Athena Force 10: Countdown

by Ruth Wind

  “Mmm. All right, then.” Lex stood beside her. “Let’s look for women in that general area who might be suspicious in some way.”

  They all peered at the screens. There were cameras showing various angles of the concourse, in grainy black-and-white. The women Kim spotted all looked perfectly ordinary—businesswomen in slacks and button-up blouses; mothers in stretch jeans; students showing three inches of skin between shirt and pants. She saw a gathering of Muslim women, plump and shrouded, but they had enough babies and children between them that she doubted seriously they were hiding anything. So far, mothers had not been big suicide bombers.

  Nothing looked out of place. Kim rubbed her eyes again, exhaustion burning down her spine. She looked for women who moved oddly, not like a woman.

  And suddenly, she said, “Look.” She stabbed a finger to a woman in a straight black skirt and loose print blouse with long sleeves. Her head was covered by a traditional scarf. On her feet were plain Keds.

  All perfectly normal, except the fact that she carried a leather case. Kim said, “What’s she doing with a laptop?”

  “Dammit,” Lex said. “I just figured out a possibility. C’mon.”

  Kim rushed after him. They ran, Lex carting his heavy case, Kim behind him nonetheless. The ankle hurt, but she was trained to ignore pain. It was a long run, through the main sections of the airport, then into security at the concourse. The guards waved them through.

  On the concourse itself, they slowed to a normal walk, to avoid alerting the possible terrorists, but Kim felt sweat trickling down her back.

  “I thought laptops were x-rayed,” she said.

  “They are. It won’t be the laptop itself that’s the bomb—it’ll be used as a power source. A spark of electricity will set it off. You can use almost anything—a phone, a razor, but the more current, of course, the better the spark.”

  Kim felt queasy. How did people blow themselves up? Actually do it? “That still doesn’t answer the question of how they got the bomb through security.”

  “I don’t know. We’ll have to use our instincts.”

  The gate they’d spotted on the monitors was a long way down the concourse, close to the outskirts where the private jets landed. But this plane was packed, headed for Los Angeles, and the area was crowded. Kim watched a slim blond mother chase her cherubic toddler around a suitcase. A young man walked slowly beside his grandmother, who hung on to his arm for support.

  Kim had a sudden flash of body parts flying. “Let’s find this bastard,” she said.

  “There she is,” Lex said. “By the window.”

  Kim slowed. “I see her.”

  “Let’s go easy. She’s probably not alone.”

  She made a sweeping examination of the area. A lot of the usual suspects. Businessmen in khaki pants and polo shirts. Families headed for Disneyland. California types in pastel. She thought about John at the UBC television station, and looked carefully at the men of his ilk. But he’d looked perfectly ordinary. Nothing written across his forehead that said, “I’m a traitor who colludes with terrorists.”

  If only it were that easy.

  The woman behind the desk picked up the microphone, and in a too-loud address over the PA system, she announced, “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our service to Los Angeles tonight. We are about to start preboarding, so…”

  People shifted, started gathering their belongings, and the hair on the back of Kim’s neck stood up straight. This would be the time to do it. This plane boarding; Monihan’s plane coming in. Her watch said 11:53.

  “We don’t want her to plug that laptop in,” Lex said. His eye was on the woman, sitting with the computer in her lap. For some reason, Kim noticed how long and graceful her fingers were, wrapping around the edge of the black plastic. Beautifully shaped oval nails, smooth pale skin.

  “Let’s go. We aren’t going to know who her backup is until we act anyway.”

  The woman shifted her position as they approached, her attention fixed intently upon something in her hands. The door to one hallway was to the left, the milling passengers spread out all around them. She wiped her brow with a sleeve, and the truth slammed Kim.

  “That’s not a woman.”

  “Damn. C’mon.”

  Kim started to run, but in that instant, she caught sight of two other men, headed for them. She tried to reach the one with the laptop, but everything happened at once.

  A burly, mustachioed man barreled into her, his arm capturing her arms close to her body so she could not swing. The unmistakable nose of a gun jammed into her ribs. She froze.

  Lex bellowed, “Clear the area!”

  The area exploded. People started screaming, running, banging into each other. Suitcases fell over. The PA system announced a different flight.

  Using the momentary distraction, Kim dropped her body straight down and whirled in a circle, making herself a snake who slid out of her assailant’s grip. She was ready for his gun, grabbing his wrist as she sank, and managed to shove it away from her body just as he fired. The bullet skidded over the skin of her side in a burning hot line, and she heard someone grunt behind her.

  The screaming of terrified passengers, businessmen and families trebled. A man tripped on a suitcase right in front of her and slammed down, face-first. His glasses shattered, but Kim had no time to help him.

  Struggling with the man who was so much stronger than she, she had to be fast. She slammed her captor’s hand against a nearby chair. The gun skittered away on the waxed floor beneath a bank of chairs. The terrorist grabbed her, his fingers digging into her neck, and she slammed her head back as hard as she could, connecting with something hard—chin or teeth—then used her elbow to knock the wind out of his lungs.

  He fell backward with a grunt. Kim yanked herself free, and slammed the butt of her own gun against the back of his head. He slumped into unconsciousness.

  Breathing hard, she looked around for the “woman” with the laptop. Nowhere to be seen. “Damn!”

  Lex had subdued his captor and breathing heavily, looked toward Kim. “Where did the woman go?” she cried.

  He pointed. “Ladies’ room.” He wiped a hand over his face and winced. His right hand was bloody and he looked at it with anger. “Goddammit,” he growled.

  It was only then that Kim saw the injury, a bullet hole through the lower section of his palm. She yanked off her coat and ran toward him. “Here. Wrap it up.”

  “There’s no time!” He shoved her toward the ladies’ room. “You’re going to have to dismantle the bomb. Let’s go.”

  “Right.”

  There were several women cowering inside the restroom, but Kim didn’t immediately see the one she was looking for. Pressing her finger to her lips for silence, she jerked her thumb over her shoulder to indicate they should all get out quietly. With whispers and murmurs and more commotion than Kim would have liked, they did so. She ducked to see under the stalls. In the back, she spied the Keds she was looking for.

  Glancing back at Lex, who moved behind her with his hand—dripping blood—held above his head, she pointed to the stall. He nodded.

  With a smooth movement, Kim dived under the metal wall, and grabbed the terrorist above the ankle. It was surprisingly thin.

  He yelped, and tried to yank away. Kim held tight. A spate of Arabic poured from his mouth, babbling and incoherent. Kim slid all the way into the stall, and using her body to trap him between the wall and her arm, she cried, “I’ve got him!” and unlocked the stall door for Lex.

  “Haul him out here.”

  Kim shifted her weight, flung the boy toward the floor. She landed on top of him, trapping his arms beneath her wrists. Lex opened his silver case. Blood dripped off his elbow to splash to the floor.

  “Where is the bomb?” Kim asked in Arabic. He was much younger than she first thought—a boy of perhaps seventeen, and he was weeping, tears pouring down his smooth brown cheeks. Was he afraid? Or was it shame? Shame at being dre
ssed as a woman, apprehended in a women’s toilet?

  Cruel to give a boy such an assignment, Kim thought.

  A cruelty that paled in comparison to making him blow himself up, she supposed, and shoved her arm against his throat hard. “Where is the bomb?” she cried.

  He jerked his chin downward. “Breasts,” he said in English.

  Kim scrambled backward, shoved open the blouse he wore to expose the bra beneath. It was an underwire model, heavily stuffed with a thick, breast-shaped plastic. The white nylon fabric of the bra against the boy’s smooth young skin gave her a pain.

  What kind of world killed off its young like this, as soldiers and martyrs?

  “What do I do?” she asked Lex. “Take it off of him?”

  “Please,” said the youth in Arabic. “I do not want to die.”

  For a minute, Kim’s gaze flew to his face. His plea moved her.

  Lex said behind her, “He’s lying.”

  She looked over her shoulder. “What?”

  “It’s a time pencil. He’s buying time.”

  The boy spit at her, and Kim had to scramble to avoid losing hold of him. At the idea that the bomb could explode at any second, she felt suddenly, faintly ill, and had to physically fight the urge to leap away from him. A shudder violently shook her spine. “What do we do?”

  “See where the bra comes together? Insert this pin there, very slowly.”

  Kim held the boy with her knees. He jerked, and she slammed his arms down hard. In Arabic, she said, “If you move, and I live through you blowing us up, I’ll tell everyone you peed your pants you were so scared.”

  He spit again. Instinctively, she hit him, and he slumped backward, at least dazed, if not unconscious.

  “Take the little tube there, and ease it out,” Lex said.

  Very gently, Kim gripped what looked like an eyebrow pencil and eased it out of its spot. On the end was a little cap. “This?”

  “Yeah. Easy.” Lex leaned in. “Hold your boy.”

  Kim braced herself more firmly against the kid, and Lex very gently touched the pencil cap. He took a breath, moved it ever so slightly, then let go of his breath. “That was the moment we could have blown.”

  “Thanks for telling me.”

  “Anytime. Now,” he said in that smooth, low voice. “You gently wiggle the cap free, and there’ll be a wire underneath, which we’re going to cut.”

  “All right. But our explosion moment is passed?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Oh.” Kim eased the cap upward, spied the wires beneath. “Now what?”

  Lex braced the cap in his fingers and lifted his chin to the bomb kit. “Cut it.”

  “Do I die here?” she asked, taking the scissors from the kit.

  “Not if you do it right.” His eyes were a vivid blue, and twinkling enough that she thought he might be teasing her. “That’s what I’m here for, remember?”

  “Right.” Kim squeezed her eyes shut, opened them, cut the wire, and whooped, pulling it free from the bomb.

  Kim slumped in relief, and wiped sweat from her upper lip. “How did he get that through security?”

  “Paradigms,” Lex said simply. “What guard is going to pat down actual breasts? And metal detectors react to bras all the time. The underwires and hooks and clips. It’s understood. We’re not prepared—who would be?—for people who blow themselves up.”

  His face was as white as the porcelain surrounding them. Blood had pooled beneath his elbow in a sticky, spreading mass. “That’s bad.” She stood up and yanked the belt out of her jeans, then knelt and tied it around his arm. “We need to get you to the hospital.”

  “I’ll be fine in an hour or two.” He held out his good hand. “Where the hell is everybody, anyway?” He coughed. “Let me use your phone to call security.”

  She pulled it out of her pocket, and handed it over to him. The Arab boy was breathing harshly, but he’d survive. Lex took the phone and punched in some numbers, and Kim stood up to get a thick pile of paper towels from the dispenser on the wall. She carried them back to where Lex slumped against the wall, and dropped some on the ground to absorb the blood there, and then sandwiched the gory hand between two layers of towels and pressed hard from both sides.

  “All clear,” Lex said into the phone, and gave directions to their location. “We need medical assistance. I’ve been shot—not seriously, but it hurts like hell.”

  His eyes were on Kim’s face. They were as blue as a teacup her mother had once brought home from a fair. She looked away, down to the hand pressed between her palms.

  “Hey,” he said.

  Kim raised her face. “Hey, yourself.”

  “Good work.”

  “You, too.”

  It was impulsive and probably foolish, but she did it anyway, gripped his hand between hers. Kissed him. And didn’t pull away immediately. His free hand came up behind her head and caught her, and his lips opened with a little growl, inviting her in. She tasted sweat—hers or his, she wasn’t sure—and a faint hint of cloves, which must be him. Close up, she caught a hint of Indian spice. “Curry?” she said, pulling back.

  “It’s in the leather. I practically live in an Indian restaurant nearby my apartment.” He tugged her down to him again.

  His lips were as richly generous as they looked. His tongue swirled against hers, sending a jolt of thick excitement down her spine. Abruptly, she pulled back. “Bad idea.”

  He looked at her. “Is it?”

  “We’re just reacting to the danger.”

  “Maybe.” His voice was gravelly, that Southern drawl like honey on her neck. “Maybe we’re just reacting to each other.”

  “It’s been a long night,” Kim said, suddenly aware of her headache. She sat down on the floor with a thump and pressed her palms to her temples. “A long damned day.”

  “You need to let them look at you at the hospital, too,” he said. “We’ll ride together.”

  Kim realized it was over, finally. “God, I’m tired.”

  “Good job, kiddo,” he said. “You saved the world tonight.”

  “Maybe not the world.”

  “A big piece of mine.”

  Kim took a breath, but at that moment, security swarmed in and there wasn’t a chance to say any more.

  Chapter 9

  At the hospital emergency room, they were separated. Lex was wheeled into one examining room. Kim went to one in another direction. Sitting in the sterile white room, with fluorescent light turning the air a faint green, she discovered she was a long way beyond exhaustion.

  All at once, the day caught up with her, and she fell backward on the table like a drunk who’d had one too many. Her head spun. Her ear throbbed, her ankle ached, her face felt as if it had been a punching bag—which she supposed it had been. Even her teeth ached.

  She had awakened—she glanced with effort toward a clock on the wall, since it was too much effort to raise her wrist—nineteen hours ago. Since then, she’d gone to the office as usual. Flown to Chicago. Fought off a creepy man with no expression who’d very nearly killed her, jumped a terrorist, stolen a car, kidnapped an FBI agent and defused a bomb.

  Her stomach felt positively hollow. She was hungry. Starving. Her stomach was making little hollow noises like a tired puppy. With effort, she lifted a hand and put it over the grumbling.

  She must have drifted off, her feet swinging free at the end of the table, because the next thing she knew, a warm female voice was saying, “Ms. Valenti, can you tell me where you’re hurting?”

  “What?” She opened both eyes, but it was too bright, so she closed one. “Ear,” she said, and added thickly, “Starving.”

  The woman, a plump blonde with exotic blue eyes, chuckled. “Let’s see,” she said with a frown, and searched her pockets, coming up with a banana and a chocolate bar. “Want them?”

  “Banana,” Kim said, just as her stomach growled again.

  The woman laughed again. Such a lilting, pleasant so
und. “Why don’t you have both? I might want to give you some painkillers.” She lifted Kim’s hair to look at her ear. “Ooh, that hurts a lot, I betcha. You need some stitches, I suspect. Where else?”

  One by one, Kim let the doctor check out her injuries, large and small. Black eye, torn ear, bruised face, cut lip, burn where the bullet had buzzed by her skin, sprained ankle. She devoured the banana, then the chocolate bar, and happily accepted a painkiller with a glass of water. Somebody could get her to the hotel and she could pour herself into bed.

  With a Do Not Disturb sign on the door.

  As she cleaned up Kim’s ear, the doctor said, “You’re all over the news, you know—big heroes, the pair of you.”

  “It was him, not me.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t. Wait till you see the news.”

  Kim remembered the situation at the television station. “Did they get the hostages out?”

  “Yeah. No worries. A SWAT team took the station about an hour and a half ago. Two of the terrorists managed to escape, but none of the hostages were hurt.”

  “That’s good.” She thought about asking for the details of which ones had escaped and decided to let it go for tonight. Enough already.

  “Hang on, this will pinch a little.” A needle the size of the Eiffel Tower arrived at the edge of Kim’s peripheral vision and she closed her eyes tight. The pinch was not pleasant, but immediately afterward, a blessed numbness spread through the ear.

  Kim let go of a breath. “Oh, that’s good. It was really hurting!”

  “It’s pretty battered.” The distant sound of scissors, and Kim assumed the doctor was starting the stitches. “Wait’ll you see the video they’re running of you.”

  “Me?” Kim said. “Where did they get video of me?”

  “It’s from the television station. You dropped out of a ceiling and knocked out a terrorist with a gun, just like a movie or something.”

  “Oh. That.”

  The doctor laughed. “That! It’s pretty exciting stuff. You were brave.”