Pat snorted out a laugh. ‘That turned out really well. You made a serial killer.’
‘I told them Evan was unstable. They didn’t believe me and sent him out on his own. They know they fucked up with him and it’s been even better for me since. They pay attention to my opinions now. If I tell them I could use a female instructor, they’ll listen. It’d be like old times. You and me together.’
‘You’re crazy! I don’t know anything about training spies.’
‘Neither did I. You’d be teaching female valentines how to be female valentines. You’d be training valentines you converted.’
Pat opened her mouth and then closed it again. ‘I… I’ll think about it.’
‘Good. Just don’t take too long. We’re shipping out in an hour. I need your answer by then.’
~~~
‘They have a watchman on the roof,’ Dione said as she slipped back into the car. ‘It looks like it’s intended as a small factory space, but it’s not in use at the moment. For its intended purpose anyway.’
‘Not uncommon on the Navy Yard,’ Mike commented. ‘No way to tell how many are in there?’
‘No, but it won’t be a huge cell, and I took out three of them on Long Island. ETA for the SWAT team?’
Mary’s voice came from Mike’s phone, set between the seats. ‘Five minutes. They’ve been briefed to expect armed resistance and that it’s a hostage situation.’
‘All right. I’m going to go eliminate the watch position. Mike, when SWAT gets here, you take them in through the front door as soon as you can. If there’s someone up on the top, there must be rooftop access, so I’ll start down and meet you halfway.’ Dione reached for the door handle.
‘Okay, but be careful,’ Mike said.
Dione flashed him a smile. ‘You be careful. If you get shot, you don’t heal as fast as I do.’
~~~
Getting to the roof did not require much effort: there were drainpipes up the side. The guard on the roof was unconscious before he knew she was there. Killing him had been an option, and one Dione figured she could justify to the Concilium, but it was unnecessary and she really wanted at least one of them to get away alive to tell his bosses what had happened.
The rooftop door gave access to a flight of stairs leading into a short service corridor at the back of the building. There was a fire door there too, alarmed so it would have made a poor entry point. There were two interior doors, one close to the stairs, the other at the far end of the corridor. Dione had no idea of the internal layout, however, so she was guessing when it came to which one she should take.
‘Is the roof guy out of the picture?’ Mike’s voice sounded in Dione’s ear.
‘You’re clear,’ she said, keeping her voice soft but knowing the throat mic would pick it up.
‘Right. Breaching in 60 seconds.’
‘Understood.’ Dione slipped her sword from under her coat and then made a snap decision. ‘I’m going to draw them toward the rear of the building. Create a distraction.’
‘Got it.’
Dione waited twenty seconds or so, and then she kicked the fire door and was dashing for the nearest interior door almost before the alarm began to sound.
There were offices on a corridor. No sign of CIA agents. Dione made for the first office door, turned the handle, darted inside, and closed the door behind her. She could hear running feet now, but not on the corridor outside. It was muffled enough to be in the service corridor and–
‘What do you want now, Silas? What’s with the alarm?’
Dione looked around, actually taking in the room, and spotted a familiar figure cuffed to a chair with a bag over her head. Stepping forward, she pulled the bag free and grinned at Pat. ‘It’s going to get a lot noisier pretty soon. I hope you’re not too annoyed that I’m not Silas.’
‘I’ll contain my disappointment. Can you get me out of these cuffs?’
Taking a bunch of keys from her pocket, Dione walked around the chair, found the spare handcuff key she kept on the ring, and was about to unlock the cuffs when she heard a crashing sound from somewhere outside. ‘I need to go to work.’ She unlocked the cuffs and then pulled a pistol from under her coat, dropping it in Pat’s lap. ‘Stay here. Anything not a cop comes through that door, shoot it.’
‘Don’t you need this thing?’ Pat asked, picking up the pistol.
Dione raised her sword. ‘Not really.’ She darted to the door, moving in that suddenly rapid manner which meant she had activated one of her blood powers, her warrior aspect. Pat had never understood exactly what it was, or how it was possible, had only seen it once before, but she was convinced now that Dione probably did not need a gun to cause a lot of harm.
The sound of gunfire grew louder as Dione swept out of the room. The agent who had just run past the door stalled as he heard someone behind him, managing a quarter turn before Dione’s sword cut the tendons at the back of his right knee. With a shriek, he fell forward onto the ground with enough presence of mind to roll onto his back and bring his rifle around, but not with enough speed. Dione drove the tip of her sword through his right eye and pulled it free again as she started down the corridor in the direction he had been going.
~~~
Dione’s distraction, speed, a couple of ballistic shields, and some luck had got Mike and the SWAT team in through the door. That and a battering ram anyway. Now they were in trouble. There was precious little cover in the room and most of it was occupied by the six men with assault rifles they were trying to put down. Two of the SWAT operatives were down, but Mike thought they had been hit in their vests and would pull through. One of the six agents was also down, probably for good.
Mike had found a crate of some kind to duck behind. He had an uncomfortable feeling that it had been used to transport weapons and might still contain some. Hopefully, considering the bullets that were hitting it, nothing inside was explosive. His shotgun was almost useless at this range. The agents were behind overturned tables which were proving to be effective barriers. Mike could fire, and hit a table, and the resulting explosion tended to make the CIA men take cover, but that was about it. It was a stand-off.
Until the door beside the agents burst open and the fury of an annoyed Dione descended upon the CIA contingent. Two of them probably never realised what was happening as her sword slashed through their flesh as soon as she was through the door. The next man to die was starting to turn when his head left his shoulders. Then Dione moved on, pushing aside a rifle which was swinging toward her as she ran her blade through the gunman’s chest.
That left one. He got his rifle around, aiming it at Dione, but in doing so he had lifted his body, his head rising over the cover of the table. It was a fatal mistake: his head more or less dissolved as three SWAT officers fired at once.
Nodding, Dione pulled her sword clear and flicked blood off the blade. ‘We’re missing at least two,’ she called out. ‘Mike, Pat is in the back office. Secure her and get her out. Everyone else, I need a sweep of the other offices. We’re looking for one terrorist and one unknown, possibly a hostage. But both are to be treated as dangerous.’
Mike got to his feet and started for the door Dione had come through. She stopped him with an outstretched arm. ‘There’s a door at the back of this room. You’ll come in at the back. The office is through a door, on the right. Take her out through the fire exit and around to the car.’
‘Okay,’ Mike returned and set off to the end of the room. He found the door, pushed through into the service corridor, and continued down it. Dione was getting him out of the way, of course. Worried about her partner, which was a little annoying in a way. On the other hand, once again, Dione was entrusting him with one of her best friends. He could not really complain.
Finding the door Dione had said would lead to the offices, Mike opened it and pushed through, and found himself looking down the barrel of a pistol. Mike had never seen Silas, but from the description he had been given, this was him. He looked mo
re determined than Mike had expected, more sure of himself, but not entirely sure. There was enough nervous energy there to make him far too dangerous.
‘Don’t get any stupid ideas,’ Silas said. ‘Gun on the floor.’ Mike lowered his shotgun to the ground. He still had his pistol, but getting to it fast enough seemed unlikely. The sound of the SWAT team at the other end of the building was getting louder… ‘Good.’ Silas moved around Mike, fast, and grabbed the back of his vest. The pistol was pressed to the back of Mike’s skull.
Mike saw Dione appear at the head of the corridor, two cops behind her. She saw Mike and the situation almost immediately. ‘Let him go, Silas,’ Dione called out. ‘You’re not getting out of here on your own. How many pieces you do leave in depends on what you do now.’
‘We both know what the sentence will be if you take me in, Hunter,’ Silas called back. ‘I’m going to back out now. If I see one cop following me, this one dies.’
Mike tensed, ready to act, even if he figured his chances were slim. Maybe if he dropped, it would unbalance Silas and someone could get a shot off before–
Two loud bangs filled the air, the shock of the twin explosions echoing through the narrow corridor and setting Mike’s ears ringing. He felt something, blood maybe, hitting his neck. Then the pistol dropped away, followed by Silas’s hand on his collar, and Mike turned around.
Pat was standing in the doorway of the office she had been waiting in. She was holding Dione’s pistol, braced at arm’s length. Her eyes were wide and she was starting to tremble. Mike checked Silas: down with half his skull missing. He was not getting up from that. The pistol Pat was holding fell from her nerveless fingers, and Mike stepped quickly forward to catch her as she fell, bouncing off the doorframe as she went.
Dione was at his side in an instant. ‘Is she okay?’
‘Fainted, I think,’ Mike replied. ‘Going to have a bruise… for a minute or so, but she’ll be okay. Well, after she’s come to terms with shooting her creator. Did you find Evan?’
‘We have him. That’s what delayed us a little. Get Pat to my car and take her home. I’ll finish the wrap-up here and join you later.’
Mike looked around at his partner. ‘I get to drive your car?’
Dione pulled her keys from her pocket. ‘If you scratch the paintwork, I’ll make sure that Leeanne has no further use for you.’
Mike took the keys and then lifted Pat into his arms. ‘That seems fair.’
~~~
It was almost seven a.m. when Dione finally walked through the door of Pat’s apartment. Pat was sitting in her favourite chair, wrapped in a blanket with a glass of whiskey in her hand, staring into space. Mike sat nearby, watching while not appearing to watch. Dione had no doubt that, if Pat had really been with it, Mike would have been told off and sent home by then, but Pat stirred at Dione’s approach, looking around.
‘Hey,’ Pat said.
‘Hey,’ Dione returned. ‘This is probably a pointless question, but how are you feeling?’
‘Okay.’
‘Try again.’
‘I’m okay, really… Okay, so I’m not. Have you talked to the Concilium? What are they going to say about this?’
‘Nothing. I’ll deal with them.’
‘What the Hell would they have to say?’ Mike asked. ‘She shot a vampire who was threatening me, a human.’
‘She shot her creator,’ Dione replied. ‘“Respect your creator” is one of the tenets of vampire law. However’ – Dione fixed her gaze on Pat – ‘that your creator set aside every tenet of vampire law and you were defending a human designated as an agent of the Summus Concilium kind of trumps that. Both Mike and I can attest to the fact that you did not do it without good reason. Your reactions after the event suggest more remorse than that prick deserves. I’ll handle the Concilium. I don’t foresee any more difficulty regarding that than about me cutting up a bunch of CIA agents.’
Pat nodded. ‘I guess when you put it like that…’
‘You almost certainly saved my life, Pat,’ Mike said. ‘I owe you.’
Forcing a grin, Pat looked around at Mike. ‘Lend me that gorgeous girlfriend of yours for an afternoon and we’ll call it quits.’
Mike could recognise forced joviality when he heard it. ‘Only if I can video it and you sign off on the distribution rights. I know this vampire in L.A. who can get me some sweet deals in the straight-to-DVD market.’
‘I bet you think that would stop her too,’ Dione said. ‘Go get some sleep, Mike. We’ll have the FBI all over this pretty soon and we can only stall them for so long.’
Mike climbed to his feet, nodding. ‘Well, that’s something to look forward to…’
~~~
Adams and Gallows were back in the official SCU office at two p.m. sharp, and Mary had been working through the morning to make sure they would have little to complain about.
‘We’ll need all the forensic–’ Gallows began.
Dione cut him off. ‘It’s being delivered to your field office as we speak. Mary took a preliminary look while she was cataloguing it all… You’re not going to get much. It looks like they used something fairly heavy duty to wipe the computers and phones. Mary suggested something military grade. You may have more luck with the one I managed to knock out. He hasn’t said a damn thing yet though and we haven’t been able to identify him. None of them, in fact.’
‘Disappointing,’ Gallows commented sourly.
‘Perhaps. Honestly, I don’t think they were terrorists at all. I think this was some sort of espionage operation. Counter-espionage is your area, however. Good luck.’
‘What about these hostages? Lumiere and Harris?’
‘Pat is a personal friend. I’d appreciate it if you took it a little easy with her. She’s still in shock. I have a statement from her and she’ll be willing to talk to you, but she seems to be collateral damage. These people were really after Harris and Pat was in the way. She had a bag over her head pretty much the whole time.’
‘So what did they want from Harris?’ Adams asked.
Dione shrugged. ‘He’s not talking either. We have him locked up, but I’m not sure what we can hold him on. Unless we can get something to suggest he was part of this, or he asks for protection, we’re going to have to turn him loose. Well, there is one weird thing…’
‘Go on.’
‘His first name’s Evan, a name the Valentine Killer has used on a number of occasions, and he matches the descriptions and photograph we have. My people are rushing to see whether anything else we have can tie him into the murders. The photograph alone might be enough to hold him for a while longer, but we need more.’
‘So these… possible spies captured a serial killer?’ Gallows asked, though it sounded more like an accusation.
‘Maybe. We were closing in on him anyway. We’d isolated his possible hiding places to three locations and we were narrowing those down.’
‘We think he got wind of it and bolted,’ Mike added. ‘He ended up at the Black Candle with Pat. If he is the killer, well, we know how persuasive he can be.’
‘It sounds like your friend was actually lucky she was kidnapped,’ Adams said.
‘Lucky for us. Pat sent Diana a message when she thought there were people in her building.’
‘And I got there just in time to see her being dragged away,’ Dione added. ‘When luck plays a part in an investigation, I just thank Tyche and get on with it.’
‘Tyche?’ Gallows asked, frowning.
‘Greek goddess of luck and good fortune. Lady Luck, if you like. Anyway, we’re looking into trying to nail Harris for the murders, so if you guys were to put in a request to hold him for interview…’
‘It would give you longer to dig,’ Adams finished, grinning. ‘He’s an important witness in a possible terrorism case. He should be in protective custody. Might take us a couple of days to get to him though.’
Dione returned the grin and, apparently absently, adjusted the lapel of her b
louse. ‘Andy, I’ll owe you one.’
‘Interagency cooperation is important. We’ll start on your silent spy in the morning.’
‘Thanks, Andy.’
Mike waited for the two agents to make their way out of the office before speaking. ‘So what happens now? We can’t let them talk to Evan or the other guy, can we?’
‘The spy, probably,’ Dione replied. ‘He won’t say anything. Either he knows someone will come get him out or he knows he’s been cut loose. Either way, he’s better off keeping silent. Evan is another matter, but we have… provisions for this kind of situation.’
‘Provisions?’
‘Uh-huh. I need to talk to the Concilium. However, there’s something else I need to do first.’
~~~
Pat looked around as her apartment door opened. She realised that she was having to supress a desire to reach for her pistol, which was nearby even though she was not sure she could actually pick it up.
It came as something of a relief then when Dione walked through the door, followed by Lisa. They both looked a little worried, which was not so good, but also sort of expected.
‘Have you moved since I left?’ Dione asked.
‘Of course. I got dressed, didn’t I?’
It was true that Pat was now in a T-shirt and casual slacks, but she was still sitting in the same position and there was still a glass of whiskey on the arm of her chair. ‘Eaten anything?’
‘I eat far more than I need to anyway.’
Lisa just walked in, sat down on the arm of Pat’s chair, and pulled her friend into a hug. ‘I’m sorry,’ Lisa whispered.
‘What are you apologising for?’ Pat asked. ‘You were right about–’
‘I left you with him.’
‘That’s a good thing. I doubt they’d have bothered with taking you prisoner. You wouldn’t have been an asset.’
‘Well, I’m back now.’
‘And I,’ Dione said, ‘am going to fix you something to eat and leave Lisa to make sure you eat it. Anything else can wait for–’
Be My Valentine Page 17
