by Black, Regan
Having no choice Amelia moved with him, wiping her sweaty palms on her slacks. What would happen when his weapons set off the alarms? Terminals had been shut down, people had been detained, fined, and arrested for less. Beside her, John’s face was etched with grim determination.
“Who is it?”
He didn’t answer, but the predatory gleam in his eyes told her he’d locked in on the threat.
Her feet felt like lead in her shoes as they shuffled forward, closer to the personnel and scanners. Oh, this was a bad idea, but they were stuck in the queue now and making an unexpected, inconvenient exit would only bring them unwanted attention. What the hell did he have in mind?
“Here we go. Someone just spotted you here in line.”
What? The question screeched through her mind and she clamped her mouth shut to keep from shouting.
“Relax, Amelia.” He rubbed her shoulders, stroked his thumbs up her neck to the base of her skull. “You own the place today.”
Her muscles went lax under the steady, sexy pressure while opposing urges went to battle inside her. She wanted to shrug off his touch for the sake of her sanity while at the same time she wanted to guide his hands to her more needy places. Maybe purr a little. “And you’re telling whoever is watching that I’m not here alone.”
“You’re a quick learner.”
Was that a compliment?
“He’ll make his move before we reach the agents.”
She willed the line to move faster. “Who? Where?” The words barely qualified as a whisper. As much as she studied the crowd she couldn’t spot the person John considered a threat.
His fingers grazed her jaw, the pressure slight as he turned her head a fraction. “Airport employee uniform,” he murmured against her ear. “The shoes are wrong. And his eyes are flat like mine.”
She didn’t know how he was making that assessment. ‘Flat’ was the last word she’d use to describe John’s eyes. Before her brain got swept away on a tangential search for just the right word, she noticed the abrupt change among the security team.
A handset had beeped and all of them were suddenly on alert and each pair of eyes turned toward the line, searching faces.
For her. There was no room for doubt as three stern, suspicious gazes zeroed in on her. “What now?”
But John didn’t offer any comforting words. He didn’t utter so much as a basic suggestion. Well, he wasn’t the only one with skills. She’d talked her way into and out of worse situations than this.
Maybe.
The forward progress on the line came to a stop as two of the security officers left their posts to confront her and John. She glanced back over her shoulder, but with the crowd shifting back from them, she lost sight of the man John claimed was coming for her.
“Come with us,” said a tall, male security officer. His name badge read A. Stafford. Sweat beaded on the lip of the ebony-skinned woman beside him, Y. Clary.
“It’s a routine thing,” Clary assured them, unhooking the elastic divider from the post.
A bullshit line if ever Amelia had heard one. Since when did the routine cause a security officer to break out in sweat? Clary looked too young to be suffering hot flashes.
Amelia and John followed Stafford and Clary toward a small, clear cubicle tucked against the wall just to the side of the security line. At the door, Stafford patted down John while Clary checked Amelia’s purse and person for weapons.
She waited for the inevitable outcry when they found John’s weapons, but nothing happened. Not one accusing beep sounded when Clary examined them both with a wand.
She didn’t know how John had done it, but she was grateful. Being armed would have complicated things, even if he’d shown whatever identification or badge he’d flashed in Sudbury.
“Go on in,” Stafford said, extending an arm toward the door.
Amelia walked in and looked around. With glass on all sides and no ceiling, it was like being in an aquarium. The ridiculous set up nearly caused her to laugh aloud.
She could see the headlines now:
Detained Reporter Loses Mind In Terminal E
No, it needed stronger wording... and what the hell was she doing running headlines when they were in serious trouble here?
She struggled to ignore the sensation of the other travelers gawking at them.
“Will this take long? We don’t want to miss our flight,” she said.
“Your flight isn’t for hours yet,” Stafford replied.
She didn’t care for the sneer twisting the security officer’s mouth. “What’s this about?” Amelia smiled as the door clicked shut, doing her best impression of the least-threatening traveler ever to pass through Logan.
“Whatever it is, we’re happy to help.” John’s deep voice reached out like an anchor, steadying her and grounding her thoughts.
Stafford frowned at John, then at her. “Let’s see your identification.”
She reached into her purse for her passport, handing it to Clary, shamed at the way her hand trembled. John pulled a slim wallet out of the inner pocket of his suit coat and tossed it onto the table.
Stafford examined the IDs, his brows beetling. Then he looked up, scowling at each of them in turn. “We just received an alert that the two of you have threatened a violent takedown of this flight.”
Gasping, Amelia prepared an automatic protest, but John laid a hand on her shoulder and she stopped short.
“If you’ll just answer a few questions,” Clary said, voice quaking, “I’m sure we can wrap this up quickly.”
Amelia sympathized with the other woman’s nerves, except she and John weren’t the threat, they were the threatened. Think. There had to be an easy way out of this. “I’m sure this is a mistake. There must be a dozen couples who fit the general description you were apparently given.”
Stafford turned the tablet in his hands to face them. “In my experience, this is specific, not general.”
Amelia nearly choked as the head shot that accompanied her byline stared back at her from half of the screen. The other half of the screen was a mug shot of John, but with another name on the black sign he held up. His wrist showing in the picture was wreathed with an odd chain of scars.
“The credit card used to purchase your tickets today was reported stolen.”
John muttered an oath and Amelia silently concurred. Senator Larimore and his data-twisting lackeys were at it again. Of course no one would believe it. They’d call her a conspiracy nut job and lock her up first. The man had to be stopped. No matter what.
“I-I assure you th- this is a mistake,” Amelia stammered, her heart pounding so loudly in her ears, she couldn’t hear herself properly.
“No, this is reliable. Have a seat,” Stafford gestured to the plastic chairs in front of them, “and let’s talk about it. I happen to be a fan of your work, Ms. Bennett. I’d like to give you the benefit of the doubt here. If you’ve been coerced in some way... “
“Coerced? Of course not.” She bit her lip as a cold knot of panic twisted in her gut. Had she just admitted being part of some deadly scheme? This wasn’t the time for her words and notorious brave confidence to fail her. “What I mean is... there is no plot afoot. Mr. Noble and I are heading to France to run down a lead.” How close was the man dressed as an airport employee that John considered a threat? He’d probably strolled right through security without any trouble and was waiting for her to get out of this fishbowl so he could kill her and collect the prize money.
“Your companion is a felon, Ms. Bennett. Look at the picture.”
“That is a mistake,” she insisted, sliding a look at John’s wrists, but they were covered by his shirt cuffs. “Go ahead and tell them it’s a mistake, John.” She turned back to Stafford, “That’s not even his name.”
“It’s a mistake,” John deadpanned without any authority behind the words. He lounged back in his chair, his expression blank and one ankle propped on the opposite knee, as if he didn’t care if the
y went to prison or Paris.
Stafford leaned forward, alert and aggressive. One more wrong step and they’d be arrested for sure.
“We don’t even have any luggage,” she said, trying to appeal to Clary, woman to woman. “And we just bought the tickets today. How could we have planned anything?”
“All red flags, ma’am.”
Great, she’d lobbed several inflammatory words into the air like gasoline onto a fire. “Call my boss, Bernard Kessler. He’ll vouch for us. He knows John is helping me with this story.”
Stafford reclaimed his tablet. “Ms. Bennett, please reconsider. Let us help you.”
“There’s nothing to reconsider. We haven’t done anything wrong and we aren’t planning to do anything wrong.”
“You insist you’re in this together?”
She nodded.
He sighed. “Cuff them both,” Stafford ordered, tossing zip ties onto the tabletop. “The armed escort should be here any moment.”
“Really, that’s not necessary.” Amelia shifted her chair away from the advancing Clary. “Have you considered you’re being used? We’re innocent. I swear. This is a mistake.”
But nothing she said made a difference.
“Stand up,” Clary said to John. “Turn around.”
John slowly complied, as if this was all going down just as he’d expected. He’d said he needed to know her side of things, but she was growing more certain the opposite was true. If – when – they got out of this, it was his turn to cough up some information.
When John was cuffed, Clary repeated the order for Amelia. Like John, she cooperated, letting the woman cinch her wrists together at the small of her back. Clary took possession of Amelia’s purse while they waited for the escort to arrive.
She kept an eye on her purse. She needed that back. The thumb drive and her tablet stowed safely inside were her last hope of breaking the story on Larimore’s manipulative and illegal activity. If either of those things were compromised, Larimore won.
It was becoming obvious the senator knew that as well as she did.
“Where will they take us?”
Clary shook her head. “I’m not sure, ma’am.”
John’s bark of laughter bounced off the glass. “It will be a sublevel office, Ms. Bennett. Where we can be interrogated by someone with real authority.”
Clary glared at him.
“What?” His lip curled. “It’s true.” His shoulders hitched a couple of times like he had an itch he couldn’t reach. “Homeland Security is probably on their way right now.”
“Shut up,” Stafford said, opening the door for the arriving team of officers tasked with escorting them away. “Be careful with this one. He’s got a record for assault.”
“Thought you said it was credit card fraud,” John countered.
“Too bad I’m out of duct tape,” Stafford grumbled.
“Oh, I’d like to see you try.” John threw back his head and laughed, the forced sound grating against Amelia’s frayed nerves and scaring the hell out of her. “Go ahead. Run out and buy a roll. I’ll wait.”
Stafford shoved him forward. “Get him out of here.”
It would be all right, Amelia chanted to herself. It had to be. John was a professional. He had a plan. His every word and move was calculated up to this point, right? God, she hoped so.
They walked back toward the main terminal, a guard in front of her, Clary at her elbow, John behind them and the second guard bringing up the rear.
It would be fine. Surely they’d let her make a phone call. Bernie could get a lawyer here in less than an hour.
It would be –
Something warm and wet spattered across her face, putting a brutal stop to her litany of positive affirmations.
The guard in front of her went down, crumpling like the nervous blond informant had crumpled earlier near the church in Sudbury.
Someone screamed. Her, Clary, or another traveler, it didn’t much matter. Behind her, John bellowed an order. She wanted to obey, to cooperate, but she couldn’t make out the words any more than she could make her feet move. Her mind had frozen.
Just a few yards away, she saw a man holding a dark, menacing gun with an extended barrel. A silencer, some fact-keeping part of her brain reported. Belatedly, she recognized the man with flat eyes and the not-quite-right airport uniform John had warned her about.
Something hard drove into her back, pushing her flat against the carpet that did nothing to cushion her from the cement floor beneath. Her hands fell to her sides, suddenly free of the zip ties.
More pops sounded. Another body dropped between her and the gunman in the airport uniform. Clary trembled and grabbed at the red bloom staining her shirt just below her name badge.
“Taser,” she rasped, shoving something at Amelia. “Take it.”
Amelia stared, the raw shock robbing her of words. She pressed one hand over Clary’s to cover the wound, and held the Taser in the other. She tried to stop the bleeding, to help the other woman somehow.
Clary’s eyes drifted shut and her head lolled back against the floor.
“Let’s go.”
John gripped Amelia’s elbow, hauled her to her feet. He shoved her purse at her as he lugged along. Too stunned to do anything but comply, she dropped the Taser into her purse and ran alongside him. Sounds blurred into one gruesome cacophony as people wailed, a siren blared, and officials shouted over loudspeakers.
She covered her ringing ears as John swiped a card through an electronic lock and shoved her into the quieter corridor beyond the door that swung open.
Another man in an airport uniform came at them. John jerked her out of the way as he plowed an elbow into the man’s throat.
He urged her to the right, and she went with it, having no idea where he planned to go.
“They’ll lock down the terminal any minute,” he said. “We have to get out.”
She didn’t have anything intelligent to contribute. Her throat had closed, her brain had shutdown in shock.
“We have a couple of minutes while they deal with the guy shooting up the terminal.”
She wiped at her face and then had to wipe her blood-stained palm on her slacks. If she thought about it too long, she’d vomit. If she did that, John would probably scold her for the delay. She focused on his back. “Clary... and Stafford... “
“She’ll make it,” he said over his shoulder. “Stafford’s dead.”
He was so matter of fact she trembled and stubbed her toe.
Don’t think, just move. Already she knew those faces and sounds would haunt her dreams for weeks, if not forever. Probably forever.
She kept her eyes on John. On his back, on his hand gripping hers, on his feet racing forward. If she looked at anything else she knew the terror would take over and then her body would go the way of her head and she’d freeze up.
Her bodyguard was a mystery. A stranger. He may or may not have a record for assault or credit card fraud under a different name. Those facts should bother her. Pique her curiosity at the least. Neither did. Her instincts assured her he was the only thing keeping her alive.
Heavy sounds of jet engines grew louder. He was leading her out toward the runways as if he did own the place. A crash sounded behind them and male voices shouted for them to stop. They didn’t. Boots pounded against cement, closing in on them fast.
John slowed down, putting his body between her and their pursuers as he swiped the card through another lock that protected the stairwell.
He paused, leaning out over the rail to glance up and down.
Her breath sounded too loud and she held it, her lungs full, so he could listen for the approach of others. With a gun she hadn’t noticed before, he motioned her to head down.
“They saw us come in here.”
“I know. Keep moving.”
Like she wanted to stop. She used the rail to help propel her around the landing. “Who shot at us?”
“Not us. You.”
&n
bsp; Semantics. But he had a point. “The assassin killed our armed escort!” Clary and Stafford would survive, she couldn’t believe otherwise.
“One of them, yes.”
“The other one will live?” Her lungs burned as they ran out of stairs.
“No.” John peered through the glass in the door before turning to face her. “I killed him when he raised his gun to shoot you.”
One of the guards was in on it? She swallowed rather than puke up the coffee she’d had for breakfast. “Why didn’t they follow us?”
“Because they think we’re trapped.”
“Are we?”
“Not for long.”
A call for them to surrender came from above. John used the gun rather than his finger to signal for silence.
She nodded, afraid to tempt fate by wondering what might come at them next.
When he pushed through the door onto the taxiway where a line of aircraft waited, she watched him, utterly stunned as the scene played out like a movie in slow motion. There was no stand-off, he was in total aggressor mode.
In the small recess of her brain that still worked, she made a mental note to stay on his good side.
Knees buckled, men screamed. Bullets aimed their way seemed destined to miss as John moved from the cover of the stairwell door to a baggage cart. The gunfire and rapid exchange whirled around her like a violent merry-go-round and she couldn’t stop the spinning.
She trembled behind the piles of luggage while John traded shots. “The blue truck,” he said pointing to a small pickup parked near the terminal wall. “That’s your goal.”
“Okay.”
“On three.”
“Right.” She gripped her purse strap where it crossed over her chest.
He popped his head up and bullets rained into the suitcases. He fired back. “One.” Swiveled around and fired back at the stairwell door they’d just come through. “Two.” More bullets hit the suitcases. “Three.”
She heard another volley of gunfire as she propelled herself toward the blue truck and launched herself inside. But she wasn’t alone. An employee had taken refuge under the dash on the passenger side. Panicked, she fired the Taser and his body jerked and shimmied with the electric current.
