Page 65 of Gryphon

“Hey! Ow!” She smacked him on the back of the head, as if colliding with her wasn’t enough.

49

Holly felt the plane shift slightly beneath her feet. A boot scuff on carpet, almost masked by the noise from Tad’s mates outside the plane.

She half turned to see Major General Sandor Kurbanov of NATO moving out of his seat. He shrugged on a parka, having never once taken off or even unbuttoned his uniform jacket, picked up his thin portfolio, and headed off the plane.

She heard the rear cargo hatch open as he grabbed his oversized hardshell briefcase.

Leaning sideways, she saw him talking on his phone as he circled around the group of soldiers from the trucks. A black Mercedes SUV had arrived unnoticed behind the pair of Didgori armored trucks. He climbed in and it sped off.

“Where do you think he’s going?”

Mike still stared at the Minigun aimed his way as if it could shoot him with no one at the trigger. But in a single glance, his head shifted to track the departing SUV. “He say anything?”

Only that Kurbanov wouldn’t be surprised if Mike left the team, but not a chance she’d be sharing that. She shook her head.

“Heard anything yet?”

Holly shook her head. She’d clutched her phone for the entire flight. No text. No voicemail. Not a peep from Val at the CIA’s Russia desk.

She’d rather hear from Inessa. She’d even checked in with Harry back at the CIA with no luck. Holly didn’t dare reach out again; it would put Innessa at risk—at greater risk than she already had. The FSB was evil, but they weren’t stupid. And it would be for nothing, as Inessa would have sent something along if she’d thought of anything since their conversation.

Mike finished the shutdown checklist as they rehashed the idea that they’d been on a wild goose chase coming to Georgia, which was pretty pointless since they were already here. It proved even more pointless as they had no new information to work from. But she couldn’t help herself. Kurbanov’s words about the chances of Mike leaving kept echoing in her head. Maybe by talking to him, about anything, would keep him close.

And that realization shut her up as assuredly as a muzzle. She wanted to keep him close? Nope. Everyone close to her ended up dead. That Mike was still alive counted as one of the most surprising events in her life. Except she didn’t care, right? Did that neutralize the hex and maybe her ill fortune wouldn’t kill him?

Done with the checklist, Mike turned back to the gun. “It’s like one of those paintings. No matter where you move, it stays aimed at your face.” He leaned forward, shifted his head side-to-side, then leaned back.

Holly jerked back to avoid him banging her in the head again, then smacked him forward once again.

A double snap that she knew all too well triggered her reflexes.

Holly grabbed Mike by the shoulders of his NTSB jacket. She yanked him up from the copilot’s seat as high as the jet’s low ceiling would allow, then, twisting him as she fell backward into the aisle, dragged Mike down on top of her.

His full weight hammered down on her. She was going to be sore for a couple days, but a practiced set of flexions proved she hadn’t broken anything.

She still held his shoulders and used them to shift him left and right, but he looked fine.

“Yeah, glad to see you too,” Mike looked down at her as he lay fully atop her in the narrow aisle. “What brought that on? And what the hell is all that noise?”

Together they twisted to look out the passenger door, placing them cheek-to-cheek. Half the squad of soldiers who’d greeted Tad stared at them in surprise—she and Mike lay in the jet’s aisle with their upper bodies visible through the door and their legs tangled up in the cockpit. The other half had heard the same thing she had and were scrambling for weapons.

There was a sharp thwap on the outside of the plane close above their heads. Before she turned, she saw one of the Georgian troopers beyond the door grab at his face as he tumbled backward.

There was a cry for a medic, but the downed man wouldn’t be moving again. One of his eyes was now a bloody hole and the other one fixed and open.

One of the Didgori roared to life. The quiet scuffle of trained men loading up fast, followed by the heavy engine roar of the vehicle racing around the plane and away in the direction of the shooter. Others setting up a perimeter around their downed comrade and the medic.

Holly twisted and looked up to see where the round had punched through the plane’s thin skin. There was a hole through the center of the padded sideways seat where she’d sat during all the Swedish hopping about. Then it had traveled out the open door to kill one of the Georgians.

A chance shot that, having no view, had missed its intended target. Though if she and Mike hadn’t turned cheek-to-cheek it would have passed through the back of his head. Lucky for him, not for the Georgian soldier.

Over Mike’s shoulder, Holly looked into the cockpit and the two holes in opposite sides of the plane’s windows. The shot that had triggered her reflexes to yank Mike from his seat had traveled at exactly the same angle. She’d wager that a line between them would pass through where her head had been before she pulled back—where Mike’s head had been the instant before she’d smacked him forward.

The line traveled by a 7.62 mm round based on the size of the holes.

Two rounds several seconds apart. A bolt-action rifle. Time to manually throw the bolt and reset the shot, the amount of time it took her to haul Mike’s ass out of his seat.

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