“If this works, you can’t talk to him. They might not be sure of a male voice, but…”
“That’s all right. As long as I know he’s okay.”
“He may not answer. If they’re too far out at sea, he could be out of range.”
She nodded in understanding. He finished dialing. For a moment it seemed nothing would happen. Then a voice said hesitantly, “Hello?” He sounded young, but thankfully not too young.
“Kyle?”
“Yes.” Excitement colored the boy’s voice. Rider hoped it would help disguise his age to any listener. “Is that you—”
“Yes, it is,” Rider said, cutting him off before he could give his name. “Are you and your crew safe?”
“Yeah, we’re fine. A couple guys are seasick, but—”
“Good. They’re probably monitoring this, so I’ll have to talk fast.” Get it, Kyle, get it. “Have you heard from base?”
There was a pause, then Kyle said uncertainly, “Well, there was a call earlier—”
“Good,” Rider said, cutting him off. “Everything’s in motion, then. Now listen. Head all the boats around to the leeward side, and stand fast off shore. Have weapons at the ready, but wait for my signal.”
“Signal?” Kyle sounded confused.
“Yes. None of your men make a move until then, you just wait within sight but out of range of their weapons.”
Suddenly Kyle caught on. “Oh! Yes, sir! You want the rocket launchers ready, too?”
Rider almost laughed. “Yes. We might need them.” He hesitated for a split second, wondering how to word his next question. “Any ETA on the backup force?”
Kyle was right there with him on that one. “Yes, sir. They’re on the way and ready for a fight.”
The kid was enjoying this, Rider thought. “Good. Sit tight, my friend.”
“Yes, sir.”
When the connection was broken, he looked at Paige. “He’s going to be okay, honey,” he said.
She gave him a smile that said either the endearment that had just slipped out or his actual words had made her very happy. He wished they could wait until he found out which.
“Do you think they heard you?” she asked as he closed the phone box.
“I don’t know. If they did, we’ll know shortly. If they didn’t, then we’ll just lie low until that little flotilla comes around the corner and somebody spots them. The reaction should be the same in either case.”
They retreated to the roof, moving toward the end that overlooked the courtyard. They took turns watching to the north and the open space on the roof to their backs.
“You know we can’t assume any help is coming immediately,” he said after a minute. “They might not realize just how much trouble we’re in, here.”
“I know.” She turned her head to meet his gaze. “We’re on our own for now, aren’t we?”
He nodded, afraid if he spoke he would sound so grim he’d scare her. They went back to watching.
In less than five minutes shouts and men running toward the main building gave them hope.
A few minutes later a small group of men came out of the building at a run and headed north. One of them was even one of Ares’s precious bodyguards. But the man himself had stayed behind.
“Four more down,” Rider whispered with a grin at Paige.
“Yes, indeed,” she answered, grinning back at him.
“That leaves him with two, maybe three at most.”
“Now what?”
Rider hadn’t really thought that far. “I’m not sure. All I could think about was to scatter his forces.”
“You sure did that,” she said.
“We did that,” he corrected.
He looked back out over the courtyard. He knew they needed to do something, that they were wasting precious time. The smart thing would be to just get away, to get as far away as they could until help arrived. But when that help did arrive, even if Ares was outnumbered, he still held the position of power, because he still had dozens of hostages. He still had the entire Redstone staff.
But now Ares was down to himself and two or maybe three men. He had to either give up guarding the hostages or give up his own bodyguard. And since the hostages were his bargaining chips…
Could they do it? They’d gotten the children away, could they possibly do the same here?
“Noah?”
He looked at Paige. Her eyes were bright, and he could see by her expression she’d just thought of something.
“What?”
“Could we…the others, the staff, do you think we could get them out?”
Noah couldn’t help the lopsided grin that spread across his face. “You read my mind.”
“How can you remember all this?” Paige whispered in awe as he made yet another turn without hesitation.
“A brain quirk,” Noah said. “Plans, diagrams, maps. Can’t help it.”
“Thank goodness,” she said in a heartfelt voice.
Using his knowledge, they’d worked their way from one end of the main hotel building to the other by way of back hallways and utility rooms, and hadn’t seen another soul. Given the reasonable supposition that Ares had all the hostages in one place, there were only a couple of places big enough to hold them all at once.
The first, the media room, was empty.
“Got to be the dining room,” Noah said.
Still moving quietly, they headed toward the room were he had first stepped back into her life. God, that day seemed forever ago, she thought. So much had happened, even before these crazed men had—
She snapped out of her useless thoughts when they had to dodge around a service cart loaded with kitchen equipment that stood in the hallway. And she nearly ran into Noah’s back when he came to an abrupt halt at the corner.
He leaned forward, taking a quick glance down the hall. He dodged back so quickly she knew he’d spotted something. Or someone.
“Guard,” he mouthed.
So they’d been right. The hostages had to be in this room. A little thrill jolted through her. But now that they’d found them, she wasn’t at all sure how they were going to rescue them with an armed guard at the doors.
They moved out of earshot, backing around the corner they’d just turned. Then she asked quietly, “Just one?”
He nodded.
“Are there any other doors?”
He closed his eyes, as if calling up the memory of the hotel plans in his mind. “None accessible from here.” Then, “Wait…”
His eyes snapped open. He looked her up and down, studied her assessingly, almost as if he’d never seen her before. “Are you claustrophobic?”
What on earth? she wondered. “Not particularly.”
He hesitated, then said, “I know you have to be hurting from what he did, but how limber are you?”
She was hurting, but only asked, “How limber do I have to be?”
He gestured to her to follow and began to backtrack even farther. He stopped midway down the hall. He nodded toward a small metal door in the wall that she had assumed covered some kind of electrical panel or equipment. Paige looked at him, even more puzzled than before. He reached out and swung the hinged door open. The first thing she noticed was a gaping hole at the bottom of the opening, lined with some silver metal and vanishing into darkness like a galvanized rabbit hole.
“It’s a laundry chute,” Noah explained.
Paige leaned over to take a closer look. On the opposite side it looked to be a solid piece of that same metal. The only hinges she could see were at the bottom, and there were angled pieces of the same metal on the sides.
“It’s bottom hinged, so it tilts out on the other side. It’s easier to dump tablecloths that way. The door’s here in case something gets jammed or stuck.”
“The other side is in the dining room?”
He nodded. And what he’d meant about being limber was now clear. She looked once more, with a new eye, to what he was asking. The opening was about two and a half feet high a
nd nearly as wide. There was a narrow lip around the edge of the chute. Not even half as wide as her foot, it could be a tricky balancing act.
“I’d never get through it,” he said, as if he felt he had to explain why he wasn’t volunteering himself.
“Obviously,” she said, glancing back at him. His height made squeezing through nearly impossible, and his shoulders alone would never get through the gap. But she might. Not easily or comfortably, but she just might be able to do it.
She knelt down and looked up into the space. It would be tight, but if she could even get partway, and then got some help on the other side…
“I think I can do it,” she said.
He gave her a careful hug that was clearly heartfelt, and over far too quickly. And then he dropped a kiss on her lips, also over far too quickly.
“I’ll stay here until you’re in. Tell them to start raising a fuss, threaten, break the furniture, whatever it takes to make this guy call for help. We want to draw as many of the guards that are left as possible. Just be careful they don’t go too far, tell them they need to settle down fast when the backup arrives, so nobody feels the need to start shooting.”
“I think I’ll tell them their kids are safe first,” she said. “After that, I don’t think it’ll take much.”
Noah grinned as he nodded at her. “You do that. Hold on a sec.”
He ran back to the service cart they’d passed. Moving carefully, he checked the various trays. She saw him remove a large carving knife and shove it in his belt under his shirt. She supposed she felt better that at least one of them was armed, but she wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to handle a knife as a weapon.
He came back, moving as amazingly quietly as he had been the entire time. She knew he had to be hurting, but there was no sign of it.
“Ready?” he asked.
She nodded. He opened the door all the way on their side, then reached in to shove the chute door on the other side open. For a moment he just listened, and for the first time she wondered if they had a second guard inside.
Great. I would have just charged right in. And gotten shot, no doubt, she realized ruefully.
After a moment he backed out. “Sounds clear.”
She nodded, moved toward the chute, then stopped as something he’d said finally registered. “What did you mean, you’ll stay until I get in? Where are you going?”
He shrugged. “Just to look around. You need help?”
“Not on this side.”
“Okay.” He hesitated, then said, “Look, if it comes down to it, Redstone will hook you up with my dad. Tell him I love him. And my sister, Michelle, too.”
She glanced at the knife in his belt, then back at his face. That moment of hesitation, and his words, said it all, and she knew exactly what he was going to do.
He was going after Ares.
Chapter 17
Once she got over the image of herself plummeting down the laundry chute like a gravy-stained tablecloth, Paige decided she knew pretty much what a jack-in-the-box felt like. When she popped up out of her little box, it was startling. No one seemed to be looking her way, and she didn’t dare call out, for fear the guard just outside the door might hear.
They were sitting all over, in chairs and on the floor. She and Noah—God, don’t think about him, what he’s going to do, not now—had guessed there must be at least fifty being held here, and she thought the number looked about right. And Paige had never seen a more disheartened group. They all looked a bit worse for wear, and there were signs of tears on many faces, and not all of them female. One of them, Mr. Rutherford, sat huddled in a corner on the floor, shaking, his eyes rather glassy.
She spotted Miranda. Desperate now, because she didn’t think she could climb out of the awkwardly tilted chute without help, she called as loudly as she dared. The woman turned. Her eyes widened, and her mouth opened.
Paige threw a finger up to her lips and shook her head fiercely. Miranda’s mouth shut. But she got to her feet and hurried over, drawing the attention of most of the others in the room. Frantic gestures kept the exclamations down, but the buzz in the room still rose.
With Miranda’s help, Paige scrambled out of the chute and into the room. She turned back and tapped twice on the metal siding, as arranged. Noah tapped back, and then the light in the hole vanished as he shut the door on the other side.
Paige tried again not to think about what he was going to do now. He’d refused to confirm her guess, probably because he wanted her to focus on what she had to do here, but she knew she was right. Just as she knew that he knew he would quite possibly not survive. The message he’d left with her for his father and sister had made that hideously clear. But she hadn’t been able to stop him. And now, the only thing she could do for him was her part.
Everyone in the room was gathered around her now, and Paige spoke quickly and quietly. “Please, you must keep it down, the guard is still right outside.” When they nodded, she said, “First and most important—the children are safe.”
Despite the warning, the noise level swelled as those parents in the group nearly cried out in relief. But it died quickly as Paige went on in a near whisper. As she’d hoped, their need to hear what she was saying quieted them.
“They’re with the people of the village, led by Lani DeSouza’s father. And not only are they safe, completely off the island in the village’s boats, they’ve managed to call for help for us all.”
“But how?” Miranda asked. “They told us the children were all being held at the school.”
“Thank Noah Rider,” Paige said. “He got them out. And he let the terrorists capture him to give us a few extra minutes to get away.”
She saw the shock and awe in their faces and was glad she’d taken a moment to say it. She was fairly certain Noah would never tell them himself. Besides, they needed to know. They’d gone from grimness to relief, from fear to hope, and now she had to spark them to anger.
“And now you can do something for him,” she said. “That is, assuming you’re tired of being held here like sheep for the slaughter. Tired enough to be really, really mad.”
In that single instant the tenor of the entire group changed. “Mad?” Miranda said. “You bet we are. If it hadn’t been for the children, we’d have done something a long time ago.”
“Well, now there’s nothing holding you back. And here’s what you need to do.”
They all leaned in closer as she explained Noah’s plan.
The last time he’d been down this hallway, he’d been half-conscious, bleeding and figuring his life expectancy had been reduced to minutes. Now he was fully alert, sore but not bleeding and figuring that his life expectancy could again be in minutes.
He waited, trying not to look at his watch more often than every minute, thankful that his blackened eye hadn’t swollen completely shut. He wasn’t sure why he felt so strongly that Ares would still be holed up in that suite; he just was. Something about the man’s image of himself as the noble crusader instead of a terrorist. He probably figured he deserved the best, and taking it from the “rich pigs” he was so fixated on just seem to fit. Not to mention he was personally safer there.
Rider crouched in the elevator alcove, his legs starting to cramp. It was at least a distraction from his head, he thought sourly. And his ribs. He’d been fine when they’d been moving, but now that he’d been motionless for several minutes, it was all catching up with him. When he finally had to move, he’d be lucky if he could.
As time passed and nothing happened, he tried not to jump to the conclusion something had gone wrong, that Paige was in trouble. Maybe Ares had more men than they’d thought, and he’d stationed one inside the dining room, as well. Maybe she’d been captured, maybe she was a prisoner again. Or worse…
He shook his head sharply, knowing the pain would intensify and for a moment at least drive out those spinning thoughts. It did. And when the throb finally died away, he heard the sound he’d been waiting for.
Elevator number two, headed down from the top floor.
He stood up, stretching out legs that were stiff and protesting. He nudged open the door behind him, and stepped back to the spot he’d chosen, where he was hidden in the shadows but could see the reflection of the elevators in the mirror on the opposite wall.
The bell chimed and the light above elevator number two came on. The doors slid open.
Three men. None of them Ares. And all headed at a run toward the dining room. She’d done it. She’d lured them out. Leaving Ares to him.
With a grin and a mental salute to the woman who never ceased to amaze him, Rider quickly backed into the darkened room behind him. He flipped a switch that shut down power to elevator number one. Then he went to number two, which the men had used, closed the doors, took in a deep breath and punched the button for the top floor.
When the indicator hit four, he backed into a front corner until the door slid open. When nothing happened, he risked a look. The hotel hallway was empty, and the door to the suite Ares had taken over was closed.
With the doors held open, he flicked the run switch on the elevator off, so it couldn’t be summoned from downstairs. Then he went quickly down the hall.
He hesitated for a moment, wishing he had more of a plan. But he’d been playing this whole thing by ear and he was still alive, so he decided to just keep on doing the same.
He closed his eyes, calling up the layout of the suite—oddly, from the floor plan rather than his actual time in the set of rooms, because that’s the way his quirky mind worked. Then he walked toward the single door that was just down from the main double doors of the suite. The single door led to the room that adjoined the others, but could be used as a single room, as well, hence the separate door.
The door was locked, of course, but he took the chance that Ares hadn’t bothered to set the dead bolts. Rider pulled out the master card-key Barry had given him that first day. He tried it in the lock, and the light flashed green. Slowly, with his fingers clenched as if that could somehow make it quieter, he pushed down on the door lever. And let out a silent breath when it opened smoothly and with only the tiniest of sounds.
Just Another Day in Paradise Page 20
