Capitol Danger

by J. D. Tyler

  “Shut the fuck up, you stupid drunken idiot.”

  Trammelstone plowed forward, then dropped to the floor, looking totally shocked.

  Applause replaced the prior shrieks of panic and for once, Trammelstone showed sense, and stayed down. Either that or he’d actually had a heart attack and died on the spot.

  Edward decided there was nothing he could do if that was the case, and he turned back to the next patient.

  He’d gotten through two more groups when a shout went up from over by the mixing board.

  Burke was hugging and kissing Hayden, who was struggling to stay upright with her injured leg.

  Rouse had pivoted too, and together, he and Edward converged on the giddy pair.

  “What?”

  “Contact!” Burke enthused.

  Hayden grinned as well. “We’ve got some Commandeer, or Commandant or something from the Bureau. Name’s Maitland. It’s in and out, but we managed to tell him we’re barricaded in the ballroom.”

  “Did you tell him about the seventh floor?”

  “Haven’t managed that yet,” Burke said. “It’s coming and going. I think he knows about that guy that came to the door, though.”

  “Maitland,” Rouse chimed in from the service doors. “I know him. He’s a Special Agent in Charge. Good man.”

  “Well, tell him to get his people the hell in here,” Edward growled, wishing Retta were back.

  He had checked on everyone on the ground, and now levered himself onto the stage one more time. He had patients there as well, a fact he hadn’t forgotten. He had Nils pass him up the clipboard, and he went to the left side and began taking names. Most he knew, since they were the women Decker had called up.

  “Anyone know who this guy is?” he said, asking the other people on the stage about the thirty-something he’d treated early on. Edward was worried because the man hadn’t yet regained consciousness.

  “Dammit, this guy should be awake,” he said, fingers at the man’s wrist to check his pulse. He peeled back an eyelid to check pupillary response and the pupil dilated quickly.

  When the eyeball shifted and the man’s eye looked directly at him, Edward’s gut clenched. It tightened further when the man smiled.

  In a blink, the man leapt to his feet, jerking Edward in front of him like a shield, a weapon pressed to Edward’s back.

  Sylvia Tolliver shrieked and tried to rise. “How dare you!” Madeline Arrsworthy was awake, and she easily pulled Sylvia back to the floor.

  Cheryl Parkerston’s eyes narrowed but she looked stricken to see him trapped.

  “Shut up, you stupid old bitch,” the gunman hissed, which brought every eye in the room to focus on the tableau on stage.

  Rouse walked toward the stage, but the gunman waved him away. “Stay down there on the floor, FBI guy. I’ll finish the job here and the Red Mantle will win, as always.”

  “Win?” Edward said, laughing, trying to play the same game with this guy that he and Rouse had played with Decker. “Win? Sure, you killed people, but that’s not a win, that’s just bloodshed. It doesn’t make a point!”

  “You want me to make a point, rich boy? Huh? Huh? I can make a point. Which bitch do I kill first, asshole rich boy?”

  Edward was just waiting for the man to pull the weapon out from where it was pressed against Edward’s back. Once he did, and he shifted it to point at one of the women on the stage, Edward could act. He’d have some things to do, and say, to the asshole with the gun.

  He was furious with himself for dropping his guard. Sure, the guy had been in a tux rather than a waiter’s uniform, but part of Edward’s brain had been niggling over the guy’s positioning since he first got on stage.

  It had been wrong, the way the man had fallen. And he wasn’t injured, not as far as Edward could tell. The bump on the head, the bruises on the chest, possible broken ribs...his mind remembered the diagnosis. Those could all have happened during the fight, yes, or been there beforehand.

  Edward realized he’d not trusted his instincts.

  Look where that had got you. Again.

  A slight motion distracted him from the gunman’s raving about bitches needing to die, the Red Mantle, and idiotic rich boys.

  Cheryl Parkerston was motioning, ever so slightly to him.

  Drop. She mouthed the word, and motioned for him to drop down.

  Drop? He mouthed back, raising his eyebrows. From beyond her head, he saw Rouse nod, ever so slightly.

  It was a technique in hostage situations. The hostage, if he could, would suddenly drop his full weight to the floor which had the effect of either breaking the captor’s hold, or pulling the captor forward and off balance where he could be thrown.

  Throw?

  Rouse shook his head, No.

  Someone had a bead on the guy, then.

  Edward felt the gun coming out, the gunman was going to shoot. If he flipped him now, whoever had a bead on the gunman might shoot him, Edward, instead.

  Drop! Cheryl said.

  He dropped, and the gunman fired before Edward could stop it.

  His weight and momentum pulled the man off balance. Once Edward’s head dropped below the man’s chest, three more shots rang out.

  Edward dropped all the way down and covered his head as hot blood sprayed over him. His ankle twisted under the stage rigging, and more of the rigging collapsed, trapping him tightly, which made him want to scream with pain and panic.

  Two seconds later, the man’s knees hit his back, totally knocking the wind out of him with an ooof!

  He felt his ribs protest the violent landing, just as the man’s body toppled sideways, pinning him to the stage and jerking his trapped ankle sideways so hard he felt it snap.

  Through the haze of pain, he felt the panic trying to rise. It was a nightmarish place –-and way-- to be immobilized.

  His ankle throbbed in agonizing time with his heartbeat. His heel was still wedged under a piece of equipment and he couldn’t get it loose without risking a blackout from the pain.

  His body was sandwiched between an amp, or riser or something, and fallen bit of rigging. Worse, he was pinned underneath the dead weight –-literally, in this case-– of the gunman.

  “Edward?” a deep, thunderous bass boomed into the room.

  “Here!” he croaked, finding his throat as dry as dust.

  “Hang on,” O’Keefe called. “I’m coming.” The away team was back. Hallelujah.

  From where he lay, he could see Cheryl Parkerston. She had buried her face in her hands and was weeping. Sylvia Tolliver, still looking dazed and confused, was nevertheless trying to comfort her.

  “Cheryl,” he croaked. “Hey,” he managed to call more loudly. “Parkerston!”

  She uncovered her tear-streaked face, which was still a mass of swelling, bruises and blood. Her lip was bleeding again.

  “What?” she said, her voice quivering.

  “Thanks.”

  More tears flowed, but she smiled through them. “You’re welcome.”

  He heard Rouse calling for people to help him pull the barricades away from the doors about the time O’Keefe’s legs and feet appeared in his limited line of sight.

  “Lying down on the job again, Navy?” O’Keefe drawled, stepping around Edward and over a mass of twisted electronic equipment and rigging. “Typical.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Edward managed. “Just get me out, Jarhead.”

  “I’ll take that from you,” O’Keefe said, “where I wouldn’t take it from many.”

  “Said with total affection, I assure you,” Edward grunted the words as the pressure increased on his back and legs. Then, blessedly, it was gone.

  “Think you can get up?” O’Keefe’s voice was low and calm at his side.

  “I’m wedged in. Twisted my ankle when I fell, then the asshole fell on me, which broke it, I’m pretty sure. Give a swabbie a hand?” he said, reaching up as best he could.

  “Hang tight, let me move some of this crap.”
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  He heard a series of thuds, and felt cool air fill the void where the amp had been. “Turn now, and I’ll help you sit up.”

  Edward shifted, and wished he hadn’t. Broken ribs. Yep, pretty sure about those. Maybe bruised kidneys. His ankle burned like fire. Catching it in the stage gap, then falling with it wedged, he was 100% sure he’d broken it.

  “What is it?” O’Keefe said.

  “Asshole landed, full dead weight, on my kidneys and ribs. And, like I said, I did something ugly to my ankle.”

  “That’s gonna hurt a while,” O’Keefe drawled, but Edward heard the relief. “Suck it up, Navy. Your gal needs you.”

  “Retta?” he said, jerking up. “Oh shit, that was stupid,” he slurred as his head spun and nausea rose.

  “Yeah,” O’Keefe said, but his extended hand was steady, and his big arm like iron as he helped Edward stand.

  “Where’s Retta?”

  “She took the shot,” O’Keefe said softly. “She was the only one small enough to get up in the lighting-rigger’s box back there, behind the stage. Some of it’s collapsed. She wriggled through. Took the shot.”

  “Oh, sweet Jesus,” Edward hissed. No one ever forgot killing another human being. Even when you were in the right, and protecting someone, taking that shot followed you forever. “Where is she?”

  “In the hallway, throwing up everything she has down to those borrowed Keds.”

  “The hallway?” Edward asked sharply.

  “Guarded. That Maitland guy came through. We’ve got tactical SWAT, Bureau, the Bureau’s SWAT equivalent, and a bunch of guys that I don’t know who the hell they are, but they got badges and guns. Hotel’s still hot though. Nothing’s secure, so we’re all going out through the basement as fast as we can get our collective asses moving.

  “That said, we need you down there directing traffic, medically, for the first responders. Oh, and seeing to your warrior queen.”

  “Yeah, she is that. Retta first,” Edward insisted. “Find a guy named Nils Olderson--” Edward said.

  “The hockey player?”

  Evidently O’Keefe was a fan too. “Yeah, him. He has lists of his groups, who needs out first. Take it as given that everyone on the stage needs priority transport. Get them started on that.”

  “Got it.”

  “Hang on,” Edward said, as O’Keefe helped him limp to the edge of the stage. He stopped them at Cheryl Parkerston, reached down. She reached up and gripped his hand.

  “I don’t want to jinx us, but I think we might have managed to make it, Marshal.”

  “Well, paleface,” she managed, tears rolling down her battered face, even as she smiled. “You may be right.”

  He gently squeezed her fingers, and she squeezed back. “Thanks,” he said softly. “I owe you.”

  She shook her head, then looked like she regretted the movement. “No, we’re even. Unless,” she said, and she shot him a lopsided, painful smile, “It gets me an edge.”

  He grinned. “Maybe.”

  She nodded, and let his hand go.

  O’Keefe helped him the rest of the way to the edge of the stage. There were guys in vests and riot gear coming through the cleared doors, with gurneys at the ready.

  As O’Keefe helped him down to the floor, he saw the other man was bleeding.

  “You’re hit?”

  “Yeah, it’s not bad. We met some unfriendlies. Me and Sara were point. She got a graze, too.”

  “Seventh floor?”

  O’Keefe shook his head. “We didn’t get there. We didn’t even see that duo heading for the roof. Kept one of the bad guys off their ass, though,” O’Keefe said with a fierce grin. “Some guy in heavy gear, heading up the stairs with a really nice set of weapons.” O’Keefe hefted the AK-47 he held. “I thought it might do better service in our cause. And I really wanted out of here, so I was seriously aiding and abetting the pair going to the roof, you know?”

  Edward laughed, even though it hurt, and they limped forward. Edward and O’Keefe both winced they crunched down on a big piece of colored glass. “Guess your gal’s gonna have to make some new art.”

  “She will, yeah.”

  They both grinned at each other.

  “Anyway,” O’Keefe continued. “We got back here, and caught this weaselly guy sneaking out of a door behind the stage. Sara said it was a projector-slash-control room for the back lighting in the room. She said in a lot of places there’s catwalk access for media stuff. That door was locked before. We tried it, and blocked it on the ballroom side.” O’Keefe paused for a moment as Edward shifted his grip. Everything in his body hurt. O’Keefe was slightly taller than he was, and their uneven height constrained their progress slightly.

  “So what made you check the room, rather than the guy?”

  “The guy shot at us as soon as he saw us, so we knew he wasn’t on the up and up. Given that, Sara said we should check the view. Room’s barely big enough to turn around in. Narrow, you know? And damaged from all the gunfire and stuff banging through the walls from the stage. So, she peeped up as far as she could and saw what was going down. She looked in just as that guy grabbed you.”

  “And?”

  They had gotten around the main area of wounded in front of the stage, and turned toward the now unblocked service door. “You know the rest,” O’Keefe said gruffly. “Now, see to your woman.”

  Retta was rushing in the door, staring at the stage, frantically searching for him.

  “Retta,” he called.

  She turned and her face lit up like fireworks. “Edward!”

  She rushed to him, stopping just shy of him. “You’re okay? You’re all right? I didn’t hit you?”

  Uncharacteristically, she was wringing her hands.

  “Retta,” he said, letting go of O’Keefe’s supporting arm to stand on his own. “Come here.”

  She all but leapt into his arms. He felt a million feet tall, and didn’t even stagger.

  “Oh, my God, Edward! Oh, my God!”

  She didn’t sob. She was so self-contained, that in some ways he wished she would, but even without that, he could feel her tears soaking his bloodied shirt.

  “Oh, my God,” she repeated, her face buried in his chest.

  “Shh, darling, shh,” he said, stroking her back. “We’re still not out of the woods. We have to help everyone get out safely. Then we need to get to the hospital ourselves, and get checked out.”

  “I know, I know,” she said, pulling away to wipe at her face. The action did more harm than good, leaving red and black-gray streaks on her cheeks. Mascara ringed her eyes, and her glorious red hair had come out of its sleek updo. She looked like a goddess to him though, like everything he’d ever dreamed of in a woman.

  “I’m a mess,” she said.

  “We’re a matched set, then,” he agreed, wrapping his arm around her.

  “I think that makes us a trio,” Burke Chapman’s voice sounded behind them. “I hate to say it, but I think I’m hit.”

  “What?” the chorus rang out and every head pivoted his way. He was clutching his stomach, and there was blood seeping through his fingers.

  “The bullet from the guy that had you?” Burke said, as O’Keefe rushed to support him. “Ricocheted off the stage. I’d stepped in front of Hayden, when that guy grabbed you, or it would have been her.”

  “Oh, my God,” Edward said, suddenly furious. “Why didn’t you both take cover?”

  Burke managed a grin. “Because we’re idiots?”

  Edward shook his head and grabbed the next gurney in. “Here, lie down,” he ordered Burke. O’Keefe boosted Burke onto the mattress and within seconds the paramedic had a saline drip in and they were rushing him out the door.

  Edward could only stand, with his arm around Retta, and watch them go.

  “Here,” O’Keefe said gruffly. “Sit your ass on this, and direct traffic.” O’Keefe had dragged up one of the plinths the big artificial trees had been plunked on. It was just the rig
ht height.

  “We’ll check on him as soon as we get to the hospital,” Edward reassured himself, as much as Retta, but she answered.

  “Of course, very first thing.”

  For another thirty minutes, he, Nils, O’Keefe and Retta helped get the wounded out of the ballroom. He gave Cheryl a high five as she was wheeled out and into the big service elevator with two other gurneys, and three armed men.

  Sylvia gave him an absent smile as she, too, went by.

  “Oh, I hope she’s going to be okay,” Retta murmured.

  “Me, too.”

  Finally, the ballroom was empty, except for the dead. Even they were being checked one more time by a DC SWAT paramedic. He prayed they hadn’t missed anyone.

  “Now you, sirs, ma’am,” said a man wearing tactical gear, standing in front of them.

  For just a minute, they all stared stupidly at the guy. “Right,” O’Keefe boomed. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  They helped Edward onto a gurney, which seemed ridiculous, but they wanted to get out fast, and Edward couldn’t walk. The elevator ride was tense, and everyone held their breath as the doors opened. If anyone had been remotely mobile, they wouldn’t have used the elevators, but, given the conditions...

  The relief was palpable when no shots rang out, and non-flack-jacketed medical personnel hurried to push the gurney to waiting ambulances.

  “Where’s Rouse?” Edward demanded, trying to sit up.

  “Command center,” O’Keefe called. “He told them about the seventh floor.”

  “Reading my mind, O’Keefe?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he called as he too was ushered into an ambulance.

  There were police, fire, SWAT and unmarked and marked FBI vehicles everywhere. He saw HOMELAND SECURITY coats, and jackets with other letters as well before the doors closed and there was blessed silence.

  “Hey,” Retta said softly from where she sat opposite him. “How you doing?”

  “Pretty good, all things considered,” he said, then winced as the paramedic put a pressure brace on his rapidly swelling ankle. “That hurts like hell,” he said, gesturing with their joined hands at his foot.

  “I’ll bet.” She leaned in to whisper in his ear. “Don’t let them give you too many heavy duty meds. I know I can’t do more than sleep with you tonight, but we can be creative.”