Terminal Vendetta (A Diana Weick Thriller Book 3) Read online

  “Right back at ya,” Diana snapped.

  Zabójca pulled a gun out, pointing it at her and David. A group of businessmen in unbuttoned suits noticed, screaming out and scattering the crowds around them.

  David’s freckled face was transitioning to a strawberry red, as between gasping breaths, he said, “Kill...her.”

  Diana tightened her grip, glaring down at him and up at Zabójca, shifting her body underneath the Scottish Reader, not allowing Zabójca to get a clean shot. But she couldn’t be sure how loyal Zabójca was to anyone but himself. The Readers were clearly a moneymaking endeavor for him. Though he must have hated the United States military, he didn’t have that personal stake like Cameron Snowman and David, especially now with Ratanake being dead. Zabójca had to have many enemies outside of Dominic Ratanake though—many nemeses that he’d angered over the years.

  He could shoot right through his head to hers.

  There was the sound of shoes behind them from the other side of the alley, pedestrians shuffling in and out of the violent scene unfolding in between the cobblestone.

  From behind her, a posh British accent called through it all, evening the odds.

  “Put the gun down, Fedoruk.”

  Diana could barely turn her head with the grip she had David in, but Idris Amber stepped up into her peripherals, holding a silenced pistol at a perfect angle, aimed right at Zabójca’s head.

  A rush of air and memories made its way out of her, flashes of the last time she’d seen him popping into her mind. Amber, pinned under the stone, one side of his body covered in black ash. Diana, wrapping damp scarves around him, leaving him there as she went after Rex and Taras. Going back to him, excavating him from the scene, taking him to the hospital where she couldn’t stay for his recovery because of what was unfolding back in London. Ratanake’s murder.

  Amber gave her a wink, a large scar along his left cheekbone scrunching with the crow’s feet around his dark, intense eyes.

  “Drop him first,” Zabójca said, seemingly unfazed by Amber’s appearance. For all he knew, Diana was still working with MI6, and this interception had been planned by the two of them. His green eyes flashed up and down David’s struggling, crumpled form. He scowled and thought, clearly contemplating leaving his Reader-mate behind.

  From Ratanake’s limited stories and the research she’d done on him, Diana knew that Zabójca’s bread and butter was his E&E, escape and evade. He murdered with such confidence because he always had a way out.

  The gunshot split through the alley, hitting the stone between David’s legs. And the moment that Diana’s grip loosened from shock, David had squirmed his way out, taking a moment to kick backwards, hitting her almost directly in the chest, knocking any remaining air she had out of her.

  Another shot. Amber dived out of the way.

  Zabójca and David ran, sprinting back down the street they’d come from, shoving people out of their path.

  “Subway,” Amber said, helping Diana to her feet and going after them.

  Through the streets and blurs of gathering nightlife, they could see Zabójca and David up ahead, heading for the closest subway line, a large green 2 printed out above the underground stairway. K-pop pumped out from storefronts. Signs printed in Hangul and English lit the street with reds and blues. Advertisements for plastic surgery lined the side of the subway stairwell.

  Zabójca and David were at the end of the escalator when they got to the top. The smell of the underground was so unlike that of the ones Diana had been to in other parts of the world. There was a scent of fresh sweet bread and corn. Everything clean. White and bright and well-signed.

  Several people stopped to stare, some took out their phones, recording the Polish terrorist, his Scottish friend, and Amber and Diana in hot pursuit.

  The line was absolutely crowded. But they managed to catch a glimpse of Zabójca and David disappearing onto the subway up ahead.

  “Move!” Amber cried out, pushing his way through the people, the gun held down at his legs. Diana, gunless and frustrated, barreled forward.

  There was a beeping on the speakers overhead—the subway doors were closing.

  With a final push and pull of Amber’s arm, Diana snaked in through the doors, which almost closed on her and re-opened when Amber got caught in between. The doors beeped angrily, staying open for another moment before closing firmly.

  But that moment was just enough for Zabójca and David to get back off the subway, Diana just catching a glimpse of the newspaper boy hat weaving back into the crowds as the train set off to its destination. The white bright station turning to a blur of black.

  “Fuck!” Diana cried, slamming her fist against the train door. A group of young girls giggled and moved away from her with several judgemental and concerned looks.

  “They got off,” Diana snapped back to Amber. He sighed and stumbled forward into her, grabbing on to the subway railing half a second too late.

  “We’ll get off at the next station and track back,” Amber replied.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she hissed. “They’re gone for good.”

  “Not for good…” Amber said. “Just for now.”

  The subway was surprisingly quiet for how many people were packed on line 2. Everyone concerned with how they would be perceived by the strangers around them—older women with skinny grocery carts between their legs, men in suits heading home from work, young people heading out for dinner. All keeping to themselves or whispering, some casting Amber and Diana uneasy looks.

  After a moment of awkward stifled silence, Diana mumbled, “What are you doing here?”

  “Bloody backup for you, apparently,” Amber said. “Are you mad? Taking on Zabójca and the Readers by yourself?”

  “I had it handled,” Diana replied. “I didn’t ask for and I don’t need MI6’s help.”

  “Well, we need yours.”

  She looked at him, searching his dark eyes as the subway lurched and he leaned into her. His fingers were turning white, wrapped around the smudged metal railing. The subway stopped. The doors slid open. Crowds of people got on and off, filtering past Amber and Diana, scrunching themselves against the seats and the knees of strangers.

  “Voss. She personally asked for you,” Amber explained. “You know her?”

  Diana shook her head.

  “Vice-chief,” Amber said. “She, like you, wants to take out the Readers before they get to whatever the next phase is in their plan.”

  “She doesn’t trust the FBI to handle this?”

  “Not in the slightest.”

  “So she wants the credit?”

  “She wants you to get the credit, actually.”

  “Me?”

  “I think she’s got a bit of a thing for you, Weick.”

  Diana rolled her eyes.

  “Yea, this is off of MI6’s books,” Amber said, ignoring her attitude, pushing closer to her still.

  “So you’re not following orders?” Diana raised an eyebrow. From her one mission with him, Amber had been one to do what he was told, follow the book, and only break the rules if he was given permission to.

  Amber smirked and said, “I follow what I believe in.”

  “Me too.” Diana looked out the subway window as they came out over a bridge, the city passing down in streaks of silver. The Han River behind them, careening through Seoul with skyscrapers, mountains and curved roofs on either side of it.

  “I’ll bite,” Amber stated. “What do you believe in then, Weick?”

  As they pulled into the next station, Diana shifted herself closer to the door. Above, the speakers rallied off the stop name.

  “I used to believe in a lot. Government, my family, justice, myself,” she said, whispering as he followed close behind her. “But now—maybe—it’s just punishment.”

  Chapter 5

  Taras Kushkin

  Paris, France

  The sheets were surprisingly cheap for an apartment as extravagant as this one. Crown m
oldings framed the high ceilings, and live-edge wooden shelves lined the room, piled with antique books and candles that had never been burned.

  He turned over in the bed, the back of the man next to him broad and muscular but a name that he couldn’t remember.

  Taras flicked his legs out of the cheap sheets, standing up and stretching as he crossed the studio apartment to open a window. It reeked of sex and booze. He grabbed one of the half-drunk wine bottles from last night, taking it with him to the patio. As he unclicked the slats of the window with one hand, Taras was immediately disappointed. It was one of those Parisian-style patios which meant a thin strip of concrete between two sets of iron bars.

  Taras sighed, leaning over the first of the bars and taking two long swigs of the wine, some of it dribbling down into the beard he’d been growing for a few weeks.

  After all that had happened, Taras had made it to Paris. He’d thought it would lighten his mood, restart his life as this new Taras without the support of the Kushkin organization but instead, it had spiralled him further down into a depression—his life without Rex Tennison.

  And that’s what it truly was. Rex Tennison wasn’t dead. He knew that for certain or else he would be dead himself. They were connected through something beyond this realm of pitiful human existence.

  But still, they said he was dead. The Readers. The news with their everlong scrolling of names.

  “Café?” a voice grumbled from behind him. “Ah… I see you already ’ave your morning drink.”

  Taras lifted the bottle of wine and brought it to his mouth.

  “No café for moi,” Taras grumbled, looking out over the streets of Paris below him, and way in the distance the Eiffel Tower scraping against a gray sky.

  “It was fun last night,” the man said. “You are a good dancer.”

  Taras turned, leaning his back against the iron bar, letting the smell of shit and fresh graffiti waft in from outside.

  “Did we dance?” Taras asked. His memories were faint from all of the drugs and alcohol he’d been drowning himself in.

  “Oui.” The man laughed. “At my friend’s club. You don’t remember?”

  “No,” Taras replied. “Your name?”

  “You don’t remember that either…”

  “If I remembered,” Taras said with another sip straight from the wine bottle. “I wouldn’t have asked.”

  “It’s Matthieu,” the man grumbled, moving to the kitchen to start making coffee. His body painted with the morning sun like it was chiseled from shined stone, every muscle in the right place, shadows catching in his divots.

  “You remember my name?” Taras asked, trying to determine what fake name he’d given this one.

  “I am not so shallow, Thomas,” Matthieu scoffed, ripping open a bag of coffee with his white teeth.

  Tucking in his lips and nodding, Taras pushed himself off the window, sitting down at the simple granite island.

  “It’s a beautiful apartment,” Taras said. “I wonder how you afford it on a go-go dancer’s salary.”

  “You remember that I’m a dancer, but you don’t remember my name?”

  “Your profession is much sexier than your name.” Taras shrugged.

  With the kettle placed on the stove, Matthieu laughed a little, filling up a filter with freshly ground coffee, covering up some of the smells from outside.

  “I only dance at the club at night,” Matthieu explained. “I do have a… uh… day job, yes?”

  “Yes,” Taras said, nodding. “And what’s that?”

  Pushing blond hair out of his face, Matthieu raised a well-manicured eyebrow and said, “It’s not very interesting. Not very sexy.”

  “I want to know.”

  After another moment of suspicion, Matthieu sighed and said, “I’m the director of Aeroport Orly.”

  “The airport south of Paris?” Taras asked, picking at a bunch of grapes in a bowl in the middle of the island. He popped two into his mouth. “Really?”

  Matthieu nodded.

  The kettle began to whistle.

  “So you can fly wherever you like? At any time?”

  “Well, not exactly.”

  “But you have control over who goes in and out, don’t you?”

  “In some ways, yes. I do report to a board, ’owever.”

  “That explains why we’re so far south,” Taras said. “It’s going to be a trek back to the city center.”

  “I can give you a ride.”

  “Perhaps you can do me another favor.”

  With another sip of the wine, Taras placed the bottle down on the island and circled it to join Matthieu by the counter. The hot water slowly poured over the ground-filled filter, the drip coffee beginning to fill the bottom of the bulbous glass container. The French did really hate to rush anything, even their morning coffee.

  Matthieu circled to a small TV, mounted to the wall opposite of the island, and clicked on to the news.

  “What kind of favor?” he asked.

  They both sat down at the island, a fresh cup of coffee steaming in front of Matthieu’s soft hands.

  “I just need to get through security…” Taras said, patting his fingers against the counter and turning over his shoulder.

  Matthieu took a sip from his mug, almost hiding his sly smirk. “I knew you were trouble. What ’ave you gotten yourself into, Thomas?”

  “Ah.” Taras sat back down at the island, wrapping his legs between Matthieu’s, bringing their stools closer together. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  On the TV, there were announcers babbling in French, and images of a grayscale cobblestone alley flashed across the screen. It showed a slow-motion shot of an empty restaurant, and then CCTV footage of people fighting, running, guns flailing.

  Diana Weick—on the screen, chasing after the Readers.

  With his eyes fixed on the small TV, Taras asked, “What are they saying?”

  “Uh…” Matthieu followed Taras’s gaze. “High-ranking American military official murdered in Seoul. Suspected connection to the… uh… drone attack on that funeral... few weeks ago.”

  Taras nodded. The Readers needed some PR. They hadn’t even advertised their organization or followed up on the power that they’d demonstrated. Taras had a limited scope of the world, but the scope he did have revolved around terrorism and the organizations that followed them. He could do a much better job than Zabójca.

  Besides, he knew what Zabójca was hiding.

  At that thought, Taras took a lap around the apartment, rolling the suitcase he’d been carrying around with him for much too long out of the bedroom and onto the living-room floor. It was heavy.

  “You’re all packed?” Matthieu asked, giving him an amused look, his legs spread out across the stool, his muscular arms leaning against the island behind him.

  “Almost.”

  Taras left the weight of the suitcase by the door, wrapping his arms under Matthieu’s and pressing against him, allowing himself one more moment of pleasure before all the nastiness of his future unfolded—to destroy the men that had destroyed him, to kill the men who were responsible for Rex Tennison’s alleged death.

  Chapter 6

  Diana Weick

  Flight No. 873

  “He’s not dead.”

  She wished so vehemently to hear those words referencing anyone other than the person Amber was talking about.

  For Wesley. For Rex. For Ratanake.

  But it wasn’t the case. All of them were dead. There was an ongoing process of identifying the charred remains of those in attendance at Ratanake’s funeral. She remembered the sight of it like piles of half-burnt firewood, stacked on top of one another, unable to discern faces, bodies, fingers from one another on the burning patch of grass in the middle of the graveyard. Knowing that Wesley and Rex were still in there, but unable to pull them out because she couldn’t find them. Diana couldn’t recognize them.

  That was a pain beyond that of grief; not being able to ident
ify her son in a sea of scorched bodies. They had pretended—her and Kennedy—that they had their ashes, scattering them out on the hiking trails just outside of Seattle. It had eased nothing. Perhaps for Kennedy, yes. But for Diana, there was nothing left but a smoky piece of pain and resentment, wedged deep at the base of her chest. Pulsing in each chamber of her heart, reminding her who was truly responsible for all that unfolded—Alek Fedoruk and the Readers—and encouraging her to take her revenge.

  “Did you hear me?” Amber said again as they piled into the airplane.

  “Yes,” Diana replied.

  “Hoagland took a pill at that restaurant,” Amber explained. “Zabójca thought he was dead and took off. Military contacts extracted the old bastard. They want everyone to think he’s dead so they get him to a safe house.”

  “The Readers know this?”

  Amber took his seat by the window after struggling with shoving his suitcase in the overhead bin, Diana having to lean over his shoulder and impatiently smash it with her palm to get it inside.

  “Of course,” Amber said. “Well, we don’t know for sure but we can and should assume that they do. They had Lionel Barr inside MI6. Cameron Snowman inside the FBI. They’ve got people everywhere.”

  There was a moment when Diana realized that she had so easily let Amber take over, so thankful for her resources that she’d let him handle the transportation and the details. Diana had to dip into her offshore account to pay for the tickets to Korea, and she didn’t want to do it again unless she absolutely had to. That money had always been and would always be for her children.

  “So we’re going to this safe house?” Diana asked.

  “Trying to get the specifics from Voss,” Amber said. “But it’s somewhere remote as all hell.”

  “I mean, where are we going now?”

  Amber looked at her, blinking.

  “You don’t remember where we’re going?”

  “I’ve been a bit distracted, Amber,” Diana snapped.

  Sighing and tucking a curl out of his face, the sun through the plane window illuminating his chiseled, unscarred side, Amber gave a sad nod.