by Radclyffe
“I’m okay,” Cam answered, kissing Blair’s temple.
“Bullshit,” Blair laughed softly. “I can feel you on my leg, and you’re a long ways from being okay.”
To prove her point, Blair pressed her thigh hard between Cam’s legs, and Cam groaned at the rapid surge of blood into her clitoris.
“No fair,” she gasped.
“Yes, fair,” Blair said firmly, pushing Cam onto her back and rolling on top of her. “I told you I just needed a minute.”
Cam looked up at her and grinned. “That’s probably all I’ll need, too.”
“Oh no, Commander,” Blair said. “I want much more than that from you.”
And then Blair took her slowly, with her mouth and her hands and her tender caresses, drawing the fire from Cam’s blood and the heat from her bones, igniting her nerves and scorching her senses, until all Cam knew was Blair, and all she could do was cry out her name.
They slept for an hour and awakened together, just on the other side of darkness. They lay side by side, hands clasped, their fingers entwined.
“What happens now?” Blair asked in the stillness.
Cam spoke quietly, her voice steady and calm. “At 2300 hours, Savard and I will leave for the rendezvous site. Thirty minutes later, Ellen Grant will walk out the front entrance and flag down a cab. Stark and Fielding will be in that cab. It will look like you have once again slipped by us and are on your way to him. We’re assuming that Loverboy may be watching here to assure himself that you are really going to meet him, and that you’re coming alone as you said that you would.”
“So how will he get to the meeting site on time, if he’s here when Grant leaves?”
“It’s possible that he has someone else watching the building for him and relaying a message. Besides, he doesn’t actually have to be there first, since he hasn’t designated a precise rendezvous point. He’s too smart for that—he just said the refreshment stand in the arcade. It’s too general a location—he could be anywhere. Grant will have to wait for some sign from him.”
“Why that site, do you think?”
“Lindsey Ryan speculates that he chose it some time ago, and I agree. He was prepared when you agreed to meet him. He named that place and time almost immediately. It may have just been his fantasy that you would someday come to him, but Ryan thinks he’s actually been there, and may have already readied it for you.”
“Readied it...how?” Blair shivered at the thought of someone creating these elaborate fantasies with her as the star. It made her feel as if someone had been touching her while she slept.
Cam slipped her arm around her shoulder and drew her near. “Blair, you don’t need to hear all of this.”
“No,” Blair said quickly, her voice strong and determined. “I want to know. All of it.”
“Okay,” Cam continued with a sigh. “He’ll either follow Grant to the site or use an alternate route to arrive before her. Since he’s familiar with the area, we assume that he’ll have planned a way into the arcade without detection. The snipers and the ground team will already be in place when she arrives.”
“But she’s not really going to meet him, is she?” Blair asked worriedly.
“No,” Cam said. “Doyle’s team and the TAC squad will have infrared heat-sensitive scopes that can pinpoint the location of any living thing bigger than a dumpster rat within a hundred yards of the meet site. They’ll home in on him and take him out. Grant’s only role is to leave here as you and get out of the cab at the entrance to the amusement park. She’s not actually going to enter the arcade.”
“And you and Savard?” Blair asked, her heart pounding.
Cam leaned up on one elbow so that she could look into Blair’s eyes. The room lights were off, but the streetlights outside the loft windows were enough for them to see each other.
“We’ll be there for ground support only, to assure that Grant is covered if any action takes place near her and to get her to the evacuation vehicle that will be nearby. Escort duty only.”
“Is that all of it, Cam?”
“That’s the plan, Blair.” Cam held her gaze. “I won’t tell you that unexpected things don’t happen, but there will be a hundred agents right behind us and about that many state police watching the perimeter. It’s as solid as these things get.”
Blair ran her hand through Cam’s hair, then tightened her fingers in the thick strands, pulling Cam’s head down close to her face. “I can’t take anyone else leaving me.”
“I won’t,” Cam vowed. “I swear.”
“Well, that’s reassuring,” Blair whispered, “because I know your word is good.”
Then, in the last moment left to them, they sealed their promises, simply and surely, with a kiss.
Chapter Twenty-Two
At twenty minutes to midnight, Blair walked into the command center. She halted just inside the door, momentarily disoriented. The room was brightly lit yet eerily deserted. Monitors flickered with images that no one watched. Chairs stood askew in front of desks littered with coffee cups and food wrappers, as if abandoned in haste. Here and there a jacket or sweater lay forsaken on a counter. The atmosphere of control she was accustomed to had been replaced by a lingering sense of chaos that made her heart beat uneasily.
“Ms. Powell?” Lindsey Ryan approached with a cup of coffee in her hand and a question in her eyes.
Startled, Blair jumped. She turned toward the voice and smiled ruefully.
“I couldn’t wait upstairs.”
“I’m not surprised.” Lindsey nodded sympathetically. “Would you like some coffee?”
Blair struggled to get a grip on her nerves. “I don’t suppose you know who made it, do you? I’ve had the coffee some of these people make, and it’s an adventure I’m not up to at the moment.”
“Actually, I just made it myself,” Ryan said with a laugh. “Mac and Felicia are both glued to the communication consoles, and they probably need it by now.”
“I can imagine,” Blair murmured, thinking of the twenty-four restless, anxious hours she had spent with them waiting for Loverboy to contact her. She stepped farther into the room and looked toward the far end where the communication equipment covered the entire wall and every surface within reach of the swivel chairs where Mac and Felicia Davis still sat. She was certain that they hadn’t moved in days.
“I’ll take your word that it’s safe, then,” Blair said, indicating the coffee. “I could use it.”
The two women walked back to the small alcove where the coffee machines and refrigerator were housed. Blair poured coffee, then raised the Styrofoam cup to her lips and sipped cautiously. Ryan was right; it wasn’t bad. She settled her hips against the edge of the counter and regarded the redhead. “Is there any word?”
“Not yet. Mac has a direct line to Commander Roberts, but all we know is that she and Savard are on site.” Lindsey hesitated, then added carefully, “Ms. Powell, we can only get a small piece of the picture from here, and sometimes an incomplete picture is worse than no picture at all.”
“You expect trouble?” Blair recognized Ryan’s delicate attempt to tell her to leave.
She hadn’t come down earlier because she didn’t want to distract Cam right before the team departed. Instead, she had forced herself to sit in her kitchen and wait. She had watched the clock approach eleven, imagining Cam putting on her protective gear and strapping on her weapons. As every minute passed, her anxiety had grown. She had wanted so badly to see Cam again before she left. Just to say...just to say what she hadn’t said before. I love you.
Her throat dry, Blair asked again, “Is something wrong?”
“No,” Lindsey said quickly. “But I’ve watched too many of these things not to know that sometimes what I thought was happening wasn’t really what happened at all. It can be nerve-wracking when you’re helpless to do anything.”
“Agent Ryan, I doubt very much that anything will happen that I haven’t already imagined.” Blair laughed entirely
without humor. “And believe me, knowing has got to be better than what I’m thinking. I won’t get in anyone’s way.”
Ryan touched her arm briefly, a sympathetic gesture of understanding. “Come with me. We can wait this one out together.”
0005
From her position atop an abandoned crane platform, Cam had a clear view of the entrance to the amusement park as well as the parking lot directly in front of the arched entryway. There were no functioning lights in the immediate vicinity, but the highway itself was not too far away, and there was enough illumination from passing cars and the bright summer moon for her to see without night vision goggles. She could discern the outline of a few buildings—windows shattered and doors hanging from deteriorating hinges—surrounded by the skeletal remains of broken-down amusement park rides. In the blue glow of moonlight, it looked like a graveyard of prehistoric creatures.
On the ground directly below her, Savard waited in the shadows. Cam had reluctantly agreed with Doyle that Savard should take the point position. While she looked for signs of an approaching vehicle or any evidence of movement in the park, Cam continuously scanned the multiple radio frequencies, listening to the usual pre-engagement checks from each position. All she heard was the occasional query from Doyle confirming the position and readiness of the intercept teams. It was possible that their exchanges could be monitored, but she doubted that Loverboy had had time to lock onto their communication frequencies yet, even if he was in the area already.
She checked her watch once again. Forty minutes had passed since Grant left Blair’s building. She should be arriving any second.
Ellen Grant peered out the window into the deserted parking lot as the cab slowed to a halt. She could not see Stark, who was slouched down so that she would not be visible through the windows to anyone watching their arrival. Reaching for the door handle, she said, “Thanks for the ride, guys,” and took a deep breath.
“Any time. Just holler, Cinderella, and we’ll bring your coach.”
“Roger that,” Grant said as she stepped out into the night.
The cab pulled away, and Grant looked around, trying to get her bearings. Thirty feet to her left was the archway to the amusement park, its hinged metal gates standing partway open. Beyond that was only blackness. There was some construction equipment in the parking lot itself, but otherwise no sign of anyone.
A soft voice murmured in her ear, “We have you, Grant.”
Her anxiety disappeared at the sound of Roberts’s steady voice. “I copy.”
“Proceed through the gates,” Doyle’s voice ordered. “You are clear to approach the rendezvous point.”
Roberts’s voice repeated the order, “Proceed through the gates only. Hold inside and give us a visual.”
Grant spoke softly as she walked forward. “I can see into the arcade now,” she advised as she pushed wide the tall iron gates and stepped through. “There are pieces of equipment all over the place. Most of them are large enough to hide someone.”
She looked around the grounds for the building that Loverboy had designated as the place where they would meet. Sixty yards to her left, the refreshment stand sign hung askew over the boarded-up door. “No sign of activity.”
“We have no hit on the thermal sensors. There is no evidence of occupation,” Cam advised her. “Advance slowly but do not—I repeat—do not enter the building. Perimeter check only.”
Scanning right and left, Grant moved forward, trying to ignore the cold stream of sweat that ran down between her shoulder blades and pooled at the base of her spine underneath the heavy vest. She was very aware of the fact that her head was unprotected and that the body armor she wore could be pierced by ammunition available to anyone over the Internet. She also knew that all the heavy metal and machinery was a good shield against the heat sensors, if Loverboy knew how to use it.
She had to trust that Doyle and his technicians had done a thorough sweep of the surrounding buildings and grounds, because she was a sitting duck. She pushed the thought from her mind and concentrated on the still, quiet night around her.
Nothing.
If it weren’t for Cameron Roberts’s voice in her ear, she might have thought she had awakened from a dream in an uninhabited world. She couldn’t remember ever having felt so alone.
“Anything?” Doyle barked at one of the men next to him who searched the field below with night vision glasses and thermal sensing equipment. They had set up on top of a warehouse just beyond the amusement park. From there, Doyle could direct all the action.
“Nothing except the decoy,” the one grunted as he slowly panned the area. “Not even a stray cat.”
“Somebody should radio the state boys and tell them that their perimeter is too close,” someone else remarked. “I can see movement, and we’ve got state troopers almost on top of our people.”
“Amateurs.” Doyle laughed derisively. “They’re just looking for a little piece of the glory. It must get pretty boring riding around in those bubble cars stopping speeders all day.”
The men laughed.
“Well,” Doyle remarked in disgust, “I guess we’re going to have to sweeten the pot if this boy is going to stick his head out of whatever hole he’s hiding in.”
He checked his watch and then keyed his transmitter to Grant’s frequency. “Five minutes, Grant. If he’s still a no-show by then, I want you to find a way into that building. If he’s around, he might be waiting for you to commit yourself.”
Cam heard Doyle’s order, and the hair on the back of her neck stood up. Something wasn’t right. Lindsey Ryan had been certain that Loverboy would be here, because otherwise there was no point to any of this.
If he didn’t want to establish physical contact with Blair, then this was all a ploy to get her out into the open where he could make an attempt on her life. The refreshment stand was the obvious place for him to have set a trap. If he wanted to kill her, that would be where he would do it. Either way, he would want to be able to watch.
He was here, and they were missing him. And Ellen Grant was already too exposed.
“Doyle,” Cam said, transmitting on his private frequency. “If we don’t have a position on him, you can’t send Grant inside alone. We can’t cover her from here, and that place could be rigged.”
“He didn’t bring her all the way out here just to kill her,” Doyle said, making no attempt to hide his scorn. “He’ll show once he’s certain that she’s really going to go through with it. I’m not debating this, Roberts. She goes in.”
Cam heard the click in her ear and knew that he had switched off. He was doing what he had wanted to do since the beginning. He was baiting the trap, and he was using her people to do it.
“Grant,” Cam ordered sharply, “proceed on my signal only. Do you copy? Grant? Grant!”
Blair stared at the blank computer screen, her mind miles away. She tried to imagine what it was like for Ellen Grant, walking alone into the darkness to face someone she knew had already killed with impunity. Despite her concern for Grant, in her heart, she hoped that Loverboy was waiting. She hoped that tonight would be the end of this nightmare.
She thought about Cam, watching Grant and working to protect her. If anything happened to someone else Cam was responsible for, Cam would never forgive herself. It would tear another hole in the fabric of her being and kill another piece of her heart.
Blair did not want that to happen, and most of her reasons were selfish. She was afraid that eventually, Cam would close off those parts of herself that bled for the wounds of others. And if that happened, Blair would lose the part of Cam that she needed the most. No one had ever been able to reach through the bars of her invisible prison to touch her the way that Cameron Roberts had. No one else had ever really seen her, not the way Cam did. She needed that, because without it, she was so hopelessly alone.
She did not know how long the words had been there on the screen before she noticed them. She gasped and pushed her chair back as if
to escape from the reality of what she was seeing.
“Oh my God.”
Instantly, Mac, Felicia Davis, and Lindsey Ryan turned toward her in concern.
“What is it?” Mac asked urgently.
Blair’s voice shook as she responded, “I’m not sure. Look at what just came up on the screen.”
The other three crowded behind her, peering over her shoulder to see the message.
Egret. Are you there?
“Is it him?” Blair asked breathlessly. “Could it be a timed message he sent earlier?”
Mac looked at Lindsey Ryan, whose face was a study in concentration. Mentally, she assessed everything she knew about him, furiously forming and discarding theories, trying to read his distorted mind.
“Maybe a stand-in?” Mac asked. “Someone helping him?”
“No, it’s him,” Ryan said with determination. “He’d never let anyone share in this.”
“What should I do?” Blair questioned.
“If she answers, he’ll know she isn’t in the amusement park,” Mac warned.
Lindsey stared at the question on the monitor, considering their options and trying to predict the consequences. It was almost impossible for a rational person to predict the irrational mind of someone like Loverboy. On the other hand, she, more than anyone else, had been trained to do just that. Her opinion was the best information they had to rely on.
“Lindsey?” Mac said. “I’ve got to advise the commander. It’s your call.”
She looked calmly at Blair. “Answer it.”
Hands trembling, Blair typed, Yes
I always knew you wouldn’t come
“Ask him where he is,” Lindsey instructed, her eyes riveted to the screen.
Blair complied.
I’m watching them look for me
“Jesus Christ,” Mac cursed. Immediately, he switched to Cam’s frequency. “We have communication from the subject,” he said sharply. “You are compromised—I repeat—you are compromised.”
