A noise came from behind her, she turned to find David, holding a gun out, leaning against one of the crates.
“They’ve gone,” she said.
He slumped, and she ran the few short paces to his side and slipped his arm around her shoulders again. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
It took forever to cross the warehouse with David barely able to stumble, let alone walk. Every step that echoed around the building worried Molly that someone would come out of the shadows and kill them. She didn’t care so much about herself, but she needed to get David to safety. Get him a doctor.
After about ten minutes, her own legs started wobbling under both their weight. She was sweating hard. She hoped it was a side effect of the drug she’d been jabbed with, but the exertion was killing her. At least that’s how it felt. She was cold, sweaty and shaky. Just a few more steps to get out.
Just a few more steps.
Just a few…
She reached for the door handle, but it was farther away than she thought.
A few more steps. Her fingertips scraped the metal of the door. She pulled it open with the rest of her energy.
Daylight.
And the metal-on-metal cocking of a lot of weapons.
“Hold it.”
“Hands up!”
“Show me your hands.”
She slumped to the ground, her last action was to try to make sure David fell on her, and not the hard ground. He did.
She didn’t care about the guns. Relief was the last emotion her consciousness registered.
They had American accents.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
She came to in the back of an ambulance. The only other occupants were a paramedic and a woman in a HELLO KITTY T-shirt. Molly had an oxygen mask over her face and a drip in her arm.
“Where’s David?” she asked, her voice muffled by the mask.
Hello Kitty looked at the paramedic, who nodded and lowered the mask.
“I’m sorry, honey?”
“Where’s David?” Molly noticed there were straps holding her to the bed. She struggled against them, trying to understand what was going on.
Hello Kitty undid one of the restraining bands. “You’re not a prisoner. We’re transporting you to the medical center at the embassy. I’m Sadie. Harry’s friend.”
Molly wanted to feel fear, or hope, or relief, but there was no emotion inside her. Like at all.
“I know you’re feeling strange, but that’s the chemical we’re giving you to combat the drug that you had in your system. We don’t know what it is, so we’re giving you a generic drug that will counter the effects of most sedatives. The only side effect is that you’ll feel weird for a while. It’s artificially equalizing all the hormones and chemicals inside you.
Molly nodded. “Sadie?”
“I’m glad I found you. I think Harry might have killed me if I hadn’t.” She gave a rueful smile. “Is there anything you can tell me about what happened to you?”
Molly told her what had happened to her since the assassination.
“We can’t find any evidence of the kidnapping in the warehouse, Molly. I’m sorry. So that means we don’t have anything actionable to take to the Russians. Or to the United Nations. It’s just a wash right now.” Sadie stared out of the side window, with a frown.
And then she realized that Sadie hadn’t told her what had happened to David. Her brain knew that was wrong. Something was wrong. But her body couldn’t process the feeling. Well her brain was going to have to do the job of her heart too. “Where’s David?”
Sadie looked at her watch. “I’m waiting for an update. He’d lost a lot of blood, I’m afraid. But they’re doing their best. Harry and Matt told me he was a strong guy. We’re just hoping he’s strong enough. You did a good job with the credit card and the bandage, by the way.” She smiled and checked her watch again.
“The credit card,” Molly said. “I took it from Victoria Ruskin’s purse. There must be some way you can trace her with that?”
Sadie held her gaze for a moment. “We also have the gun that was in David’s possession. With the credit card, maybe eventually we’ll be able to make something stick. But it’s not much.
Molly made a decision. “If you take me to David, I’ll give you two other things that might help you. One thing I’ll give you now. The other thing, later.”
She handed Sadie the notes that had started everything.
Molly sat by David’s bed. There was no freaking way she was going to let him walk away from her again. Mission or no mission. Injury or no injury. As long as she had eyes on him she felt…nothing. Dammit. Enough with this antidote or whatever it was.
She traced the tube of the IV attached to her wheelchair and found the plastic tap, and turned it off. Then she took out the needle from the back of her hand. It hurt. On TV, the tough guys yank it out like it’s nothing, but it hurt like hell. Turns out nothing is really like it is on television.
Her eyes flickered to the small screen attached to the wall in the corner of the room. No one was talking about the assassination anymore. A scientist had conclusively—he said—proved that fracking will kill the planet’s infrastructure within fifty years. So that had been the main headline since she’d got to the hospital. Some people believed him, some didn’t. So she suspected after all the furor, things would go back to normal. But meantime, the 3D hologram of the collapse of the planet that he’d shown at his presentation was on every channel. She watched the implosion on the TV for about the tenth time.
“Is the world ending?” A hoarse voice came from the bed.
“David!”
“So that’s a yes?” he said, trying to reach for a glass of water.
“Stop! Don’t…pull anything. You have more stitches than the curtains there. Just let me bring it to you. She struggled with her wheelchair for a second, and smiled at her own attempts to get out without putting the brake on.
“Jesus. Why are you in that wheelchair? What happened?” He winced as he tried to move.
“Don’t do that either. Let me adjust the bed so you can see that I’m fine. They put me in it because of the drugs Victoria gave me. A lot, apparently.”
She sat on the bed and held the water to his lips. He sipped and cleared his throat.
“They didn’t take you out of the country?” he asked, concern etched across his face.
Molly looked down at the bed. “They wanted to, but I made a deal with them to stay.”
“And why would you have done that?” He frowned.
“I wanted to make sure you didn’t die. But now I know you’re okay, I’ll be off. Nice knowing you…” She got up to leave, brushing imaginary lint from her jeans.
“I don’t blame you, sweetheart. I let you down back there. I’m so…”
“What? Are you kidding me? You never let me down. Not once.” She was taken aback that he’d thought that for a moment.
He frowned again. “You left. I figured you’d had enough of me leading you into danger,” he half choked out, half whispered.
Her stomach contorted at the thought that he’d been carrying this. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry. It never occurred to me that you’d think that. I left because I hated myself that I’d got you involved in the mess I was in. I just wanted you to have…what do they call it? Plausible deniability? I didn’t want you to go to jail for helping me. I wanted you safe. You’d already been through so much…that was all it was.” Tears leaked out of her eyes as she stood up.
He grabbed her hand. “Not so fast, sweetheart. I’m not letting anyone debrief you except me. Last time you were debriefed we all ended up here. What happened to Peterson, by the way?”