Naughty (8 page)

“Where are you hit?”

“Hospital,” Hammett mumbled.

The woman pulled into traffic. “When did you change your clothes?”

Hammett had the box cutter to her neck a heartbeat later.

“Drive cautiously, no sudden movements.”

The woman stayed calm. “You’re not Ludlum.”

Hammett patted her down, took a Glock 17 from under her poncho, a cell phone, and a Zippo lighter. She did a quick pull of the Glock’s slide to make sure it was loaded, then pressed that into the woman’s armpit. “No. I’m, Hammett, your target.”

The woman began to laugh. “Hammett? As in Dashiell?”

“Yeah. And your partner’s name is Ludlum? I assume after Robert.”

“Makes sense. Whoever created Hydra must have liked thriller writers. I’m Forsyth. As in Fredrick, who wrote Day of the Jackal.”

Hammett thought of Clancy. Tom Clancy. Their codenames were all spy authors.

“Where do you want me to drive?”

“Turn up here.”

“Right? On Alberta?”

“Yes.”

“You look exactly like me and Ludlum. You’re our sister.”

Hammett didn’t reply.

“So what did you do for blood?” Forsyth asked. She seemed much calmer than Clancy had been. Then again, she wasn’t hogtied and having her fingers broken. “Bite the inside of your cheek? I used a variation on that trick once, in Istanbul. Spit the blood in a man’s eye to blind him.”

“Where is Ludlum?”

Forsyth made a right turn, her driving slow and steady. “We split up two hours ago. Supposed to text each other whenever someone enters your apartment.”

“She’s covering the back.”

A nod. “If it matters, when we took this job we didn’t know you were our sister. We wouldn’t have taken it if we’d known.”

“But when you got close enough to me, you would have figured it out.”

“We weren’t supposed to get close. Orders. We rigged your apartment with C-4.”

“Sensor?”

“No. We were told you were good enough to spot it. Manual detonation, once you went in.”

Hammett hadn’t found a detonator on Forsyth. “The cell phone? Dial a bomb?”

“No. The lighter. Don’t open it unless you want your place destroyed.”

“Wouldn’t want that. I’ve got thousands invested in my clothes.”

Forsyth looked at Hammett, then began to laugh. Hammett had said it because she’d sewn hundred dollar bills into every outfit, and apparently Forsyth did the same and got the joke.

“How are you supposed to know when I entered the apartment?” Hammett was curious. Her window shades were drawn, the lights off. She’d been planning on slipping in and out in less than thirty seconds.

“Ludlum has a scancorder.”

Hammett had heard of scancorders. They were allegedly devices that used microwaves and Doppler radar to detect a human heartbeat from many meters away, including through walls and concrete. Developed in the private sector to search for earthquake victims in rubble, the military applications were obvious.

“I didn’t think those existed yet,” Hammett said.

“Officially, they don’t. Unofficially, they’re cool as hell.”

She was chatty for someone about to die. Maybe it had to do with working with a partner for a few years. Hammett had always been a lone wolf. She preferred it that way.

“Have you and Ludlum always worked together?”

“Only for the past three years.”

“Recruited by The Instructor?”

Another nod. “You’re Hydra, too?”

Hammett stayed quiet.

“Why does Isaac want you dead?” Forsyth asked.

“I had some personal business to attend to. He considered it going rogue.”

“Isaac’s an asshole.”

That was an understatement. It was also personal. If Forsyth had Hammett’s training, she’d been taught to offer nothing. Yet both Clancy and Forsyth had given up a lot of intel with very little persuasion. Was it their hope Hammett wouldn’t kill them, because they looked alike and were trying to bond?

Or did they actually feel a bond?

Hammett had felt something like a bond with Heath. Enough of one to not kill him when she probably should have. But she didn’t know what it was like to chat with a sister. Without wanting to, Hammett thought of her terrible childhood, and suddenly felt an urge to ask Forsyth about hers. Had she had decent parents, rather than a psycho? Friends? Normal relationships?

Hammett had spent her high school prom beating a rival gang member to death with a bike chain, which probably wasn’t something many seventeen year old girls could claim. What would it have been like to grow up normal?

“Mathieson is coming up. Left or right?” Forsyth asked.

“Neither. Pull into the next alley, where you call your sister and tell her to bring the bomb in my apartment.”

“She won’t listen. She’ll know I’ve been compromised.”

Hammett knew she could force Forsyth to make the call, but the problem remained. Any weird calls from Forsyth, and Ludlum would be on alert, and much harder to subdue. Besides, even with a weapon, it wasn’t easy to maintain control over one person, let alone two. Especially when both had training. Even as Forsyth drove, seemingly at ease, Hammett could see the wheels turning in her sister’s head, plotting how to get out of this situation.

The smart move would be to kill Forsyth, impersonate her, and get close enough to Ludlum to kill her as well.

“You’ll need help eliminating Isaac,” Forsyth said, no doubt trying to remain essential while knowing her minutes were numbered. “Ludlum and I can help. We’ve been thinking about leaving Hydra for a while. If Isaac is a hard target, a team will have better odds. Do you still want me to pull into an alley? There’s one behind the Quickie Dry Cleaning.”

Something pinged in Hammett’s brain. The things Forsyth said among the banter.

Right? On Alberta? Mathieson is coming up. Quickie Dry Cleaning.

Forsyth was telling Ludlum their location.

Hammett grabbed Forsyth’s scalp by the hair, checked the right ear, then yanked her head over and checked the left, finding the earpiece.

Shit. They’d been in constant contact, and Ludlum had heard everything. Hammett needed to—

Forsyth made a grab for the gun at the same time she hit the brakes. Hammett bounced off the dashboard, still gripping the Glock. Forsyth—who’d been smart enough to not only play Hammett, but to also put on her seatbelt—wrenched Hammett’s wrist and made her drop the gun, which bounced onto the floor of the Chevy.

Hammett drove an elbow into her twin’s nose, breaking it, and then head-butted her in the temple. Human beings had evolved to take head-on punishment well, but they didn’t do so good when hit in the side. Hammett’s head was fine, but Forsyth’s brain smacked the inside of her skull, bringing instant unconsciousness.

Forsyth’s body went slack, and the car began to roll, picking up speed as it went down an incline toward the intersection. Hammett was reaching for the passenger door when the Chevy rear-ended the trailer of a semi-truck at the stoplight.

Both airbags exploded, pinning Hammett in her seat. The white propellant powder hung in the air like smoke, clogging Hammett’s nostril and burning her lungs. She found the handle, shoved the door open, and plopped into the street on all fours—

—just as a gun was pressed to the back of her skull.

“Hello, Sis. Face down on the street. Now.”

Disoriented from the car ride, Hammett still couldn’t help but wonder why Ludlum hadn’t killed her immediately. Not that she planned to complain.

Hammett raised her hands as if surrendering, and then executed a move she’d practiced so often it was practically automatic; she knocked the gun away from her head with her right hand and caught it in both, twisted her body while pointing it away, and pulled Ludlum to the street, face-first.

Ludlum tried to roll onto her side as they wrestled for the weapon, but Hammett had leverage, and strength, and kept applying pressure until her sister’s grip gave and the gun fell to the ground.

Hammett searched for it, then catching movement in her peripheral vision, she bunched her shoulder to take a kick that was meant for her head.

Forsyth. That was the problem with knocking someone out. Eventually they woke up.

Hammett rolled smoothly to her feet and reached into her belt for the box cutter. A kick caught her in the side. The cutter skittered across the pavement.

“You chipped a tooth,” Forsyth said, fists in front of her and shuffling on the balls of her feet. “And I thought we were bonding so well.”

Movement to her left. Ludlum, scrambling for the dropped gun. Hammett did a quick cartwheel, kicked the Glock away, and hit Ludlum with a right cross.

Ludlum blocked, then tried a leg sweep, which Hammett jumped over. She looked right, saw Forsyth moving in, muay thai style. To her left, Ludlum adopted a taekwondo back L-stance.

“You girls want to surrender?” Hammett asked.

They attacked as one, Forsyth with a flying elbow, Ludlum with a side spinning kick. If they’d both connected, Hammett would have been knocked horizontal. But Hammett threw herself into a back handspring, coming up on her feet in time to block a right cross and a spin kick. She backpedaled, ass hitting the rental car, and turned sideways just as Forsyth smashed her foot through the passenger window. Hammett scooped the woman up, WWE style, and body slammed her onto the pavement.

Ludlum threw a knee at Hammett’s face, but Hammett dropped and shoved upward, sending Ludlum soaring overhead. Then she moved to stomp on Forsyth’s head, but Forsyth was already kipping up to her feet. Hammett lashed out with her palm, clipping Forsyth in the chin, and then dropped down on all fours to search for the Glock. It had been kicked under the rental car, far out of reach.

Time to run.

Getting back to her feet, Hammett sprinted toward the truck Forsyth’s car had rammed into. The driver was standing outside of his open door, mouth agape as he stared at the spectacle. She rushed him, clipped him under the jaw, and then swung herself up into the cab of his semi and locked the doors. Then she studied the control console.

No keys. The driver had taken his keys from the ignition before getting out.

Hammett checked both side mirrors, saw Forsyth approaching on the right, and Ludlum on the left. Ludlum had found her gun.

Hammett quickly searched the cab for a weapon, but there were too many shelves and compartments and boxes. Eyes scanning upward, she saw a skylight on the roof, the windows hinged to double as an emergency exit. Hammett climbed onto the bed, undid the locks, and pulled herself up.

Three shots rang out, and Hammett leapt from the cab to the top of the trailer, sighting a white city bus that was heading toward them.

Parkour time.

Hammett put on a burst of speed, trying to judge where the bus would be when she made her leap, knowing it was going to be tight, flinging herself into the air as bullets tore past, sailing into open air with the street four meters below her, and landing on the roof of the bus as it passed.

Hammett stuck the landing, but the bus’s speed knocked her sideways, and she began to tumble toward the edge. She splayed out her arms and legs, stopping the roll but not the momentum, and skidded on her chest until she reached the side, her head peeking over just before she stopped.

Hammett watched the road whiz past for a moment, caught her breath, and then inched away from the edge. She turned back around to look for Forsyth and Ludlum, and spotted them climbing into the semi. Hammett frowned, watching as Forsyth started the truck. Apparently she’d found the keys.

Hammett got onto her knees, sighting ahead. Open road, no traffic lights for a few blocks. She looked back at her sisters, and the semi was now in pursuit. Ludlum, gun in hand, crawled out of the cab skylight.

She needed to get off the bus.

“Hey!” Hammett banged on the roof, hoping to get the driver’s attention. At the rear, she began to crawl toward the front, slapping the aluminum roof as she went. She had no idea if the bus driver could hear her, but she kept her center of gravity low in case he did and hit the brakes.

Another pop of a gunshot, and a round buried itself in the side of the bus. The semi roared up alongside.

As she’d done with Clancy, Hammett put herself in her adversaries’ minds. They would get close and try to shoot her. If that didn’t work, their next move would be to stop the bus, either by pulling in front of it, killing the driver, or blowing the tires. They’d expect Hammett to try to jump off the bus when it slowed down, or get inside.

What wouldn’t they expect?

They wouldn’t expect Hammett, outnumbered and outgunned, to attack.

Springing up from a crouch, Hammett ran across the roof of the bus and jumped, launching herself face-first at the oncoming semi, arms outstretched Superman-style, sailing over the gap between the two vehicles. Ludlum frantically emptied her magazine, wide-eyed with obvious surprise, her shots failing to connect. Hammett sailed over Ludlum, hitting the trailer on her chest. Hammett bounced, feeling the wound in her shoulder tear open, rolling right off the other side but managing to grab onto the upper side rail with one hand.

As she hung there on the side of the semi-trailer, the street beneath her blurring past at forty miles an hour, the adrenaline kicking so hard she felt her heart would burst, Hammett had a brief, terrible moment of self-reflection.

She didn’t wonder what led her to this point. She didn’t regret all the horrifying, unjustifiable things she’d done. She didn’t wish it all had gone differently. Instead, as she hung there, she had a single, overpowering urge.

She wanted to set the entire fucking world on fire.

Except for the puppies and kitties.

Gritting her teeth, she forced all the pain, all the anger and hatred and fury, into pulling herself back up onto the trailer.

Ludlum stood over her aiming the Glock at her midsection, ready to pull the trigger, but Hammett didn’t care. If Ludlum shot her, it would only piss her off even more.

The truck began to slow down, edging for the side of the street. Hammett clenched her fists, stood, and faced her sister.

“Don’t move! Hands up!”