She wobbled in her heels as she headed toward the private executive jet lounge set just off the tarmac. Taking a seat at the bar, she ordered a martini and lit another cigarette moments after crushing the butt of her previous one.
A well-dressed man sat next to her and flashed a smile. He ordered a drink and struck up a conversation.
“Where are you headed?” the man asked.
“Far away from here,” she said, trying to resist the urge to engage with him.
“What kind of jet do you have?”
“The best,” she said before a fireball lit up the night sky, interrupting their fledgling conversation.
The man hustled over to the door along with a small throng of people. Petrov watched as they all went slack-jawed, shaking their heads in disbelief. She returned to her drink and played with the toothpick, olive still attached.
“Can you believe that?” the man asked as he sat back down next to her.
Petrov shrugged. “The world isn’t what it used to be.”
“Perhaps, but I’ve never seen anything quite as spectacular as that.”
“A giant fireball in the sky?” she said, casting a sideways glance at him. “You need to get out more.”
“I wholeheartedly agree. Now, where were we—oh, yes, you were telling me about your jet.”
Petrov ignored the line of questioning regarding her plane for a couple reasons. For starters, she couldn’t remember what type it was. And she concluded if she could recall the make and model, it might somehow indict her since that was the same type of plane that just exploded over Paris. Instead, she launched into a story that she fabricated on the spot about her life as a billionaire heiress. For twenty minutes, she regaled him with tales of adventure on her father’s yacht, sky diving over Maldives, surfing near the Great Barrier Reef, and navigating a small barge along the Amazon.
“Sounds like you’re a modern-day Richard Halliburton,” the man said.
She smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment, though I’ve yet to swim the Panama Canal like he did.”
“You’re still young,” he said before getting up and tossing some cash on the bar. “Hopefully I’ll see you again.”
Petrov exhaled as he left. She was glad he was gone, but she couldn’t deny that she enjoyed the attention. A dashing man in his late 30s flirting with her—there were worse ways to pass the time while awaiting Anatoly to pick her up.
The televisions behind the bars all cut away from a live soccer match to a report about the plane crash. Reporters were already on the scene, describing the “fireball in the sky” that killed a reported seven passengers and three crew members.
Six passengers, thankfully.
Petrov realized her escape had little to do with her intuition and everything to do with a stroke of luck. It took both clairvoyance and fortune to survive in her world. She smiled at the thought of Brady Hawk and his team celebrating her early demise. However, they were unaware that she escaped, giving her an upper hand she hadn’t held in quite some time.
I couldn’t have planned this any better myself.
CHAPTER 31
HAWK WAS DRIVING BACK toward the hotel when the devices detonated. He pulled off to the shoulder and watched as the fiery debris fell to the ground. Some of the pieces sped rapidly downward while others drifted. A dark plume of smoke rose from the spot where the bulk of the hull landed.
He exhaled in relief. He’d done it. After trying for so long to put an end to The Chamber, it was now in shambles, nothing more than a pile of ashes sitting on a tarmac. However, the rest of the Firestorm team didn’t share his enthusiasm.
When Hawk walked into the room, he was greeted by two pensive faces.
“I thought you guys would be more excited,” Hawk said as he locked the door behind him. “This feels more like I just walked in on a funeral.”
Alex shook her head and sighed. “In a way it is. My mother is dead.”
“She was dead to you a long time ago, Alex. Don’t try to—”
“Stop,” she said, holding up her hand. “Just stop. There were still things I wanted to ask her, things I wanted to know about my life growing up—like if she ever really loved me or if I was just part of her assignment. Now, I’ll never know.”
“Hey, look,” Hawk said as he tried to put his arm around her.
She brushed him off. “I just need some time and space, Hawk. It’s nothing personal.”
Hawk turned toward Samuels, who was seated at the kitchen table. “And what’s your reason for the long face?”
Samuels shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve just got a feeling about this.”
“What kind of feeling?”
“The kind that gets a hold of you and won’t let go.”
Hawk sat at the table across from Samuels. “And what is this feeling telling you?”
“I’m not going to celebrate this as a success until I see Petrov’s dead body.”
Hawk laughed nervously. “You think she survived a blast like that? The device was set to blow once the jet reached five hundred feet. Do you honestly think she’d still be alive if she fell from that distance, let alone avoid getting burned up in the explosion?”
“Hey,” Alex said, “do you need to be so graphic?”
Hawk turned back toward Samuels. “If you’re feeling this way, you must have a theory about how she could’ve made it out alive.”
“I can’t explain it right now, but we need to see her body to verify the mission is complete.”
Hawk’s eyes widened. “You do realize that showing up at the scene of the crime crawling with law enforcement would be breaking protocol, right? Not to mention stupid since the last I heard Interpol was still hunting for us.”
“Screw protocol,” Samuels said. “This is different.”
Hawk grinned. “You’re coming around, Samuels. You’re starting to think like a real operative.”
Samuels glared at Hawk. “I didn’t say I wanted to be the one to inspect the bodies.”
Hawk shook his head and
