by Dale Mayer
He thought about that and realized how true it was. “Do you lose many?”
“Not if I can help it,” she said. “Sometimes the person is already all but gone before we even begin. Sometimes things happen during surgery, you know? Like, if their heart stops. Sometimes they can have a full-blown heart attack while they’re in there. Sometimes it’s something that we didn’t even have any idea about, and, when we open them up to do one thing, we find they’re completely riddled with something else. Again you just never know.”
She pointed to a large wooden carving in the center. It was like a big circle with the top twisted up, almost in an inverted heart shape. “See? Now I like that one,” she said.
“But what do you like about it?”
“I love the texture of the wood. I love the softness. I love the almost eroticism of it maybe,” she said, standing here. “As if we’re both independent but are coming together, by will.”
He smiled and teased, “A romantic.”
“We all are, actually,” she said. “Just different variations of it. We all want a happily ever after. We all want to grow old and have that rocking chair on the porch. Still in good health and regaling our grandkids with tales of our glory days,” she said with a laugh.
“I can’t think of anything I’d like better,” he said, as they kept walking, hand in hand.
A few minutes later she whispered, “Still nothing?”
“You won’t know,” he said. “If we’re lucky, neither one of us will see him.”
“That won’t happen,” she said, as they turned to look at a piece that seemed to change colors.
Then he got a quick code. Move. “Move into the next room,” he told her, pushing her along quickly, then stationing her behind a big statue, as Ryland listened for further comm, while checking out the room.
Tabi had a few tense moments; then Ryland gave her the all clear.
“For the moment,” she whispered.
A vent above them opened, and a gunman dropped down in front of them.
It was Green.
He carried a Glock in one hand and a semiautomatic in the other. He smiled and said, “There you are.”
Chapter 15
Tabi stared at him in shock. “Where did you come from?” And damn it, her voice squeaked, like she was a petrified little girl. But, then again, she was feeling little, for this was one thing in theory and an entirely different thing in reality.
Green just smiled and said, “Innocent is what you were before you hooked up with this guy—but not now.”
“So are you the asshole who blew up the plane and dropped us into the water?” Ryland asked.
“One of them,” he said.
She felt Ryland stiffen at her side. “One of them?” he said, his voice harsh.
A second gunman appeared.
“Yep, we’re a team,” Green said, including his partner with a quick hand gesture. “We took out the three of you, right in the beginning, but unfortunately it looks like we only got one. I don’t understand how you evaded that.”
Then Green pointed the gun toward Tabi. “But they wouldn’t have except for you. You saved them. I had an eye on them from a distance, a long way away,” he said. “I knew where they were because we had a drone go over them. We were hoping they would just sink and drown. I was trying to get a boat, so I could finish the job. Then you arrived. Not only did you arrive but you brought the US Navy into it.”
She stared at him in horror. “So, what? You would go drown them, even after you blew them out of the air?”
“Damn right I would,” he said with disgust. “The job’s not done, until it’s done.”
“And that means you’ve got somebody after Garret right now?”
“Or maybe multiple somebodies,” he said, with a sly smile.
“Well, before we die, don’t I have the right to know why?” Tabi asked.
“Well, you get to die because you hooked up with this guy. That’s all it is—wrong place at the wrong time.”
“And I don’t get any time off for good behavior, huh?” At the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of black. She hoped that was Cain or Eton. And that’s when it settled into her, deep inside, knowing that she and Ryland really weren’t alone.
Green looked at her, startled, and said, “Good behavior? No, not when you’re working for the wrong team.”
“I didn’t realize there was a team,” she said sadly. “Whatever happened to live and let live?”
“I intend to do just that,” he said. “But not right now. Not until we’re done with this bullshit.”
“You still haven’t explained why. What is this even about?”
“You know something? That’s enough talking. You’re stalling, and I don’t have time for that shit.” He lifted his gun and pointed it a little bit higher, toward her. She cried out and ducked to the side. He laughed and aimed again and got tackled from the back by Cain, just as Ryland slammed into Green from the front, while Eton took on Green’s partner in a highly coordinated attack.
Green’s gun went off harmlessly into the floor, as she dashed around that big wooden carving. She grabbed a hold of it, wishing it were wider, so she could hide behind it. It was open in the center, and, just when she thought this fight was about to be done, two quick gunshots went off, and she watched Ryland jolt with the blows.
She cried out and raced forward, even as Green dropped to the floor with a bloody wound to show for it. And another gun fired again, this time at her. She dove to the ground, snagging the handgun the first guy, Green, had dropped, and she rolled, pointed the Glock at the second shooter, and fired. He went down, and she immediately turned the gun on a third shooter. Where the hell did he come from? Then froze, when the gunman pointed a semiautomatic at her. She had a handgun pointed at him, and both Ryland and Cain were on the ground. Only Ryland appeared to be bleeding. Then she thought she caught a glimpse of Eton, but too far away …
The third gunman whispered, “Let it go. You’ll never shoot me, not in time.”
“No, maybe not,” she said, with a brave smile. “But, if I shoot you, even if you do shoot me,” she said, “you won’t get to kill these good men.” And she smiled at him as she talked, knowing that he would watch her gun hand and would moderate any changes in her voice, so she kept it steady and low.
“Besides, isn’t it time for this to be over?” She lowered the gun, as if giving up, then fired from the hip. He took the blow in his gut, even as Ryland kicked away the semiautomatic, but it fired at the same time the gunman went down, even as she got to her feet. Cain was up now, holding a handgun on Green and the third gunman, both on the floor, both slowly bleeding out.
She walked over slowly to Green, down, bleeding, still alive, and asked him, “Why?”
“Why?” He tried to speak, his voice gasping, as blood and air bubbled up freely from his gaping chest wound.
She looked at him dispassionately. The nurse in her said to help him.
But the victim in her, who had already been shot at, who had watched him blow a plane out of the air, trying to kill defenseless men, and knowing he’d sat and watched Ryland and Garret struggle to live, just waiting for them to slip into the water and die, was quite prepared to let him choke out.
Just then she heard a heavy guttural groan beside her, and she turned to see Ryland on his knees, a hand against his shoulder.
She raced to his side, pulled his hand back. “Lay down flat now,” she barked.
He looked at her in surprise, but, instead of lying down, he slowly keeled over.
Cain called out, “How bad?”
“Shot in the lung,” she snapped. “We need a medic, right now.”
The next ten minutes were organized chaos, as she ripped open Ryland’s jacket to find a bulletproof vest, which she then had to find a way under and around, to get to the chest wound that was sucking air out, even as she worked. “Damn. Armor-piercing bullets,” she said to anyone close enough to hear. She slapped her pal
m over the hole and said, “I need a piece of plastic.”
Cain looked at her in surprise.
“I don’t care where you get it from,” she said. “I need a sheet of flexible plastic now.”
Cain nodded to Eton, his target already dead. When Eton returned a moment later, she recognized it as a piece of plastic packing material that had probably once wrapped a big art piece.
She nodded and slapped it against the open wound on Ryland’s chest. Immediately it sucked in, sealing off the lung. “Did you call it in?”
“Ambulance is on the way,” Eton said, as he knelt beside Ryland and said, “That’s two gunshot wounds for him.”
“He’s out of action now for sure,” she said. “I don’t know what else you’ve got going on after this, but Ryland needs time to heal.”
“I know,” Cain said, as he looked at her. “Listen,” he said. “We can’t be here.”
She looked up at him, nodding, instinctively understanding what he was saying.
“The second gunman is dead. Nice shooting, by the way. I’ll check the third one and see if we need anything from him,” Cain said. “I’ve already stripped Green and the second one clean.”
“Will you take them away?” she asked.
“No,” he said, “but I’ll call in people to make sure this is cleaned up.”
She gave him a weak smile. “Says you.”
“I promise.”
She looked up at him, seeing the sincerity in his voice. “Is the third gunman dead?”
He walked over and said, “Not yet. But a stomach wound is a painful way to die.”
“Well, I’m working on the one I plan to save,” she said. “Green and his remaining buddy can die, for all I care.”
The victim in front of Cain tried to speak, and she watched as Cain knelt down in front of the guy, the weapons cleared away from him. The man reached out, grabbed his vest, and, even from where she sat, she heard it, as he whispered to Cain, “You’re next.”
Cain immediately straightened as the man gave a large gasping rattle and died. He walked back to her and said, “No, he’s not alive.”
She nodded and said, “Don’t think I didn’t hear that.”
“I know,” he said. “You’ll tell Ryland, as soon as he’s awake. But, in the meantime, I’m taking the team, and I’m leaving.”
She looked up at him. “Do you think there’re any other bad guys?”
“They got one at the hospital, trying for Garret. He was intercepted in the underground parking area. No one else here. My men have checked.”
Her eyebrows raised. “Good, you’ll need guards for both of them now. You know that, right?”
“How long will Ryland be down?”
“With that lung, hard to say. A month anyway? It’ll heal, but he won’t have his capacity or strength for quite a while. Like I said, he’s out. He’s also been hit in the shoulder. He can’t carry a weapon for a long time.”
“What are your plans?”
“Get him to the hospital, get him fixed up, and go get a sailboat,” she said. “Hopefully all within a few weeks.”
He smiled. “You’ll stay in touch? You know that the minute he’s conscious, he’ll want to start running command central,” he said. “That much he can do. But—keep in touch and let us know how he is.”
She nodded, Cain full well knowing she would take off and nurse Ryland back to health, no matter how long it took.
With that, he checked on Green on his way out. “Green’s dead.”
“Good,” she said, as Cain started to walk away. “Cain?”
He turned to give her a look. “Look after yourself,” she said, with one eyebrow raised. Then added with a smile, “Ryland will heal much faster if he knows that the rest of you are okay.”
“I thought so,” he said, with a bark of laughter. “Will do.” And, with that, he disappeared.
She heard the sirens coming up from the back alley. She pulled out Ryland’s phone, found Malcolm’s number, and called him. When he answered, she said, “Get up here. Ryland’s been shot twice. We’ve got three dead bodies, and the ambulance is coming.” Then she dropped the phone, as she worked to staunch the bleeding from Ryland’s shoulder wound. By the time Malcolm raced to her side, she said, “Good timing. Now you’ve got to come up with a cover story for yourself.”
He looked at her, looked at the dead gunmen, and swore.
“I know, but Ryland needs emergency medical help. And, if Ryland’s team had taken the bodies, there would still be pools of blood, and then what would we do? Cain did say he was calling in people to clean up.”
“This will just be what, a random attack?”
“We’ll say they were after the museum. The IT is being upgraded, and they used this opportunity to get in and check out what was worth taking. They were scoping it out and, when we came in for our private showing, we surprised them, and they attacked us.”
He looked at her in admiration. “You know what? That just might work,” he said.
“By the time I phone the governor on Ryland’s behalf,” she said, “it will work.”
The paramedics came, beating on the doors, as Malcolm opened them up and led them right to her. Three of them split off to look at the dead men and then came back to her.
She already had Ryland up and loaded on a gurney. “Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go,” she said.
She raced out to the ambulance, giving Malcolm a hard look as they left. The cops were already here, and she knew that somebody up high enough would be briefed on the scenario. Hopefully she had just made Malcolm’s life a little easier, rather than having it appear that he hadn’t been there, doing his job. She didn’t want that to happen.
Thinking about that, she grabbed Ryland’s phone again, realizing it was the burner with not much on it, and hoping like hell he’d put the governor’s number in it. She didn’t know who the hell he’d called, but he had several missed calls. Ice was in there and several others. Finally she saw George and hit the button. She recognized the governor’s voice immediately. “This is Tabi, with an update on Ryland.”
“What happened?”
“Chaos,” she said. “The good guys won, but we need your help.” She quickly gave him an outline on what was going on.
“I heard from Cain,” he said. “He’s coming in on my other line.”
“Good,” she said. “I’m on the way to the hospital right now with Ryland.”
“Will he make it?”
“If I have any say in the matter, he will, yes,” she said and hung up.
*
Ryland woke to the sounds of machinery and a weird smell and something stuffed up his nostrils and definitely silence, outside of this weird humming machine. He stared at the ceiling and then at the machine. “So it’s a hospital,” he murmured to himself.
“Yes,” Tabi said. “My hospital.”
He smiled, as he slowly rotated his head to the other side. And there she was, tired and exhausted, yet valiant. The fact that he was awake and talking had put a smile on her face at least. She stood, leaned over, and kissed him gently on the cheek. “Well, the good guys won,” she said. “And you’re the only casualty on our team.”
“That’s good. Is Malcolm okay?”
“Malcolm’s just fine,” she said. “Cain’s fine too, and so is the rest of team. They took out one of the bad guys in the hospital’s underground parking lot, trying to get to Garret, and the three inside the museum.”
“Yes, I remember that part. And, lady, you are a fine shot. Where did you learn to do that?”
“I didn’t do anything but point and shoot,” she said. “I’ll take it as a miracle that I actually hit them.”
“You did just fine,” he murmured. “How badly am I hurt?”
“Lung,” she said. “Which I managed to get sealed up pretty quickly. You’re through the surgery already, and you have a pretty bad bullet wound in the shoulder too, so you’ll be out for weeks.”
“And
you made sure of that, didn’t you?” he said with a smile in his voice.
“Well, I did agree that you could run control after this.”
His eyes flew open, and he looked at her with interest.
“But you can’t go running around all across the world until your body heals. All those fractures are still not setting properly because you won’t give your body a chance to heal right.”
“I can run command central?” he asked, looking on the import of this. “It’ll take me a bit to update it with all the rest of the information.”
“You can do that tomorrow,” she said. “Right now, you’re getting more medication, more painkillers, and you’ll go back to sleep again.”
Even as he protested, he felt the words turning into a yawn, and he rolled over and quickly fell asleep again.
The next time he woke up, she was there again. “Did you sleep?”
“As much as anybody can in a chair,” she said.
He looked at her and said, “News?”
“All kinds of it. I’ve been running your phone and making phone calls myself. I think that you missed the last part after I shot the third gunman,” she said. “He said that Cain’s next.”
At that, Ryland’s face sharpened. “Is he okay?”
“I haven’t heard from him,” she admitted. “But he took off out of there with the rest of the team.”
“I know how to contact them,” he said. “I’m feeling great, so can I have my laptop?”
She looked at him, sighed, and said, “No point in saying no because I know you’ll just worry and fret about your friends.”
“Fret, really?” he said in disgust. “That sounds like a little old lady.”
“And that’s the role you’re locked into, right now,” she warned. “At least until we get you all healed up and strong again.”
“I can’t run the electronics I need to from here,” he said.
She sat at the edge of the bed and asked, “Where do you need to go to do that?”
He looked at her, smiled, and said, “I’ve got an idea.”
“I don’t think I like the look on your face,” she said.
