Don't Look Away (Veronica Sloan)

by Leslie A. Kelly

She was already on her feet, not even wasting the time it would take to get into her uniform. Fuck regulations. She’d tear the White House apart in jeans and a T-shirt if it meant catching the man who’d attacked her partner.

  Sykes was right behind her as they walked out the door. When they reached the parking lot, he headed for his FBI vehicle and she went to her car.

  “Wait…”

  “I’m driving,” she snapped. “My head’s fine and I really need to grip something in my fists and choke the shit out of it.”

  He held up his hands. “Okay, just don’t mistake my throat for the steering wheel.”

  “Not a chance. But believe me, if I had a shot at Williams, he’d have a really tough time ever swallowing again.”

  Chapter 19

  Because of the shut-downs on the site last week, Ronnie knew crews were working around-the-clock at the White House, which meant the Secret Service would have to have a presence. She hoped to find Johansen on site, but if he wasn’t, they could at least find out how to reach him from somebody else in the office.

  First, of course, they had to go through security. Jesus, if she’d thought it had been bad during the morning after a murder, it was ridiculous on a Saturday night. That could be because more drunks were out and about, protestors and the like, but it could also be because she pulled up to the security gate a little too fast.

  “Get out of the vehicle!” a voice shouted. Meanwhile, six body-armor wearing soldiers leveled their weapons at the windshield of the car and three more came running from further down along the fence-line.

  “Whoops,” she mumbled, wishing she’d taken the time to get her uniform back out. It wouldn’t have gotten them past this checkpoint but it might have made it slightly less probably that they were gonna get shot.

  “Please don’t get me shot tonight,” Sykes said, groaning.

  She opened the door, putting her hands on her head as she stepped out. “Sorry!” she called. Then, hoping to speed things up, she added, “I’m Detective Veronica Sloan, D.C.P.D., that’s Special Agent Sykes. We’re investigating a murder.”

  “Shut the hell up,” the glaring, stone-jawed soldier replied.

  Sykes apparently didn’t like that. “Watch your mouth, soldier.”

  Ten pair of eyes, armed to the teeth, swung in his direction.

  He didn’t back down. “I understand protocol, I know you’re doing a tough job, but there was time when the armed forces actually treated people with respect. There was also such a thing as professional cooperation between the military, cops and the FBI.”

  The aggressive one took a step forward, murder in his eyes, then a voice barked, “Stand down.”

  A sergeant, who’d been hidden in the shadows behind a nearby truck, apparently smoking a cigarette, which clung to his bottom lip, emerged. He walked straight over to Sykes, his bushy brow pulled down into a frown. When he got close, he didn’t snap at him, he instead stuck his hand out. “Howya doin’ Lieutenant?”

  Ronnie’s mouth fell open. Sykes was ex-military? She would never have guessed that. Not in a million years. He was so…educated, and squeaky-clean. It boggled the mind.

  Sykes grinned. “Just fine, Sarge. It’s good to see you. Didn’t know you’d pulled White House duty.”

  “Shit duty is what it is.” He waved a few of his other troops over. “Go ahead and scan them…with respect.”

  The first soldier, who’d been so aggressive, backed up, trudging, as if knowing he was going to get reamed out shortly.

  The screening was over in under three minutes. The fastest she’d ever experienced. During that time, she eavesdropped a little on Sykes’s conversation with the sergeant, who’d apparently served with him in Iran before he’d left the military and joined the FBI.

  Was she ever going to really know this man? Or would there always be new facets, layers to discover? She hadn’t had time to dwell on it—on them—for obvious reasons. But for just one second, she allowed a hint of sadness, near pain, to stab her dead center.

  Things would have been tough to work out between her and Sykes before Daniels had been attacked. Now she honestly didn’t imagine how they ever could.

  That would have been painful to realize yesterday. After last night, what they’d shared in that Richmond hotel room? It was, quite frankly, devastating.

  Okay, pull a Scarlett O’Hara and think about that tomorrow, she told herself.

  Thanking the sergeant, they headed through the gate toward the White House. Coming up on it at night was a different experience. During the daytime it looked like a monstrous beast. In the dark, with the spaced spotlights shining only on certain areas of it, there were glimmers of the building it had once been…and would be again. She could almost see the graceful columns and stately grounds, both of which were a long way off. Still, for the first time since coming back here last week, she was reminded of the warm, patriotic way this place used to make her feel, before the world had exploded into blood and fire in 2017.

  Maybe it could happen again. Maybe she and everyone else in the country would feel it again. She certainly hoped so, anyway.

  Reaching the nearest construction crew, they flashed their identification, asked which of the Secret Service agents were on site and were informed Johansen and Kilgore were both here. After being admitted to the building, they went inside and headed for the security office.

  “We’re looking for SSA Johansen,” said Ronnie as they entered the room, surprising Kilgore at his desk.

  The SAIC flinched, shoving what looked like a magazine he’d been reading down onto his lap and crumpling it in his fists. “Ever hear of knocking?”

  She cast a pointed look at the sign on the door, clearly marked as the security center. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize this your private office.”

  Beside her, she heard Sykes quietly tsk. Honey and vinegar, Sloan.

  “What do you want him for?” Kilgore asked.

  She carefully explained about wanting to ask what had been found during the search of the tunnel last night, revealing as little as possible. Kilgore, who had to have heard about Daniels, didn’t even ask his condition. The ass.

  “Last I saw SSA Johansen was about twenty minutes ago,” he said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. “He got a call, then said he was going to walk around. He mentioned needing to check-out something in the sub-basement.”

  “Does he usually do that? Go walking around checking windows and doors like a rent-a-cop?”

  The SAIC sneered. “No. We’re not security guards, you know.”

  No, they weren’t. And a routine sweep seemed very much beneath the pompous Secret Service agent and his team. Very curious.

  They turned to leave, but before they did, something occurred to Ronnie and she had to turn around. “Question for you, Kilgore.”

  His jaw stiffened at the disrespectful tone.

  “Whyd’ja spy on Bailey and Leanne Carr doing it and never put a stop to it?”

  The belligerent man’s eyes almost popped out of his head. She noted that he immediately reached for whatever magazine he’d been reading when they walked in and pushed it down onto the floor below his desk, as if that would shield it better from their view. Unfortunately for him, all it did was make it easier to see beneath the desk. She caught a glimpse of a graphic image of a couple involved in a sex act, and immediately grasped it.

  “Friggin’ pervert,” she muttered as she turned and walked out of the office.

  He sputtered something behind her, but she didn’t even acknowledge it. She had absolutely no use for the man and if and when this awful case ever ended, she would file a complaint against him.

  “Sure hope you don’t ever get White House detail under that guy,” Sykes said, his tone low and reproving.

  “He’s a creep.”

  “Definitely. But not necessarily the kind of guy you want to call a pervert to his face.”

  “I call them as I see them,” she snapped as they rea
ched the stairwell.

  They jogged down, taking the stairs a few at a time. About halfway down, she suddenly got a chill, remembering the last time she’d come down here. Thankfully, this time, she had backup.

  When they reached the bottom level, she saw all the lights were on. Stepping out into the corridor, near the area where Leanne’s remains had been scattered, she called, “Johansen? SSA Johansen?”

  Nothing. Not a sound, not a whisper, not a movement.

  “Strange,” Sykes said. “You’d think he would have killed the lights when he was finished.

  Yes, she would have thought that. But another thought occurred to her. She approached the breaker panel, lifting a hand to the mass of switches.

  “What are you doing?”

  She thought about it, pictured what Johansen had done last night, when he’d been down here with Daniels, and pulled what she thought was the correct sequence of levers.

  A click and the entire wall behind the panel popped out an inch.

  “Holy shit, the mystery tunnel?”

  “Uh huh.” She stepped inside. As soon as her feet crossed the threshold, the lights came on, washing in a wave down the long corridor, which sloped down slightly as it led away from the White House in the direction of the Washington Monument.

  Sykes followed. “Think he’s in here?” He raised his voice and called for the agent, but they heard nothing in response.

  Ronnie was about to suggest they go upstairs and search the basement—her second least favorite level in this building—when she spotted something on the floor a few feet away. It looked like a scrap of fabric. Small and ragged, the green square appeared to have been torn off someone’s clothing. Or someone’s green uniform.

  Right beside it was a tiny red spot. Liquid. Shiny.

  Blood.

  “Sykes,” she said, nodding toward it.

  He was already unsnapping his holster, way ahead of her. His voice a thick whisper, he said, “I’ll take point.”

  She nodded, retrieving her weapon as well, holding it down at her side.

  They edged down into the tunnel, walking quietly. Although they could see a good distance in front of them, because of the powerful overhead lights, the hallway made a sharp turn about ten yards ahead, and they could make out nothing beyond it.

  Every so often, they would catch sight of another tiny, red spot. Eventually, they got a little bigger, going from a pinpoint to the size of a dime, then a nickel.

  Whoever was bleeding was in trouble. He’d staggered down this hallway—been pushed, or ordered at gunpoint—getting worse with every step he took.

  They hugged the inside wall, edging toward that unknown turn in their path. Ronnie thought hard about Daniels’s download, remembering that the next section of the tunnel went for about five yards, before turning sharply again, this time to the left.

  Just about to whisper that to Sykes, she froze when every light in the place cut out.

  Blackness descended. Her pulse fluttering wildly, Ronnie fought to control her reaction. Instinct was trying to take over, trying to remind her of what had happened the last time she was trapped down her in the dark with a madman.

  It’s not the same. He won’t catch you off guard.

  Plus, this time, she wasn’t alone.

  Sykes moved closer in the darkness, until his warm breaths fell onto the side of her face. “Emergency lights will come on,” he said, his voice as light and soft as a butterfly’s wing.

  She waited. Her pounding heart kept the time.

  Nothing happened. No emergency lights. She imagined their opponent, who was in charge of rebuilding this entire place, knew his way around an emergency power generator.

  Finally, realizing they weren’t going to come on, Sykes asked, “Flashlight?”

  She again cursed herself for not taking the time to change into her uniform, on which she’d clipped a nice, sturdy little mag the other day after her dark-adventures in the White House. “No.”

  “I left my damn phone charging in the car. Yours?”

  She groaned softly. “You’re not going to believe it, but I raced out of my place without it.”

  A phone screen might not have done much good, but anything was better than this inky world in which they’d been thrown.

  “I believe it,” he said. “Because, sometimes, if it weren’t for bad luck, you’d have no luck at all, Veronica Sloan.”

  “Tell me about it.” She just hoped her partner had luck enough to make it through the night. And that she and Sykes had enough to get them out of this hellhole.

  “Back? Or forward?” Sykes asked.

  She thought about it. They were at about the halfway point, if her memory was correct. Going back in the blackness through which they’d already come seemed moderately better than going forward into the unknown. But it didn’t mean they wouldn’t be walking into a trap, no matter which way they went. Williams could have been hiding somewhere in the basement when they went into the tunnel and followed them in. Or he could be ahead of them with Johansen’s body.

  Damn it, think, think.

  Suddenly, an option popped into her head. She remembered everything Daniels had noticed and thought frantically, trying to figure just how many steps they’d come. They’d been looking forward, focusing on finding Johansen, or Williams, and she hadn’t paid any attention to all those emergency supplies left like bread crumbs for missing children along the trail.

  But it couldn’t be far. There had been more medical kits, yes, but there had to be at least one of the boxes she was looking for between here and the entrance.

  “I’ve got an idea,” she whispered, gripping his arm. Holding on, she pulled him to the other side of the tunnel. She put her free hand up on the wall, a little above her head, and began walking back towards the White House, feeling every inch of the way. Her eyes hadn’t adjusted the tiniest bit. They were moving through blackness, it was as dark as a sensory deprivation chamber, and she had to rely only on touch. It was dizzying, frightening being totally blind, especially knowing they were not alone and were, most likely, being stalked by a predator.

  Come on, come on, where are you?

  Her hand hit the corner of a box that protruded out from the wall. She let go of Sykes, reached up and felt its outline, picturing what Daniels had seen. This one felt smaller, with a hard, metal front and a solid latch on the top. Medical kit.

  Not what she needed.

  She grabbed him again, kept going. Three steps. Five. Ten. Hell, is it higher? Lower? Am I on the wrong damn side?

  Finally, her hand brushed something else. She sucked in a breath, released Sykes again, felt along the front, noting slick glass.

  Yes. This might be it.

  Her fingers worked the bottom latch and she rolled the door up. So far so good. She patted along the inside of the cabinet, praying she didn’t feel a fire extinguisher or a defibrillator.

  “Bingo,” she whispered with a relieved sigh when her hands came in contact with what felt like a pair of binoculars.

  “What?”

  “Sight!”

  She reached in, grabbing the night vision goggles. Though these were a different model than she’d ever trained on, she knew enough to get them strapped onto her head. She felt for the switch, found it, flicked it. A faint buzzing sound began, nearly inaudible, and suddenly a shadowy green world opened up all around her.

  Smiling in relief, she started to tell Sykes what she’d found. But as soon as she turned toward him, she gasped in horror. Because emerging from the darkness, right behind Jeremy, was a large, black-cloaked figure wearing night vision goggles of his own.

  It was Jack Williams.

  Sykes was between her and the assailant, blind to his presence.

  “Down!” she barked, swinging her weapon up instinctively. Sykes didn’t react at first, having no idea a killer stood three steps behind him. Ronnie tried to shove him out of the way, since he was blocking her shot. Before she could do it, though, Sykes shudde
red. She felt a jolt as electricity zipped through his body, leaping into hers, shocking her so hard she stumbled back and dropped her Glock.

  Sykes dropped like a stone to the floor, immobilized and defenseless.

  She dropped, too, picking her legs up and landing on top of him just as Williams turned toward her and fired his gun. The noise inside this enclosed chamber was deafening, wall-rattling, and her ears rung.

  “Bitch!” he screamed.

  He’d obviously crept up with the stun gun, hoping to incapacitate one of them before having to give away his presence by firing a shot. And it would have worked, if Ronnie hadn’t found those night vision goggles and been prepared for the assault.

  Now he wasn’t launching a surprise attack, and he wasn’t fighting someone who was totally blind. She wasn’t sweet, innocent Leanne Carr. She hadn’t been jumped in an alley, shot with a stun gun, incapacitated by a club to the head. She wasn’t her poor partner who’d been drugged.

  She was tough. She was strong. And she absofuckinglutely furious.

  She didn’t even waste time trying to find her weapon. She merely reacted, stayed alive, knowing she had to in order to keep Jeremy alive. He wouldn’t be able to defend himself; she was the only chance he had.

  And damned if she was going to lose him, not now that she’d finally realized how very much she cared about him.

  She instinctively rolled away just as Williams fired again. The smell of gunpowder choked her and she wasn’t hearing much. She could actually feel warm fluid running out of her ears and suspected her eardrums had ruptured. But that was okay. She still had the goggles. She could see that dark form in the eerie greenness. As long as she could see him, she could beat him.

  She didn’t hesitate afterward the echo of that last shot ended. She launched off the floor, throwing herself at him. He let out a hard oomph, staggering backward. Ronnie flung her arm out and swatted the gun out of his right hand, then spun around and kicked the stun gun out of his left. He lifted his fists to fight her.

  “Bring it on, you piece of shit,” she snarled.

  She drew on every moment of training she’d ever had, punching him in the throat, throwing all her weight into the blow. She felt his windpipe crunch, heard the choking cough as he tried to breathe. But he didn’t go down, he continued to fight, hitting her in the midriff, then landing a stinging punch against the wounded side of her head.