Asking For Trouble (30 page)

Suddenly, the door knob rattled again and
they all turned. It swung open and Beau almost fell out of his
chair when Glen Baker stood in the doorway with Hanson behind
him.

"Well, well, you all look like you've seen a
ghost," he drawled then threw back his head and laughed.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Beau swallowed hard and said unbelievingly,
"Glen? You're Casper?"

"Yes, and nobody would've been the wiser if
Ms. Whitmore hadn't decided to hatch her stupid little plan. Too
bad all that conniving you do is going to waste now. I'm sure
Hanson will be a much better SAIC than you have ever been." He
turned and winked at Hanson, then looked back at them.

"So, did you come here looking for me? Or
someone else?" Glen asked breezily, then stepped aside and Hanson
shoved Jazzie into the doorway holding a gun to her temple. Her
eyes met Beau's and he saw her extreme fear, and it ripped his
insides to shreds. His eyes burned into hers and he tried to tell
her that he loved her, and he'd do whatever it took to save
them.

"Don't do anything stupid, Bowman, or you'll
get to watch her die right now," Hanson told him. "We're all gonna
take a little ride. Put your hands behind your heads, I know you
know the routine, then file out of here one at a time."

Susan put her hands behind her head and
walked toward him first, then Cole sighed and did the same, before
Beau followed. When they were out in the hall, Hanson jerked off
their glasses and stomped on them.

"You won't be needing those anymore, we
found the van, and Frankie Ramos," he said with a snort, then he
felt around on them and pulled off the recording devices, and
stomped on them too. "There now, our van is out back, why don't you
lead the way, Mr. Bowman?" he said and extended his hand toward the
exit at the end of the hallway.

Beau looked at Jazzie once more and ground
his teeth, then started down the hallway. "You next," the guy said
evidently to Cole, because he heard his boot steps behind him. "I'm
going to enjoy killing you Susan Whitmore, you've made my life a
living hell at the agency...too bad I can't torture you first," he
said then sighed, "Ah, if I only had more time."

"Ah, and if you only had more balls, we'd
all be better off," she told him haughtily, then Beau heard her
walk behind them. When she grunted, he turned around and saw her
fly against the wall when Hanson backhanded her on the side of her
head. To her credit, she didn't whine or wail, she gave him a
menacing glare, and held her hand to her head, then pushed off the
wall and walked toward the exit.

Beau didn't wait, he pushed open the door,
then instead of walking forward, he moved to the side of the door
and put his back against the wall. When Cole came through he
motioned for him to keep going forward. Cole nodded, then walked
toward the van that was waiting in the fenced parking lot. Beau
eased his hand down to his boot and pulled out his hold gun. The
grip was warmed from being against his skin, and it felt so damned
good in his hand, he wanted to let out a Texas-sized whoop.

Susan walked out and he motioned her to keep
walking too. His shoulders tensed and he waited for Glen to push
Jazzie through the door. When her left shoulder cleared the door,
he grabbed her arm and flung her against the wall on the other side
if him, then aimed at Glen's head and pulled the trigger. He
grabbed Jazzie and took off running toward the van, and Jazzie
stopped and pulled back.

"Wait--Carlos!" she said then jerked her arm
from his grasp and ran back toward the building.

"Jazzie no! Run to the van, baby, I'll go
get him! Tell Cole to leave, if I'm not back out in two minutes!"
Jazzie nodded and ran toward the van, passing Susan who was running
toward Beau.

"Let's go," Susan said darkly then took off
toward the door where there was chaos. Two of the guards were on
their knees beside Glen Baker's body trying to help him. They were
blocking the doorway. Beau knew the man was dead, but was glad they
didn't realize it and were trying to give him aid. He didn't see
Hanson anywhere, nor did he see Carlos.

On a run, Susan aimed and fired, hitting one
of the guards in the right shoulder, his gun arm. Beau followed her
lead and shot the other guard. Both of the men fell on top of Glen
Baker moaning and writhing in pain. Like a ballerina, Susan vaulted
over the pile of men and took off running down the hallway, not
waiting to see if Beau was behind her. Beau stepped over them and
started running too.

They both had seven bullets left, and he had
no idea how many men were left in the building. If Hanson alerted
the guards to what had happened, he and Susan could be in serious
trouble. Beau remembered the automatic weapons all the guards had
strapped to their chests, and he also remembered that their other
weaponry was in the van they'd left parked down the road. That
thought brought Dave and his men to Beau's mind, and that Glen
Baker had told him they found Dave's van and Frankie.

He sent up a prayer that the goons were
there trying to recapture Frankie, instead of waiting for them
inside the building. Dave Logan wasn't going to be one to go down
without a fight, that was for sure...neither were his men. That
gave Beau some measure of hope that even though they'd found
Frankie, he would be kept safe, and the goons would be occupied for
a while.

Beau stopped at the end of the hallway, and
looked both ways, because Susan wasn't anywhere to be seen now. The
large room where the consortium leaders had been meeting was empty.
A flash of black darted for the front door from behind a barrel
near the wall, and he raised his gun and aimed, then realized it
was Susan. That woman needed to learn how to work with a partner,
or she was going to get herself shot!

Taking a deep breath, his heart pumping
furiously, Beau started after her, running a zigzag pattern across
the room, trying not to make an easy target. Beau was surprised but
thrilled when nobody shot at him. He stopped at the front door and
eased it open a few inches then scanned the parking lot. It was
empty, so he shoved the door open a little more and eased out into
the darkness.

There was only a sliver of a moon out
tonight, and it didn't provide much illumination at all. Two
spotlights, one on either end of the long building, gave only a
narrow stream of light, but it was enough that he saw Susan briefly
as she ran around the left end of the building. She might not know
how to work with a partner, but that damned woman was fast!

Beau took off in that direction, and when he
rounded the corner, he saw Susan scaling a twelve-foot chain link
fence like a spider monkey. On the other side of the fence, at a
distance, he saw Hanson and Carlos struggling in the back parking
lot, by a dark sedan. He also heard a distant rat-a-tat-tat of
automatic weapon fire pretty damned close to where he thought Dave
was parked.

It looked like Carlos was losing ground in
his battle with Hanson. He'd just fallen to the ground, and Hanson
jumped on top of him, then stretched toward what Beau assumed was a
gun, and ran faster. He hit the fence just as Susan took off toward
the sedan. He hadn't climbed a fence in years, not since the
academy, and he was slower than he used to be for sure. By the time
he got to the top, Susan and Hanson were engaged in hand to hand
combat, and Carlos was on the ground holding his midsection.

Once he made it over the top, Beau dropped
down to the ground and rolled, then got back up and ran toward
them. Still holding his side, Carlos pushed up to his feet and
staggered over to pick up the gun lying near the back end of the
car. He picked it up and leveled it at Hanson's head and yelled,
"Stop, or I'll blow your fucking brains out!"

Or he'd blow Susan's fucking brains out,
Beau thought, remembering how Carlos's aim had been at the lake
house. "I've got it Carlos...put your hands up behind your head,
asshole, you're under arrest," he said to Hanson, but the man
didn't seem to be listening. Instead, he grabbed Susan's arm and
did some kind of move and got it twisted up behind her back. His
other arm went around her throat in a choke hold. Her fingers
clawed at his forearm, trying to loosen his grip.

"Like hell I am...I'll snap her neck like a
twig. Drop the damned gun," Hanson told him.

Susan grunted then put her elbow into
Hanson's stomach hard and stomped on his foot. His arm loosened on
her throat, then she grabbed it, then leveraged her shoulder
against him and flipped him onto his back on the pavement.

Nice move, Beau thought, and stifled a
chuckle, as he ran over to them. Susan and Beau wrestled the man
over onto his stomach and jerked his hands up behind him. Reaching
behind her, Susan produced a pair of handcuffs and snapped them on
him, then stood up and wiped her hands on her leggings.

"You're lucky I didn't just put a bullet in
your ass," she told him then said, "But I want to see you in jail
for the rest of your life. They love ex-feds in the pen...I'm sure
you'll have lots of
friends
."

"Bitch," Hanson spat, then Beau jerked him
up to his feet and shoved him toward the back of the car, where he
spread him out and frisked him. He didn't have any weapons on him,
but he found his car keys and cell phone in his pocket and tossed
them to Susan.

"Let's go. Hopefully, Cole and Jazzie took
off like I told them to," Beau said then opened the back door and
shoved Hanson inside. "I should stuff you in the trunk," Beau told
him gruffly, then slammed the door once his legs were inside. "You
sit up front Carlos, I want to watch this guy, because unlike
Susan, I want a reason to put a bullet in him."

"That would be kind of hard to explain with
me in cuffs Mr. Ranger. You might wind up in the same cell as me,"
Hanson told him.

"Oh, you wouldn't want that to happen..."
Beau replied darkly, then added, "I promise you'd be
screaming
to room with Big Bubba, if that were to
happen."

Susan snorted then laughed in the front
seat. "Have I told you lately that I love you, Beau Bowman?"

"Can't say that you have ma'am," he said
with a grin then met her eyes in the rearview.

"You are definitely my kind of man," she
said sincerely then winked.

"I thought you were a lesbian, what do you
need a man for?" Hanson said and she shot him a finger over the
seat, then cranked the car.

Beau soon realized that Susan drove as
aggressively as she did everything else, when she turned a corner
to go to the side of the building on two wheels and threw him into
the door. "Jesus, Susan, try that on four wheels next time!"

She just laughed and Carlos groaned then
leaned his head against the window. "I think I'm gonna be sick," he
said.

"Hang in there, honey, we'll get your and
your sister to the hospital soon," Susan said surprising Beau,
because that was as soft as he'd ever heard her speak to
anyone
. When Susan offered to Carlos, "You can lay down on
the seat and put your feet on my lap, if you think that'd help,"
Beau had to fight hard to keep from swallowing his tongue.

Hanson snorted and said, "Yeah and maybe
she'll suck your dick too. I hear from the higher ups she's pretty
good at it."

"Shut the fuck up, Hanson, or I'm gonna take
off my boot and stuff my dirty sock in your pie hole," she
threatened menacingly.

He evidently didn't want to test her
sincerity, because he huffed out a breath and looked out the
window. Beau stifled a laugh, then said, "Susan hand me his cell
phone, I need to call Cole and find out where they're at." She
tossed it over her shoulder to him, and he turned it on, then
dialed the number. The phone connected, but Beau could tell it
wasn't by Cole's ear. He heard shouts and curses and automatic
weapon fire.

"West side of the building near the parking
lot exit--hurry we're pinned down!" Cole yelled, then he heard him
let out an oomph and he said, "Ten men, hurry!" then the phone
disconnected.

Fear raced through Beau, then adrenaline
pumped through him, as he told Susan, "Step on it, Susan...they're
in a firefight on the west side of the building, by the parking lot
exit. Cole said there were ten tangos over there."

Susan floored the car and threw Beau against
the back of the seat and he grabbed the door handle to steady
himself. When they neared the west corner of the building she
screeched to a halt and looked around, then gunned it toward the
trees lining the parking lot. The closer they got, the louder the
gunfire became and he saw Dave's black van, but he didn't see any
men by it, or the white van Cole and Jazzie had taken.

Trying to nail down where the gun fire was
coming from, Cole watched the orange belches of fire when he heard
the rapport. The only problem was in the dark he couldn't tell if
they were friendlies or bad guys. This could get damned ugly if
they weren't careful.

Susan made a sharp right and jumped a curb,
bouncing them around in the vehicle, then drove along the tree
line, in between the trees and a steep ditch. Beau swallowed hard,
because he wasn't sure if he was more afraid of the bad guys with
the AKs or her driving. He probably had a better chance of
surviving with the bad guys, he thought wincing when they hit a
hole and his head slammed into the roof of the car.