Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Parker’s Ridge
Vassily Worontzoff’s mansion
“ M y dear Arkady,” Vassily said, coming towards him. “My dear, dear friend.” They embraced, kissing each other’s cheeks.
“Vor.” Arkady’s voice was thick. He coughed to hide his emotion. He hadn’t seen his Vor in three years.
“Come my friend, you must sit down. You must be weary after such a long journey.” Vassily indicated a comfortable leather armchair next to what was obviously his desk and brought Arkady a glass of vodka himself, a sign of respect.
Arkady drank and looked around. The Vor’s home was luxurious, as was only right. It was fitting that they end their lives in comfort. The Vor had property in Rome. Maybe he would go there to live while he strengthened Vassily’s position in Italy.
He smiled. It was a pleasant thought.
The Vor sat in an armchair next to him, placing his shattered hand on Arkady’s arm. “You have done well, my friend. There will be many such trips, if you are willing to take them—” He paused while Arkady nodded.
No question. If the Vor needed him, he was at his service.
“Good.” The Vor nodded. “We will make much money and when we have finished, I will send you to look after my interests in Europe. Would you like to settle in Switzerland? France?”
“Italy,” Arkady breathed and the Vor nodded again.
“Italy it shall be. There will be work for you there. Our empire is growing. You will be my viceroy.”
Arkady bowed his head. “It would be a privilege, Vor,” he murmured.
The two men turned their heads at the sharp knock on the door. A man stuck his head in. A former zek. Arkady could tell. “He’s coming Vor. We just got word. He’ll be here in less than an hour, in a three-car caravan.”
“He comes in alone,” Vassily said sharply. “Or not at all. Tell him I will be without bodyguards myself. There will only be the engineer in the room.”
The man looked uneasy. “Vor,” he said. “Is that wise? These are dangerous men.”
“Yes, they are. But we have something they badly want. And we have more coming. They won’t harm me.” He flicked his hand. “Now go and be prepared to greet him when he arrives.”
The man hesitated briefly, then bowed his head and withdrew. The heavy door made a soft whump sound as it closed.
Vassily gave a wintry smile. “This business will be over soon. Come, let us retire to the living room where we have tea waiting for us. And when this is over, there is someone I must introduce to you. You will be astonished, my friend.”
Outside Worontzoff’s mansion
Those were the last words they heard before Alexei pulled the plug. Nick knew Alexei had to—if you looked carefully, you could see the laser beam as a faint line in the gathering darkness—but he had to stop himself from banging a fist against the wall in frustration.
He and Di Stefano were hunkered down behind a bush, to one side of the study windows, unable to see into the room. Essentially blind and now that Alexei had cut them off, deaf, too.
They were clad head to toe in a special uniform and balaclava made of Nomex that repelled thermal imaging.
Worontzoff’s security was shot to shit tonight, all his guards milling about, offloading the truck that had driven in a quarter of an hour before. He and Di Stefano had been careful and they were good. They’d had zero trouble infiltrating.
Nick knew that the SWAT team was deployed, ready. They’d spent the past hour getting into position. He couldn’t see them, but he knew they were there. The comms system clicked steadily every quarter of an hour, ticking off men in position.
He’d been expecting a knock-down drag-out fight from Di Stefano about being down here where the action was and not up in the van, watching Alexei pace in frustration. But Di Stefano clearly realized Nick wouldn’t let anything get in the way between him and Charity while she was in Worontzoff’s house. Di Stefano had simply told Nick to suit up and that was that.
Di Stefano pulled out a small LCD monitor, holding it so that no one could detect its faint glow. It was programmed for thermal imaging and able to tune into the frequency of Charity’s microcamera.
He studied it carefully and signaled to Nick that everyone had left the room. To Nick’s surprise, he drew out a tiny drill and proceeded to drill a hole through the wall, at the level of the baseboard inside the house. It was high-speed and utterly silent. As soon as the drill perforated the inside wall, Di Stefano threaded a combo microphone/fisheye lens snake into the hole.
Di Stefano fiddled with the tiny hand-held computer and suddenly, Nick had sound and a view inside the room. It was at foot level, but the camera had a good range.
Great, now they had eyes and ears in the room and could see and hear what Charity was seeing and hearing. Better than he’d hoped.
There was no one in the study, but there was music in the background. One of those sad Russian songs that had driven him crazy when he was on listening duty.
The comm system was piping sound to everyone on the loop, including Alexei. If Russian was spoken, Alexei would give a simultaneous interpretation.
Everything was good to go. Now all they could do was wait.
Nick was usually good at waiting. Stillness and darkness were his friends. Right now, though, his insides were racing at a thousand miles an hour. He gripped his MP5 tightly, glad for the gloves because his hands were sweating.
Two clicks from the Swat team members. Nothing happening.
Iceman hunkered down to wait. There was nothing else to do.
Nick had carefully picked her clothes. The black cardigan was loose and didn’t show the tiny mike taped between her breasts or the battery pack taped to the small of her back. Even she had difficulty in seeing the microcamera, it was so well camouflaged. He’d also picked slate gray light-weight wool pants and comfortable boots. He hadn’t said it, but clearly he’d chosen her clothes not only to hide the camera and mike, but also for comfort if she had to move fast.
Nick had filled her head with instructions, but she hadn’t absorbed much beyond not turning her back, not letting material rub against the mike and not scratching herself.
She jolted at the sound of the front door-bell. Vassily’s driver, come to pick her up.
She looked at herself in the mirror. She was about to betray Vassily, something that she would have thought herself incapable of. She thought of the fake medicine, counterfeit washers, nuclear codes and what Nick had told her about the human trafficking Vassily’s organization engaged in. Mainly children.
And then she thought of Nick.
Two men. She’d loved both of them, in her way. The two most important men in her life, and she never really knew either of them.
The doorbell rang again and she picked up her coat. Taking a deep breath, she walked to the door.
Show-time .
Al-Hammad was late. But Vassily had learned patience at a hard school. The hardest. He wasn’t worried. Al-Hammad would come. He was too invested not to. Vassily had something al-Hammad wanted very very badly, with more on the way.
In the meantime, Vassily chatted amiably with his old friend, Arkady, over tea and vodka. They didn’t reminisce about days gone by, as old friends usually did. The past was much too painful. No, music and books wove their usual magic.
Finally, Ilya stood in the doorway. “He’s coming, Vor,” he said quietly. “He’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”
“Did you tell him to come alone?” Vassily asked sharply.
“Yes. He wasn’t happy about it, but he’s coming alone. Only the driver and him.”
Vassily didn’t care whether he was happy or not. All he cared about was the fact that a new and safe route had been found and that al-Hammad would be bringing twenty million dollars.
And that afterwards, he would be celebrating with Katya. Together. At long, long last.
Four clicks. The pre-arranged signal that someone was coming. A sentry was posted two miles up the road, well-camouflaged, with powerful binoculars.
Al-Hammad Di Stefano mouthed. Nick nodded.
Word must have been given to Worontzoff, too. On the screen, Nick could see him and the Russian who’d brought the container and who was called Arkady enter the study.
They were speaking softly, calmly.
“They’re talking about books,” Alexei’s voice sounded clear as a bell in his ears. “Nothing important. Worontzoff just made a joke about Arabs being late. Used a term for Arab that is very politically incorrect.”
It was almost completely dark, which helped their concealment. The floodlights were on a timer, which hadn’t been changed since summer. They would be turned on in an hour. In an hour and a half, Charity would be safely out of the way and everyone in the mansion would be in restraints. Or dead. Nick didn’t much care either way, as long as Charity was safe.
Nick and Di Stefano held their position, barely breathing. Every once in a while Alexei would give them the gist of the conversation going on in the study.
With a loud clanking sound, the big front gates started opening, exactly in time for a black Mercedes with tinted windows to pass through them and drive up to the front steps without slowing down. An act of pure arrogance.
Two men got out, the driver and a passenger. Nick stared hard at the man who emerged from the passenger side. He’d studied the fucker’s file until it was burned into his brain.
He looked older than the pictures in the file, thinner. There’d been some plastic surgery done. The nose was narrower, cheekbones higher. His hair was pewter gray instead of midnight black.
But Nick would recognize him anywhere.
Omar Al-Hammad, the man who’d masterminded the attack on Paris, once Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man, now head of a terror franchise all his own.
Di Stefano clicked once on his lip mike. Nick could almost feel the tension of the invisible team.
He watched Al-Hammad climb the big granite stairs, the driver right behind him, carrying a large suitcase. Big, beefy guy. Clearly a body-guard doubling as driver.
A few minutes later, they were walking into the study and Nick and Di Stefano bent over the small screen, watching as if lives depended on it. Which they did.
Vassily got up to greet the Arab. Luckily, there would be no niceties, no pretense at social politeness. This was a business transaction between two men and two organizations that wanted nothing to do with each other, besides exchanging money for a commodity.
This suited him. The quicker this was over with, the faster he could be with Katya. He felt her presence very strongly, even if she hadn’t arrived yet.
There was power in this room, great power. In the hidden history of the world, what happened tonight in this small town in northern Vermont would change the course of human affairs. Vassily felt that fate had deemed that he should live, though he should have died a thousand times over in Kolyma. A powerful force had led him to this point, and to his reclaiming of his lost love.
From this day forward, there would be no more pretence. He and Katya would be reunited and rich and powerful. No one would ever—could ever—harm them, ever again.
Nick and Di Stefano watched it all on the small screen. Worontzoff limping across the study to greet al-Hammad, whose bodyguard was wheeling in a large suitcase. Worontzoff stopped right in front of him and gave a brief nod.
Nobody offered to shake hands.
Al-Hammad was followed by his bodyguard. The man was carrying. The bulge under his left armpit was clear. Nick could only imagine that Worontzoff’s bodyguard, Ilya, was also carrying. It was entirely possible that if Worontzoff had tried to have al-Hammad disarmed, a firefight would break out. Both Ilya and the bodyguard looked tough and proficient.
Mutual assured destruction. It worked. For fifty years it kept the US and the Soviet Union from bombing each other into oblivion.
There were six men in the room. Worontzoff, al-Hammad, his bodyguard, the courier, Arkady, and Ilya.
“I don’t think we need to waste time,” Worontzoff said and al-Hammad nodded. “You go first.”
Al-Hammad looked at his bodyguard. The big man lifted the huge suitcase on to Worontzoff’s desk and opened it. It was filled with bricks of dollars. Everyone in the room froze.
Hell, even Nick and Di Stefano froze.
The camera was at floor level, but the suitcase was so packed with money, it overflowed. The big bodyguard picked up one banded brick and rifled through it. Nick could clearly see Benjamin Franklin’s likeness. One-hundred dollar bill denominations. Nick tried to think how much money could possibly be contained in that big suitcase. Millions and millions.
“Twenty million dollars,” al-Hammad said, his voice tinny in Nick’s earbud. Well, that answered that question. “What does it buy me?”
Worontzoff nodded and the man called Arkady walked over to a large container. It had a complicated closure system, but finally he opened it and lifted the lid.
He stepped back and gestured with his arm at the contents. “A canister with one hundred kilos of cesium 137. Given the temperature, it is currently in a liquid state. There is enough cesium in this canister for one huge dirty bomb or several smaller ones. You can irradiate central Manhattan, say the Wall Street district, or several military bases, as you please. We have more than one hundred other canisters, ready for shipment.”
A wintry smile creased al-Hammad’s lips. “Excellent.”
Nick and Di Stefano exchanged grim, startled looks. This was way worse than Nick’s worst imaginings. Thank God they were here and were going to stop the transaction. The mere idea that one hundred canisters of cesium 137 were back in Russia, waiting for shipment to terrorists, was terrifying.
They weren’t going to take down a transaction, they were taking down a network. Ordinarily, this would have filled Nick with satisfaction, but his whole head was taken up with worry about Charity. There wasn’t room for satisfaction, only room for terror that she’d be hurt.
The gate clanged open again and one of Worontwoff’s cars, a Mercedes, drove through. Nick whipped around, watching the car as it drove in. He could barely make out a small, pale figure in the back.
Jesus. Charity.
He broke out in goosebumps, angry that they’d had this half-assed idea of wiring her up and sending her into the lion’s den, scared shitless that something bad would go down.
The big black car disappeared from sight, but he could envision her getting out and walking up the big stone stairs.
A few minutes later, Nick heard a soft knock on the study door. They watched on the monitor as a servant spoke softly to Worontzoff, who said something back.
Nick’s blood ran cold when he heard Alexei’s translation in his headset.
“Bring her in here.”
It was strange walking into Vassily’s home, now that she understood who he really was. She’d been here often, mainly to his soirées, when the big beautiful mansion was filled with people. A few times for tea, with just the two of them, but what seemed like an army of servants hovering in the background.
Now, the big building seemed dark and deserted, a place of danger, not delight.
All winter, she’d loved visiting Vassily. Each time she entered the mansion, it was with a little frisson of excitement, not the shudder of fear and horror pervading her body right now.
Now she knew what he was and what he saw in her. All those long, soulful conversations, the heartfelt talks about books and music—it had all been false. Vassily hadn’t been conversing with her , Charity, but with his long-lost love.
And now that she understood where the money came from, the sumptuousness of Vassily’s home made her queasy. Perhaps it was because she was so depleted, had been through such wringing emotions over the past couple of days, but it seemed to her that Vassily’s home gave off evil vibrations.
She’d never come alone after dark before, without it being a social event. The other times, the mansion and the grounds had been lit up like a Christmas tree, with servants everywhere. Now the mansion was dark, the only outside lights over the porch, leaving the big lawn and the grounds in darkness.
The big black car slid to a stop at the big stairs leading up to the porch. The driver got out and opened the back door. He hadn’t said a word coming here and he didn’t say a word now. He simply held the door open, staring into the far distance.
With each step up the big staircase, the sense of dread increased. She could feel her heartbeat, slow, thudding. It took an effort to move her feet, which felt as heavy as lead. The very air felt dead.
The temptation to look around, to see whether Nick and John Di Stefano were around, was almost irresistible. It would make her feel so much better walking into the dark, forbidding mansion to know that two federal agents were close to hand, one of them Nick. Whatever would happen to them once this was over, Charity didn’t doubt for a second that Nick would defend her with everything he had.
She also knew that there was a SWAT team somewhere out there, in hiding.
They were good at their job, because she had no sense of protectors being out there at all. She felt alone and small and defenceless, climbing those stairs, palms slick with sweat.
Before she could even ring the chime, the big front door opened. There was almost total darkness beyond, unlike all the other times she’d walked through this door, lit to daylight brightness by the huge chandelier in the foyer.
It wasn’t on now. The only light came from a few lamps on in the big living room at the other end of the foyer, where she and Vassily had spent hours chatting. Her heart squeezed in pain at the thought.
She automatically made for it, when the servant who’d opened the door touched her arm briefly.
“This way, ma’am,” he said and indicated the study door.
Charity frowned. She’d never been in Vassily’s study. Why did he want her in there now? She approached the study door slowly, heart pounding. The microphone felt like a hundred pound weight between her breasts and she was certain the micro-camera was as visible as a red flare.
The servant opened the door and Charity walked in slowly, feeling as if she were going to the guillotine. She wished she’d worn her black turtleneck sweater because she was absolutely certain her triphammering heartbeat was visible in her neck.
There was utter silence in the room, five male faces turned to her. Her boot heels sounded loud in the hush of the room.
Vassily’s study was much larger than she’d imagined, almost the size of a ballroom. This being Vassily, it was lined with books, floor to ceiling and, being Vassily, he’d probably read them all. As usual, a fire burned in a hearth even larger than the one in the living room. The huge room was luxurious beyond anything she’d ever seen, with priceless Persian rugs on the flagstone floor, an enormous mahogany desk polished to a high sheen, large pieces of antique furniture barely visible in the gloom. Crystal and brass and silk.
All the light was concentrated around the desk. And on that desk was an open suitcase. It took her a second to recognize what was in the suitcase, it seemed so outlandish.
Money. Money was in the suitcase, brick after brick, tightly packed, overflowing. It must have been millions of dollars. More money than she would ever imagined could be in one place at one time.
Startled, Charity’s gaze flew to Vassily’s. He was watching her carefully, that burning light in his eyes. Charity had no idea how to react. Clearly, Vassily wanted her to see all this money, but why?
It was dangerous, to him and to her.
If she’d harboured the slightest little doubt that Vassily was a criminal, this suitcase shattered that doubt. No one but a criminal could possibly need to handle so much cash.
Vassily was watching her feverishly, expectantly. He knew she’d seen the money. What was she supposed to say? Charity felt the danger in the room, so acutely she felt faint.
She looked around at the other four men. Vassily might look at her with affection—at least until he finally realized that she wasn’t Katya—but the other male faces were watching her with hostility.
Particularly one man, dark with silver-gray hair and harsh set features. When she met his gaze, her heart jolted at the black, fathomless hatred she read there. It came off him in sickening, dark waves.
The terrorist. Oh, God.
Nick had said that the mike wouldn’t pick up her heartbeat, but it seemed impossible to her that it wasn’t. Her heart was trying to beat its way out of her chest.
“My dearest Katya,” Vassily said softly. He was standing to one side of the desk, leaning on his cane and staring at her, as if the open suitcase packed with money weren’t there. “Come to me, my dushka. Give me a kiss and then go wait for me outside. We have much to discuss.”
Charity was rooted to the spot, throat too tight for words. There was something terrible in the air, some evil presence just ready to reach out with claws and rake her. The very molecules in the air were screaming danger . Her skin prickled with it.
Vassily wasn’t moving. He simply watched her with glittering eyes. “Come my dear,” he said again, and held out his arms, elegant black cane dangling from one ruined hand.
She had to do this. Simply had to. And then she was going to plead a headache and never come back here again.
She wasn’t built for undercover work. It felt like her entire body was signalling that she was lying as she slowly walked forward, knowing that Vassily was going to embrace her, knowing that she couldn’t flinch, knowing that she would.
The dark man watched her progress with ice-cold eyes, then turned to Vassily. “Is this necessary?” His voice was harsh, guttural, with a strong Middle Eastern accent. “She is an outsider. She has no business being here.”
Vassily didn’t answer. He didn’t even look at the man. He simply watched as Charity approached, arms wide to receive her. Vassily murmured something in Russian which she didn’t understand but she saw two of the men in the room open their eyes wide in surprise.
The dark man made a sound of disgust, swivelling his head to follow her.
“Katya,” Vassily murmured. Her skin broke out in goosebumps. He was all worked up, eyes shiny, red spots on his cheeks, hands trembling. The cane swayed with his excitement.
The dark man slapped his hand down on the desk in frustration, and she jumped. He was watching her with such hatred she was frightened he’d attack her as she walked by him. If she could, she’d have skirted him, but she couldn’t. He was right in her path
Charity actually heard his teeth grind as she drew even with his chair.
A sudden keening whine started, so loud it hurt her ears, a huge whistling noise that seemed to rise up out of the ground. Everyone froze, except the dark man, the terrorist.
“Spy!” he screamed, jumping up, pulling out a gun. “She’s a spy! She dies!”
“ Katya !” Vassily shouted, throwing himself at her. There was the sound of a shot, and she slammed against the wall, her back erupting in pain. Another shot and then all sounds were drowned in the huge explosion that knocked her off her feet and blinded and deafened her.
Christ.
Nick watched, sweating, as Charity entered Worontzoff’s study. This wasn’t in the program. She was supposed to stay far away from everyone except Worontzoff and plead a blinding headache as soon as possible.
Walking into a room with Worontzoff, al-Hassad, his bodyguard and a man who’d smuggled in radioactive material wasn’t what they’d bargained for.
His eyes were glued to the screen, jaws clenched so tightly his temples hurt. Charity was completely alone in a room full of criminals and terrorists. Not just Charity. Charity and his child.
Nick could barely breathe as she entered the room.
Worontzoff, the fuckhead, looked at her as if she had become his personal possession. Al-Hassad was coldly furious.
He saw her realize what the open suitcase held and watched her swallow heavily. Charity was no fool, thank God. She knew the danger she was in. He trusted her to remain alert.
“Prepare for dynamic entry,” he said quietly into his mike. Clicks sounded in response. Nick knew the men were moving, though he couldn’t see them and he couldn’t hear them.
He slanted a hard glance at Di Stefano, ready to take him down if he objected. But Di Stefano was readying his breaching weapon, ready to blow the French windows open if necessary.
It was going to be a fucking miracle if she got out of there alive. Nick started pulling material out of his rucksack. Flashbangs, extra magazines.
They were taking everyone down, no question. That canister was not leaving the building, unless in was in the hands of Homeland Security biohazard experts. Only the takedown had to happen after Charity left. Just the thought of her caught in a crossfire made him nearly insane with fear.
This was a clusterfuck, just waiting to happen.
Sweating heavily, he stared at the screen, willing everyone on the screen to simply tell her to go away. She’d go into another room, wait, plead a headache and would be driven home. Once he’d ascertained she was home safely, then they’d go in.
Not going to happen.
Nick’s blood ran cold at Worontzoff’s expression. He was getting off on Charity understanding what was going on, totally gone in some alternate universe with his dead love, Katya, dead all those years ago and now come back to life.
“Come, duschka,” he said and held out his arms.
Nick could practically feel Charity’s hesitation and fear. Don’t do it . He sent the thought to her, though he understood she had to. Right now, her life rested on a knife’s edge. It depended on keeping alive Worontzoff’s illusion that she was Katya.
She moved forward slowly towards him. Nick had to fight tunnel vision, that anomaly of battle where you could only see what was right in front of you. It was dangerous, in battle and now. He had to be aware of everything, all senses fired for signs of imminent danger. He deliberately spread his senses wider and caught al-Hammad’s expression.
Every hair on his body stood on end. Al-Hammad watched Charity with cold hatred. He would look for an excuse to bring her down. She was an extraneous presence, one unplanned-for. A danger to him.
Nick gripped the stock of his gun more tightly.
Charity passed al-Hammad and suddenly a piercing whistle sounded incredibly loud in his headset, so loud he could also hear it through the walls of the mansion.
Busted! A countersurveillance device! Al-Hammad had hidden a counter-surveillance device on his person and knew that Charity was wired.
A gunshot sounded. Two.
“ Go go go!” Nick shouted into the headset, moving fast. The preternatural calm of battle took over now, time stretched, and he was able to calculate every move.
Di Stefano’s breaching weapon blew open the doors and he lobbed in an M84 flashbang. He and Di Stefano flattened themselves against the wall. He signalled with his hands to Di Stefano. Me left, you right.
Di Stefano nodded.
A blinding and deafening blast exploded in the room. Eight million candela, 180 decibels. Guaranteed to stun anyone within a twenty-foot radius. Everyone in the room would be blinded for at least five seconds until the photosensitive cells in the retina could return to normal, and the fluid in the semicircular canals of the ear would be so disturbed it was as if everyone in the room had received a roundhouse punch.
He was protected from the worst of the blast by the mansion’s wall, but he’d trained over and over again to withstand the shock. A second after the flashbang had gone off, he was in through the door, tracking right, knowing Di Stefano was tracking left. Between them, they covered 180°.
He moved fast, disarming the two stunned, armed men, slapping plasticuffs on them. Al-Hammad was down, blood pooling under his back, Di Stefano putting a pack over his chest wound.
Nick scanned the room, then scanned again. Where was Charity? Where the fuck was she?
He heard a soft cry, whirled and his heart stopped. Simply stopped.
Charity was lying on her back against the wall behind the desk as if a giant fist had carelessly punched her there. Half of her was covered by Worontzoff, and all of her was covered with blood.
Someone was crying, a sound of raw animal pain that dug deep into the bone, that hurt the heart. Charity was aware of it, but only dimly. Her head swam and every inch of her hurt. Where was she? She looked around without moving her head, though she still had huge spots in front of her eyes from the massive explosion that had gone off in the room.
Other men began shouting, men dressed in black with black helmets, looking like insectoid aliens, holding huge guns. They came into the room in a controlled rush. “Clear!” one shouted and the echoes came from inside the room and out.
“Clear!”
“Clear!”
“Clear!”
It was hard to breathe. Something was wrong with her chest, she couldn’t expand her lungs. She looked down at herself and saw Vassily, still and unmoving, on top of her. One of the men in the room, the one who looked like a scientist was draped over Vassily, screaming like a wounded animal. Raging in a foreign language. Russian?
She couldn’t breathe with two men weighing down her chest. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t see, she couldn’t hear.
It made no sense. Non of it made sense. She couldn’t gather her thoughts, they kept scattering. Her ears rang and spots moved in front of her eyes.
She moved her hand slightly and felt something wet and viscous on the floor. With enormous effort, she lifted her hand and brought it close to her face.
It was dark red.
Blood.
“Charity!” Nick, on his knees beside her, sliding a little in the blood on the floor. “Oh my God, you’re wounded! Where were you shot, love? Where does it hurt?” He looked up at all the men in black milling around. “Medic!” he screamed. “Medic over here!”
Frantic hands felt her all over, starting from her head, down her torso, down her legs.
“Not—” Charity wheezed, trying to pull air into her lungs. Vassily and the man over him, still screaming, were so heavy. “Not wounded,” she managed to get out finally, lungs heaving for air. “Not . . . me.”
It had to be Vassily, had to. Charity found it almost impossible to think, but she could feel. Her entire torso was wet with blood. With the amount of blood on the floor, the wound must be grievous. Though she hurt everywhere, she knew she didn’t have a mortal wound.
Another pair of hands. Not Nick’s. One of the men in black.
“Step away, sir, so I can examine her.”
Nick was holding her hand, slippery with blood.
“Sir? I can’t examine her if you don’t move.”
Charity could feel Nick’s reluctance as he let go of her hand and stood up. He looked around and beckoned to one of the men in uniform.
“Get rid of that,” he said coldly, indicating the howling man. The man had pulled Vassily off her—she could finally breathe —and had scooted up against the wall with Vassily’s limp form cradled in his arms, rocking back and forth. He bent over Vassily, his cries painful to hear, a long lament in Russian.
The medic gave her a quick, thorough check and pronounced her essentially unharmed.
Thanks to Vassily.
Some of the shock of the explosion was dissipating, the memories of the moments before the explosion returning. The high whine, the terrorist brandishing a gun, aiming it at her. Vassily’s cry, launching himself at her.
The bullet had caught him, not her.
Vassily had saved her life. Charity looked down at his dead body, held tightly by the Russian who was now covered with Vassily’s blood.
Vassily was a criminal, a renegade.
He’d saved her life.
The huge room was lit up now, people milling about purposefully. The big suitcase full of cash had been closed up and a number of men were examining a big metal container.
She swayed.
“Fuck this,” Nick growled, and swung her up in his arms. He marched over to where Di Stefano was conferring with a knot of men. “You guys can clean up, I’m taking her home.”
Di Stefano opened his mouth, looked at Nick, then closed it again. “Yeah okay, get outta here.”
Nick stopped on the porch and Charity breathed in deeply. It felt like days had gone by since she’d walked up these stairs.
Nick looked down at her, grim, jaw muscles moving as he clenched his teeth. “This is the way it’s going to be,” he announced. “I’m taking you home and to bed and we’re not coming up for air until a week has gone by or my hands stop shaking, whichever comes first. Then we’re going to city hall and we’re getting married all over again, only this time legally, with my name. I’ll be damned if my son grows up a bastard.”
He said all this belligerently, as if expecting her to argue.
But as always with Nick, only one answer was possible.
“Yes, Nick.”