He stiffened. Age was one enemy even he couldn’t conquer, and he hated to be reminded of it. The young man was hardly in his twenties; he wouldn’t know what it was like to feel sore bones every day. However, he couldn’t let on he’d struck a blow. This was a negotiation, after all. “No one is a prisoner, I assure you.”
“Horse shit,” Asher spat, showing absolutely no fear. “She sounded terrified on the phone. You better let her go or so help me I’ll walk through a hail of bullets to rip your head off.”
The guards stiffened as they flanked him.
No one in his organization would ever speak to him with such insolence. Adrenaline flooded his blood stream; he wanted to show the smarmy little punk who was in charge…
“Asher, please,” the ranger cut in, practically holding him back, suddenly sounding reasonable after her earlier outburst.
“You’d better listen to her,” Petteri said in a mocking tone. “This is not how you get what you want.”
“What I want is—"
“Sir,” Shawn cut in, “all I need is a few minutes of your time to negotiate our mining rights, then the three of us will be out of your life forever.”
Petteri slowly turned away from the annoying youngsters. He reoriented on the older fellow, who wore a mask of calm. It somehow made him even more upset. It was as if the man thought he was in charge of their exchange. “Negotiations? Tell me, are your people waiting outside for you to bring back an answer?”
The man thought about it for a few seconds. “No. As I said, they assumed we were going to Washington D.C. They’ll be happy to know I was able to speak with you directly and work out an amicable deal between our two noble organizations.”
“When you go back to Montana?” he replied in a businesslike tone.
“Yes.” The native leader nodded, still calm and full of smug assurance at what he was saying. “My tribe wants exclusive ownership of the rock, since it obviously fell on our tribal lands. Surely you understand our situation? We only want what’s fair.”
“Fair?” Blood thumped through the veins under his sweaty brow. He could have mentioned how the government had given him exclusive ownership, and the Crow Nation would get nothing, but his overexcited heart pumped nothing but anger. The guy had gone on television to try to steal what was his. The tribal chief had given others the idea they could take away ownership rights of his asteroid. He had the gall to walk up to his face and demand it.
He felt the hatred flow in like rainwater during a great storm. “Was it fair this man’s sister interfered in the flight operations of my multi-billion-dollar spacecraft? Was it fair someone tried to sabotage the arrival of Tuonela above the moon? Was it fair these two kids ran around Yellowstone trying to pin all the blame on me? Was it fair I had to make concessions to the government, rather than collect all the rock myself? I’m losing trillions just talking to you!”
Petteri grabbed the rifle from his guard and pointed it at the supposedly wise elder of the Crow people. There were no television crews. No reporters. No cameras. He could do what needed to be done. Howard could clean up the mess.
“I’ll tell you what’s fair…I can finally stop talking and do what my people have failed to do this entire time.”
The guard struggled for a moment, until he figured out what his boss wanted. It was awkward, but Petteri didn’t care. The guard belonged to him, as did his weapon. He put his finger on the trigger, knowing he was about to experience the satisfaction of closing the books on the annoying trio.
“Negotiations are over,” he said matter-of-factly.
As expected, the three prisoners reacted with horror and surprise, but the instant before he pulled the trigger, a dark figure appeared outside the broken windows of the lobby.
Denver, CO
Grace recognized the rising anxiety of their captor. Her plan to annoy him had worked. Asher had almost taken it too far, in fact. However, when Petteri began ranting about what was fair, she knew they’d succeeded.
She expected him to split them apart so Shawn could get his meeting without her and Asher there to annoy everyone. The change of scenery might offer a way for them to escape so they could rescue Asher’s sister.
Her grand plan went down the toilet when Petteri reached for his gun.
Gunfire erupted from close by.
“Oh God!” she blurted, knowing their lives were in mortal danger.
It wasn’t the rifle directly in front of her face. The man in the black shirt and pants fell backwards, yanking Petteri with him, since he wouldn’t let go of the gun.
The young businesswoman and the second guard looked beyond her and Asher, at someone outside. Rather than turn to see who it was, she figured the distraction would be her last opportunity to fight back. No matter what Tikkanen said, he wasn’t going to let them go. Not if he held Asher’s sister as collateral.
The second guard lifted his rifle, but he still looked beyond her, to the outside.
She lunged sideways, trying to bowl over the older guy called Major Howard.
Fractions of a second went by, almost frame by frame. While it looked like she was going to catch Howard off guard as he searched for the shooter behind them, the guard started belting out bullets.
Her adrenaline went to ballistic missile heights as she put into play one of the defensive tactics she’d learned in those training videos back at Yellowstone. She rammed into the major with an “oof,” as the impact stole her breath. Her knee went into his groin with all the energy she could muster. He hadn’t been expecting it, so he crumpled like a ragdoll.
Grace’s brain had given advice to her friends a couple of seconds ago, but it finally reached her lips. “Fight back!”
Howard outweighed her by at least fifty pounds and he was five inches taller, but he was about fifty years older, too. He winced in pain as his back hit the ground and was slow to figure out he needed to move. By the time he did, Grace had her arms curled around his neck in the one subdual move she knew.
“Stay down, bastard,” she huffed.
The shots fired inside the lobby stunned her with their volume. The guard fired at least ten shots, and the person outside fired about the same. Whoever it was, she prayed they wouldn’t hit Asher or Shawn.
The old guy didn’t give up. He used his weight to shift himself sideways on the floor, making her grip slide. In a few powerful moves, he was able to shuck her off. “I was fighting tenacious pajama-clad men in Vietnam when I was your age, miss. You’ll have to do better than that.”
He kicked her weakly in the knee, then tried to get up.
“Oh no you don’t,” she exclaimed, flinging herself into the man’s side.
Howard lost his balance at first, but he recovered quickly. He must have made another move, she realized too late, because he was soon standing while she was on the ground.
Whatever else was going on around the lobby, she only saw Howard’s hand reach for the pistol in his side holster. He had retaken the advantage, leaving her to search for something, anything, to fight back, but she came up empty. She didn’t even have her bear spray; they’d taken it when they stripped her of weapons.
“Crap,” she panted.
St. Charles, MO
“We’re putting Haley in danger,” Butch said as if he’d had a revelation.
“I hate to break it to you, buddy, but I think she put us in danger. This side trip was her idea, remember?”
He shook his head. “I do, but we…I mean I…made you go back to talk to her. I admit I wasn’t thinking like a soldier back then.”
Ezra laughed to counter the pressure building dangerously in his gut. “My man, you were thinking exactly like a soldier. Rescue the princess and all that, though I’ve never met anyone her age who seems as sure of herself as Haley.” He gripped the rifle. “I want to make sure nothing happens to her, no matter how she came to us.”
Butch squared his chest in military formation. “I’m here now.”
Pounding started on the fr
ont door. Liam barked feverishly in response.
The officer shouted from the front room. “I’m with the St. Charles PD! I’m opening the door!”
Almost at once, the heavy footfalls of multiple men sounded from the other room. “Where the hell are they?”
“She’ll give the truck back… Hey, leave her alone.”
Haley cried out.
A gun went off.
“Oh, shit,” Ezra said with shock.
Butch opened the door before Ezra knew what he was doing.
“Wait!” he ordered.
The young warrior was through the breach and walking down the hall toward the front room. Ezra had no choice but to follow. When he came around the corner, he had a moment to see Butch’s giant frame get close to the front room, then the big man put the butt of his rifle against his chest and fired away.
The concussion was ear-splitting in the narrow corridor.
Still without options, he crouched and sidled up next to his friend. The wood-floored living room was a disorganized scrum. Several men were already on the floor bleeding. The police officer was one of them. A man popped up from behind a long sofa near the front window; Butch put two rounds through the sofa, dropping him. Haley was on the floor, protecting Liam as she’d done before. She had one hand on the red backpack presumably with her cat inside.
A man peered around the corner of the half-open front door. Ezra was already in a firing position, so he raised his rifle and cranked out a round. It instantly cracked the wood frame, but missed the target.
The guy stayed steady and aimed a pistol, either not understanding the danger he was in or was professional enough to endure it. Before he or the man could unleash another shot, Butch had aimed toward the door and hammered a round through the guy’s face.
“Damn!” Ezra convulsed in horror.
Butch was on fire. He put a few more rounds into the couch, perhaps thinking men were still alive back there.
The front window then exploded to pieces.
“Down!” Butch screamed, pushing Ezra back into the hallway.
He slid on a rug and took an elbow to the face as Butch repositioned.
“Sorry,” the big guy joked.
“Who’s left?” he asked.
Butch slid along the floor back toward trouble. Ezra admired the man’s dedication to protect Haley and her pet menagerie, but they had a whole army to worry about. “Haley, come to me,” Butch whispered.
The fitness fiend glanced back to Butch with tear-filled eyes. They also darted over to the prone figure in the middle of the room. Ezra was surprised and a bit disturbed by the fact the cropped-haircut officer from earlier was looking right at them.
“Hey, assholes. Get her the hell out of here.” He seemed to chew on his thoughts before talking to Haley. “Take the damned cat. I know that’s who you loved the most.”
Haley turned to him and might have said something, but a string of violent pops blew out more windows. The guys out front were angrier than hornets with their wings on fire.
“Come on!” Butch begged.
“Go!” Xander insisted.
“I’m sorry,” Haley sobbed.
“It’s cool,” the cop replied, “but I want my cat back if I make it out of this.”
Haley crawled on the floor toward Butch, giving him hope they stood a chance.
When another body peeked into the front door, he took a few shots to make him drop to cover. In those few seconds, he realized they were burning through the little ammo they had.
“Butch, we don’t have enough rounds to take them all. We’ve got to run for it out back.”
“I haven’t fired mine,” Haley tugged at it as she came into the hallway.
“We’ll switch,” Butch said, taking charge.
They got up and ran for the kitchen as more guys came through the front door. Xander’s service pistol clapped repeatedly, sending shockwaves of violence along the walls of the hallway. Haley’s physical strength seemed to have disappeared; she bobbled the backpack and Liam’s leash as she struggled to get away.
He prayed the house had a back door.
Chapter 22
Denver, CO
Grace waited for the bullet to pierce her body.
“Drop it!” a young voice ordered.
She chanced a look back. A fourteen-year-old boy walked across the broken glass and into the lobby, rifle aimed at Howard. The major seemed to weigh his chances, then he set the pistol on the ground.
“Logan?” she gaped.
“Is my dad okay?” he asked, getting closer.
“I really don’t know,” she answered. The Crow leader was on the ground and obviously injured. The bodies of the two guards were close by. Asher was on the floor as well, but he sat up at hearing Logan’s voice.
“Hey, kid, where’d you come from?”
The boy laughed. “I don’t always listen when my dad tells me to stay put. Haven’t you figured it out, yet?” When he saw his dad down on the ground, he ran over to him.
Grace made sure Major Howard wasn’t going to do anything. She picked up the pistol he’d set on the floor, then she backed away, instantly bumping into the professionally dressed young woman. It appeared she hadn’t moved from her spot the entire time, though she held her hands high in surrender.
Petteri Tikkanen was gone.
“Why are you still here?” Grace asked the lady while trying to get closer to Shawn.
“I don’t own a gun,” she said with the emotion of a robot.
“Good,” Grace replied, unwilling to hurt anyone who looked so much like they didn’t belong there.
She finally made it to Shawn. It was difficult to train the gun on the major while also looking for injuries. “Ash, will you hold this for a second?”
He took over, giving her a chance to crouch by Mr. Runs Hard. “You all right?”
The unshaven man strained with pain. He’d been shot in the leg; Logan had already taken off his shirt and wrapped it around the wound. Still, he managed a smile. “I don’t think my negotiating skills are as good as they once were. My parenting skills are apparently suffering, too. Logan, you’re grounded.”
The boy laughed. “You got it, Dad. I’m going to get you back home, then I’ll sit in my room as long as you want.”
“Can you move?” she asked, knowing they had little time.
“What about my sister?” Asher replied.
“I know where she is,” the well-dressed girl responded.
Grace hopped up. “Where is she? Tell him.”
“I will, but you have to do something for me first. I want a gun.”
“A gun?” Grace said with surprise. “You work for TKM. Why in the hell would I ever give you a gun?”
She shrugged. “Take a look around. This place has gone mad. I’m not taking ten steps if I don’t have a way to defend myself. You can point your guns at me and fire away if I threaten you, but I’ll only help when I have a pistol at my disposal.”
Grace was adamant they weren’t going to fulfill such a crazy demand, but Asher seemed to have other ideas. He stepped backward, picked up Logan’s rifle so he had a replacement, then crouched and slid Howard’s pistol over to the woman.
She crouched down sideways in her skirt, like a proper lady, to pick up the weapon.
Howard immediately spoke out with the cool determination of someone trying to defuse a bomb over the phone. “My men have joined with the rest of the effort to clear out the miners. You can see out the door, we have absolute control of the rock again. We’re winning! It’s just you and me, girl. Shoot these people and we can go back upstairs, where it’s safe.”
The woman didn’t look over to Howard. She kept the pistol pointed at the floor as she stood back up. “I’m Dorothy, by the way. I’ve been working inside the TKM organization ever since Petteri brought me in as part of his think-tank to save the world. If you ever wondered who saved your lives when the planet-killer asteroid didn’t drop on your heads, it was me.”
/>
“Thanks, I guess, but why are you still working with him?” she wondered.
Dorothy snickered. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
Grace chuckled, feeling some of the tension ebb out of the room. She’d experienced the same attitude about some of her missions over the past several days. Dorothy used the moment to turn toward the major. “It’s great that your thugs have gone out and killed everyone, but I don’t care about clearing streets or collecting rock right now. You shouldn’t have left me alone with Stricker, you ass.” In one smooth action, she aimed the pistol and fired.
Grace jumped a foot in the air with surprise.
The target only had time to half-raise his hands.
Dorothy had put a single round into the head of Major Howard.
“Whoa!” Asher screamed, seemingly about to shoot her.
Dorothy dropped the pistol on top of one of the dead security officers. It bounced onto the floor, clanging loudly on the tiles, then came to a stop.
Asher aimed at her. “Tell me why I shouldn’t put you down!”
“I know where your sister is. Don’t you remember?”
Asher breathed loudly through his nose, seemingly thinking it over.
“Where is she?” Grace pressed, recovering from the loud bang.
Dorothy pointed to a nearby door. “In conference room A. Through there. But be careful. Mr. Tikkanen went through there, too. He has a guard with her.”
Asher ran to the door, opened it without listening to what might be inside, then ran in.
“Or you can go in like a bull in a china shop,” Dorothy said sarcastically.
“Diedre’s here! She’s hurt!”
Dorothy smiled weakly. “My boss doesn’t do anything halfway. Trust me. She’ll need help if she survived him.”
“You should know your boss isn’t who he claims to be. He’s made my life hell over the past several days. His, too.” She pointed to Asher, who came back out supporting his sister.
“They shot her before they left,” he lamented.
“Who?” Grace asked.
“Tikannen,” Diedre wheezed.
Asher got her situated against a wall. “The bullet went right through her shoulder, but it made a huge mess. We have to get her some help.”
Impact Series Box Set | Books 1-6 Page 77
