Kill Zone: A Lucy Guardino FBI Thriller (14 page)

“What fun?” Andre demanded as Darius and Giselle went out the door. His only answer was Mad Dog’s snicker as he slammed the door shut and locked it from the outside.

<><><> 

“How far across do you think that is?” Lucy asked Haddad, eyeing the roof of the communications center and trying not to look down into the darkness between the two structures.
 

Haddad squinted. “Ten feet down, eight feet across.”

That didn’t sound too bad. They backed up to get some running room. Jenna was busy covering the street, firing off two rounds in quick succession. Now that Zapata had Raziq, the 911 operators wouldn’t have much time.

Hell, they might already be dead. She might be risking her life, her team’s lives, for nothing.

She closed her eyes for a long moment. Nick and Megan’s faces floated before her. She opened her eyes and they vanished.

“You’re not afraid of heights, are you?” Haddad asked.

“Not heights. Just falling.”

She pushed off, sprinting across the rooftop, Haddad behind her then passing her. Show off. He vaulted onto the retaining wall, using his momentum to leap across the void, still in the air when she hit the edge and had to commit to flight.

Stupidest thing I’ve ever done.
She thought about calling Nick as she left the ground. Too late now. And what would she say?
Sorry honey, I have to pass on The Nutcracker because I’m going on a suicide mission?
No. That’d never do.

I love you. I love Megan. I love Mom.
I’m sorry.

That’s what she’d say. But Nick knew all that already. So she swallowed unshed tears—just adrenalin, she told herself—ignored the ice in her belly, hung onto the Remington with one hand and the AK-47 with the other, and let gravity do its job.

<><><> 

The headlights from Nick’s SUV blinded Morgan as she waved her hands for him to stop. Brakes squealed as he swerved past her and then pulled over on the gravel along the side of the road. He jumped out. “What happened? Are you okay?”

His voice was pitched high and she knew she’d frightened him. Good. A little adrenalin did wonders to cloud men’s judgment.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She ran to him, favoring the leg with the scraped knee. “I wrecked my bike and don’t have my cell and my folks are going to freak because I was supposed to be home ages ago, and—” She finished with a tiny, pathetic sob. “I need help.”

He scrutinized her in the dim light. “Are you hurt?”

“No. Just a few scrapes and bruises. But my bike—” She pointed past him up the road. “It flipped over the guardrail and I couldn’t get it. Please, can you help?”

He considered. The road was empty. No other Good Samaritans coming to help. “Of course. Hop in.”
 

They got into the SUV and he put it in drive.

“I’m Nick. Nick Callahan. What’s your name?”

“Megan,” she answered. “Megan Fisher.”
 

He glanced over at her with a smile. “My daughter’s name is Megan.”

Of course it is, idiot
, Morgan thought as she smiled back. The people who thought they could read people—shrinks, counselors, social workers, priests, cops—they were always the easiest to fool. Overconfident. Thought they had all this insight into the human condition.
 

Until they met Morgan.

“That’s nice,” she answered. “How old is she?”

“Thirteen—going on thirty.” He chuckled at the tired cliché.

“I remember when I was that age,” she continued in her oh-so-worldly-yet-naive persona. “I thought I had all the answers. Hated being told what to do or how to do it.”

Such a lie. When she was thirteen her father let her kill for the first time. He didn’t tell her what to do or how to do it. He let her choose for herself. She glanced at her hands in the dim light from the dashboard. It had taken days to get all the blood out from under her fingernails. When she closed her eyes, she could still hear the man’s whimpers turn to a throaty gasp... followed by silence.
 

Silence she had created. God, the power, the exhilaration!
 

“That’s our Megan,” Nick said. “Stubborn, independent, and way smarter than either her mother or I. Makes it hard to know where or how to set boundaries.”

She glanced at Nick. Relaxed, confident that he knew where he was going and what waited for him there. So very, very wrong. He thought he was in control.

Wrong again.

“I think it was just up there. Where that graffiti is on the guardrail.” She pointed out the window. He pulled the car onto the side of the road. Reached across her to open the glove compartment and take a flashlight from it. She leaned forward so her breasts brushed his arm, just to see his reaction.

Nick didn’t even seem to notice. He stepped out of the car and shone the flashlight over the embankment. “I see it. It’s down a ways.”

“Okay if I use your phone to call my dad? He worries,” she asked as he stepped over the guardrail.

“Sure. Go ahead.” He was focused on keeping his balance on the overgrown embankment.

While Sir Galahad fumbled in the dark for her bike, Morgan got busy in the SUV. First she downloaded spyware onto Nick’s phone. Same program she’d loaded on Jenna’s phone. For just twenty-nine bucks a month, paid for with a stolen credit card, of course, she’d have ears on Nick’s surroundings, access to his GPS, voice mail, and texts.

Next she shimmied out of her bra and took a pair of wadded up unwashed panties from her coat pocket. She rubbed both along the steering wheel to pick up traces of Nick’s DNA, shoved the panties into the crack between the rear seat cushions and the bra into the compartment on the console between the front seats.
 

A few of her actual hairs scattered over the rear seat followed by her
piece de resistance
: she flicked open her knife and sliced her pinky, smearing the blood across the black leather of the rear seat and door handle. Debated leaving a palm print in blood on the window—the poor, helpless victim pounding against it in desperation—but decided it was too clichéd. She was already reenacting every mean girl adolescent fantasy of punishing an unavailable older man. Besides, the cops had her prints on file somewhere and she didn’t want to make things too easy.

The only question remaining was: would she leave Nick dead or alive?

Chapter 16

Haddad hit the roof with a tuck and roll, quickly coming to his feet, M4 at the ready. Lucy kept her knees bent like her tactical instructor at Quantico had taught her, body relaxed, going with momentum, but weighed down with ammo and with both hands full, her landing was more of a tuck and sprawl.

She wasn’t quibbling. She was alive and, other than a jarring thud through her shoulder as it hit, unhurt. Haddad helped her to her feet. She felt old. She suddenly envied Nick his ability to work out everyday with his patients.
 

The sounds of Jenna’s rifle from the garage roof punctuated their steps as they ran to the door.
 

“Unlocked,” Haddad said, opening it and listening. No sounds from inside the stairwell.

Lucy wasn’t surprised. “Smokers.” She kicked her toes through a pile of cigarette butts to the side of the doorway. Saved them the hassle of breaking in.

“Admin offices are on the top floor.” She gave Haddad the layout as she watched Jenna disappear from sight, moving to her second rifle. Three quick shots in succession and she was back. Only now there was gunfire aimed up at her. Jenna grabbed her rifle and hunkered down behind the retaining wall as bullets ricocheted off the concrete around her. “The 911 Center is on the second floor. Ground floor has a meeting room, public reception, a few offices.”

“Should we clear top down?” Haddad asked. It was protocol but would mean wasting time going through each office.

Lucy tried to force her focus onto the task at hand, but she couldn’t help but worry about Jenna. She glanced back over to the garage. Jenna had moved a few feet away from her original position, barely in sight.
 

Zapata was smart; he would have had his own men clear the top floor and herd all the hostages together. With the snipers on the parking garage, there was no threat to them from above, so no need to waste men on a rear guard.
 

“No,” she decided. “We head straight for Zapata’s men and the hostages.” They began to head down the stairs as quickly and quietly as possible.

“Think he was bluffing about a bomb?” Haddad whispered.

Lucy didn’t bother answering. Nothing they could do about it if he hadn't been.
 

As they rounded the first landing, Lucy radioed Jenna, keeping the volume as low as possible. “Any chatter from the Zapatas that would help us pinpoint their location?” Lucy had left the cartel radio with Jenna since Jenna spoke Spanish.
 

“No. They aren’t talking.”

“Walden, how’re you doing?” Lucy asked.

“Walk in the park.” A short burst of gunfire punctuated his words echoing between the radio and the space between the two buildings. “Could use more ammo. Sooner rather than later. These guys just don’t know when to quit.” Another three shot salvo.

She wished she could tell him help was on the way, but given Zapata’s diversionary tactics that would be a lie. “Any word from the outside world?”

“Cells down more than they’re up, but from the radio, sounds like the locals are taking a beating all over the city. Tactical units deployed, but too much ground, not enough men.”

“What’s the weather like on the street? It’d be nice not to evacuate into the middle of a firefight.”
Or ambush
, she didn’t add. Of course, they might all be blown up before that could happen.

“Jenna’s taking care of the guys on Lexington. It’s the ones inside the garage I'm dealing with now. Sneaky buggers, came in from three sides.” Which meant he was surrounded unless Jenna could back him up.

She keyed the radio to get Jenna’s attention. “Jenna, did you copy? Walden needs support.”

Two more shots, but these came over the radio. Jenna. It was a few seconds before she answered. “I’m on it. There’s no more men visible on the street, but I'm not sure if all the vehicles are clear.”

“Good work.” Lucy turned to Haddad. They’d reached the 911 Center. “Now or never.”

Again Haddad waited for her lead. She didn’t know what his problem was; obviously his tactical experiences in Afghanistan should have made him the one deciding on strategy. Yet he was content to leave the decision making to her. Lucy wondered if she needed to worry about him having her back. Too late now.

He took the flash-bang she handed him and moved into position to lob it through the door. She’d go in low; he’d go in high.
 

Lucy crouched low, cracked the door, listened. Nothing. No crying, no muffled screams, no talking, no footsteps, no clank of weapons. Not good. It was either a massacre or an ambush.

“Go,” she whispered to him.

He pulled his arm back, ready to deploy the grenade, when she realized she’d been smelling something more than gunpowder. She glanced down and saw that a clear liquid had trickled beneath the door and puddled around her shoe.
 

“Wait, wait!” She didn’t bother keeping her voice down as she leapt to stop Haddad.

“What?” he yelled. She’d already blown their cover. He braced against the cinder block wall, waiting for the inevitable gunfire.

It didn’t come. He shook his head as if clearing his thoughts. “What the hell?”

“Gasoline.” She pointed to the fluid seeping beneath the door.

“Shit.” He safed the flash-bang and returned it to his pocket. “Careful now, no sparks,” he coached as she gingerly cracked the door once more, checking for trip wires. None.
 

Lucy let her breath out and opened the door the entire way. They stepped into the communication center. The stench of gasoline inside was strong enough to make her eyes water. But there was something else as well: blood.

Workstations were grouped throughout the auditorium-sized room: fire, EMS, local police, county. Each operator’s desk had three large computer monitors. The front of the room held a projected image of Pittsburgh with markers for the various emergencies that plagued the city tonight.
 

There were sixty desks: sixty operators responsible for the more than one hundred police and fire/EMS agencies scattered around Allegheny County. Sixty men and women who listened day in and day out to their neighbors’ cries for help, of panic, of fear.
 

Most of the visible desks were vacant. A few had bodies slumped over them.
 

Lucy took a step. Her shoe squished. The carpet was soaked with gasoline and blood. Haddad moved to the right as Lucy moved left, clearing the spaces between and under the desks. No obvious threats. Just silence broken by the hum of computers.

She lost count of the number of bodies she found face down over their keyboards or fallen to the floor. At the final row of desks she spotted six more bodies on the floor near the main door as if they’d tried to escape. She hurried over, checked them for life. Nothing.