Beneath the Surface

The air was muggy and still. Fog off the Potomac River, which had given the neighborhood its name, streaked the night.

She turned to the right, judging that street was closer, and ran. The asphalt lining the alley tore at her feet. She ignored the pain because she knew Drago and the other men would be following. She had no doubt about that.

There in the darkness, Shannon wished she could find a policeman. Or her car. Either would be fine.

Rafe grabbed a bottle of whiskey that had fallen to the floor and miraculously hadn’t broken. Still lying on his side, he laid the shotgun over the crook of one arm, grabbed the bottle, opened it, poked a bar towel into the long neck and turned the bottle upside down.

The alcohol poured out and soaked the bar towel. A small pool grew under the upended bottle.

“I think maybe we should talk about this,” the man called out.

“I’d be happy to.” Rafe fumbled in his pants pocket for the Zippo he carried. He wasn’t a smoker. But every good field agent always kept something on his person for starting fires.

“Could be we got off on the wrong foot.”

“It’s possible. I got two left feet.” Rafe knew the man was waiting for Vincent Drago to come from the back. If the man did, they could catch him in a deadly crossfire.

Rafe didn’t intend to wait around for that to happen. He flicked the lighter and held the flame to the alcohol-soaked bar towel. A blue-and-yellow flame crawled up the material immediately.

“Are you a cop?” the man asked.

Now we have time for Twenty Questions? Rafe couldn’t believe it.

“No.” With a quick twist, Rafe lobbed the Molotov cocktail he’d made over the bar and in the general direction of the men.

“Get down!” a man yelled.

Rafe shoved himself to his feet. There was less pain than he’d expected, but it was growing sharper and biting deeper. On the other side of the counter, the whiskey bottle shattered. The alcohol caught fire with a distinctive bamf.

During the confusion, Rafe stood and raised the shotgun to his shoulder. As soon as he saw the big man spinning toward him, Rafe blasted the man with the final shotgun round.

The big man sailed backward and dropped bonelessly into the fireball taking hold on the floor. Rafe wiped his prints from the shotgun and scooped the baton from the floor. He assumed Allison would want a clean crime scene. And if he was questioned about his involvement by law enforcement officials later, he had some latitude in the story he’d tell.

A quick rap and a push collapsed the baton. He replaced it on his belt as he drew his pistol and pointed it at the last surviving bar patron.

“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot, man!” The third man threw his pistol across the room and laced his hands behind his neck as he hit his knees.

He’s got prior knowledge of the position, Rafe thought. He spun and went to the hallway Shannon Connor had come from. He paused at the corner. His leg functioned smoothly enough, but the pain was aggravating.

No one was in the hallway.

Rafe locked his hands in the familiar push-pull grip he’d been trained to use with a semiautomatic pistol and went forward in profile. His steps were smooth and controlled, as if he hadn’t been gone from the work for almost two years.

Perspiration trickled down his forehead and into his eyes. Some of it was caused by tension, he knew, but some of it came from the pain in his knee.

He crept up on the storage room door. If Shannon had come from back there, it stood to reason that she wasn’t alone. And Vincent Drago hadn’t put in an appearance.

When he whirled around the door frame and peered inside, though, the room was empty. He hurried on to the alley and peered in both directions. There was no sign of Shannon or Drago.

Damn it.

“You there?” Rafe asked Allison.

“Yes.”

“They’re in the wind.”

“Get your car.” Allison’s voice sounded crisp and calm. During the years Rafe had worked with her he’d never seen her lose it.

Rafe hesitated only a second. Was she telling him to get the car because she didn’t trust his leg to hold up? Had this been a mercy mission after all?

And if it was, what the hell had gone wrong?

He growled a curse and went back through the bar. The third man was long gone, but that was fine. Loyalty wasn’t a big requirement among the crowd Drago ran with.

“Put the fire out,” Allison said. “According to the fire code, there’s a fire extinguisher behind the bar.”

Rafe complied automatically. He’d noted the fire extinguisher himself while he was behind the bar. Allison’s thoroughness didn’t surprise him. Agents’ lives depended on her eye for detail and quick thinking while in the field. He’d been trained that way himself.

“What about the woman?” he asked.

“I’m searching. I’ll find her. You’ll need transport to get her clear.”

“I’m not going to leave her in the lurch.”

“Neither am I.”

Rafe knelt and felt his knee burn with the effort. He barely kept a cry of pain to himself. This was why Medical wouldn’t put him back in the field. And part of the pain was because he avoided putting too much pressure on the leg. He didn’t want it to come completely apart on him again.

“What about the local police?” He grabbed the fire extinguisher, pulled the pin, aimed the nozzle at the fire and squeezed.

White foam enveloped the alcohol blaze. The flames went out at once. Only a black scorch mark and a few tendrils of smoke remained.

“The police are on their way,” Allison said calmly. “You have no cover for this op.”

Rafe figured that from the quiet way Allison had contacted him.

“If you get caught, we both burn for this one,” she added.

“So I won’t get caught. And if I did, I wouldn’t give you up. That’s not my way.” Rafe felt a little angry. After North Korea, she should have known that.

“I know. I was just mentioning the stakes.”

“Find Shannon.” Rafe caught his slip too late. He couldn’t believe he’d referred to the woman by name. But over the past three weeks of observing her in New York, then following her here, he’d felt as if he’d gotten to know her.

He’d even started wondering what it would be like to talk to her. They had a lot in common. Shannon Connor had her work and didn’t invest anything in her social life. She’d had a boyfriend, according to Allison’s files, but that evidently wasn’t still going on.

Sometimes he’d even fantasized about inviting her to dinner. After all, she wasn’t a hardened criminal or a foreign agent. As far as he could tell, Shannon Connor was just a woman in trouble. His impulse was to keep her safe. And he definitely couldn’t have told Allison that was going on.