Stephanie Doyle - Calculated Risk

She thought she sounded pretty convincing. Probably because most of what she’d told him was the truth. No, it hadn’t been her idea to go after Kahsan, but everything else she’d told him was dead-on.

“Possibly,” he accepted. “But this isn’t tiddledy-winks. You’ve been out of the game a long time, Bri. What makes you think you can play with this man?”

“I made you as a tail tonight,” she reminded him.

A short nod acknowledged her victory. “How did you make me? I thought I had been rather careful.”

“I heard your shoes.”

“So you leaped to the conclusion that any man walking on the sidewalk had to be following you. That’s awfully presumptuous even given the circumstances.”

“This is Stansfield, Pennsylvania. In the dead of winter,” she told him, “even the lawyers around this place wear boots.”

He lifted his gaze from his drink and met her eyes. In the light of the fire his normally cold gray eyes didn’t seem as dangerous as she remembered. Instead, they seemed almost inviting, as though he wanted her to share a memory with him. But that wasn’t a place she could go. Not with him. Not again.

He stood and set his half-finished drink on the mantel as far away from her ashtray as possible. “Your fighting was a little sloppy,” he mentioned. “And you were breathing hard after the chase. You’re out of shape. Could be the cigarettes.”

“Yeah, well, you weren’t exactly operating at top speed, either, chief. Could be your age.”

“Okay. For now I’ll buy your story. But this changes everything. I have to tell my superiors what you’ve done. I have no idea how they’ll react. But in the meantime you’re stuck with me. If Kahsan does bite-”

“If? I would say it was more a question of when.”

A snap of wood echoed from outside almost in response to Sabrina’s statement. It was a simple sound. The sound a cold, near frozen, branch makes when the wind hits a tree too hard.

Or the sound a heavy foot makes when it steps on a board that can’t support its weight.

Inside the house they froze, then stared hard at each other, no communication necessary for what they both understood.

They had company.

“Who?” Sabrina mouthed.

Quinlan’s expression was severe. “Who do you think?”

But that didn’t make sense. If it was Kahsan and he was moving on her, why do it now when there were two of them?

“No. It doesn’t work,” Sabrina whispered, shaking her head. “Besides, whoever is out there is making too much noise to be anything but hired help.”

Quinlan held a finger to his mouth, the universal sign to shut up. Quiet descended. Then another creak. This time the sound of pressure on wood rather than an actual snap. Sabrina was even more convinced. Whoever was outside was trying to be more careful, but they weren’t quite cutting it. One more step and the board cracked. The noise was unmistakable. As was the surprised shout that followed. Whoever he was, he knew that stealth was no longer an option.

Instantly, Quinlan reached for his semiautomatic Glock in the holster under his arm. He moved to the corner of the living room dragging Sabrina with him. His body pressed her back against the wall between the front door and the bay window to their right as they waited.

The first shot that fired through the window wasn’t a surprise. Then came another. Then all hell broke loose. Together they crouched to their knees tucked as tightly as they could in the corner of the room, their bodies hopefully sheltered by the sturdy beams of the old house, while someone took aim at them from outside with what could only be an AK-47.

Glass shattered inside the room as bullets ricocheted off the brick fireplace. From the foyer she could hear the glass surrounding the front door falling in chunks to the hardwood floor.

“Damn it,” she cursed.

“You hit?”

“No. I used stained glass around the front door. Do you know how much that costs?”

“How many shooters?” he asked.

Sabrina counted the bullets leaving marks in her living-room wall. Then she estimated what was landing in the foyer. Applying that to what she knew a semiautomatic rifle could hold, she answered, “Two shooters, far enough away that I’m probably not counting the guy from the porch.” She shook her head. “This doesn’t make sense.”

“You asked for this,” he growled even as he covered her face with his arm to protect her from the flying glass.

“No, he can’t want me dead. I’m the only one who can get him what he needs.”

“Fine, then he’s trying to take me out. Regardless, we’ve got trouble.”

But that didn’t make sense, either, she thought, even as the bullets were zinging over their heads. She’d made it clear she didn’t know the location of Arnold’s computer. What good did it do Kahsan to take out the agent making contact until he was sure she knew where they were going? Something else was at play.

“We need to get out of here,” Quinlan concluded as glass continued to pepper them.

“Definitely. The driver?”

“He’ll stay in the car. It’s bulletproof.” Reaching for the Nextel two-way phone that he kept attached to his belt at all times, Quinlan hit a button. “Horner. Horner.”

There was a small pause before he heard an answer. “Where?”

“Around back. Pull the car up as close as you can.”

“There’s a raised deck out back,” Sabrina told him.

“How many feet wide?”

“Seven and three quarters. That’s as close as he’ll be able to get.” She knew he was considering that it was a long way to run uncovered with only one gun to return fire against two AK-47s.

“We’re going to need another gun,” she said, telling him what he already knew. Her gun was upstairs. “Cover me, then get to the kitchen.”

“Sabrina,” he shouted.

She didn’t wait for whatever reprimands were sure to follow, but instead charged for the stairs that led to the second floor. She heard the sound of his return fire, which temporarily halted the barrage of flying steel.

Glancing behind her she could see the pinholes of light breaking through her front door and the glass surrounding it. Thirty-seven, she counted automatically. All of them above the level of the doorknob. Structurally there was nothing left to the door. A swift kick would knock it down.

Then she turned her head forward and continued up the stairs in a stooped position. No looking back in a gunfight. Keep your eyes on the place you need to get to and get to it. How many times had Quinlan told her that?

Turning the corner on the second floor she raced for her bedroom, keeping her head low and found what she needed in the drawer of her nightstand.

Wrapping her hand around the compact silver Colt 45 Defender, she sighed with relief. With a gun in her hand, there was at least a chance. Moving forward she winced as a piece of glass she’d picked up from downstairs pinched through her sock. Acting quickly, she shucked both socks and fished out her rarely used jogging sneakers that she habitually kept under her bed. Shoving her feet into them, laces untied, she moved out of the bedroom. The tempo of the bullets was picking up again.

Once more her fast brain tried to decipher what this meant. Killing her made no sense. None. Without her, the data that Kahsan wanted would be lost. And why the heavy-handed approach? Why not fucking knock first?

Rather than head down the staircase, Sabrina moved around the second-floor landing to the room that had served as the laundry room. There was another flight of stairs that led to the kitchen and from there she and Quinlan could exit the back of the house where the driver hopefully was waiting.