Using the .380, Bennings subdued the fake MP who was in the room with Yulana. He got duct taped to a chair. A few minutes later, Bennings and Yulana, wearing MP uniforms, overcame the fake MP at the front desk. Yulana retrieved their belongings while Kit cuffed and gagged the contract killer and liberated the man’s Generation 4 Glock 21 and some other goodies.
“What about the other four CIA killers?” asked Yulana.
Kit looked at Ganz. She hesitated, then said, “Might be better to make a break for it now.”
Kit nodded. “They have to know something’s going down. Your wire’s been silent for too long. Any idea where they are?”
“Two of them will be in a green SUV somewhere outside, for Command and Control. But the other two…?” Ganz didn’t finish the question.
“So we run for it. But just to be clear,” he said with a raw edge to his voice, “if we don’t make it, you don’t make it.” His look told her that he meant it.
Ganz nodded, then led them down a different hallway, where they broke into a run. They rounded a few corners and ended up in a custodial room, then through a utility door out into the open air. They ran balls-out across a patch of grass to the corner of another building.
After leapfrogging from building to building in the darkness, Ganz stopped at the door of a small motor pool. “There are quads inside. I saw them earlier.” Kit quickly jimmied the padlock, and the group filed in. A dozen tricked-out 4x4 ATVs used as patrol vehicles on the post sat gassed and ready to go. Steered with handlebars like a motorcycle, the small, four-wheeled “quads” had fat off-road tires and could drive just about anywhere. They were designed for one person plus cargo but could seat two in a pinch.
“I always wanted to ride one of these,” said Yulana, looking them over.
“Careful what you wish for,” said Kit.
“You’ll have to stay off road to avoid the choke points manned by the MPs,” said Ganz, trying to sound helpful.
“Someone from your team will have called in our escape by now,” said Kit with sharp certainty.
“Probably. So the MPs will shoot if they see you. But they’re only set up on real roads, since we assumed you’d steal a vehicle and drive off post. We parked Humvees all around the building where you were being held.”
“So as long as we stay dark and off road, we might make it,” said Kit. He glanced at Ganz, who looked scared to death that he was going to kill her right there.
“Since I’ve never driven one of these, I’ll follow you,” said Yulana. She then looked with contempt at Ganz. “But what about her?”
“Her? She’s my lucky hood ornament.”
Ganz was still cuffed, but Bennings once again duct taped her mouth and then lifted her in a sitting position onto the cast-aluminum front cargo rack, where he lashed her down tight with rope and bungee cords like she was a piece of luggage.
He then moved off to a tool cabinet and began searching for something. The waiting made Yulana nervous.
“Kit, you’re taking too long.”
“You’re right, but we’ll need one of these.”
He pocketed a tool, then crossed to the garage door. The creaky door made a lot of noise as Kit pulled it open. He then ran to his quad, and they started the engines, which ran surprisingly quietly, since they had special mufflers installed to make them somewhat “stealthy.”
Kit drove out, followed by Yulana, and crossed the road under the yellowish glow of a streetlight. They headed north. After traveling less than one hundred yards, gunfire erupted from the darkness to their right.
Kit saw the muzzle flashes and heard a man yell, “They’re over here!” He didn’t bother to return fire, he just bent lower, and as he gunned the throttle, the ATV shot off into the dry desert night, its stillness now punctuated by staccato bursts of innocuous-sounding pops, which were anything but innocuous. Whoever was shooting was employing an ineffective technique called “spray and pray,” firing blindly at a target in the hope of making a one-in-a-million shot.
Bennings glanced back to make sure Yulana was on his tail, as the lights of the post and the gunfire quickly faded behind them.
The northerly escape was a feint, and Kit soon led them due west. The going was slower since they couldn’t use their lights, but the brilliantly starry sky provided enough soft light so they could negotiate the dry washes and arroyos as they avoided any roads.
Now Kit’s main worry became helicopters that could launch from Nellis. Or drones. Had the CIA contractors brought their own mini drones? His neck craned toward the sky whenever he could risk taking his eyes away from the terrain in front of them.
Twelve minutes elapsed before they came upon the eight-foot-high chain-link fence that separated the army post from Nellis proper. He and Yulana stopped their quads right up against the fence.
Kit silently dismounted and went to work with the tool he found in the motor pool—a pair of snips—to cut an opening in the chain link. He worked feverishly, and in less than two minutes, he’d cut an opening large enough to drive through.
He heard Yulana get off her quad and then say, “Oh, my God!”
Bennings spun around to see her gawking at Ganz, who sat perfectly upright, lashed to the cargo rack.
Perfectly upright, and perfectly dead.
“Aww, crap.” Kit stood up and moved in close. Ganz had taken a round to the side of her head. A one-in-a-million shot that found an unintended target. “All right, we leave this quad here,” said Kit quickly. “You sit behind me on your quad.”
“But…”
“But what? Believe me, they’ll find her body soon enough. And the bullet that killed her was meant for you or me. They’re probably launching helicopters right now to track us down and make us as dead as her.”
“I’ll tell you ‘but what’?” exclaimed Yulana, getting emotional. “I expect Popov and his men to try and kill us. But I don’t expect American soldiers or the CIA to try. How can we continue, how can we even dream of living through this, of saving my child, your sister?”
As he looked at her, he realized she was on the verge of falling apart. He crossed to her and gently held her.
“Only we can kill the dream, Yulana. As long as we’re alive, as long as we’re free, if we can take one more step, then the dream can live within us. I refuse to quit living the dream of freeing my sister and your daughter and stopping Popov. I simply refuse.” He took her hands and placed them against his chest. “Look how far we’ve come in the last few days. Think of what we’ve done! When you got off that plane at LAX, would you have thought any of it possible?”
She smiled as tears streamed down her cheeks. “No.”
“Okay. So then think about where we might be two days from now. Think about what we might achieve. It’s up to us to keep dreaming, to not give up. You will have Kala happy and laughing in your arms again. That’s my dream for you.”
She wiped away tears and nodded. “It’s a good dream. I like it.”
He hugged her with true tenderness, then gently led her to the quad. Kit climbed on and revved it to life. She took a last look at Ganz, then got on behind him. He drove through the opening in the fence and onto Nellis Air Force Base.
Now that he was on more-familiar turf, it only took nine minutes until they stopped on Blytheville Drive, where a bunch of vans sat parked outside a storage building.
In a matter of minutes, Kit had a blue panel van hot-wired, and they drove off base toward the lights of the Strip, shining brightly once again.
CHAPTER 45
Chan and Franklin convinced Metro PD to place Staci Bennings under “Jane Doe” at Sunrise Hospital & Medical Center. They were protecting her from a possible Russian Mafia reprisal, but they also didn’t want the FBI or CID aware of her rescue. At least not yet. Not until they could ask some questions.