Ruthless (22 page)

Yep. Now I was just pissed off.

I mashed the accelerator all the way to the floor and listened to the horses run. The mercs wasted precious seconds trying to figure out where the noise came from in the echoing garage and then at least another precious second deciding internally what to do about the black SUV barreling at them doing about fifty. The guy closest to me leapt sideways as I slammed into the back of the sedan they’d been meeting around. I didn’t hit the other two guys directly, but I whipsawed the sedan sideways as I T-boned it, and it smashed flush into the car next to it, leaving no room for space between them.

Take a government car, weighing several thousand pounds, add a dab of velocity for several seconds, then a parked car, garnish with two assholes who were out to kill me. Voila! That’s my recipe for mercenary puree. Put it in your cookbooks, kids, because it’s one that the whole family will love.

I was dazed after the impact, but I could see through the dust that the deflated airbag had left behind that I’d gotten two of them. One was screaming at the top of his lungs, his groin and everything below crushed between two cars. The other hadn’t been quite so lucky; he’d dived for the open aisle to our right and didn’t quite make it. Now his body was hanging out in the open, pinned from the middle of his chest down. If he wasn’t dead, he was close; there wasn’t a doctor in this world that could fix him.

I didn’t exactly admire my handiwork, but I felt a sense of satisfaction for a brief second until the bullets peppered my window. They did what bullets do when they hit bulletproof glass—spidered the hell out of it. This stirred me back to life and I made a quick, last-minute adjustment before I scrambled into the passenger seat and prepared to bail out.

I almost got out before the last idiot got the driver’s side door open. I’d hoped I’d have a second or so due to the mangling of the car in the crash, but luck was only kindasorta on my side this time. This guy was enraged, livid at what I’d done to his buddies, and it was obvious on his face. He jerked the door open just as I was tumbling out the passenger side, and I got an unfortunate and undesired boost as the claymore I’d just finished wiring to the door blew up behind me.

I knew it was going to be loud, but this was like a 747 taking off in my frigging ear. The force of the explosion sent me end over end as my legs—which were still on the passenger seat—flipped over my upper body, which was almost slithered out of the car. I landed on the concrete floor with a WHUMP! and all my air left me.

I lay there, staring up at the still-flickering light above me, for several minutes. I wanted to get up, but I couldn’t. My ears were ringing like I’d listened to a death metal concert from inside a speakerbox, and my entire head was shaking.

My only consolation was that I’d probably killed the last of these douches, so there was that.

I peeled myself up off the floor after another minute, still hearing that ringing in my ears. I shuffled off toward the nearest door and bailed through it, losing my balance and pitching forward into a snowbank just off the sidewalk outside. Someone was playing cymbal in my head, with a whole chorus of triangles to add to the pitch and wail. I tried to push myself up but my shoulder screamed at me in a voice that resonated throughout my whole body. I told it to shut up, but I had a feeling that those bandages I’d attached had pulled free in the crash.
Shoulda known better
, a faint voice of reason in my brain told me.

You should shut the hell up,
I told it in reply. I was in no mood.

I crawled on my knees, the dormitory building rising up in front of me. It was an angular building, with balconies and a long L shape that left one wing of it stretching out to meet me. There was an entrance over there, and I was by God going to find it, even though the lights were off and all I could see was blurry shadows along the length of it.

Wait, why were the lights off?

I felt the cold press against my gloveless hands as I crawled, my clothing once again freezing against my skin. I felt the sling with my MP5 fall into the snow, and I dragged it back up with useless hands. I was shaking, from cold or injury or shock, maybe even some combination of all three.

“You bastards sure know how to show a girl a good time,” I said as I collapsed into the snow again, but I couldn’t even hear my words over the ringing. I saw snowflakes dancing past my eyes. One fell on my nose. It tickled.

I wanted to collapse here and sleep for the night. It had to be late, past my bedtime. My brain wanted to trick me, wanted me to take this opportunity to just rest and attack the problem by dawn’s light. I’d be rested. I’d be refreshed. My shoulder wouldn’t be crying and moaning in pain. It felt cool and wet, like it was bleeding again. Or was that just sweat?

I hauled myself up to all fours again and made another start across the field. The dormitory building was impossibly far away. Miles, maybe. It didn’t feel like it was getting any closer. I thought maybe walking would get me there quicker, but my body vetoed the idea of standing. My shoulder pleaded for mercy with each movement I made to crawl forward, but my legs told it to take a flying leap. You’re on your own, they said, we’re out for the night. Assholes.

I made it another mile or five, but the dormitory grew no closer. I flailed my arms to try and crawl, and then realized my belly was firmly in the snow. I couldn’t make myself move. Hell, I didn’t want to move. I wanted to sleep.

Hypothermia
, a distant voice whispered. Did it have a Russian accent?

Shock
, another one added.

Death
, came the most compelling of all, deep and gravelly.

I felt myself stop shivering, but only dimly. I felt strangely … and suddenly … warm? And sleepy. Oh, so sleepy.

I curled my legs up to my chest and wrapped my good arm around them, lying there on my side. I saw my breath frost in the air, go misty and float off into the dark of night, lit by only a faint and distant light from headquarters.

Headquarters? Wasn’t I supposed to go there for some reason?

It didn’t matter now. Now was a time for sleep. It was night, after all, and night was a time for sleep.

I heard the sound of crunching snow over the distant ringing in my ears, and then I felt strong arms roll me over. I blinked at the shadow of the figure stooping over me. My gloveless fingers caught his arm and I felt smooth leather, slightly wet from the falling flakes melting on the surface.

I felt him gather me up, like a child being picked up by a parent, cradled safe and warm. The darkness was near-complete, and he started to walk, to carry me. Something in my mind said,
meta
. I told it to shut up, because I needed to sleep.

“Hi,” I said, my voice dragging, muted, barely audible above that persistent ringing.

“Hey, Sienna,” the man said, and even though I couldn’t hear him all that well, I knew that voice. It was smooth, it was calm, it was … sweet?

The steps were slow, steady progress over the snow field, and I could see the dormitory building looming over us in the shadows. Why were the lights off? That was weird, wasn’t it?

I wanted to close my eyes, but felt strangely riveted to this man, his shadowy face that I couldn’t even see, his smooth and familiar voice. He carried me on, and I felt him adjust my weight as he did something. Then I closed my eyes in shock as light flooded my senses. I cracked them back open again, blazing brightness overwhelming me as I stared up. I locked onto his face at last, even as I felt the tiredness—the darkness—welling up to get me for the last time.

It was Scott Byerly.

I stared at him for a moment, his dusty blond hair all but hidden under a ski cap. Then my muscles gave out, and I felt myself go limp, safe in his arms, as I pitched into a deep, deep sleep.

“I think we can conclude that the men I sent after her are either dead or incapacitated,” Natasya said into the phone, waiting for the judgment on the other side.

None came. “If they kept her busy, then they’ve fulfilled their function,” the voice said.

Natasya stared out into the night. She was at the corner of the building on the fourth floor, looking out into the darkness at the parking garage in the distance. She’d heard gunfire as the mercenaries she’d dispatched after the girl caught her trail, but they’d disappeared inside some time ago and no significant noise had emerged since save for a subtle pop that could have been a muffled explosion.

The garage was little more than a cluster of lights in the distance, a looming shadow only slightly less dark than the dormitory building in the distance. With one last look, Natasya turned from it and strode back into the headquarters, leaving the perimeter office behind.

“How much longer?” the voice asked.

“How long until you’re in the network?” Natasya replied evenly.

“I am working on it, but I’m being perpetually thwarted,” the voice said with a coolness all her own. “You should nearly be done executing the first contingency now.”

“And we are,” Natasya said. “If you want a status report, you should contact Vitalik.”

There was a moment of pondering. “I will. Call me if the situation changes.”

“Very well,” Natasya said, threading her way into the interior bullpen. This was a working space that had been cleared through the supervised labor of the party guests. It had been good for them, these fat, slovenly pigs, forced to put their backs into clearing a space where they could sit and have men point guns at their overfed faces. They’d sweated, some cried, a few stubborn refusals had bruises to show for their defiance. None had gone so far as to warrant a bullet; their resistance was pathetic. And predictable, in her view. They were soft.

She had eight men left up here. That was all—all that remained of her force of mercenaries in this place, save for the two watching Vitalik’s back downstairs. Ten men, two metahumans. All she had after throwing some two metas and eighteen mercenaries after Sienna Nealon. It was a depressing loss of personnel.

But it was acceptable.

For now.

Every single one of her guards was watching the crowd, save for two patrols working their way around the ring of the building. They strolled through the lushly carpeted hallways, striding between the walls hung with canvases, tall potted plants giving the place an air of green, and she tried not to be sick at the wasteful display.

She wandered into the middle of them, looking at the cowed and cowering hostages. Not a fighter among them. Not a soul of resistance in their midst. The security force had all been drugged, disarmed and locked away. If it had been up to Natasya, she would have made the poison lethal, but the voice had insisted on a compound that would merely knock them out. That left a question mark in Natasya’s mind, having those men still breathing, but she did as the voice commanded.

After all, she’d laid siege to two different bastions of America’s government in the last two days, and whatever success they’d had was due to the voice’s planning and knowledge. While she’d lost two of her own men, that could happen on any operation. Especially one this deep in enemy territory, and against such an unpredictable foe.

Still, she’d learned long ago that objectives mattered more than losses. While she felt for her lost comrades, Volkov had died stupidly, and through no one’s fault but his own. Whatever had happened to Miksa was more ambiguous, but still well within the realm of acceptable losses.

And she intended to lose absolutely no one else.

“Who is in charge of this place?” Natasya asked, wondering aloud. She hadn’t even thought to ask before, because it was utterly irrelevant. The voice had been so certain that as soon as they were under siege, the prison would be locked down against any access, even that of high-level administrators. There would be no option but to unlock it electronically or physically.

A large man, sandy blond, cool and composed, stood up. His legs wavered as he did so, though Natasya couldn’t be certain whether that was from nerves or simple prolonged inactivity coupled with age. “I am,” he said. “My name is Andrew Phillips. I’m the director of this agency.” The tone was neutral, absent any defiance or fear, just a simple statement of fact.

“Oh, yes,” Natasya said, staring at him. “I met you before, when we came here.” She felt herself smile, lightly amused. “How tragic it is for you, to be so forgettable.”

He remained expressionless. “It hasn’t worked out too bad so far.”

Natasya felt a laugh bubble up from within. “An excellent point. Sit down, Director. I have no need of you for anything, and if you keep your people calm, you may live to see the morning.”

Phillips hesitated, and she could see the wheels turning. “What is your intention here?”

Natasya blinked, then shrugged. “I intend to open the doors to your prison and free our captured brethren within. Then, under cover of you … lovely, high-profile hostages, we will go to the helipad on your roof and take a chopper to the nearby airport, at which time we will board a waiting plane bound for the tropical paradise of Cuba. There we’ll let our comrades decide what to do with your senators and congressmen, while we soak up the sun.”

Phillips did not even blink. “That’s a very ambitious plan.”

Natasya inclined her head in acknowledgment. “Now sit, please.”

“One question,” Phillips said. “Do you really think the authorities will let you get all the way to Cuba without opposing you?”

Natasya met his fearless gaze with her own. “If they wish for your people to continue breathing, they will. Though I doubt very much that your police and FBI will even be awake before I am sitting in the airport in Havana.”

Phillips stared back at her for a moment, like he was pondering pushing his luck and asking another question. Instead he seemed to decide the better of it and sat back down, folding his long legs underneath him and using a cubicle to rest his back. He stared straight ahead, at the floor, as though there were something of great interest there.

Natasya’s phone rang, and she answered it without saying a word. “I have something for you,” Vitalik said on the other side. She could hear the triumph in his voice.