Page 10 of Denied Access (Mitch Rapp #24)

D AUGAVPILS , L ATVIA

A N invisible fist smashed into Joe’s back and hurled him against the wall.

Through more luck than skill, he interposed his forearm between his skull and the exposed brick, but the collision still left him seeing stars.

Joe groaned and tried to make sense of what had happened.

His ears rang and his eyes burned from the sudden grit in the air.

For a long moment he couldn’t seem to breathe.

Then his quivering lungs began to function.

He inhaled, drawing much-needed oxygen into his chest, and then promptly coughed it back out. The air tasted of soot and smoke.

“David?” Joe croaked.

His partner lay on the dirty floor in a crumpled heap, blood trickling from the back of his head. Joe knelt by the newbie operator’s side, reaching for his neck to check for a pulse. The moment his fingers brushed David’s skin, his teammate reacted.

“ Blyat ,” David growled as he came awake swinging.

“Easy, tough guy,” Joe said, parrying the strike. “It’s just me.”

David hadn’t been able to put much force behind the blow, but Joe clamped his teammate’s arms to his sides anyway. The punch stung, but he didn’t mind. The guy had just been knocked unconscious and he came to cursing in Russian and throwing a right hook.

He definitely had a future in the Unit.

“What happened?” David said. His words were slurred and his voice raspy, but his eyes were focused.

Progress.

“Great question,” Joe said. “Can you stand?”

David closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. “Think so. Why aren’t we dead?”

Another great question.

“Our bomb didn’t explode,” Joe said, helping his teammate to his feet, “so I’m guessing the bomber was an overachiever.

Something detonated in the other room. The brick wall and thick wooden door must have attenuated the blast’s shock wave and prevented the box of fun in the cupboard from sympathetically detonating. ”

“My head doesn’t feel like anything got attenuated,” David said.

“The door blew open and brained you,” Joe said. “You’re bleeding, but the cut looks superficial. Come on, we gotta get moving.”

As if to emphasize Joe’s statement, a resounding snap echoed from beyond the door followed by an equally ominous thunk as something heavy and once solid collapsed. The pub occupied the basement floor of a multistory building. There was bound to be structural damage after a blast of that magnitude.

“What about that?” David said, gesturing toward the cupboard.

“Leave it,” Joe said. “No chance we’re sneaking out of here now. Besides, the heat and secondary explosions might cause it to explode. Let’s go.”

The thespian frowned but didn’t argue.

Joe understood.

Leaving the bomb felt wrong, but there was nothing he could do.

He had come to terms with the idea that his chosen vocation was never going to be without risk, but Joe drew the line at outright suicide.

Looping his teammate’s arm over his shoulders, Joe staggered toward the door.

The maneuver took a bit more out of him than he’d anticipated.

The world wasn’t spinning, but it had developed a strange tilt.

“Wait,” David said, gesturing at the door as they cleared the bathroom’s threshold.

“Right,” Joe said.

Propping his teammate against the wall, Joe limped back into the bathroom and pulled the door closed.

The hardwood frame sported a series of new divots, but the length of oak still swung on its hinges.

The shock wave had destroyed the latching mechanism, so it didn’t shut completely, but most of the way closed was better than open.

Hopefully the barrier would keep the fire’s heat from the bomb for a bit longer.

David pushed himself from the wall and managed a step before he began to sway. Joe caught his teammate just as he started to crumple. “Easy there, tough guy. No sense bouncing your noggin off the floor. I’m gonna need you awake enough to throw some Russian around once we get outside.”

David grunted something unintelligible, but he quit struggling.

Joe threaded David’s arm over his shoulders a second time and then staggered into the bar proper.

A blast of heat greeted him followed by a cloud of choking smoke.

The room looked as if it had been hit by a tornado.

The island of oak was somewhat recognizable, but what had once been the centerpiece of the establishment now more resembled a pile of scrap lumber.

The base was intact, but everything higher than about four feet had been reduced to jagged splinters.

A pair of legs lay on the floor like parts from a discarded mannequin, but only bits of gore remained of the bartender’s torso and face.

“Oh, God,” David said.

“Breathe through your mouth and keep moving,” Joe said. “Nothing we can do.”

Tongues of fire were already licking up the wall while separate flaming tentacles stretched for the floorboards.

Only a matter of time before the bomb in the cupboard kicked off.

Joe was grateful for the good fortune that had allowed him to survive the first detonation, but anyone who’d done this job more than a day knew that luck was a fickle mistress.

“What about them?”

Joe followed his teammate’s pointing finger and sighed.

He’d been focused on the bar’s exit to the exclusion of the rest of the room.

He wanted to believe that this was because he was concentrating on navigating the smoke-filled interior as quickly as possible, but this was only partly true.

The less noble portion of the explanation was that he couldn’t hold himself responsible for what he didn’t see.

Now, thanks to David, he knew about the bodies strewn across the opposite side of the bar.

One of which was still twitching. Of all the news guys in the Unit, he was partnered with Jiminy Cricket.

“Lemme get you out. Then I’ll come back for them.”

“Why?”

“Someone needs to tell any Good Samaritans or first responders to stay the hell out of the building because of the second bomb. Any other helpful questions?”

David remained silent. Joe didn’t know if that was because he really didn’t have any more questions or because he was smart enough not to answer.

He’d take the win.

“Check on them now,” David said as he pulled his arm away. “I can make it to the door.”

Joe thought about reminding his teammate that he was in fact the team leader, but he didn’t think it would have done any good.

Besides, David was right. The fire would probably prevent him from reentering the bar once he helped David outside.

If he intended to assist the other survivors, he had to do so now.

Joe paused to make sure David was capable of getting to the door.

His teammate’s steps were unsteady, but he was heading in the right direction, and the door leading outside was already open.

Unit operations were often accomplished by two- or three-man teams, and working under these conditions was only possible if each team member trusted the other to do their job.

David knew his assignment was to get clear of the building and warn first responders about the second bomb.

That was enough for Joe.

A crack split the air as another ceiling timber tumbled to the floor. Flames danced along the wood, searching for something else to consume. Between the waiting bomb and the roaring fire, the bar didn’t have long.

Neither did Joe.

Putting a hand to his face, Joe tried to shelter his eyes and mouth as he stumbled toward the prone men.

The heat had been present before, but it felt different now.

More oppressive. As if he were standing naked beneath the desert sun.

Wisps of smoke rose from his sleeves and the hem of his pants.

A flaming piece of wood landed on his shirt.

Joe beat at the fabric, extinguishing the ember.

He needed to get out of here.

The smoke was thicker closer to the wall and Joe crouched, searching for cleaner air.

He didn’t find much of that, but his proximity to the ground did make it easier to see the huddle of bodies.

The unnaturally positioned head of the first casualty told him all he needed to know, as did the length of metal protruding from the chest of the second.

The third man, the one closest to the wall, showed promise.

Like his friends, the man’s extremities were riddled with shrapnel and his leg was twisted at an obscene angle, but the fingers of his right hand were reaching toward the exposed skin around his neck.

Moving closer, Joe saw smoke drifting from the man’s shirt collar. He was alive and could feel pain.

Joe couldn’t let him burn to death.

Hooking his hands beneath the man’s armpits, Joe yanked the casualty clear of his companions.

The man screamed as his broken leg flopped across the bodies, but Joe kept pulling as he backed toward the door.

Either the explosion had rung his bell harder than he thought, or the man was bulkier than he’d expected, or both.

Joe’s legs quivered and his back muscles screamed, but he kept putting one foot in front of the other.

He took a giant breath and instantly folded double as a coughing fit racked his chest. He didn’t dare drop the wounded man to wipe his mouth, for fear he would never be able to lift him again.

Instead, Joe ignored the acid burning up his throat, the mucus streaming down his nose, and the vise squeezing his lungs.

His vision tunneled, but he kept pulling, each step taking him closer to the beckoning door.

The entrance was behind him, but Joe imagined the cool, fresh air just feet away as he tried to ignore the significance of his narrowing field of view.

Just a couple steps more.