Interesting Times (Interesting Times #1) (3 page)

But then
the assassin drew a sudden breath and moaned. Oliver jerked backwards in
surprise. He was sure the man had not been breathing a moment ago. He could
clearly see where the impact from the bullet had punched a hole in the man’s
skull, but something about it wasn’t right. Oliver leaned closer. The wound was
changing shape. “My god,” Oliver said. There was no doubt about it. The wound
was getting smaller, the damaged skin and bone slowly knitting back together.

Mr.
Teasdale was healing from a bullet wound to the skull.

Oliver
gaped. “Come on,” Tyler said, pulling Oliver toward the door.

“But…”

“Questions
later.” Tyler pushed Oliver out of the conference room, where he promptly fell
to the ground, his legs numb and twitching again. “God damn it,” said Tyler.
“Come on, buddy.” He pulled the shaky Oliver to his feet.

The two
men lumbered down the hallway together as awkwardly as children in a
three-legged race. Behind them Oliver could hear Teasdale moan again, but this
time he sounded stronger. Or maybe angrier? He sounded like someone who had
just woken up with the world’s worst hangover. Maybe that was what being shot
in the head felt like.

They
reached the lobby and Oliver promptly fell down again. He saw Donna was now
standing behind her desk, her phone’s handset pressed tightly to her ear. No
doubt calling the police, Oliver thought. Thank goodness.

Two of
the firm’s senior partners were also in the lobby. “What’s going on here?” one
of them demanded. It was Mr. Peters, Oliver realized, a man who rarely left his
office unless it was to fire someone. That was a task he had always seemed to
enjoy.

“I don’t
know,” Oliver said truthfully. He tried to get to his feet, but suddenly found
he’d forgotten how to stand. What
was
that thing Mr. Teasdale had used
on him?

Tyler
pressed the elevator call button. “There’s a man back there with a gun!” he
said to Donna, pointing back down the hall. “I think he’s crazy or something!”

“He’s
wearing a Hawaiian shirt,” Donna said into the phone. “He has a hostage, and he
says he has a gun.”

“Oh,
come on,” Tyler complained. “I’m the good guy here!” 

The
elevator chimed as its doors slid open. Tyler took Oliver by the wrist and
dragged him into the elevator, hitting the button for the parking garage with
his elbow.

“Stop
right there!” Mr. Peters commanded, stepping forward threateningly. 

Tyler
took the pistol from his waistband and showed it to everyone. Nobody moved as
the elevator doors slid shut.

Tyler
helped Oliver to his feet once more. “You doing all right, buddy?’

Oliver’s
legs felt more solid under him now. He pushed Tyler away. “Who the hell are
you?”

“Tyler
Jacobsen. Nice to meet you, Ollie.”

Nobody
ever called Oliver “Ollie,” but pointing that out to Tyler didn’t seem all that
important right now. “Okay, Tyler. Who was that up there? What’s happening?”

Tyler
sighed. “Look, it’s a really long story. Short version: Mr. Teasdale was sent
to kill you. I was sent to keep you alive. I had planned to watch you for a
while but when I saw he was making a move I had to step in.” He mulled that
over for a moment. “Huh. You know, that was most of it, actually. I guess it
wasn’t that long a story after all.”

“I’m
calling the police,” Oliver said. He reached in his front pocket but his cell
phone was gone. Had someone taken it? No, it was back in his office. He’d
forgotten to take it along when he left for lunch. Well, he wasn’t going back
upstairs to get it now. Not until Mr. Teasdale was long gone.

“Call
the police and you’ll be dead in an hour,” Tyler said. “Mr. Teasdale can walk
into a police station as easily as he walked into your office.”

Oliver
shook his head. “This has to be a mistake. Assassins don’t just walk into the
financial district and kill people.”

“One
just tried to,” Tyler pointed out.

“And why
would anyone want to kill me?” Oliver asked. “I’m…well, I’m
me
.”

“That I
don’t know. My orders are to take you back to my boss. She wants to talk to
you. We’ll keep you safe, I promise.”

Oliver
doubted he wanted to meet this man’s boss, but they were nearly to the garage
now. Oliver resolved to make a break for it once the doors opened. If his legs
held up he could probably get away, or at least cause enough commotion to scare
this lunatic away from him. But when the elevator stopped and the doors slid
open a woman was waiting for them. She had shoulder-length red hair the color
of a sunset and sharp, angular features. Oliver thought she would have been
quite pretty if she smiled, but at the moment she was scowling fiercely. And
scowling at
him
, Oliver noted. What had he done to deserve
that
?

The
woman glared at Tyler, her emerald green eyes accusing. “Why is he still
conscious?” she asked, jerking her head in Oliver’s direction.

“It’s
fine,” Tyler said. “There’s no need to…”

“I don’t
have time for this,” the woman cut him off. She took a small canister of what
looked like breath spray from inside her black leather jacket and pointed it at
Oliver. “Ssh,” she said, pressing the trigger. 

A wet
cloud of mist engulfed Oliver’s face.  It smelled like flowers, he thought. 
Lilacs
. 
Was it her perfume?  Then his legs felt weak again and he was falling, the
world around him fading into blackness.

Chapter 4

Oliver woke up in a
hospital bed, his mouth dry and the faint smell of lilacs still lingering in
the back of his nose. He was surrounded by medical equipment, but the room was
strangely quiet. Sitting up, he realized that he was not actually connected to
any of the monitoring equipment, nor were any of the machines even turned on.

This wasn’t even a real hospital room,
for that matter. The bed itself and the machines looked authentic enough, but
they were set up inside an ordinary bedroom. A few chairs and a small square
table had been arranged next to the bed, but this room was definitely in
someone’s house, not in a hospital.

There was a small window next to the
bed. In the distance Oliver could see the Golden Gate Bridge, barely visible
through the fog. From the angle of the view he guessed that he must be
somewhere in Russian Hill. Tyler and that angry woman with him must have
brought him here while he was unconscious. What had been in the little canister
the woman had carried?  Gas?  Anesthetic?

It was still daylight outside. He
couldn’t have been knocked out for more than a few hours. Would that have been
enough time for the police to start looking for him? They might still be taking
witness statements back at his office.

Oliver got out of the bed and stood up
carefully. His legs were steady under him, but he found that he felt a little
groggy. Whether that was from sleeping or a side effect of whatever he’d been
sprayed with, he didn’t know.

He wondered what he should do next. Look
for the front door? Look for the
back
door? What were the odds that he
was alone in this house?

That question was quickly answered for
him when the bedroom door swung open and Tyler entered. He was carrying two cans
of diet soda and looked genuinely pleased to see Oliver. “Oh good, you’re up.”

“I am,” Oliver admitted.

Tyler handed Oliver one of the soda
cans. Oliver noted that it had not been opened, but he had no intention of
drinking it anyway. Who knew what they might have done to it?

“How are you feeling?” Tyler asked.

“I’m all right,” Oliver replied, placing
the can on the bedside table. “What did you do to me?  Where am I?”

“You’ve had a rough day.” Tyler looked
sympathetic.

Oliver shook his head. He’d been hoping
for something a little more straightforward.  “Okay, look, I’m not sure who all
of you think I am, but I’m not. If you’re thinking of holding me for ransom
you’ve got the wrong idea here. I don’t have money. This is a mistake.”

“It’s complicated,” Tyler allowed. “This
could
all be a mistake, actually, but Mr. Teasdale was about ten seconds
away from killing you this morning, and he will definitely try again. There’s
no mistake about
that
.”

Another encounter with the assassin was
the last thing Oliver wanted, but he definitely needed to get away from this
place before someone else reached for a spray can and knocked him out again.
“Thanks for your help, then, but I think it’s time for me to go.”

“No,” Tyler shook his head. “Bad idea.
You’re safe here.”

“I’m safe?” Oliver nearly laughed. “You
drugged me!”

Tyler sighed. “Yeah, I’m sorry about
that. Sally can be a little...impatient. She’s very good at what she does,
though.”

“And what does she do?”

“Well, mostly she shoots things,” Tyler
admitted. 

Oliver didn’t find that particularly
reassuring. He decided to try a different tack. “Where are we?” he asked,
motioning at the view out the window.

“Someplace safe, like I said. Artemis
will explain everything.”

“Who?”

“Is he up yet?” a female voice called.
Oliver winced. He recognized that voice. He’d been hoping she was somewhere far
away, but the woman who had gassed him earlier entered the room a moment later,
still wearing the leather jacket she’d had on the first time he’d seen her. She
looked him over appraisingly. “Good. Let’s go. Artemis is waiting for you.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,”
Oliver told them both. “You kidnapped me! And
you
drugged me!” he said
to Sally.

“Is that all?” asked the woman, barely
suppressing a laugh.

Oliver took a step toward Tyler. He
seemed the more reasonable of the two of them. “Look,” he said calmly, “just
let me go now and I won’t tell the police about you. Not your names, not about
this house. I promise.” Oliver hoped the man couldn’t tell that he was lying.
He fully intended to call the police, the FBI, and anyone else he could think
of. He’d start making calls as soon as he could find a pay phone.

“You’re coming downstairs now,” Sally
said. “This can be easy or it can be hard.” She shrugged and cracked her
knuckles. “I like hard, myself, but I’ll let you pick.”

“That’s not necessary,” Tyler told her.
“Let’s all take a breath and…”

“Sally?” a new voice called from farther
away. “
Now
.”

Oliver was startled. That new voice had
belonged to a child. A girl, or a small boy whose voice hadn’t started to
change. What the hell was going on here? Who did these people take orders from?

Tyler looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Artemis
doesn’t like to be kept waiting,” he said.

Sally took a silver pistol out of her
jacket pocket and held it up for Oliver to see. “Last chance,” she said.

“You’re not going to shoot me,” Oliver
said. 

Sally’s expression changed to one of
amusement. “I’m not?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Oliver replied. He
saw Tyler’s mouth drop open in surprise. Oliver wasn’t sure where his newfound
confidence was coming from, but he’d been backed into a corner and he wasn’t
willing to be a victim anymore. “You people may be nuts, but you didn’t go to
all this trouble so you could shoot me now.” It was a logical conclusion, but
while Oliver was secretly pleased with his own bravado, he did wonder if
provoking a crazy woman with a gun was especially wise.

“He’s got you there,” Tyler agreed. He
had a small smile on his face. “You can’t shoot him.”

“I could shoot him in the arm,” Sally
pointed out, as if where to shoot someone was the kind of decision she had to
make regularly.

“And he could bleed out,” Tyler said.
“Besides, if you get blood on the floor of this house, Artemis is going to have
you up here with a mop and a bucket.”

“Screw that,” Sally said. “Fine.” She
put the gun away and stepped up to Oliver, close enough that he could smell
that she’d been chewing breath mints recently. “You coming?”

“No.”

Sally punched him hard in the gut, her
fist moving so fast Oliver hadn’t even seen the blow coming.  He fell to his
knees in pain, the wind knocked out of him for the second time that day. 
“Jesus,” he wheezed.  The woman was
strong
.

“Bang!” Sally said, throwing her arms in
the air as if she’d just scored a touchdown.

“Damn it, Sally,” Tyler protested. “You
didn’t have to do that.”

“No, but I
wanted
to,” Sally told
him. “You see the difference?” She looked down at Oliver, clearly amused with
herself. “You had enough?”

Oliver had never been punched in his
life.  Even as a child he hadn’t been in so much as a playground scuffle. Now
he had been hurt, but more than that, he was angry. Oliver wasn’t sure that he
had ever felt rage before, but now his chest felt like it was on fire. These
people had abducted him, and now they thought they could beat him? He had no
intention of trying to fight with them, but if he was going to escape, he was
clearly going to have to go through them to do it. Once upon a time that
thought might have bothered him. He found it didn’t anymore.