Harlequin Intrigue, Box Set 2 of 2

by Julie Miller

  If she overshot, the knife would be on the floor. Might as well be on the moon. If she undershot, it would be just as frustrating. She’d be able to see it but it would be in a spot that she wouldn’t be able to reach, even with one free leg. There was a limit to the amount of flexibility she had.

  She judged the angle, the distance, took a deep breath and tossed it. It bounced off her hand and would have clattered to the floor if she hadn’t been able to snag it at the last second. She turned it in order to get to the button. She pushed it and the blade extended.

  She bent her hand at more than a ninety-degree angle at the wrist and set about the business of sawing through one of the ropes. It was tedious and her fingers cramped but she hung on to the knife and kept going.

  And finally, one wrist was free. She pulled it down, wincing at the pain in her shoulder from having her hands pinned above her head for hours.

  How many hours she had no idea. She didn’t have a watch and there was no clock in the room, not even an alarm clock on the bedside table.

  She needed to untie her other wrist. This was easier and in just minutes both wrists were free. Then she cut the final rope on her left foot. She was groggy, sick to her stomach, bleeding, and felt as if she’d been run over by a truck.

  But there was no time to waste.

  She stumbled her way into the bathroom. Cal was on the floor. Tied.

  She knelt down. Felt for a pulse. It was there. Slow but steady. He was alive. Her heart soared with the knowledge.

  The two of them needed to get out of there before the Mercedes Men came back.

  She shook him. Hard. No response.

  “Cal,” she pleaded. “You have to help me.”

  Wildly, she looked around the bathroom. The bathtub was an old one, with claw feet and a shower curtain that wrapped all the way around it. She pulled it back. Saw the pipe for the shower and the showerhead on the hose.

  She grabbed it, turned the cold water on full blast and aimed it at Cal’s face.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Cal sputtered and spit. He was being water-boarded.

  He must have been captured. They could try but they weren’t going to get anything from him.

  It took him a full minute before he realized that he was lying on the bathroom floor of the student union and Stormy was next to him, tears running down her face.

  She was also trying to drown him.

  “Wake up, damn you,” she said. “Wake up.”

  “It would be helpful, darling, if you’d get that hose out of my face.”

  She dropped it and the clang seemed to echo through the small room. She fell on him. Hugging. Crying.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “Now get this rope off me.”

  She efficiently sawed through the rope and the minute it was loose, he pulled his arms free. Even with the cold shower, he felt fuzzy and light-headed, as if he’d gone days without sleeping.

  He looked at his watch. Hell. It was more as if he’d been sleeping for days. It was just after eleven. He’d been asleep for almost twelve hours. G and his merry men had shot him up with a massive cocktail.

  He sat up. Reached out and gently touched her ribs. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded.

  Then he saw her bloody ankle and heel. “What the hell happened?” he asked.

  “It’s nothing. We have to get out of here before they come back.” She started to cut through the ropes on his ankles. “Listen, Cal, I don’t have time to explain but I’m an FBI agent.”

  “Figured something like that. What were you doing here at the college?”

  “A clerk in the college accounting department had discovered that something looked odd with the financials. There was over two million dollars missing. She followed the trail as far as she could and she was confident that it was someone of substantial authority because money had been transferred from account to account and not everyone could do that. She went to her supervisor, who contacted the FBI. Bolton and I were sent undercover. Because we didn’t know whom we could trust at the college, we told no one. We applied for jobs and the only open positions at the time were on the cleaning crew. That was perfect in that it gave us access to every executive’s office at the college.”

  She made a final swipe with the knife and his ankles were free. He stood up and gripped the edge of the sink for support.

  “I was Jean and Bolton was Tim. Even when we went to dinner on our off time, we stayed in those personas. We drove into Kansas City, thinking the distance between there and Moldaire reduced the likelihood that anybody would recognize us. He took that picture of me at The Blue Mango. It was on my cell phone. G must have gotten it off of it when he took it from me after Bolton and I were captured.”

  “What’s missing money have to do with a bomb in the stadium?”

  She put her arm around him, as if she was afraid that he was going to fall down. He didn’t shake it off because it felt good to touch her.

  “We didn’t know anything about a bomb.” She shook her head. “Trust me on this, I’m not the agent they would have sent. As it turns out, I’m not an accountant but close. My specialty is white-collar crime, specifically embezzlement. It took weeks but my partner and I were able to access most of the information we needed. Some if it was hard copy. That was easy. People who have locked offices rarely lock up information in their offices. The computer records that we needed were harder to get but not too hard.” She looked up at him. “You’d be amazed at how many executives write their passwords on a scrap of paper and stick it under their keyboards. While we were supposed to be cleaning their offices, we would access the computer, copy off all activity on a thumb drive and analyze it back at our hotel.”

  Cal walked out of the bathroom and over to the window. He moved the shade and curtain just a fraction of an inch and looked outside. The room was still whirling but it was slowing down. “People are heading to the stadium. We have to get out of here, get to the police. Where do they fit in this?”

  “I think the real police are fine. It was the campus police that my subconscious knew we couldn’t trust. My partner and I had decided that we needed to get into the president’s office. We had eliminated most everyone else as suspects and there was a paper trail that was leading to the president’s office. He’s married but had a young girlfriend.”

  “Let me guess. Jessica from the lingerie store.” He did a couple deep knee bends to get the circulation moving in his legs.

  “Yeah. Several hundred thousand dollars had been transferred into her account. And suddenly she was missing. There was no evidence that she was harmed. I think she basically got what she wanted from the guy and booked it out of here.”

  “What did you find in the president’s office?”

  “More than we should have. We were inside when we heard someone outside. We hid in the closet.” She gave him a quick smile. “I know. A closet. Anyway, people came in. I recognized the one voice. It was G, who was the supervisor of the cleaning crew. From day one he’d made my skin crawl, always looking at me, brushing up against me. We didn’t recognize the other voice but soon it was clear that it was the president. G was blackmailing him. Giving him money so that he could pay back what he’d stolen from the college. In exchange, the president had invited his friend and former fraternity brother, the secretary of state, back for the end-of-the-season football game. I remember being really angry that they were going to use a sporting event as the venue.”

  “G is a terrorist. So is the president of the college.”

  “Yes. They never talked about a bomb. We assumed that they were going to shoot the secretary. Anyway, after they left, my partner and I got the hell out of there. But what we didn’t realize was that the office was being watched by a campus police officer on G’s payroll. We left, he followed and tried to apprehend us
. He killed Bolton. I’m not sure he meant to or if his gun went off accidentally. Anyway, he took me hostage. They retrieved the computer from Bolton’s hotel room. Our transmissions were always secure but they evidently got enough to realize that we were federal agents. I think that might have been when the plan to go back to Russia got hastily thrown together. I have no idea why a real wedding was necessary.”

  Cal was looking for his gun that they’d tossed aside. He looked up. “Pride, Stormy. To a man like G, pride is important. He wanted his friends to believe that he was marrying a very beautiful woman.” His gun was gone. He’d expected as much.

  He grabbed her boots and tossed them to her. “Stormy, you need to contact your people so that they can get the local police involved. They’re going to have to mobilize very quickly to make sure the secretary of state is in a safe spot and get everyone away from the stadium.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  He cracked open the door of the room and looked down the hallway. It was empty. He looked back over his shoulder and smiled at her. “I’m going to see if I can figure out how to shut down that bomb.”

  * * *

  THEY TOOK THE elevator down to the registration desk. After doing a quick check to make sure they didn’t recognize anybody in the lobby, they approached the desk.

  “We have an emergency,” she said to the clerk, this time a young woman. “I’m an FBI officer and I need to use your phone.”

  The woman didn’t even ask to see any identification. Just got off the stool she’d been sitting on and stepped away from the desk. There was a second empty stool and draped over it was a black jacket. There was a college ID badge pinned to the pocket.

  “Whose jacket is that?” Cal asked.

  “My supervisor’s. He stepped away for just a minute.”

  Cal picked it up and put it on. It was a little small and the picture didn’t look anything like him. She looked closer at the badge. Geoff Larkin, Manager.

  “You can’t take that,” the clerk said.

  “She will explain,” Cal said, his voice polite.

  She felt his hand on her shoulder. Cal leaned in and gave her a hard kiss. “No heroics,” he said. “Promise me.”

  “You’re the one going off to disarm a bomb,” she said.

  “I have to,” he said simply. “I love you, Stormy,” he added, already moving. “And I’m going to marry you and you’re gonna wear that pretty ivory dress you saw in the wedding dress shop.”

  Then he was out the door.

  The desk clerk was staring at her, her mouth open. “Wow,” the woman said.

  Wow, indeed.

  She pressed her hand over her mouth. She wanted to call him back, to make him promise to stay by her side. But Cal Hollister had been a soldier, one of the best of the best. He could not sit back and wait while a terrorist killed innocent bystanders. She could not ask him to do that.

  She needed to do her part. She went behind the counter, picked up the phone and started dialing.

  * * *

  CAL HAD SEEN his share of bombs over the years and had a pretty good idea of how he’d engineer a large explosion in a football stadium. Explosives would have to be planted at multiple locations and tripped simultaneously by an electric charge. He needed to find the source of that charge. It was possible that there could be multiple sources but that heightened the possibility of discovery. He was betting on one.

  And he was betting that it was in an area that most people never saw. An area that was off-limits to most people but not to the maintenance personnel. The area under the stadium.

  When he got to the stadium, he didn’t hesitate. He walked to the front of the line, vaulted over the turn-stile and flashed his badge with his thumb partially over the picture in the direction of the kid taking tickets.

  “Manager Geoff Larkin. We’ve got a water problem,” he said and kept walking. In the distance, he heard the sounds of approaching sirens. Lots of them.

  Good. Stormy had made her call.

  And there was no doubt a bomb squad in Kansas City. But it would take them a little bit to mobilize. They’d want to look at blueprints. They’d need to debate the options. The preferred method was never to have an actual person defuse the bomb. They’d want to send a robot in to remove the bomb and transfer it to a safe location to deal with it there. Dealing with it could take the form of a robot defusing it, letting it detonate in a controlled environment or even taking their own bomb to blast this one to hell.

  They’d act according to protocol and that was all well and good in certain circumstances but protocol took time, and that was one thing he was confident they didn’t have.

  He found the freight elevators and got in. There were two lower levels, B1 and B2. Damn it. Two levels meant it would take twice as much time to search.

  He stabbed B1 and prayed that he was right.

  He would have felt much better with his gun. All he had was the knife that he’d given to Stormy. The knife had already come in very handy earlier today. It would have to be enough.

  The door opened and he stayed inside the elevator. Edged his head out. He didn’t want to meet up with any of the Mercedes Men if he didn’t have to. They would slow him down.

  The floor and walls were cement, the ceiling was a mass of white PVC pipes and encased electrical wiring. There were wire-fronted storage units, probably ten feet wide, against one wall. Some were filled with cardboard boxes, one had stacks of yellow cones and a pile of orange flags, one had what appeared to be brand-new toilets. On the other side of the room were two big rooms. Meeting spaces.

  He closed his eyes. Breathed deep.

  Then he stepped back into the elevator. He was going lower.

  The B2 level looked a little like the floor above it in that it was all gray cement. But in the middle of the large space was a fully enclosed structure.

  The power plant.

  He could hear the hiss and crack of big boilers that were heating water that would ultimately supply heat and more to the upper levels. He tried to open the door. It was locked.

  Damn it.

  Then he saw the badge reader next to the door. His only hope was that the security processes at Moldaire weren’t overly sophisticated and that all management personnel had access to all areas of the campus. He ripped Geoff Larkin’s badge off his coat and slid it through the narrow channel.

  He heard the click, grabbed the door and was inside.

  It was a sea of commercial boilers, huge generators and chillers. He glanced at his watch. Time was running out. He had to find the power source and find it fast.

  On his second loop around the room, he saw it. A small box, taped to the underside of one of the boilers, with a wire leading up to the ceiling and then beyond. He squatted down and used the edge of his knife to flip open the metal box.

  He examined the three wires, all the same color. Why was it in the movies they always made it look easy by having a red, white and a green wire. And the guy always had somebody on the phone, walking him through the process. Now cut the red one.

  He had nobody. And no way of knowing how much time he had left. In the movies, there was always a ticking clock. Not one here. All he knew was that the national anthem was sung at the very beginning of the game. Which had to be just about now.

  He pulled all three wires at the same time.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  After she had contacted her supervisor, things had moved quickly. The man had quickly called in both local and state police departments. He’d also reached out to one of the agents who’d been dispensed to Moldaire earlier in the week, looking for Nalana and Bolton. Within minutes, that male agent had arrived, moved her to the manager’s office that was behind the registration desk and stood guard at the door.

  She’d begged to go to
the stadium but her supervisor had expressly forbidden it. Nalana was to stay put until the terrorists could be apprehended. She’d hated that she knew he was right. She wanted to be with Cal but she could not take the chance that the Mercedes Men would somehow intercept her and she’d be in a position of being a bargaining chip that might allow the terrorists to escape.

  And Cal had said no heroics. She owed it to him to be careful, to be here when he came back.

  She had just started to dial the phone to express her condolences to Bolton’s family when she heard the explosion. She sank down in the chair and dropped the receiver. It hit the desk with a thud.

  The bomb had gone off. It was unthinkable.

  She’d been so confident that Cal would be able to do it, that he would come back to her in one piece, with his slightly cocky attitude and his killer grin. She hadn’t allowed herself to contemplate any other option.

  But the explosion had to mean that he had not been successful. And she quite frankly had no idea how she would bear it.

  She put her face in her hands. Her head, her heart, her whole body felt heavy, as if she would never again have the strength to lift it. Oh, Cal. I did so love you.

  She would have to call his brothers and tell them that Cal had died a hero, trying to save innocent people. She remembered the day that he’d been insistent that she memorize their numbers. He’d done it to ensure that she wouldn’t be left defenseless or without resources. She would tell Chase how much Cal had loved him, how he had known the sacrifices that Chase had made for him and how he’d come to terms with that knowledge over the years, and how he’d challenged himself to be the kind of person who could act in the same selfless manner.

  She could stay to help them with the funeral. And the people would come and point to her and wonder whether she was somebody important in Cal Hollister’s life.

  And she would try to find some comfort in knowing that while their time together had been short, they had connected in a way that most people never had the joy of experiencing. It had been brief but it had been love.