by Cindy Dees
Chaos erupted over the radios.
A few people around her began to pick up on her panic and moved in alarm toward the tunnel.
But that damned Zamboni kept rumbling closer, spraying its heated load of Agent Bravo in a glistening sheet of liquid death.
An agitated male voice came over the building’s loud speaker. “We need everyone in the lower rows of the stadium to move to higher parts of the building immediately. A hazardous fumes sensor indicates that the Zamboni machine may be emitting a dangerous gas at the level of the ice. Please move as quickly as you can.”
She noted dimly that the guy didn’t suggest they do it in an orderly fashion.
“Move!” she screamed yet again to the crowd of people around her. In combination with the general announcement, they finally got the lead out and headed for the tunnel en masse. A traffic jam resulted, but with her shouting behind everyone like a bulldog nipping at their heels, the mob shoved forward and kept moving.
The Zamboni rounded the corner at the end of the ice and drew parallel to her position. She looked back over her shoulder in horror. The Zamboni driver was swarthy. Bulky in build. And looked like a carbon copy of Ilya Gorabchek. Brothers, maybe.
But what really captured her attention was the maniacal gleam in his eyes as he looked over at her. And smiled. That was the smile of a man anticipating meeting his Maker in Paradise. The bastard knew what he was about. He was committing suicide. She yanked out her pistol and took off running from the tunnel entrance toward the Zamboni and its cargo of doom.
She ran out onto the ice, slipping and sliding wildly. She ran after the machine, which was moving at a fairly stiff clip. When she was as close she could get to the guy, she fired every last one of her rubber dum-dum bullets at his head. He tilted over and the Zamboni swerved wildly.
“Snipers, take him out!” she screamed.
And then she dared not say any more. The scientist’s warning about a single lungful of the poison gas killing a person was vivid in her mind. A faint mist was rising from the ice, swirling around her legs. She held her breath and ran off the ice clumsily, praying not to fall down. For to do so would mean death.
At least the report of her pistol had put the fear of God into the spectators who, until that point had been making their way in fairly leisurely fashion up the stairs and milling around on the concourse level walkways.
“Everyone out of the building!” a voice bellowed over the loudspeakers.
The reports of several rifles firing simultaneously rang out deafeningly.
Screams erupted, and she caught a glimpse of pandemonium above as people fought their way to the exits, now appropriately hysterical.
As she stumbled off the ice, she glanced back and saw a black lump lying on the obscenely white surface, a bright red stain spreading under it. The Zamboni weaved wildly down the middle of the ice, driverless, slipping almost sideways as it careened out of control, still spraying its load of death.
She used what little oxygen she had left to herd the last few remaining people near the ice toward the tunnel. The four men and two women of a pair of camera crews ran with her down the tunnel. Her lungs were on fire, her chest about to burst. Stars danced in front of her eyes. She was going to have to breathe soon.
The group fled past the big steel blast doors, and she nodded at the frightened men manning them, signaling with her hands for them to close the doors. She stopped and took a gasping breath. And prayed it was clean air.
“Everyone out of the building,” she shouted down the tunnel. Her voice echoed impressively, and the people running ahead of her picked up the pace even more. They went through the parking garage and outside into the cold, dark night. It had never felt so good to draw in bracing, fresh air to her lungs.
People poured out of the building from every exit, screaming and yelling and running in search of loved ones. She herself looked around wildly, trying to spot Anya and Liz to make sure they got out.
“Report,” Vanessa’s voice yelled in her ear.
Isabella waited her turn in the standard order they used, and after Kat, she came up and said, “I’m outside.” Aleesha reported in, and Isabella sagged in relief. They’d all made it out.
Vanessa said, “I’ve dropped off the Petrovich family at the safe house and am on my way back. I’m almost there. I’ll meet all of you in three minutes. Head for the north entrance and rendezvous there.”
That was on the other side of the giant building. Isabella took off running. She wove in and out between hundreds of other running, panicked souls, many of them screaming names as they went. Total chaos reigned. Fire trucks and police cars were pulling up, but they didn’t stand a chance of imposing order on this mess.
Firemen in full oxygen suits ran for the entrances. Although it wasn’t as if victims of the gas would need assistance, if the descriptions of its lethality were accurate. Hopefully, they’d cleared the place before the Agent Bravo created a deep enough cloud to reach—and kill—too many people.
The emergency radio frequency that came across her headset in addition to the discrete Medusa channel crackled with people shouting instructions and calling for help. And then one voice in particular caught Isabella’s attention as she ran across the parking lot full of people dodging between cars.
“Tally ho on hostile target. I have Harlan Holt in my sights. Requesting instructions.”
That was one of the snipers. Asking for permission to shoot Holt.
She came up on the frequency urgently. “Negative on taking down Holt. Say location of target!”
“West side of the arena. Moving toward the building, approximately sixteen rows of cars out.”
She wasn’t far from there. They needed to apprehend Holt alive. Find out what had really happened with him and his wife. If he had been helping the terrorists, he’d be put to death later for treason. She veered to her left, away from the arena. A man moving toward the building shouldn’t be too hard to spot in this melee. Everyone else was running away from the rink and its cloud of death.
Ten…eleven…she counted the rows of cars as she ran past. She looked left and right, visualizing his features. Tall. Lean. Dark-haired. Glasses.
Over there. She took off to her right, circling back to get between Holt and the arena. Running in a crouch, she dived in and out among the vehicles full of terrified people.
She ducked left and stood up. If she’d calculated correctly, he should be coming right at her. There he was. Two cars over. She sprinted at the guy, approaching him from the side. She left the ground in a running leap and tackled Holt around the waist in a blow an NFL lineman would have been proud of.
Holt fought like a wild man. She hung on, rolling with the guy and gradually working her way into a better grip until she was able to give one last heave, flip him on his back, and sit on top of his chest.
“Gotchya,” she panted.
His eyes were frantic. Unseeing. And then they finally focused on her face and a strange thing happened. He went still. “You,” he gasped. “Thank God.”
She blinked in surprise.
“You’ve got to help me find Emma.”
“Come again?” she asked.
“She’s here somewhere. They brought her in a van. Said I could have her back if everything went well inside. But it didn’t go well, did it? All these people got out! They’ll kill her for sure unless we get to her first!”
“What van?” Isabella bit out.
“I don’t know. They only said a van. They said they’d drive it up to the north entrance and I could meet them there after…well, after.”
Isabella transmitted into her radio, “Harlan Holt’s wife is in the parking lot somewhere in a van, possibly on the north side of the arena. The terrorists who kidnapped her will kill her if they get to her first. Medusas, start checking vans. Look for a bound and probably gagged woman inside.”
She climbed to her feet and dragged the scientist to his feet as well. “If you’re lying to me, I’ll
kill you myself.”
The guy nodded.
“You and I are going to take off running again and check inside every van we come across. No stunts. I’ll call in a sniper shot and you’ll be dead before you know what hits you. Got it?”
He nodded vigorously. “Yes. Now please, let’s go!”
The two of them took off, weaving through the parking lot from van to van, peering inside the windows frantically. She transmitted as she ran, “I’m on the west side of the arena, working my way north. They said they’d bring the van to the north entrance, so let’s assume it’s parked where they can see that door.”
“Roger,” came the brief reply from her teammates. They all sounded like they were running around out here, too.
“I’m just pulling in,” Vanessa reported. “Everyone meet me at the north door and we’ll fan out from there. Plus, I’ve got weapons.”
Of course. The Medusas had put loaded guns in the getaway vehicle in case Gorabchek and his pals decided to play rough.
“This way, Harlan,” Isabella called. “Follow me.”
“Where are we going?” he called back as they sprinted around the arena.
“To even up the odds.” There was the SUV. Vanessa was at the back door, pulling out the canvas bags that held their guns and ammunition. Misty and Kat were already arming themselves.
Isabella screeched to a halt beside the vehicle. Vanessa shoved an MP-5 submachine gun into her hands along with two spare clips of ammo. “We’ll divide the north parking lot up in wedges,” her boss said. “Go to the back of the lot and work your way toward the arena. Odds are they parked well away from the building. Take the center section. I’ll be on your immediate right and Mamba will be on your immediate left. Go!”
Isabella and Holt took off running. It took them several minutes to reach the back end of the giant parking lot. They turned around and began crisscrossing their portion of the asphalt as they ran from van to van, looking in the windows. As they ran, she panted, “How many men are there, Harlan?”
He replied in a half sob, “Four came into our bedroom to kidnap her. I’ve only seen three at a time since then.”
“What do they look like?” Isabella demanded.
“Young. Early twenties. Dark complexions and hair. Western clothes. One of them looked older, more like late thirties or early forties. He was the leader.”
Isabella relayed the descriptions to her teammates. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was better than nothing. The good news was that in their panic, frantic spectators had completely grid-locked the parking lots. Nobody was going anywhere soon.
They’d worked their way about halfway through the lot when Vanessa radioed, “Adder, do you have that gray van in your nine o’clock, or do you need me to get it? I’m on the far side of my sector.”
“We’ll check it,” Isabella replied, spotting the vehicle in question. Light gray utility van. No windows in its sides or back doors. A group of maybe twenty people was just passing by it. She ran around the minor mob to have a look in the passenger side window. It was dark in the back of the vehicle. No seats, just storage space. She might’ve run on by when there were no obvious signs of a person lying on the floor, but her gut said to have another look. She darted around to the driver’s side window, yanking out a flashlight as she went. She shined it in the window.
The first thing she saw was a small cardboard box lying on top of some wires. Then she saw a heavy canvas drop cloth stained with paint. And then she saw the foot sticking out from under one corner of it.
“I’ve got her!” Isabella called over her radio. “Medusas to me!”
“Get down!” Vanessa shouted. “Incoming!”
Months and months of round-the-clock training kicked in, and acting on reflex, Isabella dived for the ground in response to her boss’s command. She grabbed Harlan Holt’s arm on the way down and knocked the poor guy off his feet as well.
“What in the world—” he started.
Isabella rolled, simultaneously pulling her MP-5 out from under her coat. A sharp metallic ping sounded just above her head.
Son of bitch. Somebody had just fired a bullet at her!
Chapter 19
Isabella looked around frantically. The car beside her was too low to crawl under. The van was tall enough, but if she and Holt took cover under it, they’d draw gunfire to the van itself and put Emma Holt, whom that foot presumably belonged to, at grave risk. The metal skin of the van would hardly slow down a bullet, let alone stop it.
The ring of paint chipped off around the hole above her head was slightly wider on the left side. It was all she had to go on. She pointed to her right. “Crawl that way,” she ordered Holt. “And stay the hell down.”
She belly-crawled after him, dragging herself along by the elbows while Vanessa shouted for fire support. Whether or not anyone heard her in the jumble of voices on the emergency radio frequency was anybody’s guess.
Viper’s voice came across perfectly clearly on the private Medusa channel, though. “Anyone got visual on the shooter?”
Silence answered that question.
Dammit. No one had seen anyone.
“It looked like maybe the shot came from my left, which would put the shooter in the direction of the arena.”
Vanessa ordered, “Bust open a door and get Mrs. Holt out. We’ll cover you.”
Isabella nodded. She pointed at an SUV in the next row of cars. “Get under that, Harlan. Move.”
He made to stand up, but she snapped, “Stay low if you don’t want your head shot off.” That dropped him back to his belly instantaneously.
She crawled to the back door and reached for the silver handles, and her gut screamed a warning. What was it? Her hand hesitated on the latch. Vaguely she heard her boss say in her ear, “What’s the hold up, Adder? Get her out of there!”
She closed her eyes, picturing the interior of the van. That box. Sitting on the wires. Oh, shit. A bomb! “Vehicle’s booby-trapped.” That explained the lone gunshot. Whoever’d taken that pot shot at her had only wanted to keep her from peering in the windows, he’d wanted to give her a sense of blind urgency so she’d throw open the van door to rescue Mrs. Holt.
“How?” Viper demanded.
“Bomb. In the back with Emma.”
Her boss cursed. “I’ll move in to defend the right side of the van. Adder, you take the back for now. Transition to the driver’s side when I get into place. The rest of you, circle around it and see if you can spot our tangos.”
Isabella peered beneath the van and the car directly behind her and saw feet running in every direction. How were they going to spot the terrorists in this zoo? She waited, her back against the bumper of the car behind her, looking straight ahead at the back of the van. Her peripheral vision caught movements on either side of her, and every few seconds she jerked her weapon to one side or the other as something or someone would move.
How long she waited there, exposed and vulnerable, she had no idea. It felt like a week. It was probably more like three minutes. Then something hot touched her ear, and the van door pinged again. She hit the deck and rolled fast, wedging herself in as best she could under the front end of the car parked behind the van. Damn, that was close! That bullet had creased her ear on the way past. She didn’t bother to reach up and check for blood. Nothing she could do about it right now.
Kat’s voice came up on radio, as tense as she’d ever heard the sniper. “I’ve got visual on our shooter.”
Vanessa was succinct. “Kill him.”
“No shot,” Kat retorted. “He’s crouching behind a big group of people. I’ll have to work my way around them.”
“Do it,” her boss ordered.
Another bullet pinged somewhere nearby. And another. Was the same guy doing all this shooting? If so, his targets were wildly divergent. She peered up at the marks on the side of the van. No way had those come from the same spot. One of the holes looked bigger than the other one. Different caliber rounds!
/> “We’ve got at least two shooters out here,” she transmitted.
Karen piped up. “I think I’ve got one of them over here. I just saw somebody pop up from behind a car and then duck back down. I didn’t see a weapon, though.”
“Check it out,” Vanessa replied.
“Roger,” the Marine responded tersely. Then, “He’s running! Toward the van.”
Suddenly, all the Medusas were talking at once, stepping over each other on the frequency as three men matching the general descriptions of the hostiles took off running from various locations around the parking lot toward the van.
Here she was, lying at ground zero. Right where all their guns were pointed. But she dared not move. Somebody had to defend the van and keep anyone from triggering the bomb. As close as she was to it, if that bomb blew, she was toast.
Vanessa shouted over the general emergency frequency, “Request permission to open fire on terrorist suspects!”
Either nobody heard her or nobody who did had the authority to give her permission. Finally, she came up on the Medusas’ frequency and said, “To hell with it. Fire at will. If you have a shot at our suspects, take it.”
Several shots rang out around Isabella. Kat reported a hit but not a take-down. The guy she’d shot was still ambulatory, and now he was mad. The three terrorists erased any doubts about their identity by firing back.
Karen said, “Sidewinder, adjust your field of fire to the right so I can move in and get a better shot.” A couple more terse transmissions were traded as the Medusas managed their fields of fire. They had to stay positioned in such a way that they wouldn’t shoot at each other as they converged on the van and the three men.
Isabella felt stupid, helpless, lying here on the ground. She stared up at the silver freckles on the side of the van where the tangos had shot at her. And something dawned on her. They weren’t shooting at her! They were shooting at that cardboard box located just behind the driver’s seat. The bastards were trying to detonate their bomb!