“You’re ruining all the fun,” I muttered.
The emergency stairwell was next to the elevator. Thank God. Donovan was beside me and jerked the door open before I could. The stairwell wasn’t blocked going down to our left. To our right there was a door with NO ADMITTANCE on it, obviously the door to the rooftop and the helicopter pad. I imagined that the top-floor residents did have the code to it for emergency situations or to catch a helicopter.
The life of the wealthy.
Very fancy door and stairwell, too, including the NO ADMITTANCE sign. Worthy of the Tower’s residents.
After glancing at the paper that had been given to me, I pressed the sequence of numbers on the keypad beside door. A red light flashed instead of green. Christ. I looked at the paper and saw I’d mistaken a one for a seven thanks to the man’s shaky handwriting. The lock clicked when I reentered the code. I yanked the door open and charged up the stairs in a heartbeat.
I reached another door that had ROOFTOP printed across it. A hollow metal fire door with a red EXIT sign above the door. It didn’t need a code.
At the same time, Donovan and I pushed down on the exit bar and opened the door.
Freezing wind blasted us and goose bumps immediately pebbled my skin—I didn’t have my coat and felt like my skin was coated in ice.
At that moment I didn’t give a damn. Hagstedt, bloody towel still wrapped around his head, was climbing into a gold-trimmed black helicopter even before it had finished landing. I recognized the manufacturer—Eurocopter. Fast little sonsofbitches. We couldn’t let it off the pad.
Ai was lying motionless near the helicopter. My rage ramped up impossibly more.
The helicopter made the air even colder and windier as the rotors turned. I rushed toward it.
The heat of my anger and adrenaline pushed me faster. When I was close enough to get off a good shot, I stopped and in a second had spread my feet shoulder width and steadied the Sig with both hands.
I aimed and pulled the trigger. Once, twice, three times.
My aim was off, because the power of the wind was making it almost impossible to keep my arms steady.
The first shot chipped the paint near the cockpit. The second hit the rudder.
The third shot nailed Hagstedt in the thigh.
If Hagstedt shouted, it vanished in the noise of the helicopter. But he slipped and lost his footing so that he was half in and half out.
He still managed to cling to a handgrip with his good hand. The bloody towel tore from his face and sailed with the power of the push of air straight toward me. I had to bat it away with one hand, which unsteadied me even more. It caught on my arm.
I didn’t realize Donovan was at my side until Hagstedt looked over his shoulder, and his eyes narrowed as he looked past me.
When I shook off the damned towel I realized it hit Donovan square in the face, blinding him before he flung it away.
In the seconds it took to me get rid of the towel, Hagstedt had made it almost all of the way into the heli cop ter. I ran closer, firing my weapon. Bullets pinged off the metal and shattered passenger windows.
Damn. I couldn’t get off a decent shot. Something had to be off with the Sig.
I realized the agents behind us couldn’t take the chance of hitting Donovan or me in these conditions before they reached us.
Everything happened in seconds, before the agents could get to our position.
Donovan drilled a bullet into Hagstedt’s foot. Blood dribbled from his shoe onto the rudder and onto the pad.
I emptied the Sig’s magazine. I flung the weapon aside and my heart started to hurt my chest as hard as it was beating.
The helicopter began lifting from the rooftop.
“No!” I shouted and shoved my hand into the top of Donovan’s boot where I’d seen him stuff the little Rohrbaugh.
I yanked the handgun out and ran toward the copter, shooting into the side even though I couldn’t see Hagstedt anymore. All I could do was hope that with luck one of the bullets made fatal contact.
When the helicopter was off the pad, there was no way we could safely stop it. I sank to my knees. A feeling of hopelessness dropped away my mental shield that had kept me from thinking about the freezing air.
I felt every bit of the cold as I watched the helicopter fly away from us like a black-and-gold honeybee.
Donovan had indicated to the other agents to stand down. We couldn’t take the chance of the helicopter tumbling into Manhattan and taking more lives.
Innocent lives.
Like Hagstedt was taking every single day.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
Dasha
She was going to die anyway. Dasha knew it with everything she had.
Before she passed on, though, she was going to kill the man who was responsible for forcing all of these girls into prostitution and in some cases letting them die.
If the man they called Mr. G was gone, then the other men would have no one to tell them to murder her parents. At least she would save them and maybe the girls around her.
Some kind of chaos was going on somewhere below the fifth floor. She could hear it all the way to the common room. All but one handler, Eddie, had left. He was standing outside the door instead of inside.
It was the perfect time.
Most of the girls in the common room were talking, but in whispers, since their handlers weren’t there to punish them. Dasha ignored the other girls and walked to the big closet.
She looked for the loosest and most modest clothing she could find. Modest was almost impossible because they were always forced to wear something revealing. Loose would be easier, because she hadn’t been eating. She’d lost so much weight that her ribs and hipbones now showed.
Dasha was naked in the closet where all of the scraplike clothing was kept. She found two black pantyhose legs and tied both around her waist, making sure the makeshift belt was secure.
Then she searched and located what Jenika had called a short black babydoll top. It hung just below Dasha’s waist and over the pantyhose belt, so it was good enough. The babydoll top had circles where her breasts were, but she didn’t care. She just needed its length.
There wasn’t much of a choice for a pair of bottoms. Thongs and G-strings were all they had. She picked up a black thong to match the babydoll and climbed into it. She wasn’t going to wear shoes.
Dasha went to a corner in the closet where she had pulled away the old carpeting and stored the gun beneath. She had piled her torn clothing on top of the bump in the corner.
She retrieved the gun and arranged it so that it fit in her pantyhose belt. Since she’d tied two of them around her waist, she was able to slip the muzzle of the weapon between the legs of the pantyhose while the grip remained up at the top. She tested it and found it to be secure enough.
She had checked and there were six bullets in the gun, including one in the chamber.
That was all she needed.
Dasha flicked off the safety. A long time ago, when she was young, her father had taught her how to use a gun. She hadn’t had many lessons, but maybe they’d been enough.
It was odd how calm she was. She felt numb more than anything else. Smells were dull, her hearing muted.
This must be what it was like to know that soon she wouldn’t be seeing, hearing, or feeling.
Dasha walked past all the girls in the common room, her legs steady. Her sight had dimmed, and she saw only through a tunnel. Just the door in front of her.
When she reached the door she raised the hem of the babydoll and drew the gun out of her pantyhouse. The weight of it was like a feather in her nerveless hand.
She leveled the gun with one hand and opened the door with her other. She pulled the door open.
Eddie turned to face her. She saw his scowl. Then his look of surprise just before she pulled the trigger.
Vaguely she heard the sound of the gun firing and was barely aware that her arm had jerked from the r
ecoil. He dropped to his knees, but she felt no curiosity, no concern. She just wanted him dead.
Blood flowed, making the dirty white T-shirt turn red near Eddie’s heart. Like a blossom.
He stared down at his chest. Now he had a shocked expression as he watched blood spreading and soaking the cloth so fast that it almost looked like he was wearing a red-and-white shirt. In a slow movement, he brought his hand over the wound then fixed his gaze on his blood-coated palm.
Eddie raised his head. His eyes were wide when he met Dasha’s. He fell backward, his body twisted at a curious angle.
His eyes were still wide as she walked past him, but she knew he saw nothing anymore, would never hurt anyone ever again.
Dasha felt nothing beneath her bare feet. Not the cool tile or the rough cracks.
She tucked the gun back into her pantyhose belt and left the safety off. She held on to the railing to make sure she didn’t fall. Through her tunnel vision, all she could see were the stairs as she walked down.
The noise grew louder. She was aware of that even though it was muffled in her ears.
Dasha reached the second floor and unfastened the rope that blocked it off. The sign clanged to the tile as she passed. The room where Mr. G had hurt her was not far down. It was an office he used. Somehow she knew he was there.
Dasha drew the gun out again. Her hand was steady as she reached the door and raised the weapon. The door was slightly open and she heard his voice, that hated voice. He was yelling. Screaming at someone.
Dasha pushed open the door. It squeaked as she opened it. He was talking on his phone as he stood at his desk and searched the drawer he had taken the gun from earlier. If she cared, she would have smiled. He’d forgotten that he’d taken the gun out to kill her.
Mr. G looked up, his face red with rage. He dropped the cell phone as his mouth widened.
“You fucking b—” he started right before Dasha shot him.
The bullet buried itself in his belly. The second shot in his arm. The third shot in his chest. The fourth shot in his chest again.
He dropped to the floor. His screams would have hurt her ears if her hearing wasn’t muffled.
Now he would die. No one could save him.
She had one bullet left. She’d had plans for that last bullet from the beginning.
Dasha put the gun to the side of her head and pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Bachmann/Hagstedt
Karl screamed as he writhed on the floor of the helicopter. His wounds wouldn’t kill him, but the pain was excruciating.
The shattered bones in his hand caused it to throb as if someone was continuing to hit it with a hammer. His ruined face felt like it was on fire. The bullet that had passed through his thigh had gone through muscle and exited the back of his leg. The shot hadn’t come close to bone or arteries.
But his foot—the bullet that pierced his shoe had lodged in bone, and he almost felt like he would die from the pain of it combined with everything else.
When Karl had glanced over his shoulder, he’d had a good look at the man next to the bitch. He was the same man from the auction surveillance tapes.
As the helicopter headed to a prearranged hidden location, Karl imagined putting a bullet between the man’s and the woman’s eyes.
NSA? CIA? FBI? No. The agents were of some unknown clandestine organization.
But Karl now had a clearer image in his mind of the pair who had taken down his Boston auction ring. He knew exactly what both looked like. He would find them.
Plastic surgery would be required to fix his face, which the stupid Chinese bitch had ruined. While he was at it, he would have his surgeon remake his features. No one at the unknown agency would be able to recognize him.
His skin chilled as he realized that his image had likely been captured on security tapes at the airport and the Trump Tower. They would be able to locate him by his real name.
Karl gritted his teeth from the pain and applied more pressure with his good hand to the wound in his thigh.
Because he couldn’t put on a headset, the deafening sound of the helicopter made it difficult to think clearly. The pain didn’t help.
A new identity. He would have to find someone whose life he could assume. The plastic surgery could give him a face nearly identical to someone of his social stature. Karl’s smile was no doubt cold looking as he thought of the exact person whose life he would assume. The man was unmarried, no children, and fairly reclusive. A billionaire whose looks were close enough to Karl’s that it would be easy to become his identical twin.
Then Karl would have the man eliminated and take over his life.
His thoughts churned over what would have to be done. He would have his financial adviser liquidate the balance of his wealth immediately and store it with the rest of his money in his bank accounts in the Cayman Islands.
Then Karl Bachmann would disappear.
When he did, he wouldn’t stop until he found and destroyed the man, the woman, and their organization. Whatever agency they worked for couldn’t possibly have the manpower or financial resources to easily locate him.
No, there was not an agency in the world that had billions in cash that they would be willing to spend looking for one man.
Karl did.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE
Going home
The plane couldn’t get me back to Logan Airport in Boston fast enough to see my mother. And then the sluggish pace of the people getting off the plane just about made me scream. Dear God.
I wished my legs were longer so that I could walk faster as I pulled my red carry-on suitcase through the much-too-crowded airport. I’d left the rest of my luggage to be brought back with my team so that I could get home sooner.
My RED cell phone vibrated against my hip and I drew it out without slowing down. When I flipped it open the screen said Unknown, of course. Covert is covert.
This better be good. “Steele.”
“You okay?” Donovan’s voice, low with concern. “Where are you?”
“Just landed at Logan and trying to get the hell out of the airport.” I dodged a reunited family hogging up my path. “I’m heading out to get to long-term parking where I left my Cherokee.”
“I hope your mother is doing better,” he said.
She’s got to be. She’s is going to be okay. It was like I was mentally ordering all the gods anyone believed in to make it right. “Mama is tough. She’s a survivor.” My chest hurt the more I spoke. “She’ll be okay.”
“I know she will,” Donovan said. “With you around, I don’t think anything would dare hurt her.”
If we didn’t change the subject I felt like I was going to fall apart. It was hard to believe Operation Little Red Riding Hood had just gone down yesterday. This was the first time I hadn’t been around to wrap things up and make sure everything was finalized.
I rubbed my forehead with my free hand. “How are Kerrison and Jenika?”
“Both are in the New York branch of RED’s infirmary. They’re doing fine.” Donovan sounded ready to punch a wall. “Considering the trauma they both went through.”
RED agents never went to the hospital, always to an infirmary that was unknown to any agency.
“The other clubs?” I paused inside the terminal instead of walking through the automatic sliding doors and I closed my eyes. “The girls?”
“Everything was on Giger’s hard drive. He had it all well documented, including where all of his clubs are in the city,” Donovan said. “Not to mention his accountant, a guy named Andreas, was more than willing to cooperate.
“The New York branch of RED and our team are in the process of shutting all of the clubs down and arresting every trafficker involved. We’ve worked it out so that the NYPD is handling that end of it.”
Because of what his sister had been through, I could imagine the pain in Donovan’s eyes when he continued speaking. “We’re getting the girls out of the club
s and to hospitals to be thoroughly checked out, along with psych evaluations and treatment before we send them home.”
“I just can’t imagine,” I said as I opened my eyes and stared out the floor-to-ceiling glass windows of the terminal. “Is everything okay with bringing in the NYPD and other outside agencies to take care of the girls without letting them know about RED?”
“Yeah,” Donovan said. “The agencies are doing their best to help the girls and notify their families that they’re okay.”
I swallowed. “The girl, Dasha. I promised to save her.”
“Dasha was the one who killed Giger, and she killed her handler as well. A guy named Eddie. Apparently with Giger’s own gun.” Donovan sounded like there was something he was holding back.
“And how is she?” My voice was hoarse as I thought of the girl the last time I’d seen her.
Donovan’s sigh was heavy. “After she killed them, Dasha turned the gun on herself.”
My legs nearly gave out. “Christ,” I whispered as I thought of the pretty blond Russian. Takamoto had briefed me on Giger, Stalder, and the other employees who were dead. But I’d left New York without knowing every detail. And the fact that Dasha had killed herself was a big detail. One that tore at my heart and made my chest hurt like someone was taking a hammer to my ribs. I’d promised. Even with only my eyes, I’d promised to help her. I’d failed.
That wasn’t like me, not to be in on everything to do with an op. But getting home to Mama was more important, and I didn’t regret not being back finishing up the op in any way. I wasn’t about to feel guilty for leaving everything to the team and Donovan to clean up.
I needed to be with Mama.
The automatic doors parted, and I went through them into the cold but clear November day. I hugged my coat tighter to me with my free arm.
Mental exhaustion wanted to weigh me down, but I wouldn’t let it. Not until after I’d seen my mother and after I climbed into my own bed in Southie.
I thought of Hagstedt, the sonofabitch I wished I could have killed. I didn’t care about needing him for information. I wanted him dead. Now.
Cheyenne McCray - [Lexi Steele 02] Page 23
