Dangerous Liaisons (4 page)

Night always came slow in the city. After leaving the club, Jesse had taken four cabs and two subway rides in a grand circle through Manhattan, and now strode uptown on Seventh Avenue toward her hotel. A shadow flitted across the mouth of an alleyway on her right as if the night hid some creature in the rat-infested darkness. A woman’s cry erupted from the alleyway.

Straight on. Leave town. Get to Amanda.
This isn’t your business.
Despite the admonition, she slowed and scanned the littered street. Empty. New York’s midtown west side always turned into a ghost town Sunday night. She loved that about this part of the city—until now.

“Where’s a cop when you need one?” she growled.

In a better part of town
, her mind responded.

“Let go!” The woman’s cry reverberated between the brick buildings lining the alley.

Jesse turned and headed back. She paused at the corner of the building and peered into the alley as she fished a hair-tie from her jeans pocket.
Always be prepared
was the Girl Scouts motto. Or was that the Boy Scouts? She pulled her hair back in a ponytail, her gaze locking onto several large figures headed away from her, strolling deeper into the murky depths located among the dumpsters. One man half dragged, half carried a thin, struggling form into the shadows.

Jesse slipped off her gold bracelet, stuffed it into her pocket, and unsnapped the front catch on her Oscar d’Larenta bra. She never wore such items while on assignment. An assailant could grab the front of a bra or snag a bracelet and pin her in a flash. She yanked the bra straps down her bare arms, glad now for the heat wave that had prompted her to wear a tank top, and dropped the bra on the ground. She glanced heavenward. The half moon hung too low in the sky to cast anything but shadows into the alley. Jesse sighed and stepped away from the building.

“Hey!” she shouted.

The men whirled like predators on a hunt. One man’s arm clinched the woman’s breasts and his other hand clamped over her mouth. The other four men fanned out in a gauntlet between Jesse and the woman.

The hairs on the back of Jesse’s neck tingled. Had the men been a typical street gang, they’d be jostling one other and joking over who would be the first to fuck her. She started to turn back toward the street, but stopped when the girl let out a muffled scream.

She flailed as her captor yanked her off her feet and backed away. “Get lost, lady,” he growled at Jesse.

Jesse silently cursed. The men could be Lanton’s boys and still take down an innocent victim along with her. She advanced, counting five men in addition to the one with the woman. Fair enough. Of course, a single gun could prove a problem even for her
Ten Shin Ichi Ryu
training. Just like the good old days in Bethesda. A hop, skip and jump from Langley, and one short step from hell. She halted fifteen feet from the men. The one holding the woman measured six-one, the rest were toadies, under five-eight.

One sidled right. “Baby doll,” he made kissing noises, “come join the party.” He halted close enough for her to unman him. “You’ve come this far,” he said. “There’s no turning back now.”

How right he was.

The one who held the girl backed toward the wall, while the remainder of the pack advanced.
Cowards
, Jesse telepathed. She hated bullies. The thug spun girl to face him, pressed her against the wall, and groped her breasts. She shoved at his arm, whimpering loudly.

Three men rushed Jesse. She lashed out with a kick to the man on her right. The familiar crunch of leg bones vibrated beneath her sneaker. He fell with a shriek. She sidestepped the center man, landed a forearm to his back. As he stumbled past, she seized the back of his collar and propelled him downward, using his momentum. His face hit asphalt and he went limp.

The thug who had called her baby doll swung a fist. She blocked, forearm to forearm, then wrapped his arm in hers and yanked up. His elbow popped. He dropped to his knees. She pivoted, side-thrust-kicked between his shoulder blades. He bounced off the wall and hit pavement like a limp dishrag.

Jesse scanned the alley. Three down, two to go. One man had melted into the shadows. Mr. Six-One circled her. This one knew something—or thought he did. Toothless took a step forward and gave a low, gravelly laugh. She stood stock-still.

A male voice behind her boomed from the mouth of the alley, “What’s going on?”

Toothless’ gaze broke from her face for a fraction of a second, then he shot forward, punching.

Jesse blocked, blocked, blocked, stepping backward with each blow. He tried a roundhouse. She ducked, and snapped a punch to his groin. He doubled over. She leaped into the air, right leg extended. Her foot caught his jaw. His head snapped back and he crumpled backwards into a trash bin.

She whirled to face the fool who had yelled, and cursed at sight of the six-foot-three figure in cowboy boots pounding down the alley toward her.

“You idiot!” she shouted. “You could have gotten me killed.”

“What is—”

Cowboy fell back a pace as Toothless burst from the shadow of a dumpster. The thug rammed his shoulder into Cowboy’s ribcage, and a ‘whoof’ of air erupted from his lungs as the two men crashed to the ground. Jesse started toward them, but a muffled cry came from the pitch darkness deeper in the alley. She whirled and squinted, but could discern nothing. With a muttered curse, she glanced over her shoulder to see the cowboy stumbling to his feet beside his prostrate attacker.

“Let’s go!” he yelled, backing up, but Jesse started down the alley. “For God’s sake, lady,” he said with a pronounced southwestern drawl, “are you nuts?”

A low growl, then a woman’s shriek issued from the dark ahead. “Bitch,” a man hissed, and a slap followed.

The cowboy halted his retreat, then started toward Jesse.

“Get out!” she shouted, desperately searching the darkness.

She strained to hear panting or the muted sounds of a scuffle, but only heard the echo of cowboy boots on asphalt. Thug number one lay moaning with a broken leg, number three and Toothless were still out cold. Number Two, the man she had driven into the pavement, had vanished, leaving a blood puddle.

“You want to die here?” Jesse snapped as the cowboy neared.

The hair rose on the back of her neck. She whirled left, but a streaking shadow cut her off from the cowboy. She lunged, but was too far away to reach the thug before the cowboy swung, landing a punch to his attacker’s ribs. Jesse spun even as she felt a disturbance of air behind her. A foot whooshed a hair’s breadth past her face. She pivoted, kicking high, and caught Number Two’s bloody face across the temple. She swung full circle, and landed facing him. A side-thrust-kick to his chest sent him crashing onto his back. The girl shrieked and the cowboy sprinted toward the sound.

“Stop!” Jesse bolted after him.

Idiot.
She should leave him to his stupidity.

He halted. She skidded to a halt twenty feet away. No one but the cowboy stood at the dead end. She turned. The lit street at the far end of the alley might as well have been California.

Bootfalls sounded behind her.  “What’s going on?” the cowboy demanded.

Jesse kept her attention on the dense shadows along the walls.

He stopped beside her. “Who are you?”

“Shut up!” she hissed, and crept forward. “
Come out, come out, wherever you are
,” she sing-songed. Jesse whirled and knocked a hand from her shoulder before the grip had time to close. “Look, Tex, do us both a favor and shut up. Do that and you might live—” She halted at the unmistakable sound of a gun’s hammer being pulled back.

“Get down!” Jesse snaked a foot around the cowboy’s ankle and yanked. He struck the pavement like the Jolly Green Giant.

“What the—” he began as she dropped to a squat beside him.

He tried to get up, but she seized his shoulder and bent toward his ear, catching a whiff of Drakar as she whispered, “There are two left. One has a gun. Don’t move.”

He tensed under her hold. “A gun? Why didn’t he use it before?”

How to explain?
It’s likely they’ve been instructed to take me alive, so the head of one of the U.S.’s most secret government organizations can torture me for information that will incriminate him?

“Who knows?” she replied, wondering what he would think if he knew Lanton’s standing order was no witnesses—which meant, of course, any unfortunate passers-by such as him.

What do you think of fate, Cowboy?

She waited through a minute of silence.

“Maybe they left,” he whispered.

“I didn’t hear them leave.”

“Surely they won’t kill us,” he said.

Jesse snorted. “Right. Stay here.” She started to push up, but he grabbed her arm.

“Where are you going?” he demanded.

She grasped his hand and disengaged his hold. “Look, Tex—”

“Cole,” he corrected.

“What?”

“The name is Cole.”

“All right,
Cole
. Keep cool. I’m going to try to flush them out.”

She rose and listened. A man moaned somewhere near the street-end of the alley. Jesse crept to the building on her right. Hugging the brick, she took one careful step toward the street before the sound of another trigger being pulled back caused her to freeze. A CO2 air-gun spit. She dropped to the ground as a tranquilizer dart snagged her upper arm before it struck the wall and bounced off.

“What the hell?” Cole exclaimed.

Jesse grabbed her arm and felt slick wetness trickling toward her elbow. “Damn.” Depending upon the drug contained in the dart, she could pass out in a second, or in an hour. Cole shifted, and she realized he was rising. “Stay down!” she ordered, and crawled to him. Her left palm came down on tiny pieces of glass. She bit back a cry.

At Cole’s side, she whispered, “Come on.” She fought a stab of dizziness. Halfway between her and the street stood a cluster of dumpsters. “Let’s see if we can make it to those trash bins.”

She rose to a crouch. He followed her example, and they crept to the wall, one painfully slow step after another. A disturbance in the shadows a few feet to her left caught her attention. She leaped forward, hands fisted. The shadow shifted. Jesse punched, hitting a hard mass of stomach muscle. Her opponent fell back a pace. Then he leaped, kicking with his left then his right. He missed her by a hair’s breadth. Jesse kicked in a tight arc. She missed his jaw, but hit the nose. The thug cried out in unison with Cole’s loud grunt.

She turned and sprinted for Cole. A woman suddenly appeared in her path. Her fist crashed into Jesse’s jaw, snapping Jesse’s head back. Jesse hit the woman in the ribs with a left then a right. Ribs cracked, but the woman didn’t cry out. Leave it to a woman to take pain better than a man. Jesse thrust an elbow into the woman’s stomach and nearly struck her scrawny spine. The woman groaned and collapsed. Her companion had been right. She was a bitch.

Jesse whirled to see Cole jump back from a knife slice at his midsection. The thug drew back to stab. She clamped her hands together and raised them. A wave of dizziness, this one stronger than the last, caused her to clench her teeth. She brought her fists down on the thug’s neck. He jerked, whirled, and swung at her.

She blinked at his blurry form. He jabbed, and dull pain stabbed her outer thigh. Jesse grabbed his wrist, twisted under, and heard the bones crack. The knife clattered onto the asphalt. Cole landed a kidney punch to the man’s abdomen and he fell to his knees. He tried to rise, but Cole kicked him viciously and the man landed on his back with a meaty thud.

Jesse looked at Cole. “Not bad.”

“Let’s get out of here.” He grabbed her wrist and dragged her toward the street.

“Wait.” Darkness shimmered like a heat wave through her. “There’s another one.”

“You said two,” he replied without halting.

She tried focusing on the alley. Where was the tranquilizer gun? There had been an eighth man. “I-I was wrong,” she slurred “There’s another one, the shhhooter.”

They’d nearly reached the street and no shooter had materialized. Maybe the dart had come from a single-shot model which lay in the alley near one of the attackers. Lamplight spilled into the alley entrance, and Jesse breathed in relief a second before someone seized her shoulder and yanked her out of Cole’s grasp. She spun and struck a wall as her attacker caught Cole in a chokehold and pressed a Steyr nine millimeter special purpose pistol against his temple.

“You should have come quietly, Jesse,” the shooter said. “If not for our friend here,” he jerked Cole back, “we would’ve had you.”

Jesse looked past Cole’s broad shoulder at the shooter, who stood five nine, with a little flab on his arms and the beginnings of a spare tire around his waist. The guy talked tough, but his fear cut through the air. In any case, if she made a move, Cole would die.

“You can’t kill him and shoot me before I get to you,” she told the guy.

His gaze flicked to the gash in her arm, then back at her face. “The drug’s already working. In twenty seconds, you won’t be a factor.”

“You’ll kill him anyway.” Jesse saw Cole’s fists clench, but kept her focus on the shooter, hoping the cowboy had sense enough to keep cool. “Leave no witnesses.” It was a shot in the dark, but maybe she’d strike a nerve.

The man’s mouth twisted in an arrogant smile, and Jesse flicked a disgusted look at his Steyr nine millimeter. The fool thought he could play with the big boys. He didn’t understand that Lanton’s leave no witnesses rule would eventually come to roost on his doorstep and he’d never see it coming.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I have a car parked on the street. You’re going to walk over there, then your friend here will tie you up in the back seat.”

Jesse snorted, as much to clear her mind of the drug as in derision. “And you’ll just let him go.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

“All right. Let’s go.”

“Don’t do—” Cole began.

“Shut up!” she snapped. “I’m tired of running.”

The shooter kept fifteen feet between them until Jesse reached a Pontiac Starfire parked under a burned-out streetlight.

“Stop,” he said. “Get in.”

Jesse faced him. “Time to renegotiate. Once I’m tied up, there’s nothing to stop you from killing him. I might as well run now.”

“Try and I’ll shoot you first.” He swung the pistol toward her.

She ducked, lunging forward as the gun fired. Searing pain passed through her shoulder. Before he could squeeze off another round, she tackled him, with Cole sandwiched between them. She seized the hand gripping the gun and wrenched the wrist back in a grip that would have crippled a boxer. A snap of bone sounded, and the pistol fell from his grasp. Cole elbowed him in the ribs and twisted from his hold as Jesse leaped to her feet and kicked the man below the ribcage. The shooter grunted. Cole sprang up, wheezing. Jesse’s vision blurred and she reared backward.

“You all right?” he demanded.

Her attention snapped onto the tiny movement of the shooter’s left hand at his side. Cole must have seen it as well. He stepped toward the shooter, but she jumped between them, knocking Cole back. The shooter flipped open a French switchblade and sliced through her jeans in one movement, opening a long wound down her leg. She reeled.

A strong hand closed around her shoulder and yanked her back. She whirled, brought a fist up, but tumbled onto the sidewalk. In a blur, she saw Cole kick the knife from the shooter’s hand, then throw a punch that cracked so loudly it penetrated the ringing in her ears. Cole approached her, but vanished in a world of black.