Hot Mercy (Affairs of State Book 2) (35 page)

“We’re Americans!” she gasped. “We have Talia O’Brien, the missing photographer.” She gulped for air as one of the two Marines stared at her, openmouthed. The other stood back, weapon at the ready as if she might be a threat. “Please. Russian hitmen…they’re after us. We need sanctuary. Now!”

“Ma’am,” the nearest Marine said in a polite but firm voice, “may I see your passport and visa?”

“They’re stolen…gone!” she shouted. Besides, their documents had been fake, so what good would they do if they’d had them? “Don’t you understand? They’re going to kill us right here in the street if you don’t—”

At the sound of an approaching engine, Mercy spun. Around the corner, not fifty feet away, came the black sedan. It seemed at first to hang back, as if its occupants were assessing the situation. In the next moment, it throttled forward, engine growling like a big angry dog as it gained speed. 

“See that car?” Mercy screamed. She wanted to seize the guard by his uniform shirt front and shake him. “In ten seconds they’re going drive past, open fire, and blow us all away.”

“For God’s sake, open the gates!” Sebastian shouted from the Jeep. He’d jockeyed the vehicle around to point its nose at the driveway.

Mercy stared transfixed at the approaching vehicle. It and everything around her seemed to be moving in slow motion, as if to enable her to better take in the final moments of her life. The guard was still talking at her, a hand on her shoulder, trying to calm her down, asking again for her identification.

There was nothing she could say to convince him to open the gate. Time was up.

She watched in agonizing horror as the rear and passenger-side windows in the approaching sedan rolled smoothly down. The muzzles of two guns poked out. Mercy threw herself back into the Jeep as bullets pinged off metal then shattered a window. Sebastian’s wide palm snapped out and pressed down on the back of her head, shoving her to the floor, beneath the dash.

“Sebastian, drive!” she screamed.

From her doubled-over position, she heard what she imagined must be the Marines returning fire. She hoped they had dived in time behind the cement barricades she’d seen on either side of the iron gate protecting the embassy. She stayed down but looked up and to her right as the Jeep moved forward, saw that the tall, black grille of the gate sliding open to let them in.

“Ah!” Sebastian cried out, and suddenly the vehicle lost momentum.

She snapped her head around in time to see him fall forward over the steering wheel. His foot had slipped off of the accelerator. A raw path of blood and flesh streaked his temple.

“Sebastian, are you all right? Oh, God, no! Answer me!” But he didn’t. Couldn't. Bile rose into the back of her throat; a sob escaped from deep inside her.

Mercy leaned across the console, pressing her left shoulder between Sebastian's limp body and the blood-soaked steering wheel. She twisted around, forced her foot into the floor space on the driver's side. Her shoe jammed down on the accelerator, forcing it to the floor as she grasped the steering wheel and aimed for the widening space in the security gate. The Jeep shot forward, too far to the left but scraping past the iron bars at comet-speed.

Armed Marines exploded from the building but Mercy was barely aware of them, seeing only the tops of their heads above the side of the Jeep as she struggled to reach the brake. With Sebastian’s dead weight in her way, she couldn’t stretch her leg or even an arm that far. She did the next best thing. She steered toward the tall hedgerow screening the embassy’s front entrance. Bracing herself for the crash, she hoped for the best.

                                          39

The room was small and utilitarian, its only furnishings two narrow beds, two visitors’ chairs, one metal locker, and a collection of machines that pumped fluids or registered vitals while emitting annoying beeps. Its walls had been painted an unfortunate urine-yellow, and the toilet and sink in the attached room smelled cloyingly of pine cleaner that seemed not to be working as well as it might. Although the room was less than comfortable, it felt safe. For the moment, that was all that mattered.

Mercy stood between the two beds in the American embassy's tiny dispensary. Talia rested on one, drifting in and out of sleep, hooked up to an IV to re-hydrate her body and siphon liquid nourishment into her. Sebastian lay on the other, still unconscious but thankfully alive.

A medic had stopped the bleeding of his head wound. A doctor had arrived and removed what he said he believed was the only bullet to actually penetrate his body, lodged beneath the skin over his skull, just behind his left ear. But he couldn’t tell her if internal damage might have been done, due to loss of blood or the impact of the bullet. “You’ll need a surgeon and more equipment than I have access to here, to further assess his injuries,” he’d told her. “I’m concerned that he’s still unconscious.” So was she.

Mercy herself had come through the collision with the embassy landscaping with barely a scratch. The boxwood was totaled.

She looked down at her pair of dear invalids, heart surging with fear on their behalf. Of course they should be in a hospital, but that—she’d been told by the embassy Chief of Security with a solemn shake of his head—was impossible for the moment.

“Tambov agents would have too easy a time getting to either of them in a Kiev hospital. Your instincts were good. You delivered them here, to safe territory. There will be Marine guards on the door and outside, round the clock. Once the doctor says the patients are stable, we’ll fly you and them out of Ukraine.”

Once they’re stable,
she thought. It wasn’t the same as saying that Talia or Sebastian would survive their ordeal.

Mercy heard a soft knock from the hallway side of the door and turned to see a narrow-faced, older man in an elegant gray suit step through. He stopped just inside the room and viewed the wounded briefly from a distance before his gaze shifted to Mercy. He moved toward her. And only then did she recognize him.

She extended a trembling hand toward her father’s old friend. “Ambassador Griffith,” she said.

“Don,” he said, holding her hand between his for an extra moment. “How are you holding up, Mercy? This is terrible business.” He shook his head sadly. “My people tell me your mother and friend here won’t be safe until we get them back to the States.”

“Yes," she said. “I can fill you in on what’s been happening, if you like.”

“Time for that later. Although it’s pretty clear why your mother no longer has her passport and visa, you and your companion seem to have arrived in this part of the world rather mysteriously and now have no identification.” He studied her over the gold wire rims of his eyeglasses. “There is no record of your arrival through any airport or border, at least not under the name Victoria Mercy O’Brien.”

“That’s true, but—”

He shook his head. His smile was brief but seemed genuine. “We’ll straighten this out. I assume this lack of documentation has something to do with your passport's delay by the State Department. Got impatient, did you?”

A dry laugh escaped her. “To say the least.”

“Right. Well, it appears you worked out a practical, if not quite legal, arrangement.”

She straightened up and met his gaze. “I did what I had to do, Ambassador. My mother is at least alive.”

“Yes.” He glanced again at Talia, still sedated and asleep. He pursed his lips. “Believe me, I understand. I expect I would have done the same. I’ll rush through a new passport for the two of you, so that you can accompany your mother back to the U.S.”

“Thank you.” She sensed that he had intentionally left off mention of Sebastian's transportation. “About my friend,” she began.

“Yes. About him." His eyes lost their warmth. "We've been unable to verify his real name.”

She had thought a great deal about this already, wanting to protect his identity. In the eyes of international law enforcement, Sebastian Hidalgo was the powerful kingpin of a criminal cartel. Only the Mexican president, Sebastian’s daughter Maria, and she knew he was one of the good guys. 

“His name is Thomas Arnez, just as his passport showed before we lost it. I posed as his wife and managed to get supporting documents.” If the fake passports were as good as Sebastian claimed, his would hold up under scrutiny, and his cover wouldn’t be blown—she hoped.

The ambassador studied her face for a long moment. “Very well, I’ll have that checked out before we release him. I’ve already spoken with the Ukrainian Minister of Interior about the necessity of the three of you leaving as soon as possible. The government here will cooperate. They are anxious to limit any bad press that might result from your mother’s treatment. And, of course, gunfire in the streets—on top of the recent unrest and turmoil in the country—does tourism no good. They’ve agreed to not interfere with the three of you leaving.”

She pressed a hand to her chest, pure relief rushing through her. “Thank you, Ambassador.”

“You’re welcome. I hope now that your mother has been rescued, you’ll stay close to home.” He lifted a brow for emphasis. “Or at least out of trouble.”

She tipped her head and smiled up at him. “Why would I not?”

“Yes, well…” He didn’t look entirely convinced, and she wondered if he knew more than he was letting on. “I’ve arranged for a military airlift to the NATO base at Wurzburg, Germany—the closest U.S. military hospital. The three of you will leave within the hour. Once the doctors there approve the longer flight, the patients can be flown home.”

Mercy kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you, Ambassador.” Tears of relief tickled her eyes. But the dull ache at the back of her throat reminded her that neither of these precious people was out of the danger yet.

The U.S. 67th Combat Support Hospital rested smack up against the foothills of the glorious Bavarian Alps. American military casualties from Afghanistan occupied most of the bed space. Although in her heart Mercy wept for the wounded soldiers and Marines, she was too distracted by her concerns for her mother and Sebastian to focus on anyone else.

A team of surgeons worked on Talia’s most pressing internal injuries; the list was mind boggling. Sebastian’s conditions were no less life threatening. His surgeon removed a second bullet that had lodged deeper within his skull. It had entered his head in almost exactly the same place as the first bullet struck him—thus making it difficult for the physician in Kiev to see it without the advantage of an MRI.

“It’s lucky the medic or even the GP didn’t realize it was there,” the army surgeon told Mercy when he came out of surgery. “No doubt they’re  both well-trained, but probing around inside Mr. Arnez's brain might have done more damage than good.”

Four days later, both patients were pronounced stable enough for a trans-Atlantic flight, accompanied by a nurse. Talia was heavily sedated for the trip and woke only briefly to smile at her daughter and whisper a few words before lapsing back into a deep sleep. Sebastian remained in a medically-induced coma to allow his brain to better heal following the trauma it had suffered. No one on the staff at Wurzburg had been willing to project a recovery time for him. Mercy feared that more than time might be the issue. What if the bullet had permanently damaged his brain? Would he ever walk, or smile, or talk to her again?

After landing at Andrews Air Force Base outside of Washington, D.C. they were transferred from the military med-evac jet to a helicopter, which landed a little over an hour later at a private hospital near Camp David, the U.S. President’s traditional retreat in the Western Maryland mountains. Mercy accompanied them every step of the way. Once Talia and Sebastian were settled into private rooms, she split her time between them, dozing in a chair throughout the day and night but never able to sleep deeply.

Mark Templeton arrived from New York to be with Talia. He sat constant watch over the bed of the woman he loved, most of the time from his wheelchair. A cot was brought in so that he could spend nights in her room. His strong features, pale and ravaged by months of helpless waiting for word of her fate, slowly regained color. But the doctors were hesitant to guarantee Talia’s full recovery.

The words Mercy kept hearing were: “Only time will tell.” And: “The human body is a miraculous self-healing organ.” Less encouragement than she had hoped for. But if miracles were necessary, so be it. Hadn’t finding her mother on the other side of the world already been one miracle? Hadn’t it also been a miracle to survive the Tambov attacks, first in the woods near Pripyat and then in the streets of Kiev?

On the third night at the Maryland Restoration Center, more than 24 hours after the doctors had stopped dripping coma-inducing drugs into Sebastian's blood stream, the man she loved opened his eyes and whispered, “Did we make it?”

Mercy gave a whoop of joy. She threw herself at him, kissing his forehead, his nose, and each of those mysterious dark blue eyes that she’d loved from the moment she met him—even before she’d known what a brave and good soul he was.

“I’ve missed you so much,” she murmured. “And yes. We did make it.”

On the fifth afternoon, he sat up in bed, stared in disgust at the IV in his arm and said, “What does it take to get real food in this place?”

She grinned at him. “I’ll ask the nurse.” But it was another twenty-four hours before his doctors allowed him any solid food. “How is it?” Mercy asked when his first tray was brought to him—a small portion of minced chicken, mashed potatoes, and well-cooked carrots.