Armen Gharabegian - Protocol 7

The street lamps all along the road flickered, weak but illuminating. The orange sodium glare spiked off the Range Rover as Simon hauled Hayden’s body up the last few steps and stumbled onto the pavement. He could barely muster the strength to speak.

Andrew, close behind him, reached for the body still slung unevenly over Simon’s shoulders. “Let me help-”

Simon cut him off. “I’ve got it.” With tremendous difficulty, Simon went down on one knee and carefully, if awkwardly, rolled Hayden’s body onto the median strip of stunted grass next to the curb. Hayden turned boneless to face upward, looking sightlessly at the storm clouds overhead. There was no sign that the scientist was alive at all.

Simon pushed himself to his feet, every inch of his body aching. “I’ll run over and get the car.”

“But-”

He shook his head tightly and ran his fingers through his hair, gathering himself.

“No. Watch him. Make sure…”

Make sure he’s not dead yet, he wanted to say, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. Instead he just turned away and started running unevenly toward the Range Rover.

Andrew looked at Hayden’s body on the cold sidewalk next to him. “This is just a bad dream,” he said under his breath. Mere hours ago they’d been talking about embarking on a grand adventure, like some intrepid band of explorers in a Jules Verne novel. And now … now he was exhausted and terrified after carrying an unconscious body along what felt like miles of train track, two hundred feet below the street, while being shot at by…someone. Soldiers, spies, mercenaries, someone. Now he was too tired to even think about the danger that they were really in. All he could do was kneel on the ground next to Hayden and watch Simon approach the car and open the passenger door.

Andrew’s adrenaline was pumping so hard that he felt like the world around him had slowed down. The street was mostly quiet, save for the distant sound of cars approaching or long passed. The only thing that broke the silence was the sound of the opening door on the Range Rover.

Hayden could hear footsteps as well, but he had no idea where the noise was coming from. He was still locked in his body, staring blindly at the blurry image of the lowering clouds and wondering if the coming rain would blind him, since he couldn’t even close his eyes. Not at the moment, he told himself. Maybe not ever again.

The next thing either of them heard clearly was Samantha screaming.

* * *

Moments before, Simon had pulled open the passenger door, thrown himself in, and slammed the door behind him. As the interior lights dimmed, he saw Jonathan beside him, dozing against the glass, and almost laughed. “Let’s go, Jonathan,” he said, noticing how dark it was becoming. Even though it was early evening, it was almost black in the car…though he could clearly see Samantha sitting behind Jonathan, beaming at him, delighted to have him back.

“Thank god,” she said. “I’ve been-”

Simon ignored her for the moment. “Come on, Jonathan,” he said. “Wake up. Let’s get out of here!”

Jonathan still didn’t stir. I understand jet lag, Simon thought, but this is ridiculous. He put his hand on his friend’s shoulder and shook him. “Come on, we don’t have time for this, turn the damn car-”

Jonathan’s slumped forward and twisted as he fell. His head turned and skidded down the window glass.

It left a thick streak of blood on the glass as it slid across it.

Samantha was sitting right behind him. She saw the window. Saw the blood streak. And for the first time in the dying light, saw the ruin of flesh and bone at the base of Jonathan Weiss’ neck, where he had been shot at close range.

Her scream was so loud it nearly made Simon deaf.

“Oh my god, oh my god,” she shrieked. She popped open the car door and threw herself out, backing away from the car, screaming and screaming. The interior lights clearly showed what had happened. Jonathan’s shoulders and back were drenched in blood, completely invisible until he had fallen forward.

She had been sitting in a car with a dead man. My god, she thought numbly, I slept in there while he bled to death.

“Christ, what the…?” Andrew muttered under this breath as he watched Samantha back away from the car.

Simon froze for an instant-but only an instant. His training-all those years in mixed martial arts, many of them with Jonathan himself-finally paid off. He felt a cold, implacable control clamp down as he examined the wound, then pulled back, and slipped out of the car.

Andrew stood up when he saw Simon get out, go around the front of the vehicle, and open the driver’s side door. Only now was he aware that something was wrong. He left Hayden’s motionless body and ran to join them.

He was still twenty steps away when he saw Jonathan’s body fall lifelessly out of its seat and slump into Simon’s arms. He stopped short, unable to believe what he was seeing. Not another one, he thought. Just like Hayden.

Simon put his arms around his old friend and knew in that instant he was dead. The flesh was sticky with drying blood, and it was cold, cold, and heavy with death. He stood there trembling, Jonathan’s body half-in, half-out of the car.

Everything was happening so fast. He couldn’t think clearly-not anymore. His home invaded. Samantha attacked. Hayden paralyzed, maybe dead. And now Jonathan. Jonathan. Jonathan, the spy, the hero, the man who couldn’t be stopped, not ever. Jonathan was shot in the head and dead in his-

Andrew grabbed Simon’s sagging shoulders from behind as the shock of it hit Simon like a lightning bolt. His knees buckled and he started to collapse, but Andrew caught him, held him up. After a silent, steadying moment, they straightened together and pulled Jonathan’s lifeless body from the car, then dragged it back three feet, and loaded it into the back seat, into the place where Samantha had been sitting just moments before.

As they pushed the door shut a black helicopter, silent and menacing, flew overhead-high and fast at the moment, following the underground route of the subway, looking for them but not seeing.

Yet, Simon thought numbly. Not seeing yet. They had closed and locked the gateway and the door to the subway entrance before the black-clad soldiers had come round the bend. He didn’t think there was any way they could have known about their escape route; they should’ve continued down the dimly lit tunnel for at least another mile before they realized that Andrew and Simon and their valuable cargo had disappeared. But he couldn’t know that for sure. They could come surging up out of the underground or roaring down the street at any moment.

Samantha stood far from the Rover, hugging her arms and trying to keep her body from shaking. “What’s happening?” she said in a tiny voice. “What the hell is happening?”

Simon tried to rub the shock away with the heels of both hands in his eyes. Focus, he ordered himself. Focus. Shouting he said, “Hayden. We have to get Hayden in the car!” With a fighter’s discipline, he pushed himself into the driver’s seat and put his hand on the ignition key. “Get in, Sam,” he said harshly. “Right now!”

She didn’t move. She just pressed both hands against her mouth and shook her head, crying.

“Get in, I said! We’ve got to get the fuck out of here!”

Andrew put a hand on her bare arm and felt her flinch. “Get in the front,” he said quietly. “You don’t have to look at him.” He led her gently but insistently around the car. He opened the door for her and helped her inside. She was still trembling. Then he got in the back seat himself, next to Jonathan’s dead body.

The car started moving before Andrew was completely in the car. It didn’t matter; Simon only cruised fifty feet forward and stopped next to the motionless body of Hayden, sprawled on the side of the road near the entrance to the underground.