Dead Shift (The Rho Agenda Inception Book 3) Read online

  To her left the door to the walk-in refrigerator slammed outward and Janet ducked sideways as a bullet tore through the space where her head had just been. She tried to swing her weapon around, but Qiang Chu was on her, his kick sending the MP5 flying into the large metal hood above the stove, sounding like the clash of a huge pair of cymbals.

  Janet whirled, using the force of his blow to launch her into the spin. Her hand pulled her knife from its sheath, swinging it around in a backhanded strike toward Qiang’s exposed throat. Moving with startling economy of motion, Qiang shifted just enough to let the blade pass less than an inch from his neck. His left hand rocketed out, impacting her solar plexus with stunning force, knocking the wind from her body and sending her reeling to one knee in the corner where the stainless steel stove met the wall.

  Two feet away, the Chinese assassin looked down at her and grinned.

  Unable to draw breath, Janet gripped her knife and drove it down hard, a strike aimed not at Qiang Chu but at the point where the copper line that carried natural gas from the wall entered the oven. The blow was perfect, the blade tip punching a hole in the sheet metal and then down into the line just inside the oven, funneling natural gas into the enclosed space.

  As Qiang’s eyes shifted to the glowing pilot lights beneath the stove-top burners, his smile dissolved. Spinning away, he sprinted toward the parlor door as Janet forced herself into a stumbling run back toward the pantry. For two seconds it looked like she might make it.

  Then the explosive shock wave sent her tumbling into the black.

  CHAPTER 112

  Qiang leapt through the open doorway and ducked left, placing his back against the thick stone wall. The force of the gas explosion that followed popped his ears and shot a breath of flame out into the castle’s parlor room, just a brief flash that was quickly sucked back into the dragon’s mouth, but hot enough to frost his eyebrows. They fell away in little white flakes when he rubbed his face. Crazy bitch!

  She’d come closer to killing him than anyone had in a long time and she’d sacrificed herself to do it. Too bad she’d worked for the Americans. He could have used someone like her on his team, a team that was getting thinner by the moment.

  Qiang moved away from the wall into the ornately decorated parlor, the painted ceiling depicting angels reaching from clouds to touch fingers, the distant pearly gates in the background. But in the dancing light of the flames on the far side of the kitchen door, it looked like a hellish parody of heaven. Qiang headed for the closed double doors that led out onto the covered stone bridge that connected the castle’s east wall to the great tower on the far side.

  Levering down the handle on the rightmost of the monstrous doors, Qiang shoved it open, readied himself, and then dashed across the bridge and into the open tower entrance. If there were snipers out there, they hadn’t been able to tell whether or not he was one of their own through their nightscopes.

  That wouldn’t be true when the helicopter swooped in to pick him up. Luckily helicopters were harder to shoot down than most people thought. Unless you had a shoulder-fired missile or hit it with a rocket-propelled grenade, it took an extremely lucky shot to bring the machine crashing down.

  Qiang started up the circular stone stairway. Time to get the hell out of America.

  CHAPTER 113

  The feeling that Janet was in trouble hit Jack with such force that he gasped aloud. Then another explosion echoed through the halls, this one very different from the two underground blasts, sending out a great flash of light he could see through the courtyard windows. A gas explosion.

  Jack raced into a large, ornate room into which the flames from the room beyond boiled around the doorframe, climbing upward toward the rafters. Damn it!

  Ignoring the open door on his right, Jack ran to the door to the courtyard, sensing the shooter on the roof as he burst through into the open. A man hiding behind an abutment on the far side swung his rifle in Jack’s direction. Too slow. Jack fired twice as he ran, one of his bullets knocking the man over backward and sending the rifle clattering down onto the paving stones in the courtyard below.

  Two seconds later, Jack reached an alley on his right, turned into it, and then ducked through a shattered door into a ruined pantry. There, facedown on the floor, Janet lay in a huge pool of blood, backlit by the roaring flames from the adjacent room, flames that already crawled along the rafters above.

  Sliding to his knees beside Janet, Jack reached for her, terrified of the wound he would see when he turned her over. His hand touched the blood-covered floor and he pulled it back as if he’d been bitten. He sniffed his hand and breathed a sigh of relief. Tomato sauce. She had fallen in a puddle of tomato sauce from the shattered cans.

  Carefully, he rolled her over onto her back, his fingers feeling for the left carotid artery. Her pulse was slow but steady. The heat from above made it clear that he had to move her, but when he lifted her in his arms, her eyes opened and a low moan escaped her lips.

  For now, Jack ignored her disoriented movements and carried her back out the door he’d just entered, pausing just long enough to satisfy himself that no further danger lurked outside. He turned right, entered the gatehouse, and climbed the stairs that took him into a room at the top of the castle’s east wall.

  “Put me down,” Janet said, her words slightly slurred. “I’m okay.”

  “You look like hell,” Jack said, setting her gently against the stone wall.

  Indeed, she looked like Carrie doused with pig’s blood. Fortunately, most of it was spaghetti sauce.

  “Qiang Chu?” she asked.

  “Still out there.”

  “Then go get him!” Janet hissed.

  Seeing his hesitation, Janet raised her voice. “I’ll be fine here. Go kill that bastard!”

  Jack straightened and felt the aura of danger that was Qiang Chu pull him out onto the thick outer wall. To his right and below, a covered stone bridge arched across a gap to the high tower.

  Of course. The tower was the only way out of this death trap.

  The wind gust that blew against his face was surprisingly strong, as if it wanted to blow him off this high wall and onto the rocks below. Jack leaned into it as his long strides carried him toward the tower. When he reached the bridge, he leaped from the wall onto its roof. His booted feet, still slick with tomato sauce, slipped on the stone, and he tumbled outward and down.

  Jack released his Glock and caught the edge with both hands. Pain screamed from his left palm as his body slammed into a stone abutment. But he didn’t fall. Marshaling his strength, Jack pulled himself back up and crawled back onto the bridge’s stone roof. He paused just long enough to wipe the bottoms of his boots on his pant legs and then climbed back to his feet and walked across to the tower wall.

  He considered climbing down the wall to enter the tower through the bridge portal, but that would be exactly where Qiang Chu would expect him to enter. Instead he put his hands on the wall, found the stonework satisfyingly rough, and began to climb.

  Ten feet from the top, Jack heard the sound of the approaching helicopter and redoubled his efforts, throwing himself up the wall with every ounce of strength in his battered body.

  No you don’t, you son of a bitch! I’m not losing you again!

  CHAPTER 114

  Qiang heard the Airbus AS355 helicopter before he saw it, coming in low from the northeast with its running lights off, an approach that would take advantage of the woods to keep it concealed until it was almost on top of the castle. The top of the tower was flat and square, surrounded by an outer wall with crenels spaced every three feet in the style used to allow medieval archers to fire down upon enemies through those cracks.

  Access to the top of the tower was through a four-foot-square hole in its center where the stone staircase terminated. Qiang stood beside the stairwell, his weapon covering the topmost bend in the stairs in
case The Ripper tried to interrupt his escape. But The Ripper was already too late.

  The helicopter noise suddenly rose in volume and it decelerated. It dropped toward him as gunfire erupted from the woods, bullets tattooing the aircraft. From within the chopper, two men returned fire with automatic weapons blazing. Unfortunately, Grange’s pilot was pure civilian and flying into a hot LZ wasn’t a part of his background. The helicopter passed over the top of his head six feet too high for Qiang to grab onto one of the skids.

  “Lower!” Qiang yelled, the sound barely audible in the rotor wash that buffeted him.

  The machine gunner on the right side of the helicopter took a direct hit and tumbled out the open side, his body ricocheting off the tower wall with a wet thud before disappearing into the darkness below. A round punched a hole in the aircraft windshield just to the right of the pilot and the man panicked, pulling away in a hard banking turn that took the chopper back over the protective woods.

  SHIT!

  But it was coming around again. Qiang knew why. A gun pressed to the back of a man’s head had a remarkable way of helping him rediscover his courage.

  Then, amidst the sound of more gunfire, The Ripper topped the wall behind him. Qiang sensed his presence and whirled, only to have the pistol kicked from his hand before he could aim it. It spun away to clatter down the stairwell. Without hesitation, The Ripper closed with him, the man’s eyes reflecting a red glow from the rapidly expanding castle fire as he attempted a double-leg takedown.

  Qiang countered and they went down in a tangle of arms and limbs. Qiang shifted his torso, grabbing The Ripper’s bloody left hand in both of his, completing the double heel lock for the arm bar. But when he threw his weight backward to break The Ripper’s arm, the man thrust his hips out and rolled into a reverse arm bar.

  Before The Ripper could complete the hold, Qiang Chu fish-hooked his right eye. The man twisted away violently and Qiang’s probing finger barely raked the corner of his eye socket. But the movement allowed Qiang to slip from the hold and whip himself back to his feet.

  He noticed that the helicopter noise had faded. That didn’t surprise him since it couldn’t pick him up while he fought The Ripper atop the high tower.

  The Ripper rolled to his feet and reached for his knife, a look of surprise etching his hard features as his hand came away from the sheath empty. Three feet away, Qiang assumed a balanced stance, clutching The Ripper’s black dagger in his right hand.

  The Ripper stumbled, catching himself just in time to prevent a fall, but it left him open to the blade. Qiang smiled. With all the speed he’d acquired through a lifetime of dedication to the martial arts, he thrust the black blade toward The Ripper’s stomach, his voice a low growl.

  “Time to die!”

  Fatigue accompanied by a wave of dizziness washed over Jack as he stared at the Chinese killer holding his knife. Apparently the combined blood loss from the jagged hole in his left hand and the head wound had been worse than he’d thought. He felt his left leg buckle slightly, but he refused to fall.

  Qiang smiled and lunged forward, driving the blade at his stomach.

  “Time to die!”

  Having sensed the attack as it began, Jack crossed his open hands, letting Qiang’s wrist slam into the block. With a sudden turn to his left, Jack grabbed Qiang’s thumb and uncrossed his hands, twisting the arm up and back in a move that sent the knife spinning away and dropped Qiang onto his back.

  Qiang countered and again Jack saw the maneuver coming before it began. But this time, his bloody left hand let him down. As Jack attempted to lock his heels around the Chinese killer’s neck, his grip on Qiang’s wrist slipped.

  Time froze. Jack saw the inevitable result of his failed countermove but was powerless to prevent it. With a rapid shift of his body, Qiang locked Jack’s right arm against his head with an arm triangle choke that shut off the blood supply to Jack’s brain.

  His vision darkened at the edges, a red tunnel that shrank as he watched. His thoughts turned to Spider’s last request. And Janet. She’d just started to believe in him again. Then the light in that tunnel winked out.

  NO! I will not die this way!

  With a mighty blast, adrenaline exploded through his body. His vision returned, every detail blazing scarlet. In an instant the pain and weakness was burned away by the raging inferno in Jack’s soul.

  He reached up, grasped his right fist with his left and drove it toward Qiang’s neck with everything he had. Surprised, Qiang shifted to apply more pressure, but, ever so slightly, his arm lock gave way. Just enough to keep Jack conscious. With the return of blood flow, Jack increased his pressure, driving his right elbow down into Qiang’s throat and then rolling up to straddle him.

  Qiang fought to ease the pressure Jack was applying to his throat, but this time Jack was ready. He reared back and slammed his right elbow down into Qiang’s nose, throwing all of his weight into it. Cartilage and bone shattered beneath the force of that blow and Jack felt blood splash his face. Good!

  Again and again Jack hammered the spy, his elbow striking that face with the full power of his shoulder behind it. And with each blow, Qiang became less and less recognizable.

  A bubbling cry escaped Qiang’s lips, half rage, half terror. Jack twisted, locking his ankles around Qiang’s neck in his own triangle choke. Twenty seconds later, the struggle ended with a whimper and a shudder, but Jack continued to squeeze until he was certain that no life remained within that limp body.

  He lay back, took three deep breaths, and then, with a Herculean effort, climbed back to his feet. Jack reached down, grabbed Qiang’s left ankle with his right hand, and dragged him to the tower wall. It took two tries to lift the body onto the top of the wall, but only a slight shove to send it tumbling over the side.

  Jack leaned through the crenel, watching the body crash into the side of the arching bridge fifty feet below and then spin away into the dry moat, the scene illuminated by the orange flames that leapt from the castle roof. Even though Qiang had already been dead, it didn’t hurt to make certain.

  Completely drained, Jack slumped down, back against the wall. The adrenaline spent, he had nothing left to give.

  I did it, Spider. Just like I said I would.

  Then he heard a familiar sound . . . the whup whup of the returning helicopter.

  CHAPTER 115

  Janet Price leaned back against the gatehouse wall and breathed. Her whole body felt like she’d just been tossed out of a speeding car to tumble down the highway. The pounding inside her skull was the worst. And that smell! The odor of singed marinara sauce hung so thick in the air around her that it clogged her nose. Hell, some of it had apparently gone up her nose.

  She stifled the gag impulse and shook her head to clear it. Ouch! Bad idea.

  “Janet, you copy?”

  Harry’s voice in her ear startled her. Christ, her earpiece still worked? And they say defense contractors aren’t good. If the guy who made this was here right now, I’d kiss him.

  “Roger,” she replied.

  “I hear a helicopter inbound behind me. Can’t see it yet.”

  “Shoot it when you do.”

  “Wilco.”

  Although her muscles screamed and her head spun, she forced herself to her feet. There were times for lounging around weaponless, but this wasn’t one of them. And she knew just where she could remedy that situation.

  Janet limped down the stairs to the ground floor of the gatehouse, her head a ringing church bell clubbed by a demon. Still, she continued putting one foot in front of the other, out into the alley and back toward the long room where she’d killed three of Qiang’s men.

  Ahead, fire licked out through the pantry entrance and danced on the roof above, but hadn’t yet managed to jump the alley to the north wing of the castle. But, damn it was hot, despite how tightly she hugged the far all
ey wall. Crouching, she held her breath as she felt her way through the thick smoke, though her eyes stung so badly she was afraid she had somehow missed the door she was looking for.

  Then she found it, standing open as she’d left it, and stumbled inside. She leaned back against a stone wall, coughed, and sucked in a lungful of breathable air. Why the hell couldn’t she see better? Despite the orange glow shining through the entryway, everything seemed to blur before her. Not a good sign. Neither was the fog that shrouded her thoughts. What had she come here to do?

  An urgent thought blossomed in her brain. Keep moving! Help Jack.

  She forced herself forward into the large room beyond and almost tripped over two dead bodies, one sprawled atop the other. That man lay faceup, his right arm reaching out toward the Uzi that lay on the floor just beyond his open hand. That’s what she had come for, a weapon.

  Janet knelt to search the dead man’s pockets, recovered three full magazines, and stuffed two of them in one of her utility vest’s pockets. Grabbing the Uzi, she ejected the largely spent magazine, slapped home a fresh one, and verified the selector switch was set to full auto.

  Moving back to the door, she took a deep breath, readied herself, and charged out into the smoke-filled alley, this time turning right toward the courtyard. When she burst out into the open, Janet raised her weapon and scanned the rooftops, pleasantly surprised that no one started shooting at her. A familiar voice screamed in her head. Her voice. MOVE!

  Casting off the pain and dizziness that tried to slow her, Janet turned left, ran past the flames that roiled out through the kitchen door, and entered the castle parlor. Through the smoke she saw them, the huge double doors that opened out onto the covered bridge that led to the tower. And the rightmost of the doors stood open. With flames crawling across the ceiling above, Janet raced through that door and out onto the bridge.