She saw the headlights behind her almost immediately as they followed her down the road, heading north as she drove out of Coral Hills and toward the district.
Shit. She didn’t care about the potential CIA mole in her office now. The only place that seemed even remotely safe was the Capitol. Then she thought of her parents. Christ, if the CIA’s cleaning team didn’t get her, maybe they’d head for her parents’ home instead. They could blackmail her, do anything. Worst of all, Ethan was gone, unheard of in days.
The net was closing in and suddenly there seemed to be no safe place to turn.
Natalie yanked the wheel of the car to the left and headed directly for the Sousa Bridge. Pennsylvania Avenue would take her in a near-perfect straight line into the heart of the district, where even the CIA would find it hard to make a hit on her without leaving some kind of evidence behind. The avenue was a two-lane that became a three-lane as it crossed the river into the district. Heavy traffic and plenty of witnesses — if she could get there.
The car headlights behind her grew larger as the vehicle behind accelerated, and then suddenly it swerved out to her left wing and smashed across the trunk of her car. The vehicle swerved to the right as she fought for control along Marlboro Pike, but the car smashed up onto the sidewalk and skidded out of control onto an abandoned forecourt just off the main road.
Natalie grabbed the steering wheel and turned the key to restart the engine, only to see the huge form of an SUV bump up onto the sidewalk in a flash of headlights and screech to a halt in front of her car.
From within climbed a tall man, one hand holding a pistol that was pointing directly at Natalie as she sat behind the wheel and stared at him. His outline was distorted by the rain streaming down her windshield.
‘Step out of the car!’
Natalie froze, unsure of what to do. A moment later and the man fired at her vehicle, the gunshot deafeningly loud as the bullet shattered one of her headlights.
‘Get out now!’
Natalie reached down with a trembling hand and opened her door, then stepped out into the rain. It pummeled her hair and streamed down her face as she stood beside her car with her hands in the air and stared at the long, gaunt face of the man. His voice, when he spoke, was low and murderous.
‘My apologies, Miss Warner, but you’ll have to come with me.’
‘Where’s my brother?’ she uttered, trembling from more than just the cold. ‘Where’s Ethan?’
The long face cracked with a cold little smile that made the man seem even more cruel.
‘Busy,’ he replied.
From somewhere inside of her a spark of the Warner spirit flared into life, and she dropped her hands. Behind him, a car slid in alongside the sidewalk, its lights extinguished. Natalie kept her eyes fixed on her assailant.
‘You followed me this morning, and you killed Ben,’ she said with sudden, unshakeable conviction.
The man shook his head.
‘I didn’t kill anybody,’ he replied. ‘They got themselves killed because they didn’t understand the importance of national security.’
Natalie’s anger flared brighter.
‘The only thing the citizens of this country need security from is people like you,’ she snapped back, ‘because you’re the ones killing us.’
The man inclined his head. ‘C’est la vie.’
He raised the pistol and aimed at Natalie’s head.
Natalie barely saw the figure that lurched out from behind the parked SUV and rushed at the tall man from behind. The splashing of footfalls on the wet asphalt alerted the agent and he span, but not soon enough. The figure plowed into him and sent them both sprawling to the ground.
In the light from the SUV’s headlights, Natalie stared in disbelief as she saw Ben Consiglio crash to the ground on top of the CIA man.
‘Get out of here!’ Ben yelled at her. ‘Run!’
Natalie staggered backward as Ben smothered the CIA man with his weight and struggled to keep the man’s gun arm on the ground. She whirled and leapt into her car, started the engine and slammed it into reverse. The remaining headlight beam flashed across the two men as they fought on the ground in the pouring rain, and she heard another gunshot and saw a flash of light as the shot went off into the air. Ben twisted the weapon from the agent’s hand and hurled it across the lot.
Ben’s head jerked awkwardly as a knife-edged hand sliced across his throat, and then another slammed palm-first up under his jaw and he was hurled off the CIA man’s body to sprawl onto the asphalt as he struggled to get away.
The agent rolled sideways and came up onto his knees behind Ben. Two arms folded around Ben’s neck, the CIA man interlocking them with one hand cupping the opposite elbow as the forearm crushed the knuckles of the opposite fist against Ben’s throat. Natalie saw Ben’s eyes bulge and his tongue leap from between his teeth as he fought for his life in the pouring rain, his fingers scraping across the agent’s face, searching for his eyes.
She could hear their agonized growls as they strained against one another, saw Ben’s features turn a shade closer to pallid, and made her decision. She leapt out of the car and dashed across the lot to where the pistol lay in the rain. She picked the weapon up, surprised at how heavy it felt in her grasp, and turned back just as she heard a terrible gagging sound above the hiss of the rain.
Ben’s head was tilted back, his tongue poking from between his lips and the veins in his neck bulging. Natalie raised the pistol. The CIA man violently twisted Ben’s body to one side. A shiver of horror snaked down Natalie’s spine as the agent glared at her.
‘You want him to live, you’ll drop the weapon.’
Natalie gritted her teeth.
‘You let him go,’ she snarled, ‘or you’ll get nothing.’
The agent watched her for a long moment. In the distance she could hear police sirens wailing, could see far off down the freeway the flashing lights closing in on them. The gunshots must have alerted people close by.
‘Time’s running out,’ she snapped. ‘Let him go, now!’
The agent smiled coldly, and was about to twist Ben’s neck further when another voice called out.
‘Mr. Wilson.’ The agent turned as Doug Jarvis appeared, a pistol in his grasp aimed at the agent. ‘Game’s up.’
The agent released Ben, who slumped forward. His head smacked against the cold, unforgiving asphalt. The agent stood up, watching Jarvis.
‘You’re out of your league, old man.’
Jarvis didn’t reply, simply keeping the pistol trained on Wilson. Wilson looked at Natalie.
‘Time for us to leave, Miss Warner.’
Natalie kept the pistol pointed at him, ignoring the rain that had plastered her hair in across her face.
‘Go to hell.’
In a flash the agent dropped down onto one knee as his hand flicked to his waist and whipped out another, smaller pistol with frightening speed, the snub-nosed weapon flashing up to point at Jarvis.
Natalie pulled the trigger.
The huge noise and recoil of the pistol shuddered through her arms and threw her backward as the muzzle flash lit up the shards of rain pouring down around her. As she fell she heard another gunshot that echoed across the parking lot as the agent’s pistol fired uselessly into the air. She landed flat on her ass in a deep, cold puddle and stared blankly in front of her.
The tall man lay motionless on his back in the rain, the pistol lying by his side.
Natalie looked down at herself. The rain had drenched her jacket, blouse and skirt, and her legs were splashed with muddy water. She ran one shivering, numb hand across her chest but could find nothing to suggest that she had been hit.