“And if you’re caught?”
“I’m a known terrorist,” she reminded him. “Not even a U.S. citizen, despite the forged papers that Sigma drafted up. So they aren’t likely to tie me to Sigma.”
“Seichan—”
She tapped him on the chest. “You can’t be captured.”
“Screw that,” he countered firmly. “We stick together.”
Brooking no further argument, he climbed out of the window and reached an arm back to help her. She ignored his hand and deftly rolled out next to him.
He pointed to the tower. “If we move quickly, we should make it. The others should be momentarily blinded by the smoke blowing their way.”
Knowing such protection would not last long, Gray set off across the shadowy yard. Every step shot fire up his left leg. By now, his ankle had swollen tight inside his boot. Sweat ran thickly over his body, burning his wounds. Within ten yards, his run became a stumbling hobble.
Still, no alarm was raised behind them.
A glance back revealed a thick wall of churning smoke, filling the depths of the monastery ruins. Past the pall, the flashing lights of cruisers and fire engines glowed.
So far, so good...
As he faced back around, a gray-black helicopter—a military aircraft—swept over the southern wall to his left, coming from the direction of the children’s park on the far side. It crested over the dyehouse with a throaty roar.
Seichan cursed—and not just because they were exposed in the open yard. The rotorwash of the aircraft’s blades was quickly blowing away the obscuring smoke. The cluster of parked vehicles and trucks came into clear view—along with a row of uniformed men stalking toward the dyehouse.
While Gray and Seichan hadn’t been spotted yet, it would not takelong. They’d never make it to the tower’s scaffolding, let alone scale over the wall.
Seichan shoved him forward, nearly toppling him over. “Run! Get to the motorcycle!”
She pivoted away from his side and headed toward the southern wall, drawing her stolen rifle to her shoulder. She clearly intended to circle behind the dyehouse and come out the far side, to draw attention away from him.
Gray hesitated, but only for a breath. With his bum ankle, he could never keep up with her. And she had been right before.
I can’t be caught.
With a grimace, he set off for the tower.
7:14P.M.
Seichan reached the alleyway between the dyehouse and the expanse of the southern wall. As she ran down its length, she clutched her rifle hard, wishing it was Valya’s neck.
A moment ago, when the smoke had washed away, she had noted the black limo was no longer parked behind the church.
Valya must’ve taken off with the others.
Seichan understood. There was little reason for the woman to stay. If the blast didn’t kill her targets, her gunmen still had a chance to capture them while they were stunned or injured. Seichan also knew Valya would want to prolong their suffering and, if possible, kill them herself. It was likely why she hadn’t imploded the entire building on top of them. Plus, if all else failed, Valya had another way of damaging Sigma: by delivering her enemy into the hands of Russian authorities.
Despite her fury, Seichan had to appreciate such shrewdness. Knowing the woman, Valya must have planted charges acrossallthe surrounding outbuildings, then hid inside the church, like a spider in a web, waiting for them to stumble into one of her snares.
Such measures spoke to Valya’s growing paranoia, especially as the woman couldn’t have been certain that Sigma would come to Russia or stalk one of her operatives in Saint Petersburg.
Yet, that hadn’t stopped Valya from taking such a precaution—a safeguard that was about to prove costly to Seichan. Cornered now, she had little choice but to sacrifice herself.
As she ran along the far side of the dyehouse, she pictured her son Jack: his babbling attempts at his first words, his purpled face when he was frustrated, his bottomless joy at the simplest things in life.
She wasn’t just making this sacrifice for Gray, but also for Jack, to make sure he still had a father.
Seichan had never truly known her own, and her mother had been ripped from her when she was a child. She remembered the hollow agony of that loss, of being orphaned, and would do anything to keep that pain from Jack.
