HOT Valor (Hostile Operations Team - Book 11) Page 13

  And he must surely be doing it now. Didn’t mean anything though. She pulled in a breath and huddled into her coat. Kat the twin could have been with a lover on the day her sister died.

  “We need to go,” he said, his voice low and firm. “I’m sorry.”

  “I know. But thank you for this.” She turned to walk away from her child’s grave, knowing she would carry the burden of his death with her always, when a bird cawed sharply and wheeled upward into the sky.

  She watched it, wondering if it was a message of some kind. A gunshot cracked against the silence of the cemetery. Kat dropped.

  Chapter 20

  Adrenaline pumped into Mendez’s veins, ramped his energy levels up to rocket-fuel intensity. Kat was down and he didn’t know if she’d been hit. He dove for her, rolling and dragging her behind a family mausoleum as he went.

  She yelped as he pushed her into the shelter of the stone. He reached for one of the Glocks he’d taken off Sergei’s goons and jerked it from his waistband. He’d brought Kat here, even though he should have gone straight to Yuri’s place. It was sympathy that had made him put her first, and he couldn’t afford it. Softness would get them killed.

  He crouched behind the mausoleum and scanned the surrounding area for the gunman. He wanted to check Kat for injuries, but first he had to be ready for an attack. He spared her a quick glance—blood dripped down the side of her face. Her hair was matted with it. But her eyes were bright and she looked pissed.

  “You hit?” he asked her as he worked to control his breathing. To control the racing of his heart. When she’d gone down…

  Shit.

  “I’m not hit. I cut my head on a stone, I think.” She had her hand to her head, trying to staunch the blood flow. Head wounds always bled like a bitch, but he’d feel better if he could check her out.

  First, he had to get them out of here alive. He went back to scanning the cemetery for movement.

  “Damn Sergei,” she spat. “He knew I might come back to Roman’s grave. I should have guessed he would put someone here to watch.”

  “You gonna be able to operate like that?”

  Blood dripped down her forehead, staining her cheek. She racked the slide of her pistol. “I’m not an amateur, Johnny.”

  The way she said his name stroked against his memories of Valentina. Sometimes he could swear they were the same woman. Other times he was convinced that Kat was too different to be Valentina.

  “Good, because we need to get the fuck out of here. I’m betting our taxi is long gone,” he added wryly.

  She laughed. “Bet you’re right. But we can steal something, right?”

  She winked and he knew she was teasing him. A surge of hot desire sizzled into his balls. He wanted her. Badly. Instead, he kissed her even though he knew he shouldn’t.

  She kissed him back, a little moan hitting his tongue as their mouths opened and tasted for a quick moment.

  “For luck,” he said.

  She smiled. “We are sure to succeed then.”

  Another shot winged the mausoleum, closer this time. Stone chips rained down on their heads. “One shooter. If there were two, we’d be getting it from another direction—and more rapidly.”

  “I think so too,” she said.

  He studied the position of the graves. There were headstones and mausoleums, but the distance between mausoleums was too open. Unless they went backward, away from the cemetery entrance. They could try to loop around the perimeter maybe. Or find a path that brought them behind the shooter.

  They could also wait. If there was one shooter, they could wait for him and ambush him when he arrived. If there were two, they still had a chance. But if there were three? Well, that would make things mighty interesting.

  When it came right down to it though, Mendez’s style wasn’t conducive to waiting for a shooter to find him. Not when he had the skills to find and neutralize the threat first.

  “Cover me,” he said.

  He knew Kat would have protested, but he didn’t give her a chance. He darted out from behind the mausoleum and headed for the next closest.

  Gunshots rang out and stone sprayed around him. But the gunshots came from both directions, and he knew Kat was doing as he’d asked. He made it to the stone facade and dove behind it.

  Kat looked as if she’d swallowed a hornet’s nest. Her brows were drawn low and her pretty face—her bloody face—scrunched up with fury. Her eyes shot daggers at him. But she covered him when he took off again.

  The shots from the other guy winged wildly, pinging grass and stone. Mendez would bet his ass this guy wasn’t military trained. Whoever was shooting at them didn’t take his time, didn’t line up his shots. He also had no patience. If he’d waited instead of squeezing off rounds, he might have gotten them to relax. To make a mistake.

  Mendez darted between graves, ducking into cover, running again. The shots were all spitting at Kat now. Their attacker had lost sight of Mendez and was turning all his firepower onto the position where he knew one of them remained.

  Which was precisely what Mendez wanted. There was still no sign of another shooter, no sign of reinforcements at all. Which didn’t mean they weren’t coming. He would have to act fast.

  He ducked around a tall mausoleum—and there was his prey. A man with his back to Mendez perched behind another mausoleum, a cache of weapons at his feet. Mendez wasted no time. He stalked up behind the guy and pressed his pistol to the man’s temple.

  “I wouldn’t move if I were you,” Mendez said. “Drop the weapon.”

  The man complied. He also put his hands in the air without being told. Mendez kicked the weapon away and nudged the black bag at the man’s feet that contained the rest of his guns.

  “It’s okay, solnishko,” he called out. “I’ve got him.”

  He knew that Kat wouldn’t simply walk across open ground. She would work her way over carefully, keeping cover at her back. She was smart and sexy, that woman.

  “Who are you?” he demanded in Russian.

  “No one,” came the reply.

  “Who sent you?”

  “The tooth fairy,” the man sneered. He had a face like a samurai blade—long and thin—and a voice that said he’d smoked many, many cigarettes and consumed countless bottles of vodka.

  “You suck at your job,” Mendez said. “You couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn with a cannon.”

  Probably due to the bottle of vodka that lay propped against the stone. Had someone told this guy they’d be easy to pick off? Or was this merely a diversion?

  Kat finally appeared, her face still bloody, her mouth set in a hard line. “This is the prick?”

  “Yes,” Mendez told her. “He won’t say who sent him.”

  The man spat. “It’s not worth my life. They will kill me.”

  “Who? Sergei Turov?” Kat pressed.

  Bingo. The man visibly swallowed at the mention of Turov.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Mendez said.

  Kat nodded and gathered up the bag of weapons along with the ammo and the guy’s cell phone, which lay on the ground nearby. “What are we going to do with him?”

  “Dunno.” Mendez stepped in front of the guy, weapon still aimed at his head. “What’s your thought on it? Kill you or let you go?”

  “I was doing a job. Nothing personal. Let me go and you won’t see me again. I swear.”

  “Kill him,” Kat said, her voice steely.

  “Nah,” Mendez replied. “Too easy.”

  The man swallowed, his eyes bugging out.

  “Got any cuffs in there?” Mendez nodded to the bag.

  Kat started fishing around when the dude didn’t answer. She came up with a pair of shiny steel cuffs dangling from one finger.

  Once Mendez searched the guy for the key and pocketed it, they cuffed him to a steel ring embedded in the marble of one of the mausoleums.

  “If you’re lucky, you won’t freeze to death before someone finds you. But you sure will
have some explaining to do to Sergei, won’t you?”

  The man looked petrified as the thought of what Sergei Turov might do to him began to penetrate his brain.

  Mendez leaned in for a second, staring into the bastard’s eyes. His breath stank of vodka and his eyes were bloodshot.

  “Tell Turov I’m coming.”

  Chapter 21

  Johnny stole a Kia SUV that sat on a side street. They threw the weapons inside and raced away from the cemetery. Kat’s heart rattled in her chest. The blood on her face was sticky and cold. She wanted a shower and a hot drink. Then she wanted food and a bed.

  She also, strangely enough, wanted sex. Badly. Not just sex, but sex with the man at her side. Hot, sweaty, raunchy, toe-curling sex. The kind of sex that made church ladies blush.

  She put a hand to her head—the non-bloody side—and wondered what the hell was wrong with her. She hadn’t had sex in so long she couldn’t remember what it was supposed to feel like.

  Her last lover had been Sergei, and there had certainly never been an emotional connection between them. Thinking of the times he’d stripped her naked and fucked her while she lay beneath him and pretended she was somewhere else made the bile rise in her throat. She’d thought she’d never want sex again.

  She’d thought she was dried up inside. Hollowed out, all the emotion burned out of her years ago. But the emotions welling up inside her right now were anything but dead. Her nipples stood at attention. The sexual sizzle in her body was at an all-time high.

  Which was insane considering everything that had happened over the past few days. But it was the rush of I’m alive that came after a near-death encounter, the desire to feel pleasure and know that you really were alive and life was good, even if only for a stolen moment.

  They raced through the streets, backtracking and making circles until Johnny was convinced they didn’t have a tail. Then they headed out of the city. After a few miles, they came to a road that turned off the main road. Johnny took it.

  “Where are we going?” she asked as the terrain grew rougher and ice lay across the road in spots.

  “To see an old friend.”

  Kat grabbed the strap over her head as they lurched through a particularly nasty stretch. She wasn’t sure the Kia would make it. But they found smoother road and the Kia kept moving along.

  “Is he a hermit?”

  “Kind of.” He glanced at her. “How’s the head?”

  She reached up to touch the dried blood. “Messy, but it seems to have stopped bleeding. For now.” She chewed her lip. “Do you think it’s wise to go straight to this guy? Maybe we should hide somewhere for the night.”

  “There is nowhere. Besides, we’re committed now.”

  They eventually pulled up to a beat-up old house with a beat-up old warehouse building looming in the distance behind it. There were no lights on anywhere. Kat’s heart lurched doubtfully.

  “Are you sure this is it?” she asked.

  “I’m sure.”

  She didn’t know how he could be when she was pretty certain he hadn’t set foot in Russia in over a decade. Probably longer.

  “Stay here,” he told her as he swung the door open. A shot rang out and the windshield turned into a spiderweb of cracks. Johnny didn’t flinch. He lifted his hands in the air and stepped free of the cover of the car door.

  “Hi, Yuri. It’s Viper. I need your help.”

  Kat’s heart pounded. She had her hand on the Kalashnikov they’d relieved the cemetery shooter of, but she hadn’t lifted it yet. So help her God, if this prick shot Johnny, she’d go warrior woman on his ass.

  “Viper?” The voice didn’t come from the house. It came from somewhere off to the left of the structure. “How do I know it’s really you?”

  “Afghanistan, 2002. You were surrounded by insurgents and stripped of your weapons. They shot you in the chest and left you for dead. I found you, patched you up, and carried you to the US field hospital.”

  “What is the name I told you to pray for if I were to die?”

  “Anna Ivanovna. Your mother.”

  There was a long pause where Kat’s pulse thrummed. She had no idea what was going on, but a shape emerged from the darkness and coalesced into a man. He was tall and gaunt and he carried a Kalashnikov of his own. She couldn’t tell his age in the dusky gloom.

  The man stopped a few feet away and gazed at Johnny. He still hadn’t put his hands down. But suddenly the man smiled and came over to give Johnny a bear hug.

  “It is you, Viper. Son of a bitch—what are you doing in Mother Russia, eh? Have you left your American military?” Yuri’s suspicious gaze slid over to her. “And who is this lady?”

  “Kat Kasharin. Former FSB, now a private contractor with Ian Black’s Bandits.”

  He’d left Sergei out. She figured that was probably a good idea.

  Yuri grinned again. “Ah yes, the famous Mr. Black. He is a good customer.”

  Kat reeled. She was racking her brain for mention of this Yuri, but she couldn’t come up with anything. She’d have thought, being in the business she was in, that she might have heard of him at some point. Especially if he did deals with Ian. But what kind of deals?

  “We need shelter, Yuri. And I need help, as I said. Weapons, information.”

  “Yes, come inside. We will talk about everything.” He tipped his chin to her. “Bring the guns, pretty lady. But don’t think about using them. Not a good idea.”

  “I wasn’t planning on it,” she huffed. She got out of the Kia and grabbed the duffel. Johnny came and took it from her.

  “I can carry it,” she insisted.

  “I know. But you’ve been injured and I haven’t, so let me.”

  It occurred to her then that they had no clothes. All their bags—with the exception of the backpack Johnny never let out of his sight—had been in the taxi, which had disappeared probably at the first shot. She’d been so wound up over everything that had happened that she hadn’t given their luggage a second thought until now. Everything of importance was on her body—passport, cash—but she hated losing the rest of it anyway.

  She didn’t exactly think that Yuri had a department store in his house. That left her wearing bloodstained clothing and hand-washing her underwear.

  Johnny put his hand against her back and ushered her up the steps to the house. When they walked inside, she stopped abruptly. It looked like a hoarder lived there. Boxes of mostly unidentifiable junk were piled floor to ceiling. The path through the towering walls of stuff was narrow. She searched the piles for rats, but nothing crawled along those man-made mountains.

  “Come,” Yuri said. “It gets better, I promise.”

  “I hope so,” Kat muttered.

  Behind her, Johnny laughed. “You and me both, babe. Though what I know of him suggests this is a blind.”

  “You’re right, Viper,” Yuri called back. “I am an old man who collects junk and lives in filth. No one bothers me.”

  He stopped in front of a door in the wall and fished out a key. The door was steel and the walls on either side of it were concrete. A moment later, he tugged the door open and went inside. Johnny pushed her forward.

  There were stairs that went down into a basement. Except when she got to the basement, it wasn’t a basement at all. There was another door that stood open—and an elevator waited for them.

  Yuri stepped inside and they followed. Kat watched him press buttons, memorizing them as he did so. There was a code, of course. Then they were moving and nobody said anything.

  When the elevator came to a stop, the doors slid open onto an underground bunker that was as neat as the house upstairs was messy. Yuri walked over to a bank of computers and propped his rifle against a bench. Then he spread his hands. “Home sweet home.”

  “I’m impressed,” Johnny said. “Though I suppose it’s nothing less than I expected from you.”

  Yuri inclined his head. Then he looked at her. His gaze unnerved her for some reason, though the
re was no malice in it. “Your lady needs to clean up, I think.”

  “I’m not his lady,” she said automatically.

  Yuri laughed. “Of course not. Whose blood is that anyway?”

  She touched her face. “Mine. I cut my head.”

  “Ah.”

  She shot Johnny a look. If he was still uncertain about this guy, if he didn’t want them to be separated, she needed to know. Though a shower would be awesome.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “I’ll be there in a bit.”

  “You can both go,” Yuri told him. “I have to go back up and check my traps before I lock down the perimeter. You set quite a few of the alarms off coming in. When I return, we’ll eat. You can tell me what the trouble is then.”

  Wariness flared in Johnny’s eyes. Yuri noticed and laughed. Then he went over and put his hand on Johnny’s shoulder.

  “Is okay, Viper. I work faster on my own and this has to be done for all our safety. Take your weapons with you if it makes you feel better. You saved my life. I don’t forget something like that.” He pointed. “There are living quarters down that hall. A shower, kitchen, bedrooms. Take your pick and get comfortable. I’ll return in an hour.”

  Chapter 22

  “Anything, Kid?”

  Billy Blake looked up from his computer. He’d pretty much been living nonstop on the thing. Beside him, Hacker was also looking bleary-eyed and pale. They were subsisting on soda and candy bars throughout the night, though Evie Girard kept them well-fed during the day. The two of them were trying to find where the information on HOT’s servers that Delta Squad was in Moscow had come from. Because it hadn’t come from any of them. Delta wasn’t in Moscow and never had been.

  They weren’t anywhere, which was kind of a big problem. Comstock didn’t seem to care. No one did. And that was odd.

  “Not much, sir,” Kid said. “Ghost, I mean.”

  Alex gave him a break. The man was running on adrenaline. They pretty much all were. It had been nonstop over the past few days, trying to figure out what the hell was going on with Delta, with Mendez, and with HOT.