Targeted (4 page)

Rebecca buried the detonator into the putty-like material.
What if it wasn’t enough? What if she couldn’t get the gate open? The gunshots
grew closer and closer.

“No matter what,” Brandt shouted in between firing short
controlled bursts. “Run.”

Rebecca gulped. She could hear it in his voice. Even if she
blew the lock, he may not make it past the veritable firing squad outside. The
sense that the tiny patch of C4 would be too little too late crushed down on
her already sore shoulders.

Then she heard the all-too-familiar thunk and sizzle of an
RPG being launched. The rocket flared from the left-most Taj minaret, speeding
right toward her. Diving out of the way, Rebecca watched as the RPG hit the
gate, shattering it, scattering the gunmen on the other side.

Okay, maybe she didn’t need the C4.

Brandt was through the breach, firing behind him. “Good job.”

Yep. She made one hell of a target.

* * *

Brandt grabbed Rebecca’s hand and made for the Taj Mahal.
Not exactly how he expected to enter one of the most romantic spots in the
world, but the monument was their best chance for cover and would be impossible
for the RPG guy to safely hit, since any direct strike would knock down the
minaret the gunmen was holed up in.

So he guided Rebecca down the long pool that led up to the
mausoleum. It beautifully reflected the Taj’s white dome and moon that had
climbed high overhead. Which wasn’t great, since it gave the gunmen trailing
them plenty of light to aim.

Brandt zigged and zagged them down the garden courtyard,
using the sparse shrubs as cover but the bullets were getting closer and closer
on their heel. Another RPG went off, hitting the tranquil pool, spraying water
and debris everywhere. He definitely wasn’t getting the deposit back on this
tux.

The Taj Mahal loomed before them. Soon its white elaborately
decorated façade filled their vision. He was certain that Rebecca could tell
him the artistic technique used and even name the type of gems encrusting the
entire structure, however, he only cared that those marble walls could stop
armor piercing rounds.

Sirens wailed in the distance, but if he didn’t get them
some solid cover, those gunmen would pick them off long before the Indian
police arrived. He urged Rebecca to run up the marble steps ahead of him to the
main extremely embellished entrance to the monument. They couldn’t wait for
another RPG strike, or even long enough to plant some C4 on the door’s lock.
Instead, he swung his rifle around and peppered the lock with bullets.

Before they even reached the door, it swung open. Yep, that
was the “lead” key for you.

Even Brandt stumbled as they entered the interior of the Taj
Mahal. This kind of beauty could take him by surprise even with gunmen on their
tail. Stone arches soared overhead, supporting the huge dome above them. Even
the floor was inlaid in a geometric pattern. And the details? The flowers? The
Arabic script?

However, the single most important object was the stone
bench for visitors. He heaved it over in front of the door. It wouldn’t hold
off the gunmen long, but every second they could get deeper into the structure
without getting fired upon, the better.

“This way,” Brandt pointed for Rebecca to take the first
hallway. The closer they were to the RPG minaret the better. If the guy was
going to fire, he was going to have to risk his own—

Gunfire rang out from in front of them. Brandt’s body spun
to the right as a shot hit him in the gut. He compensated to the left and fired
off a series of shots. A scream abruptly stopped the return fire.

“You’re hit,” Rebecca cried, tears streaming down her face.

He was, in fact, hit. His knees felt like Jell-O, and his
vision constricted down to a pinpoint in front of him.

Come on
, he chided himself. It’s just a through and
through.

“I’m fine,” he gritted out. “We’ve got to make sure he is
down for good.”

Gripping his side, the opposite side that took a bullet in
Rome, which now made a matching pair, Brandt made his way to the vestibule
where a man lay in a pool of bright red blood. The guy was decked out, head to
toe, literally with a skullcap and everything, in a reflective black material.
Heat shielding material. That was how he was masked from the Pentagon’s
infrared sensors.

If he hadn’t already been shot, Brandt probably would have
shot himself for his stupidity. Of course the Knot would place a guard on the
RPG position. Because, of course, Brandt would make a beeline to the RPG
position and take the higher ground.

More shots rang out behind them as the other gun men tried
to breach the Taj’s main door.

“Oh, my God,” Rebecca whispered as the moonlight filtered in
through the elaborate grates that served as windows. Her horrified face glowed
with an almost supernatural beauty.

“It’s not that bad,” Brandt said, removing his hand away
from the bullet wound in his side. And actually, he wasn’t lying. Only a
trickle of blood dripped off his belt.

* * *

Brandt was such a bad liar. That gunshot had to hurt like a
mo.’ But she wasn’t talking about his injury, or even the men trying to break
their way into the monument. She was talking about the monitor in the dead
man’s hand. He hadn’t just taken a lucky shot. He had something to aim at.

“Don’t touch it,” Brandt said figuring out she was staring
at the handheld Gamma monitor.

Rebecca would not make the same mistake she had made back at
the restaurant. Clearly, the Knot’s equipment was rigged to go off if the
biometric locks weren’t reset. No, she knelt beside the Gamma screen, looking
at the faintest wisp of a reading.

Her reading. She had drunk far more champagne than Brandt
had.

“How can that be?” Brandt asked, gripping his side again. “We
ate the damn fish crap.”

Some of the Gamma must have leaked into her blood stream
before the activated charcoal could absorb the radiation. Which normally would
have diluted the signal. Not so great for her health, but it should have masked
the reading. Her hand flew to her neck. Her thyroid gland. It was scavenging
the radiation and concentrating it there, producing the blip on the screen.

“We don’t know it’s you,” Brandt protested, but she backed a
step, then another. The blip moved with her.

She was a shining beacon. Once those men broke in…

Rebecca let go of the panic and turned to Brandt. She had a
plan.

“Love is eternal.”

* * *

“No, no, no, no, no,” Brandt said as she sprinted down the
hallway.

Damn it. He loved her too, but he wasn’t too fond of her
making herself an active target. Rebecca was using the same decoy technique as
the restaurant only the bait wasn’t champagne glasses, it was her.

Voices carried from the entrance. The Knot had broken
through.

Brandt grabbed the dead guy’s monitor, streaking it with
blood as he put his thumbprint front and center. The device’s screen turned
red, blinking its intent to self-destruct. Brandt counted to three, then
chucked the thing toward the entrance. Pain seared up his side, but he was
rewarded with screams as the thing exploded.

Now, though, he had no more tricks up his sleeve. He had
Rebecca on the run and he had to take care of the remaining gunmen before they
took care of Rebecca

Ducking behind a flying marble arch, Brandt counted off
Rebecca’s footsteps. He knew where she would go. The central tomb. That “love”
line hadn’t been a proclamation of her feelings. It had told him where she was
headed.

It was line out of a poem or something. Brandt really hadn’t
paid attention when she was reading it aloud in bed. They’d just made love,
their legs still entangled. The last thing on his mind was poetry. However, it
was a good thing he paid enough attention to know the phrase was carved on the
crypts.

The gunmen, not knowing she had a final destination in mind
would fan out to cut off her escape routes. Which placed them at strategic
positions around the tomb.

God, he hoped that the Knot played this by the book.
Otherwise, they were screwed.

* * *

Rebecca could swear she felt the gunshots in her marrow as
they echoed off the impossibly high ceilings. To think that centuries of
carefully preserved art was being damaged, all for her. Had she and Brandt been
fools to think they could ever escape the wrath of the Knot?

About the only thing longer than the Knot’s lineage was
their penchant for destruction. After what they had done to one of their own
just for failing…

Rebecca refused to let that image come into her mind. She
had walled off everything that had happened in that cavern in Rome. But here it
was coming back to haunt her.

She dodged through a doorway and skidded to a stop as she
reached the inner tomb. The two crypts that housed the Shah and his third wife
were enclosed by an octagonal set of marble “screens.” They weren’t as much
screens as works of art. Each had been carved out of their own slab of marble.
All that intricate detail. The inlaying of each lotus flower petal and stem had
taken the artisans over ten years to complete. Right now, though, she just
needed the screen to stop some bullets.

She rushed through the doorway and ducked behind the Shah’s
tomb. Her fingers gripped the edge of the marble, digging into the spaces
between the jewels. Gunfire and screams filled the air, but each time she heard
those short, controlled bursts, she knew that Brandt was still alive.

Which only helped to marginally calm her since she knew that
every last gunmen of the Knot was honing in on her exact location. Despite
about a ton of marble crypt in front of her, she felt exposed.

The wailing sirens were closing in, but Rebecca had no
illusions they would charge in like the cavalry. The Knot would kill a
policeman as quickly as they had killed those poor tourists at the hotel.
Didn’t the Knot realize that if she hadn’t revealed what she had discovered in
that ancient tomb in Rome, she never would? Or were they so blinded by revenge?

Whichever, the gunfire grew louder and louder.

How many assailants were left?

She peeked around the white marble crypt as a shadow passed
by the archway. Was it Brandt, or…?

A gun pointing in her direction gave her the answer. She
dropped down as bullets flew. They ricocheted off the marble, pinging all
around her. The guy didn’t have to have good aim the way the bullets were
deflecting off the marble.

She couldn’t wait for Brandt. Opening her laptop, she
scanned for frequencies. The gunmen had to be communicating in some way. They
had shut down all the normal avenues for communication, but the Knot was
anything but normal.

Rebecca needed to adapt or die.

* * *

Brandt couldn’t get a bead on the gunman. They were playing
a dangerous game of cat and mouse, only Brandt wasn’t sure who was the mouse
right now.

As much as he hated to admit it, each time he did fire, his
aim got further and further off. He was losing blood, and the pain? Well, the
pain was his constant friend now.

His body subconsciously protected his side, pulling his
shots up short.

Screw his subconscious. Rebecca was in danger.

Ditching his pack, Brandt charged straight at the guy,
firing where the gunman should come out. But he never appeared. He must have
gone inside the tomb. With Rebecca.

Not good. Not good at all.

* * *

Rebecca stood as the gunman walked into the tomb. There was
no point in hiding now. He had the feral grin of an animal about to make a
kill. There may be no one in the Knot to go and brag to, but this man wanted to
see her die, right in front of him.

No matter. She needed him nice and close.

Rebecca hit one last keystroke on her computer. The gunman
must have realized that something was wrong with his Gamma monitor, as it
vibrated in his hand just before its screen went red.

She’d found their microwave communications and patched into
it. Once he was in range, Rebecca convinced the device that the man’s handprint
was no longer his own. The assailant’s eyes dilated as he tried, to no avail,
to override the self-destruct mechanism. He tried to hurl the object away, but
it exploded in midair, knocking him back, slamming his body against the marble
before it slid down to rest still on the tiled floor.

On one hand, she was horrified at the sight. On the other,
no matter how inappropriate, she wanted to jump for joy. The last of the gunmen
were dead.

Brandt limped forward from far down the hallway. “Rebecca…”

That’s about when that damned whistle of an RPG filled the
chamber.

* * *

Brandt wanted to rush forward and protect Rebecca, but he
knew he would never make it in time. The best he could do was throw himself to
the side as the rocket hit the dome.

The mausoleum shook as the roof tumbled down. Shockingly,
though, the building held. It was on fire, but it held. Could it stand another
attack?

Moonlight filled the hallway. Brandt glanced up. If
moonlight could get in, bullets could get out. Swinging his gun up, Brandt found
the minaret that the RPGs had been launched from.

He breathed in, despite the pain. He braced his arm against
the smooth marble, since his body might betray him. He bled on the snowy-white
floor, waiting for the RPG operator to take aim again.

How long could it take to reload, anyway?

Time slowed as Brandt watched through his rifle sight. Once
there was movement, he held his breath, slowing his heart rate. The man sprang
up with the RPG launcher on his shoulder. The mechanism blocking a head shot.
Brandt took the next best thing.

Pulling the trigger sent shards of agony down his side,
settling at his hip, but the shot was off. Even though the man tipped over the
side of the minaret, he had already launched the rocket. It sailed the short
distance until it exploded against the main dome of the mausoleum, shattering
it.