Page 69 of Mile High Ruin

She notices. “Is that another order?”

“Yes.”

She should argue. Instead, she looks down for a moment, and when she raises her eyes again, there’s something genuinely sad in them. “Then I guess I’ll see you again.”

“You will.”

I step onto the tarmac.

Sloane follows a moment later, remaining near the bottom of the stairs while Camille speaks to one of the ground crew.

I should walk toward the vehicles.

I don’t. I look back.

Sloane stands beneath the lights with her coat pulled around herself, dark hair moving slightly in the wind, and something inside me feels wrong at the sight of her standing apart from me. The sensation is unfamiliar enough that I almost resent her for causing it.

Then a crack splits the night.

For half a second, nobody moves.

A second crack follows, and the window of the nearest SUV explodes.

Anton shouts. Men scatter. Sloane’s eyes widen.

I turn toward the far edge of the tarmac as another shot tears through the air.

We’re under attack.

11

SLOANE

The first gunshot is so striking and loud that for one stupid second, I think something on the aircraft has exploded.

Then the window of the nearest SUV bursts inward. Glass sprays across the tarmac, one of the men beside the vehicle drops behind the hood, and somebody shouts in Russian from somewhere to my left.

Vadim doesn’t move immediately.

That frightens me almost as much as the shooting.

He stands three yards away from me, staring toward the far edge of the private terminal as though the attack has violated some fundamental rule he can’t quite reconcile with what he’s seeing. The confusion lasts less than a second, but I see it because I’m looking directly at him when it happens.

“Sloane, down.”

He’s moving before I understand the command. His hand catches the back of my coat and drags me toward the aircraft stairs just as another shot cracks across the tarmac. Something strikes metal behind us with a violent ping, and I stumble hard enough that one knee nearly hits the ground.

People are suddenly everywhere.

Anton has drawn a gun from beneath his jacket and is firing toward a row of service vehicles parked beside the hangar. Marek is crouched behind one of the SUVs, shouting instructions to the security men on the ground while returning fire with a handgun that seems to have appeared in his hand from nowhere. Two members of the ground crew have thrown themselves flat beside the luggage cart.

Iosef is standing beside the aircraft stairs. Just standing there. His leather portfolio is still in one hand.

“Iosef!” Anton roars. “Get down!”

Iosef blinks as though the suggestion has only just occurred to him and drops behind the wheel of a baggage trolley just as another burst of gunfire tears across the open space.

My brain can’t keep up. Ten minutes ago, I was standing at the bottom of the stairs thinking about whether Vadim and I would ever see each other again.