If she shoots, she must end it right there, two quick shots. And then what? She could steal their radios, but it wouldn’t take the rest of the team very long to realize that two of their sentries have gone missing. She’ll have no choice but to abort.
Abort. She’s never dropped a job or failed one. She could do it now, yes, and probably expect retaliation from the people who hired her. But that’s not the problem: she doesn’t fear retaliation. Twice in the past, on jobs she carried out successfully, the people who hired her tried to kill her afterward to tie up loose ends, and she’s still here; the people they sent are not.
The problem now is Delilah, the name she will give her child—her mother’s name. Delilah will not grow up with that burden. She will not know what her mother has done. She will not live in fear. She will not experience terror so great and long-lasting that it seeps into your pores, never leaves you, colors everything that comes afterward.
The men move past her sight line for a moment, disappearing behind the tree from which she is hanging. When they pass by on the other side of the tree, she will be completely exposed, no more than ten meters from them. If either of them looks to his left, due east, they won’t miss her.
They come into sight again, on the other side of the tree.
And they stop. The closer one has a mole on his cheek and a deformed ear that looks like it’s taken some hits over the years. He drinks from a water bottle, his Adam’s apple bobbing on his unshaved throat. The other man, smaller, is standing in the shadows of the woods, a beam of light shooting upward, scanning the trees, scanning the ground.
Don’t look to your left.
But they will, of course. And there’s no time. She can’t hold on much longer.
The branch groans out a larger creak.
The first man lowers the water bottle, looks up, then turns to his left, toward her—
Bach already has her SIG aimed at the first man, a bead on the space between his eyes—
A loud squawk comes from both radios at the same time, something in German, but by any measure indicating that something has gone wrong.
Each man reaches for the radio on his waist. A few words are exchanged, and they turn and run north in headlong flight back toward the cabin.
What just happened? She doesn’t know, doesn’t care.
With no time and no strength left, Bach puts the sidearm in her mouth, her teeth clamping down on the long suppressor. Her right hand free now, she swings it up and grabs the thickest part of the branch, nearest the tree’s body. Then her left hand comes off the rope and grabs the branch, too, just quickly enough to avoid a free fall to the ground. With a groan that is far too loud, but not caring about the consequences now, she summons whatever energy she has left and does a pull-up, her face scraping against the branch. She pushes her feet against the base of the tree and runs them upward until she manages to get her left leg over the branch.
Not the most graceful maneuver she’s ever performed, but she is finally in an upright position, straddling the tree branch, almost losing her backpack and rifle in the process. She breathes out, wipes her forehead, slick with sweat, camouflage paint be damned. She gives herself one minute. She counts aloud to sixty, managing to reholster her sidearm, ignoring the burn in her arm, slowing her breathing.
She unties the knot and pulls the loose rope up. She wraps it around her neck, unable at the moment to access the backpack.
She’s not going to spend another minute on this branch, even if she’s sitting over the thickest part now.
She steadies herself against the tree and gets to her feet, reaches for the next branch, and starts climbing. When she arrives at the top, she’ll find a secure perch, and she’ll be in perfect position to carry out her job without detection.
Chapter
72
Cowboy’s gone missing. Repeat, Cowboy’s gone missing. We need a full search of the woods. Alpha teams, stay home.”
Alex Trimble clicks off the radio and looks at me. “Mr. President, I’m sorry. This is my fault.”
It was my idea to keep security light—to keep this meeting secret. We had to. And what security we have has been devoted to watching for anyone trying to come in the cabin. We weren’t worried about someone trying to leave.
“Just find him, Alex.”
On our way to the stairs, I pass Devin and Casey, ashen, as if they’ve done something wrong. Both of them with their mouths open, trying to find words.
“Fix the problem,” I say, pointing back to the war room. “Figure out how to kill that virus. That’s all that matters. Go.”
Alex and I head up the stairs and stand in the kitchen, looking out the window to the south, the expansive backyard and then the woods that seem to have no end. Alex is giving instructions through his radio, but he will remain at my side. The agents are now scrambling, most of them moving into the woods, searching for Augie, but a small number of agents—the Alpha team—hold back to secure the perimeter.
I don’t know how he got to the woods without being seen. But I do know that if Augie’s in there, it will be very difficult for our small team of agents to find him.
More important: why run?
“Alex,” I say, about to express these thoughts, “we should—”
But my words are interrupted by the noise from the woods, unmistakable even from inside the cabin.
The rat-tat-tat of gunfire from an automatic weapon.
Chapter
73
Mr. President!”
I ignore Alex, bounding down the stairs and into the woods, over uneven ground, turning sideways to pass between trees.
“Mr. President, please!”
I keep going through dark terrain, shrouded by the tree canopy, hearing the shouts of men up ahead.
“At least let me go in front of you,” he says, and I allow him to overtake me. Alex has his automatic weapon at the ready and is swiveling his head from side to side.
When we reach the clearing, Augie is sitting on the ground, leaning against a tree, seizing his chest. Above him, the tree has been splintered to near devastation from bullets. Two Russian agents stand with their automatic weapons at their sides, while Jacobson is giving them an earful, stabbing the air with his finger.
When Jacobson sees us, he stops and turns, showing us his palm in a stop gesture. “We’re okay. Everyone’s okay.” He glares one more time at the Russians, then approaches us.
“Our comrades from the Russian Federation saw him first,” he says. “They opened fire. They say they were just warning shots.”
“Warning shots? Who needed warning shots?”
I walk toward the Russians, pointing back to the cabin. “Go back to the cabin! Get out of my woods!”
Jacobson says something to them, a word or two in Russian. Their expressions implacable, they nod, turn, and leave us.
“Thank God I was close,” says Jacobson. “I ordered them to cease fire.”
“Thank God you were close…as in, you think the Russians were trying to kill him?” I ask.
Jacobson ponders that, expelling air through his nose. He throws up a hand. “The Russian National Guard, they’re supposed to be the best Russia has. If they wanted to kill him, he’d be dead.”
President Chernokev recently created a new internal security force, answering directly to him. The word is that his National Guard is the elite of the elite.
“How sure are you of that?” I ask Jacobson.
“Not sure at all, sir.”
I pass between the Secret Service agents and walk over to Augie. I squat down next to him. “What the hell were you doing, Augie?”
His lips quiver, his chest still heaves with deep breaths, and his eyes are wide and unfocused.
“They…” His throat chokes up. He swallows hard. “Tried to kill me.”
I glance up at the tree above him. A quick glance reveals that the bullets that riddled the tree were about five feet off the ground. Doesn’t feel like “warning shots” to me. But I suppose it depends on where he was standing.
“Why’d you run, Augie?”
A faint shake of the head, and his eyes drift off. “I…I can’t stop this. I can’t be there when it…when it…”
“You’re scared? Is that it?”
Augie, almost sheepishly, his body still shaking, nods.
Is that all this is? Fear, remorse, feeling overwhelmed?