Shit.
He canted the rifle forty-five degrees and acquired the vehicle with the side-mounted unmagnified reflex sight, intent on suppressing the gunfire. Keeping the sight’s red dot centered on the racing SUV, he repeatedly pressed the trigger until his thirty-round magazine ran dry.
Chapter 40
Munoz’s body locked in pain, the familiar static discharge sound of a stun gun filling the air. Bauer didn’t waste the moment, pivoting under him and judo flipping his stunned body to the street. He landed hard, a sharp kick to the side launching him into the BMW’s rear tire. The stun gun sounded again and he flinched, anticipating another dose of high-voltage agony. When it didn’t come, he sprang upward, fully expecting to rescue Daly from a similar beat down.
Instead, Daly had managed to turn the tables on the stun-gun ninja. The SEAL had her arm bent in an awkward angle over her shoulder, the stun gun zapping her own collarbone area, but she still resisted. Her feet pushed back against the side of the SUV, preventing Daly from pushing her inside, despite the high-voltage snap, crackle, and pop.
Munoz quickly closed the gap, hell-bent on knocking one of her legs loose so they could stuff her inside. They didn’t have time to explain this to her. Another threat was inbound. Gunfire exploded from the approaching SUV, drowning out the steady, suppressed fire from Melendez’s rifle above them. Bullets snapped through the air and thunked into the adjacent vehicles. They really needed to get off the street.
A bullet shattered the window next to Daly and Bauer, miraculously missing their entangled mass. Bauer dropped her legs in response, and Munoz barreled forward, knocking her into the SUV. He sat on her until Daly opened the door on the opposite side a few seconds later and hauled her the rest of the way in. He closed the door and tapped Mazurov on the shoulder, yelling for him to get moving.
With Bauer still struggling in both of their grips, the SUV raced east on North Washington Street, sailing past the inbound threat without taking any fire. Warm spring air rushed through the empty window next to him. Melendez had done his job well. He always did.
“Get off me!” screamed Bauer, squirming underneath them.
“Any time now, David!” Munoz yelled.
A terrified face appeared between the front seats. “Audra! It’s me.”
She stopped struggling for a moment, resuming with even more ferocity. “You fucking animals!” she screeched. “He has nothing to do with this!”
“Audra! Everything is fine! Karl Berg sent me,” said David Bauer. “He told me to tell you that he’s sorry he couldn’t meet you for your favorite hazelnut-flavored latte.”
“Get off me,” said Audra Bauer. “How dare you involve my husband!”
“He demanded to be here,” said Munoz. “Are we good?”
“We’re far from good,” she said, still struggling.
“Honey, they’re on our side. I’ve been with them for a few hours in a safe location,” said her husband.
“Where the fuck is Karl?”
“Karl can’t move right now,” David answered. “He was severely beaten and tortured.”
“Jesus,” she muttered, all of the resistance melting away.
“Can I get off you now?” asked Munoz. “Without getting a straight arm across the face, that is?”
“We’re good.”
Munoz and Daly let her up, buckling her in between them. She started to talk, but he silenced her with a curt shake of his head.
“Echo One, how are we looking?” asked Munoz.
“No police units between your position and the interstate. Alpha units need to hustle. First responding unit is like twenty seconds out from the intersection,” Graves responded.
“Oscar One moving. I don’t think a pickup is advisable,” said Melendez.
“Oscar Two concurs. We’re almost back at the car, but I’d rather be moving away from the intersection when the police arrive,” said Daniel. “We didn’t open fire, so our cover is still intact. We can circle back around to a busier street in the downtown area and grab Alpha One on our way to grab Alpha Three.”
“Sounds like a plan,” said Munoz. “Echo One, help them out.”
“My pleasure.”
“Where are we headed?” Bauer asked.
“Safe house owned by a trusted friend,” said Munoz. “A nice, secluded spot. Karl’s waiting for us.”
“Why didn’t Karl give me a heads-up about your plan?” said Bauer. “That could have gone really badly for you if I had a knife with me. And who exactly are you?”
“Jeffrey Munoz. At your service,” he said, smiling at her.
“No shit,” she said, shaking her head. “Sanderson’s people?”
“Recognize me?” said the driver, turning his face toward her for a moment.
“You gotta be kidding me!” she said. “Mazurov?”
“I go by Eric Freeman these days,” he said.
“And you? You don’t look like one of the original members,” she said, nodding at Daly.
“I led the raid on Sanderson’s compound in Argentina two years ago. Scott Daly.”
“Who else is involved?” she asked.
“The Petroviches and a few others,” said Munoz.
“And you all happened to be in the country at the same time when this Russian plot unfolded?”
“Not exactly,” said Munoz, checking the street behind them.
“What does that mean?”
“I think it’s better if Karl explains it,” said Munoz. “Whatever happened here may not be the Russians.”
Chapter 41
Jessica Petrovich crouched behind a minivan, waiting for the signal from Graves. She’d arrived at the lot a few hours earlier in a car she’d stolen from the Tyson’s Corner Galleria Mall parking garage. She’d parked in the middle of the lot and walked through the back door of the Freaky Bird Coffee Roasters.
Cappuccino and scone in hand, she walked around the quaint downtown area, ducking into shops and killing time. An hour before the never-to-happen rendezvous between Karl Berg and Audra Bauer, she strolled past the lot along West Maple Street, casually scanning the cars for any obvious signs of surveillance, taking a mental note of the empty spaces. Nothing appeared off.
Berg had asked Audra to park behind the coffee shop so she could slip into the place unobserved from the street. From an espionage field-craft perspective, the request made little sense, which was why he had suggested it. The shop had wide, floor-to-ceiling windows facing Broad Street, so it was ridiculous to suggest that they might remain unseen.
Their possible eavesdroppers would make the same observation, deducting that the parking lot request was a ruse to intercept Bauer and move her to a safe location. They’d station at least one team, if not two, in the immediate vicinity. Jessica predicted one team inside the parking lot and another inside the coffee shop to block that avenue of escape. A third team nearby on West Maple Street or the bank parking lot across the street was not out of the question.
Not detecting anything an hour before showtime, she walked to the next cross street and took a left on Park Avenue, finding a bench near the Falls Church municipal center. She waited about thirty minutes before heading back down Park Avenue and slipping between two businesses connected to the lot. From her new vantage point behind a full trash dumpster, she had scanned for newcomers, starting with the spaces that had been empty. After five minutes passed and nothing grabbed her attention, Jessica started to wonder if she’d made a bad assumption.