Collateral Damage

by Lynette Eason

  “We can’t just let him walk out of here.”

  “Of course not,” Asher said, even as Caden was attempting to pull his ringing phone from his pocket. “Be still, will you?”

  Caden sent the call to voice mail. “We can’t let him escape, but we can’t let him know security is looking for him either.”

  “He’ll head for an exit—probably not the nearest one.” He paused and the lock clicked on Caden’s cuff. He turned the key on his and was soon free, then handed the key back to Caden, who released his other wrist from the steel bracelet. “The only reason he didn’t kill us right here,” Asher said, “is that he didn’t want to cause a hospital lockdown.”

  “He thinks he’s going to walk out of here.”

  “Yeah—and he knows we’re going to follow as soon as we’re free. He also knows we’ll try to be discreet because we don’t want innocent people dead. Which makes him believe he can get out of the hospital and escape before a full-on search is called for.”

  The door to the room opened and a frantic nurse pulled to a stop. “A woman said the cop wasn’t really a cop and he had a gun pulled.”

  “Great,” Asher said. “Call security and tell them not to confront him and not to lock the hospital down.” Caden hesitated and Asher gave him a hard look. “I know this guy. He’s a trained soldier with the heart of a killer and he won’t let a few dead people stand in his way to freedom.”

  Caden placed the call while Asher bolted to the door’s window.

  “You see him?” Caden asked.

  “No, he’s gone.”

  “Is this security?” Caden identified himself. “Good. Yeah, yeah, the guy with the reported gun. Don’t let him know you’re on to him.” He gave a quick explanation of the situation. “Cover all exits and try to get everyone away from them. He’s armed and dangerous. Don’t let him know you have him spotted, but don’t lose sight of him. I repeat, he will shoot. Keep your distance, help is on the way.” Asher and Caden stepped out of the room. “I’m going after Hamilton, you stay with Brooke,” Caden said and darted for the exit.

  Asher didn’t bother responding as the man disappeared before he could blink. He looked around and his pulse pounded. Staying with Brooke might be a problem since she wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

  He rushed to the monitor station and found two men and the young woman who’d entered Ricci’s room to tell them about the gun. They talked in hushed tones, obviously trying to decide what to do. “Did you see a woman about five feet six inches with blonde hair? Really pretty?”

  “I did,” the woman said. “She’s the one who reported the cop with a gun in room 6, then went out the door to the stairs just about a minute or two ago.” She pointed. “The same way the cop left. He also looked like he was in a hurry. Why did he have his gun out?”

  “Don’t worry about it, it’s being taken care of and you guys are safe.” He backed toward the exit.

  “Wait a minute,” she called, “where’s the officer who’s supposed to be guarding the patient? Sir? Sir?”

  “Call security and get someone on his room! Just tell them the other officer had an emergency and you need coverage.” Not really concerned that the man so near death would be a threat, Asher pushed open the door to the stairs and followed after Caden and Brooke. Only Caden wouldn’t realize Brooke was ahead of him.

  He sure hoped Victor Hamilton didn’t know she was behind him.

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  Brooke dialed Asher’s number while she waited for the door to the second floor to shut behind the man who’d been part of the attempt to kill her. Once she heard the click, she hurried down the next flight of stairs.

  Back in the ICU, she’d been watching through the glass and had witnessed the confrontation between the men—as well as the weapon Hamilton had pulled on Asher and Caden. She ran back to the monitoring station to report what she’d seen and was waiting for security. Then Hamilton was backing out of the door, his hand under his arm, hiding his weapon. He headed toward the exit and Brooke stepped sideways toward him, watching from the corner of her eye, not wanting to attract his attention but not wanting to lose him either.

  When he exited to the stairs of the monitoring station heading out of the ICU, she glanced back at the room. Where were they? If she ran to check, Hamilton might get away. “Check on room 6, will you? I’m going after him.”

  She’d followed Hamilton without thinking about the potential danger, only that she wasn’t going to let him get away without at least seeing which way he went.

  “Brooke!” Asher’s voice reached her through the phone.

  “Sorry,” she muttered, realizing he’d been calling her name since he’d answered. “He’s on the second floor.” She pushed her way through the door and stepped into the hallway. Nothing to her left. To the right, she caught a glimpse of his uniformed back as he disappeared through another door labeled with an exit sign. “He just went out the door next to the cafeteria. There are stairs that lead down to the basement area. If he goes up, that’s another problem.”

  In the background, she heard Asher passing the information on. “Brooke? You need to stay put. If he realizes you’re following him, he won’t hesitate to kill you.”

  Hamilton exited the stairwell and continued his hurried escape—and no one stopped him. The uniform parted people like Moses had the Red Sea.

  “Brooke?”

  “I’m following him, Asher. Now hush.”

  She thought he might have growled at that. “Where is he?” he asked.

  “Heading straight for the main entrance—or exit in his case.”

  “Is security there?”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t seem to bother him.”

  “We told them to let him go. He’s prepared to kill anyone who tries to stop him—or anyone who gets in his line of fire.”

  Hamilton strode confidently across the lobby floor, his weapon still tucked out of sight.

  The security officer on the left saw him coming, nudged his coworker, and drew his weapon. “Stop right there!”

  Hamilton’s weapon barked and the officer’s knee exploded. Screams from the people in the lobby echoed as everyone scrambled to get away from the shooter.

  Brooke swallowed her own scream and ducked behind the large information desk. She crawled to the edge and peered around it in time to see the other officer hold his hands up, surrendering because he had no place to hide. Brooke pressed her palm against her mouth, wondering if Hamilton would shoot him anyway.

  The man held his fire and backed out of the glass doors, pausing. He made eye contact with Brooke, then looked past her. She turned to see what had caught his attention. Asher and Caden were rushing into the lobby.

  A shot, followed by a thud, sounded near the entrance and Asher’s eyes went wide as he and Caden skidded to a stop. More screams.

  Brooke spun back to see a red mist covering the double glass doors, Hamilton’s face pressed against the one on the right. His empty eyes stared back as he fell over and was still.

  Once again on a video call, the large man strode to the back of the room, looking for a modicum of privacy. If he walked outside, he’d lose internet. His gaze centered on Buzz sitting at a table in a hotel room. “Well?” He didn’t think his nerves would settle down until this was all over.

  For a moment, he let himself wonder how it had come to this. He hadn’t wanted to use Buzz unless it was absolutely necessary. The fact that it had come to that said things were spiraling out of control.

  The sound of his name pulled him into the here and now. “I’m here. Just thinking.”

  “Right. Well, it’s done.”

  “What’s done?”

  “Hamilton’s dead. Ricci soon will be.”

  “I . . . see.” He closed his eyes for a moment and drew in a deep breath. Thought for a moment.

  “What’s our next move?” Buzz asked, impatience edging his voice.

  It had to be done. “I’ve got four more
coming your way tomorrow night. You get them where they’re supposed to be, then I have one more project for you. It will pay well, don’t worry.”

  “I wasn’t worried. What do you have?”

  Once again, the man breathed heavily. Thought about what he was planning and decided there was no other way. Brooke Adams, and now Asher James, had to be stopped. “Here’s what needs to happen . . .”

  Asher paced from one end of the hotel room to the other. Once they’d finally finished up at the hospital, making sure Ricci was under heavy guard, Gavin met him, Brooke, and Caden at a hotel. They’d gotten a two-bedroom, two-bath suite, with a living area and a small kitchen situated between the sleeping areas. Room service had been ordered and the smell of fresh coffee permeated the air.

  The knock on the connecting door turned him in that direction. Caden stood on the other side, holding his iPad.

  Asher stepped back. “Come on in.”

  Caden took a seat at the table. “First things first. We’ve got agents and CID out at Ricci’s place. They’re going over it with a fine-tooth comb.”

  “Where does he live?” Brooke asked.

  “He and Hamilton were sharing a house in Lexington. Neighbors said they were quiet and kept to themselves. Didn’t seem to be home much.”

  “Of course they weren’t. They were too busy terrorizing, kidnapping, and killing,” Brooke muttered.

  Caden grimaced. “Right. Anyway, hopefully we’ll hear something soon about anything found in their house. Also, I’ve gotten the information off that bracelet,” he said, stepping into the room. “Everything had been downloaded to a small microchip hidden inside one of the charms. Our tech guru, Annie, had to locate an adapter for it before she could see what was on it.”

  “And?” Brooke asked, lacing her fingers together in front of her.

  “And at first, it looked like gobbledygook.”

  “Gobbledygook,” Asher said. “Is that the official term now?”

  “Her word, not mine. But this is what she eventually managed to get.” He tapped the screen of the iPad he’d brought and turned it around so Asher and Brooke could see it. “It’s a spreadsheet. In the left-hand column, there are numbers. She thinks each number represents a person.”

  “Why would she think that?”

  “Because the next column seems to indicate blood type, since all of the values are things like A+ or B- or O, et cetera. This next column here, all of the numbers are zero to seventeen.”

  “So you’ve got a number that represents a person, blood type, and . . . ages maybe?”

  “Could be. The next column is a list of names. It’s in Pashto, but she thinks it’s couples.”

  “As in married people?” Gavin asked.

  “Yes.” Caden swiped the screen. “Look at this. The whole couple-names thing works because of this file that was also on the chip.” He pulled up pictures on his iPad. “And here, I give you couples.”

  “They’re all . . . what? Muslim?” Brooke said.

  “Yes.” He swiped. More couples, smiling and holding hands or praying together. Some with children, most without.

  “Who are they?”

  “Actors,” Caden said. “Models.”

  Brooke blinked at him and Asher raised a brow. “Okay. What?”

  “Annie said some of the pictures looked off to her. Photoshopped. She did an image search and found the pictures had been copied from various websites advertising for churches, mosques, private schools, whatever.”

  “But . . . why?” Brooke asked.

  “Well, Annie’s amazing, but some things are beyond even her capabilities.”

  “What about those last two columns?”

  “Don’t know. Numbers and letters that probably make sense if you know what it’s referring to. And finally, the last column. Four numbers. Could mean anything.”

  “So how do we find out what all of this is referring to?”

  “Annie’s still working on it,” Caden said. “Your friend Isaiah sacrificed his life to get this stuff. He had a reason and I need to know why more than ever now.”

  Brooke studied him. “Sarah?”

  “I talked to her about an hour ago and finally got more information out of her.” His jaw tightened and his eyes flashed. “If she’d told me this stuff earlier—” He stopped and waved a hand. “Nothing I can do about that now—and in her defense, she was making sure she had her facts straight before she said anything. But when she originally called to tell me about the men discussing Isaiah and asked me to get in touch with you, she said she was undercover in an orphanage and occasionally at the hospital because she was keeping an eye on a doctor who worked between the two places.”

  “Which was how she found out the men were after me?”

  “Yes. And it was at that same hospital that Michaels downloaded that information.”

  “Which computer?” Brooke asked. “How did he know which office and computer to get it from?”

  Caden rubbed his eyes. “Sarah gave him the name of a doctor. For some reason this guy tripped her investigative alarms and she began watching him, looking into him. Somehow, she got a copy of one of his bank statements—and I don’t even want to know how she got that—and he’s been making some pretty big cash deposits.”

  “Everything’s always done in cash,” Brooke muttered.

  “Can’t make it easy for us, right? Anyway, apparently Sarah’s been working undercover at the orphanage where this doctor comes by on a regular basis. She established a pattern between his visits and . . .”

  “And what?” Asher asked.

  “And the adoption of the kids that he was there to see.”

  Brooke gave a subtle snort. “Let me guess. They weren’t adopted.”

  “It’s not looking like it. Each of those cash deposits was made exactly three days after one of the children from the orphanage was supposedly adopted. Sarah went looking for some of the children, just to check up on them. And she couldn’t find them. All she found were bogus addresses and fake names. It was all untraceable—including the kids—so she went to Isaiah with her suspicions that the children were being sold into slavery. She couldn’t figure out how they were being transported or where they were going or who was taking them, but she was pretty sure this doctor was involved with everything—and she’d seen American military vehicles on the property several times the day a child was adopted. Isaiah told her to lay low and that he would look into it. Sarah said he must have found out something—which we now know he did—because he went AWOL on her for a few days. She tracked him down and he told her to stay away from him, that being around him could be dangerous.”

  “So someone was watching him,” Brooke said softly, “knew he was digging into something that he shouldn’t, and decided to set him up as a traitor.”

  “And probably planned to have him killed while in custody,” Asher said, his jaw tight.

  “Only the bomb went off in the café,” Brooke said, “and they didn’t have to follow through with their dirty work.”

  “Until they saw those pictures of you and Isaiah in the paper and realized he might have passed on the evidence he’d stolen.”

  Brooke went still, and Asher could practically see her mind working. “What is it, Brooke?”

  “Do you remember what you told me about those pictures?”

  He frowned. “I said a lot of things about them. What specifically are you talking about?”

  “You said you recognized me because you’d been there, but if you’d just seen me on the street or whatever, you never would have recognized me.”

  Asher immediately got what she was trying to say. “So the only reason they knew who you were in the picture was that they were there when the explosion went off.”

  “Or they saw my picture in the paper with Isaiah, determined to find out who the woman was, and asked around until they found someone who saw me that day and knew it was me.”

  “Or that.”

  “We just need to intervi
ew everyone who ever met me while I was in Kabul.”

  “No,” Asher said, “we just need to find out who was there that day and saw you. Then find out who was asking about the woman in the picture.”

  “Well, that narrows it down,” she said with a disgusted sigh.

  Caden rubbed his chin. “I’m going to send this stuff to Felicia, one of my Bureau contacts in Kabul. I’ll ask her to look into it. And maybe she can check with some of your buddies over there if anyone was asking about the woman in the pictures.”

  “I think that’s a good place to start, just make sure she’s careful who she talks to,” Asher said. “At this point, I wouldn’t be trusting anyone.”

  “She can handle it.”

  “Of course. In the meantime, we need to figure out who’s after Brooke here in the States. Because if we find one, I have no doubt he’ll lead us to the other.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY

  Caden paced the length of his hotel room as he waited for Clarissa to pick up the phone. She’d texted and said she needed to see him—that he needed to see something.

  I’m in Columbia. Can we FaceTime?

  Sure. You won’t get the full effect, but it’ll do. Let me get set up and I’ll call you in five minutes.

  His phone rang. Finally. He swiped the screen and Clarissa’s angular face filled the space. “Hi.”

  “Hi. Hold on a second, I want to put you on the tripod. I need my hands.” The picture bounced a few times before steadying, and he had a good view of her workspace. Two reconstructed skulls stared back at him. “These are two of the victims.” She appeared beside one and brushed the dark hair away from the brown eyes she’d pressed into the sockets. “This is the one who interests me most. And I think will interest you as well.”