She pulled on his sleeve. “Let’s go then.”
He held her hand. “Maybe you should stay,” he said. “They want you as a runaway. They want me as an escaped convict. There’s a world of difference.”
“I know. Let’s go.”
“I was serious when I said I wouldn’t let them take me,” Brad reminded.
“Then I guess you’d better not get caught.” She tugged on his sleeve again. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Brad grabbed her hand and led the way out the door and down the hall toward the elevators. “I don’t suppose you can handle the stairs?” he asked.
“I can if I have to.”
“But would there be anything left of you?”
“Not much.”
Well, there you go. “I can carry you if I have to,” he offered.
Nicki smiled. “I don’t think we’re quite there yet.”
In the ninth floor elevator lobby, Brad pushed the call button, then looked at their reflections in the polished brass doors. There really wasn’t a lot to her, was there? He hadn’t noticed it before, but Nicki looked positively fragile. He was out of his mind to be leading her on an adventure like this, and she was out of her mind to be following him.
“Okay, it’s moving,” he said, noticing the numbers on the digital readout next to the door. Two . . . three . . . and then it stopped. And started back down again. “Shit.”
Standing here in the open like this, in front of the giant window with its view of Northern Virginia, he felt like a target in a shooting gallery. This was crazy. On his own, he never would have trapped himself in an elevator, a piece of technology that could just as easily be disabled as made to work.
“Do you have a plan?” Nicki asked. The absence of fear in her voice baffled him.
“Actually, no,” he said. “I’m winging it. I figure that an opportunity will show itself when I need it. That’s kind of the way my life has been working these past few months.”
She cast a doubtful glance, but didn’t pursue it.
“You’re not scared,” Brad said.
“I’m dying. What’s to be afraid of?” She pointed at the display on the wall. “It’s moving again.”
Brad tried not to tremble. Since his escape, he’d taken every step so carefully, with so much advance planning, that there’d never be any surprises. Now, on the one occasion when he stepped out and took a chance, this is what happened. Dammit!
He could do this. Hell, he had to. He glanced up at the digital readout and his blood froze. “Oh, shit. Look.”
Nicki raised her eyes and let out a little gasp. The second elevator car was on its way, too.
“They’re coming,” he said.
“Which car?”
“I don’t know. Maybe both.”
Now she showed fear. “Oh, shit, Brad. Come on, let’s use the stairs.”
He tightened his grip on her hand. “No, there’s no time. The stairs are all the way at the end of the hall. They’d be here and see us before we could get down. This is our only chance.”
“But what if—”
“Then I’m screwed. But I think we’ve got a chance.” He pointed at the readout again. “See? The one on the left is a floor ahead of the one on the right.”
“What difference does that make?”
He smiled. “I have no idea. I just make this shit up as I go along.”
April 12
They got him. They got Derek.
I was asleep and I thought I heard a noise, but before I could open my eyes, they put a pillowcase over my head and hit me hard in the face and then harder in the nuts. I thought they ruptured something. I yelled and they hit me again. Told me to shut up and listen. It was Chaney’s voice. There were others in the cell, I could hear them, but it was Chaney’s voice in my ear.
He said, “I know that you’re smart enough to know what’s a lie and what you should believe. You choose right and you won’t get the same as him. Choose bad, and you’ll get worse.”
They hit me again in the balls and they left. I’ve never been hit like that. I saw stars. I couldn’t breathe. I rolled off of my cot onto the floor, and it was all wet. That’s when I heard the moaning.
I pulled the pillowcase off of my head and there was Derek. They’d cut him bad. He was naked and was bleeding from everywhere. In the dark, I couldn’t see anything but the blood. I started yelling, but nobody would come. I tried to see where he was hurt, but when I touched him he screamed. He was in agony. I didn’t know what to do.
When he moved his mouth, I could see that they cut his cheeks all the way from the corners of his mouth back to his ears. They were just big flaps of skin. I could see his teeth from the outside. I don’t know if he was trying to make words, or if he was just moaning from the pain, but I couldn’t understand anything he was saying. When I saw his guts in his hand—he was trying to keep them from spilling out—I started puking. God, it was awful.
I screamed and screamed for help. Finally, Officer Georgen showed up at the door and told me to shut up, I was waking the other inmates. I screamed at him to help Derek, but he said that he looked okay to him. He said that maybe a night with some company was what he really wanted. He said that maybe company would help make him feel better.
It took Derek an hour to die. He’d just lay there on the floor of my cell gurgling and making moaning noises until the noises stopped.
They came and got him at around five-thirty the next morning. It was Georgen and Chaney and Letier. They all just looked at me. There was blood everywhere. All over the floor, all over me, all over the walls.
I guess you didn’t sleep so good, Chaney said to me. I guess you had too much on your mind. Georgen laughed at that. Laughed like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. Then he told me to clean the place up before it starts to smell like a slaughterhouse. Then he smiled.
He’s part of them. I don’t understand why or how, but the Posse is in charge because Officer Georgen lets them have their own way. That’s what this place is really all about.
I just stared at them. What else was I going to do? And I started cleaning my cell. It took all day. When I was done, they let me take a shower, but while I was there, so was Chaney, just standing there, watching me. He had this smile on his face. They’re going to kill me, too. I know that now
Chapter Fourteen
Carter found himself trembling with anticipation as the elevator made its slow climb. The Governor’s Suite, for Christ’s sake. The kid was nothing if not ballsy. Nine-fifty a night, no less, plus another three grand in clothes and sundries. How in the world did either of them think that they were going to get away with this? He supposed it made sense for Brad—it was probably the way he was wired—but Nicki knew better.
This was grand larceny! Was she out of her mind? He was already planning her legal defense.
First things first, he told himself. Get her away from that killer boyfriend, and everything else will be negotiable.
Could the elevator ride possibly take any longer? They’d waited in the downstairs lobby just long enough for members of the Tactical Unit to arrive with their machine guns and battering rams. The air in the car reeked of sweat and gun oil. Carter felt woefully small and under-armed among these men.
“Please be careful when you go in,” Carter begged. “She won’t be armed.”
The biggest man on the team—Brooks, according to his embroidered name badge—said to Warren, “Lieutenant, I really wish we had not brought him along for this.”
“He’s on the job,” Warren assured. “He’ll stay out of the way. Won’t you, Carter?”
There was so obviously a right answer that Carter didn’t bother to articulate it.
Brooks said, “Mr. Janssen, if what you say is true, then you have nothing to worry about. We don’t hurt people unless they try to hurt us first.”
Carter pretended that the words calmed him, but he knew from experience what can happen when adrenaline and emotion mix w
ith firearms in close quarters.
He reached around another cop and pressed the button for the ninth floor again.
Please, God, Carter prayed silently, let her be safe.
* * *
“When the elevator gets here, just duck in fast,” Brad said. “If it’s full of cops, we’re done. If it’s not, then we won’t have much time before the other one arrives.”
Nicki said nothing as she watched the numbers roll.
“Having fun yet?” Brad teased.
“Well, it’s different,” she confessed.
“If it gets rough, do exactly what they say, okay?” Brad said. “Just promise me that. If they say to get down, then get down like, right then. And don’t hide your hands—”
“You worry about you,” she said. “I can take care of myself.”
Yeah, right, Brad didn’t say. She had no idea what the world could throw at you when you weren’t looking.
The digital readout for the car on the left read 8, the one on the right, 7.
“Here it comes,” Brad said, and he nudged her closer to the doors.
The car dinged.
And nothing happened.
“Oh, shit, what’s wrong?”
The car on the right read 8.
Nine.
It dinged, too.
“Shit!” Brad hissed, pounding the call button. “Open, open, open . . .”
Finally, the doors on their car rolled open. Brad shoved Nicki into the car, probably a little too hard, and pressed the button for the parking garage. The doors closed as leisurely as they’d opened, gliding with silent elegance on their tracks. Across the elevator lobby, he watched in the narrowing view of the mirror as the other elevator door opened, revealing a car filled with cops dressed as Delta Force.
They started filing out even before their door was completely open. The last face he saw belonged to Carter Janssen. Nicki gasped as she saw it, too.
“Oh, my God, that was him,” she breathed as the car descended.
The tone of her voice drew Brad’s head around. “You don’t look so good,” he said. Her lips had gone pale, and her breathing was labored.
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “What’s next?”
Brad opened his mouth to answer, then realized that he didn’t know. His instinct was to go to the garage and get their car and drive away, but now that seemed like a stupid idea. If they knew about the room, then they knew about Vincent Campanella, and that piece of information would take them right to the Mustang. Besides, they’d have all the garage exits covered. In fact, that probably explained the delay before the cops made their move. They wanted enough reinforcements to block any escape.
So, what did that leave? There had to be a way. There was always a way. And as crappy as their chances appeared to be, they were better now than they would ever be again. More cops were probably arriving by the minute, pulling the cordon tighter and tighter. His mind brought an image of the old Star Trek episodes where Kirk and Spock would just sparkle and disappear, re-materializing elsewhere. Yeah, that’s what he needed, a transporter.
He rubbed his forehead, trying to rattle his brain, to get it thinking less-stupid thoughts. They were already passing the fifth floor, and in a few seconds, he was going to have one hell of a problem on his hands.
Then he looked at the buttons on the control board and he nearly knocked Nicki over diving to push the button for the second floor.
“What are you doing?” Nicki demanded, startled.
The elevator car slowed and opened on a hallway that seemed to stretch forever. Brad beamed. “I’m getting us out of here.”
* * *
As soon as the door started to open, the attack force piled out of the elevator, their weapons up and ready. Carter felt like a fish caught in a current as the surge of manpower pulled him along. Movement on his right pulled his head around, and he swore that he saw the elevator door closing.
Sure enough, a glance at the readout told him that he was right. He started to say something to Lieutenant Michaels, but this simply was not the time to break anyone’s concentration.
“You stay here,” Warren ordered, putting his hand on Carter’s shoulder and pointing emphatically at the floor. “We’ll come and get you when things are secure.”
There was no room for discussion, no time for argument. Warren ran off with the rest of the team, his own weapon—an automatic pistol of some sort—drawn and ready. Considering the size of the force, they moved with impressive grace and stealth.
Carter watched as the cops swarmed down the hallway to the very end, where they formed up in a well-rehearsed cluster and then kicked in the door. The crash of the splintering wood shook the whole ninth floor, and the cacophonous chorus of shouted threats—“Police department! Nobody move! Everybody down!”—startled him.
Mere seconds later, he heard the chorus switch to individual pronouncements of “Living room clear . . . bedroom clear . . . bathroom clear,” and he knew that they’d gotten away.
But how? This had to be the right place; the positive ID from the clerk and the crazy room charges proved that. He looked at his watch. Christ, at this hour of the morning, there was no way they wouldn’t still be sleeping. Unless . . .
They got tipped off somehow. Maybe a phone call from a friend downstairs, or maybe just dumb luck, but something had clearly tipped them off that they were about to be busted. Dammit. Why couldn’t Lady Luck show her good side just once?
Wait a second! There was a good side.
If the kids left because they’d been tipped off, that meant, by definition, that they couldn’t have been gone long. Mere moments, perhaps. That meant that they were still catchable.
But how would they have gotten out of the hotel? The cops had the place secured. Every door. At this hour of the morning, how difficult would it be to catch the only boy-girl combination on their way out of the hotel?
Carter found himself drawn to the huge window there in the elevator lobby, the one that overlooked the skyline of Mason’s Corner. They were out there somewhere. He knew it. Just as he knew that Brad Ward was anticipating their moves and correcting for them on the fly. As the cops meticulously searched the hotel—what else could they do?—the kids would build another head start on them.
There’d be radio reports among the marauding cop cars out on the street, and there’d be BOLOs—be on the lookout—but without any idea what they were driving, or which direction they were headed, catching them would be more an act of luck than good police work. Carter closed his eyes and rested his forehead on the cool glass.
So, how did they get out?
This Ward character was resourceful and street smart; he’d proven that already, if not through his actions today, then through his ability to stay a fugitive these past months. There was a certain brazenness to his actions, too, which Carter found disturbing. On the one hand, bold moves increased the likelihood of his making a mistake, but on the other, they showed that he had a plan in mind if mistakes happened. Armed and extremely dangerous. He was not a man to be cornered.
But he was cornered, wasn’t he? Sure, there were hundreds of rooms and thousands of hiding places, but sooner or later they would have to be found. Carter knew for a fact that all the exits were covered.
Unless, of course, they learned to fly.
Or exit on another floor.
Carter’s eyes snapped open. Holy shit, that was it! Right there, seven, maybe eight floors below, there was the skyway that connected the hotel to the Galleria. It connected at the second floor, and from there, they’d have access to the rest of the world. They wouldn’t get caught at the exits to the hotel, because they’d never pass through the exits of the hotel!
Pushing himself away from the window, Carter dashed back to the hallway, where the police were still mopping up their operation, and two other guests had gathered sleepily outside their doors to watch. From here, Carter could see Warren Michaels standing in the foyer of the suite, talking on his radio.
>
“Lieutenant Michaels!” Carter boomed.
Warren’s head snapped around.
“I’ve got something.”
Warren raised a finger to beg for a moment, and then went back to his radio.
“Screw this,” Carter hissed. He could explain, or he could catch them himself. The clock was ticking. He waited a second longer, to see if Michaels would pay attention, and then he was off, sprinting directly toward the cops. The quick movement made the gawkers gasp, and at the suddenness of it, Warren Michaels instinctively reached for his weapon.
Carter made the sharp turn to the right and crashed through the stairwell door. As it rebounded off the concrete wall, Carter yelled, “Mall!” hoping that they might figure out what he’d already deduced.
He kept a tight grip on the tubular railing as his feet flew down the steel-edged concrete steps, jumping the last three stairs of every flight and the top three of the one that followed.
Man-size numerals painted in orange boldly announced every floor number. Eight. Seven.
Carter wasn’t sure why, exactly, but he was confident that the skyway ran off of the second floor. Perhaps he’d noticed the button on the elevator panel, or perhaps he subconsciously counted floors while he was looking out the window, but somehow he knew. And the longer he ran, the farther away the second floor seemed to get.
Six. Five.
Finally, he hit the second floor. The stairwell reverberated from the sound of his feet hitting the landing. He barely slowed as he wrapped his hand around the doorknob and pulled.
It slipped right out of his hand. “Oh, no,” he moaned. The goddamn thing was locked!
“Dammit!” The word rumbled as an echo. He should have waited for the elevator.
He should have listened more to Nicki when she was complaining.
He should have been a better father.
Later. Next time. Right now, he had to get her, wrestle her away from the clutches of a murderer.
He didn’t wait an instant more. He had two more flights ahead of him.
* * *
Brad half-pushed, half-carried Nicki across the second-floor lobby, one flight above the main reception lobby, on the way to the double doors that would release them to the Galleria. He wanted to run, but he knew better. He needed to be as aware of his surroundings as possible, and he’d learned that it’s impossible to run and think at the same time.
Nick of Time Page 14
