Page 67 of Devil's Due

Cole still looked bland and harassed. “Guys, this is stupid. Look, let me get the hell out, you call whoever you want to fix the damn electrical—”

The biggest one hit him. One quick pop, not telegraphed, and it took Cole full in the face. Blood spattered. He went down, and the man was already moving his right foot in a bone-breaking kick.

She couldn’t afford caution. Caution would get Cole disabled or dead, and she couldn’t take these men playing by FBI rules. This would have to be done Jazz-style.

Lucia stood, braced her shoulder against the wall and kicked the big rubber trash can at its wheeled base. It screeched indignantly and rolled at an angle across the exposed space to slam into one of the metal doors, then tipped and crashed onto its side.

Both of the suspects spun to look. Both drew guns.

Lucia braced her right hand with her left and sighted.

“Freeze!” she yelled. They moved fast, too fast, and a bullet exploded part of the concrete next to her arm.

She pulled the trigger twice without flinching, and the first shooter sank down on his knees, swaying. The gun slipped from his hand and spun across the concrete. Cole, his face a mask of blood, scrambled after it and kicked the man’s side to dump him on his face. The other man dropped his gun and voluntarily went down, hands on the back of his head.

“Dammit!” Cole screamed. “Are you hurt?Lucia?”

“No,” she said calmly, and walked forward. “If you call an ambulance, you can probably save this one. I think I missed his heart.”

Cole—normally so cool and insouciant—looked shocked. She raised her eyes to his, and saw him flinch a little. Seasoned FBI, and he flinched. But then, he didn’t know her, did he?

Nobody did.

“Better call it in,” she said. “I’ll check the rest of the building. These can’t be the only bad guys in the place.”

“I’m going to hell for this.”

“Yeah,” she said grimly. “I’ll save you a seat.”

Chapter 13

There were, in fact, seventeen other people in the building. She didn’t have to shoot any of the others; intimidation worked well enough. She herded them into an unused freezer room and locked them up tight.

She was sitting against the door, listening to them batter at it, when Cole came to find her. He’d wiped some of the blood off his face, but that was a broken nose, no question, and it was beginning to swell. He’d have black eyes, too. That had been a hell of a first punch.

“What are you going to say when they get here?” she asked, when he was seated on the concrete with her, back against the door.

“Planning on throwing myself on the mercy of my superiors,” he said. “Fuck, Lucia. I ought to know by now that if you’re involved, it ain’t exactly a fact-finding mission. I mean, I’ve heard enough stories.”

“Stories,” she repeated. She felt tired, liquid, as if her body might just drip away.

“You know.”

“I don’t.”

“Is it true what they say about what happened in Prague?”

“What do they say happened?” The door behind them rattled with a particularly violent kick. It felt good, rather like a massage.

“Two dozen terrorists, a cache of nerve gas, and you were the only survivor.”

“It’s not true.” It wasn’t. There was Gregory Ivanovich, after all. Turncoat and torturer and savior and traitor. God alone knew what he was now, but she had no doubt he knew where she’d gone during the past week, and what had happened to her.

Cole made a doubtful sound. “You should have declared first, by the way.”

“Declared what? I’m not FBI. The government doesn’t pay me. And in the kind of work I used to do, declaring yourself was stupid.” Which was as close as she intended to get to reliving the past, even with Cole. “If I’d taken the time to chat, they’d have killed me. You also.”

He sighed and dabbed at his bleeding nose. “Man. I’ll be lucky if I get a posting in Antarctica after this.”

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