Athena Force 12: Checkmate (18 page)

“I don’t,” Cole said, because this was a cell phone and enough had been said already. “I’ve got a meet with Tory.” And now he’d have to see if she’d cover him—not because Morel would check, but because someone else just might. Not that his unofficial status here was a threat to anyone, just…

Habit.

“Okay.” Morel responded easily enough so Cole knew he’d gotten the
drop it
vibes. “Look, you left too early. You missed a good show.”

“On television?” Cole said, purposely inaccurate.

Again, Morel let it slide. Better than that, he played right along. “Action scene,” he said. “Gorgeous woman on a roof, taking out a couple of bad guys and getting away clean.”

Cole stiffened with hope. “Down the fire escape?” He didn’t even know if the building had one, or if the Russians, during the occupation in which they’d built that stolid structure, had deemed them necessary. But he figured Morel would get the message.
Did she escape them? Is she free?

“Nope.” Now the deep voice held regret. “Back inside. Woman with a mission, you know? But there’s more to it. We took a close look at the setting and found some devices up there.”

Devices.
Cole had a crystal-clear image of Selena at the head of the Death Stairs, cupping her hand in the signal for booby trap. “Enough to be significant?”

“Hard to tell until we watch it again—” study and analyze and enhance, he meant “—but I’d say not. Only to that immediate area.”

So there might be more.

Or not. Selena could simply have been trying to warn off a roof approach.

“I’ll share the tape,” Morel was saying. “But I thought you should know. Plus the news about the hot action babe, of course.”

“Of course,” Cole murmured, wishing he’d seen it with his own eyes—but it was time to quit watching.

It was time to start playing the game.

He wasn’t going to answer.

Selena wasn’t prepared for the heavy wash of disappointment as Cole’s phone did the little double ring that meant it was switching to voice mail. She let her head drop to her knees, shifting back against the bed that hid her from anyone who came to the bedroom door, and thumbed the phone off.

Here she was, back where she’d started not so very long ago. In the guest suite where she’d left her briefcase and in which she hoped for a chance to clean up and ponder her purpose here.

Save the hostages.

Simple enough. Except she was no longer sure just how to go about it. If the building was as compromised as she thought, the Kemenis were only waiting for someone to make a rescue effort. A little token resistance, a hasty retreat, and the building would become the weapon. Dead hostages, dead SEALs or Berzhaani Elite Guards or both. In which case she needed to…

For a moment, Selena’s mind went blank. Utterly blank, clogged up by fatigue and reaction and not a little despair.
I’m one person.
One.
What can I do against an army?

Except maybe she wasn’t just one person. Maybe she was two. Maybe she had within the smallest spark of life, tugging at her body just enough to turn her stomach inside out now and then. A little piece of herself…a little piece of Cole.

Then protect it. Run. Or hole up somewhere.

But holing up wouldn’t do her any good if the Kemenis had plans for this building. And as for running…

If she had a child, one day she’d be answering questions. And she needed to be able to look her child in the eye when she answered.

Because she could do quite a lot against an army. She might not destroy them, but she could pester them. She could make things difficult. She could distract them.

So she dredged up the trailing end of her thoughts and put her mind back to work. If the building was compromised and the Kemenis planned a hasty retreat, then she needed to locate that avenue of retreat and block it. Or simply block all of the first-floor exits other than the main doors at the Death Steps. Something—anything—that would at least slow them down. And she’d have to make sure they knew it. She’d gain nothing if they initiated a plan to bring the building down and then found out they couldn’t escape.

The problem was…if she was wrong, if her intuition had sent her in the wrong direction, misled by stray comments and an adherence to logic and reason the Kemenis might well have chosen to ignore, then she couldn’t waste time with exits. She needed to concentrate on thinning their ranks by any means possible, on making it easier for any rescue teams to swoop in and save the day.

She didn’t think she had the time to do both. Or even the physical wherewithal—not with kill-on-sight almost certainly hanging over her head. No second chances from here on out.

Selena snorted into the afternoon gloom. Second chances? She’d had them. She’d been caught; she’d gotten away. She’d been hurt, but not badly. She’d been betrayed, and overcome it. She was going on third chances…maybe fourth.

You’ve given them hints. You’ve given them help.
And now she’d just do her best. She couldn’t do it alone, but she’d do her best.

The phone gave a plaintive beep. She’d disconnected it, but left it on…and now the last vestiges of the battery were trickling away. No time even to berate herself; she hit Redial and waited for Cole’s phone to ring, hoping against hope that this time he’d answer it. Who else could he be talking to?

He’s trying to fix this.
Of course he was. He wouldn’t just sit around the apartment, not all this time. He was here, somewhere. Or on his way. And he might only be one man…but so was she only one woman. Neither of them had a reputation for taking
no
as an answer.

Still, she bit her lip when the phone gave that little double ring and switched to voice mail. She bit it hard. But she was ready, talking right over another low battery beep. “It’s me. Battery’s dead, babe—this is my last call out. First thing…I don’t know for sure, but I think the Kemenis have a surprise planned for anyone who comes in—I think they’re planning a grand exit, and that what they’re asking for here isn’t really what they want—they sure don’t expect to get it.”
Beep.
One more warning, maybe two, and she’d be cut off. “The other thing…why I left. I saw you. In D.C. And…you weren’t alone. I couldn’t get the answers I needed then. Desk work…it wasn’t distracting enough. So yeah, I ran. But—”
beep
“—I’ve had a lot of thinking time on my hands here, and I need you to know…I know we still have to talk, but whatever happens here…as far as I’m concerned, I’m already on my way home again.” She thought about the potential life they might well have started together and hesitated. Not too long, or the voice mail would cut her off, thinking her message completed, so when she spoke again her thoughts were unformed. “There’s something else. I think. That is, I could—”

And of course the phone cut off. She stared blankly at it, surprised to see it become splashed by tears. And then she snorted. Hadn’t she already decided Cole didn’t need to know? At least not until she emerged from this building safe and sound. Not
unless.

She used a few more precious moments on silence and composure. She thought about all the things she wished she’d said, and planned out all the things she would say if she ever had the chance to look into Cole’s striking blue eyes again. She gathered memories in around herself, a collection of reasons she would and could do this thing set out before her. She thought of the hostages. Just kids. Someone’s children. Innocents whose lives should never be torn apart by the grownups fumbling through this world.

She closed her eyes, drawing up an image of Cole. Making it so detailed, so realistic, she almost believed she could also make it real. Those blue eyes, startlingly pure. One eyebrow set slightly higher than the other, giving him a somewhat amused look unless he replaced it with a downright scowl. The square line of his jaw—it, too, went a little crooked when he smiled, and especially when he smiled at her.

Dammit, she could see him, she could all but touch the smooth lines of his back, all but feel the hard curve of his—

No. Don’t go there.

But it was too late, for she’d remembered the habitual taste of him, the lingering sting of the curiously strong mints he popped just to see if he could get steam to come out of his ears. Along with the memory of touching him came the image of how he reserved certain expressions just for her. The one that meant, “Get over here, woman, so I can put my hands on you,” and the questioning, understanding silence when she turned pensive. The muted glee in his eyes when he pulled her leg and got away with it. But mostly the deep, clear blue of his eyes, so close to hers, when they came together. He always lost himself in that instant, and even if he recovered enough to turn the lovemaking light and playful, for that instant he was nothing but a startled gasp…totally, completely hers.

And now he was at the other end of a voice mail message. She didn’t even know where—somewhere between here and home? Out there with the news cameras? Holed up in a hotel? Unless she had it all wrong and he was still at home. Waiting. Not assigned to this area, no authority to change that—not even enough to fake his way through.

In a way it was a reassuring thought—because if Cole were here, he’d be forced into the very role he played best—full-speed nap-of-the-earth flying his way through barely known terrain.

Making his way toward
her.

S
elena pulled herself together, took a few moments for a luxurious wash. She checked her side and discovered it could use a stitch, and then used the duct tape from her briefcase to make a patch for herself. Peeling either shirt down over her arm proved too painful to make it worth the effort, so she snatched a few prestocked anti-inflammatories from the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, gulping them down along with a handful of the crackers from the kitchenette staples. Knockoff saltines with an odd texture and an odder taste, but they sat well enough in her stomach. She took the chance to pull her hair back into a stubby braid and fasten it with a hair tie from her case, and then she scared up the several pens she’d left behind last time.

The pad of sticky notes also fit nicely into her thigh pocket.

The Luger, during a quick disassembly and inspection, turned out to be not quite a Luger at all. Not with this rough machining. Not with this clunky interface of parts. She stared at it, dumbfounded. Jonas White again, foisting inferior goods off on the Kemenis…it made sense. More sense, in fact, than the notion that White had helped to arm the Kemenis with what had become an expensive collector’s item—or that he’d found any quantity of these discontinued pistols to pass along.

She’d have to be careful with this one. No telling how well it actually worked.

Finally ready to go, she glanced up in the mirror of the bedroom dresser and stopped short, startled by her own paleness, and startled by the extent of the bruising across her face. Her lip, subtly lopsided with swelling; one eye half-closed, surrounded by purpling and accented with a small cut. The remains of the dried blood trail still lingered, a mere shadow of what it had been. The other side of her face sported a simpler landscape, one big bruise accenting her strong jawline and blooming in colors from deep purple to vivid yellow.

No wonder Ashurbeyli had thought she’d trigger the pity factor from those who watched the Death Steps.

She watched herself straighten, determined inside and out. She’d show Ashurbeyli the pity factor, all right. Time to hit hard and move fast. She’d take the stairs when she went, and she had five bullets to use along the way, along with a number of weapons they wouldn’t expect. She gathered them to her, filling her briefcase with the clear planter marbles and dumping the remainder in the hastily emptied mayo jar with the dry ice. She wasn’t ready for it, not quite yet, but now a simple tightening of the lid would give her a five-to-ten-minute fuse—shorter if she stuck the jar in a basin of warm water. For now, she stashed it in a pillowcase padded with towels, and added it to a small handheld fire extinguisher she set next to the briefcase at the door. After a careful inspection of the hallway, she made a swift journey down the rooms with her passkey, entering each room long enough to fling open the curtains and turn on the lights. If events drew out until after dark, the upper floors would be a fishbowl from the outside. It might not be possible to tell where the terrorists were, but it would be clearly evident where they
weren’t.

She returned to her gear, draped the briefcase shoulder strap over her head and across her shoulder like a satchel and grabbed up the fire extinguisher. Monoammonium phosphate…almost as good as pepper spray. The leather case bumped heavily against her hip as she checked and entered the stairs, a constant reminder running in the background of her thoughts.
Hit and run. No time for fear. No time to think of Cole or—

No. Hit and run.

The next floor down seemed as empty as the previous one. Abandoned.

As she hesitated upon reentering the stairwell, she heard voices. A few moments of listening told her enough—a pair of men on their way to the roof. They’d no doubt realize the current pair of guards had disappeared.
Can’t have that. Not yet.
The missing guards represented opportunity to any rescue teams, although—
Not yet,
she thought at the SEALs, and at the Berzhaan Elite Guard. They were all still too vulnerable to the potential hidden Plan A, rescuers and hostages alike. Even if they’d been forewarned by her hand signal.

And meanwhile…

She waited for the right moment, popping out of the doorway as the ascending Kemenis gained the landing. The leading man cried out as she jammed a pen at his eye. It skidded off bone and into the eye itself, and by then he was shrieking and batting blindly at her—but it didn’t stop her from releasing the fire extinguisher in the face of the second man. The first stumbled backward and down the stairs; the second had the presence of mind to claw for his gun instead of his tightly closed eyes, and she turned the metal cylinder into a weapon, smashing first his hands and then up into his chin—and then whirled so the heavy briefcase slung out enough to slam into him, knocking him down after his friend.

They moaned together, blinded and dazed, and she hesitated only long enough to snatch the most accessible handgun. Another “Luger”—surprise, surprise. She ejected the clip and left the pistol behind.
Hit and run.
She didn’t dare discharge the gun at them inside the stairwell for all to hear. It didn’t matter whether the men could pull themselves together and eventually make it back to the ballroom. She’d damaged them, and she’d damaged the Kemenis. Two down, two injured…twenty-three to go.

She didn’t take the time to go through the second-floor rooms, not yet. Not with the injured Kemenis possibly drawing attention to the stairs. She went all the way down to the basement, trading off caution for speed and for once hitting it lucky—no interference. She made it to the laundry room and found her bleach and ammonia stash, and then she hit the maintenance room up for a screwdriver, quickly sharpening it with a rough flat file before tucking it away in her back pocket.

It was when she stopped to contemplate the potential of the flammable fluids that she saw it. Innocuous, looking like nothing more than an industrial-size can of fruit with the label stripped, sitting on the floor by the solvents.

Except it hadn’t been here before.

Eyeing it as though it might uncoil and strike at her, Selena dropped out of hit-and-run mode long enough to walk quietly up to the container and peer inside.

Ooh, yeah.

Plan A. C4, neatly tucked away with a remotely activated electronic detonator snugged into its Silly Putty surface.

Plan A, confirmed.

There had to be more to it—something to make this whole game worth it. The risk of taking the hostages, the risk of lingering here with the whole world watching.

Rescue teams come in, building blows, Kemeni escape…to what?

To go accomplish their original goal. With the spotlight on the destruction and death at the capitol and the Kemenis assumed dead in the initial chaos, who would stop them from storming wherever they pleased?

Selena aimed a disdainful look at the bomb. “You guys are really getting on my nerves.” And then she bent and pulled the detonator free, carefully depositing it in a damp, inconspicuous back corner where cement met block wall. “You just do your thing right there. Make a nice little boom.” They’d have no way to know the detonator sat elsewhere than the explosive compound. It wouldn’t start so much as a fire.

Not that it truly mattered. She had no doubt there were more of these little goodies scattered throughout the building. Maybe not enough to bring it down, but enough to make it close.

Gah. Bombs. She’d rather be facing wannabe Kemenis in a small village outside a beloved shrine, saving people one by one. Fighting
people
—and not faceless bombs.

Ashurbeyli.
He was the face of these bombs. A man with heartfelt aspirations and no idea that he’d crossed the line a long, long time ago.

She felt the screwdriver in her pocket, thought of the havoc waiting in the laundry room, thought of a man blinded on the stairs…wondered if Ashurbeyli hadn’t dragged her over the line along with him.

And decided it was worth the price if it meant saving the people huddled on the floor above her. Berzhaan’s fate…something else again altogether. Even if the Kemenis failed, the country had a long struggle before it…just as its people had struggled through the past.

But if you’re going to be crossing lines, you’d damn well better not do it for nothing.

No. More like all or nothing.

She took a deep breath and left the now harmless C4 where it was. A quick circuit of the basement turned up another bomb in the furnace room, next to the giant fuel-oil tank. She disarmed it, not certain the fuel oil would do anything but burn sullenly even if it were ignited, and tossed the detonator out through the high, small hinged door used for the hose from the fuel truck. She even eyed the door as a possible escape route; if she could reach it, she could certainly fit through it…but there were a few large kids who wouldn’t, and neither Razidae or Allori had a chance.

So she left it behind, and gathered up her chaos supplies, going to lurk by the stairs for a good hard listen before exposing herself to trouble in the stairwell. At the faint scuff of noise that reached her, she hung back, letting her burdens settle to the ground as she pulled both the screwdriver and the Luger, waiting…

Just one of them, not having learned enough to be cautious in his exit. She instantly yanked her plan to jam the gun in his ribs and shoot; without a second man to deal with, she could afford to give him a good hard rap on the head, just below the temple.

Only in afterthought did she realize it was the first time she’d seen one of them alone. Either she’d messed with them enough to throw off their habits, or they were changing according to Ashurbeyli’s plans—and the former was infinitely preferable to the latter. She didn’t need Ashurbeyli changing the game, not
now.

She crept into the kitchen without further incident. She no longer considered it a home base, or even safe. In fact, a glance at the cooler showed the door left open, and a stolen moment revealed the prisoners gone.
Bound to happen, once they found Atif.
They’d probably searched the whole kitchen again.

She unloaded her plastic gallon bottles on a set of shelves just inside the door, and more carefully removed the jar of dry ice, tucking it out of sight on the same shelves. “Wait there—I’ll be back.”

And wouldn’t it amuse Cole to find her talking to inanimate objects.

Hit and run.
No time for thoughts of Cole, remember?

Just enough time to grab some butcher twine and wrap the strong stuff from the door exit handle to the handle of the nearby stove, over and over until it was stout enough to withstand any amount of yanking. Except as she prepared to do it, she thought twice. Would she be trapping the Kemenis in, or potential rescue
out?

After a moment she dropped the twine and retrieved her remaining pen and the sticky notes. Blue with cute little flowers along the bottom edge, gifted to her by Bonita to amuse them both with its inappropriate nature. Selena doubted that Ashurbeyli would be amused at all…but she’d intended to tweak him with notes all along. She wrote in carefully legible Berzhaani, “Are you sure the bombs will go off?” and posted it to the door, hesitating only long enough to see that it would stick.
Where else…?

The exit at the back corner of this side of the building. She put up the same message, deemed it too risky to cross to the other side of the building on this floor, and headed for the second floor. Her briefcase thumped against her hip, but she fought the impulse to leave it behind. Too useful in too many ways. She dug her stolen keys from the front flap, heading for the guest-room doors. These were the most opulent rooms; there weren’t as many of them. She expected to find offices on the other side of the hall, above the prime minister’s own office area.

She also expected to find at least a Kemeni or two, keeping track of things this close to their ballroom headquarters. Otherwise an enterprising SEAL could very well slip in, drill a few holes in the right spots, and snake in a few cameras for a perfect view of the terrorist setup and activities. But in the offices she found no one at all.

Ashurbeyli. Up to something after all?

Nothing she could do about it. Cause a little chaos, make things easy for those on the outside, try to time her heavy hits so she didn’t trigger anything but stood ready to react in case Ashurbeyli did.

Just a little bit of
Mission Impossible. Your mission, Selena, should you decide to accept it…

Had she ever had any choice? Yes, she’d had options…but had she ever had any choice?

Not that she could live with.

She started in on the guest-room windows.
Hit and run.

Don’t think about Cole.

Cole couldn’t believe it. He settled into the taxi and stared at the phone, which insisted he’d missed a phone call in the short time he’d been talking to Diego Morel. Primly, it indicated the call had been from Selena. From her own phone.

Take a breath, buddy. Listen to the message and then call her back.

He took that deep breath and recalled the message, letting the driver worry about his route and his evasions and spotting demeanor hits—the telltale driving behaviors—that would mean they’d been followed. He slumped down in the seat to create the illusion of privacy and put the phone to his ear. Listened to her initial warning about the Kemeni. Heard and stopped breathing at her next words.
I saw you. You weren’t alone.

She’d seen him in D.C. She’d seen him playing out a role for the FBI, a sudden unexpected scenario in which he’d been loaned out to the feebs so he could follow through on an inadvertent terrorist connection he’d made during his overseas station work. It didn’t matter that his role in the ongoing operation had been completed, or that the woman posing as his lover had been whispering tactical observations into his ear instead of sweet nothings. He couldn’t tell Selena the details—not now, not later. And he wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t believe the little he
could
tell her—only that he’d been on the job—not when he’d broken their most basic rule by not updating her on his change of location.