Blowback (15 page)

He grit his teeth and shouted through them, not giving her the satisfaction of seeing him groan or fucking whimper in pain, which is what he wanted to do. SERE training. Don't give the enemy the psychological advantage. If you're scared, in pain, or weak, act angry.

“Don't!” Molly said. “I'll tell you anything you want. Just don't hurt him. He didn't have anything to do with this. I just met him here. I'm the one you need to talk to. Although I'm afraid it's too late for you.”

David's head snapped up. What the fuck was she talking about? Victoria's attention was one hundred percent on Molly now. He looked up at the binds around his wrists that were attached to the chain. When she'd hit him and he'd weighed down on them, he'd felt them rip a bit.

“I knew you weren't just the innocent bystander my boss thought you were,” Victoria said, leaning in satisfaction against a wooden table and folding her arms across her pink jacket. “Tell me more.”

“I want some water first. For me and David. Then I'll talk,” Molly said, coughing for effect.

Victoria screwed her face up for a second, and then shrugged. “Okay. But if you don't talk…what am I saying? Of course you'll talk. You really have no choice.”

She made the long walk to the door of the warehouse and slipped out. “What are you doing? She will kill you once you've given her what she wants. It was you she was after in the first place.” His heart was racing at the little time they had.

“I know. I just don't want you here when that happens. I dragged you into this, and I'm so sorry. I had no idea this would get so…”

“Fucked up?” he asked between his teeth.

“Yeah. I'm going to give her enough information to let you go. Then, I guess, we'll see what happens.” She was numb. She knew she should be petrified, but she couldn't gather enough emotion to feel anything. Every part of her wanted him away from this. She had no idea how seeing her die would affect him, but given the last year, she had her suspicions. If she could just save him from this, she would be okay. She would die with no regrets. Well, that wasn't really true, but she was trying her hardest to hold it all together.

“You're sweet,” he said. “But you really don't have to do that for me.” Suddenly there was no strain in his voice at all. It was like they were having coffee somewhere. “Just shuffle yourself over here a bit.”

She used her body to jump her chair over to David.

“Sorry about this,” he said as he put his feet on her thighs. He was using the extra height to try to flip his chains off the hook hanging from the ceiling. “I need more height.”

Crap. She used all her energy to shuffle over to the big wooden table that Victoria had put her case on. When she'd laid it there, Molly imagined it was full of torture devices.

“We have to hurry, sweetheart.” Still his voice held no tension.

She pushed the back of her chair against the table and shoved it. The effort was wearing her out. She felt weak and she didn't know if it was from the drug they'd kept giving her, or the fact that she'd been strapped to the chair for…how long she didn't really know. She pushed, and shoved. Willing herself to find the energy to move the table to him.

“Just a bit further, you're doing great.” As he said the words, the door slammed open.

Shit. She gave one more shove, mustering all the energy she could. The momentum moved the table about a foot or two, and left Molly hanging in midair for a second before she crashed to the ground. She rolled on to her side to get her eyes on David.

From her prone position, she saw Victoria's legs running toward them, but couldn't see David's legs, which hopefully meant that he was on the table. A crash of chains echoed around the room. Molly took a breath and tried to figure out how she could help him.

She rolled to try to get some leverage and heard the chair creaking. Maybe she could break it. She was sure she'd seen Black Widow do this in a movie. She rolled against the back of the chair. There was a snap as one of the chair arms detached from the back. Nice.

She rolled harder, slamming the chair against the concrete. Pain radiated through her bones as the back splintered away from the arms. She heard grunts, and the rattle of chains. Frantically she beat her bent legs down hard. Again and again, trying not to notice the shots of pain that radiated through her. One last crash, and the legs of the chair had broken. They were still attached to her, but they'd broken off the seat.

She leapt up. David was standing, barely. He was slumped as if he couldn't stand up anymore. Victoria lay on the floor, one of her legs pointing in a very unnatural direction, unconscious. Maybe dead.

She got to David just in time to put her hands on him before he fell to the ground. She managed to brace his fall. “You were awesome,” she said. “You saved us.” She kissed the side of his head and held him, doing little more than rocking in relief. Her brain went fuzzy, and she closed her eyes, just wanting to be anywhere but here.

She roused herself to untie David's wrists, and then her own when David just groaned. “We have to go. Can you stand?” she asked. The fight must have really taken it out of him. She pulled herself to her feet leaning on the table. She leaned down to pull David up, and for the first time, saw blood on the floor. Sticky dark blood. A pool.

She sank to her knees. “David? Are you hurt?” She tried to check him, but it wasn't until she held him that she realized he was bleeding from his side.

“Go, sweetheart. They want
you
. You have to run. Go to the embassy. Ask them to call Sadie Walker. She's a friend of Harry and Matt's. Tell her everything. Everything you haven't told me. She's…” his voice faded.

“Fuck that all to hell. I'm not leaving here without you.” Suddenly immune to her own injuries, she looked around for something to help him.

Victoria's case. She opened it. Torture devices? It was the suitcase she'd arrived with. Just freaking clothes, a wallet and…an iPad. She frantically rifled through her wallet and plucked out a credit card and pressed it against his wound to make the gaping hole airtight. She grabbed one of Victoria's silk shirts and wrapped it around him, tying the arms around his waist to hold it in place.

He was barely conscious now, and as adrenaline pumped through her she knew she needed to get him away from the warehouse before the Russian came back with the water Victoria had requested. Otherwise David wouldn't get the help he needed.

She was about to lift David on to his feet, when her brain registered a ringing sound. “Can you stand?” she asked. He waved his hand at her, in what would be a convincing shoo-away if it hadn't been for the table he was leaning against scraping back on the concrete floor.

Victoria stirred at the sound of the phone, but didn't come to. Thank God. Molly wasn't sure if she could knock her out, although she was fairly certain she could outrun her. She made sure David was upright and likely to stay that way for a second, and went back to Victoria's things. Phone. She had a phone. Where the hell was it?

She looked through the whole bag, and then started on the zipper pockets. There. Front pocket, along with a gun. She took the phone and left the gun.

A car door slammed outside, and without hesitating she went for the gun, tucked it into David's back pocket, and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Gotta walk now, okay? Come on.”

She half dragged him to the opposite side of the warehouse, behind some large wooden crates, to a window. Shit. There was water out there. She sat David down on the concrete, “Shhh.” She laid her fingers across his mouth and felt him nod beneath her hand.

She took the phone and dialed the only number she knew by heart. Her boss's—Harry's.

Harry picked up the phone immediately. “Hello?”

“Harry, it's me,” she whispered.

“Who? I can't hear.”

Molly looked at the phone. It had all the bars.

“Molly,” she ground out, peeking through the crates. The Russian was in the building now. And the whole place suddenly seemed like one big echo chamber. She hung up the phone, and texted Harry instead.

It's Molly. Kidnapped by Russians with David Church in warehouse by the sea in Athens.

God, she hoped they were still in Athens.

He's injured, but told me to get Sadie Walker on it?

She waited for a reply, and then realized that the text notifying ring would echo all around the warehouse basically identifying where they were. She fumbled for the settings, but it was too late.

Shit. She stuffed the phone into her pocket without reading the reply and looked for somewhere to run. She considered pushing David out of the window, but worried that he wouldn't be able to stay afloat without her there. They sat in silence as the minutes ticked by. She was worried if she waited much longer to make a decision he'd bleed out in front of her.

She made her decision. She would leave David there, and give the Russian what he wanted, and try to buy some time. She held her hands up and stepped out from behind the row of shipping crates.

What?

The Russian was gone.

So was Victoria, and the broken chair, and her suitcase. It was like nothing had happened there. Even the pool of David's blood had gone. Had she imagined the whole thing?

A noise came from behind her, she turned to find David, holding a gun out, leaning against one of the crates.

“They've gone,” she said.

He slumped, and she ran the few short paces to his side and slipped his arm around her shoulders again. “Come on. Let's get out of here.”

It took forever to cross the warehouse with David barely able to stumble, let alone walk. Every step that echoed around the building worried Molly that someone would come out of the shadows and kill them. She didn't care so much about herself, but she needed to get David to safety. Get him a doctor.

After about ten minutes, her own legs started wobbling under both their weight. She was sweating hard. She hoped it was a side effect of the drug she'd been jabbed with, but the exertion was killing her. At least that's how it felt. She was cold, sweaty and shaky. Just a few more steps to get out.

Just a few more steps.

Just a few…

She reached for the door handle, but it was farther away than she thought.

A few more steps. Her fingertips scraped the metal of the door. She pulled it open with the rest of her energy.

Daylight.

And the metal-on-metal cocking of a lot of weapons.

“Hold it.”

“Hands up!”

“Show me your hands.”

She slumped to the ground, her last action was to try to make sure David fell on her, and not the hard ground. He did.

She didn't care about the guns. Relief was the last emotion her consciousness registered.

They had American accents.

S
he came to in the back of an ambulance. The only other occupants were a paramedic and a woman in a
HELLO KITTY
T-shirt. Molly had an oxygen mask over her face and a drip in her arm.

“Where's David?” she asked, her voice muffled by the mask.

Hello Kitty looked at the paramedic, who nodded and lowered the mask.

“I'm sorry, honey?”

“Where's David?” Molly noticed there were straps holding her to the bed. She struggled against them, trying to understand what was going on.

Hello Kitty undid one of the restraining bands. “You're not a prisoner. We're transporting you to the medical center at the embassy. I'm Sadie. Harry's friend.”

Molly wanted to feel fear, or hope, or relief, but there was no emotion inside her. Like at all.

“I know you're feeling strange, but that's the chemical we're giving you to combat the drug that you had in your system. We don't know what it is, so we're giving you a generic drug that will counter the effects of most sedatives. The only side effect is that you'll feel weird for a while. It's artificially equalizing all the hormones and chemicals inside you.

Molly nodded. “Sadie?”

“I'm glad I found you. I think Harry might have killed me if I hadn't.” She gave a rueful smile. “Is there anything you can tell me about what happened to you?”

Molly told her what had happened to her since the assassination.

“We can't find any evidence of the kidnapping in the warehouse, Molly. I'm sorry. So that means we don't have anything actionable to take to the Russians. Or to the United Nations. It's just a wash right now.” Sadie stared out of the side window, with a frown.

And then she realized that Sadie hadn't told her what had happened to David. Her brain knew that was wrong. Something was wrong. But her body couldn't process the feeling. Well her brain was going to have to do the job of her heart too. “Where's David?”

Sadie looked at her watch. “I'm waiting for an update. He'd lost a lot of blood, I'm afraid. But they're doing their best. Harry and Matt told me he was a strong guy. We're just hoping he's strong enough. You did a good job with the credit card and the bandage, by the way.” She smiled and checked her watch again.

“The credit card,” Molly said. “I took it from Victoria Ruskin's purse. There must be some way you can trace her with that?”

Sadie held her gaze for a moment. “We also have the gun that was in David's possession. With the credit card, maybe eventually we'll be able to make something stick. But it's not much.

Molly made a decision. “If you take me to David, I'll give you two other things that might help you. One thing I'll give you now. The other thing, later.”

She handed Sadie the notes that had started everything.

Molly sat by David's bed. There was no freaking way she was going to let him walk away from her again. Mission or no mission. Injury or no injury. As long as she had eyes on him she felt…nothing.
Dammit.
Enough with this antidote or whatever it was.

She traced the tube of the IV attached to her wheelchair and found the plastic tap, and turned it off. Then she took out the needle from the back of her hand. It hurt. On TV, the tough guys yank it out like it's nothing, but it hurt like hell. Turns out nothing is really like it is on television.

Her eyes flickered to the small screen attached to the wall in the corner of the room. No one was talking about the assassination anymore. A scientist had conclusively—he said—proved that fracking will kill the planet's infrastructure within fifty years. So that had been the main headline since she'd got to the hospital. Some people believed him, some didn't. So she suspected after all the furor, things would go back to normal. But meantime, the 3D hologram of the collapse of the planet that he'd shown at his presentation was on every channel. She watched the implosion on the TV for about the tenth time.

“Is the world ending?” A hoarse voice came from the bed.

“David!”

“So that's a yes?” he said, trying to reach for a glass of water.

“Stop! Don't…pull anything. You have more stitches than the curtains there. Just let me bring it to you. She struggled with her wheelchair for a second, and smiled at her own attempts to get out without putting the brake on.

“Jesus. Why are you in that wheelchair? What happened?” He winced as he tried to move.

“Don't do that either. Let me adjust the bed so you can see that I'm fine. They put me in it because of the drugs Victoria gave me. A lot, apparently.”

She sat on the bed and held the water to his lips. He sipped and cleared his throat.

“They didn't take you out of the country?” he asked, concern etched across his face.

Molly looked down at the bed. “They wanted to, but I made a deal with them to stay.”

“And why would you have done that?” He frowned.

“I wanted to make sure you didn't die. But now I know you're okay, I'll be off. Nice knowing you…” She got up to leave, brushing imaginary lint from her jeans.

“I don't blame you, sweetheart. I let you down back there. I'm so…”

“What? Are you kidding me? You never let me down. Not once.” She was taken aback that he'd thought that for a moment.

He frowned again. “You left. I figured you'd had enough of me leading you into danger,” he half choked out, half whispered.

Her stomach contorted at the thought that he'd been carrying this. “Oh my God. I'm so sorry. It never occurred to me that you'd think that. I left because I hated myself that I'd got you involved in the mess I was in. I just wanted you to have…what do they call it? Plausible deniability? I didn't want you to go to jail for helping me. I wanted you safe. You'd already been through so much…that was all it was.” Tears leaked out of her eyes as she stood up.

He grabbed her hand. “Not so fast, sweetheart. I'm not letting anyone debrief you except me. Last time you were debriefed we all ended up here. What happened to Peterson, by the way?”

“Being raked over the coals by the embassy staff, I heard,” Molly said. “Anyway, before I make up my mind to stay or go…what kind of debriefing did you have in mind? Because, I should tell you now. I'm not wearing any.”

“I'm planning on debriefing you for a long, long time. Just…as soon as I can move without morphine.”

Joy flooded her veins with such power that tears started falling. “I'm sorry, it's not you, it's the drug.” She swiped at her tears and held tissues to her nose. She wasn't really sure that was true.

“It had better be me.” He pressed the button on his remote control, and slowly, very, very slowly, the bed slid upright, so his lips were inches away from hers.

“I guess…it was always you,” she breathed, as she leaned forward to claim her future.