Swonger looked back at the hotel. His expression changed.
“You sure?” Margo asked. “He’s a big boy.”
“Yeah . . . ,” he said. “I gotta get my car anyway.”
Margo reached a hand across Old Charlie, and Swonger shook it. He looked back at Lea.
“You owe me. Don’t forget.”
“See you soon,” she promised.
“Now would be good,” Old Charlie said.
Swonger stepped back off the running board, and the pickup leapt forward. Lea looked back and saw the spire of the Niobe Bridge in the moonlight, rising stoically above the Ohio River. It was a lovely old bridge, and she wondered if she’d ever see it again. As they left Niobe behind, Lea listened to Margo and Old Charlie argue the pros and cons of area hospitals. It was about the most beautiful sound Lea had ever heard.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Plan B came in the form of Deja Noble herself. It took some time and sounded like it came at a horrible price, but Deja and her men were slowly but surely pushing the fifth floor back up the stairs. Gibson hoped that price didn’t include Swonger. The changing tide of the battle drew the guard away from his post on the third-floor landing. The guard took two steps down from the landing to get a better view, which created a blind spot. Gibson took the opportunity to fly up the stairs, hugging the banister for cover. Deja to the rescue again. Good thing, since all of Gibson’s scenarios ended with him dying in a hail of bullets.
He expected to encounter more resistance but reached the fifth-floor landing without anyone rising up to bar his way. The long hallway looked likewise unguarded. How many men must Emerson have lost at the airfield? At the door of the presidential suite, Gibson saw fresh blood on the carpet beside a pair of high heels. Something glinted at him from behind one of the shoes. He picked up an expensive-looking gold watch; the inscription on the back read, “Merrick Capital 1996–2006.” What had happened here? He pocketed the watch and listened at the door. Not a sound. No movement. Nothing. Keenly aware of being unarmed, he slipped inside and inched through the entryway until he saw the living room. It locked his knees and took away even the idea of breath.
The presidential suite was a slaughterhouse. He counted four dead. Blood everywhere. Flecks of blood on the ceiling some twelve feet above, stretched away in a perfectly straight line. He marveled that amid the chaos something so orderly had been made. Beautiful in its way. A strange thing to think about, but it had been a long day into night since Martin Yardas had shot himself. Gibson’s exhausted mind had absorbed all the atrocity that it could and had no room for the dead woman in her wheelchair. Or the dead guard riddled with bullets. Or the pair of hooded bodies slumped against the ropes that bound them to chairs—murdered in cold blood. But the truth was, he didn’t have time for his mind to play the wandering philosopher. This was a blood game that could afford no witnesses. If anyone discovered him here, he would join the dead.
In the next room, he found another body amid an array of torture implements. He’d been shot in the back and died with his gun holstered without getting off a single shot. Other than the dead, the suite was empty—whoever had done this was long gone. An example he should consider following.
He went back to the sitting room and realized one of the seated, hooded bodies was a woman. Everyone else had been shot, but a bloody knife at her feet testified to the horror of the last moments of her life. No, no, no, Gibson whispered to himself. This was his fault. Gently, delicately, he drew back the hood. Veronica Merrick looked so much like her daughter that it took Gibson a moment to register. Her lifeless eyes stared past him at the ceiling, mouth locked in either a snarl or a prayer. Gibson dropped the hood and sank to his knees, guilty for feeling nothing for the dead woman except relief at her not being Lea.
Had Lea even been here? Had Charles Merrick? The two empty chairs suggested that they had. Had they escaped together? The body in the next chair shifted, groaned. Gibson didn’t even flinch, his central nervous system way past the point of cheap jump scares. He asked the body its name; the body answered with another groan. Not helpful, body. Gibson yanked off the hood. Someone had given this man one hell of a beating. A wide cut in his forehead accounted for all the blood that had soaked through the hood. The man’s eyes fluttered open, irises dilated and unfixed. But his first words were articulate enough.
“Where is Charles Merrick?”
“Not here.”
The man’s eyes gradually focused. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m not tied to a chair, nice to meet you. My turn . . . where’s Chelsea Merrick?”
“She’s gone.”
“Is she alive?”
“I am tied to a chair, so I would guess I have no damn idea.”
“Then what good are you?” Gibson started to wrestle the hood back over the man’s head.
“I’m with the government, and I need you to untie me. Now.”
The man had the kind of voice that ordinarily would make people jump to it, but ordinarily he wouldn’t have been tied to a chair. Still, it made Gibson hesitate.
“What part of the government?”
“You really want to have this conversation now? You do understand what happens if Lucinda King Soto’s son comes back and finds his mother like that?” The man gestured with his chin toward the woman in the wheelchair.
So that was the woman at the center of the fifth floor. Emerson’s mother. Gibson had a pretty good idea how Emerson Soto Flores would react. He cut him loose using the same knife that had killed Veronica Merrick. The man stood gingerly and thanked Gibson. A little premature, in Gibson’s opinion, because the gunfire downstairs had stopped. Someone had won and someone had lost. They’d be coming now, and it didn’t matter who: Emerson or Deja, neither would be happy to see him. The front stairs were no longer an option. With the elevator out, the only other alternative he knew was the fire escape at the back of the building. It went only as high as the third floor, but a two-story drop beat a five-story fall any day of the week.
“Give me the gun,” the man said.
“You really want to have that conversation now?”
“I have training.”
“I was a Marine, and you look like ground round.”
The man gave him a hard look and ceded the point. “After you, then.”
Gun drawn, Gibson led him down the hallway. Midway, Deja came around the far corner with one of her men. Her eyes widened at the sight of him, and they all came to a halt. An awkward bump-into-your-ex-at-a-wedding moment passed. No one seemed to know where to start, so Gibson put his gun on her. He wasn’t much in the mood for Deja’s “give me your gun” routine.
“Gibson Vaughn. Didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Deja.”
“See you finally got yourself a gun.”
“It was good advice.”
“That’s funny. You’re funny.”
“I’ve got no issue with you yet, so gun down, Deja. Your man too.”
“My brother dead?”
“No, but if you see a drugstore on the way back to Virginia, stop for some aspirin.”
“You put him down yourself?”
“That’s right.” He saw no need to bring Margo or Old Charlie into this.
“That boy’s going soft.”
The questions were a stall. She hadn’t put her gun down and instead had taken a half step forward and to her left, blocking his view of her man. Gibson took a step to his left, matching her. Deja showed him her teeth and stepped back to her right.
“Now we just dancing. Why you dancing with me, Gibson? You wanting to fuck me?”
Behind him, Gibson heard rising voices. At the other end of the hall, Emerson had come up the front stairs with two of his men. He disappeared inside the presidential suite. Everyone else froze. A momentary, indecisive cease-fire. When it ended, and it would, they would be the meat in a very unhealthy sandwich, cut down in the cross fire. The government man knew it too and eased slowly toward the n
earest door. An anguished howl came from the direction of the presidential suite. Gibson knew that sound intimately. The son had discovered his mother. It meant so many different things, but only one of them mattered.
The cease-fire was over.
Gunfire erupted once more in the Wolstenholme Hotel. The man yanked Gibson inside and slammed the door. The battle took on a different tone. Gone were the disciplined, tactical bursts of professionals. Now it was a son avenging his mother, and the gunfire sounded berserk and indiscriminate. The story of this family would end here tonight.
The man hopped on one leg to the bed. A bullet had taken a chunk out of his calf, but he gritted his teeth and used his tie to stanch the flow of blood as best he could.
“Find us an exit.”
Gibson checked the window, confirming what he already knew—five stories down to a concrete alleyway. They weren’t climbing down the side of the hotel, and the fall would kill them. The door to the adjoining room was locked from the other side. Gibson shot the lock out and forced his way into an identical room. It didn’t gain them much more than fifteen feet, and it still left them squarely in the line of fire.
“Anything?”
Gibson came back, shaking his head. “I like the plan where you call in the cavalry, Mr. Government Man.”
“Unless you have a satellite phone, we’re on our own.” The man lowered himself behind the bed for cover.
“Then we may be in last-stand territory.”
The man nodded in grim agreement.
The battle was short and definitive, and the hallway beyond the door fell silent. Gibson wasn’t sure who he preferred to have won. He joined Ogden behind the bed and took aim at the door as a fist hammered on it.
“Time to finish our dance, boy,” Deja shouted. “You and your friend come on out. Only going to tell you once.” Deja put a burst of gunfire through the door when they didn’t answer. “Now.”
Gibson had an idea and whispered to his companion. The man nodded that he understood and stalled for time while Gibson moved quietly into the adjacent room.
“Your friend’s dead.”
“How’s that?” Deja said.
“Caught a bullet in the hall.”
Deja didn’t sound all that broken up at the news. Gibson cracked the adjoining room’s door open. Deja’s man was down in the hall. One more dead for no good reason. Judging by her mood, Deja seemed intent on adding at least another to the list. Gibson opened the door just wide enough to step out, and he closed the distance between them in four fast steps; she felt his shadow at the last moment and turned her face into his fist. He put it through her jaw and spun her like a top. Deja went down in a heap. Shooting someone in the back, even someone as dangerous as Deja Noble, didn’t sit with him. He wasn’t that kind of man. Although, apparently, he was the kind of man who coldcocked women. Still, he figured she’d appreciate it more than a bullet.
“Very charitable of you,” the man said as he limped out into the hall.
They went back down the hall toward the presidential suite and the main staircase. Emerson lay in a tangle of his own limbs, his men both dead. His breathing was shallow, and his face was sallow and bathed in sweat. He didn’t have long. Gibson saw the remote detonator too late. Emerson smiled as he triggered it. A series of dull explosions rattled the floorboards beneath their feet, and a moment later Gibson felt the oxygen in the hall being inhaled greedily down the stairwell.
“I told you I would kill you all,” Emerson said as if the thought were a comfort.
Smoke poured into the hall, and even though they couldn’t see the fire, they could feel it. The temperature spiked twenty degrees in a matter of seconds. Gibson looked up at the sprinkler heads when they didn’t kick on. No alarm either. The dying man laughed at him and cursed them in Spanish. The man tugged Gibson’s arm and dragged him back the other way, and one last time they hobbled down the hallway of the fifth floor of the Wolstenholme Hotel. At Deja Noble, Gibson faltered, stopped, and hoisted her up over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He wouldn’t be that kind of man either.
The drop from the fifth-floor window to the fire escape below left them bruised but not broken. Even after Gibson lowered the man out the window, it was still a fifteen-foot fall. The man clattered onto the fire escape and came up cursing, holding his wounded calf. Next went Deja, who Gibson dangled by a wrist.
“You’ve got to be kidding me with this,” the man said, but to Gibson’s surprise, he caught her. Maybe the guy wasn’t as much of an asshole as he seemed. Gibson followed, and by the time they reached the safety of the parking lot, the fire roared through the Wolstenholme Hotel like a funeral pyre. Even from fifty yards away, Gibson could feel its angry heat. He laid Deja out on the ground while the man shuffled over against a wall to check his calf. All around, townspeople huddled together in groups to watch the old hotel burn. Bearing witness to the end of an era.
“She would have killed you,” the man said, indicating Deja.
“I’ve stopped holding that against people.”
“There’s a hell of a story making the rounds about you at Langley.”
“You’re CIA?”
“And you’re Gibson Vaughn. Your father was Duke Vaughn.”
“And you would be?”
“Damon,” he replied and paused. “Damon Washburn.”
The man put out a hand. If that was his real name, Gibson would eat his hat, but he took the hand anyway.
“What’s the CIA got to do with Charles Merrick?”
“That’s not germane to this conversation.”
“Germane?” Maybe he was exactly that big an asshole. “So what story?”
“Something about you and the vice president in Atlanta.”
“Former vice president,” Gibson corrected.
“Guess you saw to that.”
“Had nothing to do with it.”
“Just like you had nothing to do with this?” Washburn pointed to the hotel. “Just awkward timing. That what you’re telling me?”
“Good luck with your leg,” Gibson said and walked away toward the Toproll. There was still a chance that Lea or Swonger had made it out, and he wasn’t much in the mood for Agent Damon Washburn or his accusations.
The man called after him. “Got to say, I was surprised to hear your name come out of a Chinese operative’s mouth. Even with your track record, I wouldn’t have seen that coming.”
That stopped Gibson in his tracks. “The hell are you talking about?” But the answer came to him before he finished asking the question. “I had no idea he was Chinese.”
“I’m sure that will fly when they try you for treason.”
Nope, definitely an asshole.
“What do you want from me?”
“Your help.”
Gibson pointed at the hotel. “You still haven’t thanked me for the last time.”
“Thank you for that. Now I need your help.”
“It’s been kind of a long day. Why don’t you call in the big boys? I’m tired.”
“I fully intend to do just that, but it’s the middle of the night in West Virginia. By the time my people mobilize, Merrick could be out of the country. So call you my fail-safe.”
“So other than falsely accusing me of treason, why should I help you?”
“The American way of life?” Washburn said.
“Oh, I already have one of those, trust me.”
“What about Jenn Charles? You got one of those?”
At the mention of her name, Gibson felt his heart leap. He tried hard to hide it from Washburn, though. “You know where she is?”
“No. But the Agency does. George Abe too.”
“Why is the CIA keeping tabs on Jenn and George?”
“Because you did a little more than burn down a hotel in Atlanta, didn’t you? The vice president died. We pay attention to that sort of thing.”
“So I help you, and you tell me where they are? That the idea?”
“That’s the id
ea.”
“Are they even alive?”
“Your Chinese associate—any idea where he might be?”
Gibson started to say no, but stopped. As a matter of fact, he thought that he might. “What’s this all about? How is Charles Merrick mixed up with the Chinese?”
“It’s classified.”
“Good luck with that.” Gibson started to walk away again.
“Merrick knows the identity of one of our assets inside China. A mole the Chinese call Poisonfeather. He . . . it’s a long story. Bottom line: Merrick’s gone over to the Chinese. He’s made a deal with your Chinese friend to trade the name of their mole for a new life, since you stole his earlier today. In a way, this is your fault.”
The pieces all fell into place. From the start, he’d questioned how Merrick had hidden money from the Justice Department. The answer was, of course, that he hadn’t. Justice had simply turned a blind eye because Merrick had given the CIA something more valuable. Poisonfeather.
“Can you find them?”
“I’m not killing anyone.”
“Believe it or not, that’s not what we do. And I need Merrick alive. If you find him, bring him to Dule Tree Airfield. You know where that is?”
Gibson nodded. “How do I let you know?”
“I have a number; do you need to write it down?”
“No, just give it to me.”
Washburn told him the number. “Text the letters GV. I’ll have a plane there in sixty minutes.”
“If you don’t hear from me in a few hours, I’m probably not coming at all.”
“I figured as much.”
“What about her?” Gibson nodded at Deja’s prone form.
“Unless she’s a Chinese spy, I don’t think she falls within the Agency’s purview.”
“Do all you guys talk like that?”
“Good hunting,” Washburn said, neither confirming nor denying.
The two men shook hands once more.
“What are you going to do in the meantime?” Gibson asked.
“Me? Find a working phone. Call the cavalry.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
The Wolstenholme Hotel fire burned for an hour and a half before the first fire engine arrived. In addition to cutting the phones and the Internet, Lucinda King Soto’s men had disabled the alarms. By the time the nearest firehouse had responded to the scene, it was too late anyway. The hotel burned to the foundations while the town stood by helplessly and watched. The fire would have leapt to nearby buildings, but a group of seven devoted Toproll regulars rallied to the cause and doused the neighboring rooftops before the blaze could spread. For years after, whenever all seven convened in the bar, Margo would ring a bell and serve them a round of flaming shots to cheers all around.
Poisonfeather (The Gibson Vaughn Series Book 2) Page 32