Читать книгу Fugitive Spy - Jordyn Redwood - Страница 13

ONE

As CIA spy Casper English crossed the threshold into the abandoned home, the faint wheezes of a man teetering on death whispered just above the gusting snowstorm. Drawing his weapon, he inched farther into the darkness. A cast of faint moonlight illuminated an arm, seemingly disembodied, lying on the floor across the threshold of a doorway. The wind battered against the house so badly that the old wood walls groaned in distress.

Walking quickly, Casper closed the distance.

It was his partner, Ethan.

“You...found me.”

Ethan’s breaths came quick and ineffective. Casper’s heartbeat quickened with each shallow gasp his partner...his friend...puffed out in vapors into the frigid night. Dark, thick fluid glistened from a wound in his chest, and Casper knelt down beside him to assess it. From an inner pocket of his leather jacket, Casper withdrew a small flashlight. Ethan’s hand flew up and knocked it out before Casper could turn it on.

“They’re...close. Too...close.”

Instinctively, Casper rose up and looked out into the darkness through the fractured, dust-crusted glass of the nearest window. This location was too close to the city. To everything. Too hard to keep hidden from those who had chased Ethan. It was more likely than not that they were going to be discovered. How Ethan had crawled through snow to even hide here was unfathomable. Casper concentrated on the landscape. The trees threw thorny shadows onto the silky white drifts. Nothing moved that resembled a human. Ethan pulled something from his pocket. His hand lifted up and flopped against Casper’s chest.

“Take them.”

Casper grabbed the two items. A photo and a small piece of paper. In the darkness, he couldn’t make out the information they contained. “Ethan, the terrorist attack. Did you find out anything about the date? The location?”

A faint shake of his head. Casper’s stomach plummeted. None of this was good. His partner wasn’t going to survive, the gathering darkness brooding in Ethan’s eyes showed the shadow of the grim reaper on the hunt. Casper had seen it before in too many patients as they left this existence.

“The attack...is ES1...”

Casper swayed a bit at Ethan’s revelation.

No, that’s not possible. Does Ethan even know what he’s saying? Or is his brain malfunctioning from blood loss?

“It...exists.”

Ethan’s eyes closed. Casper shook him by the shoulders and Ethan’s head lolled to the side. He had to verify this information. If he took what Ethan said to his superiors without proof, they’d laugh him right out of the CIA. That was how crazy Ethan’s statement was. Casper settled his hand in the center of Ethan’s chest. The tension in Casper’s gut eased as he felt it rise under his touch.

How was Ethan’s claim possible? ES1 had been a theorized virus that combined two of the deadliest pathogens known to man—smallpox and Ebola. The Soviets reportedly looked to develop it before their illegal bioweapons program was discovered during a US inspection over twenty-five years ago. Purportedly, they’d abandoned their aspirations when the manufacturing sites had been dismantled.

Ethan’s eyes fluttered open. “His daughter.”

“Ashley,” Casper confirmed.

Ethan nodded. “He...sent her...”

“What?”

“Information.”

A spy sending sensitive information to a civilian? His own daughter? That didn’t make sense to Casper. Dr. Russell Drager, a leading bioweapons specialist, had been missing for more than two years. Ethan and Casper had been tasked to find him before he fell into the wrong hands or was assassinated for his work for the CIA. How could a man, his mentor, endanger his daughter so easily? It spoke of desperation. Of not being able to trust those he reported to. If Russell had information concerning this pathogen, he needed to give it to his handler, Jared Fleming. The only reason Casper could imagine Russell taking such a risk was if he didn’t trust Fleming anymore and didn’t know who else Fleming might have corrupted.

“Fleming...” Ethan shook his head and clenched his hands against the wound, gritting his teeth together against the pain. A shudder ran through his body. “Compromised.”

Casper’s stomach knotted. How did that happen? A handler compromised? Russell told Casper once during his fellowship, rather flippantly, that ES1 would make Marburg look like the common cold if it were developed and released.

Had that been a warning for Casper? Did Russell know ES1 existed when he made that statement?

“Does Fleming know about Ashley? That she might have this information?” Casper asked.

“Hid it...from him.”

“You were trying to find her?”

“Hospital. Close.”

That was Castle Peak Medical Center. No wonder Ethan was in this area. He’d gotten this far before he was discovered trying to get Ashley—to protect her.

Will she even remember me? It’s been years. We’re both older. Different.

“Take her...address. Help.”

Casper shoved the items into his jeans pocket. He reached under his partner’s shoulders to lift him up, assuming his words were meant for assistance, but Ethan was dead weight. Casper settled him back down and placed his cheek next to his lips.

Stillness. No inhalation. No exhalation.

Ethan was dead.

Clenching his hand into a fist, Casper punched the rotting wood planks. A window shattered and Casper instinctively flattened himself against the floor, his muscles tense. Even though his heart was heavy, there was no time for goodbyes. The decrepit back door whined as it shifted on its hinges, and Casper beelined through it and back out into the bitter night air.

As he ran, Casper tripped on a roving tree root and fell into the snow just as a bullet whizzed past his ear, the high-pitched whine adding more chill to his bones than the drift he’d face-planted in. He wiped the frozen crystals from his eyes and tried to get his bearings. He needed a place to hide. There was a four-lane road off to his right. Cars streamed by and he considered commandeering one, but discarded the thought as it would draw too much attention.

If he didn’t move fast, they were going to catch him and he wouldn’t be able to find Ashley and safeguard her.

On his left, there was a copse of timber skeletons. In the faint moonlight, he couldn’t see the depth of them, but they were his only option for cover. The sound of heavy boot falls brought him to his feet and he ran, reaching instinctively to the waistband of his jeans for the small firearm he’d stowed there.

It was gone. Likely ejected from its spot into the snow when he fell.

Just as Casper reached a running stride, a hand clasped his shoulder and his feet tangled underneath him. A man, taller and heavier, forced him over onto his back. Two of his cohorts closed the remaining gap, each taking several swift kicks into his rib cage and sternum. His lungs exploded in white-hot fire. He tried to breathe. The effect of those blows was the same as being dropped straight onto his back and getting the wind knocked out of him. There was a glint of a knife straight up his jacket and shirt, the fabric falling away from his chest. Rough hands patted his body, his pants pocket. A fist connected with his jaw and his head spun.

They were going to kill him.

“Where is it?” one of the men yelled, delivering another kick to the side of his head.

Casper flipped over and staggered onto his hands and knees. Droplets of blood—his blood—darkened the snow. A cut to his forehead? Pain seared in his chest as he coaxed the freezing air in.

He didn’t know what they wanted, and if they determined he didn’t have it...they’d kill him just like Ethan.

“Mr. English, if we don’t get the thumb drive, not only will you die, but whoever has it will suffer the same fate as you.”

If Casper admitted he didn’t know what they were talking about, they’d finish him off without a thought. Ashley would be next. Would she even survive the night?

Pain exploded as something unyielding connected with the back of his head. He splayed out onto the ground. Was someone whistling? A dog barking?

Blackness.

* * *

The unconscious man was going to die if ER physician Ashley Drager didn’t do something.

Quickly.

“Ashley, his heart is throwing off some bad beats,” said Lance, one of the ER nurses, a raised urgency to his voice.

Ashley glanced at the monitor. The rogue missteps of their patient’s heart had traversed by, now only witnessed by the ECG tracing the monitor automatically printed. His heart rate was on the low side, but considering his seemingly excellent physical shape that could be normal. Blood pressure was low as well, but not abnormal.

The aberrant heartbeats Lance warned her about were out of place at best. Their patient didn’t wear a medical alert bracelet that gave witness to any serious medical conditions. A Colorado driver’s license identified him as Casper English. Age thirty-four. Five foot nine. One hundred and eighty pounds.

Another nurse, Katie, pulled a photo from another of Mr. English’s pockets. Her eyes locked Ashley’s in terror as the red blood cells in her face scurried elsewhere, leaving her pink cheeks washed white. “It’s you,” she stammered.

“What?”

The young nurse held out a shaky hand. “The photo in his pocket is of you.”

Ashley plucked the photo from her fingers—the image of her at her medical school graduation. Why would a stranger have this photo? She swallowed past the tension in her throat.

First things first. If I want answers, I have to save his life.

Two police officers huddled in the hall. A man found beaten in the woods certainly warranted their notification by the ER staff. His socks and shoes were missing. His shirt torn...no, sliced up the middle by something razor-sharp. A pair of worn, tattered jeans the only barrier left to protect him from the biting wind.

Why do you have my picture? The thought became intrusive. She tried to shove it away.

“What’s his temperature?” Ashley asked.

“Ninety-three degrees,” Lance replied.

“He has hypothermia. His heart doesn’t like this low body temperature and if we don’t get a handle on it, we’re going to have more problems on our hands. Warm blankets. Lots of them. Let’s get those IV fluids warmed up, as well.”

Ashley frowned and gathered her dark brown hair into one of the ponytail holders she always kept on her wrist.

So much for getting off work on time. Lord, would it be too much to ask to have an end of shift without a major crisis?

As a favor to the night shift physician, Ashley had agreed to examine the mysterious arrival that had been dropped off by a stranger and his dog. The man who’d left him hadn’t wanted to answer many questions. Ashley hadn’t thought she’d walk in to find a critical patient flirting with the grim reaper.

In a flurry of activity, Lance changed out the IV tubing so the fluid ran over a warming plate. Several heated blankets were placed over their patient. Katie grabbed a set of hot lights and set them over the ER gurney, their patient like fast food waiting for delivery.

Ashley placed two fingers in the groove of the unconscious man’s right wrist, finding his pulse under hers like a weak echo. His face and torso were a road map of fury to whomever Casper had run into on this bitterly cold night. Angry circular bruises of various sizes and shapes dotted his skin. Some were clearly triangular shaped, indicating an object had been used to create the injury driven into his skin at high velocity. The tip of a boot? Ashley’s fingers traveled up his forearm. His skin was cold, doughy under her touch. She pulled his arm away from his torso, looking for any injuries that could be more life-threatening than the hypothermia he was suffering from.

Are you a stalker? Is that why you have my picture? And if you are, why has someone beaten you? To protect me?

Working in the ER lent credence to this question. He wouldn’t be the first patient to take an unusual interest in her.

Ashley returned her attention to the unconscious man. Severely beaten was an understatement. In fact, he might find death a welcomed relief compared to the pain he would be suffering when his brain reengaged with this world. At least, Ashley hoped he would find his way back.

What little information they’d garnered from the Good Samaritan was he’d been found while he was out walking his dog in the woods. Upon discovering him, he then carried him to his truck and brought him here. It had been easier to lay him in the open bed of the pickup and he figured the short drive wouldn’t do any harm. That ride likely worsened their patient’s hypothermia. The story was strange and the actions of his rescuer somewhat odd, but it definitely wasn’t the tallest tale Ashley had heard in her years as an ER doctor.

What was Casper doing in the woods? Alone, all by himself? Essentially left to die.

The monitor triple-beeped—its better-pay-attention-to-the-patient-because-he’s-trying-to-die tone. Everyone in the room glanced at the mysterious man’s heart tracing and each knew in their gut this man was starting to circle the drain.

“Start CPR. Get the defibrillator pads on him,” Ashley ordered.

The ER tech and Lance turned Casper on his side and slid a CPR board underneath his back. As the tech started CPR, Lance placed two large white adhesive patches on Casper’s skin.

“Charge to one-hundred-and-sixty joules,” Ashley said.

Katie dialed in the electricity. The machine toned it was ready. “Everyone clear!” she yelled.

The medical staff close to the bed backed up one step. The man’s body jerked slightly as the electricity coursed through his chest. Within seconds of the shock, the man’s eyes bolted open and he sat straight up in bed, his brown, nearly black eyes wide with confusion. He grabbed Katie’s wrist and held it firmly, his breath heaving.

Ashley’s heart galloped in her chest. She’d heard stories like this, about a shock waking a patient up, but never had she seen it. She took three quick steps to the bedside and rested a gentle hand on her patient’s shoulder, hoping her touch was reassuring enough to calm him down.

“Sir, you’re at Castle Peak Medical Center in the emergency department. I’m Dr. Ashley Drager. You were brought here after someone found you unconscious.” Ashley smoothed her hand down his arm over the tense muscles to his hand that held viselike onto the nurse. “Please, let her go. You’re safe here.”

The man’s eyes locked her gaze. A flash of something, perhaps recognition, was gone as quickly as it came. Did he know her? Would he be able to tell her about why he had her picture? All that remained in the darkness of his irises was terror.

“Do you remember what happened to you?” Lance asked.

Ashley curled her fingers around her patient’s and began to pull his appendages up one at a time. The man allowed her to do so and when the last one was released, Katie rubbed her wrist, the skin reddened from the grip.

“Do you know your name?” Ashley asked.

The man blinked at her several times and remained silent.

“Your driver’s license states your name is Casper English. Is that correct?”

He began to shiver. Ashley walked to the warmer and grabbed another blanket. Her patient remained sitting, and she unfolded the worn cotton to drape over his shoulders. Just as she was about to release the linen, she saw the tattoo that branded him between his shoulder blades. The medical staff inked in black superimposed over a blazing red biohazard symbol.

Identical to the one her father had. In the same exact spot as his.

Her missing father. Gone for just over two years.

Ashley began to tremble and held the warmed blanket to her chest to drive the chill away. Her mouth gaped open, her lungs hungry for air but seemingly unable to draw breath. The room grew hazy.

“Ashley?” Lance asked.

Lance’s voice brought her back to the present, and she shook her head to reengage her brain. She dropped the blanket over the man’s shoulders.

What were the odds this man would possess the same unusual mark as her father?

Did this stranger hold the answer to her father’s disappearance?