It sounded like a team of furniture movers down below. For some reason, they were dragging desks and file cabinets from the offices. I peeked through the spindles and figured out they were stacking the heavy furniture in the short east/west halls to block the entrances. By the time they were through, it would take a tank to force the doors.
Ethan needed that information. I backed into the corner office and dug out my phone. The icon on top said the battery was down to 13 percent. I thumbed in a quick text.
East west entrances blocked
Once again it looked as if it failed to send. I stuck the phone back in my pocket and gave up. Back in the open, I passed two tall windows, gray from the storm. The temperature inside was falling, and I wondered if my shivering was from the cold or nerves.
It didn’t matter, I still had the other side to clear.
Chapter 53
Never indecisive, Congressman Don Bright raised the volume on the television. Willa Mae Dalyrumple waited beside the door, ignoring the phone ringing at her desk. “Don . . .”
“Listen.” He held both arms out. The gesture was odd, because Don had never hugged her. She stepped forward and they embraced.
He whispered in her ear. “Stay close, like you’re comforting me.”
She got it. The office might be bugged. There might have been listening devices or a camera in the room, but the contact was as comforting as a warm blanket. Willa Mae pulled him close and rubbed his back as if he were a child.
He whispered. “There was something on the History Channel a few months ago, and I have an idea.”
“What?”
“Shhh. Leave the building. Give me your phone and then beg, borrow, steal, or buy another one in the next ten minutes and call my friend Jess McDowell. You have him in your Rolodex.” She knew him as one of Bright’s oldest friends. “His son is an FBI agent here in D.C. His name’s Landon. Tell him to come by in an hour and announce he has an appointment. Make it appear normal, and that we forgot.”
She patted his back.
“This is the weird part, but don’t argue or talk. Bring back a bottle of ketchup. Don’t let him in until it’s time.”
Willa Mae stiffened. “How will we know?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be waiting in the bathroom. Get Daniella’s phone and bring it with you, but don’t tell her why.”
Daniella Gibson was their young intern, a social butterfly who lived with a cell phone in her hand despite Don’s warnings to put it down or find someplace else to work. Now he was glad that she was as stubborn as Katie.
His stomach clenched for the thousandth time at the thought of his baby in the hands of terrorists.
“Now go.” The congressman grasped her arms and tried to disengage.
She refused to turn him loose. “Don’t do anything. Let the professionals handle this.”
“I can’t. These people know I can’t tell the authorities.”
She pushed back and looked him in the eye. “Oh, Don. No.”
“I’m sorry. I allowed some people to trap me into doing some things I shouldn’t have done. At first it was gifts that led to favors, which wound up putting me in chains.”
“But—”
“But nothing. I screwed up, and I have to pay. We don’t have time for this. Go.”
She pulled away and left.
The congressman opened his personal laptop and keyed in his offshore account code, then tapped a long series of numbers, letters, and symbols to send the six million dollars to the terrorist. To save his daughter, he’d have sent the entire amount of dirty money Desi Arnaz asked for.
When the notification popped up saying the transfer was successful, he opened the upper right-hand drawer and took out the .38 revolver that was illegal in Washington D.C. He checked the loads and thought about what he’d have to do next.
Chapter 54
Three quick pops following the power failure irritated DeVaca. He pressed the transmit button on his chest. “Kahn!”
“Yes.”
“I heard gunfire. Check the hostages.”
“Yes.”
He’d been expecting the power to go off, either by design from the locals or from the storm. Either way, it didn’t matter. Flashlights flicked on at the same time the security lights snapped to life high up on the walls. They flickered, dimmed, and died.
One of his men yanked the cord on a generator. Half a dozen portable halogen work lights came alive, flooding the room and making it seem like nighttime beyond the courthouse doors.
* * *
Someone passed the open elevator seconds after the building went dark. Katie Bright heard the rustle and rattle of gear in the tiny enclosure. She’d managed to get one foot free of the zip tie binding her leg to the wooden chair and planted her feet.
A flashlight snapped on as one of the terrorists stepped close to check her bindings. Katie launched her head at where she hoped the man’s chin was in an effort to head-butt the terrorist. The move had worked hundreds of times on television.
She missed, held back by the weight of the chair, and her head grazed the terrorist’s cheek. Katie heard the intake of breath as she used her free leg as leverage, throwing herself to the side and knocking her enemy to the ground.
She twisted her face into the terrorist’s neck, doing her best to find flesh with her teeth. She wanted a nose, an ear, an artery! Growling like an animal, the slender girl burrowed into the scarf covering his neck.
The flashlight went skittering across the floor, and Katie squirmed even harder, hoping another of the bindings would come loose. Hands grabbed her long hair and pushed her away. She bit and snapped like a mad dog until a blinding light sparked in her head. Another blow felt like her skull was cracked.
The next landed with even more power as the terrorist gained leverage.
The elevator’s dim overhead security light flickered, revealing the furious face of the female terrorist.
That was the last Katie Bright saw as the woman attacked.
* * *
Kahn rapped the door and pushed inside to find short and skinny Muhammad Qambrani guarding the hostages and Usman Muhammed Al-Zahwi holding Wilfred Bates’s severed head by the hair.
He stopped, startled at the bloody sight and the county agent’s body. “Why did you kill this man?”
Al-Zahwi answered in their native language. “He fought us.”
Quambrani pointed a shaking finger at the adults cowering in the corner. “It is true. He attacked and I shot him.”
Kahn didn’t bother to turn. Instead, he met Al-Zahwi’s dead stare. “Why was he beheaded?”
“To serve as a message to these infidels.”
Kahn answered, “Good. Behead two of them the next time, because they won’t see the sunset anyway, but drag this pig into a closet. DeVaca might not like it.”
He spun on one heel and left.
* * *
DeVaca waited at the edge of the hole in the glare of the halogen lights. “We’re running out of time.”
Tin Man appeared below the opening and raised his voice over the hammering. “Found it. Give me a few minutes.”
The leader allowed the corner of his mouth to tilt. “Make it quick.”
Things were looking up. The storm’s intensity and the loss of power worked in DeVaca’s favor. Even though the trailer wasn’t in position, they now had a good chance of escaping with the canisters. With that many potential weapons, they could open one to cover their retreat. It would be nothing to steal two or three cars or trucks and disperse.
Amped up now that they had a way out, DeVaca needed to burn off some energy. He left the central rotunda floor to check on the men posted at the north entrance. Cold air met him at the door they’d propped open with a box full of printer paper.
“I’m coming out.” He spoke loudly so the American team would know he was behind them. Outside for the first time since they took the courthouse, he was taken aback by the severity of the storm. Driven by the wind, snow
obscured the buildings across the street. It piled up in deepening drifts against every stationary object in sight. Nothing moved in his frosted field of vision.
“Report.”
Huddled behind unopened cases of paper, Billy Koval turned his attention from the snowfield. The bulky winter clothes over his battle gear made him round as a bear. “All’s quiet. After we shot everyone in the sheriff’s office, we’ve seen no one. They’re afraid to come close.”
Milton Jordan shifted into a more comfortable position. “We’ve seen a few shadows of people in the distance. I thought some of ’em were gonna come into range, but they’ve stayed away. I wish we had more targets.”
“You’ll have plenty before this is over.”
“How long before we load up in the trailer and get out of here?”
“Less than an hour.”
“Good. This weather is killing me.”
DeVaca’s eyes flashed. “I’ll send replacements out soon. I don’t want you to get so cold you slow your responses.”
“Yessir.” Koval turned his attention back to the wintry landscape. “We’ll be in directly.”
DeVaca scanned the area. Seeing no movement, he went back inside and crossed the length of the long, rectangular building. “Kahn, report.”
“All quiet.”
He stopped in front of the open elevator guarded by Dorothy. She ignored him, concentrating on the activity in the rotunda.
Puzzled at her actions, DeVaca turned his attention to their prisoner sitting in the shadows. “Katie Bright.”
“Yes.” Her voice was thick and watery.
He flicked on a tactical light and played the beam across Katie’s swollen and bruised face. Without expression, he studied the young woman’s black, closed eye, puffy lip, and the twin streams of blood running from her nose.
“This is all your fault.”
Katie’s voice was incredulous. “What?”
“The fault of you and your father.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She spoke around swollen lips. “I haven’t done anything.”
She sounded like a child, and that pleased him. “Your father cares nothing of people in other countries. He doesn’t care if they die of disease, guns, or starvation.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is true. He wants to seal the borders to protect all you fat, lazy Americans from the real world. You’re all soft, and that will soon work against you.”
Tears ran down her bloody and swollen cheeks. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You will! The atrocities you’ve brought to this world will soon be revealed. Blood will run in American streets. There won’t be enough body bags to bury you all.”
He was pleased with the effect the speech was having on his own spirit. The Demon was feeding on the woman’s fear. The shell game he was playing with everyone from the teams to Chavez was as exciting as sex, and even more fulfilling.
The jihadists with him wanted a holy war, and thought it would start here.
The Mexican team dreamed of the long-awaited restoration of Texas to Mexico.
The American team, tired of governmental interference, didn’t much like the Mexicans, either.
DeVaca no more believed in their causes than the man in the moon. To enhance the fear of terrorism from both inside and out of the nations’ borders, he’d assembled homegrown teams to operate alongside the other feared entities. Each group despised the others, but agreed cooperation was necessary to further their cause. His heart swelled at the memory of convincing each team that the others were pawns to be sacrificed as the mission’s goal was fulfilled.
“We are here because of what your country has done to others. The importance of this comes from the fear we will instill. Call it the ‘what if’ factor. What if they take another more important facility or building? What if they kill even more hostages?” The back of his neck tingled when he saw Katie’s reaction. “What if they take over a school next or a mall? If they can do this, they can do that. What we’ve done here today will shake this country to its very foundation.”
Katie leaned forward against her bonds, her fear replaced by anger. She snorted a clot of blood from one nostril. “Oh, please! You’re an asshole if you think this little attack is going to do anything other than piss off an entire country.”
He smiled. “No matter. You’ve done your part, and for that, you can die happy.”
He ignored Katie’s one-eyed glare and took Dorothy’s arm, pulling her to the side and out of earshot from the others. “What happened to her face?”
“Like I said earlier. She attempted to escape and tried to bite me when I restrained her.”
“So you beat her? Like this?” He was angry that Katie’s face was so swollen. It took away from her innocence, and his desire for the young secretary withered.
Dorothy met his gaze. “I was angry.”
DeVaca leaned in. From a distance it looked as if he were about to kiss her through the hajib. “That’s the last time. If you strike her again, I’ll bite your lips off and swallow them. I decide who is punished, and who dies. Is that clear?”
Dorothy held her ground. She put both hands on DeVaca’s hips and pulled him closer. Tilting her face, she whispered. “You gave me a job. The beating showed her that any attempt to escape will not be tolerated. I had that man executed upstairs. You don’t care if I made that decision alone, do you?”
A long-buried desire awoke, nudging the Demon away. “We might still need her if her father lags in any way. I want her conscious and able to function. Leave her alone.”
Dorothy ground her hips into him before stepping back, smiling with her blue eyes. “As you say.” She strolled back to the pit without looking back.
DeVaca thought of blueberries again as he walked with a light step to the California team’s position behind the van. He needed to calm the Demon before it could fully awaken and take over. Frosty air nipped his ears as soon as he stepped outside the southern entrance. The terrorist standing at the rear of the van backed against the single step glanced over his shoulder. Much of the wind’s force was blocked by the building’s 4-by-4-foot entry enclave. There was barely a shoulder’s width between the van’s open back doors and the two brick walls on either side.
Despite the shemagh covering his face, DeVaca recognized him as the one who chainsawed the hole in the floor. “Anything, Mslam?”
He spoke over his shoulder. “No. Other than those out there under the snow, we’ve seen nothing.”
“You’ll have the opportunity to kill more soon.”
“I look forward to it.”
DeVaca took one last look into the storm and spun on his heel. “I bet you do.”
Chapter 55
Sheriff Ethan Armstrong’s phone dinged. He thumbed it open and read the message from Sonny.
East west entrances blocked.
“What the hell?” Those around him craned their necks to read the screen. “It’s Sonny, He’s telling us they’ve blocked the east and west doors.”
Deputy Malone picked up a marker and drew two big Xs over those doors on their floor plan. “This’ gonna be harder now that we’re down to two points of access.”
Ethan tilted his hat back. “There’s no easy way in, not covered the way they are.” He was torn between the gut-wrenching need to rescue his daughter and the professionalism and responsibility that required him to wait. “Well, it’s still quiet inside, so we wait until something happens and hope the phone rings.”
He wished he had some Maalox and that Sonny would call instead of trying to text.
Chapter 56
I was back at my starting point outside the Grand Jury room.
Standing there against the wall, I realized that if I’d waited for a while, I wouldn’t have needed to climb out the window and make that dangerous crawl across the roof. I could have crept down the stairs when they all gathered in the rotunda. The whole stupid episode was the resu
lt of being impulsive, a problem I’d had all my life.
But now I needed to check the second floor, and that scared me worse than a rattler because I’d bet a dollar to a donut lots of those creeps were down there. The only way to reach that floor was the twin north/south staircases. Then I had an idea. I opened the door into the Grand Jury room and stepped back inside.
In the next instant, stars and little bluebirds circled my head.
I staggered to one knee and realized it was the kid who’d conked me. “Goddlemighty!”
“Oh, shit! Sorry, Mr. Hawke!”
Arturo’s soft voice cut through the pain and anger. “Watch your language!” I yanked the wooden spindle from his hand. Instead of hiding, he’d worked one loose from the dividing bar. Pretty resourceful, but aggravating just the same.
I closed the door and put my hand to the back of my head to feel for blood. My fingers came back red and sticky. Figures. Dead terrorists were scattered like marbles both above and behind me, and one of the kids I was trying to save came close to knocking my head off. “Damn, boy!”
“I thought you were one of them. Did you find anyone?”
“Haven’t you noticed they don’t look like me?”
“I was scared.”
“Not scared enough to run.”
Despite what I’d said, he’d gone back into the conference room to arm himself with an MP5 slung over his shoulder and covered by my oversize coat. I didn’t say anything, but it made me kinda proud that he’d taken some initiative. It halfway pissed me off, too.
“Stay here.”
I rubbed the knot on my head and returned to the conference room. The bodies were still in the same place, and I waited for a surge of remorse or regret. Counting the man I shot weeks earlier on the highway, and the three dead terrorists, I was all out of repentance. I felt nothing for the men I’d killed and for those who would follow.
They brought a war to my town, and I wasn’t going to stand for it.
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