by Fiona Quinn
“That’s your alter ego?”
“Meh, just a guy in search of a snack. I call him Uncle Joe. I think he would have a Brooklyn accent if he ever talked.”
T-Rex laughed. “Good, well, I look forward to the many snacks that Uncle Joe will lay on the counter along the way.”
“Do you have your own Uncle Joe? Some personification that shows up in your imagination?”
“Sadly,” he stopped to drop a kiss on her forehead, “I don’t.” His hand rounded over her butt cheek, squeezing and kneading. “The wombat butts that make the poop cubes? Do they shoot death lasers, too?”
“We’re back to wombats? Mmmn no, no lasers. So they don’t have a lot of nerve endings in their bottoms. What they do have is bony plates with fat and fur.”
“So they face the enemy butt first?”
“They go in their burrow and block the entrance with their butts.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But they leave a little gap.” She demonstrated with her hands. “And when the predator tries to squirm into that gap, the wombat thrusts upward with its armored butt and crushes the enemy.”
T-Rex barked out a laugh. When he tried to rein it in, his whole body shook with stifled amusement. “Wait. They do what?” he finally managed.
Remi turned over on all fours. “Say this is the entrance to my burrow.” She dropped her chest to the mattress with her butt up in the air. The whole time she was watching herself do this in the mirror, thinking, my god, you’re a moron, but said, “Then the predator tries to crawl into the space I’ve left and get in to eat me.” She looked over her shoulder at him.
A slow smile crawled across T-Rex’s mouth. “Eat you?” he asked. His hand wrapped her ankle, and he tugged her to the mattress, rolling her onto her back, bringing his mouth down to her thighs.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Remi
Saturday, Beirut Lebanon
Remi slept hard.
Slept like the dead.
Slept better than she had at any other point in this lifetime.
Peace had wriggled into place in her mind, nestling in, getting comfortable. It felt like she didn’t have to stand vigilant at that moment.
Of course, she thought, peeking at the clock next to her bed, T-Rex was outside her room, securing the senator, and she, by proximity, was safe.
But what had dragged her from her sleep?
Why was she waking up? She squinted at the clock, again. This time trying to process the information.
It was just past four a.m.
Remi flung over in her king-sized bed, stretching her arms wide, wishing that T-Rex was there, and she could cuddle into him and go back to sleep.
He’d invited her to stay in his bed. And while that had its appeal, he would be standing guard, and she liked her nightly rituals in her own space. They made her feel ready for whatever headed her way.
She lay with her memories of making love with T-Rex, how it felt to be in his arms. Remi hoped imagination would fill the void, and she’d drift off again. It was such a good sleep. It had felt so wonderful to be that restful.
Her eyes popped open. Nope. She was awake now.
Maybe her body was so used to nightmares and discomfort that sleeping here under T-Rex’s watch had been like a turbo charge cord on her phone. She’d just had her fill.
A scraping, animal noise came from her balcony.
Remi froze.
All of the admonishments from her fellow wombats filtered through her mind—you’re at risk from the DOJ’s blocking the websites; you’re at risk because you write articles about things that others dispute; you’re at risk because you expose… All of it was true.
But this was the sixteenth floor.
And something big was scratching around her balcony.
Her mind spun—call the desk? Call T-Rex? Investigate it yourself?
Yeah, that one. Go look and see if two seagulls were making a nest up here. No reason to freak out and drag T-Rex in here to find birds laying eggs.
She threw back her covers and put her shoe-clad feet onto the carpet, pulling down her night shirt and adjusting her utility belt. She was set to run if needs be. Like always.
Remi stood and paced slowly forward at the edge of the room so she could sidle up to the window and peek around the edge of the curtain.
Keeping her body from any place where an assailant would point a gun was second nature now.
Such a deranged thought. How would an assailant possibly get to her balcony? There were another ten stories above her. They’d have to play Ninja or think of her as a mark in a Mission Impossible film.
No one would do that. They’d wait until she was out in public and unprotected, then a sharpshooter would simply line up his sights and ventilate her brain.
As Remi grabbed the pulley to open the drapes, there came a pronounced rapping on the glass door.
Remi jumped, then dragged the curtains wide.
There stood Senator Barb Blankenship, her bedsheet wrapped toga-style around her loose-skinned body, one naked breast drooping out, exposed.
Unlocking the door with trembling fingers, Remi shoved the sliding glass to the side, reached for the senator’s hand, and dragged the senator into the hotel room.
“What the…” Remi leaned out to check her little Juliette balcony, scanning for a means, a way, a method that Senator Blankenship would have been out there.
Someone had propped the dinette chairs from in the room’s dining area across the three-foot space separating their balconies. They rested on the slick aluminum balustrades.
The chairs, both of them, had barely an inch of overhang on this side. And both of them showed signs that the joints were pulling free.
Shock washed over Remi.
She stepped onto the balcony and looked down to where the cars looked like matchbox toys. Remi turned. “Senator, did you just crawl onto my balcony?” While it seemed evident, how else would she have gotten there? Still, it was so bizarre that Remi couldn’t wrap her head around this scene.
“They’re coming for me,” Blankenship said from the corner of the room where she’d plastered herself.
“Who? Who’s coming for you?” Remi came back into the room and over to the wall to click on the overhead light.
Blankenship’s eyes grew wide. She clutched at the curtains, trembling.
Though a good distance from Blankenship, Remi held up her hand. “You’re safe with me. I’ll protect you. But who’s after you? Let me get them locked out.” Remi was afraid that the senator might launch herself back out onto the balcony and be endangered. She closed the door, locked it, then pulled a chair over, tipping it down, effectively blocking it from sliding.
“T-Rex,” Remi lifted her voice. “Get in here!”
“Why did you do that?” Blankenship hissed, bending in two, gripping the curtain with one hand, swiping out with the other. Spittle flying, her hair wild, her breast slinging out.
“T-Rex!” Remi yelled. “Help!”
This time, Blankenship sprang at Remi. Remi dodged, leaping onto her bed like a child playing keep away.
“Remi?” T-Rex was at her door.
“Help!” Remi called out.
Blankenship scrambled toward Remi. “Don’t call him in! Don’t let him know I’m here. Evil! Evil!”
T-Rex must have picked the lock to her door because it flew open, catching on the safety arm and holding. “Remi?”
Remi sidled to the side, trying to get to him.
“Evil!” Blankenship hissed, her spittle flecking Remi’s arm, saliva pooling at the sides of Blankenship’s mouth.
“Who’s in there with you? Come get the door,” T-Rex said.
Remi took a sidestep to the edge of the bed, then leaped and dashed past the senator. As Remi lunged for the door, Blankenship jumped on her back. “Die minion of the darkness.”
Remi did not want to fight the senator.
But she had no choice.
“Echo Actual. We h
ave a situation. Status report.” She heard.
The team would accumulate in the hall, of no use to Remi. Unless they had some det cord, they weren’t getting in until Remi moved that security arm. She’d already inspected the lock for its solidity. T-Rex wouldn’t be able to push kick his way in here like he had at the airport, saving the child.
Remi was flat on her stomach, the rug scraping her cheek.
Blankenship had grabbed Remi’s hair in both her fists like it was reins, dragging Remi’s head back. “Whoa there, Lightning. Whoa.”
Yeah, Remi was done. Congresswoman or not, this wasn’t going to continue.
Remi put her hands together the way Jean Baptiste had taught her. Pulling her knees into her chest as far as she could get them, Remi curled her toes under her, then thrust forward, shooting out like she was diving into a pool. As she slid from under the senator, Remi twisted, flipping over just enough that she could get her hand under her shoulder and lift her torso. At the same time, she brought her elbow back hard into the senator’s face.
Blankenship toppled.
Remi scrambled for the door. Shutting it just long enough to peel the safety bar from the hook, she flung it wide again.
There lay Blankenship spread eagle in her sheet. Each pendulous boob drooping over her sides and catching under her arms. A trickle of blood sliding from her nostril down the crease of her cheek and pooling at her lips.
T-Rex was as taken aback by the scene as Remi had been.
It was mind-boggling.
“Senator?” he said. His voice was calm and smooth. “I’m T-Rex. I’m your security. I’m here to protect you.
Blankenship sprang to her feet, twisting the sheet between her hands. “Stay away, Evil.” She flicked the sheet out like a locker room towel fight.
“Yes, ma’am.”
He turned to Remi. “Are you hurt?”
“I don’t know.” Remi stood back out of his way. She had no idea what to do here. “Are the others coming?”
“Are. You. Hurt? Check yourself.”
Fine. Remi patted over her body. Yeah, some rug burns, maybe a couple of bruises. Nothing that she couldn’t attend to later. “I’m okay.”
“Now, how did she get in here?”
“She crawled from her balcony to mine.”
His eyebrows drew together. “What now?” Sliding along the bed, hands up where Blankenship could see them, T-Rex went to investigate for himself.
Blankenship retreated into a corner, pulling a chair protectively in front of her, then crouching low. T-Rex lifted the curtain and looked out. He pressed his comms button. “Echo Actual. Winner, we need a doctor sent to the senator’s room. ASAP. Check with the embassy. See whom they trust for circumspect medical interventions.”
He paused.
“Let’s get a confidential assessment of the situation. Out.” As he said that, Blankenship screamed, “No one is coming near me. Do you understand?” She lifted the chair and threw it at him. There was little strength behind the move, so the chair fell ineffectually to the ground.
Psychotic break was all Remi could think.
Was it a stroke? She’d been having those headaches. This was like nothing that Remi had ever experienced before in person or on paper. This was nuts.
Whatever was happening, T-Rex probably had some training. Knew some way to manage this.
Blankenship bolted for the door.
T-Rex reached out a hand, then Remi guessed he realized the woman was stark naked (and stark raving mad). He hesitated then went after her.
Remi was on his heels to see if she could help.
In the hall, T-Rex lifted Blankenship off her feet, tipping her over his shoulder, like he had at the Oxford garage when he was playing linebacker breaking through the violent crowd. He spun and locked eyes with Remi.
“Her key card is in my front right pocket.”
Remi reached for it, but Blankenship grabbed hold of Remi’s hair, trying to rip it from her head.
Hiding behind T-Rex’s legs, Remi snaked her hand into his pocket, thinking it was a good thing she’d had familiarity with his body parts earlier, or this would be really embarrassing. Remi drew out the card, got the senator’s door open, the lights on, and then she scuttled out of T-Rex’s way.
And Liu thought that the ambush in Oxford made a good above-the-fold story?
Wait until he got a load of this.
Chapter Thirty
T-Rex
Saturday, Beirut, Lebanon
He’d seen a lot of crazy in his day. But this, this was extra special sauce kind of crazy.
T-Rex got the senator back in her room and wasn’t sure what to do with her now. Her clothing and other things were strewn about the room like it had been through a cyclone. He spun in place as Blankenship beat her fists into his back and kicked her legs in the air, but he was afraid to put her down.
Remi shut the hall door and threw the security arm. If the senator were to try to escape, T-Rex would have an extra few seconds to restrain Blankenship. Then Remi went over to the balcony, shut, locked, and barricaded that exit before disappearing into the senator’s bathroom. “I’m going to look for prescription bottles,” she called out. “Maybe she took something wrong. Mixed something up?” Remi was cool and steady. T-Rex appreciated that right now.
He cast his gaze around again, searching for a solution to the problem. His focus settled on the bed. He remembered a story that Jess had told him about the guy who was psychotic and thought there were dragons on the ceiling flying around his house. He was trying to chop them out of the air with his ax. And so was chopping his house up while his kids hid upstairs.
The ETA on the ambulance that night had been forty-five minutes. It was icy with several car crashes. Jess and a backup officer were on their own, so they used a sheet to “burrito wrap” the guy. A technique Jess’s partner had learned to help calm his autistic son.
T-Rex formulated a plan.
“Nothing,” Remi said, coming out of the bathroom. “Some pain killer, and it’s a full bottle.”
“Okay, look, I need a sheet. The one the senator had in your room. Can you get that for me?”
Remi dashed out of the door to get it. “Get your key card and lock your door,” he called after her.
T-Rex was jostling the senator higher on his shoulder as she beat and kicked at him. When Remi plowed through the door, he said, “Now take that sheet, fold it in half and lay it back down.”
Remi complied, looking up for his next instructions.
“Have you ever swaddled a baby?” T-Rex called past the senator’s hysterics. He was worried about her being upside down for this long with blood rushing to her already messed up brain. “That’s how Jess described this. ‘Burrito,’ she called it.”
“Yes, yes. A friend of mine burritos her son when he gets overwhelmed. He’s on the autism spectrum.” Remi prepped the sheet. “Put her here and get her arms up over her head.”
T-Rex tried to talk to Blankenship, but she seemed to have lost contact with reality. She was blabbering to people who weren’t in the room.
Laying the senator down as gently as he could, it took a well-placed knee on her hip bone and more strength than he anticipated to get Blankenship configured the way Remi was instructing. The right arm came down, and that was tucked into the sheet. They dragged the sheet across Blankenship’s left arm, then rolled her.
T-Rex checked to make sure that they weren’t compressing her lungs.
“Deep pressure is helpful,” Remi said as they worked together to get Blankenship’s head up on a pillow. “I’m glad you thought of this. My suggestion was going to be to put her in a hot bath.”
T-Rex caught her eye.
“In the Netherlands, in the olden days, they had bathtubs for people who were psychotic. They’d put them in, and a human, it seems, simply can’t stay agitated in hot water.”
“I’d try it now, but I’m afraid she’d drown.”
“Yeah. Those tubs had canv
as covers that fitted over the rim. In the canvas coverings, they had a hole for the patient’s head. The hole was laced up behind their head, so the patient couldn’t slip under the water.”
“Psychosis. Do you think that’s what’s happening here?”
“I’m not a doctor. It could be psychosis. But it could also be rabies.”
They looked down at Senator Blankenship with the white phlegm and spittle that foamed at the corners of her mouth. Her gaze caught on something she was following across the ceiling.
“There’s a doctor en route?” Remi panted from the exertion, her hand smoothing over Blankenship’s head as if to calm her. “Don’t you think she needs to be in a hospital?”
“I think she needs help. And I think that these symptoms are a lot more complicated than calling an ambulance to take her in.”
“Diplomacy-wise?”
“Diplomacy as well as her public reputation. If someone loads up a video of the senator with this level of reality break, things will be rough for her. And undressed this way?”
“We could maybe get her dressed,” Remi said.
“Are you sure?”
“No. Now that I said that out loud, I think it’s a terrible idea. I’m not willing to fight the senator into a pair of panties.” She caught T-Rex’s eye. “The doctor’s coming?”
“Winner is communicating with the embassy.”
“Where are the others? Echo and Ty?”
“They’re out doing prep work for the senator’s speech.”
Remi looked toward the clock. “This early?”
“Ty is running Rory, then they’re going to the university to sniff out the auditorium and guard it. Havoc was driving the various routes that are in our plans.”
“How many contingency plans did you have in place for today?”
“Four. We’re not going to need any of them. Havoc should be heading this way. Ty and Rory are seven miles out on foot. They’ve turned around.”
He pressed his comms. “Echo Actual.” He reached for Remi’s hand and brought the back of it to his lips as he listened.
