Page 68 of Turn the Tide
The air was sharp with smoke from the main street.
Logan jumped, grabbing onto the top of the wall with apparent ease. At the same time, Glasses burst from the shadows near the mouth of the alley with his sights locked onto them.
Logan was big and powerful—had the agility of a Bengal tiger—and was over the fence in a blink. He grabbed her hand, pulling her toward the main street. To a rendezvous point, where Knox was lurking. Perhaps the others, too, who were supposed to meet her at the safe house in Strasbourg. Ethan Diaz and Mike Walsh. Maybe Diaz would be camped on a rooftop with his sniper rifle, eye trained through the scope waiting for her.
But this is Logan.Logan. Her best friend. The other half of their dynamic duo. He’d never set her up.
She yanked free of his grasp. “Do you trust me?”
Without hesitation, Logan said, “Always.”
She glanced through the chain-link fence. Glasses drew a suppressed pistol from his coat.
Pop.Pop. The flash of gunfire lit up the darkness in the alley as bullets ricocheted.
Ashley took off up the hill with the hard, uneven surface assaulting her feet. Logan Silva, the only man she’d ever trusted with her life and her heart, was at her side. He kept pace, his long legs devouring the cobblestone street. Their breath punched the frosty night air white.
Adrenaline fired her muscles, heating her blood despite the icy smack of wind lashing her face. She led him in a grueling sprint up the steep hill toward the Schlesisches Tor U-Bahn station. The U1 and U3 trains ran regularly, every few minutes.
A tinny sound rang out. A half-dozen bullets pinged a parked car that they’d cut in front of. The back windshield shattered. Another bullet whizzed by her head and bit into a building. A spray of stone from the facade nipped her cheek.
They rounded the corner onto a busy road, bobbing and weaving past pedestrians. Their footsteps pounded across pavement. The two-story brick building was within sight. Not far now.
She ducked into the train station and raced up the stairs to the outdoor platform. Logan glanced around, checking their six. Catching her breath, she looked at the time for the next train.
Three minutes.Damn!Why couldn’t it be the way it was in those blockbuster action movies, where they slipped onto the train in the nick of time and got away? None of this had been how she’d imagined—tip of the spear for the good guys. Did good guys exist?
Logan was good. One of the best men she knew. And he was here, trusting her, believing in her. She had to keep them both alive. They couldn’t wait in the open like sitting ducks.
Glasses was fast. Scary fast, she’d discovered in Munich.
She peered over the side of the low brick wall and glanced one story below at the street.There. Glasses stormed across the road, barreling toward the station. Her gut twisted.
Own the street.
“Come on.” Ashley ran to the end of the platform and hopped off onto the tracks.
“What are you doing?” Logan asked. “Are you crazy?”
Yes!She was crazy. Desperate. Determined. Willing to risk her life and gamble her future on a principle, a belief, a burning desire to safeguard the greater good.
Without answering, Ashley ran east toward the closest station on Warschauer Strasse.
Logan followed. Gravel crunched under his heavy footsteps.
In seconds, he was beside her, staring at her as if she’d gone off the deep end. She might’ve fried some brain cells on this foray, but she was sane enough not to let Glasses box them in at the station. They had a knife. He was ferocious and cunning and had a gun.
Ashley knew the saying about bringing a knife to a gunfight. Not a good idea.
She bolted—a full-out sprint not reserving any energy in the tank—as if it was the last half mile of a marathon and her life depended on crossing the finish line. The stakes were higher.
Logan, who’d pulled himself out of a dark hole to find her, was in danger. Because of her. She’d feared losing Logan every time he’d gone on a mission. Since embarking on this op, she feared capture, torture—the horrific kind Knox had prepped her for withresistance through interrogationtraining: sleep deprivation, prolonged nakedness while being questioned, dousing her in water and locking her in a freezing room, waterboarding her until she almost drowned.
This was different. She was terrified of getting someone she cared about killed.
Ashley glanced over her shoulder.
Glasses hit the tracks and tore off after them. Part man, part machine, one hundred percent ruthless killer.
