Payback (12 page)

“Just
what kind of movie was this?” he asked as he opened his eyes and looked down at
her, his heart rate picking up a few beats as something stirred below.

“Just an
old Bogart flick.” She lay her head on his crotch and it was everything he
could do to not squirm in delight.

“Somebody’s
happy to see me.”

“Uh, can
you blame me?”

“I
wasn’t talking to you.”

He
laughed as she sat back up, removing her housecoat, revealing her completely
naked body underneath.

Lift
off.

“Something
tells me you’ve been watching more than old movies.”

She
climbed up the couch and bit his lip, her breath hot on his face as he reached
up to embrace her. She grabbed his arms and shoved them back against the couch.
He struggled slightly, the thrill of the restricted movements only enjoyable if
he didn’t actually try too hard to win.

She
pulled back, just a few inches, her hands clasped around his upper arms,
pinning him in place. He leaned forward, just his neck, trying to reach her
lips, but she pulled away just a little bit more.

“You
want some of this,” she whispered, staring into his eyes as she seductively
licked her lips.

All he
could do was nod, the ability to speak forgotten.

Suddenly
his left arm was free as her hand darted down below, squeezing.

He
moaned.

And his
phone vibrated in his pocket, the familiar pattern of the office signaling an
end to their fun.

She felt
it too.

She
fished the phone out of his pocket, frowning, but not letting go of the death
grip she had on his most favorite body part. She handed him the phone.

“H-hello?”

“Hey
boss, we got an ID on that face.” It was Sonya Tong, one of his analysts, a
girl he was pretty sure had a mini-crush on him.

“Who is
he?”

“Major
Adofo Koroma. He’s in the Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces.”

“Do we
have anything else on him?”

“Nothing
yet. We’ve requested info from the Sierra Leoneans so hopefully we’ll have
something in a few hours.”

Leroux
looked down as his fly was unzipped.

His
mouth went dry.

“O-okay,
run his name through everything we’ve got. And don’t wait for the Sierra
Leoneans—just hack their system. See if there’s—oh my gawd!” He leaned back as
Sherrie took him to a different world.

“Are you
okay, boss?”

“Um,
yeah. See if there’s any connection to the suspects in Norfolk—ugh—and get back
to me if you find any—oh gawd—thing else.”

“Okay,
boss. You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah.”

He ended
the call.

And
rolled his eyes into the back of his head.

Providence Hospital, Washington, DC

“Let me guess, if you told me who you were, you’d have to kill me?”

Niner
grinned as the FBI agent handed back their IDs. “We’d feel bad about it, I
assure you.”

The man
shook his head, a slight smile appearing. He pointed to the elevators and began
to walk. “I’m Agent-in-Charge McKinnon. We’ve got the prisoner under guard on
the third floor.”

“Has he
said anything?” asked Dawson, noting the heightened security. There was no
pretense of keeping it unobtrusive today, not with such a high profile
terrorist event. Armed, uniformed police and FBI were at every entrance and
patrolling the halls, IDs being randomly checked.

Tension was
high.

With
nobody claiming responsibility, but it not a lone wolf one-off, the assumption
had to be they were part of a larger, coordinated group and that they might
want their man back.

Or dead.

No risks
were being taken, not with him possibly being the only person left alive in the
country who might know where the Vice President’s daughter was.

“He
hasn’t said a peep, not even the usual anti-Western
kill-all-the-infidels-Allah-is-great garbage they usually spout. This guy’s
been completely silent.”

The
elevator doors opened and they boarded, an armed officer standing at the rear.
He nodded at the new arrivals. McKinnon hit the button for the third floor as
the guard stepped forward, waving off anyone else from boarding. The doors
closed.

“Interesting,”
observed Dawson. “Even at the hostage taking their demands seemed secondary.
Makes me wonder if this is Islamist related at all.”

McKinnon
shrugged. “Ninety-nine times out of a hundred it is, but there’s always that
one and this could be it.” The bell chimed and the doors opened, more armed
guards challenging them. They handed over their IDs. “If it isn’t Islamists, I
don’t know how I feel about that. The last thing we need are more nutbars
bringing their hate over here.”

Dawson
stepped aside as a male nurse boarded the elevator, snapping off a pair of
latex gloves before pressing the button for the ground floor. Dawson followed
McKinnon toward the room just as an alarm sounded and a Code Blue was announced
over the speakers. Several medical personnel raced past causing them to hug the
wall, two pushing what he assumed was a crash cart.

“Shit!”
McKinnon bolted toward the door the team had just rushed into, Dawson and Niner
following, the two guards on either side of the door looking confused. “What
the hell’s going on?”

Nobody
inside the room answered, instead vital signs were being shouted out as a
doctor prepared the paddles to shock what looked like their suspect. Dawson
glanced at the monitor.

Flatlined.

“I
thought he was stable!” said Niner, stepping back into the hallway.

“He
was!” McKinnon was grabbing at his hair, walking around in a circle. Dawson
grabbed him by the shoulder, pulling him gently out of the way of one of the
medical personnel as they rushed from the room, yanking their gloves off and tossing
them into a nearby garbage bin.

His mind
flashed back to the nurse who had boarded the elevator. The man had taken his
gloves off in the elevator, something that didn’t make sense now that he
thought of it. Any contamination could be spread by not disposing of them
immediately after leaving a patient’s room.

And
where was he going to throw them out?

And if
racial profiling was of any benefit today, the man had been black, just like
their terrorists.

“It’s
the nurse,” he said, looking back toward the elevators. “Where’s the
stairwell?”

McKinnon
froze for a moment, then pointed to the far end of the hall. “End of the hall,
left. What nurse?”

Dawson
took off at a sprint. “Make a hole!” he shouted, shocked medical personnel
jumping out of the way as he could hear Niner’s footfalls right behind him.
“The nurse who got on the elevator as we got off! Find him!” he shouted over
his shoulder, McKinnon’s jaw dropping for a moment before he grabbed his radio.

Dawson
rounded the corner and spotted the door for the stairwell. Shoving at the bar,
he threw the door open and took the stairs two at a time, grabbing the railing
and swinging his legs over to the flight below. The elevator had been
indicating it was going down, that much he was certain, he remembered the red
light above it when they got off. The man wasn’t in any hurry at the time, and
would probably try not to draw any attention to himself, so a calm, steady pace
was what Dawson was hoping for.

They burst
through the ground floor doors and into a busy hallway, much to the surprise of
the public in their way. Dawson pulled his ID as he approached two guards. “You
two with us!” he ordered as he blew past them. He had learned long ago that
simply acting as if you were in charge was enough for most soldiers and law
enforcement to fall in line.

And
these two did.

The four
of them tore toward the elevators, Dawson keeping his eyes peeled the entire
time.

“Anything
on our suspect?” he asked over his shoulder.

“Negative,”
replied one of the officers.

Dawson
rounded the corner and spotted the doors of the elevator he had taken earlier
beginning to close.

“Hold
that door!” he shouted, diving toward the elevator, skidding along the tile
floor. His hand caught one side of the door just as it was about to close,
halting his skid as they closed over his fingers.

He
winced.

But the
safety mechanism kicked in and the doors opened, Niner advancing with his
weapon drawn as Dawson jumped to his feet, the other two officers, not sure
what was going on still, pulling their own weapons.

Dawson
looked inside, knowing full well their suspect wouldn’t be there.

That
wasn’t why he had stopped it.

He
looked at the officer riding the elevator. “Nurse, male, black, got on at the
third floor just as we were getting off. Where’d he go?”

The man
looked startled for a moment, then his eyes narrowed as he tried to remember.
“He got off here. Went left.”

Main
doors.

Dawson
bolted toward the main entrance, pointing at one of the officers. “Call it in,
last spotted on the ground floor heading toward the main entrance. We need
someone on the cameras, now!” He didn’t bother making sure the officer was
following his orders, he simply knew he would. The split second he would waste
making sure the man actually grabbed his radio and relayed the correct
information could mean the difference between stopping their man before he
climbed in a getaway vehicle, or watching that same vehicle pull away, out of
range.

“Make a
hole!”

They
shoved through the main doors, hitting the cold autumn air of Washington. It
was nighttime but the area was well lit allowing Dawson to scan the area left
to right. There were scores of people within sight. His eyes came to rest on a
garbage bin, something light green catching his attention. He pointed. “Check
that.”

One of
the officers grabbed the item and held it up.

Nurse’s
top.

“He’s
not wearing a jacket!” He ran down the steps and farther away from the
building, his trained eye rapidly scanning and dismissing candidates, wrong
color, wrong sex, wrong build.

Bingo!

He
pointed. “There he is!”

He
sprinted across the several lanes of traffic, a taxi almost taking him out,
honking his horn and shouting at him. The screech of the tires and the blast of
the horn were loud enough for the suspect to turn to see what was happening.

And
realize that he was made.

The man
sprinted for the parking lot, keys being fished from his pocket. Dawson took
his eyes off the man and instead focused on the cars, watching for flashing
lights, listening for the chirp of an alarm system disengaging.

Lights
flashed to the left, the man obviously not remembering exactly where he had
parked.

Dawson sprinted
toward the car rather than the man, saving precious steps in the race, the
sound of feet pounding behind him, orders being shouted over the radios by the
officers, told him there was no way their suspect was getting away.

But they
needed him alive.

Dawson
drew his weapon.

“Halt!”
he shouted, his weapon aimed directly at the man’s chest.

The man
continued to run, reaching his car, Dawson within fifty feet. The man yanked
his passenger door open, a red flag raised as Dawson realized he was going for
something in his glove compartment. There could be only one possibility.

“Gun!”

The man
spun, the weapon gripped in his hand. Dawson resisted shooting him, wanting to
take the man alive.

But he
wasn’t given the option.

The man
raised the gun to his chin and looked directly at Dawson.

“For my
people!”

He
squeezed the trigger, the gun firing, tearing a hole through the top of his
head. He collapsed to the pavement in a heap, a pool of his own blood quickly
forming as Dawson arrived, kicking the gun aside.

Niner
knelt down beside the man and checked for a pulse, a useless but necessary
gesture. He shook his head.

“Goddammit!”
Dawson kicked the tire of the man’s car then stepped back.

Niner
holstered his weapon, shaking his head. “It looks like we’re going in blind.”

Somewhere in Sierra Leone

Sarah was impressed. The spirit of these people, even the sick, was
inspiring. When the sick and dying had been told of what was needed of them,
those who could walk hadn’t hesitated to help the others, especially once it
was explained to them that if they could move themselves, it could help prevent
the spread. She and Tanya had helped since they were suited up, but nobody else
had been needed. Volunteers had set up blankets on the ground outside and the
thirty-three people inside were moved out into the open.

Half a
dozen volunteers in protective gear first swept up everything inside, the
supply trucks used to take it a mile outside of town to be burned. Water hoses
and pumps were then used to spray everything down, bleach mixed in with the
drums of water to try and disinfect every surface. It took hours, but when it
was done, it was unrecognizable.

“Now we
can try to save some lives,” she said to Tanya, her arm over her friend’s
shoulders. Focusing on the work had resulted in Tanya staging a remarkable
recovery. They were both exhausted, but the day was young, it barely noon. The
women of the village had set up tables in the street and food was being brought
out for the volunteers, the entire community contributing, but avoiding
contact, her warnings apparently being heeded.

She just
hoped those preparing the food weren’t infected, or living with someone who
was. She had insisted Major Koroma personally confirm the households that were
contributing food were free of obviously infected people, and he had obliged
her, she getting a sense that the progress they were making was actually
encouraging him that there might be hope.