In For the Kill (McClouds & Friends #11)(36)

He spun around, looking for that H&K. Sweet Christ. The one thing that could have upped Sveti’s odds lay in a pool of flames. They licked hungrily at the weathered chunks of lumber and junk.

Suck it up. He ran inside the warehouse. Faint light leached through filthy, cobwebby windows. Nothing but piles of moldering stuff. Ancient furniture, dusty machines and appliances, piles of newspapers, boxes shredded by rodents. There was a single aisle through the heaps of junk. A door at the end of the room.

He approached it on soft cat feet and burst inside.

A big man in a ski mask was hauling Sveti’s head and shoulders out of a plastic tub of water. Her eyes were closed. She sputtered, choked, wheezed. The man’s gaze whipped up.

Bam, bam. Sam squeezed off two shots. The f*ckhead jerked back with a shout, hand to his ear. Bam, he took one to the upper arm and jolted sideways, letting go of Sveti. She fell forward into the tub, struggling, but her weight was canted too far forward, and her arms were bound. She was drowning.

He lunged toward her, which was what saved his life. Bullets ripped out. A whip-slash of fire across the side of his lower back and he hit the ground, rolling up to take aim at the new shooter. Bam, bam, bam. Ski-mask Number Three staggered, blood pouring from his neck.

Sam sprinted for the tub, saw the torturer struggling up on one arm, and took the moment to aim a flying kick to the guy’s face before he scooped his arm under Sveti’s chest. He hauled her out of the water and laid her on the ground. Her chest did not move.

He smacked her cheek, pumping on her chest. “Goddamnit, Sveti! Are you going to let those *s win? Fucking breathe!”

She convulsed, vomiting water and coughing.

Tears fogged Sam’s eyes, but another perception clamored for attention. A smell, acrid and scary, tickling his reptile brain. Danger.

Smoke. Oh, f*ck. Sveti was still coughing and choking, slumped on the floor in the sodden heap of crimson fabric like a wilted poppy.

Sam dragged her to her feet. “Babe. We have to run for our lives now. Up. Move!” He hated using that hard-ass tone when she was so f*cked up, but smoke billowed in, there was an ominous orange glow out in the main room. This place was a death trap. Of his own making.

She wobbled on her small, bare feet, but nodded, still coughing, and stumbled gamely when he dragged her forward.

Flames leaped at the far end of the room, where mildewed heaps of newspaper had caught fire. The smoke was choking. Searing heat battered their faces. The door was obscured by glowing orange smoke.

He bent low, forced Sveti to do the same. They scurried, coughing and hacking down the narrow, stinking corridor, into thicker smoke, hotter air. It hurt to breathe. Sveti was slow, scrambling awkwardly, hobbled by her sodden skirt. Eyes squeezed shut, hand clamped over her nose. A little farther—he pulled on her . . .

And they were out, in the sweet cool morning. Gasping for air.

The fire roared out of the roof, only on one side, but spreading fast. Sparks swirled and flew up. Heat battered them. Sveti thudded onto her belly. Blood was mixed with the dirt stuck to her bare feet.

Sam’s eyes fell on the first ski-masked guy, lying where he’d fallen, right next to the blazing building. “One second.” He ran back, close enough to the blaze to scorch his face. Seized the dead guy under the arms and dragged him free of the fire.

He dropped the stiff fifteen meters away, in the middle of the clearing, and met Sveti’s questioning glance. “I don’t want that body incinerated,” he said. “I want him ID’d as soon as possible.”

“You think like a cop,” she coughed out.

“Damn right.” He picked her up. Her soaked dress was in tatters, her face smudged with soot. She stared into his face. Teeth chattering.

He picked up speed, going at a steady lope. She needed a hospital. Tetanus, shock, hypothermia, water in her lungs, who knew. His car came into view. He got her into it, cranked the heat up. They bounced with teeth-rattling jolts over the bumpy gravel road. He wished he had a coat to wrap around her. A blanket. Anything.

Her blue, shaking lips formed a word with no breath behind it. “Sam.”

“Yeah.” He pulled onto an asphalt road. The engine roared for joy.

“You came for me,” she whispered. “You . . . were watching?”

“It’s the upside to having a stalker,” he said.





CHAPTER 8

Josef pulled out the sewing kit from his suitcase. Dental floss, from the toiletries case. He pulled out a few lengths, dropped it in the hotel room’s coffee cup. Stuck it into the microwave to sterilize it.

The keyboard of his laptop was sticky with drying blood, but he ignored that, logging in to the e-mail account Sasha had used to contact the Ardova girl while the microwave hummed, doing its work. Finally. There was a new message in the drafts folder, that being the method the two of them had used to communicate without ever actually sending out e-mails. A fine plan, if no one else ever hacked into one’s account. Stupid little prick. Thought he was so clever.

He clicked it open. In Ukrainian Cyrillic, capitals, bolded across the page.



DO NOT COME TO ITALY YOU ARE IN DANGER THEY ARE HUNTING YOU HIDE PLEASE JUST HIDE

I WILL TELL YOU MORE WHEN IT IS SAFE





That lying, sneaking, ungrateful sack of shit. Defying Josef, and his own father. The message had been sent a scant twenty-five minutes before. There was no response, as of yet, and chances were Ardova was too busy licking her wounds to be checking her e-mail.