Storm Front

When he finally reached her abdomen, he was glad that she was looking up at the ceiling and not at his face. Otherwise, she would have seen the grim expression that came over him. Her stomach was bad. Worse than he’d thought. The bullet had torn into her and expanded on impact. The wound was a gaping hole that revealed her shredded insides. Storm could barely even identify the organs whose mangled remains he was seeing. Even if she were on the operating table in the most state-of-the-art hospital room in the world, with a team of the best surgeons ready to dive in, Storm wasn’t sure if she could be saved.

On the floor of the Wall Street subway stop, it was hopeless. The only question was how many minutes of suffering she had left. Maybe ten. If she was unlucky.

“I’m cold,” she said.

“I know,” Storm said, grabbing his suit jacket and wrapping it around her as a blanket.

He slid his right arm underneath her, cradling her in his arms. All he could do now was try to make her feel comfortable.

“Is this what dying feels like?” she asked.

“Shhh…,” he said. “Just relax. You’re not going to die.”

It was a lie. He knew it. He sensed she did, too.

“I love you,” she said.

“I know. I love you, too.”

Even though he said it mainly to comfort her, it was not without feeling. Somewhere, in the back of his heart, in the part that had resisted hardening through all the missions and all the years, he knew that it might even be true.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Shh.”

Storm could hear the beating of helicopter rotors coming from the street. Was it a Medevac landing? No. Not possible. Helicopters weren’t permitted in this part of New York City. Besides, there were enough hospitals within a short ambulance ride that Medevacs were unnecessary. Why would a helicopter be landing on the streets of Manhattan? Storm pondered it for a brief moment, until he became aware that Xi Bang was talking.

“You’re going to get him, right?” she was saying.

“You’re going to get Volkov.”

“Yes, honey. Of course.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said again, more weakly. Her body was starting to convulse. The wound on her leg had already soaked Storm’s makeshift field dressing. It was now a race to see which would kill her first: blood loss or multiple organ failure.

“That night in Paris,” he said. “Dancing in the street with you. I was serious when I said we would dance to that song at our wedding.”

“Mmm…” was all she could say.

But he could see that it had brought a smile to her face. And so, as the last embers of life flickered out of Ling Xi Bang, Derrick Storm held her tightly in his arms and sang her “The Vienna Waltz.”

It had been their first dance. And now it would be their last.

CHAPTER 26

LANGLEY, Virginia

Jedediah Jones would have been pulling his hair out, if only he had any to pull.

As it was, he looked like a cross between a stressed-out CFO and an irate customer service representative. He was talking on a wireless telephone headset — an ergonomics expert at the CIA said it was better for his neck — at a volume that was seriously threatening nearby ear drums.

As he ranted, he paced around the cubby, pounding on any table that didn’t hold a quarter-million-dollar piece of spy equipment. The nerds were keeping their attention buried in their computer terminals. Eye contact might provoke him further.

“Eighteen dead,” he shouted. “Eighty-seven wounded. A hundred seventy people hospitalized. I don’t even want to know how many millions in damage. Do you have any regard for private property at all?”

The man on the other end of the line said nothing. Derrick Storm had watched Ling Xi Bang’s body get loaded into a New York City medical examiner’s truck a mere half hour before. He was not in the mood to answer rhetorical questions.

“On top of that, I’ve got a propane company saying one of our agents blew up their truck. Do you want to explain to me why that was tactically necessary?”

Still nothing from Storm. Rodriguez and Bryan kept trying to dodge Jones as he rampaged around. Occasionally, they would hand him a piece of paper that he would look at then throw on the floor — which was already littered with things he had spiked.

“I’ve got the NY goddamn PD saying it’s going to send me a bill for a crane to get a motorcycle out of a traffic light,” he continued. “A crane! How did a motorcycle get in a goddamn traffic light?”

Jones stooped down and picked up something he had previously discarded.

“Then I’ve got the NYPD asking me why I brought a helicopter into restricted airspace so close to the Freedom Tower. I would have told them I didn’t know, except I was worried that would make me sound like even more of an idiot than I already did.”

The helicopter. Storm finally figured it out: That must have been how Volkov made his exit.

“A carjacking… a firefight in the streets of Manhattan… a subway platform full of shot-up civilians… all this and Volkov got away? Storm, what the hell happened this morning?”