James Patterson - Thriller - Stories to Keep You Up All Night

Like it was a big surprise. She thought back on the argument at the restaurant. Paul announcing in a loud voice that he couldn't allow the embassy courier to drive her to Macedonia.

His look of near gloating-she now realized-when Bashkim had offered a ride.

"You planned this," Jane said. "You set him up."

"That's ridiculous," Paul said, but his voice was as hollow as his eyes.

He glanced over her shoulder, and grim satisfaction spread across his face. She turned and saw the soldiers unloading boxes from the trunk of Bashkim's car. They had found the machine gun, too. Over to the side of the road, Bashkim lay spread-eagle on the ground. One of the soldiers kicked him as he passed and the prone man gave a strangled cry.

"Stop it, you bastard, we need him for questioning," the crew-cut man called.

Paul cursed and jumped out of the cab. He walked toward the soldier and in the moments that followed, Jane saw a different man than the one she had known. His bearing, even the tenor of his voice, changed. He was self-assured, in charge, bristling with power. The soldier cowered as Paul dressed him down in perfect-sounding Albanian.

Jane listened, astounded. Paul had told her he was hopeless with languages. Now this stranger walked back to her and said, "I'm sorry, Jane. But you were never in danger. We were tracking you with the global positioning device." He nodded smartly at the cell phone, which she still clutched impotently in her hand. "Led us right to the safe house."

Realization bore down like an oncoming train that would smash her into a thousand pieces. She had been the decoy. A nicely turned-out Western woman. Each side had used her. Something did break in her then. But to her surprise, when she examined the sharp and deadly pieces, she found that they had their own terrifying beauty and usefulness.

"What did Bashkim do?" she asked, willing her voice not to tremble.

"Our pal over there is one of the biggest smugglers in Tirana. Remember when the country rioted and looted the armories?

He's been trading machine guns to al-Qaeda for Afghani heroin. We've been watching him for months."

"We? Since when does the embassy track smugglers?"

"The embassy works hand in hand with Interpol."

"You're not some lowly attache, are you, Paul?"

He ran his hands through his hair and looked away. He didn't say anything. He didn't have to.

She felt that sanity was a thin membrane, stretching ever tighter. If she moved even a fraction, it would snap and she'd slip under. Yet she had to know one thing.

"Did you plan this? I mean, from the beginning? Because I thought.it felt."

She shook her head, blinking back tears. She had been played for a fool.

A shadow crossed Paul's face.

He licked his lips. "I never meant." he began.

He didn't get a chance to finish.

Two cars came roaring down the highway from the east, machine guns blazing. As she threw herself to the ground, Jane thought she recognized the vehicles that had peeled past the roadblock. Had they also been in the convoy that had trailed them from Tirana? Gunfire erupting around her, Jane clutched her head and crawled on her belly toward the nearest truck, expecting at any second to be hit and feel no more. Reaching the undercarriage, she rolled beneath it and listened to the shouts, the guns, then the groans of dying men. She prayed no bullets would pierce the gas tank.

After what seemed like hours, the shooting stopped. For a long time, there was silence. In the distance, a bird screamed, the exultant cry of a carrion feeder that spies dinner. Then she heard footsteps. She cowered and curled herself into a ball, wishing she might disappear. A shadow fell on the highway, and she saw a polished leather shoe.

"Come out," said an Albanian-accented voice in English. Bashkim.

She didn't answer.

"If you don't come out, I'll shoot you."

Still she stayed silent, wondering if he was bluffing. She heard the crack of his knees as he squatted. A hand with a gun appeared, angling to and fro, then settling its muzzle blessedly far from where she lay. Jane held her breath as he pulled the trigger. One of the truck's tires exploded with a loud pop and began to deflate. She gave an involuntary scream.

"I knew it." His voice was triumphant. "Last chance, Jane. Next time I aim for your voice."

"Okay," she said. "Don't shoot."

She crawled out and they stared at one another.

"Please," she said. "I didn't know it was a setup."

Bashkim's lips pursed. He looked at where Paul's body lay, eyes staring glassily at the sky. Near his head was a pool of blood. All around her were other crumpled bodies. One of the cars that had shot at them lay on its side, smashed and burning. She looked for the other.

"It went over the edge," Bashkim said. "They couldn't have survived."

"Wh-who were they?" Bashkim grimaced.

"My bodyguards. Don't you know it's dangerous to travel in

Albania?"

"Jesus," she said, seized with an uncontrollable bout of shivering.

Bashkim stared at her, and Jane thought he might be trying to decide whether to kill her now or later. They both knew she'd seen too much to live.

"He betrayed me, too, you know," Jane said.

He examined her indifferently. "So I heard."

He walked to where her cell phone had fallen and smashed it with his heel, grinding it into the asphalt like a cockroach.

"Don't kill me," Jane said. "I'll help you. I've got an American passport, money."

"Yes," Bashkim nodded. "With your passport, we'll breeze through."

He prodded her with the gun, back to the Mercedes. All the tires had been shot out, and smoke was rising from under the hood. She wondered if it might catch fire while they stood there. The trunk stood open, white powder seeping out of bullet-riddled boxes.

More boxes were scattered along the road, next to Bashkim's machine gun, which had been reduced to twisted metal. Bashkim told her to empty her backpack and hand over her passport and wallet, which he put in his pocket. Then he made her tear open the boxes and fill her backpack with the sacks of white powder. Pulling an old rucksack from his trunk, he ordered her to fill that, too. Then, he loaded her up like a pack mule and marched her off the highway, into the rocky countryside to a dirt trail pounded hard by animals.

"The border's about ten miles away. We'll have to stay off the road."

They set off, moving like ghosts through the denuded landscape.

"Let's stop here and rest a moment," he said when they reached a rock outcropping. His tone deliberate and unsettling. Bashkim eased himself down. He stared at her and she looked away, thinking about escape and when she might make a break for it. She needed cover. Bashkim stood up, laid the gun on a rock. He walked toward her as she scrambled to her feet. Suddenly he flung himself at her, knocking her to the ground. Jane tried to wriggle free but he was strong and his weight pinned her. She saw the look in his eyes. Perhaps the day's events had awakened something atavistic in him. Perhaps it had always been there. But she knew she was of no consequence to him anymore. He was going to kill her once they crossed, so it didn't matter what else he did in the meantime.

"Get off me," she panted.

He shoved a hand down her pants and tugged.

"Fucking get off."

"Fucking. Yes, that's what all you American girls like. I knew it the first time I saw you."

"You're wrong. Get off."

She tried to brace one hand against the dirt so she could twist aside and knee him. Instead, her fingers glanced off a large rock. She groped for it. It grazed the edges of her fingertips, just out of reach. Bashkim unzipped his fly.

Jane squirmed backward and flexed her fingers toward the rock. Her fingers nudged it, slid along the rough, granular edges, searching for where it might taper, afford a grip. There. Her hand closed tightly.