She could feel his hands working on the ropes on her wrists, and as he did she moved her butt back against his crotch.
“Now you’re the one slowing down this process,” he said.
“Well then hurry up and get me untied,” she said, moving her butt slowly back and forth. She loved teasing him, just as he loved teasing her.
Finally she felt the wonderful relief of the ropes coming off. She stood up and rubbed her wrists, trying to get circulation back through them. She had no doubt she was going to have bruises there for weeks.
“Now what?” she asked.
Craig kissed her quickly, then turned and pulled one of the wooden hangers off the bar. He slapped it against his hand. “Get one and let’s see if we can get out of here.”
She did as he suggested, the weight of the hanger in her hands not giving her any reassurance at all.
Craig turned and carefully tried the door handle. It was locked and as he tried to turn it, the knob rattled.
“You two stay quiet in there,” a guards voice came from the other side of the door, loud and very, very close. “You’ll be let out soon enough.”
“Shit,” Craig whispered.
Bonnie turned and put the hanger back on the hook, then sat down on the floor, her back against the back wall of the closet. They weren’t getting out of this closet any time soon.
She watched as Craig gave the closet one more close inspection and then sat down beside her.
“What a way to spend a vacation,” she whispered.
“As long as it’s with you,” Craig said, “I’d spend it locked in a closet.”
“We are locked in a closet,” she said.
“Oh,” was all he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Monday, April 10th
3:10 a.m.
MAXWELL LOOKED AT the rumpled and very tired Hagar as he staggered into the police station. A couple other night-shift detectives laughed, but no one said anything.
“This had better be damned good,” Hagar said. “I was dreaming about swimming naked with a dozen women when you so rudely woke me up.”
Maxwell laughed. “No wonder you look so tired.” He pointed at the screen of a monitor sitting on a desk and punched play. He had watched these images a dozen times over the last ten minutes and still couldn’t figure out exactly what they meant.
Hagar frowned. The image showed a tall wall and some people coming down the street toward the camera.
“The Robins estate,” Maxwell said. “Filmed less than an hour ago.”
“I know where it’s at,” Hagar said, “but who are the people?”
“Wait,” Maxwell said.
On screen the images of the people became clearer and clearer.
“Holy shit, you’re kidding?”
“I’m not,” Maxwell said. “That’s Bonnie and Craig, their hands tied, being led into the Robins estate by two of Robins’ goons. I checked their room and they are not there.”
“Robins kidnapped them?” Hagar almost shouted as the film showed Bonnie and Craig being walked right through the front gate. “Why the hell would he do that?”
“I don’t know the answer to that question,” Maxwell said, “but they haven’t come out of there yet.”
Hagar shook his head. “Didn’t they know your van was there filming everything?”
“I guess not,” Maxwell said. “Or I doubt they would have taken them in this way.”
Hagar glanced at Maxwell. “Are you thinking what I think you are thinking? You want to go in after them?”
Maxwell nodded. “I’ve got agents flying up here from Tucson and down from Vegas. I can have a force of over thirty men ready to roll in forty minutes.”
“And you think Bonnie and Craig are still alive in there?” Hagar asked.
“At the moment I do,” Maxwell said, “but the longer we wait, the less chance I give them. And I give them no chance when Robins discovers they helped trick him with the Senator.”
“Damn, you’re right,” Hagar said. He rewound the film again quickly and watched them walk past the truck and through the main gate.
To Maxwell there was no doubt both Craig and Bonnie were tied and being led at gunpoint.
“Robins might have over fifty men in there,” Hagar said, “and from what I’ve observed about those men, they aren’t afraid to defend that place.”
“I assumed as much,” Maxwell said. “That’s why we need to work together on this.”
Hagar just stared at him for a moment, then said, “You’re nuts, you know that?”
Maxwell nodded.
“Shit, shit, shit!” Hagar said, turning from Maxwell and picking up the phone.
Ten minutes later Hagar had permission to work with the FBI from the Chief of Police.
Thirty minutes later Hagar had a force of over fifty men, including a SWAT team from Phoenix, staged at different locations around the Robins estate, armed and ready to go when the order was given.
Maxwell knew that if this turned into a gunfight, it was going to go down poorly. Their best bet was to try to talk their way in and disarm guards as they went.
Hagar was convinced that there was going to be no talking their way inside those walls. He had calls out for even more help to stand ready. He told Maxwell that if this didn’t turn out to be the Alamo west, he’d be surprised.
That was the last thing Maxwell wanted to have happen. But inside those walls were two kidnapped cops and a man they suspected of trying to kill a United States Senator. He had no other choice.
They had to go in.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Monday, April 10th
4:03 a.m.
BONNIE HAD DOZED lightly for most of the past half hour, and Craig had let her. The closet had gotten cold and Bonnie had pulled down one of the expensive wool coats that hung in there to use as a cover. And she was using Craig as a pillow, something he didn’t mind at all.
Craig had talked her into closing her eyes for a short time. There was just no point in both of them trying to stay alert. There wasn’t much they could do until Robins decided to let them out. Unless they wanted to take a chance on getting shot trying to escape, and at the moment Craig didn’t much like that idea.
So until something happened, they sat on the floor, in the dark, and waited.
Craig guessed that at least an hour or more had gone by since Robins had tossed them into the closet. And if that was the case, they were getting closer and closer to the Senator’s press conference in Washington. Craig had no desire to still be Robins’ prisoner when he discovered the Senator was still healthy and voting.
A slight snoring noise rumbled the closet and Craig eased Bonnie sideways. Usually she didn’t snore, but considering how tired she was, and the circumstances, it was understandable.
Bonnie mumbled and cuddled against his side as the snoring sound happened again. He shook her lightly, then when her eyes popped open he whispered, “Shhh, listen.”
The snoring sound came again.
She sat upright in the darkness, then leaned toward him and whispered, “The guard’s asleep.”
“That’s what I thought,” Craig said.
“Think we can break that lock open?” she asked, her voice barely audible.
“Yeah,” he said, silently standing and moving his legs to make sure the circulation hadn’t left them. He had taken out other locks much stronger than the one on this closet door. And from the sounds of the snoring, the guard was leaning against the door. So the break-out would have to be strong enough to snap the lock and shove the guard aside at the same time. If the wood in the door held, it would work.
“What do you want me to do?” Bonnie asked.
“Be ready to hit the guy on the head with one of those wooden hangers,” Craig whispered.
The snoring stopped for an instant, the guy shifted against the door, moving more away from the lock, then a moment later the snoring started again.
Craig let out the breath he had b
een holding. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” Bonnie whispered.
Craig braced himself against the back wall of the closet. It was just a little too far from the door to give him the best force on his kick. He used both hands to lightly pull on the hanger bar. It seemed very solid and secure in place. It would hold his weight long enough for him to kick the door open, he was sure.
He leaned toward Bonnie and whispered, “Here we go.”
“Careful,” she whispered back.
“You too,” he said.
He put himself in position directly behind the door’s handle, then with two deep breaths, he pulled himself up on the bar and with all the force he could manage in both legs, kicked the door with both feet.
It smashed open like it hadn’t even been latched.
Bonnie was through the door before he could even let go of the bar.
The guard had been shoved head over heels away from the door by the force of Craig’s kicks.
Bonnie was around the open door and over the guard by the time the guy even started to get up. One very hard smack against the side of the head with the wooden hanger and the guy went back to sleep.
“He’s going to have one massive headache when he wakes up,” Bonnie said, smiling at her husband.
“Remind me to never get you mad at me.”
Craig grabbed the guy’s rifle, a semi-automatic with a dozen rounds in the clip. The guy had one in the chamber, ready to fire.
Bonnie dug around in the guard’s pockets and pulled out two more clips for the rifle and a 44 caliber pistol with extra rounds. Then she took an earplug from the guard’s ear and a small communications device from his front pocket of his vest.
She handed the communication equipment to Craig.
“Better find out what his name is,” Craig said, “so we can answer a call to him.”
Bonnie quickly flipped the guy over and dug his wallet out of his back pocket. She flipped it open and then snorted. “Dwight. His name is Dwight.”
A security guard named Dwight. No wonder he had fallen asleep.
She stuck the wallet back in the guy’s pants and stood.
“Keep watch,” he said.
He grabbed the guard and pulled him back into the closet, then tied his hands and feet with the rope they had been tied with.
The closet door, with a little work, almost looked like nothing had happened to it by the time Craig got it closed again.
“Now what?” Bonnie asked.
Craig glanced down the corridor. There was a security camera trained on the corner about fifty feet away. And another one in the other direction down the hall. It looked like they were between them at least.
“There’s got to be a major security system in this place, as well as at least twenty guards, if not a lot more,” he said. He pointed at the cameras as he stuck the earplug in his ear.
“Damn,” she said, “we move from here at all and they’ll know we’ve escaped.”
“So when we do move, we make the best of it,” Craig said, “and move fast.”
“Until then we wait here?” Bonnie asked.
In his ear Craig could hear the sudden excited talking of the front guards, as well as others along the perimeter of the estate. They were all reporting in that a large number of police had suddenly moved up into position.
“Exactly,” he said, smiling at her. “But I don’t think we’re going to have to wait long. We’re about to have the cavalry come to the rescue.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Monday, April 10th
4:27 a.m.
“ARE WE READY?” Maxwell asked Hagar.
“My people are,” Hagar said, nodding as he listened to the last of status reports in his ear.
“So are mine,” Maxwell said. “Let’s do it.”
Maxwell picked up a bullhorn as the two of them stepped around the police car and walked ten feet out into the middle of the road in front of the main gate of the Robins estate. Above them the stars were shining and the air was crisp and almost cold. Maxwell could see a dozen men in different positions inside the gate, guns all at rest. As long as they stayed that way, everything would be fine.
“Attention. This is the FBI,” Maxwell shouted through the bullhorn, his voice echoing over the estate and into the rock hills behind it. “Open the gates and throw down your weapons. You are completely surrounded.”
Nothing.
He knew that he had the horn set loud enough that anyone inside the buildings beyond those wall would be able to hear him as well. He would give good old Robins a moment to think about things, and then try again.
The silence of the late desert night seemed intense as Maxwell and Hagar waited. Inside the gate no one moved.
“This is the FBI!” Maxwell repeated through the horn. “Throw down your weapons and come out.”
Again the silence seemed to crawl down over him like a giant bug trying to smother him. He could feel his own heart beating and the fear choking him. But he stood there, in the middle of the road, and waited for a response.
Then through the gate there was movement, but it took Maxwell a fraction of a second to realize it was the wrong kind of movement. One of the men just inside the gate to the right was raising his gun.
Another behind him was doing the same.
“Get down!” Hagar shouted and turned to get to cover.
Maxwell spun and ran, the ten steps between him and the shelter of the patrol car seemingly a thousand yards.
The air suddenly echoed with the sounds of gunfire. For an instant it was only a few shots, all coming from beyond the walls, then there was more and more until it was impossible to tell how many, as if strings of firecrackers were being shot off in a closed space.
Maxwell’s agents were now returning fire, trying to cover him as he and Hagar got to shelter.
A bullet smashed into the car just beyond him.
Close!
Way too damned close!
He tried to dive for the shelter of the front fender of the car.
He didn’t make it.
The burning feeling of the bullet cutting through the flesh of his back wasn’t as bad as he expected. But the impact flipped him completely over, smashing him to the concrete. The fall hurt like hell, and he banged his head, knocking him into blackness for a moment.
He came to in time to feel Hagar’s hands grab him and drag him beyond the car and over into a shallow ditch beside the road.
There was no pain.
That surprised him.
He just couldn’t move.
That also surprised him.
He should feel pain, he should be able to move. It was as if the wind had been knocked out of him and all his energy taken.
“Damn!” Hagar said. “Officer down here!”
Two other men swarmed into the ditch beside him as the gun battle continued, the quiet of the night now a continuous roar of explosions.
Maxwell noted it all like watching it from a distance. For some reason he knew that things were not going well, but a part of him just no longer cared.
“Hang in there,” Hagar yelled to him, but it was like the cop was shouting down a long tunnel.
Maxwell felt himself smile.
He had been shot and it hadn’t really hurt.
And now he was going to die. He knew that as clearly as he had known anything in his life.
And that was all right as well.
This experience was not at all what he had expected death to feel like.
He looked up at the pained expression on Hagar’s face and knew exactly what the cop wanted him to say.
How he knew, he wasn’t sure, but he just knew.
He used one hand to pull Hagar down closer, then in his ear he said, “Get the damned son-of-a-bitch for me, would you?”
“I will,” Hagar said.
Maxwell really didn’t care, but he knew that Hagar did. And if the situation was reversed, Hagar would have said it for him as well.
There was no pain.
Just a wonderful sense of floating.
“Maxwell!”
The voice sort of pulled at him, but he ignored it. He liked the floating.
“Maxwell!” Hagar shouted. “Maxwell, stay with us!”
But Maxwell could see no point in staying.
And with that he died.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Monday, April 10th
4:32 a.m.
CRAIG WAS STUNNED when the shooting began.
“What the hell is going on?” Bonnie asked, clearly as afraid and as stunned as he was. They had both heard the faint demands of Maxwell as he told Robins’ men to lay down their guns and come out. At the time the voice had cheered them.
Then in his ear Craig had heard the command come from Robins directly. “Keep the FBI out at all costs.”
A moment later the shooting had started.
“The stupid ass ordered them to fight the FBI,” Craig said, shaking his head in amazement. “What the hell is he thinking?”
“Maybe that’s our problem,” Bonnie said. “We keep expecting the man to think.”
“Well, we need to stop this,” Craig said. “There’s a lot of good men out there getting fired on.”
“And just two of us in here,” Bonnie said. “You got any smart ideas?”
“Sure,” Craig said. “We capture the head of this snake and tell him to shut things down.”
Bonnie nodded and glanced down the hall. “I can remember how to get back to his study, but we’re going to have to do it fast and without stopping.”
“Agreed,” Craig said. “I’ll take the lead and you cover my back.”
She pinched his butt. “I’ll make sure this doesn’t get shot off if you take care of that guy in front.”
“Deal,” he said.
Outside the gunfire was becoming even more intense. It was a war out there and unless it stopped quickly a lot of people were going to get hurt or killed.
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