Merit Badge Murder (18 page)

I'd been in these kinds of standoffs before. But it never failed to scare the crap out of me. My mouth was dry, palms wet. My stomach churned, and I was listening so hard my ears hurt. Robots would have it much easier. The CIA definitely needed robots.

We were both on either side of the stage now. Lana stopped and waited for me to indicate what to do next. I held up my hand in the universal signal for
stop
and closed my eyes. I strained to hear anything. A footfall. The sound of a creaking rope. Human breathing. This was the part I hated most. A decision needed to be made. Do we go forward? We couldn't stay here.

Lana had a determined look on her face, so obviously she was in. I knew what the answer was. We had to clear the stage before searching the rest of the school. There was one guy left, and he couldn't be allowed to flee. But more importantly, we had to find Riley.

If he was waiting behind this curtain, I was going to kill him. I know, if he was, he probably heard me and Lana and thought maybe we were the FSB. On the other hand, he had to have heard the two shots I fired and wondered what that was. Why hadn't he come to my rescue? Why did I have to take out two guys when he only had one? Seemed a bit unfair and was definitely something I was going to take up with him after I rescued him
or
gunned him down by accident.

I signaled Lana. We were going to jump up on the stage and clear it as fast as we could. She'd take the left side, and I'd take the right. I counted down again, and we both leaped onto the stage and swung around our assigned curtain.

There was no one there. What the hell? Where was the guy who was supposed to be dead by now? And where was Riley?

"What do we do?" Lana asked.

"We're going to have to search the whole school," I answered. What else could we do? We had to find Riley, and we had to find the third guy. One of them I wanted to strangle— the other one I wanted to kill.

Together we wordlessly made our way to the office. After a quick examination, we decided to split up. I didn't want to. That exposed Lana to the last Russian. But the odds were better one-on-one, and Lana had a gun.

"I will go this way." Lana pointed to the hallway on her right. That's where I'd taken out the first two FSB guys.

I nodded. "Okay. Clear each room carefully. You'll need to go through the adjoining doors too. I'll meet you in the third and fourth rooms. Where I left the bodies."

Lana nodded and took off. I went left. Memories of going to school here as a kid washed over me as I looked at walls filled with kid art and posters. As a fourth grader, I never would've imagined I'd be roaming these halls as an adult. Or that I'd kill two FSB agents here.

I took the first room quickly. There was only one adjoining door in here because it was on the end. Once inside the doorway, I bent down to look under the desk. Nothing was there. I slipped along the wall to it anyway, just to make sure. Although I don't know what I expected to find. Did I think there'd be a three-hundred-pound man hovering a foot off the ground and crouched in a way that would guarantee he'd never have children? It didn't matter because I had to clear it.

When I found nothing, I made my way back to the hall door and peeked out. Empty. It wasn't going to be easy doing it this way. But I had to make sure that Riley wasn't a prisoner in these rooms and that the other agent couldn't get away.

I charged into the next room through the adjoining door and crouched to look under the desk again. It was hot in the school. Sweat trickled down the sides of my face and neck, annoying me. But I kept both hands on the gun. No point in getting shot just because I wanted to wipe sweat away. That would be a stupid way to die. Riley would think it was funny. Hell, he'd go back to Langley and tell everyone I was murdered because I couldn't take the heat. Death by perspiration, he'd say. Then they'd all laugh, and I'd come back to haunt the crap out of them. Ghosts don't like being teased any more than the living.

I cleared the second, third, and fourth rooms the same way. It seemed strange to me that I never heard another sound. No footsteps. No sounds of a struggle. Nothing. On the one hand, that was good. It meant Lana was still safe. On the other hand, it meant that guy number three was lying in wait for me, levitating behind a desk somewhere.

Once I got to the classroom on the other side of the gym door, I tiptoed across the hallway. I'd feel pretty stupid if the bad guy went back in there to hide and I hadn't checked. Very slowly I cleared the gym for a second time. Where in hell were they, dammit? You'd think Riley would at least make some noise…rock his chair back and forth or grunt, whatever.

I went back across the hall and into the fourth room again. Just for good measure, I ran quickly through the previous three rooms but still found nothing. I was running out of rooms. That was good in that no one had tried to kill me yet. But bad in that my prey was still missing. Eventually, I'd run out of rooms and run into him.

There was no sound from Lana on the other side of the building. I prayed silently that she was still okay. But maybe the FSB guy got her too. Dragged her out to his Volkswagen Beetle and stuffed her in the trunk while I was clearing the other side. The idea freaked me out, and I started sweating even more.

Had I just given the guy the opportunity to get what he wanted by letting Lana go alone? Why didn't I insist that she stay with me? This Russian could have both Lana and Riley trussed up somewhere. Then it would be down to just him and me.

Those odds didn't bother me. I'd faced them before. The problem was that I didn't know where Riley and Lana were. I toyed with the idea of calling out to her as I turned the corner to clear the last three rooms. Should I run the perimeter, find Lana, and make her stick with me?

No. We had to keep going the way we were. I was almost done, which meant that Lana, if she was still here, was almost done too. I raced through the last three rooms rather sloppily. My spy brain was screaming that something might be wrong. I'd always had an overactive imagination. That's a bad thing for a spy. You need a cool, level head for that job. Otherwise you could imagine all sorts of things.

When the last room was done, I stepped into the hall and let out a breath. Lana was up against the wall, gun drawn. She was alone and she was okay. I nodded at her, and she nodded back. Now we just had the classrooms by the entrance—two of which held dead bodies.

I stepped into the third classroom, where I'd killed Vlad. The only thing we could do was grab the bodies and dump them somewhere they wouldn't be found. I didn't need any more dead foreign spies in my hometown.

"What the…?" I stood behind the desk, blinking. Vlad was gone. How had that happened?

I ran to the next room and looked for the second guy, the guy I'd let bleed out on the floor. The puddle of blood was all that remained of him.

"I thought you said you took two of them out, Merry," Lana said softly.

I nodded, staring at the blood. "I did. I strangled the first guy, then shot this guy twice and tied him up. They couldn't have walked out of here on their own."
Could they?

No, I'd checked the first guy's pulse before I left the previous room. He'd been dead alright. And this guy was hogtied and close to death when I left him. Unless they were zombies, they should be here, waiting for a little chalk outline to be made around them.

The third guy. He must've come back and gotten them when we were in the gym. But how? There wasn't even a trail of blood to follow.

I ran to the door with Lana hot on my heels and pushed through it, ignoring the creaking. My eyes scanned the parking lot, and I swore softly. The Black Volkswagen was gone. But the SUV we drove was still there.

I reattached the chain and padlock as Lana took our guns and climbed into Riley's SUV. Riley, wherever he was, had the keys. I tore open the console to hotwire the car. I hate new cars. They totally suck to do. It's not entirely impossible to hotwire a car these days, but it is much, much harder. My mind rolled back to my training. It took a while, but I eventually made it work. Of course the console was a mess, and the SUV would be undriveable after we got home. When you hotwire a car, you have to kind of destroy it. There's no way I'd get it going again. It was going to be expensive for the rental place too. Stupid modern cars. That was the great thing about working in third world countries—the cars were a lot older.

Neither Lana nor I spoke as I put the car into gear and drove us out of the parking lot and back into town. Lana watched for a tail, but there wasn't one this time. I did several left-hand turns to make sure before finally pulling into a fast food parking lot. It was getting dark out. My stomach rumbled.

I reached into the glove box and pulled out my wallet. Lana had to stay in the car. She still had two black eyes, and I wanted to keep her out of sight. She moved to the driver's side, ready to peel out of here if there was any sign of danger.

I ran into the restaurant and ordered two double cheeseburgers, fries, and iced tea. It felt a little silly hitting a fast food franchise after killing two men. But they were big guys, and I'd expended a lot of energy. I needed to eat.

I used to travel with a box of macaroni and cheese. After anything like what happened at the school, I'd go back to whatever hole in the wall I lived in, and I'd make macaroni and cheese. I don't know why, but it always helped.

Fast food would have to do in this case. I paid up and noticed the pimply teenager behind the counter staring at my shirt. Really? Sexism
now
? It really wasn't the time or place for some stupid boy to stare at my chest. I looked down. Oh shit.

There was a spray pattern of blood that basically announced that I'd been shooting people. How did I not check that? Why didn't Lana mention it before I went in? It's like telling a friend she has broccoli in her teeth. Only with spies, you always mentioned when they had blood on their clothes and were about to go out in public.

"I was painting my barn," I said lamely. It was all I could think of. Barns are red, right? And there were a lot of farms outside of town.

The kid nodded and said, "Whatever." I fled.

Lana was still there, unlike Riley—who was still missing. She unlocked the doors, and I climbed into the passenger seat. I gave her directions, and she drove us to a very well-lit parking lot in the center of town where the teens cruised and hung out. We parked next to a group of kids who were goofing around. They eyed us suspiciously. It was a good spot to hide. Adults avoided places like these for a reason. Anyone looking for us would see dozens of obnoxious teens and most likely would flee.

I unwrapped a cheeseburger and handed it to her. We ate for a few moments in silence while the kids around the car tried to decide if we were cops or just weird old ladies. Eventually, they ignored us and went back to acting like idiots.

"What happened to Rileee?" Lana asked after she'd polished off the burger and fries in record time. With that body, I don't know how she ate junk and never gained an ounce. I'd never once seen her exercise. It just wasn't fair.

"No idea," I said as I sucked the rest of my drink down. "Best guess—the remaining FSB guy, Aleksei, took him and the bodies with him."

"His name was Aleksei?" Lana frowned.

I threw my hands up in the air. "I don't know. That was one of their names, and I know the first guy I killed was named Vlad. It just helps having a name for him so between Yevgeny and Aleksei, I picked the easiest one to say."

"I guess Riley couldn't have been dead." Lana stared off into the sea of writhing, howling teenagers. "Aleksei needed him to help carry the bodies out. He couldn't have carried all three without us catching him."

I nodded. "That's what I was thinking too." Riley was most likely alive. For now. What I didn't say was that the only reason Aleksei would've kept him alive is to trade. For Lana. It was only a matter of time before the message was delivered.

"He'll want to trade Rileee for me, won't he?" Lana said. Of course she came up with that. How many times did I need to remind myself that she'd been a trained spy?

"Yes," I said. No point in sugar-coating the truth. "My guess is they'll call me using Riley's cell phone."

Lana nodded. She didn't say anything more. Maybe she was wondering if I'd do it. If I'd agree to trade her. I was wondering that myself. As much as a pain in the ass as she'd been when she first arrived—Lana was kind of growing on me.

"Come on," I said as I balled up the garbage and threw it into the back of the SUV. I thought for a moment that I wished Riley would be able to see the junk food bag in his car and freak out. "Let's head home."

Lana caused a bit of a stir with the high school boys when she got out of the car to switch places with me. Even with two black eyes, she still made men drool. I ignored it, got into the driver's seat, and drove us out of there.

The black and white police car was out front as we pulled into the driveway. And sitting on the porch was Detective Rex Ferguson. I felt a little shiver of excitement at seeing him there, waiting for me. But then I realized why he was waiting for me, and my heart sank.

I shoved the guns under the seat and grabbed the fast food bag from the back before getting out of the car. Lana waited until I walked around to her side. She obviously got my cue because she stepped out holding the two drinks.

The officer in the squad car looked embarrassed. He probably got reamed out for leaving, and I felt a little bad about that.

"Ms. Wrath." Rex got to his feet. He wasn't smiling. "Ms. Babikova." He motioned towards the door. "May I have a word with you, please?" Awwww. He was polite. That was a good characteristic in a future fiancé.

I nodded and unlocked the door as Lana and Rex followed us into the house and into the kitchen. He sat down at the breakfast bar as Lana and I stood on the other side like a couple of naughty kids in front of the principal. I plunked down the bag and drinks and tried to look sheepish.