Lady Death by Brian Drake (good e books to read .TXT) 📕

“Poor Sam Raven,” she said. “In your last moments, you’re grasping at straws.”

“You can kill me. When I’m gone, you’ll spend the rest of your life wondering if I was right.”

“Stop.”

Raven raised his voice. “You’ll wonder how your life might have been different.”

“Stop!”

“Or what, Tanya?”

Somebody reached for her through the doorway. She shook the hand away with a curse. She took one step forward.

“Aren’t you curious why I’ve kept you alive?” she said.

“We meant a lot to each other for a short time, didn’t we?”

“It was all an act.”

“You deserve an Oscar.”

“It was a performance only for one.”

“What do you want, Tanya?”

“I want your locket, Sam.” Another step forward. “I want you to watch me open it as I kill you. Your secret will be mine forever.”

“Come and take it.”

She snatched out her Beretta as she reached him, clawing with her free left hand for his neck. He batted her reach away and she slammed the gun into his head. Raven’s eyes rolled back, and another wave of dizziness took over. He felt her hand on his neck. She grasped the chain. The chain dug into his skin as she began to pull.

Raven’s right hand flashed beneath him and he grabbed the hilt of the K-Bar. Her eyes never left his and she didn’t see the movement until it was too late.

“Remember what I said I’d do to you if you lied to me, Tanya?”

He slammed the knife forward. The sharp blade penetrated her belly with a tear of fabric and flesh. She gasped, eyes widening. Raven didn’t blink as he pushed the knife all the way in, then shoved upward. Her body jerked with the movement as the blade tore through her guts. Her mouth opened to scream but nothing came out but a line of saliva.

“Tanya?”

Raven grabbed the Beretta and fired over her shoulder. The man in the doorway stopped short as the first bullet hit him. His head snapped back as the second delivered its impact. Omar Talman dropped.

Another man leaped over Talman’s body. This one carried a submachine gun. His identity registered in Raven’s mind. His was Sila Kaymak, the man who pretended to try and kill Tanya in Stockholm the night she and Raven met.

Kaymak lifted the SMG as the Beretta barked again and again from Raven’s rapid fire. The 9mm slugs punched through Kaymak’s chest and he joined Talman on the floor.

Raven dropped the empty Beretta and shoved Tanya away. She flopped onto the floor. She still had some life left in her and grabbed uselessly at the K-Bar’s hilt. Then her hands slipped and rested at her sides. Her eyes remained open.

Raven rose from the bed. He breathed hard from the exertion but stood long enough to stare at her. He burned the image of her dead face into his mind.

A roar in the distance grew louder. Raven snatched up Kaymak’s submachine gun and grabbed a spare magazine to stuff into a pocket. Alarms outside blared. A panicked voice began shouting over a loudspeaker.

And then the first bomb landed.

The building shook with the blast. The walls swayed and the lights popped out. Raven was in darkness once again. He dropped to the ground and crawled over bodies, ignoring the blood smearing his clothes, to the doorway. Emergency lights in the hall lit the way ahead.

Jets thundered above. The F-18s, on schedule. SEALs on deck for mop up. Another bomb blast shook the ground. Windows shattered and glass flew inside. Raven covered his eyes with an upraised arm as he advanced and felt bits of glass hit him. A third blast crumbled part of the wall, and the ceiling collapsed behind him in a heap of sheet rock. Dust choked the hallway and stung Raven’s eyes. He ran for his life.

18

The Navy doctor turned off his pen flash after shining it above Raven’s eyes and asking him to follow the light.

“You have a concussion for sure,” he said. “Plenty of abrasions. Nothing broken. You got off easy compared to these other guys. Rest while we head back to Italy.”

“Right. Where’s my—”

“Your personal effects are on the nightstand.”

Raven turned his head. His locket sat where the doctor said in a clear plastic bag.

The locket he almost lost.

The one thing he couldn’t bear to be separated from. His reason for being rested inside.

The doctor moved to the next bed. Several wounded SEALs lay in the sick bay with Raven. Nurses hurried about. He ignored the commotion as he looked at his hands. Dried blood remained on his right hand. Tanya’s blood.

Another man came over.

“You all right?”

Raven lifted his head. The man was Greg Macedo, one of the CIA agents who’d helped him get Hannah Schrader out of Berlin. He and his partner Mitch Storey had landed with the SEAL team because they knew what Raven looked like.

“I’ll live,” Raven said.

“Glad we found you when we did. You didn’t look so good.”

Raven had exited the burning barracks only to collapse near a tree. His head barely missed a large rock. He’d decided to lay there and wait. Either the SEALs would find him, or the last of Tanya’s forces would finish him off. In that moment, he hadn’t cared if he lived or not.

But then Macedo and Storey found him and dragged him out of the fight.

“What did you get?” Raven said.

“Plenty of prisoners, for one,” Macedo said. He stood with folded arms. “We took a bunch of stuff we hope will provide more information, too. With any luck we’ll shut down the Islamic Union once and for all.”

“Good.”

“We’ll have Germany’s help.”

“Really?”

“We took Hannah back to Berlin so she could provide the BND with a statement. They found the information in her father’s safe tying him to the Islamic Union and various other groups. The guy who ran his servers, somebody named Phillip Dassler, is also cooperating.”

“And?”

“They’ve agreed to help us wrap things up as long as we keep them out of anything related to Operation Triangle. They’re embarrassed