Red Tide

by Peg Brantley

  Jax caught Jamie’s eye with a strange gleam. “Okay, baby sister. Phil is an ass, but I was always his enabler.” She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a lighter.

  “No shit!” Jamie sent a quick thank you to Phil Sussman for his proclivity toward cigars.

  The sisters worked together to drag the heavy wooden forms and other objects into position under the vents Jamie had identified. She’d found four. They stripped the cardboard and poked it into the visible gaps in each pile. Jamie’s fingers were bleeding and she was sure Jax’s were too.

  Finally, they poured the flammable liquids on the piles and laid a trail between each of them. Then Jamie reserved the last bit in one of the cans, and the two sisters backed toward the stairwell. They wouldn’t have long to get to the first floor and in to the Fire Command Center before the fire spread.

  Jamie didn’t remember many of the details about the command center they’d toured, but she did remember it was like the mechanical heart of the building. She just hoped that Blanton hadn’t skimped and that it was at least as state of the art as the one she’d seen, with clear directions for all of the equipment. She remembered that having prominent directions was a requirement. She prayed whoever was in charge of this center had followed the regulations.

  Jamie took off her t-shirt and soaked it. “Give me the lighter and start up the stairs. We need to go up to the first floor and find the Fire Command Center.”

  “I’ll wait for you.”

  “Go. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Jax moved to go up the stairs.

  Jamie waited two counts, then held her shirt out in front of her. She flicked the lighter and touched the flame to the soaked piece of cloth. When the flame caught, Jamie simply threw the lighter into the mix. Before pulling the stairwell door closed behind her, she watched the flames build in strength and move to the drywall, finally kissing the ceiling.

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Halfway to the back of the building, both dogs suddenly pulled on their leashes and ran around the side of the structure. Once there, Socrates leapt in the air and then remained stationary, tail wagging. Gretchen fell to the ground.

  “That’s how they alert,” Bryce explained. “Jamie’s been here.”

  “Odds are, she still is.” Nick bent to the asphalt and looked at the spot the dogs seemed interested in. He couldn’t see anything significant on the surface, but he reached one finger and touched a small bit that was still sticky, then put it to his nose. Blood. He looked up and saw a side door. “Let’s go.” He stood and scratched Socrates lightly on the head.

  Both men pulled their weapons. The door clicked open and they entered, closing it behind them as quickly and silently as they could.

  The dogs seemed confused for a moment; then as one they moved to the elevator. No way Nick could push the button calling the unit to life. He thought about what little he’d read about airborne toxins. He looked at Bryce. “The main operations should be on the top floor.” Roberts had told him the building specs called for thirty-seven floors. “Airborne biotoxins in powder form will sink unless carried on an air current. They settle. With a toxin as powerful as saxitoxin, every living thing in its path will be exposed and probably die. The only safe place for observation is above the release level. We need to find the stairs.”

  “We passed them. How many floors are we talking about?” Bryce didn’t sound happy, but he wasn’t giving up.

  “Quite a few,” Nick said. No need to utter the number. Saying it out loud would make it so. Maybe things had changed.

  Nick thought his lungs would burst. His knees had been quaking for the last five flights, but if the dogs could keep going, so could he. Finally, they came to a stencil that said ROOF with an arrow pointing up. They were at the top floor.

  Nick worked to settle his heart rate and calm his breathing.

  Bryce, when he caught up, pulled out a water bottle, which he promptly offered to the dogs.

  After the dogs had quenched their thirst, Nick placed his hand on the door handle and used his shoulder to nudge the door open. He was unable to see anything. He glanced at Bryce. “Ready?”

  Bryce nodded.

  Nick silently broadened the opening from the stairwell door. He and Socrates stepped through, with Bryce and Gretchen following tight. Both men had to hold the leashes and be prepared to shoot. Within seconds, both men realized they were alone. But it wasn’t just a typical top floor of a high-rise building under construction.

  The drones were there, sunlight glancing off their sides, ready. Not knowing what security precautions Blanton might have taken, they presumed the little planes were armed and ready, and they chose to leave everything exactly as they found it.

  Quietly, Bryce said, “We need to move down... now.”

  Without another word, both men and their four-legged partners moved back to the stairwell. The downward trek was both easier and more difficult. Quivering leg muscles and the increased need for speed and stealth took their toll. He opened his cell. Damn. No signal. He needed to contact both Homeland Security and Coble.

  Nick was grateful the dogs weren’t barking. That would have been too much. He kept trying to remember they were professionals, but the fact that they were dogs kept encroaching. Then a thought occurred: What if they weren’t barking because Jamie and Jax are already dead?

  He’d gone down so many steps it surprised him when they stopped. They’d reached the bottom. The basement. Silently, the dogs expressed their excitement. Their Jamie was on the other side of the steel door, and they were ready to be heroes.

  He opened his cell. “Sheriff Coble, this is it. Send everyone. Make sure they know we’re dealing with saxitoxin.”

  Once again, Nick took hold of the door handle. The odds were against them this time. There was little doubt that beyond this door stood a mass murderer and two innocent victims.

  Were they alive? Would the dog’s excitement turn to dread and sorrow? Would his? Would there be a weapon aimed at his chest the moment the door opened wide enough? Could be whatever interest he had in Jamie Taylor wouldn’t matter.

  He smelled smoke.

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  The sound of the inferno took Jamie’s breath away. They pounded up the stairs and pulled open the door for the first floor.

  Jamie tried to orient herself but she couldn’t remember which side of the building they’d been on when she saw the sign for the Fire Command Center, and right now, seconds counted. “Jax, you need to get out of here.” Jamie gave her sister one of those looks that meant it didn’t matter if she was the younger sister, Jax had better pay attention.

  “What are you planning, Jamie?”

  “I don’t know yet, but you don’t need to be involved in whatever it is.” Jamie pictured the drones on the top floor of the building. She’d watched as Blanton had put in the payloads of saxitoxin, watched him connect wires to the canister lids containing the poison. There had to be a remote control somewhere. She hadn’t seen it anywhere near the drones.

  First she needed to find the command center. It would give her some protection from the fire—for how long she didn’t know—and maybe give her an idea of what else she could do to keep Teague Blanton from killing tens of thousands of people.

  “I’m not going anywhere without you.” Jax looked like she had when they were kids, braced for an argument, something they didn’t have time for.

  “Fine. You go that way, I’ll go this way. We’ve got to find the command center. Whoever finds it first, yell!” Jamie had already taken off down the empty hallway. Either the heat was building faster than she had thought it would, or her imagination was running hot, because sweat covered her chest. Smoke was beginning to build up in the distance.

  “Here!” Jax yelled. “Here!”

  Jamie spun on her heels and raced back the way she’d come. Jax had opened a door and turned on the light by the time Jamie got there. She closed the door behind her and looked around.

>   Blanton had not spared anything. The center was more than state of the art. Video monitoring equipment showed every floor of the building from multiple angles, and two televisions were already turned on: one, some kind of remote camera shot of Sports Authority Field, and the other, the live broadcast of the football game.

  The Broncos were ahead by three points less than five minutes into the second quarter. The Chiefs had the ball midfield on second down. No one in the stands would go anywhere until half-time. The game, as usual, was a sellout.

  Jamie saw a flashing light and checked the label below it. The DFD had been notified of the fire. Good. But while she watched, the light quit blinking. What does that mean?

  The door opened and Jax cried out.

  Jamie turned around and froze.

  Blanton closed the door quickly behind him. He did a quick survey of the room and apparently whatever he was looking for satisfied him. He focused on Jamie. “Well, isn’t this cozy?”

  “The fire department is on its way.”

  “No they’re not. At least not right now. We have a few minutes, and that’s all I’ll need.” He pulled a small handgun from his pocket. “Both of you. Over there. You can watch.”

  Blanton kept the gun pointed at them while he opened a cabinet behind the work area. Inside were two more monitors and controls.

  He pursed his lips and cocked his head to the right. He squinted. “You thought a fire would work? Probably a good idea, really. Just too late. Good for me, bad for you.”

  He pressed a power button and the control panel began cycling through. Lights came on and blinked a few times before going solid.

  “Let’s have a look-see.” Blanton turned to the large computer screen on the desk and keyed in a password. Within seconds there was an aerial view of Sports Authority Field. With a couple of clicks, a section of the stadium became crystal clear. A couple of more clicks, and what was obviously a family appeared on the screen, each clad in their favorite Bronco player’s jersey.

  Blanton fired up another, smaller monitor and found another section of the stands to zero in on. He keyed in on a young couple, both into the game and the crowd and the spice of the experience. “This is going to be an important day, but not for you or the city, and not even for them. This will be the day I finally crack through this god-awful clear shell I’ve lived in all my life. The chick will emerge. For the first time I will experience the emotions you take for granted. For the first time, I’ll be truly alive. Even if I die seconds later, I will have won.”

  “You’re crazy, Blanton,” Jamie said.

  “No. I’ve been crazy. I’m just about to become sane.”

  He turned his attention to the monitors, adjusting the cameras. Jamie shifted to get into a better position. She needed to find an opportunity soon.

  “Don’t. You won’t make it. You’ll be dead and so will that young couple and the family. You won’t have changed anything.”

  Blanton put his finger on a switch.

  The remote. Jamie lunged toward her target. I have to stop—

  The exterior door flew open.

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Jamie squinted her eyes against the bright sunlight. Silhouettes grew inside the doorway and filled the space. Four silhouettes. Two of them were barking.

  “What the hell?” Blanton reached for his gun and spun toward the light. As he raised his gun a blur of golden fur flew past Jamie and Gretchen took down Blanton.

  Please, God, don’t let her get shot!

  The gun went off and one of the men behind her fell to the floor.

  Two more figures joined them, one already calling for a medic. She recognized Sheriff Coble’s voice. The sirens were getting closer. The DFD was on their way, and then some.

  She looked back to Gretchen. Between the bared teeth of her retriever and the gun her father was aiming at Blanton, Jamie wasn’t sure which image surprised her the most. She yelled, “Sheriff! Top floor. He’s got drones up there loaded with—”

  “We have it, Jamie. HazMat is on their way up now with DFD.” He turned and spoke to someone else. “Get this son of bitch out of here. I assume one of those sirens is an ambulance? We have an injured federal agent.”

  At the mention of a federal agent, Jamie’s gaze shifted to the man lying on the floor, just inside the entrance to the small room. Nick!

  She had started to go to him when Socrates jumped at her.

  “I’m fine, Socks.” A tear escaped and she wiped it away. The world exploded in uniforms and sirens. The cavalry had arrived.

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  As Nick and Kylie sat on a bench in her favorite park, he had never in his life felt more uncomfortable. What was he supposed to say to this seven-year-old girl to put her at ease? She looked a little like him, in an entirely alien kind of way. He may have had a hand in making her, but the results—this little female human being—were beyond his understanding and totally out of his comfort zone.

  “Did you love my mommy?”

  How was he supposed to answer that? He wanted to be honest with her, but didn’t want to scar her for life by being blunt. Maybe if he just pretended not to hear her question he could check with a child psychologist later and find out how to talk to little girls.

  “Well, did you?”

  He swallowed. “There was a time I thought I loved your mommy very much.”

  Kylie was quiet and Nick was afraid he’d blown ever having a father-daughter relationship. Then she nodded a little and Nick felt like Father of the Year.

  He prayed she wouldn’t ask any more questions.

  “Did you know my other daddy?”

  At least this was an easy one.

  Nick had brought her pictures of his home in Aspen Falls. A decorator was standing by to remake one of the guest suites into a welcoming place for Kylie. She would put her stamp on her own space, and he had told her so, but she was still anxious about leaving behind everything she’d ever known.

  They were scheduled to fly back to Colorado in two days. He had two days to do his best to make her feel safe with him, and to make her want to give Colorado a try.

  The two ate every meal together and spent as much time as possible with each other between Nick’s visit with lawyers, child services and his employers at the FBI. He still hadn’t been cleared for reinstatement, but it was only a matter of time. His drug dependency was behind him.

  So here they were, on their last day in Virginia. As they sat on the bench together, her questions forced him to take a good look at his life. With each answer he gave her, he was making a commitment to her. She had charmed him beyond anything he could ever have imagined.

  Maybe it was Kylie who was trying to make him feel safe.

  As they were walking back to the hotel, Kylie grabbed his hand and looked up at him. “I think I look like you.”

  His heart was hers forever.

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  Sitting at her kitchen table, Jax looked around. Some nice touches, but nothing she couldn’t live without. Selling the little house should cover their debt. At least the debt I know about.

  Phil hadn’t come home last night, and for the first time, she didn’t care. When he had finally walked in about ten-thirty this morning, he kissed her on the cheek and headed for the bedroom to change clothes. He left a few minutes later, saying he had some errands to run.

  Jax had carefully rinsed out her coffee cup in the sink and placed it in the dishwasher. Then she had walked upstairs and pulled out two suitcases. Her marriage had been over for years. It seemed that everyone had known except for her. It was time to cut her losses and move on. She filled the suitcases and looked around to see whether there was anything else in the house she wanted to take with her. There wasn’t.

  Pulling the bags behind her, she stopped in the hallway outside the nursery she’d so carefully decorated. She walked into the pastel painted room and ran her gaze over all of the details she had so lovingly pulled together to remind her wha
t was really important when Phil behaved like an ass. She ran her fingers over the rail on the crib and gently touched the Winnie-the-Pooh flannel sheets.

  The nightlight glowed softly in the shaded room, even though sunlight was filtering through the corner window. She wiped away a tear and closed the door behind her.

  Jamie had a room ready for her in their old family home. It was the same one she’d had when they were kids. Jax hoped she wouldn’t have to be here long. Having some place to go was good, but she needed to heal alone.

  She put her clothes away and started down to the kitchen to see whether she could help Jamie with dinner. Her sister had been out all day searching for a missing ten-year-old boy who had wandered off without telling his parents. Jamie and Socks had found him trying to catch fish in a stream with a stick he’d sharpened into a spear. A good ending.

  Jax’s cell phone rang.

  “Jax? It’s Scott... Scott Ortiz.”

  “Hello, Doctor. What can I do for you?”

  “I was wondering, actually... could I maybe buy you a cup of coffee tomorrow morning? I have an interesting theory I’d like to run past you related to bodies where there appears to have been cross-contamination with animal DNA.”

  She smiled.

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  Kylie had fallen asleep within minutes after their plane left the tarmac. Nick was grateful for the quiet. Having an eight year old around all the time was wonderful, but exhausting.

  He pulled out the novel he’d started to read on the trip to Virginia. As best he could figure, they were a few miles west of Denver when his eyelids got heavy. That’s when Kylie woke up. Anxious. Fidgety.