by Kara Lennox
“Hold your fire!” Rex yelled as he pulled alongside the BMW, expecting his windshield to shatter any moment. But Denise was apparently busy with other things. Moments later she jumped out the passenger side, and she had a screaming Lily held in front of her like a shield.
Obviously in a panic, her eyes wild, she squeezed off a couple of ill-aimed shots, but no one dared to shoot back when she was holding a child.
Peter joined her and grabbed Lily away from Denise, making sure the baby shielded him. Selfish bastard. He didn’t care if Denise got shot. Then, with the baby propped under one arm, he held the beaker aloft as squad car after squad car screeched to a stop and officers jumped out. Some were deliberately blocking traffic, preventing innocent people from driving close to the threat.
“You all know what I can do with this, right?” Peter said. He was exhilarated by the chase, high with his own perceived power.
Apparently word of the threat had trickled down. As men in riot gear and decontamination suits gathered at the site, no one made a move toward Peter. This ridiculous show of force was Robert Candless’s doing, Rex was sure. Once free of his restraints he had called in a few favors.
A man in a suit walked straight up to Rex, a bullhorn in his hand. He had curly red hair and freckles, which only clashed with the surly expression on his face, which was not at all boyish.
Lyle Palmer. Hell.
“Why,” Palmer said, “do I always find the First Strike bounty hunters at the center of a big mess like this?”
Rex could have answered with a few choice words, but he didn’t have time for verbal fencing with the megalomaniac detective. He kept one careful eye on Peter, Denise and Lily. “All I need is a clear shot,” he said. At this distance, even with a handgun, it was child’s play to hit Peter square in the head. But not while Lily was so close. He had to wait for just the right opening.
“You will not shoot,” Palmer said in an urgent voice. “Do you have any idea what he’s got in that bottle?”
“It’s cyanide. Dangerous, but not lethal on a mass scale.”
“Right,” Palmer said. “Holster your gun, Bettencourt. This is a police matter now.”
Rex ignored him. Peter was speaking again.
“You don’t think I’ll do it, do you?” he said with a semihysterical laugh. “Or maybe you’re curious to see the abomination your government dollars have produced? All I have to do is pull out the stopper and dump this on the ground, and the chain reaction will start. All your guns and tanks and aircraft carriers will be powerless to stop it.” He shook the beaker for emphasis. “Or maybe you’d like to see me dump it on the kid here. Ever see a baby turn into petroleum right before your eyes? She wouldn’t even be a tankful of gas.”
“Peter,” Denise muttered, “let’s just go. Tell them to let us go.”
“But this is so much fun!” Peter protested.
He was losing it. Rex saw it, and he knew that in Peter’s present state of mind, he might just do the unthinkable. Rex didn’t care if the idiot killed himself. But Lily was so close to him, so close to the bottle of deadly cyanide, the fumes could kill her, too.
“Denise,” Rex called, “it’s not too late for you. Give yourself up. Save your life.”
Palmer stared in openmouthed disbelief. “What are you doing? You don’t have the authority—”
“Shut up, you little weasel.” It was Ace, speaking to Lyle Palmer in a deadly growl.
Denise looked as though she was about to lose it. Without warning, she dropped her gun and bolted away from Peter, directly into the arms of about a dozen cops who had her down on the ground and handcuffed before Rex could blink.
Peter was clearly shocked. “Denise!”
“Peter, give it up!” she screamed. “We can’t win now.”
Peter recovered himself and flashed a superior smirk, though it was a bit frayed around the edges. “I still hold all the cards, you stupid cow.” He looked at Lori. “You. Get behind the wheel of that fine automobile. You’re my new chauffeur.”
Lori looked to Rex for direction, and Rex nodded. Do it, he mouthed. It would buy him more time. All he needed was a small window of opportunity.
The baby was slipping lower down Peter’s body as his attention was diverted to his audience.
“I’m going to get into that Mustang now,” he announced. He held the beaker high in the air. “If anyone makes a move to stop me, if I hear a gun cock or even the sound of feet moving, I will crack this bottle onto little Lily’s head.” He lifted the beaker higher, almost as if he was brandishing a sword in victory. The beaker blocked his head, but he’d left a large expanse of his chest open and vulnerable.
Operating now on sheer instinct, Rex didn’t hesitate. He aimed carefully and pulled the trigger. The loud report of his Glock scared everybody, but no one more than Peter. He dropped Lily, who landed with a thud on her well-padded bottom. The shock abruptly silenced her crying as she looked around, trying to figure out what was happening. Then she toppled and started rolling down the hill. She was coming right toward Rex’s feet.
Rex darted in and scooped the baby up into his arms, though his gaze never left Peter.
Peter staggered back, but there was no blood, and he didn’t fall. That was when Rex realized Peter was wearing a bulletproof vest.
Now Rex aimed again. He would have to go for Peter’s head this time. But Peter was faster. He uncorked the beaker, intending to make good his threat to take everyone with him. The beaker of liquid bubbled menacingly as a shocked hush fell over the crowd of cops, bounty hunters and a few curious onlookers who’d been too stupid to keep their distance.
Then Peter Danilov fell over unconscious, and the liquid spilled out over him, over the grass.
“Good God, man!” It was Robert Candless. His face was pasty white as he contemplated the end of the world. “Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?”
“It’s cyanide,” Rex said, though he knew Candless would probably have to analyze the stuff himself before he would believe that it wasn’t the Petro-Nano that had just spilled all over the grass and Peter. “I tried to tell you—Nadia would not have put all of humanity at risk, not even for her daughter’s sake.”
“But how do you know?” Candless said in an anguished voice as he kept his gaze trained on the downed Peter Danilov, perhaps watching for signs that the voracious nanoreplicators had begun their deadly work.
“Because I know.”
Chapter Fifteen
Once the dust settled, Rex was not surprised when Lyle Palmer came at him waving handcuffs and babbling about charging him with everything from interfering with a police investigation to assault to attempted murder to domestic terrorism.
“What were you thinking, hog-tying Robert Candless?” Lyle sputtered. “Do you know who that guy is, who he knows?”
“He was about to shoot an innocent woman,” Rex said calmly as he cuddled Lily. The child was dirty and needed a diaper change in the worst way, but she was the sweetest thing he’d ever held in his life. He handed over his Glock, butt first, to the red-haired detective. “I’ll make a deal with you, Palmer. I will turn myself in and you can charge me with whatever you want. I’ll cooperate fully. But first, I’m going to deliver this child to her mother.” If her mother was still alive.
“You expect me to just let you walk away with the hostage?”
“Unless you want all kinds of trouble, yes, that’s ex actly what you’ll do. Preferably before the television crews arrive.”
“He’s not kidding around, Palmer.” It was Ace. “Besides, you’ve got a couple of bona fide spies to process. Kidnappers. Russkies. Better get your licks in before the Feds get here.”
Ace’s advice had the desired effect on Palmer. Clearly the capture of two Russian spies was a lot more headline worthy than the arrest of a measly bounty hunter. “I’ll expect to see you at headquarters first thing tomorrow morning,” Palmer said to Rex. “If you don’t show, I’ll find you.”
I
n his dreams. If Rex wanted to disappear, he could. “I’ll be there bright and early,” Rex replied. With his lawyer.
“He can’t make anything stick,” Ace said after Lyle Palmer had walked away. “If anything, you’ll be called a hero for tracking down and shooting a spy.” He nodded toward Peter’s inert form. A HazMat team, complete with a full complement of decontamination equipment, was preparing to approach the body. “Looks like he’s dead. What was in the bottle again?”
“Cyanide.” Rex was starting to feel like a broken record. “The concentrated fumes are instantly lethal. That’s why I pulled the trigger. He was threatening to open the bottle with Lily right there. It wouldn’t have started an ecological disaster, but it might have killed Nadia’s baby.”
“She looks okay.” Ace smiled at Lily and tickled her tummy with one finger. She hid her face against Rex’s chest.
“I’d like to have a picture of that,” said Lori as she sauntered over. “I think she likes you.”
Lord knew why. He usually scared pets and small children. But the fact that Lily was clinging to him, cooing and gurgling, had the most amazing effect on him.
“Why are you standing around?” Lori asked. “Shouldn’t you be at the hospital?”
“Have you heard something?” Rex asked anxiously.
“I’ve been on the phone. She’s in surgery, that’s all I know. Might be a good idea if you were there when she woke up.”
“Thanks, sis. You did great tonight, by the way. You can be a member of my team anytime.”
“I told you she was ready,” Ace said.
Lori beamed, then proved herself useful one more time by coming up with a baby car seat for Lily and installing it in the back seat of Rex’s Blazer. “I took it from the BMW,” she whispered. “Shh.”
“OUCH.” THAT WAS the first word Nadia was conscious of as she emerged from a gray fog of anesthetic. It was followed by a more insistent, “Ouch!” And she realized she was the one speaking.
It felt as though someone had stuck a knife into her ribs. She cracked her eyes open, but the white-hot light that tried to enter her brain was too intense, so she closed them again.
Peter. Peter had shot her! Panic seized her and she tried to sit up, but a firm hand pushed her back down onto a soft bed. Not cold concrete, but soft, crisp sheets and a pillow for her aching head. She had to get up, though. She had to find Lily.
“Don’t try to move,” came the low, soothing voice. “You’ve just come out of surgery.”
“Then someone did stick a knife between my ribs,” she mumbled as she began putting it all together. She was in a hospital. Now she remembered doctors and nurses swarming around her, a ride in an ambulance.
She tried again to open her eyes, this time succeeding. And as the blurry world around her spun and tried to right itself, she saw a face hovering over hers. “Rex?”
“I’m here, sweetheart.”
“What happened? Where’s Lily?”
Rex’s face disappeared for a moment, and Nadia tried to turn her head, but her body parts weren’t cooperating. Then Lily was there, reaching for her with a big smile. “Mama!” she shrieked, and Nadia hugged her with the one arm that wasn’t attached to an IV. She sobbed with relief and joy. Her baby was safe. She was wearing strange clothes that didn’t fit, but she smelled sweet and clean. Someone had bathed her and given her a fresh diaper.
Rex just stood there, supporting Lily so her full weight didn’t fall on Nadia’s incision, and mother and daughter hugged each other for a long, long time as tears coursed down Nadia’s cheeks. She’d been so afraid this moment would never come. Then Lily wiggled, and Nadia realized she was hugging her daughter too hard and eased up.
Rex pulled her back up into his arms, looking remarkably at ease. “Your mama needs to rest, okay, Lily?”
“Rex, you sing me?”
“I’ll sing you in a little while,” Rex said. “I have to talk to your mama.”
“You’ve been singing to her?” Nadia asked, trying to picture the rough-and-tumble bounty hunter singing The Itsy Bitsy Spider or Farmer in the Dell.
He shrugged. “She likes Jimi Hendrix.”
Coming a bit more awake, Nadia saw that she was in a cubicle with curtained partitions. A recovery room, she guessed. One of the curtains wiggled, then a hand pushed it aside. Lori stuck her head in. “Is she awake yet?”
“Come in, Lori,” Nadia said, and Lori entered with a big grin.
“You had us scared,” Lori said, perching on the end of the bed. “How do you feel?”
“Fine, now that Lily is back.” To be honest, she was in a whole lot of physical pain, worse as the minutes ticked by and the anesthetic wore off. But she wasn’t going to mention it. She would endure ten times that amount of pain if she could just hold Lily again.
“Have you told her?” Lori asked Rex.
He rolled his eyes. “She just woke up two minutes ago,” Rex said. “Give me half a chance.”
“Told me what?” Nadia asked. “Is Lily okay?”
“Lily’s fine,” Rex assured her. “We had a doctor check her out. Lori, could you take the baby for a few minutes? I need some time alone with Nadia.”
“Sure.”
Nadia wanted to object. She’d only just been reunited with Lily. She didn’t want to be separated from her ever, ever again. But Rex took her hand and squeezed it. “Just for a few minutes. Then she’ll be back.”
Seeing the gravity in Rex’s eyes, Nadia bit her tongue and let Lori take her baby away.
“What is it?” she asked Rex when they were alone.
“It’s Peter. He’s dead.”
“Oh.” She refrained from adding, Is that all? But frankly, she felt only relief at the knowledge that her ex-husband was dead. She would never have to fear him again. Lily would never know him, and that was for the best. “How did it happen? How did you catch him?”
He told her a long and complex story of cut fuel lines and a chase through the woods, a stolen BMW and a standoff at the side of a rural highway and something about KFC, but her mind wasn’t processing at full speed.
“When I saw an opening, I shot him,” Rex said. “I wanted him to let go of Lily.”
“I guess that answers the question of whether you can fire your gun.”
“Yes, I guess it does. But that’s not what killed him. He was wearing a bulletproof vest. But my shot knocked him over, and he did let go of Lily. She rolled down the hill practically into my arms, which was a good thing. Because he opened the beaker he took from you.”
“Oh, my God.” Nadia wasn’t shocked so much by what had happened as by what could have happened if she had given in to Peter’s demands. She had hoped he wasn’t crazy enough to initiate an ecological disaster, but clearly he had been. “So is that what killed him? The hydrochloric acid?”
“With amazing efficiency.”
“Then I’m the one who caused his death, technically.” She smiled. “Good.” She hadn’t forgotten that Peter had threatened to cut off her baby’s fingers, and she felt no remorse over his death. “Is everyone else okay? I can’t believe your whole team risked their lives for me, for Lily.”
He shrugged. “It’s what we do.”
“And you’ll be paid handsomely, too. I don’t even re member what fee we agreed on—that seems like a lifetime ago. But I’ll triple it.”
“You can pay the others for their part,” he said. “But you don’t have to pay me.”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
He started to respond, but Lori entered the cubicle again with Lily on her hip. Lily spotted Rex and held out her arms to him. “Rex!”
“I think you’ve made a fan,” Nadia observed.
“Sorry,” Lori whispered. “I know you wanted me gone longer, but I’m hiding from reporters. They’re everywhere, and they’re not buying the load of bull Lyle Palmer and that guy from JanCo are trying to pass off as the truth.”
“Palmer is taking credit for everything, I assume?” Rex
asked.
“Well, Lyle is trying to take credit for breaking up an international spy ring. Craig told me Denise is talking, trying to save her own skin. They’ve made some more arrests—Vlad Popolov is in custody. And they’ve raided the Payton Gun Club and found an arsenal of weapons that made the Branch Davidians look like kids with popguns. Apparently Popolov owned that, too. He’s convinced America is on the brink of revolution and anarchy. We’re not sure of Andy Arquette’s role—he may just be a gun-happy nut on Peter’s payroll.”
“What is Candless saying?” Nadia asked, concerned about the security breach she had caused.
“Oh, Candless is putting a completely different spin on things. He denies that JanCo Labs is producing any thing hazardous. He’s passing Peter off as a disgruntled employee who went berserk.”
Rex grinned. “Let’s hope they keep chasing each other’s tails and forget all about me.”
“We should get out of here while we have the chance,” Lori said to her brother. “I know how you hate publicity.”
Rex just grinned. “I can take the heat. Besides, someone has to take care of Lily until Nadia is stronger. You go on, though. Save yourself.”
Lori looked at Rex as if he was a bit addled in the brains. “Thanks, I will.” And she disappeared.
“You don’t have to stick around just to baby-sit Lily,” Nadia said. “I’m sure someone else would do it—a volunteer, or—”
“Hush. I’m happy to be here. Besides, don’t you want to know why you don’t have to pay my fee?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.”
“Because I’m giving you the family discount.”
She didn’t really get what he meant, but she was too tired to figure it out. She drifted back to sleep.
REX WATCHED HER SLEEP, alert to any change in her breathing, any sign that she might be having difficulty. But her surgeon had said she came through the operation beautifully, that he’d been able to remove the bullet and repair the damage to her lung. She’d lost a fair amount of blood and had gone into mild shock, but they’d been able to stop the bleeding quickly once medical personnel had arrived. She’d been stable going into surgery, and her vital signs had remained strong all dur ing the procedure and after. Her doctors had assured him she would survive, barring unforeseen circumstances.