Athena Force 12: Checkmate (21 page)

Total heart-body disconnect. Selena felt it happen. The better part of her turned away from the ballroom with Cole, following in his footsteps as he moved toward the fighting with such apparent ease that it almost looked as if he drifted. What remained looked back into the function room, finding herself under scrutiny by both Allori and Razidae. Allori, at least, seemed to understand what he’d seen, accepting that somehow the Cole Jones of whom he’d only read had made his way to Berzhaan—and that for the sake of Berzhaan, Selena had denied herself that full reunion.

Razidae only had the physical perspective to see Selena herself, and he watched her with impatience. Selena returned it, opening her mouth to suggest, again and rather more acerbically, that he take the exit the other hostages had left open for him—except Razidae’s eyes widened with alarm she couldn’t ignore. Selena whirled to find the second room entrance—the one through which Ashurbeyli had escorted her with such intent not so long ago—filled with the graceless form of Jonas White, his arm extended in a way that could only mean one thing.
Gun!

And not one of the fake Lugers with which he’d supplied the Kemeni, either—something stocky and clean-cut and reliable. Selena doubled back on herself in a catlike leap that took Razidae down. He fell unprepared, hitting the floor hard; a chair tumbled out of his way as it took a glancing blow. Selena rolled to her stomach, coming up with arms extended to take aim at White, her injured arm automatically trying for a support position it couldn’t sustain. But it didn’t matter that she wavered. She hadn’t even finished the movement when the ear-numbing blast of White’s .45 battered her.

Allori staggered back, astonishment on his face and instant blood on his faintly pinstriped dress shirt. Backward and down, smearing blood along the wall as Selena hesitated, lost in surprise and fatigue and that sudden sinking feeling that things already gone wrong had just gone worse. Hesitated just long enough for White to close in on the wounded ambassador and smile wolfishly at Selena. The retreating gunfire in the background gave her the sudden bizarre regret that they were alone—no unpredictable hostages to get in White’s way, no fervently dedicated Kemenis making sure things evolved in their own best interest. Not even any of the rescuers, who’d obviously made rounding up the terrorists their understandable first priority.

White didn’t have to say anything. He merely raised an eyebrow, his gun pointed directly at Allori’s head. And even though Allori, stunned and speechless, had the wherewithal to shake his head at Selena, she quietly put her own gun on the floor and nudged it away from herself. “It pretty much sucks anyway,” she told White. She didn’t mention that she’d already taken a quick glance to calculate the distance to the Kemeni’s gun so recently tossed aside; a lunge from this sprawling position, a few rolls, and she could put her hand on it. Or that her fingers had closed around several of the decorative marbles scattered in the wake of that encounter.

White laughed. “As a weapon, it’s sorely lacking,” he agreed. “But it was much better when you were holding it, wasn’t it? Now the only question is whether when I shoot you, I aim to kill or just to take you down.”

“I don’t suppose you’re taking votes.”

He laughed again. Not because she’d been particularly funny, but because of the victory dancing in his eyes. In moments he’d escape, heading for his Plan C, and he’d once again leave death and destruction in his wake. “No,” he said. “I don’t suppose I am.” And he shifted the gun until she was looking right down the barrel.

Selena gave White a look of purest annoyance, just as though her heart weren’t pounding so hard as to reverberate through the floor beneath her. “Be that way,” she said, and whipped a side-hand marble at him from her awkward spot on the floor. It smacked into his kneecap—
dammit, I was aiming higher
—and so startled him that he leaped away from the pain. She gathered herself, lunging for Allori; she rolled sideways across the carpet, snagging the dead Kemeni’s discarded pistol along the way. Gunfire echoed in the room—but White had expected her to go for her own gun, and filled the carpet with deadly holes. By the time he corrected himself, Selena crouched by Allori’s side, her weapon pointing steadily at White.

And it was all perfect, until Razidae stepped in. White was poised to run, until Razidae stepped in. But step in he did, hurling himself at White as though to save the day. Thinking, perhaps, of the headlines, of the influence—however temporary—that such an action would give him in the wake of this terrorist disaster. But Razidae had more heart than training or experience, and White almost gladly stepped into his rush, evading Razidae’s blow to jam the .45 in his chest with such profound impact that the prime minister stopped short. Stopped short and instantly realized his error.

The return of White’s grin probably had something to do with his sudden wisdom.

White looked at Selena, an eyebrow raised in question—
your move?
Selena scowled back. “I should have tied you at that window.”

“Your mistake,” White acknowledged. He looked between Razidae and Allori, a recognition of the stalemate between them. “But since you didn’t, I’ll just take my prize and leave.”

Selena raised her chin, unable to hide her alarm. “You don’t need him.”

“Because you’re going to let me walk away?”

Reluctantly, she amended, “You don’t need him once you leave this room. So how about you use him for cover and then make a final defiant gesture by shoving him back in the room?”

White smiled again. She’d really come to dislike that smile. He said, “You aren’t the only one I have to worry about. This building is crawling with heroic men and their guns. No, Mr. Razidae will be coming with me.”

“Then I’ll be coming
after
you.”

“And leave your wounded ambassador?” White shook his head; Razidae looked both bemused and offended to be bantered over. “And here I had you pegged as the loyal type.”

Allori, until now silent, tipped his head to look at White, maintaining every bit of his dignity. “Which is exactly why she’ll do as I suggest and go after you.”

He didn’t, in fact, have the authority to order Selena to do one thing or another. But if he was inclined to make the suggestion…she was inclined to follow it.
After
she checked him over more carefully than she could while crouching beside him and playing games with White. She gestured at the hallway exit, a mere tilt of her chin. “The sooner you go, the sooner I can catch up with you.”

Dragging Razidae, his .45 pressed firmly against the man’s skull in defiance of a censuring expression that had controlled this country for years, White did just that. He backed up to the exit to the hallway that ran along the front of the function rooms, opposite the servants’ corridor. And then he stepped neatly into the hall, taking his VIP hostage with him.

Selena had half hoped White would shove Razidae back into the room anyway, a decision to jettison baggage so that he could move more quickly toward his escape. White didn’t, of course. She muttered a scorching phrase under her breath and turned instantly to Allori and the growing splash of blood on his shirt. She set quick fingers to the small pearl dress buttons and ignored his surprise and his visible impulse to object. “The sooner I can assess this, the sooner I can do what’s necessary,” she told him. If he understood all the possibilities in “what’s necessary”—
the sooner I can get you to help, the sooner I can run after White, the sooner I can watch him die
—he didn’t let on. He allowed her to open the shirt, exposing a thickly haired chest, and then to peel it back until she found the source of the blood.

And sighed in relief. She got up long enough to yank a tablecloth free, and to pull the knife from the dead Kemeni’s belt. She ripped a long strip from the fine white cloth and flipped the rest of it down to a rectangle in quick folds. When she knelt again, she pressed the pad up under his arm, and helped him forward so she could tie it in place. “It’s in and out,” she said. “I think it skipped along the outside of your ribs.” He had enough meat that she wasn’t sure, but she’d heard no air and he certainly hadn’t coughed up any blood. “If you can stay on your feet long enough to get out of here—”

He snorted and winced, but met her eye. “I’ll crawl if I have to.”

She tightened the bandage and tied it off, wincing as he closed his eyes and grunted against the pain. But when he looked at her again she said firmly enough, “You’ll have to crawl fast. The Kemenis have remote detonating devices for the bombs they’ve planted around the building.”

He echoed her scorching phrase of not so long ago. “You’ve seen—?”

“Better than that. I took two of them out of the mix. But they’ve got remotes for a lot more than two.” She pointed at the corridor entrance. “So crawl
very
fast. When you hit the end of the sneaky little passage, hang a left to the kitchen. Ignore the blood all over the floor—it’s been there awhile. And the kitchen door should be open for you. If you circle left, you’ll come around to—”

“The front of the building. I heard you the first time, when you told the others.”

“Good.” She stood, then put out her good arm.

He didn’t pretend he didn’t need the help up—or that he didn’t need a moment to recover when his face went pasty white. But he put the time to good use. “In spite of what I said…consider coming with me. The rescue boys are in on this one, whether they’re ours or Berzhaan’s. They can grab White.”

“They don’t even know he’s here.”

He gave her a wry once-over. “You’re not in much better shape than I am.”

“I beg your pardon,” Selena said. “
I’m
not bleeding.”
Anymore.
But she took in his expression—the one that told her he wasn’t fooled, that he understood her right arm wasn’t exactly working right and that one eye was half-closed and that the rest of her had been bashed around into creaky shooting pains—and she nodded reluctantly. “If the cavalry shows up, I’ll step aside. But until I know they’ve got him in their sights…”

She wouldn’t even have given him that much, not if it hadn’t been for the potential family member within her. Too small to see, too small to feel, and yet so hugely a part of her—
potential
or not. But she did, and Allori nodded in reply, understanding it was the only concession she’d make—and knowing that if Razidae died, in many ways the terrorists would prevail even if they didn’t emerge from this building alive.

He pushed himself away from the wall, holding himself with stiff determination. “I’ll see you on the steps,” he said.
“Alive.”

“Works for me,” Selena said, watching until he entered the corridor.

And then she went hunting.

Cole slipped quickly through the halls, his skin crawling with the awareness that a T-shirt labeled U.S.A. didn’t keep him from being a Kemeni target, or even a victim of friendly fire. If he was a SEAL or one of the Berzhaani Elite, he wasn’t at all sure he wouldn’t shoot first and figure out the identity of this strangely garbed interloper later. Possibly much later.

Seth had shown him simplified blueprints of the capitol, enough so he knew to cut away from the Kemeni trail—the ejected shell casings, the smears of blood, the occasional body—and to take a cross hall to the back of the building, fully intending to come up on them from the back.

The problem, of course, was that being behind the Kemenis very much meant being in the line of fire from the good guys.

Unless he guessed wrong, and the Kemenis had another route in mind altogether—maybe up to the roof, or doubling back to the other side of the capitol, or ducking down through the basement. But the recent explosions had been on that side—Hellfire missiles courtesy of Josie Lockworth, if Cole didn’t miss his guess, probably aimed at approaching Kemeni allies—and so was all the attention. Nope, this side looked good for a quick escape, if not quite so clean as planned.

A sporadic exchange of gunfire gave way to shouting as Cole skimmed along the wall of his final approach, and it made him hesitate.
They’re negotiating? They’re this close to an exit and they’re negotiating?
Gut instinct told him they were up to something else.

Like preparing to blow the building—but making sure the rescue teams were trapped inside when they did. It meant setting off the
right
bomb first. Which could well mean stalling, in spite of the risk.

With the utmost care, Cole risked a peek around the corner. Just beyond the turn, an open door led into the stairwell, and the Kemenis had crowded into it; they seemed to be tearing through their baggage in search of something. The remotes? And…was that a Post-it note stuck to the door? Apparently so, for even then an anonymous hand ripped it away, crumpling it before throwing it back out in the hallway.

Cole knew that the stairwell landing held an exit to the outside—it was the same door he’d seen on approach to the building, and all the stairwells included exit doors.
Why don’t they—

A few exchanged gunshots answered the question for him. They hadn’t left because they had a welcoming committee on the outside. And they couldn’t return to the hallway, not with the team of Berzhaani Elite that Cole had glimpsed taking up position in the hall—close enough to take an instant shot at anyone who reappeared from the stairwell, but off at enough of an angle so no one in the stairwell had any chance of targeting the team.

Great. So they’re trapped. Time on their hands and they’re trapped. And they have those remotes.
And Cole hadn’t had time to brush up on the local lingo. He sorted through his Berzhaani and filled the gaps with Russian, making sure he was good and clear of anyone’s line of fire before he revealed himself to either set of combatants. “Don’t shoot,” he told them, just as a good submissive opening line. “I want to let you know I’m here.” Actually, he thought he’d probably said
I announce me,
but it was close enough.