Authors: Kim Baldwin,Xenia Alexiou
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Contemporary, #Suspense, #Lesbian
Domino sat with her lights off in one of the factory parking lots, staring up into the only lighted windows in the district. A pair of them, on the second floor of a company that made office furniture. She was considering how she would enter the building when she saw the headlights of an approaching car.
It was an older-model Buick, and it stopped, not at the building she was watching, but at the one next door, and the driver got out and went inside. He had his back to her, and it was dark, so she couldn’t see his face. But he was large, and he was carrying some kind of bag.
After a couple of minutes, two people emerged. A different man, shorter, and a woman, who got into a car parked nearby and drove away.
She was certain Hayley was there and had to fight the urge to rush inside. But rescuing her wasn’t enough. Hayley had said someone was coming to pick her up—for what purpose, she didn’t know.
She didn’t have to wait long. Ten or fifteen minutes after the first man went in, he came out again, leading a woman by the arm. Hayley. She glimpsed her face as they passed under the weak light outside the door. But the man had a baseball cap on, and his face was hidden in shadow. She didn’t know if it was the guy they had been after or merely his lackey.
The man put Hayley into his car and they drove off. She gave them a good head start but kept them in sight and followed with her headlights off.
“Keep your mouth shut,” Senator Burrows told Hayley as he pushed her ahead of him up the stairwell of the abandoned building. They ascended five floors, then walked down a dark hall, past several open doors, toward the only lit room. That door was closed, but she could see the illumination spilling from beneath the threshold.
Burrows yanked her to a halt a few feet away and pulled out a small pen flashlight to ensure the bomb was still concealed beneath her jacket. Tying a cloth around her mouth, he whispered in her ear, “You’d better do as I say.” The odor of his sweat tainted the scent of his cologne, a sign he wasn’t quite as composed as he appeared.
They proceeded the rest of the way, and he knocked sharply on the door.
When a male voice answered, “Come in,” Burrows placed Hayley in front of him and slowly turned the knob, then gently pushed her forward.
The room had once been an office of some kind, with a couple of battered desks and three chairs. An ancient radiator ran along one wall, and scraps of paper littered the floor.
Two people, a man and a woman, were waiting for them. Well dressed, they looked to be in their fifties, and both wore serious expressions.
“Here she is, as promised,” the senator said from behind Hayley.
“We’ll take her from here,” the man inside said. He was leaning against one of the desks, watching them.
“And the information I asked you for?” the woman added.
Burrows didn’t answer. Instead, he stood in front of Hayley, his back to the two strangers, and unbuttoned her jacket. “The plan has changed,” he said, before stepping aside so the pair could see the bomb taped to her stomach. Six sticks of dynamite, wires, and a round, metal detonator. There was also a digital clock, but the display area was blank.
Before either could react, he raised his arm to let them see the activation device in his palm. “One fucking move, one word
,
and we all go up together.” The Hyde side had reappeared. “Now, stretch your arms out in front of you. Slowly. Very slowly.”
As they followed his order, he opened his duffel bag and pulled out a knife. All the while, one hand remained on the detonation device. He cut Hayley’s restraints, then shoved three pairs of handcuffs into her hand. “Cuff them to each other.”
Hayley was shaking uncontrollably, and her heartbeat was so loud in her ears she heard him as through a tunnel. The cloth in her mouth gagged her, and she shook her head no. It was pure instinct. Burrows’s plan was clearly careening toward its conclusion, and she didn’t want to get there any faster than she had to.
“Come on, Miss Ward. It’s simple enough. Start by cuffing his hand to the radiator. Then him to her, then her to the radiator. Now move.”
Hayley’s vision blurred as tears flooded her eyes. She stumbled toward the pair and followed his instructions. When she finished, Burrows motioned her to step to the side and checked that the restraints were secure. Then he patted them down. Both were wearing guns, which he removed and stuck into his jacket.
Once satisfied they were no threat, he seemed to relax. He stood before the man, their faces inches apart, and smiled at him with a smug expression. “So, our agreement isn’t the kind that expires. Isn’t that what you said, Pierce?”
“You’re never going to get away with this,” Pierce replied.
“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do. I’ve had to listen to that shit all my life. But you know what it comes down to? This moment. Right here, right now. Doesn’t it, Pierce? And it looks to me like I am going to get away with it. And you know why? Because I take care of my own business. I don’t have to resort to trained monkeys to do it for me.”
“You old pathetic fool, you don’t really think you’re going to become president, do you?” Pierce goaded him.
“Shut the fuck up,” Burrows shouted. He turned to Hayley. “You, grab that chair and put it in the middle of the room. Now.”
She was so on edge she jumped at the command. As she picked up the chair he was pointing to, she told herself to take deep breaths to keep from hyperventilating, but each effort met resistance when it reached the tape around her middle, reminding her of the dynamite she carried.
She placed the chair where he asked, and he reached into the duffel bag for his roll of tape. “Sit. And don’t move.”
What could she do? Burrows held up the detonator, his thumb twitchy on the red button.
She sat in the chair, and he taped her to it. Hands and feet. Absolutely secure. No chance for escape. While he was occupied, she looked beyond him, to her left, at the other two surreptitiously trying to free themselves from their handcuffs, but they weren’t having any success.
Finally the senator picked up his duffel bag and walked to the door, then turned back to look at them. “Well, aren’t you going to wish me good luck?” Without waiting for an answer, he raised his hand, making sure he had their attention before he pressed the button then quickly departed, closing the door behind him.
They all braced for an explosion, and when none immediately occurred, they all stared at Hayley’s stomach. The digital clock on the bomb had come to life and now read 7:58…7:57…7:56…
Hayley gaped in horror, then started thrashing furiously against her bindings.
In unison, the other two shouted, “No! Stop! Don’t! You may set it off.”
She didn’t entirely end her efforts, thinking they were all done for anyway and a few minutes one way or the other didn’t matter much, but their warnings did make her minimize her movements. She worked to free her hands, but Burrows had done a thorough job, and she couldn’t loosen the duct tape.
“Any luck?” Hayley heard Pierce ask the woman.
“None,” the woman replied. “Can’t reach. Any ideas?”
“I think we’re screwed,” he said.
omino had been careful to keep her distance from the beat-up Buick sedan, especially when it ventured onto side roads free of other traffic. Once they were well out of the city, she dropped back a couple of miles, keeping her headlights off when she thought she might be visible. A few times she was afraid she’d lost it, thought perhaps it had turned into a driveway or two-track, for that was almost all they were passing now. But eventually she’d see the red tail-lights in the distance when the road straightened out, and she would relax again.
After a half hour or so, she was in a fuck-I’ve-lost-it panic. She hadn’t seen the Buick for several very long minutes. First she sped up, then concluded she must have passed it, so she turned around to retrace her route. Only approaching from the opposite direction could she see a gleam of light in front of the dark hulk of an abandoned building. Two cars were in the parking lot, and just as she slowed to a crawl, one of them, the Buick she’d been following, roared to life.
She hurriedly pulled off the road as far as she could, bouncing across a flat patch of meadow into some thick brush. The Buick flashed by, so fast she couldn’t tell whether Hayley was inside, but her gut told her no. He was merely the delivery man, and Hayley was with whomever the other car belonged to, inside the building.
The man’s rapid departure set off a torrent of alarms within her and she hit reverse, barreling from her hiding place and down to the building. Throwing caution aside, she jumped out of her car. The external door was unlocked, and she raced up the stairs three at a time and burst into the only lighted room.
She registered everything in a millisecond. Pierce and Grant, handcuffed together to a radiator. Hayley, looking bedraggled, face stained with tears, gagging on the cloth around her mouth as she tried to shout. The bomb taped to her stomach.
“Please, help us,” Grant shouted. “Hurry!”
But she was already moving and ignored Grant and Pierce to kneel
Hayley jerked against her bindings, her cries muffled by the cloth in her mouth, and Domino immediately placed both hands firmly on her thighs. “No, Hayley, don’t. Don’t move or you may set it off.”
She studied the bomb’s construction.
Damn.
It wouldn’t be easy to disarm. In place of the usual red and black, or red-blue-green wires leading to the detonator and timer were yellow, brown, and orange.
Cutting the wrong wire—the timer wire instead of the power wire—would only accelerate the timer and explosion. She suspected the bomber had also rigged it with back-up power, too, just in case, which meant the bomb might look like it had been defused for a few seconds, then go off anyway.
She shouldn’t take that chance but had no other choice. She reached into her pocket for a knife.
“Sit very still,” she instructed as she removed Hayley’s gag and cut through her restraints, then began to carefully sever the tape used to attach the bomb to her body. “You’re going to be fine. I promise.”
Hayley trembled beneath her hands. “You’ve never broken a promise?” she asked hopefully.
“No, never.” She sliced through the last of the tape. “I’ve never promised anything to anyone.” She glanced into Hayley’s eyes, then reached for the bomb.
As she placed the device gently on the floor beside the chair, she noted the display on the timer. 2:59…2:58…2:57...
Hayley stood and started for the door, tugging at her. “Come on!”
“I can’t leave them, Hayley. I’ll be right behind you. Go.”
Domino pulled her gun, rushed to Pierce and Grant, and in two shots severed the chains that bound the handcuffs to the radiator. “Run,” she shouted.
Still linked together, they raced awkwardly after her.
Hayley was on the stairwell just ahead, stumbling down awkwardly, stiff from her long confinements. Domino caught up to her and pulled her along, mentally calculating how much time had elapsed, not at all sure they would make it.
They were just past the fourth-floor landing when the bomb detonated.
The building shook and the staircase began to crumble around them. Hayley stumbled and fell, but Domino yanked her to her feet and got her moving again as thick dust and smoke enveloped them. Chunks of debris crashed down. One solid lump careened off Domino’s shoulder, and she cried out but kept moving, one hand on Hayley’s elbow, the other on the rail, blindly descending as fast as possible.
As they reached the second-floor stairwell, a portion of the ceiling caved in, narrowly missing them. They stumbled over it, choking on the omnipresent dust and debris and the thick cloud of black smoke from a fire they couldn’t see. By the time they reached the door to the outside, Domino realized Pierce and Grant were no longer behind them. Cuffed together, they would be moving much slower. If one had been injured or trapped, the other would be stuck there too, to die.
Looking up, sucking in deep lungfuls of sweet, clean air, she saw that the fourth, fifth, and six floors were blazing and the fire was spreading fast.
“Stay here, Hayley. I’m going back in to get them,” she said, but as she turned to leave, Hayley grabbed her.
“No, you can’t. It’s too dangerous.”
She shook her off, gripping her by the shoulders. “I have to, Hayley. They’re my family. Stay here, no matter what happens. I’ll be right back.”
Three miles from the abandoned building, Senator Terrence Burrows stopped by the side of the road and got out, checking his watch. Right on cue, the explosion lit up the sky, followed by the distant orange glow of a fire. Smiling to himself, he climbed back inside and started the engine.
And they said I don’t have what it takes.
Once he got back to the city, he’d ditch the beater of a car Jack had procured for him and take a cab back to his Lincoln Town Car. He’d missed the big show on the National Mall, but his own fireworks display had been more than satisfying.
Domino found them between the second and third floors. Pierce was trapped beneath a huge chunk of the collapsed ceiling, and both EOO bosses were coughing, shouting, trying to free themselves. The smoke was so thick they were desperate for air, and Domino’s lungs burned as she tried to lift the slab of concrete. Even with Grant’s help, they couldn’t budge it. She spotted a long piece of metal and quickly wedged it at the edge of the block, then managed to lever the slab enough for Grant to pull Pierce free. His left arm and leg were cut and bleeding badly, but with Domino on one side and Grant on the other, they managed to make it outside, debris still falling around them.
They all collapsed on the concrete, coughing and retching from the smoke, eyes burning.
Pierce threw his free arm around Grant in an awkward embrace. “Thank God you’re all right.”
Hayley echoed the sentiment, hugging Domino from the side as she fought to regain her breath. Above them, the fire raged, lighting up the night sky. After a minute or two, Domino and Hayley rose to watch the building begin to collapse inward.
Grant struggled to her knees beside Pierce. “Get these off us,” he told Domino, holding up the handcuffs that still bound them together.
“And then what? Am I supposed to let you go so you can continue to hunt me down like an animal? My loyalty will only stretch so far.”
“You know the protocol for rogues. You didn’t leave us a choice.”
“I’ve been with you all my life.” Domino stood over him, then turned toward Grant, remembering her anonymous warning. The look that passed between them was a mutual acknowledgment of their longstanding bond. “Do you think I’d do anything to hurt you?” she told Pierce. “It’s unfortunate the sentiment isn’t mutual.”
“Then what exactly were you doing?” he asked. “In the beginning, I had you followed only as a precaution—because I thought this might be an internal matter—and later because you started to withhold information. We knew Strike was getting close, and we saw you sit back and not only do nothing about it, but protect her as well.”
“If you had me followed, then you know I retrieved all the evidence she had against us,” Domino said. “Yes, I protected her, because although I got to the evidence before she ever saw it
and destroyed it
, I couldn’t take the chance you’d still want her eliminated. She’s an innocent—and that’s not what we’re supposed to be about. But I have nothing to do with whoever is behind this.”
Hayley said, “Senator Terence Burrows was behind it, Luka. He had me kidnapped. He put the bomb on me and brought me here. He admitted he sent me the tape hoping I’d uncover the EOO, but apparently he’s got some connection to them, some debt he wanted out of, and I got too close to finding out about it. So when things went wrong, he decided to use me as bait to lure them here, and well…you know the rest.”
“I should have suspected him,” Pierce said. “He’ll have to be taken care of.”
“I told you Luka would never harm us,” Grant said.
“We have to get out of here.” Pierce groaned as he tried to sit up. “The police will be here soon.”
“I have a plan.” Domino pulled out her gun. “But we need to take my car and leave your rental here. I’ll explain on the way.” She told Pierce and Grant to stretch their arms away from each other and shot the chain linking their handcuffs. They helped Pierce to his feet and into the back of her stolen car.
“How do we know the journalist won’t pursue this?” he asked as soon as they were on the road back to Washington.
Hayley turned around in the passenger seat to face him and Grant. “I won’t harm Luka, and if that means taking this to my grave, that’s exactly what I’ll do. After today, I don’t give a damn about this story. I just want my life back.”