Blowback (3 page)

But Mal's brain was clearly back on the mission at hand. He didn't hesitate. He directed David through a short alleyway that took them into a courtyard of the adjacent building.

Ignoring three doorways, Mal opened the fourth and took the steps behind it two at a time.
Holy shit.
Mal had been up long enough to scope out the area. David felt ashamed that he'd stayed in the room so long. But Molly. He'd stayed up way too long watching her sleep.

“Okay,” Mal kept his voice low. “This is the floor that the police have cordoned off, next door. It's directly opposite the hotel restaurant.” He paused.

David looked out of the open stairwell and thought about the night before. He used his hands to visualize the trajectory of the sniper's bullet. “No. I'd say the bullet hit the Russian at a forty-five degree angle, blowing out his lower back. Which means…” he looked up and across at the restaurant. “I'd say the nest is maybe two floors higher.”

Malone looked relieved. “Thank God. They said you were solid, but you know, after last night…” He held his hand flat and shifted it to and fro.

“You dick. I'd heard it was you I had to keep my eye on.”

Mal smiled. “You should. If you want to learn something. Come on. Stop wasting time.” He strode up the remaining steps to the roof. Once there, it was easy to step across a small wall on to the roof of the next-door building.

David spotted a door and nodded toward it. He reached it first, and pulled on the handle. Locked. “Of course.” He breathed, taking out his knife.

Mal watched the surrounding roofs as David levered the door open by forcing the blade through the doorjamb. It was relatively easy. Nothing up here seemed to have been well maintained, and the wood splintered as if it hadn't seen a lick of moisture in decades.

Three floors down they found the likely lair. Both men stood in the doorway listening to the sounds of the police a couple of floors down. Mal raised his eyebrows at the laughing below, and David just shook his head.

The room was empty. The floor was covered in linoleum that had seen better days. A couple of boxes lay near the window, and several others by the wall. Mal stared toward them. They appeared empty, but who knew?

The sun peeking through the window glinted on something. “Stop!” David hissed. Mal stopped dead in his tracks and looked to find the reason for David's order.

“Tripwire about ten inches from your left foot.” David approached and followed the wire to the wall. “Huh.”

“Huh what?” Mal said through gritted teeth.

“Wait.” The tripwire disappeared on both sides of the room under what appeared to be empty boxes. Then extended in a V shape to the boxes in front of the window. “Back up toward the door. Try not to deviate from where you were before.” He heard Mal sigh, but was grateful that he complied. As he lifted the cardboard boxes he saw devices with enough explosives to wipe out the room, but not much else. Probably not the people inside the room either. Weird. Just enough to destroy the evidence, he guessed, but not enough to kill anyone. Someone with some explosive skills had great restraint. Usually people who made their living designing bombs did so for maximum mayhem. This bomb maker was clearly very specific about the level of destruction he desired. Or he was under specific orders.

David couldn't detach the wire without triggering the explosive charge, so he shrugged and cut the plastic wire in two places to relieve the tension on the trigger. He walked around slowly, ensuring there were no secondary devices. “All clear.”

“Tell me before you cut a wire next time, mate. You nearly gave me a heart attack. I thought in these situations we're supposed to have a hilarious conversation about which to cut: the blue or the red wire. Don't just snip something without discussing it first, okay?”

It was hard to tell how serious Mal was about anything. “It wasn't wire.” He picked it up and sniffed it. “It's minty dental floss.” He frowned and sniffed again. “Wow. That's…really improvised. The whole thing feels unplanned. Like someone wasn't expecting to have to rig something but managed to anyway. That's…hardcore.” He met Mal's eyes.

Mal nodded. “And hardcore means fanatic or professional. Neither one fills the heart with moonlight and roses.”

Suddenly, voices came from a few floors down. Raised and excitable. Mal and David rushed to the window and looked down. As soon as they did, a muffled boom launched a wave of dust and glass through a lower window. Then before they could do much more than wince, the window below theirs blew out too. They looked at each other for a second. Mal braced himself as if he was expecting their room to blow too.

David raised an eyebrow. “You saw me defuse it right?”

“Sure I did. But I don't know how good you are at that shit. You could be crap.”

“Well let's see how good you are. Get us out of here with as much evidence as you can.” He looked back toward the door. “I'd say we have less than a minute to clear the building.

Mal didn't hesitate. He stacked one empty box inside another, set it in the middle of the floor and started throwing things in it. David grabbed as much dental floss as he could, the device, and the explosives. He lobbed all but the explosives into the box. Those he tucked in his jacket pocket.

A second later the room upstairs blew too. “Okay, we've got to go
now
.”

David lofted the box full of evidence and broke for the stairwell. Below, he could see men in antiexplosive suits slowly advancing on them. They must be the police's bomb squad. A good half of him wanted to stop and shoot the shit with them. He missed the craziness of the Air Force Explosive Ordnance Disposal guys. Instead he took the stairs two by two. Mal was now ahead of him, as he hadn't stopped to look at the bomb squad.

David stopped on the next floor up, where bomb debris had blown into the stairwell. He picked up some larger pieces and stuffed them in a pocket and kept running. Once on the roof, they retraced their steps back to the building adjacent.

As soon as they were inside the building, they stopped to take a breath. “Jesus. Every floor?” Mal said.

“Someone really wanted to cover their tracks. But I have to say, to me that sounds like more than one person. Setting four bombs on tripwire takes time. It's not something you can do fast. I mean unless they set them all earlier…but then they ran the risk of them blowing before the hit.” David frowned as they walked much slower down the second flight of stairs.

“Bombs are pretty commonplace here,” Mal said slowly.

“Huh?”

“I mean people aren't as freaked out by them here. Athens has a healthy population of antiestablishment anarchists of all stripes. Hell, just this year they've firebombed a few American businesses. Never heard of them using a sniper though.”

“So it could be someone sent to assassinate the Russian minister and using bombs to make the authorities think they're local anarchists?” David said. “Sounds clumsy to me. No way would they think those bombs were from anarchists. Well, depending, I guess, on what's left of them now. From what I could see, a hefty amount of evidence shot out of the window.”

“The bad news is that they will go to see why our floor didn't blow out too. Footprints, fibers, fingerprints. Shit. I touched the window frame when the second floor blew,” Mal said.

David knew that everything he'd touched was in the box he held. “Dammit. Well you probably have about three days before they process the prints.”

“I'm not in the system. But it still doesn't fill me with the joys of spring to know that anyone has my fingerprints.” He fell silent, and David allowed him a few minutes to digest. If Mal
was
SAS, his prints would definitely be classified. But with the world's eyes on Athens and the G20 meeting, there may be pressured cooperation between the countries. Which meant Mal's days in Athens was numbered. He was sure Mal was thinking about that.

“The worst thing isn't that my identity will be blown, it's that the authorities will think the British had something to do with the assassination of a Russian minister. And frankly, boy-o, you should be worried about that too. Send your girl away. Whoever she is, she'll be in their crosshairs, being the person with him when he got killed. Your country doesn't want that heat either. No offense, mate, but country first. Give her a kiss and send her to the airport. Fast.”

So Mal, for all his attitude, was as patriotic to his country as David was to his. He was right on all counts, as well. David knew what he had to do. Should do.

Do I have the strength to send her away again?
Yes, yes he did. He had to.

When they got to Mal's room, David laid some clean white towels on the bed and started placing the recovered items on it. As he went, he placed the bomb components together as they'd been connected in situ. The more he rebuilt, the more he concocted a vision of how this went down. Someone had left at least the explosive charge, and maybe all the equipment, for the shooter. The shooter could have set the explosives, made his shot, and then left, knowing that as soon as someone located the origin point of the shot, the evidence would be blown up. Meaning the shooter could make a fast getaway, not having to worry about clean up. Or, someone assembled the explosives after. But that would have been too risky. Actually the only scenario that made sense was that the explosives were rigged before the sniper took position.
Oh. Ohhhh.

“Okay,” David said. “Imagine you've been given the assassination job. Your front man has set up a bunch of explosives to cover any evidence you were there after you've done the job.”

Mal sat in the armchair and nodded, leaning forward, elbows on knees. It was the most serious David had ever seen him.

“You're directed to the second floor to take the shot. What happens?”

Mal didn't hesitate. “I make a mental note to kill the guy who told me I could get a bead on the target from the second floor. There isn't a good enough line of vision to get a shot.”

David nodded. “So the explosives are rigged on the first, second and third floors. But you need the fourth floor to make your shot.”

Mal nodded. “I take the explosives from one of the other floors, and put them on the fourth floor.”

“But?”

Mal was already nodding. “But to move the explosives, I have to cut the wire. So I take the bombs onto the fourth floor, and then I have to use something else as the tripwire. Something handy…something like dental floss.”

David looked back at the towel and picked up the sheath to a pen. It was a metal tube with “BP” engraved on it. Someone's initials, not a logo. “This came from the floor above. It's charred, so it was definitely near the bomb. Maybe even the contact blocker.”

“Keep it in case,” Mal said. “I don't much like anything going on here. Can you get rid of the explosives?”

“Sure.” That wasn't even slightly difficult. He could throw it in any trash can in the city and it would be totally inert. Although he was more inclined to take them to the US embassy. “I'm going to check in on Molly.”

“Great. Ask her why someone would want to shoot her friend, will ya? Could save time.” Mal wrapped up the towel with all the evidence, and dumped it on the floor. He lay on the bed, and put both hands behind his head and closed his eyes.

David didn't dignify it with a reply.

W
hen Molly woke, the first thing she checked was her pocket. Then her phone. The notes were still there, and the phone had no text or voice mail. Brandon Peterson had disappeared. Or disavowed her. A prickling of anxiety settled in her stomach, and she blew out air through puffed cheeks, trying to dispel the feeling.

David. She was in David's room. At last. A year she'd been looking over her shoulder, waiting for him to show up. And now she was here with him. In Athens.

She knew he was worried about her, but she hadn't done anything wrong. Maybe she'd been about to do something in service of her country, but she hadn't. And it still wasn't wrong. Her thoughts flittered to Doubrov, wondering if she had done something that led to his death.

Her head felt clear again, even though her back throbbed. She fingered the messages in her pocket. Should she read the other one too? She'd been told not to. She just wished Brandon would return her call so he could tell her what to do.

She stretched and winced again at the pull of the wounds in her back. She needed a shower and some clean clothes. Maybe her luggage had arrived. Suddenly the idea of clean underwear and clothes that didn't have slivers of glass in it was overwhelmingly attractive. She left David a note and went down to her room.

Bliss. Her suitcase had arrived. She sighed with relief and pulled out a silk blouse and a skirt, hung them on a hanger, and took them into the bathroom with her to steam out the creases. The shower was heavenly, but being alone and naked made her long for David with a heaviness that threaded through her stomach. Nervousness perhaps. She'd spent a year thinking about him, dreaming about him, wondering what she would do if he had actually called. The thought of him actually being here, causing this physical reaction in her, confused her.

She wasn't sure when she had put it all together in her head, but her boss had married Matt, the other man who'd helped them in Iraq, so it was as if her soul had accepted that David would be hers. Like a perfect and symmetrical outcome. Henrietta had Matt, and she would have David. He must have felt the same, she'd been sure. Every time they'd seen each other, his eyes would never leave hers. They burned into her, making her think that they were connected at some profound level. She was sure he saw her, really saw her. He didn't say much when he was sober, and only laughed that one time she'd seen him drunk, but they'd seemed to say so much without words that she was sure—no she
knew
—he would come for her when she returned to the US.

And when the months passed, and her feeling about the man who had rescued her, totally on top of his game even though he'd been drunk at the time, had never diminished. She waited, sure every time she got home that he'd be on her doorstep.

He was hers. Her heart had never accepted even a sliver of doubt, though he hadn't even kissed her. Two kisses on the freaking forehead were all he'd given her. Maybe if she wore heels she'd be at the right height to get a kiss where she wanted one. But he'd done nothing except hold her close at the airport a year ago. Why had she been celibate just waiting on the off chance that he'd make good on his promise? And why was washing herself in the shower making her want him with every part of her? Every drop of water felt like a touch. His touch. But now he was really here, yet different. More careful, more considered. Still intense, still dangerous. Still wildly attractive.

She shook it off by peeling the wet bandages from her back. And shampooing her hair. Hard. As she was getting out of the shower, there was a knock at the door. Her stomach fluttered. David? Who else could it be?

Excited, she wrapped a large towel around herself and ran to open the door. She checked the peephole with her hand already on the handle. Two unsmiling men stood there. Not David. She took a step back and tightened the towel around her.

The two men discussed something outside, and she leaned in so she could hear. “Open the damned door,” one man with an accent said.

“No, I can't…” The second man was interrupted with an audible scuffle, and to Molly's horror, she heard the key card slide into the lock.

Instinctively she looked for somewhere to hide, but there was nowhere. Not even large enough furniture to crouch behind. Even the bed was too low to the ground.

The door opened.

She tried to close it again, but the larger of the two men stuck his foot in so she couldn't. “Excuse me. I'm not dressed.” She tried to convey annoyance rather than the abject fear she had that two strangers were in her hotel room uninvited.

She slammed the door several times on his foot but he didn't show any expression. The smaller man looked apologetic. “Ms. Solent. I am so sorry for this inconvenience. I am Mr. Stelio, the hotel duty-manager. This is an investigator from the Russian embassy. It seems—”

“You were the last person to speak to Dr. Doubrov before his criminal assassination.” The larger man interrupted in a deep voice with a thick accent, dragging out the word “criminal” like he was in a James Bond movie. “So. We need to talk, you and I. Correct?”

Fear spiked through her. The man pushed his way into the room and stood by the window, looking out over the city. The hotel manager hovered in front of the bathroom nervously wringing his hands.

Molly hitched her towel up as far as she could. She shoved her chin up. “If you wish to talk to me, you can make an appointment, and I will be dressed for it. You can't just barge—”

“I can do whatever I want to do, Ms. Solent. I am sure you wouldn't want to impede the investigation into the murder of a member of the Russian government, would you? Especially as you seemed to be so well acquainted?”

Oh my God. What did he know?
“I have only met him at conferences. That is the extent of our acquaintance.” Her cadence started to reflect the Russian's proper sentence construction. Funny thing was, if he hadn't pissed her off, she would probably have stuttered and stammered through an excuse, but anger superseded her nervousness.

He spun around to face her. “And yet I've heard from his security team that you held his hands for so very long before he was shot. Was it a signal? What did you say to him?”

A signal?
“I said how nice it was to see him. I really didn't…”
have anything to do with his death…did I?

“I think we should let Ms. Solent get dressed. Maybe you can make an appointment to speak to her further.” Mr. Stelio shifted from one foot to another, obviously uncomfortable.

“Thank you—” Molly began.

“Absolutely out of the question,” the Russian interrupted forcefully. “Time is everything in a murder investigation.” He stepped much closer to Molly than was comfortable.

Her legs pressed against the bed but she had nowhere to go. She wasn't going to sit on the bed and allow him even greater physical power over her.

“I'm not sure you—either of you—understand the position you, and the whole of this country, are in. A member of the Russian Federation's government was brutally gunned down at a G20 meeting. In your country.” He raised his eyes to the hotel manager.

“And with you”—looking back at Molly—“an American, being the last person to talk to him.” He slowly put his hands on his hips revealing a gun on his waist. “It really is in your best interests to cooperate with the investigation.”

Molly's heart jumped a beat at the sight of his gun. She thought Europe had mostly banned guns. What had she gotten into? What were the messages about? What if he took her to the Russian embassy? No one would ever know where she was.

He stroked a thumb up and down the butt of the gun, as if he was contemplating taking it out and blowing a kneecap. “We saw you passing information. That is what his protection thinks. A thumb drive perhaps? Are you an agent for the United States of America? With your dark hair, you could easily be Chechen too. Let me tell you, our administration sees Chechen conspiracies faster than you sell antiquities. And the gulags are pleasant this time of year I hear. If…you survive the journey.”

“Wait a minute. I did not sell antiquities—” but she kind of had. Or at least had unknowingly worked for a company that had sold antiquities that she and her boss had found. He must have really done his homework about her. While she was sleeping, he must have been digging up her past. The thought chilled her more. She tried to gather her thoughts. “I'm here to speak out against such practices. And while we are on the subject of dubious practices, I highly doubt my embassy would look kindly on you barging into my room, not even allowing me to dress, and interrogating me.

A movement in the door caught her eye. David muscled in behind the hotel manager, holding his cell phone up to video what was going on in the room. The Russian didn't see him. Thank God he'd found her. Her shoulders slumped in relief.

The Russian hissed at her in anger. “Your embassy, you foolish girl, will cooperate with my investigation lest our inquiries point at them. And if they don't, we will all know that the United States of America assassinated a member of Putin's government. Trust me when I say they won't want to go to war over this. They will give you up to us, regardless of what you did, or didn't do.”

“And will your government give you up when this little movie I'm making hits YouTube? Of you storming a hotel room with a gun and victimizing an American woman who is only here to talk to the G20 countries about archaeology? With no authority?” David said, as if he was having a conversation about grabbing coffee.

That is until the Russian drew his gun.

“Give that phone to me immediately!” the Russian said, flicking a lever on the gun. Was that the safety? Was he really going to shoot David?

Molly's knees started to wobble, and the hotel manager disappeared into the corridor. She couldn't really blame him.

“This phone? This one? Okay. Oh, whoops. Look at that. Already uploaded. Right next to the video about a cat that loves water. Look. Aw. It's taking a bath in a kitchen sink.” David showed the phone's screen to him and then laughed. “It really is so cute. Look, it has over a million views. Oh, do you think your video will beat that? It might go viral.” His voice hardened. “That would be fun wouldn't it? Your career would be over. You are KGB right? Or SVR? A rose by any other name is as sweet though, don't you think? KGB, SVR it's all the same. Tell me, what are their disciplinary measures like? Same as they used to be? Shot by recruits?” He looked at the phone again and grinned. “Guess you'll find out soon.”

She couldn't believe he was being so calm. But with his background in bomb disposal, she guessed he was used to being calm under pressure. Dammit, he was
so
cool.

The Russian holstered his weapon and cracked his neck. “Don't get in my way. I intend to solve this murder,” he said, as he shouldered David out of his way. The air in the room left with him. As he slammed the door, Molly slumped to the bed.

“Thank God you came. He was threatening to take me to the gulag. That's probably as bad as it sounds right?” Her whole body was shaking uncontrollably. And she was cold.

David sat beside her and rubbed the small of her back, heating the blood rushing around there. “Didn't I tell you to stay put?” he asked mildly.

She leaned into him, needing his warmth, and his strength. And him. He'd rescued her again. He'd saved her the previous year when a maniac was holding a gun on her, he'd protected her the day before when someone was shooting, and he'd rescued her again just now from the gulag. Surely third time was the charm. Surely.

He disengaged from her and grabbed the desk chair, dragging it forward. “I was hoping it wouldn't come to this, but that”—he gestured to the door—“was nothing compared with what will happen if you don't leave. Everything he said was right. I'm not sure how far the embassy will go to protect you if the Russians press the point. If the US takes you in, well, the visuals of the US harboring a suspected assassin at a G20 conference…” He shook his head. “I just don't know how that will play out.”

She flexed her fingers to combat the feeling that her hand muscles had frozen in place. Isn't that where rigor mortis started? Her head was shaking. How had this trip gone from something she'd been looking forward to for months to this level of calamity in just a few hours? “I'm not an assassin. Don't even say that. This whole thing is ridiculous.”

He edged closer and took her hands in his, gradually returning the feeling to them. “It might be crazy, but this is where you are now. You have to leave. Today, if we can get you on a flight. I can't stay with you. I have a job here too.”

Molly suddenly realized what he was saying. “You're leaving me? Again?”

“Strictly speaking, you'll be leaving me. We have about a couple of hours, maybe three, before he comes back with the Greek police and a warrant. You need to be gone by then.” He sat back as if the matter had been settled.

“That's absolutely out of the question.” Her voice rose, and she could feel the hysteria growing in her body. “It's not happening.”

David looked stunned, but try as she might, she couldn't dial it back. She jumped up and rushed to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. She braced herself on the vanity and took some breaths. Okay. This wasn't his fault. She was trying to blame someone other than herself.

She looked in the mirror and tried to gather her wits. How stupid could she have possibly been to agree to Brandon's plan? She wasn't a spy. She was terrible at that stuff. She was shit at lying, shit at hiding things…she wasn't exactly stellar at keeping secrets either. What had possessed her to get involved? Now a man was dead, and David thought she was a total idiot.

She'd ruined everything. This tour of speeches and conference was her way of atoning for the mess she'd found herself in last year. She'd spent her whole adult life working to preserve archaeological artifacts, only to find out that the company she'd done digs for was stealing the treasures from under everyone's noses. This speech here at the G20 was the culmination of her penance. This was the one that would get worldwide coverage. The grand finale. The one that she knew would make a difference. She wasn't sure if she could walk away from it. To go home and just go back to work as if none of it had mattered.