“It’s being gathered as we speak. Can I assume from your questions that we have reached an agreement?”
Noah waggled a hand in the air. “That depends,” he said. “I’ll agree, provided you let the girl go with me today. Otherwise, I’m afraid we’re at a stalemate, Nicolaich, because I don’t trust you not to kill them as soon as I leave here.”
Andropov nodded, his evil grin still plastered on his face. “I suspected that would be your demand,” he said. “However, I’m not ready to give in on that point just yet. First, I want you to show me the plan you come up with to accomplish the mission. If the plan seems viable, then I will agree to your request. You will, of course, remain as my guests until then.”
Noah leaned forward in his chair again. “Damn,” he said. “Next time you blow up my room, tone down the explosives a bit, will you? You cracked a couple of my ribs and my freaking pelvis. Makes it hard to sit for more than a few minutes.” He slowly got to his feet, and stretched his back and rubbed his hip as he did so.
He looked over at Sarah. “Still in negotiations, Sweetheart,” he said, and then he turned and looked at Andropov again. “Mind if I at least get a kiss from my fiancé?”
Andropov’s eye went wide and his grin turned into a smile. “Fiancé? Well, then I can see why you are so insistent on taking her with you.” He shrugged and flipped a hand in the air toward Sarah. “Be my guest, of course.”
Noah turned and walked stiffly and slowly toward Sarah and the men, keeping his eyes focused on her own. He could see tears beginning to run down her cheeks as he approached her, and he spread his arms when he was still a couple of feet away.
Suddenly, he slapped a hand to his hip and let himself fall forward, grabbing Sarah and crashing into Moose and Neil on the way. The armed men jumped backward, and Noah could hear Andropov getting to his feet, his chair skittering backward.
Inside his head, he was counting seconds as he tried to make all three of them stay down on the floor. According to his mental clock, he had now been within the building for just over fifteen minutes, and he was wondering when Hayes...
The explosion was deafening! Hayes was right on time, and the blast and heat rolled just above them, throwing the half-dozen men in the room into the walls. Windows up high on the walls blew outward and large pieces of the tin roof came crashing down. As soon as the initial blast was over, though, Noah scrambled to his feet and went after one of the guns that had been blasted out of the hands of Andropov’s men.
He wasn’t surprised to see Moose leaping for one of the others. He snatched up the first one he reached and spun, looking for Andropov, but dust and debris made it almost impossible to see in that direction. He moved forward carefully, watching for any sign of movement, and suddenly he saw it.
Andropov had watched him fall onto the others, and realized instantly that Noah was trying to protect them, shield them with his own body. That had meant there would be a blast, and so he had dived for the floor himself. He’d been a few feet closer to the table when the explosive holsters had gone off, but he was getting to his feet as Noah approached him.
And then he heard it, even over the ringing in his ears, the shrill siren sound of a scream of rage. Andropov was up on his knees, facing Noah, and at first Noah thought the sound had come from him, but then Sarah flew past. She had also gotten hold of one of the machine pistols, but she wasn’t aiming it at Andropov. She was swinging it by the barrel, like a baseball bat, and its short, stubby stock hit him precisely in his ruined left eye. He fell back and she followed, swinging again, catching him on the ear this time. He dropped back to the floor and Sarah fell to her knees beside him, raising the gun up over her head and bringing it down again with all the strength in her athletic little body.
A dozen times she must’ve struck him, until his face was nothing but a bloody mass. When all of her rage was spent, she fell back, and that was when Noah realized that she was no longer screaming, but was sobbing. He knelt down beside her and put a hand on her shoulder, and she spun and threw her arms around his neck. She was crying so hard that she made him lose his balance and fall down beside her.
A three-round burst erupted, and Noah jumped away from Sarah to see who had fired—and then lowered his gun once more when he saw that it was Neil. He had picked up one of the guns and followed Sarah, adding three bullets in the chest to the fatal wounds that Nicolaich Andropov had already suffered.
Suddenly there were other gunshots, and moments later Captain Hayes and two of his men came rushing into the room. Moose had already rounded up the surviving mercenaries, and Hayes’s men brought in several more that were found throughout the old building.