Operation Stealing Christmas

by Vicki Hinze

  She waited, knowing the longer it took for a response, the less the odds were for agreement.

  “Denied.” Darcy sounded as frustrated as Maggie felt.

  Kate erupted. “What do they want, a frontal assault, full-scale attack before they’ll make a freaking commitment?”

  She’d override it.

  “We’ve also been told that they’ll override any national security order, should you choose to use it to countermand their decision on this.”

  Outrage roiled in Maggie. “Why?”

  “Similar events have occurred in three states. Right down to the C-4. But nothing proves conclusively GRID is involved or that the incidents are irrefutably connected. Until such time as we, or Intel, conclusively make those connections, locals have ultimate authority. That’s Barone.”

  “Who is MIA,” Maggie said, not adding that even if he weren’t missing in action, he wouldn’t have the backbone to do anything about this.

  “Missing or not, only he can shut the place down. The owners each are free to make their own choices.”

  “They have.” Frustration flowed through Maggie and erupted. “HQ’s tied my hands,” she said, referencing headquarters. “Maybe they need to get their hides down here to counter Kunz, then.”

  “Maggie,” Colonel Drake said. “Remember what I told you about the rules.”

  To break the rules to do what she needed to do. Maggie sighed. “Got it, Colonel.”

  “Things are what they are,” Kate said. “We suggested, they said no, and that’s that.”

  “Considering the administration’s in hiding, and we have no authority to go back to the owners, that isn’t enough, Kate,” Maggie said. Decision time. She’d do what she could to comply, but if they got to the wire and it warned her to close the mall, she would close the mall.

  “Hey, I never said it was enough or smart, only fact.”

  “Will?”

  “Yeah, Maggie?”

  “Survey the twenty-six on shutting down.”

  “I’m all over it.”

  Maggie cut the alcove corner and slipped past the line of people waiting for the restroom, then looked inside. Cynthia Pratt wasn’t at her post.

  Oh, no. No, no, no. “Has anyone seen a woman in here wearing a jacket like mine?”

  They all shook no.

  Maggie backed out, went down to the end of the hall and shoved at the door marked Private—No Exit. Her stomach flipped at knowing now there was an elevator behind it as well as a closet.

  Still no Cindy.

  “Will, where are you?”

  “Level Two, Station One, Maggie.”

  “Where is Cindy?” Maggie asked, but innately she knew Will hadn’t moved Cindy. Innately, Maggie knew that Cindy was as gone as Judy Meyer.

  “Guarding the private elev—”

  “No, Will,” Maggie cut in. “I’m here and Cindy is nowhere in sight.”

  A long pause and then Will said, “She’s not answering her page. Something’s wrong, like with Judy. Cindy has been with me over three years. I know her. She’d never walk off a post.”

  Maggie’s throat went tight. “You think someone forcibly removed her?” Maggie scanned the floor and walls, looking for any evidence of that.

  “I’d bet my life on it,” Will said. “Kicking and screaming is the only way anyone would get Cindy to abandon her post.”

  Gouges on the wall.

  Maggie crimped her fingers, followed the path scratched through the paint. Kicking and screaming is exactly what it appeared Cindy had done. “It looks like she fought hard, Will. Nail marks are through the paint and into the wall-board.” On the left wall was a locked door. Rattled, Maggie mentally scanned the floor plan, trying to remember for certain what was on the other side of it. “Closet. It’s a closet, right, Darcy?” Maggie was shaking, inside and out.

  “It’s a utility closet,” Darcy said. “Yes.”

  “Thanks.” Maggie talked into the two-way. “I need a key down here for this utility closet, Will.”

  Dread laced Will’s voice. “I’m, um, on my way, Maggie.” She went back into the alcove, talked to the fifteen or so women in line. “Did anyone see a skinny redhead wearing a yellow jacket like mine come through here?”

  Again, no one had.

  “She didn’t leave via the alcove, Maggie. Tape verifies that.”

  Maggie made her way to Exit Six, walked outside into the crisp night air and turned right. Barone’s BMW was back in its parking slot. “Will, APB on Barone. His car’s back, so he’s bound to be around somewhere. I want him found and detained immediately.”

  Will disbursed the order.

  “Maggie?”

  Dang it, she didn’t want to look inside that closet. The wind burned her eyes, had the tip of her nose cold and tingling. “Go ahead, Justin.”

  “I’ve been to every station on every level. There isn’t one vial of antidote in this entire facility, and there was a sub at every station for dinner. What do you want me to do?”

  “Get as detailed descriptions as you can on the substitutes.” They could be GRID members, or just temporary mall employees Linda or Barone had hired. Either way, they needed to be checked out. Likely, they had no idea they’d done anything wrong.

  Maggie went back inside, headed to the alcove. She got back to the utility closet. Just looking at the door had her stomach totally in knots. And Will still hadn’t made it down. “Where are you, Will?”

  “Had to bust up a fight on Level Three. I’m on my way down. It’s going to take a while. Everything’s jammed.” With people crammed to the rafters, it could take him fifteen minutes to get down to her. Maggie reached into her fanny pack and pulled out a flat file, then went to work to pry the hinges from the door. She couldn’t pull the lock as quickly as she could just unhinge the door.

  The hinge pins popped up. She pulled them out and stuffed them into her parka pocket. Jiggling the door, the hinges separated and the door broke loose from its frame.

  And a woman’s blood-soaked arm fell through the opening.

  “Darcy, get me some help down here right away. Clear the restrooms and seal the alcove between Security and Medical. Get everyone on their toes.”

  “Judy Meyer?” Darcy asked.

  “No.” Maggie looked at the skinny redhead’s battered, bloody face, and shuddered. “Cynthia Pratt.” She swallowed hard. There was too much blood. “Call in the coroner. We have a fatality.”

  The alcove was sealed off and two guards stood at its mouth in the thoroughfare corridor. Maggie was at the end of the hallway, near the utility closet. She’d gently placed Cynthia Pratt’s body on the floor, rather than allowing her to tumble out.

  The entire front of her parka was covered in blood. “Darcy, get someone to bring me a parka. Not Will.”

  “Marty’s on the way with one, Maggie.”

  She shrugged out of it, then removed the halo pin and put it on her blouse collar.

  “Captain Holt?”

  It was Marty. She walked to the end of the alcove, took the parka. He looked devastated. “I’m sorry, Marty.”

  He blinked hard. “Can I do anything?”

  “No.” No way would she put him through that. “I’ll take good care of her.” Maggie patted his shoulder.

  “I’m, um, better get back, then.”

  Maggie nodded, watched him walk away and then went back to Cindy’s body.

  Daniel Barone arrived at the scene first.

  “Where on earth have you been?” Maggie asked him, feeling that same sense of revulsion that the child had felt, recoiling from his touch.

  “Level Three, mostly. Rotating between the A-stores.”

  “Mr. Barone,” Maggie said through clenched teeth. “Do not test my patience. I promise you, I have none right now. I know you left the building—I’ve had everyone in it looking for you for hours—and for a long time, your BMW wasn’t in the parking lot.”

  Justin and Will arrived, both surprised to see Barone there.
“Can I do anything to help, Maggie?” Justin asked.

  “It’s too late,” she said softly, positioning herself to block Will’s view of Cindy’s body. “I’m sorry, Will.”

  Pain settled over him like a shroud. “Did she suffer?”

  “I don’t know.” She’d fought hard. That was clear from her jagged bloody nails. “The coroner will be able to tell you more. I know she fought hard.”

  “She was in the utility closet?” Will asked.

  Maggie nodded, gently stroked his upper arm and kept him from stepping around her. “Don’t look, Will. Cindy wouldn’t want you to remember her like this.”

  He stopped, looked deeply into Maggie’s eyes and a tear rolled down his cheek.

  “Will?” It was Kate. “You okay?”

  He sniffed hard and his voice came out thick. “I’m okay, Katie. It’s just...”

  “You’ve never lost a member of your staff like this, and you cared about her.”

  His Adam’s apple rippled the length of his throat. “Yeah.”

  “When you’ve got a second,” Kate told Will, “come buy me a cup of coffee.”

  “Will,” Maggie said. “Go on and make Kate take a break. She hasn’t had one in nine hours. She can’t stay as sharp as she needs to be without taking a break now and then.”

  His huge body shuddered and Justin patted his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Will.”

  Barone rolled his eyes. “This is a public relations nightmare. The damage will be horrific.”

  Maggie glared at him. “A woman is dead, Mr. Barone. One of your employees. Show a little respect, even if you have to fake it.”

  “Don’t be melodramatic, Captain.”

  At that moment she hated him. “Darcy?”

  “Yes, Maggie.”

  “I’m placing Mr. Barone under arrest. Get me a uniform to pick him up—and tell them to hustle. I want this soulless jerk out of my sight as soon as possible.”

  “Me? Under arrest?” Surprise and fury pounded off him. “Have you lost your mind, Captain Holt? You can’t arrest me.”

  “I can and have, Mr. Barone,” she insisted, ignoring his snotty comment about her sanity.

  “On what grounds?”

  “You lied to me—that’s a felony—and assault, right now. I’m considering adding suspicion of treason, conspiracy, undermining a federal investigation—and maybe even murder.”

  His jaw fell open.

  Two MPs arrived. Darcy had summoned them rather than locals. “Excellent,” Maggie said, considering she couldn’t be sure if he was Barone or a Barone body double. “Gentlemen, if you’d escort Mr. Barone to Providence, I’d appreciate it. Paperwork will be waiting for you when you arrive. Oh, do read him his rights.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Holt, you’re going to regret this for the rest of your life.”

  “Don’t threaten me, Barone.” She bared her teeth. “I’m not afraid of you, and if provoked, you have no idea what I can do.” She nodded at the MPs. “Get him out of here.”

  They led Barone out of the alcove, then out of the facility.

  “Darcy, get a DNA on him as soon as he arrives at Providence.”

  “Ordering it now.”

  Franklin Walker reported in. “Captain Holt, Will asked me to check with the twenty-six. They voted eighteen to eight to stay open.”

  Figured. “They know we’ve had a fatality?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Okay, then.” Maggie hated it, but accepted the inevitable. “Thanks, Franklin.”

  “Can you believe it?” Darcy said.

  “No, I can’t.” Maggie had Fred from Security come down from Level Two and take over for Maggie—he hadn’t known Cindy—and Maggie and Justin walked out of the alcove.

  He stuck a hand in his pocket. “Was the Barone arrested the Daniel Barone or was he a body double?”

  “I don’t know,” Maggie said. “That’s why he was taken to Providence, where Dr. Joan Foster, one of our experts, can make that determination.” Joan, who had once been forced by Kunz to prepare doubles for black-market sale or infiltration, had a process for revealing true identities.

  “Best to take him out of play either way, I suppose,” Justin said.

  “That was my thinking.” Maggie took in a steadying breath. “Especially since the jerk attacked us in the short-stack.”

  “My lab is bringing over more antidote. It should be here in twenty minutes, maybe a little sooner.”

  Maggie checked her watch. Eight o’clock. “We’ve got one hour to go.” Kunz had to move soon. Had to. She unclipped her two-way. “Will?”

  “What do you need, Maggie?”

  His voice sounded steadier, more normal. The coffee break with Kate had done him good. She’d calmed him down. “You finished with that coffee?”

  “Yeah, I am. Katie had to get back to work.”

  Maggie still had trouble reconciling anyone calling Kate, Katie, and surviving it. But with Will, Kate had granted latitude.

  “Meet me at Center Court, left of the stage.” Maggie waited for verification from him, then returned the two-way to its clip at the waist of her slacks. “Justin, you’d better check on the vans outside and make sure the antidote is still in them.”

  “Is that why the honchos wouldn’t close the mall? Because we’ve got antidote out there?”

  She nodded. “That’s likely one of the reasons. For all that’s happened, they’re not indisputably attributing any of the incidents to GRID. That’s another.”

  “Are you okay, Maggie?” He frowned. “Finding Cynthia had to be hard on you.”

  It was. “It happens in my job.”

  “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect you.”

  “It does affect me, of course. But I’m okay.” She’d have nightmares of Cynthia’s hand falling out of the closet for a month.

  He nodded, paused and bent forward. “I’m sorry about Cindy.”

  Maggie’s eyes stung. “Me, too.” And she sure wished she had word on Judy Meyer. After finding Cindy, the most god-awful images of Judy were running around in her head, and Maggie would really appreciate being able to ban them. But a facility-wide search had turned up nothing. She didn’t know whether to be grateful or terrified that Kunz had taken Judy.

  Still working her way down to center court minutes later, Maggie called Will for an update on Judy Meyer and Barone. She discovered nothing new of note. Her eyes felt gritty, as if they were full of sawdust, and the balls of her feet were throbbing. Finding Cindy Pratt had seriously drained Maggie’s energy reserves. She shifted her weight from her left foot to the right and pinched her halo pin to shut down communications temporarily. “Justin, I didn’t want this going out over the radio.”

  “You know GRID is here and, because of Cindy, you think they’re listening in?” He looked horrified.

  That was exactly what she thought. “It’s highly probable. The GRID organization is very resourceful.” And the man running GRID was even more so. She’d run into a lot of twisted people in her career, but never had she met anyone more twisted or more ruthless than Thomas Kunz. “I want you to check out Daniel Barone’s car before I have it impounded.”

  “It’s probably locked.” Justin masked any emotion from showing on his face.

  “Probably is.” She looked him level in the eyes.

  “Okay, no problem.” The silent message to pop the lock had been received and accepted. “What am I looking for?”

  “Anything. Everything.” She pulled a mint out of her fanny pack, gave one to Justin, then squirted a few more eye drops into her eyes. “I need insight on the man. I need to know if we’ve been dealing with him or a double. The man we’ve got says he hasn’t been outside today, but his car wasn’t here. Someone had to be driving it.”

  “Maybe...?” Justin prodded her to reveal her thoughts on who.

  “Maybe him. Maybe his double. Or maybe Linda Diel.” Justin tinkered with the volume control on his two-way. “Linda is still
missing. She could’ve had his car. She sure doesn’t have her own. It hasn’t moved out of the parking lot.”

  “Do you know that for fact?”

  “Yes, I do.” He shrugged. “I stole her battery.”

  Shock rippled through Maggie. “You stole her battery?”

  “Well, I appropriated it. That’d be more accurate.”

  “And not illegal.”

  “Exactly.” He nodded.

  “Why?”

  “I figured a lot of people were going MIA—Barone, Judy Meyer—and if Linda joined them, it’d be after she sounded an alarm on her car battery being stolen. We’d know she intended to report.”

  “You do surprise me, Dr. Crowe.”

  He smiled. “Given the chance, I could do far more...” The look in his eyes made it clear that more was very personal.

  “Ah, together we’d be amazing and crazy,” she predicted. “And then just crazy.” She shrugged. “Job perk.”

  “More like a hazard.”

  “Depends on your perspective.” Maggie smiled, appreciating Justin’s foresight in pulling that battery. “Maybe Linda did have Barone’s car when it was missing. Darcy’s reviewing the tapes, but so far there’s nothing that shows anyone taking the car. In one frame, it’s there in its slot. In the next frame, it’s gone.”

  “There’s nothing in between?”

  “No,” Maggie said.

  “The camera has a delay, then?”

  She nodded.

  “Does GRID have the ability to doctor the tapes?”

  “Very astute, Justin,” she said, again impressed. “Kunz has done that before, run a loop feed and removed a segment from a tape that would have given us helpful information. So it’s possible.”

  “But I thought these communications between you and your headquarters were secure.”

  “Secure means reasonably secure. No communications are fail-safe.”

  “If I find anything in the car, I’ll let you know right away.”

  “Thanks,” she said, watching Justin head for Exit Six. Women watched him walk past. Jealousy, strong and nasty as it always is, coursed through her.

  “Hey, Maggie.”

  Justin’s voice. She turned to look at him. “What?”

  “Just got a report. The vials in the vans are secure and the backup supplies have arrived. Do you want them inside?” She checked her watch. Forty minutes until closing. “We can’t risk a second interception. I’ll handle it. You press on with what you’re doing.”