Dana Marton (12 page)

They couldn’t discount the chance that the rebels had taken the basement. And even if they hadn’t, he had little structural information on the building. The Colonel had been more concerned with the layout when he was passing information through the phone. There was a chance that they couldn’t, in fact, blow their way out.

Which meant they’d be trapped.

August 11, 20:02

They had wasted hours, time they didn’t have, because the ducts didn’t always follow the hallways, didn’t always connect.

But they were finally in the home stretch, passing by the kitchen. Even if he didn’t know from the quick but detailed description of the building’s layout the Colonel had given him, the smell of fried oil and spices would have given it away.

Neither of them had eaten a decent meal for what seemed like forever. His stomach was so resigned to the lack of food, it had even given up growling. Kate was definitely getting slower.

And he feared that the worst of the fighting was yet to come.

“I’m so hungry my knees are shaking,” she said, confirming that she needed nourishment to face what they had to on their way out.

And that was probably how all the hostages felt.

He figured they could get in and out of the kitchen in under two minutes. “Let’s see if we can grab something. I’ll go first.”

Kate crawled past the vent hole to make room for him. He peered out, noted the deserted kitchen that looked as if a family of baboons had looted it, food wrappers and boxes tossed all over the place. He hoped the scavenging rebels had left at least a few bites of something edible behind.

He couldn’t see anyone. Wouldn’t have minded checking out the wall directly under him that he couldn’t see from his current position, but his cell-phone camera didn’t work with a dead battery.

He waited and listened. No sound of movement or breathing came from down below. The gunfire he heard was in the distance. Sounded as though the rebels were fighting on one of the higher floors.

He pushed out the vent cover, turned it and pulled it in so it wouldn’t crash to the floor and attract attention. The kitchen doors were open. There could be anyone out there in the hallway, guarding this section of the building.

“Give me a minute to look around,” he said over his shoulder and stuck his head out little by little, his handgun at the ready.

A gloved hand came up from below and clamped around his neck the next second, pulling him until he crashed headlong onto the tile floor. The fall rattled his brain, the hand nearly crushing his windpipe.

Damn.
Anger flooded him and a split second of fear, not for himself, but for Kate. If he stupidly let himself be killed, who was going to get her out?

He struggled for air behind the gas mask, fighting off the man as best he could. He couldn’t get the gun between them, his hands blocked by the attacker’s, their bodies twisted together as they rolled on the kitchen floor, groping for hold and leverage like wrestlers. The other guy had on a gas mask, too, his face obstructed.

The man was strong. Heavy, too, and unaffected by injury and hunger. He had to get Kate out of here.

“Go!” he yelled, his bruised windpipe hurting from the effort, hoping she would heed him, and not go into her typical leave-no-man-behind routine. She would have made a hell of a soldier. She was a hell of a woman.

“Get out of here,” he ordered again in his best superior-officer tone that no man had ever dared refuse. Whoever the attacker was, he must have heard him talking to Kate before he’d stuck his head out of the vent, so the guy would already know Parker wasn’t alone. Would already know Kate’s position. He was giving no new information away.

He finally got his gun where he wanted it as they twisted, but so did the other guy. He heaved back. Both guns discharged at the same time, neither hitting its aim, but one leaving a hole high in the wall. Right about where the ducts were.

Parker swore, his breath hitching. “Kate?” he asked without daring to take his eyes off the enemy. They rolled again.

No answer came.

He chanced a glance that way. Couldn’t see anything.

Dammit.

The guy went for Parker’s gas mask with his free hand just as Parker grabbed for his, and they managed to unmask each other at the same time.

“Piotr?”

They both stilled for a split second. The man seemed surprised to see Parker, but got over it fast and rolled him. He was heavier by a good fifty pounds, and strong as the proverbial Russian bear. Working out had always been his religion. That was how Parker had first gotten to him—through his gym and his steroids supplier.

They rolled on the floor, among the garbage the foraging rebels had left strewn all over the place, until they banged into the kitchen island, sending pots and pans rattling inside.

“Working for the Kremlin now?” Piotr spat at him, but missed.

The man wasn’t thinking clearly. But as soon as he had time to mull things over, he would know that Parker wouldn’t switch sides, that he was still connected to the U.S. government. Piotr was a serious liability. To Parker personally, to his cover, to his team, to the current operation and operations to come. Piotr wouldn’t sit on a piece of juicy information like this for long.

Parker heaved and got the upper hand, rolling them against a table. Plastic storage boxes bounced to the floor. He brought his right hand between them slowly, millimeter by millimeter, grunting along with Piotr. He almost had the guy when a bullet whizzed by him and he had to roll again, letting go of the man, giving up the gained ground.

The Alpha trooper dressed entirely in black who’d appeared out of nowhere kept on shooting at them. To him, the scene must have looked like two rebels had gone fist to fist over something, possibly food. He didn’t give them time for explanations, nor could Parker have explained who he was and what he was doing here, even if the chance presented itself. He fired back while keeping on the move, working to get out of the open.

Then fire opened from another point. High up on the wall.
Kate.

Which meant the round that Piotr had fired into the wall hadn’t hurt her, or at least not too badly. Parker breathed a little easier. But damn it all, she wasn’t supposed to be here. And she sure as hell wasn’t supposed to engage the enemy.

She had surprised the Alpha trooper and distracted him long enough for Parker to roll behind a counter as near to Kate as he could get. He sprayed the room with bullets the next second, providing her with cover until she could crawl farther into the duct where she couldn’t get hit. She had gotten him out of a tight spot, but now that he had everything under control, she needed to draw back and remove herself from harm’s way. He kept up the rapid fire.

And swore when she tumbled out of the vent opening head-first, rolled across the floor and was by his side the next second. All he could do was stare. Even his finger stopped on the trigger. But it didn’t seem the other two men cared. They used the lull to go after each other.

He scanned the room, noticed the small Russian army issue rucksack by the wall. Probably Piotr’s. Most likely, he’d been in here to put another capsule in the very vent opening Parker had popped out of. What were the chances the remote control device was in the bag and not with Piotr?

At least the man was going nowhere for the moment. The Alpha guy had him pinned.

Parker rested his weapon and signaled to Kate to do the same with hers. “Let them kill each other.” He looked toward his mask that lay in the middle of the kitchen where Piotr had ripped it off.

He should get that back before the bastard decided to set his knapsack off.

Kate had pulled her mask off at one point. He reached out and pulled it back into place, caressing what little skin it left bare with the back of a finger.

She held his gaze through the glass. “Who are they?”

“Piotr put out the capsules. The Alpha guy must be Victor, the man he’d been hunting most of his life.” He’d already told Kate some of the story when the Colonel had given him the information.

Bullets flew in the air as the two men sparred. Parker drew Kate next to him to protect her with his body, kept his own weapon ready. The air was filled with the acrid smell of discharged weapons and plaster dust from the bullets that had missed their targets.

“How long are they going to keep at this?” she asked above the din.

“Until one of them is dead.” He was pretty sure about that. He was hoping it’d be Piotr—before he had a chance to release whatever it was that he’d put in the capsules. Probably nerve gas. Hard to tell just by looking. Parker measured the distance to his gas mask.

Too far.

The men ran out of bullets at about the same time. There was a moment of silence, then Piotr roared. They went at each other like charging buffalo. Piotr was a big man, bigger than the other guy, but that one was solid muscle. The floor practically shook from their collision.

Both were bleeding, Parker registered, but neither was wounded fatally.

He could have finished them now, was ready to do it at a moment’s notice. But something held him back. The men were no danger to Kate and him just now, their attention focused on each other as they were locked in a fight to the death.

Little by little, Piotr gained the upper hand. He didn’t waste the momentary advantage. He put his considerable weight into it and choked the life out of his opponent with his bare hands, held the man down until he went limp.

“Okay.” Parker rose, keeping his gun at him. “Now hand over the remote. I know about your capsules. You got what you wanted. Game over.”

Piotr turned slowly, as if he’d forgotten in the haze of his murderous rage that anyone else was in there. He stood, took another look at the body at his feet, then pulled a small plastic device out of his pocket.

For a moment, Parker thought he
would
hand it over. Then Piotr reached for the gas mask hanging around his neck. He didn’t seem inclined to listen to reason. Or maybe he was smart enough to know that whatever happened, Parker was never going to let him walk out of here.

Parker fired at the man’s wrist. He wanted to make sure that a reflex twitch wouldn’t push that button as it might have if he’d gone for the heart. He hit his aim as he’d known he would, and lurched for the remote that flew out of Piotr’s destroyed hand, expecting the guy to do the same.

But Piotr made a run for the door, and by the time Parker came up with the remote, the man was gone from the kitchen, leaving a trail of blood behind him.

“Put that rucksack in the freezer,” he told Kate. Thank God they were in the kitchen. He grabbed his gas mask. “Then get back into the duct and stay there until I come back.” He sprinted after the man without looking back.

He hated to leave her alone, even if for a moment. But he couldn’t let Piotr go and he could move faster without having to watch out for Kate.

K
ATE SHOVED
the rucksack into the freezer, into a drawer on top that said Rapid Freeze. Then she ran after the men.

They charged into the staircase. She followed them, and could hear the door open then slam shut one flight down. The main level. She wasn’t sure where they would come out. The resplendent lobby? Or these could be backstairs leading someplace else entirely. The door opened again. A hail of bullets came before it slammed shut this time.

“Parker?”

Sounds of energetic swearing came from below. Then she turned on the landing and could see him, the point of his knife in the lock as he tried to turn it.

“They locked us out?”

“I’m trying to lock
them
out. What are you doing here? Can’t you follow the simplest order?” He gave her that hard, military-intimidation stare that seemed to be the new Parker’s default expression. “Half the rebel force is out there, dammit.”

A round of shots sounded the next second, proving his claim. Thankfully the door was bulletproof. They had a staircase like this at the U.S. embassy, as well, their “safe place” where all employees were expected to gather in case of an attack until they could be rescued. It was fire-and bulletproof with a vent that pumped in fresh air, no windows, designed to be able to withstand a lot if terrorists or rioters attacked the building.

Unfortunately, this staircase didn’t go below the main level; it ended where Parker stood. They had to go back up and find another way to the basement to see if they could help the hostages and bust their way out of here with the explosives they had. She was glad Parker had had the presence of mind to arm those people.

He was running up the stairs, while behind him the rebels were pounding on the door, trying to break it down.

When they were up and out in the hallway again, Parker took the lead, heading back toward the kitchen. They rushed through, keeping an eye out for food, though not seeing any until Parker came across a bag of rolls and biscuits on a high shelf and they stuffed those into their pockets, a few stale croissants into their shirts.

When the food was safely tucked away, Kate headed toward the vent opening, but Parker said, “Piotr saw us coming out of there. They’ll be looking for us in the ducts.” He was searching again, opening pantry doors.

“What are you looking for?”

“Service elevator. According to the Colonel, the kitchen was moved to this floor from the ground floor recently. Since it no longer has a street-level entry for deliveries, they have to get stuff up here somehow. I doubt they bring sacks of potatoes through the marble grand foyer to the main elevator banks.”

Made sense. She went to help. The first door she opened led to cold storage. The second revealed a dead-end hallway. And stainless-steel elevator doors. “Bingo.”

She didn’t expect much to happen, but she pushed the button anyway and was surprised when it lit up. “It works?”

Parker was next to her already. “The rebels might not know about it. They might have older information on the building, without the new kitchen.”

Maybe his Colonel did, too. Otherwise, wouldn’t he have given Parker the location of the service elevator? She didn’t have much time to worry about that as the doors opened.