Page 129 of Close Pursuit

Where it left Alex was anybody’s guess. His father would still demand repayment someday for the massive favor he’d granted Alex today. But his own lines of communication were now open with the CIA, and Alex had fallen off the fence and onto the side of the Americans. For now.

He would give it all up in a minute if Katie walked out of that warehouse alive and with Dawn safely in her arms.

Katie had actually dozed off when a flurry of noise jolted her to full consciousness. The sun had passed out of sight overhead, marking the passage of a couple hours she must have slept. The dead bodies had been cut down from where they hung in their ropes and were laid out in a row off to one side.

What was that noise? It sounded like a herd of elephants on the roof! Natasha’s men were pointing their AK’s up at the ceiling frantically, and Natasha emerged from the office, her hair tangled around her face. She must have been catching a nap, too, during the lull.

“Are they breaching us?” one of the mobsters shouted. The muzzles of their weapons roved back and forth nervously. The thumping and banging turned into slithering noises down the walls and Natasha’s men leaped away from the aluminum panels toward the middle of the warehouse. For her part, Natasha hit the floor. Katie tensed, helpless, taped to the damned chair.

As quickly as the noise started, it stopped. A faint commotion was audible outside, and then that, too, stopped. Silence blanketed the building ominously.

And then a lone voice shouted form outside, “Natasha, it’s Alex. Let me in.”

The Russian woman pressed up onto her knees. “Why should I trust you?”

He called back wryly, “Who else do you have?”

Natasha knelt on her heels for several long moments, and Katie held her breath. Lord, it was good to hear Alex’s voice. Natasha gestured angrily at one of her men to open the same door André Fortinay had come through.

Katie had to hold back a sob as Alex’s beloved form strode inside. His gaze raked the space quickly, lighting on her and locking with hers.

A lifetime’s worth of promises passed between them in that instant.Please God, let there be time later to put all of them into words and action.

Alex tore his gaze away first, and held his arms away from his body as one of Natasha’s men approached him warily. The guy frisked Alex and then stood back.

“Natasha,” Alex sighed. “What have you done?”

He took off speaking in rapid, low Russian with the woman. Their conversation turned into a short, sharp argument than ended abruptly with Natasha sagging in defeat. Alex said something gentle and put an arm around the woman’s shoulders. Katie stared in shock as he led her to the same door he’d come in through.

Natasha’s men squawked, and Alex snapped something at them that sounded like an order. The men subsided.

It looked promising that Alex was leading her captor outside, but Katie was leery of getting her hopes up too much, yet. She held her breath as Alex and Natasha stepped through the doorway.

Please let no one try to shoot Natasha and miss.

So fragile, human life. It could be gone in the blink of an eye. A single twitch of a finger on a trigger and an entire life could be wiped out. If she’d learned nothing else in her time with Alex, it was to value each moment and not take the next breath for granted.

Katie saw shadows rush forward and it looked as if Alex passed off Natasha to someone else.

All of a sudden, he whirled and strode back inside the building. He barked an order at the mobsters who, shockingly, laid their weapons down and laid down on the ground themselves.

A rush of black-clad, body-armored, SWAT guys exploded through the door, but not before Alex was in front of her, bending down, wrapping her and Dawn in a crushingly tight embrace.

“I’ve got you, now. You’re safe, Katie. You and Dawn.”

Sobs tore through her as someone sliced her free again, this time not nicking her, and Alex drew her gently to her feet and into his arms.

“Don’t ever let us go,” Katie choked out.

“Never.”

“Excuse me, Dr. Peters. We need to get you three outside. We’re not done clearing the building and it may be booby-trapped,” one of the SWAT guys announced.

“Natasha said the place is clean,” Alex replied. “I think she was telling me the truth. But we’ll go, anyway.”

His arm looped over her shoulder and holding her tightly to his side, Katie stepped out into the bright sunshine.

It was pretty chaotic for a while after that. She and Dawn were rushed into a van and another doctor examined them for injuries. A team of FBI agents took a full statement from her starting with the phone call from Sister Mary Harris last night and culminating with Alex walking through the warehouse door.

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