Bulletproof (Unknown Identities #1) (12 page)

Something hard drove into her back, pushing her flat against the carpet that did nothing to cushion her from the cement floor beneath. Her hands fell to her sides, suddenly free of the zip ties.

More pops sounded. Another body dropped between her and the gunman in the airport uniform. Clary trembled and grabbed at the red bloom staining her shirt just below her name badge.

“Taser,” she rasped, shoving something at Amelia. “Take it.”

Amelia stared, the raw shock robbing her of words. She pressed one hand over Clary’s to cover the wound, and held the Taser in the other. She tried to stop the bleeding, to help the other woman somehow.

Clary’s eyes drifted shut and her head lolled back against the floor.

“Let’s go.”

John gripped Amelia’s elbow, hauled her to her feet. He shoved her purse at her as he lugged along. Too stunned to do anything but comply, she dropped the Taser into her purse and ran alongside him. Sounds blurred into one gruesome cacophony as people wailed, a siren blared, and officials shouted over loudspeakers.

She covered her ringing ears as John swiped a card through an electronic lock and shoved her into the quieter corridor beyond the door that swung open.

Another man in an airport uniform came at them. John jerked her out of the way as he plowed an elbow into the man’s throat.

He urged her to the right, and she went with it, having no idea where he planned to go.

“They’ll lock down the terminal any minute,” he said. “We have to get out.”

She didn’t have anything intelligent to contribute. Her throat had closed, her brain had shutdown in shock.

“We have a couple of minutes while they deal with the guy shooting up the terminal.”

She wiped at her face and then had to wipe her blood-stained palm on her slacks. If she thought about it too long, she’d vomit. If she did that, John would probably scold her for the delay. She focused on his back. “Clary... and Stafford... “

“She’ll make it,” he said over his shoulder. “Stafford’s dead.”

He was so matter of fact she trembled and stubbed her toe.

Don’t think, just move
. Already she knew those faces and sounds would haunt her dreams for weeks, if not forever. Probably forever.

She kept her eyes on John. On his back, on his hand gripping hers, on his feet racing forward. If she looked at anything else she knew the terror would take over and then her body would go the way of her head and she’d freeze up.

Her bodyguard was a mystery. A stranger. He may or may not have a record for assault or credit card fraud under a different name. Those facts should bother her. Pique her curiosity at the least. Neither did. Her instincts assured her he was the only thing keeping her alive.

Heavy sounds of jet engines grew louder. He was leading her out toward the runways as if he did own the place. A crash sounded behind them and male voices shouted for them to stop. They didn’t. Boots pounded against cement, closing in on them fast.

John slowed down, putting his body between her and their pursuers as he swiped the card through another lock that protected the stairwell.

He paused, leaning out over the rail to glance up and down.

Her breath sounded too loud and she held it, her lungs full, so he could listen for the approach of others. With a gun she hadn’t noticed before, he motioned her to head down.

“They saw us come in here.”

“I know. Keep moving.”

Like she wanted to stop. She used the rail to help propel her around the landing. “Who shot at us?”

“Not us. You.”

Semantics. But he had a point. “The assassin killed our armed escort!” Clary and Stafford would survive, she couldn’t believe otherwise.

“One of them, yes.”

“The other one will live?” Her lungs burned as they ran out of stairs.

“No.” John peered through the glass in the door before turning to face her. “I killed him when he raised his gun to shoot you.”

One of the guards was in on it?
She swallowed rather than puke up the coffee she’d had for breakfast. “Why didn’t they follow us?”

“Because they think we’re trapped.”

“Are we?”

“Not for long.”

A call for them to surrender came from above. John used the gun rather than his finger to signal for silence.

She nodded, afraid to tempt fate by wondering what might come at them next.

When he pushed through the door onto the taxiway where a line of aircraft waited, she watched him, utterly stunned as the scene played out like a movie in slow motion. There was no stand-off, he was in total aggressor mode.

In the small recess of her brain that still worked, she made a mental note to stay on his good side.

Knees buckled, men screamed. Bullets aimed their way seemed destined to miss as John moved from the cover of the stairwell door to a baggage cart. The gunfire and rapid exchange whirled around her like a violent merry-go-round and she couldn’t stop the spinning.

She trembled behind the piles of luggage while John traded shots. “The blue truck,” he said pointing to a small pickup parked near the terminal wall. “That’s your goal.”

“Okay.”

“On three.”

“Right.” She gripped her purse strap where it crossed over her chest.

He popped his head up and bullets rained into the suitcases. He fired back. “One.” Swiveled around and fired back at the stairwell door they’d just come through. “Two.” More bullets hit the suitcases. “Three.”

She heard another volley of gunfire as she propelled herself toward the blue truck and launched herself inside. But she wasn’t alone. An employee had taken refuge under the dash on the passenger side. Panicked, she fired the Taser and his body jerked and shimmied with the electric current.

An explosion rocked the pick up high and to the side and she dropped the Taser. Suddenly John was behind the wheel, throwing it into reverse.

“Stay down.”

“It’s crowded.”

John spared the baggage employee an irritated look. “Give me his hat and then get rid of him.”

She handed over the Logan airport ball cap then opened the passenger door, using her feet to push the employee out of the way. She cringed when he landed hard on the runway, but she bit her lips together and pulled the door shut.

Tucked under the dash, she stared up at John, more than a little shocked by the mushroom cloud of dark smoke and flame filling the window behind him.

Apocalyptic was the only word.

“God, I hope they don’t bill us for damages,” she said on a choked laugh.

He glanced down at her and grinned, absolutely unrepentant. It was the first one she’d seen that didn’t look painful. “They can put it on the credit card they say is stolen.”

“Works for me.” She struggled to hold down the jangle of nerves in her belly. “What next?”

“Your grandmother’s house.”

“Senator Larimore will know about her house too if he was able to fabricate all that nonsense about us planning to take down the plane.”

“Let’s hope they think I’m too smart to take you there.”

“In a stolen pickup.” Didn’t sound like the best plan to her.

“Leave the logistics to me. You handle your story.”

The awe and gratitude she felt for his skill in saving her life and getting them out of the airport took on a new sheen. Something that felt far more like emotions and she didn’t do those well.

Still, John was the one person in the world, aside from her dead contact, who wasn’t urging her off the story.

She smiled, feeling the drying blood on her face stretch as it dawned on her that she liked him.

She needed a shower. And maybe nine more lives... just in case.

Chapter Six

John turned his attention to the road. Hard to believe, with another man’s blood on her face, Amelia managed what appeared to be a genuine smile.

Gabriel wouldn’t be happy with the mess and destruction at Logan, but he would get over it. Better a few delayed flights and unhappy passengers than a dead reporter. The dead bodies left behind, all but Stafford, were the enemy. He had no sympathy for them. This was a kill or be killed business. He also knew from experience the group behind Gabriel’s project would rather deal with cleanup than failure.

With that in mind, he started prioritizing. They needed the basics first. Safe shelter and clothes that didn’t give the impression they were extras on a zombie movie set. She would want to communicate. His phone would have to do, unless and until they had proof it was compromised.

“I’d like to ditch this car before we head to your grandmother’s house.”

“We aren’t exactly dressed for public transportation.”

He glanced in the rearview mirror as they left the cargo area of the international terminal. He’d expected to be followed by now, but he wasn’t complaining about the lack of company.

“I know a mechanic who can help us out,” she said.

“As you said, we’re not exactly dressed for the public.”

“He owns a junkyard. By his standards we’ll look like we’re dressed for the opera.”

“You’re sure you can trust him?”

“As much as I trust you.”

At the lack of sarcasm in her voice, he shot her a look. Huh. Her sincerity lit up her face. None of the previous clients he’d guarded had extended him the same courtesy. When this was done and he was free of his obligations to Gabriel, there would be time to deal with the shock.

She squirmed a bit under the dash. “If you have a better idea, I’m all ears.”

“Put the address in the navigation app,” he said, sliding his cell phone across the seat.

“What do you think happened to the shooter in the airport?”

He debated how to answer her question. The man who’d tracked Amelia and opened fire on them had been mobbed and tackled by other travelers. The news agencies would likely have pictures from innocent bystanders to backup an assessment of a man out of his mind, but John didn’t quite believe the situation was that simple.

The first shot, the only clean shot, took out the lead guard. The subsequent shots could be considered mistakes, but he didn’t think so.

“John?”

“Concerned citizens took him down,” he replied, still replaying the scene in his mind. Odds were good the shooter had hit just what he’d wanted to hit. Recognition danced just out of John’s reach. Something beyond what he’d told Amelia in the airport about the flat gaze. There had been an uncanny familiarity in that face and too many places around the world they might have met.

Had it been across a dusty road in Afghanistan? Maybe he’d seen that face in the small patch of sand and weeds that made up the prison yard in Mexico.

The most likely possibility had the hair standing on end at the back of his neck.

He rubbed the tension around the place where the first of his enhancement injections had been administered. If he ever saw that man again, he’d make sure to check for a similar marking.

“You’re hurt,” she said on a gasp, struggling to get up from the floorboards.

“Stay down.” He tugged at the frayed edges of his shirt to block her view of the blood staining his right side. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not my blood.”

“Oh.”

Not all of it anyway, he amended silently. The bullet had ripped through the fabric, grazing his side. He’d been braced for the pain of a gut shot and surprised by the miss that resulted nothing more serious than a scratch. “How long until we reach your friend?”

“Navigation says ten minutes.”

“Great.”

He wanted far away from this truck. While he appreciated the lack of pursuit, it bothered him. Years ago, he would have craved the adrenaline rush of outwitting a pursuer. Now, after a decade or so of experience, his instincts screamed an alarm when things were too easy.

Her grandmother’s place should give them a chance to breathe and regroup. Assuming it wasn’t already compromised.

Taking the left turn as directed, they slowly rumbled along the broken asphalt dotted with soggy brownish lumps of weeds toward the center of a junkyard. On either side of the sorry excuse for a road, rusting cars and other lumps of unidentifiable metal rose up in tall hills.

His instincts prickled and he slowed down even more. They may as well be falling for a blind canyon trap. “How well do you know this guy?”

She scrambled up onto the seat. “He’ll give us a loaner and he’s a friend so he won’t talk.”

That wasn’t exactly an answer. “How did you meet him?”

“I did a story on chop-shops.”

“Which side was he on?”

“Mine,” she announced, sounding more like herself. “The cops pestered me for my source, but when they collared the ringleader it became a moot point.” Her full lips thinned to a grim, determined line. “I’ll win this war with Larimore, too.”

He believed her.

Precisely ten minutes later, having been introduced to Samson, the mammoth mechanic with a barrel chest and grease stained hands, John relaxed.

There was no internet out here and just one grime-coated landline phone mounted on the wall above an ancient metal desk covered with clutter. Samson claimed his hands were too big for a cell phone and from what John could see, the yard’s inventory was stored in the man’s head. He suspected the shelf jammed with three-ring binders in a range of colors was just for show.

Amelia insisted on using the restroom to wash her face. John waited outside the door, listening to her movements, the faucet and splashing water. When she exited, her face scrubbed nearly clean, she proceeded to haggle over the disposal of the pickup and a replacement vehicle while he looked around the shop.

“He’s pulling a car for us,” Amelia said, joining him as he stared at the underbelly of a rather tame looking minivan. “His girlfriend needed an oil change.”

John didn’t waste energy trying to imagine the woman brave enough to date Samson.

“I told Samson to bill
The Torch
,” she said. “Bernie will have a fit over the expenses on this story, but he can take it out of my life insurance if you fail to keep me safe.”

“I won’t fail,” he said, turning away from her. He had too much riding on this assignment. The rest of his life in fact. His real life, the one that had once featured a vague fantasy of a big-city condo and anti-commitment women who got off on rough-edged retired soldiers.