Capture the Night

by Cheryl Pierson

  “Can I…trust…you?”

  Oddly, he felt that Daniel would be truthful now that there was nothing left to lose. There was nothing he could do if Daniel decided to try to save his own skin, now that time was drawing short. Johnny didn’t pretend to understand the workings of Daniel’s damaged reasoning. His head pounded like a sledgehammer, and he was losing the slippery grasp he held on his remaining consciousness. “Daniel…trust you to find Pete—help him—”

  Daniel nodded. “I’ll try,” he said slowly. “That’s all anybody can ask for, I reckon. Just to try.”

  Johnny’s eyes closed and he lay back down on the floor, the tension leaving him as the cool darkness beckoned, then enfolded him in a protective shroud. He allowed it with a certain feeling of regret and anger at his own inability to go after his brother. He was depending on a total stranger—a man he’d not even known a full twenty-four hours yet—to take care of a situation that could result in Pete’s death. And Daniel had not answered the question. Can I…trust…you?

  No answer.

  There was nothing he could do about any of it—at least, not yet. He felt Alexa’s gentle fingertips smoothing his hair away from his face; from a far distance, it seemed, he heard her murmur something, then, Daniel’s unintelligible response. He was drifting, until Alexa’s hand found his, holding him to her, tethering him to the only sanity in the world.

  And just before he slept, he heard Daniel’s booted footsteps, then the finality of the door closing behind him.

  Chapter 26

  Slowly, one by one, the men of SWAT team Alpha had departed, until there were none of them left standing on the curb of Lakeview Terrace. The tree-studded landscape of The Riverwind Hotel provided them the cover they needed to move closer to the structure itself, drifting and darting like shadows in the midday sun.

  The men disappeared so gradually that Ray Carter didn’t realize they were gone until he suddenly noticed that as his old friend walked away, he was going toward a patch of emptiness where only a few moments earlier, his men had stood waiting.

  Richter walked past that spot and kept going. Once past the communications staging area, he threw some quick hand signals that Carter did not recognize. But Richter’s men had no such difficulties. Several of them drifted forward like dark inkspots from behind their cover, and almost before Carter’s eyes, Richter himself disappeared into the shade of one of the big oak trees.

  Grimly, Carter nodded to himself. Richter’s men were what stood between the remaining hostages and their senseless deaths at McShane’s hands. That idiot Sanders had done nothing about even trying to work out a deal that McShane could be happy with. Carter couldn’t understand it. It was almost as if Sanders didn’t know what to do—or just didn’t care.

  But Sanders didn’t know Pete and Johnny Logan like he did. Sanders had no personal investment in the situation—not like he did. Not like he did.

  His eyes unfocused as he stared after Don Richter, looking at the blank openness where he’d seemed to disappear. There one minute, gone the next. Much like he’d felt as he’d watched Peter James Logan step through that hotel door, into the lions’ den.

  There…then gone.

  And Johnny. Carter closed his eyes, thinking back to the last time he’d seen Johnny. It had been a while, but it was etched solidly in his mind. The funeral of a slain fellow officer had brought them together last October. They’d both been pallbearers. Ray would never forget the somber darkness in Johnny’s eyes as they’d stood across the casket from one another, his heavy sigh just before they each reached to grasp the handles and hoist it to their shoulders.

  The next funeral he attended could be a triple one…to bury the two brothers and their long-time friend, Levi Santiago. Carter gnawed at his lower lip, then squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the disturbing images.

  When he opened his eyes again, he saw Sanders glancing around with a questioning look. Damn. Wearily, he headed for the comm staging area to try and keep the idiot from doing something really dumb. Sanders was going to be plenty pissed when he figured out who was really in charge here.

  Nobody.

  ♥ ♥ ♥

  Daniel stopped climbing and took a deep breath. The darkness pressed in on him here in the mid section of the air ducts. It was always in this halfway part where he started getting tired. The hand and footholds were sturdy enough, but he wasn’t so young anymore—sixty-three just last January. He stopped again, resting a moment, shouldering the trickle of sweat from his high forehead.

  A flash of anger surged through him. What the hell was he doing up here, climbing through the ductwork? Daniel turned himself to sit on the connecting piece of tubing that joined from the eighth floor.

  “Brother, you got yourself in a helluva fix,” he muttered. And now, he was talking to himself, which Ronnie had always told him crazy people did. “I’m sorry.” He just felt that needed to be said. He didn’t mean to disappoint Ronnie by being crazy. Still and all, he had to figure he was crazy, whether he or Ronnie liked it or not.

  The smell was awful. Once he’d come back from Nam, it was something he’d never thought he’d have to deal with again. All the death, and the odor of it. Like nothing else, that smell was. He wrinkled his nose in distaste. The first time he’d smelled it, then learned what it was, he’d gone off and thrown up in the bush. A short chuckle escaped him. He’d had to grow up quick, and put that crap out of his mind, even when he was handling the wounded, the dead, and various body parts that sometimes got blown to kingdom come.

  But the stench from the vent hose was heavy, becoming nauseating to him. Must’ve been a lot of people killed here on the eighth floor.

  He’d rested long enough. He put a hand on the metal handle, swung his body around off of the tubing, and began to climb downward once more.

  He’d made a mistake when he’d been talking to McShane. See, now that’s how he knew part of his brain just wasn’t right anymore. He had told McShane things he shouldn’t have. But he’d thought McShane already knew them. Hadn’t McShane asked to speak to John Logan? So, he had to know that Johnny was there with him, didn’t he? Didn’t he?

  But the way Johnny had looked at him when Daniel had brought him the cell phone…that expression had said otherwise. Johnny had sure ’nough been pissed off. Maybe he was just mad that Daniel had lied to him about having the cell phone in the first place.

  No. No, that wasn’t it. He could tell the difference. Wasn’t that crazy—not yet, anyway. He’d been stupid, was all. He’d given McShane too much information.

  He stopped, hand poised over the next grip. Had he told McShane where they were? He would never have done it on purpose…but what if McShane had tricked him into it? He couldn’t remember—

  What if McShane was on his way up to the roof, laughing at what the retard had given up to him without even knowing he’d done it?

  Daniel tilted his head back and looked straight up at the little washes of light that indicated each cross-section of tubing at the floors above him. He was closer to the ground floor now than the top floor…and he had no idea which level McShane’s “army” and the hostages were on.

  He looked down at the vast distance below him. If he fell in here, his body would never be found. He went solemn and stiff at the thought. Turn it a-loose, Danny. Let it float like a red balloon all the way back up the ductwork and into the maintenance building. It was a bad thought, but it would be all right to let it go in there because Johnny and Alexa were inside the little enclosure behind the compressors. Nothing could find them there.

  He started down again, aggravated with himself for getting a spooked thought like that one and letting it make him nervous like it had. He’d climbed up and down these ducts a million times, but never with so much riding on him getting to where he was going alive and well.

  It had been a long time since anyone had depended on him for anything. He wasn’t sure he could remember when that was, before Johnny and Alexa came.

/>   He stopped to rest again at the third floor. His hands were hurting. He sat down on the cross-section entrance of the hose and flexed his fingers. He’d have to rest a lot more often going back up. Sometimes, if it was real late at night, he cheated and let himself out into the maintenance corridor. It came out just beside the elevators. He’d carefully open the door, and if there happened to be people in the hotel hallway, he…well, he pretended to be a maintenance worker.

  He never talked to ’em or nothin’ like that, but they’d walk right over to the elevator and push the button—take it up to the twentieth floor. Then, he’d get out just like he belonged there—just in case anyone was out and about up there, and he’d pretend to be fixing the carpet by the elevator. Soon’s he was all alone, he’d open up that maintenance door and go right up the stairwell and out onto the roof, and into his place.

  Oh, Ronnie wouldn’t like that even a little bit. He’d be real mad if he knew…but it got so lonesome up there at his place sometimes, he just wanted to see other people—even if he didn’t talk to them.

  He reached for the metal rung beside him once again and began to descend the last three floors. Usually, when he was moving around in the ductwork he could hear all kinds of stuff going on in the rooms on the end of the hallway. Parents fighting, crying babies, and laughing kids—sometimes some couple making wild, crazy love; this time, there wasn’t nothin’ like that. Just a stillness…and the odor.

  Finally, he stepped down from the rung onto solid ground and rubbed his shaking legs, stretching them to keep them from cramping. He stood very still after a few moments, letting his breathing slow…and the sounds came to him.

  Talking… He sat down on the floor to rest a minute before he climbed back up to the first floor vent. He was below the cross-section for the first floor. As soon as he rested some, he’d start in through the tubing to try and locate where McShane was keeping the hostages.

  The talking droned on in the distance. He couldn’t understand the actual words, no matter how he tried. He flexed his hands again and stood, reaching for the metal rung, pulling himself up to the cross-section.

  Here on the first floor, he’d be able to crawl just a short distance until he came to the first piece of grillwork that overlooked the lobby. He was ready for it…ready to get started.

  He began to crawl through the dim tunnel. He let his breath out carefully as he reached the ornate vent grate about twelve feet in. There was room for him to recline, laying his chin on his hands, keeping his face back a few inches so that he could not be seen should one of the people in the room below happen to look up.

  The hostages were seated in a group just below where he lay. A stiff lookin’ bunch. Even after the past seventeen-odd hours, they looked as if their shirts were still just as starched as they had been when they came in. His eyes roved over the men, quickly picking out the Prime Minister, Brendan Roberts. He’d seen Roberts before in the papers that Ronnie brought up sometimes. Today, he had on a dark suit. Looked just like he did in the pictures. Gray hair, blue eyes—eyes that told the world he was not afraid.

  Sorley O’Brian stood guard nearby, his rifle pointed toward the floor. But Daniel wasn’t fooled. He knew by O’Brian’s familiarity with the weapon that he would be able to use it most skillfully at a moment’s notice. He gritted his teeth. He’d love to grab O’Brian around the neck and choke the life out of him. Takin’ them quarters—that wasn’t right.

  Daniel’s gaze moved across the room to where Eileen Bannion sat next to McShane at the bar. She leaned over and whispered something, resting her hand on his thigh. He gave a slow smile, turning to look at her, and Daniel watched her hand move up to cup the Irishman’s crotch.

  Revulsion washed over him as he remembered the way McShane had hurt her just two nights ago as they’d lain together. Once more, the clear memory of the way the young woman had wiped herself clean of McShane’s seed burned though his mind.

  His brows knit, mouth set in a grim line as he thought of it. He didn’t understand how she could hate McShane so badly and still flirt and tease with him like she was doing now…

  But as McShane excused himself and started toward O’Brian, Daniel believed maybe there was a reason for her strange behavior. He watched as Eileen’s gaze skipped to another part of the room he couldn’t see from his vantage point, a protective look in her eyes. He would crawl to the other vent in a minute, so he could see the rest of the room. From this place, he couldn’t see the hostages at all. He watched a moment longer before he moved. Eileen turned to stare at McShane’s back once more, the hatred washing through the space between them.

  Daniel saw McShane’s brows slash together as he looked around, feeling the silent daggers behind him. But the woman was prepared with a demure smile and a wink, as if she’d known he would turn all along. McShane greeted O’Brian as if all was right with the world. And for all he knew, Daniel thought, it was.

  ♥ ♥ ♥

  Alexa stared into the semi-darkness of their cubicle, more afraid than she had ever been in her life. Even more so than when Richard had dropped his bombshell and blown the world, as she knew it, to a million tiny bits. Her lips twisted, and she didn’t know if she was about to laugh or to cry.

  What a difference a year makes… She closed her eyes, the thrum of the compressors roaring behind her, Johnny’s slow, even breathing beneath her ear as she lay within his loose grasp. Richard meant less than nothing to her now. Staying alive…keeping Johnny alive…that was all that mattered.

  Johnny shivered slightly, and she pulled him closer to her, even though the small enclosure was plenty warm from the heat of the compressors beside them.

  “I’m okay,” he whispered against her hair.

  She smiled. “Just making sure. Keeping you warm.”

  “Mm-hmm. You are.” He was quiet for a moment, then, “Damn chills. Can’t seem to get past…the fever.”

  “It’ll be better when we make it out of here,” she comforted. “Get you to a hospital where they can—they can see what a person can do with a can of beer and a shoebox of medical supplies.”

  “You’ll show ’em, ’Lexa.”

  She could hear the smile in his words, but something else, too. The pain was grinding him down, slowly but surely, and she was beginning to wonder if, despite her best attempts, the wounds were becoming infected.

  “I’m not out of my head, though…like you—like you thought earlier.”

  Alexa knew exactly what he was talking about.

  “Been doing some thinking about—about Daniel…” His voice trailed off, but Alexa waited, and in a few seconds he said, “Think I might have him figured…at least, a little, anyway.”

  “How’s that?” She was curious, despite everything else.

  “Shoulda realized it—even before…before now. He wanted me to—to like him; approve of him…”

  “But he was jealous, you said—”

  “He was, Lex. But at some point he realized it—couldn’t happen…the two of you, I mean.”

  Alexa bit her lip. “Johnny.” She lifted her head to look into his eyes. “You—never said anything about the bullets. You knew—”

  “Yeah.” He let his breath out slowly. “He took them when you were looking for another way out. I didn’t want you to worry. Wasn’t sure how—if—I’d be able to get ’em back from him.”

  Alexa squeezed her eyes shut. And it was her fault— “I was afraid he’d shoot you when you told him to take the gun,” she confessed.

  Johnny’s lips turned up. “That’ll never happen…’Lexa. Never happen…’cause he knows how bad you’d hate him then…” His eyes closed for a moment, and Alexa thought he’d gone to sleep. She put a hand on his stubbled cheek and he turned his head slightly and kissed her palm.

  “Because he knows how much I love you—” she broke off. “So, now he wants to be your friend? Is that it?”

  “I don’t figure into it much anymore. At least, I don’t think I do. He’s doing…wha
tever he decides to do…for you, sweetheart. He doesn’t want you to be disappointed in him.”

  This time, Alexa shivered involuntarily against the warmth of Johnny’s body. “No pressure or anything,” she muttered.

  Johnny smiled faintly. “You’re doing fine.”

  “That would explain why he got so mad about what he’d told me,” she said quietly. “About murdering those two punks who tried to cheat him. He saw how shocked I was—how upset it made me.” She bit her lower lip. “I couldn’t help it, though. It surprised me.”

  “Yeah.” Johnny toyed with a strand of her hair. “I know. But anything he does from here on out has pretty much got to be okay with you. He can’t stand your disappointment—or disapproval.”

  She burrowed closer to him. “Do you think he’ll—he’ll find Pete?”

  “In time, you mean?” Johnny fell silent, and Alexa felt him battling his own thoughts and fears. He’d been trying not to think about it, she realized, and she was putting it right out there for him again.

  “I’m sorry—” She swallowed hard, rising up to look into his face once more. His eyes were as dark as midnight. A long moment passed between them, and finally, she looked away, unable to bear her own thoughtlessness another second.

  He raised her chin with a finger, his eyes seizing hers and holding them once more. “Don’t be. I’m wondering too. Hoping.” He sighed heavily. “If he doesn’t—at least manage to create some…diversion—”

  Alexa leaned forward and gently kissed him. “No. Let’s not even think those kinds of things. I’m sorry I mentioned it.”