скачать книгу бесплатно
The pilot sprinted forward, but by the time he reached the ramp, the van had disappeared. He heard tires squealing from the floor below him. Whoever was driving obviously wanted to get the hell out of the garage and put some distance between themselves and the firefight.
Grimaldi ran to the nearest stairwell and sprinted down to the ground floor. Hitting the release bar on the door, he burst through the doorway, into another level of parking. He arrived in time to see the van hurtling out of the garage.
BOLAN GLIDED DOWN THE steps, the Beretta in a two-handed grip. A voice rose up from the floors below and the soldier froze, straining to hear. The voice definitely sounded female, and he guessed it was Gillen.
He had to descend another flight of steps before the voices gained more clarity.
“I told you,” he heard Gillen say, “I don’t know where Lang is.”
“And I told you, I don’t care. You’re coming with me.”
“Damn it!”
A sharp slapping sound reached Bolan’s ears. Gillen yelped in surprise and pain. Bolan felt his face and neck flush hot with anger and his jaw clenched tight. By now, he had moved about one floor above Gillen and her captor. He deliberately slowed his pace so he could monitor the situation without alarming the gunman and putting Gillen in greater danger. They were continuing to descend the stairwell.
The sound of someone pressing on a door’s release bar reached Bolan. He walked around the landing, spotted the man pushing open the door with one hand and motioning Gillen to go through it with the hand holding a gun. The Executioner stood fast for a couple of seconds to give Gillen enough time to pass through the door.
In the meantime, the big American locked the Beretta’s barrel on Gillen’s captor. Bolan cleared his throat.
The man spun, his pistol hunting for a target. Bolan tapped the Beretta’s trigger and a triburst lanced into the guy’s ribs, breaking bone and drilling into his torso. The hardman staggered back a step, hitting the wall behind him, then raised his weapon and snapped off a wild shot that sounded like a thunderclap in the cramped confines of the stairwell.
The Beretta sighed again. This time, the slugs punched into the man’s heart and killed him. His body slammed against the wall, leaving a crimson smear as it slid to the floor.
Bolan raced down the steps and was through the door in seconds. He found himself on the bottom floor of the garage. The sound of footfalls thudding against the concrete reached him. He looked forty-five degrees to the right and saw Gillen moving at a dead run to get away from him. Before he could call out to her, she stole a glance over her shoulder, saw him standing there and kicked the speed up another notch.
The soldier muttered a curse and raced after her. He couldn’t blame her for running. Despite his assurances that he was there to help, he was a complete stranger and she’d watched several people die violently at his hands in a short span of time. She’d also almost gotten kidnapped while under his “protection.”
So, no, he couldn’t blame her for running away. But it made his job much harder. The soldier poured on the speed to try to bridge the distance between them. He also holstered the Beretta, guessing that the sight of a gun wasn’t helping matters, either. He began to gain on her, the distance between them shrinking to about ten yards. He could hear her breathing, loud, but measured, as though she’d trained as a runner.
She turned right and ran for an exit. The turn cost her some speed and she took it wide, providing Bolan a chance to pivot and head after her diagonally. She stopped to pull open the door and he was able to close in on her, wrapping his arms around her upper body and pinning her arms against her.
“Let me go,” she shouted as she struggled.
“Gillen,” Bolan said, “I’m here to help.”
She continued to struggle. Raising her foot, she stomped down hard on the ground, just missing Bolan’s foot.
“Damn it. Stop!”
Sirens wailed in the distance. From his peripheral vision, Bolan saw someone approaching. He whipped his head around, anticipating trouble. He found Grimaldi walking toward them, the Colt Commando slung over his shoulder, a wide grin playing on his lips.
“Unhand her, knave,” Grimaldi said.
Bolan figured the struggle wasn’t helping and he let her go. She’d been straining to break his grip and her suddenly free body hurtled forward, causing her to stumble a couple of steps before she stopped.
She wheeled around, her cheeks and neck scarlet with exertion and anger. She took a step forward and raised an open hand to deliver a hard slap at Bolan. The soldier noticed her hand was shaking and he guessed it was because of the adrenaline coursing through her. She didn’t take another step, but the anger and fear didn’t drain from her face, either.
“What the hell is the matter with you? You come into my apartment, my home, and start shooting people? Manhandle me?”
Bolan held up his hands, palms forward, in a placating gesturing. The sound of the sirens continued to grow louder.
“We need to go,” he said. “You’re in danger.”
“Yeah, from you! I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on.”
Bolan shook his head. “Not now. Not here. You need to trust me.”
She threw up her hands in frustration. “I don’t even know you.”
“If we stay here, we’ll get picked up by the police. If my friend and I end up in jail, we can’t help you. We lose valuable time. And Terry Lang died for nothing.”
She opened her mouth to reply, hesitated. Her mouth closed and she shook her head slowly.
“Fine, damn it. Let’s go.”
“You won’t regret this,” Bolan said.
“Too late.”
BOLAN WAS PACING THE hallway in the safehouse, speaking to Potts by cell phone.
“You realize you’re giving me an ulcer,” Potts said.
“Sorry.”
“Oh, problem solved then.”
“Look,” Bolan replied, “just smooth things over with the locals. The last thing I need is them breathing down my neck while I’m trying to work on this. Will you handle it?”
Potts paused a couple of seconds. “Okay.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re going to give me a heart attack. You know that? A big fat, fucking coronary. Which one of my ex-wives sent you here, anyway?”
“I thought I was giving you an ulcer,” Bolan said, ending the call and slipping the phone into his pocket.
He walked to the kitchen, where he found Grimaldi and Gillen seated at a table. She’d pulled her long hair back into a ponytail and secured it with a rubber band. Her face looked freshly scrubbed, and she wore a white T-shirt that was too big for her. Flecks of blood had spattered on her other clothes and her exposed arms during the altercation at her apartment building.
A cup of coffee sat on the table in front of her. She’d wrapped her fingers around it and was staring glumly into the cup. When Bolan entered the room, she peered up at him, her expression stony.
“I gave her one of your extra shirts,” Grimaldi said. “And some coffee.”
Bolan pulled one of the chairs out from the table, spun it and sat on it. He rested his forearms on the top of the chair’s back and looked at Gillen.
“Say it,” she said.
“What?”
“Whatever the hell you’re thinking, just spit it out.”
“How well did you know Terry Lang?”
She thought about it for a couple of seconds, then shrugged. “We knew each other two years, maybe three. Worked together off and on during that time.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Her eyes dipped toward her coffee cup again. “We spent a lot of time together,” she said.
Bolan detected something in her voice, maybe sadness, though he couldn’t be sure.
“Were you sleeping together?”
Anger flashed in her eyes. She opened her mouth to say something, but the soldier cut her off.
“You’re hiding something,” he said. “If your big secret is that you two were lovers, then please spare me the modesty. I’m not a priest.”
She pressed her lips together, forming a bloodless line.
“I feel violated,” she said.
“I don’t care,” Bolan said.
“You’re a son of a bitch.”
Bolan said nothing. Grimaldi kept his mouth shut, but turned his gaze from one to the other, as though he was watching a tennis match.
Finally she heaved a sigh and her shoulders sagged.
“We were sleeping together.”
“And?”
She looked up a him. “And what?”
“What else? I mean, that’s the big confession? What else is going on?”
Her face flushed and she crossed her arms over her chest.
“Look, he was married. Sleeping with him isn’t something I’m proud of. We worked together, collaborated on a few things. It just happened.”
“Maybe you weren’t looking for it,” Bolan said. “But Terry apparently was looking for it all over. Now some people are trying to kill you. Maybe it was because he was your bunk mate. Maybe not. Regardless, Terry’s dead and someone apparently wants to kill you, too.”
“Or at least capture you,” Grimaldi added. “That wouldn’t be pleasant, either.”
“Did he tell you anything?” Bolan asked. “Say he was worried for his life?”
She hesitated. “The man, the one you shot on the stairs. We saw him a couple of days ago at a hotel. It really bothered Terry, unnerved him like I’d never seen before.”
“He say why?” Bolan asked.
She shook her head. “No. I just noticed the change in him once he saw the guy. He got nervous, edgy. In retrospect, I can see why. The guy back there was a killer. He would have killed me.”
Bolan nodded his agreement.
She raised her coffee mug to her lips, took a deep swallow and returned it to the table. Bolan noticed a small shudder pass through her and she hugged herself again.
“That’s not the first close call,” she said. “I was in Iraq, working for the wire services. The unit I was embedded with got ambushed. The soldiers I was with were killed, shot by a sniper. I was pinned down and scared out of my mind. Fortunately, another unit rolled in at the last minute and killed the snipers. I almost died that day.”
“You were fortunate,” Bolan said.
Nodding, she reached into the pocket of her jeans, fished around a couple of seconds and pulled her hand back out. She set a silver key on the table.
“What’s it for?” Grimaldi asked.
“Not sure,” she said with a shrug. “After we saw the Russians back at the hotel, Terry gave it to me. He told me to hang on to it, but that was all he said. He could be like that.”
“And you didn’t press him?” Grimaldi asked.
“No. Terry and I have known each other for a while. When he wasn’t going to explain something, he made it obvious. You didn’t force him to talk about something until he was ready.”
Bolan nodded his understanding, though his gut told him the woman was still holding something back. He decided to take another stab in the dark.
“What are you working on right now?”
“Excuse me?” Gillen said.
“Stories. What stories are you working on.”
Her eyes narrowed. “None of your business.”
“Right now, it is. Were you collaborating on anything with Lang?” Bolan pressed.
She shook her head no.
“Working on any crime stories?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” she replied. “Since I’m in a bureau, it has to be a big deal for me to cover a crime. If some guy gets mad and kills his brother-in-law, readers in London or Washington, D.C., don’t want to know about it. Occasionally, some money guy or someone with a charity may get busted for shipping money to al Qaeda. When that happens, my editors want it. Over here, though, most of what I write about is commercial real estate and growth. The financial stuff, that’s what people in London and Washington want to know about.”
“Sure. How about Terry? What was he working on?”
Again, she shook her head. “Not sure,” she replied. “We never talked about work.”
“Bullshit.”
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You heard what I said. You can’t tell me that you two never talked shop, ever. You can’t put two reporters in a room together for thirty seconds without them talking about work.”
