by Fiona Quinn
T-Rex stared at Blankenship until she turned toward him. He made a lasso movement with his finger to tell her it was time to wrap it up.
She seemed taken aback, scowling at him.
Turning back to her audience, Blankenship closed with the remarks on the teleprompter.
The audience applauded, rising to their feet with appreciation. Havoc was up the steps, gathering Blankenship’s things in one arm, putting his other hand under the senator’s elbow, and guiding her off the stage to where Remi and T-Rex waited.
“Where’s Diamond?” Blankenship asked, swinging her head around.
“She wasn’t feeling well, ma’am,” T-Rex told her as he set off in front of her.
Havoc continued to maneuver the senator along. “She went to the car to sit with Ty and Rory.”
“Oh, okay. But what’s the rush? Is it bad? Does she need to go to the hospital? You could have just sent her along. You don’t need to be herding me in this little stampede of yours.”
Neither man responded. They were in go-mode. Every sense focused on the task at hand.
“Echo Actual. Ty, we’re coming your way.”
While Ty sat behind the steering wheel of the lead car, the other two vehicles were left with the doors locked, engines running. In an emergency, seconds could make the difference between life and death. That was a lesson drummed into Echo team during their training with the Secret Service when they showed the tapes of their man racing toward Kennedy as shots rang out. Two seconds more, and the agent could have been in the car on top of the president.
Two seconds between life or death.
So they didn’t mess around with things like starting engines. When they were close enough, they’d throw Blankenship into the back seat of Ty’s car with her aid and Rory, fob the other two cars open, and jump in to assist with whatever evasive maneuvers were needed.
“Ty, you got anything going on in your direction?”
“My status hasn’t changed. The cars are half a block to the north of the garage door. I parked on the far side of the street to make the passenger side accessible. The weather is clear. No other movement.”
“We’re working plan Mongoose.”
“Mongoose. Copy.”
“I’ll be putting the senator in the back seat. Move Rory if he’s not up front with you. Clip him into his safety belt in case we need to make evasive maneuvers.”
The senator sent him a startled glance and quickened her gait.
Yeah, she was getting it now. This was the dangerous part.
Chapter Seventeen
Remi
Thursday, Oxford, England
They took the stairs rather than risk the elevator.
That made sense to Remi. If anything looked askance, they could push through any of these doors and race down the corridor. Possibly take refuge in an office space.
Yeah, Remi could understand this choice. It was what she liked to do, take an alternate route. What she should have done on her way up to the speech. Remi had an issue with following her gut at times. Her sense of safety was obscured behind her childhood traumas and the inevitable PTSD that came with the job—the reason why so many of her fellow journos self-medicated.
At first, she was confused why the team didn’t call for the building security to come and help them make their way safely.
But, on second thought—as she clattered down the stairs, last in line—they didn’t know who was involved in the attack earlier. Perhaps their contact would act like a friend but actually, be luring them into danger.
They had a plan—even named it. Mongoose.
The senator was really moving. Remi hadn’t thought this level of aerobic exercise was something she could do. But Blankenship was keeping up with her security force. Maybe she sensed that something was seriously up. The men were professional through and through. Their posture had taken on a lethality that wasn’t hard to miss. The shift in comportment was vivid.
Remi rounded another landing, angling her body to keep from falling as she scuttled down the next flight. They were silent except for the clatter of shoes.
“Echo Actual. Echo Two, we’re three minutes out.”
She couldn’t hear what Ty said in return.
Four more flights of steps, then they’d pop out of the stairwell door, cross the garage, out into the open. Three minutes, and they’d be powering up the road toward London and into the high-security hotel. Safe.
Three minutes.
Remi had been on enough dashes to safety. She might feel like a moron afterward, but she’d prep just the same. She checked that the Velcro was well secured on her wrist braces. If someone were slashing, her clothes would keep her safe, but if they were stabbing, she’d need to block the thrust.
Her scarf was whipped from around her neck. Remi didn’t need anyone grabbing hold of it and using it to capture or choke her. That got balled up and stuffed behind her utility belt under her tunic. Another layer, lest she be stabbed. While she was there, she snatched her flashlight and her tactical pen, holding one in each hand.
Ground floor.
She took a deep breath.
Havoc slowly opened the door with his hand held up, indicating they should stop.
He looked through the crack. Taking his time, being thorough. With a nod, Havoc went through the door. T-Rex’s boot stopped it from shutting.
Unstrapping her pack, she turned the senator toward her. “This is for your protection,” she said, sliding the strap over the senator’s shoulder, letting the pack cover the senator’s chest, and belting it around her middle.
“It’s heavy,” the senator complained.
T-Rex sent Remi a quick quizzical glance, then continued to assess the stretch of space across the garage and out to their convoy.
Remi was watching the team’s tactics with a keen eye. She never knew when something she picked up along the way would become a lifesaving technique in her repertoire.
Havoc made it to the center of the garage and looked around. He wandered to the bay door and scanned the streets. His hand went up, signaling to Ty that they were coming. Then he turned and gave T-Rex a hand signal to come on.
“Ma’am, we are going to move quickly but calmly through the garage, out to the sidewalk. We will be turning North. That’s to the right.” When he said right, he tapped the senator’s right shoulder. “Right,” he repeated.
He sent Remi a look. Checking in.
She gave him a nod. She’d heard. She’d keep up.
An overabundance of caution, that’s all this was. A bad incident warranted this level of vigilance. The team was doing a thorough job. Into the cars, off they’d go.
T-Rex pressed his tie. “Echo Actual. Moving.”
“Echo Actual” sounded so badass. No time for the libido to kick in, Remi told herself. Then she consoled herself with having about an hour’s drive ahead of them where she could fantasize about T-Rex to her heart’s content.
First, let’s get into the car.
They were three steps into the garage when the elevator door opened. Crammed full of men, they raced to block the American’s exit. One blew a whistle in three distinct blasts.
A signal. Crap.
T-Rex turned on a dime directing the senator back toward the stairwell.
As they did, the two box trucks parked side by side popped their back doors open, and groups of “protestors” leaped to the ground.
She’d seen those trucks earlier when they came in the garage to use the elevator this morning. Had they been packed full of men this whole time?
T-Rex pivoted, bent, scooping the senator over his shoulder. Lowering himself like a linebacker desperate to get a football over the endzone and win the game, T-Rex powered forward. He grabbed at people who came within his range and pushed or tossed them into their fellow goons.
Dangling like a rag doll, the senator clutched at her red cowboy hat.
T-Rex’s head bobbed amongst the assailants as he forced his way through the crowd, r
ounding toward Havoc.
Remi was surrounded. On her own. The one thing she had going for her was that the men were focused on getting through Havoc to T-Rex and the senator.
Sliding a hand back under her tunic, Remi pulled out her range glasses to protect her eyes from chemical irritants or flying projectiles. She didn’t want to find herself in Jules’s state, blinded while reporting out a story.
As Blankenship might say, this would be a humdinger of a story.
She’d write it up later for Liu, but first, she had to get safe.
Briefly, she checked to make sure her video was recording from her breast pocket.
Getting herself out of this was all on her.
The men were fighting with Havoc, whose exertions gave T-Rex space to get free.
But now, some of the men were noticing her as she tried to sidle silently along the wall.
There was zero thought in her next actions. She was acting on instinct and fear. Her strobe flashed in their eyes. Her pen jabbed into thighs. Punches to throats. Knees to groins.
Hands came at her, grabbing, trying to get hold.
This was one of the genius design elements of her clothes. What could be grabbed was slick to the hands and stretchy with Lycra. Spinning, she’d found, was the best way to force someone to lose their grip. Her shoes were doing their job delivering kicks that put men on the ground.
Engines gunned out on the streets. They were racing off.
Had the team left her behind again?
Wow!
Remi redoubled her efforts. Her goal was to get out on the street, in public view, and perhaps get caught under some security camera.
Her flashlight was knocked from her hand. She pulled her elbow back and thrust an open palm at the guy. The metal in her arm band slammed into his eye. He shrieked and peeled off.
“Remi! Now!” The growl came from her right.
Now! Okay…
She slid through the door up into the planting box that ran the length of the building. Filled with holly bushes, she snaked along the wall as she saw T-Rex in the last car. His head was bent looking back at the garage, driving forward just fast enough to keep the men’s hands off the car.
She put her hand up over the bush.
He spotted her.
He gunned forward toward the crossroads.
Glad to be shielded by her work uniform and protective eyeglasses, Remi crashed along the line of prickle bushes to the end. Running as fast as she could, she wanted to be at the end of the planter by the time T-Rex turned.
As he wheeled forward, Remi realized she was a good five feet off the ground as the slope had given way.
With a massive leap, she fell to the sidewalk where she tried to land the way she’d been taught, like a drunk frog. She kept her ankles together, pressed her knees wide with impact, then toppled over and rolled a couple of times.
The commotion caused the elderly people sitting at the bus stop to look up with alarm.
T-Rex slammed his car to a stop just as Remi was popping up.
When he slowed, she grabbed the handle to the passenger’s side.
The crowd was giving chase to the car. They, too, were trying to open the doors and crawl in. T-Rex’s long arm shot out and grabbed Remi’s wrist. He hauled her into the vehicle as his foot came down on the pedal.
The tires shrilled as their tread worked to grip the roadway. Remi faceplanted in T-Rex’s lap, her legs dangled out the door.
She peddled her feet, contracting her abs, pulling her legs in. She gripped at T-Rex’s fancy pants. The Lycra in the fabric made it difficult to get a solid grip. Remi kept snatching at him, realizing that she was pinching up his skin as she did.
T-Rex reached to find something to hold on her. He met the same clothing issues as Remi had had grabbing him. After failing three times, he simply clapped his hand between her legs and jerked her inside.
A passing car hit the open door, effectively closing it as the driver blared his horn.
Just a second earlier, her legs had dangled out that door. That would have been a devastating blow.
T-Rex pushed her upright. “Seatbelt.”
He was steaming ahead, catching up with the other two cars in their convoy. Ty was straight ahead of them. Havoc was in front.
After securing her seatbelt, Remi dragged her glasses from her face and tucked them into the utility belt under her tunic. Grabbing the assistance handle with both hands, she squeezed her eyelids tight. If she tried hard, she could just imagine this wasn’t T-Rex and the Echo team trying to outmaneuver whatever strangeness was happening at the Oxford lecture hall today. No, she was at a theme park on some kind of wild ride. Fast. Stop. Right. Left. Just hang on. Don’t scream, or your friends will think you’re chicken. The ride will be over soon. She tried to get her mind to go along with this storyline.
She jerked when she felt a warm squeeze on her thigh.
“You okay? Did they hurt you?”
She blinked her eyes open. T-Rex’s gaze was sliding over her body head to toe then up again. “Do you need to go to the hospital?” He refocused on the highway.
Remi knew from experience not to just say, “Nope, all’s good.” Adrenaline can mask some pretty heinous wounds.
“Checking.” The last thing she wanted to do was be a distraction. She started a visual scan as she compressed and tested her joints and limbs. She was tender all over. She had taken her share of blows back there. But they were to her limbs, not her head or torso, that would have made her more concerned.
T-Rex pressed his tie. “Echo Actual. Copy, Winner. Route C. Out.”
After a moment, he glanced her way. “Hospital?”
“No. I’m okay.”
“Protocol stipulates that we protect our prin—”
“You were doing your job. I get it. All of it. I’m fine. Just another day of being a journalist.”
“Are you serious? That’s what it’s like?”
“Pretty much.” Remi slid down in her seat. Man, am I tired. Events like that, especially moving through hostile crowds, always wore her out. If they’d just let her sneak her little press-credentialled ass out of the garage, it would have been fine. But it felt like she was targeted every bit as much as they had targeted the senator.
Remi had to assume the janitors let their friends know they’d failed. And Diamond wasn’t to be found. So the focus was on her.
Remi thought the only thing that saved her was that people think they can do violence until they’re confronted with the moment. Some of those men were fine beating a woman. Others, she’d realized during her escape, were trying to make a show of it. And she was grateful for those men. Not only did they not hurt her, but they’d tried to swarm to look like they were giving it their all. And in so doing, they’d blocked the really dangerous guys from getting her.
Dumb f-ing luck that I survived.
Chapter Eighteen
T-Rex
Thursday, London, England
T-Rex stood outside of Remi’s door, feeling uncharacteristically nervous. Fist lifted, he hesitated, listening to make sure he wouldn’t interrupt a phone call, then tapped a knuckle lightly on the door jam.
Footsteps moved across the room. Remi stalled at the door; he assumed to check through the peephole.
“T-Rex,” he said.
The bolt slid back, and the door swung wide. Remi, dressed in a nightshirt and bright pink flip-flops, swished her hand through the air to invite him in. He turned to shut the door softly behind him and to surreptitiously adjust his dick so it wasn’t leading the way as he went to talk with her.
Yeah, she had nothing on under that nightshirt. Her nipples were readily visible. The soft mound of pubic hair was a tantalizing suggestion. “I brought back the pack that you gave to the senator.”
“Oh good, thanks.” Remi was stretched out on her bed, her back propped against her pillows, her laptop settled back on her thighs.
“It weighs more than I’d expected.” He walked fa
rther into the room and laid it on the lowboy. “What’ve you got in there? Why did you give it to the senator?”
She hadn’t offered him a seat. He felt awkward looming there above her like that. He leaned a shoulder into the wall. His dick throbbed uncomfortably under his suit jacket. He looked down to check that the button kept everything neatly out of sight.
“I pack typical journo equipment: netbook, camera, comms. Most of the weight comes from my press ballistic vest. I carry it with me whenever I’m out on assignment. I’ve had too many brushes with the unexpected to not show up prepared.”
He nodded. He didn’t like the idea of Remi in danger. Remi had proven time and again now that she was tactically smart, resilient, prepared, and capable. Still…
“Sometimes, I don’t have time to get the vest in place, so I carry it lined up with the back of the pack. That way, in a situation that goes bad fast, I can pull the pack in front of me—head or torso—to give myself a little protection.”
“But you gave it to the senator. Why?”
“I didn’t realize that you were going to throw her over your shoulder. I thought she was going to be walking through the crowd. She was, I presumed, the target. I figured you’d help her navigate the rabble, and if anyone were to try to stab or shoot her, whatever…it could possibly help her get out of the situation unscathed.” Remi stopped and swallowed.
“But you…”
“For me, working alone, the bag could create problems. With the straps, it’s something that could be grabbed and held on to. If I had you helping to block, that wouldn’t have been an issue. When I’m on my own, I’ve found the sleeker I am, the less they can grab and hold me and the easier it is for me to snake away.”
He laid a hand over his heart. “I’m sorry.”
“About what? Leaving me behind in the middle of a rabid horde?” She laughed. “Don’t be.”
“I wanted to talk to you about my conduct today.” He felt his ears pink at the tips.
