by J. D. Tyler
Five minutes. That was all he was giving this side excursion.
* * * * *
Zoe kept one hand on Bricker’s shoulder as they followed Luke and the others down the hall, her mind already working on how to get the man quietly out of the building without them being seen. She didn’t want him detained by any authorities who were, no doubt, by now gathering outside.
They needed to secure the SAMS before Bricker actually had them in hand to sell. If his face ended up on the news with possible government agents coming out of this hotel, his supplier might be scared off. Once that happened, any chance of securing those weapons before they went to a different middleman dropped to somewhere between slim and none.
The steam tunnels.
Had they truly been sealed off? How thick would the walls be? Could they shoot through it with the AK she’d taken off one of the gunmen and slung over her shoulder? It might be a good place to slip out when everyone was busy getting out the loading dock.
Luke will kill me. Oh, well, it wasn’t like she hadn’t used him to get her out of trouble before. Only this time, it was more important than not being grounded or going to a bar on a fake ID. And it wasn’t really getting her out of trouble. More like helping her complete her mission.
While they waited for her cousin and the waiter to check out the kitchen, she leaned in to whisper in Adrian’s ear.
“Don’t talk. Just listen.”
He nodded.
“I have a plan to get us out so no one sees us. Stick close to me and no more histrionics when we get down to the next level.”
He turned to stare into her eyes with the cool calculated gaze she’d seen him use when considering a deal. The man might be a wuss when it comes to actual danger, but in a business meeting he was a total shark—cold, calculating, lethal.
“Trust me.”
Finally, he nodded.
Good. She had his cooperation. Now all she needed was some sort of access to the tunnels in that room. Even the black sheep of the Edgars family believed in miracles.
* * * * *
The distinctive smell of a dead body hit Luke’s nose before they rounded the corner. They found the body of a young man on the floor near one of the prep tables. By the look of him, he’d been one of the waiters.
“You know him?” Luke asked Ben.
His lips pressed in a thin line and eyes full of rage, the former sergeant nodded. “Name was Eddie, studying to be a chef. Came in to earn some extra money for school.”
“You okay?” He needed to know the other guy was focused.
“Yeah. I’d like to get my hands on whoever did this.”
Luke’s feelings matched the other man’s. “You and me both, but we have a mission to accomplish. Get any civilians out of this kitchen and our group out of the building.”
“The senator’s niece isn’t really his niece and you’re not just her bodyguard, right?” Ben leveled a don’t-give-me-any-bullshit look on him. The guy was sharp and since he was laying his life on the line, he deserved some of the truth.
“No. We both work for Homeland.” Luke fixed his own don’t-press-me expression on his face. “Any other questions?”
“Yeah, what’s so important about that Adrian guy that we have to get him out of the building instead of taking out these terrorists?”
“I’d tell you, but…” Luke said, letting it hang as he turned to head farther into the kitchen.
“…then you’d have to kill me,” Ben said, with a touch of humor in his voice. “I’ll take it as a need to know and I don’t really need to know right now.”
Smart man. He’d be a good asset on any team.
Holding the AK out in front of him, Luke ventured farther into the eerily quiet kitchen, sweeping slowly from side to side to see if anyone lay in wait to ambush them. All around them signs of meal-prep being interrupted—vegetables on chopping boards, pots of sauces and rice, steak in frying pans, utensils scattered around. He laid one hand on the six-burner stove. “All the burners under the pots are off and the stoves are cold.”
“Someone must’ve hit the universal gas shut-off valve when the terrorists hit. Probably Marcel the head cook.”
“Smart thinking. How many chefs are usually in here?” Luke whispered over his shoulder.
“For an event like this, about a thirty—the executive chef, Zinnia, Marcel, line cooks, a dozen prep cooks, including the one we already found and the dishwashers. I think most of the wait staff is on the upper floors.”
They were either going to find a group of very scared cooks or one ugly murder scene.
The kitchen was empty of humans. They came to two doors that looked like they’d been secured with a cord. Only there was too much flex in the cording for it to be really secure. The hairs on his neck tingled. Was it another trap? “What’s in here?”
“Storage for dry goods and vegetables,” Ben said from behind Luke’s shoulder, where he was watching for anyone approaching from the rear.
Taking a deep breath, Luke slid the cord from the knob and turned once. The automatic light came on. Startled, frightened faces greeted him. It was like looking into a can of frightened sardines, they were packed in so tight. The light flashed on the knife blades they raised.
“Whoa! Stay where you are,” he said, lifting his weapon slightly. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
Ben stepped to his side, his hands up. “It’s okay, everyone, he’s one of the good guys.”
The room full of frightened cooks relaxed as he stepped in front of Luke.
“Ben, did Jane send you?” an older man asked, lowering his knife, a signal for the younger men to follow suit. Luke did the same.
“Jane? That new waitress?” Ben asked. “Is she moving through the hotel?”
“Yeah, with some guy she said was with the FBI,” the cook said.
Ben looked at Luke. He shrugged. “Could be more than one undercover op going on tonight. Jones is FBI, Smith was, too. That explains why this door wasn’t really secured with that cording.”
“Not sure what Jane’s doing,” Ben said as more of the group gathered round, “but we’re here to get you out of the hotel.”
“What about the group doing this? They killed Eddie and shot Roy,” the tall, older woman said, worry etching her features as she looked behind her.
“I’m okay now,” a burly young man with a bandage on his shoulder and bicep said. “You have a plan?”
“My group is by the laundry room,” Luke said. “We’ve taken out the few enemy on this floor, but we can’t leave through the employee’s exit, it’s wired to blow up. We’re going down to the loading dock. You’re welcome to come with us, but only if you can follow my orders.”
The group exchanged looks and started arguing the pros and cons.
Luke, gritting his teeth, wanted to say, duh, stay and die, leave and maybe you live, but he bit the words back. Leaving Abby alone with potential danger headed her way ate at his nerves. “Look, we have to go now.”
Without waiting to see how many were coming, he whirled and jerked open the door, checking to be sure no one had snuck in behind them. Footsteps and whispering sounded behind him as he went through the kitchen. Apparently, they’d decided they’d had enough of hiding.
At the junction of the kitchen and the corridor back to where he’d left Abby and the others, he stopped and waited for the new group to catch up. Taking this many people, along with the smaller group back near the stairwell, was a bad idea. But the choice of leaving some innocent person to die at the hands of these fanatics went against everything he believed in. He just prayed no bad guys were hidden amount this new group.
Once Ben and the kitchen staff caught up with him he gave them his best I’m-in-charge look until he had all their attention. “From this moment on, you don’t talk. One word could get us all killed. Got it?”
Thirty heads nodded.
“Ben. You bring up the rear. The rest of you plaster yourselves against the wall and move be
hind me single-file. Got it?”
Again, they all nodded, including Ben.
Luke turned the corner, the rifle raised for any movement in front of them.
CHAPTER SEVEN
What was taking so long? Abigail peeped around the corner for the hundredth time since Luke and Ben went to the kitchen. Her ears strained to hear anything unusual coming from that direction.
Nothing. That was a good thing. No gunfire, no one getting hurt.
“Find something else to think about,” Castello’s gravelly voice softly said from behind her.
“I can’t. All I can think of is him hurt. Bleeding. No one to help him.” And it was, the image played over in her head like a damn newsreel from the forties. Her gaze met the Marshal’s over her shoulder. “And there’s nothing I can do to help him. I feel useless.”
“You’re not useless. In fact, there’s something you can do, none of the rest of us can,” Castello stared straight into her eyes with the cool calmness of his warm brown eyes. “Focus on the waiter you recognized upstairs.”
Of course! Frank was right. Luke would need to know who was behind this once they were out of here. If they knew who they were, they’d also know their agenda. She was the only one who had a clue who these crazies were and only she could access that information for him. Right now, she needed to be doing something, anything, to help and to keep her fear for Luke at bay.
With one last glance down the hall where Luke had disappeared, she leaned back against the wall, willing her body to relax. Inhaling slowly, then letting the air out, she focused her mind to pull up the latest image of the waiter. The startled expression, quickly covered by a snarl of the lip and hatred, yes, actual hatred in his eyes.
That was the look she’d seen before. At a rally.
Luke, Frank and Jake had insisted she study film and photos of every foreign and homegrown fanatic group on the current watch lists. They’d known the ball would draw an eclectic group of people, especially since several of the Joint Chiefs were scheduled to appear for the Stand Together movement. They’d hoped her memory would help them locate the possible weapons supplier, especially if he approached Bricker. Now she’d use those to figure out who was behind tonight’s attack.
Quickly, she flipped through thousands of images, searching for any that had rallies going on. There were four. Two she dismissed because they were obviously foreign groups in other countries. One appeared to be focused on protesting at military bases. The fourth was the one she was looking for.
Putting aside the image of the waiter’s dead body, she searched through still shots her brain had made of the rally videos for the one she’d remembered seeing when she bumped into the man upstairs.
There it was. She studied it carefully. The same hate-filled eyes and the snarled lip. He held an AK-47 up in the air the same as others in the group.
Where were they? Looked like a rural setting. The time was near dusk, if the lighting was correct. In the background beyond the torchlight that surrounded the area she could see what looked like mountains. The Appalachians? Probably. Closest to the Capitol.
Who were they? She let her mind scan more images from the same rally.
There. A banner. She zoomed in on it.
The Red Mantle. That was the name Travis had said right before he died. A group of highly misogynistic fanatics who believed a woman’s place was barefoot in the kitchen. Throwbacks to the early twentieth century.
A hand landed on her shoulder. She blinked and looked up into Luke’s serious face. Relief shot through her. He was here. In one piece.
“You okay?” he asked quietly.
“Yes. I found the waiter.”
“Good,” he said, then leaned in for a quick kiss. He pulled her close and whispered in her ear. “Tell me later. We’ve picked up some new people.”
She peeked around him to see an eclectic group of what looked like chefs and kitchen help.
“No dead bodies?” she asked, focusing on his grim face once more.
“One. A waiter.” He pulled away and addressed the group. “Remember, from here on out, no talking. Jones you’re covering our rear.”
* * * * *
The group moved as silently as possible down the stairwell, only the sound of sneakers breaking the quiet. The occasional squeak of rubber soles on the concrete steps echoing in the hollow stairwell sounded like cannon fire to Luke’s ears. The sooner he got them all out of here, the better.
At the bottom of the stairwell, he stopped, pulled Abby to the far side of the doorway, and motioned Ben to come forward.
“Tell me the layout again,” Luke said to Abby.
“The loading dock is to the left down those stairs and then to the right. The phone room is right next to the stairwell and the security room is along the left wall, between us and the loading dock.”
“That’s more than likely going to house at least one terrorist.” Luke said. “And the storage room?”
She leaned up to the window in the door, pointing to the closed door directly across the hall. It had an intact keypad lock.
“Shit,” he muttered.
“Do you think it’s another trap? Abby whispered.
He shook his head. More than likely, they’ve got this floor secured and were focused on the security room more than worrying about this one.” He turned to Ben. “Don’t suppose you know the combination?”
Ben shook his head. “Sorry, I haven’t ever been in that room.”
Movement up the stairs caught the trio’s attention. The gray-haired, older gentleman dressed in a chef’s coat made his way down the last few stairs. “That’s our holiday storage room. The code is 1225.”
“Christmas,” Abby said with a hint of a smile. “Thank you…?”
“Marcel.” The older man gave a shrug and a little blush. “We only use it at holidays. Easiest way to remember the code.”
Luke laid a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Good job, Marcel. Can you go with Ben to open that door and secure the room, so we can get everyone else hidden in there for a little while?”
“Whatever you need, sir.”
“Good.”
With another signal to everyone up the stairs to remain silent, they opened the door. Ben and Marcel darted across the hall. The former sergeant knelt down, his back to the door to lay down cover for the cook if necessary while he tapped in the security code and opened the door. Automatic lights came on inside the room. Marcel slipped inside, keeping the door open and motioned to send others. Ben maneuvered to cover the entrance, his gun trained in the direction of the security room.
Luke held up three fingers and pointed to the group behind them. The first three kitchen staff nodded, crept down to the door and waited.
Ben gave the go signal.
All three darted through the stairwell door and across to where Marcel waited for them. Once they were in place, Luke sent three more until all the staff was secure in the other room. Next came Zoe and Bricker. Luke stopped her before they could cross.
“I need you to help keep these people safe,” he said with emphasis on the word people. She’d made it clear upstairs in the ballroom and ever since, that her mission to protect Bricker was her most important priority, but right now he needed to know he could count on her.
“Of course,” she said, giving him a little glare of her own.
Luke hesitated, then gave her the go ahead.
Zoe went through the door, one hand on Bricker, the other on her weapon. As soon as she had her “client” secure, she moved to flank the door opposite Ben, watching the hall to their right.
Castello and Cassie came up next.
“You okay to run on that leg?” Luke asked, not keeping the worry out of his voice. Frank was like another older brother to him.
“Abby checked it while you were in the kitchen. She loosened the tourniquet, so I’m good. With my friend here’s help,” he said, giving the young waitress a nod, “it’ll be a piece of cake.”
Cassie nodded
her agreement. Since pairing up with the marshal, she’d lost some of her fear.
“Okay, you’re a go then.”
He crouched in the door to give extra cover in case Frank stumbled or fell.
Frank had an arm around Cassie, his other still holding his service weapon. The pair half-ran, half-limped across the hall.
“They’re in,” Abby said beside him.
Luke let out a breath. “You’re next. I want you to keep everyone inside. Jones, Ben and I’ll go to the security room and secure it.”
She gave him a quick smile at the pun, then her face grew more serious. “You’ll be careful?”
“I promise.” He gave her another quick kiss. “Now, go.”
She flew over the tiled floor to the other room, whirled and gave him an okay sign. Luke let out the breath he’d been holding. Everyone was safe in the other room. Now it was up to him to get them out of the building.
* * * * *
Crouching low, the trio moved up the hall towards the security room, Ben on the far side, Luke in the lead and Jones right behind him. A brief stop at the phone/communications room showed the door locked and the room dark.
A few more steps, then Ben stopped them at the stairs to peer around his corner up the hall to where Abby said the loading dock was. He signaled it was all clear. He held his position, covering that hall and the one behind them.
Luke pointed to the security room door. Jones nodded. Two large window panes flanked the door. They could see the flickering of security camera monitors inside. All the internal ones had been disabled. Only the external ones appeared to be working. Apparently they weren’t too worried about what was happening inside. Their job was to notify the others if anyone attempted a breech from the outside.
Silhouettes of two men sat across from them. Luke pointed to Jones, then to the right. He repeated the motion, pointing to himself and the left. The FBI special agent nodded and they moved out.
Just outside the room, Luke held up three fingers to signal they’d go on three. Jones raised his weapon with both hands, ready to fire.