gasped out a reply. “What . . . what did you say?”
“Your father. He sends his love. He asked me to bring you to him. I apologize about the men back there. They had been asked not to harm you, but you frankly sent one of them over the edge. Your father will be furious with them, and me, when he finds out what happened.”
“He’s . . . here? In London?”
“Indeed.”
Her heart pounded, both from the effect of adrenaline still and from the man’s words.
“You are lying,” she finally forced herself to say.
Zoya stood in the gunsights of at least six weapons, still and stationary, her arms by her sides and her chest heaving from exertion from the run and the climb and the crazy stress of all this.
Fox added, “Who is your friend? The sniper?”
Zoya recovered from the news she just heard. “He’s watching us right now. I give a signal and—”
Fox laughed. “We are two blocks away, down in an alley. We saw no force of men around the building, so you likely just had one comrade with you in this, and he has lost his line of sight.”
She did not reply to this.
“Come. Let’s go see the general. You’ll have a nice chat.”
She didn’t trust Fox, but she didn’t see many other options.
“All right,” she said. “I’m coming down.”
“Toss your weapon.”
She still had the .38 in the ankle holster; it was hidden under her black pants, and the Israelis hadn’t found it during their rough shakedown. So she pulled the Walther and dropped it onto the cobblestones below her.
“Very well,” said Fox. “I’d ask if you needed help climbing down, but from what I just witnessed, you should have no problems.”
Zoya sat down on the top of the wall, spun around and hung from it, then dropped the rest of the way. She’d just begun to turn around when the sound of a car’s engine and squealing tires entered the alleyway behind Fox and his car.
The headlights of a silver Volvo spun into view, and the vehicle raced forward at speed, clearly having every intention of slamming into the four-door parked there.
All the men standing next to the car, Fox included, spun their weapons towards the threat.
Zoya turned to her left and saw a window into a darkened room, just fifteen feet from her, and she ran for it.
Racing towards the window, she knew if it was anything more than a single-pane plate she’d probably not be able to just dive through it as though she were in an old Western film. Ideally she’d put a bullet hole or two in the glass to weaken it, then crash through, but she didn’t want to stop to draw from her ankle holster.
She kept running, praying she’d get lucky.
But luck wasn’t with her. Zoya saw, as she neared the window at a full sprint, that it was clearly double-pane energy-efficient glass.
But she was committed to the leap now, so she tried to generate as much power from her legs as possible. She was sure that even if she did break the glass, she’d probably also break a collarbone in the process.
Der’mo, she thought again as she went airborne.
But an instant before she made contact with the window, gunfire erupted to her right, and two rounds struck the pane in front of her, not two feet away, and by the bullets damaging the integral strength of the glass she was able to dive through easily in a shower of shards, landing and sliding along the floor inside the building.
CHAPTER 31
Court fired the shots at the window from the driver’s side of his car to help Zoya get out of the kill zone, but now he bailed out into the alley with his rifle, and scurried behind the vehicle.
As soon as he rolled behind the car, he began taking fire.
The Volvo he’d taken from the young CIA officer was instantly perforated with dozens of holes. Steam spewed from the hood and glass shattered in the windows.
Court was on his knees now in the alley behind the car, trying to make himself as small as an engine block, and as concealed as he could be. He was screwed out here as long as he was stuck in this location, and he needed his own way out. He dumped an entire magazine from the .300 Blackout in a “spray and pray” fashion over the hood of the car, shot through and above the roof, then dropped the rifle and pulled his Glock 19.