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A heavy, cold pause, and Dejiang is now regretting this unofficial visit.
The president says, “Get you something else to eat?”
CHAPTER 97
NOA HIMEL IS limping down a side street, maybe three blocks away from Kay Darcy’s apartment, hoping thePostreporter is still alive. When the shooting started Noa was under no illusions, she wasn’t going to bravely hold off a tactical team intent on killing them both. No, she just wanted a delay.
A delay for the neighbors to call the real police, and for her to escape.
After the shooting started, she returned fire. When there was a pause, she escaped out through the rear deck glass door and over the railing. Something stung her hard when she started to drop, and when she hit the ground, she sliced her wrist on a nail sticking out from one of the deck beams.
Walk calmly,she thinks, as she strolls down the sidewalk, hearing sirens out there near Kay Darcy’s apartment.Don’t walk with hesitation or a limp, even though your left arm and your side hurt like hell, because you will stand out, you will be noticed.
No time to be noticed.
She comes across an alleyway between two apartment buildings, the narrow row crowded with trash bins and piles of collapsedcardboard boxes tied with twine. Noa sidles in, takes a series of deep breaths, takes stock of the crappy situation.
Her left wrist was shredded when she struck the exposed nail. Noa takes off her torn jacket, sees the ripped sleeve and blood. From her purse she takes out a Leatherman tool—essential gear for nearly everyone—and slices off the torn sleeve and its opposite. She wraps the good shirtsleeve around the bloody wrist, ties it as best she can.
Sirens still sound off in the distance.
Now to her left side, just below the ribs. One bloody mess. Either she was shot bailing out of the third-floor apartment or was grazed.
Shit.
From the near trash bin, a burst-open green trash bag reveals old sheets and towels. A bit more work and later, she’s made a compress against the wound and has tied it in place with twine.
Noa is hurt, she’s light-headed, and needs to get on the move.
The hospital?
Nope, not with a gunshot wound. That would immediately get police attention, or uniformed men and women claiming they were police.
Call the CIA? Even with their usual and customary objections against working in CONUS—hah-hah, she sourly thinks, remembering what she’s been doing these past months—there is a phone number she could call and get help within minutes.
But who would respond? The domestic CIA quick reaction force, or officers whose lasting loyalty is to President Barrett?
Gina Stasio? Her friend from the Office of Technical Services? She nearly sobs at the memory of her last meeting with Gina, relaxing in her cozy apartment, drinking wine, sharing secrets.
A call to Gina would get her here for sure.
But it would take too long, and who knows what kind of danger Noa would put Gina in, by reaching out to her.
No, she thinks, walking farther down the alleyway.
She needs to get to Director Abrams’s house, as fast as possible, before it is too late, before she bleeds out here.
The end of the alleyway ends in an old wooden fence, falling apart, and she slips through, wincing, finding a parking lot for another apartment building.
It’s crowded with cars, SUVs, and a few pickup trucks. Noa takes her time, walking and examining every vehicle she passes by, until she stops with relief at a dark silver Toyota Celica with some rust and dings, made back in the 1990s.
She moves in and tries the driver’s door.
Locked.
Well, finding an old car here was going to be luck enough. She walks out and returns a few minutes later with a good-sized rock in her right hand.
“Sorry,” she whispers and, with one sharp blow, shatters the passenger’s-side window. Reaches in, unlocks the door. The inside of the car is filthy with sweaty gym clothes, empty water bottles, crumpled-up food wrappers from Popeyes.