In Sheep's Clothing (26 page)

Noah nodded. “That’s the important thing,” he said. He leaned back in his chair and then winced. Sitting forward again, he reached down and took off the holsters and held them up for Andropov to see. “These are digging into my cracked ribs,” he said as he dropped them on the table. He leaned back again and looked at Sarah. “You okay, Babe?”

“I’m better now that I’ve seen you,” she said with a grin. “Any chance you’ve come to rescue a damsel in distress?”

He shrugged. “You might say we’re in negotiations on that.” he turned back to Andropov. “Okay, Asshole, who is it you want me to kill?”

“It’s actually one of my competitors,” Andropov said. “If I were younger and had both of my eyes, I could handle him myself. Unfortunately, that is not the case. This man is very well guarded and never allows himself to be exposed. It will not be an easy assignment, but I feel strongly that you can accomplish it.”

“I’ll need every bit of intel you can gather on him. I mean everything, from what he has for breakfast to how many sheets of toilet paper he tears off. Can you give me that kind of information?”

“It’s being gathered as we speak. Can I assume from your questions that we have reached an agreement?”

Noah waggled a hand in the air. “That depends,” he said. “I’ll agree, provided you let the girl go with me today. Otherwise, I’m afraid we’re at a stalemate, Nicolaich, because I don’t trust you not to kill them as soon as I leave here.”

Andropov nodded, his evil grin still plastered on his face. “I suspected that would be your demand,” he said. “However, I’m not ready to give in on that point just yet. First, I want you to show me the plan you come up with to accomplish the mission. If the plan seems viable, then I will agree to your request. You will, of course, remain as my guests until then.”

Noah leaned forward in his chair again. “Damn,” he said. “Next time you blow up my room, tone down the explosives a bit, will you? You cracked a couple of my ribs and my freaking pelvis. Makes it hard to sit for more than a few minutes.” He slowly got to his feet, and stretched his back and rubbed his hip as he did so.

He looked over at Sarah. “Still in negotiations, Sweetheart,” he said, and then he turned and looked at Andropov again. “Mind if I at least get a kiss from my fiancé?”

Andropov’s eye went wide and his grin turned into a smile. “Fiancé? Well, then I can see why you are so insistent on taking her with you.” He shrugged and flipped a hand in the air toward Sarah. “Be my guest, of course.”

Noah turned and walked stiffly and slowly toward Sarah and the men, keeping his eyes focused on her own. He could see tears beginning to run down her cheeks as he approached her, and he spread his arms when he was still a couple of feet away.

Suddenly, he slapped a hand to his hip and let himself fall forward, grabbing Sarah and crashing into Moose and Neil on the way. The armed men jumped backward, and Noah could hear Andropov getting to his feet, his chair skittering backward.

Inside his head, he was counting seconds as he tried to make all three of them stay down on the floor. According to his mental clock, he had now been within the building for just over fifteen minutes, and he was wondering when Hayes...

The explosion was deafening! Hayes was right on time, and the blast and heat rolled just above them, throwing the half-dozen men in the room into the walls. Windows up high on the walls blew outward and large pieces of the tin roof came crashing down. As soon as the initial blast was over, though, Noah scrambled to his feet and went after one of the guns that had been blasted out of the hands of Andropov’s men.

He wasn’t surprised to see Moose leaping for one of the others. He snatched up the first one he reached and spun, looking for Andropov, but dust and debris made it almost impossible to see in that direction. He moved forward carefully, watching for any sign of movement, and suddenly he saw it.

Andropov had watched him fall onto the others, and realized instantly that Noah was trying to protect them, shield them with his own body. That had meant there would be a blast, and so he had dived for the floor himself. He’d been a few feet closer to the table when the explosive holsters had gone off, but he was getting to his feet as Noah approached him.

And then he heard it, even over the ringing in his ears, the shrill siren sound of a scream of rage. Andropov was up on his knees, facing Noah, and at first Noah thought the sound had come from him, but then Sarah flew past. She had also gotten hold of one of the machine pistols, but she wasn’t aiming it at Andropov. She was swinging it by the barrel, like a baseball bat, and its short, stubby stock hit him precisely in his ruined left eye. He fell back and she followed, swinging again, catching him on the ear this time. He dropped back to the floor and Sarah fell to her knees beside him, raising the gun up over her head and bringing it down again with all the strength in her athletic little body.

A dozen times she must’ve struck him, until his face was nothing but a bloody mass. When all of her rage was spent, she fell back, and that was when Noah realized that she was no longer screaming, but was sobbing. He knelt down beside her and put a hand on her shoulder, and she spun and threw her arms around his neck. She was crying so hard that she made him lose his balance and fall down beside her.

A three-round burst erupted, and Noah jumped away from Sarah to see who had fired—and then lowered his gun once more when he saw that it was Neil. He had picked up one of the guns and followed Sarah, adding three bullets in the chest to the fatal wounds that Nicolaich Andropov had already suffered.

Suddenly there were other gunshots, and moments later Captain Hayes and two of his men came rushing into the room. Moose had already rounded up the surviving mercenaries, and Hayes’s men brought in several more that were found throughout the old building.

Hayes spotted Noah sitting on the floor beside Sarah and walked over to him. “Hell,” he said plaintively, “you could’ve saved a little fun for us.”

“Sometimes,” Noah said, “people just need to do things for themselves.”

Hayes looked at the ruined face of Nicolaich Andropov and then glanced at Sarah, who was still clinging to Noah and crying her eyes out. He turned his eyes to Noah’s own and nodded silently.

* * * * *

T
he cleanup took a couple of days. Under questioning, some of the mercenaries who had been working with Andropov gave up the address of the house he had been using as a base of operations, and the FBI found evidence linking them all to the raid on Neverland.

Noah called Molly to let her know that Andropov was dead, and at her insistence, Noah and the team stayed at her house while they cooperated with the FBI and NSA. The day after the final confrontation with Andropov, they went and recovered their things from the police evidence building, and then sat through hours of debriefing by a team of FBI agents. When it was over, they were told they were free to leave.

“Well, you don’t have to be a stranger, now that I know you’re alive,” Molly said. “Besides, me and Sarah need to sit down and have a nice long talk about you. I can give her some pointers on how to survive being in love with a Vulcan.” She rubbed her hand on Noah’s arm. “That girl has been good for you, Noah. I know you well enough to know you’re going to claim you were just carrying out the mission, but something’s changed. You’re still not normal, but you are definitely attached to that girl. I’m glad to see it finally happened.”

“I made a promise,” he said. “I promised my team that we would never leave anyone behind. I keep my promises.”

“I know that,” Molly answered. “Just don’t try to be something you’re not. That’s guaranteed to cause heartache for somebody, whether it’s her or you or somebody else. Just keep being yourself, Noah. That’s the Noah we need.”

They said their goodbyes and Molly hugged each of them before they got into the car, but then it was time to drive away. Sarah had seemed perfectly normal since she stopped crying after killing Andropov, so she was back behind the wheel and chattering away like always.

Moose and Neil were in the back seat, and when they got onto the interstate, the two of them started playing a game that involved finding a sign that began with each letter of the alphabet. They were doing fine, until they got to X. Finally, Neil pointed to a sign for a hospital that listed x-ray as one of its services, and they bent the rules enough to let it pass.

Both of the guys spent a lot of time on the phone speaking to their respective girlfriends back at Neverland. From the sound of things, both of the relationships were getting kind of serious, and Neil even asked Noah if he had any objection to Lacey moving into the trailer with him.

He didn’t.

They stopped the first night at a motel in Illinois, then made it home the following night. Doc Parker had told him to take it easy for a couple of days after they got back, and come in for debriefing the next Monday morning. It was so late when they got in that they all stayed at Noah’s house for the night, but the next day it was back to being just Noah and Sarah.

They didn’t talk about the mission, or about what had happened at the end. Noah knew enough about psychology to realize that Sarah had to process what she had done for herself before she’d be able to talk about it, so he didn’t press. They spent the weekend relaxing, and even took the boat out on the lake for a while on Sunday.

Mondays always come, however, so they reported to the office at nine AM, right on schedule. Art Jackson was there in the conference room when they walked in, and he pointed at the inevitable coffee and doughnuts. Moose was already there, and Neil had come in just after Noah and Sarah, so the four of them were sitting there talking with Jackson when they heard the door open.

They turned, expecting to see Doc Parker, but Allison Peterson stood there. She was using a cane, and her hair was a lot shorter, but other than that she was the Dragon Lady they knew and respected.

“Well, hell,” she said, with only a slight slur to her words. “Did you save me any doughnuts?”