by Cassie Miles
When he turned his head and studied his subject, Trevor felt calm and controlled. “Look at me, Danny.”
The other man shook his head. He sat cross-legged on the floor with his shoulders hunched, staring down at the handcuffs on his wrists.
Trevor hunkered down. He removed his jacket. In calm, deliberate movements, he unbuttoned his shirt cuffs and rolled up his sleeves. Though the subject was pretending not to watch, Trevor caught a flicker of a glance.
When Trevor slid the van door shut, Danny winced. The enclosed space was suddenly stifling, reeking with the odor of fear.
“Look at me,” Trevor snapped.
The subject’s head lifted. He met Trevor’s blue-eyed gaze.
“That’s good, Danny.” He rewarded the subject with a cold, predatory smile—the look a boa constrictor might give to a mouse before swallowing it whole.
In seconds, Trevor had accomplished his first goal as an interrogator. He had obtained voluntary cooperation from his subject. “Keep looking right here. In my eyes.”
Though Danny trembled, he maintained eye contact.
“The way I hear,” Trevor said, “you bought thirty bags of fertilizer. That’s a hell of a big gardening project.”
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a pair of black leather gloves. Carefully, he slipped them on and snapped his fingers into fists, allowing the subject to imagine what kind of damage those fists might inflict. “Fertilizer has a lot of uses. Thirty bags. That’s enough to bury a man standing up. Can you picture that? Buried in fertilizer. That’d be a bad way to die. All those chemicals—sulfur and sodium nitrate—eating away at your flesh, burning through your eyelids. Eventually you’d suffocate, but it’d be slow. Real slow.”
Trevor smacked his fist against the side of the van and the sound resonated. “Keep looking at me, Danny.”
The subject’s eyelids flapped like moth wings.
“Don’t look away,” Trevor growled. “Not unless I tell you to. Do you understand? Nod your head if you understand.”
Danny’s head went up and down.
“Good.” Second step accomplished. The subject was agreeing with him.
Trevor took out his pocketknife. It was only a three inch blade, not particularly scary. But the polished steel gleamed with a dangerous light. He brought the razor-sharp blade close to the subject’s face. With a flick of his wrist, he cut the bandanna that had been used as a gag.
“Take a breath, Danny.”
The subject gasped. His skin was mottled. His greasy hair hung limp around his cheeks. “Don’t hurt me, man. I don’t want—”
“Shut up.” Trevor leaned closer. His voice was a harsh whisper, meant to penetrate deeply into the subject’s brain. “I’ll ask the questions. You answer. Nod if you understand.”
Another vigorous nod.
“You bought that fertilizer for the Militia,” Trevor said.
“That’s right. I got a phone call and they told me where to go and what to buy.”
“Where are they? Where’s the hideout?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me.”
“Really, man. I don’t know.”
Trevor toyed with his knife. He balanced the blade at eye level, maintaining the threat. But he didn’t think Danny was lying. His panicky denial came too quickly. Also, Trevor couldn’t imagine Boone Fowler being foolish enough to trust this low-level underling with important information.
“Where,” Trevor said, “were you supposed to deliver the fertilizer?”
“They said they’d contact me.”
Unfortunately, that made sense. But why had the Militia told Danny to come to this particular shop? There was something else going on. “Boone Fowler is an organized man. What exactly did Boone tell you to do?”
“Come to this shop. Buy the fertilizer and wait until it all got loaded into my truck.”
“Did he give you a time?”
Danny nodded. “Half past eleven. But I got here early, so I just went ahead and did it.”
This sounded like a setup. Boone must have guessed that gardening shops would be under surveillance. Maybe Danny was meant to be a distraction. From what?
Danny leaned toward him. “Listen, I know you’re not really a cop. You could let me go and—”
“Shut up.” Trevor’s face was inches away from the subject. “You don’t tell me to listen. You don’t tell me anything. Understand? Nod for yes.”
When Danny bobbed his head, his chin wobbled.
Trevor sat back on his heels. There was something odd about this interrogation. The subject had offered little resistance. He seemed too anxious to spill his guts. “If you want me to let you free, Danny, you’ve got to give me something.”
“They’re making bombs.”
“Tell me more.”
“They’re planning something big. A brave and gallant statement. The Militia is going to show the whole world that a small band of highly trained patriots can take on all the law enforcement in Montana.”
Trevor recognized the sick rhetoric of Boone Fowler. Danny’s rote repetition of his leader’s words were obscene. This little worm had no mind of his own. “That’s a pretty big goal. Taking on all the law enforcement in Montana. When’s this supposed to happen?”
His lips pressed together. He looked like a kid with a secret that he couldn’t wait to tell.
Trevor gave him a little reverse-psychology nudge. “Never mind, Danny. You probably don’t know. Boone Fowler wouldn’t trust somebody like you with that information.”
“It’s now,” Danny blurted. A feverish excitement trembled through him. “Before noon. Right now. At the Galleria.”
Trevor hid his shock behind a sneer. A bomb at the mall? He’d explored that two-story structure. Though the construction was solid concrete, well-placed explosions could create structural devastation and fire. There would be casualties. Innocent victims…like Sierra.
“You’re lying, Danny.”
“Hell, no. I’m not.”
“If the Militia already has a bomb, why did they send you to buy fertilizer?”
“There’s going to be other stuff.”
“Other bombs?”
“That’s right,” he said quickly. “This is just the start of a big operation.”
“Too bad you won’t be around to enjoy the explosions.”
It was time to conclude this interrogation. Trevor whipped open the van door and leaped out. He summoned Lombardi and Clark with a quick gesture. “Here’s the deal. Danny says there’s a bomb at the Galleria. It’s supposed to detonate before noon.”
“What else?” Clark asked.
“This feels like a setup.” If Trevor had had more time to spend interrogating Danny, he would have squeezed out every detail. “But we can’t take the chance that it isn’t. Tell the other bounty hunters that we need backup at the mall. Notify the police and turn this scum over to them.”
“Where are you going?”
“To the Galleria.”
Sierra was there. She stood directly in harm’s way.
Chapter Seven
At Olson’s Outdoor Sporting Goods, Sierra tidied up the shoe display area and straightened the tags indicating inventory markdowns to make way for the Christmas stock. Thursdays tended to be slow, especially in the morning, and she was alone in the store, which gave her too much time to worry. She should have told someone about the phone call from Boone. If not the cops, she should have told Trevor. He claimed to be one of the good guys. Maybe he could have figured out a way to notify the authorities without dragging her through the muck and mire of suspicion.
Should have told him… Should have… Should have… If that slimeball Boone Fowler sneaked in and out of the mall without being nabbed by the cops, she’d never forgive herself.
She glanced toward the front of the store. Where was Trevor? All week long, he’d been on her tail. And now when she wanted him, he was nowhere to be found. Typical male.
No
body else was here, either. Her manager had taken an early lunch at eleven o’clock. Before he left, they had been discussing seasonal displays. Since it was October, Sierra wanted to drape orange and black crepe paper around the store. Then they could paint jack-o-lantern pumpkin faces on the Day-Glo-orange hunting vests worn by employees as a uniform. The manager disagreed. According to him, sporting goods didn’t lend themselves to Halloween unless trick-or-treating qualified as a sport.
As she stood with a running shoe in one hand, she saw Trevor loping through the mall with long-legged strides. If he was trying for subtlety in his surveillance, he’d just flunked. A tall, handsome, half-Cherokee cowboy racing through a mall tended to attract attention.
She grinned. Though he was jogging in hat and boots, Trevor somehow managed to maintain his cool. Everything he did, every move he made, seemed calculated and precise. Even when he’d mistakenly given her beef, he’d made crestfallen look good.
Entering the store, he grasped her hand. “Come with me. Now.”
“I can’t leave.” She smacked the heel of the sneaker against his hand. “I’m working.”
“The Militia has planned an attack on the mall. A bomb. You need to get the hell out of here.”
“A bomb?” Her petty worries vanished in the face of this larger threat. “How do you know?”
“I’ll explain later.”
She shook her head in denial. Boone Fowler and the Militia were dangerous, no doubt about that. But how could these ragtag fugitives find the wherewithal to organize a bomb attack? “You’re mistaken.”
“I wish I was.” His lips thinned in a straight, determined line. Nothing in his expression or manner indicated doubt. He believed this threat to be true.
“A bomb,” she whispered.
Outside her store, she saw pedestrians. Mothers pushing strollers. Office workers on their lunch hour. Older folks who walked inside to avoid the vagaries of October weather. If Trevor was right, their peaceful world was about to be shattered.
She stepped briskly to the front of the store. Glancing toward the exit to the parking lot, she saw a group of firefighters in full regalia pushing through the doors. From the streets outside, she heard the muffled screams of approaching sirens. Something terrible was about to happen.
Trevor took her elbow. “Keep moving. Let’s get out of here.”
“Wait.” She planted herself. “There must be some way I can help.”
“Don’t be crazy, Sierra. You can’t stop a bomb explosion.”
Fighting her rising fear, she stared into his intense blue eyes. “You’ve been keeping surveillance on me ever since Lyle’s funeral. Why? Because you think the Militia wants revenge on me. Am I right?”
“Yes.”
“And now there’s a bomb at the place where I work. Coincidence?”
“I don’t believe in coincidence,” he said.
“Neither do I.” She’d been a fool not to report the call from Boone Fowler. “This is my fault.”
“Yeah, and we’ll talk about it later. Right now I need to get you the hell away from here.”
He was right. Only a fool would stand in the path of a terrorist attack. “Let me grab my purse from the storeroom. Then we’re out of here.”
He followed her to the rear of the store.
In the mall the public address system blasted a warning squawk followed by instructions. “This is an emergency. Proceed in an orderly fashion to the nearest exit. This is not a drill.”
In the storage area behind the sporting goods store, she went into an office cubicle and opened the closet door. As she grabbed her jacket and her backpack, her hands trembled. She sensed the nearness of danger. This is not a drill.
There was a loud crash from the back of the storage room, punctuated by gunfire.
“What’s back there?” Trevor demanded.
“Loading dock. The door is always locked.”
“Not anymore.”
He rushed her away from the office into the store. The exit to the mall seemed a million miles away. If armed men had broken through the rear door, she and Trevor would never make it to the exit in time. They’d be gunned down. Shot in the back.
“Over here.” She pulled him toward the sales counter behind the cash register. Together they ducked down.
Trevor had unholstered his automatic pistol, but she was unarmed. The glass display case for hunting rifles was behind the counter within easy reach. There was enough weaponry here to arm a small army. Is that why the Militia had chosen to come through her store? For more weapons?
Another blast of gunfire echoed from the rear of the storage area.
Beside her, Trevor stood. Using the butt of his automatic pistol, he broke the glass on the display case and opened the latch.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“Arming myself.”
“Give me a rifle.”
“Do you know how to shoot?”
“Lyle taught me.”
With the rifle in her hand, she felt less vulnerable but no less scared. It took all her concentration to open the ammunition drawer and load the twelve-gauge.
From the storeroom, a group of heavily armed men dressed in black charged into the display and sales area. They seemed to be covered in protective padding and wore the kind of helmets used by SWAT teams.
“Two minutes,” shouted one of the men.
“I heard you,” said their leader. “Loud and clear.”
Sierra recognized the voice of the leader. It was not Boone Fowler, but Perry Johnson. Terror overwhelmed her. Perry would rather shoot her than look at her. She tried to aim her rifle, peering through the sight. Her vision blurred.
“Don’t shoot,” Trevor whispered urgently. “They’re wearing explosive vests.”
She lifted her trigger finger.
“I’ll aim low,” he said. She watched as he squeezed off a shot.
PERRY FELT A SHARP THUD against the Kevlar armor covering his thigh. He’d heard a shot; the sound came from the direction of the cash register. He turned and saw two rifle bores aimed directly at him.
“Scatter.” He yelled the command to his men. “We’ve got gunmen.”
But one of them was a woman. Sierra Collins. That bitch was shooting at him. Perry lowered his automatic rifle and sprayed the wooden counter with bullets.
This wasn’t the way their assault was supposed to go. The timing was off.
He and his men were supposed to burst into the sporting goods store, where he would have the pleasure of killing Sierra face-to-face. He’d looked forward to seeing the fear in her eyes, maybe hearing her beg for her life. And then, kapow! She’d be dead.
In the next phase of their plan, he and his men would enter the mall, grab hostages and retreat back into this store to wait until Boone gave them the word to execute the final action.
Instead, Sierra was armed and shooting at him.
“Perry,” called Marcus Smith, the explosives expert. “We’ve only got forty-five seconds.”
There wasn’t time to kill Sierra. Enraged, Perry unleashed another blast at the counter. Then he gestured for his men to go forward. “Move out.”
Perry swiveled his head from side to side. How the hell could he think clearly with this helmet restricting his field of vision? All this body armor and the explosive vest weighed him down.
Before they entered the mall, Raymond Fleming darted up beside him. “What are we supposed to do now?”
“Five seconds,” Marcus said.
Perry had to make a couple of adjustments in their original plan. He could do it. He would not fail.
“Two seconds,” Marcus said.
Perry braced himself.
The explosion of the heavy-duty C-4 explosives on a timer in the food court pounded the concrete structure of the Galleria with a satisfying blast, followed by screams and shouts and the stink of destruction.
It was beautiful.
SIERRA PRESSED HER BACK against the counter. She was unha
rmed, and she had Trevor to thank. An instant before Perry had squeezed off a round of automatic gunfire, Trevor had pulled her down flat on the floor.
Her eyelids pressed shut as echoes from the explosion rolled over her. Her fingers tensed on the cold metal of the rifle.
Beside her on the floor, Trevor spoke into his cell phone. “The Militia entered through the sporting goods store. Lower level. Near the west entrance. They’re wearing explosive vests. Instruct the other officers. Don’t shoot. Repeat. Don’t shoot.”
He disconnected the call and turned toward her. “You okay?”
“I think so.”
“You did good, Sierra. You make a good partner.”
“Not really. I didn’t even fire my rifle.”
“Moral support is everything.” He gave her a wink and rose to his feet. “The next thing I want you to do is stay here and don’t get shot.”
“What if they come back this way.”
Rifle in hand, he strode toward the front of the store. “They won’t come back.”
But what if they did? She certainly didn’t want to be stuck here behind the counter by herself. Escaping through the rear exit didn’t seem like a good alternative, since that was the route the Militia had used to enter.
Instinctively she knew that the safest place she could be was beside Trevor. She stood and hurried through the display racks to the entrance that led to the mall.
Just outside the store she saw the band of Militia. They seemed to be rounding up pedestrians, including women and children. “What are they doing?”
He frowned at her. “I thought I told you to—”
“I’d rather be here with you. Why are they grabbing those people?”
“Taking hostages,” Trevor said. He stood tall and took aim, but he didn’t fire. “There are too many people. I can’t get a clear shot.”
Frustration boiled inside him as he lowered his rifle. The Militia had thought of everything to protect themselves. Exploding vests. Body armor and helmets. Now hostages. But why? What the hell did they hope to accomplish with this action?
