Beneath the Surface. Meredith Fletcher

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.

      Face it, he told himself. You may be washed up for fieldwork. Physically you’re still a wreck. And you’re supposed to keep emotional distance.

      That scared him. He didn’t know what he was going to do if he didn’t have his work. The last few months had nearly killed him. He didn’t like thinking about what might have happened if Allison hadn’t called.

      After wiping the fire extinguisher down, Rafe jogged through the door toward his car. Sirens screamed into the night. A crowd of people from another bar and a pizza place flooded two street corners under street lamps.

      “I’m gonna have to lose the car,” Rafe said as he swiveled and slid behind the seat. “There are too many potential witnesses. And cameras.”

      “The car’s not going to be a problem. I can make the car disappear.” Allison’s voice calmed. “I found your target.”

      Rafe pulled the transmission into Drive and dropped his foot onto the accelerator.

      Chapter 4

      Shannon ran down the street. She still didn’t remember where her car was. Everything looked different, and she was so scared she couldn’t think straight.

      During her career as a reporter she’d been in some tough places. She’d seen death up close and personal. Facing that had been hard, and it had touched her more deeply than she would have admitted to anyone. She didn’t like being weak.

      Memory of the man behind the bar raced through her thoughts. The beanie and the wraparound sunglasses hid most of his face, and she’d been too wigged out to get a good look at him, but she felt certain she didn’t know him.

      Maybe that didn’t have anything to do with you, she thought grimly. That bar isn’t exactly a hub for law-abiding citizens. Especially not if Drago was going to be able to kill you in the back room.

      A yellow cab rounded the corner and came down the street.

      Shannon stepped out of the shadows and waved frantically. She was so close to the cab she thought it was going to hit her. Desperate, she stood her ground. Even though she didn’t want to, she closed her eyes.

      Tires shrieked on the pavement.

      Thank God! When she opened her eyes, Shannon found the cab had come to a stop only inches from her.

      “Hey, lady,” the driver snarled. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He was an Asian man of indeterminate age, dressed in a short-sleeved khaki shirt. A hula girl danced on the dashboard beneath swinging fuzzy dice.

      “I need a ride.” Shannon started to go around the front of the cab.

      “Yeah, well, I got that. Hasn’t anyone ever told you how to hail a cab?”

      Ordinarily Shannon wouldn’t have let the insult pass. No one got the better of her in an argument. She rounded the corner of the cab and headed for the back.

      A line of holes suddenly appeared in the cab’s windshield. That appearance was followed almost immediately by the harsh cracks of gunfire.

      Though she knew she shouldn’t, Shannon couldn’t help glancing over her shoulder as she squatted down beside the cab. She’d been in enough combat zones in Iraq and, lately, Kestonia to know gunshots when she heard them.

      Evidently the cabdriver had experience, as well. He ducked down behind the steering wheel, shoved the transmission into Reverse and floored the accelerator.

      “No!” Shannon couldn’t believe it. She tried to hang on to the door handle, but she almost lost her balance and went face-first onto the ground. “No! Don’t leave!”

      The cabdriver never even looked back. He managed a three-point turn that left the tires smoking.

      Shannon got a brief glimpse of the frantically dancing hula girl and the wildly swinging dice, then the cab vanished around the corner. She stayed low and headed for the side of the street.

      Drago ran at her. His efforts to reload his pistol only slowed him a little.

      A solid line of buildings trapped Shannon out on the street. Bullets chewed at the sidewalk beneath her feet. Sparks flashed at every contact. The whines of the ricochets whined in her ears. She wrapped her hands around her head. Then she ducked into a deep-set door alcove of a cabinetry shop. Her heart hammered in her chest as she listened to Drago’s steps close in on her.

      She was out of places to run.

      

      Tense and frustrated, fighting to remain calm, Allison Gracelyn sat in the ergonomic chair at her desk and watched the action playing out on the three computer monitors in front of her. This was one of those times when it was hard to remember that she was in a position to help.

      Allison hadn’t slept in thirty-seven hours. A scrunchie held her brunette hair back. Her brown eyes burned with the effort of watching the computer