Brain Storm (US Edition) (13 page)

Now it was Sara's turn to be bewildered. "Sir?"

"You can make an appointment to see me tomorrow if you still feel you need to talk it over. Just remember that you aren't responsible for the deaths of those civilians. If you are that bothered perhaps you would consider calling in to see one of our counsellors? I know that under normal circumstances you would never consider using them but last
night’s events must have been upsetting even for you, especially if you feel responsible."

Sara felt like she was an actress dumped in a role without a script or any idea of what the play was about. "I'll think about it."

Ash smiled warmly, perhaps the first genuine smile he had ever shown her. "Good. You are a damn fine agent, Sara. You don't have to let this get to you."

"I won't, sir." She terminated the link.

But it looks like somebody got to you.

Chapter
Ten

So what did she do now? Whoever had changed those reports had got to Ash and forced him to stop his search. But why would he deny that they had ever spoken about it? It didn't make sense that he, or whoever was behind it all, would expect her to not notice that he was suddenly acting like the morning never happened. And what was all that about there being no discrepancies between her debrief and those other reports? Now Sara had two mysteries to contend with. Three if you counted locating Carla Swift.

Sara was worse than back at square one. She had plenty of questions but didn't have a clue where to start looking for the answers. She had to see Ash. He could explain to her why he was acting like he had no recollection of their earlier talk. Perhaps if Sara could get him to reveal who had made him change his mind about helping her to look for answers she would have some trail that she could follow. This was more her kind of investigation, hands on and in the thick of it. Coercing, intimidating or beating the information she needed out of unwilling informants. She got out of the chair and went into the bedroom to change out of her casual outfit and something more suitable for being seen in public.

She removed her old comfortable sweater and jogging trousers and stuffed them into the top part of her wardrobe. She wasn't particularly meticulous about keeping her place tidy, she rarely had visitors so there was no point keeping the place immaculate. But she did like to keep things organized so that if she ever wanted anything she would know exactly where to find it. She opened the lower part of the wardrobe and removed a pair of light grey jeans with silver seams. She pulled those up over her legs, they were too tight to be worn out on operations but for something like this they would do fine. She did them up with a thin black belt. To go on top she pulled on a cropped black T-shirt and finally a grey denim jacket that matched her jeans and was also cut short enough to expose her toned and tanned midriff. On her feet she wore a pair of all  weather boots, they were more reliable than trainers and Sara actually found this pair to be more comfortable.

She collected her burnished copper hair together into a bundle and fixed it into a ponytail with a hair band, except for the few carefully selected strands she used to accentuate the shape of her face. She left her hair hanging down in front of her coming over her right shoulder and resting above her breast. She left her apartment and swiped the card through the reader to lock the door behind her. She never left the door on automatic locking after she locked herself out once in the middle of the night and had had to get the division to let her back in.

Sara was just putting the card into the inside pocket of her jacket when she heard the elevator doors opening close to her. At the same time the door to the stairs even closer to her came open.

What a coincidence.

The pulsing beat of her neighbor’s music became a hollow muted sound. Her ears concentrated on the familiar sounds of the elevator doors opening, the ping that announced the arrival at the destination floor followed by the mechanical effort of the motors opening the doors, and the swishing of the manual door as it brushed over the carpet. Never had those sounds been so clear and that clarity of perception sent a shiver of wariness up her spine. Goose pimples rose in consequence on her skin.

When she saw the people emerging from the elevator and the stairway, in their matching black outfits and masks, black body
armor and small assault rifles held ready, she realized that this was no coincidence. This was a planned operation and she could think of only one person who the target could be.

Then there was no more time for rational thinking, Sara had to rely on her instincts and her training to get her out of danger. She couldn't stand around and ask them what they were doing, they had to be here for her and that meant if she didn't take action instantly she would
lose the opportunity.

The nearest threat came from the stairway and in the short-term that was the easiest threat to deal with. Sara moved forwards towards the elevator and as the first person got halfway through the door she slammed it back closed pushing him stumbling back into his companions. Even when they recovered from that they couldn't fire through a closed door in case they hit any of their mates pouring out of the crowded elevator. They had packed six people inside the space, and while that number was a problem for Sara it also worked to her advantage. With their bulky
armor and weapons packed into a space designed only for six people at a squeeze, none of those inside could make themselves ready for a fight until they got out into the corridor.

Sara through herself to the side seeking a preliminary cover behind the bushy potted plant. She grabbed hold of the heavy terracotta pot by the rim, getting dirt under her finger nails as she struggled to get a grip, and brought it up with her. Using the momentum of the movement to give her the energy she flung the pot into the leading pair of men knocking the backwards.

She knew that neither of her actions would by her the time she needed to make it all the way to the far end of the corridor and the window that provided her nearest escape. They would be up and shooting her in the back before she was halfway there. The door to the stairs started to open again but Sara ignored it. Instead she aimed her elbow into the glass front of the case holding the fire extinguisher and shattered it. She grabbed the extinguisher and sprayed the corridor next to the door and in front of the elevator with a cloud of thick white smoke. Then she turned and ran weaving from side to side in the corridor and spaying clouds in her wake without looking back. She kept all of her attention focused on the window even when they started firing. There was no point in her looking back, no-one had reactions that were fast enough to let them evade a bullet, and if she was going to be hit she was going to be hit.

Luckily they could only open up with a couple of their weapons because the white clouds prevented them from setting up proper firing positions to aim past each other. And when they were shooting they couldn't advance without running the risk of taking casualties from friendly fire.

The shooting stopped with Sara still a few meters from the window. Whoever was after her obviously wanted to move forwards to a point beyond the clouds of smoke. Sara didn't know why but she spared a split second of thought to wonder whether any of her neighbors had been stupid enough to look out and see what all the commotion was about and maybe taken a stray round. If they were stupid enough to do that they deserved whatever they got, still Sara hoped it hadn't happened. Then she forced her mind back to the more important matter of her own survival. Sara couldn't spare the time to open the window properly. Nor could she simply crash through headfirst, at least not without dislocating her shoulder or incurring a more serious injury, so she threw the fire extinguisher first. It hit in the middle of the glass and while it didn't go through, it just dropped down onto the carpet and rolled up to the base of the potted plant at this end of the corridor, it did leave a spider web pattern of cracking to mark its point of impact.

Sara threw herself at the centre of the web with her arms up to protect her head. There was a moment of resistance as she hit then she passed through in a shower of falling glass and slammed hard into the rail marking the edge of the fire escape. She bounced off and tumbled down half a flight of steps, suffering cuts from the glass residue and no count incurring a number of bruises from the metal steps, before she could arrest her fall. She came to a stop on her back with her left shoulder out over the open space above the next step down and her legs pinned uncomfortably against the outside wall of her apartment building.

There was no time to for her to feel the pain of any of her injuries. At the moment her system was being flooded with adrenaline. Her heart was pumping rapidly to force the hormone through her bloodstream to her muscles. She was sucking in air like she was drowning to fuel herself. This was fight or flight, and against these odds Sara definitely planned on sticking to flight. She rolled herself over so that she was back in an upright position and started down the stairs. She changed direction twice as it the staircase passed a pair of floors and was grateful for the fact since those sets of steps would now be shielding her from above. That didn't stop her attackers from trying a few shots at her but none came close.

Her biggest worry was that the teams upstairs hadn't been the only ones sent for her. To have
organized such an assault whoever was after her had to have a good deal of resources and to be very professional. This meant they were bound to have left a team downstairs in case she managed to get past the others. If they were very switched on they would have recognized the fire escape as a possible escape route and would have planned accordingly.

Sara grabbed the fold-up ladder that was located outside the first floor window, to keep random people from just climbing up and breaking into the building through the windows, and pushed it down at the ground. She couldn't see anybody waiting down below. The dark alley had plenty of shadowed corners and was littered with rubbish from overflowing or overturned bins and cardboard and polystyrene packaging. The fact that this was left to clutter up even a back alley showed that this wasn't the posh end of town but even here there would be no homeless people seeking shelter from the cold. They were all rounded up very efficiently by the police and sent packing to the areas of the sprawling city where
they could be ignored and forgotten about. Out of sight out of mind, the larger scale equivalent of sweeping muck under the carpet.

Sara landed on the floor of the alley at the same instant as light flooded it from the end that opened out onto the road. Sara was caught like a rabbit in the headlights, but unlike that mammal she didn't freeze up. She started running in the opposite direction tipping over bins behind her or pulling boxes out to block the path. She jumped over some of the obstacles that were already in the way or wove past them. They didn't start shooting until she was most of the way down the side  of the building and approaching the meeting point of alleys between four other buildings. The shots came at her from the direction of the lights, the direction of the window she had jumped out of, and from up on the roof, for some reason they had put a team up there expecting her to flee upwards.

That confirmed it for her. If this was any sort of official operation by police or somebody like that they would have announced themselves and ordered her to halt. There were rules against shooting people without warning. This was why those operations that Sara had been on where the task was to do just that had to be handled by the division of ECSIS that didn’t exist.

She lost count of the number of times she was almost tagged by a bullet before she managed to get out of a direct line of sight by taking a left at the intersection. It didn't matter how many times they had come close to hitting her so long as they hadn't got her yet.

The alleys behind apartment buildings formed a maze of narrow pathways. Sara moved at random through them. It was useless to avoid a pursuer simply by hoping to get as much distance between you by running in a straight line. If you did that you were predictable and would be picked up in no time by someone sent to intercept you. But if you moved as Sara did, randomly choosing a direction at each intersection you came to, you didn't know where you were going so you would be impossible to predict. Sara kept on going as fast as she could randomly changing direction until one of her choices took her down the side of a hotel building and onto the main street.

Sara slowed down immediately and tried to get her breathing under control. She melted into the congregation of people out walking past the shops in the hazy mid-afternoon sunshine. She looked around to get her bearings and started in the
direction of the ECSIS building. The questions kept coming but whatever was going on that had to be her first top for answers.

As the adrenaline wore off she started to feel the effects of her escape. She felt on her back and legs where bruises would soon be appearing and she had a general all over ache and soreness. She had some small cuts on her face but they had closed up all ready and were barely noticeable. She knocked the dirt off her clothes as she walked and collected her hair back together gathering the strands that had broken loose and putting them back in the band. She left the usual few strands out, hanging in front of the left side of her face but so few as to not obscure her vision.
She didn't spend over long making herself look perfect, but the job had taught her that a little time making herself look good could help enormously in the long run. Men in general were suckers for a pretty face, and they didn't expect women who looked like Sara to be as dangerous as she was.