by Rebecca York
But in the billowing smoke, Shane was coughing, too. He wanted to turn and run. Before he lit out of there, he threw the other T-shirt-wrapped can onto the stone floor.
AS HE BACKED AWAY from the smoke bomb, Colin shouted another curse.
Secretly he knew he’d waited too long, taunting that bastard Peters and giving him the time he needed to make his smoke bomb. But he’d never admit that out loud.
He longed to ignore his own coughing and leap into the billowing smoke so he could shoot down Peters and the princess. But now the fire alarm was ringing, and that would bring people running to save the old church.
He had to get away before the cavalry arrived and found him down here with a gun.
Bent low, he moved backward, hoping he was going in the right direction. The smoke was blinding and disorienting, and he had to give Peters credit for clever planning. Obviously, he’d thought of the smoke bomb and the poles a while ago, and he’d been working on it while they’d been having their heart-to-heart chat.
Colin cursed Shane and cursed his own gullibility. He’d thought he was in charge, but he’d been mistaken. And now he had to make sure he didn’t pass out before he escaped from the church basement.
When he found the stairs he’d come down, he breathed out a sigh, the action causing another spasm in his chest. Still, he forced himself to keep moving, staggering upward into blessedly clean air.
In the darkness below, he could still hear coughing. Maybe Peters had trapped himself and the princess. Maybe the two of them would choke to death down there. Which would save him the trouble of hunting for them.
But he couldn’t take anything for granted. Should he stay at the top of the stairs in case they came staggering up? Or should he go around the side of the building and look for another exit?
The sound of fire engines in the distance made up his mind. He didn’t think the alarm would automatically go to the station in a blackout. But it looked as if some concerned citizen had alerted the authorities.
He staggered toward the door where he’d come in, anxious to get away before the firemen came. It was tough going because he felt as if he was breathing ground glass.
STILL COUGHING, SHANE RAN from the smoke.
He thought he knew which hallway to take. But when he came to two alternative routes, he stopped.
The smoke billowed behind him, filling his lungs, making his eyes water and choking off his thoughts. He could only hope the man with the gun was as blind and breathless as he was himself.
Up on the street, he heard the sound of fire engines. Or was that just the ringing in his own ears?
He wanted to sit down or crawl. Wouldn’t the smoke be thinner near the floor?
He was about to lower himself to his hands and knees when someone grabbed his arm, and he tried to jerk away.
“It’s me,” Ariana whispered. “Let me show you where to find the stairs.”
He straightened. Still coughing, he followed her down what felt like an endless passageway. Damn, he’d thought the smoke bomb was a great idea. Now he was beginning to question his own sanity.
He staggered up a flight of stairs, then down another hallway with a high counter to one side. When they got to the door, he stopped short.
“You didn’t open it,” he said as he stared at the wooden slab that blocked their exit.
Chapter Twelve
Shane closed his eyes, trying to center his thoughts.
Now what? Smoke was billowing after them, rising up the stairway and down the corridor, choking off their breath as Ariana tried but couldn’t open the door.
In his present shape, could he? And what were their chances of running back the other way? Not good. Either the gunman was waiting for them or they’d be overcome by the smoke.
“It has one of those bars,” she said, her words sputtering out between coughs, and he knew he had to get her out of this death trap that he’d created.
“We have to get down on the floor where the air is better,” he managed to say.
They both sat down on the stone floor, and he rested his head against the cool wooden surface of the door. Just for a minute. It felt good. If he’d been alone, he might have just stayed there resting. But he was with Ariana and he had to take care of her. “Can you show me the knob?”
Her voice came out high and anxious. “I said it has a bar.”
“A bar, yeah.” He shook his head, trying to clear the smoke from his brain. He felt as if his mind was shutting down.
In the thickening atmosphere, she groped for his hand, squeezed his fingers, then lifted his arm until he felt a metal bar that spanned the width of the door.
“Thanks,” he croaked.
To give himself leverage, he got up on his knees and pushed on the bar. Nothing happened.
Repressing a curse, he brought all his weight down on the bar—and felt it give a little. Too bad the church caretaker hadn’t oiled it recently.
“Help me,” he gasped out. His lungs were so clogged that he could barely dredge up the breath to speak.
Ariana came up on her knees beside him and lent her weight to his, and they both pushed on the bar. With a screech of protesting metal, the locking device flew downward, sending them both falling out the door and onto a stone porch at the side of the church.
Shane looked behind him. He saw smoke but no flames, thank God.
He dragged in lungfuls of the fresh air, allowing himself a few seconds to rest before staggering to his feet and leaning against a stone pillar. “We have to get out of here. In case he comes around the church looking for us.”
She glanced quickly toward the front of the church, then back to him. “Okay.”
When he tried to climb down the short flight of stairs to street level, he could barely stay on his feet.
Ariana moved in close and held him up, and they staggered onto the sidewalk.
He knew they were on Boylston Street. The next block was Newbury Street, with its old town houses that had been converted to shops and restaurants.
He could hear the sound of breaking glass coming from the shopping district and knew that looters were still attacking the stores. Better to head into the nearby residential neighborhood where there should be fewer looters and other people crazy enough to be out here.
As he staggered along the sidewalk, her hand tightened on his arm. “You have to rest.”
“Not…safe…yet,” he said between panting breaths. His chest ached, but he ignored the pain and kept going.
Together they made it to the corner, then across the street, where they stopped short when they heard gunfire.
“That’s him!” Ariana gasped.
“More likely…someone taking advantage of the blackout,” he answered, leading her away from the church and toward the turn-of-the-century town houses and apartment buildings that lined the streets. They all backed onto narrow alleys, and he paused before plunging into one.
Looking behind them, he thought he saw a man hurrying toward the alley and pulled Ariana into the shadows of a Dumpster. As they pressed against the brick wall, a large rat scurried out from under the Dumpster and waddled for cover on the other side of the alley.
Ariana made a muffled sound, but Shane gave her credit for not screaming.
He risked a look around the side of the building but saw no one. Still, the guy could have kept up his hunt for the security expert and the princess. And he’d be angry that they’d escaped from the church basement.
Shane figured their best chance was to lose themselves in the city. He waited two minutes, then led Ariana into the street, down the block and into another alley.
They were moving pretty fast, and the urge to cough tortured his throat and lungs. Since the sound would give them away, he ruthlessly kept himself from making any noise until they were another block from the church.
Doubling over, he began to hack. Once he’d started, he couldn’t stop. Worse, he suddenly couldn’t stand.
When he went down heavily o
n the brick pavement, Ariana crouched beside him.
“Shane!”
“I’ll be okay.”
“You can’t keep going.”
It was fruitless to argue the point. Somehow he pushed himself to his feet. But as he staggered along, he stopped often, feeling along the underside of the vehicles they passed.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking advantage of stupidity,” he answered.
After a few cars, he found what he was looking for—a key attached to the underside of the chassis with a magnet.
Leaning against the side of the car, he tried to insert the key in the lock. It took several tries before he was coordinated enough to do it.
“Where did you get that?” Ariana gasped out.
“Under the car. A lot of motorists leave them.”
She stared at the vehicle, which had to be at least fifteen years old.
“What’s a car like this doing in a…swanky neighborhood?”
“Maybe it belongs to a cook.”
She nodded and climbed into the passenger side.
Sliding behind the wheel, he allowed himself to rest for a moment. He wouldn’t have tried to drive on the freeway in his present condition, but he knew that getting them away from the church was their best chance of staying alive. So he cranked the engine, then promptly started coughing.
“Move over,” Ariana said.
“You have…a driver’s license?” he asked between coughs.
“No. But I know how to drive. And what does a license matter when the car is stolen?”
“Borrowed! We’ll leave it where the cops can find it.”
“A technicality. Move.”
He wasn’t accustomed to taking orders from a princess. But he’d already found out that she was used to giving them. Because he didn’t want to put up the effort to fight her, he climbed out. When he stood again, he found his legs were shaky, and he silently admitted that the smoke had done a number on him. He hoped the other guy was in worse shape.
When he was settled in the passenger seat, Ariana started the engine and drove away. It was hot in the car, and the air-conditioning didn’t seem to be working. So she rolled down the windows.
“Drive slowly. Keep your lights off until we get out of the area, and keep an eye out for pedestrians.”
“Okay.”
As she crept along the deserted street, he added, “See if you can find a place with low trees, where it will be hard to see if someone’s in the car.”
She kept driving, but the houses were too densely packed together to allow for many trees. In this neighborhood, the structures all looked to be about a hundred years old, with stone facades, bay windows, steep roofs and other architectural details popular at the turn of the century.
Finally, when she came to a parking place in front of a large stone mansion, he said, “I guess this will have to do.”
She pulled into the space, and he sat with his head thrown back against the headrest.
BACK AT THE HANCOCK TOWER, Special Agent Harold Wolf of the FBI was in charge of the mop-up operation. He was working out of the security desk in the building’s lobby, though he would rather have been out looking for Vice President Grant Davis, who was still missing.
At this point, official information on the incident in the tower was still sketchy. Nobody knew how the bad guys had crashed the party, nor how they had gotten Vice President Davis out of the building. They could still be in there, hiding in one of the offices, for all Wolf knew. But if they were, the agents combing the tower from top to bottom would find him.
So far there was no word on that. But at least something was going right. President Stack was at a secure location outside the city, and about half the guests who had been held captive in the top-floor reception room had been taken out of the area.
Those who lived nearby wanted transportation home. Others had come from out of town and wanted to be driven to their hotels so they could pick up their luggage before leaving the city. For the moment, none of them were going anywhere besides Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod, where they could be debriefed. And also where the Bureau could determine if any of them had been in on the takeover of the building.
Wolf craned his neck toward the front of the building. Media trucks were still parked out on the street. Too bad they couldn’t keep the whole incident quiet. But this was the age of instant media attention. Despite tight security, the hostage situation and its resolution had hit the networks. Including CNN, which broadcasts not only in the U.S. but around the world.
No sooner had the thought surfaced than a young Secret Service agent came running up.
“We have a call from King Frederick of Beau Pays,” the man said. From the sound of his voice, it wasn’t a “thank you for saving my daughter” call.
“The princess was one of the guests upstairs, and he wants to know if she’s okay. He’s holding on one of the temporary lines.”
“Tell him everything’s fine. We have the situation under control,” Wolf said, giving his standard answer.
The man cleared his throat. “There may be a glitch as far as his daughter is concerned.”
Wolf raised his head from the clipboard he was holding. “Oh yeah?”
The man consulted his own notes. “She came downstairs with a guy from a private security company who happened to be at the reception. Then she was supposed to be sent out on one of the first helicopters.”
“And?”
“She’s not on the list of people who arrived at Otis. When she didn’t show up, we started checking around. FBI Agent Parker saw her run from the helicopter. Her and the security guy.”
“Why the hell would she do that?”
“She told him someone was shooting at her.”
Wolf felt his stomach muscles clench. Just what he needed. A missing princess from a small European country. “Where the hell is she?”
The agent shrugged. “Lost? Kidnapped? What should I tell King Frederick?”
“Don’t tell him his daughter is missing. Tell him we’re trying to ascertain her whereabouts. Then find out where the hell she went—and if she’s still with the security guy.” He thought for a moment, then added, “And alert the Boston police. Maybe that will do us some good.”
The agent was still standing there.
“What?” Wolf asked.
“The king also mentioned a jewel. The Beau Pays sapphire. It was on display at the reception.”
“What about it?”
“The king wants to know if it’s safe.”
“I guess you’d better send someone up there to look,” Wolf suggested.
“Okeydoke.”
The man hurried off, probably wishing that someone else had caught the call from the ruler of Beau Pays.
WHEN ARIANA CUT THE ENGINE, Shane sat with his head thrown back and his eyes closed. He was still coughing occasionally, but the spasms were less often and less intense than they had been a few minutes ago.
Ariana shifted, and his eyes blinked open to find her leaning over him, looking worried.
“You should go to a hospital.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You’re not too macho to get checked out, are you?”
He gave a little shake of his head. “In the middle of a blackout every hospital in the city will be a zoo. There will be people with heart attacks. People in automobile accidents. People who need emergency surgery. All of them will need the attention of the medical staff a lot more than I do.”
She sighed. “Okay.”
“You’re not going to argue?” he muttered.
She made a small sound. “I’ve found that arguing with you doesn’t get me very far.”
“Funny, I have the same experience with you.”
She didn’t offer a comeback, so he sat with his eyes closed for several moments, until she cleared her throat.
“Can I ask you a question?” she murmured.
“You’re going to do it anyway, right?”
<
br /> “When that guy was talking about your brother, he meant…”
“Chase,” Shane supplied. “My half brother, actually.”
“How did he know about Chase?”
“Apparently the Sheas studied my background. They know that my dad went to prison when I was little. Mom divorced him and married Mr. Vickers. He got her pregnant with Chase, then got himself run over.”
“And your mom had to support the two of you.”
“Yes. I guess you could say she worked herself to death trying to provide for us.” Before she could offer any sympathy, he went on quickly. “And I abandoned Chase when he was a little kid.”
“How old were you?”
“Eighteen.”
“What was your alternative? Working at a fast-food restaurant so you could support the two of you on a poverty income?”
He stared straight ahead through the windshield into the darkness beyond. “I had good grades. With my nonexistent income, it wasn’t so hard to get a scholarship to MIT. I left Chase in foster care so I could go to school.”
“Leaving him must have been a hard decision,” she said softly.
“Yeah. I’ve always felt guilty about it.”
“But you could see how hard it was for your mom to make ends meet. I guess that’s why you knew that a college education would give you a better chance.”
“Yeah. She worked as a hotel maid. It didn’t pay well, but it was a steady job. So I didn’t grow up in circumstances anything like yours,” he added, just to make that clear.
“Are you ashamed of your background?” she asked in a soft voice.
“Should I be?”
“You should be proud of how well you’ve done. You’re a self-made man.” She turned toward him in the dark. “And I’ll bet you give money to a lot of charities for disadvantaged children.”
He made a strangled sound. “How do you know?”
“Because you know how hard it is to grow up poor, and you’re trying to give those kids a better chance.”
He felt her studying him in the darkness.
“You give your money,” she murmured. “You give your time, too. You’re a…what do they call it? A Big Brother, too.”