Wired - Douglas E. Richards [39]
Kira Miller had also jumped in shock when the door was kicked open, but she recovered quickly. While the attackers lay sprawled on the floor, dazed, wondering what had hit them and why the world had suddenly gone dark, she slid her thermal imaging goggles down over her eyes. The two intruders instantly became visible as glowing, highly resolved three-dimensional silhouettes.
“Don’t move!” she barked.
The taller of the two attackers had now fully recovered his wits after the surprise fall. The girl wasn’t as clever as they had been led to believe, he thought arrogantly. The room was as dark as a cave, but she had foolishly given them the upper hand by speaking and giving away her location. He ignored her command and soundlessly lifted his arm and pointed his gun in the direction from which her voice had originated.
She shot him in the chest with her stun gun as he prepared to fire.
The tall man convulsed violently and lay still on the ground while Kira quickly retracted the dual electrode harpoons, ready for another shot. The man’s partner silently began to change position on the floor so that he could attempt an attack as well, not having learned from his colleague’s miscalculation.
“Just because you can’t see,” hissed Kira, “doesn’t mean that I can’t.”
The man froze in place. Like his paralyzed partner, he had assumed she couldn’t see him or detect his movements, a foolish and potentially fatal assumption. They had been warned that she was very clever and not to underestimate her.
“That’s right,” she said smugly. “I’m wearing night-vision goggles. So let’s try this again. Don’t. Move.” She emphasized each word as if speaking to a stubborn toddler.
Desh’s mind had been racing since the attack began, considering his options. But he realized that even if he could free himself, escape was hopeless. He couldn’t see any better than the attackers could.
Kira pulled a Glock from her bag with a silencer already attached, although given that the sound of the door being forced open would already have awakened every last motel resident—several of whom, at least, were now calling the police—the silencer had questionable value.
“I’m now pointing a gun at you,” she explained. “How many others are with you and what is their location?” she demanded.
“No others,” replied the man, shaking his head. “Just us.”
Kira fired. The silenced gun issued a spitting sound as she sent a bullet tearing through the meaty part of the man’s thigh. “I’ll only ask once more,” she growled. “How many others are with you and what is their location?”
“One other,” grunted the man as he desperately began trying to staunch the flow of blood from his leg. “He’s taken up a sniper position facing your room to prevent any escape. He’s equipped with a thermal imager.”
Kira said nothing. She adjusted a setting on the stun gun and fired. The intruder convulsed and lay still, unconscious. She reloaded the gun, adjusted the setting once more, and shot the first man again, rendering him unconscious as well. She pulled a ski mask from her bag, made from the same material as her jumpsuit, and stretched it over her goggles. The material snapped back into shape to fit snugly over her face and nose, fitting perfectly around the goggles and leaving not a single section of her face exposed.
“Shit!” she fumed. “We needed more time. They shouldn’t have tracked us here for five or six more hours,” she said despondently, as much to herself as to Desh. “By then we would have been long gone.” She had been in complete control when dealing with the two attackers, but she was distraught now, as if she had just suffered a terrible loss. Desh was still blind but could hear it clearly in her voice.
“I have to get out of here,” she said after a few seconds of silence. “Now.” Desh noted that any hint of vulnerability had once again disappeared from her voice. “I can’t trust you untied, and I don’t have time to drag you with me.”
Desh’s heart raced furiously. So what would she do with him now? Would she decide to put a bullet in his brain before she left? Desh knew she intended