Page 11 of The Blonde Who Came in from the Cold
“You are awake.” The giant had the kind of vague European accent that bad guys in movies always had and something about that made Alex want to smile. But first—
“You have to untie me! Now! Please!” She was breathing too hard. Her voice was breaking and—
The man hit her. Hard. Her head snapped to the right and Alex thought that she might bruise. All told, it wasn’t the worst part, but it wasn’t good either.
“Whew.” She let out a breath. “Thank you. Yes. I feel calmer now. But...” Her lip trembled. “I’m still handcuffedto a dead body!”
The figure was more shadow than man then, and she watched him turn and call over his shoulder.
“Prishlo vremya!”
Alex hadn’t heard the Russian language in a year, and just the sound of it made her blood turn cold.
Kozlov was dead.He was, she reminded herself.She’d killed him.But Kozlov had friends. And enemies. And Alex wasn’t on good terms with either, so...
“Untie me,” she begged as the goon flicked a switch. Instantly, a dim, dusty bulb sliced a circle of light out of the shadows. “Please? Please? Pl—” Then another figure filled the doorway, even larger than the first.Great.Had these guys fallen in a vat of radioactive waste? Maybe they were the product of a KGB experiment program?
The first guy had glasses, and the second had a goatee, but neither of those features went with either of their bodies, Alex thought as they huddled together for a moment, close and whispering. Whatever they’d been expecting to find, it wasn’t this, and they didn’t know what to do.Good.
Alex felt a tug on her arm that told her King was getting impatient. She slapped at his hand. He slapped back.
“He’s dead!” she cried again, and the goons looked back at her. “I don’t know what you idiots did, but you killed him!”
Glasses walked around the chairs and leaned close, reaching for King’s limp head, feeling for a pulse—
And that’s when it happened.
King pulled back and headbutted him—hard. Alex heard the glasses crack as the goon yelled, then fell to the ground, still conscious but groggy and unmoving and bleeding around the eye. And then King was up, practically dragging Alex out of her chair. Which was when Alex realized that they were in a classic good news/bad news situation.
The good news was they were temporarily down to one extremely large (and probably Russian) bad guy. The bad news was thatthey were still handcuffed together, back to back. Her right wrist bound to his left. His left to her right. And the other (extremely large, extremely ticked off) Russian was rushing toward them with a grunt.
“Not exactly ideal positioning.” King dodged like a bullfighter, and Goatee went wide.
“Thank you, Captain Obvious.”
Goatee lunged again, but Alex kicked her chair and sent it sliding across the concrete floor and the goon stumbled over it in the shadows.
They had no weapons, no backup, and no choice. These guys were going to kill them—eventually. It was just a matter of how much torture they had to endure first. But Alex wasn’t afraid, and that should have terrified her. She didn’t know where they were or how they got there, but this was familiar territory somehow. She’d spent nine of the last ten years fighting with Michael Kingsley—in one way or another. It was the first time in a long time that she’d actually felt at home.
“Bend over,” Alex said, and King didn’t argue. He just did it. Because hesitation is a death sentence, and if a seasoned operative says “duck,” you duck. If they say “bend,” you bend.
If Michael Kingsley III tells you not to come back...
Goatee was coming toward them, and Alex hurled herself backward, kicking out and catching Goatee under his chin as she flipped over King like they were contestants in the world’s deadliest dance-off. It might have been funny, if not for the deadly part. It might have been fun if she hadn’t found herself suddenly inches away from the face of someone she used to know but who, suddenly, felt like a stranger.
“You grew a beard.”
It was a stupid thing to say—a stupid thing to think—but for a moment she just stood there, frozen in that pale circle of light, trying to reconcile the man with the thick beard and too-long hair against the clean-cut, all-American guy who had once told her she didn’t belong at spy school. Even his eyes looked haunted, and Alex couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d been gone for a year, but he was the one who hadn’t stopped running.
It wasn’t like him. Something was wrong. But it wasn’t the moment to ask questions, not with the two of them standing there, hand in hand, like they were about to promise to love and cherish for the rest of their lives. Or make London Bridge come falling down.
There was movement on the ground, and Alex saw Glasses draw a gun, and then she dove, dragging King with her as—BAM BAM BAM—Glasses shot up from his place on the floor, leaving holes that looked like stars in the darkness of the metal roof. He was shooting half-blind, glass and blood in his eyes.
“Move!” King shouted, taking off to his right.
Which was unfortunate because Alex took off to his left, and they both came to a shattering halt at the same time, shoulders nearly jerking out of sockets, handcuffs biting into skin. Their arms were strung between them—taunt and vibrating like a string—and King looked like he was seriously considering letting the goons have her when Glasses raised his gun to shoot again, and the bullet zoomed between them, striking Goatee right between the eyes. He dropped like a rock.
Well, that was lucky.
