A young nurse, no older than twenty-five, pops her head up from behind a desk. “His doctor wanted him to have an MRI. Or…that’s what I thought.” She points down the hall towards the elevator. “They went that way.”
Shit. “Parking garage.” Nomar lurches toward me, the hospital gown flapping around his bare legs. “Get the fuck back in bed,” I snap, then jerk my head toward the guards. “You two. With me. And you damn well better be armed.”
The taller of the two pulls a Markov from his holster and flicks off the safety. “We go first.”
“No.” I hit the stairwell at a run. “I’m a former United States Marine, and Faruk has my fiancé. For the second fucking time. You back me up. There’s at least one sniper across the parking lot, and probably two men in the garage. Three hostages. Two women, and one seven-year-old boy.”
Passing the first floor, I vault over the railing, clearing seven steps at once. At the door to the underground garage, I stop, twist the knob slowly, and open it just a crack.
“No!” Joey says from halfway across the structure. Her voice cracks, but remains strong. “You can’t tie me up. Mateen’s sick. He’s going to need fluids and insulin during the trip. You have to let me take care of him. What do you think will happen if you bring Faruk his son…dead?”
The sickening sound of a fist hitting flesh masks my first few steps into the garage, and I direct the two guards to take up flanking positions. A quiet rage simmers under my skin, and I creep forward slowly, gun drawn.
“Dr. Joey!”
A muffled cry—Lisette?—follows, along with several metallic thuds. Mateen whines in rapid fire Pashto, and I peer around an ambulance. Shit. Lisette is bound and gagged in the back of a van, Mateen in a wheelchair, and Joey struggles to her feet next to him.
“Get him into the van,” a large man orders, waving a gun in Joey’s face. “Now.”
Joey takes Mateen’s arm and helps him into the vehicle where he snuggles up to his mother and touches her cheek. “Mama? Mama?”
The gunman grabs Joey by her hair and shoves her forward, but she twists in his grip and knees him in the balls. He stumbles back, the gun falling from his hand, and I rush him, firing as I go.
One shot tears through his shoulder, but my second and third shots miss him by inches. Joey dives for the gun at the same time as the asshole, and he lands on top of her. She whimpers as she struggles under his weight, and though I’m still thirty feet away, I can see her eyes go glassy. “Joey! Fight, baby!”
I can’t risk hitting her with another shot, but just before I reach her, a massive weight slams into me, sending me careening into a dilapidated sedan.
“Not so fast,” my attacker says, his voice deep and heavily accented. Shots echo around the garage, and angry voices shout back and forth in several different languages.
“Joey!” I have to get to her. Have to get her back. I won’t lose her again. A fist slams into my ribs, then another straight to my sternum. The impact paralyzes me long enough for him to haul me to my knees and wrap his forearm around my neck.
“No…” I grunt with the last of my breath as he tightens his grip. My vision starts to dim, and all I can hear are Joey’s panicked cries as she begs for her life, for her freedom.
Joey
I’m not here. Not in this underground garage. I’m back in that train car, Jefe on top of me, his fetid breath making me gag.
Ford’s strangled cry rips me from my memories. Zaman pulls me by the hair, and my gaze lands on Ford. Oh God. He’s on his knees with Full-Beard’s arm around his neck, and as he struggles for breath, his body twitches and his face starts to turn blue.
No. Not Ford. Not me. Not any of us.
Faruk doesn’t get to win.
Zaman has me halfway back to the van when I reach into my pocket for the folding knife Ford gave me. It springs open with a solid snap, and I drive it into Zaman’s thigh, twisting as he lets go of my hair and I tumble to the ground.
Blood coats my hand, and I lose my grip on the knife, but the gun’s only ten feet away.
As my fingers close around the barrel, Zaman grabs the waistband of my pants and yanks me back. But I have the gun, and I slam it against his temple. He roars what I think is an oath, but then he grunts and falls, and when I look up, Lisette stands over him with a tire iron.
Her wrists are still ziptied together, but the gag hangs around her neck, and she’s breathing heavily. Solid footsteps pound towards us, and I whirl around with the gun just as a shot rings out from the elevator. A man with a long, lethal-looking sniper rifle collapses twenty feet away, his temple half obliterated by the bullet.
Two more shots, and I hear Nomar’s weak cry. “Ford. Get…to…Ford…”
I don’t think, just run. Ford’s on the ground, not moving, and as I sink to my knees, I press my fingers to his neck. Nothing. “Ford! No!”
Rolling him onto his back, I clasp my hands one over the other and start chest compressions. “One, two, three…” I whisper, and when I hit thirty, I tilt his head back, pinch his nose, and blow gently into his mouth. After a second breath, I go back to the compressions, tears streaming down my cheeks.
Thirty more, another two breaths, and I’m panicked and half hysterical. Two hospital guards surround me, one of them barking instructions into a radio. I’m about to breathe for him for a third time, when Ford coughs weakly and draws in a wheezing breath. Then another.
