SecondWorld (15 page)

“You’re like Frodo,” she said. “You’ve been given a quest. To save us all. You need a fellowship, of course.”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

A silent beat passed between them.

“Before you go,” she said, “take a shower. I can smell you even under here. The bad guys will smell you a mile away.”

Miller smiled. “I don’t live far from here. Going to take a shower, get some shut-eye, and then I’m off to the White House in the morning. And then … who knows.”

“’Kay.”

Miller stood and felt a wave of dizziness pass through him. He held on to the chair as his vision turned black for a moment. A single night’s rest wasn’t going to be enough. His body was still weak, and even a momentary blackout could mean the difference between life and death.
I’ll rest on the move,
he told himself, stepping to the door.

“I
will
come back,” he said from the door. The words were as much for him as for her.

“Linc,” she said as his hand took hold of the doorknob. “Frodo was afraid, too. And he was a hobbit. Just a little guy. And he made it back.”

“Copy that,” he said, feeling stupid for using military lingo.

But when Arwen replied with a quick, “Over and out,” he smiled. Had she been his child he’d see her as a chip off the old block. The kid had guts, nerves, and the spirit of a fighter. It kept her alive. Kept them both alive.

Miller opened the door and stepped into the hall, where he was greeted by the ever-vigilant Brodeur.

“I’m leaving,” Miller said.

Brodeur frowned. “You said that like I’m not coming.”

Miller set a quick pace toward the elevator despite the pain in his legs. “That’s because you’re not.” To clear his head and rest, really rest, Miller needed to be alone. He had a lot to process and only one night to do it in.

“Going home, then?”

After stopping in front of the elevator doors, Miller hit the Down button and nodded. No sense in lying about where he was headed. “Cleaning up, getting some shut-eye, and meeting POTUS for a morning brunch.”

“So that wasn’t just a pat-on-the-back meeting?” Brodeur said.

“You sound surprised.” The elevator failed to meet Miller’s internal timetable. He found the door for the stairs and made for the stairwell. Brodeur shadowed him. Taking the stairs hurt far worse than walking, but Miller tried not to show it.

Brodeur noted Miller’s slight limp. “You’re not exactly battle ready.”

“He was persuasive,” Miller said.

“Dang, man,” Brodeur said, his Southern twang coming through more clearly when unmasked by surprise. “What does he want you to do?”

Miller ignored the question, reached the ground floor, and exited the stairwell. He entered the lobby and headed for the reception desk. He tried to offer the portly man behind the counter a smile, but felt too uncomfortable to manage much more than an awkward grin that looked more like a grimace. “Can you call a cab for me?”

“Uh, sure,” the man said, looking at him with wide eyes.

Miller realized the man recognized him.
Great,
he thought. He turned away from the desk and found Brodeur there, arms crossed, and a smile on his face.

“How are you going to pay for that?”

A quick pat of his pockets reminded him he didn’t have a wallet. “Shit.”

“Going to have to break into your apartment, too, unless you have a spare.” When Miller said nothing, Brodeur flashed his ID and said, “I can make sure you don’t get arrested for breaking and entering.”

With a shake of his head, Miller turned to the man behind the desk. The man turned away quickly, looking at random papers on his desk in an attempt to hide his eavesdropping.

“Cancel the cab,” Miller said.

The man’s neck jiggled when he nodded. “Are you really him?”

Miller just turned away and headed for the door. Brodeur followed.

“I take that back about you being arrested,” Brodeur said. “Everyone knows who you are, now. You’re a celebrity.”

Miller exited through the large glass doors at the front of the hospital. He stopped on the sidewalk as a breeze carried a waft of fresh air over his body. He breathed deep, intoxicated by the smell, by the feel of it in his lungs. He would never take it for granted again.

When Brodeur stopped next to him, Miller said, “A celebrity is someone people wish they were. No one wants to be me. Trust me. Where’s your car?”

“No idea,” Brodeur said. “I tend to misplace things.”

Miller felt like slugging Brodeur, but held off when the man took out his keychain and pushed a button on a car alarm transmitter. A honk sounded in the distance. “Thataway.”

Brodeur led the way, honking the horn every ten seconds, honing in on the vehicle like a dolphin using echolocation. When they reached the car, Miller debated taking the keys from Brodeur and leaving him behind, but the man was just doing his job.

While Brodeur opened the driver’s side door and climbed in, Miller looked back at the hospital. He found the fifth floor and followed the windows to the room he thought belonged to Arwen. It all seemed so normal. So simple. The hospital. The blue sky. It was hard to imagine that while part of the world had been transformed into hell, the rest was business as usual. He kept expecting red flakes to fall from the sky, or for the hospital to explode, or for a sniper bullet to find him.

When the doors unlocked, Miller jumped.
Relax,
he told himself.
Get a grip.

After getting in the car and hitting the road, Miller discovered that his assessment of the world outside the Miami area was drastically incomplete. The world was anything but normal. In the fifteen minutes it took to get to his apartment they witnessed two stores being looted, several fights, and a standoff between a mob and D.C. police in riot gear.

When they turned onto Miller’s street, he was glad to see it looked no different than the last time he’d seen it, nearly two weeks previous. Brownstone apartment buildings lined both sides of the street, most of which were concealed behind twin lines of maple trees heavy with green leaves.

“It’s this one,” Miller said, pointing to his building.

Brodeur pulled over.

“You don’t have to stay,” Miller said.

“You have your orders, I have mine,” Brodeur said. “Won’t be the first night I spent in a car.”

“You’re staying in the car?”

“Can’t keep watch as well from the inside.”

Miller knew he was right, but it still felt odd, having someone watch over
him.
He opened his door. “You sure?”

“Go,” Brodeur said. “Sounds like you’re going to need as much sleep as you can get.”

“Thanks.” Miller stepped out of the car and closed the door. He offered a nod and casual salute, and limped toward his front door. He strode up the granite stairs leading to the front entry of his building. He had planned to buzz a neighbor to let him in, but found the front door wedged open. The tenants sometimes did this if they were moving a mattress or TV, but no one was around. Assuming someone had just forgot, he kicked the rock away and let the door close behind him.

His pace quickened as he took the stairs toward his third-story apartment. It would feel good to just sit in his chair, which had conformed to the shape of his body. He took the last flight of stairs two at a time, working out his game plan: ibuprofen, shower, beer, chair, think, second beer, go to bed. As soon as he reached his door, the plan became moot. It would have to wait for another day.

The door was open.

Miller reached under his left arm, looking for a gun that wasn’t there.
Shit,
he thought. He listened for several seconds, and after hearing nothing but the loud hum of his old refrigerator, slid into the apartment. Two steps into the apartment he saw that it had been tossed. The contents of every drawer and cabinet covered the floor. Paintings lay broken and torn. Cushions sat gutted.

At the center of it all, in the living room, stood a petite blond woman, gun in her hand and blood on her arm.

22

Several options shot through Miller’s mind. He could retreat and get Brodeur, who was armed. But that wasn’t really his style. And the game could change by the time they got back. She might be watching the door, or have exited out the back. Leaving wasn’t a viable choice. He had to take care of this here and now.

His way.

The woman held something in her free hand and was inspecting it closely.
No way she’s a pro,
Miller thought. She’d left her back to the entrance and was totally ignorant of her surroundings. Still, she was holding a 9mm Glock and the blood on her arm suggested she knew how to use it.

Miller stepped quietly through the detritus littering the hardwood floors. With adrenaline fighting his fatigue, he managed to slide up behind the woman. Close up, he noticed a large purse at her feet.

Who brings a purse to toss an apartment?

Her clothes were all wrong, too. She wore tight-fitting jeans that showed off her short, but fit legs. Her red shoes looked like fashionable cross-trainers. And combined with her untucked white blouse and red, flowery purse, she looked like some kind of office employee on casual Friday.

Still, there was the gun.

A problem he would soon fix as he moved to within four feet of the woman. Close up, he could see that she was looking at the Purple Heart medal he’d been awarded for the greatest failing of his Navy SEAL career. He held his breath, pictured every move he’d make, and then acted. With one long step he closed the distance between them. He grasped the gun with his right hand and twisted, while with his left, he shoved her hard in the center of her back. The woman fell forward with a shout. The gun came free.

Miller turned the gun on the woman and took aim at her head.

She landed on the floor and spun around quickly. Her straight blond hair clung to her face, which looked wet. Through her hair, Miller saw her eyes, red-rimmed and wide. The woman was terrified. Not only was she not a pro, she wasn’t even a killer.

“Who are you?” Miller lowered the gun a notch.

And then she spoke.

“Please, don’t shoot me. I’m not your enemy.” The request was simple enough, but every syllable she spoke held the unmistakable sharp sound of a German accent.

The gun came back up. “Bullshit.”

“Please,” the woman said, shrinking back.

“Who did you shoot?”

The woman looked confused. “No—no one.”

Miller squinted at her. His logic said she was lying. After all, the last German he’d encountered had nearly killed him, and she had been standing in his ransacked apartment with a gun. But her eyes, blue and wet, looked honest. He quickly ejected the clip and looked at the bullets. Full. There wasn’t even a round in the chamber. He slapped the clip back home and smelled the gun. If it had been fired recently and reloaded, it would still smell strongly of cordite.

He smelled nothing. Either the woman had reloaded and cleaned the gun, or she was telling the truth.

“Whose blood is that?” he asked, pointing to her arm.

She looked down at the blood, her eyes widening as though she’d seen it for the first time. With a shaky hand, she wiped at the dry blood, but it wasn’t going to come off without soap and water.

Miller lowered the gun. Whoever this woman was, he could see she’d gone through hell.

“What’s your name?”

When she kept wiping at the blood, Miller took her face in his hand and turned her toward him.

“What’s your name?”

Her lips quivered for a moment, but after a deep breath, she found a measure of self-control and spoke. “Elizabeth Adler. I— I’m a German liaison for Interpol.”

“Interpol?”

“I coordinate with the FBI and several European agencies on criminal activities that involve multiple countries.”

“You’re not a field agent?”

“Interpol has no field agents.”

Miller’s knowledge of Interpol came to him in a flash. The organization—despite what Hollywood and novelists would have the world believe—didn’t hunt down criminals and solve cases. That’s not to say they weren’t important; coordinating police forces from multiple countries that might not always have the same agenda was no easy task. And thanks to their efforts, many international criminal organizations and terrorist plots had been uncovered. They were the good guys.

But, if President Bensson was right, even the good guys could be bad guys. Her being an Interpol liaison didn’t necessarily make her trustworthy.

“Back to the blood,” he said. “Whose is it?”

She glanced down at her blood-splattered arm, but didn’t linger. She turned back to him and said, “My boss’s.”

“Is he dead?”

“I don’t think so. I hit him with the gun.”

“Why did you do that?”

“I have something important.”