Keep Me(76)
They’re aiming all around me, to keep me contained in one spot.
Rolling the dead man off me, I slowly get to my feet, keeping my gaze trained on the armed figures at the far end of the hallway. The gunfire stops as I begin to move, the silence deafening after all the noise.
“What do you want?” I raise my voice just enough to be heard on the other end of the hallway. “Why are you here?”
A man rises up from behind the gurney, his weapon trained on me as he begins to walk in my direction. He’s masked like all the others, but something about him seems familiar. As he stops a few feet away, I see the dark glitter of his eyes above the mask, and recognition spears through me.
Majid.
Al-Quadar must’ve heard that I’m here, within their reach.
I move without thinking. I’m still holding the now-empty machine gun, and I lunge at him, swinging the gun as I would a bat, arching it deceptively high before jabbing it low. Even with my injuries, my reflexes are excellent, and the butt of the weapon makes contact with Majid’s ribs before I’m thrown back against the wall, my left shoulder exploding in agony. My ears are ringing from the blast as I slide down the wall, and I realize that I’ve been shot—that he managed to fire his weapon before I could inflict real damage.
I can hear yelling in Arabic, and then rough hands grab me, dragging me along the floor. I struggle with all of my remaining strength, but I can feel my body beginning to shut down, my heart laboring to pump its dwindling supply of blood. Something presses down on my shoulder, exacerbating the fiery pain, and black spots cover my vision.
My last thought before I lose consciousness is that death will likely be preferable to what awaits me if I survive.
Chapter 24
Nora
I don’t realize that I’m screaming until a hand slaps over my mouth, muffling my hysterical shrieks.
“Nora. Nora, stop it.” Peter’s steady voice pulls me out of the vortex of horror, dragging me back to reality. “Calm down and tell me exactly what you saw. Can you calm down enough to talk?”
I manage a small nod, and he releases me, stepping back. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Rosa and Ana standing a few feet away. Ana’s hands are clamped over her mouth, tears running down her cheeks again, and Rosa looks scared and distraught.
“I didn’t—” I can barely force the words through my swollen throat, “—I didn’t see anything. I just heard it. We were talking, and then all of a sudden, there were gunshots and—and screaming, and then more gunshots. Julian—” My voice breaks as I speak his name. “Julian must’ve dropped the computer because everything went topsy-turvy on the screen, and then all I could see was the wall, but I heard it—the gunfire, the screams, more gunfire . . .” I am not conscious of sobbing uncontrollably until Peter’s hands close around my shoulders and gently guide me toward the couch.
He forces me to sit down as I begin to shake, the terror of what I just witnessed combining with memories from a few months earlier, when I had been taken by Al-Quadar in the Philippines. For a few horrifying moments, the past and the present merge, and I’m again in that clinic, hearing those gunshots and feeling fear so intense that my mind can’t register it. Only now it’s not Beth and I who are in danger.
It’s Julian.
They came for him—and I know exactly who they are.
“It’s Al-Quadar.” My voice is hoarse as I get up, ignoring the tremors that continue to rack my body. “Peter—it’s Al-Quadar.”
He nods in agreement, and I see that he’s already on his phone. “Da. Da, eto ya,” he says, and I realize that he’s speaking Russian. “V gospitale problema. Da, seychas-zhe.” Lowering the phone, he tells me, “I just notified the Uzbekistani police of the events in the hospital. They’re on their way, as are more soldiers. They’ll be there within minutes.”
“It will be too late.” I don’t know where my certainty comes from, but I can feel it deep within my bones. “They have him, Peter. If he’s not dead yet, he will be very shortly.”
He looks at me, and I can see that he knows it too—that he knows how hopeless the whole thing is. We’re dealing with one of the most dangerous terrorist organizations in the world, and they have the man who’s been hunting them down and decimating their ranks.
“We’re going to track them down, Nora,” Peter says quietly. “If they haven’t killed him yet, there’s a chance we may be able to retrieve him.”
“You don’t really believe that.” I can see it on his face. He’s just saying it to placate me. Majid’s people have been able to evade detection for months, and it’s only the lucky capture of that terrorist in Moscow that led to the discovery of their whereabouts. They will disappear again, hiding somewhere else now that they know their location in Tajikistan has been compromised.