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It would help if Diana had a clue where she was. Or maybe it wouldn’t matter at all because it wasn’t like she had any sense of direction other than to get away from the house. She pedaled so hard, her lungs ached and legs burned. Her injured ankle screamed at her to stop, but she couldn’t let up.
She twisted her way through a neighborhood of ramshackle houses, hoping that her pursuers wouldn’t know which route she’d taken. The upkeep on the houses improved, and she found herself on the edge of a quiet business district. It was early evening—after hours, certainly—but she wondered what day of the week it was. Was everything closed because it was a weekend?
She darted into a narrow alley between two short buildings, the opening plenty wide enough for the bicycle, but too narrow for all but the smallest of cars.
After several twists and turns, the buildings got taller and the alleys slightly wider, but more debris filled the space, forcing her to dodge traps as she wove through tight spaces.
Then her luck ran out.
She pitched over the handlebars and slammed into the ground. If not for the full head-to-toe covering she’d been required to wear, she’d have road rash in addition to the usual cuts and bruises.
As it was, her right sleeve was torn and there were cuts on her arm. She imagined she was in a great deal of pain, but adrenaline masked it. She got to her feet and nearly collapsed. She didn’t know if her legs were done after the intense pedaling, if they’d been injured in the fall, or if her ankle had simply given up. Perhaps it had shattered again, the pins now rattling with her fractured bones.
But it didn’t matter what her legs wanted or if her ankle was toast. All parts of her had to keep working, or no piece of her would survive.
She pushed off a wall and began to run. There was a rickety staircase ahead, and she grabbed the railing and pulled herself upward. Better than exiting the alleyway, where a pursuer in a car might have circled around to wait for her.
She went up three flights before she found a door that opened. She darted inside, finding herself in a corridor that appeared to run the length of the building. Was this an office building?
She tried four doors before finding an unlocked one. Taking a deep breath, she entered the room, hoping to spot a phone or computer or anything she could use to call for help.
But the space was empty. Whatever business had operated from here had cleared out months ago, leaving behind desks and shelves and broken chairs. There were multiple empty rooms, all connected. Should she hide here, or was she cornering herself?
She came upon another door that opened to the main corridor. The door had been locked, and now she looked down the long hall, realizing the entire office suite took up one side of the building.
Was the entire floor empty?
What about the building? Was it abandoned?
Where the hell was she?
Just her luck to have escaped into a desert ghost town without phones or computers.
At last, she found a stairwell at the far end of the long corridor. She stepped inside, and the heavy door closed with a loud clang. She tried the knob and found it had locked. She could be trapped in this stairwell, with the only exits being on the ground floor or the roof.
She made her way down, wishing she’d been able to find a weapon of some sort. All she had was a shard of glass smaller than the palm of her hand. On the first floor landing, there were two doors. Gray early evening light spilled through the window in one door. The other door must lead inside to the first-floor offices.
She hadn’t given up on the idea of finding a working phone. She took a deep breath and tried the interior door and felt a flood of relief when the knob turned.
She slowly pulled the door open and came face-to-face with Bassam.
Chapter Nineteen
The drone lost her when she reached the business district full of tight alleys. It picked her up again five minutes later—and she’d gotten farther than Chris would have expected in that time—before losing her again.
They had two square blocks with no less than a half dozen buildings she could be inside or hiding in the maze of alleyways in between. She also had a half dozen terrorists in hot pursuit.
The situation was a fucking nightmare.
With the platoon split, there were only eight men searching for Dr. Edwards, while eight men stormed the compound as night fell over the outskirts of the city.
Chris divided the Squad into two-man teams. Chris was with Albrecht, the youngest man on the SEAL team. Together, they moved through the alleyways, looking for building entrances she might have used.
The drone spotted the abandoned bicycle being pulled out of an alley by one of the cell members. With that intel, they narrowed their search area to two buildings. Their best bet was the one with a fire escape that let out into the alley where she’d abandoned the bicycle.
Instead of climbing the outside fire escape, Chris and Albrecht circled to the front face of the building. From the side, the building had looked old and abandoned, but closer inspection showed it was still in use at least at the ground level, which had street-front shops that were shuttered for the evening. He located a door to the main building between two closed shops and hesitated only a moment before using a charge to blow the lock.
He was more concerned with the noise than with the damage to a civilian structure. There was no hiding this op from government officials at this point, and compensation would be made to the business owners.
