Falcon: The Quiet Professionals Book 3 (30 page)

A gasp and clang responded.

Pushing herself to brave the darkness, Cassie went for the stairs. Closed her eyes and focused on the height and length of the steps. If she could memorize that, she could develop a rhythm to move quickly. She kept her eyes closed, listening to the steps. The stairs coiled around. After eighteen steps, a platform. Probably to another floor. Then the steps continued.

Eighteen
.

Platform
.

Eighteen
.

Platform
.

After two more, she slowed. Thinking back. Looking up to the floor she’d fallen through the hidden door, though the black sea above hung thick and ominous. Wasn’t it a law to have lights in the fire well? Lights not keyed to the main building? Maybe Raptor had those turned off as well.

She looked back. If she’d counted right, she should have reached the fifth floor. Sixteen… seventeen… eighteen. Cassie stopped, pressing her foot hard against the steel and noting the slight difference to the feel. Yes, another platform. Toeing her way forward, she stretched out her arm.

Her hand struck something. She traced it with her fingertips. Rough. Not a door. She moved to the left. Her foot slipped. With a yelp, she caught herself. Jerked backward. Adrenaline dumped through. Okay, not that way. Too far. She moved more determinedly. Felt the cold steel. Smiled. Angled toward where the handle should be. “Right… about”—metal smacked the back of her hand—“here.” She smiled, twisted the knob, and tugged it open.

Light flooded her senses. She squinted and stepped into a carpeted office. As she did, as the hollowness and eerie silence of the well-appointed space rang in her ears, Cassie realized her mistake.

She glanced to the door. No backup. No weapon.

The door to the main area stood partially open. Teak desks and sleek chairs filled the office, the monotony broken by occasional trees and artwork. Somewhere, a triangle of light traced a dragon statue that coiled up and seemed to watch over the cubicles. But that light—it was an anomaly. No other lamps were on. Kiew must be wherever that light originated.

Cassie walked into the open and skated a glance around. Thirty or forty cubicles spanned the space to the wall that must have the fountain on the other side. The wall that had prevented her from reaching Kiew last week.

To her left, down the hall a bit, she spied an open door, light spilling out.

Mustering her courage, she headed that way, wishing she had a way to communicate with Sal.

On second thought, no she didn’t. He didn’t believe in her. Didn’t believe when she said Kiew wasn’t the enemy. As she stood in that padded comfort of silence, Cassie wished for once someone would believe in her with the same level of trust as she did.

She slowed as she approached the door.

Something slammed. Wood on wood, it sounded like.

Cassie peered through the narrow splice, where door and jamb met. Through the half-inch space she saw Kiew stuffing files into a leather duffel. She had a phone pressed to her ear. She was talking crazy-fast the way Chinese did. Even with Cassie’s limited Mandarin from that year in China, she couldn’t catch enough words to make sense of what her friend was saying.

She stepped into the doorway.

Kiew snatched something from the desk and whipped toward Cassie. In the space of two heartbeats, Cassie realized her friend held a gun on her. “I trusted you!”

“No,” Cassie said. “You didn’t. Otherwise we wouldn’t be in this position.”

Grabbing the bag handles, Kiew kept the weapon with its screwed-on silencer trained on her.

Cassie took a step. “Kie—”

Thwat! Thwat!

The wall spewed gypsum at her, stopping Cassie in her tracks. She raised her hands.

“I will not miss next time.” Kiew started toward her, the silenced weapon closing the distance.

“Let me help you!”

“Back up,” Kiew ordered, motioning her aside with the barrel of the weapon.

Cassie did as instructed. “Kiew, please.”

“You are not my friend. You work for the government.”

“I work for someone who wants to help you get out of this.”

Her friend laughed. “You have no idea what you are talking about.”

“I know Jin beats you.”

Kiew’s narrow eyes flitted to the door then to Cassie. “So what?”

“So, I can help you get out of this. You don’t have to stay.”

“I’m not staying.” Kiew’s expression mocked her. “I’m leaving. As soon as you get out of my way.”

“We can help you!”

“You are a sweet woman, but this is so much bigger than you.”

“Then tell me,” Cassie said earnestly as she leaned toward her friend. “Come with me and tell me then. We can sort it out.”

“You Americans have a traitor in your midst and you want me to trust you?” Kiew’s caustic laugh stabbed Cassie.

She was going to lose her friend, and who knew what would happen then. Desperation pushed her on as Kiew made her way down a hall. “Please, Kiew. Talk to me. Let me help you.”

“I will not go with those soldiers.”

“Then come with me.” Heart thundering, Cassie advanced. “I’ll sneak you out of here and we can get you to safety.”

Kiew considered her, expression wary. “How?”

Right. How? How would she get them out with the U.S. monitoring the entire complex? “We’ll figure it out. You know this complex better than I do. Show me how to get out then I’ll get you to safety. I have contacts.”

Who weren’t talking to her at the moment, but she’d get them to help her.

“You would do this? Betray your lover and country? For me?”

Mind blazing, Cassie tried not to think of Sal or his team. They’d hang her out to dry. “I want to help you.”

A noise erupted behind them. Sounded like the stairwell. Cassie glanced back, terrified Sal would find her talking with Kiew. Helping her. When she returned her attention to Kiew—she found an empty passage.

Cassie threw herself down the gray-lined walls to a T-juncture. She checked right. It dead-ended and went left. She turned in the other direction as the clang of a door slammed shut.

Cassie pivoted.

Something slammed into her back. Threw her into the wall.
Crack!
Her vision blurred and went black.

CHAPTER 25

Kabul, Afghanistan
5 April—0430 Hours

D
isbelief stabbed Sal as he watched Cassie take a bullet in the back. She pitched forward and collapsed. Heart in his throat, he sprinted forward, right up to the opening into the T-intersection and threw himself against the wall.

“Falcon,” Hawk hissed, padding up beside him.

Sal went to a knee and then whipped around the corner, ready to nail whoever had shot her. The gray hall lay empty. He jerked right, reaching for Cassie as he did. He caught the drag strap on her vest and hauled her, bent in half, into the safety of the other passage.

“I got it,” Hawk said, covering them.

He reached around in front of her and nudged her back into his arms. She flopped, her head lolling against his chest. Sal adjusted and cradled her head in the crook of his arm. “Andra.”

No response. No movement. Two fingers to her carotid verified she was alive. He held his hand to her nose. A whisper of breath skated across his skin. Relieved she was breathing, he laid her down. Traced her body for blood. Nothing. No visible wound. A million thoughts fired through his brain—she could’ve been paralyzed if the bullet had hit a few inches left of the mark. Her heart may very well be in jeopardy. He couldn’t lose her.

Sal patted her face. “Andra!” He did it again, this time harder.

She sucked in a hard breath, arched her spine upward, and reached for her back with a strangled cry.

“Easy, easy.” Relief speared Sal. “You took a bullet. Knocked you out.” A red knot swelled over her brow. “Nearly put a hole in that wall, Walker.”

Tears pushed from between her lids.

“We need to move,” Hawk said.

Cassie rolled onto her side, pain etched into her soft, dirt-smudged features. She grimaced and pulled upright.

Sal held out a hand and tugged her to her feet. When she swayed, he held tighter and braced her back. “Okay?”

“I need to find her.” She wrangled against his hold.

“We will.” Sal tightened his grip, dark meaning tucked squarely between those two words.

“No, she’s not—” She shook her head. “Kiew’s in trouble. I have to help her.” She slapped his arm and barreled into him, pushing him aside.

Pain sluiced through the spot she’d hit, but he focused on Cassie. “Easy, we do this according to plan. Stay on plan, Walker.” On keeping her from doing something stupid.

But she seemed hell-bent on doing just that. Though she walked like a drunk, wincing with each step, Cassie started for the hall.

“No.” He caught her arm. Twisted her around. With a death grip on her, he nudged her back against the wall and pinned her.

Her head thudded against a framed print with a crack. She winced and stilled, chaos swirling in the blue ocean of her gaze. “What—?”

Tweet
.

“Just stop. Listen to me. We need to regroup. This isn’t about you and your friend, Andra. It’s about—”

Bleep
.

“This is
bullcrap
,” Hawk snapped. “I told you she was helping that chick.”

“Quiet,” Sal said. What was that noise?

Beep. Beep
. Sal’s gaze rose to the ceiling. To the sprinkler set there. To the red light.
Beep-beep
. It flashed in cadence with the noise. What…?

“She’s working against us. How can you not see that?”

“I am not working against you. I—”

“You’re aiding our enemy, trying to help her escape.”

“Falcon, you okay?” came the calm, steady voice of Dean through the coms.

Sal grabbed Hawk’s vest and jerked him up straight. “Stop,” he growled into his face.

“Is there a situation?” Dean didn’t waste time with politeness.

“No,” Sal said, still honed in on Hawk with one hand and Cassie in the other. But he sent as much fury as he could work into his expression to warn Hawk to stand down. “We’re good.” With a wag of his eyebrows, he dared Hawk to contradict him.

Though Hawk’s nostrils flared he relented, giving a nod.

Beep-beep
.

Sal again checked the smoke alarm. A dark feeling crowded his thoughts. “We need to move.” Instead of voicing his ominous thoughts, he focused his energy on Cassie, on getting the mission done and getting out. That’s when he noticed the pale sheen to her face. The graying around her eyes. Her wound was taking its toll. “We have a lot of moving around to do. Are you going to be okay?”

Beep. Beep. Beep
.

Was it his imagination or was that beeping getting faster? “Genie, we may have a problem.”

“Go ahead,” Dean said.

“I think they activated something.”

“Alarm or bomb?” Dean’s voice hardened.

Sal looked at the two with him. “Yeah,” was all he could say since he didn’t know which had been set off.

“Clear out,” Dean ordered.

“We can get Tang,” Sal insisted.

“Negative. I want my team alive.”

With a huff, Sal weighed the options. Defying this order could mean they all died. Obeying meant a complete mission failure.

“RTB. We’ll sort it out here,” Dean said, his words edged with defeat.

Sal watched Cassie. Her eyes widened. And curse it all—with each shake of her head, she tugged the thin threads of their relationship. Threads he’d severed the day Vida died, sealing the cauldron of his feelings for her. Feelings that were intense. Fiery. And if she tugged once more…

Why did he even care? Because his mind was still lodged in his throat back at the instant when he thought the bullet had ripped Andra from his life, too.

It bugged him. He shouldn’t care. Shouldn’t let it affect his decision. His resolute commitment to his team and commanding officer. But it was one thing to lose someone you cared about, and another to lose someone you loved.

He hated himself for that. For not smothering that weakness completely the way he’d convinced himself. But this wasn’t about Cassie and him. He didn’t want to make the wrong move, and the setup of this mission seemed to have the fate of the American military in the balance.

“You can’t,” Cassie pleaded. “She has to be found. I can help her.”

Burnett had said Cassie could read a situation unlike any other person he knew. So if that was true, then was she seeing something he wasn’t?

“Do you copy, Aladdin?” Dean once more penetrated Sal’s thick skull.

Everything in Cassie’s Swiss features begged him not to comply. “Yes,” Sal said, his mind bungeeing back and forth between terra firma and reckless, intentional abandon of protocol. “I hear you.”

But even as he said the words, Cassie threw herself around and sprinted into the hall, no doubt expecting him to follow protocol. “Walker!”

“Falcon, what’s going on?”

“Holy cow,” Hawk hissed, muting his mic. “For once, I’m with the chick. We need Tang.”

“Walker’s gone after Tang,” Sal replied to Dean, his mind raging.

Sal nodded, his mind snagging on the fact he wouldn’t put it past Meng-Li Jin to blow the place if he felt compromised. But without Tang, the mission was a bust. A failure.