“The guard at the center?”
“Yeah, he was a loser, but he didn’t deserve to die.”
She blinked fast. “Do you think I deserve to die?”
“I tried to help you.” Her perfume smelled nice, but then he realized he could only smell it because she was sweating.
“By putting a bomb in my car?”
The pain in her eyes bothered him, but he could only trust her so far. He wished she could know he wasn’t all bad. He’d taken her bag to try to save her life.
Maybe this was his punishment for everything else he’d done. He wouldn’t be able to explain his side of things. Why hadn’t those special bomb dogs found the explosives like they did in all the movies?
“Webber, why does someone want me dead?”
“I’m already risking a lot for you. Good-bye—”
“No, no, please, just stay for a couple more seconds.” She blinked fast, those eyes of hers so honest, like she cared. “You don’t have to talk about any of this. Let’s talk about you. You have important people in your life. People who care about you. Think how they’ll be hurt if you die.”
She went on just like she’d done on the phone, trying to help him. It hurt to listen.
With a speed honed on the streets, he whipped a gag over her head, into her mouth, and yanked the slipknot tight. He held the knife high. “Turn around.”
Her eyes went wide. She shook her head.
“Miss Bassett, look behind you.”
She backed away, her eyes darting as if searching for a weapon.
“Do it,” he barked.
She tensed, only half turning. Then sagging as she must have finally seen Amber.
Her pretty brown hair sliding down her shoulders, Amber sat crouched in the corner, bound and gagged. It had been the only way he could be sure she was safe as well. Lucky for him, Shay had a soft spot for Amber, too.
“Now kneel down, Miss Bassett. I’m just going to tie you up like Amber. This will all be over soon.”
She knelt slowly, her eyes nowhere near trusting. He tugged out another slipknot and secured her hands. She would probably work her way free after a while, but he would be done by then. “Move over there, across from Amber.”
He hunkered down beside Amber to talk to her just once more, but he had to make it fast. He was running out of time.
Webber leaned toward Amber’s ear, the smell of her shampoo so much nicer than anything he could remember. “There’s fifty thousand dollars in a box at the bottom of the trash can.” His payoff from Lewis. Lewis thought he was stupid enough to send his mother here after the hearing. There were other ways. “If I don’t come back, take it for you and the baby. Use it to go away from here, and don’t come back.”
He wanted to hide Amber and Shay somewhere else, but this was the only place Lewis had secured for him. If everything went according to plan, the cops would escort Lewis in the gym and he would never get a chance to return here.
So many problems to work out, but at least there was a chance Lewis wouldn’t get away with this. There was a chance for Amber and Shay and his mom.
He didn’t want to think about what chances he might have.
For himself, just something for him today, he touched Amber’s hair, just a strand to see how she felt. She winced. He wanted to cry.
Webber turned away from Amber, Miss Bassett’s horrified eyes slamming into him. He owed her something. He owed her the truth.
“Miss Bassett, you made me decide to live.”
He wished he could have trusted her with more, maybe even earlier, but she would have gone to the cops or to that big military boyfriend of hers. Then Lewis would have found out for sure. Amber and his mom would be murdered while he was forced to watch. He really couldn’t trust anybody but himself.
Bomb strapped to his chest, Webber stepped into the hall and locked the door behind him.
“Where the hell is Shay?”
Paulina heard Vince just behind her. She wished she had the answer for him. Somehow, as they’d been going through the first security, they’d been separated from Shay and Anthony Lewis. She was concerned but not completely freaked out.
Not yet.
She scanned the audience in front of her in a C-SPAN kind of sweep, then the stage with a witness table prepped with microphones and pitchers of water. Two of the seats were already filled, and one remained empty where Shay should be. The panel of congressional committees who were interested in this testimony glad-handed the local press and university officials. Cameras were rolling, after all.
“There, Vince . . .” She pointed over the sea of heads. “I see Lewis.”
The aide skirted the edge of the group, but there was no sign of Shay.
The large crowd outside the political event worried her. People were pressed into such close confines, hepped up, discontent brewing in some of the protestors.
She wished they had some of Vince Deluca’s crowd control options he’d used during that Honduran election mission she read about in his file. But with everyone inside, they would have to use more standard options in conjunction with the military’s nano-bug flight surveillance.
Even now, she could hear Vince in her earpiece speaking low with his crew back at the hangar, instructing them to use their intelligence technology to expand the search for Shay. Paulina breathed a little easier knowing she had backup beyond regular mounted surveillance cameras.
Her BlackBerry buzzed against her hip. Absently she lifted it and scrolled, reading . . .
Holy Shit.
“Don, Deluca,” she spoke into her sleeve, “my people have a lead from the cell phone web your trackers have been building. Looks like something’s up at the Port of Cleveland. Jaworski’s on his way over with backup now.”
She could see Don’s frown from across the room. “The Port of Cleveland?” his voice softly stroked her ear over the airwaves. “What’s that got to do with the threat here?”
Maybe nothing. Maybe coincidence. Or maybe—
A teenager stepped from the audience in the back of the room, a familiar teen. Not surprising, necessarily. They’d expected teens from the center, thus the three levels of security checks.
Still something about him niggled at her. The way he walked. His clothing was actually fairly appropriate—khakis and a button-down—a bit loose, but that was the norm for kids these days. He even had some kind of security tag. The kind for a student volunteer, perhaps?
She shoved the Port of Cleveland issue out of her head and focused on the here and now. She worked her way around the edges of the gymnasium toward him, angling carefully past a woman with a cane.
The teen stopped, his back to a wall.
She shouldered through harder, already calling into the mic in her sleeve. “Back left of the gym. Check the teenager with a ponytail.”
He jumped up onto a chair.
Webber.
His name came to her in a flash as fast as his hands ripping open his shirt to display explosives.
Paulina stopped, the crowd around her screaming. Security drew weapons in a stadium wave of raised barrels.
“Stop,” Webber said, not even shouting.
People froze like in some sick and twisted game of freeze tag.
Dead silence thrummed through her earpiece for three stunned seconds before a barrage of voices filled the airwaves. Experience on the job served her well in sifting through the chatter while keeping her focus full front.
The boy—Webber—raised his hand, thumb resting on top of what must be a plunger.
Paulina whispered into her sleeve. “Hold your fire. Hold your fire. We don’t want to risk so much as a twitch from his hand on that detonator.”
As much as she trusted her sharpshooters stationed throughout the building, she didn’t much like the idea of bullets flying around so many people. She eyed the explosives strapped to the boy’s chest. Thin metal cylinders, plenty of wires. It looked authentic.
So did the intensity on the young man
’s face.
“Stop running away, or I’ll blow this thing and half a city block right now. I want you to listen. I need for people to listen.”
Where was Shay Bassett with her suicide prevention skills?
Paulina tried to eye a path to the front of the room, but the press of people rushing out squashed her back against a wall. The smell of fear and too much cologne rolled off their bodies. Footsteps pounded from all directions as uniformed cops and plainclothes security converged to form a semicircle around the boy.
And in the far corner of her peripheral vision she saw Don, edging along the wall toward the boy.
Bile soured in her mouth.
Webber’s hand didn’t so much as shake. “I see the way you’re looking at me, all judgmental like. I’m just another thug to you. But this could happen to any of you. It could be someone closer to you than you think.” He looked straight into the television camera, red light for Record blazing. “Anthony Lewis. He’s the one to blame for all of this. He planned it. I would have gone to the cops, but nobody ever believes us or listens to us. I would have been arrested, and he would have been free to keep right on working. Well, I’m making you listen.”
He paused, staring straight into the camera. “You don’t know me. People like you don’t want to know me. You see me and others like me every day on street corners and close your rich-ass eyes, hoping we’ll go away and not rob you or your uptown friends. Maybe you even hope we’ll kill each other off. But the more you close your eyes, the more we grow. The meaner the streets get. The more you turn your own backyard into a war zone.”
He raised his hand higher. “Well, I’m not closing my eyes anymore. I’ve been pounded on, and I’ve seen people I care about abused. In more ways than I can—” He cleared his throat, no doubt willing away the catch in his voice. “It ends today.”
The boy spoke like someone with nothing left to lose.
At least most of the room had emptied out, but oh God, Don was still inching closer from the side while Vince kept the boy’s attention on the cameraman still rolling tape.
Shooting the teen was still an option in her mind now that most of the civilians had left the building, especially if they could all put some distance between themselves and Webber. But the shot would have to be a kill, or he could still push the plunger. For that matter, a death twitch could set the thing off.
Don—God love his bleeding heart for these kids—would do everything possible to save the boy.
Her pulse hammered in her ears louder than the cacophony of frantic voices in her earpiece. Her last words to Don roared back, drowning out all the rest with the awful way they’d left things with each other.
Too late. Too late. Too late.
She ached to talk to him, to apologize for throwing away their relationship, for not trying to work things out. Even if he could hear her in his own earpiece, she couldn’t risk distracting him. His lean body moved with a honed stealth that barely rippled his suit. With his handsome face, his full head of steel gray hair, he could have been an action hero, except, oh God, this was real life, and Don was seconds away from launching himself at a suicide bomber.
What a time to realize she’d fallen in love with her CIA lover.
TWENTY
Don kept his steps steady, his eyes locked on the sweating teen with a bomb strapped to his chest. His earpiece told him most of the building had been cleared, other than a few stragglers like that overeager cameraman determined to make his career or die trying.
He couldn’t think about Paulina. He had to trust her to protect herself. Right now all he kept remembering was Shay, alone and hurting as a teenager who saw no other way out than taking her own life. He hadn’t been there for his daughter.
But he would do his damnedest to make sure this boy, one of Shay’s kids, did not commit this desperate act. He understood how she felt about them. He and Shay shared more in common than she realized. Hell, he hadn’t realized how much alike they were until now.
Vince asked the boy a question, and Don saw his chance. Coalescing all his training into this one split second, he launched.
His fingers locked around the kid’s wrist. They slammed back. Chest to chest, he pinned the teen, praying like crazy he wouldn’t set the bomb off. The boy looked him in the eyes and Don saw . . .
Gratitude?
Don couldn’t afford to weaken or wonder. He kept the kid restrained. The room erupted with activity as the bomb squad rushed them. Combat boots pounded the floor, reverberating through him as he sprawled across the upended chair. Don looked at the boy again and realized.
Webber had never pushed the button in the first place. The plunger wasn’t even connected. He’d taken one helluva risk that nobody would shoot him.
Don scooped up the trigger while looking at the kid, reassessing, tapping into those old mentoring skills, and he knew. The boy had felt cornered and just wanted to be heard. His teenage daughter had just wanted to be heard when she tried to kill herself.
Of course nothing excused what this young man had done. It was too late for him. He would be looking at the inside of a jail cell for a very long time, but at least he was alive.
Don just prayed it wasn’t too late for him with Shay.
He shifted his hold and control to the bomb squad. Now that his vision broadened, he saw police wearing flak jackets standing in a semicircle. Paulina hovered by the exit with a vest draped over her suit but not buckled, as if someone tossed it on her, and she didn’t even notice. Where was Shay? He scoured the stragglers still evacuating and didn’t see her. She must already be outside, thank God.
He turned his attention back to Paulina and fast-walked toward her. He definitely wanted her as far away from the bomb as he could convince her to move. She hadn’t said a word, so he could only hope he’d read her right. After the way he’d treated her, she deserved to hear the words from him first.
He scooped her up by the waist and made a beeline out the door. Let the bomb squad handle things from here. He’d done his job.
“Don!” Paulina wriggled.
But not too much. Their martial arts workout during sex let him know loud and clear if she wanted out of his arms, she could land him on his ass in a heartbeat.
He slammed through the doors and into the harsh afternoon light. He set Paulina on her feet, grabbed her wrist, and towed her down the steps. He stopped under a sprawling tree.
Don gripped her shoulders and realized she was shaking. Special Agent Paulina Wilson was trembling.
“Ah, Lina . . .” He hauled her against his chest.
Or maybe she fell into his arms.
He only knew they held each other so firmly he almost could crawl inside her. His chest went tight again, but not in an entirely bad way. Just different. Something he would have to get used to.
“Paulina,” he said, not caring who overheard, thanks to the listening devices inside their jackets, “we don’t have much time to talk, but I’m not wasting another second without saying a few things. I’m far from perfect, and I’m not likely to get much better anytime soon. But I hope you’ll hang in there with me, because damn it all, I’m going to try. Try to make things work with you. Try to break through whatever it is that’s keeping me from being the man you seem to think I can be.”
Her shaking slowed, and her hands slid up his arms. “Given the wires we’re both wearing, I do believe you just outed our relationship, Agent Bassett.”
A laugh rumbled up his chest, easing the ache and carrying a boatload of tension on its way up and out. “I take that to mean we still have a relationship?”
“Damn straight, we do.” She cupped his face, her jacket puckering just a hint and revealing creamy white lace. “And I’ve got you on the record.”
Light laughter rumbled through his earpiece from other agents and the air force crew flying the surveillance equipment. This conversation with Paulina was definitely worth pursuing later. For now, he simply brushed a quick kiss along her full red lips, e
ven that minimal contact enough to set his body buzzing.
Almost as loudly as his earpiece buzzing to life. No laughter this time.
“Gun!” Smooth’s voice rumbled through the earpiece from his viewing station. “Gun! We’ve got a clear image down a side hall. That congressional aide Anthony Lewis has a gun.”
Lewis unlocked the janitor’s closet. Fifty thousand dollars wouldn’t last long, but it was the most he could carry in small bills, and it would get him to Central America. From there, he could hook up with more from the international gang affiliated with his home connection.
If they didn’t pop a cap in his ass over the screwed-up shipment. Right about the time that kid had jumped up on the chair, Lewis’s cell phone started spewing freaked-out text messages about how cops were crawling all over the Port of Cleveland. He would definitely take his chances in Central America. His life here certainly couldn’t get much worse now that all his plans had gone to dog shit.
He yanked open the door and stopped dead. “What the fuck?”
Shay Bassett and some whale of a pregnant teenager stood back to back, trying to untie each others’ hands. He couldn’t even begin to figure out what had gone wrong in that Webber kid’s head. He only knew he had to get the hell out of here.
He slid his hand onto the top shelf and whipped down a 9 mm he’d stored there earlier when he’d stashed the cash. He’d only provided Webber with a knife to keep the balance of power firmly in his own court.
He leveled the gun. “Don’t move. Either of you.”
Keeping his weapon steady in one hand, he dumped out the trash can, the padded folder full of cash thudding to the floor. He tucked it inside his jacket. Now what to do with the bitches? Did he have time to tie them up more securely, or should he risk firing his weapon? He didn’t have a silencer with him.
Footsteps pounded in the distance, growing louder, closer.
Shit. Questions answered.
“Well, ladies, our options have narrowed considerably.” He leveled the gun at the teenager, ready to plug her between the eyes. Then he hesitated. Two hostages might be unwieldy, but there were definite advantages.
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