She finally swung off the rafter and ducked into a small covey beneath it. She gasped and coughed, covering her mouth with the crook of her arm. Smoke grew thicker with every strained breath. The rain of debris quickly diminished into occasional crashes as the last ofthe dyehouse’s interior collapsed in on itself, hollowing out the brick building.
She stared upward.
Luckily, she and Gray had been perched on the fourth floor, with only the attic above them. If they had been any lower, they would have been buried under the debris.
Still, she was far from safe.
She unzipped her torn jacket and yanked the SIG Sauer from its shoulder holster. She tried to assess her situation, but her ears still rang from the blasts. Her vision remained watery at the edges. Lines of fire traced her body, with blood dripping everywhere.
She ignored it all.
One pain remained paramount.
Where the hell is Gray?
She dared not call out. She didn’t know if Valya and her team were closing in already. Though, knowing the woman, Seichan imagined Valya had fled with the black-robed men in the limo. The blasts and smoke would quickly draw the police and the military. Valya would not want to risk being trapped and questioned.
Still, Seichan had to be cautious. Even if Valya fled, Seichan could not trust that the assassin hadn’t left a handful of gunmen to ensure the blasts had killed or immobilized her targets.
Wary of this threat, Seichan crept out from under the rafter and climbed across the treacherous debris field. Her ears strained for any voices or crashes that indicated the approach of an assault team. She kept to the thickest smoke and slowly found her footing across the broken landscape.
She retaped the radio mike under her chin and pushed the earpiece deeper into place after it had been knocked loose. She tried subvocalizing to Gray, her words inaudible to her own ears.
“What’s your status?” she radioed out.
She waited, still searching, still straining.
There was no answer.
To her left, she heard a tumble of disturbed rock. She halted and focused that direction. Smoke obscured the view, but a fire glowedfarther back. A shadow crossed in front of that smolder—then another.
Two men.
She tucked her pistol into her waistband and drew a throwing knife from a wrist sheath.
She set off in the direction of those shadows, using the various patches of flames to track her targets. She moved slowly, cautious of other hunters. She kept tight to the piles of wreckage, ducking under and through the deadfall of debris, careful not to disturb the teetering stacks.
In the distance, sirens warbled brightly, growing steadily louder.
Her heart pounded out the seconds she had left before they arrived.
She finally closed upon two figures who skulked with rifles fixed to their shoulders. One man freed a hand and chopped it to the left of a stack of rubble. The pair split off, preparing to circle the mound.
Seichan stalked behind the first. She was within a meter when her toe kicked a broken brick, sending it skittering to the side. The gunman whipped around—just as she had expected he would when she had bumped that rock.
She lunged beneath the reach of his rifle and stabbed her blade under his jaw. She pierced his larynx and twisted hard, silencing his scream to a gurgle—then slashed across his carotid.
As he slumped, she caught his weight on her shoulder and grabbed his rifle. She rolled him quietly to the ground, then checked his weapon, a Russian AK-308 battle rifle. A suppressor tipped its barrel. She wagered the weapon was chambered with subsonic ammo to further reduce noise.
She lifted the rifle to her shoulder and continued along the path the gunman had headed. She reached the far side of the rubble pile and heard the scuffle of the other assailant. She drifted back into a billow of smoke and waited until the other man circled into view.
Once in sight, he cast her a quick glance, as if confirming his partner’s presence. Seichan lifted the rifle higher, hoping he would recognize the weapon’s familiar silhouette in the shroud of smoke.
The man nodded and turned away.
She swiveled her weapon toward him, aimed her sights at the back of his head, and squeezed off a single shot. It sounded no louder than a soft sneeze. The crash of his body into a wood pile made far more noise.
Hearing that, Seichan retreated under an overhang formed by a broken section of wall. Furtive footfalls approached her position, drawn by the clatter of wood—but hopefully not the silenced rifle shot.
