“If this turns into a shoot-out, make sure you avoid those chemical drums,” Alina whispered into her radio as she hopped on the curb and moved closer to the building. “They may not contain nerve agent yet, but we don’t want to breathe that crap anyway.”
Fred reached the front door of the building before she did. After a quick peek through the glass, he picked the lock, then swung open the door. Alina drew her pistol as she met up with him. He did the same, covering her as they both entered.
“We’re in,” she whispered over the radio.
“Ditto,” Rodney responded.
Alina stopped for a moment, listening. She heard soft voices coming from a room down the hall on her left. She didn’t hear any other sounds, not even from the garage where Rodney said he heard them loading the van. Did that mean they’d already finished the deal and were about to move?
She gave Fred a nod and pointed in the direction of the garage, indicating she wanted him to back up Rodney. Tightening her grip on her pistol, she headed for the room down the hall. She was halfway there when she realized something was wrong. It took her a moment to figure out what was causing the hair on the back of her neck to stand up, but then it hit her. The layout of the hallway and rooms off it was wrong. Or more precisely, the drawings Wade had made were off. The room the voices were coming from was on the wrong side of the hall, directly across from an adjoining corridor to her right that wasn’t even supposed to be there.
She shouldn’t have been surprised Wade had screwed up the details. He wasn’t necessarily big on that kind of crap. But combining it with the fact that he hadn’t bothered to show up made her stomach knot.
“We’re in the maintenance bay,” Fred said over the radio. “There are a few drums that might be chemical, but no people.”
Crap.
“Something isn’t right about this,” Alina said.
Her instincts were telling her to bail, but they couldn’t do that. Not until they apprehended the bad guys.
“We’re on the way to your location now,” Rodney said.
“Roger that.”
Taking a deep breath, Alina took another step toward the door. Even through the heavy wood, she could clearly hear the men talking inside. She didn’t have Jodi’s knack for languages, so she wasn’t sure what they were saying, but from the laughter, it sounded like the negotiations were going well.
She glanced over her shoulder to see Fred and Rodney hurrying down the hallway toward her. They looked as confused and worried as she was.
“Jodi, we’re going in,” Alina whispered over the radio before giving Rodney a nod.
Rodney stepped forward to kick in the door when Jodi’s confused voice floated across the secure radio channel. “Guys, something’s wrong. The men are starting to repeat themselves. I think—”
That was all she got out before Rodney’s boot connected with the door, sending it flying back on its hinges. Alina and Fred followed him in, ready to deal with however many armed men they found.
The room was completely empty except for the portable CD player sitting in the middle of the table, Turkish and Arabic voices coming from the speakers.
Alina cursed. “It’s a trap. Get out!”
But it was too late. Men armed with automatic rifles flooded into the hallway. Alina scrambled over the table along with Fred and Rodney just as the men started shooting.
Fred flipped the table over, and Alina knelt behind it and returned fire, putting round after round through the group of men charging through the doorway. At this distance, it was impossible to miss her targets, and several of them went down.
But the reverse was also true.
Rodney went down first, a bullet hitting him right in the forehead. Alina felt her heart break as her friend went down, but she couldn’t even spare him a glance. It was all she could do to drop the empty magazine out of her 9mm and reload so she could keep shooting.
Jodi shouted over the radio in her ear, but Alina had no more time for her than she had for Rodney. A bullet zipped past her shoulder while another whizzed past her head. Yet a third shattered the wood of the table she hid behind, showering her with splinters. Even though she knew any one of those shots could have finished her, she forced herself to ignore them, to accept that she wasn’t dead yet, and to shoot back as fast as she could.
Just when Alina was sure it was over, that there was absolutely no chance she and Fred would live through this, their attackers halted as another one of them fell to the floor dead. The remaining two spun and fled for the door. Alina clipped one in the hip just as he and his buddy disappeared around the corner.
Alina quickly reloaded in the event that the men came back with reinforcements. She’d just slammed the magazine home when a flash of movement on her right caught her eye. She turned in time to catch Fred as he slumped to the floor.
“Oh God, Fred. Not you, too,” she whispered.
She got her arms around his shoulders and tried to settle him to the floor as gently as she could. Still holding on to her gun with her right hand, she used her left to put pressure on the wound that was soaking the front of his jacket with blood. Those two assholes had shot him before turning tail and running.
Fred gazed up at her, a mix of pain and fear in his gray eyes. He tried to talk, but no words came out. Tears in her eyes, Alina rocked him and murmured that it was going to be okay, even though she knew it wasn’t. As Fred died in her arms, she wondered if the Agency would ever tell his wife and kids what had really happened to him. She doubted it. That wasn’t how they worked.
