Riptide

“I’m right behind you, Adam. Go, quickly!”

He didn’t realize Becca wasn’t with him until he was out the front door and two agents had lifted Thomas from his shoulder. “Jesus, a chest wound. Get the paramedics over here!”

“The fire department is on the way,” Gaylan Woodhouse said, running up, his gun still at the ready. “My God, you’re shot, too, Adam. Hey, Hawley, get over here. We need some help.” Adam stood there holding his arm, his teeth gritted. And now, of all things, that pulling in his back, it was bringing him down.

“Where the hell is Krimakov?” Savich shouted.

“Becca,” Adam said, looking around wildly. “Becca?”

“Jesus,” Hatch said, running to Adam. “He got you in the back, boss. Did you know you got shot in the back? Oh God, hurry, let’s get him down.”

“Becca,” Adam said, frantic now, and he knew he was barely hanging on. “Where’s Becca?” He saw the flames billowing out of the upstairs windows. The beautiful ivy that nearly covered that side of the house was on fire.

“Thomas shot Krimakov,” Adam said to Gaylan Woodhouse and Hawley, who were bending over him. “He’s got to still be inside. Maybe he’s unconscious or dead. Jesus, where’s Becca? Please, you’ve got to find her.”

The walkie-talkie boomed out, “No one has tried to come out of any windows or the back of the house.”

“Get Krimakov,” Gaylan shouted. “Dammit. GET HIM!”

Becca, oh God, where was Becca? He wanted to go back into that house to find her. He had to, had to, but he just couldn’t move. The fire wasn’t only in the house now, it was inside him and it was eating its way out. The pain in his back held him utterly locked in place. He couldn’t move.

“Oh my God,” an agent shouted. “Up there!”

“It’s Becca,” Gaylan Woodhouse whispered. “Oh, no.”

Adam did move, suddenly, with a spurt of strength he didn’t know he had. He roared to his feet. He followed everyone’s eyes to the roof of the house and felt his heart drop to his feet. No, please Jesus, no. But it was Becca, on the roof of the burning house.

“Becca!”

There were at least a dozen people standing in the front yard, looking upward. Then everyone was silent, still.

There, highlighted in flames, stood Becca, in her white nightgown, her bare feet spread, holding the Coonan between her hands.

“Becca,” Adam shouted, “shoot the fucker!”

But she didn’t. She just stood there, pointing the Coonan at Mikhail Krimakov. He was holding his arm, blood dripping through his fingers. Blood also dripped down his cheek from a head wound. He was leaning over, as it was nearly beyond him to straighten. What had happened to his gun? Oh God, Adam couldn’t believe what he was seeing, would have given five years of his life if he could have changed it, if he could even have moved, at least tried to save her. But there was nothing he could do. He saw an agent raise a rifle. “No,” he said, “don’t try it. He’s off at an angle. Don’t take the chance of hitting her. Where are the firemen?”

Flames had caught the roof on fire now, licking out of the balcony off Thomas’s bedroom. It wouldn’t be long now until the flames ate the roof and sent it crashing into the house, until it was too hot on the roof for her to stand there, barefoot.

He heard her then, speaking loudly, very clearly.

“It’s over,” Becca said to the young man not eight feet from her. “Finally, it’s over. You lost, Mikhail, but the cost was too high. You killed eight people, just because they were there.”

“Oh no, I killed many more than that,” he said, raising his head, panting with the pain. “They didn’t count, any of them. I used them, then of what possible use were they to me?”

“Why didn’t you stop when your father died in that car accident?”

He laughed, he actually laughed at her. “It wasn’t an accident, you stupid bitch. I killed him. He wanted me to stop this, said I’d already done enough, that this was just too much. He’d turned soft, he’d become a coward. I killed him because he’d become a weakling. He wasn’t worthy any longer. He betrayed my beloved mother’s memory. Yes, I clouted him on the side of the head and drove him in his car over a cliff.”

There wasn’t a sound from anyone standing below. Then, the sound of sirens in the distance. The flames were licking up over the edge of the roof now. She had to get out of there. Adam stood there, impotent. Becca, please, please. Get the hell out of there.