The Kill Shot (17 page)

“Dobermans?”

The word was barely out of his mouth when the first bulky shape hurtled out of the fog.

“Rottweilers,” I breathed. Fear threatened to crush my lungs.

Barrett seized my hand, jerked me close.
“Go!”

He laced his fingers into a kind of stirrup. I stepped into his hands and, with his boost, reached for the top of the wall. The masonry tore at my fingertips and nibbled the plaster of my cast as I scrambled up.

I got a knee under me and pivoted to lay flat on the thick granite slabs capping the stones. When Barrett's hands caught the ledge, I grabbed his forearm and tried to haul him to the top. His legs were long and his body strong, his arms and shoulders capable of endless chin-ups. A brick wall wasn't the same as a chinning bar, though. His boots tried to find purchase on the wet stones and couldn't. That's when the first dog, big and beefy, rushed the wall to snap at Barrett's heels.

The second dog, in an athletic leap, bounded into the air—and sank his teeth into Barrett's ankle.

“He's got my cuff,” Barrett grunted.

Panic shot through me where fear had been. I grabbed desperate handfuls of Barrett's shirt, tried to haul him onto the wall beside me. He grimaced with his own efforts, got an elbow onto the ledge.

The dog, though, wouldn't let go. Dangling from Barrett's ankle, he growled like a diesel engine. Instinct made him shake his prey, but hanging in midair meant he swung like a pendulum.

The force of it threatened to drag Barrett from the wall. The canvas of his coat rasped as he began to slide southward along the stone. His fingertips turned white as he clutched at safety.

“Get!” I hissed at the dog. “Go home! Release!”

But my commands only made the Rottweiler angrier. His companion wasn't any too happy, either. She danced on the ground beneath us, gnashing her teeth and no doubt imagining how tasty Barrett was. She leapt for him, her fangs flashing in the moonlight. She got a mouthful of air, hit the lawn, and leapt again.

Beneath my hands, Barrett's muscles strained and trembled. But he didn't stop trying to reach the top of the wall. And the dogs didn't stop trying to pull him down.

“Go,” he ordered me. “Get back to London.”

“I'm not leaving you here.” I sat up, straddled the wall, and reached low to slip my good arm beneath his.

I had an eagle-eye view as Barrett kicked at the dog with his free foot. I heard the rip and tear of his trousers. And the deep-throated fury of the animal.

The second dog jumped again. Her jaws wrapped around the arch of Barrett's foot. The added weight jerked Barrett downward. He banged his chin on the granite even as he looped his arm over the wall.

My hands cramped as I clutched at him.

My heart bled as he slid in my grasp.

Barrett tried to shake the dogs loose. But the male dog wouldn't yield. And he wouldn't share Barrett with his mate.

In a fit of jealousy, the dog released Barrett to snap at his rival. She snarled, forgetting Barrett's foot. As the two animals nipped and snapped at each other, Barrett hoisted himself to the top of the wall. He lay flat on his belly as his breath zipped through his lungs like a lumberjack's saw.

Men's voices, angry and aggressive, bounced across the grass. Their flashlight beams cut through the fog like chisels through stone. The dogs forgot their quarrel and began to bay.

“Time to go,” Barrett said.

I agreed. I swung my legs to the exit side and dropped to the ground. Barrett was right behind me. He rolled off the wall like a log—and hit the earth like a meteor.

He staggered to his feet.

I clutched his lapel. “Are you all right?”

“Get in the car.”

With a roar, the car burst from the brambles. Ikaat was at the wheel. But she hadn't mastered the clutch.

The car shimmied and shook and pitched to a halt on the rough trail. Ikaat threw open the driver's door. Just as uniformed men on the wall opened fire.

We piled into the car, me in the driver's seat, Ikaat in the back with her father, and Barrett at shotgun. The gears screamed as I shoved the stick into place. And the engine groaned as I floored the gas pedal.

As if it had a mind of its own, the car hit every bump in the rutted trail. And just when I thought every tooth in my head had been shaken loose, we emerged onto the main road. We flew past the main gate to the country house, ate up the pavement toward Fenimoor. No headlights appeared in the rearview mirror. No sirens overtook us as we drove.

We were going to make it.

We were actually going to get away!

Barrett must've thought so, too. He settled into the seatback, stretched his legs out before him. But that's when we heard the high whine of another engine.

Ikaat was the first to spot them.

She'd knelt on the backseat, pressed her face to the rear window.

“I see them!” she squealed. “I see them!”

My eyes darted to the rearview mirror.

All I saw, though, were the first rays of the morning sun reflected in the glass. They stretched across the horizon to paint the countryside a sickening shade of pink. Overstuffed clouds scudded across the sky as if they had someplace else they'd rather be.

I snuck a sideways look at Barrett. His face had gone as hard as stone. And his eyes were pinned on a reflection in the side mirror.

“What is it?” I asked him. “What's back there?”

When it came, I didn't like his answer.

“Drones,” he said.

I twisted to look out the rear window.

Against the pink dawn, I picked out three pinpoints of black. These dots gained on us, growing larger while I watched. The whine of their high-powered engines grew to an all-out growl—and I was willing to wager they also had enough heavy hardware on board to blast an enemy bunker to bits.

My fight-or-flight reflex kicked into high gear, had me punching the gas. The road swung left, then right, like an asphalt ribbon, but offered no real getaway. Past the hedgerows, acres of open pasture would do nothing to hide us—and the cows that grazed there would certainly tell no one if they witnessed our deaths.

No sooner had I thought of the D-word than one of the drones caught up to us. It zipped alongside the car and, thanks to four sets of rotors, kept pace to hover outside my window. With two pairs of wing-like stabilizers and a compact body at its core, it looked like a dragonfly made out of fiberglass and metal—but this dragonfly was big enough to carry away a fully-grown billy goat. Some kind of lens swiveled under the smoked-glass dome that served as its head. When it winked at me, I knew I was on the paramilitary equivalent of
Candid Camera
.

With a sweaty palm, I jerked the steering wheel, tried to crash into the high-tech insect. But it swerved, too. It swooped wide and settled again into its spot inches from my head.

I yanked on the wheel a second time and then a third. Tires screamed as I swung all over the road. But the drone didn't budge.

And then a second one joined its friend, taking up a position on Barrett's flank.

“Get on the floor,” he ordered the Oujdads.

Past him, through his window, I watched as the slender cylinder protruding from the chest of the second drone rotated to point at Barrett's head. I glanced at the machine shadowing me. It had done the same. And suddenly I felt ill. Because these cylinders weren't part of any camera.

They were the barrels of machine guns.

Without thinking, I stomped on the brake.

Inertia threw me forward, but my seat belt kept my face from wrapping around the steering wheel. Barrett's belt caught him before he slammed into the dash. In the back of the car, Ikaat and her father rolled across the floor like a pair of frozen turkeys.

The two drones sped on, opening fire as they'd been ordered. But without us between them, the barrage of the first machine hit the second, and the spray of the second clipped the wing of the first. Both contraptions spiraled out of control, burning up before going down to crash in the roadway.

Relief made me light-headed. But I didn't have time to relax. I tromped on the accelerator, blew past the drones' smoking remains. Because in the rearview mirror, I saw the third drone close the gap between us like a torpedo on target. When it reached us, it would open fire, and when it opened fire, we would die.

That truth made terror shimmer through me like quicksilver.

“Take it easy.” Barrett placed a steady hand on my thigh. “We can't outrun it, but under the cover of the village, we can out-think it.”

As soon as he said it, the streets of Fenimoor leapt up out of the dust to meet us. Lights winked and blinked in the cottage windows as we zoomed past. Commuters shambled toward the train station—and that gave me an idea.

I sure as hell needed one. Because the last drone had caught up to us. In spite of all those pedestrians with eyes to see and ears to hear, it opened fire.

Dank, dank, dank, dank, dank!

Bullets ripped northward across the trunk of the car, making hash out of the metal. Shots shattered the rear window. When the glass fragmented, it collapsed inward like a sheet of ice.

Tunk, tunk, tunk!

Slugs slammed into the backseat's upholstery. Stuffing flew like feathers from a shredded pillow. And Ikaat began to scream.

Near the train station, I laid on the horn. Pedestrians in crosswalks leapt out of my way. But I didn't dare slow down.

If I slowed, we'd die.

Everything outside the car became a blur. Except the drone. Its glittering lens tightened focus as it laid down a barrage that made the vehicle shimmy. Not that I could hear the gunfire. Ikaat's screaming filled my brain.

But I could see the train trestle—that ancient overpass I'd driven under as Barrett and I had chased the men who'd met Ikaat at Fenimoor Station.

And I could see the single lane that shot right through it.

With a final desperate blast of my horn, I barreled beneath the train tracks. In that instant, I knew how thread felt as it passed through the needle's eye. But I didn't know if threading this needle would be enough.

I gritted my teeth, braced for the bite of gunshots in my back. My eye jumped to the rearview mirror. But the drone, flying at highway speed, didn't have time to correct for the pass-over's close quarters.

It slammed into the arch's keystone.

And burst into flame.

Our borrowed car had done well under fire. And it did its job after the last drone crashed and burned. Sputtering and stuttering, the car got Ikaat and her father, and Barrett and me, to Heathrow International Airport, but as I handed the keys over to the stunned parking valet, I knew it wouldn't be long before that car gave up the ghost.

The rest of us had managed to keep body and soul together, though, and that was the main thing. Ikaat and her father had suffered minor cuts and bruises when my hitting the brakes had thrown them to the floor. Armand had also been knocked around by the men who'd held him captive. He swore that they hadn't done any real damage—that he didn't need a doctor—and I wanted to take his word for it. Because I wanted him to board a plane.

According to a text from Roger, we just needed to check in at the British Airways counter, flash our passports and collect boarding passes from the helpful attendants, and stroll onto a Boeing 777. From there, we'd buckle up, sit back, and enjoy the ride. Or so Roger seemed to believe.

After the events of the last two days, however, I wasn't nearly as gullible as my father's chief of staff seemed to be.

I kept my eyeballs peeled for trouble as we waltzed through the entrance to the glass and gray steel departure terminal. Barrett, I observed, took note of every man, woman, child, suitcase, and ficus tree, too. He stuck to Ikaat's right side; I stuck to her left. Armand did his best to trundle alongside the three of us. No one got between us and the British Airways ticket counter, and that was a good thing. I wasn't in the mood to play nice anymore.

“Good morning.” I stepped up to the contoured counter separating the public from the handsome attendant in charge of doling out boarding passes. “I'm Jamie Sinclair. I believe you have a reservation for me and my party.”

“Of course, Ms. Sinclair. Present your passports, please.”

Passports.
That would present a problem. I turned and scanned the terminal, hoping to see Katie hustling up with the documents in hand.

And there she was, bolting from a discreet seat between a range of potted palms and a bank of ignored pay phones.

She captured me in a hug that felt more like a chokehold. “Jamie, I was so worried about you!”

“It's all right.” I patted her back and she eased up. “We're all right. Did you get the passports?”

“No.” Her response was teary. “I paid the manager, just like you suggested, but he swore a government official took them last night.”

Anger surged through me. And it wasn't the only emotion eating at me. A sharp sense of betrayal sucked me toward despair.

Ikaat and Armand needed the passports to get on that plane, pure and simple. But a government official had taken them. So that left me with one thing to do.

I needed to confront that government official.

And I had a pretty good idea who that official was.

I grasped Katie's shoulder, looked her straight in the eye. “Stay close to Ikaat. I'll be back soon. Do you understand?”

She nodded until I thought her head would fly off.

If it did, she'd have to retrieve it herself because I'd already set my sights on the nearest exit.

Barrett caught up with me alongside a string of luggage carts. He snagged my broken arm, just above the cast. I resisted the urge to shrug him off.

“Jamie, what are you going to do?”

“I'm going to get those passports.”

Barrett shook his head. “We should stick together until we know how those drones found us.”

“Found us? They
followed
us.”

“No, they
tracked
us.”

But that would mean our borrowed car, or our clothes, or even one of us carried some kind of a tracer. High-tech laboratories the world over built such devices in a variety of forms. And so did hush-hush government labs.

As small as a grain of rice or as large as a pack of playing cards, tracers could be made of plastic, aluminum, or even titanium. All of them were loaded with microscopic transistors. Veterinarians used the most basic variety when micro-chipping house pets. Those tracers reacted only when hit with radio waves, like those emitted by metal detectors or the appliance built to read the things. Other kinds of tracers broadcasted a signal constantly. If those in the know were close enough—and if they had the equipment to read the feed—folks unwittingly carrying the tracer could be tracked anywhere.

So, if Barrett were right—and if a tracer had been attached, imbedded, or implanted in one of us—smart money said either Ikaat or Armand was the one giving our position away. After all, they'd both been out of our sight for some time. And they'd been in the custody of men who weren't exactly into heeding the letter of the law. Especially when it came to activities like kidnapping and extortion. After that, how bad could a little technological tagging be?

My mind rushed to answer and my eye jumped to the father/daughter pair. Katie and Ikaat had steered Armand to a string of vinyl-and-chrome seats not far from the ticket counter. His face was waxy and his breathing short.

But that would be nothing compared to what would happen if the brutes we met in Fenimoor crashed in on us again.

No, I needed to get all of us out of Britain—pronto. To get on a plane, we needed passports. Therefore, I needed to go get them.

I told Barrett as much.

And asked him to stick with Ikaat and Armand.

“I'll be back as soon as I can,” I promised him. “You be careful.”

But because those words didn't measure up to what I felt, I clasped Barrett's sure, steady hand. I gave it a squeeze. And then I took off.

I didn't look back.

I hopped on the Underground, formulating a plan as I rode in from the 'burbs. I'd go to Philip's flat—and hope he hadn't yet left for work. Why? Because I figured I could manage an end run around any doorman in the city. But even the Queen's bodyguard would be hard pressed to dodge security at the Foreign Office.

Philip's building was a brick pile that, a century and a half ago, had probably hosted counting houses like Scrooge and Marley. Some real estate speculator had improved the place since those days, though. Now, the building gave off an aura of high-priced gentrification.

Just like Philip.

In the hushed hallway of an upper floor, I found his door.

I knocked on it, waited, and knocked again. The door opened. Philip stood on the threshold.

He looked like hell.

If he'd slept, it had been days ago. And if he'd showered, I couldn't prove it. He wore a tatty, plaid bathrobe over a stained T-shirt and pj pants, and his riotous red hair stood out from his head in knots and spikes.

Most notably, however, he smelled like a distillery.

Even from the doorway, the scent was strong enough to make my eyes water.

“Jamie?”

“The one and only,” I said.

Philip grabbed me in a fierce hug, crushed me to his chest.

I pushed my way out of the circle of his arms. “You're as drunk as a skunk.”

He reached for me again, but got smart before he could touch me. “I thought I'd lost you forever.”

Forever was a long time. And when Philip said he thought he'd lost me, fear, sharp and icy, ran the length of my spine. Had he known about the goons with machine guns? Or about the drone attack? I didn't want to think so.

But then he said, “When I'd received that report regarding the incident in the Fen Country…”

“Yeah, you've got someone out there holed up in a country house with a secret research facility and his own private army. A team of men held Dr. Oujdad's father there.”

“I'll look into it.”

“Philip, you need to do a hell of a lot more than that.”

He nodded, drifted toward a highball glass making rings on an ebony end table halfway across his sitting room. A bottle of gin kept it company. The bottle was nearly empty, but the glass was nearly full.

Philip saluted me with it before knocking back its contents.

I came in, closed the door behind me.

Philip's flat was like a studio apartment on steroids. It opened up into a vast living room with a wall of windows that overlooked central London. A pair of gray suede sofas made the most of the view. Some kind of chrome-and-leather lounge chair added the right kind of cool to a corner while flokati rugs warmed the floor. Off to the side, the kitchen was all Swedish lines and stainless steel. Across from this, a sliding door, suitable for a country squire's barn or stable, marked the entrance to Philip's bedroom.

“Look,” I told him. “I'm here for the passports. I know you've got them, and I need them back. They're the only way I'll legally be able to get Ikaat and Armand Oujdad on a plane and into the States—”

“Who says I have them?” Philip asked, suddenly sober.

I repeated Katie's story about the hotel manager and The Elizabethan Rose's safe. “Are you going to tell me Katie got it wrong?”

“Katie deMarco?” Philip smiled as if the name were a punch line to some inside joke. “I assure you, Jamie, the passports are not in my possession regardless of what Ms. deMarco may say.”

As he stood there, swaying in his shabby bathrobe and clutching an adult beverage in his hand, I wasn't sure I believed him. But why would he lie to me? What reason would he have for keeping the Oujdads in England?

In a rush, Barrett's point that some nations would prefer to hear Ikaat's knowledge firsthand—rather than waiting for U.S. Intelligence to dole it out—came back to me.

And the truth of the situation came crashing down.

I said, “Be honest with me, Philip. Your government doesn't want the Oujdads to leave Britain. And you're going to make sure they don't.”

Philip shuffled toward the kitchen. “Let's discuss this over a cup of tea. Can I interest you in one?”

“No. And no wonder you didn't arrest Barrett when you found him in my hotel room. You weren't really looking for him. You were looking for Armand Oujdad so you could influence Ikaat. You wanted either Barrett or me to lead you to him.”

“Would you prefer Earl Grey or English Breakfast?”

I ignored the question. Instead, I made straight for the apartment's door. Somehow, though, Philip beat me to it.

He blocked it with his body.

“Jamie, where are you going?”

“I'm leaving.”

“Please—” He scrubbed his hands through his hair as if the rough contact could clear his head. “I can't give you passports I haven't got. However, I can get the Oujdads on that plane.”

He could. I knew he could. Just as he could arrange for Barrett to enter Britain without a passport, he could get Ikaat and her father past airport security and onto our flight without travel documents, too.

But the Foreign Office wouldn't be happy with him if he did it. And if that meant he'd lose out on his promised promotion within the Ministry; his father wouldn't be happy with him, either. In fact, his father would be furious.

My conscience made me point this out.

“My father,” Philip said, “will get over it. If I lose your good opinion, I never will.”

I didn't know what to say. But I was humbled Philip would risk his father's approval in exchange for mine. I was sure I didn't deserve such regard.

Ikaat and her father, though, deserved to get what they'd bargained for in good faith. They deserved to board that plane. So I stood on tiptoe and brushed a kiss across Philip's cheek.

“Thank you,” I said. “I'm grateful.”

Philip touched his face as if he couldn't believe what I'd done.

Or as if he wanted to remember this moment long after I'd gone.

In any case, he mumbled something about getting dressed and going to the airport. He withdrew to the bedroom. I tried to be patient when he left.

But the moment I heard water running in the adjoining bath, the security specialist in me told me I'd better be prudent instead.

So I began to search his flat for the passports.

They weren't in the lacquered wood entertainment center occupying the far wall in Philip's sitting area. They weren't stashed among the fancy Italian cookware in his kitchen, either. That left only one more place to search—Philip's bedroom.

With nothing more than an armchair, a nightstand, and a bed built for two, the room was a mix of Spartan necessity and hedonistic textures.

Cautiously, I sat on the edge of the bed. Crisp, Swiss linen sheets of pearl gray met the deepest, darkest duvet of charcoal chenille. And because of their rich sheen, I gave in to temptation. I ran my good hand over one and onto the other. Unbidden images of intimate nights leapt to my inquiring mind.

But I hadn't come here for that.

I scolded my imagination, ordered my brain to behave. I had to find those passports. I had to know if Philip was lying.

Through the connecting closet that served as a dressing room, I still heard water running in the bath. When the water stopped, the questions would start—if Philip found me in his bedroom. So, with nowhere else to look, I slipped open the drawer of the satinwood nightstand.

Inside, I found a tray of loose change, a collection of collar bones and cuff links—and a box of condoms. Half of the little square packets were missing. Although Philip had propositioned me, he clearly hadn't been pining for me.

Of course, how he spent his evenings was none of my concern. Or so I told myself. After all, I'd refused his every offer.

No, Philip could do what he liked.

He could do
whom
he liked.

But the idea rankled.

I didn't get to dwell on it very long. I didn't hear water anymore. I heard Philip flipping through the hangers in his closet, though.

When he emerged from his dressing room, I made sure he found me in the living room, waiting by the door.

“Ready to go?” he asked.