Page 3 of Belgian Betrayal

The MI6 assassin didn’t respond.

She started for the door. After only two steps, an explosion blasted through the floor beneath her, throwing her backward.

She hit the bed behind her, the mattress cushioning the impact. Catya slipped to the ravaged floor, her head spinning and her ears ringing so loudly she couldn’t think.

Flames flashed through the hole in the floor, and smoke rose to the ceiling.

Instinct pushed Catya to move. She shoved her Baretta into her shoulder holster and rolled onto her hands and knees. The hole in the floor, smoke, and fire blocked her from exiting the house the way she’d come in. She crawled across the ravaged floor toward the tall window.

The glass had shattered with the explosion. Using her leather-clad arm, Catya swept it across the broken shards.

With smoke and fire quickly eating away at the home’s furnishings and structure, she had only a few precious seconds to get out, die of smoke inhalation or go down in flames.

She struggled to stand, held onto the window frame and swung her legs over.

The drop to the ground was too far. In her current state, she would surely break an arm, a leg, her back or her neck.

What other choice did she have?

Her gaze went to the tree growing up in front of the townhouse. A large limb curled out and upward toward the corner of the structure. It was a stretch, but she could reach that branch by throwing herself out and to the left.

The heat and smoke from the fire behind her made the decision for her. It was the branch or the ground. She’d rather break every bone in her body, or even break her neck than live long enough to have her flesh seared off her bones.

If she missed the branch, she’d hit the ground anyway—a quicker, less painful death.

Her head still spinning, her balance unsteady, Catya gripped the window frame and eased her feet under her to balance on the windowsill. Crouching beneath the window’s header, she bunched her muscles.

Before she could leap to the branch, something whizzed past her ear and hit the townhouse wall mere inches from where her hand held onto the window frame.

Half a second passed before Katya realized someone had fired a bullet toward her from somewhere on the ground. She couldn’t stay where she was, and now the ground wasn’t an option.

She leaped from the window, throwing all her weight toward the massive tree limb. Her chest hit first, knocking the wind from her lungs. Immediately, her arms wrapped around the limb, holding tightly until she got her balance.

A muffled popping sound indicated someone was firing at her with a silencer attached to his weapon. Catya whipped her legs up over the limb and shimmied toward the trunk. A bullet passed through the branches, cutting through leaves close to where Catya stood. She reached for the branch above her, pulled herself up and climbed limb by limb until she reached the big one growing out toward the far corner of the townhouse.

Another pop sounded below her. Something stung her calf. Catya didn’t slow to find out what. She pushed to her feet. Holding onto a thinner limb above her, she ran along the thick branch that angled slightly upward. It had missed growing into the corner of the townhouse roof by a few inches.

Catya flung herself onto the flat roof, landing on all fours. The fire within the building had yet to breach the roof but would soon if the heat beneath her hands was any indication.

Hunkering low, Catya raced to the edge, leaped over onto the roof of the next building and kept running as bullets continued to fly over her head. She had to climb a short metal ladder to reach the roof of the next building, exposing her to the gunman below.

Bullets chipped at the stucco, narrowly missing her as she pulled herself up the ladder and over onto the roof of the next townhouse.

Catya raced to the far side of the roof, ready to leap onto the next roof. She skidded to a stop and teetered at the edge. The next building stood six feet from the one she was on, and there was a narrow alley between them.

Sirens wailed in the distance as more bullets peppered the side of the building and whizzed past her.

Footsteps sounded on the rooftop behind her, which meant she had more than one person after her.

With nowhere else to go, Catya backed up a few steps and ran, leaping over the edge. As if in slow motion, she sailed through the air. Halfway across the divide, she realized she wouldn’t quite make it.

Catya landed on her belly on the short wall surrounding the rooftop of the building. Kicking hard, she rolled over the wall and landed on the other side as a barrage of bullets rained down around her.

The click and clatter of a magazine dropping from a weapon gave her the heads-up that her pursuer was reloading.

She pulled out her Baretta, leaped to her feet and fired at the dark silhouette of the man on the other rooftop.

He ducked down.

---