by Nina Bruhns
“I’m hanging up now,” Rebel told Helena and reached for the off button.
“Rebel, you and I need to have a talk,” Helena said in that precisely polite way a true Southern aristocrat could command an icicle to stop melting.
Rebel’s finger hovered above the Bluetooth. Her heart stuttered. She did not need this now.
“We have Alpha at the podium,” Darcy said, pulling her attention. A for Altos.
Rebel darted her gaze up to the island of microphones where the congressman stood. Arranged behind him in a half circle were five men and a woman, presumably the rest of the subcommittee. Was it her imagination, or did they all look crazy nervous?
“I’ve got him covered, over,” Kick said immediately.
“Lord. The man’s either a saint or a coward,” she muttered.
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Helena said in her other ear with just a shade of amusement. “I suppose it depends on your point of view.”
What?
Oh, right. “Helena, I really—”
On cue, Rebel’s eyes collided with Alex. He raised a hand, beckoning her to him.
For now, or forever . . . ?
She wanted to stop what was happening and fling herself into his arms and tell him how badly she wanted a chance at forever.
And she was certain he did, too. That kiss . . . it had been utterly earth-shattering. He hadn’t actually said “I love you,” but it had been there in his eyes. And when she’d told him there were other options for a family, he hadn’t argued or disagreed. He’d kissed her. Wonderfully. Thoroughly. Expressively. Until Quinn’s untimely interruption, calling them back to the fold.
Speaking of which—
She jerked herself out of the joyful memory, lifted her own hand in acknowledgment, and started to blaze a path up through the sea of bodies toward Alex. At the microphone, Congressman Altos stuttered over his statement.
Suddenly she saw a very familiar head bobbing above the spectators, making its way upward as well.
Bruce Hearn. And he had Gina! His arm was tight around her shoulders preventing her from escaping. Rebel mashed the comm excitedly. “This is STORM Hotel. I have eyes on Tango One.” T for terrorist—the code they’d assigned Hearn. “He’s got Charlie with him. First tier, dead center, over.”
“I’m there, over,” Marc said.
“What are you—” Helena asked in her other ear. “Oh. You really are working.”
“Yeah, and I have to go.”
“Where are you? Norfolk?” Helena asked. “I’ll fly down. We do need to talk. About Alex.”
Rebel had nearly made it up the steps to him. He was standing like a figurehead on the front edge of the upper buttress, his alert gaze sweeping the crowd. Tall, muscular, confident, his scarred face radiated the kind of beauty that came from a good soul as much as great bone structure.
Their eyes caught.
He sent her a brilliant smile and a bad-boy wink. He was so perfectly gorgeous and desirable it made her throat ache. She loved him so much.
Her lips curved. And she said, “No Helena. We don’t need to talk. Not about Alex, anyway.”
She saw him turn and make his way back along the edge, then jump over the side onto the landing below. He was coming to her. Her.
“Yes, well—” Helena began.
“He told me about your arrangement,” Rebel interrupted, watching him jostle down through the crowd to reach her. She felt more alive and certain than she ever had in her life. “And everything else, too.”
“Ah.”
“There’s only one thing left that needs saying.” She gathered up all the love in her heart, and said, “Alex is mine. Mine, Helena. I honestly don’t care if you are gay, and even less that you may need him as a beard for your stodgy parents. Just grow up and tell them, already. Because you can’t have him back. So don’t even ask.”
And then she hung up.
With a smile of personal triumph, she started up the few remaining steps that lay between her and the man who was her destiny.
Above them, Altos continued his speech. Reporters shouted questions. She saw Kick disappear behind one of the pillars. Marc was closing in on Hearn and Gina.
Alex had halted on the steps.
But . . . something was wrong.
Her smile quickly faded. He was wrestling against the press of the crowd, which tried to squeeze around him. She gasped as he flung himself into a ball at the base of the buttress wall and shielded himself from the concerned few who stopped to reach out and help him.
Oh, dear lord.
This was not good.
SCORCHING desert heat was closing in on him fast. Already, Alex could feel sweat drenching his face. His armpits. Far away, the screams started.
Ah, fucking hell. Please, please, please. Not now! Not when the whole damn team was depending on him. And Rebel—
“Get a grip, Zane,” a commanding male voice growled in his ear. “Pull yourself together, man.”
The surprise was just enough to snatch Alex back from the dusty brink of the Afghan village. He blinked. “Van Halen?”
“Get up, brother. Come on. Snap out of it. You can do it.”
He fought the panic that had taken over his gut. Peered shakily over his shoulder. The man staring back at him wore a Nationals baseball cap and dark sunglasses. Was it really van Halen? Or was his mind playing even more bizarre tricks than usual, and this just another hallucination?
The screams in his head grew louder. He teetered.
“Gotta save them,” he mumbled, teetering, teetering. “Gotta save . . .”
“Gotta save the President, Zane.” Van Halen looked up toward the portico and swore. “Jesus, didn’t you people warn him?”
“The plan . . . POTUS not coming. An ambush . . .”
The screams grew louder. It didn’t sound like they were in his head anymore. It was an ambush!
“Altos is announcing the President now. Christ!” Gregg glanced briefly at Alex. “Wait. POTUS isn’t coming?”
“Gotta save . . . Gotta save . . .” He suddenly remembered. “Gina!”
At the name, van Halen’s hand shot out and grabbed him. “What about Gina? Have you seen her?”
Just then, the crowd went wild, screaming and jumping up and down at the news that the President would be speaking in a few minutes. Every eye was on the podium. Except Alex’s. He squeezed his shut and tried to shake off van Halen.
“Zane!” Gregg demanded. “Have you seen Gina?”
Alex fought against the blackness. Saw her face in his mind. And . . . And . . . He pried his eyes open. “Hearn. He’s got her . . . They were . . .” He shifted his gaze up the endless upward-marching ranks of marble steps, filled with a riot of cheering people. “Up there.”
Somewhere, Rebel’s voice called frantically. “Alex! Where are you?”
Good fucking question.
Here? Or off in never-never land?
He blinked up at van Halen. Hanging onto reality with everything in him.
“Here!” the other man shouted, jumping up. And then he was gone, vanishing into the crowd like a mirage.
“Alex!” Rebel’s face appeared above him. “Oh, Alex, are you all right?” She knelt and put her arms around him and kissed his sweaty temple.
And the most unexpected thing happened. At her touch, the panic started to ebb away.
“Yeah,” he managed. Bit by bit he shook out the blackness and his tense muscles. “I think so.”
Rebel hit her comm. “Hotel here. X-ray’s good. Just a glitch with his comm, over.” She muted hers again and glanced around on the ground. “Alex, your headset. Help me find it.”
He was sitting on it, thankfully in one piece. He slid it on. “STORM Dog Six, X-ray back on comm. Sir, Victor’s here. In hot pursuit of Tango One, over.”
There was a chorus of curses. “Nothing to do about it,” Quinn said. “Back on task, people. The Trigger is here somewhere. Let’s find the fucker before van Halen ta
kes down Tango One, over.”
Alex scrambled to his feet and took Rebel’s hand. “Come on.”
The Trigger would be as close to the portico as possible. Waiting for the perfect moment to take his shot at the President.
Together they climbed the steps, threading their way through the throng of people that had finally quieted down to hear what Congressman Altos was announcing.
“This is it,” came Quinn’s quiet admonition.
Everyone was in place. Kick with his sniper rifle among the Secret Service agents behind a pillar on one side of the podium, Quinn mirroring him on the other. Darcy still stood in the human barricade below the portico; Marc covered the center, sneaking up behind Hearn and Gina. Tara was positioned along the right edge of the steps, he and Rebel along the left.
Where the hell had van Halen gone to?
Scanning the crowd for anyone acting suspicious, Alex tuned out the announcement and kept moving upward. Altos had been instructed to draw out the suspense over the President’s imminent arrival as long as possible. The moment it was clear he wouldn’t be coming was when the Trigger would be most visible. He’d be turning away from the podium. Reassessing. Changing plans. Moving position, either to go to plan B or to get the hell out of there.
“In distant training camps and even in our own cities,” Altos boomed, “there are people plotting to take American lives. Neither the President nor anyone else standing here today can say there will not be another terrorist attack on our soil. But we can say with certainty that the President and this committee will do everything in our power to keep the American people safe. And to that end . . .”
The speech went on. Alex fanned inward to join Marc, his gaze darting down the steps to anything that moved.
He spotted a woman wearing a D.C. POLICE Windbreaker climbing steadily up through the middle of the crowd. She looked very determined.
And very familiar.
Suddenly it clicked. She was the detective that Rebel had questioned at the hospital. He frowned. Had she been brought into the loop? Or . . .
Surely, she wasn’t the—
Holy shit!
“This is X-ray. STORM Mike, you’ve got a possible hostile approaching your six. STORM Dog, that Metro Detective Sarah McPhee, the one on the Mahmood case. Is she part of this op, over?”
“Hell, no,” Quinn came back. “She’s the one who arrested Victor earlier.” Alex saw him step out from behind the pillar and train a set of binoculars on the area around Marc. “This looks like trouble. Get on her, X-ray. Mike, stay on Tango One and Charlie until we figure out what the hell’s going on, over.”
Finally Congressman Altos could delay no longer. “I regret to announce that the President was called away to deal with a last-minute emergency,” he said, and the crowd let out a collective groan.
That’s when Alex saw a man in a Nationals cap slide in between two spectators just above Hearn and Gina. Detective McPhee was right below them.
Oh. Fuck.
“The detective has spotted Victor,” he reported, and took off up the steps.
Before he could reach McPhee and stop her, she drew her weapon and pointed it at Gregg.
“Metro Police! Freeze or you’re a dead man!”
GREGG froze.
All around him, the metallic din of dozens of guns being locked and loaded ricocheted off the marble. At the podium, the congressman halted as Secret Servicemen surrounded him. The crowd started to scream and run, or drop to the ground and cover their heads.
Gregg looked down at Gina. Her eyes widened as she realized who he was. The scumfucker Hearn had his arm around her, smiling like an idiot. Her own arms she held stiffly behind her back. Handcuffs?
“Get away from him!” Gregg yelled to her.
She shook her head, glancing desperately at Hearn, whose smile turned almost gleeful when he saw Gregg.
The female detective elbowed her way past them, shouting something at him, but there was no way he could hear. And as much as he wanted to, there was also no way he could pull the SIG and shoot Hearn. Not without his actions being grossly misinterpreted by the detective.
Thank God Alex Zane was vaulting up the steps toward them.
Gregg raised his hands above his head to show he was cooperating. Zane would set the detective straight.
Suddenly a shot rang out. Congressman Altos screamed. It quickly turned to a sickening gurgle as he sank to the stone floor of the portico.
Gregg held very still as pandemonium erupted all around. Every fed within a hundred yards wheeled their aim to him, their most logical suspect, then realized he wasn’t the shooter.
But who was?
The panicked crowd rushed down the steps, screaming and clawing to escape danger. A man in a vintage green army jacket knocked Hearn off balance and he went tumbling.
Colonel Blair? Damn it! Gregg should have killed him in the alley that day while he had the chance!
Before the fucker could get to her, Gregg lunged for Gina. Found the cold barrel of the female detective’s gun stuck in his chest instead.
“Him!” he shouted at Marc and pointed to Blair. Marc reached out and grabbed the colonel.
Gina screamed. Gregg whirled and started toward her.
“Halt!” the cop shouted at him. “Or I’ll—”
The rest of the detective’s words were lost as Gregg saw a Secret Service agent grab Gina and band an arm around her middle. She struggled in vain.
That was no Secret Service agent.
The man stood behind her like a coward, holding a Beretta to her neck, hiding it under her long black hair.
“Hush, now,” the man crooned. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Gina’s eyes went wide. They met Gregg’s, wild with fear. “It’s him,” she mouthed. “The Voice!”
Gregg halted, paralyzed with shock.
Oh, God.
“Tommy?”
The kid’s youthful face didn’t hold even a shade of remorse. “You’re making this way too easy, Cap.” He shifted the aim of his hidden Beretta to Gregg.
“What the hell . . . ?”
“Sorry, Cap. You always taught me not to leave loose ends.”
The detective was still shouting at Gregg, oblivious to the man just behind her who was about to kill him—with a gun identical to her own. By the time forensics proved her innocent, he’d be dead and Tommy would be long gone.
The little shit.
The President had never been the target. The kid was cleaning house, eliminating loose ends. And they’d all shown up, just as he’d planned it all along.
Fuck. Gregg had taught him too well.
“Why?” he asked, fury coiling like a snake in his belly. Not that he needed to ask. Pure fucking greed. Tommy had always craved the finer things in life but never had the skills needed to earn them honestly. Gregg should have seen this coming.
“Why not?” Tommy’s shoulder lifted. “Like you always said, I’m not cut out for the military life.”
But there was one fatal flaw with the little fuckwad’s plan. He’d have to kill Gina, too. No chance in hell Gregg would let that happen.
All around, bedlam reigned. Marc had Blair on the ground, struggling to subdue him. Alex Zane had almost reached them. But Zane still hadn’t seen Tommy. He was beelining it straight for the detective. She was coming at Gregg now, brandishing a pair of handcuffs. Shit.
Gregg took a deep breath. Now or never.
He shoved the detective to the ground.
And pulled the SIG on the bad guy.
Zane’s surprised eyes cut to Tommy. He understood in a flash. In one fluid motion, he shifted direction and made a leaping dive at the kid.
Just as Blair shouted. And Tommy pulled the trigger.
The gunshot boomed. Zane went down.
Goddamn it!
Gregg watched in horror. It should have been him!
For a nanosecond, Tommy froze in confusion. But it was enough. Gina wrenched away from him, dropped
to the steps, and rolled into the retreating crowd. Safe.
His shot was clear, but Gregg wasn’t willing to risk the lives of innocent bystanders. He lowered the SIG.
And took Tommy’s second shot in the chest.
He staggered and grunted. Fucking hell, it hurt.
To his surprise, Blair tackled Tommy. Had he misjudged him, too? Blair’s tackle was followed by about a hundred Secret Service agents. Thank God.
What Gregg didn’t expect was to be shot again. This time in the head. By Bruce Hearn.
Fuck. Somehow the goddamn bastard had gotten loose.
Blood flew everywhere. Slowly, Gregg fell, dizzy with an intense slam of pain in his skull. He heard Gina cry his name.
The lady detective was on her feet again, looming above him. But she was smarter than he’d given her credit for. She shielded his body and aimed her weapon at Hearn faster than his own head was spinning.
“Go ahead,” she growled at the traitor. “Make my day.”
Gregg smiled. You go, girl.
Then everything went black.
TWENTY-NINE
ALEX lay strapped to a gurney, grimacing against the stabbing pain in his ribs as the ambulance took another corner at high speed. Lights flashed red and white. The siren blared unceasingly.
But it was all over. Thank you, Jesus.
The Trigger had been caught, along with the traitor Bruce Hearn. They’d both spend the rest of their lives in prison. Alex, Kick, and Gina could now emerge from hiding and live normal lives.
He smiled up at Rebel as she took his hand between hers. God, she was so fucking beautiful. But her answering expression looked like she was debating whether to kiss him or kill him.
Uh-oh.
“That was a stupid stunt,” she scolded. It was the first time they’d had a chance to talk alone since their fateful kiss. “Jumping in front of a gun like that.”
“Sorry,” he said, but his smile was unrepentant. He was too happy to have any regrets. Hell, he was even glad they’d rescued Wade Montana from Hearn’s car trunk before he suffocated to death. Especially when that lady detective had fussed over Wade so much, and he’d kissed her right on the mouth in front of the whole world. Alex got the distinct impression Montana wouldn’t be hanging around Rebel anymore.