Authors: Christina Moore
“Welcome back,” she said simply.
“What the…?” he said, looking between her and Sergei, and then seeming to suddenly realize he was bound, he flexed his musculature against the rope. “What is this?”
“I should think it fairly obvious,
durachit
,” Sergei quipped.
“For the moment, you are our prisoner,” Billie explained. “Whether you are released to freedom or death is entirely up to you.”
“Which means your best bet is to be perfectly honest with my
padruga
here,” added Sergei.
The man squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. “I’ve got nothing to hide,” he said.
Billie raised her eyebrow as she returned to the stool she’d occupied at the bar. She picked up his wallet and opened it again, asking, “Is your name really John Courtney?”
“Yes.”
“Brave of you to come down here using your real name. I think I’ll call you John from now on—Court doesn’t really suit you. So tell me, John… what exactly are you doing here?”
“Why don’t you tell me what a
former Marine and CIA agent is doing associating with a known Russian hitman…Billie?” John countered.
Billie turned toward Sergei. It was a surprise to neither of them that John knew who they were. She turned back to say, “Interesting question, I’ll give you that. But funny at the same time, as Sergei Pomarov, as far as I know, has never killed anyone.”
John chuckled. “I think we all know his name’s not really Sergei Pomarov, and that he has, in fact, killed nearly fifty men and women for the Russian mafia, namely the Sardetsky family.” He turned his gaze to Sergei. “Of which he is a proud member.”
Sergei gave a mock salute and smiled.
“I’ve killed three times that number of men and women, John,” Billie said flatly.
He looked back at her. “Your actions were done in the service of your country. Piotr here killed for profit. What the hell is he doing here?”
“Another funny question, as I asked you the same thing. You never answered me.”
John sighed. “I think you know why I’m here. I need you to come back with me, Billie
. We need you back home.”
“The a
gency has gotten along well enough without me for the last year,” she remarked. “I think they can handle whatever crisis they’re involved in just fine in my continued absence. In fact, maybe they can give the job to you, since you’re such a pro at blending in.”
John glanced down at his shirt and scoffed. “I really am going to kick Rex’s ass for suggesting this shirt,” he mused.
“It wasn’t just the shirt that gave you away,” Billie pointed out. “Your whole demeanor screamed ‘fed’ to both of us.”
Before John could make another reply—or excuse—his cell phone rang. Billie picked it up and glanced at the screen. “Well, look who’s calling—your buddy Rex. Should we say hello?”
Without waiting for an answer, she swiped the arrow on the screen with her finger and put the phone to her ear. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t shoot your friend John,” she said into the mouthpiece.
“Shit,” said the voice on the other end. “Shoulda known he’d blow it. The boy’s not used to working a woman.”
Billie chuckled. “You know, I could interpret that in several ways, none of which would make John very happy. But I digress.”
“Look, Wilhelmina—”
Rex, apparently, wasn’t aware of the fact that anyone not wishing to become personally acquainted with her fist wisely avoided calling her by her full name. Then again, he probably figured he was safe using it because he was nowhere near her. Billie decided that for now, she would let it pass.
“We don’t know each other well enough to be on a first-name basis,” she broke in. “So let’s not pretend any of us are friends. And since I’m awfully tired from working all evening, allow me to make myself perfectly clear to you and whoever else is listening: I’m not interested. Whatever problem you’re trying to solve, you’ll have to do it without me.”
She glanced at John, who was shaking his head. “But given I’m feeling in a generous mood, take advantage of that by collecting your friend John alive as soon as possible. He sticks around my back yard much longer and I might be inclined to get twitchy. I think you know what happens when I get twitchy.”
With that, she pressed the End button on the screen. After tossing the phone back on the bar, Billie stood and stepped toward John. Sergei stood and pulled the gun from his waistband, stepping up next to her as she looked down at their captive and said, “I mean it. Whatever you came here for, it was a fool’s errand. Whatever dire straits the CIA’s gotten themselves into, I don’t care anymore.”
“Billie, I really think you should reconsider,” John said. “Once you hear what’s happening—”
“And I really am sure I just don’t give a damn,” she said, moving behind him to start untying the rope holding him to the chair.
At that moment, a noise was heard like the sound of a twig snapping. One of the shutters rattled at the same time and Sergei, his eyes slightly widened in surprise, simply dropped to his knees and fell forward, slamming to the floor as blood began to pour from a gunshot wound at the side of his neck. Billie had only time to register that fact before all hell broke loose.
On instinct, she grabbed John’s chair
and threw it to the ground—herself along with it—as a hail of bullets of differing calibers tore through the shutters facing the bay. Glass shattered as they struck the bottles of liquor on the island in the middle of the bar, wood splintered as they slammed into the bar itself.
“Get this damn rope off me!” John yelled as his cell phone was suddenly flung into the air—and subsequently shattered when struck with another of the many bullets flying in their direction.
Billie jerked at the knot binding him to the chair. “This is your fault, you son of a bitch!” she screamed as she got the knot loose. Leaving him to peel the rope off on his own, she crawled around him and moved to Sergei. Though the pool of blood beneath him was quite evident, she nonetheless reached for his throat to check for a pulse.
He was dead.
Rolling him over, she grabbed the Sig he’d been brandishing at John and checked the magazine. It was full, so she raised her arm in the direction of the enemy fire and popped off six of the fifteen rounds. Then she turned and crawled past John—who was snatching his keys and wallet off the floor and shoving them in his pocket—and hurried behind the bar. There she rose to a crouch, keeping her head low to avoid the debris still whizzing around, and duck-walked over the broken glass and splintered wood toward the cash register; underneath that were a couple of spare magazines for the Sig—she grabbed them and stuffed them into her pocket.
“How the hell is any of this my fault?” John asked as he joined her in momentary safety behind the counter.
“Whoever the fuck is out there obviously followed you here,” Billie snapped. “Now thanks to you, Sergei is dead.”
“In my opinion, ‘Sergei’ got what he deserved,” John fired back. “He’s a murderer, Billie.”
“Was, jackass, and not for the simple fact that he’s dead. Sergei left the Sardetsky mafia years ago and made a new life for himself. He walked away from all of it—”
“Let me guess, because he suddenly grew a conscience? Excuse me while I go cry a fucking river.”
Angrily she reached out and punched him in the nose, smiling when his head snapped to the right; when he looked back, blood was dripping from his nostril. “No matter what he did, Sergei was my friend. A good friend. He was there for me when I needed him the most and that is all I care about.”
Billie turned then and reached up to slap a button underneath the bar. A panel on the lower section of the island display dropped down, revealing a dark hole.
“How the hell did you…?” John asked as he wiped blood from under his nose, clearly surprised.
“Any second now
, the shooting will stop—whoever is out there will be coming in to make sure the job was finished,” Billie said. “I don’t intend to be here when they do.”
Her companion moved closer to the opening. “Where does this lead?”
“Why don’t you find out?” she replied, giving him a hard shove. He shouted in surprise as he began to fall and she laughed, then slid in feet first behind him.
J
ohn Courtney let out an initial shout of surprise when Billie unceremoniously shoved him into the darkness. He fell and kept falling, tumbling end over end down the rabbit hole.
At least he wasn’t the only one falling—Billie was right behind him. Unfortunately for his ego, however, her descent seemed to be going much smoother than his.
The angled tunnel ended abruptly, opening up to what he wasn’t entirely sure, as he couldn’t see a damn thing. He only knew that he was in an open space when he hit the ground, hard. The brunt of the impact was taken on his left shoulder, and he winced as he rolled to the right onto his back. He regretted that maneuver a moment later, when Billie’s booted feet slammed into his stomach and she used him as a springboard to launch herself further into the darkness.
“Fuck, Billie, you could have warned me!” he snapped in irritation as he fought to catch his breath.
A light’s sudden intrusion into the inky blackness had him blinking to adjust. Billie moved toward him again and he quickly sat up to avoid being her stepping stool a second time. Glancing over his shoulder at her, he watched as she slapped a button on what was apparently a control panel, as the next thing he knew a hatch slid across the opening they’d arrived through with a soft pneumatic hiss. She pressed another button next to the first, looked down at him with a smirk on her face, then said, “You might want to cover your ears.”
John understood the meaning o
f her cryptic statement seconds later, when a number of muffled explosions sounded overhead. He ducked his head down as dirt and rocks rained down on them.
Billie seemed completely unfazed as she walked over to what appeared to be a steamer trunk and bent to open it. From within she drew out another flashlight and tossed it blindly in his direction. He picked it up and turned it on quickly, shining it in the direction of the trunk in time to watch her set her own flashlight down and sling on a weapon harness. It was a double-holster model
, both of which were occupied. The Sig from the bar she slipped into the waistband of her khaki cargo shorts.
“You got an extra gun in there for me?” John asked as he stood.
“No,” she replied simply, not even sparing him a glance as she slipped a denim jacket over the harness and picked up her flashlight again. Without another word, she turned to the left and started off down another tunnel.
At least this one he wouldn’t have to fall through, John thought sourly as he followed behind her.
“Where does this tunnel lead?” he asked.
“Out,” Billie replied.
He snorted. “Not much of a conversationalist, are you?”
“Not with people who put my life in danger and get my friends killed, no. Not really. Count your blessings, Agent Courtney, that you’re even still alive to ask me stupid questions. I could have left you up there to die when I set the bombs off.”
As she spoke, another explosion—one much closer than the ones before—shook the ground under his feet. John put a hand out to brace himself, finding the wall scant comfort.
“What the hell was that?”
“That would be the rabbit hole collapsing,” Billie said.
“This tunnel lined with explosives too?” John asked, swinging his flashlight around the floor and overhead. He noted several large packs of what looked to be C4 or a similar ordinance at regular intervals along the ceiling, connected by wires.
“That answer your question?” Billie quipped.
John sighed heavily. “Look, Billie… I am sorry your friend is dead—”
She stopped and whirled to face him, her flashlight shining into his eyes. “No you’re not. You said so yourself that you thought he got what he deserved. Let me tell you, buddy—if I was disinterested before, I’m sure as fuck not gonna help you now, so don’t go trying to placate me with bullshit apologies.”
She turned and started back along the tunnel again. John rubbed a hand ov
er his hair and stifled a groan as he moved to follow. “Billie, you’re right. I’m making a piss-poor attempt to calm you down so you’ll agree to come back with me. I really need you to do that.”
Billie laughed. “Or what? You’re gonna get in trouble with your boss? Do you really
think I care about that? My friend is dead and my bar is little more than matchsticks, so you’ll have to excuse my inability to give a damn that you’ll get torn a new one when you get home.”
“Do you still give a damn about your old team? Darren Peck, Eddie Lamacek, Wayne Scofield, Gabriel Lincoln… Any of those names mean anything to you anymore?” John countered crossly.
Her shoulders tensed but she didn’t stop this time. “The guys can take care of themselves,” she said, her voice stiff.
“Eddie Lamacek isn’t taking care of anyone anymore, Billie,” John said. “He’s dead.”
Billie stopped again, turning slowly to face him. An expression mixed of horror, confusion, anger, and disbelief was etched across her features. In the blink of an eye, she pulled the Sig Sauer from her waistband, and its business end was now pointed directly between his eyes.
“Don’t lie to me, John. Don’t you dare fuckin’ lie to me,” she said, and he could tell her control was on a thin leash. He would have to choose his next words carefully, as even if she weren’t the world’s deadliest female sharpshooter, there was no
way he would be able to dodge her bullet. No one would.
He raised his hands shoulder height in a placating manner. “I’m not lying to you, Billie. Eddie died three days ago.”
“How?”
John swallowed. She wasn’t going to like hearing this, but it had to be said. “Friendly fire…of a sort.”
The cold metal of the Sig was suddenly against his forehead. “What the
fuck
does that mean, ‘of a sort’, Agent Courtney?!” she growled angrily. “How does a decorated war veteran with SpecOps training like Major Edward ‘Wildchild’ Lamacek get taken down by friendly fucking fire?”
“Because he was out of control,” John said simply. “Eddie and the other guys were recruited for a top secret training program, so secret that it’s barely on the books. But something happened and Eddie snapped. He went nuts, Billie—just flipped the fuck out and started killing people. And it took some serious firepower to take him down. By the time he hit the dirt he was so full of lead he’d have fried an x-ray machine.”
For the longest moment, she only stood and stared at him. John would never admit it, but the longer she held the gun to his head, the more nervous he became. He’d read her file, of course, including the psych evals. Wilhelmina “Billie” Ryan was compassionate with the old, the young, the downtrodden. She gave them all the benefit of the doubt unless she was given reason to think otherwise.
Men were another story.
She’d grown up with four brothers who had taught her to be tough, to take care of herself so she wouldn’t need them to shield her like a delicate flower. As a result, she was very much a tomboy as a child and in her teen years was more often than not seen as one of the guys. She’d gone into the military at just 17 years old and had proven her mettle time and again during the six years she’d served in the Marines, having become the first ever female to join a Force Recon unit. But it was during her Special Operations training at Camp Lejeune that her attitude toward men in general soured. She’d been the victim of some rather vicious hazing, including an incident in which she’d had a blanket thrown over her head and been severely beaten. The base psychologist also suspected she’d been raped, but Billie had never confirmed his suspicion.
After that, she’d gotten tougher, meaner. Billie’s skill level in all areas increased almost exponentially in a matter of weeks following the blanket beating, and she actually began to frighten some of her fellow trainees with how ruthless she could be in hand-to-hand combat. Her accuracy with every gun she held was unmatched by any of her peers, and it was about this time that she was slapped with the “She-Devil” moniker. Her deadly skills were put to the test numerous times throughout several campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, and a number of other locations that were classified. She’d been credited with 107 confirmed kills and claimed at least 60 more.
Then, six years and nine medals later, she was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency, where she was taught to be suspicious of everyone. She’d served the agency for four years as faithfully as she had the Marines, until the death of the only man she was known to have become romantically involved with—fellow CIA agent Travis Mulcahy. After his funeral, she had summarily resigned and all but disappeared. That was a year ago.
The official judgment in her file was that she did not trust men any less than anyone else, but that she was simply on her guard more where they were concerned. Records indicated
that while she had friends, the only men outside her family she was close to were the men on her Force Recon team—and she hadn’t spoken to any of them in the last year. She’d also once been close to her family, but she’d cut them off too.
The word she’d used when speaking to Rex on the phone came to mind then, and John decided he’d simply rather not find out what she was like when she got “twitchy.” That’s why he was nervous. Billie was a combination of exhausted, revved up on adrenaline, and plain old pissed off that could spell the end of him if he so much as blinked too fast. So he stood stock still, his hands in the air, and waited to find out whether or not she was going to shoot him.
After what seemed like forever, she reset the hammer on the Sig and returned it to her waistband. Without a word, Billie simply turned around and started walking again. John blew out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and followed.
Nearly fifteen minutes later—after having walked at least half a mile—they came to a door. Billie punched buttons on a numerical keypad too fast for his eyes to catch the combination, and a light flashed green on the panel at the same time as he heard a sharp click. She opened the door and walked through it. John was quick to follow lest she’d given up shooting him in favor of blowing him up along with her escape tunnel. He closed the door behind him and turned around to find that he was in a cellar. Billie was already across the room and headed up a set of wooden stairs.
As he joined her he asked, “Is this your house?”
“No, it was Sergei’s. You can thank the dead man later,” she replied. “We need to leave.”
“Aren’t we safe here for the moment?” John pressed as they climbed the stairs and walked through another door into the kitchen.
Billie turned to him, though she reached past him to push the basement door closed. He moved aside and she keyed a series of numbers into yet another control pad, then looked back at him. “We need to leave,” she repeated. “That tunnel will be collapsing in about a minute, and this house is set to go up in flames in about two.”
She took his flashlight from him and set it beside hers on the small dining table to the left of the basement door, then turned and started through the house. John followed. “Won’t all the fire and explosions alert the local LEOs?”
“Of course they will,” Billie said as she unlocked and walked out the front door. “The point is to get a lot of cops asking questions. If the locals are asking questions, it means the guys who shot up the bar will have to lay low until the hoopla dies down, unless they want to draw attention to themselves. Gives me time to pack up and leave.”
John looked around. They were in a quiet neighborhood with cars in driveways and kids’ toys in the front yards. He smelled more than saw the smoke that was most likely coming from the bar, which he knew wasn’t far away.
“So have you decided to come back with me?” he asked her.
“I didn’t say that.” Billie gathered the jacket around her to keep all her weapons concealed and started to button it as she walked away. John jogged to catch up.
“Billie, please reconsider. Maybe if you come back with me, we can find out who’s behind the shooting at the bar,” he suggested.
“But only after I help you with whatever little problem you came down here to get my help with, right? No thank you.”
“Look, Billie—”
She stopped and turned toward him, slapping a hand against his mouth. Strangely, he was tempted to kiss her palm in order to get her to drop it. But as soon as John had the thought it became unnecessary, as his silence was enough to get her to do so.
“I am tired. I just worked half the night away slinging swill and lost all that mo
ney when the damn bar blew up. I just lost my bar because I had to blow it up to cover our escape. And I lost one of the best friends I’ve ever had because some random fuckhead shot him, so you’ll have to excuse me if I just don’t give a shit about your problem, Agent Courtney,” Billie said tiredly. “I’m going to go home. I’m going to take a long, hot shower. And then I am going to go to bed.”
John stifled a groan and was about to launch into another attempt to sway her when the smell of smoke got stronger. He looked over his shoulder and saw that indeed, the house they’d just exited was on fire. He looked back at Billie, and in silent agreement the two of them started walking again.
“Billie, what can I say to change your mind?” he asked after a moment.
“Right now, nothing,” she replied succinctly. “But since you’re acting like a damn dog with a bone, I’ll concede to listening to why you need me so damn bad. But not tonight,” she added quickly. “Meet me tomorrow at the Coconut Hut on the boardwalk at ten-thirty. You can buy breakfast. Then we’ll talk.”