Page 94 of Dangerous Secrets

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,thenthey’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 hadto. 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 canalsof 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 fuckwasshe?

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.

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