by Steven James
A person in his profession?
“Because of your wife? Because she was shot?”
He stared at me. “Yes. Because of my wife.”
Millicent had a handgun, a radio, and two sets of plastic handcuffs, all of which Lien-hua helped herself to.
When Alexei had first asked me to help him, he’d told me he wanted to deal “appropriately” with the people who killed the Pickrons, and he’d wanted my help finding Valkyrie . . . “It was Valkyrie, wasn’t it?” I said. “That’s who killed Tatiana?”
He chose not to reply, but I took his silence as a yes.
At the sheriff’s department when the topic of our wives’ deaths had come up, he’d said that he had someone to take out his vengeance on, that I had only God to blame.
That’s why he’s here. To kill Valkyrie. “Did Millicent tell you who Valkyrie was before you drugged her?”
“Yes.”
“Dana Murkowski?” I said, referring to the alias Cassandra Lillo was apparently using for this mission.
Alexei looked at me stiffly. “That’s right.”
But why would Cassandra have killed Alexei’s wife?
“Pat,” said Lien-hua urgently, “we need to get—”
Abruptly, Alexei held out both hands, palms up, dropping the spent cuffs to the ground. I aimed the Glock at him, but he wasn’t coming at me. He’d freed himself even faster than I’d guessed he would.
“If you fire,” he said, “it’ll give away our location.”
I looked at the time on my watch: 8:55.
Move, Pat. Go.
Dragging Millicent across the ground wasn’t ideal, and with my bum ankle and Lien-hua’s slim frame, we weren’t well-suited to move her. Gesturing toward Millicent and then the railcar, I told Alexei, “Carry her over there.” He lifted her, brought her to the cart, gently set her down. Lien-hua tested one of the bars supporting the metal runners to make sure it was sturdy, then cuffed Millicent’s left wrist to it.
You can’t leave Alexei here.
And you can’t take him with you.
“Stick out your leg,” I told him. “Quickly.”
Giving me a curious look, he obeyed. While Lien-hua kept her gun trained on Alexei, I secured the GPS ankle bracelet that I’d brought with me around his left ankle.
“You knew we’d meet up with him?” Lien-hua sounded amazed.
“I had my suspicions.”
Lien-hua asked Alexei, “Did Millicent say anything about Jerusal—”
“Get down!” I’d seen movement near the stairwell.
We ducked, flashlights off.
The three of us slid behind the railcar.
A dump-truck-sized man came into view and turned toward our tunnel, an assault rifle in his hands.
He was less than thirty meters away.
“Cyclone?” he yelled.
If you call to him he’ll pin you down, but you can’t fire first, not without—
“You in there?”
Alexei tossed a rock ahead of us, and it clanged on the metal track. The man with the rifle raised his light, saw Millicent unconscious, and immediately sprayed a burst of bullets at us, hitting the cart. Lien-hua and I returned fire. I hit him in the chest, she might have as well, but he was wearing body armor and he didn’t go down, but instead lurched awkwardly back into the stairwell out of the line of fire.
“You threw that stone so he’d shoot at us,” Lien-hua said to Alexei.
“Law enforcement protocol,” he replied. “You have rules. I realize that. It was the best way to get him to—”
The radio we’d acquired from Millicent came to life. The guy was calling for his team.
This was going down.
Now.
89
8:56 p.m.
4 minutes until the transmission
Solstice heard Typhoon radio for help.
“Spread out,” she barked into her radio. “Cover the hallways. No one gets to the control room.”
Then she ordered Donnie, “Finish with the code now or I swear I’ll have my people shoot your little girl where she stands!”
I recognized the voice on the radio. Cassandra Lillo.
“We have to move. Lien-hua, cover me. Alexei, you stay here.” I angled toward the entry bay and waited for any glimpse of the shooter edging around the corner of the stairwell.
Nothing.
Heart slamming against my chest, I made my way toward the end of the tunnel.
Amber didn’t come out of the bathroom.
Tessa reassured herself that Amber was just using the toilet or maybe cleaning up after having her tears smear her mascara so much, but beneath those thoughts was a dark inkling, a tiny, discomfiting suspicion that barely even registered to her on a conscious level.
But then it did.
The toilet had not flushed. The water in the sink had not been turned on. No sound at all was coming from the room at the end of the hall.
With a deepening sense of apprehension, Tessa picked up her flashlight and went to check on her stepaunt.
“Pat!” I heard Lien-hua whisper harshly behind me, but I’d already seen what she was warning me about—Alexei, streaking toward me through the tunnel, flipping something out of his right sleeve.
The bone gun.
How?
You had him carry Millicent. Maybe he’d hidden it under—
I almost squeezed the trigger, but he wasn’t coming for me. He reached the room, and as Lien-hua and I went after him, he disappeared into the stairwell.
Two rapid shots.
The sound of a body tumbling down the stairs.
By the time Lien-hua and I got to the stairwell, Cassandra’s voice was cutting through the radio we’d taken from Millicent: “Kill the hostages.”
The metal stairs twisted out of sight before us.
No one visible. Not Alexei, not the shooter.
Lien-hua and I flew down the steps, taking them two at a time.
Tessa rapped on the bathroom door. “Amber? Everything okay?”
Nothing.
She tried the doorknob.
Locked.
“Amber. Open the door.”
Only silence in reply.
“Amber,” Tessa cried louder, trying the doorknob again. “Open up the door!”
We reached the bottom of the stairs.
The shooter lay at our feet. His neck was broken, his head contorted at a hideous angle. He was breathing hoarsely, wide-eyed and afraid.
The AR-15 semiautomatic rifle he’d fired at us lay on the ground—Alexei had left it—but a large sheath on the man’s belt was missing its knife. “Help me,” he managed to say.
There wasn’t anything we could do for him right now. I knelt beside him and asked urgently, “Where are the hostages?”
“Room,” he muttered. He tried to say more, but his words burbled away into something indistinguishable.
I envisioned the base’s schematics. Cassandra will be in the control room. But the hostages? Where?
Lien-hua grabbed the assault rifle.
“Go right,” I directed her. “If you don’t find the hostages, get to the control room and stop Cassandra!”
She darted right and I sprinted left toward the crew quarters.
90
8:57 p.m.
3 minutes until the transmission
“Amber!”
No answer.
The meds?
The sleeping pills?
No, no, no!
Tessa yanked out her phone, tried 911. The line was dead.
Pick the lock.
You have to get in that room!
The doorknob was like most bathroom locks—just a hole on the outside. Easy to get into if you have a barbeque skewer-thing or maybe a paperclip or bobby pin. Or a thick nail.
“I’m coming!” she yelled to Amber, though at this point she doubted her stepaunt could hear her. As fast as she could, Tessa rushed downstairs to Sean’s workbench.
The inte
rrogators unfastened Terry’s wrists.
While they were lifting him toward the bed, he went for Riley’s gun, but as he snagged the weapon, it discharged, sending a round through Riley’s pelvis. The guy shuddered to the ground, screaming. Terry dropped back into the wheelchair, and by the time he’d landed, he’d already swung the gun toward Riley’s head. “Don’t move!” he shouted to the other agents.
The two of them froze, tense, hands already on their weapons.
For a moment, Terry debated with himself about trying to kill them all but decided he probably wouldn’t be able to do it without getting himself shot.
“Place your guns on the bed,” Terry commanded. “If you try anything, Riley dies.”
They didn’t move.
“Don’t test me. Guns on the bed. Do it now.”
At last, unwillingly, they obeyed.
“Get out. If anyone comes through that door in the next twelve minutes I’ll kill Riley.”
“No, we take him—”
“Go.”
The two men hesitated at first, then finally backed out the door. When they were gone and the door was closed, Terry repositioned himself to better cover it.
“Hang in there, Riley,” Terry told him, then, thinking of the militants who would be showing up any minute, he added honestly, “I’m not going to kill you.”
I flared around the corner, saw a woman in military fatigues straddling the rec room entrance, AR-15 aimed inside.
“Put down the—” I yelled, but she spun, faced me, laser sight on my chest. I fired. Three shots. Quick. Center mass.
She went down.
I rushed forward and found her alive, stunned, wearing body armor. I cuffed her, then scanned the room.
Three men in Master-at-Arms uniforms lay inside, as well as five other naval personnel all gagged and restrained with plastic handcuffs. Sometimes terrorists will tie up some of their own people along with their captives so if you free the hostages you’ll inadvertently also free some of their men. There was no time to sort all this out now. I turned to leave.
No, Pat! There are ten or more Eco-Tech members. Cassandra ordered these people eliminated. Someone else will come by to kill them.
I found the ranking MA, a man whose name tag read T. Daniels, ungagged him.
Donnie loves his family. He would talk about them.
He would—
“How long have you known Commander Pickron?” I asked.
“What?”
“How long!”
“Six years.”
“When did Ardis have Lizzie?”
He looked at me oddly. “She was adopted.”
That was enough for me.
I flicked out my knife to cut him loose.
Tessa found a plastic container with an assortment of nails. Grabbed it.
Sprinted back upstairs to the bathroom.
I handed Daniels my knife. “Free everyone from your team. Secure this level.”
Then I rushed toward the stairwell that would take me down to the control room.
Tessa slid the nail in, jiggled it, and within seconds the lock clicked.
She threw open the door.
And saw Amber lying unconscious on the floor, an empty bottle beside her left hand.
No, God, please, please, please!
Tessa ran to her, called her name, but Amber didn’t move. Tessa shook her, and Amber’s head lolled listlessly to the side.
This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening!
Tessa felt for a pulse. It was there, thready, but present, and Amber was breathing, but Tessa didn’t know how long she’d survive, how serious an overdose it was.
Obviously it’s serious! The pills are all gone!
She snapped out her cell, found the number for the hospital in Woodborough, and when a woman finally answered, Tessa blurted, “Get me a doctor, now!”
“What’s the emergency, ma’am?”
“An overdose! I need to wake someone from an overdose!”
She expected the woman at the hospital to ask her what kind of pills had been ingested, or how many had been taken, or the victim’s sex or build, but instead she said, “Just a moment,” and put Tessa on hold.
On hold!
Tessa set down the phone, turned on the speaker, said to Amber, “You’re gonna be okay.” After a quick search, she assured herself there were no more empty bottles around. The bottles of depression meds were still nearly full.
You need to get her to the hospital.
Amber’s car was in the driveway. She could—
No, Amber might stop breathing on the way. You have to wake her up before you do anything!
Tessa had a friend who’d overdosed last year. She’d survived only because they got her stomach pumped in time.
Still no doctor.
Still on hold!
Tessa couldn’t make Amber regurgitate while she was still unconscious—she’d aspirate on her own vomit.
Wake her up, you have to wake her up!
Tessa’s eyes fell on the shower stall.
She grabbed Amber’s armpits and dragged her across the floor.
Alexei reached the command level, found a militant waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs.
Using the eight-inch blade Ka-Bar Tanto he’d acquired from the man he’d disabled a few moments ago, he put the militant down—in less than a second, the blade was red, his adversary’s neck was open, and with a soft and susurrus gurgle, he was fading to the ground.
Alexei allowed himself no time for regret but started through the electromagnetic production room toward the hallway to the control center—then heard footsteps on his left, readied the knife, and slipped behind a generator.
The female FBI agent he’d met a few minutes ago appeared at the doorway carrying an assault rifle, but an Eco-Tech militant burst from the side of the room, delivering a fierce punch that sent the rifle spinning to the ground. She went at the man with a powerful inner edge crescent kick, then a butterfly kick to the jaw, driving him backward.
So, it looked like she could handle things from here.
Alexei charged down the hallway to the command center.
91
Someone at the top of the stairwell shot at me, and I ducked low, spun around the corner. “Drop your weapon!” I yelled.
In reply he fired again.
I didn’t have time for this. I did not have time!
A quick breath and I rounded the corner again, but another burst of gunfire sent me pivoting behind the wall.
My watch’s alarm went off.
One minute left.
Solstice stared at the screen. “What did you do?” she yelled at Donnie.
“I set it up for a retinal scan. And I won’t initiate it unless I know Lizzie is okay. Unless I talk to her.”
Without hesitation, Solstice whipped out her FN 5.7 and fired a round through Donnie’s left knee. He screamed in pain.
“Lizzie is already dead. I killed her on Wednesday. Killed your wife too.”
A dark cloud of confusion, of desperation. “What?”
She drew out her knife. “Send the signal now or I’ll cut out your eyeball and send it myself.”
No more time.
I raced toward the stairwell. When the shooter flashed out with his gun raised, I fired at him until he was no longer a threat, then bolted past his body and down the stairs, reloading my weapon as I did.
Tessa sat in the shower, her stepaunt’s head on her lap, cool water spraying down on them both.
But Amber did not wake up.
Oh, God, please. Don’t let Amber die. Please don’t—
A sweep of headlights washed across the bathroom window.
Someone was coming up the driveway to the house.
Patrick?
Sean?
Yes, good.
One of them had returned.
At the bottom of the steps I found a man’s body, a pool of blood spilling from his slashed neck.
Hea
ring a harsh grunt in the machinery room to my left, I immediately peered inside and saw that on the other side of a wire mesh partition Lien-hua was fighting one of the terrorists. “Lien-hua!”
Too much machinery. Too much movement. I had no shot at her assailant.
Blade hidden behind his wrist, he feinted toward her, then whipped it out and went for her abdomen, slashing in a figure eight. “Get back!” I yelled.
She leaned to the right, away from the blade, then blocked his arm, backed into position for a kick. “Go!” she hollered to me. “I’m fine!”
I wanted to help her, wanted to—
She can take care of herself.
“I’ll come back for you!” I shouted.
The control room lay at the end of the hall.
I dashed toward it.
The door was closed. I heard shouting inside, then a sharp crash.
A strangled scream.
And a dead stretch of dull, eerie silence.
92
I kicked open the door. “Do not move!”
Gun steady in both hands, I took in the room.
Workstations, control panels, computer displays, wall monitors. In the far corner, Cassandra Lillo was crouched behind a rolling chair on which Donnie Pickron sat clutching his knee, a fierce bruise on the side of his head, a look of horror on his face.
She held an FN 5.7 to his chin.
Alexei stood close to them, poised, bone gun in one hand, a bloody combat knife in the other. Just past him, an obese man lay unconscious atop a collapsed table.
Two other men stood near Cassandra. I recognized them from the photos Alexei had sent me: the Eco-Tech members Becker Hahn and Ted Rusk. They appeared to be armed only with Tasers.
“Put down the gun, Cassandra,” I called.
“You first, Agent Bowers.”
Donnie was in the way and I had no shot.
She held up her left hand to show me the remote control detonator for the TATP ordnance. “Put down the gun or I’ll do it. If I press this button, the whole base comes down.”