Impact (Book 5): Black

was whether he or Misha was the target of her whims.
“Dammit, Nerio, I brought you in to clean things up, not make more of a mess.”

CHAPTER 5
Sidney, NE
“We saved Misha?” Grace could barely utter his name. She was shocked at the sight of the man who’d been dragged out of the drainage pipe. He picked around the edges of his ruined truck, as if everything was normal. The side of his face and neck were still burnt from where she’d torched him with the bear mace, and the rest of his skin looked sooty and red, as if the explosion had taken a toll. Injuries or not, they’d taken his pistol and a knife.
“He saved us,” Asher replied dryly, swishing the words in his mouth as if they tasted bad.
Misha paid no heed to their dilemma. “She did number on my truck. Ammo for big-ass gun is gone. Lucky I threw spare magazine in grass, as with rifle.” He pointed to some thick, reedy grass, not far beyond the drainpipe, then hurried over there. A six-foot-long rifle sat where he indicated, but it was unlike anything she’d ever seen. It was oversized to the point of being cartoonish, and it had two legs for a bipod, each of which sat on what appeared to be foot-long sleds.
“What the hell is that?” she asked.
“Lahti 20-millimeter anti-tank rifle. It weighs one hundred pounds and, according to book, requires two people to operate. Lucky for you, Misha can do it alone.”
“Where did you get such a weapon?” Asher prodded.
Misha picked up the loose magazine box. “Very rare. This model is from World War II, but TKM has endless resources. I simply took it from one of their supply trucks. I knew Nerio was coming here, in TKM-surplus helicopter, and knew this was only weapon guaranteed to stop her.”
Grace whistled, impressed at what he’d done.
“If I were back at a full-service TKM depot, I could have gotten a true anti-aircraft weapon; a Russian-built, shoulder-fired Willow would have been een-credible.”
She had no idea what he was talking about.
Misha stowed the mag in his belt. “I know what thoughts go through your heads. Why is Misha helping? Why is he shooting big-ass gun at helicopters?” He ran fingers through his buzz cut, then turned to face Grace. “When we spoke at the roadblock in Billings, you wished me luck in finding my family, even if it meant it would put you in danger. Since then, I have been trying to call back to Bryansk to confirm my wife and mother are okay. We all share apartment, you see. Two days ago, I find out from friend there had been a fire in complex. Wife and mother are dead.”
She sighed heavily, unsure if she should sympathize with the man, but certain it was okay to feel compassion for the dead women.
Misha studied her. “You are only one who cared about my family. Petteri Tikkanen gave order. He had them killed.”
“Did he say he did?” Asher replied, clearly drawn into the man’s story.
The hitman shook his head. “Not in many words, as you say. He threatened, then withdrew his threat. But I know it was not a random fire. I provided very well for my family. They lived in nice, new apartment. It was him. In fact, he called me to Denver, by myself, yesterday. I almost did not go, but I let myself believe he was not the one responsible. When I got there, he nearly killed me for showing up.”
“Why didn’t he?” she asked.
“No way to know. He put me in custody of strange woman. Another of his hitmen. I assumed he subcontracted the dirty deed to her. That is the Petteri way. But she did not kill. After bragging she was going to finish my job for me, she left to go to her targets.” He pointed between her and Asher. “You two.”
When they didn’t respond, he added. “I am Russian. I know many tricks. I escaped from simple cell to follow her.”
“Lucky for us,” Asher commented, sounding equally grateful and wary.
The fire at the truck was almost completely subdued. Robert and his white foam had made short work of it. Misha looked over her shoulder to his truck. “I had many weapons stolen, ready to help you, but they were in bed of truck. Now, I only have this…” He pointed to the rifle on sleds. “With a few rounds. And the pistol you took from me.”
Asher pulled at her elbow. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
She let him guide her onto the roadway, out of earshot of the Russian agent.
He made sure they were far enough before talking quietly. “What are we going to do with him? I don’t trust any of this. TKM is sneaky. They sent actual hitmen to kill me in your park. That’s not normal, Grace.”
Normal was a word long buried under the rubble and ash of the fallen asteroid. Misha the assassin was the last person on earth she expected to pull from the drainage tube, but…
Grace shifted her weight to one hip, giving her a better view of her captive. Misha stood with his arms folded across his chest, but he also had a foot on the Finnish rifle, standing proud, as if he’d shot a lion on safari with it.
“Maybe he’s the guy we need to survive. Whatever his game, there’s no way he could have faked shooting at the helicopter and getting shot at in return. If he’d meant to see us dead, he could have let the woman—Nerio, I think he called her—kill us with her machine gun.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Asher said dryly, though not with much conviction.
She reached for his hand and held it for a second. “I don’t trust him, but he’s here. If