Third Hour

by Lisa Phillips

  The skirt would probably get in the way. And she wouldn’t be able to kick anyone in the shins with her heels, considering she was still wearing Dakota’s running shoes.

  If they were going to rescue her, they needed to bring her pumps.

  “You’ve gotta focus.”

  She glanced aside at the hacker. His teeth were clenched. Pale faced. Sweating. Should she be sorry he’d gotten shot? He’d technically done it to protect her, so maybe. The last thing she wanted was to feel any empathy for him. She needed to focus her energy on getting out of there.

  His blood had collected in a pool under the chair, making a puddle on the tile floor. Why had he done that anyway? He shouldn’t have said it was him who’d sent the transmission. Although, she wouldn’t have owned up to it.

  Better him than her?

  No. That was a level of callous she didn’t like, even after everything he’d done.

  Then there was what he’d done to Niall. Was her teammate even okay? He could be dead now. Haley could be alone somewhere, devastated that she was going to have to face life without the man she loved.

  Talia didn’t even know.

  Anger surged in her at all this man had cost her. The pain he’d dragged her into and caused for her friends. He deserved no sympathy at all.

  She typed on the keyboard, even though the virus she’d programmed didn’t require her input. It was running. Doing its thing, worming its way through the internet. Attaching servers together, and connecting them back to the satellite. When it was done…which quite frankly would take hours—a fact she was proud of, thank you very much—then she’d have to figure out the next part.

  Right now she was just waiting for it to do its thing.

  Waiting for…

  Rescue.

  “What was that?” Laptop guy stood up. He’d been sitting at her two o’clock position for half an hour, staring with beady eyes that made her want to squirm. He got up and moved to the front door.

  Talia couldn’t help the smile that curled her lips. A gunshot. She listened, everything in her reaching to hear it again.

  Pop. Pop.

  She wanted to laugh. Now they were done for.

  One of the gunmen went to the door, along with their tech person—laptop guy. Two remained. She glanced back over her shoulder, where both had their attention on the door to the hall. Guns ready.

  Pop.

  The hacker rolled his chair away, and she heard his clothes shift. Talia grasped the edges of her keyboard in a tight grip as she turned back.

  A gun went off, close this time. The burst of three shots that put the hacker on his back. Gasping, as though trying to figure out what had just happened.

  She stood, kicked at the chair so it rolled toward the man. Pretty fast, actually. When he glanced at it, she yanked on the keyboard in a sharp and hard movement that broke the cord—or pulled it out of where it had been plugged in.

  She threw it at the man.

  He lifted his gun and his other arm. Movements awkward as the chair hit his legs and the keyboard slammed into his face.

  And then she ran.

  Fireworks echoed behind her. She crossed the room. Hide under a desk? No. He would see her. She went to the EXIT door at the end and shoved against the handle.

  A bullet slammed into the door right by her head.

  Talia squeaked and ducked through the door. Whether her friends were in the other hallway or not, there would be gunmen between them if she went that way. But if she fled down here to safety, they could find her. The gunman who’d remained behind wouldn’t be able to use her as leverage. She didn’t want to be a hostage any more than she had to be. And definitely didn’t want him to press a gun against her temple to get her teammates to stand down.

  Talia knew he’d be right behind her in a second. She tried the first door. A bathroom. Didn’t matter that it was the men’s. She ran to the farthest stall, shut the door and crouched with her feet on either side of the seat.

  Her breath sounded like gasps.

  She held it, then exhaled slowly. Trying to get it to calm and quiet. If she gave herself away, he would—

  The door handle squeaked. She held completely still while the door creaked open.

  Boots on the tile.

  Talia made an O-shape with her lips and blew out a long, slow breath. Her heart thumped beneath her chest. She was afraid to move, or she’d slip and fall off the seat. Fall into the bowl. She shut off those thoughts, since in her head it played out like a comedy skit. Or a scene from a Heather Woodhaven novel.

  Metal clanged metal. Then the sound continued, a long eerie note.

  She gritted her teeth.

  The sound drew closer. As though he ran the barrel of the weapon along the metal doors. It skipped. The frame. A door slammed open. Then the next.

  He was coming closer.

  Her stomach clenched, a muscle spasm that threatened to deposit food she hadn’t even eaten on the tile in front of the toilet. God, help me. Her teammates were here. They would find her. Whether that happened before this guy discovered her was the question. The answer to which meant either life or death for her.

  She bit her lip so hard, she tasted blood. Was this the end? Dying in a stinky men’s room, minutes from being rescued.

  Maybe she should call out for help. If they were close, that would let them know where she was. Would this guy shoot her before they could run inside the bathroom? Talia wasn’t sure she would be willing to risk it. They always told her to hold fast and wait for them to show up.

  She didn’t appreciate always feeling like the loose end of the group. But this was the path God had called her to walk.

  The one that led to Mason.

  Boots appeared at the bottom of the door.

  Talia sucked in a breath, and then held it. He shifted. Staring at the door? Would he kick it in, or just shoot her?

  She crouched as small as she could and prayed he couldn’t see her around the cracks in the door. Which was of course, completely futile. America could send a man to the moon, but they couldn’t make stall doors that didn’t have gaps between the door and the—

  A thunderous voice called out, “Hey!”

  Talia wobbled and fell to the floor.

  . . .

  The gunman spun to him. Mason fired twice. Both hit the guy, one to the chest and one to the neck as he fell.

  Talia let out a kind of squeak, and he saw her scramble to her feet and pull the door open an inch.

  “It’s clear.”

  She poked her head out. “Is he gone?”

  Mason waved at the dead man, crumpled on the floor. The faint sound of gunfire back in the office, or the stairwell, drew his attention. “I think Dakota might need help.”

  “She’s here, too?”

  He nodded. Was she just going to stand there, or was she going to come over and hug him? Talia moved past him, to the sink. Of course. She pumped out some soap and washed her hands. When she grabbed for a paper towel and found none, she shook out her hands.

  “Okay?” He didn’t care that he’d been flicked with water.

  She slid her arms around his middle and gave him a small, but tight, squeeze. “Let’s go.”

  When she moved first to the door, he touched her shoulder. “Hold up. I go first.”

  She eyed his weapon. “Right.”

  Mason tried to assess the situation in the hallway and keep her safe but not get caught up with the swirl of thoughts in his head. Was she not okay? Is that why she’d been quiet so far? One hug and off to help her friends. Nothing more to be said right now. Maybe she couldn’t say anything because her time with the hacker and Yewell’s people had been too traumatic.

  He felt her fingers curl into his belt at the back. Good. She was tracking with him, and he didn’t need to glance back to see if she was still there.

  They moved into the main office. Dakota was crouched over a body. “The hacker just died.”

  Talia said nothing, but her fingers flex
ed. Still curled into his belt.

  “He said ‘Cerium.’” Dakota stood, a frown on her flushed face and hair coming free of her ponytail. “I feel like I should know what that is, but I can’t remember.” She looked over at Talia. “You okay?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was small and heartbreaking. “It’s the name on Niall’s lab. The money behind those experiments that hurt so many people.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Dakota flicked her gaze to him, and Mason gave her a small nod. He’d heard it as well. Talia wasn’t okay. They’d need to deal with that—and he would do so gladly, if it helped her—but couldn’t until Yewell was caught and everyone at the stadium had been caught. Until they were all out of danger.

  Talia let go of his belt and moved around him.

  He held still. Did she need distracting from what she could see and what had just happened? “Does all that stuff with Niall’s lab play in with Yewell?”

  “Probably not.” She went to a computer. “I think Cerium is the person behind what the hacker was doing. He said his ‘employer’ sent him to work for Yewell, like he got fired or something.”

  Dakota had her phone out. “Did he say anything about selling you?”

  “He felt bad about it. Said he was ordered to do it.”

  Mason gritted his molars together. Dakota was a wildcard. He figured she could say anything at any given point. Talia was probably used to the twenty questions, and expecting it. Mason was going to keep his thoughts to himself until he knew Talia was ready to hear them.

  It didn’t matter how he felt about all this. What mattered was that she work her way to feeling safe, getting her peace back.

  “If he wasn’t dead, I’d kick him.” She looked like she’d spit on him as well. She lifted her phone to her ear. “Hey, it’s me.” Dakota walked away, and Talia watched her move. The ghost of a smile on her lips.

  Mason walked over and sat in the chair beside Talia. The screen of the computer at the desk came to life. He peered at it. “Satellite broadcast?”

  “I’m going to halt the program.”

  “We need to figure out who he was,” Dakota said into her phone. “I’ll find out if Talia knows and get that information to you. If the NSA can get anything from security cameras or surface street surveillance around this building, then we might be able to find where he’s gone.”

  “What about the guy with the laptop?” Talia’s fingers kept moving on the keyboard even though she wasn’t looking at the screen.

  Mason didn’t want to tell her, but he had to. “He got away.”

  Talia lifted her fingers. She looked at the screen for a couple of seconds and then pressed the enter key. “He was the one making sure we did what we were supposed to do.”

  “If he could confirm all that, why didn’t he just do the job in the first place?”

  She shrugged at his question. “I had the same thought. Could be we knew more than he does, so he needed our help. He can probably put all the pieces together now and get it done. We were far enough along.”

  “You’re shutting it down?”

  She nodded.

  “Okay,” Dakota said into her phone. “Copy that.” She hung up and slid the cell phone into the back pocket of her jeans.

  “Yewell?”

  Dakota shook her head. “Victoria said they have no idea where he is. The Secretary of State is just about to go on stage at the rally, and so far it’s been quiet like you wouldn’t believe.”

  That wasn’t normal. There should’ve at least been something. Mason thought for a second. “And the jackets?”

  Dakota made a face like she had no idea what he was talking about.

  Talia said, “Done.”

  As they made their way to the stairs, he said, “I told the assistant director that I thought they should look into jackets left around the stadium. Discarded.”

  “I’ll tell her.”

  Talia said, “The guy with the laptop told the other guy, the one in charge, that all their devices—the charges—were in place. Could be that they hid them in jackets, and if they’re using a radio signal, then they could set them all off simultaneously.”

  Rain jacket bombs? He could hardly get his head around it, but there would be time enough to pick everything apart later.

  Mason touched her shoulder. “If you were close enough, could you find and isolate the signal and make it so they couldn’t set them off?”

  She reached up and touched his hand. Held it on her shoulder so he didn’t let go. “Maybe not in time to keep anyone from being killed when they’re set off.” She halted on the stairs. “That’s why I added a few lines of code. Things to interrupt what they’re doing.”

  Dakota turned to her. “Like what?”

  “A funny dog video instead of the broadcast.”

  “The doggo parko one?”

  She almost smiled. “And a few other things, just to make it harder. If the laptop guy is good, but not incredibly detail oriented, he might miss a few of them.”

  “We should get the stadium evacuated before the Secretary of State gets on stage.”

  “I tried that,” Mason said. “The assistant director of the Secret Service from DC isn’t going to make the call without conclusive evidence. He and Stanton would have to be convinced.”

  “Like people being blown up? How’s that for evidence?”

  He shrugged at Dakota’s question.

  Talia said, “What if I can prove there’s a threat? Make it look like something is happening with the screens, as if they’re being hacked. If he thinks an attack is imminent—”

  Dakota cut her off. “An attack is imminent.”

  Talia lifted one shoulder, his hand still on her other one, holding her close. “We can maybe force him to make that call. Hopefully before someone gets hurt.”

  Mason scratched at his chin with his free hand. She let go of his other, and he let it drop to his side. She said, “What is it?”

  “I don’t like the idea that you’ll get blamed for anything else. This might all have been just so they have evidence to pin on you. A scapegoat.”

  “Does it matter, if people are safe?”

  Mason wanted to kiss her, but stayed where he was.

  Dakota’s phone buzzed. “Maybe you won’t have to.” She lifted her gaze from the screen and looked at Talia. “Fire alarms are going off at the stadium.”

  Chapter 27

  “This is your doing?”

  She glanced over at Mason in response to his question. Gave him a wry smile, as they walked toward the stadium. “I had to keep busy doing something, otherwise it would’ve been obvious I didn’t intend to do what they wanted me to at all. So I layered in commands all over the place.”

  “Clever.”

  Dangerous, too. But neither of them mentioned that part.

  They fought their way through, the crowd streaming from the stadium thinking there was some kind of fire. Or another problem.

  “Victoria is on the lower east gangway.” Dakota walked ahead of them like the teacher at a field trip. She stowed her phone back in her pocket. “They’re escorting the Secretary of State back to his motorcade.”

  Talia looked at Mason to see if he thought that was a good idea. Maybe not, but there wasn’t much he could do to argue about it. She liked that he was the kind of guy who took the world as it was. Some people spent their whole lives fighting for a change. And maybe there were times they saw it realized, but most of the time things just didn’t work that way.

  He seemed content to have his quiet life. To be here for his family, at least for now. Maybe he wanted more later. Like when Rayna was grown and out of the house—when she didn’t require as much from her father. He probably had goals and things he wanted to do. The list of places she still hadn’t been was extensive, and she was looking forward to her next vacation. She was going to Cologne in Germany, then to Italy on the train.

  Did Mason like to get lost in strange places?

  An older couple wa
lked between them. After they’d passed, Mason snagged her hand. He tugged her close enough to say, “What?” without shouting. “What’s that look on your face?”

  “Do you know that ‘cappuccino’ is a universal language?”

  He almost laughed. “What does that mean?”

  “You can basically walk into any café or coffee shop in any country in Europe, and if you say ‘cappuccino,’ then they’ll usually know what you mean.”

  “Sure, assuming that’s what you want to drink.”

  “I’ve learned to love them.”

  He grinned. “You like to travel?”

  “Definitely. Bustling streets with stores all in a row. Or tiny hillside towns. Cobblestone is a plus. Those places where you have to ride a bike and you wear one of those scarves and it blows behind you in the wind.”

  “I can see the attraction.”

  She didn’t know what to say to that. Perhaps he meant for her to read between the lines, or maybe not. She could banter, but didn’t have the brain power for deep thoughts after the day they’d had. How did he? He’d nearly drowned. Then again, maybe this was nothing but banter for him.

  She wanted to know. But how did she ask which it was?

  “I—”

  Dakota cut in. “Are you two going to make googly eyes at each other all day, or are we going to catch this guy?”

  She twirled around to her teammate, standing there with a giant grin on her face. Talia’s cheeks flamed. As though she’d been caught by her mother doing something she shouldn’t have.

  “Let’s go.” Dakota turned away again, and they followed her.

  Inside the breezeway, a suited man with a badge on his belt strode over. He called out, “Agent Armstrong,” and made a beeline for Mason. “This your doing?”

  Talia said a relieved prayer to God of thanks for the fact they weren’t still holding hands. What a disaster that would have been. This guy—whoever he was—wouldn’t have taken him seriously after that.

  Before Mason could answer, Talia moved past him. “Is that tablet connected to the Secret Service’s network?” She reached for it before the man, who was behind the first guy looking like an aide, could react. “Thanks.”