She wheeled around, her cheeks and neck scarlet with exertion and anger. She took a step forward and raised an open hand to deliver a hard slap at Bolan. The soldier noticed her hand was shaking and he guessed it was because of the adrenaline coursing through her. She didn’t take another step, but the anger and fear didn’t drain from her face, either.
“What the hell is the matter with you? You come into my apartment, my home, and start shooting people? Manhandle me?”
Bolan held up his hands, palms forward, in a placating gesturing. The sound of the sirens continued to grow louder.
“We need to go,” he said. “You’re in danger.”
“Yeah, from you! I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on.”
Bolan shook his head. “Not now. Not here. You need to trust me.”
She threw up her hands in frustration. “I don’t even know you.”
“If we stay here, we’ll get picked up by the police. If my friend and I end up in jail, we can’t help you. We lose valuable time. And Terry Lang died for nothing.”
She opened her mouth to reply, hesitated. Her mouth closed and she shook her head slowly.
“Fine, damn it. Let’s go.”
“You won’t regret this,” Bolan said.
“Too late.”
BOLAN WAS PACING THE hallway in the safehouse, speaking to Potts by cell phone.
“You realize you’re giving me an ulcer,” Potts said.
“Sorry.”
“Oh, problem solved then.”
“Look,” Bolan replied, “just smooth things over with the locals. The last thing I need is them breathing down my neck while I’m trying to work on this. Will you handle it?”
Potts paused a couple of seconds. “Okay.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re going to give me a heart attack. You know that? A big fat, fucking coronary. Which one of my ex-wives sent you here, anyway?”
“I thought I was giving you an ulcer,” Bolan said, ending the call and slipping the phone into his pocket.
He walked to the kitchen, where he found Grimaldi and Gillen seated at a table. She’d pulled her long hair back into a ponytail and secured it with a rubber band. Her face looked freshly scrubbed, and she wore a white T-shirt that was too big for her. Flecks of blood had spattered on her other clothes and her exposed arms during the altercation at her apartment building.
A cup of coffee sat on the table in front of her. She’d wrapped her fingers around it and was staring glumly into the cup. When Bolan entered the room, she peered up at him, her expression stony.
“I gave her one of your extra shirts,” Grimaldi said. “And some coffee.”
Bolan pulled one of the chairs out from the table, spun it and sat on it. He rested his forearms on the top of the chair’s back and looked at Gillen.
“Say it,” she said.
“What?”
“Whatever the hell you’re thinking, just spit it out.”
“How well did you know Terry Lang?”
She thought about it for a couple of seconds, then shrugged. “We knew each other two years, maybe three. Worked together off and on during that time.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Her eyes dipped toward her coffee cup again. “We spent a lot of time together,” she said.
Bolan detected something in her voice, maybe sadness, though he couldn’t be sure.
“Were you sleeping together?”
Anger flashed in her eyes. She opened her mouth to say something, but the soldier cut her off.
“You’re hiding something,” he said. “If your big secret is that you two were lovers, then please spare me the modesty. I’m not a priest.”
She pressed her lips together, forming a bloodless line.
“I feel violated,” she said.
“I don’t care,” Bolan said.
“You’re a son of a bitch.”
Bolan said nothing. Grimaldi kept his mouth shut, but turned his gaze from one to the other, as though he was watching a tennis match.
Finally she heaved a sigh and her shoulders sagged.
“We were sleeping together.”
“And?”
She looked up a him. “And what?”
“What else? I mean, that’s the big confession? What else is going on?”
Her face flushed and she crossed her arms over her chest.
“Look, he was married. Sleeping with him isn’t something I’m proud of. We worked together, collaborated on a few things. It just happened.”
“Maybe you weren’t looking for it,” Bolan said. “But Terry apparently was looking for it all over. Now some people are trying to kill you. Maybe it was because he was your bunk mate. Maybe not. Regardless, Terry’s dead and someone apparently wants to kill you, too.”
“Or at least capture you,” Grimaldi added. “That wouldn’t be pleasant, either.”
“Did he tell you anything?” Bolan asked. “Say he was worried for his life?”
She hesitated. “The man, the one you shot on the stairs. We saw him a couple of days ago at a hotel. It really bothered Terry, unnerved him like I’d never seen before.”
“He say why?” Bolan asked.
She shook her head. “No. I just noticed the change in him once he saw the guy. He got nervous, edgy. In retrospect, I can see why. The guy back there was a killer. He would have killed me.”
Bolan nodded his agreement.
She raised her coffee mug to her lips, took a deep swallow and returned it to the table. Bolan noticed a small shudder pass through her and she hugged herself again.
“That’s not the first close call,” she said. “I was in Iraq, working for the wire services. The unit I was embedded with got ambushed. The soldiers I was with were killed, shot by a sniper. I was pinned down and scared out of my mind. Fortunately, another unit rolled in at the last minute and killed the snipers. I almost died that day.”
“You
