May Contain Spies: A Spy Thriller (Meet Abby Banks Book 1) (3 page)

I started to say something when Stephen turned back toward the counter, flashing his smile. “Hello, sir. Welcome to Esmeralda’s. How can I help you today?” The man in the nice suit was standing across the counter from him, and for a moment, I couldn’t figure out why.

Then it hit me. We were still at work. I was still standing here in my mother’s restaurant. That meant everything that happened was real. He had really touched me, really taken this job just to talk to me. It made me feel special. I grinned again, turned to look at the man at the counter, and found myself staring into the barrel of his gun. The world shrank in an instant, distilling down until all I could see was the gun.

Oh my god, I was going to die. The thought hit me like a wrecking ball, and I don’t know how I managed not to melt into a puddle. There were so many things I never got to do, so many things…

“Don’t move.” His voice was firm, direct, and said that he was clearly in control of this situation. It didn’t hurt his position that he had one gun pointed at me and another pointed at Stephen. My mouth opened and closed once, and I made a strange squeaking sound.

“And you,” he said, waving one gun at Stephen. “Keep your hands where I can see them. I don’t want any funny business out of you.” The gun moved another fraction of an inch toward Stephen as though angling for a better shot.

The weapons seemed so huge in his hands, all black and shiny. They seemed real, seemed dangerous. It was so much different than in the movies. My heart beat so hard in my chest, I was worried it might escape. My eyes had gone as wide as saucers as I stared at the guns. They were so huge and so very, very scary. I swallowed and found my mouth had gone dry. I needed some water and to sit down… and to crawl under the counter and hide.

“Are you trying to rob us?” I blurted out, but my voice was barely a whisper. “We don’t have very much money.”

Why had no one noticed that this guy was pointing guns at us? At me? So far, we had not alerted the other guests. I didn’t know if this was good or bad. If people got scared we might be able to escape from this maniac. On the other hand, people might get hurt. I know it was selfish, but I cared very little for their safety at this point. I was ready to be in full flight mode, consequences be damned…

“No.” His voice was like granite. There was no arguing with him as he shook his head in a gesture that meant I was to be very, very quiet. “I’m here to take you with me, Ms. Banks. You’re very important to some very important people. Unfortunately,” he gestured toward Stephen with his gun again, “I’m going to have to leave your bodyguard behind. I don’t want him following us.”

So this was a kidnapping then—wait—what? Why was he kidnapping me? Why? Who could possibly want to kidnap me? My family didn’t have any money or anything to ransom. There was virtually no upside to taking me with them unless… I shook my head. Surely, he wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble if he just wanted to do dirty things to me? I gulped once and tried to keep the hysteria from my voice.

“Um… we don’t have anything of value. I don’t know why you’d want to take me, my mom—”

“Is one of the most powerful women in the world,” the man finished.

I laughed then. I couldn’t help it. Maybe it was the stress or something, I don’t know why exactly, but I couldn’t stop myself. I put one hand on the counter to steady myself as hideous guffaws tore from my throat.

“My mother?” I choked as tears began streaming down my face. “One of the most powerful women in the world? Have you met my mother?” I gestured at the restaurant. “This is all my mother has.”

“Esmeralda Banks is not your real mother.” He said the words with cold certainty. I tried to catch my breath but it seemed impossible, as impossible as my mom not being my mom. What he said couldn’t be true? Could it?

“Abby.” Stephen’s voice was cold and strangely calm. Very slowly, he reached over and placed one of his hands over mine. The man’s eyes narrowed, and he waved his gun as if to signify that Stephen ought to move his hand, and fast. “Don’t listen to anything this guy says. He’s a putz,” Stephen said, grinning as he began to walk around the counter.

The man’s eyes looked as though they’d bug out of his head. I wasn’t sure what the look on Stephen’s face was exactly, but he sure seemed like he knew what he was doing. The guy with the guns on the other hand looked livid. His face scrunched up into rage, his eyes two orbs of seething hate.

Stephen reached over and poked the man in the chest with one finger. “You, sir, are either very dumb or…” Stephen scratched his cheek and hummed as if thinking. “No, that’s the only explanation. You’re just very dumb.”

It happened so fast I barely followed it. The only thing I really registered was the aftermath. Stephen stood over the man holding both guns. The man’s blood pooled on the white tile. I shook my head and covered my mouth to keep from screaming or gagging as the metallic smell of blood filled my nostrils.

The man’s face had been reduced to hamburger. One of his eyes stared absently at the corner of the counter; the eyelid had been torn off. I took a step away from the mess, from Stephen. Already people were starting to move forward, anxious to find out what had happened.

In a matter of moments, people would start screaming and someone would call the police. The police… I should call the police. I numbly reached into my pocket to fish out my cell phone when Stephen put one hand on my wrist and stopped me. It was like a vice had clamped onto my arm. I couldn’t move. A chill sprinted down my spine. I struggled to draw one good breath, but my throat had closed up.

“We have to get out of here before someone else comes. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to protect you if more of them show up.” Stephen’s voice sounded a bit off. It was more high-pitched than before and almost had some kind of strange accent to it, as though he focused on the wrong syllables in the words he said.

“M-more of them?” I stammered. “Why would there be more of them? There shouldn’t have been one of them.”

“I don’t have time to explain,” he said, pulling me toward the exit, one gun pointed at the door. “But I will. That’s a promise.”

“Gun!” Someone screamed, and we were outside. The light was so bright, I had to squint to see, and if Stephen hadn’t been guiding me, I was sure I’d have tripped and fallen to the ground.

The staccato crack of a gunshot filled the air, so loud that even as it faded I couldn’t hear anything else. My mind was spinning as Stephen jerked me between a pair of parked cars and pulled me into a crouching position. Were people shooting at us? At me? There’s just no way that was possible. I turned toward Stephen desperate for him to tell me it was all a big gag, but the icy look on his face made my heart leap into my throat.

“Listen very carefully, Abby. These men want to kidnap you. They want to do all sorts of terrible things to you, and I’m trying to take you somewhere safe. I can’t do that if you don’t let me help you.” He put one hand on my cheek and steered my head so that our eyes met. “Will you let me help you?”

Another crack split the air. The driver’s mirror in the car behind me shattered. Bits of plastic and glass rained down over me as Stephen pulled me forward, not waiting for my response. His entire presence seemed to have changed as he led me forward, each muscle straining under his clothing like he was some kind of jungle cat.

“Abby, get down!” Stephen cried as he flung both of us to the ground. A loud crash sounded a few meters away, and the entire earth shuddered. I glanced over to see thick plumes of black smoke rising from the ruins of a car to our left.

“What the hell are they doing? Shooting at us with rockets?” I screamed as Stephen pulled me to my feet. I had no idea where we were going but I hoped we got there soon… and that it was bomb proof.

“Nothing that primitive.” Stephen almost chuckled and that scared me. In what world were rockets primitive? Primitives used spears. Rockets were demonstrably greater than spears.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a green light flash, and the asphalt in front of us melted into slag. Steam rose from the ground in tendrils, and I had to clamp my own hand over my mouth to keep from screaming.

Stephen turned and fired his stolen gun at where the light had come from. The sound of it was so loud, I was pretty sure it’d blown out my ear drums. My head was still ringing as he pulled me forward. I’d never been that close to a gun being fired before. Hell, I’d never been anywhere near a gun before. As far as firsts went… well, there were a lot of firsts for me today.

And wait a second… didn’t the robber have two guns? Where was the second one? And, more importantly, if there was another gun shouldn’t I have a gun?

“We’re here,” Stephen said as he slid the manhole cover off of a sewer access point. “Go down the ladder. I’ll be right behind you.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I glanced down the hole. It didn’t smell or anything, at least not like what I expected, but it was dark. It was so dark I couldn’t see more than a couple of rungs of the ladder. “There could be all sorts of things down there…”

“Yeah, well…” Stephen glanced around as another green light lanced through the air by us. “I don’t think the things down there will try to shoot you.”

Which, all in all, was an excellent point.

Chapter 4

I hit the ground and stumbled, my tennis shoes slipping on the wet concrete below. I wobbled, arms flailing out like a pair of windmills as I crashed onto the cold stone. I swallowed once, nausea rising in my throat as I felt something wet and slimy seep into my jeans. There was a thud beside me and something grabbed my wrist and pulled me to my feet.

“Well, that was fun.” Stephen’s voice echoed in the sewer like we were in an ancient cavern. “That wasn’t exactly how I envisioned today going.”

“Oh?” I murmured and before I could stop myself, blurted out. “How did you expect it to go?”

I felt his hand grow warm, and somehow, I knew he was blushing. He let me go rather suddenly and took a step forward into the murk.

“Not like this,” he mumbled. His voice had lost that strange confidence it’d had during the gunfight. I watched him fumble with something and a beam of light pierced the darkness. His flashlight was so bright in the gloom that I had to shield my eyes from it.

“We need to keep moving or they’ll catch us,” he added before taking a few steps away from me. Evidently, he felt safer with at least a foot between us. If my mom could see us now she’d laugh. Then she’d get a ruler to make sure we stayed at least twelve inches apart at all times. Then again… maybe she wasn’t my mom… but if she wasn’t, who had watched me all these years?

Still, there were men
with guns
trying to shoot me. That hadn’t happened to me before. Nothing like this should have happened to me either. That left the only logical solution to be the one the crazy guy at the diner had proposed. My mother was an all-powerful genie and someone wanted to kidnap me because of it.

But… if my mom wasn’t Esmeralda Banks, who was my mom? I glanced behind me and shuddered. I don’t know if knowing more was better than knowing nothing in this case, but I was suddenly lost in a sea of questions with no way to anchor myself… and I was treading through a sewer with some kind of James Bond.

“What the hell is going on, Stephen?” I said. “I just got shot at.
Shot
at! I’ve never even seen a gun before and now there are people shooting at me. Then there’s you and you’re all like ‘oh look I’m a super spy here to rescue you.’” I paused taking a deep breath. “What the hell am I supposed to think? How do I even know you’re one of the good guys?”

“Abby…” Stephen’s voice hit me like a cool breath in the damp sewer. I glanced at him and found him staring at me, his glacial eyes sparkling even in the darkness. “You need to calm down,” he added, putting his hands up in one of those universal
I surrender
gestures.

“Calm down?” I said, barely keeping the edge out of my voice. “I will do no such thing!”

“Look, if you keep making noise, the guys shooting at
you
will find us. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather that not happen,” he replied, smirking at me, in what I think was an attempt to use his charm on me.

I shook my head. “That’s not going to work, Stephen. You can’t charm your way out of this. Some guy just told me I’m adopted by a person who lied to me my whole life. He said my real mom was trying to use a
terrorist
army to come kidnap me.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “And then there’s you. Some guy who showed up out of nowhere and saved my life.”

“Abby, if you trust me, I will continue to save your life and keep you safe,” he replied, looking away from me and staring off down the tunnel. “What do you say? Will you trust me to keep you safe?”

I wanted to tell him no. I wanted to scream it at him… but I didn’t. Why? Because a man with a gun had tried to kidnap me, and Stephen had rescued me. Sure, it could all be part of Stephen’s plan to make me trust him, and if it was, well it was working because I didn’t see any other options. What was I supposed to do? Go back on the surface where people were shooting at me?

“Abby?” he said, his voice startling me.

I glanced at him and tried to ignore how angry I was at him and the kidnappers for putting me in this situation. “Yes?”

“I’m sure you have a lot of questions.” He watched me, not the path ahead of us, mind you, but me as we walked along. “I don’t really have a lot of answers, but suffice to say, I am on your team.”

“What team is that?” I asked.

“Team I-don’t-want-Abby-Banks-shot-in-the-head.”

“I like that team.” The words sort of tumbled out of my mouth like a spilled box of crayons. “I think everyone should be on that team.”

“If everyone was,” he said with a smile and pointed at his chest, “I’d be out of a job. And I trained a long time to get onto this detail. From the first time I saw your picture, I knew I had to be the one to guard you. Something told me that if someone else guarded you, you would die.”

I gulped and tried to steel myself. It was a little weird to have such dark banter about my possible execution for being the daughter of a yet unnamed super-powerful woman.