Two Evils (3 page)

John nodded. “Very well. I’ll take what I can get.”

When they’d left Sergei’s house, he had noticed they were walking toward the boardwalk, where all the beach bars and cafés and surf shops were all strung out to attract tourists. The Crabana was on the beach not far from it, but in the opposite direction than that in which they had headed. For the briefest moment he wondered why she’d led the way back here, and then he understood when they reached the stre
et in front of the shops: the crowds were thinning due to the late hour, but people were still milling around. She raised a hand to her mouth and whistled sharply. A taxi cab pulled up to the curb seconds later and she opened the back door.

“This one’s mine. You get your own,” Billie said with a smirk. Then she poked a finger in his chest. “And don’t even think about following me. I’ll know if you do.”

With that, she dropped into the seat and slammed the door shut. John shook his head as he watched the car pull away, thinking she was something else.



The moment the bar exploded, he knew they’d missed at least one of the targets. Cursing even as he and his team ducked to avoid flying debris, the man knew his employer would not be pleased. The boss’s displeasure could mean one of two things: a severe punishment for his failure, up to and including the loss of a limb; or one of the very men he commanded could be ordered to kill him and take his place.

Neither was a scenario that sat well with him.

One of the men walked up to him as the projectiles settled and the flames climbed high into the Caribbean air. “This ain’t good, Andre. No way we did that. The boss ain’t gonna be happy when he hears—”

Andre reached out and struck the other man across the face with the open stock of his AN-94. He gleaned some satisfaction out of the FUBARed night when he heard the snap of the cartilage in the man’s nose. His smile widened as blood poured from his nostrils and splattered into the sand.

“Then perhaps the boss should not hear of this, don’t you think?” he asked snidely.

Another of the men stepped closer, but wisely well out of reach of Andre’s rifle. “We have to tell him something, Andre. He’ll want a progress report.”

“I am aware of that, you fucking moron!” Andre screamed. “Do you want to be the one who tells him that we may
or may not
have eliminated the targets? Hmm?”

He looked from one face to another, making sure to ca
tch the eyes of each of his four men. Each one of them looked away as soon as his gaze met theirs. It was to be expected—they were each as afraid of their boss as he was.

“We need to get the hell out of here,” Andre said then. “The local police will be all over this scene in minutes.”

In unison they all turned for the rented SUV behind them. The man with the broken nose grumbled about the pain he was in as he climbed into the driver’s seat, but Andre shot him a look that put an end to his whining. As weapons were stowed and doors were closed, Yuri brought the diesel-fueled engine roaring to life. At the same time, a trilling ring sounded from Andre’s pocket and he stilled. They all did, knowing without a doubt who was calling.

With a nervousness he almost never felt, Andre gestured for Yuri to drive as he pulled the phone from his shirt pocket on the third ring, hit the Talk button, and put it to his ear. “
Da
?”

“
What took you so long? You know I do not like to be kept waiting,” said the caller, Grigori Sardetsky, in his native Russian.

Andre answered back in the same language. “My apologies, sir. We were just getting in the car.”

“And have you completed your objective?”

The question he had been dreading. Drawing a breath that could very well be the first of his last, Andre replied slowly, “In part,
Dedushka
.”

“Meaning?”

“We shredded the bar where the traitor
was working like a dog with that American
suka
. But it just blew up. I think one of them survived.”

“Obviously, you worthless
cretin
,” Grigori snapped. “Did you not consider that there would be an escape plan? Your
dyadya
always was a cunning bastard, one of the few lessons he learned well from me. And the woman is not to be underestimated—she is perhaps the most dangerous female in all the world. Don’t forget that.”

Grigori let loose a rare sigh. “Find out who survived. Kill him or her and anyone who gets in the way. The next time we speak, I suggest you have better news to impart. Is that understood?”

“
Da, Dedushka
,” Andre said, but his grandfather had already hung up on him.

“What did the boss say?” asked one of the men from the back seat.

“What the hell do you think he said?” Andre snapped angrily. “We have to find out who made it out of the bar and take care of them. No more mistakes.”

They were already approaching the street that ran parallel to the boardwalk. For a very brief moment, Andre was surprised Yuri cou
ld see well enough to drive, as swollen as his nose was. Looking around, he was annoyed by the amount of cars and people, and wondered what the hell they were all still doing here—it was approaching four in the morning.

“What’s the plan, Andre?” asked Yuri.

“We need to make contact with the local police, obviously,” said another of the crew. “Possibly fire department as well. We’ll need to find out if there were any bodies in the wreckage and whether they were male or female.”

Andre sent a withering stare over his shoulder. “I do not recall your name being Andre,
zhopa
,” he said snidely, then turned forward again.

“Yuri, stop the car!”

Immediately the driver did as asked, and Andre jumped out of the front passenger seat for a better look. Yes, that was definitely her—the woman was less than a block away from them, talking to a man who was not Piotr. How the hell did she get here? For that matter, how did she get out of the bar? Did this mean that they had killed his uncle after all?

Perhaps. To be certain, however, they would need to do as Mikhail had said and find out whether or not there was anyone in the bar when it blew.

The
suka
was getting into a taxi now, leaving the man on the curb. Andre hurried into the car again. “Follow that taxi!” he shouted as he slammed his door closed.

Yuri grinned and started to drive forward, then was forced to slam on the brakes when they were cut off by another taxi. The man his target had been talking to got into the back seat and it pulled away from the curb. “Go!” Andre screamed, and they lurched forward again.

The first taxi was about a car length ahead of the second. Andre kept his eye on it, praying that the traffic light ahead of them would not turn red before they could catch up. His silent pleas proved to be in vain, as the woman’s car turned right just as the light was changing. The taxi in front of him slowed to a halt as it went from amber to red.

Rage boiled in his blood and he let fly a string of Russian obscenities. How the fuck were they going to catch her now?

“What do you want me to do, Andre?” Yuri asked quietly.

Andre looked ahead of them. The man in the back of the taxi was looking to his right, as if watching the other one drive away. He and the woman did seem to be having an intense conversation back there, and Andre could not help but wonder if they had been planning a rendezvous. Since there was probably little chance of their being able to successfully follow the woman now, maybe this man might lead them to her.

“Follow him,” Andre said, pointing to the taxi as the light changed once more to green. “I have a feeling he will get us what we want.”



When the taxi dropped her off, Billie had taken a good look at her surroundings. She saw nothing out of place, no odd shadows, no strange people hanging around. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched as she entered her apartment building, so she kept a closer eye on everyone and everything around her as she headed toward the elevator. Normally she took the stairs up to the fifth floor, but not tonight. Everything that had transpired had made her paranoid, and she knew she was more vulnerable to attack in a stairwell.

In the elevator she was alone, but didn’t dare let her guard down. She pulled the Sig from her waist and flicked the safety off, holding it casually down by her side. The door pinged open in just a minute or two, and when it did she held the weapon out in front of her. When she exited she swung first to the right, and then to the left
, before heading in the latter direction toward her apartment. Billie dug her keys out of her pocket in a hurry, keeping the gun at the ready as she blindly felt for the right key. She found it as she reached her door and slipped it into the deadbolt, then the knob. She pushed the door open with her foot, gripping the Sig with both hands as she entered, doing another right-to-left sweep. The living room was clear.

Closing the door softly behind her, she moved further into the apartment to make a clean sweep of every room. As there were only three the work was quick, and it wasn’t until she’d determined that there was no one in the apartment that she allowed herself to relax. But of course, just because she was alone didn’t mean no one was listening. After locking the only entrance to the apartment and resetting the alarm, Billie walked to the bedroom closet and opened it, pulling a small device that looked like a handheld radio from the shelf. After switching it on, she walked through her home again.

“Clean,” she murmured to herself after determining that no bugs had been planted in her absence.

After what seemed like hours but was probably less than one, the tight set of her shoulders eased, the tension of the night draining away. With a sigh, Billie headed back into the bedroom, stripping off the jacket and harness on the way and dropping both on the floor by the bed. She kicked off her shoes and reached to pull her socks off, then headed for the bathroom. After flipping the light on she reached behind the shower curtain and turned the tap on, then turned the knob to start the shower going. As the water warmed, she braced her hands on the edge of the sink and looked at herself in the mirror. Although she looked about as tired as one should feel after a night like she’d had, Billie saw something else in her eyes, something she hadn’t seen in a long time.

Determination.

When she’d gotten into that cab and rode away from John, she’d told herself not to care. Sergei wouldn’t want her getting involved in whatever mess had led to his death. They’d both given up the past—his life of crime, her life of being the lady superspy. Both had reasons that burned in their souls, as both had lost someone they cared more deeply about than their own lives.

But as she looked at herself in the fogging mirror and for the first time allowed the emotion of losing her friend to hit her—feeling the sting of tears behind her eyes—Billie knew she couldn’t just walk away. She had no idea if the shoot-up of the bar and Sergei’s death were related to whatever reason the CIA wanted her back, but she had never been one to believe in coincidence. Someone had wanted her or Sergei—or both of them—dead. That someone had gone to a lot of trouble to track their target down to a remote coast of a little-known island. To Billie, it could only mean that they had a hand in the mess and had been taking steps to eliminate the persons capable of stopping them.

If the shooting somehow
wasn’t
related to John’s mission to bring her home… well, then that was a whole other can of worms she had to worry about.

T
he Coconut Hut was a popular boardwalk café with tables both inside and out. The outside tables boasted umbrellas with the same coconut-thatching as the awning over the door, and the tables and chairs were made of wicker. Although it was considered by the locals to be “on the boardwalk”, it was on the outer edge of the row and therefore not near the center of the tourist activity.

Which was, of course, precisely why Billie had chosen that particular place to meet John—the further they were from the majority of the crowds, the less likely the chance of innocent casualties should the shooters from the bar make an appearance. She sat in a chair at a two-person table by the counter, from which she could observe everyone who came and went.

As she waited for John to arrive, she sipped an Irish crème cappuccino and wondered what in the hell she was doing here. Wasn’t the smart thing to do to just cut her losses and run? It’s not as if anyone in this town knew who she really was. Like Sergei, she’d come here under an assumed name, one of many fallback identities she’d cultivated during her years with the CIA. She’d have thought that might be how the agency had tracked her down, but Georgia Ross wasn’t one of her known aliases; it was one she’d been advised by Travis to build on the side and off the books, in case she got burned during a mission and had to lay low for a while. Every field agent she’d ever met had at least two such backup identities.

She had four, one for each year of dedicated service.

Billie knew that all the questions running through her head she could have asked stateside, but she’d been taught not to waste resources. If someone could provide information, then the ideal thing to do was glean every ounce possible, by whatever means necessary. Last night she had used snark and brute force against John Courtney, and while the former was fun and the latter had its benefits, neither had gotten her much. All she knew was that the CIA wanted her back, and that Eddie Lamacek was dead. Even if the shooting wasn’t connected, those two things definitely were. She knew it in her gut, otherwise why the hell had John brought Eddie’s death up?

Signaling to a waitress, Billie ordered a second cup of cappuccino. She hadn’t slept much in the six or so hours since she’d left John on the sidewalk last night, and while she had endured missions where she hadn’t slept for days, this morning she was feeling exhausted and mentally disjointed. Too many questions, too few answers. Too much sorrow.

Too much guilt.

Sergei’s death haunted her, and in what little dreaming she’d done, Eddie had stood by his side, both men staring at her accusingly as if the fault for their demise was hers. Or perhaps they were asking in their ghostly way what in the hell she was waiting for. Why hadn’t she gotten off her ass and done something?

The need to know why her friends were dead and what had happened to the other men on her team was the only reason she was still in St. Thomas. She’d get at least
some
answers from John before even boarding a plane to the U.S. But of course, as was her habit, she’d arrived half an hour early. John still had five minutes before the 10:30 deadline, and Billie had no doubt he would be there.

In fact, he had just walked through the door, smiling and winking at a cute brunette in a bikini top and Daisy Dukes who had eyed him appreciatively. Objectively speaking, she could see why: Agent Courtney was tall, his shoulders broad, his body toned and muscled. He had pearly-white teeth and steely blue eyes that shone when he smiled. Any woman who had a thing for men would look twice at him.

Well, except for her. She wasn’t interested in his body, only the information stored in his mind.

John nodded at the brunette and continued on his way. A blonde standing next to the first girl raked his body up and down with her eyes and whistled. Grinning, he turned around and walked backward as he waved at the two. Billie noted another thing that would make a woman look more than once…

Damn. You could crack a walnut with that ass
, she thought before she realized she was staring as much as the two girls had been.

Shaking her head and scowling, she took a drink of her cappuccino, then called out to him, “If you’re done flirting with the local jailbait, maybe we can get down to why the hell you’re here, hmm?”

He sighed as he turned to her, his smile faltering. John quickened his pace and dropped into the chair at her left. “I’m glad you came. To be honest, I thought you were going to ghost on me.”

“I damn near did,” she replied as he signaled for the waitress. The girl who responded also smiled shyly at him and he smiled in return. Billie rolled her eyes over the rim of her cup.

“I really hate to ask you this, but do you have any cash? Mine mysteriously disappeared and I’d rather not use plastic here,” John said as the server walked away to fill his order.

Billie smirked as she reached into her back pocket and pulled out her own wallet. She opened it and pulled out one of the ten dollar bills she’d lifted from his and tossed it on the table. “I told you you’d be paying,” she said.

John lifted an eyebrow as he picked up the money and put it in the pocket of his leather jacket. “Where’s the rest of it?”

“I spent it on a male escort,” she replied smoothly. “Hookers are cheap around here.”

He snorted. “Very funny.”

“Speaking of money, though… Why would you come down here with only seventy-eight dollars? For that matter, why did you come down here with your actual identification? Didn’t they teach you anything at Langley?”

John took the large black coffee the waitress brought him. “I started out with a hundred. Hookers might be cheap, but hotel bellboys aren’t. Plus I had some room service. Had to tip the server.”

Billie raised an eyebrow. “You tipped three people with twenty-two dollars?” she asked. “Aren’t you generous?”

He shrugged. “As for the I.D., I hadn’t figured on staying long. I was hoping that you’d be reasonable and agree to return to the States with me without a fight. Thought maybe coming down here as myself might appeal to the sense of camaraderie you buried six feet under when you left the agency.”

Billie laughed. “Did it ever occur to you to read my file?” she queried. “I know it like the back of my hand, even the psych evals. Apparently I have trust issues with men. Oddly enough, that’s considered an asset.”

He studied her as he drank his coffee. John then swallowed a mouthful and said, “I read the file. Half that shit’s written by bureaucrats who sit in an office all day and haven’t seen the field in twenty years. And those psych profiles? They were probably written by people who were afraid of you.”

She tipped her cup toward him. “I’ll give you that one,” she said.

Lifting the cup to her mouth again she paused, sighing lightly as she instead set it on the table. Billie looked at John with intent as she asked, “Why are you here, John? And I don’t mean why you came to St. Thomas—I already know the answer to that.”

John copied her sigh and set his cup next to hers. “We need you to come home, Billie, because you might be the only person who can help us.”

She blinked once. “This has something to do with what happened to Eddie Lamacek, doesn’t it?” she asked. He nodded. “Okay… You said something last night about some training program the guys had been recruited for. Tell me about it.”

“I’m sure you’ve guessed that there was some intense physical training involved. Makes sense, after all, given that these guys are soldiers,” John began. “But there’s more. The guys were undergoing testing as well.”

“Testing?” Billie countered with a frown. “What, you mean like experiments? Were they taking some sort of experimental drugs?”

He nodded again, slowly. Billie groaned and shook her head. “Un-fucking-believable. What the hell were they thinking? They’re smarter than that. We always said we’d stay away from any kind of experimental shit.”

“I’m guessing they were offered substantial compensation for their involvement,” John replied.

As he was speaking, a large black SUV pulled up to the curb outside. Three men got out and two more came around the vehicle from the front and back. All were conspicuously clad in black and brandishing assault weapons that Billie’s mind immediately identified as being Russian in origin.

The people outside scattered as soon as they took notice, but no one inside the Coconut Hut had noticed the danger about to befall them. Billie launched herself at John, screaming the words “Get down!” as she did so.

The first scream tore through the air a split second after the first of the bullets smashed through the
large picture window. Tourists and staff alike tripped and fell over one another in a mad scramble to find cover. Billie’s gut twisted as she saw the brunette who’d checked out John take a bullet in the back, sending her flying over a table. She didn’t move after hitting the floor.

Crawling hurriedly for the end of the counter, Billie hoped like hell that it was thick enough to provide cover from which she and John could mount a counterattack. “Hey Spyboy—was that a gun in your pocket, or were you just happy to see me?” she asked as she breathlessly reached her goal.

John threw himself behind the counter behind her; a chunk was sheared off the end right where his head had been a split second before. “Now who’s flirting?” he threw back at her, though he pulled a Glock from beneath his jacket as he spoke.

She pulled her
Sig from under her own and looked at him. “Ready?”

He nodded, and in unison, they both turned onto their knees and rose up to look over the counter, firing as soon as they cleared the top. Billie hit the man on the far right square between the eyes, his body slamming backward into the SUV before it hit the ground in a heap. John wounded another, catching him in the shoulder as the men still standing ran to shield themselves behind the truck.

“Wilhelmina Ryan!” came her name on a shout. “Give yourself up,
suka
. No one else has to die.”

She answered by firing two rounds at the passenger door. A second later, the end of a rifle was turned through the shattered window on the driver’s side, and she ducked as two answering shots were fired. “I’ll take that as a no,” the voice shouted.

“Billie, I know that voice,” John said, his own a low growl.

“So do I,” she replied, her expression becoming hard. She raised up again and fired three more shots from the Sig in her hands, emptying the magazine. Dropping back down, she flicked the release switch and the empty clip dropped; she had another slammed into place as soon as it cleared.

“I meant what I said—come out here now, and we kill no one else. Not even your new friend,” the voice continued. “Refuse, and every single man, woman and child in that café will be shot along with you.”

“Th-th-they can’t do that!” said one of the waiters cowering behind the counter with them fearfully. “Oh God, I don’t want to die!”

“Shut it, kid,” Billie snapped. “You’re not going to die.”

“And you’re going to stop them how?” said a woman who appeared to be in her 40s. “All you got’s them handguns—those crazy fuckers have automatic weapons!”

John put a hand on her arm as she was about to let the woman have a piece of her mind. “Has anyone called the police?”

“Do we even need to?” asked a man holding his left calf with both hands. Blood was trickling through his fingers to drip onto the floor. “I mean, surely they’re already responding.”

A stream of bullets was fired then, and everyone behind the counter ducked their heads reflexively. “Come on out, She-Devil. My patience will not last much longer.”

“Billie, you can’t do it,” John told her. “You know he’s going to kill you before you take two steps—not to mention kill everyone in here just because he can.”

“I’m aware of that, Johnny B. Goode,” she retorted. “You got any bright ideas for getting us the hell out of here?”

“This place got a back door?” he asked.

“Of course,” Billie replied. “But we can’t leave these people undefended.”

Even as she said the words, the peal of several police sirens sang sweet music in
their ears. “Shit, Andre—we got cops!” they heard another voice shout from outside.

“Fuck!
Fuck!
” Andre screamed, followed by a string of curses in Russian.

Billie rose carefully on her knees, peeking over the counter in time to watch as Andre Sardetsky and his
remaining men scrambled into their shot-up SUV. Andre aimed his rifle—a mean-looking AN-94—toward the café and fired off a dozen or so rounds as his driver squealed tires and they pulled away from the curb, leaving their fallen compatriot.

She’d ducked again as soon as she saw the rifle, but even though the getaway vehicle had burnt rubber, she was cautious as she rose once more to look over the counter. Half a dozen police cars screamed past then, lights flashing and sirens blaring.

She stood to her feet, holstering her gun as she did so. John joined her, as did the café staff and patrons who were able. Seconds later a scream rang out as the dead brunette’s blonde friend ran to her side.

“Miranda!” she sobbed loudly, grabbing her friend’s body and dragging it into her lap.