“Stay down. Stay down. Enemy fire from an unknown origin,” Finn hollered over the line.
“There’s movement on the south side,” Chris added. “Echo Two, you have the wheels. You’re our best chance at catching the shooter.”
Anthony was nowhere in sight, but Ana heard the humming of the BMX closing in.
“I need to get to Ana!” A.J. insisted.
“I’m okay! Go,” she pleaded as she ran toward Porter, then crouched at his side. “Target Two took off. He’s somewhere in the woods. We need him!”
“Roger,” Chris said. “I’ll find him.”
“Get back in the cabin until we find the shooter!” A.J. commanded, but she couldn’t leave Porter’s side until she had answers.
She lifted Porter’s shirt to find a bulletproof vest, but most body armor wouldn’t stop a full metal jacket steel round from a sniper rifle, and today, it hadn’t. It nailed him in the abdomen. The second shot must have missed.
Porter’s eyes opened and closed as he winced in agony. “I’m sorry, Ana.” He slowly lifted his hand, and against her better judgment, she set her gun down and locked hold of his palm. “I never wanted to pull you back into this.” His tone was fading. “I had no choice. He would have killed you. I was trying to protect-protect you. You need to get the ledger and key. It’s the only way you’ll survive.”
“I don’t understand.” She squeezed his hand tighter and bent over his body to better see his face. “Please.”
“You did become like a daughter to me. It should never . . . have come to this.” Porter’s eyes closed. “I’m so sorry.”
“Please, tell me—” She let go of her words when he lost consciousness. He still had a pulse, though. “We need an ambulance now. Tell them we have a GSW in the abdomen. Male. Fifty-two. Takes blood pressure medicine,” she rushed out over the radio. “Need a helo to medivac him to the hospital.”
“On it,” Harper responded as Ana applied pressure to the wound, not sure what else to do. “You need to get out of there, Echo One. You’re in the open!”
“He may die if I leave him.” Warm tears slid down her cheeks. Why was she crying? Porter betrayed her.
Her attention was quickly diverted to the woods at the sound of two more shots popping. Then a loud, crackling sound, followed by a boom. Smoke filled the air in the distance on the south side of the property. A.J.’s bike. No, no, no!
Three more snaps.
Static over her comm.
“A.J.?” she cried out, not giving a damn about his call sign. “You okay? What happened?”
She had no choice but to leave Porter if A.J. was in trouble. She snatched her 9mm and forced her wobbly legs to move, darting in the direction of the fire, doing her best not to stumble and fall in the dark.
“Echo Two, do you copy?” Roman’s voice filled the line. He was breathing hard, running. “Echo Two, do you copy?”
“I have eyes on the bike,” Finn said, his tone fatigued as well. “The bike’s on fire. Ivan must’ve shot the gas tank.”
“Any signs of Echo Two?” Harper interjected.
“I have Anthony,” Chris said over the line a moment later. “What’s the status on Echo Two?”
“I think I have a visual,” Roman announced. “Two bodies are down near the fire.”
“On my way,” Finn yelled.
Please, God. Please, let him be okay. Her shoe hit a small, fallen tree, and she nearly lost her balance from running so fast without much visibility. The fire was the only light guiding her path to him.
“I’m okay, fucking hell, that hurt, though.” A.J.’s words had Ana slowing, her heart shattering into a thousand fragments for a brief moment before piecing back together. “My helmet came off, and I lost my signal for a sec. Motherfucker shot my engine, and I got tossed. But I got him. He’s down.”
“You scared us, Two,” Harper quickly said as Ana remained shocked with relief.
“Echo One . . . Ana, are you okay?” A.J. asked.
“Yes, and I’m almost to you,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Is Ivan alive?”
“Thank God,” A.J. answered, winded. “I’m dragging my ass over to Ivan now to see if he still has a pulse.”
Ana was twenty feet away when she caught sight of movement on the east and west sides, flanking A.J., but her sight was impaired by the dim lighting. “A.J.!” She squinted, catching A.J. on his knees next to Ivan, the fire illuminating his location. They’d need to put out that fire before acres of forest burned down.
“We don’t have much time to get out of here,” Harper quickly announced. “Police and the fire department are on their way. Told them we have an assassin and an FBI agent down.”
“Can someone get back to Porter and pack his wound, so he has a chance at surviving?” Ana asked over comms, and Finn responded by nodding and taking off toward the cabin.
“We got a live one!” A.J. tossed a gloved hand in the air, motioning them to his position.
Ana leaped over a log like she was an Olympic hurdle jumper and ate up the last few feet of space. She dropped to the ground next to A.J. and flung her arms around his neck. “I thought I lost you,” she rasped.
He circled his arms around her and held her tight. “No way.” He pressed a kiss to her temple before releasing her since they were dealing with a time-sensitive issue.
“Ivan.” Ana brought her palms to the hitman’s chest and clutched the vest he was wearing. A bullet had entered through his side from what she could tell based on the blood. Another bullet had struck Ivan’s chest plate, not piercing flesh like it had with Porter since the ammo was from a Glock 19. “Ivan, please, talk to me.”
Ivan groaned, and she pushed the night-vision goggles away from Ivan’s face to see his eyes. “Why were you here? Who is calling the shots?” she asked, confused as to why he killed Porter. “Please, the SVR is secretly footing your bill. You were working for them. But who was the middleman?”
“What?” Ivan choked out, possibly more horrified by that truth than the fact he might die. “No, it cannot be.”
“It’s true. And I’m being set up by the Russians now, the same way they set up your brother before killing him.” Maybe the hitman didn’t have a soul, but he loved his brother. It was her only hope to get him to open up before he died. “What was next in the plan? Why did you kill Porter? Are the sources still alive?” she rattled off her questions, not sure if he even heard her since his eyes were closed tight.
But his hand slowly went to his side pants pocket, and she quickly snatched what he’d been directing her to—his iPhone.
“A tracker is on there. They are still alive,” Ivan said, his voice even weaker this time. On the verge of losing consciousness. She brought the phone to Ivan’s face for an ID, and A.J. shone a light Ivan’s direction so it’d work. “I was to track Porter and wait until he met with you. Kill him, then follow you to the Volk . . .”
“Damn it,” Ana said, fingers on his pulse. “We’re gonna lose him if we don’t do something.”