Code Name: Dove. Judith Leon

transportation or his pickup man?

      With Jacobson, Joe moved again. When they’d circled ninety degrees and only five cars separated them from the terrorist, Joe spotted the tops of heads and the gun hands of three men in plainclothes sticking out from behind an unmarked car.

      They were local police. Maybe FBI. Whoever. The SOB hadn’t fled because their car blocked the exit. Joe whipped out his ID folder, flopped it open. The fine, cold drizzle pearled drops on the plastic cover. Peeking over the Plymouth’s fender, he aimed the folder in the direction of the three plainclothes men, waved it in the air. “Police,” he bellowed.

      The assassin let loose another triple burst. A bullet zinged past Joe’s left ear just as he turtled his head behind the fender. The dampness on his brow wasn’t just rain; his underarms were hot and wet. He bellowed again, in the direction of the plainclothes types who’d squatted out of sight. “He’s one of the terrorists. Keep him pinned down.”

      The terrorist fired off a single round. Stivsky yelled, slowly and in clear words, “This is the FBI. You cannot get away. Throw out your weapon, raise your hands and walk out so we can see you.”

      Silence.

      “I don’t like it,” Joe muttered. “Let’s try drawing fire again.”

      Jacobson nodded.

      They rose and scuttled two cars closer to the bull’s-eye of their deadly little circle.

      Joe put his head against the ground, scanned under the blue van and found what he was expecting. The man was sprawled flat on the ground. It might be a trick. He sorely doubted it.

      Stivsky gave the order and they all rushed the van. With Stivsky’s gun trained on the prone man, Joe felt for a pulse at the base of the man’s neck. The guy was dead. But no bullet wound anywhere. The autopsy would probably find cyanide or some other quick way out. So much for an interrogation. The FBI lab boys could get information out of him in other ways. If he had a record. If the organization he belonged to wasn’t all that professional. All in all, however, not a good day for the good guys.

      A dark silence was receding; sound was filtering back to Nova. She trembled with terror. Please, don’t hurt me. Her eyes pinched tight to blot out the hated face, she struggled to pull into a fetal position. She should protect her stomach. Her stepfather, Candido, was very likely to kick again. The effort brought a wave of nausea.

      “You probably shouldn’t move.”

      That wasn’t right. The voice—a man’s—was soft like Candido Branco’s but it was full of concern, not lust, not anger. She felt, instead, her father’s presence. The man who had loved her, whom she had adored and who had died so unfairly. Way too soon, and in a stupid, meaningless accident.

      Nova forced her eyes open. Saw pale yellow walls. But not her father. She saw the face of the Alyeska man.

      A great sadness of loss tightened her chest—through the years that crushing weight had caught her many times and she was always unprepared for it. She would never stop missing her father.

      And then suddenly relief washed over her in a warm flood. The terror wasn’t real. Childhood fears could be pushed again to the depth of her mind.

      She sat up and the Alyeska—what was his name? Yes, Duncan—scooted so he could support her back.

      “Do you feel dizzy?” a male attendant in white asked her.

      Her struggle with the assailant flashed in front of her in all its violence. God in heaven, she’d blown it! She looked at Duncan. “Where is he?”

      “Who?”

      “The assassin!”

      “He ran out that way.” Duncan pointed down the hall to her right. “Stivsky and Jacobson and your partner went after him.”

      The throbbing at the back of her head was growing hard to ignore. She put her hand to it. Mistake. Her palm came away covered with blood. Her skin crawled.

      The attendant put a heavy hand on her shoulder. “You should sit a bit longer. Are you sure you don’t feel dizzy? Someone’s getting a nurse and a wheelchair.”

      Sitting like a slaughtered lamb with an audience to observe her humiliation was unbearable. She put her bloodied hand to the floor, pulled her legs under her till she was on all fours and, feeling like a defeated prize-fighter, began to rise. The attendant and Duncan rushed to take an arm each. A wave of dizziness left her swaying.

      She clenched her fists. The dizziness receded, but the pain in her psyche did not. God help her, she’d blown it. The others simply had to catch the assassin. She’d still have to face her failure, but at least the Company would have a critical lead. The worst thing she could imagine now was that the assassin had killed both witnesses and then escaped.

      Maybe I was overconfident. Maybe afraid. Her psyche took another blow. It was true. There at that critical moment, fear had ruined her concentration. But the man had been so strangely, weirdly strong.

      A woman handed her a white towel. “For your head,” she said. Nova put the towel to the throbbing spot, then checked for damage. There had to be blood all over the back of her head, and a generous smear of bright red indicated she was still bleeding. A nurse arrived, pushing a wheelchair. “Let me take a look at that,” she said in a cheery voice as she took the towel from Nova’s hand. “Mmm. We’re going to need stitches. Come along, sit down, and I’ll take you to the emergency room.”

      “First I need to check what’s happened upstairs.” Nova pressed the elevator button.

      The nurse frowned. “You need to come to the ER with me. A doctor must check you out. You can’t just start wandering around.”

      The lady in white was missing the point. “I’m still on the job. First I have to check upstairs. Duncan, you explain to her.”

      Most of her spectators had wandered off. Only the male attendant, Duncan and the nurse stood gaping at her as though she were a sideshow freak. Mercifully, anger finally kicked in and pushed out her anguish. No use lamenting what she couldn’t change.

      What she could hope was that he’d failed. And hopefully she’d find the witnesses still alive.

      At the fifth-floor nurses’ station, a rain-drenched Joe was handed a towel by three nurses who informed him that both the terrorist and pipeline employee were dead, as were the two guards, that the desk nurse had merely been knocked unconscious, that the candy striper would probably never recover from what she’d seen, and that his partner was having her head stapled by Dr. Graywing in the third room down the hall, on his left.

      He thanked them, gave them a warm smile, then headed down the hall.

      When he knocked on the door, Graywing called, “Come in.”

      Nova Blair sat on an examining table, her back to the door and her head tilted slightly down so the long hair draped her face. Dr. Graywing was daubing the back of Blair’s head with gauze.

      At the sight of the wound, his anger rekindled. He was angry that by bad fortune Nova Blair had been the one to pursue the assassin. “Legendary,” his phone contact had said. Legendary for what? He moved to the other side of the room so he could see their faces.

      “The assassin’s dead,” he said. “Suicide capsule I’d guess.”

      His partner didn’t say anything.

      Graywing shook her head and said, “Ghastly.”

      “How’s your head?” he said to Blair.

      Without moving she said, “It’s nothing.”

      Graywing clucked. “Not so. It is a deep, two-inch long scalp wound. She insists she won’t remain here for observation, but I’ve told her for the next twenty-four hours she must look out for signs of concussion. Drowsiness or nausea.”

      “How’d