“Seriously,” he said to Barnes. “Just get out at the next light, and we won’t tell anyone we saw you.” Barnes would know Grady was lying, but he just wanted the man to go already. “We aren’t your ticket out of here.”
He prayed the man took that direction. Please, Lord. Don’t let Skylar get hurt. Help me protect her. It felt right to ask God for help, even though it had been a while since he’d done it. God wasn’t one to hold grudges about ignoring Him. He was all about grace and mercy—which Grady and Skylar would need plenty of in order to get out of this alive.
Barnes snorted. “The minute I get out, you’ll call Command and tell them exactly where I am.”
“Then leave us. Take the car.” He had to protect Skylar. Saving her life was more important right now than making sure Barnes didn’t get away.
“And lose the opportunity to kill you so you can’t make my life worse?”
“You said yourself it’s too late to go back. Shooting us won’t keep us from implicating you. Shooting Wilson and then Director Tanner already did that.”
“Hey, that wasn’t me who hit Tanner. It was the other guy.”
“On your orders, no doubt.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about. So why don’t you shut up and just drive!”
*
The man was mentally unhinged, swinging the gun around. Skylar was reaching new heights of scared-for-her-life today, and all of it had to do with the man in the back of the car. The one pointing a gun at her. Again.
She could hear the constant buzz of Grady’s phone in his vest pocket. The Secret Service were probably calling, wondering where they were. Had they caught the other shooter? Hopefully that meant people were looking for them.
If there was some way she could get free, and out of the car, Barnes wouldn’t have this power over either of them. She hardly wanted to leave Grady with him, but it would help bring this situation to a close. It would be one against one. No distractions for Grady. While Barnes was desperate enough he wouldn’t be thinking straight. That gave Grady the advantage, even with the risk of getting shot.
Barnes held the gun on Grady while he continued to drive. The man was out of her reach, and he’d see it coming if she tried to swing her arm back and hit him with the unloaded gun. She’d handed him the clip, and figured he’d simply been too distracted by conversation with Grady to ask for the rest. But she couldn’t knock him out without giving him three seconds warning while she maneuvered into position to make an effective swing toward his head with the butt of the gun.
Grady glanced at her, just once. Skylar didn’t wanted him to see how frightened she was. She didn’t want to let down their side, or be the weak link. How else could she bring this to an end?
Barnes and Skylar both leaned toward the front of the car as they slowed. The driver of a car behind them lay on his horn. Barnes barked out, “Why have we slowed down?”
“Traffic,” Grady said. “It might be just after lunchtime, but this is DC.”
“I know. I grew up here,” Barnes said. “I’m not some tourist who knows nothing about this city.”
Skylar jumped on the opportunity to get him to talk. “What about Wilson. The guy was British, right?”
He said nothing.
“And the clock? Why that, when there are plenty of other artifacts in the White House you could have taken that are far more valuable?” Skylar shrugged. “I mean, it’s practically a museum.”
“It is a museum,” Grady said.
She shot him a look. The side of his face at least. He was driving, so he couldn’t look at her every second. Didn’t he realize she was fishing for information? Kind of the way he had done, asking Barnes questions.
“See what I mean?” she told Barnes. “Plenty of other things. Why that clock?”
“Because.”
Skylar sighed. We’re not getting anywhere. “It must hold some value to you. I refuse to believe it was simply an easy item to take. I mean, it’s not huge and bulky like some of the paintings. Or a vase.”
“Or a chair. Do you have a point—” Barnes’s eyes had darkened “—or are you simply attempting to talk me all the way to an insanity plea?”
She shrugged, like this was all no big deal to her. “There has to be a reason why you wanted Wilson to take that particular thing. I’m just curious.”
“That killed the cat. Didn’t you know?”
Skylar glanced at her door. He needed to believe she was kowtowed, and not about to jump free of the car. That she wouldn’t make a fuss, and Grady would do what he needed to in order to save her. Barnes had to keep believing he would get what he wanted. Why they had to go on a joyride through Washington, she didn’t know. Nor did she want to think about what he’d said about killing them and taking the car.
No one would ever know who did it. Or why. She didn’t want to be a corpse at the morgue. Her father and uncle would never rest until they found the truth, which would put them in Barnes’s crosshairs as well. She didn’t want to believe that her whole life and everything she’d gone through in the military—and, yeah, her unhappy marriage—had all led to…this.
Nothing but the victim of a dirty Secret Service agent and a man who’d been handpicked to take part in a Secret Service exercise. Both had been vetted. Both had been investigated. Whoever he was in real life, Wilson’s profile had to have come back clean. The alternative was he’d bought his way in. Used Barnes to get on the exercise roster.
Wilson had possessed a regal nose, not to mention that high-brow accent. She couldn’t really tell one regional UK accent from another. More than the more well-known ones, at least. There were so many variations it wouldn’t help her figure out who he was. But now he was dead, and Barnes was determined to kill more people in order to get away. And to what end, a life on the run?
Grady would hunt him down.
Grady and the rest of the Secret Service.
The White House had been nothing but a source of terror all day. She thought she wanted to be on the president’s detail, but maybe she didn’t want to go back there later on in her career, after all.
Maybe Skylar would see her career as a Secret Service agent soar in financial crimes, and she’d never set foot in the White House again. She hadn’t decided where she wanted to end up, not wishing to put limits on what she could do. Or on who she could be.
Faced with Barnes here and now, she couldn’t say her modest upbringing had prepared her to deal with this guy. But at least he didn’t use his masculinity or—like her ex-husband—his perceived oh-so-much-higher intelligence against her. Earl had always talked down to her, then got frustrated that he had to explain things.
It was part of the reason she’d studied so hard for all the Secret Service tests. There was no way anyone would ever be able to take that tone with her again.
Unfortunately, that attitude had landed her here in this car, afraid for her life again.
Skylar shifted her hands toward the door. Unlike the van they’d been in this morning—a smaller-model utility truck—this was a regular car. If she could pull fast enough on the handle, could she jump out? Road rash was preferable to death—assuming he didn’t shoot her before she hit the pavement. What choice was there?
Skylar shifted another inch. Barnes’s attention was on the front window, and Grady’s driving. They were moving slow but steady, rolling at maybe fifteen or twenty miles per hour. That was good—it would hurt less when she jumped out. And hopefully give the driver in the vehicle behind theirs time to hit the brakes so he didn’t run her over.
It was always the small things that counted.
Skylar glanced at Barnes. The gun. At Grady. She wasn’t going to be a pawn. Was she really going to do this? She reached over with one hand, braced to pull the handle and dive out.
A gunshot blast boomed in the car. The noise exploded her eardrum into a high, loud whine. The windshield shattered. Barnes, trying to stop her. The noise in her ears was deafening, ringing like high
-pitched electronics, while Grady seemed to be yelling in a muffled tone behind it all. She screamed but couldn’t hear it over the firework sound still in her ears. Nor could she hear what he was saying.
The car jerked to the right. Skylar’s head hit the frame as they careened to the side. She tried to hang on, but with the disorientation she couldn’t grasp on to anything. Barnes had fallen to his side on the seat and was now fighting to get back to a sitting position. A gash on his temple trickled down his face. Grady gripped the wheel tightly, and then she saw it.
They were headed right for it.
Twenty miles per hour.
Thirty.
A second later, they slammed into the concrete barrier.
TWELVE
Grady punched down the airbag. His face felt like it’d been hit with a two-by-four, and the air smelled like the gun range. He cracked the door open, stumbled out and nearly went down on one knee. Caught himself on the frame of the door and managed to stay standing.
“Dude, are you okay?” The young man who ran up couldn’t have been more than nineteen and had a camera slung around his neck. “That was crazy.”
Grady only nodded. “Call the police.”
Sirens were already headed their way. The noise cut through the din of traffic and people approaching in conversation. Plus the ringing in Grady’s ears. He’d been close enough he’d felt pain from that shot in his own ears, but Skylar had to be hurting. He ignored the discomfort and rounded the back of the car. It wasn’t worth looking at the front end, now smashed like an accordion against the wall of this building.
The rear door was open.
He looked inside, even though an armed Barnes tucked behind the driver’s seat would shoot him without a second thought if he stuck his head in, no warning. But he had to see.
Sure enough, Barnes was nowhere to be found. Skylar lay across the center console, sprawled at an odd angle. Like his sister’s old rag doll. There was no visible blood, not even after he shifted her back upright.
He wanted to stay with her, but couldn’t. He winced at the thought of her reaction to what he was about to do and asked the people around him, “Did anyone see a man run away from the car?”
A couple glanced at each other like Grady was nuts. The young man lifted one hand. “Secret Service jacket, brown hair?”
Grady nodded. “Which way did he go?”
The young man pointed.
“Stay with her until the cops get here.” Grady took off after Barnes. He didn’t want to leave Skylar, but he had to catch this menace who had threatened their lives so many times today.
When he finally saw him, Barnes was already half a block ahead and running fast. People saw his gun and got out of his way.
Grady used his cell phone to call whoever was now manning the command post. “I’m in pursuit of Barnes.” He gave the location and then hung up after backup was promised.
Someone got in Barnes’s way, and he shoved them roughly against a building. The man slumped to the ground.
Grady yelled, “Get down! Get out of the way!”
Barnes now knew he was in pursuit, but it couldn’t be helped.
The man who’d been hurt lay propped against the wall of a building, clutching the left side of his head. Grady couldn’t see how bad it was, but the older man was pale. His eyes wide. There were enough people around that he’d get help.
So Grady left him to stick with his chase.
Just like he’d had to leave Skylar behind in the car. Was she okay? His head was foggy from the impact, and his ears were still ringing. But he wasn’t about to let her continue on with the threat of being killed hanging over her head. He had to do this. And he figured he had the wherewithal to stick with the pursuit. Thank You, Lord. Help me catch him. He would bring Barnes in.
He had to.
The alternative was to have a homicidal traitor running around Washington. One who evidently didn’t know he was headed right for the FBI building.
They were on the other side of the street, but still. He was crazy if he thought he could actually get away with this.
Barnes ran across the street, headed toward a familiar stone building. It almost looked like a palace, or something constructed by the Greeks. Statues flanked the rear door, over which hung a sign indicating it was not the visitor’s entrance of the National Archives.
Grady followed him. Passed in front of the statue to the right—a seated man, one arm clutching a book that lay across his lap and the other holding a scroll. The inscription on the statue said STUDY THE PAST.
There was no time to do so now, though. Not when he was in pursuit of a murderer and traitor. Besides, he’d been over and over what happened with Paula so many times he needed to quit thinking on it.
A security guard had the back door open, a staff member having just gone through it.
Barnes shot the guy and went inside. Before the door swung closed, Grady heard two more shots.
Gun raised, he entered the archives in pursuit of a man who was supposed to have been on the same side as him. Inside, one security guard was down, as well as the staffer who’d gone through the door ahead of Barnes.
The injured guard whimpered, and her gaze darted around the hall. She saw Grady approach, and her eyes met his. Save me. Her eyes practically screamed.
Grady said, “Where did he go?”
The guard pointed.
Grady found Barnes in a hall, with way too many sightseers hanging around. Even one in the line of fire was too many. “Drop the gun, Barnes.”
The man’s whole demeanor screamed bravado. He wasn’t worried about getting caught? They were at a standoff. The man should at least be concerned this might not go his way. What did he know that Grady did not?
Barnes grabbed a woman and held his gun to her head.
“No!” Grady took two more steps. Gritted his teeth. “Let the woman go, and we’ll talk.” He paused. “Share information. Figure out a way to help each other.” Never mind the fact that this guy was in serious trouble. There was no way Grady would actually let him get away.
“I find that hard to believe, considering all I’ve done this morning. But go ahead,” Barnes taunted, “bluff all you want, Agent Farrow.”
Grady bit down on his molars. He couldn’t risk a shot hitting the woman or anyone else in the hallway. The crowd had backed up and gathered against the walls. They shifted slowly, all headed for the exit doors.
Barnes dragged the woman back two steps. He glanced around, saw precisely where he was—a fact Grady’s brain clocked as interesting from a tactical standpoint—and pulled the fire alarm on the wall right beside him.
He shoved the woman at Grady just as the alarm blared to life. The reaction was instantaneous. Shouting. A rush of people.
Grady caught her and used the momentum to rotate them both. He sent her on toward the people crowded against the wall. “Get out of here.”
Grady wasted no time running in the direction he’d seen Barnes go—toward the stairwell.
When he punched the safety bar and emerged to the marble staircase, he stopped immediately. Gun up, finger down the barrel, he listened. Barnes could be waiting here for him, but he wasn’t.
An elderly lady rushed up the stairs, wide-eyed. She took one look at Grady’s uniform and pointed behind her. “They went that way.”
He’d gone down the stairs, then. Not up.
Grady raced down after him. At the bottom of this staircase was a small cafeteria and an auditorium. As he raced after Barnes, Grady prayed no one would get hurt here. Both areas on this sublevel might be full of people. The last thing he needed was Barnes opening fire in a crowd and murdering innocent civilians out of desperation.
People filed past him, headed for the stairs. For a second, Grady thought he saw Niles—the man who’d saved them from Simmons. Probably just someone who looked like him, though. The alarm was earsplittingly loud, but he ignored the discomfort and tried to locate Barnes in the crowd.
There.
Barnes wove between people. Families. A couple, two toddlers in tow. Thankfully, he left them alone and crossed what was a small lobby of sorts, through a set of doors that had been propped open and then cut right. Grady sped up in time to see him head up a hallway that rose in elevation between multiple people who didn’t notice the man’s gun.
They noticed Grady’s.
Several screamed, until they noted his searching for someone—not them. Then they screamed and glanced around—looking for the real threat. Grady ran on, undeterred by their reaction.
Two security guards followed suit, calling for the crowd to part as they made their way up the incline behind them.
Grady emerged into the auditorium, empty now except for two rows of kids, all wearing neon yellow T-shirts. The last thing he wanted was Barnes using a class of school children as human shields.
But Barnes ignored them. He raced between rows toward the far end of the huge room and a lit sign.
EXIT.
Grady yelled over his shoulder to the security guards. “Call in. Get someone at that exit to cut him off.”
He didn’t wait around for them to call it in. Barnes jumped over a row of seats, ran two feet and then jumped again. He was headed for the door to the side of the stage. Not the back entrance on the far side of the auditorium.
Grady raced around the rear, an arced walkway behind the last row of seating. He knew he was fast—fast enough he’d beaten several other Secret Service agents in the last Marine Corps marathon. Was he fast enough to get all the way across the back and down the stairs at the far side to the stage door before Barnes?
He pushed all thoughts of the morning, Director Tanner’s prognosis and Skylar—not to mention her pretty face—from his mind. Those things would distract him. Grady pumped his arms and legs and tore across the carpet behind the auditorium’s back row.
The teacher squealed. Seconds later, she ordered all the kids to follow her, though several seemed more interested in the scenario playing out. Grady would have made them stay where they were but didn’t fault her for getting them out of the way. There was an armed man running toward them.
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