by Susan Mann
Quinn knelt and did as she was told.
“Gently,” Mr. Singh said under his breath as he pushed the material between Mrs. Sharma’s head and the hard floor.
Quinn slowly lowered the head onto the makeshift pillow and applied an end of the turban to the wound.
Eyes brimming with tears, Kavita took her mother’s hand. “What happened? Why would someone do something like this?”
Mr. Singh looked around. “I believe someone set off a stun grenade. They’re meant to incapacitate, not kill.” He frowned. “We can be thankful for that.”
Quinn agreed. She didn’t even want to think about the damage a fragmentation grenade would have wrought.
“As for why,” Mr. Singh continued, “I cannot say.”
Mrs. Sharma’s eyelids fluttered and a weak groan escaped.
Kavita patted her mother’s hand and said, “Amma, I’m here. It’s time to wake up.”
Quinn spotted James walking toward them. His somber expression told her the news wasn’t good. His gaze sharpened when it fell on Mrs. Sharma. He stopped a few feet away and crooked his index finger at Quinn.
“Here, let me take over so you can go speak with James,” Mr. Singh said.
His hand replaced hers, now covered with warm, sticky blood.
“Sitrep,” James said when she reached him.
“Mrs. Sharma cut her head when she fell. She’s starting to wake up. Paramedics are on their way. You?”
“Some of the manuscripts are gone. The locks on the cases were shot open.” James took her hand and they walked over to the policeman in charge. James flashed his ID and said, “I’m a federal officer. Are all the exits secure?”
“Yes, and backup is incoming, so you can step off,” he replied brusquely. “We’ve got this under control.”
So much for interagency cooperation, Quinn thought. James didn’t move, so she didn’t either. She asked James, “Do you think whoever took the manuscripts might be hiding in the building?”
“They must be. Police were stationed at all the doors. How else could they get out?”
Quinn’s gaze landed on one of the exits that led downstairs. It reminded her of a sign she’d noticed when they arrived. “There’s a tunnel that goes from here to the Capitol building across the street. Maybe they took that.”
The policeman shook his head. “Officers securing all the tunnels from here radioed in right after the flash bangs went off.”
“Wait,” James said. “All the tunnels? There’s more than one?”
“On the east side of this building there’s one that runs over to Adams. A second tees off from it and goes south to Madison.”
“Have the guards in those buildings checked in?” James asked.
The man scowled and said peevishly, “Look, buddy. I don’t know who you and Nancy Drew here are, and I don’t care. I already told you everything is secure. Now, step away so I can do my job.”
Quinn’s ire flared. “We’re just trying to help. And you’d be lucky to have Nancy Drew—”
James pulled her toward the staircase that led to the ground floor. “As much as I’d enjoy watching you tear him a new one, we need to keep moving.”
“What a tool,” she said, still fuming as they raced down the steps.
The policeman’s report was accurate. A cadre of guards blocked access to the Capitol tunnel.
James glanced around. “We came in on the west side of Jefferson. Officer Attitude said the entrance to the other tunnels is on the east side.” With her hand still in his, they started in that direction. They walked past the library gift shop and through the visitor center. Their pace quickened when they entered a long hallway at the far end of the room.
The sound of Quinn’s heels echoed around them until they arrived at the east entrance. Victims littered the floor, groaning and disoriented.
James slid his Sig Sauer from his hip holster. “They set off another flash bang.”
“And went out those doors,” Quinn said, pointing.
“Maybe, maybe not. Depends on their escape plan. If they thought there would be too many people outside this exit, they might have used the tunnel to either Adams or Madison. Have a car or van waiting at a less populated location. That’s what I’d do.”
Quinn huffed a breath. “Who are ‘they’?”
“I don’t know. But I assume the tunnel entrance is downstairs, so that’s where we need to go.”
They found the stairs, bounded down a level, and entered a dimly lit corridor with wires, cables, and conduits running along the ceiling. A sign attached to a wall pointed them toward the entrance to the tunnel.
They hurried past a cart full of cleaning supplies and stopped at the end of the corridor. One tunnel went straight while a second ran to the right.
“I’ll go to the Adams Building,” James said. “Will you be okay going south toward Madison?”
“I will.” She slung the strap of her purse over her head and across her chest, then slipped off her heels and kicked them away. They slid across the floor and came to rest against the wall. She took out the Glock James had put in her bag, checked the magazine, and slapped it back in place. “Ready.”
She turned and took one step.
James grabbed her wrist and tugged her arm. She spun around and crashed into him like a dancer doing the tango. He kissed her possessively and growled, “No heroics.”
“I promise,” she said and held his piercing gaze. “You be safe, too.”
He kissed her again. “I will.”
She gave him one last blistering kiss and then headed down the tunnel. She jogged with both hands on the Glock, ready to raise and fire if warranted. Even with no one else around, she stayed on the pedestrian side of the tunnel. No reason to crash into a rogue book truck.
As she ran, she noted how nothing seemed amiss. There were no marks on the white walls, no sounds other than her bare feet slapping against the cold concrete floor. No helpful clues had been dropped, telling her she was on the right track.
She approached the entrance to the Madison Building and dropped her pace to a walk. It became a stealthy creep as she crossed the threshold into the building.
Her senses on high alert and her weapon ready, she quieted her breathing and snuck along the corridor until she reached an intersection. She stopped, pressed her back against the wall, and peeked around the corner. Finding it clear, she spun out and sprinted across the gap.
A door flew open and a man burst into the hall.
She screamed.
Chapter Seven
The man whipped out a pistol, pointed it at Quinn and roared, “Drop your weapon! Drop your weapon!”
“Holy crap!” she shouted, her heart jackhammering against her sternum. “Don’t shoot!” The second she realized he wore a US Capitol Police uniform, her hands shot up.
“Drop your weapon!” The veins in his neck popped out like thick ropes.
“Doing it now.” She kept her empty hand up while she bent forward and set the Glock on the floor.
“Kick it away!”
She straightened, kept both hands up, and pushed the Glock away with her foot. “Easy! I’m with the federal government.”
He scowled. “I need to see some ID, lady.” At least he wasn’t yelling anymore.
“No problem. It’s in my purse. Is it okay if I open it?” She kept her tone even and unthreatening.
“Yeah, slowly. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Don’t worry.” Hands trembling from the adrenaline coursing through her, she opened her purse with great care and removed her wallet.
“Toss it here,” he demanded. “No funny stuff.”
She battled the urge to roll her eyes. Like she’d fire it at him when he had a gun trained on her. “I put mine down,” she said, eyeing his pistol. “Can you holster yours, please? My boyfriend would be furious if you shoot me.”
“I don’t give a rat’s fuzzy ass if your boyfriend is mad at me.”
You would if you k
new he was a CIA covert operative who knew forty-two different ways of maiming you with a set of chopsticks, she thought. Not wanting to rile him any further, she answered with a simple, “Fair enough. Just asking you to not point that at me anymore.”
She remained motionless as he considered her with a squint. When he returned his firearm to his holster, she returned to breathing.
Now that she wasn’t afraid he’d accidentally put a bullet in her, she tossed him the wallet. While he scrutinized her identification, she studied him. He was an African American in his mid-thirties, around six feet tall and only slightly overweight. He sported a thin mustache and a yellow gold wedding band. The name badge on his chest read S. Green.
“It says here you do work for the government, but you’re just a librarian,” he said.
Her teeth ground at the words “just a librarian.”
“What’s a librarian doing with a gun?”
“I make sure people pay their overdue fines,” she said before she could stop herself.
His head jerked up and he burst out laughing. “You librarians are real hard-asses, aren’t you?”
She smiled, caught the wallet when he tossed it back, and returned it to her purse.
His gaze dropped to her hand. Jutting his chin at her, he asked, “Where’d the blood come from?”
“You heard about what’s happening over at the Jefferson Building?”
“Yeah. Sounds like a real cluster.”
“It’s pretty chaotic.” She lifted her blood stained hand. “I was a guest at the reception. The ambassador’s wife got a gash on her head. I was trying to stop the bleeding.”
He nodded and rubbed a hand over his closely cropped hair. “They told me to stay down here and watch this end of the tunnel.”
“Have you seen or heard anything?”
“That’s a negative. You’re the only person that’s come over here. Chatter on the radio says the guys upstairs haven’t seen anything either.”
She pointed at the Glock on the floor and raised her eyebrows in question. He nodded and waved a hand.
She picked it up. “I’m going to head back, then.”
“If you don’t want to call too much attention to yourself, I suggest you wash your hands first.”
She looked at the dried blood. “Good call. Be right back.”
She went into the nearby ladies’ room and headed straight for the sink. Water tinged with red swirled down the drain. It took two rounds of soap before her hands were clean again.
As she dried them with a paper towel, she glanced at her reflection in the mirror. By some miracle, blood hadn’t stained her dress. After tonight, though, she was pretty sure she’d rather bury it in her parents’ backyard than wear it again.
She threw the paper towel in the trash, grabbed the Glock, and exited the bathroom.
Officer Green stood at the junction between the building and the tunnel. As she passed him, she said, “Hold down the fort.”
“Copy that,” he said and threw her a salute. “Gun-toting, barefoot librarian. When I tell them about you, they’re never going to believe me.”
“Tell them I wore my hair in a bun. Then they’ll believe you,” she said over her shoulder.
His deep, booming laughter trailed behind her as she trotted away.
She was the first to return to where she and James had split off. Rather than wait around for him, she decided to find him at Adams.
She’d only traveled a short distance when she spotted James jogging toward her.
“I got nothing,” she said when they met. She turned around and matched James’s pace. “You?”
“It looks like the bad guys got away via the Adams Building. The two guards over there were unconscious.”
Back where they started, Quinn found her shoes and slipped them on. They stowed their weapons, went up a level, and retraced their steps to the main entrance. They hung back and assessed the situation. Light from emergency vehicles parked in the driveway flashed across the faces of responders still rushing about.
“It looks like every agency in Washington is here,” James said. “FBI, Homeland Security, Capitol Police, Metro fire, paramedics.”
“Do we join them and add to the alphabet soup?”
He shook his head. “It’s one thing to flash an ID to a guy like Officer Attitude in a fluid situation and say we’re federal officers. It’s another to have to give statements to the police and be vague about who we work for. Not answering directly tends to raise red flags. Our only debrief should be at headquarters.”
“We need to sneak out.”
“Yeah. The problem is all of the exits are blocked, and even if we did get out, we don’t know where my car is. God knows where the valet parked it.”
Quinn peered around James toward the exit. She caught sight of Kavita walking alongside a gurney carrying Mrs. Sharma with a white bandage wrapped around her head. It relieved her to see Mrs. Sharma was fully awake as paramedics wheeled her out the door.
“If we can get out of this building, we can figure something out from there,” Quinn said.
“Take the Metro or something.” From his tone, Quinn could tell he was already mulling over their options. “We can’t go out Adams. It’s probably already crawling with agents since it was the escape route.”
Quinn smiled. “I’ve got us covered. Come on.”
She led him down the stairs again and half walked, half ran to the Madison Building.
At the entrance, Quinn raised her voice and said, “Officer Green. The gun-toting librarian is back.”
He came around the corner and smiled. “Hey! Didn’t expect to see you again so soon.” He regarded James. “Is this the boyfriend?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Look, man. I’m sorry I pointed a gun at her.”
“What?” James yelped and rounded on her. “He pointed a gun at you? When were you going to tell me about that?”
“Later, when things settled down.” She put a hand on his arm. “It’s okay. I was armed. He was just doing his job.”
James expelled a breath in exasperation and stared up at the ceiling.
“Found yourself a real live wire, haven’t you?” the officer said, chuckling.
“You have no idea.” James was clearly trying to hold back a laugh.
“Anyway,” Quinn said pointedly to get the conversation on track again. “James is a resident at George Washington University Hospital. His attending just called and needs him there right away. We’ve already given the police our statements, but they aren’t letting anyone go yet.” She put a hand on her hip. “I mean, James told the old man we’re stuck in this mess, but the guy’s a real hard-ass.” Her bangs bounced when she blew out a breath in frustration. “And James is still in the doghouse for when we went to Virginia Beach for the weekend and had the gall to turn off his phone so we could have some alone time.”
James slipped his arm around her waist and kissed her head. “I’d do it again, sweetie. That weekend was magic.” To Officer Green, he said, “But yeah, I really need to get to the hospital or my ass will be in a sling.”
“Well, since you’ve already given your statements and she’s a Fed anyway, I don’t see why not. It’s not like either of you are smuggling rare manuscripts out or anything. I’ll escort you.”
Quinn battled the smile twitching on her lips. She and James actually had snuck a manuscript out of a library once. “That’d be great. Thank you so much. We appreciate it.”
“No problem.”
Officer Green led them up a flight of stairs and through the lobby. Glimpses of the interior of the building had Quinn making a mental note to visit it in the near future.
At the exit, they each shook Officer Green’s hand and gave him their thanks. “Come back and see me sometime.”
“We will,” Quinn said. “I promise.”
They walked out into the cool night air. “Of course, I’ll have to be Dr. Anderson if we ever visit Officer Green again,” James said wh
en they were a sufficient distance from the building. He draped an arm over her shoulders. “Are you sure you haven’t finished your training yet? You’re quite the accomplished liar.”
“Only when it’s government sanctioned. And I learned from the best, Mr. Lockwood,” she said, referring to the alias James had used when they first met.
“Touché.”
They joined the crowd of onlookers watching the activities across the street at the Jefferson Building. Above them, a helicopter circled with a searchlight shining down. “Should we try the ‘Dr. Anderson needs to get to the hospital’ line on the valet?” she asked.
He frowned and shook his head. “I don’t think it will work. Those valets are so far down the food chain they wouldn’t make a decision like that without checking with the police first. We’d be right back to where we started.”
“So we need a good reason for them to not check with the police.” She thought for a moment. A scene from Trigger Pull, a novel from her favorite spy series, sprang to mind. “I have an idea, but I have to go it alone.”
“No way,” he stated flatly. “You’ve already had a gun pointed at you once tonight. You’re not going anywhere without me.”
She pulled him away from the crowd. “No guns, I promise. I’m just going to talk. If it doesn’t work, I’ll walk away. No harm, no foul.”
James remained silent for a moment and then heaved a resigned sigh. “I’ll be here when you get back.” He took the valet stub from his pocket and held it out.
She smiled and snatched the ticket from his fingers. “You’d better be.” She bounced on her toes and kissed him. “I love you.” Saying those words always sent a chill up her spine.
His smile lit up his face despite the trepidation lurking in his eyes. “I love you, too.”
She pecked his lips once more before spinning around and zigzagging through the emergency vehicles and TV news vans clogging the street. Near the entrance of the carriage lane, she stopped, hid in the shadows of a tree, and scoped out the area.
The valet stand had moved from right in front of the library entrance to closer to where she currently stood. That was good. The farther it was from the authorities, the better.