Page 104 of High Treason
She bit into her lip, but he saw another smile.
After she texted Lori about leaving the café, Monica reset the alarm, and they made their way to the front door. Rain fell in a splashing deluge. Kord noted movement to the right side of the storefront window.
“Unlock the door. I saw someone out there,” he said, grasping his weapon.
She quickly obliged. “I’m going with you.”
Outside, he couldn’t hear a thing but water beating against the pavement. A bullet whizzed over his head and shattered the café’s glass window, sending the alarm into a screech. Gunfire erupted around them.
KORD GRABBED MONICAand together they knelt back-to-back on the concrete and fired in the direction of the shooters—at least two from opposite directions.
Sheets of rain distorted their vision, but it also was a disadvantage to whoever wanted them dead. A chain of expletives exploded in his mind. This was why he refused to believe in a God. They were the good guys. He yanked out his phone and called for backup.
Monica took out a streetlight, then another, in the fog-like rain.
One tiny lady with lots of guts. “We’ve got to get out of here.” Kord twisted and destroyed a light inside the café.
They moved toward a parked car hugging the curb and crouched behind the wheels. Bullets flew around them.
“Backup can’t get here soon enough,” she said in the mass of nature’s noise and gunfire.
“We can take these guys.”
“Keep telling yourself that.”
Sirens grew closer. Gunfire exploded against their car cover. Thesound of a vehicle peeling out met his ears before HPD arrived. She crept around the car. Another spray of bullets indicated a shooter still had them in his sights.
“Stay down, Monica. A hero’s plaque on the CIA’s Memorial Wall doesn’t do you any good. Nor will I get any more kisses.”
Three HPD cars whirled onto the street, and when the shooting stopped and a second vehicle sped off, one of the squad cars took off after it.
“We’re not letting that guy get away.” She raced to Kord’s Charger.
He bolted to the car first and had the engine roaring before she slammed her door.
Kord trailed behind the HPD vehicle down Franklin, the wheels sloshing through the flooded streets. The suspect’s car faced the same slow progress and then picked up speed when it turned and hit the on-ramp for Highway 59 north.
The suspect raced ahead on the highway where the road lay slick. “The last thing we need is for him to kill himself.”
“No answers from a dead man,” she said. “I want names.”
“Sure would hate to make you mad.”
“That goes both ways.”
He chuckled despite the situation and passed the HPD vehicle with its glaring lights and siren. “He’s traveling 90 miles an hour.”
The suspect’s car hit a patch of water and hydroplaned. Flipped twice, landed upside down in the middle of the road. Exploded. Burst into flames.
In the diluted haze of lights and destruction, Kord and Monica assisted two HPD officers in freeing the man trapped inside the burning car. They battled hot, rising flames, shielding their faces while momentsticked by on the life of the man pinned inside. His screams in Arabic pierced through their attempts to free him. Kord ripped off his shirt to protect his hands from the hot metal. Monica did the same with her jacket. They struggled together with the officers to yank open the searing driver’s door. Kord reached across the man to release his seat belt.
“Monica, you won’t believe this, but it’s Youssof Dagher,” he said, knowing only she would comprehend the significance.
Kord pulled him by his shoulders from the burning wreckage. The officers helped move him onto the side of the highway. Dagher’s body was twisted in a mass of raw flesh, his cries pushing him to unconsciousness. In the distance the call of an ambulance sounded closer.
Monica bent to the man’s side, the rain increasing in intensity. “Youssof, I can’t imagine your pain. But help is coming. Hold on. Be strong.”
At that moment, Kord saw a woman who cared more about a criminal’s physical pain than his lousy choices. Kord accepted his growing feelings for her, not knowing where it might take him.
