“Where… are they?”
“Fuck—”
Back went the bag. Again and again he took her to the edge of unconsciousness and asked her where The Fallen Angels were, asked her what their plan was, where and how were they going to release Chimera.
She did not tell him. Her voice, hurling epithets in his face, grew weaker. He felt frantic. If he went hunting for a phone to call Pilcher and waited for an FBI team to show up, then waited for her to be officially processed, for paperwork to be filled out, for lawyers to be consulted, hours would pass. He didn’t have hours. The world didn’t have hours. She wouldn’t tell them anything. She would not deal.
Derek pulled the bag over her head and held it tight. He held it, held it…. She passed out. He removed the bag and checked her pulse. He couldn’t tell if it was his imagination, but her pulse seemed erratic. It was there, however, beneath his finger. She was still breathing, still alive.
He took the time to search the apartment again, going through closets, looking under the bed, through every drawer. Nothing. When he returned Irina was conscious, a line of spittle oozing down her chin. She looked up and glared at him. He didn’t like her color. She looked gray. And despite the hatred in her eyes, he thought they had lost their brightness.
“Hello,” he said conversationally. “Ready to go again?”
“I won’t tell you anything.”
He sighed and deliberately pulled the bag over her head, pulling it taut. “I know,” he said in her ear. “But I’m going to keep going, just in case. I’m a thorough professional. And the stakes are just too damned high. I’m very sorry. I guess Richard never told you that, nice guy or not, I would do what I had to do.”
She struggled, her energy dissipating fast.
“I know you’d rather die than betray The Fallen Angels, and that’s too bad. What I’m wondering is, Which will come first? Irreparable brain damage? Or death?”
She twisted her head, groaning. Then abruptly slumped. He removed the bag and checked her pulse. With a growing sense of unease, he shifted his touch, trying to locate her heartbeat.
“Goddamnit!” He peeled back an eyelid, saw a fixed pupil. No pulse.
Heart racing, he untied her, pulled her onto the floor and started CPR. Compression, one, two, three… Breathe, breathe….
But he knew it was too late. He’d screwed up. Caused a fatal heart arrhythmia. He had killed the only lead he had.
Derek left the apartment after going through Irina’s pockets and finding the keys to the Blazer. The neighborhood hadn’t improved with the descent of night. The people who drove by seemed to belong to the darkness, to be on errands and business that fell on the wrong side of the law. Like me, he thought.
He quickly searched the Blazer and came up with a cell phone. He called Pilcher.
“Stillwater, where the—”
”Shut up. Send an evidence team to this address.” He reeled it off. “They’ll find Irina Khournikova. She needs to be printed. Send a computer guy. She claimed she was with Russia’s T Directorate, but I don’t know if what she said was true or not. Now—”
Two cops were bracketing the Blazer. Derek hadn’t noticed them approach.
“Shit.”
“Stillwater, what’s going on?”
“Cops are here.”
Derek clicked off and dropped the phone into his pocket. “Hello,” he said.
“Step out of the vehicle, sir. Keep your hands visible at all times.”
Derek, right hand up, opened the driver-side door slowly and stepped out. If they hauled him in for questioning, he’d be out of business for hours. He couldn’t allow that.
“I’ve got a gun on my right hip,” he said. “I’m with the Department of Homeland Security. We’re on—”
The cop on his side of the Blazer leaned forward to remove Derek’s gun from the holster. It was a mistake.
Derek slammed his elbow into the cop’s face, grabbed his arm and spun him around so his bulk was between him and the second cop.
“Freeze!” The second cop started to move around the Blazer, gun drawn.
Derek pressed the first cop’s own gun against his head. “Stay where you are. Put your gun down.”
The second cop, a young, frightened rookie, didn’t put down his gun.
“Put the gun down,” the cop repeated.
The last thing in the world Derek needed was a stand-off. “Look,” he said. “I’m an agent with Homeland Security—”
The cop Derek was holding slammed his head back into Derek’s jaw, jerking away. The young cop on the other side of the Blazer fired his weapon. Derek felt a searing pain rip through his side. Instinctively Derek ducked and rolled, moving in toward the truck, automatically returning fire, then leapt up over the hood of the truck and kicked the cop in the head, sprinting away into the darkness. He ducked into the nearest alley, the sound of pounding feet behind him.
At the end of the alley was a wooden fence, six feet tall. Jived on adrenaline, Derek vaulted it in one smooth motion, dropped to the other side and immediately hit a crossroads. Behind him one of the cops was clambering awkwardly over the fence. Derek didn’t have much time.
He raced to the right, then right again, into another alley, doubling back. And saw it. A rusty fire escape, its ladder eight feet off the ground. But a barred window ledge was within reach.
He monkeyed onto the window ledge and caught the ladder. It rocked under his weight. Ignoring the sudden exploding pain in his side, he climbed up the ladder, up, up, up, then over the lip of the building, where he collapsed, gasping for breath.
Sirens filled the air. He touched his side and brought his fingers away wet. He had been shot and he couldn’t tell how bad it was. He shrugged out of his windbreaker, peeled off his shirt and balled it up and pressed it against the wound. His skin broke out in goose flesh, the night air chilly on his bare skin. He tugged the windbreaker back on, feeling ill. For a moment he saw lights flashing before his eyes and felt like he might pass out.
Below him somewhere he heard voices, the approach of cars. Somebody said, “He just fucking disappeared. When I came around the corner, he was gone.”
Gulping air, Derek tried to think, tried to get his head on straight.
The cellular phone!
He reached into his jacket pocket. It was gone. Frantic, he searched the windbreaker, then crawled around on the ground in the dark trying to find it. Nothing. Panic. He was starting to panic, he knew, his heart racing, his lungs kicking in. He had to get it together. If the panic rat started chewing on your guts, it was all over. Everything. Everything would be all over.
Not only had he lost his lifeline to Aaron Pilcher and the FBI and the Homeland Security director, the phone’s memory and any numbers Irina Khournikova might have called were gone! Derek slumped back against the ledge and buried his face in his hands.
19
The man they called The Fallen waited in a green and tan Subaru Outback. The Fallen checked his watch, frowning. Nadia was suppose to signal him when she made her decision. Would Derek come or would he go? Would he fall, become one of his angels? Or would he have to be sacrificed? Or could he be let loose to spread disinformation among the world, to further The Fallen Angels’ goals, and increase the inevitable confusion and panic that was going to roll over the country and the planet in a very short time.
Fallen rubbed his forehead and closed his eyes against the stabbing pain. Star bursts and neon worms flashed before his interior vision. He smelled smoke and tasted blood; for a moment he was back in Chechnya, but he fought the fragmentation inside his head, the odd fugue states he sometimes fell into during moments of stress. He dragged himself back to the present.