Outside Imizu
Japan
Randi Russell realized she was hyperventilating and forced herself to get control. Her mouth was taped shut and her face was crammed into the trunk lid, so the deep, cleansing breaths she normally used to keep her rage in check weren’t an option. She tried to picture a peaceful landscape dappled with sun, but Noboru Ueno’s face kept intruding. Fantasies of his death filled her mind—from the classic simplicity of a bullet between the eyes to more exotic scenarios involving stampeding cattle and Rube Goldberg dismemberment machines.
Pull it together, Randi!
The white heat of her anger was one of her greatest strengths. It could keep her going when everyone else collapsed from exhaustion, and it could keep her locked on a target when everyone else had given up in frustration. But it could also run out of control and make it impossible for her to think. That’s where Jon usually stepped in with a calm assessment and well-thought-out plan. From the looks of him when they were being carried out by Ueno’s men, though, about the best he could do at this point was not drool down the front of his shirt.
She held her breath for a moment, silencing the loud rush of air coming through her nose and trying to orient herself to her surroundings.
The trunk they were stuffed into wasn’t as spacious as the grandeur of the car would have suggested. She was wedged in hard and beneath her Jon must have been worse off. Ueno’s men had left little to chance, winding the better part of a roll of duct tape around each of them and then securing them back-to-back. That made getting to the trunk latch or the electrical wires threaded behind the carpet pretty much out of the question.
The sound of the engine was smooth and even, suggesting that the driver was a pro who knew enough not to get nervous and attract attention. After a number of turns and stops getting out of Ueno’s property, they’d been going mostly straight and steady for the last fifteen minutes.
Other than that, there was nothing but darkness. And for some reason that bothered her. It took a moment to figure out why.
Jon.
He had always been an immovable object. Unflappable no matter how bad the shit hit the fan, unkillable even in the most dire situations. Now he wasn’t moving at all.
A jolt of adrenaline coursed through Randi when she realized that despite being crushed up against him, she couldn’t feel him breathing. She jerked backward and felt a rush of relief when he grunted weakly. He was alive. But for how much longer?
If he died, it would be her fault. She’d come there with no backup at all. Klein didn’t know anything about Ueno and no one at the agency had any idea where she was or that Covert-One even existed.
That left it up to her to bail their asses out. But how?
She tried to slide forward, planning to search the dark space for something sharp—a protruding bolt, a disconnected wire—but didn’t have the leverage to move more than half an inch. She pulled harder but it didn’t get her any farther and Jon wasn’t even groaning anymore when she yanked on him. Had he lost consciousness? Or was he…
Pull it together! She scolded herself again. There was precisely nothing she could do about his condition until she got them out of there. If he was dead, he was dead.
The vehicle began to slow and finally rolled to a stop. For a moment she feared they’d reached their destination but then the car moved, gliding along for a few seconds before once again coming to a standstill. Traffic.
Maybe someone with their window open would hear her if she started shouting. She ground her face on the inside of the trunk, trying to scrape the tape off her mouth. The carpet covering the surface was too soft to have any effect on the powerful adhesive.
She kept at it, straining until her neck muscles were on the verge of giving out and the skin felt like it was being torn from her cheeks. Then just let her body go slack. There was no way out. She’d killed them.
Randi didn’t know how long she drifted like that, thinking about Jon and Klein. About her dead husband and Ueno. The traffic didn’t get any better and the gentle rocking kept pulling her further into oblivion.
The car stopped again, but this time there was a deafening crash and she was thrown violently to the side. The trunk lid bent outward enough to let in a little light and she rammed her knees into it, trying to get it to open the rest of the way. The latch held, but flexed enough to give her hope.
Randi had pulled back for another try when the gunfire started—controlled bursts from three, maybe four separate automatic weapons. She tensed, but none of the rounds sounded like they were hitting metal. Just glass and flesh.
After only a few seconds the guns went silent and all she could hear was the revving of motors and the crumpling of bodywork as people tried to escape on the packed road.
A steel bar slid into the gap in the trunk near her feet and another appeared above her head. A moment later the lid had been pried open and she was squinting at a Japanese man with a straight razor in his hand.
She tried unsuccessfully to dodge when he swung it at her, but instead of going for her throat, he cut her loose from Jon. After a few more deft waves of his blade, she was free enough to pull herself out of the trunk under her own power. He pointed to an SUV stopped near the overturned delivery truck that was backing up traffic, but she refused to move until he’d pulled Jon from the trunk and was carrying him toward the waiting vehicle.
Through the windshields of the cars blocked in around them, she could see that most people were just staring at her in horror. A few others were shaking their phones in frustration as they tried to film the scene. She counted three men still standing, all sweeping MP5s smoothly back and forth, searching for targets. The four men who were in the car she’d been trapped in were all dead. None had even managed to get his door open before taking multiple shots to the head.
She stood behind the man shoving Jon into the back of the SUV, trying to figure out who the hell she was dealing with. By the precision of their attack and the classy setup with the delivery truck, there was no question they were pros—an assumption that was supported by the fact that no one’s phone seemed to be working. The type of gear you needed for that kind of jamming wasn’t something you picked up at Walmart.
But whose pros? Should she make a break for it and let them take Jon with the idea of living long enough to track him down again? Or should she throw in with them?
The SUV started backing up with the rear door still open. There was no more time.
Running awkwardly with her hands still taped behind her, she dived through the open door and landed on top of Jon, who was sprawled unconscious across the seat. As soon as she was in, the driver floored it into the grass median, speeding around the crippled van and onto the open road beyond. She barely managed to pull her feet in before the acceleration slammed the door closed.
The straight razor was on the floorboard and she slid down to pick it up. A moment later her hands were free and she was carefully cutting the tape off Jon.
The good news was that he was breathing. The bad news was that it was creating a wet, sucking sound that came not only from his throat, but from a reopened wound between his ribs.
“Jon! Can you hear me?”
His eyes fluttered momentarily, but that was about it. She tore his shirt fully open and pressed a wad of cloth against the hole in his side. Beyond that, she wasn’t sure what else she could do.
“Who the hell are you people?” she said, turning to look at the man calmly piloting the vehicle up the road.
By way of an answer, he passed a phone back. It was already in the process of connecting to a number that came up all zeros.
“Hello?” she said, putting it to her ear.
“Hello, Randi.” The voice was unmistakable and not entirely unexpected. Fred Klein.
“You had me followed,” she said, her indignation ringing a bit hollow.
“When I found out you were on your way to the area where Jon was presumed to have died, I was concerned you were looking for revenge instead of pursuing the mission I assigned you.”
She had to admit that it wasn’t a completely unreasonable supposition.
“I have to say,” he continued, “I’m so pleased with what you turned up I can’t even bring myself to be angry at you for doing one of the stupidest and most careless things I’ve ever had the misfortune to witness. Now, tell me about Jon’s condition.”
Her mouth tightened but she didn’t protest. In light of what had happened, she was forced to silently admit that Klein might have a small point. “He doesn’t look good.”
“Understood. I have a jet with a medical team waiting not far away. For now our priorities have shifted. We need to get Jon out of harm’s way and stabilized. We’ll talk about the rest later.”