Shadow Soldier (7 page)

“It's great,” he said after the first spicy burst of flavors diffused in his mouth. “You could get men to do anything for cooking like this.”

“Actually, I can do most everything myself pretty well, thank you.

“Great. Just my luck. An independent woman.” He grinned.

“What's wrong with that?”

“Nothing. Independent women are my favorite. But every once in a while it's good to feel needed.”

“You protect me,” she said.

“That I do.”
But I'd like to do so much more.

The phone buzzed on the table where he'd put it.

“Yeah, yeah, get down. I know the drill.” Nicola crouched next to her seat.

“Front.” He shut off the light and went to the window in time to see another kid chase after the runaway puck on Nicola's lawn.

“We're fine.” He turned on the light.

She sat back at the table. “You're upsetting my digestion,” she said, but her voice didn't have any bite to it.

The phone buzzed six more times before it got dark enough so the kids went home. He checked each time, not taking any chances.

They were doing the dishes when he realized the acrid smell in the kitchen was getting stronger and it wasn't coming from the pot with the burnt soy sauce on the bottom. “Stay here.”

He ran through the rooms downstairs, stopping at the door that connected the laundry room to the garage, and saw the faint lines of smoke coming through the gaps. He put his hand to the wood. It singed his palm.

The phone buzzed as he ran back to the kitchen. “The garage is on fire.”

“What?” Nicola started for the back door, but he pulled her back and flipped the phone open.

Perimeter breach, back, side, front. One after the other. “Can't go outside. They've got us surrounded.”

He pulled her from the kitchen, and she grabbed the cage, as he pushed her up the stairs in front of him, dialing the Colonel. “We're under attack,” he said as soon as the other side picked up, then ended the call and turned to Nicola.

“I want you to barricade yourself in your room.”

“What about you?”

“I'm going to make sure no one comes up.” The narrow staircase was a good spot to defend. He could see anyone coming into the living room, and nobody could get behind him. He could take them out before the fire spread to the main part of the house.

“Then take the vest.” She tugged at the snaps.

“No.” He pushed her back.

Something small rolled toward the foot of the stairs and caught his eyes. “Tear gas grenade. Go!”

He could have probably still protected the stairs for a while, his training had included the tear gas chamber, but he wouldn't have been able to function at full capacity and he wasn't about to take any chances with Nicola's life. Had he been in combat gear, he would have had a gas mask on his belt, but as it was he had no option other than to abandon the stairs and follow Nicola into the bedroom.

“Stay down.” He locked the door behind them,
rolled up a small area rug and pushed it against the crack, then blocked it with her dresser.

No doubt the Colonel had sent the FBI and the local police, but it would be a while before they got there. He wanted nothing more than to walk through that door with gun blazing and take out those SOBs. But he couldn't start a shootout, he couldn't risk Nicola. Hot frustration tore at him when another emotion, one he'd never experienced with such intensity before, slammed into his chest and brought him to a halt—fear.

Fear for Nicola's life.

He couldn't afford to think about that now. Alex shrugged off all emotion and turned his brain to “commando mode.” He searched the backyard through her balcony door, but saw no movement. “Stay behind me.” He opened the French doors slowly.

He scanned the shadows of the night, his ears trained on the noises downstairs, people moving through the house. In a minute or two they would clear the lower level and come upstairs to find her.

Still nothing moved in the yard, but he couldn't risk going down and being seen through the windows. Nor could he risk walking into whatever trap might be waiting for them in the bushes.

He placed his hands on her shoulders, his stomach
knotting at the sight of her wide-eyed fear. “I'm not going to let anything happen to you.”

She nodded.

“How are you at climbing?”

“Never really tried.” She looked down. “It's not that high. I could probably jump.”

He got on the railing. “We're going up.”

“What about the birds?”

“We have to leave them. The fire department will be here long before the flames get this far. I can't risk them making some noise and giving away our position.”

To her credit, she set the cage in the far corner of the balcony without arguing, and opened the door. They waited a few seconds, but the birds showed no sign of wanting to take advantage of their sudden freedom.

“We have to go.” He reached for the gutter and tested it, then swung himself up. He lay on his stomach and held his hand out for her. She followed without hesitation, her knees trembling as she stood on the balcony railing, holding on to the downspout for support. She couldn't reach the roof, but she could reach his hand. He pulled her up as she braced her feet on the siding and “walked” to him.

Once her head was level with the low-pitched roof, he came up into a squatting position and hoisted her up. She lay on her stomach panting, but he couldn't
give her much time to rest. He could hear someone slam against her bedroom door, trying to break it down.

“We have to go over the top.” He reached for her hand.

He moved fast, crouching as low as he could, pulling her behind. Too fast probably, but he didn't have a choice. Her bedroom door shattered. Even over the popping fire in the garage, he heard the dresser crash.

They made it over the peak and flattened themselves against the rough asphalt shingles. The next second he heard someone yell on the balcony in a language he couldn't understand.

With his hands, he signaled to Nicola to start sliding further down, until they were far enough so they could come up in a crouch again without being seen from the other side.

He watched as a chunk of the garage roof caved in, the supporting beams destroyed by the flames below. The rest seemed to be holding up better. The narrow strip by the edge in front of them remained untouched, leading to a majestic oak on the other side of the house. The giant branches stretched from the garage to the neighbor's solid wood privacy fence.

“Figures. The garage is the only place in the house where I didn't have a smoke alarm,” Nicola said, calmer than he would have expected.

They had to move on. He could see people, two
of them, fanning out to search her front yard below. If he had thought they were the only ones on the property, he would have taken them out on the spot. But he heard voices from the house, and there must have been others, as well, in the backyard. Not too many though—somewhere between half a dozen to a dozen men altogether. Odds he would have gladly taken on were he alone.

He moved across the garage roof, bending low, gun in one hand, Nicola's clammy fingers in the other. The fire rose high next to them, its searing heat making their flight even more difficult. He glanced at Nicola and swore at the sight of her trembling figure as she stared at the flames. “Almost there.” He tugged her along. “Keep your eyes on my feet. Step where I step.” He wasn't sure if she could hear him over the fire now that they were directly next to it.

What the hell was he thinking, bringing a civilian up to a burning roof? If the terrorists didn't kill her, his carelessness probably would. She wasn't trained to do this. He didn't know the first thing about protective custody. He protected civilians by going to the bad guys and taking them out before they got into the country. He prayed his mistakes wouldn't cost Nicola her life.

They got to the tree just as another chunk of the roof collapsed. He lifted Nicola until she had a secure
hold on a branch thick enough to support their combined weight and was able to climb onto it. He reached up to follow her when he felt the roof shake again.

The beam he'd been standing on gave way to crash into the flames below. And took him with it.

No! Nicola stared after Alex as he disappeared into the fire and smoke. She lay on the branch, holding it in a death grip, too stunned to scream. “Alex?” she whispered toward her necklace a couple of times and waited in vain to hear his voice in her ear.

Heat and smoke rose through the gaping hole in the roof in waves. Nobody could survive the inferno below. Tears filled her eyes, but even through them she could see men on the ground, dark shadows moving through the night. They were going in and out of the house, checking behind every tree and bush of the yard—a pack of predators hunting. Only a matter of time before one of them would look up and see her illuminated by the flames.

And even if that wasn't a concern, the flames certainly were. They crept closer and licked higher with every passing second. She loosened her grip on the branch and inched backward. She didn't have to
worry about not making any noise. The fire below had been rapidly growing, and now drowned out every other sound.

The closer she got to the trunk, the wider the branch became, making movement easier. Then she reached the fork and sat inside it for a few seconds to gather her breath, the picture of Alex falling back into the flames stuck in her mind, filling her with horror. She couldn't go on. Not without him. What was the point? She'd never make it.

Try,
her mother's voice said in her head. Try what? Slipping onto the ground was out of the question—way too much activity down below for that. She would have to make it over the neighbor's fence to the other side. She was pretty sure that had been Alex's intention. She couldn't do it.

Alex had thought she could.

She sucked in a breath, grabbed onto the widest branch going in the right direction and began to climb. She reached the fence fairly fast, pushed to rush by the smoke blowing in her direction. She coughed and hoped it wouldn't be heard below, although she doubted anyone could see her through the smoke, even if they did look up.

She finally reached the fence and lowered herself onto a thick post, then slid down to the neighbor's yard and crouched behind a sprawling azalea bush. Her hands shook, as did her legs and her insides, her
throat raw from smoke. She wiped the tears from her eyes so she could see, and looked toward the street, wanting more than anything to get up, run around the fence and go back to the garage to help Alex.

If she thought he had one chance in a million to be still alive, she would have. But she didn't. She couldn't delude herself. She'd seen that fire. Still, she called his name into the microphone again.

Nothing.

She crumbled against the fence. On the other side, Alex, a complete stranger until a few days ago, had died for her. He could have climbed onto the tree first to pull her up after him. He hadn't. He'd put her life first, died so that she would live.

And he'd done it without thinking, without hesitation. That's the kind of man he was—gruff at times but constant and reliable, putting her safety before his own. Losing him hurt. Nicola hugged her knees as pain washed over her. Alex was gone—his rare grins, his arrogant confidence, his way of making her feel safe. She grappled with the thought as she stared into the night with tear-soaked eyes. Physical attraction aside, in all this madness, she had come to care for him.

The Slocskys' empty house stood a few yards in front of her. Her neighbors, a lovely retired couple, spent their summers at their beach house at the Jersey Shore. Alex would have probably taken advantage of
that. Maybe she could get inside, out from the open where she would be spotted as soon as the attackers decided to widen their search.

She pulled herself together and stood, brushed the tears from her eyes so she could see as clearly as the night allowed. She darted behind a hemlock tree next to the house, then stopped to scan the deep shadows of the patio. Nothing there but the familiar topiaries. She turned around to check the front but caught a movement from the corner of her eye and froze.

A dark figure, black from head to toe including the mask that covered his face, moved toward her. He stopped and looked around, took another couple of steps then stopped again. He hadn't seen her. He would have come straight to her if he had. She tried to control her nerves enough to think. She still had a chance.

She willed him to turn around, to choose another direction. But instead of following her telepathic suggestions, he inched closer still.

Another couple of yards and it'd be over. The fire next door gave off enough light for him to see her. She held her breath. Maybe if she stepped back closer to the wall, deeper into the shadows. The slight movement might attract the man's attention, but as it was, another few steps and he would see her anyhow. What did she have to lose?

She crept back without turning, connecting with
the wall sooner than she had expected. It moved. At the same time, a hand clamped over her mouth from behind.

 

A
LEX PUT HIS OTHER ARM
around hers to hold her still. If she struggled or made any noise at all, they would be discovered. He placed his lips on her neck below her ears in a brief kiss, trusting she would understand his message, know it was him. They had been kissing, minutes before the attack. He hoped she would make the connection. He couldn't risk whispering in her ear, and even if he managed to noiselessly turn her around, he doubted she would recognize him as he was, covered in soot from head to toe.

After a moment, he felt her sag against him and he let her go. He needed his hands for other things. Most importantly, to get the gun he'd taken away from one of the attackers.

He had run into one of the terrorists as he dragged himself out the back door of the garage, his clothes smoldering. That guy wouldn't be bothering anyone again. But as much as he had wished, he couldn't go after the rest. His first objective was Nicola. He had to be by her side to guard her. He couldn't kill all the attackers at once, and one could get to Nicola before he got to all of them.

She stiffened in his arms, and he watched as the
man took another step forward. Then another. Alex raised his gun. One more step and he would have to take the guy out, and then the sound of gunfire was sure to bring the rest running. If it came to that, they would have to be fast.

He got ready to shove Nicola behind him and shoot at the same time. His finger rested on the trigger.

Sirens filled the air.

The man looked around, then ran back in the direction he'd come from. Alex relaxed his arm as the sirens grew louder. The fire company came first, then the police a few seconds later. He stayed in place, holding Nicola with one arm to him.

“It's me,” he finally whispered into her ear.

“I know.” She turned in his arms and hugged him tight, hanging on for dear life.

He had a Russian-made Makarov—a fine gun at that—in one hand, and a woman he had no business holding in the other. And they were not out of the woods yet. The terrorists were probably still out there, watching, while he had no car to get away.

“Mrs. Slocsky's Oldsmobile is in the garage.” Nicola lifted her head.

He nodded and held her back from going straight for the door, not wanting to set off the light hooked to a motion detector. He went in through a window instead, helped her in, then turned off the outside
light and unscrewed the bulb in the garage that was probably set to turn on when the garage door opened.

Hot-wiring the car took seconds. He clicked the garage door opener clipped on the back of the sun visor, then, without turning the headlights on, backed out onto the driveway. An empty police car blocked their exit. Not a problem. A few bumps and a couple of flowerbeds later, he rolled off the next-door neighbor's driveway to the street and drove in the opposite direction from all the commotion, ignoring the small groups of neighbors gathered in their robes and pajamas. A couple of them were talking to the police, looking dazed or worried.

A police car took off after him almost immediately.

“Damn.”

Nicola looked back. “What? Police is good, right?”

“Not now. We can't afford to stick around to explain things. We'd be sitting ducks for a sniper.” He glanced at the flashing lights in his rearview mirror as he floored the gas pedal and pulled ahead. He had to get away before the cops had a chance to call for backup.

After ten minutes of hide-and-seek and racing down side streets, he killed the headlights and pulled into an empty carport. The cruiser came around the corner the next second and zoomed by behind them.
As soon as it disappeared from sight, Alex took off the other way. “I think we're okay.”

Nicola leaned back in her seat. “I'm so glad you're here. Back at the house when you fell—I thought—” Her voice sounded off, high-pitched.

Alex kept an eye on the rearview mirror. He'd never had anyone worry about what happened to him on a mission before. He didn't like the idea of Nicola being anxious over him, and he liked even less the possibility of him thinking about her and making a mistake, maybe not taking a chance he should have.

And he'd been worried about her, too, blamed himself for letting her out of his sight. He had fallen with the roof, leaving her alone for nearly ten minutes, giving the terrorists a thousand chances to kill her. He didn't like the cold pain that spread through his stomach at the thought.

He unclipped the cell phone from his belt and handed it to Nicola.

“See if you can get this to work. I think I fell on it. Couldn't reach you earlier.”

She fiddled with the thing for a while and pushed buttons. “Nope. Keypad is cracked and the front cover is partially melted. I think your phone is broken.”

She closed the cover and set the phone on the seat between them. He reached for it to clip it back on his belt. If it didn't contain more confidential infor
mation than a secret agent could uncover in a year's hard work, he would have chucked it out the window.

He had lost his car, his gun, his phone. He was pretty much cleared out. It wouldn't stop him, but it would slow him down. And that was the last thing he needed right now.

Nicola opened the glove compartment and handed him an old cell phone. “Here. Mrs. Slocsky keeps it for road emergencies. I think this qualifies as one. She probably wouldn't mind.”

He looked at her for a long moment before he took the phone. First she'd gotten him the car, now this. She was beginning to feel almost like a partner.

He turned on the phone and glanced at the screen that warned him about the low battery.
Figures.
Still, all he needed were a few seconds. He dialed, relieved to hear the ring on the other side. “We're on our way back to the safe house. One enemy down,” he said as soon as the Colonel picked up, not sure how long the battery would last.

“Are you both all right?” The man's voice came in a hiss of static.

“Affirmative.”

“Spike's still here. I'll send him over to check the place out and pick up that body. I'll let you know if he finds anything.”

“I'd appreciate that.”

No sooner had he put down the phone, than he noticed the tail. They were out on the main highway now, not as many cars on the road this late. The Jeep was catching up with them fast despite his best efforts to outrun it, the Oldsmobile's six cylinders no match for the other's eight.

Could be an undercover cop car. Maybe the officer he'd lost back in Devon called in his license plate. Then the Jeep pulled closer behind them and he saw the semiautomatic in the passenger-side window. Definitely not standard police issue. He pushed the gas pedal as far as it went, but the advantage he gained was temporary. They were on him within minutes, this time with bullets flying. He swerved, but it didn't seem to help. The back window took a hit and shattered. He felt something prick his shoulder.

“Are you okay?” He glanced at Nicola. She was bent over her knees, head down, but gave him a thumbs-up.

It pissed him off that she was getting to be such a pro at being shot at. She shouldn't have to be. She should be able to ride in a car without having to keep her head down. She had the right to a normal life.

And he would see to it that she got hers back before this was all over.

The guy behind them squeezed off another round. Damn. Alex swerved. Where was his bulletproof SUV when he needed it? And where was his SIG,
more accurate than the Makarov he had commandeered at the house? He doubted he could pick off the driver as cleanly as he had the other day.

He grabbed the gun and glanced at Nicola, half expecting her to protest at having another man killed on her account. Civilians were funny that way sometimes. Took them a while to catch up with the game.

“I'll hold the wheel.” She took over with a look of fierce determination, before he had the chance to ask.

He gave her a grateful look, then rolled down the window and stuck his head out. The man behind them sent forth another round. Nicola kept the car steady. Alex squeezed off a couple of shots at the bastard, then more at the Jeep's windshield and radiator. There. That slowed them right down.

Once again he waited a couple of exits before he got off the highway, making sure they weren't being followed, then took side roads to backtrack to the safe house.

He took the same precautions as the day before, parking in the barn, checking the house once they were in, then walking the property after seeing to it that Nicola was safely settled in. Everything seemed in order.

He pulled her into the bathroom with him after he came inside, closed the door, tucked a rolled-up towel in the gap by the floor, then turned on the light.

“Just want to check if you're okay.” He looked over her face, legs and arms but found nothing other than smudges of dirt and soot, a few minor scrapes from the shingles that had been as rough as sandpaper. “You look—” The alarm on her face cut off the rest of his words. “What?”

“You're burned all over.”