Hearts Under Siege (5 page)

Molly realized she was being an idiot, letting her need to protect her friend override her common sense. He was the one with field experience. She dropped to the ground, huddling as small as she could and covering her head with her arms.
Bang!
Bang!
More chips went flying, then Brady was hauling her up and dragging his bag off her shoulder. They sprinted down the street, Brady cursing, Molly panting. Her heart raced with fear or exhilaration or a combination of the two, she didn’t know.

They ducked around the corner and Brady skidded to a stop next to an old Jeep. “Get in!”

She jerked open the door, flung herself and her bag inside, and yanked the door closed as Brady peeled out. The street was too narrow to turn around. He floored it across the intersection of the street they’d been on. Molly looked, but everything flashed by too quickly for her to spot the shooter.

“I think we’re clear,” she said a few blocks later when there was no sign of anyone following them. The adrenaline flash faded, dragging heaviness in its wake, heaviness that dampened any relief or fear she could be feeling.

“Yeah. Seatbelt.”

She glanced over. He had his on already. How he’d done that, driving like a maniac and watching for pursuit all at the same time— Okay, she was officially impressed. Her own training had been sufficient to get her down here and find him, to do what she needed to do, but knowing the field agents had so many more skills was totally different from seeing one in action.

She heaved the bags into the back and settled into her own seat, strapping in and bracing herself. For five minutes the darkness she’d been immersed in had been chased away. But now it was back, and she had to face it again. Along with all the questions Brady was definitely about to ask her.

“Did you get what you needed from the meet?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Brady’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. “It seems pretty unimportant now, but in the big picture, it’s vital. Thanks for helping out. You got all my stuff?”

“Yes.” She took a deep breath. Might as well dive right in. “I turned in the pistol, too.”

“What?” His head whipped around, but they were out of the city now, the road rough and twisty, so he turned back immediately. “You did what?”

“I found your weapon and contacted the supplier to pick it up.”

“How do you— Why— Okay, I’m not that stupid.” His jaw tightened as he ground his teeth. “You’re SIEGE.”

“Yes.”

“Unbelievable.” He rubbed his forehead, elbow braced on the side of the door. “I had no idea. How did I have no idea?”

“You weren’t supposed to have any idea.”

“You’re, what? A conduit? Yeah, you’d have to be, with the shop. Perfect cover. And that’s why you’ve got hand-to-hand training and— Geez, how did you know who my supplier was?”

“I didn’t.” She twisted in her seat, pulling her legs up and leaning against the door so she could watch him. This would be fun, if only the reason she’d finally been able to tell him was less horrible. “But I knew who to call.”

“I can’t even believe—” His eyes narrowed and he shot her a look. “You knew I was SIEGE.”

“Yes,” she said again, this time a bit more warily as they approached sensitive territory.

“But I didn’t know you were. How does that work?” He scowled.

“You know how it works. SIEGE keeps us all as insulated as possible. Conduits and suppliers know field agents but not each other. Agents know facilitators but not other agents.” Mostly. But how much the SIEGE support people actually interacted was irrelevant. At least, right now it was.

“It can’t be coincidence,” Brady asserted, eyes mostly on the road. “Did they recruit you because of me?”

“I should be insulted,” she said as lightly as possible, nudging him in the arm. “I’m good at what I do.” When he angled a look at her, she admitted, “Fine. You’re part of the reason. You and—” Her throat went dry, and she stuck to the immediate topic. “And the fact that I was opening a music store. They needed a front in Boston and liked my legitimacy.”

“But you’re not one of my conduits.” He paused. “Are you?”

“You’d know. You’d have given me stuff, or vice versa.”

He nodded and seemed appeased that her secret had been passive, not active. He looked as if he was about to ask something else, but suddenly, she couldn’t avoid it anymore.

“Brady.” Her stomach clenched. “We have to talk about Chris.”

“No.” His voice went hard.

“You know there’s a reason we don’t know how he died.”

“I don’t.” Tension and warning laced the words, but Molly didn’t—couldn’t—heed them.

“The man at Jessica’s—”

“Stop, Molly. Now.”

“—was a facilitator.”

“I’m not hearing this.” Cold fury now, and if Molly didn’t know him so well she’d be scared. Hell, she
didn’t
know him that well anymore, and she
was
scared. But she had to say it anyway. He had to know.

“Christopher was an agent for SIEGE. He died on the job.”

Chapter Three

Brady slammed on the brakes. The Jeep skidded on the uneven half-pavement, half-dirt road, its rear end sliding around to the left before he corrected and it came to a stop less than a foot from the ditch.

He barely noticed. He rounded on Molly, the red haze back, this time fueled by fury.

“That’s not possible.” He felt his lips curl back from his teeth in a snarl, the implications of what she’d just told him crowding into his brain, combining to form a ferocious buzz that drowned out whatever she was saying to him now. The roof and sides of the vehicle bent toward him, squeezing.
Have to get out. Need air
. He shoved out of the car and staggered a few feet down the road, oblivious to the rain that had become a downpour.

“Brady!”

Molly’s voice was faint behind him. He halted, pressing his hands to the top of his head as if that could stop the tormenting buzz, like a swarm of hornets. He heard splashes—Molly, running through puddles.

“Brady!” she called again, then her hand caught his upper arm in a surprisingly tight grip. No, not surprisingly. She’d fought him, and matched him, even though as a conduit she wasn’t field trained. He thought about how she’d taken care of the weapon under his mattress, collected his things…hell, how she’d found him and followed him all day, when he was actively trying to lose her. And something in him calmed. Not a panacea, or temporary lid on the cauldron of emotion, but an actual diminishing of the swirl. He could think, and start to sort out how he felt and what he needed to know.

He had a long way to go to understanding, to acceptance, but thank God Molly was here. He took in the dark curls plastered to her head, her blue eyes shining through the rain sluicing down her face. His mouth quirked at the thought—the same thought he’d had hundreds of times over the past twenty-eight years, when she’d bailed him out for doing something stupid, or helped him with schoolwork he’d put off till the last minute, or even talked down some chick he’d led on just a little too long. No matter what was happening in his life, her presence had always been a comfort.

“Where have you been for the last ten years?” he said without thinking, and instantly cursed himself. He
so
did not want to dredge all that up now. “I’m sorry,” he said before she got past the hurt, so clear on her face, enough to give him a smartass answer. “I never should have shut you out like I did. I don’t deserve to have you here. But damn, I’m glad you are.”

“Wonderful.” She tilted her head back, a sardonic twist to her mouth, and let the rain fall harder on her face to make her point. “Can we please get back in the car?”

“If we have to.” A stupid gesture, meaningless, but he held her door for her as she climbed in, and took the few extra seconds in the rain to round the front of the Jeep. Normally, they’d fire barbs at each other for a few minutes, but when he climbed into the driver’s seat and put the vehicle back in gear, the air was far too heavy to allow banter.

“Ask me anything you want,” Molly said after they’d driven for a minute or two. “I’ll tell you what I know.”

Brady blew out a breath and shoved his hand through his hair, sending droplets of water flying around him. Molly didn’t flinch. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“How about with Chris being recruited by SIEGE?” she suggested. “Remember the consulting job—”

“Yeah.” He felt stupid, gullible, that he’d never figured it out. “Right out of school. How did you know?”

“They told me, when they recruited me. Used him as an example when they described what SIEGE does.”

Brady remembered his own recruitment. The phone call, the interviews, his excitement at being chosen. Hell. He probably hadn’t been hired on his own merits after all, but because of his brother. The interviewers told him they got his résumé off a job site, researched him, and found him to be an ideal candidate for their information brokerage. All lies? Why not? That’s what espionage was all about, wasn’t it? As unfair as it was, as much as he hated himself for feeling it even for a second, he hated Chris for taking this from him, too. Just as he’d taken so much already.

Stupid, Fitz
. It didn’t matter how Brady got the job. He was a damned good operator. He’d been awarded two commendations for his role in taking down a couple of terrorist cells and derailing a rising dictator’s campaign for power. And the things he’d lost, he’d lost by himself. Chris hadn’t done anything to be blamed for.

Brady realized Molly was watching him, waiting patiently for him to get out of his head again. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Anyway, they told me about both of you. Not details, just that you were agents, and that because I knew people in the field, I’d have incentive to do a good job as a conduit.”

Brady snorted. “Is that why you agreed? Because they sold you some bill of goods that you’d be helping me and Chris?” But the idea warmed him, until she shook her head.

“No. I agreed because I was dissatisfied.” She stopped talking abruptly, and when he looked at her, she was bouncing her knee, her arms folded across her chest. Classic signs that she was holding something back, or about to.

“Dissatisfied with what? Music?”

“No. Well, kind of. Not the music itself, the traveling.”

She’d alluded to that several years ago, when she told him she was opening a store because she wanted to stay home. Their conversation had been cursory, though, not the in-depth discussion it would have been a few years earlier. His fault. And suddenly, he regretted the last twelve years more bitterly than he had at any moment during them. An unfamiliar burning seized his heart for a few seconds. His fault. Everything was his fault.

Don’t choke now. You need to get home. People need you. Jessica needs you.

The self-lecture didn’t help Brady pull himself together, but somehow he managed to refocus, to squeeze out a question about how she’d incorporated SIEGE into her store. He half listened while she talked about having no staff, so she could keep the information and objects safe that were passed through her, not only between SIEGE agents, but from SIEGE to other agencies, and vice versa. She told him about the training she’d insisted on after making a case for someday becoming a target or collateral damage, and needing to be able to take care of herself as well as the items entrusted to her as go-between for the various government and private agencies who passed information through SIEGE.

Slowly, Brady reached equilibrium again, Molly’s talk of training enabling him to grab on to it, to compartmentalize everything that hurt, and let the operator take over.
You’ve been in worse situations
, he tried to tell himself. But of course it wasn’t true. More dangerous, maybe. Tenser, without a doubt. But more painful, more personal? Never.

Still, those other situations had taught him how to cope. He had to focus on the here and now, on getting home, one step at a time, one minute at a time. Put everything in a box and close it up tight, to be dealt with…later. Sometime. After he’d finished with everything required of him.

Like getting Molly home. She’d done an admirable job reaching him, but she didn’t have the experience he did. It was up to him to get her home safely.

On cue, he sensed the faint, more-felt-than-heard rumble of a powerful vehicle behind them. Nothing visible in the rearview mirror, but they’d just come over a hill. The truck could be right on the other side of it, about to roar up on their tail. It could be a random traveler, or even local bandits. But instinct told him it was whoever had shot at them on the street. Someone had found out about the information he was gathering and wanted to stop him from leaving the country with it. And his mini-meltdown had allowed them to close in.
Fuck
.

“Hang on,” he warned Molly. She instantly turned to face forward, putting her feet flat on the floor and wrapping her hands around her seatbelt.

He slowly pressed down on the accelerator to speed up without spinning out or getting stuck. The road was a mess, definitely not suited to a chase. At least, not unless you were the one doing the chasing. He couldn’t let their pursuer catch up, or they’d almost certainly be run off the road.

The speedometer crept upward. He glanced constantly from it to the road to the rearview and side mirrors. Still nothing, but he could feel the truck getting closer. Tension mounted almost unbearably, from both him and Molly.

She craned around to check the road behind. “Did you see them?”

“No. But—”

The truck topped the ridge suddenly, a good hundred yards back now. It seemed to hang for a second, then plunged down the slope, half skidding, its engine now an audible roar under the rain hammering the Jeep’s roof. Any possibility it had nothing to do with the shooter was immediately quashed as someone poked the barrel of a gun out the passenger side window.

“Get down,” Brady ordered, but Molly was already slumping as low as she could without being on the floor. He slammed his foot on the accelerator as they hit a longer patch of asphalt. The vehicle jounced over a pothole, flinging her up like a rag doll, but she didn’t utter a sound.

He didn’t hear the shot, but caught a spark on the right side mirror out of the corner of his eye. Quickly comparing the values of zigzagging and being a more difficult target versus going straighter but faster, he stayed on track and struggled to come up with a plan.

Another bullet pinged off the back of the Jeep. “How far to the next city?” Molly asked almost conversationally before taking flight again when they splashed down off the pavement into a hole too big to be called a pot.

“Over an hour.”

“And we have no weapons,” she mused, grabbing the door handle in an effort to control her bouncing. Her curly black hair covered half her face, so Brady wasn’t sure what she was thinking.

“Not much we could do even with weapons,” he pointed out. “Unless you’re also a marksman.”

“Nah, never got around to that.” She hauled herself back onto the seat because he had gained a little distance and the shooters were being smart, saving bullets. “Any side roads we can take? Any places to hide?”

“Good idea.” There was another hill up ahead. If he could get far enough ahead, once they were out of sight he might be able to get them off the road. But only if there was another hill or a bend in the road. Otherwise, their pursuers would know what they’d done, and they’d be sitting ducks.

“Floor it,” she told him, bracing herself. “Stop worrying about bouncing me.”

“I’m not,” he ground out, mashing the accelerator down. “Does it feel like I’ve been worrying about that?” Okay, maybe he had been, unconsciously, because the vehicle surged up the hill, catching air when they came up over the top.

“Side road!” she yelled, pointing.

“Barely.” But he aimed the Jeep for it, hitting the brakes and skidding again. The rain and slop would hopefully disguise their tire tracks. Molly squeaked when, for a second, the Jeep seemed as if it would tip over, but he hit the gas again and it righted, sliding into a narrow gap between trees in a patch of jungle. It was more like a path than a road, but it was also flatter, less rutted, and the overhanging trees protected it a little from the rain, so he was able to drive faster.

Leaves and branches slapped against the car, catching in the mirrors and windshield wipers. He couldn’t hear anything outside their manic cocoon, and was too afraid of clipping a tree to take his eyes off the nose of the Jeep.

“See anything back there?” he asked.

…

Molly righted herself and peered over the seat again. She swallowed the blood that seeped out of her bitten tongue and the inside of her cheek, narrowing her eyes against the rain sliding down the flat back window. “I can’t tell.”

“We need to know.”

Without a word she popped the latch on her seatbelt and climbed over into the cargo area. That didn’t help much, so she twisted the handle inside the rear window and pushed it up enough to look under it. The pungent combination of wet bark and mold blew in her face, but the truck wasn’t visible on the path. She held her breath and tried to listen, but couldn’t hear past their vehicle’s own crashing progress.

“Anything?” Brady called back.

“No!” A bad feeling welled up. There was a reason the truck was gone, and she was pretty sure it wasn’t because they’d lost their pursuers. “Stop, Brady!” She relocked the window and scrambled back into her seat. “Find somewhere to hole up.”

“Are you crazy? Where?”

“There!” The road took a sharp turn up ahead, their view blocked not only by the trees but by an outcropping of rock. She had no idea if they’d fit, but urgency built in her chest. “We have to stop. They— I don’t know, took another route or something, to cut us off.”

“We didn’t see another turnoff,” Brady said, but not argumentatively. He stopped at the rocky outcrop before the road turned, and backed quickly off the road as far as he could, coming to rest against a sapling. She relaxed. A little. Her side of the Jeep was inches from the rock. A double-trunked tree blocked Brady’s door. They were totally trapped if someone stopped on the path. But a couple of branches had fallen back into place in front of them, and she didn’t think anyone would notice the few torn leaves unless they were looking hard. They were as hidden as they could be.

They sat, frozen, waiting in total silence. She couldn’t even hear Brady breathing. Maybe, like her, he was holding his breath. The engine still droned—Brady had his hand on the key but didn’t turn it off, probably wanting to be able to pull away as quickly as possible if they were found. The rain still plunked and pattered, masking any sound from outside, and their visibility was nil. The little bit of outside air she’d let in had filled the car with damp, and their anxiety turned it to steam that had begun fogging the windows.

Minutes ticked past, each one an eternity. She released and re-held her breath three times.

And then the truck that had been behind them surged past from around the bend—in the opposite direction. Molly jumped and gasped, her heart leaping so hard she thought it would lock up. But Brady only tightened his hands on the steering wheel and watched it drive on.