They’re eight minutes ahead of you and they took the elevator.”
“Dammit. Why am I always running down the stairs? Where are the elevators around here?”
“People on the lower floors are using them. It’ll take too long for you to wait. Didn’t you read the fine print in your contract? Running up and down stairs is SOP for most closed environment hostile operations.”
Helen made a rude noise. Heath Cliffe with a sense of humor? She must really be hallucinating. “Easiest access point to the garage then?”
“According to schematics, there’s a side door out the front. Take that. Service elevator to Level Two. That’s where the VIPs go to take the private elevator that leads to behind the stage.”
She didn’t care any more that she might be catching someone’s attention with her running. Jed was in danger. She knew this with every fiber of her being.
“Not enough time. Tell de Clerq to instruct Number Nine not to get into the car. Repeat. Not to get into any vehicle whatsoever.”
“This is de Clerq.” The quiet voice of the operative chief at Command came over her ear mic. “How do you know this, Hell? Try not to catch the attention of the group round the corner. Not a good idea.”
Helen slowed down. When she turned the corner, she went down on one knee to tie her shoelace. A group of five men walked past, talking quietly. They looked normal enough, but their shoes, she noticed, were new and the same brand. She straightened up and continued down the sloped walkway.
“I passed on your message, Hell,” de Clerq said. “He just signaled an acknowledgment. But how do you know about the vehicle, Hell?”
“Too complicated to explain,” Helen said. “Just that I have this feeling that it’ll be dangerous once Jed enters the vehicle. Trust me on this.”
Please.
She knew that going out of position on a flimsy reason wasn’t going to make it past many of the other operatives listening in.
“Look,” she added, “don’t move the others. They can stay in their current positions. Just let me check this one out alone. It’s a sudden off-site meeting involving a suspicious character from our last operation, de Clerq. We’re also waiting for the arrival of a certain explosive device without knowing the timeframe. If you ask Eight Ball, he’ll give you a pretty high percentage calculation on something wacky happening in the garage area.”
There was a few moment’s silence.
“Okay, Hell. This is your call.”
“This is Eight. I’ll back her up from behind,” Heath’s voice interrupted.
“Ten-four. Hell?”
“I’m almost there.”
Jumping off the banister onto the walkway below, Helen started sprinting.
Jed blinked, betraying nothing as he listened to Weber. That prickle of awareness, light as a feather stroke. He’d had that sensation before, not too long ago, in fact.
Elena.
“I need to show you certain files but it has to be done in my limousine, away from any cameras. My man’s bringing it around over there, far from arrivals.” Weber told him. “We don’t have much time before the official ceremonies begin.”
Jed nodded. He had dealt with Weber before. A hard-nosed bureaucrat who had been one of the original founders of Deutsche International, he was also one of the few inside the think tank today who was aware that its involvement in international politics wasn’t all black and white. Weber and his group would have to have a very good reason to involve Deutsche International in the business of buying weapons, though, what with the think tank’s mission statement being world peace and disarmament. From the last operation with Helen, it didn’t look like they were disarming the decoder for world unity.
That Deutsche International had been invited as one of the VIP visitors today illustrated its influence within the political circles. A conference filled with the emerging powers of Eastern European countries slowly coming out from the umbrella of the former Soviet Union and their internal strife, watched by the media of the world community, was the perfect place for D.I. to find financiers and supporters for its main cause. But of course, as Jed very well knew and understood, there were covert political deals being haggled by different powers even as the front was a united coalition. There were many different kinds of warfare. He just needed to find the connection that would click the whole puzzle into place.
According to Weber, there was something more than business treaties afoot at this convention and it was something that was troubling enough that he approached Jed, of whom he seldom had direct contact. They had an understanding, the kind that allowed covert information to be exchanged without too many questions.
“Surely you can tell me who you want disposed without showing files? You have never needed to give me the background so thoroughly,” Jed mused, speaking in German.
Weber furtively looked around. There were no late arrivals. “This is not for me. It is for the foundation and its future.” He paused, nodding to his bodyguard to walk ahead toward the waiting car. He added, lowering his voice, “Stefan, there are only two copies of what I am going to show you, one in that car, and the other in a special security box in a Swiss bank. It will be worth a fortune in the market if it is released by the right person.”
Jed lifted his brows. “And what’s the catch?” he asked cynically.
“You’ll understand once you see what I have.”
“Number Nine,” de Clerq’s voice came over Jed’s micro-earpiece. “Hell instructs not to enter any vehicle. Repeat. Code Red. Stay away from vehicle. She’s heading your way, right behind two men. She said to tell you they’re from Stratter’s, that you’ll understand.”
Jed didn’t miss a step as he walked alongside Weber toward the limousine, his gaze measuring the distance between him and the vehicle. His word for today had been providence. Indeed, it looked like he needed some quick intervention right now.
Helen heard a crash and, pulling out a weapon, ran even faster toward its direction. Curses, men barking orders at each other. A thin high cry from further left, beyond a wall that acted as a buffer for VIPs arriving or leaving in their vehicles. That didn’t sound like Jed.
Since it was already late, there were no moving cars in the vicinity. Everyone who had to be in the auditorium should already be there, ready for the treaty speech. Everyone but Jed and those who had tricked him to come down here.
“Jed signaled. We created a short power outage, elevators included. You have twelve minutes to get Jed out before Macedonian security reach you, over,” de Clerq instructed.
“Ten-four,” Helen acknowledged, peering around the corner. Semi-darkness.
It was silent now. From memory, she retraced the underground parking schematics in her head. Buffer wall. That meant the elevator was ten feet from her, closer to her than that first yelp of pain.
She stepped into the darkness that was illuminated by the strips of emergency lights here and there on the walls.
Danger.
She sensed rather than saw the movement behind her and reflex kicked in as she bent forward and moved sideways. Air whooshed where her head had been. She heard the snick of a weapon being cocked. Making a rapid judgment call, she turned, and fired hers. Its silencer emitted a quiet “pop” and the dark shadow before her crumpled to the ground. Helen crouched behind a column.
One down. There was at least one more close by. Where the hell was Jed? She couldn’t just shoot at every moving shadow, not without knowing his location.
In answer, a familiar shape dropped down next to her. It would have startled her if she hadn’t trusted the instincts that usually warned her of danger. She smiled grimly in the darkness. Easy. She thought of Jed, and he just appeared, silent as death itself. He leaned forward, his lips brushing her ear.
“Weber’s driver sold him out. Shot the bodyguard. He’s out of the vehicle, looking for Weber. Possibly two hostiles without yours.”
Okay, so Weber wasn’t one of the bad guys. Helen moved closer and whispered back, “I shot one of mine. Pretty sure it’s one of the CIA operatives. One more.”
His hand touched the nape of her neck briefly. “I have to get to Weber. They want him as well. We need him alive. Cover me.”
He didn’t wait for an answer, standing and disappearing into the darkness in seconds. Helen frowned. How was she supposed to cover him? She didn’t know where he was heading and it was too dark to tell one shape from another.
She blinked, realization dawning. Of course. Today was the day for decoys. She stood and started to run noisily toward the elevator, making scraping sounds with her shoes. Almost immediately, footsteps came from behind her. She ducked behind another post, pulled out a piece of metal and flipped it at the wall across from her. It hit, thudding loudly. She repeated this, each time aiming a little further, as if “she” were going that direction. Bait.
The man tracking her followed in that direction too, but he was dodging behind vehicles and columns, just as she had been. He wasn’t taking the bait that easily. He suddenly turned and started shooting in her direction, sweeping a wide path of bullets that bounced and rained around her.
Helen crouched lower, trying to make herself as small as possible.
That
was no small firearm. It was something a lot bigger, probably an AK-47 machine gun, and a two-and-a-half-foot cement column wasn’t going to be much protection, especially if she betrayed her location. Obviously, her hostile had decided that the darkness meant he hadn’t the time to play cat and mouse, deducing that Security would be on the way down here soon. But heck, Jed wanted her to cover him, didn’t he? She hoped he got to Weber because she didn’t think Security was going to be fooled by a short-circuited blackout any more, not with this racket.
She took a deep breath and started running to the back wall, rolling and tumbling, still using the columns for protection, as sprays of gunfire followed her. He was coming after her in earnest, the staccato rat-tat-tat stopping and starting as he searched for her moving shadow.
Bait. She had only a few minutes left before the authorities showed up. He was right behind her now, confident because she wouldn’t have anywhere else to run once she reached the back wall. Her timing had to be just right. The main radiators to heat the building should be right ahead. She needed him to aim in that direction.
One more column. Her hostile would think that this was it, and he’d move in for the kill. Helen darted right, then cut left. Bullets hit the pipes and sparks flew, burning her arms as she launched into the air, across the hood of one vehicle, and slid under.
Metallic pops reverberated as the damaged radiators exploded from the gunfire. She heard the powerful whoosh of compressed steam and hot water gushing out. A horrific scream echoed in the darkness. She scrunched her face at the sound. That couldn’t have felt good.
“Elena.”
She rolled out the other side of the car, her body hitting a pair of shoes. She found herself pulled onto her feet. The roar of rushing steam drowned out Jed’s words. He started running, her hand still in his, so she had no choice but to follow. She didn’t have time to look back at the man who had been targeting her.
They reached the elevator just as the lights started to come back on. Elena blinked, trying to focus. The elevator doors opened and she found herself pushed gently inside.
“Up, follow de Clerq’s instructions, and back to the hotel,” Jed ordered.
Helen looked at him. His nice suit was torn and dirty, as if he’d been rolling on a bit of floor himself. There was blood on his hands. The look in his eyes made her shiver—cold and aloof. Unemotional. The eyes of a killer.
She nodded. “Weber?”
“He’s okay. But he and I have some explaining to do. I don’t want to explain right now. I’ll see you back at the hotel soon.”
She could hear shouts heading down the walkway where she’d come from. “I’m okay,” she answered his unspoken question as she ran her hand lightly up one bloodied arm. “Scrapes.”
There was no outward response at all from Jed. “Good decoy. Too much noise,” he said, pressed the button for the second floor and stepped back, letting the doors close.
“Wait a minute! That wasn’t me—” the doors cut off the rest of her sentence “—using a machine gun!” she finished, and stamped her foot. “Damn it, he always gets the last word.”
Later, back at the hotel, Helen watched him giving directives to operatives left and right as he changed back into his jeans and shirt. After making sure she wasn’t really injured, he hadn’t exchanged more than a few words with her before being swarmed by calls from different agencies. She watched, fascinated as he morphed seamlessly from the cold assassin she’d seen in the underground garage to negotiator, and then to the voice of authority, telling someone somewhere what to do with some kind of information the head of Deutsche International had passed on to Jed. Through it all, his silver eyes watched her like a hawk, following her as she walked around the room. She knew she was acting a tad bit too restless, but she couldn’t stop herself. He was emanating the most beautiful glow and if she didn’t move around, she would be unable to resist the sudden urge to touch him, to feel all that energy calling to her. What were these bubbly things she kept seeing when she concentrated on a person? Was it the serum? If so, besides overriding her pain and exhaustion, what was it enhancing? And why did she herself glow too?
“Jed, vid-feed from Diamond. He’s with Hawk McMillan.”