Ultimate Heroes Collection

by Various Authors

  “… couldn’t have. I know for sure …”

  “… like hell. I’m gonna kill him.”

  The movement on the screen slowed as Danny stopped and looked over the woman who was talking. Mid-twenties, petite, average-looking.

  “I’m not going to take his excuses anymore. Out with the guys, my ass. I know what he’s doing when he doesn’t get home till midnights …”

  Danny moved on.

  The next time he stopped, the screen showed the man he’d been looking for. Kaye didn’t recognize him. She looked him over, her gaze hesitating on his right hand, stuffed deep in his pocket.

  Danny was standing a few feet to the side. The man hadn’t noticed him yet.

  “Excuse me.” She heard another’s man voice. “Do you know what time it is?”

  A well-dressed middle-age gentleman was talking to their target. His voice came through her headphone with an echo. She was hearing it twice, both from his microphone and Danny’s. He was probably the agent whose button cam had first picked up the man.

  “No,” the guy said without moving his hand.

  The agent asked a nearby group of teenagers. They were more accommodating.

  “Thanks, guys,” he said and settled into a spot not far from the man they were watching.

  She could see the agent on the edge of the screen. Danny’s camera was focused on their target.

  “Is it him?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure,” came the low response. “Down in the gorge it was hard to see.”

  The man moved, turning into the crowd and walking toward the back. Danny followed. Now and then when he turned and the camera panned, she could see the other agent going with them.

  “Excuse me, Congresswoman, could I ask you for a moment?” Harrison was standing behind her chair.

  She’d been so focused on the screen, she hadn’t seen him walk up. “Of course.” She stood and pulled the headset off. The cord reached only a few feet. “How are you?”

  His lips thinned as he pressed them together. “Fine. There’s nothing wrong with me. Even the headache is gone.”

  She wished she hadn’t asked. He probably didn’t like to be reminded. The only sign of his injury now was the small bandage that covered the stitches on the side of his head. He moved toward the door and she followed him.

  “They said it was a bad concussion.”

  “That was days ago.” He sounded impatient, very much like Danny who had, of course, also refused to be pulled from active duty. “One of our agents pulled a man off the street. He fits your description. Would you mind taking a quick look to confirm?”

  “I am here to help.”

  “You won’t even have to be in the same room with him. We’ll just walk by the glass door.”

  They took the elevator down to the first level.

  “This way.” Harrison walked through a set of metal doors.

  They were in some kind of an abandoned storage area, littered with metal and plywood shelving that reached to the ceiling. Dust covered everything, twitching her nose.

  “Hang on. Let me see if they’re ready for you.” He walked across the large room and went out the door on the other side.

  She looked around while she waited. It seemed such a waste to have all these huge buildings stand abandoned while in the inner cities thousands of homeless people slept on the streets—an issue she had addressed in D.C. with very little success. They needed better incentives for socially responsible corporations. Maybe once this was all over she could try again.

  She touched a shelf and the dust made her sneeze.

  “Gesundheit,” a voice said behind her, and she spun around, startled, stared at the man who had appeared out of nowhere. “You scared me.”

  He came closer, his boots scuffing on the floor. His clothes looked worn and not entirely clean, as did his black hair and the stubble on his cheeks that had to be at least a few days’ growth.

  “I’m waiting for Mr. Harrison,” she said, a little jumpy, not liking the shifty look in the man’s watery green eyes.

  Was he another agent? She must have met a hundred, coming and going all morning at the command center, waiting for the president’s arrival. This one wasn’t wearing his tag. Within the building, even the undercover officers had to wear one.

  She stepped back, her instincts prickling. “I’m supposed to ID someone.” Where was Harrison?

  “Oh, we think you’ve done quite enough, Congresswoman,” the man said.

  And then finally the voice clicked, and she knew without a doubt where she had heard it before, where she’d seen that face—with blond hair and without the beard.

  At the hospital.

  Bobby.

  She turned and ran for the door, her heart in her throat. A few more feet. Almost there. She slammed against it, but it held. Locked. She banged on the metal.

  “That’s no use. There’s just the two of us here,” the man said behind her.

  She spun around, searched the room for any possibility of escape. “There are dozens of agents in the building.”

  “Not on this level.” He flashed a smug grin. “The three guarding the elevator and the front and back entries have been called away.”

  “Mr. Harrison will be back in seconds.” She skirted the wall, hoping to put a few rows of shelves between herself and the man.

  He pulled his gun casually. “Lucky he wasn’t seriously hurt the night your house was broken into.”

  What was he saying? Harrison couldn’t have anything to do with this. She knew Harrison. Harrison had kept her safe.

  “If he was working for you, he could have killed me himself. He’d had plenty of opportunity.” She inched back.

  “He couldn’t blow his cover, could he? Took us a while to get a man into a position with that high a clearance. We’ve got all kinds of plans for his future. You were just the beginning.” He sneered. “Not even that. More like an unexpected detour.”

  Adrenaline was rushing through her, making her jumpy. She made a point of acting as calmly as possible. Slow measured movements. Make the man think you’re accepting his victory, make him think you’ve given up, then when his guard is down fight back with everything you’ve got. Danny’s words were coming back to her from one of their training sessions. She would stay calm. She could do it.

  Then the man pulled back what she figured was the safety on the gun, and her resolution went out the nonexistent window. She ran for the back of the room and dove for the protection of the shelves.

  Harrison was one of them. The thought ricocheted through her head. She refused to give in to the sense of panic and betrayal.

  “Let’s not drag this out.” He was coming closer. “I’ve got other things to do.”

  “It’s not going to work.” She had to distract him, rattle him enough to make a mistake. “Secret Service knows all about your plans for today. Why do you think they have all the extra security?”

  He laughed. “It’s not going to make any difference. We know they know.”

  Of course they would. Harrison. She had trouble getting her brain around that. It was impossible, wasn’t it? Nobody had ever infiltrated the Secret Service before. Or, apparently, not that they knew of.

  Could she have known? Had there been signs?

  The pop of the first shot made her cringe. She forced her limbs to keep moving.

  “In a few minutes our misguided president will realize just how much the people of this country object to his selling us out. America should be for Americans.”

  “I’m American,” she said.

  “Not in my book.”

  The second bullet slammed into the concrete floor just a few feet from her.

  She could have pointed out that her grandfather’s ancestors had been dragged into this country by force—kidnapped—and hadn’t simply floated in on a pleasure cruise and decided to stay for the amusement of it. Her grandfather’s family might have been in the country longer than his. But she understood the situati
on enough to know that reasoning with the man would be pointless. He’d been brainwashed too much for that. Fanatics had little use for logic or truth. She searched the floor for anything she might use as a weapon. She had to let him get close enough—without getting shot—so that she could fight back.

  Her fingers closed around a two-foot-long metal bar, a fallen piece of shelving. Somehow she would have to disable him, then make a run for the other door, pray that it wasn’t locked.

  The shelves towered above her like benevolent giants. Bobby was on the other side somewhere. That gave her an idea.

  She got up and leaned against the shelf in front of her, putting her full strength into the effort. The structure swayed. She pushed harder then pulled back. Maybe rocking would do the trick. She pushed again, every muscle in her body burning. The metal cut into her shoulder. It didn’t matter. Harder. Now.

  The first shelf fell over, but was caught by the second, they stood for a moment before giving way and pushing into the third.

  Unfortunately, the domino effect stopped after the fifth row. A dozen or so standing shelves remained between her and Bobby.

  “Let’s get this over with.” He squeezed off another shot.

  The bullet ricocheted off a metal support just a few inches from her face. How could he see her in this jumble?

  She moved forward, crawling on her stomach. The door was less than a hundred yards away. Eighty. Sixty. She pulled forward a few more feet, then reached the edge of her cover. From here she’d be out in the open.

  She couldn’t see Bobby.

  With a little luck, he’d gone to the back to look for her and didn’t realize where she’d gone.

  She came up into a crouch and ran for it, grabbed onto the doorknob and twisted, pulled, rattled. How could it be locked? Had Harrison gone around?

  “Game over,” Bobby said behind her.

  She spun around and stared at the gun in his hand. He was five or six feet away, ready to shoot her pointblank.

  “Don’t do it.” She looked into his eyes, hoping to see some hesitation.

  There wasn’t any.

  “You’ve climbed too far. It’s not right.”

  Time slowed. She registered his body tensing as he got ready to pull the trigger.

  No rules. Never give up. There’s no such thing as a hopeless fight.

  She threw the metal rod at him as hard as she could, diving forward at the same time.

  The attack must have surprised the man because the shot went wide.

  Then her head connected with Bobby’s stomach and the next moment they sprawled, the gun skittering out of reach on the cement floor.

  She got in one good punch to the face before he flipped her and had his hands around her throat. He wasn’t messing around. The pressure on her windpipe was overwhelming, her lungs burning as he struggled against him.

  The eyes.

  She went for them without hesitation, didn’t look to see what damage she’d done when he howled. She focused on her follow-up.

  Refill the lungs.

  Knee to the groin.

  Shove him off.

  He was trying to roll away from her. No, not from her. He was going for the gun. And he was closer to it. She slid in and kicked the weapon across the floor, under the shelving, the second before he would have reached it. He was grabbing for her ankle, but she shoved him off and made a run for the gun.

  How far could it have gone? She scanned the rows one after the other. The weapon was midway in the fifth or sixth row, right where her shelf domino had stopped. She rushed between the rows without hesitation. He was right behind her.

  She dove for the gun and reached it, spun around and squeezed off a shot blindly. She didn’t hit him, but he jumped back, knocking into the shelves behind him. They groaned, rocking and creaking.

  With everything she had in her, she ran toward the end of the row. He was swearing at her and following, but not fast enough. He didn’t realize what was happening.

  She flew out the end and sprawled on the floor just as the shelves toppled over, sandwiching Bobby’s body between them. He screamed once, high-pitched and long. Then he gave no other noise.

  Kaye ran for the door. Could she break the lock? The gun. She was still holding it. She shot at the lock a couple of times then kicked hard. Then she was through the door and out in the hallway, running for the elevator.

  No. Bad idea. She turned. She couldn’t go back up there to command central. Harrison was up there somewhere. He would stop her.

  Danny. Danny was just a few hundred feet down the street.

  For a second she considered keeping the gun then discarded the idea and tossed it into the waste bin by the door. This was not a good day for running out into the street with a weapon. If Secret Service saw it, they might take her out before they realized who she was. She had to look disheveled enough to be a madwoman.

  Kaye ran for the main entrance and burst outside, drawing attention from passersby. She straightened her clothes and did her best to act like a normal person in a hurry instead of someone either insane or dangerous.

  She ran toward the corner where she’d last seen Danny on the monitor. How long did they have to stop the attack on the presidents?

  In a few minutes … Bobby had said.

  What were a few minutes? Ten? Fifteen? Five?

  Could she still make it?

  Chapter Ten

  “Congresswoman?” Danny talked into his headset, standing apart from the crowd.

  He was heading back to the building. The man he had pursued and caught had turned out to be a harmless bystander.

  “Congresswoman Miller is with Harrison,” one of the agents told him from the command center.

  “She left?”

  “A few minutes ago.”

  “Do you know where they went?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  He looked toward the building. As long as she was with Harrison, she would be fine. Maybe the man had some questions for her.

  He turned back toward the hotel. Movement caught his eye at the other end of the street. The presidential motorcade was finally coming. The police motorcycles first, then a cop car. The Secret Service vehicle was just turning the corner next. Some people in the crowd cheered, others booed. Opinions over the summit were pretty much divided.

  The news reporters covering the event came to life, talking to their cameras.

  He scanned the crowd, picking out the undercover agents one by one. Everyone was in place. He moved into the sea of people.

  “Danny!” Somebody was calling his name from behind.

  He looked back, but all he could see were the faces of strangers who paid little attention to him.

  “Danny!”

  Kaye? He pushed through the crowd, moving in the direction of the voice.

  Then there she was, rumpled and her hair all out of place as if she’d been in a fight. He rushed to her and closed his arms around her without thinking. She put a hand over his mouth before he could ask what had happened, if she was all right.

  She reached for the microphone under his collar with one hand and for the button cam with the other, shoved them into his pocket. “Turn them off.” She mouthed the words.

  He did so without questioning her.

  “There is going to be an attack. Right now,” she said.

  “Everything is secured. Where the hell is Harrison?”

  “Harrison is in on it.”

  He couldn’t be. He was Secret Service. No organization had ever breached the agency before. But one look at Kaye’s face told Danny she was dead serious.

  Oh, hell. That meant the Brotherhood knew just how much security there was and where they were. “What are they going to do?”

  “I don’t know. But it’s going to happen within minutes.”

  “And Harrison is hooked up to the system. We can’t just call it in.”

  He moved toward the armed guards who were holding the crowd back. The Beast, the black presidential v
ehicle that carried both President Derickson and Mexican President Alvarez to symbolize their unity over the Summit, was halfway down the street. They’d be stopping in front of the hotel soon.

  What had the Brotherhood planned?

  The Beast had state-of-the-art armor, its own supplemental oxygen supply and a self-healing fuel tank. It could drive even if the tires were shot out. The car was safer than some of the combat vehicles the army used around the world.

  The bikes rolled closer, slowly, followed by the black and white. Then came the Secret Service car that carried some of the PPD, Presidential Protective Division, the agents who guarded the “Kill Zone”—the immediate area around the president. The Beast was next.

  Danny pushed forward, his attention focused on the car. Then he saw something move. A small red dot hovered on the back of the rearview mirror.

  “Oh, hell.”

  “What?” Kaye was right behind him.

  “Someone painted the car.”

  “Huh?”

  “Military talk. There’s a missile guidance transmitter aimed at the mirror. See the small dot? Someone is keeping the laser on the car and transmitting exact location.”

  “To what?”

  “My guess would be a big weapon they have stashed out of sight. This way, whoever fires the weapon doesn’t have to be in direct view of the target and risk discovery, doesn’t have to worry that he’ll miss. His partner is ‘painting’ the target for him, communicating directly to the weapon.”

  She still looked somewhat confused, but he didn’t have time for further explanations. He had to find the man who held the transmitter.

  Couldn’t have been anyone in the crowd. He scanned the surrounding buildings. They’d been checked over and over again. The advance team had spent the last five days securing the site, checking for potential sniper positions or anything else that was remotely suspicious. They set up safe houses along the way, brought in the president’s own blood supply. All standard procedure. When the president was outside the White House, he traveled in a protective bubble. But this time, the bubble had been breached. The Brotherhood had someone on the inside.

  He glanced back toward the command center, straight ahead of the limo that still hadn’t progressed into the safety of the garage. Somebody moved on the roof. There was a guard posted there, but the last he’d seen the man he was in full military gear including a helmet. He didn’t see a helmet on the guy up there now.