Freefall

by Traci Hunter Abramson

  Weapons drawn, two of the Secret Service agents moved through the scattering crowd in search of the gunman, while the other two crouched down in front of where the DCI was sprawled on the ground along with Jim and Charlie. One called back to him, his eyes staying on the room. “Are you okay, sir?”

  Shaken but clearly unharmed, the DCI nodded. “Yeah.”

  The other agent communicated with their driver and they all started toward the front door. Someone turned to Charlie and asked, “Where was the shooter?”

  “I don’t know. I saw one of those red targeting beams and I just reacted.”

  “That’s odd,” one agent said as they stepped outside. “Most snipers don’t use that kind of scope for that reason. They don’t want their target to have any warning.”

  “Unless he wasn’t the only one,” Charlie commented.

  Awareness dawned in the agent’s eyes and he turned and pushed the DCI back into the hotel just as another shot rang out. The agent’s body jerked from the impact, and Charlie instinctively grabbed the wounded man by the jacket and dragged him back inside.

  Across the lobby, the other gunman had blended into the crowd of people rushing for the exits. He might have stayed hidden from the Secret Service agents had he not tried to take another shot. He raised his gun, but he never managed to squeeze the trigger. Instead he was hit by both bullets as the agents eliminated that threat once and for all.

  “There’s no way to tell how many shooters may be outside,” one agent said, turning to his wounded partner. “How are you doing?”

  Winded, but not bleeding, the downed agent said, “It got me in my vest.”

  “How are we going to get out of here?” Jim asked.

  “Through the kitchen,” one agent suggested. “I’ll have our driver leave and then circle back.”

  “Let’s go then.” Charlie helped the wounded agent to his feet.

  Together, they made their way through the restaurant, into the kitchen, past the staff who looked on curiously, and then to the service entrance at the back of the building. As soon as they got the message that their vehicles were in position, two agents stepped out and checked the area before letting the others file out into the waiting SUVs.

  As soon as they were under way, the driver of their car turned back to the senator. “Senator Whitmore?”

  “Yes?” Jim asked, surprised to be called by name since they hadn’t arrived with the DCI.

  “We just got a message for you, sir,” the driver said, then hesitated a moment as he made a left turn. “Your daughter is safe. She is on her way to our naval base in Italy.”

  The relief was immediate, as were the tears that filled his eyes.

  * * *

  Brent sat silently as the doctor examined the gunshot wound. He had gone through several hours of meetings at the naval base in Italy before he mentioned the gunshot wound that had landed him at the base hospital. The X-ray had told him what Brent already knew: the bullet had missed the bone completely, entering and exiting through the fleshy part of his arm.

  While waiting for the X-ray to be developed, he had spent nearly an hour hooked up to an IV to combat any possible infection and dehydration. The doctor had been kind enough to have the nurse take the IV needle out when he came into the treatment room, clearly aware that Brent intended to do it himself otherwise.

  The door opened and Kel walked in. He leaned against the doorjamb and waited for the doctor to finish.

  The doctor barely glanced at Kel before turning his attention back to Brent. “The stitches have been in too long to redo them. It’s going to leave a nasty scar, but overall the gal that stitched you up did okay for her first time around.” He smiled. “I’ll have the nurse come in and apply a fresh dressing, and we’ll plan to take the stitches out in a couple more days.”

  Kel raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything until the doctor left. “I guess your civilian did okay by you.”

  Brent’s stomach pitched at Kel’s comment. He had been chastising himself for the past two hours for getting emotionally involved with “his civilian,” as Kel called her. Determined to change the subject, he asked, “Have they cleared the hotel yet?”

  “We didn’t get the message to the hotel in time. The assassination attempt went down this morning,” Kel stated.

  “What?” Brent looked at him, confused. “You said ‘attempt.’ Is everyone okay?”

  “Yeah, we got lucky.” Kel grinned when he added, “Actually, the attempt was broken up by the senator’s son.”

  Brent shook his head. “I still don’t understand. The date on the Palm Pilot I picked up was tomorrow’s date.”

  “Could they have known that their information was compromised?”

  “I doubt it. It was pure luck that we happened to come across the information.”

  “What if the date wasn’t for the assassination, but rather for the subway attack?”

  Brent’s face paled. “That doesn’t give us enough time.”

  “Meet me in our briefing room as soon as the nurse finishes patching you up,” Kel ordered. “Everyone else is already in there waiting for us.”

  “I’ve got a better idea.” Brent jumped off the examining table and grabbed his shirt. He had just finished buttoning it up when the nurse walked in with the bandages.

  “I’ll take that,” Kel said, swiping the bandages off of the tray she held and then stepping past her.

  “Wait, I have to bandage his arm,” she protested. Her eyes widened when Brent followed behind Kel.

  “He’ll take care of it for me,” Brent assured her and then promptly left without giving the nurse a second glance.

  Kel and Brent walked outside to where Kel had a Jeep waiting. A few minutes later they pulled into the parking lot of a nearby building. They entered the briefing room that the rest of the team had already converted into a temporary command center. Tristan was staring at a computer screen listing details about various biological weapons. Next to him, Quinn was on the phone. Across the room Seth had two computers set up, one displaying a map of the Washington DC subway system and the other showing someone’s email correspondence.

  Kel threw the roll of bandages at Tristan. “Here, patch up Miller.”

  Tristan snagged the roll right before it hit him between the eyes. “Thanks, boss.” He stood up and let Brent take his seat.

  “Someone in the CIA knows what we’re dealing with,” Brent said as he glanced at the list of known biological agents. “Amy said that the intel officer at the embassy met with the ambassador the day she was taken hostage.”

  “Anyone know who the CIA folks were at the embassy?”

  “Quinn’s working on that now,” Seth said as Quinn started scribbling notes on a pad of paper.

  “How come I have to play nursemaid?” Tristan muttered as Brent pulled his arm free of his shirt to expose the wound.

  “Just lucky, I guess,” Brent told him without sparing him a glance.

  “What have we got so far?” Kel asked as Quinn hung up the phone.

  “I talked to the CIA agent that was in Abolstan. He says the biological agent we’re dealing with is airborne, has an estimated range of a few hundred cubic yards, and remains effective for up to six hours,” Quinn informed them. He paused before adding, “He also said that there isn’t a counteragent.”

  “That means either we’re dealing with the suicide types, or someone is going to set up some kind of delayed release.” Brent started to stand, but Tristan held him in place.

  “Hold still for a minute. I’m almost done here.” Tristan tied off the bandage and then released Brent.

  Quinn spoke up once more. “The CIA is sending over the report from the Center for Disease Control, but from what they said, this is nasty stuff. Death is within minutes of contact.”

  “What kind of support do we have in Washington?” Brent asked as he moved to look over Seth’s shoulder.

  “They’re activating two reserve units, and we’re asking the various po
lice departments to pull some overtime hours to help us conduct searches,” Quinn said. “The problem is, even with the extra help, we don’t have the manpower to conduct thorough searches at all of these metro stations.”

  Tristan spoke up. “Since the DCI was targeted, I think we need to concentrate the manpower on the Pentagon station. If someone managed to take out the Director of Central Intelligence and then wipe out a portion of our employees at the Pentagon, our intelligence system would be crippled.”

  Kel nodded in agreement. “Quinn, call Admiral Mantiquez and tell him we need him to task some of the Pentagon units to cover the searches at the Pentagon and Pentagon City stops.”

  “If they can drum up enough manpower, we should have them take care of National Airport too,” Brent suggested.

  Kel nodded and signaled for Quinn to make the call. He then turned back to Brent. “If you were a terrorist, what other stations would you go for?”

  “Metro Center has high traffic, as do most of the stations in DC,” Brent suggested. “I think we should concentrate most of the manpower there.”

  “What about us? Are we shipping out?” Tristan asked. “If we leave now, we can make it there before tomorrow.”

  “We’re on intel for this one. We’ll do what we can to help from here, but for now we need to see what else we can retrieve from that Palm Pilot.” Kel motioned to Seth. “Johnson is already trying to trace this guy’s communications to see who he was talking to.”

  “How are we going to monitor the subway stations in Washington?” Brent asked.

  “We have computers being delivered any time, and we’re going to set up a secure link with the closed-circuit security cameras for the metro,” Kel explained. “The transit authority is already working with our computer guys in DC to set it up for us.”

  “Where do you want me to start?”

  “For now, why don’t you go down and pay a visit to Amy Whitmore?” Kel suggested. “You can check on how she’s doing while you ask if she can remember anything else the ambassador said.”

  Brent stood, ignoring the flutter of anticipation that shot through him. He told himself he was just anxious to see for himself that Amy was all right. He took two steps before he thought to ask, “Why don’t we just talk to the ambassador directly?”

  “We would if we could.”

  “Wasn’t he at the hotel in Cairo?”

  Kel nodded. “Oh, he was there. Apparently all of the excitement of being evacuated last week and the assassination attempt today resulted in some kind of nervous breakdown. He is currently under sedation.”

  Tristan rolled his eyes. “How in the world did he get posted to this part of the world?”

  Kel ended the speculation with a look. “It doesn’t matter. Either way, most of the intel we have is from what Brent and Amy have pieced together. We can’t afford to turn away whatever sources we still have.”

  “This is so not fair,” Quinn complained. “We get to sit around and stare at computers for the next who knows how long, and you’re sending him on a date.”

  “Don’t wait up, Mommy.” Brent grinned and headed for the door.

  “At least send us some pizza!” Quinn called after him as laughter echoed out into the hallway.

  CHAPTER 11

  “Can you please take this needle out of my arm?” Amy asked for the third time in less than an hour.

  “I’ll have to ask the doctor, miss,” the nurse said as she breezed out of the room.

  Amy sighed, frustrated that she had been confined to this hospital bed for the past eight hours. Within an hour of getting into dry clothes, her shivering had finally ceased, but the doctor had insisted on hooking her up to an IV as a precaution. She had refused the flimsy hospital gown the nurse offered her and was now dressed in a pair of army fatigues that someone had managed to scrounge up.

  After she had finally warmed up, exhaustion had overtaken her and she had spent her first several hours in blissful slumber. She had then realized that someone needed to let her family know she was okay, which thankfully had already been taken care of. Now it seemed that every time she started to doze off, a nurse would come in and start poking and prodding again. Then she would remember the needle in her arm, something she could hardly stand to look at, and her mind would start racing.

  Memories of her struggles escaping Abolstan just served to remind her that she already missed Brent’s company even though they had only been apart for eight hours. She supposed that was normal after spending so much time together, but it depressed her to think that she might not see him again. Repeatedly she told herself that the connection she felt to him was probably intensified because of their circumstances, but that didn’t stop her from thinking about him.

  She had not seen or heard from Brent since they had landed and she had been loaded into an ambulance. Though she knew it had only been the night before, she felt like she had been in the hospital for days rather than hours. The possibility that Brent had already rejoined his team and was headed for the threat in Cairo was too real to dismiss, but she preferred that to the thought of him flying to Washington, where he might be dealing with something even more deadly and elusive than an assassin.

  Imagining the chaos that would occur if these terrorists were successful brought tears to her eyes. Her friends used that subway system all the time regardless of what the threat level was on a given day. After going through so much during their teenage years, most of her friends had come to accept that certain things were simply out of their control so it was best not to worry about them.

  She had been in high school on 9/11 when the plane had crashed into the Pentagon, and her school had automatically gone into lockdown mode. Barely a year had passed before the area had been terrorized by a sniper who randomly killed people while they gassed up their cars or walked through parking lots. Even a boy walking into a nearby school had been shot. While the search had continued for the sniper, all of the outdoor activities had been cancelled. Again her high school had been locked down each day until she and the other students could barely remember what it was like to eat their lunch outside or walk down the street without fear.

  Football games had been held on secure military facilities, often without anyone in the stands. Her soccer league had simply cancelled the rest of the season. Her mind turned to Brent as she realized that he, too, would have gone through some of those experiences. Since he was a couple of years older than she was, she guessed that he would have been in college during the sniper attacks.

  When Brent himself suddenly appeared in her doorway, she just stared for a moment, surprised to see him when he had been so heavily on her mind.

  “How are you doing?” Brent asked, crossing to the chair next to her bed.

  “I’d be better if they would let me out of here,” Amy admitted. “What about you?”

  “The doctor took one look at your stitches and decided you did such a good job he left them in.”

  “Yeah, right.” Amy laughed. It felt good to laugh again, and she could admit at least to herself that she was relieved to see that Brent was still here and out of harm’s way.

  “I’m serious.” Brent sat down next to her and stretched his long legs out in front of him.

  “Just tell me why you’re the one who got shot and I’m the one stuck in a hospital bed,” Amy said.

  “You’re prettier than I am,” Brent suggested. “I guess they wanted to keep you around.”

  She glanced toward the door and lowered her voice. “Do you have any experience with taking out IVs?”

  “Some,” Brent admitted with a grin, but then the smile faded. “Actually, I need to talk to you. We need to know anything you can remember about what the ambassador was working on, what you saw on his desk, anything that might help us with this subway problem.”

  Before she could answer him, the nurse came back in. “I’m sorry sir, but Miss Whitmore is not supposed to have any visitors.”

  “That’s okay, she isn’t staying a
nyway.” Brent stood up and grabbed Amy’s chart. He scrawled a name and phone number across the bottom and then signed his name. “Would you please tell the doctor that Miss Whitmore has decided to check herself out? The number of my CO is right here if he has any questions.”

  “Sir, she can’t just leave,” the nurse protested as Brent turned to take the surgical tape off of Amy’s arm and then removed the IV.

  “Just watch me,” Amy muttered under her breath, leaning down to slip her shoes on.

  Brent bit back a smile, managing a serious face when he turned back to the nurse. He stood and took Amy’s hand to help her up. With an air of authority, he said simply, “I’m sorry, but this is a matter of national security.”

  With that, Brent led Amy past the gaping nurse and out the door.

  “Where are we going?”

  “We’ve set up a command center down the road.” Brent glanced down at the fatigues she was wearing and shook his head. “It looks like you enlisted without knowing it.”

  “Yeah, but I think I did basic training the hard way.” Amy followed him out into the daylight. Her steps slowed as she looked up into the sky.

  Brent glanced over at her. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” Amy nodded. “It’s just that this is the first time in a week that we’ve been able to walk outside and not worry about someone shooting at us.”

  “Give it some time. You’ll get used to it again.” They drove down the street and then he led her inside the building where the squad’s temporary command center was located. His voice took on a serious tone when he spoke again. “You know, you probably should go through some counseling after what you’ve been through.”

  “The doctor mentioned that too,” Amy replied with a shrug. “I’ll look into it once I figure out where I’m going to be living.”

  “I thought you would spend some time at home, at least for a while.”