Whatever had happened, though, this was a routine they knew.
“Sheriff Jim Taylor,” their escort said, by way of introduction, as he fell in beside them. He gestured to the man who awaited them. “Commander Butch Johnson, State Police.”
The Statie gave his subordinate a dark look.
“Folks call me Butch,” he said, “but the name’s Frank.”
Mildly amused, Nike gave him a sideways look and said, “Which do you prefer? Butch, Frank or asshole?”
The shock on his face was enough.
Message received. Stop screwing with me.
A big man, moon-faced, but not unattractive, Johnson smiled tightly.
“Professionally,” he said, raising an eyebrow to his subordinate, “Frank.”
“Will anyone know who I’m talking about if I call you that?” she asked. “Or will they have to think about it?”
Sheriff Taylor swallowed a snort of laughter, desperately, she noted.
“She’s got you there, Butch. Good luck with that,” Sheriff Taylor said, grinning. “Call me Jim.”
Resigned, Johnson just shook his head. “Call me Butch then.”
She nodded. “What have we got?”
Both men studied her, assessing the outfit, the bare skin, the calm certainty, and the yellow hi-contrast shooter’s glasses.
Nike waited for it to end.
This was the reason she dressed the way she did. Victor had advised it, his own prurient interest aside…because men would look, respect it as they wouldn’t the stiff suits most female federal agents wore.
She’d forbidden Mitch and the boys to come to her defense after the first time they’d tried.
“I’m guessing you’re still negotiating, and you’ve made a couple of forays,” Nike said, bluntly, “but like most of these groups, they’ve had some paramilitary training, maybe even have a few real soldiers among them. They have night vision and/or infrared goggles or binoculars they bought off the internet. They know you’re here, and they’ve spotted you coming.”
Their faces stilled.
“With the women and children, you’re haunted by the specter of Waco and terrified of moving too soon after the polygamists in Texas, so you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.”
Nike took a breath.
She studied the blueprints, the pictures, the lay of the land on the way in. She glanced at her team, the three men she trusted implicitly.
Mitch looked at Brad and Andy.
“If you were going to blow the place, Brad,” Nike said, “where would you put the charges?”
Brad had studied the blueprints as well. He pointed. “Here and here.”
Nike nodded. Everything she had was put into not thinking, not feeling any more than necessary. Every time her mind tried to go back, she forced it away, concentrating on the task at hand.
“If the bomber is in there, he’s a ‘true believer’ and he doesn’t care who dies any more than the men who brought the planes down during 9/11, innocent or guilty. So he’s going to kill them all, regardless. You’re also afraid he’s going to pull a Rudolph on you and disappear into the woods for months after he’s done. Right now, you’re at a Mexican standoff, with no one able to take advantage. Let me know when you make a decision. It would be best before dawn. At this time of year there’ll be fog, which will help. Even making no decision is still a decision, gentlemen. You’re just leaving it to him to make it.”
Mitch almost laughed at the expressions on their faces. They looked stunned, poleaxed by Niki’s calm and accurate assessment of their situation. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen it.
“In the meantime,” she said, evenly, “Is there someplace I can grab a little sleep before morning? I assume you’ve got some kind of headquarters beside this command center?”
Trust Niki to think of it.
It seemed that they did, in the old high school. The building had been abandoned fairly recently for asbestos and chemical contamination, which was not reassuring. There was also no electricity and the water came in bottles large and small.
Some of the cops were already dossed down in the foyer, grabbing a quick nap while they could. It promised to be a long night, or few days, depending on what was decided.
If they went at dawn at best, she and her team would only have an hour or two of sleep.
Nike sighed, looking around. A stack of slightly moldering mattresses awaited. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t slept on worse, dirt, thin cots…
A memory tried to surface, but she pushed it away.
It would be the first time she’d slept alone since Austin… Her heart twisted, the thought piercing and she sucked in a breath.
She looked at her police escort.
“Do you think you could find me a mirror somewhere?” she asked. If there was action, she’d rather find a private place to clean up, to check to be sure it was a real injury and not a scratch that got her hauled to a hospital.
“Sure,” he said, rolling his eyes when he thought she couldn’t see.
Let him think it was vanity.
Nike looked at Mitch, Brad and Andy.
“Go on, get some sleep while you can,” she said.
It was doubtful she would.
Knowing better than to argue, Mitch nodded, understanding that she would find a place as far away from anyone as she could get.
Once he’d followed her and listened to her wrestle with nightmares all night. He’d known then that she’d be mortified to know he’d been there.
He’d never mentioned it and never would. He led Brad and Andy off in another direction.
The State Trooper found Nike a tall mirror and carried it to the room she’d chosen, far in the recesses of the building.
Smiling – something unfamiliar to her once – she thanked the Trooper before she looked around in the thickening darkness.
The Trooper went back down the hall, taking his light with him. A flash of memory at being left alone in the darkness curled in her belly. Her cell phone and PDA cast enough illumination to do what she needed.
Reluctantly, she lay down. Her throat tightened, now that she was left alone with her thoughts.
The smell of the musty mattress reminded her of Santiago’s camp, the second one. Even the humidity seemed familiar. It was almost too quiet. Only the cicadas, crickets and tree frogs called. All it lacked were the noises of the jungle. Memories crowded. She pushed them away.
With an effort, she kept the thoughts of the afternoon at bay as well.
Sleep crept up on her in the darkness and took her under…and into Ocho Santiago’s camp.
Nike looked around wildly, but knew there was no escape this time.
“Do it,” Santiago said, mildly.
His mildness was always deceptive.
Nike shook her head. “No.”
The whip was in her hand. The boy was on his knees in front of her, the bronze skin of his back bare, exposed. Her throat was tight. Tears threatened.
“If you don’t,” Santiago said in Spanish, “I will. And it will be much worse.”
She understood the principle of this lesson, but tried to fight it, to deny it.
“No,” she said.
Santiago snatched the whip from her hands, lashed it down on the boy’s back. Welts appeared, pinpricks of blood. Nike closed her eyes.
A sharp slap opened them.
“Each time you close your eyes, it will add five lashes,” Santiago snapped. “All you had to do was give him fifteen. Now it’s twenty-five.”
Tears burned.
“All right,” she cried. “Give it to me.”
Triumphant, Santiago said, “No light lashes, either, chica, or he will take five more for each that does not draw blood.”
Boy. He was a boy about her age.
His eyes were a liquid brown, and he’d only been in Santiago’s camp for a few days.
Nike steeled herself, raised the lash, brought it down.
The boy cried out as it c
ut across two of Santiago’s, burn on burn, however hard she’d tried not to.
A sob escaped her, but she brought the whip down again, hard, even as one stroked across her own shoulders…
Another prisoner awaited her.
Ty.
In the thin sunlight piercing the leaves, his hair was bright, unmistakable.
Her heart broke.
“Stop weeping!” Santiago shouted. He morphed into chubby, balding Victor Torrance with his cold black eyes. “Emotions are useless. They make you weak. You will be strong. Unstoppable. For each tear that falls, he will take ten, ten lashes more.”
It would kill him.
Ty.
Niki fought the tears, struggled to bring her emotions under control.
By a sheer act of will, she brought the lash down. No tears fell.
Her face was wet when she awoke. Terror for Ty washed through her before she realized it had only been a dream. She reached for him both for comfort and the reassurance that he was all right, that he was still alive…and he wasn’t there.
For a moment she panicked, the dream too vivid, too close…and then she remembered…
He was safe. In Washington. Safe.
By now he knew everything. She closed her eyes and wept in the silence and darkness where no one could see or hear…
Chapter Thirty Two
Only the thinnest morning light lit what had once been a schoolroom, complete with chalkboard and a few abandoned student desks. The windows were so grimy that what little light came through the fog was murky, but Nike couldn’t have been more relieved. What little sleep she’d had hadn’t been easy. She’d spent the remainder of the night after she’d cried herself dry playing Texas hold ‘em poker on her handheld to keep sleep, dreams, and memories at bay. Already she was tired and the day hadn’t yet begun. Reluctantly, she put the device away, looked out the windows into the darkness and the thick fog that drifted through the woods.
She dressed in her halter and leather jeans and walked down the hall.
Halfway down, she saw a light approaching.
“Trooper?” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “They’re looking for you.”
She’d thought they might be. It was almost a relief. Ma’am. He was probably only a year or two younger than she was.
He handed her a file.
Letting out a sigh, she said, “Fine, and the rest of my team?”
“Will meet you outside.”
They did.
Steady, dependable Mitch with his bevy of little sisters; tough capable Brad, rolling a half dollar over his fingers to keep them nimble; and soft-spoken Andy, his blond hair a beacon in the dim light. She was grateful for them. The idea that she might not see them again after this broke her heart.
The command center was abuzz when they arrived, the tension noticeable. A decision had been made and now they were committed to it.
Nike shook her head. As many times as she saw it, it still surprised her.
She glanced at Mitch, looked at Brad and Andy.
“It’s showtime, boys,” she said, quietly.
They nodded, Brad grinning a little. Nike tried to ignore Mitch’s look of concern.
Both the Sheriff and the Commander looked tired. She doubted they’d gotten much sleep at all.
“Can you do it?” Jim Taylor said. “Can you get in?”
Nike leaned over the map. “Yes, but I need a diversion. Would you have the FBI hostage rescue team move into position visibly? Tighten the perimeter, too. I want their eyes looking outward. Mitch, I need you, Brad and Andy with me. Especially Brad.”
The FBI Agent in Charge hesitated.
She looked at him.
“It won’t be a bluff as it was in New York. At a guess, this guy wants to go out in a blaze of glory. He wants to die well for his God, for his duty,” she said. She understood that only too well. “You want to take this, go right ahead. When it goes bad, it’ll be on you. Keep negotiating, but I’ve been tasked to go in. It’s your call.”
She turned to the others.
“Give me fifteen, twenty minutes,” she said. “Other than the diversions, keep your people back. Then it’s for real. Radio silence. I’ll give you updates, let you know when to move.”
She already had her microphone headset on, now she switched it and the video on.
With a glance at Mitch, she said, “Give me a full count of five and then follow. I’ll flush out the guards. We need to take them as silently as possible.”
Mitch nodded in acknowledgement.
They followed her as she moved off at a steady lope, not stretching out, not yet, moving nearly silently through the banks of concealing fog that drifted like ghosts among the pines, or a deer, the sounds of her passage similar. If those in the compound picked her up on infrared or night vision, she’d be a solitary image, moving fast and low. That would puzzle them. If they saw her, all they would see was a solitary woman running. They wouldn’t see a threat. Her guns were secure in their holsters at the small of her back.
The air was thick with the scent of the tall pine trees, rich, oddly soothing. It filled her lungs pungently.
If she were going to put sentries out she knew where she’d put them. At this hour, they would be tired. With the fog, they would be dozy. Any noise would sound as if it came from anywhere.
Mitch, Brad, and Andy would be behind her, following more deliberately. Should she be spotted, they would could come in or back off as necessary.
Alone, she moved quickly into the deep woods, feeling the stretch of her muscles as she ran, the acceleration of her heart. In her mind’s eye, she saw the image of Ty, his eyes so blue, his hair blowing lightly in the breeze, the memory a sharp lance of pain…and pleasure.
Ruthlessly, she put it aside.
The woods were unusually silent, sensing a predator within them, but it wasn’t her. She heard movement. Someone drawn by the sound of her movements. He moved to intercept.
“Perimeter guard, Mitch,” she said, softly. “To the right. Take him, quickly.”
Nike knew she’d caught the man’s attention through either night vision or heat sensing goggles, but also knew that seeing a single person would be confusing when he would expect a team.
With the guard’s attention on Niki, like a ghost Mitch slipped up behind the man to catch him in a sleeper hold before lowering him to the ground.
Quickly he and the team zip-tied him and moved on in her wake.
In her ear, Nike could hear through her microphone all the instructions going out.
The HRT team moved into position, the perimeter tightened all around the compound, all signs of an impending action. If there were eyes out everyone would be focused on places that she wasn’t.
This was the dangerous part.
It was still mostly dark, but the sky had lightened significantly, and the compound was open.
The main building was large, with several wings. Once it had been a children’s camp. Now most of the windows were dulled by age, or they were covered. It was likely they were barricaded.
Nike hoped everyone was looking out and they hadn’t yet noticed the absence of one sentry.
She ran across the compound toward the main building. It was still more dark than light. If anyone saw her, they would have the impression of a woman or a child, given her size and her hair. Given their prejudices, she wouldn’t be seen as a threat.
She knocked on the door, quickly, glanced back as Mitch and the team took cover.
A knock would unexpected. It was a ploy she’d used many times. Few bad guys knocked.
There was no answer.
Another knock.
“Please let me in,” Nike called, softly. “Help me.”
A female voice. To these, where women were relegated to the kitchen and child-bearing, her voice would be unthreatening.
The door opened.
The man who opened the door took in her face, her hair, worn loose and waving down to her shou
lders… his gaze lowered to her halter.
Her hand shot out, grasped his collar, pulled his face close as she planted a gun beneath his chin.
“Make a sound,” she hissed, “and the next will be an explanation to God for what you’re doing here and just how bad you screwed up.”
It silenced him just long enough. She hit him hard in the throat and he collapsed, gasping and choking. Quickly she secured him in a sleeper hold before he could fight her, and then eased him down to the ground, her foot in the door.
Then she was inside.
She let out a sigh of relief.
No eyes were on her. If there was another guard, she couldn’t see him in the murky light.
She started down the narrow corridor.
In this sect, the women were conditioned to be useless. Niki only had to worry about the men.
A small cry of fear escaped from someone in the first room she entered, the women and children cowering against the walls.
Nike held her fingers to her lips in a request for silence.
“Go,” was all she said.
The negotiator would be getting demands for information, explanations. She hoped he could stall them long enough.
“HRT, move in.”
It was all she needed to say.
She left them to Mitch, the boys and HRT, coming in behind her.
Nike made her way quickly down the narrow gray hall.
The perimeter was closing. Once more the clock was ticking.
Following in Nike’s wake, Mitch looked into the first room.
“If you and your kids want to live,” he said softly. “I’d get the hell out. Go.”
Those inside huddled together, torn between defiance and fear. He left them to it, and to the hostage rescue team.
With Brad and Andy covering them, Mitch advanced down the hall in Nike’s wake, knowing she would draw any fire. Their objective was to get in quickly and silently. He would only shoot if it was absolutely necessary to save her life or that of another.
As she passed, Nike glanced inside another room. It was full of frightened women and children. Nike shook her head. This display was for HRT’s benefit, to get them distracted by clearing the women and children, drawing them in before the real fireworks began. Down this narrow hallway, it would have been a shooting gallery, and the object had been to pull in as many cops as possible, especially the federal ones, and then blow the place.
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