Dana Marton (7 page)

“I’m a friend of the ambassador. I was here for dinner. The Alpha troops are on the roof, negotiating.”

The man looked him over, glancing at the rifles slung over his shoulders. “I’m Ivan. Let’s do what we can from in here.” He reached for a rifle.

Parker pretended that he didn’t see the move as he kept surveying the room.

“Can’t take offense, I suppose,” Ivan said good-naturedly, seeming to marginally relax at last. “I don’t trust you, either.”

Parker kept an eye on the guy as he turned to leave, switching to English when they were out of the room. “I have the ambassador’s children and their nanny.”

The man took in Kate, hesitated for a moment. “She’s not the English nanny.”

A tension-filled moment passed.

“She’s the new one,” Parker said. “She came today to start training to replace the other one. She hadn’t been introduced to the staff yet.” He didn’t trust the guy with Kate’s true identity. He didn’t trust anyone just now.

Ivan accepted his explanation with a nod. “Where are we going?”

“The other hostages are in the gym.”

At least he hoped so. He had told them to stay put when he’d left them. The liberating forces were on their way to them. Even if the rebels came looking, the hostages could defend a barricaded room a lot easier than they could defend themselves if they were caught out in the open. And breaking out of the embassy wasn’t a possibility for a large group like that, even with the guns they had. Too many rebels secured all the exits of the building.

The sound of gunfire came from the roof, a short burst, then silence. Both Ivan and Parker pulled back into a protective position around Kate and the children. A moment later, when nothing else happened, they both stepped away, ready to move on.

“How do you plan on liberating the hostages?” Ivan asked.

“I have a plan,” he said simply.

“I can help.”

Yes, he could. Parker watched the cautious expression in the man’s eyes. It had been this guy’s job to keep the embassy safe and he had failed. That had to burn him. He would probably do anything to redeem himself. And Parker had to trust him because he needed help, badly. He handed him one of the handguns.

“We are taking the hostages to the basement where we can barricade ourselves until the embassy is taken back.” He felt no need to mention his other set of plans for Kate and himself. His orders were to get Kate out.

The man considered his words for a moment then nodded. “I’ll go ahead and make sure the way is clear.”

But Parker had another idea. He’d been uneasy about having the children around, taking them into a potentially explosive situation. There was a chance that the hostages had been recaptured in the short time he and Kate had been gone. There might be a fight waiting for them. Better to have the girls as far from that as possible.

“How are your arms?” he asked Ivan.

“Fine.” The man pulled himself up straight, wanting to prove that he was capable, probably desperate to look strong enough for whatever Parker had in mind.

“Can you take the girls to the basement and barricade the door down there?”

The man only hesitated a moment before he nodded. “But if I barricade the door, how will the rest of the hostages get in?”

“Same way you will.” They reached the coal-chute grid and Parker pulled it off then began to unravel the length of rope from around his waist.

Kate threw him a questioning look, but didn’t argue with him for once. She knew as well as he did that the longer they had the kids out in the open, the more likely it was that they would run into some rebels who wouldn’t care who got killed when they opened fire. He hated to let the girls go as much as Kate did, but it would have been insane to drag them along on this dangerous mission.

She bent to the children and began explaining to them what was going to happen and what they needed to do. They seemed okay with it. The sight of the security uniform seemed to have set them at ease with Ivan. They probably saw men in the same uniform every day and knew they were with someone who would protect them.

Kate hugged and kissed them both before lifting Elena onto Ivan’s back and Katja into his arms. “Hang on tight. Super Spy Girls, remember?” She gave them an encouraging smile.

They didn’t exactly smile back, but at least they weren’t crying. They went in, Ivan hanging on to the ledge while Parker screwed the grid back into place then tied the rope to it. Then Ivan could finally move over to the rope and begin his descent.

“They’ll be fine, right?” Kate’s emerald gaze searched Parker’s for reassurance.

“The basement is the safest place for them right now. And they have an armed guard, a professional.” That was as good as he could arrange under the circumstances. “I’ll go keep watch. Let me know when he yanks on the rope.” He strode to where the corridor turned, keeping lookout.

“Okay,” Kate called in a whisper a few endless minutes later.

Parker glanced at his watch. Ivan had made good time. The embassy guards obviously kept in top shape. He walked back to Kate, untied the rope and looped it around his shoulder, then they headed toward the gym together. They were almost there when he heard footsteps from around the next bend.

Grateful that the girls had gone, he stopped and listened carefully. Only one man, he registered with relief. That was the good news. He glanced around the corner quickly. The bad news was that the guy was heading for the gym. But it wasn’t the worst part by far. Parker swore under his breath. The man had a belt of explosives strapped around his midriff.

And if the rebels had
one
guy walking around as a human bomb, they probably had others.

August 10, 08: 15

Kate held her breath, knowing there was someone in the corridor in front of them, knowing Parker was about to confront the man. They had managed to stay alive so far. She prayed that their luck held out.

Then she stared as Parker pulled his knife, but instead of lunging forward and around the corner, he cut a line across his left palm, pumped his fingers a couple of times to get the blood going. He lifted his right index finger over his lips to tell her to be quiet before he smeared blood on his face, covering his features almost completely, and staggered out into the open.

He moaned something in Russian or Tarkmezi—she couldn’t tell the two languages apart—and an urgent response came. Then there was silence.

“All clear,” Parker said next.

By the time she peeked out, he was wiping his bloody face on his sleeve. Then he cut off a strip from the dead man’s shirt and bandaged his self-inflicted wound with speedy efficiency before she could even think about offering help. Frankly, at this point, she wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d got out some commando first-aid kit and sewed himself up.

“Stay in cover,” he mouthed as she caught up to him.

She didn’t like the idea. She had a rifle and she knew how to shoot. She wanted to help, to even the odds a little. They were in front of the gym’s door.

“What are we waiting for?” she whispered back.

He tapped his index finger to his ear.

She didn’t hear anything. Then she got it, that was exactly what he was worried about. Everything was quiet inside. Either the hostages were dead, or under guard again and forbidden to speak as before, or they had heard the exchange of words outside and were preparing to shoot the living daylights out of the rebels they expected to enter any second.

“Vents?” She pointed down the hallway where there was a vent cover. They could climb up and take a look inside the room without its occupants noticing. She couldn’t believe she was suggesting crawling back into the dark, tight place. But it seemed a better solution than to walk into a situation blindly.

Gunfire sounded from the roof again. Or maybe closer. Could be the Russians were inside already.

“No time,” Parker told her, probably thinking the same, then called out something that she figured was the Russian version of, “Hold your fire.”

He tried the doorknob. Locked. He shouted something else. A response came, then more conversation back and forth, followed by the sounds of something heavy being dragged away from the door. Then it opened, the barrel of an AK-47 poking out.

April 10, 10:15

“Y
ES
, C
OLONEL
.” Parker spoke into the phone.

He was back in the vent system with Kate again, having seen the hostages safely to the basement through the coal chute. With Ivan to organize them and the guns and gas masks he’d been able to give them, they should be able to defend themselves if everything didn’t go according to plan.

He still had about ten percent battery power left in his cell, and he’d figured he’d better check in with the Colonel since the location of the hostages had changed. He wanted someone to be aware of that, in case the information could be passed along to the Russians.

“They should be as safe as possible. They are armed and hidden in a well-defendable position. They have a Russian security guard with them.”

“You’re sure about the explosives?”

“I can be sure only about the one I’ve got here.” He carried the belt of TNT slung across his shoulder. “But my gut instinct says there’s more.”

“Get her out of there.”

“Yes, sir.” He sure was working on it.

“There’s a press conference called for noon. I expect the Russians will come clean about the embassy crisis to us before that, then the CIA can offer help. Not that they’ll take it, dammit.”

The Colonel wasn’t a swearing man, even frowned on the practice among those who reported to him. His frustration was a reminder of just how dire their situation really was.

“What’s your next move?” he asked.

“I’m gonna try to get into the security office and bring the security system back online for a few minutes. If I could figure out what positions the rebels are holding, I could map a way out.”

“I have a brand-new blueprint of the embassy in front of me that just came in. Where are you now?”

“Second floor, a hundred feet or so east of the gym, in a vent duct that’s running parallel to a hallway to some inner courtyard.”

“Okay,” the Colonel said. “As soon as you can go down, do it. The security office is to the southeast of you, one floor down.”

“Roger that,” Parker said and signed off. He was coming to a passage where the duct narrowed again and he needed his hands stretched in front of him to wiggle through. He pushed his guns and the TNT belts in front of him.

“Can you make it?” Kate asked from behind him. They were once again in a section where there were no openings to the duct so they could talk a little more freely as long as they kept their voices down.

“Squeaking by.”

Silence stretched between them as he got through the tough parts.

“This is what you’ve been doing all along, isn’t it?” she said out of the blue as she eased her smaller body after him without any trouble.

He knew she wasn’t talking about worming through ventilation systems. She was talking about his job. Hell of a time to bring up the issue.

He could have pretended that he didn’t know what she meant, but he would only insult her intelligence and tick her off. Kate didn’t take well to being patronized. “I can’t discuss my job with anyone. Not even with my fiancée.” He glanced at her.

“Ex-fiancée,” she corrected tartly.

There was a hardness to her now that hadn’t been there when he had met her, and he regretted that most likely he had brought about the change.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and found that there was a long list of regrets behind that sentiment, a list he had no time to detail or even think about right now.

“No, fine. You’re right. It doesn’t matter. None of what happened matters, anyway.” She sounded tired and maybe a little defeated.

He wanted to protest that it did matter, hating the dejection in her voice even more than he hated the hardness of her words. And he couldn’t even see her face because she was behind him. He couldn’t grab hold of her shoulders and make her look at him, make her listen while he explained everything, because he could not give any explanations.

He had requested permission, back when he had first realized that he was falling in love with her. His request had been denied. Their life together had been based on lies. He had thought that the fact that their love was true would be enough, that it would cover everything. It hadn’t.

He reached a three-way junction in the vent system with one branch going to the floor below them. “I’ll slide down. Give me a minute before you come after me,” he said. He wanted to make sure the route was passable before both of them got wedged in.

He’d had a friend when he’d been in the army who was into caving and had taken him and a few others spelunking. This place had reminded Parker of that, the tight spots and turns, the semidarkness, the seeming lack of air. Except that in the caves you could make all the noise you wanted without having to fear you’d be shot at.

He cleared the bend. “Okay,” he whispered back to Kate.

They were coming into a stretch with a number of openings so they wouldn’t be able to talk. He stole forward to the first, eager to be able to look out.

An empty office.

He moved on and tried the next. Damn. “Found the nanny,” he whispered.

“Alive?”

He shook his head, looking at the stout English-woman sprawled on the floor. Looked as though she had put up quite a fight. The room’s antique secretary desk had been reduced to kindling.

He moved up to the next room. Empty. Same with the next and the next. He was nearing the end of the duct and a sharp turn he wasn’t sure he would be able to navigate by the time he finally found what he was looking for—the security office.

But of course, since everything that could go wrong on a mission usually did, this room wasn’t empty. A rebel soldier sat in front of the rows of darkened monitors, snoozing. Parker focused on the familiar-looking wide canvas belt around the guy’s waist. Another human bomb. Just what they didn’t need.

“Someone’s in there,” he breathed the words toward Kate, couldn’t be sure if she heard him or even saw his lips move as she had the flashlight turned off.

He kept his attention glued to the room, couldn’t see all of the space from his vantage point, couldn’t see if there was anyone in there with the man, so he waited. No sounds of anyone moving around. Gunfire came again from somewhere far above. Didn’t seem to be any closer than the short bursts they’d heard before.

Didn’t look like the Alpha troops were making much progress. Or could be that they were engaging the rebels up there only as a distraction and were working their way in someplace else entirely. That was what Parker would have done. Machine-gun fire peppered the silence again. The man slumped in the chair didn’t wake, didn’t even stir.

Parker turned on his cell-phone camera and stuck it out through the vent cover’s slots, tilted it down as best he could without risking dropping it, careful not to scrape against the vent cover and make noise. Then he pulled the cell back to look at what he got. Nothing. Perfect. Their man was alone, which he indicated to Kate by holding up his index finger in the spot where the light coming in from the vent hole made it visible.

He could barely see her silhouette in the darkness, but thought she nodded.

He pulled his handgun and slowly pushed the silencer through the slot, took careful aim. He couldn’t give the man a chance to shout out. They had no way of knowing who might be nearby. So he aimed for the head, knowing it would make the hit messy, but unable to think of another solution that would take care of their problem as quickly and efficiently.

A small
pop
came first, then a louder thud, as the rebel hit the floor. Parker waited but there was no sound of any commotion from outside, no sign that anyone had heard. He pushed the vent cover out, held on to it so it wouldn’t clang to the floor, and squeezed his shoulders through the opening, then helped Kate.

“Don’t look,” he said, too late.

Her face was already white, her eyes round with horror. Head shots were always messy and this was no exception.

“It had to be done. Him or us,” he tried to explain, fearing that she was beginning to see him as some sort of a monster, unsettled by the thought that if she did, she might be right. If it had just been him, he would have killed the man without thought. Only because she was with him had he hesitated at all.

“I know.” Kate reached a hand to his arm in a brief touch of reassurance.

What did she know? He looked at her and saw the understanding in her eyes, was humbled by it. Yeah, she knew.

And he found he breathed easier all of a sudden. “Why don’t you check on the computers?” He pushed her toward the nearest desk gently, wanting to turn her from the gruesome sight and give her mind a chance to be busy with something else.

He checked a smaller door in the back. “There’s a bathroom in here.” He looked around to make sure it was safe and nearly got knocked over when Kate whizzed by him, then shut the door in his face.

He allowed a small smile before he walked back to the man and removed the TNT belt. When he was done with that, he tugged off the guy’s camouflage jacket and covered his head with it. He didn’t take the man’s guns, only his ammunition. They might need serious firepower on the way out.

He used the bathroom after Kate was done and had returned to the computers. Then he came back out for the dead man, got him into the chair and wheeled him inside one of the stalls and closed the door. When he was done, he washed his hands and face, drank.

Most of the PCs and monitors had bullet holes in them. She was rebooting one of the unharmed computers by the time he came out. He watched as a gray screen came up. Password-protected, of course. He swore under his breath.

He wasn’t bad at cracking security, but he wasn’t a whiz, either—it wasn’t his specialty—and he figured the security PCs at the Russian embassy had to have some pretty fancy systems. He had no time to waste by fooling around on a prayer of a chance. Instead, he dialed the Colonel.

“I’m going to need a computer expert on the line,” he said. “Is Carly available?” Carly Tarasov was a new member of the SDDU team, the wife of one of Parker’s old buddies, Nick, who’d met her on a mission and promptly recruited her. With good reason. She was a genius when it came to encryption codes.

“You got it. Give me a second to reach her. I take it you got in?”

“Yes, sir. Found more explosives, too.”

Silence at the other end.

“One more thing, sir.”

“Whatever you need.”

“I need permission to disclose.”

Longer silence this time.

“She has security clearance, sir,” he reminded his superior officer.

“Not this high,” he said. “Her boss’s boss doesn’t even know that the SDDU exists.” The Secret Designation Defense Unit was normally used in clandestine missions that skirted Congressional approval, running operations where to take out a dangerous enemy, they often had to bend the rules of the game.

“With all due respect, sir, her boss’s life is not on the line.”

The Colonel grunted. Another moment of silence followed. “The most bare-bone basics only,” he said finally. “Just what she’s likely guessed on her own by now. Nothing but what she absolutely must know to cooperate and survive.”