Targeted by the SEAL: HERO Force book six

by Amy Gamet

  He swerved to miss a Toyota stopped in the middle of the busy street, no driver in sight, as he spoke to Cowboy. “Where the fuck is she? He brought her here, but I can’t imagine he dragged her all over town setting charges.”

  “That could have been done weeks or days ago by any member of The Community,” said Cowboy.

  “He’s here to watch his masterpiece as it unfolds,” said Austin. “He needs to be part of it. Needs to see it with his own eyes.”

  “He might even need to be a part of it.”

  “But where? That’s the question. It’s a big city and we’ve got nothing to go on.”

  “Cassidy Lane, a reporter from the Washington Post, is believed to be with The Community and has issued a statement on their behalf. It reads, ‘The people of Seattle must repent their sinister ways. More people will die before the fires of hell are cleared from the earth, and only the righteous will be guided through the darkness as if on rails.”

  “‘As if on rails,’” Cowboy said. “That’s awkward as hell.”

  It really was, but Cassidy was a journalist. She could write better than that. Going through the darkness on rails reminded him of his earlier conversation with Cassidy about the roller coaster Space Mountain at Disneyworld. His eyes widened. “It’s deliberate. It’s a clue for me.”

  Cowboy turned toward him. “Come again?”

  “We were talking about Space Mountain the other day. She knew my mind would go right there.”

  Noah chimed in from the backseat. “I hate that ride. The whole thing’s in the dark. You never know when the turns are coming.”

  “I don’t know about you,” said Cowboy, “But when I’m trying to decide between major Seattle attractions, Space Mountain makes me think of Space Needle.”

  “Me too,” said Austin and Noah at the same time.

  Austin pulled over and cut people off making a U-turn in chaotic Doomsday traffic. “That’s where he’s taking her. The Space Needle.”

  It was a incredibly tall tower in downtown Seattle known for its circular observation deck overlooking the city, Elliott Bay, and several mountains in the distance.

  22

  Cassidy stumbled up hundreds of stairs, David pulling her behind him. The elevator was closed, security and the police presence working to keep people out of the building. The longer she climbed, the sicker she was just knowing how high they must be and the terrible fate David had in store for her.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about it, the image of her hanging from the top of the Space Needle activating her fear of heights and nearly paralyzing her body, but he continued to drag her with him up higher and higher.

  Her legs ached and her breath was coming fast, but the only sign David was affected by the difficulty of climbing hundreds of feet into the air was the perspiration saturating his underarms and back.

  The elevators had been closed, guards posted at each bay. That didn’t stop David, though. He’d walked through a back service entrance and straight into a stairwell as if he were invisible to the masses. He believed God was helping him, but Cassidy was damn sure that wasn’t the case. He’d been lucky, and she could only hope his luck would run out soon.

  She tripped and went down on her knee, the solid step unforgiving as it hit bone, and she gasped. “Slow down. You’re hurting me.”

  “You’re not going fast enough. We’re on a very strict schedule. I don’t want too much time between the explosion at the market and what I have planned here, or the networks will go back to regular programming. Fucking heathens! You can never miss your soap operas or game shows. Not even for God.”

  She clenched her jaw, her physical fatigue and fear making her brave in the face of this man. “You aren’t God.”

  She was still on her knees on the stairs when David lifted his leg and kicked her in the ribs. “I may not be God, but I am as good as God to you. Now get up.”

  Nausea was bubbling through her abdomen and she clutched at her side, unmoving. In one swift movement he brought his knee within a fraction of an inch of her already throbbing jawbone.

  “Get up!”

  With a strength she didn’t know she had, she pulled herself to a stand. David grabbed her hand and resumed his march, dragging her in tow. This time as they passed the window, her gaze swept the horrifying view.

  So. High. Up.

  She bent at the waist and threw up, barely missing her dress. David yanked her forward through the mess.

  He started blabbering again, nonsensical words mixed in with talk of damnation and fire. He seemed to be losing his connection with reality and every way that mattered—every way except the planning of his attacks.

  She yanked her hand out of his. “I’m not going.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “Beat me.” She shrugged. “I don’t care anymore. You can’t make me go up there.”

  He grabbed another fistful of her hair and pulled hard, her scalp already so tender from the last time he’d done so. “I’ll bet I can.”

  “Try it. If you want me to hang me off the top of this thing, you’ll have to kill me before we get there.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “You’re going to help me convince this city of sinners to repent and change their ways. Don’t you want that?”

  “I don’t really give a shit.” She turned around, aware of her exaggerated movements like a drunk person. The first blow shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it was. He slammed her head into the wall with such force she thought he might have killed her right then.

  She continued to move down the stairway as David ranted, his footfalls heavy on the steps behind her. “Of course, none of them will do it. It’s already too late for them. It’s the example we’re setting for the others that matters.”

  He kicked her in the back, sending her flying down the steps and headfirst into the landing, her white polyester dress sticking to her skin like a mummy’s wrap.

  Austin isn’t coming. He isn’t going to save you.

  She was dizzy and in so much pain, consciousness no longer a given. She tried to focus her eyes as David reached around her waist and picked her up, putting her over his shoulder.

  The motion of his body as he carried her worsened her dizziness and nausea. “Stupid girl,” he said with a snicker. “If you were going to resist, you should have done it at the bottom of the stairway, not the top.”

  She must have blacked out, because when she came to, she was sitting on the landing beside a door and he was strapping something on her face. She pawed at it.

  “It’s a gas mask. Unless you’d truly like to die?”

  She reluctantly pulled it onto her face. Dying was seeming like more and more of a possibility today. She thought of her parents and how upset they would be. She thought of Austin’s face when she’d refused to leave the compound with him. If she’d only known it would be the last time she’d see his face, she would have told him what was in her heart.

  I love him.

  He opened the door to the observation deck a mere few inches and threw something out of the stairwell. Voices erupted in a cacophony of panic from the other side of the door. Someone tried to open the stairwell door but David fought to keep it closed, the woman on the other side coughing heavily until there was no noise at all.

  David turned to Cassidy, pushed his gas mask to the top of his head and smiled. “Are you ready for your big moment?”

  You’re going to look so beautiful dangling from the Space Needle.

  She took in a shaking breath and keened, her eyes squeezing shut. A voice in her head shouted for her to be brave, not to let this man see he’d broken her, but hysteria had taken hold and all she could do was cry.

  She couldn’t imagine he was serious until now, would never believe he was capable of pulling off such a stunt until now— police officers unconscious on the other side of the door, the crazed look in his eye that said everything was going as planned.

  Stop your sniveling and fight back!

  This psy
chotic fucker had a God complex, and it was high time she knocked some holes in his theories. She ripped off her mask. “I’m not going to let you do this. You have no power over me.”

  He raised his chin. “You vowed your loyalty to me and The Community.”

  “I lied. You are not God. I have free will and I can do as I please.”

  His eyes went wide. “I am your destiny. You are the pure woman I was promised.”

  She laughed out loud. “I am not a virgin, you asshole. So if you’re looking for some sacrificial lamb to hang off the Space Needle like a spider on a string, you’re plum out of luck.”

  He spit on her face, in her eye, in her mouth. “The devil can have you then, but the show must go on.”

  23

  “We have to get up there,” said Cowboy, flashing his identification to the policeman guarding the elevator that ran to the top of the Space Needle.

  “HERO Force?” said the officer, handing back his ID. “Only official government agency responders can go upstairs.”

  “Leo Wilson, U.S. Navy SEAL. This is Austin Dixon and Noah Ryker. They’re SEALs, too. We’ve been working undercover at The Community, a cult run by David Kelleher.”

  The officer’s eyes widened. “The guy blowing up the bombs.”

  “That’s right. We have reason to believe he’s on the observation deck with a hostage.”

  “The observation deck was cleared more than an hour ago. The only people up there are law enforcement.”

  Austin and Cowboy exchanged a glance. “Check,” said Austin.

  The officer furrowed his brow. “Excuse me?”

  Cowboy shrugged. “You guys have security cameras up there, don’t you? Check the feed. If there is nothing abnormal, we’ll leave you alone with our apologies.”

  The cop looked to another cop, who shrugged. “Why not?”

  “All right, I’ll go check. You two stay here.” He pointed at the other policemen. “Don’t let them upstairs.”

  He walked away and Cowboy moved closer to Austin, whispering, “What if everything up there is fine?”

  “Then we go to plan B.”

  “Which is what?”

  “I don’t have a fucking clue.”

  A ruckus erupted from the street, the noise reaching them through two banks of glass doors. Austin and Cowboy ran outside, one voice standing out against the others. “Someone’s hanging from the observation deck!” shouted a man.

  Austen feared what he would find before he even raised his head. There, hanging some hundred feet in the air from the bottom of the space needle, was a woman in a white dress.

  A woman who could only be Cassidy.

  Horror like nothing he’d ever experienced pulled a cry of pure fear from his gut as the moment moved in slow motion. “No!”

  Then he was racing back inside, Cowboy on his heels. The officer who’d gone to look at the surveillance footage waved them into the elevator, three officers already inside. “Everybody on the observation floor is down,” said the cop as the doors closed. “We don’t know if they are incapacitated or dead. The only person visible on the cameras is a man, forty to forty-five, small build, dark hair, climbing on the security cables.”

  “David Kelleher,” said Austin. “There’s a woman hanging from the observation deck. Cassidy Lane. We have to get her down safely.” He pulled out his weapon as Cowboy and the officers did the same.

  The car shot upward, the city of Seattle spread out before them through the glass walls.

  “You know her?” asked the officer.

  “Yes.” He loaded the gun. “I’m the one who left her in harm’s way.”

  This time you have to save her.

  A dark abyss of self-doubt had opened in his mind. What if he couldn’t get to her in time? What if the Space Needle was already wired to explode like the other attractions and Cassidy met her end along with it?

  He had to keep it from happening.

  The officer handed out gas masks. Moments ticked by like hours as they made their ascent, the doors finally opening onto a glass-walled round room with a walkway visible beyond it.

  The observation deck. Somewhere out there was David Kelleher and—God willing—the tether that was keeping Cassidy from falling to the ground. Austin sprung forth, his gun at the ready as he made his way outside.

  Cowboy went one way around the circle, Noah the other.

  But the observation deck appeared to be empty. Austin ran three-quarters of the way around before finding Cowboy leaning out where Cassidy was suspended. The metal security ropes had been cut, allowing Kelleher to climb out of the observation deck and onto the steel that extended beyond it, the metal coming out like spokes that connected to a wider steel ring encompassing the tower.

  There, around the outermost ring of the tower, was a metal cable wrapped around and hanging down. Austin looked down, just able to see Cassidy’s dress blowing in the breeze, his stomach turning as he grasped the depth of her plight.

  “They have to have harnesses and safety cables here somewhere. Ask the cops. Go. Go!” he said to Cowboy, who hurried off.

  Austin grabbed the broken cables and hauled himself up. He was so desperate to reach her a part of him longed to go out there now without a safety cable. A stupid move when Kelleher was around. As if on cue, a voice came from behind him.

  “Welcome to the show.”

  Austin whipped around to find Kelleher behind him, smiling widely. He wore a body harness but had no weapon, and Austin longed to shoot him dead.

  Or kill him with my bare hands.

  He did neither.

  Kelleher looked at the gun. “You don’t want to do that. You see this?” In his hand he held what looked like a remote control device. “If I let go of this button, she’ll plummet to the ground like a stone.”

  The officers who rode up with them in the elevator were visible in the glassed-in observation room behind Kelleher, carrying what must be harnesses and safety cables. Austin held up his hand to keep them there.

  “Let her go, Kelleher.”

  “God wants her to dance. Right now every TV camera in town is pointed at that woman held high above the ground, hoping with all their might she survives.” He pointed to the highest level of the Space Needle, a miniature observation deck just below the needle that looked like a maintenance area. “Today I will give my sermon on the mount, and all the eyes of the sinners in this city will see the error of their ways.”

  “What about Cassidy?”

  “She’ll die. That’s the only way this story can end. True repentance only comes when something important is taken away.”

  “And the Space Needle?”

  “It will explode with such force, the top will end up in Elliot Bay. Very dramatic for our friends in the media.”

  “And you die a martyr’s death.”

  David cocked his head. “I live another day to teach others about the dangers of sin and greed. I am doing the Lord’s work. He doesn’t want me to perish.”

  “This God of yours sounds like a really nasty character.”

  “Those who don’t believe are the worst sinners of all.”

  “Oh, I believe in God,” said Austin. “I know he’s real. But he’s not the asshole you seem to think he is.”

  Kelleher’s eyes darkened. “When the fires of hell lick at your feet, you will remember this moment.”

  “Like you, when this building explodes?”

  “I told you, I will not die.”

  Austin narrowed his eyes. Half the world was downstairs, yet this man planned to escape? “Then how are you going to get out?”

  “I’ll spread my wings like an angel and fly.”

  Suddenly, a chorus of voices could be heard screaming from the street below, Cassidy’s distinctive and louder yelp reaching Austin’s ears. He responded viscerally, every hair on his body standing on end. “What did you do?” he growled as he looked over the edge. There was Cassidy, still hanging from the tower.

  “Oops,”
said David. “My finger slipped. Now stay here or I’ll really drop her next time.”

  “What’s the matter?” asked Austin. “You afraid I’ll show the crowd the good in humanity by going out on a limb to save another?”

  “She’s a whore and a temptress. She deserves to die for her sins.”

  “She’s the woman I love.” The words came so easily to his lips, yet they sounded strange to his ears. He’d never claimed to love a woman in his whole damn life.

  It’s true. I do love her.

  And now he was in danger of losing her forever.

  David scoffed.

  Austin took a step toward him. “You wouldn’t know about love, would you? You’re damaged goods. Not right in the head. A psycho. What’s the matter, mom and dad didn’t love you enough?”

  “Stop moving.”

  “You been called that before, David? Maybe you don’t really talk to God. Maybe you just need a prescription.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s time for me to preach the truth to all the world. You tell those cops in there to let me through. Any funny business and the girl dies.”

  Austin walked ahead of him into the building, telling everyone to steer clear—the three cops, Cowboy and Noah. Kelleher produced a key and unlocked a door labelled, “Authorized Personnel Only.”

  “Remember,” he said to Austin. “Try to rescue the girl and she’ll be nothing but a splat on the sidewalk.”

  The door closed behind him.

  “I found a firehose,” said Noah. “Should be long enough to reach her.”

  “I’ll climb out to the ring,” said Austin.

  “Here’s your safety harness,” said an officer.

  Austin frowned. “What does it attach to?”

  “There’s an inner ring that goes around the whole structure. Made for safety lines for routine maintenance.”

  “But if she’s hanging from the outside ring and I’m hanging from the inside, I won’t be able to reach her.”

  The officer in charge spoke up. “He’ll be able to see you if you go out to the rings.”

  Austin wanted to scream that he didn’t care what Kelleher did to him as long as Cassidy was safe, but of course, he couldn’t guarantee her safety if Kelleher saw him trying to save her. “What do you suggest?” asked Austin.