“Are already evacuating. Look out there on the sidewalk.”
A glance through the window at his back proved that people were indeed filing out of the building, collecting on the sidewalk.
“They’re much too close,” he observed. “They have to get down the block. The neighboring buildings need to be evacuated as well.”
“Right,” Alec said, gripping his elbow, pulling him up to his feet. “And we can sort all of that once we’re outside. Okay?”
Ian searched his face. He saw fear, yes, lurking back behind his eyes. But mostly he saw resolve.
It strengthened his own. Ian blew out a breath and nodded. “Yes, right.” He could do this. He’d lived through far worse than the threat of explosion.
It was only that he had so much to live for, now.
He couldn’t think of that, now. He had to bundle Ian away and let Shaman run things, now.
When he spoke next, his voice was firmly in-hand once more. “Candace, go on ahead. We’ll be behind you.”
She hurried out.
“Sir,” Bruce said, even more serious.
“Yes, yes, Bruce, I’m coming.” Ian pulled the tiny key from his pocket and used it to unlock one of his desk drawers. Withdrew the two guns and extra magazines he held there. One he slipped into his own tailored waistband, and the other he passed to Alec.
“You keep these in your desk?”
“Of course. Do you remember our lessons?”
“Yeah.” Alec chose to keep hold of his, rather than stow it. He took a breath that revealed a wider flash of nerves. “You don’t think it’s just a bomb, do you?”
“Darling.” Ian cupped his cheek, briefly. “It never is.”
~*~
Leah hadn’t come to work this morning expecting to lead a huddle of terrified accountants, and one very terrified receptionist, down an emergency-lit hallway in her wedge heels, but here she was. Her heart hammered in her chest, pounding in time with the still-chiming alarm, but being de facto leader helped her keep her head in the game. Kept her from giving in to panic.
The hall that led to the stairwell was narrow, windowless, and more than a little creepy with the lights at half brightness. An alarm box set high along the wall emitted bursts of red warning light at intervals. Closed doors down the length of it were labeled with other departments, and they opened up, she knew, into other communal office spaces.
One ahead of them burst open – they all jumped, even Leah, who clutched at her heart – and a gaggle of spooked young men in suits tumbled out into the hall.
One glanced around wildly and spotted them. “The elevator isn’t working!” he shouted.
“They don’t usually in case of fire,” Leah said. “We gotta take the stairs. That way, ahead of you.”
“I heard it was a bomb!” another yelled, voice high with panic. “Is it a bomb?”
They tripped over one another, headed for the door marked Stairs.
Idiots, Leah thought, savagely. They were exactly the sort who would go nuts in a crisis, and trample other people, choke up stairwells and create chaos.
One of the guys shoved past his buddies and grabbed for the door handle – but the door flew open before he could touch it, and he stumbled forward…
Into the chest of a man wearing all black, and a mask, and carrying a rifle. With three more just like him at his back. Red light glinted off tac gear shiny and hard as beetle casings.
The bomb may or may not have been real. That was irrelevant: this was why the alarm had been pulled. To make way for an invasion.
Cold terror seized her insides. She swallowed a wave of sudden sickness, and then instinct took over. She whirled around and shoved Eric hard in the chest. “Go back,” she hissed. “Go through that door, there.”
“What, what are they–”
“Now. Get out of the hallway.”
Rochelle was bringing up the rear. She tugged open a door, and Leah herded the others into it. The gunmen had to have seen which one, had to know where they went. As the door fell shut behind Leah, she heard screaming.
~*~
The trip from Dartmoor to Ian’s building was a blur of color and sound, the wind like sandpaper against Carter’s face. He wasn’t sure how he could still be upright, given the jerky, erratic beating of his pulse; thought he was running on pure adrenaline as he followed the swooping line of bikes past Bell Bar, and Maggie’s Place, and Cook’s Coffee, through a light and down a sidewalk where pedestrians in professional dress were gathering on the sidewalk in frightened knots. The cops and fire department weren’t on the scene yet.
Ghost turned in at the entrance for the parking garage, and the roar of their tailpipes was deafening off all the concrete. The guard station was empty, the mechanical gate arm up. The parked in front of the doors to the building, and when the engines died, and his helmet came off, Carter could hear the alarm going inside, polite but insistent.
He was trying to control the trembling in his hands as he set his helmet on the handlebars, willing his legs to straighten so he could swing off the bike – Leah, oh, God, I’m sorry, I’m here, but I can’t – when he heard a crack, and a whine, and the unmistakable ping of a ricochet.
He dove to the ground, and saw some of the others do the same.
Michael, though, whirled, gun already out, and returned fire. Three neat shots cracked off in a row. Carter heard the bodies hit the ground as he crawled around the front of his bike to look.
Three down, in black tac gear, and masks, bearing rifles. A handgun lay beside a still-twitching body; it had sounded like a nine mil round that had zipped past them.
“Anybody hit?” Ghost called.
“No,” went up the chorus.
They got carefully back to their feet.
Michael had gone to inspect the bodies, and behind them, stacked up like sinister black dominos, sat a row of black SUVs with tinted windows.
“Mob goons,” Mercy said. He cupped his hands around his eyes to peer in a back window. “Already inside. These three were left to guard the wheels.”
“We need to get inside,” Ghost said. “Who knows if there even is a bomb, but there’s still people inside, and we know these assholes have no problems hurting civilians.”
“Wait,” Fox said. He stood over one of the bodies, toeing at its helmet, so its head shifted back and forth on the concrete.
Carter gritted his teeth. Leah was inside. They needed to move.
But Fox was infuriatingly unhurried. “If we walk in there, we’re immediate targets.” He plucked at his cut.
“Better us than fucking interns,” Aidan huffed. “Let’s go.”
“Oh, we should go,” Fox agreed. His gaze lifted – and went to Tenny and Reese, standing a bit apart from everyone else, as always, lean and deadly, and–
Carter got it, then, just before Fox said, “But let’s send them a little Southern hospitality gift, first.”
~*~
The location of Ian’s personal office had been chosen for a reason: from it, he had hidden access to a private elevator and a private staircase, one carpeted, and softly lit, with real wood handrails. He felt like a heel for choosing that, the fastest, safest, easiest way out, while his employees clattered en masse down concrete stairwells in a panic. But. Well.
Bruce led the way to the hidden door that offered access, head swiveling, one hand reaching back now and again to grip Ian’s coat sleeve and hurry him along. Alec crowded at Ian’s back, and while Ian would have liked to think that he was the one shielding his husband, he knew it was the other way around, that Alec was feeling just as protective as Bruce.
The brave, beloved idiot.
“Do you know the code?” Bruce asked Alec when they reached the panel. He would have never spoken to him with that gruff, short tone under normal circumstances, was as deferential to Alec as to Ian. But emergencies had a way of bringing out the best in people.
“Yes,” Alec said, stepping forward as Bruce turned to guard their fl
ank. He lifted the keypad’s flap – it looked like a small portrait of Henry V – and punched in the numbers.
“I’m not sure why everyone acts like I must be handled,” Ian complained. “As if I’m a small dog in an old woman’s purse.”
“Sweetie,” Alec said absently, and pressed Enter.
The lock disengaged, and the panel swung inward with a light press of Alec’s fingertips. Opening to reveal–
Two gun muzzles trained on them.
Alec swore.
Ian registered hired muscle in black tac gear, fleetingly, but his gaze settled on the man at the center. The slender young man in a black turtleneck, holding a ridiculous gun, his longish, black hair falling out of a ponytail to frame his pretty face, diamonds glinting in his ears.
He smiled, flashing dazzling white teeth. “Mr. Shaman. Perfect. Let’s have a chat.”
~*~
Leah’s previous employer in Chicago had mandated they all watch an active shooter training video.
She wished she’d paid better attention.
There hadn’t been any gunshots, yet, only screams. That group of unarmed, twenty-something boys hadn’t warranted shooting, she guessed. No real threat.
She couldn’t think of that. They had to hide. And, when they had the chance, run again.
The door Rochelle had opened let into a wide, group workspace just like their own. The lights were off, the computer screens dark. The desks and partitions were mostly glass, reflecting the sunlight coming in at the window: not direct, because it was noon and the sun was straight overhead. There were some shadows. Some dark cabinet faces in the kitchenette where she could squeeze…but the others wouldn’t fit.
She stood a moment, panting, trying to think, think, think.
“We have to hide,” she said. “All of us – find somewhere. Anywhere.”
They scattered. She was dimly aware of Isobel climbing down inside a tall trash can. Eric hunkered in under a desk, pressed back into the opaque panels that surrounded the computer modem.
Leah ducked between the printer and the copier, crouched down low beneath a small table that held stacks of unpackaged paper and toner, arms tight around her knees. She closed her mouth, and forced herself to breathe through her nose, slowly, silently, despite the chaos of her nerves. She heard rustling, and a few murmurs, and then silence.
And then the outer door opened.
~*~
Ordinarily, Carter would have loathed the idea of pulling on a dead man’s clothes. Michael had shot them through the throat, and blood had pooled beneath and dribbled down the front, until the neck of the black turtleneck was cold and clammy and stank like salt and iron. Then again, ordinarily, he wouldn’t have volunteered to go with Reese and Tenny.
It had been spur of the moment, an instinctual snap to action. Leah was inside. He’d said, “I’m going with you.”
Tenny and Reese had traded unreadable looks. Reese had nodded. Tenny had said, “Stay behind me, and don’t get in my way.”
There had been three bodies, three sets of black gear. Carter held a dead man’s rifle in black-gloved hands and tried his best to mimic the silent, floating way that Tenny and Reese moved ahead of him, a fast walk that covered more ground than a run would have, and kept their equipment from jangling.
A quick sweep of the ground floor proved that those in the lower part of the office had already evacuated, and successfully.
They found the first team of goons on the second floor.
They left a stairwell, and entered a dim, gray-carpeted hallway to find employees in smart clothes sitting on the floor against the wall, wrists zip-tied together, some of them crying, others staring numbly. One woman was praying. A three-man team in black gear stood in the center of the hall, rifles held casually.
One of them glanced up, eyes shielded by goggles, voice a rough smoker’s crackle.
“What are you doing in here? We’ve got this floor covered.”
“Sorry,” Tenny said, and shot him.
He’d drawn his own, suppressed handgun so quickly that Carter had barely registered it before he heard the soft pfft of air, and the man was toppling backward, blood spraying from a hole in his throat.
The other two turned, one shouting, both raising their rifles. Tenny and Reese put them down with brisk efficiency.
Carter was numb a moment. They were so fast. It came so easy to them.
Shit, he was in way, way over his head.
“You, blond boy,” Tenny snapped, snagging his attention. “Cut them loose.”
The hostages, he meant.
Right. He could do that. Had to get it together. Had to get to Leah.
He pulled his knife and knelt. “It’s okay,” he told the woman, who shrank back from him. “This is a costume, we’re not with those guys.”
Reese helped, while Tenny kept watch, and they had the hostages on their shaky feet and heading for the exit in short order.
Tenny tipped his head and started moving again.
“What happens if they detonate the bomb?” Carter asked, unable to help it.
“Then we die,” Tenny said, flatly. “Keep moving.”
“My old lady’s here,” Carter said, throat tight. I love you, she’d said before she’d hung up. Would they find her cuffed in hallway? Or worse off?
“Then shut up and keep moving.”
Reese glanced back over his shoulder. “What floor is she on?”
~*~
There was a moment when Ian thought Bruce and Alec might both throw themselves at the young man – who had to be Luis Cantrell, he knew – and get killed in the process. He’d staid them, a hand on each of their arms, and all his shaking nerves had settled. So this was it. A meeting. Criminal to criminal.
This he could handle. This was where he shone.
Voice totally steady, then, he’d put on his best, coldest, most disinterested smirk and said, “You could have just made an appointment with my secretary, but I’m afraid she’s run screaming from the building. Shall we?”
They were outgunned. It made sense to let Luis’s thugs herd them back to the office. To sit behind it, as always. Bruce stood stiffly at his side, and Alec perched on the edge of the desk, near him, leg swinging nervously so the toe of his shoe thumped lightly against Ian’s knee on every pass.
Luis took the chair opposite. He left the door standing open, and his thugs filled the jambs.
“Now,” Ian said, folding his hands together in his lap, fingers steepled. In the background, the fire alarm continued to pulse. “What can I do for you, Mr. Cantrell?”
Luis’s brows jumped, once, before he quickly smoothed his face. “You know who I am, then.”
“Of course.”
“And I know who you are.”
“It would seem likely, given you’ve found me at my office, yes.”
A smile spread, crooked and delighted. “You’re a lot more fun than the Lean Dogs, aren’t you?”
“Generally. Though I’m afraid they have the monopoly on wild house parties.”
Luis chuckled, and the sound was reflected in the bright spark of his eyes. He was lovely, physically, but Ian found his energy immediately repulsive. “I’m curious why you spend so much time with them, then.”
“It’s a business arrangement,” Ian said, dismissively. “Nothing more.”
“Business. I suppose it was some sort of business transaction when Ghost and Maggie Teague turned up as witnesses to your wedding, then.”
Cold terror pierced Ian, a sharp needle of it. He snapped it off and calmed himself through sheer dint of will, just as he had as a boy, when some fat man was grinding his face down into a pillow.
“It was a civil ceremony,” Luis said. “A bit dull for someone wearing eight-hundred-dollar shoes.”
Bruce’s suit rustled faintly as he shifted his weight.
Alec, silent until now, said, “He’s trying to rile you up.”
Luis’s gaze shifted to him, smile stretching meanly. “Very good. It
’s Alec, isn’t it? You changed your last name. Because you’re subservient to him? Or because you wanted to distance yourself from your family in an effort to keep them safe?”
“Mr. Cantrell,” Ian said.
“He’s killed for you, but I don’t know that he’d kill for your parents.”
“Luis,” Ian said, crisply, pressing his fingertips tight together to keep them from shaking. “If you want to play a game of observations and cutting remarks, I assure you that I will win. Perhaps you’d like to save us both the effort and state why you’re here.”
Luis chuckled again, but his eyes flashed with a brief, tamped-down malice. He was intelligent, undoubtedly, and he liked toying with people, but there was a furious, tantrum-prone child in there, too. The trick was drawing it out only part of the way, and not getting them all shot.
“You’re just like they promised – maybe even more. Alright, sure, we can be direct.” He stroked a fingertip along the massive, gleaming silver gun in his lap. It would have looked more at home in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s hand. “I’m here to offer you a deal. Why would you waste your time with the white trash Lean Dogs when you could join us?” He made an expansive gesture with his free hand.
“You?”
“My friends and I.” He plucked a business card from his pocket and flicked it onto the desk.
Ian didn’t reach toward it, but he recognized the yellow, triangle-composed flower design he’d seen on TV: Abacus Consulting.
~*~
Vince came jogging up the sidewalk to meet Ghost. He’d left the parking garage and taken up a post on the corner opposite the building, out in front of Cook’s Coffee. He’d been trying, not at all successfully, to calm Leah Cook’s mother.
“Ghost.” Vince huffed the last few feet and pulled up beside him. “What the hell’s going on in there? A bomb?”
Cops were ushering pedestrians farther down the sidewalks, away from the buildings. Behind him, one was collecting the Cooks, feeding them platitudes and hurrying them out of the blast range.
No one had tried to move Ghost. “That’s what Leah said, when she called, but we have no idea. There’s hired guns in there. Professional tac gear, long guns. The bomb could just be a cover for a raid.”
Homecoming (Dartmoor Book 8) Page 48