“Help! Help! South gate! Help!” she screamed with the air remaining in her burning lungs.
He backhanded her across the face. “Shut up, bitch!”
He wedged her between his body and the solid metal gate while he opened it. Then he pushed her through and she fell. Before she could stand, he’d slammed the gate shut and trained the gun on her.
“Get up.”
Her head spinning, her heart pounding, her legs aching, her face stinging, she crawled to a post and pulled herself upright. “I c-can’t walk—”
“Assuming Skye survives, you don’t want to leave her without a mother, do you?” he threatened.
It was the only thing he could’ve said that would’ve motivated her to find the strength to move. No way was she going to let this bastard rob her daughter. Skye had already lost one parent; Kat wouldn’t let her lose both.
Charlie gripped her arm, and she stumbled after him into the sand. Panting almost as hard as she was, he scanned the beach in both directions.
Kat blinked against the thickening fog. She squinted to see the waves breaking on the beach, the white spray flying into the air, and the final remnants skittering across the sand. The tang of salt air tickled her nose, and the sea breeze whipped her hair around her face. For a second, life seemed normal. But then, normalcy disappeared just as the foam from the waves did.
Laughing, Charlie yanked her behind him. “South. Those idiots will think I went south because of the south gate. But I planned ahead.”
He beat a path to the base of the seawall and headed north.
Kat had to agree with his assessment. Dillon and the other agents would expect him to go south since he’d escaped out the southwest gate. Their footprints wouldn’t be distinguishable in the shifting, dry sand, and it would be hard to spot them running in the dark shadow of the thirty-foot wall. But where would Charlie go from here? What did he mean by “planned ahead”?
Her frazzled brain tried to put the pieces together as her feet sank into the dry sand. Each step required a gargantuan effort to draw her foot to the surface and plant it again without losing her balance.
A public beach was just north of the plant. She’d been there. What did it offer for his escape? A parking lot. But it would be deserted this time of night. Unless…unless Charlie had left a car there earlier.
An anguished cry burst from her lips. Charlie spun around and slapped her again.
She screamed.
* * *
Dillon hit the catwalk at the top of the seawall at a dead run. He grabbed the guardrail to stop himself, teetering dangerously over the railing. Thirty feet below and thirty yards south in the fog, he could barely see Staci and one of the security guards barrel onto the beach. They looked in both directions and raced off to the south. Seconds later, five additional figures burst from the compound and followed the first two southward.
Dillon took two steps in that direction, but a sound above the ocean noise stopped him. He scanned the beach. Nothing but the waves crashing on the sand.
Another sound, louder and sharper, cut through the darkness. This time he could determine its direction. He peered down, blinking through the cloud of moisture.
Fifty yards north and adjacent to the seawall, he could just make out two figures. He knew instantly it was Kat and Charlie.
“Suspect and hostage heading north along the wall,” he announced to the team, which was going in the wrong direction.
He checked to the south, but no one was visible. They’d gone far enough to be hidden by the fog. Fuck! Running in the sand would significantly slow their return. He was on his own.
Knowing Kat needed him, knowing her survival depended on him, feral protectiveness burned in his soul and propelled his feet. The hours and miles he’d logged running gave him the physical strength, but his soul-deep love gave him the will to save her at all costs. He ran as if his life depended on it because in a way it did. He’d never forgive himself if something happened to Kat.
Dillon pounded along the suspended catwalk, keeping his eyes focused straight ahead so he wouldn’t be distracted by the drop from three stories up. He slowed enough to glance over the seawall only once. Thankfully, he’d gained a lot of ground on them. Kat seemed to be struggling, slowing Charlie down. Dillon needed to get ahead of them because, at the end of the wall, he had three stories of stairs to go down to get to ground level. Then, he hoped to God, he could get out the gate to the beach.
When he reached the end of the catwalk, he checked on them again. Damn. They were directly below him, and they would gain distance while he had to conquer the stairs. With no time to lose, he launched himself downward, jumping over the railing to cut off the corners at each landing. By the time he hit the bottom, even his über-strong legs were feeling the burn.
He rounded the corner and found the gate. Locked, of course. He stepped back several feet and fired at the lock. The gate limped open. Success, but unfortunately, Charlie would certainly have heard the gunshot.
Dillon slipped out the gate and plastered himself against the wall. Between the fog and the shadows, he doubted he could be seen. He squinted into the swirling mist to the north. There they were, maybe twenty yards away, out in the open.
Where they were headed, he had no idea. But he had to stop them before they got there.
The waves camouflaged any sound he made as he ran. The fog acted as a shroud, enveloping him and Kat and Charlie, and closing out the rest of the world.
When he’d gained ten yards on them, he stopped and braced his feet firmly in the sand. He had no cover. He counted on the fog and the element of surprise to give him an edge.
This was it. Dillon zeroed in on his target. He had a clean shot.
“Halt! FBI! Drop your weapon. Hands over your head,” he yelled.
Charlie spun around. He fired off two rounds in the general direction of Dillon’s voice. He hadn’t taken the time to locate his target, and the shots weren’t even close.
When the bastard grabbed for Kat, she screamed and dropped to the ground. Charlie pointed his gun at her…
And Dillon pulled the trigger.
Chapter 26
Kat jerked at the blast of the gunshot. With her heart pounding, amazement registered. She hadn’t been shot. Confusion reigned for a nanosecond until she realized the sound hadn’t come from the gun pointed at her, but from one behind her. A few heartbeats later, she jumped again when Diablo Beach’s alarm sirens suddenly shrieked through the night.
Charlie had twisted to the right with the impact of the bullet tearing through his upper arm. Now he spun back around, his face contorted with pain, his panicky gaze darting toward the power plant.
“FBI! Drop your weapon! My next shot won’t be a warning!” Dillon shouted over the din.
Charlie roared with rage. He leaned toward Kat and ground out through clenched teeth, “You ruined everything!” Using his left hand to steady his right, he raised and aimed his pistol at her again.
Helpless, she stared down the muzzle of the gun only a few feet away. Fear gripped her by the throat. Skye’s face flashed before her eyes.
Dillon’s second shot hit Charlie in the center of his chest, sending him stumbling backward. Blood blossomed on his security guard uniform, and the gun dropped from his hand. Then he collapsed onto his back, sprawled on the beach. His blood colored the sand around him.
Her ears ringing, Kat frantically crawled the short distance to grab his pistol. Trembling violently, she fought to aim at the motionless body on the sand.
“Put the gun down, Katriona.”
With the gun still raised, she twisted around. Dillon stood about five feet away.
“Put the gun down,” he repeated calmly. “Charlie’s dead. He can’t hurt you.”
Their gazes met, held, locked. Sanity returned. She gasped and let go of the gun immediately.
Dillon hurried forward, snagged it from the sand, and stuck it in his waistband. He moved on to Charlie and felt for a pulse. �
��Suspect dead, hostage safe,” he informed his team. “We’re past the north end of the seawall. Secure the scene. Stat.”
He holstered his gun and returned to Kat. “Are you hurt?” he asked, squatting beside her.
There was as much fog inside her head as swirling around them. She couldn’t form words so she shook her head no.
Clutching her arm, Dillon lifted her as he stood. She threw herself into his embrace. He wrapped her in his warmth and strength but just for a few moments.
“We have work to do. Take me to the control room, Kat,” he said urgently against her ear.
“Okay.” She drew a fortifying breath. “I can do this,” she said more to herself than to him.
With his arm around her waist, he practically carried her across the sand until they reached the north gate and slipped back into the compound.
Her head started to clear, and the significance of the sirens registered. She yanked her arm from his grasp. “Oh my God, Dillon. The sirens mean the spent fuel pools are overheating. Charlie disabled the cooling systems.”
* * *
“Shit! But the alarms are working. That’s a good sign.” He didn’t take the time to explain. “Get us to the control room!”
As they ran down the concrete pathways between buildings, Dillon stuffed his Bureau communication device in his back pocket to mute it and withdrew the burner phone from the front one.
“Chaos, talk to me.”
“Holy mother of God, Shadow! You gotta see this.”
“I’m inside the power plant. I won’t be able to access the dark web. Tell me what’s happening.”
“It’s a w-war. The Kraken against the terrorist’s c-code,” Chaos sputtered.
“Who’s winning?”
His colleague hesitated. “I can’t tell.”
“Fuck! Hang on. I’ll be back.” Dillon slipped the phone into his pocket. “Faster, Kat, faster.”
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, they reached the control room. The on-duty night operator sat at the controls with both hands splayed against the sides of his head. He jumped up when they entered.
“Status?” Kat barked.
“We have no control. We’ve been completely locked out of the system,” he said, his expression filled with bewilderment and fear.
“The instruments, the gauges? Are they reading accurately?”
“I don’t know.” His gaze darted to the door. “Is Charlie…?”
“That threat has been contained,” Dillon answered for her.
“Do you need me?” the operator asked Kat.
“No. It doesn’t sound like there’s anything we can do.”
“Wait at the main security office,” Dillon ordered, pushing the man out the door.
When he turned back, Kat was already studying the gauges, instruments, and computer screens.
“How bad is it?” he asked.
“Bad. If any of this is accurate, it’s real bad. Oh God, Dillon. The temperatures in the spent fuel pools are still rising.”
“Fuck!” He whipped out the burner phone again. “Chaos, talk to me.”
“It’s changing so fast, man, I can’t tell. The Kraken deletes some code, and then the damn stuff pops up in another location. That guy had backups on top of backups.”
“The Kraken activated the alarms. That should mean the software is making progress.”
“You’re right.” Chaos hesitated. “Are you evacuating?”
He gulped. “Not yet. Are the original operating programs still safe where I hid them?”
“Let me check.”
Dillon’s heart counted off the seconds. He glanced at Kat, who was keying things into the computer and shaking her head in frustration. God, he needed to know whose software was actually in control: Charlie’s or his.
“Yeah, the operating programs are still intact,” Chaos reported. “What do ya want me to do?”
“Pray.”
Still clutching the phone, he moved to stand beside Kat. She’d gone still, her gaze glued to the screens and her hands clenched into fists in her lap.
“The other operator was right; we don’t have any control,” she said barely above a whisper. She reached for his hand. “Oh God, Dillon, I can’t believe this is happening.”
“How long before we have to order a full evacuation of the surrounding area?”
“Soon.” She pointed to a gauge. “When it hits the red zone…” She drew a shaky breath. “I don’t think we can stop it.” He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.
They both stared at the indicator, climbing higher by a hair’s breadth every few seconds.
His thoughts flashed to Kat’s daughter. What would happen to Skye if Kat died trying to stop this catastrophe? That was only one of the reasons why he couldn’t let anything happen to her. “You should leave, Katriona. Take my truck. Go home.”
“I can’t. I might be able to do…something…maybe…if things change and…” Her voice trailed off. She squeezed his hand tighter.
He closed his eyes. Damn, he never should’ve let her come to the plant with him. If she died, it was his fault. If they all died—
“Dillon, look!” she cried. “It stopped!”
His eyes snapped open and zeroed in on the gauge. He didn’t dare blink. Damn, she was right. He held his breath. His heart pounded painfully against his ribs while he said a silent prayer.
The gauge remained frozen for one heartbeat. Two. Three. Four. Five.
And then it moved…down.
* * *
Kat couldn’t stop trembling. No matter how many warm blankets they wrapped around her or how many cups of hot coffee they put in her hands, she kept shaking. She sat on the gurney in the back of the ambulance and prayed they would let her and Dillon leave soon.
They had to get back to her house, to the phone, to get the instructions from the Chinese on where to pick up Skye. Oh God, what had they done to her precious baby? Would this experience leave emotional scars? Damn, she’d never forgive those people for any of this.
What they’d done to Dillon was also unforgivable. As ransom for her daughter, they’d demanded he kill Charlie Lee. Of course, he hadn’t carried it out discreetly, without involving the authorities, as the Chinese ordered. And he’d offered Charlie the opportunity to give himself up.
Charlie had also been a terrorist in his own right and had almost shot her. If not for Dillon, her “friend” would have killed her. As Dillon had reassured her a short while ago, he wouldn’t face any ramifications because his use of lethal force had been justified on many levels. But the end result was the same: Charlie Lee was dead. Kat clung to the hope that the Chinese would live up to their end of the deal.
Dillon had explained the calculated risk of contacting the FBI, who in turn had gotten every other possible US agency involved. Everyone knew Charlie had helped the Chinese hack into the computer system of the Diablo Beach nuclear power plant. Everyone knew the Chinese had kidnapped an American baby. Everyone knew they had ordered the murder of an American citizen. Surely the US was exerting enough political pressure on Beijing to force its operatives in the US to return Skye safely.
Kat closed her eyes and whispered another prayer.
“I figured you’d want your purse,” a voice said. “I got it from O’Malley’s truck.”
Kat opened her eyes to find the female FBI agent handing her the bag. “Oh, yes, thank you.”
“I’m Staci Hall.” She offered her hand.
“You obviously know who I am.”
“I’m sure I don’t know the half of it,” Staci said and smiled. “But apparently O’Malley thinks the world of you. Look, I know you’ve been through some crazy shit this week, but we will get your daughter back.” She nodded and walked away.
Kat sighed. “Crazy shit” didn’t begin to describe her week.
She dug in her purse until she found her cell phone. Despite the wee hour of the morning, her mother answered on the first ring. “Mom, it’s me.”
&
nbsp; “Katie, dear, are you all right? Do you have Skye?”
Tears stung her eyes. It was good to hear her mother’s voice even if she didn’t have the best news to give her. “We don’t have Skye…yet, but I’m sure we will soon. And I’m…fine.” Definitely little white lies but screw it. “Are you and dad still at the hotel in San Diego?”
“Yes, dear. Don’t you worry about us. Your dad is milkin’ his beatin’ for all the sympathy he can get.”
She smiled through her tears. “Look, I wanted to catch you before you heard the news about a shooting at Diablo Beach.”
“Oh my!”
“Dillon and I are okay. The…victim…” She clenched her jaw. Charlie hardly seemed like the victim in this mess. But she had to be careful what she said because—as Dillon had warned her—they didn’t know how the FBI would spin this shooting. “The victim was a security guard. We weren’t hurt.”
“Thank God.”
“I’ve got to go, Mom. I’ll be in touch as soon as there’s more news.”
After good-byes and disconnecting, she stared into the dark sky and tried to ignore the crowd of people, the flashing lights, and the noise all around her. She began to shake again as fear for Skye came rushing back. She might be able to lie convincingly to her mother, but she was scared to death.
A few minutes later, Dillon climbed into the ambulance and sat down beside her. He was still in agent mode: emotionless. She resented his cool objectivity.
“We can leave,” he said calmly. “Ready?”
“I’ve been ready. I can’t wait for all of this to be over.”
* * *
Dillon sat in Kat’s homey living room, drinking coffee and staring at the moving boxes. God, he didn’t want to lose her again, but she seemed determined to leave. Kat had avoided explaining how Skye was conceived so maybe the father was in the picture somehow, and she hoped to marry him. The thought hurt far worse than the bruise on his back.
Waiting for the Chinese to call was murder. If he was on edge, Kat had to be going through hell. She had been putting up a strong front, but he could see how distraught she really was. Damn the Chinese. If they reneged on the deal to safely return Skye, he’d hunt them all down and…
Wanted (FBI Heat Book 3) Page 18
