Chapter 25
Chapter 25
“ I should be the one to drive the buggy, I think,” Leo said. They were clip clopping their way to town, the reins in Esther’s hands.
“You don’t know how. And you’re injured,” she reminded him.
“Yes, but all the other Amish men are the ones who drive,” he replied.
Esther snickered, and he elbowed her. “Are you making fun of me for comparing myself to the Amish?”
“No, I’m making fun of you because you believe you come up short,” she replied, and he sighed.
“You always say the right thing,” he said.
“You’re the only one who believes that, Leo.”
“Isn’t that enough?” he asked.
“Yes,” she agreed.
The buggy provided some measure of security, oddly enough since they were basically exposed. But it was dark and, if they reclined slightly, they couldn’t be seen. Since Leo’s phone was dead and there was no way to recharge it, they had to drive to the community telephone attached to a pole at the other end of the village. Leo felt itchy. It was the way he always felt before the action went down. He swallowed hard and tried to push away his anxiety. The hand gripping his gun was sweaty. Three shots, that was how many he had left. Three shots and an injured shoulder and an untrained pacifist in his care. The odds weren’t in their favor, but that was assuming they were found. It was highly possible their cover was still intact. Leo had no reason to believe it was blown, other than his newfound anxiety. Then again, they hadn’t left the cabin in a few days. Maybe it was merely the exposed feeling of being away from their hideout, their abditory.
He scanned each face they passed, searching for a disguise, not that it did much good. Esther was the only one who could ID him, whose computer brain could spot the similarities in facial features well enough to connect the dots. And she had only done it by studying pictures. Could she do it live and in person? And who was to say it would be the same man? Last time he hired a mercenary to take them out. He could do that again. Just because he was a bloodthirsty maniac with the ability to kill them himself didn’t mean he would.
A car blurred by them and Leo sat forward for a double take. Was that…? It had looked like… But, no, that was impossible. And if it was, they were in bigger trouble than he realized.
“Did you see that car?” Leo asked.
“No,” Esther replied. “I was concentrating on the horses so they didn’t spook. They seem pretty solid, but I’ve only done this once before, a long time ago.”
Leo was more than antsy now; he buzzed with adrenaline. Everything in him told him something bad was about to go down. Their cover was blown, they’d been found, Aleksandr was coming for them. And if he just saw who he thought he saw, the mole was someone more lethal than he could handle. He swallowed hard and dabbed at his forehead.
“Es, I need you to be on full alert, okay? Scan everybody and let me know if you see anyone you know from DC. Even if you’re not sure, let me know, okay? Stick close and do exactly as I say. If I say down, lie down. If I say run, run like you’ve never run before, okay?”
“Okay, Leo,” she replied. Her calm steadiness did a little to soothe him. He took a deep breath and then another, wiped his gun hand on his leg to clear the sweat. He hadn’t been this nervous in…he had never been this nervous. The stakes were higher than they had ever been. He was all that stood between Esther and certain doom and he wasn’t enough, had never been enough. She patted his leg. “Sangfroid, Leo.”
At the very least, her words provided a distraction. “What’s that one again?”
“Coolness of mind, calmness, composure. Find yours, please.”
“I can’t let anything happen to you,” he choked.
“That works both ways,” she said.
“I’m the one who takes care of you,” he said.
“No, we take care of each other. And everything will be okay, one way or another. Have faith.”
“That’s the problem, sweetheart. I’m not the one with the faith; you are.”
“Find some. In the meantime, I’ll lend you mine.” She pulled the horses to a halt, jumped down, and wrapped the reins around a hitching post. Since there was only one phone and a large community of Amish, it was a popular destination. The line to use it looked massive, at least twenty Amish bundled by groups with more on the way.
“This is too open, too exposed,” Leo muttered, but Esther was already taking his hand and tugging him toward the line.
They got a lot of looks. The woman in front of them spoke to Esther in Pennsylvania Dutch. Leo couldn’t understand the words, of course, but he got the gist. Where are you from, Strangers? While all Amish people looked the same to him, they were a tightknit community, easily distinguishable from each other. Esther and the woman chatted a few moments. Leo recognized Lydia and Aaron’s names, so she must have told them some story about visiting her family. He kept his back to her, scanning the crowd, his unease growing with every passing moment.
More people arrived and began clumping together to talk. The communal phone must be the Amish version of a water cooler. Instead of one orderly line, there was now a snaking line surrounded by clusters. Too many people, too much activity, Leo thought. He reached for Esther’s hand, needing an anchor, but it was tugged roughly away from him. He turned in time to see Ruben Miller leading her away.
“I need to talk to you, Esther,” Ruben said, his tone bossy and commanding.
“No,” Leo started to say, when a blurry movement to his right caught his attention. He turned in time to see Ethan streaking toward him, gun in hand, and his heart sank. The moment he had long dreaded had finally arrived; he was going to have a kill or be killed shootout with someone he had formerly considered a friend. He got the kind of focus and clarity that always consumed him before a round of action began. He was like Esther in this moment, in the zone, concentration unbreakable. There was only one thing that could interrupt his flow, or rather one person, and she was doing it now.
To his left, Esther screamed his name, panicked. He tore his attention off an advancing Ethan to her and saw her streaking toward him at a sprint, arms outstretched. And then he realized why.
Twenty paces directly in front of him, disguised as another Amish man, stood Aleksandr. His gun was aloft and pointed not at Esther, but at the center of Leo’s chest.
Esther catapulted the last few steps, flung herself at him. Though she was slight, the impact of her body was enough to knock him back a step. His arms wrapped instinctively and protectively around her. A shot went off, and the world turned to chaos.