Shadows (Black Raven Book 1) (46 page)

Following the directions given to him, he emerged from the doorway and took aim. Finger on the trigger, he took only the edge of a second to confirm that Trask was in the position that he’d been told. Sebastian fired two shots in quick succession—bam! bam!—into the back of Trask’s head. Bam! Bam! Two, into the temple of the man on Trasks’s left, and two more rapid-fire shots into the forehead of the man on his right. His men took advantage of the element of surprise and killed the others.

Without pausing, he ran to where Spring lay, face down on the ground. Trask had fallen over her, face first, lying sideways across her. She wasn’t moving. He kicked Trask’s body off of her, bent to her, feeling for a pulse behind her ear. When he felt the flow of blood through her body, he was able to draw a deep breath. He gently turned her head so he could see her face. It was drained of color, a trace of blue veins beneath her pale skin. Her hair was matted and filthy. A bruise smudged her jaw. She was dressed in a flimsy hospital gown, wearing only panties underneath. Clear fingerprint bruises on her upper arms and legs showed that she’d been manhandled.

Rage pulsed behind Sebastian’s eyes. He glanced at Trask and made sure he saw no sign of life. “Spring? Honey? It’s Sebastian. You’re safe. I have you. Can you open your eyes?” Into his headset, he said, grimly, “Doctor. Location?”

Spring’s eyes remained closed as Sebastian smoothed her hair off her face.

“Still trying to get to Barrows on eight. I’m on five. Getting ready to head through the fighting on six and seven.”

“Zeus here. Western stairwell.” Over Zeus’ words, Sebastian heard three pops of gunfire, and then, “Is now clear for you Doc.”

Spring’s breathing was slow, but like her pulse, the rate was steady. Though her body was limp, there were no gunshot wounds, no blood. For Spring, he knew the trauma would be mental, if not physical. Her hair blew wildly, as the chopper landed on the rooftop nearby. He sheltered her with his body, picked her up, and cradled her against his chest. He ran, hunched over to avoid the spinning rotors. He shielded Spring with his body from the rushing, cold air, as the helicopter landed.

Two paramedics, about to jump down, gave him a nod. The chopper was equipped with the latest medical personnel and equipment, yet he was reluctant to hand over his burden. His arms tightened around her before he handed her up.

“Take a stretcher to eight for Barrows,” he instructed, as two other men jumped onto the rooftop and ran to the stairs. He watched for a moment, as the paramedics strapped Spring onto a gurney and administered oxygen and an IV.

Sebastian stepped away. “Doctor?”

“Just getting to eight.” He was out of breath.

“Timing issue. Stretcher’s on its way to eight. How long before Richard is ready for travel, because I’ll send the chopper to the hospital with Spring, if it’s more than 15 minutes.”

“Not there yet.” He heard heavy breathing as the doctor ran the remainder of the way.

“Doc, you sound like you’re out of shape.”

“I’m ignoring that, asshole.”

Sebastian chuckled. He waited, while every fiber in his being hoped that Richard Barrows wasn’t bleeding out.

“He’s lost one hell of a lot of blood, but the agents here seemed to have managed to stop the flow. Damn. Pulse is weak. We don’t have the luxury of keeping him here one second longer. He’ll be up in five minutes. Four if we’re lucky. That includes travel time to roof.”

“Will he live?”

“Looking grim.”

Answer enough.

To the paramedic, who was slipping an IV needle into Spring’s arm, Sebastian said, “Prognosis?”

Dark brown eyes held his for a second and the paramedic gave him a nod. “She’s sedated. Not sure with what, but she should be fine.”

Two agents from Omega team remained on the roof, which was littered with the bodies of Trask and his men. Two Omega agents walked the perimeter, ready to provide rooftop support for any ground action and keep the rooftop secure, in case any other Trask personnel made the mistake of trying to evacuate that way. At the moment, though, there was no action outside. All remaining agents had descended into the building to help the fight on seven and eight.

“Zeus,” Sebastian reluctantly moved away from the chopper. Spring was in excellent hands, and she wasn’t his only priority.

“Copy.”

“Where’s the most resistance?”

“Eight. Southeastern corner. Gunfire in stairwell. We’re in the computer lab. Fuckers started a fire.”

“Headed there now.” Sebastian jogged down the stairs, passing the ninth floor as they communicated. “Any sign of Barrows’ backup?”

He heard a round of automatic gunfire, as Zeus answered. “Fighting gunfire and fire as I search.”

“Omega agents on the roof. When you can, search any bags that Trask and his men were carrying. Ragno. Get me Skye.” He wanted to tell her himself that her sister was safe.

As Sebastian went into the western stairwell, the agents and the paramedic went by him, carrying Richard Barrows on a stretcher. The doctor, who was running alongside them, flipped Sebastian the middle finger. He and Doctor Richard Williams had been friends for years. Dick was a slender six-feet tall and, when he wasn’t working, he participated in ultramarathons. He regularly trained other agents in physical fitness drills. “That’s for saying I’m out of shape. I’ll challenge you to a 10-mile drill, course of my choosing, anytime.”

Sebastian chuckled. “You’re on.”

“Get your head fixed, Sebastian.”
Fuck.
He didn’t need Dick reminding him of a pending date with a neurosurgeon. “Then call me.”

He was ten steps from the door that would lead him to eight, when Ragno said, “Sebastian, here’s Skye.”

She said, “I’m here.”

“Spring and your father are on their way to the hospital. Spring is sedated. She should be fine.” He paused before opening the door, and softened his voice, but knew Skye well enough to know that she would want to know what he knew, without sugarcoating. “Your father isn’t doing as well. He was shot. Twice. He’s lost a lot of blood. There are other wounds from his time in captivity. We’re not sure of prognosis.”

Silence.

“Skye? You okay?”

He heard her draw a deep breath. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I’ve got to get to the hospital.”

“Raven One will take you. You’re leaving now. Ragno will keep you informed of their progress, as you’re en route.”

He broke the connection, pausing before entering the firefight in the computer lab.

Done.

The job of finding Richard Barrows was over. Spring was safe. Trask was dead. Mission? Almost complete. The rest was details. He shook off his personal worry and concern for Skye and told himself he couldn’t do a damn thing about whether her father lived or died. All he was left with was a nagging, pissed off feeling at himself, that he’d let the job get under his skin.

Done
, he reminded himself.

It was fucking done, and it was well past the time for him to shake off the emotional crap the job had produced. With Trask dead, and the Barrows family on their way to being reunited, there was one loose end that needed his immediate attention. “Ragno?”

“Yes?”

“That profile on Minero. Did it turn up anything?”

“Nothing at all.”

Good. That meant he could focus his attention on ending the firefight at Trask Enterprises. He hoisted his M4 Carbine, drew a deep breath, and opened the stairwell door on eight. The shitstorm was ending.
Now
.

Spring was drifting in and out of consciousness. They knew she’d been medicated, but weren’t sure with what. She was still in the trauma unit of Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, in a room that was down the hall from where her father was in surgery. Skye was sitting by Spring’s bedside, when Sebastian walked into the room, a nurse in scrubs at his side. The redheaded nurse was part of her father’s surgical team and had given her two updates, since she had arrived at the hospital.

The look on Sebastian’s face was grim. The nurse’s features didn’t reveal anything. Skye stood, drawing a deep breath, and bracing herself.

“It’s good news,” the nurse said, her voice low. “Would you mind stepping outside, so I can give you a report on how your father’s doing?”

The lights in Spring’s room were dim, with the shades drawn. Aside from the soft hums and beeps on the equipment monitoring Spring’s vitals, the hospital room and the long corridor immediately outside of it were quiet. Down the hallway, two marshals stood guard outside the doors that led to the operating rooms. She’d met them, and a few others, including Marshal Minero, who she’d done the phone interview with the morning before at Last Resort. They’d all been polite, reserved, and seemed relieved that the ordeal was over.

“They successfully removed the two bullets,” the nurse informed her, seemingly oblivious to Sebastian, who stood back, listening. “Now they’re repairing the damage. His vitals have stabilized. We’re confident his condition will improve, once he’s out of surgery. The goal will be as soon as he’s not critical, we’ll move him to same suite as your sister.” The nurse smiled. “That’ll make your visits easier, won’t it?”

“Thank you,” Skye said, relief pulsing through her. The only thing holding her together now was the tension that bound every nerve. She couldn’t collapse. Not now. She needed to be strong when Spring awoke, which could be any minute. She needed to be strong while her father recovered from major surgery. Most immediately, she needed to hold herself together, while she confirmed what she saw in Sebastian’s serious gaze. He was about to say goodbye. She knew it. He knew it. It was all over but the telling and watching him walk away.

“Your father has approximately another hour of surgery,” the nurse informed her in a soft tone. “I’ll come find you, if there’s news.”

“Please.” As the woman walked away, Skye focused her attention on Sebastian. Profound relief and happiness at seeing him was immediately snuffed by her self-preservation instinct, as she took in his intense blue eyes and the grim set of his jaw. There was no smile. No dimples. He carried with him the gravity of a long night and the fall-out from it. “Has Spring woken up yet?”

“No,” she answered. “She’s resting. Sleeping, really.” No one knew yet the long-reaching ramifications. Skye was optimistic, but braced for that conversation with the psychiatrist and the doctors treating her sister.

“The room next to hers is empty. We can talk in there.” He wore black cargo pants with pockets, a black t-shirt, a leather bomber jacket, and black shoes with soles made for running. Which he was getting ready to do. She choked on the laughter his shoes inspired, as she caught a glance at the grim look in his eyes. He didn't touch her. Didn't look as if he wanted to touch her, and Skye’s mouth went dry as her heart beat hard in her ears. This was it.
I saved your ass, and your sister and father. I’m done here. Nice knowing you. Bye-bye
.

He opened the door for her, waited as she went by, and left it half open.

Braced, she turned to lean against a table that held a vase of silk flowers and a fanned out pile of magazines. She felt a deep longing to be in his arms, with her face pressed against his chest. His formal, erect posture told her he wasn’t offering a hug, and the hard, distant look in his eyes warned her that throwing herself against him wouldn’t be a good move. He hadn’t shaved since the morning before, and the stubble of his beard added to the look of a man who’d been through hell, and conquered it. He ran his fingers through his short, dark brown hair. He stood, just a few feet in the room, with his arms loose at his sides. He smelled faintly of smoke and the outdoors, and his musky-sweet aroma enveloped her. His gaze held hers.

“Ragno, give me a few minutes.” He pulled the earpiece, slipped it in his pocket, and gave her all his attention. “I have information, if you want it.”

“Yes.” Her instincts had been dead-on accurate. This wasn’t a comfort call.

“The mastermind behind what happened to your father and Spring was a man named James Trask.” He gave her more details, painting a picture that chilled her.

“Is he still-”

“Dead,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact, his eyes unreadable. “As are a good many of the people who worked for him.”

“How did he get involved?”

He studied her, his eyes intent, the faintest trace of a smile at his lips. “I knew you’d want to know more. This is what we know now. As soon as your father perfected Shadow and LID technology, as soon as he claimed that the NSA would be implementing it, which, by the way, no one with the government has ever confirmed, Zachary Young and Jennifer Root went behind his back and auctioned the technology to the highest bidder.”

The two people who her father had trusted over anyone else. She shook her head. “No. I don’t believe it.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Data is unmistakable. The lawyer and his partner were the impetus. We have phone calls, text messages, and locales for meetings. There were several potential bidders. Trask had inside intelligence and knew exactly what he was buying, because he had inside help.”

“Inside? Meaning inside BY Laboratories?”

“No,” Sebastian said, with a frown. “Inside the government.”

Her heart pounded. “Who?”

He hesitated.

“Who?”

“To get to your father and Spring, I had to make a deal with the man that his name would be left out of this. I’m trusting you would have done the same thing and won’t break my word. Can I count on your silence?”

She nodded.

“The same person who your father trusted to get you to the Oval Office. Robert McCollum knew exactly how vital the technology was and he knew exactly what Trask should be bidding for it. He was well aware of the power it would give Trask. But you didn’t hear that from me. As a matter of fact, you will never hear that fact again, and, even though I know you’d probably like nothing better than to see him rode out of Washington on rail, you can’t repeat it. There will be no public airing of the evidence of the senator’s involvement.”

She drew a deep breath, holding her right hand, palm flat, below her neck, while her thumb touched her right clavicle, her index finger thumping at the left clavicle. His gaze fell on the gesture, then rose, seemingly reluctantly, to her face. “Thank you.”

He shrugged. “Not the first time I’ve had to agree to a distasteful compromise to do a job the right way. Senator McCollum will screw up one too many times, and fail. That’s what ultimately happens to men who abuse power. Trust me. I’ll be waiting for it and applauding when it happens. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy watching him worry about whether I really am going to keep my end of the bargain.” The deep undercurrents in his eyes, coupled with his words, chilled her.

“Jennifer?” she asked. “Did you find her?”

He nodded, with a slight frown and, for a moment, a look of concern for her flashed through his eyes. “Dead.”

“She caused so much harm. To the people who trusted her the most. I can’t wrap my brain around this. I can’t switch so fast from caring about her and treating her like family, to knowing she’d trade a family that loved her for money.” Skye rubbed her upper arms with both hands, feeling chilled and hot, at the same time as her mind reeled with the reality of what Jen had set in motion. “I don’t know how to feel right now.”

For a moment she thought he’d close the few feet between them, but instead he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “I vote for ecstatic. In the long run, your father was correct not to trust her,” Sebastian said. “Brilliant move on his part, and it saved you and your sister. Jen was working with the monster, until he decided that he had enough leverage on your father with Spring. Trask recorded everything. The fucking bitch tried to trap your father into revealing your location to Trask. Trask killed her in a manner that I am sure your father will never, not for one day of the rest of his life, get out of his mind.”

“How?” she whispered.

“He claimed she was you. In the heat of the moment, with her head covered, your father couldn’t know the lie,” he frowned, “he threatened to do the same to Spring. From what we can tell from the tapes, your father thinks you’re dead.”

There was a long pause. The look in his eyes said that he had more details, but her stomach immediately twisted into a knot, as though she’d eaten something rotten, when she hadn’t actually eaten in hours. No, she hadn’t eaten anything substantial in days. She didn’t want to know more details. He was silent for a second, eyes on her, as she stood there, shocked.

He moved a step closer, and suddenly looked like the man she’d been with for the last two days. There was concern in his eyes, compassion, and an understanding that she was barely holding herself together. He suddenly seemed more human than the machine telling her of death and backstabbing. The moment disappeared with a knock at the door.

“Come in,” he said, with a shrug and a headshake, physically transforming himself back to the cold, aloof man who was keeping himself an arm’s distance away from her.

One of his agents pushed the door all the way open, then stepped closer, and whispered something to Sebastian.

“Two minutes,” he answered, “I’ll meet you at the ER drive.”

Well, now she knew how long he was staying. “Thank you,” she said, “for bringing my sister and my father back to me.”

“No need to thank me. I was only doing my job.”

Only a job.

That was it. The words resonated, filling the room with a meaning that was unmistakable. It explained his aloofness. Everything that she’d been through with him—everything—was only a job to him. Now, he was doing what anyone who had finished a job did. He had already mentally moved on to something else, which meant he had moved on from her.

She’d been a job. That was it. The thought had an immediate, physical impact on her. Deep inside, where her heart was, there was a slow burn. It came with a disappointment that she hadn’t allowed herself to experience in years. It stole her breath, scorching through her flesh, leaving a raw hurt, the depth of which took her by complete surprise. She’d given one hell of a lot of tough girl talk.

Once with me won’t count.

Hah. He hadn’t fallen for it, but she sure had fallen for him. She’d fallen for her own line, and now she realized just how stupid she’d been. Once with him, no, she reminded herself, thinking about being with him on the plane, twice, and she was going to have to work hard at getting over him.

He was giving her no indication that he was going to have the same problem.

Don’t think about it, she told herself. Do not think about it. “Did Trask manage to make sense of my father’s backup?”

He gave her a slow headshake and a slight frown. “We’re searching now and doing diagnostics on all servers and computers. It’s a slow process. There were casualties. Identifying bodies and dealing with authorities takes precedence. Plus, there was a fire at the site. That’s making the technical diagnostics more difficult. It’s going to take some time.

“Your father will receive medical care here until he’s stable. When it’s safe for him to travel, he’ll be returned to the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Marshals are already here. You and Spring are under the continuing protection of Black Raven. The Senior Agent in charge of your detail is Agent Katherine Scott. She’ll be checking in with you this morning and over the next few days will work out the parameters.” He paused, as she started to feel queasy. He was saying goodbye, without uttering the word. Wrong. He’d said goodbye some time ago. She just hadn’t realized it. “You’ll have my agents with you at all times. If you need anything, just ask them.”

Them.

Not him.

Message received.

He stood within touching distance, yet seemed a million miles away, more machine than the man with whom she’d spent the last two days. Rather than stepping closer, he left, without so much as a look of pain, or regret, or any damn thing to acknowledge that they had shared anything, much less something special.

Loneliness cloaked her, suffocating her. He shut the door, and when it clicked shut, the harshness rattled her. She drew a deep breath. The twisting ball of pain that was now her stomach travelled up. She ran to the bathroom, fell to her knees at the toilet, overwhelmed with the need to puke. There was nothing but water to vomit, but that didn’t stop the gut-wrenching heaves that wracked her body. When they subsided, she sat down, hard, cross-legged, and held her face in her hands.

Seconds became minutes. He had warned her. To avoid relationships, he’d gone to prostitutes for the last ten years, for God’s sake. All to avoid a break-up, which he had labeled, ‘an extrication’. He may have been colossally bad with good byes, but he had just delivered the most effective one she’d ever received.

The door opened.
Sebastian
? Her foolish heart leapt.